“Telephones, huh?” Trent asked, noticing the black 1940s standup rotary-dial phones sitting on each table.
“We have an operator in the corner,” he said, waving his pistol at a woman working a switchboard. “Say you want to talk to a lady at table twenty-one; pick up the phone and tell the operator what table you want. Wire Tap, get it?”
“Got it.”
“Take a table. I bet you get a very important call.”
“I’m sure.” Trent wandered around the bar and admired the Christmas costumes and decorations; then he took an empty table and sipped his beer. He spotted the The Wizard of Oz cast and decided to place an anonymous call. “Table twelve, please.”
Scarecrow picked the phone up. “Hello?” he asked in a friendly voice.
“Scarecrow,” Trent said, “is Dorothy married?”
“She’s engaged.”
“Too bad. Tell her she has a secret admirer; have her call me.”
Trent hung up and watched them discuss the call. Tinman shook his oil can at a few likely callers. They had a good laugh and resumed sipping their drinks.
His phone rang; he figured Dorothy had found him. “It’s me. I’m your secret admirer.”
“Palmer,” a raspy voice said.
“Yes?”
“The Midtown Police Plaza is a viper’s nest,” the voice said ominously.
Trent took a sip of beer before replying. “Tell someone in Internal Affairs.” He searched the crowded bar for the caller.
“They’ll kill me; there are corrupt cops at the very top of the department.”
“Know who they are?” A laughing ghost wearing a flowing white sheet stopped in front of him and held out a jar filled with numbers.
“I have an idea; but I won’t say.”
“Why tell me?” Trent asked, picking a number. He nodded at the pale-faced ghost; the ghost stared at him with bloodshot eyes and yelled, “Woooooooo!”
“Because you have a problem. The bent cops want to take you off the voting list.”
Got him, Trent thought, zeroing in on a guy waving his arm and talking on a telephone. He wore a silver chemical protection suit; a gasmask dangled below his neck. Like something out of a cheap sci-fi movie, Trent thought. “And how do you know that?”
“I watched you through the two-way mirror. You heisted a GID report.”
Trent gasped, his beer bottle slipping through his fingers.
“That’s right, Palmer,” the voice said. “I’m the real deal. Garcia gave you the key to a deeply-buried department secret; the crooked cops will stop at nothing to protect it.”
Trent’s heart pounded. “Who shot at me in the park? Who killed Winston in my apartment?”
“I do not know.”
“Are the crooked cops and the Midtown Murderer the same person?”
“Not in my opinion,” the voice said. “My money says the killer was looking for the information you bought from Garcia. Hurry, Palmer. They won’t stop killing until someone stops them.”
“Are they here tonight?” Trent asked urgently.
“I’ve said all I can.”
“What’s their secret?”
“Watch the TV report on meth labs; it airs in ten minutes. Remember also that Clay has some fairly convincing reasons to suspect you. He’s having you followed.”
The man hung up. The phone rang again. “Palmer, over here. It’s me,” Jake said, giving Trent a stiff-arm wave.
Trent’s heart was still pounding when he spotted the cop killers seated at a small table in the corner. They were drinking beer from king-sized tumblers and were dressed in the same outfits with the same dark sunglasses as yesterday.
“McClure give you any more trouble?”
“Not today.”
“OK, then, keep us in the loop.”
“OK.”
When Trent replaced the receiver, a waitress dressed as The Little Mermaid stopped beside him. She set down a silver bucket on the table and waved at a selection of icy-cold beers.
Trent gladly took a dark beer. “Thanks,” he said, reaching for his wallet.
The waitress gave Trent a knowing smile. “Dorothy thinks you called her.”
“It’s those sparkling red shoes,” he said, tipping her generously for the beer.
The waitress wandered away and Trent’s phone rang; he took a long sip of the heavy-tasting beer before answering it.
“Hello?”
“You are a very sexy pirate,” Dorothy said. She winked at Trent and hung up the phone.
His phone rang again. “Pirates aren’t sexy,” he said, “but when Dorothy clicks her heels—”
Trent heard heavy breathing. “Shut up, you stupid pig,” said a chilling voice.
Goosebumps raked Trent’s flesh. “What—”
“You couldn’t keep your shitty nose out of our business,” the voice said over the screeching noise of the jukebox. “For that you’ll die.”
“Pussy.”
“Just so you know it’s me; I’m shooting a Mauser SP 66 sniper rifle equipped with a high-powered scope. One of my hand-loaded Winchester rounds can easily lift a man off his feet. Next time I won’t miss.”
“You harm Chloe I’ll kill you,” Trent said, trying to find the killer as costumed people crisscrossed in front of him. “I’ll track you down wherever you go.”
“Dream all you want, fuckface. You tell Garcia to keep his mouth shut; or I’ll shut down his meth operation so quick he won’t know what hit him.”
Trent thought he had hung up, but then he said, “You son-of-a-bitch. When I gut Chloe, I’ll kill her slow; she’ll scream for hours and beg for her life. Then I’ll finish off her bitch mother.”
“You’re nothing but a chickenshit coward. Meet me right now, face-to-face.”
The voice gave a snorting laugh. “Just remember this, clever Mr. Peoplefinder, anytime I want you, I’ll find you; when you least expect it, I’ll blow your brains out.”
Chapter 30
The phone went dead. Trent fumbled the receiver into its cradle and searched unsuccessfully for the caller. In his head he could still hear him raving and threatening. Hot in here, he thought. Air-conditioning must be out. He drained his beer then walked to the bar.
An attractive waitress dressed in revealing purple silks was pouring drinks. He eased onto a swivel chair next to a few shot-and-beer drinkers and got her attention. “Vodka on the rocks,” he said.
“Here you go, Pirate. Gosh, that’s some realistic makeup you have on over your eye.”
“Worked overtime on it.” He put away half the drink and asked, “The bartender dressed as an Admiral, where is he?”
“All the bartenders tonight are very sexy ladies,” she said with a teasing smile. Then she cocked her hip and ran her hands through her lustrous dark hair.
“That you are,” he said. When she turned, Trent twirled his swizzle-stick in his glass and concentrated on a muted television suspended in the corner. At nine pm, FOX News aired a special report on Atlanta meth labs.
Trent munched peanuts and pretzels and followed the closed-captioned report. Toward the end, a short video shot from an Atlanta news helicopter showed a parcel of well-treed land and a steady stream of black smoke rising from a small structure engulfed in flames. At the bottom of the screen were photographs of the four Atlanta GID officers who had died in the meth lab explosion.
When the TV report concluded, he tried to recall the aerial photos of the lab site that were included in the GID report. He felt confident that those deaths were the key to the department scandal. He decided to reread that section of the report, locate a copy of the tape, and cross-reference the photos. It was then that a commercial for the Piedmont Secure Storage facility flashed on the screen. Trent recognized the cyber key with the blue plastic tag that the smiling actor was holding as he accessed his secure, climate-controlled storage unit.
Trent was processing that information when he glanced in the bar mirror and spotted a red Devil arguing wi
th Frankenstein’s monster. The Grim Reaper stood beside them. He wore a black hooded cloak and repeatedly pointed his scythe at Trent.
Trent turned in his seat and gripped the stout handle of the sword; he pulled it from the scabbard and leaned it against his knee, ensuring that the razor-sharp blade was angled outward in case he had to brandish it in a fight. Crunching a few watery ice cubes, he eyed the trio and wondered if the killer was hiding amongst them.
Two clowns wearing orange wigs and bulbous red noses stopped in front of Trent. Their faces were painted white and they had moon eyes and scary smiles.
When they introduced themselves to the crowd as Bubbles and Flowers, Trent relaxed. The crowd applauded when they sprayed water from seltzer bottles and performed a juggling act with bright-red water balloons.
A mime, no more than five two, appeared beside Trent. He had a pale-white face, wore a white sailor’s cap, a black shirt, and white gloves. With an expression of infinite sadness, he mimicked the clowns.
When the clowns began to push each other, the mime smiled at Trent and draped an arm over his shoulder. Suddenly Bubbles slammed into Trent, shoving him against the bar. He looped his arm around Trent’s waist, and Flowers heaved water balloons at Trent’s face.
He turned his head, thinking it was a practical joke, when his eyes caught the ceiling light dancing off a shiny knife in the mime’s free hand. Trent elbowed Bubbles hard in the nose, causing him to flail backwards and collapse in a heap.
The mime thrust the weapon at Trent’s ribs, then angled the blade upward for a life-threatening stab wound to the neck. Trent jerked up the hilt of the sword, and the Mime’s gloved fist hit the glittering blade. He screamed and dropped the knife.
Trent staggered backwards on his bad knee, knocking over several swivel chairs. Bubbles pinned Trent’s arms behind him, and Flowers launched a knockout punch at his face.
Trent gritted his teeth, but the blow never connected because Frankenstein’s monster stuck out his forearm and closelined Flowers. He went ass over teakettle, and the Grim Reaper grabbed his collar and dragged him into a sitting position. The devil kicked viciously at Flower’s face, but Bubbles jumped on the devil’s back and knocked him off balance.
As the struggle churned, a huge black-bearded man wearing Desert Storm sunglasses stepped into the fray; he lifted the mime with one hand and sent him reeling into the melee. “What’s the name of your game, assholes?” he yelled, dousing the group with a pitcher of beer and then holding up his meaty fists.
“Utah!” Trent said in an astonished voice.
The big man had their undivided attention and they quit brawling. The clowns gave a forced laugh, nodded at each other, then rushed the mime out the front door. As they passed under a ceiling light, Trent could see that the mime’s gloved hand was saturated with blood. The knife lay beside Trent’s shoe so he knelt and retrieved it.
The crowd thought the water-balloon assault and ensuing fight was a planned stunt. They laughed wildly and cheered Trent and his new friend with raised drinks.
Utah yanked Trent to his feet. “Out the door, pirate,” he said, shoving him past the bar.
Popeye collected Trent’s ticket. “You’re a winner,” he said, handing him two tickets to an Atlanta Falcons home game.
Trent walked outside and took stock of himself. “My lucky day,” he said, not knowing if he should be angry or relieved that Utah had rescued him.
Utah sat in a weather-beaten rocking chair and lighted a Marlboro.
“Were you behind that stunt with the clowns?”
“Shut up, Palmer,” he said, screwing up an eyebrow at him. “And don’t expect me to save you from any more ass-whippings.”
Trent thought his demeanor was one-eighty opposed to their first meeting and was about to comment on it when a green Land-Rover drove slowly past the Wire Tap Lounge.
One of the orange-wigged clowns was gently revving the engine, so that clouds of vapor spewed out of the exhaust into the cold night air. He stared at Trent with a sad grin. When the car turned north on Peachtree Street, Trent could see the Mime giving him the one-finger wave out the back window.
Pricks, he thought as the car disappeared into the cold night.
“A pirate outfit,” Utah said. “I’ve been in that bar for an hour trying to find you.”
“How did you know I was inside?”
He nodded at Trent’s red Ducati. “You might as well paint a red bull’s-eye on your chest.”
Trent sighed. “Any idea who wants me dead?”
“Take your pick.”
“Winston was your buddy, right?”
Utah resumed his tough guy act. “So what?” he sneered.
“You don’t seem overly concerned that he’s dead.”
“Palmer,” he said, throwing a leg over his chopper, “why don’t you make a healthy life choice and leave town.”
“Not until I find Chloe.”
“Have it your way.” He kick-started the bike and roared off.
A midnight blue luxury 7-series BMW with tinted glass eased to a stop beside Trent. The right rear window slid down. “Hop in, action man,” Jake said.
Chapter 31
Elwood wheeled up onto Interstate 75 toward downtown Atlanta. Jake sat in the backseat with Trent. He cracked the window an inch and the December chill filled the car as Elwood accelerated to eighty on the speedometer.
“Where to?” Trent said, admiring the new-car smell.
“Gonna cruise the neighborhood,” Jake said, keeping his head turned toward the window.
Elwood tuned in a classic FM rock station and ZZ Top was playing ‘Got Me Under Pressure.’
Jake rolled up the window. He turned toward Trent and took off his sunglasses. “Those clowns work for McClure?”
“No idea.”
“The object. How much longer?”
“Day or so. Two at most.”
“You stalling?”
“I’m not stalling.”
“Have you told McClure?”
“I have not told McClure.”
“But he wants it, right?”
“Yep.”
“You sure you don’t have it?”
“Yep.”
“Give us the fucking object or we’re gonna fade your sorry ass, you fucking motherfucker!” Elwood had twisted around in his seat to scream at Trent. He steered with his left hand and reached into the backseat with his right and leveled his pistol at Trent. Trent ducked out of the line of fire as the car swerved out of its lane. “Give it to us, you backstabbing piece of shit! It’s fucking ours!”
The cars around them were swerving to get out of the way and blowing their horns.
“Hey! Hey! Hey!” Jake yelled, grabbing Elwood’s arm and taking the gun. “Keep your eyes on the fucking road!”
Elwood snapped out of it and Jake let go of his arm. Elwood regained control of the car and the traffic settled down around them.
Jake leaned back in the mulberry leather seat with Elwood’s gun pointed at Trent’s chest. He smiled and said, “It’s mission-critical that we get the object.”
#
There were two bars on the ground floor of the Bank of America building that overlooked 600 Peachtree Street. They faced the downtown on either side of the entrance: One was the CNN watering hole for thirsty technicians and on-air anchors, and the other, The Turf, was a magnet for students and musicians. Its façade of green and blue mirrors and intimate seating areas with floor lamps that beamed the soft illumination upward made it cool and inviting.
“Skoal,” Jake said, lifting his glass after their drinks were set down.
The trio touched glasses and Elwood said, “Sorry about that bit of tension back there.”
Trent sipped his drink. “It’s OK; been stressful for everyone.”
“Very.”
“Got that right.”
“My bet is you guys are ex-military,” Trent said, examining Elwood’s oval gold ring. It appeared to have the same insignia a
s Jakes. “But you’re not cops.”
Jake said, “We were Delta Force; the best in the world. Now we’re private citizens working for a consulting company.”
“It’s a lucrative career choice,” Elwood said. “Get us the object and we could recommend you to a few of our top clients.”
“I appreciate that. What kind of consulting company is it?”
“The kind that will make it worth your while to find that object for us.”
“Worth my while how?”
“Financially. Is there any other way?”
“You’re security consultants and you don’t have the means to find the object yourselves?”
“Trent,” Jake said, “we’re Special Force veterans. We can start a war against anyone. But you were a reliable investigator who produced solid results; and you have an expertise in Latino gangs. That’s a different set of skills.”
“Why don’t you call the cops? They have resources that I don’t have.”
“We have our reasons.”
“Shouldn’t be that difficult,” Elwood said. “The trail went cold the night you knifed the Latino. That’s why we think you can help.”
“Have you reported my involvement to your boss?”
“No. And for good reason. There would be a conflict of interest if our principal client discovered we encouraged your involvement.”
“How long have you been working for this client?”
“Year and a half.”
“Where?”
“Miami.”
Trent mulled that one over but decided not to pursue it. “How do you know McClure?” he said, sipping his beer and trying to read the lettering on Jake’s ring with little success.
“Our last counter-terrorism assignment with Delta Force was in Islamic Maghreb,” Jake explained. “We were buying prisoners from crazy fucking warlords and shipping them from Algeria to Guantanamo in secret planes.”
“That’s where we crossed paths with Sergeant Butch ‘The Butcher’ McClure,” Elwood said in a voice that contrived to be reverential.
“McClure was running counterinsurgency in Maghreb,” Jake explained. “The Algerian Maghreb were in a long-standing civil war over land allocation with Morocco and Tunisia. As such, the area was highly combustible, shifting, and fractured. McClure’s job was to run a terror campaign against government forces and identify and eradicate Algerian jihadi groups.”
The Midtown Murderer Page 10
