by David Wind
The small entry area was dark. I locked the door behind me and walked down the narrow hallway to the bedroom, and to the telltale flickering of candlelight. “Lanie,” I had called out. There was no answer.
I walked into the bedroom; anticipation making my heart beat faster. But after taking two steps, my feet locked in place. There was just enough light coming from the candles to see everything, and what I saw rooted me to the spot.
Elaine lay off to one side of the bed. She had a white sheer nightgown on, but the nightgown was torn, and it wasn’t white anymore. A dark seeping stain covered the sheer material. The color glowed moist and black in the candlelight. A fist exploded in my stomach. My mouth turned bitter. A wave of dizziness gripped me and I grasped the doorframe to keep standing. After taking several breaths, I went toward the bed. Each hesitant step was like pulling my feet from wet cement. Elaine’s eyes were open, sightless and staring at the ceiling. One beautiful leg was twisted under, the other half hung off the bed. From the corner of my eye, I saw my father’s Colt forty-five service piece, from his time in Viet Nam, lying near her. I didn’t understand how it could be there. I’d kept it in a special showcase in the living room. Then I looked at Elaine’s chest and knew why the gun was there.
I gagged. My mind had gone blank and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. But I knew it was real. “Oh, God,” I cried, “This can’t be.”
I forced my legs to move me to the side of the bed. I knelt down next to her. “Lanie,” I said, looking at her face. Her open eyes were dull and blank. I reached out a shaking hand, and touched her neck. Her skin was warm, as warm as it always was. Hope flooded my mind as I searched for a pulse, but there was none.
Then her face shimmered and changed and I found myself looking into the open dead eyes of Gina. Wisps of her brown hair were sprayed across her forehead. “Oh, God,” I said again. The words sounded far away. And then I drew her to me and kissed her lips.
“No!” Kicking off the sheets, I sat up as if someone had stuck a knife into my back, my chest heaved with deep drawn breaths.
In the darkness of the bedroom, the sound of my labored breathing loud, Gina wound her arms around me and rested her cheek on my back. When my breathing slowed, I turned so we faced each other. I drew her closer so I could take comfort from the warmth of her skin.
“Which one?” Her face was shadowed in the darkness.
“Elaine, but it was different.” My mind was still caught up in the dream, with Gina’s dead eyes floating above me.
Her fingers worked a gentle messaged on the knotted muscles of my back. “Can you talk about it?”
It wasn’t how I wanted to start my day, but if I could drag her into what I was doing, then I should have the balls to be straight as well. “The dream was the night Elaine was killed, but it was different—you’re sure you want to hear this?”
“Yes.” The whisper carried the force of her will.
I ran though the dream, until the point where I’d knelt by the bed. “And when I knelt to pull her into my arms, she changed into you.”
My eyes had adapted to the darkness, and I looked down at her face, waiting for what she would say next.
When she spoke, her words came soft and slow. “I’m not going to die on you Gabe, and being with you won’t get me killed either.”
Her hand cupped my cheek. It stayed there for a moment before her fingers traced the outline of my jaw then moved to my mouth. I kissed the tips as they fluttered across my lips.
“It’s time to get out of the past and move forward. Damn it Gabe, being with you won’t get me killed. Elaine died because of a psychopath, not because of you! I need you in my life, and I hope… no I believe you need me in yours.”
The one thing about hearing wisdom and truth spoken aloud is that it’s undeniable. You can fool yourself into not accepting it, but deep inside, it resonates if you’re willing to listen.
“I do need you.” I kissed her gently.
The alarm went off. I pulled from her and pressed the button down. There was two and a half hours left to make the plane. “Go back to sleep, I’ll wake you before I leave.”
She brushed her lips across mine. “I’ll go to sleep after you leave.”
I took fifteen minutes to shower and when I emerged from the bathroom, Gina was sitting on the bed, the small light on the end table glowing.
I spent a few minutes packing the overnight bag with a lightweight suit, two pairs of slacks and a couple of loose fitting golf shirts. Miami summers were hot. I picked up the Sig.
“You can’t take it,” Gina said, stating the obvious.
“I know. You think Mancuso will have something for me?”
“I’ll call him later and suggest it. I know how you hate to be naked.”
“Femalé put together a lot of information on the abducted kids from Scotty’s files. Maybe you could point one of your people in her direction and share some information?”
“I’ll speak to them on the quiet. If they’re willing, I’ll call Femalé and let her know.”
I went to the side of the bed and kissed her goodbye. When the kiss ended, a smile decorated her face. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Just be back.”
Chapter 47
Some airplane flights are unending hours of noise and pain and discomfort: this one was quiet, relaxed and quick. Four seats were occupied in first class, which afforded me enough solitude to work on the details of the events that had begun the night before Scotty’s murder.
When the plane landed, at the posted time, I walked into the gate and spotted Dan Mancuso leaning against the sidewall. He was hard to miss, considering the small gold Bureau badge hooked to the outside of his jacket pocket. Even if he hadn’t hung the badge out, I would have recognized him from Gina’s description.
He was my height and had a similar body shape; the FBI agent wore a light single breast suit. He had a broad face, wide mouth and a nose that had been broken at least once. His hair was short and combed straight back, and his eyes were grey-green.
He straightened and stuck his hand out. I shifted the leather carry-on to my left shoulder and gripped his hand. “How was the flight?” His accent was Midwest, flat with a slight twang.
“Smooth and fast. I appreciate your helping me out.”
He favored me with a sharp look. “Sure. Why don’t we walk and talk? You check anything?”
I patted the overnight bag. “Just this,” We stepped into the flow of the other passengers. “Streeter?”
“He still at the hotel. He brought a woman to his room and has been up there seen since. This way,” he added, steering me toward a stairway door.
We took the stairs down to the arrivals area where he led me through the front door to the waiting dark blue Ford at the curb. I guess it pays to be an FBI agent if you want convenient airport parking.
The heat slapped hard as we exited the terminal, making me think of a few of other places in the world where I was glad not to be. By the time he started the car I’d begun to sweat. It took three long minutes for the air conditioning to kick in at full blast.
“Give me your case details and how Streeter fits in.”
He didn’t look at me; rather, his eyes stayed locked on the traffic as he drove. I gave him the encapsulated version. When I was done, we were almost downtown.
“I think I’m missing something here,” Mancuso said.
“Which is?”
He gave me a sidewise glance. “If you tangled with Streeter the night before your friend was killed, and he then did the underage hooker, how does he fit? It sounds like two cases.”
“It does, and I can’t prove it’s not. But there are points of connection.”
“Your gut?”
It wasn’t worth denying. “I’m not usually wrong.”
“No, from what I’ve read, you’re successful. But, even if it does turn out to separate cases, I won’t mind seeing Warez go up for murder.”
“Where did you
serve?”
“East of your tours, just after the Gulf stuff.”
“Rangers?”
“Rangers,” he acknowledged.
He didn’t elaborate and I didn’t ask how he had known where I’d served. Our conversation dropped as we moved deeper into Miami proper: the storefront language changed from English to a mixture and then to all Spanish when we reached the heart of Little Cuba.
“I came light.”
“Gina told me. Open the glove compartment.”
Following directions, I reached in and came out with a Glock 27 in a belt rig. I pulled the Glock and saw the magazine was missing. I dipped back into the glove box and found the clip.
I checked the piece, maneuvered the slide and popped the clip in, but did not chamber a round. “Thank you.”
“I prefer you not use it unless you have no choice, and then make sure the shoot is clean.”
I appreciated the risk he was taking by giving me the automatic. “You have my word.”
“Good. We’re here,” he said, turning onto a narrow one way street and pulling to a stop just before the front of an old hotel. The street was quiet: a couple of retail stores with colorful signs, a drug store and a small Bodega. A few random soles were scattered along the sidewalks. Cars of all sizes, shapes and colors were parked along the curbs on both sides of the street.
Mancuso picked up his walkie-talkie, thumbed it and spoke. The response was immediate: Streeter had not come out yet. Mancuso gave him instructions. “Let’s go.”
I clipped the Glock to my belt and got out of the car. The doors of a car five away from us opened and two men got out. Both wore Hawaiian style shirts and both were in the process of hanging their gold shields over their heads on thin chains.
When the agents reached us, Mancuso introduced me. “John Cortés and Mike Ignatoff, meet Gabriel Storm. What’s the layout?”
Of Cuban heritage, Cortés spoke first. “He’s on the fourth floor. There’s no fire escape from his room. He went out at two this morning, met someone in a bar a block from here, and came back twenty minutes later with a girl. Neither has come out since.”
He pointed to our right. “There’s an alley off the side, connecting to the back. I don’t know if he’s armed, but knowing his background I would assume so.”
“He likes knives too.”
“How do we play this out?” Agent Ignatoff, asked Mancuso.
“One of you stays in the lobby, the other out the back. Storm and I will go upstairs.”
The two agents gave each other a questioning glance, and then Cortés said, “I’ll take the lobby. The desk clerk’s a little twitchy. I don’t trust him.”
“Good enough,” Mancuso said and started forward. Ignatoff broke off and went to the alley while Cortés followed us.
Just as I reached the hotel door, the familiar warning tingle began a low vibration at the nape of my neck. I did a slow and casual head turn to see what pricked my senses. Everything was normal; no one looked out of place for the neighborhood, and no one was looking at me. A car with tinted windows maneuvered into a vacant spot across the street, a quarter block from the hotel. I shrugged off the feeling—only Mancuso, Femalé and Gina knew I was coming to Miami and I hadn’t picked up any sense of being followed when I’d left New York or when I’d deplaned in Miami.
I followed Mancuso into the dingy lobby, which had seen better days and smelled like left over garlic, cigars and beer. The floor was old Miami poured terrazzo, worn into discolored grooves by years of foot traffic. An old lady dozed on a tattered couch, which was the lobby’s only piece of furniture.
Behind the high curved lobby desk, the droopy-eyed clerk looked around seventy, with sparse white hair and narrow eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses sitting on a red veined nose. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. Scrawny arms poked out of a multi-colored shirt. But his eyes showed me he was aware of everything as he watched us approach.
Cortés asked for the room key in rapid fire Spanish, and the desk clerk sat straighter. He still looked seventy close up, but I figured him on the short side of sixty. "La llave para el sitio de Warez,” Cortés asked again.
The desk clerk gave him a blank. Cortés wagged his finger. “Don’t fuck with me old man give me the key to Warez’s room,” he said in English.
The clerk blinked twice then turned and pulled a key from a drawer behind him and handed it to Cortés who, in turn handed it to me. The tag read four-one-seven.
Mancuso and I went to the elevator while Cortés leaned on the high desktop and smiled at the clerk.
The elevator was old and when it clanked down to the first floor and opened with a hiss, I gave Mancuso an ‘are you sure’ look. He half smiled and stepped inside.
The cab chugged up to the fourth floor and clanked open. By the time we stepped out, we both had our pieces in hand and walked down the dim hallway toward the room. The smell wasn’t any better up here.
We split at the door, one on each side of the warped wood. The adrenaline kicked in and my breathing deepened. There was no sound from within and I looked at Mancuso.
“You’re play,” he said.
I reached across and knocked. There was no answer. I knocked again.
“¿Quién?” came the response. I remembered the voice.
“Open the door Warez.” There was movement behind the door: a muffled thump followed by a woman’s low cry.
An instant later there three dull pops and three holes blew through the door.
“Silencer!” I stepped back, reared, and kicked the door open. Mancuso went low while I took the high road, diving over him, rolling and coming up on my knees.
Warez was standing in the center of the room, wearing stained boxers and holding a black automatic in his hand with a seven-inch extension sticking out from the muzzle. The scar on his face had an ugly red and excited glow; the gun wavered between Mancuso and me. The girl was huddled on the floor, her arms wrapped around her naked body, her eyes large and frightened. The beginnings of a large purplish bruise showed on her left cheek.
“FBI!” Mancuso shouted.
“Drop the gun,” I said an instant later.
I saw it in his eyes, but he was too late. The barrel moved toward me. I launched myself at his legs and hit them with my shoulder. He flipped over me, landing hard on his neck and shoulder. The pistol flew from his hand and the loud grunt pushing from his mouth told me he would have trouble catching his breath.
Mancuso retrieved Streeter’s gun and, as I stood over the stunned pimp, the FBI agent pulled the blanket from the bed and handed it to the girl. She wasn’t a day over fourteen.
Streeter jerked to life with a loud groan. I knelt beside him, gave him my special smile and said, “Good to see you again.”
“Fuck you.” His words were weak and unconvincing.
Picking a spot between his shoulder and neck, I used my thumb and forefinger and dug. He yelped. “Watch what you say.”
He stayed shut-up: his eyes poured hate.
“Put on your clothing,” Mancuso ordered the girl. Gaining her feet, she followed his instructions. As she did, Mancuso pulled his cuffs, went to Streeter and slapped the braces on.
“Storm, can you handle things for a few minutes while I get her downstairs?”
“Take your time.”
“I will.”
“Wait!” Streeter cried. “You can’t leave me with him. You’re the FBI,” he said, his put-on Southern pimp accent gone.
“Don’t worry, Mister Warez, I’ll be back.”
“You son-of-a-bitch.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
It had taken the girl less than a minute to get dressed and stand next to Mancuso. The fear was still carved onto her face and her hands, crossed over her breasts, shook.
“Five minutes,” Mancuso said to me, then guided the girl out and closed the door behind them. The broken lock didn’t hold and the door swung back a couple of inches.
Alone, I grabb
ed his long greasy hair and yanked him to his feet, then pushed him into a chair near the window. “Move and I blow off your nuts.”
“You just couldn’t let it go could you?”
“I don’t let things go.” I leaned in close. “Why’d you kill the girl?”
“Fuck you. You ain’t got authority here.”
I pushed the barrel of the Glock into his groin, hard. He doubled over and groaned.
“Why’d you kill the girl?” Anger twisted my stomach, but I was under firm control.
“You killed her, asshole. The minute you started sniffing around, you killed her.”
His words bounced off. He could try and justify what he did in whatever way he wanted, but we both knew the truth. “I know your history, Warez: I know you move girls out into the streets; and, I know you get then from the scum who take these girls, use them, and then sell them to you and others. And I know, you piece of shit, you’re going back to New York to be tried and convicted for the killing of Margaret Ann McNickles.”
He blinked. “Who?”
It took all my self-control not smash him across the face with the Glock. “Margaret Ann McNickles is the name of the girl whose throat you slit—you called her sugar.”
“Never heard of no Margaret.” But his words couldn’t hide the fact that he knew and I knew he’d killed her.
“I need some information from you, Streeter. You give it to me, I back off.”
“You ain’t getting anything from me.”
“No?” I slid the Glock into the belt clip, shrugged my jacket off and tossed it onto the bed. “If you’re smart, you’ll give me what I need. If not, there won’t be enough of you left for even the most hard-up con in the joint to want a piece of.”
I made a half step feint toward his left. When he raised his cuffed wrists for protection and I grabbed one hand, caught the pressure point between the thumb and forefinger and pressed.
He screamed. “Where do you get your girls?”
His eyes spit anger. “I tell you, I’m dead.”
