Blank (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)

by R. J. Jagger

  She’d end up disbarred.

  She’d also officially elevate herself to being a target.

  No, she wouldn’t tell.

  With a disposable cup of coffee in his left hand, Teffinger walked north on Bannock, past the courthouse, and then two more blocks.

  September Tadge practiced out of an old two-story house that had been converted to an office. Teffinger walked past on the opposite side of the street with his face pointed forward.

  In the front was a postage stamp yard with dead brown grass and a fancy wooden sign that said, “September Tadge – Attorney At Law.” The structure was kept up, the paint was fresh and the old single-pane windows had been replaced with sliders. They were all up meaning the place probably didn’t have air conditioning.

  It sat deep in the shade of a 25-story luxury hotel.

  Across the street was a parking lot.

  Behind the house was an alley looking into the backside of restaurants and old brick structures.

  Teffinger walked an additional half block then found a planter in the shade. He sat on the edge and called Dr. Leigh Sandt, the FBI profiler.

  “I have some possible information on our guy,” he said. “It’s unverified but I have reason to suspect that it’s reliable. One, the guy picks his victims out at bars then stalks them for one or two or three weeks. Two, he has a small part of his left ear missing, compliments of a bullet. Three, he refers to himself as Van Gogh. Spread the word and see if it loosens anything up.”

  “Who is this?”

  He smiled.

  “Funny.”

  “You sound stressed.”

  He exhaled.

  “Between you and me, I’m thinking about bending a few rules.”

  “Don’t.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “I’m serious Nick,” she said. “You’re good enough to get him the right way.”

  “We’ll see.”

  He hung up and took a long hard look at September’s place.

  “Just leave one of those windows up tonight,” he said.

  Then he headed back to the office.

  30

  Day Two

  July 19

  Tuesday Afternoon

  Yardley followed Madison Elmblade into the financial district where the woman disappeared into the revolving doors of a high-rise.

  Someone tapped on her shoulder.

  She turned to find the James Dean face of Sanders Cave staring at her with a serious fix.

  “Hot today,” he said.

  “I want Deven.”

  “Did you know that Miami was a set up?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll be honest,” he said. “I’m half tempted to believe you.”

  “In that case get fully tempted because it’s the truth,” she said. “I’m just a middleman. You know that as well as I do. I don’t make decisions, I don’t call the shots. I just do what I’m paid to do. In your case I was paid to give you an assignment. I don’t know anything about it, not a single thing.”

  Cave ran his fingers through her hair.

  “Why is it that you and I never fucked?” he said.

  Yardley exhaled.

  “Deven has nothing to do with anything,” she said. “Just let her go.”

  He ran a fingertip down her arm.

  “Who set me up?”

  “I don’t know. I just take orders.”

  “Who hired you to hire me?”

  “Come on, Cave, you know I can’t tell you that. I’ll end up dead. Whatever’s going on is between you and her. You both need to leave me out of it.”

  “Her?”

  “Don’t act surprised. I’m sure you already knew that much.”

  He nodded.

  “You referred to her as a her once, a long time back,” he said. “I don’t even think you realized it at the time.”

  “Look, right now I’m not against you,” she said. “If you hurt Deven though everything’s going to change and it’s going to change fast.”

  “If I go down you go down,” he said.

  “I’ll do it from a distance,” she said. “I’ll already be gone.”

  “That sounds like a threat.”

  “Good, take it as one,” she said. “I’m going to say it one more time. Let Deven go and leave us out of it.”

  Cave shook his head.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  “This is your one and only chance,” he said. “If I have to walk away, I’m going straight to Deven and drag her into the deepest hell she could ever imagine. Once I start there won’t be any turning back.”

  He kissed her on the forehead.

  “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time,” he said. “You’re going to give me an answer and then I’m going to walk away. That will be the end of our conversation. There won’t be any more. This is it. Understand that all the way deep into your bones. Are you following me?”

  She nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “Good. Now, last time. Who hired you to hire me?”

  Yardley looked at the ground.

  She shifted her feet.

  Then she locked eyes with Cave.

  “Her name’s Madison Elmblade,” she said. “She lives at 1775 Marian.”

  He nodded.

  “Is that the woman who came to your store this morning?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you two talk about?”

  “About how she would kill me if I ever told you what I just told you,” she said.

  “You were following her just now,” he said. “Why?”

  “I wanted to talk to her again.”

  “About what?”

  She opened her purse and tilted it so Cave could see a gun inside.

  “About how she needed to back off,” she said.

  “You were going to kill her?”

  “Not right this second,” she said. “I was just going to warn her. Now I don’t have to bother, do I? Because you’re going to kill her.”

  He smiled.

  “That was my plan,” he said. “That plan just changed.”

  Yardley wrinkled her forehead.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Now I is we,” he said. “Instead of me doing it by myself we’ll both do it.”

  “I’m not interested,” Yardley said.

  “That’s strange because I thought you wanted Deven back,” he said.

  “That wasn’t the deal,” she said. “The deal was that I give you the name and you let Deven go. That was the deal.”

  “The deal just changed,” he said. “But I’ll tell you what. I’ll meet you halfway. I’ll take you to Deven. You can tell her everything’s going to be all right. That will calm her down.”

  “When?”

  Cave put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Right now.”

  31

  Day Two

  July 19

  Tuesday Night

  Tuesday night after dark a thick blanket of clouds swept out of the mountains and let loose on Denver with a cool drizzle. Ordinarily Teffinger didn’t take the ’67 out of the garage if there was even a one percent chance of rain anywhere within a three state radius. Tonight, however, he’d be with Pantage, and adding the ’67 to the mix seemed like the absolute right thing to do.

  The plan was simple.

  They were going to drop into the bars Pantage frequented in the last three weeks or so. They were going to talk to the bartenders and see if they remembered anyone picking her out. Either way, they were going to grab whatever security tapes existed, if any, from the night she was there.

  Teffinger picked Pantage up at her LoDo loft just after dark. She hopped in, shut the door and said, “How come this seat’s all wet?”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah, feel.”

  He did.

 
She was right.

  The ragtop was leaking.

  She pulled Kleenex out of her purse, dried it off and said, “No biggie. It’s just a few drops.”

  She wore a short slinky white dress that showcased her tanned little body to perfection. Down below were black high heels. Her hair was soft. Her perfume smelled like sex. “You said to wear what I usually wear when I go out,” she said. “So don’t complain.”

  “Trust me, I’m the last guy on earth complaining. What was the last bar you were at?”

  “That would be Tequila Rose.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, you know it?”

  He did.

  He did indeed.

  It was Denver’s largest country bar, south on I-25 to 50th, where the beer flowed hard and the women rode their cowboys even harder. “I have a story about that place that’s not very flattering,” he said.

  “Tell.”

  “I was a fixture there in my mid-twenties,” he said. “It was there on a drunken Friday night that I broke a hundred.”

  Silence.

  The wipers swept back and forth.

  Teffinger worked through the city over to the freeway.

  Once he got on it would only be a ten or fifteen minute drive.

  “Broke a hundred?”

  “Right.”

  “A hundred what?”

  “A hundred nights of pleasure, let’s say.”

  “You bagged your hundredth woman there. That’s what you’re saying.”

  “Bagged isn’t a word I use.”

  “You did back then.”

  He nodded. “I was different back then though. Now I’m older—”

  He must have had a look on his face because Pantage said, “What?”

  “I almost said older and wiser,” he said. “But I caught myself.”

  Pantage patted his knee.

  “Good catch. So what’s the number now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “Honestly—”

  “Teffinger, no one counts to a hundred and then stops. So what is it? Two hundred? Three?”

  “It’s not important,” he said. “What’s important is who’s there in the bed with you when you look at her and realize you’ve just hit your last number. You don’t need any more.”

  “Have you hit that number yet?”

  He smiled.

  “Five or six times.”

  She punched his arm.

  “I should get paid to be around you.”

  Teffinger didn’t know if Tequila-R would be hopping or dead on a Tuesday. Judging by the sardine parking lot it was the former.

  Inside the place hadn’t changed much.

  Bodies were everywhere.

  No one was feeling any pain.

  A good band cranked out a catchy song that had the dance floor packed. Teffinger leaned into Pantage and said, “Three chords and the truth. That’s what country music is.”

  They wedged towards the bar.

  Pantage tugged on Teffinger’s arm and pointed to a bartender. “That guy there should remember me.”

  They headed over and got his attention.

  “I was here Friday night,” she said. “Do you remember me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you notice anyone stalking me?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m serious.”

  “Every guy in here is stalking every woman in here,” he said.

  Teffinger smiled.

  It was true.

  He leaned in.

  “Does the fat man still run the place?”

  Yes.

  He did.

  “Is he here tonight?”

  “Yeah.”

  They made their way through a thousand bodies to the far back corner where Teffinger knocked on a black door. “The fat man’s sued everyone in town,” he told Pantage. “That’s how you know if you’re someone or not, by whether he’s sued you.”

  The door opened.

  A six-four cowboy appeared.

  Teffinger looked around him a saw the fat man hunched behind a desk tapping cigar ashes into an ashtray. There was enough smoke in the room to intimidate a forest fire.

  “I need to talk to the fat man.”

  The cowboy stepped aside so the fat man could see.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said. “Let him in.”

  “This needs to be private.”

  “Private, huh?” To the cowboy, “Give us five.”

  The room had no windows. When the door closed, Teffinger would have given his whole paycheck just to double the space.

  “This is Pantage Phair,” Teffinger said.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”

  “What?”

  “The fat man,” the fat man said. “You’re the one who started that name. It stuck. Did you know that? I’m not complaining, I’m just saying that next time you pick out a nickname for someone, you know, keep in mind that it might stick.”

  “It’s a good name for you,” Teffinger said. “It fits.”

  The man shrugged.

  “I don’t mind it actually,” he said “I even got a license plate, Fat Man. So why are you here wanting to talk to me in private?”

  “My friend Pantage was here Friday night,” he said. “Someone may have been stalking her. What I need is all your surveillance tapes from that night.”

  “All of ’em?”

  Teffinger nodded.

  “Parking lots too?”

  “Everything you have,” Teffinger said.

  The fat man sucked on the cigar and blew a ring.

  “Sometimes the liquor board gets on my case,” he said. “Some of the cowboys piss in the parking lot once in a while. Sometimes an underage sneaks in, that kind of thing. It would sure be nice if you could put in a good word.”

  Teffinger pulled out his phone, punched numbers and said, “Hey, it’s me, Teffinger. I need a favor. Next time you’re down at the Tequila-R, extend your blinders a little bit. Don’t go crazy, just cut ’em a little slack.” He hung up, looked at the fat man and said, “Done deal.”

  “You’re a good man.”

  32

  Day Two

  July 19

  Tuesday Night

  The dark illegal spark of a thought that worked its way into Teffinger’s brain this afternoon was now an all-consuming wildfire. He needed to break into September Tadge’s law office and get the files on Van Gogh, he needed to do it tonight, and he needed to do it before he changed his mind. He dropped Pantage off at the house of a coworker named Renn-Jaa, where she should be safe for the night. Then he drove over to September’s, parked two blocks away and headed nonchalantly up the street at a quarter to midnight with his head down and his hands in his pockets, to all intents and purposes just one more lost soul adrift in the middle of a lonely Denver night.

  Four beers were in his gut.

  The buzz was gone, now replaced with leaden eyelids.

  He should be home.

  He should be screwing Pantage into oblivion then rolling over and bringing those lids down tight and hard.

  Tomorrow.

  He’d do that tomorrow.

  The rain had stopped.

  The sidewalks were littered with puddles.

  Light from the hotel next door to September’s office sprayed onto the front of the structure and onto the dead flat lawn in front of it. A woman came out of the hotel and walked towards the one and only cab out front. She wore a short expensive skirt, nylons and a truckload of face paint.

  Escort, Teffinger thought.

  Bought and paid for.

  He turned left into the darkness at the side of September’s office. The tires of the taxi squashed through puddles up the street and the taillights disappeared around the corner.

  Teffinger exhaled.

  He’d never crossed the line before, not once.

  If he did it now, he couldn’t erase it.

  It would be with hi
m forever.

  It would define him in a new way.

  It would also be a secret he’d have to carry. The weight would increase over time.

  Was he actually stupid enough to do it?

  He could feel the files just beyond those walls. Getting them might help keep Pantage alive. Not getting them would keep Teffinger clean. Was he so interested in his own pathetic little existence that he’d have Pantage at risk to preserve it?

  No.

  He wasn’t that guy.

  He wasn’t the coward.

  It was time to get what he needed.

  He made his way to the rear of the structure and found to his amazement that one of the windows had been left halfway up.

  He silently climbed through and touched down in a conference room.

  It was small.

  There was a rectangular wooden table and four chairs. A hotplate for a coffee pot sat on top of a credenza.

  He was in.

  He’d broken and entered.

  The dirt was on him.

  Surprisingly he didn’t care.

  In fact he felt strong.

  The sounds of the city trickled through the air—the changing gears of a motorcycle, the wavelike wash of a siren, the drone of cars pulling away at a green light.

  Teffinger headed deeper into the structure.

  The files would probably be in a filing cabinet.

  They’d be arranged alphabetically.

  What would they be called?

  Van Gogh?

  The conference room opened up to a reception area with a desk and a winding stairway to the upper floor. Teffinger walked past the stairway and entered a larger room with a number of plants, a large contemporary desk with a computer monitor on top and a fancy wooden filing cabinet in the corner.

  Teffinger pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket.

  In the top two drawers of the cabinet was an eclectic mix of non-client files—billing records, bank statements and the like. The bottom two drawers were equally useless. The main filing cabinets must be upstairs.

  He silently headed up.

  It turned out he was right.

  A large room held a number of mismatched metal filing cabinets, brown, gray, tall, short, flea market purchases. They were labeled with magic marker on pieces of paper taped to the top drawer, A-C, D-J, K-P, Q-T, U-Z. Teffinger headed for U-Z. In the second drawer down he found an expandable file labeled Van Gogh.