Courting Disaster

by Joanne Pence

  “We’re not here to eat,” the man bellowed. “My name is Lance Vandermeer. This is my wife. I demand to speak to Tyler Marsh.”

  “I’m sorry, he worked earlier today. He’s already gone home,” Eleni answered meekly.

  The man glanced at the woman at his side, then to Eleni. “You have a young woman working here, I understand. May we see her? Hannah, I believe her name is.”

  Eleni paled. “She hasn’t been here for a few days.”

  “A few days?” Vandermeer bellowed. “What do you mean? Where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” Eleni answered, nervously backing away. “Let me ask the cook.”

  “Find out how I can locate her,” Vandermeer snapped.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Connie started to speak when Angie shushed her. She was leaning toward the couple, trying to listen, wishing she could move to a table even closer to them.

  “She had the baby!” Mrs. Vandermeer said, elation clear in her voice. “I just know it. Lance, isn’t it wonderful?”

  “Quiet, Frieda.” He spoke in low tones. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all.”

  Michael Zeno came out of the kitchen and eyed the couple, his expression harsh. “Who are you?” he asked fiercely. “What do you want with Hannah?”

  Vandermeer glared back at him a moment, then spat out the word, “Nothing.” He took his wife’s arm and pulled her from the restaurant.

  Angie sat and pondered what she’d just heard. Did anything here make sense? Increasingly nervous, she and Connie decided now wasn’t the time to question anyone about Hannah or anything else. Their dinner half finished, they left as well.

  “Wait!”

  Angie turned at the sound and saw the hostess running toward them.

  “What’s going on with Hannah?” she asked.

  “The missing waitress?” Angie asked innocently.

  Connie stood mute.

  “Don’t play dumb,” the woman countered. “I saw her and your neighbor on the dock. I saw the way she looked at him. I don’t know who else she would have gone to.”

  Angie looked heavenward. What did those two do on the dock, for pity’s sake? “Who are you?” she demanded.

  “Gail Leer. My husband owns Athina. I’m Hannah’s friend. Her only friend.” Gail looked over her shoulder back toward the restaurant. “Let’s walk. Let’s cross the street and head away from the wharf.”

  Angie and Connie followed as she led them down a block. “I’m worried about her,” Gail said when they were out of sight of the restaurant. “Her baby is due and I know she doesn’t have any money or relatives around. I want to help. I’d planned to tell her that, but before I could, she disappeared.”

  “She didn’t know you wanted to help?” Angie asked.

  Gail chewed her bottom lip. “I never put it in so many words. I guess I thought she understood. Where is she?” She twisted her fingers with agitation. “I was sure she’d gone to your neighbor for help, especially since I saw him here several times. Something about her makes some men want to protect her, take care of her. And, in other cases, to use her.” She shut her eyes as if trying to erase some ugly memory. “She’s a sweet girl, an innocent, which is hard to believe in this day and age. Where is she?”

  “If she’s so sweet, innocent, and loved, why would she leave and not tell anyone?” Angie asked. “Especially in her condition. Was she afraid of something? Someone?”

  Gail’s gaze darted from side to side. “I…I don’t know. I’ve asked myself what I could have done to help her.”

  “If you were a friend, why didn’t she go to you for help?” Angie asked. “Me and my neighbor are strangers to her. I don’t see a pregnant woman wanting a stranger to help her when she has friends, do you?”

  “You think I’m lying about being her friend?” Gail shook her head woefully. “I’m not! I loved her like a daughter! Now, though…now she’s gone and I don’t know where. I’ve got to find her! She might be in danger.”

  “Danger from what?” Angie asked.

  Gail paused, searching their faces. When she answered, her tone had become stiff and formal. “The baby’s due anytime. Without help, it’s a dangerous situation.”

  Angie caught Connie’s eye. Even Connie realized Gail was lying.

  “She can trust me,” Gail pleaded. “You—both of you—can trust me. I wouldn’t hurt her. I’d protect her. Please tell me what you know.”

  “Protect her from what?” Angie asked.

  Gail shook her head again. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “You don’t understand.”

  “Why do you think I know where she is?” Angie asked.

  “Because I know Hannah!” With that, her frustration getting the better of her, she spun on her heel and headed back toward the restaurant.

  Angie and Connie watched her a moment, then got into Angie’s car.

  “What are you going to do?” Connie asked. “Something awful is going on at that restaurant. I can feel it.”

  “That woman worries me,” Angie said. “There’s a lot she isn’t telling us.”

  Chapter 16

  Angie stood by the main entrance to KQED and waited for Peter to pick her up after another night of persuading people to bid for the dinners and pledge their support. He was late. Tonight’s cooking extravaganza had been three hours of Yan Can Cook. She never wanted to see anyone julienne bamboo shoots again.

  Tonight, none of the restaurateurs knew her or her mother. No, that was wrong. One of them remembered a rather negative review she’d once written about him for Haute Cuisine. Talk about embarrassing!

  She was just about to call the cab company again when the taxi arrived. Someone other than Peter got out and headed for the building. He wore a baseball cap pulled low on his brow, his collar turned up, and dark glasses.

  She stuck her head out the door. “Who are you looking for?”

  “Angie Amalfi,” he said.

  “That’s me.” She didn’t like the guy’s looks, but it was late and taxi drivers didn’t necessarily dress for the cover of GQ. She got into the cab. “Where’s Peter? The dispatcher said he was already on his way when I called.”

  “I think he broke down. I was told to come get you.”

  She guessed she should expect such things to happen.

  The driver started up the cab. “Where to?” he asked.

  “You aren’t going to drive with those glasses on, are you?”

  “The glare,” he said.

  “Glare? What glare? We’re the only ones out here. It’s after midnight.”

  “Where to?” he repeated.

  “The corner of Green and Jones.”

  He nodded and started up.

  Something made her uneasy. He put on the radio to KJAZ. John Coltrane played “Soul Eyes.”

  To her relief, he drove directly to her apartment building and parked. “That’s where you live?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Big building. Are you up very high?”

  “Yes.” She handed him some money and he started to pull out some change.

  “Doesn’t it make you nervous being in earthquake country and all? Or with terrorists possibly targeting this city? You aren’t on the top floor, are you?”

  She was, but something made her not want to admit it. “I worry more about crossing the street in heavy traffic.” She took out a couple of dollars for his tip and quickly hurried from the cab into her building. The building manager locked the front door this time of night. As soon as she got in, she locked the door behind her.

  She hadn’t realized how quickly she’d moved or that she’d been holding her breath.

  Silly, she told herself. There was no reason to be so nervous around the cabdriver. So he wasn’t Peter. So what?

  “Angie,” Paavo said softly. “Wake up.”

  She awoke with a start. The morning sun was just beginning to lighten the sky. Paavo stood over her bed. Slightly dazed, she sat up and looked around the bedroom,
then at the clock. Seven fifteen. “Paavo? Am I still dreaming?”

  He sat down beside her. “No, you’re not.”

  She blinked and tried to shake the sleep from her. “Is something wrong?” As soon as she said the words, they worked like a jolt of adrenaline. Paavo would get first word if there’d been an accident—if something had happened to one of her relatives or friends. “What is it?”

  “I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said. She could see the worry etched on his face. Whatever had caused him to rush over to her apartment this way?

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “I called, but then I remembered that you’ve been turning off the ringer on your phone so that the telemarketers and others don’t wake you up. I tried your cell phone, but I guess it’s off as well. So I came over. You didn’t hear my knock.”

  “I got in late last night, then had to work two crosswords and three jumbles before I could fall asleep. Why were you worried?”

  “You’ve been riding with a Yellow Cab driver named Peter Leong, right?”

  Her face fell. “Don’t tell me something’s happened to him? He’s a good man.”

  “He was found this morning two blocks away from KQED-TV. He’s alive, but in a coma. Someone bashed in the side of his head. Normally, they would have figured a passenger had robbed him, but the last passenger he dropped off was a little after eleven-thirty. He then spoke to the dispatcher and said he was going to get a cup of coffee and pick you up at twelve-fifteen. You were his last fare.”

  “Poor man! Is he going to be all right?” she asked.

  “The doctors hope that once the swelling goes down, he’ll be back to normal. They figure he was hit with a brick or something similar.”

  “How do you know about this?” she asked, confused. “You’re in Homicide. Wait—you didn’t even go to work yet, did you? It’s too early.”

  “One of the cops at the scene is a friend. When he heard your name, he called me. We were worried about you. We didn’t know if you were in the cab at the time.”

  Questions filled her.

  “No money was taken from Leong’s wallet,” Paavo continued. “And we aren’t sure why he went back to the area near the TV studio. What time did he drop you off at home?”

  “Drop me off? He never picked me up. It was someone else,” she said.

  Paavo stared as if her words made no sense.

  She continued to explain. “A taxi driver told me Peter’s cab broke down. He said he was told to get me.”

  “No…not according to the dispatcher’s records.”

  In the fog of her sleep, she hadn’t put it all together until Paavo said that. If the dispatcher thought Peter was going to pick her up, she hadn’t sent a replacement. “Are you suggesting that the man who…who drove me home…wasn’t sent by the Yellow Cab Company? He wasn’t a cabdriver?”

  Paavo shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense, does it?”

  “My God! I’m taking a taxi to be safe! And now it seems they’re even more dangerous than driving myself around!”

  “What can you tell me about the person who took you home?” he asked abruptly. She expected that question, but not his next one. “Was it a man or a woman?”

  “A man,” she replied.

  “Are you sure? Absolutely sure?”

  He had someone in mind, she realized. “He had a beard—”

  “A simple disguise—”

  “Plus an Adam’s apple and low voice. Why? Who do you think it was?”

  “No one. I don’t know,” he said, lost in thought. “Can you describe him?”

  She told him about the dark glasses and KJAZ on the radio, and then remembered how someone had followed her and Peter the night before.

  She was suddenly very nervous, as was Paavo. She reached for him. He held her close, kissing and comforting her, but she could feel the tension this had caused him as well.

  Neither could imagine what was going on. She had one night left of the KQED auction. That night, Paavo would be her chauffeur.

  That morning, he was much more.

  “If you’re going to stay up all night,” Angie’s sister Frannie said irritably a few hours later, “you’ve got to sleep later in the morning. Having you visit and then watching you yawn the whole time I’m talking to you is not only disgusting, it’s rude besides.”

  “I didn’t stay up all night, but you’ll have to admit that the news I woke up to was more than a little disturbing.” All Frannie’s talk about yawning made Angie feel the need for a nice long one, replete with a good stretch of the arms. She tried to suppress it.

  Frannie looked even more put out as she handed Angie a second cup of coffee. She was just a few years older, but the two sisters couldn’t have been more different. Frannie was taller, and since the birth of Seth, Jr., had worked so hard to lose the weight she’d gained that she was almost emaciated. Her hair was tightly permed and worn in ringlets that resembled dreadlocks. Floppy Birkenstocks and smocklike dresses were her clothes of choice. “I’m sure the phony cabdriver was just some kid wanting a joyride or doing some reality playacting. Maybe a gang initiation—”

  “Oh, that’s encouraging—”

  “Who knows? Who cares?” Frannie said. “You’re safe. It wasn’t about you, no matter what you think.”

  “I wish I knew what to think,” Angie murmured.

  “He took you home, didn’t he?” Frannie asked. When Angie nodded, she said, “All right, then. Forget it.”

  Angie would rather forget her sister. The only thing she could figure was that the guy who attacked Peter wanted to be a cabdriver and stole the cab, plus found information about Peter’s next fare in the taxi, and that’s why he picked her up. If he hadn’t, the dispatcher would have known immediately that something had happened to Peter. Made sense, didn’t it?

  “I didn’t really come here to visit—” She had to stop talking as the yawn overtook her.

  Frannie scowled. “I know. You’re here to find out what I know about your engagement party. Believe me, if I knew anything, I’d tell you. I don’t see why you get a big, fancy engagement party. Mamma didn’t do all that for mine.”

  “Your party was everything you said you wanted,” Angie exclaimed. “How can you complain?”

  “I thought it was, but now it seems lacking in imagination. I wish I’d listened to Mamma more, frankly. She had some good ideas. And my idea of a vegan party with a healthy tofu cake didn’t go over nearly as well as I’d imagined.”

  “That anyone ate it at all was the surprise,” Angie said as she sipped the coffee and tried to wake up. “But overall, I thought your party was fine except for when Papà found one of the caterers in the closet with Cousin Richie. They tried to say they were making sandwiches, and Cousin Pia said it was more like rolled pork. Remember that?” Angie began to chuckle, but her laughter quickly died. Could something like that happen at her party?

  Frannie scowled. “You don’t need to remind me! Anyway, since your party is supposed to be perfect, what kind do you want?”

  “I’d like it to be like a fairy tale,” Angie answered quickly.

  Frannie chortled. “You’re so fussy about everything, the only fairy tale that’d work for you would be one about little elves making everything exactly the way you want it. I don’t know how Mamma puts up with you.”

  Angie fumed. “I’m not fussy in the least! In fact, I see myself as Cinderella. After all my toils, I’ve found my Prince Charming.”

  “Barf! Yech! Blaaaah!” Frannie screeched, to Angie’s complete disgust. “Let’s pray Mamma doesn’t come up with anything so sappy! Maybe instead she’ll remember the party you wanted when you were so madly in love with that boy in middle school. He was Japanese and you ran around the house with a kimono and chopsticks in your hair. At least you didn’t go out in public that way. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen!”

  The horrible conversation Angie had had with her mother about sushi came flowing back at
her. No, it couldn’t be!

  Frannie howled with laughter. It had been a long time since Angie and her sister had a knockdown, drag-out fight—they’d had them all the time when they were growing up—but the old urge to pummel her sister was growing fast.

  “I’d better get going,” Angie said, standing. “Let’s go find the car seat and other baby stuff you said I could borrow.”

  “We will, but first you’ve got to tell me all about Stan’s girlfriend.” Frannie refilled Angie’s coffee. “Are you sure it isn’t his kid?”

  Since her sister was acting more civilized, Angie sat back down and filled Frannie in on all the facts as she knew them. She had to admit, they weren’t much. “All I can say is that Stan seems really happy that Hannah and her baby are with him.”

  “Where’s our baby, Lance?” Frieda Vandermeer asked. She stood at the window, looking at the noonday sun over the ocean from her Sea Cliff mansion. “They promised we’d have it by now.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get him—or her—soon.” He put his arms around his wife. He couldn’t have children and felt like a monster for depriving Frieda of the one thing she wanted more than anything else. Maybe he wasn’t a monster, just half a man. The part that should work was fine for sex. But nothing else. Nothing important, at least not to Frieda’s way of thinking.

  It was strange, loving one’s wife this way. So many of the guys he knew had mistresses on the side, or at least flings, one after the other. Not Lance.

  He’d never even thought about wandering. Not until Frieda decided, three years ago, that she wanted a child and threw away her pills.

  When nothing happened after two years they saw some doctors. That was when he found out about his low sperm count.

  Low, hell. It was practically nonexistent. He remembered the old joke where the redneck goes to a doctor and when he gets back home he struts around his wife, chest puffed out, and says “The doc tol’ me I was the mos’ impo’tent man he ever saw.” The problem was that being the one who was so impo’tent wasn’t half so funny.

  Everything he’d ever wanted was either handed him on a silver platter or there for the taking. Okay, it had caused him problems now and then, but they didn’t mean much. Winning Frieda had been the only thing he’d ever had to work hard at. And she was the one thing he was most afraid of losing. He didn’t know if he could bear it.