“What’s this about?” Jake asked. “Someone stalking you again? Should we be alert for an attack or an attempt to breach security?”
“I hope not, Jake. The only people who know I live here are family and friends. It’s not a matter of public record. Sit tight. If the situation changes, I’ll let you know.”
I returned to the garage and switched vehicles. Whoever followed me didn’t know I owned a 1963 Avanti. I called Snoop from the garage. “How are things at Doraleen’s?”
“She’s fixing me breakfast… Thanks, Doraleen, black is fine… Sorry, Chuck, she needed to know how I take my coffee. What did you find out about that Jeep Cherokee I saw parked out front?”
“It’s a luxurious new Jeep Grand Cherokee with comfortable leather seating for five hoodlums and ample storage in back for their weapons and ammo. Plus, it has four-wheel drive in case they need to dispose of a body in a swamp. It’s the same one that followed me home a few hours ago. He must have doubled back to Doraleen’s. I believe he staked out her home expecting Al Rice to drop in.”
“I knew there was something fishy when a guy sits in a car at zero-dark-thirty in the morning and slumps down in the seat so I won’t see him when I drive past. That guy ain’t up to any good.”
“It’s a shame you couldn’t read his license plate. I’d like to know who the car belongs to.”
“Yeah, by the time I saw him move in the driver’s seat, I was beside his car,” Snoop said. “If I had gone back, it would have tipped him off that I’d made him.”
“Whoever he was, he followed Tank and me when we left Doraleen’s. We split up and he tailed Tank, probably all the way to Pink Coral Island. He’s gotta know Al’s staying with Tank. I assume he ran the plates on Tank’s Porsche so he knows who Tank is. Did he show up back at Doraleen’s?”
“Let me look out the window, Chuck. I’ll call you back.”
I drove out of the garage and headed toward Tank’s house. In a few minutes Snoop called back. “Yeah?”
“He’s not out there. Too bad. If he’d come back here, you could roust him.”
“There’s more than one way to roust a stalker.”
Chapter 30
I eased the Avanti to the gatehouse window and handed my driver’s license over. “Carlos McCrary. He’s expecting me.”
“Mr. Tyler called, Mr. McCrary.” The guard scanned the license and returned it. “Do you know the way?”
“There’s only the one street.”
The guard smiled. “Yeah, but it’s a horseshoe and this bridge hits it at the middle. Turn left and go to the end.” The gate rose.
I wound around the palm-lined curves of Pink Coral Way. The inland side of the horseshoe bordered the exclusive Pink Coral Golf Club, whose freshly-mown fairways, damp from the dew, glistened in the rising sun. I passed dazzling white bunkers and a myriad of flowers. The street ended at a circular turnaround fronted by four waterfront mansions that occupied a large peninsula on the island’s southwest side. I stopped at the wrought-iron gates in front of Tank’s house and started to text him. Before I could punch a single number, the ornate gates swung open. Tank must have been watching with the security camera.
I drove fifty yards down a curved lane that led to a Mediterranean house large enough to house the population of a small Italian village. The lane of coral pavers ended in a circular driveway. A three-tiered fountain burbled in the center of the drive under century-old live oaks that overhung the lush tropical gardens. I parked at the coral steps fronting Tank’s porch. The door swung open when I hit the top step. “Come in, Chuck. The guard called that you were on your way.”
“Are you gonna add valet parking for hotel guests?”
Tank grinned. “Valet comes on at eight.” He led the way across a circular foyer with a tiered crystal chandelier hanging in the middle of a twenty-foot ceiling. “Let’s sit by the pool.”
Tank pulled out a wrought-iron chair at a glass-topped patio table set for two under a closed Bimini-blue umbrella. The morning sun had not risen above the house, and the pool was still shaded. Seeti Bay sparkled at the edge of the manicured lawn that stretched down from the pool deck to the water’s edge.
When I sat, an elderly man in a pale blue guayabera carried over a large glass pitcher of orange juice in one hand and a coffee carafe in the other. A fringe of white hair surrounded his bald pate. He wore dark blue Bermuda shorts and sandals. “What would you like for breakfast, sir?”
“Whatever Tank’s having.”
“Very good, sir. A Western Omelet and coffee. Perhaps some fresh-squeezed orange juice while Cook prepares your breakfast?” He poured the juice. “Coffee, sir?” He poured that too.
“Thanks.” I picked up the orange juice and took a sip until the butler left. “He reminds me of Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred.”
“Except he doesn’t drive the Batmobile in emergencies, and his name is Gregory.”
“That his first name or his last name?”
“Does it make any difference?”
I laughed. “Right. Where’s Al?”
“Upstairs, asleep in a guestroom.” He pointed to a balcony trimmed with a wrought iron railing that overlooked the pool. “Al had a rough night. We all got up at three a.m. when he had the shakes. I figured sleep was the best thing for him while you and I figure out what to do next.”
I stifled a yawn. “I could use a nap myself.” I poured a little cream into my coffee.
“As could I. And I’ll do that as soon as you tell me the plan and what the heck I should do next.” He threw me a mock salute. “Awaiting orders, sir.”
“I thought you’d have a plan already. You’re the egghead, the intellectual, the smartest guy in the room. Everybody knows that.”
“Not me, kemosabe. I’m a poor ignorant Alabama pecan farmer. Ask me how to raise pecans and I’m your man. You city people, you’re the ones with the plans.” He drank a long pull of orange juice.
“First things first. Let’s get Al healthy before you make him wealthy and wise.”
“I don’t know if anyone can make Al wealthy or wise, but I sure as hell can help him get healthy. I’ll get a physical trainer and a nutritionist here this afternoon.”
“Good idea,” I agreed. “I don’t know squat about how to unhook an addict from drugs or alcohol. Be that as it may, objective one was to find Al. Mission accomplished. Objective two was to bring him to a safe place.”
“We have great security on Pink Coral Island.”
“I hope so, because you may need it.”
“That sounds ominous. What gives?”
“You remember a man in a Jeep Grand Cherokee followed us when we left Doraleen’s house this morning.”
“That’s why we split.”
“The Jeep followed you, not me.”
“Did he follow me here?”
“That’s what I would do in his place. Of course, he had to stop at the bridge to the island. But he could’ve gotten your license plate number while your Porsche was parked at Doraleen’s last night. By now, he knows who you are and where you live.”
“How did you spot him in the first place? I never saw anything.”
“Snoop spotted him when he came to relieve us as Doraleen’s bodyguard. Apparently the Jeep was parked near Doraleen’s house before I left the first time last night. I didn’t notice him until he closed the gap to get my address when I pulled into my parking garage. Wait a minute.” I smacked the table with my palm. “Shit. He must’ve put a tracker on my van when I was at Doraleen’s. That’s why I didn’t make him earlier when he followed me home from Doraleen’s.” I would find and remove the tracker the next time I used the minivan. “That’s water under the bridge. After he learned where I live, he returned to Doraleen’s and staked the place out, looking for Al. Then he followed your Porsche when you and Al left. He knows Al is here.”
“Our gatehouse security is twenty-four/seven. How could Al be in danger here?”
Gregory served my breakfast
. “Will there be anything else, sir?”
“Yes, Gregory. May I please have salsa?”
“Very good, sir. Anything else for you, Tank?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
After the butler left, I asked, “He calls you Tank?”
“I’m a pretty informal guy, despite the glitzy glamorous life of the rich and famous. He called me Mr. Tyler for a day or two before I told him to call me Tank.”
“He called me sir.”
“What did you expect? I’ve kept yours and Al’s names under wraps. If you do tell him your name, he’ll call you Mr. McCrary until you tell him to call you something else, like Carlos or Chuck.” He grinned. “Or dipshit.”
“You kept my name and Al’s from your butler?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Don’t you trust him?”
Tank spread his hands. “I trust Gregory as far as that goes. I have no reason to distrust him or I’d fire him. But he doesn’t need to know your name or Al’s to do his job. I keep most things confidential. It comes with being a CPA and a financial advisor. I keep everything under my hat out of force of habit.”
“That’s a good habit.”
“Besides, I hired Gregory only six months ago. I bought this mausoleum of a mansion from an estate. Gregory kinda came with it. He’d worked for the previous owner for over thirty years. He lives in the servants’ quarters over there.” Tank gestured at a small bungalow half-hidden in the landscaping.
“If you don’t like this ‘mausoleum,’ as you call it,” I made air quotes, “why’d you buy it in the first place? I loved your old house.”
“I like this place fine, but I don’t let physical stuff go to my head. I bought this,” he spread his arms in a broad gesture, “because it’s good for business. Besides, I stole it; bought it for practically half-price.”
“What was wrong with it?”
“Everything. The previous owner was an elderly widow who died intestate—that means ‘without a will’ for you illiterates. The house was built in 1928 and the last update was fifty years ago when she and her late husband bought it. After he died, she lived here as a recluse for another ten years and let the place go to hell. Her five children were scattered from New York to Hawaii, and they squabbled after she died. Nobody would move to Florida, and they couldn’t agree on how to split the money if they sold the house. They neglected the place for three more years. In this climate you need constant maintenance on an old house like this. By the time I bought it, it was almost in ruins.”
“But you said Gregory worked for the previous owner.”
“When the old lady died, the heirs refused to hire Gregory. They basically abandoned the place. Gregory laid low, put the electricity for the bungalow in his name, and lived here below everyone’s radar. He did a little maintenance, but, as you see, he’s an old man. When I first saw the place, the landscaping had run wild and I never noticed the servants’ quarters in the jungle. After I had a contract and ordered a survey, I learned there was a bungalow. The surveyor told me somebody lived in it.”
“Surprise, surprise,” I said. “But you didn’t need a butler, did you?”
“What was I gonna do, throw an old man out on the street? He needed a job.”
Gregory came back with a dish of salsa. “Shall I serve, sir?”
“That’s okay, Gregory,” I said. “Leave me a spoon and I’ll serve myself.”
“Very good, sir.” Gregory vanished like a ghost.
“So you stole it?” I asked.
“Let’s just say that I found ‘an exceptional bargain.’ I put over a half-million in it on repairs and renovations. I replaced the plumbing and re-wired the whole place to bring it up to code. That meant I replaced the walls too. But it cleaned up real nice, didn’t it? It’s worth twice what I have in it. Incidentally, I made a pot full of money when I sold my old place.”
“Good for business, huh?”
“Yeah. My money management side is so big that Thomas Tyler Investments is under consideration to manage billion-dollar portfolios or more. Maybe even the University of Atlantic County endowment fund. My investment team has a couple dozen people to do the firm’s heavy lifting. I pretty much just schmooze the clients and spearhead the marketing. I don’t do much client work anymore.”
“You do my work.”
“That’s different. You’re a friend.”
“Would you have taken my account if I weren’t a friend of Bigs?”
“Of course I would. Who could resist your dimples?”
I spread my arms. “So this is to impress clients?”
“It impressed you, didn’t it? People like to do business with successful people. People at the billionaire level need to know I handle that kind of money. It doesn’t help that I’m black and a former football player.”
“President Gerald R. Ford was a football player.”
“I rest my case. Thus, this place.” He waved his hand vaguely. “Don’t take it seriously, buddy. I sure don’t. I’ll flip this place in a few years and make another bundle.”
I ladled salsa over my omelet. “Tank, it’s none of my business, but I’m curious: How rich are you?”
“I’m not a billionaire—yet. If the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise, I’ll be there inside of ten years. This year I made the Forbes list of the four hundred richest people in the good old U. S. of A.”
“And I thought you were only a pretty smart jock who found a way not to blow his money.” I tasted the omelet. Tank’s cook was talented.
“That’s what I am. Enough talk about Gregory and this mausoleum. Why do you think Al’s in danger here?”
“Because of the golf club.”
Tank scratched his chin. “Oh, yeah. The club has more than 300 members, and a lot of them don’t live on the island. A guy with Moffett’s pull could find somebody to arrange an invite for a foursome to play golf. That would get a group of bad guys past the gatehouse. Then they hide out somewhere on the island—there are lots of places to hide in the landscaping—until after dark.”
“Or they come by boat. Lots of houses here are seasonal, and some owners have left for New York or Canada or Europe for the summer. I could find a dozen places to hole up within a quarter-mile of your house now that the season is over.”
Tank drank orange juice. He stared at the half-empty glass. “We’ll find another place to take Al—and sooner rather than later. Too many hiding places on this island for a determined kidnapper. At least Moffett doesn’t want to kill Al; he only wants his money back.”
I dabbed my mouth with a snow-white linen napkin with TT embroidered in the corner. “We hope that’s what he’s thinking, but if Moffett thinks his loan to Al is a lost cause, he might make an example of Al to keep his other customers in line.”
Chapter 31
Ngombo checked to make sure he wasn’t followed before he turned from NW Sixth Avenue onto NW 89th Street. For the next few blocks he checked his rearview mirror. He drove once around the block under Moffett’s strict protocol to keep his location secret. There was no tail. Moffett had more than his share of enemies on both sides of the law. The deadliest enemies were the ones who didn’t follow rules like due process. Many of them would kill Moffett in a heartbeat. Or Ngombo for that matter.
Ngombo, Bones, and three other thugs had moved Moffett’s furniture into the three-story concrete block building four months ago. As soon as his presence there became known, he would move again. Ngombo dreaded moving Moffett’s specially reinforced furniture again. The furniture was big, awkward, and heavy; moving it was beneath his dignity as a warrior. He liked the current location. It had good parking for Moffett’s organization.
Ngombo parked his Jeep in front. He counted five other cars in the lot. Glancing at a second story window, he waved to the sentry. He took the narrow passage between Moffett’s building and the next one to the rear alley and banged on a rusted metal freight door. The access door opened and Ngombo nodded to the man
who let him in. “Is he up?”
“He’s eating breakfast. Again.”
Ngombo clanged up the metal stairs two at a time to the second floor.
Moffett’s bulk dwarfed the kitchen chair in the converted warehouse loft that was his current home. His butt draped so far over the chair that the seat was almost hidden. He pulled the large platter of pancakes toward him. He grabbed a carafe of maple syrup and slathered it on the pancakes, floating the globs of butter toward the rounded edge.
Ngombo stopped a respectful distance away and waited for Moffett to notice him.
Moffett flicked his eyes in that direction, then cut a large wedge through the five-pancake stack with his fork. He stabbed the wedge, mopped excess syrup from the edge of the platter, and stuffed the whole mass in his mouth. “Whatcha want?” he mumbled.
“I have news, Monster.”
When he was first hired, Ngombo called his boss “Mr. Moffett.” Bones explained that the boss insisted everyone call him Monster. “It’s good for his image,” Bones explained. Moffett had interrupted Bones. “My bad image. Get it? My image as a monster.” He’d cackled at his own joke.
Moffett picked up a mug of chocolate milk and took a long drink, spilled some when he plunked the glass down too hard. “What news, Teddy?”
“Al Rice has holed up in a mansion on Pink Coral Island owned by a man named Tank Tyler. This Tyler is a former American football—"
Moffett waved his fork, flinging crumbs of pancake and syrup across the rough plank floor. “Yeah, yeah, everybody but freakin’ foreigners knows Tank Tyler. So Tank Tyler is Al Rice’s friend?”
“Apparently so.”
Moffett turned to the man seated across the table. “How come I didn’t know this, Bones? Huh? How come I’m just finding this out?”
Day of the Tiger (A Carlos McCrary Mystery Thriller Book 5) Page 12
