“I didn’t notice.”
“It’s important, Bob. Close your eyes and think back to this morning.”
Bob closed his eyes. Then he opened them so wide that the whites showed all around. “The seat was down, and I left it up when I went to bed last night.”
“Gracie returned to your room while you were asleep. She took a bath, packed an overnight bag, and left before you woke up.”
“Jesus, now I’m really freaking out.” Bob turned as another player approached. “Just a sec, Bomber. I’m talking with an old high school buddy here. Be with you in a few.” He lowered his voice. “How do you know she took a bath?”
“I have magical powers. Also, I found damp soap and a damp towel in the tub, and woman-sized footprints on the bathmat.”
“I should have noticed that stuff.”
“Nah. You couldn’t see the tub from the shower. And raising a toilet seat is second nature to any man.”
Bob shrugged. “I understand Gracie being quiet when she come back to the room so as not to wake me; she’s real considerate like that. And I understand her taking a bath before bed. But why would she pack a bag and leave again in the middle of the night?”
“It looks like she planned to skip out on you.”
“Why?”
“I intend to find out.”
Chapter 5
The time index on the computer monitor read 02:21:24. The surveillance video showed Graciela exiting the elevator on the thirty-seventh floor. She walked unsteadily down the corridor in a gold lamé dress, carrying matching gold sling-back stiletto shoes in her left hand. A gold-sequined evening purse with a long gold chain hung near her waist. She clutched the purse in her right hand like she was afraid it was planning an escape.
I remembered that same dress hanging in the closet of Bob’s hotel suite. I had seen the matching purse in a box on the shelf above. The shoes had been dropped on the closet floor. Wherever she’d gone, she’d changed clothes.
“Is that who you’re looking for?” Wally, the hotel security guard glanced at his watch.
“Yes, thanks.” I wrote down the time the video was taken. “Can we access the elevator video to see where she got on?”
“You do know I have other duties, right?” He stared into his empty coffee cup as if he could will it to refill itself.
“Wally, that woman is a guest in your hotel. She is missing and maybe in danger. Finding her trumps your duty to refill your coffee.”
The guard scowled, but he punched a few keys. The picture switched to split screen, high-angle shots from the elevator car’s top corners. “I’ll run this back one minute earlier.”
Two men were in the elevator, one in a black tuxedo and one stuffed into an ill-fitting business suit. The second man had a shaved head and a crooked nose. He tugged at his collar, loosened his poorly knotted tie. Part of a neck tattoo peeked above the shirt. The men stood side by side against the back wall.
“Zoom in on the tattoo. Let’s see if we can tell what it is. Hmm. Can’t tell, but it looks familiar.” I gestured at the screen. “Keep going.”
A few seconds later, the doors slid apart and Graciela entered the elevator unsteadily. Her purse swung from the shoulder chain. A couple followed, arm-in-arm. The man wore a blue tuxedo that matched his date’s long, blue cocktail dress.
“Must be Cowboys fans,” I said.
Graciela raised a champagne flute to her lips, emptied it, and placed it on the elevator floor in the corner. She steadied herself with a hand on the wall as she straightened up. Her face came into sharp focus on the monitor.
Wally froze the picture. “Is that who I think it is?”
I shrugged. “Who do you think she is?”
“The Latin Angel… what’s-her-name. The super model…” He snapped his fingers. “Graciela! That’s it—she’s Graciela, ain’t she?”
“Right on.”
“I saw on the television where she’s the Jets quarterback’s fiancée.”
“That’s right.”
The guard seemed more engaged in helping me now. “See this indicator?” He pointed to the lower left corner of the screen. “She got on at the third floor, where the Palm Paradise Pavilion is. That’s where the network threw the party.” He punched the keyboard and the video played again.
Blue Tuxedo put his arm around the woman in the blue dress and copped a feel. She put her left hand down and stroked his crotch discreetly, if you can stroke a crotch discreetly in a crowded elevator. She looked at him and winked. His jacket gapped open to reveal a silver cummerbund. Their mouths moved as they smiled at each other and talked.
“I don’t suppose you have audio, do you, Wally?”
“Too many privacy issues, man. Just the video.”
“Just as well—that conversation’s gotta be X-rated.”
The woman leaned her head on Blue Tuxedo’s shoulder, blew in his ear, then kissed him with her mouth open. The other two men stood in the back, oblivious to the enthusiastic display of young love. Some people have no romance in their souls. Graciela leaned her head against the side wall, oblivious to the other people in the car. In a few seconds, the door opened on the eighteenth floor and the two Cowboys fans strolled off, groping each other as they went.
After the door closed, Graciela straightened up and spoke over her shoulder to Black Tuxedo. He took an envelope from inside his jacket and leaned close to the woman. Crooked Nose watched from the back. Black Tuxedo and Graciela exchanged a few words as she opened her purse and stuck the envelope in it. She wrapped her hand around the top of the purse, covering the clasp.
Graciela flashed a plastic smile at Black Tuxedo as the elevator door opened. Crooked Nose exited first. His jacket bulged under his left arm.
“Freeze that, Wally. I want a printout of that frame.”
“Yeah, yeah, anything you say.” Wally tapped the keyboard. “Is that bulge a gun?”
“Yes.”
“And that tattoo on his neck?”
“It’s a prison tattoo.”
Wally shivered. “Geez, maybe Graciela is in danger after all.” He started the video again. Graciela said something to Black Tuxedo as he waved and followed Crooked Nose from the elevator car.
Wally pointed at the screen. “That’s the thirty-fourth floor.”
“Let’s come back to that floor in a minute, Wally. I want to see which rooms they went into.”
On the screen, Graciela leaned against the wall and took off her shoes. This time she grabbed the purse in a death grip. Whatever she had in that purse was valuable.
“What do you think was in the envelope?”
“His Grandma’s family recipe for cornbread.”
We watched the video until Graciela exited the elevator. No one else entered or left the car.
Wally punched the keyboard again. “Okay, hall camera on thirty-four coming up.”
Crooked Nose looked both ways and nodded his shiny, bald head to Black Tuxedo before he exited.
“Freeze that too, Wally. I need several blow-ups of those guys.”
The two men stopped at a door. Black Tuxedo pointed back toward the elevator, said something to Crooked Nose, then entered a room on the right.
“All the units on that side are suites, Chuck. They overlook Seeti Bay. The rooms on the left have a city view and they’re smaller.”
Crooked Nose entered a door on the left.
“What suite number did that guy in the tuxedo enter?”
“I can’t tell from the video; it’s too far down the corridor to see.”
“Can you access the keycard files and tell which rooms on that floor were entered at—“ I glanced at the screen, “2:20 a.m.?”
“I didn’t think of that. Hold on.” The guard swiveled to another computer and pulled the keyboard over. “Suite 3406. The ex-con is in 3405.”
“Thanks, Wally.” I wrote that down. “Now let’s look at the elevator video again and see where those two guys got on.”
Wally ran
the elevator video back three minutes. “They’re already on the elevator.”
So I noticed. “Run it back another three minutes.”
The elevator held another couple. They got off on twenty-six. The empty elevator rose and stopped at thirty-four. Black Tuxedo and Crooked Nose got on and took their positions at the rear of the car. For the next six minutes the two men stood motionless as the elevator went down to the lobby, up to the thirty-ninth floor, and back down to the lobby. Other people got on and off the elevator, but the two men never moved. Finally, the video showed Graciela and the Cowboy fans getting on.
“You think they were waiting for Graciela to get on that elevator?”
I nodded. “Now let’s go back to the thirty-seventh floor camera and watch for Graciela when she came out of the suite.”
Chapter 6
Brian Wallenda, manager of the Super Bowl headquarters hotel, spread the stack of pictures on his desk. “What you’re asking is highly irregular, Mr. McCrary.” Even on a Sunday, he wore a suit and tie.
“Call me Chuck. This may involve a guest’s safety. The guest is Graciela Perez, the fiancée of the Jets starting quarterback. That’s why I asked you to meet me here on a Sunday.”
“I’m well aware who Graciela is. I don’t live in a cave.” Wallenda pursed his lips. “Frankly, if not for the potential danger to a guest, I wouldn’t entertain your request—not without a search warrant.”
“The bald man with the prison tattoo carried a gun. He and the man in the black tuxedo rode the elevator up and down twice, waiting for Graciela to get on. All I want you to do is help me identify the men in the elevator with her.”
“That would require accessing the hotel’s reservation system and our guests’ personal information.” He slipped a finger inside his collar and tugged. “That goes against my hotel training.”
“How about having a guest kidnaped from your hotel? Does that go against your training?”
Wallenda’s face blanched. “I… I, uh, I don’t know what to say. We’ve never had anything like this happen before.” He straightened up. “You don’t know she was kidnaped.”
“I don’t know that she wasn’t, either. I do know she was with two suspicious men and now she’s disappeared.” I’d had enough of this guy tiptoeing around the issue. “Let’s cut to the chase. Can we go off the record, Mr. Wallenda?”
Wallenda raised an eyebrow. “About what?”
“Times being what they are, we both know that it wouldn’t damage the reputation of the Port City Palace if Graciela were discovered to have a controlled substance in her hotel suite.”
“The Palace is a big hotel.” Wallenda shrugged. “No one expects us to control what goes on in our rooms or what guests bring in with them. And everyone knows what celebrities are like.”
“Right. But if she obtained the controlled substance from another hotel guest in your elevator, and that guest was accompanied by an armed bodyguard who is an ex-convict, and your surveillance cameras captured the exchange…” I gestured to the photos on the desk. “And that guest disappeared from your hotel in the middle of the night. It wouldn’t look good if it came out that you ignored the potential danger to a guest—especially a high-profile guest like Graciela.”
“Should I call the police?”
“Not yet. The police never take a missing person report seriously for the first forty-eight hours, unless it’s a child or there’s evidence of foul play. Let’s keep my investigation low-key for now.”
“If I’ve learned anything in thirty years in the hotel business, it’s that things you hope won’t come out, always do. Always. More so with a celebrity. It’s just a matter of time.” He pushed the stack of pictures together. “You’re right. I’ve got to do something. Okay, Chuck, we keep it off the record. Now tell me: What the hell’s going on in my hotel?”
“That’s what I intend to find out. And when I do, you’ll be the second one to know—after Bob Martinez.”
###
“Come in, Mr. McCrary. Whatever this big emergency is that couldn’t wait ‘til tomorrow, it had better be a matter of life and death, or else I’m gonna be severely pissed.” Giselle Foreman, the chief accountant for the Port City Palace, looked at me over the top of her glasses. “Since I can’t be pissed off at my own boss, you’re next in line. Do I make myself clear?”
I didn’t have to be a detective to know that she wasn’t a happy camper.
“Now convince me this was worth me missing a family trip to the beach on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.” She sighed. “Okay, okay, I know it’s not your fault. The boss may know all about managing a hotel, but he stopped using computers when they put more than ten buttons on them. He said to help you any way I can, keep your visit under my hat, and not to ask questions.” She gestured to a chair across from her desk. “Let’s get this over with.”
I slid the pictures across the desk. “I need to know who these two men are. They’re in rooms 3405 and 3406.”
“That’s all?” Foreman glanced at the pictures as she slid a keyboard in front of her. “Why couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?”
“It was Mr. Wallenda’s decision to call you in. And, while I agree with that decision, he should be the one to tell you why it’s important.”
“Well, he has conveniently gone home and left me holding the bag.”
“I sympathize with you. If it’s any consolation, this is ruining my Sunday too.”
She waved it off. “Oh, forget it. I’m just venting. 3405 and 3406, you said? Let’s see… those rooms are both registered to XPVV Corporation. They were checked in with a corporate American Express card at the same time.” She pushed the keyboard aside. “That doesn’t help, does it?”
“Did they sign a register card when they checked in?”
Foreman glanced at the screen. “They checked in yesterday. The register cards would be scanned into our data base by now.” She pulled the keyboard over again. “Here they are.” She rotated the monitor so I could see.
The two signatures were illegible.
To order Quarterback Trap, click here Amazon.com.
Dangerous Friends
The fourth Carlos McCrary novel, Dangerous Friends is available in both electronic and print editions on Amazon.com. Free to Kindle Unlimited members.
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A fast-paced action thriller about ecoterrorism, political corruption, and felony murder.
Chuck McCrary is a wisecracking former Green Beret turned private investigator with a special genius for helping people in trouble—especially if they can pay him for his efforts.
Michelle Babcock, the granddaughter of South Florida’s legendary restaurateur and Chuck’s friend, Hank Hickham, has disappeared. She wakes Chuck with a 4:30 a.m. phone call, desperate for help. James Ponder, her drug addicted boyfriend, has involved her in a double murder that could put her in prison for life unless Chuck can find her a way out.
Michelle only expected free tutoring in college chemistry when she slept with James Ponder, a graduate student obsessed with global warming protests, who has a talent for ecoterrorism. Instead, she is sucked into an unhealthy circle of friendships surrounding an amoral professor whose secret agenda has yielded him millions of dollars with more loot to come. Michelle is swept up in a nightmare of political corruption, terrorism, and mega-million-dollar crimes.
Chuck uncovers a conspiracy involving arson, murder, and the Chicago mob. A mysterious millionaire has masterminded a string of mega-million-dollar stock market scams that reach back for five years. The mastermind intends to cut his losses by murdering anyone who can lead the cops back to him. That includes Michelle, Chuck, and the conscienceless professor, who becomes Chuck’s unwilling ally.
###
One reason we keep turning pages in Dangerous Friends is to watch the gripping character of Chuck McCrary. The skill with which he handles clients, police detectives, mob assassins, and FBI agents—all while controlling the outcomes of the case—is as remarkable as the
clues he uncovers. Chuck seeks justice without regard for the legalities involved and tries to leave the world just a little better than he found it.
A preview of
Chapter 1
The burner phone rang five times before James Ponder got it out of his pocket to answer. “What took you so long?” the familiar raspy voice asked. “You think this is a hobby or something, Lamp Post?”
“No, no, no, Mr… I mean, Redwood.” Ponder caught himself in time—only code names over the phone. Or at least over that phone. “No,” he finished lamely. He knew that Redwood would reject any explanation and he couldn’t tell him the truth. “Sorry.”
“Are you high again?”
“No, no. I haven’t had a hit all day.” Ponder inhaled, held his breath, and admired the beauty of the swirling smoke that rose from the hand-rolled cigarette.
“Hmph. You must to be clear-headed,” Redwood said. “There are millions of dollars at stake here. As well as the future of our planet. The package is on the way. It’s due to arrive tonight. We can’t change the schedule now. I’ve already made the arrangements from my end. Don’t fail me again, Lamp Post.”
Ponder released the smoke from his lungs. “What time do we make the delivery?” He coughed.
“I’m waiting to hear from my other source. I’ll call Kinetic with the time. But you do have the present ready, right?”
“It’s ready. We’re just waiting for the, uh, package to arrive. I have good news. You know how I complained that we need more dedicated volunteers. I may have another recruit for the, uh, the real work we do.” He took another hit. Man, this is good shit.
“Listen, Lamp Post. I told you, three people are enough. The more people involved, the trickier the security gets.”
“This girl is different, Redwood. She’s smart, she’s dedicated to the cause, and she comes from a rich family.” And she’s been screwing my brains out since that party last Halloween. “I’ve worked her around for five months, bringing her along. She’s a perfect addition. I think it’s time we brought her in on the operation.”
Day of the Tiger (A Carlos McCrary Mystery Thriller Book 5) Page 29
