by Robert Greer
“And Stafford trusted the two of you enough to let you steal from him in the hope that he’d get an upgraded replacement. Sounds idiotic.”
“Not if you’re rich enough to take the risk, and the game you’re playing gives you your jollies. Those few books I did take from Stafford’s library were valuable in their own right, but their replacements were the kind of truly rare birds that would’ve taken him years to collect. In a sense it was just like I was shopping for a new car for him. Vannick and I got to keep the money from the trade-in, and Stafford got a brand-new car free. He really wasn’t risking very much.”
“So much for the money, I understand that,” said CJ, still looking bewildered. “What was the big deal about having the run of Stafford’s library?” When Counts didn’t answer, CJ said, “You’ve already told me enough to guarantee yourself two to five years in prison. If you were involved in Luis Del Mora’s murder, you can add another twenty. Might as well spit out the whole nine yards.”
Thinking what twenty to twenty-five years in prison would be like, Counts asked, “Do you know anything about rare photographs?”
“A little.”
“Do you know what a daguerreotype is?”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“Well, for years word on the street has been that Stafford had a very valuable and historic one stashed somewhere in his house.”
Deciding that it was his turn to startle Counts, CJ said, “Yeah, a missing daguerreotype of the Golden Spike ceremony. I know.” He watched a look of astonishment spread across Counts’s face. “So you had your own little private gambit. You steal books both from and for Stafford, and while you’re at it you search through his library for a million-dollar photograph. Sounds pretty slick.”
“How’d you know about that photograph?”
CJ smiled. “The same way as you. Word on the street. The real question is, did you find it?”
“No, and I searched every nook and cranny, book, artifact, desk drawer, and cabinet in that library at least twice,” said Counts, sounding frustrated.
“Maybe it wasn’t in the library; ever thought of that?”
“Certainly. But since I had the run of the place, it was clearly worth looking. Even if I didn’t find the daguerreotype, until Luis Del Mora got killed Vannick and I still had the book-replacement deal going for us.”
CJ laughed. “Guess you and Vannick should’ve figured that somebody else might’ve also been looking to do some serious stealing from Stafford—like Luis Del Mora for instance. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so quick to pass him off as an amateur.” CJ shook his head. “The three of you take the cake. A rich man who steals from himself, a thieving pompous-ass brother, and a security-systems con man pretending to be a mobster. Now here’s the real question: Did any one of the three of you kill Luis Del Mora?”
“I didn’t!” Counts shouted.
“Well, somebody did, and it wasn’t the Mad Hatter.”
“What about Stafford? Maybe Del Mora stumbled across the daguerreotype before I had the chance to find it and Stafford killed him to get it back.”
“Possible,” said CJ, already well ahead of Counts.
“Or Vannick?”
CJ wagged an index finger at Counts. “My, my, how fast we turn on our friends.”
“Vannick claims to be connected. He could’ve hired someone to kill Del Mora.”
“And kill Oliver Lyman too?” asked CJ, watching the muscles in Counts’s face suddenly go slack. “Damn, Counts, looks like you just saw a ghost. Wanta fill me in?”
Counts inched up from his uncomfortable position in the trunk. “I sold Lyman a few things over the years. In fact, he’s the one who first told me about the missing daguerreotype. He had railroad-industry collectible connections.”
“I see. Ever heard of a woman named Loretta Sheets? She deals in transportation collectibles.”
“No.”
Uncertain whether Counts was lying, CJ asked, “Sell anything to Lyman recently?”
“I sold him a couple of books I took from Stafford’s library. Books that both Vannick and Stafford knew about, of course.”
CJ smiled. “So now I know why you were running. You dropped out of sight hoping to separate yourself from Lyman.”
“I didn’t kill him!” Counts began to cry.
CJ scrutinized the pitiful little black man, scrunched into the trunk of his car, his face contorted, his body limp, and decided he’d pressed Counts to the breaking point. Rubbing his throbbing shoulder, CJ shook his head and said, “No, my friend, the only person you killed is yourself.”
Amanda Hunter had come to expect that questions concerning Luis Del Mora’s murder would come via Billy DeLong. She was caught off guard when, ten minutes after leaving a tearful Theodore Counts slumped in his trunk with a warning that he’d call the cops in a heartbeat if Counts didn’t dance to his tune, CJ called from the Bel Air to ask her whether the person who’d called the ranch several months back asking about daguerreotype photographs could possibly have been Loretta Sheets.
Hunter dampened CJ’s enthusiasm for turning his investigation Loretta Sheets’s way, saying that the telephone inquiry had come not from a woman but from a nasal-sounding man. Aware that the caller could have had Sheets sitting at his side communicating instructions, CJ still refused to eliminate the feminist museum curator from his list of murder suspects.
But since Amanda’s description of the nasal-sounding caller clearly fit Howard Stafford, CJ decided to give Paul Grimes a call to see if he had any muckraking insight into how Stafford might have amassed his antiquarian book and Western ephemera collection. Grimes was point-blank in his assessment: “The son of a bitch outbid or outstole the competition, the same way rich folks end up with most things.”
CJ ended the call and sped through an intersection, catching the tail end of a caution light. He checked the rearview mirror to make certain the long arm of the law hadn’t caught his transgression before speed-dialing Julie Madrid to see if he couldn’t get a few more specifics on how Stafford might have surreptitiously assembled his rare book collection.
CHAPTER 30
“We’ve got action at Borg’s,” Morgan Williams said to CJ from his cell phone. “I’ve been tryin’ like hell to call you for the past five minutes, and all I’ve been gettin’s your voice mail.” Morgan’s eyes remained locked on the front entrance of Alexie Borg’s condo.
“I’ve been talking to Julie about the Del Mora case,” said CJ.
“Well, you best put that on the back burner for now if you’re interested in hookin’ up with our girl Celeste. ’Cause a big blond guy with a buzz cut and top-heavy muscle pulled up in front of the building in a black Range Rover about five minutes ago. Has to be Borg.”
CJ had never seen Borg. The description he’d given Morgan was one that Mario Satoni had provided. “Does he have a woman with him?”
“Not that me or Dittier can see, and we got a direct bead on him from across the street. A valet just took three suitcases outta the back of the Range Rover. Looks like Borg’s plannin’ on takin’ a trip.”
“Wonder why he pulled up to the front of the place instead of heading straight for the underground garage.”
“Thought the same thing myself. When I ran it past Dittier, he said it’s because Borg’s tryin’ to give somebody outside the building a signal that he’s ready to go.”
“Could be.”
CJ checked his watch to see if he had time to join Morgan and Dittier and realized he was thirty minutes late for dinner with Mavis. Shaking his head, he mumbled, “Shit!”
“What’s that?”
“Nothing. Just late for something. Stay put and keep your eyes out for Celeste. I’m at 6th and Colorado Boulevard. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“You gonna fly?” asked Morgan.
“Gonna do my best.” CJ floored the Bel Air’s accelerator, and sped west.
CJ, Dittier, and Morgan staked out Borg’s building for the next hour
without sighting Borg or Celeste. The Range Rover was gone, and the chilly night air had Dittier shivering.
Morgan shook his head dejectedly. “There ain’t no way in or outta that place except the garage, the front door, two emergency exits, and a trash-pickup area out back. I’ve checked. With all them bags he’s packin’, I don’t think Borg’s gonna use the last three.”
Wrapping himself in a warming bear hug, Dittier signed to Morgan, “I’m cold.”
Morgan looked at CJ and said, “I think Dittier’s comin’ down with somethin’. He was cold all last night.”
CJ took off his jacket and draped it over the peacoat he’d given Dittier earlier. “That better? I can stay another fifteen minutes, then I’ve gotta head for Mavis’s,” he added, checking his watch.
Dittier adjusted the jacket, eyed the rip in CJ’s shirt and the bloody bandage beneath it, and nudged Morgan, pointing at CJ’s injury.
“How’d you get that?” asked Morgan.
“Talking to a librarian.”
“Must’ve involved one hell of an overdue book fine.”
“Give or take a million,” said CJ, smiling.
Morgan whistled in amazement. “Guess from now on you’ll remember to return your books when they’re due.”
“Sure will,” said CJ, glancing up at Borg’s condo, his thoughts on Celeste.
In the final fifteen minutes that CJ remained on stakeout, Lenny McCabe and Julie Madrid both checked in by cell phone, Julie to say that Jake LeBow, a friend of hers who owned an antiquarian book shop in Cherry Creek, had less than honorable things to say about Howard Stafford, claiming that in the used-and rare-book trade, Stafford not only operated without conscience but seemed to enjoy playing fast and loose with the rules.
On the heels of that call, McCabe called to say that the city engineers had given him the okay to go back into his building and retrieve his things. “And they were pretty pissed that your half of the duplex was already cleaned out,” he added in a huff. “I didn’t tell them that if I hadn’t been scared my half of the place was gonna collapse on my ass, it would’ve been empty too.” When McCabe asked CJ where he was, CJ glanced up at Alexie Borg’s condo and said, “Out checking on our bomber.”
“You got a lead on who did us in?”
“A thread of one. I’ve got Morgan and Dittier keeping an eye on a suspect.”
Sounding relieved that the dangerous aspects of finding their bomber had fallen CJ’s way, McCabe said, “Great. But I’m calling for another reason as well. I’m wondering if Morgan and Dittier can help me move some of my stuff out of the store? I’ll pay them real good, and I won’t need them for more than a morning.”
“Not unless I get some backup here,” said CJ. “Let me make a call to Wyoming and see if there’s a way to free them up.”
“Appreciate it. I’m here at the store. And CJ, we need to talk. Things are gonna start moving real fast once I get the okay to redo the building. I need us both on the same page, remember?”
“I hear you, Lenny.”
“Just remember, you think long, you think wrong, my man.”
“For now why don’t you just worry about getting your stuff out of the building. Let me make that call to Wyoming. I’ll call you right back.”
“Call me back as soon as you hear,” McCabe said.
CJ stowed his phone and walked over to Morgan, who had a pair of binoculars trained on Borg’s condo. “Any movement inside?”
“Nope.”
CJ shook his head and glanced over at Dittier, who was still shivering. “You and Dittier up for a warmer, higher-paying job?”
“Don’t matter to me,” said Morgan. “But I except it would sit real well with Dittier.”
“That was Lenny McCabe on the phone. He got the okay to move his stuff out of his store, and he needs some help. You up to helping if I can get Billy to fill in here?”
“Let me check with Dittier.” Morgan stepped over to Dittier and began signing. Responding to Dittier’s eager nod, he turned back to CJ. “When’s McCabe need us?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“When will we be done here?”
“As soon as I get an okay from Billy. Meantime, I’ll stay,” said CJ, realizing he had a problem. It was an hour-and-a-half drive from Cheyenne to Denver, which meant he was going to have to cancel his dinner date with Mavis. As he slipped his cell phone out of his pocket to call Billy, he thought about which of the two calls he was about to make would cause him the most grief: asking Billy to drive down from Cheyenne at nine o’clock at night to pull stakeout duty in thirty-two-degree weather or canceling dinner with Mavis. Deep down he already knew the answer.
The temperature had dropped to thirty degrees when CJ finally passed off the Alexie Borg stakeout to a road-weary Billy DeLong and headed for Mavis’s. During the drive he couldn’t shake the sense, as he cruised down Welton Street and past eighty-year-old Five Points landmarks, that he was being followed.
He pulled up in front of Mavis’s Curtis Street Queen Anne, took a deep breath, looked around carefully, and got out of the Bel Air. He wondered if Celeste had him so spooked that he was starting to imagine things. He was a few steps from the front stairs when Mavis opened the door. Barefoot, dressed in faded jeans, and swallowed by one of CJ’s old chambray shirts, she looked relieved. “I’ve been worried,” she said, embracing CJ as he stepped inside.
CJ kissed her on the forehead and squeezed her tightly. “Had something to take care of.”
“CJ, you promised to stay in touch.”
“No need. I’m close to wrapping up the Del Mora thing.” CJ slipped an arm around Mavis’s waist and walked her toward the kitchen. “Remember, I need the money.”
Unwilling to light the flame on a midnight argument, Mavis asked, “How close?”
“A day, maybe two.”
“I hope so because I can’t go down that road again, CJ.” Toying with her engagement ring, she said, “I’ll give you back your ring first.”
A knot rose in CJ’s throat as he drank in the determined look on Mavis’s face. “I’m just helping Flora Jean out of a bind. Two days. I guarantee it.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Grasping Mavis’s left hand in his and squeezing it, CJ smiled and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Uncertain how fast he and Flora Jean could really bring closure to the Luis Del Mora murder, if at all, and unwilling to mention that he and Celeste Deepstream were again engaged in their own personal war, he simply said, “Okay.”
Draped in a poncho and with a black scarf wrapped over her head, Theresa watched the lights go out at Mavis’s a little after twelve-thirty. She’d been watching Floyd’s every move for the past six hours, locked on his tail from the time he’d left Theodore Counts’s garage. She had the feeling that he might have noticed a vehicle following him when he’d left LoDo and headed down Welton Street for Mavis Sundee’s, so she’d backed off briefly. Although she was tired and drained mentally, she planned to stay with Floyd until he took her to the end of the road they were both traveling, and peace.
Arthur Vannick worked out at his 24 Hour Fitness club from eleven-thirty to twelve-thirty two nights a week. He liked to boast that because his workouts crossed the midnight hour, he always maintained a lethal physical presence in two worlds. Perspiring from a heavy workout and a steaming shower, Vannick had just ambled across the first floor of the club’s parking structure and up to his car when a sneaker-clad Pinkie Niedemeyer stepped from behind a concrete pillar, took two long steps forward, and jammed the nickel-plated barrel of a .44 Magnum into Vannick’s left ear.
“Mr. Vannick? Arthur Vannick?” Pinkie said calmly, well aware of whom he was speaking to. “Don’t move, and don’t look back. I get very agitated when I’m working and people get fidgety and start to look back. Arms to your side, please.”
Vannick dropped his arms and stood absolutely still.
“Real good. Excellent, in fact. I’ll be brief. I understand you like to make n
oise about being connected. Arthur, my man, you really shouldn’t do that. You’re bearing false witness, and that’s a mortal sin.”
Vannick’s right hand twitched.
“That’s movement,” said Pinkie, eyeing the hand. “I told you not to move.”
Vannick pressed his hand to his thigh.
“Good thinking, Arthur. Now, here’s the deal. I’m gonna ask you several questions, and you’re gonna answer them for me. Then I’ll give you a set of instructions, and I’ll leave. That is, unless I don’t like your answers, and I dislike wrong answers, Arthur, just as much as I detest twitching. So here we go, and please, a little honesty, Arthur. Have you been making claims you’re connected, whatever in the hell that means?”
“Yes.” Vannick’s answer was a breath of fear.
“See, wasn’t that easy? Now here are your instructions. Don’t ever do that again. Are we square?”
“Yes.”
“Second question. Have you been askin’ around tryin’ to get somebody to drop a dime on CJ Floyd or any of his friends?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t ever do that again. Are we square?”
“Yes.”
“Final question. Do you have a gun in that phallic symbol you’re driving?”
“No,” said Vannick, trying his best not to tremble.
“Well, you’re stupid not to.” Pinkie nudged the gun barrel a little deeper. “Here’s a lesson to take home with you, friend. Don’t ever lie about who you know, your military record, or the size of your dick. And never, ever make the mistake of putting out feelers for a hit on somebody who’s got well-connected friends. Are we square?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now step into that cock rocket of yours and move on down the line.” Pinkie nudged Vannick into the front seat of his Porsche and gently closed the door. Seconds later the engine roared to life. As he sped away, Vannick stole a quick look backward to see a man wearing a Ronald Reagan Halloween mask disappear behind a concrete support.
It was two a.m. by the time Arthur Vannick finished packing his clothes and wrapping four rare books and a miniature oil painting he’d stolen from Howard Stafford’s in butcher paper. Business trips were commonplace for him, so a week away wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows at his office, he hoped.
