by Matt Hilton
I parked my Audi A6 opposite Sheridan’s Parlor and fed the parking meter. Before crossing the busy street I adjusted my SIG Sauer P228 in the small of my back, allowing my shirt to hang over it. I didn’t expect trouble from Sheridan, but who knew if Whalen or one of his underlings were on hand to ensure she said all the right things when the cops did show up? There was no hint from the opaque shop front that anything was amiss, or that Sheridan had even heard the news concerning Candice yet, but she’d know all right.
The Floridian sun was beating down mercilessly, but the streets were packed with tourists, and as I approached the parlor I received more than one knowing look from passersby. I ignored them, and entered the shop, the little brass bell above the door tinkling. The front of the house looked like any other salon or parlor I’d ever graced, and there was no hint of what went on behind the door to the right of the reception counter. I ignored the posters on the walls proclaiming the treatments—everything from Shiatsu, to Swedish massage, to something applied by the way of heated stones—and asked the receptionist if Sheridan was in.
The woman behind the counter was Seminole, with raven hair, high cheekbones, and dark eyes. She was a stunner. She was also suspicious. Offering her my most open face, I said, “Don’t worry, I’m not a cop.”
“Isn’t that exactly what an undercover cop would say?” she asked, her voice as sweet and mellifluous as warm honey.
“Yeah, but then anything he would later say or hear would be deemed entrapment. Don’t worry, I’m not a cop and I’m not here to cause Sheridan any problems. I’m a friend.”
“What’s your name?”
“Joe Hunter.”
Her eyelids closed a fraction. “I’ve heard of you.”
“Good things, I hope?”
She smiled, but didn’t enlighten me. She checked that no one else was about to enter the shop. From inside the smoked glass wasn’t as opaque. People moving past the windows appeared as dim shadows, but none looked to be interested in entering. “Wait here, I’ll go and see if Sheridan can see you.”
With that the woman went through the interior door and closed it behind her, but not before I noticed that her white uniform smock was cut inordinately short and revealed a splendid set of dusky legs set off by six inch heels. I briefly wondered what the rest of the uniform concealed, before scolding myself to keep my mind on the job.
Less than a minute later the woman was back. “Would you like to come through?” she said, holding open the interior door for me, leaning up against the frame.
“Thank you,” I said and went forward. The woman didn’t move, and I had to squeeze past her. We were so close I got a pleasing waft of her perfume, and felt the warmth rising from her. Her eyelashes batted up at me and I could see my face reflected in her dark irises. My earlier resolve about never making out with a prostitute wavered slightly, and I told myself that the beauty was a receptionist, not one the actual girls. But I was kidding myself, and so it seemed was the beauty, because I heard her chuckling at my expense before the door swung shut behind me.
Sheridan Brown was waiting for me at the end of a corridor. Doors to the left and right had been closed, and from behind them I could hear moans of pleasure and the gentle strains of relaxing music. All that you’d expect to hear in a massage parlor. Yeah, right.
Sheridan showed me into her office and I sat on a leather chair against one wall. She perched herself on her desk, crossing long legs as she studied me in turn. Sheridan was in her early fifties now, but there was no denying her beauty. She was part Cuban, part African American. She had a delicious tilt to her eyelids, and full lips, straight black hair to her shoulders as sleek as a panther’s hide. The only thing to spoil her looks was the sadness I caught behind her green eyes.
“You’ve heard about Candice?’ I said.
Sheridan nodded. “I’m expecting the police around anytime soon. I wasn’t expecting you to show up, Joe.”
“Normally it would be none of my business, but I think Candice’s death is tied to something else I’m looking into.”
She surprised me by saying, “William Murray’s suicide?”
“We both know it wasn’t suicide,” I said, “the same way we both know that Candice wasn’t murdered by a random killer.”
Sheridan didn’t reply. She leaned behind her and picked up a pack of Marlboros and flipped them open. She thumbed a cigarette to her lips, then paused, looking at me. She took the cigarette out of her mouth. “Would you like one?”
“I’d kill for one, truth be told. But I’ve given it up. Three years, three months, and twelve days since I had my last one.”
“You actually keep count?”
“I was told things would get better, but I think it was lies. I still crave a cigarette every day. I keep count of how long it is since I gave up just so I can prove the doctors wrong.”
“Why not give in to the inevitable? You’ll return to them sooner or later.”
“I’m a sucker when it comes to inevitability,” I agreed. “But this is one thing I’m sticking with. My other vice—too much caffeine—keeps my mind off nicotine most of the time. I’ll take a coffee if you’ve one on the go.”
She shook her head apologetically. “I send out to Starbucks when I need a kick start,” she said. Placing the Marlboro between her lips she paused once more. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Go for it. This is your place, after all.”
Sheridan laughed to herself as she struck a match. She spoke around the cigarette as she puffed to get it going. “You’re very accommodating, Joe. Some of the johns we get in here are happy to snort coke, or to smoke crack, but pull out a Marlboro in front of them and they get all holier than thou.”
“Hypocrites,” I said.
“Isn’t it a little hypocritical of you giving up smoking when you chance injury or death all the time? I mean the odds of cancer finding your lungs before a bullet does are kind of slim.”
“I wasn’t aware that my activities are such common knowledge,” I said.
“Joe, you’ve taken down more mobsters than Eliot Ness. Everyone on the streets knows that. So do the cops, for that matter. What we don’t know is how you keep getting away with it.”
“Funny isn’t it? I was just wondering the same about Mick O’Neill.”
She went quiet, concentrating on her cigarette. I knew she was thinking hard on how much she could trust me to keep my mouth shut.
“O’Neill was responsible for murdering William Murray; I think he was also behind Candice’s murder. But I need validation, Sheridan.” I waited, hoping my words were enough to prompt her. But she surprised me yet again. She hopped off her desk and walked back and forth, one arm across her chest, the other hand holding her cigarette an inch from her mouth. Then coming to a conclusion, she nodded at the door.
“I think it’s best that you leave, Joe.”
“A minute longer, that’s all I need.”
“There’s nothing I can tell you.”
She was afraid and it was understandable. She didn’t want to end up in an alleyway with a slug in the back of her head the way Candice had.
“So don’t say a thing, other than tell me if I’m on the wrong track, and then I’ll be out of here. No one will hear your name from me, OK?”
She halted in her pacing. Her chest rose and fell a few times before she resigned herself and sat back against the desk.
“Candice saw or heard something she wasn’t meant to. Am I right?”
Sheridan’s silence told it all.
“Maybe she overheard Whalen or one of his boys bragging about what happened to William Murray?”
She shook her head almost imperceptibly.
“But Whalen does know, yeah?”
Her mouth pinched around the cigarette butt.
“Whalen was at O’Neill’s place when Murray supposedly jumped from the r
oof?”
She took out the cigarette and blue smoke wreathed her features. “I didn’t say that.”
“Hang on,” I said, “are you telling me that Candice was at O’Neill’s penthouse, too? With Whalen?”
“I’m not telling you anything of the sort,” Sheridan said. “All I’m saying is that William Murray was a nice guy. Candice was a nice girl. You understand what I am saying?”
I did.
I stood up.
“Did Candice mention what O’Neill was so pissed at her boyfriend for?”
“Not to me,” she said.
“OK, last question and then you’ll be rid of me: was Whalen the one who took Candice on a drive to Palmetto Beach?”
“I’m going to admit that, am I? Don’t forget who owns this building, and who owns me for that matter. If anything happens to Whalen, then that’s my livelihood down the can.”
“Not necessarily. See the thing is, these criminals do certain things through the books to make their businesses appear aboveboard and legal. I can guarantee you that the lease you signed on this place, it will still stand whomever your next landlord is. Plus, the next person to own the building might not take so much off you to turn a blind eye.”
“Better the devil you know . . .” Sheridan was thinking hard, and I could see that the sadness had gone from her gaze, now replaced with something much harder.
“So Whalen is a devil, then?”
“Put it this way,” she said. “Whalen’s boys turned up to collect his usual take of the profit and Candice was standing outside handing out flyers. Then they were gone and so was Candice.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
We said our goodbyes and then I saw myself out. I passed the Seminole beauty, who was sitting at the front counter, and she batted her eyelashes at me. “How was everything, Mr. Hunter?” she said teasingly. “Did Sheridan look after you? Maybe you’ll come back, yes? When the boss isn’t in next time?”
I chuckled. “My relationship with Sheridan is strictly professional.”
“Sheridan’s not the only pro you’ll find here,” she assured me.
“You are shameless,” I told her with a grin.
“I am,” she replied with a wink.
I headed for the exit door, grinning like a mad thing, but the expression was wiped off my face as the little bell tinkled above the door and in stepped Detectives Holker and VanMeter.
“Now why doesn’t it surprise me to find you here?” demanded Holker.
“Old war wound,” I said, rubbing my shoulder. “The hot stone treatment works wonders for me.”
I caught a disapproving glance from VanMeter, as if it pained her to find me in an establishment like this. I thought that maybe it was wishful thinking, but then her next glance went to the Seminole woman and it was definitely one of the green-eyed variety. She knew that we’d been flirting like crazy and that annoyed her as much as my being there at all.
“You should get your head massaged,” VanMeter suggested. “Maybe it’ll allow some good advice to sink in. Stay away from our investigation, Joe.”
Despite how official she made it sound, I knew she was giving me a friendly warning. VanMeter was one of those cops who actually appreciated the fact I was around.
“If I find you interfering in our investigation again, I’ll make sure you go in on a charge,” Holker added.
“I was just offering my condolences to a mutual friend of Candice Berry,” I said, more for Holker’s sake than anyone. “There’s no law against that, is there, Detective Holker?”
“Just get outta here, goddamnit,” Holker snarled.
I was about to say something to knock the jumped up little shit down a peg or two, but the Seminole woman got in before me. Obviously she’d been listening keenly to our conversation, and taking names.
“Detective Holker, it’s so good to see you again so soon. Are you here for your usual, or is there something ‘special’ you wish to try this time?”
Holker practically spluttered, and I caught an amused glint in VanMeter’s eye.
I went out of the door and my grin was back in place.
It was short-lived, though, because as soon as I was on the street—the very place from where Candice Berry was taken—my mind was back on Marvin Whalen and Mick O’Neill.
MARVIN WHALEN WOULD have people believe he’d earned his nickname for his prodigious manhood, but he was having a laugh. He’d gained the moniker “Moby Dick” because he was huge, blubber-fat, and white as snow, like Captain Ahab’s aquatic nemesis. Even under the Floridian sun, he had the sort of complexion that didn’t tan. His short hair, a pale reddish color, was wispy, and he’d either had his eyebrows and lashes burned off in a barbecuing accident or he was naturally hairless. To be honest, his wasn’t the kind of physique I had any desire to imagine nude.
He walked across the street in front of where I’d parked my car, flanked on both sides by two whip-thin Hispanics, his huge belly bouncing with each ponderous step. He was wearing a pale blue shirt that both me and my friend Rink could have fitted inside, and Rink’s built like a pro wrestler. He was also wearing cargo pants, big pockets on the side, and huge white sneakers that glowed ethereally under the street lamps. He didn’t appear to be carrying, but I guessed his homeboys were. As well as baggy jeans and white wife beaters, they had suit jackets on, and as hot as the night was, there was only one reason they’d do so: to conceal the guns in their shoulder rigs.
I made myself a bet that the Hispanic dudes were the same guys who’d lifted Candice Berry off the street outside Sheridan’s Parlor. The gun used to murder her would have been dumped soon afterward, but I also wagered it had been replaced by a new one. Whalen’s crew were into good old fashioned intimidation to extract protection money, and I doubted either of the chumps with Whalen could frighten a little girl without waving a gun under her nose.
Whalen led the way to his crib, a loft apartment over a Thai restaurant. When I’d cased his building earlier I’d grabbed myself a take-out snack of shrimps and noodles, and a large black coffee in a waxed cup. The greasy boxes and empty cup lay in the passenger foot well of my Audi. I’d had a long wait before Whalen returned home, still I guessed my ass wasn’t as chafed as his, judging by the way his cargo pants rode up with every knock-kneed stride he took.
After satisfying my hunger and caffeine habit, I’d spent the rest of the time cleaning and maintaining my gun. Loaded, and ready to go, I leaned forward in my seat and fed it into its carrying position at my lower back. Whalen and his buddies had reached the door up to his loft apartment by then, and I watched as the big man took out a key on a long chain and undid the locks. Partly I expected him to wave off his bodyguards, but it seemed the day’s business wasn’t yet at an end. That suited me fine. Under Whalen’s order one or both of the Hispanics was probably responsible for abducting and murdering Candice, and it was better that I dealt with all of them in one go than have to hunt them down individually. Whalen went inside first, followed by the two skinnies. The door was closed. By now it was late enough that the Thai restaurant had closed its doors, but there was most likely staff members still inside. I didn’t doubt that some of the immigrant workers lived on the premises. I’d no intention of placing any of them at risk, but neither did I want any witnesses to what I had in mind. I waited another half hour until all the lights went off and whoever was inside had locked down tight and retired for the night. I pulled on leather gloves. I then left my car and angled past the front of Whalen’s place and down a narrow alley that ran to the back of the restaurant.
Earlier I’d reconned the alley and knew what I’d find at the back.
I moved through the rear service yard, avoiding Dumpsters and a stack of piled crates by memory and approached the metal fire escape that would take me up to the back of the loft. My earlier scouting mission warned of creaking stairs, an
d now I went up them, avoiding any that would shriek under my weight and announce my approach. I made it to the top without raising any alarm. There I crouched, listening. There was no hint that any witness had seen me from the restaurant, and Whalen and his buddies were laughing too hard to notice the subtle noises of my ascent.
Having jimmied the locks already, I gently eased open the back door, and my ears were assaulted by drunken hilarity. Finished work for the night, the trio was celebrating with liquor and beer. As a background accompaniment to their laughter, I could detect the exaggerated moans and cheesy soundtrack of a skin flick playing on TV. It was like walking in on a college frat party.
The three of them had their backs to me. Whalen was sprawled out in an easy chair that had become misshapen beneath his weight. The two bodyguards—or whatever their role—were on a large couch. They had cans of Bud in hand, joints in their mouths. On a large plasma screen TV three oiled-up naked girls were writhing in mock ecstasy and being very inventive with a can of whipped cream and various items of fruit.
“Now that’s the kind of diet I want to go on!” Whalen whooped, to his friends’ lascivious agreement.
“Yeah. Talk about getting one of your essential five a day,” I said.
My joke didn’t elicit any laughter.
The two Hispanics dropped their cans of beer, and struggled to complete a further two tasks at the same time: they tried to get up and pull out their guns. They weren’t the best when it came to multitasking. By the time they’d struggled partway up from the sunken couch, and inserted their hands under their armpits, I had the barrel of my SIG jammed to the nape of Whalen’s neck.
“Sit down,” I snapped, “and show me your hands. Otherwise those girls are going to be covered in your boss’s brains.”
The skinnies weren’t as stupid as they looked. They showed empty palms.
Without losing contact with his head, I moved around Whalen so that I could face the three of them, and ended up with my SIG wedged under his nose. The rims of his lashless eyelids were puffy and red as Whalen squinted up at me.
“Who . . . who are you and what do you want?” he managed to say, though my gun barrel bumped his teeth a couple of times.
