Tuesday Morning
LONDON WOKE EARLY Tuesday morning and decided her apartment was too small. In fact, her whole life was too small. She got the coffee going, fired up her laptop and logged on to the Colorado Bar Association website to see if any new job openings had been posted in the last twelve hours.
None had.
Well, that wasn’t exactly true.
One had.
Vesper & Bennett was looking for an associate to add to its intellectual property department. She may as well apply to be the president of the whole freaking universe.
She ate a nonfat yogurt, snapped the plastic spoon in half before throwing it away, put on a baseball cap and pulled her hair through the back. Then she carried her 20-speed Trek bicycle down the apartment stairway to ground level. Fifteen minutes later she arrived at the 24-Hour Fitness on Alameda where she worked the weights for a half hour and then hit the elliptical trainer until her T-shirt was soaked.
She wasn’t big; five-three, a hundred and five pounds.
Some people might say she was too small but she liked her size. It fit her personality. Plus she was in good shape and her body moved easily. She could get up and sit back down a hundred times a day and never even notice. If she needed a paper clip, and it was on the other side of the room, she’d just go over and get it; no problem.
She liked her proportions too.
Her chest would never turn heads. Her thighs, ass and stomach, on the other hand, were just about perfect. When guys felt her up that’s where they spent their time. In the bedroom, men liked to have her on top because she was so light and such a good wiggler, not that she’d wiggled in over four months.
She was the cute librarian when she pulled back her hair.
When her hair came down she was a lot more than cute, and when she let her stomach muscles show, heads turned.
She showered at the club and then peddled the Trek over to the Starbucks on Alameda. When she arrived, the woman—Venta Devenelle—was already waiting for her.
YESTERDAY, WHILE PICKING PLATES OFF THE FLOOR, London got a good enough look at Venta to tell that she was incredibly attractive. Now she realized that the woman was even more beautiful than she initially realized.
She was five-eight or nine with a strong body and long blond hair—a California lifeguard meets movie star look.
Most of the men in the place had half an eye on her.
They drank two cups of coffee, chatting about everything and nothing, before Venta got to the point of the meeting.
“Okay, so here’s the deal,” Venta said. “I’m a private investigator with a small office on Market Street, in San Francisco. About two months ago, in early April, I got a strange phone call. The caller said he was with a law firm, but didn’t want to disclose the name of it because the firm wanted to hire me for a highly confidential matter, so confidential that they didn’t even want the name of the firm in my files. It turned out that the firm wanted to get some dirt on a man named Bob Copeland.”
“Why?”
“Good question,” Venta said. “The same one I asked, as a matter of fact. But the man wouldn’t say. Anyway, the firm had information that Copeland was going to be traveling to Bangkok. They suspected that he was going there to have sex with lady-boys. You know what a lady-boy is, right?”
No.
London didn’t.
“Well, they’re basically young Asian men who look and act exactly like girls, except that they have a cock,” Venta said.
“Oh.”
“Most of them are actually quite beautiful,” she added. “Anyway, the firm wanted me to follow Copeland to Bangkok and confirm that he was screwing lady-boys. I was also supposed to get as much documentation as I could.”
“Meaning photographs?”
“Exactly,” Venta said. “Preferably of Copeland and a lady-boy mingling or drinking together, but if not that, at least pictures of him walking in and out of bars that had reputations for lady-boys. I was supposed to take a digital camera. Then, if I got pictures, I was supposed to download them to my laptop and email them to myself. That way I could download them once I got back in the States and would still have them even if my camera and laptop got lost or stolen.”
“Clever,” London said.
“Routine, actually,” Venta said. “Anyway, I struck a deal with the law firm. They agreed to pay me a total of $20,000—win, loose or draw—plus all my expenses. Half was to be paid up front and the other half was to be paid on completion. Ten thousand dollars in cash arrived at my office by courier the next day. With that money I bought a roundtrip plane ticket to Bangkok and took off.”
She paused.
Her lower lip trembled for a second.
“What happened next is a long story,” she said. “A long ugly story.”
6
Day Two—June 12
Tuesday Morning
A WARM MORNING LIGHT crept into Teffinger’s bedroom and washed it with a golden patina. Venta lay on top of the covers sound asleep. Teffinger got out of bed as unobtrusively as he could, looked at the woman’s incredible naked body for a few seconds and decided he was the luckiest man on the face of the earth. He showered downstairs so as to not wake her, left a note on the kitchen table and ate a bowl of cereal in the Tundra as he drove east on the 6th Avenue freeway to headquarters.
He flicked the radio stations and got mostly jock-talk until he got to 105, the oldies station, just as “Black Velvet” started playing. He left it there and concentrated on trying to not get blinded by the sun as it lifted off the horizon directly ahead of him.
As usual, he was the first person to arrive at work.
He kick-started the coffee machine and put his cup under the flow as soon as it started, filling the cup only halfway and then adding hot water.
It was too strong, almost downright nasty but better than waiting.
Alan English was starting to turn into a mystery. After talking to the girlfriend last night, a woman by the name of Barbara Smith, Teffinger didn’t think she did it.
From what he had learned so far, English was the pilot of a jet jointly owned by six companies. He had just returned from Bangkok and apparently got stabbed in the back before he even got his suitcases out of his car.
The girlfriend would have known when he was coming back.
She also had a key.
But so far she didn’t have a motive.
She seemed to be telling the truth about not having a clue why English got killed or who did it.
Nothing had been taken from the man’s house, so rule out robbery.
SYDNEY HEATHERWOOD SHOWED UP AT 7:30, gave Teffinger a weird look, and headed to the coffee pot without saying anything. She plopped down in the seat in front of his desk and took a noisy slurp from a disposable cup. She wore a white blouse that looked extra crisp against her African American skin. Teffinger stole her out of vice more than a year ago. Although she was technically still the newbie of the homicide unit, she had already cut her teeth on Denver’s worst.
Adam Sorensen.
Degan Jacks.
Rickey Lost.
“Someone said they saw a woman sitting in your truck last night, while we were processing the scene,” she said.
He shrugged.
“That’s true.”
“A black woman?”
“No, white.”
She frowned. “They’re always white, Teffinger. When are you going to get a black one?”
“I’ve had black women,” he said.
“And?”
“And, they were all nice. I got no complaints. This particular one just happens to be white.”
“How many black women have you had, all told?”
“I don’t know.”
“More than five?”
“I don’t know, I don’t keep count.”
She rolled her eyes.
“All men keep count, Teffinger. So more than five—or what?”
He leaned back.
“Yeah, more than five.�
��
“More than ten?” she asked.
“I don’t know. About ten, maybe. Why?”
“Nothing. I just want to be sure you’re not missing out on the best thing in life.”
“So you’re taking care of me, is that what it comes down to?”
She nodded. “Someone has to. Tell me about whitey. Is she just another bed-buddy or are we all going to have to put up with you going gaga again?”
TEFFINGER TOLD HER THE STORY. The woman—Venta Devenelle—was a private investigator from San Francisco. She was in the process of relocating her practice to Denver and happened to see Teffinger on the news a couple of weeks ago. She liked him, did some investigation and decided that he was a solid guy—someone worth meeting.
So she tailed him last night, hoping he would end up somewhere public—a restaurant or something—where she could accidentally bump into him and make his acquaintance.
They ended up meeting and hit it off.
End of story.
“That’s your story?” Sydney asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
She laughed.
“Don’t get me wrong, Teff, you’re not half bad looking,” she said. “But do you really believe that a woman’s going to see you on the news and get so lightheaded that she has to hunt you down?”
He cocked his head.
“You think she’s lying?”
“Damn straight she’s lying,” Sydney said. “The only question is—why? My guess is this. She’s going to want to tap you in connection with her P.I. work. First she’ll sleep with you. Then, a month or two from now, you’ll get a phone call. Teff, could you do me a little favor, and run some prints for me? What do you know about a guy named Joe Blow?”
She laughed.
“What?” he questioned.
“No, here’s the phone call you’re going to get,” she said. “Teff, I happened to be in someone’s house, just snooping around a little, nothing serious. Anyway, there was a big misunderstanding and I just happened to get arrested. Would you have time to come down here and straighten things out for me?”
Teffinger knew he was supposed to laugh but didn’t.
“Do you really think she’s using me?”
She got serious.
“You’re a stud, Teff,” she said. “If we didn’t work together, I’d take a run at you myself. But this is too much of a coincidence. Maybe I can see it better because I’m a woman and can read women better than you. Normal women don’t see guys on TV and then hunt them down. Something fishy is going on. My advice to you is to watch your back.”
He chewed on the words.
“And above everything else,” she added, “don’t let the little guy get involved. And especially don’t let him call the shots.”
“The little guy?”
“The little guy, Mr. Happy, Bob, whatever it is that you call him,” she said.
He laughed.
“I’m serious, Teff,” she said. “I know you’ve been looking for someone to be in your life and I know you’ve had some bad luck. I just don’t want to see you have even more bad luck.”
Teffinger stood up, walked over to the coffee pot and refilled. Then he turned and said over his shoulder, “She’s incredibly hot. Did I mention that?”
“Did you hear a word that I just said?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Have you been talking?”
She gave him a sideways look. “Don’t blame me when it all goes south. I did what I could.”
He wrinkled his forehead.
“What?” she asked.
“So is what you said true?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said that if we didn’t work together, you’d take a run at me yourself.”
“I never said any such thing.”
“Oh, okay,” he said. “Too bad, though, because I would have said, Ditto.”
7
Day Two—June 12
Tuesday Morning
LOWER DOWNTOWN—LODO—WAS AN UPSCALE HOTSPOT at the northern edge of Denver given to trendy bars, restaurants and shops, all anchored by Coors Field. Jekker’s loft sat smack dab in the heart of the matter. He stepped onto his balcony with a cup of hot coffee in hand and looked down.
The city buzzed, vibrant and alive.
Jekker was too, but barely.
The fall off the face of the cliff last evening knocked him out—for a long time, actually. He remembered waking up to a pitch-black world, half frozen, not having a clue where he was, before finally making his way back to the Audi and discovering that it was almost midnight.
His entire body ached, even now, every single part of it, but nothing was broken.
One thing he knew for sure.
He’d go back there a third time and get it right.
No stupid-ass mountain was going to beat him, period, end of sentence.
TESSA BLAKE—THE TARGET—TURNED OUT to be a 22-year-old single female with a string of low-paying jobs in her wake, currently employed as a Molly Maid.
Why she had been chosen as a target was beyond Jekker’s comprehension. The best he could figure, she must have seen something she shouldn’t have. Maybe she snooped around a little too much while cleaning someone’s house.
He didn’t know.
He didn’t care.
To him, she was nothing more than a pile of money.
HE FOLLOWED HER FOR A COUPLE OF HOURS in the morning to get a feel for her and then pointed the front end of the Audi west. He gassed up in downtown Morrison at the base of the foothills, then wound up Highway 74 into the mountains through a river canyon that wasn’t quite as spectacular as Clear Creek but was still pretty damn nice.
He passed Idledale, kept going under a clear Colorado sky, then turned onto a gravel road, kicking up a dust trail as he disappeared into thick Ponderosa pines.
A hundred yards down the road he stopped the vehicle in front of a chain-link gate with a warning sign: Private Property. No Trespassing. A second sign said No Hunting and a third said Keep Out. All of the signs were marked with shotgun blast, just to make a point.
He got out, unlocked the gate, drove the Audi through and relocked it.
Then he continued down the road for a half mile into the heart of his 1,000-acre property where he parked in front of three old boxcars, coupled together, sitting on a short stretch of track that dead-ended at either end of the cars.
They had been there when he purchased the property.
He had always been curious how they got there but never curious enough to research it.
Pine scent perfumed the air.
He inhaled deeply and marveled, once again, at how deathly quiet the place was. Not a sound came from anywhere; no traffic, no music, no nothing, except the occasional flap of a bird’s wing or a marmot’s rustle in the brush.
THE BOXCARS HAD BEEN EMPTY when he purchased the property. He linked them together with a wooden deck, converted the middle one into a kitchen and sitting area, and modified the right one into a bedroom and bathroom.
The left car was empty.
A quick inspection of the cars showed that no one had tried to intrude since he had last been there two weeks ago.
Good.
He jogged.
Then shot the 45-pound compound bow as he came up with the perfect plan to take Tessa Blake.
8
Day Two—June 12
Tuesday Morning
LONDON DIDN’T EXACTLY KNOW what ugly story Venta was about to lay on her, but did know that Starbucks wasn’t the place for it, so they stepped outside and walked down Alameda next to heavy traffic.
Venta turned her face to the sky and let the sun fall on it.
“This is better,” she said. “Anyway, I arrived in Bangkok in the afternoon and studied maps, got my bearings, checked my equipment, that kind of thing. Bob Copeland landed just before nightfall, spent an hour in his hotel room, and then headed over to a place called Soi Cowboy, located in a sleazy sex district filled with bl
owjob bars, gender-benders and STDs. I got some pictures of him going into one of the bars and then waited outside. Half an hour later he still hadn’t come out. So I went in, took a seat at the end of the bar and ordered a beer. I was the only white woman in the place. I couldn’t see Copeland anywhere and figured he’d gone into one of the back rooms to get his cock sucked. Then I started getting seriously sleepy. The next thing I knew, I woke up naked, with a splitting headache, in a stone cell.”
London pictured it.
“So someone spiked your drink,” she said.
Venta nodded.
“I was turned into a sex slave,” she said, “a bondage sex slave to be precise. Men would pay to take us to one of the dungeons. They were allowed to do anything to us that their sick little minds could think up.”
“I’LL TELL YOU MORE ABOUT THAT LATER,” Venta said. “Anyway, I was there for about a month when something happened. One of the customers bought me for a snuff.”
“A snuff?”
“Right,” Venta said. “A snuff is where they torture you, usually for days on end, and then kill you for the grand finale. The place didn’t allow snuffs on the premises so if a customer wanted to do a snuff he had to buy the woman outright and then take her somewhere offsite. I was at the point where I had already been paid for, stuffed into the trunk of a car and was being transported. We ended up veering off the road and tumbling down an embankment. The driver died in the crash. I was in the trunk for two full days and nights before someone spotted the wreck.”
“My god,” London said.
“Now let me tell you where you fit into all of this,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened. I’ve done a lot of research. I’ll be the first to admit that drinks get spiked in Bangkok and bad things end up happening, to both men and women. But my mind keeps going back to that first night when I followed Copeland into the bar. I remember the bartender’s eyes falling on me almost immediately. At the time, I thought it was because I was a white woman, a blond one no less, and stood out. But now I think it was because he was expecting me.”
Attorney's Run (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order) Page 2
