by Dave Daren
“That’s fine,” I said and relaxed my shoulders so the skittish man wouldn’t see me as a threat. “You can help me in other ways.”
“Like what?” he asked and glanced into the apartment where Ricky and Hank talked with Tommaso. “I can give you money. If that’s what you want.”
“No,” I said. “Money isn’t a problem. However, I’ll need to know more about your operations. Where the ships come into port, how they get where they’re going, your buyers. And everything that you have on the cops that Dian was paying off.”
“What about my Chinese partners?” Drew asked.
“I’ll take everything you have,” I said. “I can use that information to convince them to work with my friends and let you off the hook.”
“You really think that they’ll go for that?” the genius asked. “I mean, you think that they’ll take the hit off of my head if they have someone else to work with?”
“They’re businessmen,” I said. “They aren’t particularly worried about who they’re working with as long as it makes them money. All I have to do is convince them that you’re better as a retired man than as a working partner. And that it would be in their best interests to keep you alive. You may have to agree to a payoff or consultations for that.”
“Okay,” the wide-eyed young man said and nodded his head like a bobblehead. “I can do that. Let’s go inside. I have everything backed up to a portable drive. Just in case I have to leave.”
“Good idea,” I said and then followed him inside.
Hank looked over at me to make sure that I was okay, and I shook my head at the beefy Italian man to tell him to stay where he was. So far I’d managed to convince Drew to work with us, but we still needed to hurry it along before the other players made their appearances. The bodyguard seemed to understand what I meant and went back to his conversation.
The paranoid genius led me down the hallway with the bedrooms and bathrooms, stopped outside of the one at the end of the hall, and used an iris scanner to let us inside. The master bedroom had a king-sized bed with a thick white comforter, a bathroom suite to the right, and a wall of computers to the left that would’ve made Gabriele jealous. Some of the monitors showed the same security feeds that I’d seen in the front room, but others ran what looked like algorithms.
“It’s all right here,” Drew said as he held up a black memory storage device that was covered in stickers. “But if I give this to you, then you promise that you’ll help me to get out of here? Alive?”
“Yes,” I said. “But we’ll have to move fast. And I still want to know a little bit more about the Enzo before you go. We can talk while you pack.”
“Pack?” the genius asked.
“Yes,” I said. “You’ll want to lay low for a little while. Go on a cruise or a vacation away from the limelight. You’re fairly good at hiding your location so that shouldn’t be a problem for you.”
“You found me,” Stevenson pointed out, but he walked over to his closet and pulled down a travel suitcase.
“That’s because I have a lot of friends,” I said. “And those friends are about to become your friends.”
The paranoid genius already had one to-go bag that he checked to make sure that he had cash, a passport that I assumed was a well-made fake, and toiletries. His head bobbed up and down as he inspected the contents like he was going over a mental checklist, and then he tossed it on top of the clothes that he’d already thrown into the large suitcase.
“I appreciate your help, Hunter,” the young man said. “Especially after what happened with your boss.”
“Of course,” I said, though the only reason that I wanted to help the paranoid genius was so that I could get my client’s car back. “Now, can you tell me more about what will happen to the Enzo when it gets to China?”
“Yeah,” Drew nodded and hauled his luggage out into the bedroom. “So, it’ll arrive at about five-thirty a.m. local time at one of the ports that we’re friends with.”
The Milo Thatch look-alike walked over to his computer, sat in the high-backed chair, and pulled up some shipping manifests on one or the screens. A few clicks later, he’d found the one with the Enzo, which was part of a shipment of twenty luxury cars on a ship called Victory.
“Okay,” I said. “And then what?”
“Well,” the genius said and preened a little at his brilliant smuggling business. “Then it’ll be given a whole new VIN with papers to match. And then it’ll be loaded onto a cargo plane and taken to one of the smaller airports that I do business with. The people there will unload it, and then it’ll be brought to its new owner.”
“And you can’t have it flown here?” I asked.
“No,” Stevenson said with a shake of his head. “Once the ball is rolling, it’s almost impossible to stop. But I can tell you when and where it will end up.”
“And where is that?” I asked and tried to hold onto what little patience I had left.
The tech genius clicked his mouse a few times and then nodded his head at what he found.
“It’ll be in London by Sunday morning,” Drew said with a bright smile.
Chapter 16
“Sunday?” I asked and leaned over the computer desk to look at the logs.
“Yes,” Drew said as he pointed to the sheet with the airport logs. “The whole shipment will have their new VINs by nightfall, and then the cargo plane will transport them to a strip in London for distribution throughout England.”
“Perfect,” I said. “And all of this information is in the storage disk that you gave me?”
“It is,” the tech genius said with a nod.
“Good,” I said and straightened to look around. “Now, let’s get your stuff and get the hell out of here.”
We walked back into the living room where the giant head of security stood next to my bodyguard and my paralegal. They almost looked like children next to the six-and-a-half-foot-tall mountain of a man, and both of them had their heads all the way back so that they could meet his eyes while they talked.
“Are we going somewhere?” Ricky asked when Stevenson came down the hallway dragging his huge suitcase behind him.
“Yes,” I said. “I hope you have your passport.”
“Where are we going?” the large man asked with a lifted eyebrow.
“Anywhere that you can both stay off the grid for a little while,” I said and took a step back so that I could look him in the eyes. “I’m going to take care of Mr. Stevenson’s business partners in China, but until the cops on Dian’s payroll have been arrested, there’s a target on his back. It’s safer if he leaves the area until then.”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” the instantly suspicious bodyguard asked. “Get them arrested, I mean.”
“I have a friend in the Brooklyn DA’s office,” I told him. “And I have other friends that can help me take care of the Chinese partners.”
“When can we come back?” Drew asked as he sat on the top of his suitcase.
“It should all be taken care of within six months,” I said. “Take the winter and go somewhere warm, and by the time you come back, your life should be back to normal.”
“Six months?” the genius gasped and looked at his huge bodyguard.
“That’s fair,” Ricky said with a nod. “We can set up base somewhere else for your other businesses.”
“True,” the Milo Thatch look-alike sighed, and I had to resist the urge to ask what other bullshit he was involved in. “I’ll give you my satellite phone number. Please don’t give it out to anyone. And if you have any trouble, you can get in touch with me that way.”
The frazzled young genius walked over to a small desk underneath a mirror and pulled out a pen and paper. His anxiety from earlier seemed to have disappeared, but I caught him looking at himself in the mirror and then nodding like he needed to reassure himself that he was making the right decision.
“I’ll let you know how everything turns out,” I said when he handed me t
he phone number. “Now, let’s get the hell out of here before any more hitmen or cops show up.”
“I have a route to the airport already lined up,” the head of the security team said. “It will only work for the two of us, though.”
“We have our own way out,” Hank said and then offered the giant a handshake. “Be safe.”
“You, too,” the mountain of a man said and then took his employer’s suitcase.
He stopped by the room where the other security guards watched the TVs, made sure that the coast was clear, and then walked over to a safe hidden in the wall. Each of the other four men were given severance packages that were big enough to buy their silence, and were then told to leave as soon as the coast was clear.
“What about the computers in your bedrooms?” I asked Drew while we waited in the hallway for the go-ahead.
“Oh,” the tech genius said with a mischievous grin. “That’s already in the process of being wiped. The whole thing will burn up once the files are gone.”
“Do you have a backup for yourself?” I asked and patted the pocket where I had the drive that he’d given me.
“Of course,” Stevenson chuckled. “I always have a backup plan. Although, I didn’t expect you to become an ally. My plans for you involved Ricky and the men with machine guns. But, you turned out to be much nicer than I thought you would be. Which is great, because I don’t think that I could’ve handled that plan being carried out. I’ve never seen anyone die except for video games, and I’m not in any rush to change that.”
“I understand,” I said and tried to ignore the flash of bullet-ridden bodies from Pietro’s that flashed across my mind. “I’m glad that we were able to work something out as well. Safe travels.”
Hank, Tommaso, and I went out first so that we wouldn’t be able to tell how Ricky and Drew made their escape. I thought about the hitman that had been in the stairwell, but decided that it would be best not to ask. We all climbed into the elevator, rode it down to the second floor, and then used the stairwell to reach the first floor.
My bodyguard insisted on being the first one into the lobby so that he could check for other Serbian hitmen, or corrupt cops, and then I followed after him with Tommaso right behind me. I saw someone talking to a security guard, but I didn’t recognize his face. Unfortunately, he did have the air of an off-duty cop as he questioned the older man, and the three of us kept our heads down as we tried for a nonchalant jog across the lobby.
I kept my head on a swivel as we snuck past the cop and out into the chilly night air. The doorman recognized us immediately and hurried over to us with a worried expression on his face. I glanced back at the cop for a moment and then around the sidewalk to make sure that he didn’t have a partner waiting to give him backup if he needed it.
“I think one of those cops that you were talking about just went in,” the red-clad man whispered to me. “He flashed his badge, though, so I couldn’t exactly tell him he couldn’t go in.”
“Don’t worry,” I grinned at the man and clapped him on the shoulder. “Everything is taken care of. You did amazing work tonight.”
I pulled a c-note out of my wallet and handed it to the nervous doorman. His eyes widened, but he accepted the tip and then shoved it in his pocket before he went back to his station. I nodded once and then strolled after Hank.
The big man had stopped to talk to another teenager with his hat on backwards. The kid looked like he might be homeless with the holes in his dirt-encrusted jeans and his ratty jacket, and I wondered if that was how Jovanni kept his ear to the ground. No one would know the streets better than the homeless population, and he could make sure they were taken care of with food and blankets, though the kid who had taken my car had seemed like he was part of the family.
“Our cars are on their way,” Hank said when he’d finished talking to the young man. “Apparently, your driver made it all the way out to Queens. He said that you’re going to need to take the Mercedes to a car shop, though.”
“Yeah,” I said. “My new cop friend decided to ram straight into me on my way over here.”
“Why would he do that if he was trying to follow you?” Tommaso huffed from beside me.
“Probably because I was trying to lose him,” I said with a shrug. “Who knows what the hell that guy is thinking. He’s lost his mind.”
“Good point,” my paralegal said and then checked his phone for the time. “Do you think that you’ll need me for anything else? I kind of want to get back to Annie.”
“You’re good,” I said. “You can both head home for the night. I should be alright now.”
“Are you going to call Anthony?” my bodyguard asked and took the keys to his black Chrysler 300 from the teen with the backwards ball cap.
“Yeah,” I said and then looked at my watch to see that it was only a little past nine p.m.. “I think I’ll pay him a visit, too. We have a lot to talk about that’s best done in person.”
I waved to the two men and then turned to see the teen with the beanie strolling up the sidewalk with a grin on his face. He handed me the keys and then pointed to the maimed Mercedes AMG parked half a block away. We exchanged polite nods, and then I made my way to my car.
I managed not to run back to the Mercedes, but I did study everybody who wandered along the sidewalk just in case there were any other cops or hitmen out and about. No one looked familiar, and no one pulled out a gun, so I ducked into the car, revved the engine as soon as I turned the key, and then pulled out into traffic while I dialed Anthony.
“Are you good?” the mafioso asked on the first ring.
“Yeah,” I said. “And I have the information that we need to get the Enzo. Are you okay to talk?”
“Come over to the apartment,” my client said. “I have some information for you, too.”
He hung up the phone, and I pointed my car toward the renovated warehouse where my client lived. I drove the exact speed limit and held my breath every time that I passed a patrol car. It was a Friday night, so they were out in droves, and I was almost positive that I was going to be pulled over before I could reach Anthony’s apartment.
Finally, I reached the renovated warehouse and rode the rickety lift up to the top floor. Big Tony opened the door with a frown before I could even knock, and he motioned for me to come in before he sat back in his chair. I wondered what could make the bodyguard so irritated, and then I heard the unmistakable voice of Dian Pham.
I looked over to where Anthony was sitting with the Vietnamese businessman, a pizza between them and empty beer bottles scattered across the table like they were old friends getting to know each other again. They looked over at me when I walked up, and Dian stood to throw open his arms for a hug that I denied.
“Shouldn’t you be in jail?” I asked and watched as Dian’s arms fell back to his sides.
“I should be dead,” the gray-haired man said. “But that lady lawyer friend of yours is brilliant. She set up a honeytrap, using me as bait… which I did not agree to… but it worked out because she caught one of the cops on my payroll trying to sneak into my cell and kill me!”
“How does that end with you here?” I asked with a frown.
“Well,” the charismatic man said and motioned for me to sit with him and Anthony. “I agreed to turn State’s Evidence and testify to all of the cops that were on the take, and I’m a free man! Of course, that gorgeous DA warned me that there’d be more inspections, but I can work around that.”
“Naturally,” I said and sat down across from the opportunistic businessman. “So, you’re out on your own recognizance?”
“I am,” Dian said with a nod of his head. “I had to turn over my passport, but those are easy enough to come by.”
“I’m sure,” I said with a look toward my employer. “Have you already given Alessia all of the names of the cops you worked with?”
“Of course,” the Vietnamese man said while he reached for another slice of greasy New York pizza. “They were trying
to kill me. I’m not stupid enough to let them walk the streets when I could have them safely behind bars.”
“That makes sense,” I said and steepled my hands under my chin. “But that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“I came to offer my services,” the businessman said with a bright smile. “You still need someone to import your grapes, and I still have a company that can do that.”
“Naturally,” I said and wondered at the sheer fearlessness in the small man. “And you thought that Anthony would be willing to work with you after you’d stolen his car and shipped it overseas?”
“That does present a problem,” Dian conceded. “But Mr. Febbo had a great idea. See, I know that my partner has been wanting to get out of the car theft business. But his Chinese backers aren’t up for that. I proposed that I could take over the car ring and be the face of the business, so to speak, and Mr. Febbo can get a cut. It’s a win-win.”
It wasn’t a bad idea, and it was one that I had already entertained on my way to the apartment. I already had all of the information on the buyers and the sellers, but it wasn’t a legal business with contracts that I could have on file, so I wasn’t sure if Anthony would be up for it since the family was trying to go legit.
“Mr. Pham,” my client said and then nodded to Big Tony. “I appreciated your company tonight, but let me talk things over with my lawyer, and I’ll get back to you.”
The Vietnamese man looked like he might argue his point again, but then thought better of it and followed Big Tony to the door. The large bodyguard rolled his eyes when Dian was gone, and then sat back down in his usual chair without any comment on his boss’ potential new business partner.
“That man is annoying,” I said. “But Alessia did say that he kept his mouth shut in the interrogation room. Well, he didn’t, but he filled the silence with everything and anything else that he could possibly talk about. Including the ins and outs of shipping crabs internationally.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Anthony chuckled. “He’s smarter than he seems. He even turned everything around on the cops and managed to convince your DA friend that they’d approached him and threatened him if he didn’t help them. He would be a great ally, but I’m not sure that I want to work with him.”
