High Stakes by Fern Michaels (14)

“Hey, guys, listen to this,” Dennis said, then read an e-mail from Toby. “That guy Snowden just showed up in the break room and told me he was assigning me a new babysitter. She’s supposed to arrive when we do the first show. He sent Mia to follow Pilar Sanders to wherever she’s going. What’s going on? And don’t tell me nothing, either.”

“He sounds worried. I’m starting to think your friend is a bit of a prairie flower. In other words, a wuss,” Maggie said tartly.

“No, he’s not, and I resent your saying that, Maggie. Toby’s just . . . What he is . . . is he’s different. He’ll come through. He isn’t used to this sort of life, so cut him some slack. He’ll be okay. So what do you want me to tell him?”

“The truth. Lay it out for him. He is, after all, the client,” Ted said. “Tell him, if he can, to check in between sets. Tell him that as we get more info, we’ll keep him in the loop.”

Dennis did as instructed. “He said okay. He was ready to go onstage. Each show lasts forty minutes. We’re good here.”

Ted turned on his blinker and entered the Post’s parking garage. He headed toward a vintage, shiny, black Thunderbird, which was Zack’s trademark. He tapped his horn and swerved into a parking space two car lengths down from the Thunderbird. “That’s Zack’s car. He refurbished it. Took him years. Okay, everyone out.”

Espinosa was first to exit, then Maggie and finally Dennis. Ted grabbed his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. He loped his way over to where a short, chubby, bald man wearing bright red sneakers and a matching ball cap was getting out of the car. They clapped each other on the back and did a manly hug before introductions were made.

“I’m hungry,” the human soccer ball said.

“What else is new? You’re always hungry. But we are, too, so let’s head to the cafeteria. We can have some privacy and eat at the same time,” Ted said, leading the way across the parking garage to the elevator that would take them to the cafeteria.

The group made small talk, mostly about the blustery weather here in the District, as opposed to Miami’s sunshine, and about having the right clothing.

Pleasing, pleasant aromas even at this time of night assailed the reporters as they walked down the line, picking and choosing a little of this, a lot of that, and finally huge slices of cherry pie with whipped cream on top.

Settled at one of the long cafeteria tables, Zack spoke first. “Even though it’s not polite, I can talk and eat at the same time. Let’s get to it, so I can catch a few z’s. I’m about dead on my feet.”

“Yeah, yeah, we eat and talk, too. Time is money. I’ll bring you up to date on what we have, what we think, and what we actually know. It’s the knowing part that has us stumped.” Maggie quickly brought the round little reporter up to speed. They all watched as he shoveled food into his mouth, nodding from time to time at Maggie’s information.

Zack popped a garlic twist into his mouth and savored it for a moment, before he said, “You guys don’t know the half of it. Listen up. Here goes. I’ve been on this guy for so long, it seems like forever. He’s third in line to take over Guzmán’s spot in California. That’s Dito Chilo, who is now in prison, as you well know. I just happened to be in the same bodega as Zuma when the news that his boss had been captured came across. The owners had this small TV on the counter. I couldn’t believe it.

“You should have seen the shock on Delgado’s face. He was out of there so fast, his feet left skid marks. I’m pretty fast myself, so I was on him like white on rice. He didn’t catch me, because he only had eyes for his phone. The two guys ahead of him to take over from Guzmán are serious badasses. He’s no fool. He had his car loaded down with his cohorts in thirty minutes, and five minutes later, he was on I-Ninety-Five, headed this way. I didn’t have time to get anything, so I’m here with just the clothes on my back and my backpack. We were more than halfway here when you called.” Zack stopped talking long enough to drain his coffee cup.

Dennis sniffed at what he was hearing. “That car you drive is pretty distinctive, especially those wheels. Do you expect us to believe he didn’t spot you? Where is he now?”

Zack attacked the rest of the food on his plate. “Right now I do not have a clue. I stayed with them while they checked into some sleazebag motel on the highway. I slipped the night clerk twenty bucks to tell me what room they were in and how long they were staying. I promised him a Benjamin, possibly two, if he would keep me apprised of their comings and goings. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have a pretty liberal expense account. At least you guys know where they are, so it’s win-win. Excuse me. I need some more coffee.” Zack left the table to get another cup of coffee.

The little group looked at each other. Dennis rolled his eyes. “I’m not buying that those guys didn’t pick up on a shiny, black, vintage Thunderbird. Those dudes live for cars and jewelry.”

“I heard that,” Zack said, sitting down at the table. “Here’s the thing, kid. No one pays any attention to a little fat guy like me. I’m bald, I wear glasses, I’m round, and I do not look like I pose a threat of any kind. I look like this because I want to look like this. I have more bylines right now than you will have in your entire life. I got it going on.”

“Yeah, but do you have a Pulitzer?” Dennis asked, tongue in cheek.

“Three, to be precise,” Zack said as he forked half the slice of cherry pie that was on his plate into his mouth. “You have to get up real early to get ahead of me, kid.”

“I’ll remember that,” Dennis said, his cheeks pink at the put-down.

“Okay. I think I’m done. What’s our game plan here? I need to warn all of you about something. Zuma and his thugs carry some serious firepower. They like guns. I want to say one more thing here before we call it a night. In order for Zuma to step into the number one slot, he’s got to pull off a big score. I mean big. I’m sure he’s thinking that the Sanders woman is his answer. That has to be it, because there is no other reason for him to be here in the nation’s capital that makes any kind of sense. Y’all chew on that, show me the way to my bed for the night, and tell me where to meet up with you in the morning, at which point we’ll start to make things happen. Or not.”

Back in the underground garage the group split up, with Ted offering to take Zack to the Post’s apartment. The plan was to meet up at Betty Lou’s Café in the morning for breakfast.

Maggie, Espinosa, and Dennis trooped up the ramp and walked around to the front of the building, where they hailed separate cabs to take each of them home.

“See you guys in the morning,” Maggie said, climbing into the first cab. She leaned back, closed her eyes, and tried to come to terms with what was going on. She felt antsy, like she was missing something. She sighed. She hated when this happened, but, as always, she knew that whatever it was that she was either missing or not missing would reveal itself eventually. It was the word eventually that made her crazy.

* * *

Mia Grande was careful to stay two car lengths behind Pilar Sanders. She’d switched cars with Snowden since Pilar had seen the racy Ferrari and would recognize it in an instant. The pearl-white Stetson had stayed behind in the car. She was now wearing an Atlanta Braves baseball cap, her hair tucked up tight underneath. She clenched her teeth at the way the owner of the Supper Clubs was weaving in and out of traffic. She was hard-pressed to keep up with Pilar’s erratic driving, but with skillful defensive driving, she was able to stay with the woman right up to the moment when she pulled into the parking lot of one of the Supper Clubs. Now what? she wondered.

Was Pilar going to get out of the car and go inside, or was she just going to sit in the parking lot? Mia was too far away to see what she was doing, even though the lot had at least a dozen weak, yellowish, overhead lights. Frustrated, she realized there was nothing she could do but wait it out. She hated this part of surveillance.

Ten minutes crawled by before the back door of the club opened to reveal a man standing silhouetted in the light from inside. A light tap of Pilar’s horn told him where to go. He ran and climbed into the car. A few minutes later, both car doors opened, and the man and Pilar changed cars, with the man driving. Mia assumed the man was Pilar’s husband, although she’d never seen him. Common sense said Pilar would run to him in her emotional state. They were probably going home. She shifted from PARK to DRIVE and waited until the car was at the exit before she drove off, careful to stay close but not too close.

Mia then did something Avery Snowden had warned her never to do. She sent a text while driving. Immediately after she hit SEND, a call came through. She listened as her boss berated her, then told her there was a small remote in the glove box that would allow her to trick the security gate at the complex where Pilar and Gabe Sanders lived. He then sent a text saying, Do that again and you’ll be on the unemployment line.

Properly chastised, Mia kept her eyes on the road and the car she was following. She tried not to think about Snowden’s comment. She was jolted from her thoughts when she saw the Sanderses’ car’s blinker start to flash. She slowed to a crawl to allow the car in front of her to speed past the Sanderses’ car, then slowed even more as she let the Sanderses’ car move forward behind the other car. A car cut in front of her, blew its horn, then sped past her, by which time the Sanderses’ car had turned off the street. If nothing else, it gave Mia a few seconds’ reprieve before she swiped Avery’s remote to raise the black-and-white-striped bar blocking the entrance to the Sanderses’ complex. She crawled forward, keeping her eyes on the Sanderses’ car’s red taillights. She parked in the first empty slot she saw, though she knew full well it belonged to one of the tenants. She cut her headlights, turned off the engine, and slowly eased her way out of the car. She could hear the sound of the other car’s engine clearly. Three aisles over, four cars down. She quickly moved through the two aisles, crouching low. Her gut instinct told her the couple were totally unaware they were being followed. She felt safe.

Mia could see them now. They were talking, but the words were indistinct. She inched closer and was able to see the man holding Pilar Sanders up. In the end, they strode toward the elevator. The woman was crying. It didn’t sound to Mia like the man was consoling her, just the opposite. She caught a glimpse of his face, and he looked . . . damn angry. Hmmmm.

Mia made her way back to her car and called Avery Snowden to report in. She ended with, “What do you want me to do?”

“We haven’t been on this case long enough to have viable patterns when it comes to these two. What we do know from Toby is they never miss a night with the clubs. One or the other visits each one. Usually, they split it, with each one covering half. The evening is still young, so my thinking would be that the husband brought the wife home because she was traumatized, and he will be going back out. Follow him if he does. Give it an hour, worst case ninety minutes. If there’s no movement, call me, and we’ll decide what to do at that point.

“Oh, one other thing. It might be a good idea to leave the garage and find a parking spot on the street, in case he does leave. This time, he might be more aware if he sees a car following him out of the garage. Carnegie is a one-way street, so you’re good in that respect. Double-park if you have to. Does that work for you?”

“It works for me, Mr. Snowden.”

“Call me if anything happens. Call me even if nothing happens. We need to be on top of this all the way. Something here is not sitting right. According to Toby, that woman is rock hard, and it’s the husband who is the pussycat.”

“You’re wondering if it’s all an act, right? I wondered the same thing. I guess she was unsteady but able to walk, because the husband and she went to the elevator. He did not look happy, I can tell you that. I got one real good quick look at him. Let’s see how this all plays out and go from there.” Mia blinked, then blinked again when there was no response other than the signal that the connection had ended.

Mia got out of the car and walked around to where Gabe Sanders had parked his car—a champagne Lexus sedan. She memorized the license-plate number and looked in all the windows, but there was nothing to see other than that Gabe Sanders kept a tidy car. There wasn’t so much as a gum wrapper to be seen.

She walked back to her car, jotted down the number of the license plate in a little notebook she kept in her rucksack. Then she turned on the engine and backed out of the parking space she had borrowed, relieved that the tenant hadn’t come to claim it. She headed up the ramp and out to the street. She hated the idea that she was going to have to drive around the block and back to get a parking spot, if one was available, but she did it, anyway, and was rewarded when a young bearded guy pulled his Jeep Cherokee out onto the road. She expertly backed in and settled down to wait. Her side-view mirror gave her a full view of the garage exit. She knew she could end up sitting here for a very long time.

Stakeouts were one of the few things she didn’t like about the business she was in. But even with that, she couldn’t imagine doing anything else with her life at this point in time.

Mia tried to clear her mind, to shelve Snowden’s rebuke, a rebuke she deserved, but it still smarted. She turned her thoughts to Toby and found herself smiling. She liked the guy. Really liked him. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise,” she whispered to herself. The smile turned into a grin as she tried to picture Toby on the stage, gyrating in front of a bunch of lusting women trying to stuff bills into his G-string. The grin turned to outright laughter when she realized that tomorrow night she would be doing the same exact thing and probably enjoying every minute of it.

From that point on, Mia let her thoughts drift every which way as she waited for some sign of activity at the garage across the street. Twice she saw cars leave, but neither one belonged to the Sanderses. An hour into the stakeout, she debated all of a minute whether she should get out to stretch her legs. She decided against doing so almost immediately. Instead, she rolled down her window and the one on the passenger side. Cold, fresh air blew into the car. She inhaled deeply just as she saw a set of headlights at the top of the ramp. Bingo!

Mia had the engine turned on and the car in DRIVE in a nanosecond. She pulled out into traffic one car behind the Sanderses’ car. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought there was only one person in the car. The car in front of her was a VW Jetta and low to the ground, allowing her a full view of the Sanderses’ car, but with the high headrests, she still couldn’t tell for sure if another person was in the car. She thought not. She fished around on the passenger seat for her phone and hit the number one, which would automatically dial Avery Snowden.

“He’s on the move. I’m a car length behind. I can’t tell if there is anyone else in the car or not. Call me crazy, but I think this guy is headed to the airport.”

“Where are you exactly?” Snowden asked.

Mia told him.

“Okay. I’m headed your way. Right now, I’m closer to the airport than you are, so I’ll get there first. Watch for me. I’ll take over, and you go home and get some rest. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“He’s on his cell phone. I think he got a call, or he made one. My gut is telling me that once he identified the caller, he just tossed the phone on the seat. I’m thinking this guy is upset. Who is watching Ms. Sanders?”

“Consuela. Go home now, Mia,” Snowden said, using her operative name to keep in character. Mia heard the rebuke that was still in his voice.

“I’m on my way. Good night, Mr. Snowden.” There was no response, and she hadn’t really expected one. Mia wished she could run and hide somewhere. There was nothing worse in her mind than to disappoint your boss, the man who signed your paycheck.

Avery Snowden grinned in the darkness. He knew the hard-ass reputation he had among his operatives.

When you broke the rules, you endangered your fellow operatives. All he allowed was one screwup, and after that, you were toast. Mia was one of his best, if not the best. He would hate to lose her, but he would cut her loose in a nanosecond if she failed to follow orders a second time. He sighed as he wondered what it would be like to retire to some private island where it was sunny all day, balmy at night, and a hundred people were waiting to shower you with whatever your heart desired. He let loose with a belly laugh that literally shook the car he was driving. He’d last in that kind of environment twenty-four hours. If that.

Retirement thoughts stayed with him as he finally picked up and followed Gabe Sanders. Mia was right; her instincts were spot on. Sanders was indeed headed for the airport. Retirement was for people who wanted to sit on their asses and eat themselves into oblivion while watching game shows on a giant television screen. He’d read that somewhere on the Internet. Well, that wasn’t going to happen to him. His DNA wouldn’t allow it.

Snowden slowed to follow Sanders to the long-term parking lot. Three cars were behind him. That was good. There would be a parade of travelers into the terminal, and he wouldn’t look out of place. Luck was on his side, so much so that he was able to park two cars away from Sanders. He had enough time to exit his car and walk around the two cars parked next to Sanders, allowing him to look into the car. The first thing he saw was the cell phone Mia said he’d tossed on the passenger seat. No one these days left their cell phone unattended. Parking lots, even those as well lit as this one was, were a haven for carjackers. His gut told him Sanders had left the phone behind on purpose. Why? Because once he got inside the airport, he’d buy a burner, charge it probably in the first-class lounge, and be good to go in thirty minutes.

Sanders leaving the cell phone behind told Snowden that the tiff, or whatever it was that he’d had with his wife, was dead serious. So serious it looked like it was a parting of the ways.

Surprisingly, the airport was crowded at this time of the evening, so it allowed Snowden to follow Sanders easily. He felt like patting himself on the back when the man entered a store and immediately headed to the back, where he picked up a burner phone for eighty-nine dollars. He headed straight to the cashier, where Snowden himself was in line with a copy of Field & Stream and a pack of cherry-flavored Life Savers in his hand. He paid for his purchases and walked out to the concourse, where he stood next to a plate-glass display case to fiddle with the wrapper on the Life Savers. He again felt like patting himself on the back when he followed Sanders to the private Delta lounge. He took a moment to wonder if Sanders had a destination in mind, since he hadn’t bothered even to look at the wall-mounted arrivals and departures boards. He told himself Sanders would probably take whatever flight was leaving when he was ready, no matter where it was going.

He waited.

Forty-one minutes later, Sanders walked out of the lounge and headed straight for the Delta ticket counter. By quickening his stride, Snowden was able to jockey into position right behind him, close enough to hear that he was booking a flight to Atlanta and paying cash. He also heard the words “You’re lucky, sir. This is the last available seat on tonight’s flight.”

Hearing that, Snowden spun on his heel and raced out of the airport. In the long-term parking lot, he sent off a text to Abner Tookus, asking him to hack into Delta’s flight manifest to see where Sanders’s ultimate destination was. Certainly not Atlanta. That was too close to home. His next text was to Tom Fazio, a retired Navy SEAL on his payroll who lived in Dunwoody, Georgia.

Snowden fumbled around inside his backpack and withdrew a small remote, similar to the one Mia had taken from the glove box. He looked around, sauntered over to the champagne-colored Lexus, and pressed numbers until he heard a soft chirp. He opened the door, slid into the driver’s seat, and immediately reached for the cell phone on the passenger seat. He deftly palmed it and exited as fast as he’d entered. He didn’t lock the car, simply because he couldn’t. The gizmo in his hand allowed only for breaking and entering, not for securing the safety of the vehicle.

Back in the racy Ferrari, Snowden powered up Sanders’s phone. He scrolled through the texts first. Whoa! Sixteen from the little woman. Nine phone messages. The first ones were of the “poor me” variety and went from there to How could you do this to me? to If I knew what a disloyal rat you were going to turn out to be, I never would have married you to the final one, which pretty much said it all: Go ahead, you chickenshit. Run like the rat you are. I don’t need you. I never needed you. So there, Gabe Sanders! Oh, and one other thing. I never loved you. I just married you to get out of that stinking trailer in Alabama.

“Ouch!” Snowden said to the empty car. “That had to sting a bit. No wonder the guy left the phone on the seat.”

Snowden pocketed the cell phone, slipped the Ferrari into gear, and drove out of the parking lot. His destination was the BOLO Building in Georgetown, so he could set everything up for the boys in the morning. He corrected that thought. The boys and one girl: Maggie Spritzer.