Baby Brother Blues (Sammy Dick, PI Series: Book 1) Page 9

  “Hi Sammy! How goes it? How’s the case?” Geo slid his canvas briefcase on the table and walked into the kitchen. “I’m starving. What have you cooked for me?”

  “This is your lucky day, Geo. I’ve cooked you a Thanksgiving turkey with dressing. Third book in the frozen Lean Cuisine library to the left, only 240 calories and 4.5 grams of fat, and, guess what, I’ll be more than happy to heat it up for you while you look at my investigation list.” I quipped all this out while scooping huge dollops of ice cream into a mixing bowl. Next I pulled out the Hershey’s chocolate syrup and began liberally squirting pools of luscious chocolate all over the mounds of ice cream. As I did this, I got Geo up to speed on the basics of the case.

  Geo is the best multi-tasker I know. As he listened to my quick rendition of the case, he was already seated at the little Formica table, assessing my list of questions. Geo has a mind like a sheep-herding dog. Supposedly, dogs bred for sheep herding are sometimes not good choices if you have children. In the absence of any sheep to herd, the dogs will herd anything, even children, nipping at the kids’ heels and bossing them around until the dog has the children all successfully rounded up together in the corner of the room. Mom comes in to find the children all herded together and crying in fright, while the sheep-herding dog looks at Mom expectantly for his praise.

  Geo’s like that. What Geo herds, though, is information. Luckily for me, he’s happiest when he’s on the trail of something. Researching, diving, delving, exploring, following this or that changing line of inquiry. He loves it! I pulled out the frozen turkey Lean Cuisine, popped the plastic a few times with my used fork and shoved it into the microwave for five minutes. Meanwhile, I grabbed a huge glass from the cabinet, filled it with ice and poured it full of Coca-Cola from a plastic bottle in the fridge and deposited it on the kitchen table beside the yellow legal pad. Without looking up, Geo slid his hand over to the glass and took a long, satisfying gulp of Coke. “Sweet!” he said, never taking his eyes off of the legal pad.

  I didn’t know if he meant the investigation or the Coke, but I decided to be silent and just wait while he studied my preliminary list of questions.

  I silently sat back down beside Geo and slid his favorite red gel tipped pen near his left hand, since he was left-handed. Geo set his Coke down after another long sip and felt around for the red tipped pen, never taking his eyes off the legal pad. He began to scrawl his notes beside each of my questions.

  Even though Geo is a goth-moth, whatever that is, and dresses solely in black and is covered with tattoos, he’s one of the nicest, smartest people I know. I’m not sure where the goth fascination began for him, somewhere in high school probably, in response to or in compensation for his geekiness in the extreme, but at some point, I think Geo just found it a lot easier to choose black in everything he did. Plus his tats, though proliferate, are nonviolent. They advertised a dry sense of humor and his passionate intelligence. I had learned never to underestimate Geo. He was a powerful factor in the ongoing success of our fledgling business. I only paid him $20.00 an hour for his part-time services, but when I received big bonuses, I shared them with him and this investigation carried the potential of the biggest bonus he and I had ever earned.

  Geo and I sat silently side by side as he added to my list. He skipped over portions that obviously required the same answers. After each action, he put in parenthesis which one of us was responsible, G or S. Since we’d worked together on several cases successfully, we didn’t put down any deadlines, since we trusted each other to work as quickly as our individual constraints would allow.

  Geo scribbled in his thoughts after mine as he read through my outline. The only sound we made as he wrote in red was to giggle when he wrote something funny.

  Michael Oversong (Wants loyalty, love from his wife. Wants to regain an interest in his job.)

  5. Is my wife cheating on me? Check Swann building security cameras.(S)

  a. With Karl Zaiid? Follow him for an entire day.(S) Run background/criminal checks. (G)

  b. With someone else? Follow Mai for an entire day minimum. (S) Run in-depth background/criminal check.(G)

  c. When?

  d. Where?

  e. How?

  f. Why?

  6. How can I win her back? Haven’t got a clue, dude. That’s your problem, not mine.

  7. Is Mai stealing from the business? Start with intensive financial review. (G)

  a. If so, why?

  8. Do I even care about this job? Sorry, dude, own your own life.

  Michael Oversong

  1. What is the history of their relationship? Run in-depth background check. (G)

  a. Why has it eroded?

  Sylvester Swane

  1. How does this business relate to his other businesses? Run extensive financial history of all business relationships. (G)

  2. What is the history of this business? Ditto.

  a. Is this business profitable?

  3. What is Karl Zaiid’s role? Closely observe financials pre- and post Zaiid’s arrival. (S & G)

  b. Has the business been gaining or losing since his role was created?

  General Questions

  1. What is the background and history for Tomas Nunez? Run in-depth background/criminal. (G)

  2. Ditto Liang Chen, Mai’s brother? And ditto again.

  3. And, most importantly, who the hell slashed my tires!! Shit yeah, most critical question right now. Be careful, Sammy. (S!)

  “What do you mean, your tires were slashed?” Geo asked, looking me straight in the eyes.

  I explained the entire parking garage incident, starting with my view of someone who looked like a male version of Mai driving a black Porsche on Central. When I was finished, Geo urged me to be extra careful. Then he finally set down his pen, since he needed his left hand to eat and dove into his turkey dinner.

  I looked over his notations. “Nice work, Geo. Okay, I think I’ve brought home enough information so you can begin accessing company records and run the backgrounds.” I dragged out a sheaf of papers and passwords from my briefcase and handed them to Geo. I knew Geo would have no problem whatsoever getting into Swann’s records, regardless of their security measures.

  I’d already written down the home addresses for Karl, Sylvester, Mai and Michael. “I hope you’re okay with switching cars with me tomorrow. Zaiid and Mai are flying to Canada on a 7:20 flight in the morning. I plan to be at Zaiid’s residence at 4 A.M. tomorrow morning, so I can check out his residence, follow him to the airport and observe his behavior with Mai. At this point, Swane hasn’t extended the investigation to flying out of the country, but I think we have a good chance of understanding what’s going on without resorting to that.”

  Geo and I had already developed some unconventional ways of observing our subjects in their natural habitat. I thought of myself as a sort of urban Jane Goodall as I observed the patterns and practices of our subjects in their environment. One of the unconventional ways Geo and I’d developed, at least for our international travelers, was a fake boarding pass. For this case, I planned to use that approach to observe Mai and Karl interacting if I could. My intuition that Sylvester so admired could tell me a lot when observing two people together in an airport, where emotions sometimes run high. Besides, the boarding pass ploy involved my wearing a disguise, one of my favorite methods of undercover work.

  I continued, “Would you please print out one of our fake boarding passes just to get me through the security line? I want to observe Karl and Mai in action together in the waiting area. Apparently, Swann Diamonds isn’t doing well enough to own a corporate jet yet. I found out today during my explorations at the office that Karl and Mai are flying out on U.S. Airways Flight 180, departing at 7:20 A.M., bound for Yellowknife, Canada, to conduct business with a diamond operations there. Liang may join them later.”

  Geo and I had figured out this fake boarding pass ruse in a past investigation and it worked well, except for the teeny tiny problem that th
e approach probably constituted a federal offense of some kind. Blithely, we printed out the fake boarding pass for the Canadian flight, and I stuffed it in my bag. It only had to be good enough to pass through security with a name matching my driver’s license. The boarding pass was never actually checked against the passenger list, until time to board the plane. I was good to go.

  “Here’s the keys to the Mazda3.” I fished the keys out of my handbag. Geo was fine with driving it. He drove a 1995 beige Camry with some of the paint worn away. It was one of the most nondescript cars imaginable, while my Ninja and Mazda3 both had a tendency to stand out. Not good for tailing someone. We’d learned to switch vehicles when I was planning to conduct a tail. Besides, my Mazda3 seemed to be a sitting duck for tire-slashing, and I couldn’t afford to buy any more brand new tires and pay our mortgage at the same time.

  Geo fished around in his black computer case and came up with the Camry keys. “It’s out of gas,” he said with a sheepish smile.

  “No problem,” I said, slipping the keys into my bag with a wolfish smile. “Mine is too. It’s past ten, so I’m going to hit the sack, since I’ll have to get up so early.”

  Geo barely heard me. He already had his Apple laptop humming and his fingers were flying over the keys. I saw Sylvester Swane’s handsome, craggy face looming up on the monitor just before I turned and headed down the hall toward bed.

  Chapter 13

  Mai strode into Gate C4 at Sky Harbor Airport bright and early the next morning, rolling an expensive-looking carry-on behind her. I’d already seated myself, much earlier, in the corner with my back to the wall. My fake boarding pass had worked perfectly. My view of the waiting passengers was unobstructed, but I was sure I’d go unnoticed in my librarian look: big black glasses, long, conservatively styled black wig, dark gray A-line skirt covering my knees, and clunky black shoes. I’d fished a paperback book out of my bag, turned it right-side up and was pretending to read it. I’d removed the wig and glasses briefly to get through the check-in process, since I had to use my own driver’s license, but now I was back in disguise.

  Mai had scanned the crowd once and hadn’t paid any attention to me at all. She now stood with her back to me, staring out the windows at the planes, her long legs silhouetted against the gray and milk-blue backdrop of the runway and sky.

  As I was watching her, Karl Zaiid swaggered into my vision from the left, slid up behind Mai and whispered something into her ear. Mai stiffened abruptly and spun around, stepping away from him until her back was flat against the window. She seemed to realize that Karl had interpreted this as cowering, so she raised herself to her full height and sidestepped away from him.

  Karl sidestepped instantly in the same direction, thrusting his right hand out over her shoulder, opening his palm and spreading his fingers on the glass window. This abruptly halted her escape, trapping her in intimate proximity to him. I could tell he was talking, but I was way too far away to hear the actual words.

  I was fascinated. Trying to pretend to read, yet tracking the nuances of this strange dance as the steps occurred in rapid succession. Some couples really get off on the dominance-subservience thing. Perhaps that’s what was going on.

  Given my brief initial encounters with both of these people, Karl’s behavior was fairly predictable after the silly, drop-dead handshake he’d delivered to me during our first meeting. Mai’s reaction was less anticipated. I’d pegged her as strong, smart, and competent, perhaps cold and calculating, but fear had not been an emotion that came to mind in my initial assessment of her. As I was staring at her face trying to understand what was passing between the two of them, Mai’s head shot up and scanned the room hurriedly as if looking for observers. Quickly, I buried my eyes back in my book pretending to be immersed in its pages.

  When I dared to sneak another peak, Mai was now sidestepping the other way out of the forced cozy encounter. Then she strode to a vacant seat in the departure area with waiting passengers seated on both sides, so that Karl was unable to sit beside her. She sat down gracefully, tucked the laptop beside her legs and stared out the window at the runway in the opposite direction from where Karl now stood alone with his back against the glass.

  Perhaps they’re having a lovers’ tiff? My intuition, that famous intuition that Sylvester had hired me for, was saying no. My intuition was almost ruling out some kind of sado-masochistic foreplay routine, but not entirely. What threw me was that Mai seemed genuinely afraid, and before Karl arrived, she’d seemed preoccupied and perhaps troubled. Maybe she, too, was worried about Swann’s declining business? Certainly, she was as deeply invested in it as Sylvester and Michael. Maybe even more so since she was the rainmaker and CFO. Swane had multiple businesses to run and Michael seemed to be tiring of the business altogether. Mai had probably spent more time and energy than anyone else in making Swann a success.

  Karl, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by a world larger than his own immediate needs and his desire to assert his dominance in any situation, a dangerous quality to have when trying to run a successful business. Perhaps that quality was what concerned Mai the most. Then why not just let Zaiid go? Surely, Michael wasn’t wild about Karl’s close proximity to his wife and Mai didn’t seem wild about it either. Michael and Mai together seemed quite capable of wresting Zaiid out of the business entirely if they chose. They represented a two-thirds majority in the ownership and management.

  So why hadn’t they? I pondered that one for a moment as I kept one eye on Karl’s form reclining against the glass as he glared at Mai, who appeared to be ignoring him completely.

  At our Asian luncheon together, Michael had seemed deferential to Sylvester Swane, as did almost everyone I’d ever seen in Sylvester’s presence during the few times I’d encountered Swane before this investigation. Sylvester was an alpha male. No doubt about it. Maybe Sylvester wanted Zaiid in the business and Sylvester was the type of man who simply got his way. Perhaps it was irrelevant that Swane was only one-third owner of the business. If Swane wanted to experiment with expanding the industrial jewels side of the business, then maybe Michael and Mai were predisposed to go along with it, regardless of their personal feelings about Karl. There was no denying that Sylvester had an impressive history of making successful business decisions. When Swane said go north, people hustled north, and for good reason.

  As I watched, Karl’s cell phone rang. Two things happened simultaneously as Karl pressed his phone to his ear. Mai sat bolt upright and focused her attention on Karl, and Karl’s face slithered into a sly look as he identified the caller and began speaking. Interesting. I, too, watched Karl intently. After talking a short while, the sly expression never leaving his face, Karl reluctantly crossed the space between them and handed the phone to Mai. She took his phone stiffly. As she spoke into the phone her face appeared to soften, but I was too far away and at too much of an angle to be sure. Just as Mai handed the phone back to Karl, the gate steward announced the boarding of first-class passengers.

  Mai stood up, graceful and tall, picked up her leather bag and entered the portal. Karl remained behind. Illuminating, I thought; Karl’s not traveling first-class with Mai. He’s still the hired help. Either that, or if Karl and Mai are having an affair, this is one more way to divert attention from it. Since, I’d made my fake ticket, I knew it was a long flight to Yellowknife. Karl was going to have to spend all day scrunched up in economy class.

  Time passed as more passengers entered. Karl stewed with his back resting against the window. About halfway through the economy-class section, Karl’s seating range was called and he stomped off down the ramp. My last glimpse of his face revealed a harsh, single-minded intensity. Then he turned away.

  Glad I’m not going to have to be there with him when they land. With that revelation, I stood up from my seat and left. I felt like my little soiree to the airport had been successful. I’d gained deeper insight into the relationship between Karl and Mai. I was beginning to think it was a lot more complex
than a simple affair. In general, that would be good news to Michael. As far as the overall Swann business, though, my intuition marked Zaiid as a threat, especially after the tire gouging incident, during which I’d been too distracted to catch the license plates, but if I had to bet on it now, my money would be on Karl.

  I headed back up the walkway, into the main part of the airport. Took the elevator to the Purple Level of the parking garage, revved up the faded old Camry and drove the short distance downtown to Central One to make an appearance at my “job.”

  Chapter 14

  I parked the Camry in a faraway garage on 4th Street, not wanting to have Geo’s tires slashed as well. I’d ditched the wig, black glasses and white blouse into a bag in the car, peeling down to my sliver gray, skin-tight top. I pushed the lever under the driver’s seat to allow myself as much room as possible while I slipped out of the sedate A-line skirt and into a knockout black leather micro. I kept on the more comfortable librarian low heels for the walk in the morning heat to Central One. I figured I’d don my gray stilettos with the sexy little ankle straps just before I slid open the big front doors of Central One.

  The heat rose off the sidewalk, all the way up to my mini, and the street smells of gasoline, coffee, eggs and bacon frying in some nearby grill aroused my hunger, which was pretty much always aroused, as I made my way to the bus stop bench. I sat down, switched shoes, shoved the librarian heels into my bag and clasped the thin leather straps of my gray stilettos around my ankles. Ready for action.

  In my full Tina Brown persona, I emerged twenty-five stories later onto the plush carpet of the Swann floor. I looked both ways down the hallway and spotted a figure with his back turned to me near the end of the hall in the direction of my office. His ear was pressed to a cell phone. Mai’s brother? The only major figure in the company I hadn’t met. I tiptoed silently along the hall, trying to catch parts of the conversation before he spotted me.