Gumshoe Gorilla (21 page)

There was a monitor hanging on the wall, slowly morphing through pictures of guys lifting weights, but there was no computer or hard drive attached to it. No place that Vince could be keeping digital files I checked behind the monitor, in case he'd taped something to the back. But there was nothing there. I tried digging around the cushions of his couch. No dice. That only left the bed.

Well, it wasn't the most inventive hiding place, but I gave it a shot. Underneath I found a pair of dress shoes, three hard copy porn magazines, a box of condoms, a bottle of lube... and a plastic bag with twenty Bliss tablets in it. I took them into the kitchen to look at them under the light. Sure enough, they all had tiny brown streaks running through them, the telltale sign that heroin had been added. So, Vince was definitely the source behind Daniel's new drug habit. I was tempted to flush the pills, but I had a hunch that Vince would be able to get his hands on more of them without too much trouble. Destroying his stash would just tip him off that someone had been snooping around his apartment.

It would have been more fun to mention the tablets to some friends of mine on the force. Let the police take an interest in Vincent and figure out who he is. But getting anyone to file a search warrant on something as measly as possession would be an uphill fight. And once I got the police involved there would be no getting rid of them. I didn't want to do that until I knew exactly what was going on and how deeply Daniel was involved in it.

Reluctantly, I put the bag of pills back under the bed. I opened the box of condoms, but the contents were exactly as described on the label. No mysterious safety deposit box key, no hidden memory chip. Hm. I was running out of places to look. I tried lifting the mattress, in case Vince was hiding something between it and the bedsprings. And that's where I found the brown 9 x 11 envelope. Bingo.

I opened the envelope quickly, expecting this to be the place were "Vince" had stashed his former identity. Driver's license, birth certificate, credit cards. All the things that he'd need if he ever wanted to go back to his old name.

Instead, what I found was a sheaf of papers with men's pictures stapled to them.

Huh?

I leafed through them. It appeared to be a stack of biographical profiles, or maybe background checks. A picture of a guy, his birthday, and then a surprisingly detailed write up about his habits and what he did for a living. The guys in the pictures were all young and cute. And one of them was Daniel.

I sat down on the couch and took a closer look. There was something funny about the pictures. The guys all looked kind of the same. The hair and eye colors varied. But they were all about the same age, and they all had the same general features.

I sorted through the attached documents. I didn't have time to read them all, but a few details stuck out. First, the reports were all dated March 12, a good week or so before Vince and Daniel ever met. Secondly, all the guys had the same birthday, Dec 5. Thirdly, the boys had all grown up in the camps. And lastly, the pages were all on
Global Investigations
letterhead.

What the fuck was Vincent up to?

I glanced at my watch. Daniel had said that the two of them would be at the park for another hour, but I didn't want to cut it too close. On the other hand, I couldn't very well leave this information behind, either. I got my camera out of the satchel, laid the documents out on the bed, and snapped pictures of them as quickly as I could.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps outside the door, and I almost jumped out of my skin. But they continued walking on past and went into another apartment. I managed to steady my hand and finish taking the pictures. Then I stuffed everything back into the envelope, replaced it under the mattress, and got out of that apartment as fast as I could. I forced myself to stay calm as I closed the door behind me, and to keep my pace slow and casual as I crossed the parking lot. No one stopped me. Finally safe, I walked around the block to my car --the long way, so that I wouldn't risk running into Daniel and Vince on their way back from the park-- ditched the brown shirt and cap, and drove back to my office.

Somewhere along the way, I remembered to start breathing again.

Charles was ahead of me, only twenty feet away. I didn't like getting this close to him, but it was the only way that I could stay in range of the other guy tailing him. The clown was some sort of cyber-paparazzi, about as subtle as a tyrannosaurus in tap shoes, and dressed like a walking surveillance station: a shirt with a keyboard built into the left sleeve, a helmet with earphones and a data display over one eye, and a combination rifle mike and video recorder in his right hand. Oh yeah, and black vinyl pants. I was gonna make him pay for those.

I'd been following this geek for about a block, waiting for my chance. Finally, Charles turned a corner, and we were out of his field of vision for a few seconds. Moving quickly, I grabbed the tube out of my pocket and threw myself on the paparazzi.

"Christophe!" I shrieked, in my best soap-opera French accent. "It's me! Simone!"

I planted a big wet one on the guy as I squeezed the tube and backed him into a street lamp. It took him a few critical seconds to recover his wits, and by then it was too late.

"Uh... lady, my name is not Christophe."

"That's OK," I said, wiping my lip with my sleeve, "mine's not Simone."

I turned away and started after Charles, but I couldn't resist just one peak back over my shoulder. Geek Boy was frantically trying to follow me, and slowly coming to the realization that his pants were now permanently bonded to the street lamp.

Ah, there are days when I love this job. I put the tube back in my pocket, and sang an impromptu little ditty.

"Oh, a kiss on the street may see quite accidental,

But Crazy Glue's a girl's best friend!

It bonds tacky pants to surfaces of metal,

Yes, Crazy Glue's a girl's best..."

A voice in my ear interrupted me.

"I take it from the musical interlude that you've neutralized the guy with the rifle mic?" asked Drew.

"Oh yeah," I said, checking to make sure that my throat mike hadn't come loose during the scuffle. "I'm just sorry that I can't stick around to watch him try and wiggle out of that situation."

"Whatever. Let's just hope that he was the last of them."

"I hear you. Who'd have thought that there were so many paparazzi in Atlanta? Think we could talk the fish and game department into opening up a short season on them? Just to thin out their numbers?"

"You start the petition, I'll sign it. Now have you got Charles in sight?"

"Just a second," I said, as I got to the corner. "Yeah, he's turned east on 14th. He's about a third of the way down the block."

"Great. Keep an eye on him from there, and I'll pick him up at the next intersection."

"It's a done deal," I said, as I watched our quarry moving away.

Charles had left his hotel half an hour before, driven ten blocks north and then ditched his car at a lot in Midtown and taken off on foot. He was dressed in a black silk shirt, black linen pants, and an expensive set of leather shoes. That and the moussed coif made me pretty sure that he was not on his way to the gym. Drew and I had set up a two man surveillance pattern on him, swapping off periodically so that Charles wouldn't see the same face following him all the time.

Unfortunately, no one had ever bothered to teach such tactics to the Paparazzi. So while Drew and I were bending over backward to keep a low profile, these guys were practically nipping at his heels. At one point, Charles had four photographers and a trio of lovestruck teenage girls in tow.

Now, normally I'm a live and let live person. If somebody wants to try and make a living by snapping photos of celebrities, who am I to sit in judgment? But all the attention was spooking Charlie boy something fierce, and he was trying all sorts of crazy amateur stunts to lose them. Like running into restaurants and asking if they had a back door. Anyway, it was pretty clear that Charles wasn't going to go do whatever it was that he was dressed up to do until he thought that no one was looking. And frankly, Drew and I were getting kind of tired of the whole Keystone Cops spectacle. So we'd decided to step in. For the last few blocks, I'd been leaving a trail of paparazzi crazy glued to various Atlanta landmarks. Hopefully, Charles just thought that his pursuers were getting tired or losing interest.

Our target reached the next corner and continued on straight. A moment later, Drew called in to confirm contact.

"Got him," Drew said. "I've snagged a parking place on the far side of the street that will let me keep him in view for the rest of the block. Can you circle around fast enough to make the next intersection before he does?"

"Oh sure," I said, gritting my teeth. "Good thing I wore my sensible shoes."

I coaxed my tired legs into a jog, and set about covering the four blocks it would take me to circle around Charles and beat him to Piedmont Avenue. There has got to be an easier way to do this job.

Logically, of course, I understand the need to have one agent on foot and the other one in a car: You've gotta have the agent on foot in case the target ducks into the subway or through a pedestrian mall. And you gotta have the one in a car in case the guy hails a taxi. --I have learned the hard way that the line "Follow that Cab" gets you nothing but a blank stare from Ukrainian taxi drivers.

What I did not understand was how I had ended up being the "foot" part of this equation. After all, I'd spend the whole day running up and down stairs for Veronica the slave driving production coordinator. And yet somehow, I'd agreed to let Drew cruise around in my car tonight, while I went sprinting all over the city chasing after Charles. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that Drew had cast some sort of spell on me. I guess I must have taken pity on him, because he looked like he hadn't slept in a couple of days. Me and my soft heart.

Well, at least it was a nice night for a jog. It was one of the first warm evenings we'd had this year, and the city was all hyped up on that "first day of spring" energy. Folks out walking their dogs. College kids hopping coffee shops. Young daredevils doing skateboard tricks on the sidewalk. Piedmont Avenue runs along the side of the park, and a breeze was stirring up all the green smells of a spring night. Grass, and honeysuckle, and the promise of summer.

I made it to the intersection with 14th ahead of Charles, and staked out a position at the edge of a fake British pub with a big outdoor patio, figuring the crowd would buy me some cover. I barely had time to catch my breath and down a few peanuts before Charles reached the intersection as well. He looked back over his shoulder for the tail that I had so thoughtfully removed, then crossed the street and walked into the darkness of the park.

"Shit!" I whispered into my throat mike as I scrambled to follow. "He's going into the park."

"This time of night? He's braver than I thought."

"Great, I'll pin a medal on his chest when I catch him."

"Can you keep him in sight?"

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" I said, as I sprinted across the street.