Queens Ransom (Sofie Metropolis) (4 page)

Five

‘Hey, watch it! You’re going to scratch baby Jesus!’

I grimaced. Lord forbid I should do irreparable harm to baby Jesus.

A half hour after I ushered Mrs Claus out of the office I reviewed the list Rosie had printed up, my mother’s voice still echoing in my head (how did mothers do that?), my morning agenda roughly sketched out, and I made myself my second frappé of the morning. In order to do so, I had to move a couple of Rosie’s manger animals from the top of the filing cabinets to make room.

‘Is there an inch in this place that isn’t taken up by Christmas decorations?’ I muttered under my breath, deciding to wait for my frappé until after the client Rosie was talking to left.

‘I don’t understand how no one’s been able to find anything,’ said a woman I guessed to be somewhere around thirty-five to forty said, seated in the chair next to Rosie’s desk. She wore nice tan slacks and a beige sweater, her blonde hair revealing a recent visit to the salon. I resisted the urge to touch my own neglected brown hair and listened as she said, ‘Five PIs and a shitload of money. And now you guys. It’s been two months. Surely you should have found something by now.’

I was familiar with the case. I also knew that up until this point, all of our efforts had been for naught. Lois Kent would call, we’d follow her husband Clark, and get no more than her husband sitting in a bar having a drink or five.

I briefly caught Rosie’s gaze as I headed back to the office as she said, ‘You know, there is a chance he’s not cheating on you, Mrs Kent. Have you considered that? I mean, I know, right? We women are pretty good with this stuff. We can smell another woman before he’s even touched her . . .’

I went into my office.

‘I know he’s cheating. I just know it.’

The agency had a high success rate when it came to both serving court papers and cheating-spouse cases. Rare was the occasion when we didn’t deliver the goods.

The front door opened and I watched the star server enter.

Pamela Coe gave me a wave and I waved back. She was tall and blonde and attractive and had a track record no one could match. Well, up until recently, that is. She’d worked for the agency long before I signed on, and while I sometimes wondered why she didn’t appear interested in expanding her duties at the agency, I respected that she’d chosen her job and did it well. And, the truth was, even though I met up with her at the firing range from time to time for target practice, I had no idea what she did outside serving, but I was guessing she was doing something . . . and was no doubt very good at that as well.

‘What if you were to tempt him into doing something?’ the wife was saying.

I looked at her, Rosie looked at me, and Pamela seemed oblivious where she thumbed through the documents waiting to be served on the filing cabinets near Rosie’s desk that didn’t bear any delicate Christmas decorations that could be damaged.

‘Like set him up, you mean? With a prostitute or something?’ Rosie asked, glancing at me again.

Truth was, we’d half-heartedly talked about doing just that with some of the more challenging cases. Would land the client what they wanted with minimal fuss and time investment. Hey, if the guy was going to cheat, he was going to cheat. Right?

I looked at Pamela Coe, wheels turning.

‘I don’t know,’ Rosie said. ‘That seems a little like cheating.’

I snorted at her choice of words and all three women looked at me.

‘Sorry,’ I said, clearing my throat. ‘I’m just going to close this . . .’

I slowly began shutting the office door.

‘Trust me,’ Rosie was saying. ‘If he’s cheating, we’ll catch him.’

‘Oh, he’s cheating all right.’

‘Then we’ll catch him.’

Fifteen minutes later, the client was gone and so was Pamela and I could finally make that second frappé I was craving.

Thankfully, Rosie was busy at her laptop and didn’t engage me when I opened my door and made a beeline for the filing cabinets, careful not to do any harm to her baby Jesus.

Listening to ‘I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas’, which was playing on her iPod, I shook a generous tablespoon of instant coffee along with a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and a little water in my travel cup, then replaced the jars of both in the top filing cabinet where I’d extracted them with my other hand. I eyeballed the other decorations and considered tipping a lamb or a goat or two inside with them but decided against it when I caught Rosie staring at me as if she expected me to.

‘I don’t know how you can drink that iced coffee stuff in this cold weather,’ she commented, leaning in to stare at something on her laptop screen between clacks. A state of the art piece of technology I’d gotten her when things at the agency had been going very well.

Not that they weren’t going well now. It’s just that, well . . .

No. I was stopping there. The last time I tempted the Fates by wishing for a more interesting case, I’d nearly been turned into a creature of the night.

Besides, the supposed kidnapping of Abramopoulos’ kid was interesting. It might be more so if every other PI in New York wasn’t also working the case.

I added more cold water and a little milk to my frappé and closed the small refrigerator door.

‘If you score on any additional whereabouts of Abramopoulos’ ex-wife, call me,’ I told Rosie.

‘Did you call your mom?’

‘You know I did.’

She smiled at me.

I growled.

Funny, my mother. Last night I got an earful not about putting my life at risk by being a PI, but rather about how I’d missed the
saranta
.

I’d expected the same today. At the very least, to be bugged about picking up my
saranta
bag, an eerie reminder put together for those unable to make the event.

Instead, she’d told me Grandpa Kosmos was looking for me.

I’d scratched my head and checked my cell. It wasn’t like I was hard to find.

Rather than call him, as I promised my mother I would, I decided I’d wait until he contacted me.

I’d begun to tell her I wouldn’t be able to stop by today to get the bag or whatever bland, fast-inspired meal she planned to prepare when she told me she wouldn’t be home.

‘Anything from the CIS?’ I asked Rosie after shrugging into my coat.

She momentarily looked as if she’d been hit in the face with my icy frappé – as she did whenever I mentioned the CIS, I thought maybe because she had a few relatives who were illegal. Then she got it together.

‘Nope. You expecting something on that Dino case?’

‘Yeah. If the agent calls, forward it to my cell.’

Probably he would try my cell first, but I wanted to make sure I talked to him if he called. I was still working out what my next step should be since I obviously wasn’t getting anywhere here, no matter how nice Agent David Hunter appeared to be.

I understood my mother had spoken to Dino a few times. He hadn’t called me. Not that I expected him to after that disaster of a date. But still . . .

‘You’re not leaving him here again, are you?’

I eyed where Muffy had curled up on my old office chair at the desk next to Rosie’s and he eyed me back.

‘Yeah. Just let him outside to terrorize the neighbors every hour or so and piss on the hydrant and he should be fine.’

She tsked loudly, causing us both to stare at her.

‘What? I’d like to know when I added “pet sitter” to my job description.’

‘Look at it this way: he’s protecting you.’

‘From what? Women dressed like Santa Claus’ wife?’

Something like that.

‘You know he don’t like Waters.’

Eugene Waters. One of my latest hires, the circumstances surrounding his employment a story that always inspired a smile if not an outright laugh.

OK, so the vertically challenged African-American pimp wannabe’s promotion from someone on whom I’d tried to serve eviction papers to one of our process servers maybe rated a spot on the strange scale. But, in some twisted way, it made sense. Who better to get to serve than someone who knew all the ways to avoided being served? And, truth was, he was proving even more effective than Pamela Coe on some occasions, whose success rate had gone untouched by anyone before now.

Pamela had a problem? She handed the case off to him and he delivered.

‘Yeah, well,’ I responded to Rosie. ‘That’s because Waters don’t like Muffy. I suspect Waters doesn’t like many dogs.’

At the mention of the name, Muffy raised his head and growled.

I could relate, but for different reasons.

‘Call if you need anything,’ I said.

‘Whatever.’

For a split second, as I stood there with my hand on the door ready to open it, I considered telling her what my next-door neighbor, Mrs Nebitz, grandmother to Seth, Rosie’s heartbreaking ex, had shared with me. Something that went beyond leaky kitchen faucets and expensive plumbers and made my being late to pick up my mother worth it beyond the fact I’d wanted to be late picking up my mother.

Then my gaze settled on the cheerful Happy Holidays sign on the glass.

Shoot me, but no matter how foul her mood, I just didn’t have it in me to tell Rosie that Seth was getting married.

Brrrr . . .

However hard I tried to prepare myself, that first step out into the cold always shocked me. As I walked to my car, hunkered forward against the skin-chapping wind, I put my gloves on one by one, trading off on holding my cup of iced coffee.

‘Metro.’

Of course, it would stand to reason this was the one time I should have been paying attention to my surroundings. Or, more specifically, others who might inhabit my surroundings.

I looked up to find Pimply Pino Karras getting out of his NYPD police cruiser where he was parked behind Lucille.

Now what?

‘Pino.’

He appeared about to hike his pants up, but caught himself. I gave a little smile. It was nice to imagine I didn’t know what color his socks were. Of course, I did know; they were navy blue to match his pants since he was a stickler for rules and codes. Still, I held out hope that one day they might be purple . . . with sequins.

There was a time not too long ago when Pino seemed hell bent on taking me into the precinct on something, anything, he didn’t care what. Littering would have done the trick. Murder? Jackpot! Think it went back to when we were in grade school at St Demetrios, when he was pimply and I never let him forget it. Not for a minute.

But recently things between us had improved substantially.

Hungry wood chippers and neighborhood serial killers had a way of bonding people together.

‘So, what’s up?’ he said, as if this were a summer day and we were just coming across each other, indulging in a bit of catch up.

I raised a brow. ‘Other than every hair on my body ’cause it’s freakin’ freezing out here?’

I knew this was the way Pino operated. Why come straight to the point when you could work your away around to it? I imagined he thought he was some uniformed version of Columbo trying to get a suspect to incriminate themselves because they judged him somewhere below incompetent.

Unfortunately I was guessing most of the people Pino questioned had nothing incriminating to say.

I unlocked the driver’s door of my Mustang and put my purse and travel cup inside.

‘You planning on sharing what’s on your mind? Or are you going to make me leave you standing here?’ I asked.

‘Your car.’

‘My car.’ I gestured for him to continue.

‘You left it in the middle of the street last night.’

‘Ah.’ So he must have been the one to park it.

Shit.

‘I was in a hurry.’ I got into the car. ‘Like I am now.’

He caught the door when I tried to close it. ‘Right.’

I grimaced at him. I supposed I should at least thank him for saving me the towing money and hassle. So I did.

‘Cough it up, Sof.’

‘What? Am I cat? No fur balls to be had.’

I couldn’t very well tell him I was working a custodial kidnapping case and that I’d been instructed not to go to the police.

He positioned himself so I couldn’t close the door without hitting him and crossed his arms.

‘There was an awesome sale and I got caught behind some asshole that was double parked?’ I tried.

‘And left your keys in the car?’

‘Yeah.’ I smiled brightly. ‘The sale was good, it was the last day and the shop was about to close.’

‘What did you get?’

‘A pair of crotchless underwear,’ I said. ‘Look, Pino, I’d really like to give you a full rundown, but I’m late for a doctor’s appointment.’

‘Nice try.’

‘Yeah, my annual pap smear. You know, female stuff where that crotchless underwear really comes in handy. You want to tag along?’

That caught him off guard. As I knew it would.

Somehow his face got redder than the cold had already made it.

‘Can I go now? Or would you like further details?’

I couldn’t help giving myself an inward smile. It wasn’t that long ago I wouldn’t have dared say what I just had to him. To anybody, for that matter. Now the words and the lies they represented slid right off my tongue smooth as could be.

And garnered me exactly the results I wanted.

He stepped back. ‘I still want that explanation.’

‘And maybe later I’ll give it to you.’

I closed the door, started Lucille with a great deal of sputtering and ass shaking, and then pulled from the curb, the move from ice rut to ice rut jarring my bones.

My cell rang as soon as I put Pino in my rear-view mirror.

Damn.

I fumbled to get it out of my purse and nearly hit a parked car when a woman swung open her door without looking.

‘Moron!’ I shouted.

She flipped me the bird.

‘Is that anyway to talk to your mother?’ the voice on the phone wanted to know.

Great.

Hadn’t I just talked to her?

No matter, I got the distinct impression the guilt trip she was about to send me on was going to be a good one.

Six

A half hour later I sat parked at the curb on a residential street in Corona where the tenements hugged the sidewalks and there barely seemed room enough to breathe, much less live. I was lucky to have gotten a parking spot at all, and might have dinged the old Pontiac behind me as I tried my skill at parallel parking while sliding on six inches of solid ice.

I sipped my frappé. ‘You sure this is the place?’ I asked Rosie on my cell phone.

I imagined her rolling her eyes. ‘When have I ever been wrong about anything? Now is that all? ’cause I got stuff to do and you’re keeping me from it.’

‘By all means,’ I said. ‘Oh, and thanks.’

‘Yeah. Whatever.’

She hung up.

As I pressed disconnect and tossed my cell back into my purse, I came to the conclusion that the word currently inhabiting my most hated list was ‘whatever’.

Of course, she was rarely off on any of the info she gave me, so I cut her some slack . . . a little, anyway. While I was familiar with many of her sources, she had a few mystery contacts she liked to call ‘job security’. And seeing as she’d been working for my uncle long before I ever signed on, I could only imagine what those might be.

I took another pull from my frappé, put it down between the seats and then climbed out of the car, trying to ignore the cold and failing.

Moments later I was knocking on the door to Apartment Three-B in a three-floor apartment building that had seen better days, hoping one certain ex-Mrs Abramopoulos was going to answer the door.

Nothing.

I looked up and down the dingy hall. I’d been in plenty of similar places before. Knew chances were good someone was always going to be boiling cabbage no matter the time of year. And that you didn’t want to pull up the carpet for fear of what creepy-crawlies resided under them.

And I’d thought the Kew Gardens house she had resided in before was bad. This place rated somewhere between there and hell, leaning more heavily toward the latter than the former.

I knocked again, leaning in closer to try to detect movement inside over the din of cartoons from a nearby apartment, and a loud, profanity-laden argument coming from another.

I sighed. While Rosie might be right and one ex-Mrs Abramopoulos might be inside this particular apartment, she wasn’t intent on answering the door. Not that I blamed her. If my daughter were missing, the last thing I’d want was company. Especially if I was suspected of taking her.

I twisted my lips and knocked again. ‘Ms Abramopoulos? My name’s Sofie Metropolis. I’m a PI. I’m here to talk to you about your daughter if you’ve got a minute.’

There’ve been times when I’ve employed more creative tactics in enticing someone to open the door, but I was guessing this particular apartment-hider would appreciate a more direct approach.

After long moments passed with no response, I supposed I could be wrong.

I was about to turn away when I heard the chain on the door.

‘What is it? What’s the matter with my daughter?’ a small, female voice asked.

I squinted through the slight crack, unable to make anything out in the dim light.

‘Hi, Ms Abramopoulos—’

‘Please, call me Sara.’

‘OK.’ I slid one of my cards toward her. ‘I was wondering if I might come in to talk to you for a couple of minutes.’

While it was entirely possible she didn’t have any idea what had happened to her daughter, I wasn’t going to pass up a primo opportunity to have a look around.

Only I hadn’t expected it to be so easy.

The door closed, the chain disappeared and then I was motioned inside.

I went.

Either the pretty yet too-thin woman with the dark circles under her eyes was a good actress and trusted her skill, or she really was concerned about her daughter.

I decided since the straightforward route had gotten me this far, I might as well take it farther.

So I told her what I knew. Well, at least a little.

Her eyes grew even larger as she listened. ‘Kidnapped? By who?’

The apartment was sparsely furnished and looked more like a man’s than a woman’s place. Dark furniture made the faded wallpaper and stained carpeting look even drabber. Might help if the heavy curtains were open, but they weren’t. Empty beer bottles and fast food wrappers covered nearly available surface along with overflowing ashtrays.

And unfortunately for me it smelled like it looked.

I answered her question, ‘By you is how I’m hearing it.’

Sara Canton’s large blue eyes looked about to roll out of her head.

‘Shut the fuck up out there! I need to get some fucking sleep!’ a man’s voice came from what I guessed was the bedroom.

Damn. We weren’t alone.

Not only were we not alone, it appeared the other person in the apartment was in a foul mood and far less friendly than Sara.

She looked at me apologetically.

Boy, she really had fallen a long ways since Abramopoulos, hadn’t she?

I felt a stab of sympathy for her.

But a bigger one for her little girl.

‘I don’t even have visitation rights,’ Sara said so quietly I nearly didn’t hear her.

More profanity from the other room, then the sound of something hitting the wall and breaking.

Was Sara right? Could she have not only lost custody of her only child, but any right to her at all? I knew money was capable of doing a lot of things. But I’d lived under the assumption that parental rights were parental rights and nothing short of murder could sever them.

My gaze slid toward the bedroom door that had just opened, my hand budging closer to my gun.

Then again, I supposed it depended on who the parent was.

‘Didn’t you hear me, you stupid bitch?’

Sara didn’t flinch. Rather she looked exasperated, as if used to the treatment.

‘My brother, Bubba.’

Her brother. OK. Better than her boyfriend, I guessed.

Although I couldn’t tell you how that side note impacted me at all. Particularly in that moment.

‘Don’t go telling strangers who in the hell I am,’ Bubba said. His arm disappeared inside the bedroom doorway then came back with a shotgun.

Shit.

One handed, he cocked it, then held it against his hip, the barrel pointing in my general direction.

Christ.

I held up my hands instead of drawing my gun. ‘Hey, I’m no one to worry about. Just stopped by to see how Sara’s doing.’

‘Someone took Jolie,’ Sara said. ‘My little girl. Kidnapped.’

Bubba didn’t say anything for a long moment, rheumy eyes slowly moving between his sister and me.

I tried to detect if the news was news to him. I was pretty sure it was to Sara.

Bubba, however . . . Bubba looked like he’d cut and sell the liver out of his own dog for a drink.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

I moved to get one of my business cards and the barrel of the shotgun moved, too.

‘Whoa. Just giving your sister my number, is all.’

He tilted his head, apparently catching sight of my shoulder holster. ‘What you got there?’

I took out one of my business cards and a pen, writing my cell number on the back of it. ‘Glock.’

His smile was smug. ‘Yeah, got me a couple of those. Got a few others in addition to this one, too.’ He nodded the shotgun. ‘Wanna see?’

‘Pass.’

I held out the card to Sara.

‘Call me. Anytime.’

She said something that sounded like, ‘Thanks,’ but I couldn’t be sure.

‘Always nice to meet a fellow gun lover, Bubba,’ I said to her brother, hoping to disarm him. Well, figuratively speaking, since I was pretty sure he had a gun attached to him at all times. My goal was to pacify him just enough to get me through the door and down those steps before he decided he wanted a closer look at my Glock . . . and I was forced to put a bullet between his bloodshot eyes.

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until I emerged out on to the sidewalk, not so bothered about the cold because I was suddenly thankful for the lungful of air, frigid or otherwise.

Damn.

For all I knew, Bubba had the kid stashed in the bedroom. Either that, or he had her stashed somewhere else.

But I was pretty sure Sara had no idea where her daughter was.

Of course, ‘pretty sure’ held about as much weight as a plastic colander.

A car crept by. A familiar one.

I watched it closely, trying but failing to see inside the Crown Vic.

I was kind of surprised none of the other PIs had made it this far. I made a mental note to myself to up Rosie’s Christmas bonus at least by half.

Not that the information or my conversation with Sara had done me any good, but at least I had accomplished a hell of a lot more than anyone else.

I walked to my car and climbed in, reaching for my frappé.

Frozen.

Shit.

It was the second time this week that had happened. And an undrinkable frappé did not a happy camper make.

How was a girl supposed to function properly without a good, regular dose of caffeine?

My cell phone rang. I reached for my purse even as I leaned forward to look up at the window of Apartment Three-B. Sure enough, I saw the curtains move. And was pretty certain a momentary sunbeam piercing the gray sky had reflected off a gun barrel.

Yikes.

I started Lucille and bounced up and down as if the move would help her warm up as much as me.

Then I spotted the Crown Vic again, parking a half a block up.

Coincidence?

Problem was, I was coming to believe there was no such thing.

A glance at my cell phone told me my grandfather had finally decided to forgo Ma Thalia and contact me directly. I decided he could wait.

I put the car in gear and sped up to park next to the old, boxy car. Sure enough, Mr Comb-Over stared back at me through his thick glasses.

Great. Wasn’t I supposed to be the one doing the following? What was he doing following me?

Then again, I’d been in the apartment for the past fifteen minutes. Surely if he had been following me, then he’d have already been parked.

No, he’d gotten there after me.

Which meant he probably had a Rosie of his own stashed away somewhere.

I thought about getting out and introducing myself, then decided against it.

Probably it was coincidence.

And probably he would get shot by Sara’s brother.

I smiled and gave him a friendly wave as I put the car back in gear and sped down the street, well away from the scene of the impending crime.