I waited. I could almost hear an imaginary clock ticking while the two men in the family room continued to banter as they passed the bong back and forth between them.
“I need a Heinie. You want one?”
“Yeah.”
I couldn’t see the man approach, but I heard him when his footsteps left the carpeted family room and stepped onto the tiled area in the kitchen. He walked over to the refrigerator.
“Yo!” he called out. “Last two.”
“Go ’head and get another six-pack out the pantry and throw it in,” the man in the family room called back. Uh-oh. That quick, I was out of time.
I reached down and silently drew my sidearm. When kitchen-man opened the door in about two seconds, the element of surprise would be all mine-at least for a few moments. I needed to capitalize on it. I made a quick plan. I would scream and burst out into the kitchen the moment the door opened. I’d shove kitchen-man back toward the family room with my left hand while covering both him and family room-man at the same time with my gun hand. Hopefully, I’d have them both covered before either of them had a chance to draw a weapon.
I heard the clinks as kitchen-man set the bottles on the counter. My weapon was raised-I was ready to go. But the door didn’t open. Instead, I heard two phfft sounds as he removed the tops.
“You want a glass?” he said.
“No.”
Now he turned to the pantry. I heard a footstep as he approached and then another when, suddenly, the doorbell rang.
“Check it out,” family room-man said. “I got your back.”
Kitchen-man’s footsteps receded as he moved to answer the door. Through the crack, I saw family room-man move into the kitchen, where he had a clear view of the front door. His right hand held a large-caliber revolver. “Who’s there?” he whispered loudly.
“Damn,” kitchen-man said. “It’s some fine-looking bitch, that’s for damn sure.”
“Lemme see,” family room-man said. He holstered his weapon and left my field of view as he made his way to the front door.
My opening. I swung the pantry door open and silently crept to the end of the kitchen. I pulled out my mirror and looked around the corner. I could see one man looking out the window from one side of the door and the other man looking from the other side. The doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it,” family room-man said.
I watched from behind as he opened the door.
Toni stood there, smiling one of her mega-watt dazzling smile. “Hi, there!” She’d tied her blouse up, exposing her midriff. She’d also unbuttoned the top couple of buttons, partly exposing jaw-dropping cleavage framed by the edges of a black lace bra. The blouse had short sleeves, and her full-sleeve tattoo on her left arm was on full display.
The sudden appearance of Toni, combined with his impaired mental facilities, was too much for family room-man. He was completely incapable of getting a word out. In all honesty, it wasn’t really fair. I don’t think very many men would have been composed enough to respond quickly when faced with a full-on frontal assault by Toni-forget the effects of the weed. I know I’d have been tongue-tied-and I don’t get stoned.
Seeing his partner’s slack-jawed expression, kitchen-man grabbed the door and opened it wider, so he too could see.
“Whoa,” he said, when he saw Toni standing before him.
“Hi!” Toni said, again cheerfully when she saw him. “How are you guys? I’m out today with the Petition to Normalize Marijuana laws in the state of Washington. I wonder if you two might have time for a couple of questions.”
I almost burst out laughing. From my vantage point, I couldn’t tell if the men were looking at Toni’s eyes or her chest, but it didn’t matter. They were goners. If Toni had asked them for their weapons, their money-anything-they’d have probably turned it over.
I stepped out from behind the kitchen wall. Toni, looking over the shoulders of the two men, saw me. For the barest moment, her eyes showed surprise, maybe even alarm.
I blew her a silent kiss and stepped across the hallway to the other side of the room.
Five minutes later, we drove away. “Oh my God, you’re completely insane,” Toni said, smiling and shaking her head slowly. “Blowing kisses to me while those two guys were standing right there.”
I smiled. “I waited to leave until I heard them close the door-until I knew you were out of there. And if you’re talking about them maybe seeing me? Forget it. No friggin’ way they were going to turn around. They had a much better view facing your direction, believe me. Besides, how was I supposed to know those idiots were going to pop back home so fast in the first place? And by a side street we didn’t have covered? I ended up spending fifteen minutes in a dark closet that reeked of marijuana listening to those clowns get stoned.” I paused for a second. “Good thinking on the diversion, by the way.”
She smiled. “Sorry it took so long. I had to do a little prep work with the wardrobe.”
“No shit,” I chuckled. “That dude opened the door and saw you standing there with your shirt the way it was. He didn’t know what to think. Poor bastard went rigid-I thought he was gonna have a seizure. You were fuckin’ hot!”
“I know what he was thinking,” she said, nodding her head and smiling.
“Well, who could blame him? Damn. Him and his buddy, too.” I paused. “Anyway, thanks. Thanks for bailing me out.”
She smiled. “What are friends for, right?” She leaned over and kissed me. “You’re pretty hot, yourself, you know.”
I smiled. “It’s the uniform, isn’t it?”
She sat back upright and looked at me. “Well, now that you mention it, I think it is.”
I smiled. I was a lucky man, no doubt about it.
We were on our way back to the office. I’d already radioed Doc and Kenny to let them know what had happened. They were headed back to the office as well. Toni selected a pop station on her radio dial, and Katy Perry sang “Wide Awake.” Toni tapped her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the song. “So what’d you find while you were inside wandering around pretending to be Sherlock Holmes, anyways?” she asked.
“No sign of Isabel, I can say that,” I said. Toni drove under the freeway on Fiftieth and then turned south onto the on-ramp. “The house is big. It looked kind of like a frat house-even more so because of the pot and the porn. Other than that, nothing very remarkable.” I paused. “Well,” I said, “there was one interesting thing. There were like six bedrooms upstairs and one down. One of the upstairs rooms was set up with lights and a camera on a tripod. Like a permanent porn studio.”
“Perverts,” she said.
“I started taking pictures of everything, but I wasn’t all the way through when they got home. I finished the main floor, and then I checked the upstairs for occupants-there weren’t any.”
Toni merged onto the freeway. “Was there a basement? Were you able to check that out?”
“I don’t think there is one because I didn’t see a basement door when I checked the main floor.” We drove south on I-5 without speaking for several minutes. The freeway arced gracefully more than one hundred feet in the air as it crossed over Lake Union.
“Hey,” Toni said suddenly. “You remembered that your dad’s taking us to Daniel’s Broiler on Friday for your birthday, right?”
I nodded. “Yep. I remember.” Friday, June 15-the big three-oh. Danny Logan turns thirty. Can’t believe I made it. When I was a boy, I always thought that if I ever turned thirty, I’d be old as dirt. Back then, thirty was a l-o-n-n-n-g way off. Then, I graduated from high school, joined the army, and almost immediately I was in the war. Thirty was a lot closer, but I tried not to think about getting old then. I suppose I didn’t want to jinx myself. Now that I was safe and sound and two days away from the milestone, I actually felt pretty good-not old at all. I was healthy-probably the best shape of my life, actually. My parents were healthy. Business was good-a little slow at the moment, but good. I had good friends. And best of all, I was with a great woman-someone so far beyond what I’d ever imagined that I could hardly believe it. I smiled as we drove, the tires thumping over the expansion joints on the freeway. All these years, I’d been dreading this birthday, and now it looked like I’d been worrying for nothing. My thirties might not be so bad after all.
Richard joined Toni and me in my office when we got back. Doc was in Kenny’s office, the two of them huddled over the computer screen. “So,” Richard said, “Doc says you made it out by the hair of your chinny-chin-chin.” His blue eyes seemed to twinkle when he smiled.
I nodded. “I did. Thanks to Toni, here.” I leaned back in my chair. “There I was,” I said, dramatically, “trapped by fate in the drug-laden storage cave of some of the world’s most dangerous criminals-vicious, ruthless guys. Time was running short; options-well, let’s just say there weren’t any and leave it at that. The bad guys sensed my presence. They were big. They were bad. They were mean. And, above all, they were well armed. They were on the hunt, and they were out for blood.”
Toni shook her head. “Oh my God,” she said. “You are so full of shit. They were two idiots so stoned they could barely stand up.”
“Ignore that,” I said to Richard. “Just as my clever hiding place was about to be compromised, just at that darkest of moments, what do I hear?”
“Ding-dong?” Toni said.
“Exactly. Ding-friggin-dong. Salvation. Salvation in the form of a stunning, dark-haired maiden who shows up and saves the day.”
“Oh, puh-leeze,” she said. “He sent me a text message that said ‘HELP!’ in all caps with an exclamation point.”
Richard laughed. “From the closet he did that?”
Toni nodded.
“To be fair, that’s not all the message said.”
“Oh, that’s true,” she said. “It said ‘HELP! Need diversion.’”
“See? That’s right,” I said. “‘Need diversion.’ I was thinking tactically. I didn’t want to have to go to guns with these stoners. Not when a simple little distraction was all that was needed.”
“So, naturally, you called Toni.”
“Duh,” I said. “Do you know a better distraction?” I smiled at Toni. She stuck her tongue out at me.
“Point made,” he said.
“Damn straight,” I said. “Quick thinking in the line of fire, if you ask me.”
I heard the bell ring on the office front door. A minute later, Kenny walked into my office. “Kelli’s here to see you,” he said to Toni.
“Okay,” she said. “Would you do me a favor and bring her on back to the conference room? Please? We’ll be right out.” Kenny left.
“So what happens now?” Richard said after Kenny went to get Kelli.
“We still don’t know where Isabel is,” I said. “The police won’t step in now and raid the NSSBs to find her.”
“Not with the evidence you have so far,” Richard said. “They’re worried about this pesky little document-it’s called-it’s called-oh yeah! It’s called the constitution. Among other things, it deals with the concept of unreasonable search and seizure-that sort of thing.”
“Yeah, well, anyway, they’re not doing anything. I get the impression that we’d practically need to get a photo of Isabel holding a current newspaper or something like that in order for the police to go in and rescue her. That’s if we could even locate her.”
“Which leaves us precisely where?” Richard said.
“Compared to ten days ago?” I asked. “A little smarter. Maybe with a little more evidence than we had when we took this case. But, I’m afraid, probably no closer to finding Isabel.”
“Any idea how much longer you’re going to keep looking?”
“That’s a real good question,” I said. “I talked with Ferguson and Sons this morning. They’re ready for us to get started.”
“So?”
I squirmed in my chair. “I hate to say it, but we need to start pulling in some money. We’re supposed to start the Ferguson job next Monday. I think we’re pretty quickly getting to the point where we’re going to have to drop this case and hope that the police can find Isabel. I can’t afford to pay everyone if I’m not bringing in any revenue.”
He nodded. “You don’t need to explain it to me,” he said. “I sat in your chair for twenty-five years. I know all about payroll and overhead.”
“It sucks, too,” I said. “We’re close-I can feel it. But we just don’t have quite enough information yet. We lack the key to get the police all fired up.”
“The smoking gun,” Toni said.
Richard nodded again. “It can be hard to come by,” he said.
“Too bad we can’t get someone from the inside to talk to us,” Toni said. “Shed a little light. We probably learned more from talking to Paola than from anything else.”
“For sure,” I said. “But at least as of earlier in the week, she wasn’t willing to say more than what she’s already told us.”
“I know,” Toni said. “Maybe we should ask Nancy if there’s been any improvement.”
“Wait a second! I got it!” I said. “You can go undercover for us. You saw today-those guys practically swooned over you. You can get us all the information we need.”
Toni looked at me, saw that I was joking, and then smiled. Her hands were folded in front of her. She slowly extended her middle finger.
I smiled, but I couldn’t resist yanking her chain a bit more. “C’mon,” I said. “Just to gather information. I wouldn’t want you actually going on any dates or anything like that. I’m not a pervert, after all.”
“I don’t know about that,” Toni said. “Besides-I’m a little too old for these guys, anyway.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so,” I said. “The two clowns today sure didn’t think so.”
She smiled. “That’s sweet. But it’s bullshit. I’d stand right out.”
“Well, that’s for damn sure,” I said. “Just kidding, anyway. Besides, I’m the old one here-did you forget?”
She smiled. “That’s true. You’re almost over the hill.”
“I know,” I said. “But anyway, I guess I’ll have to think about our next actions some more tonight, and we’ll pick it back up at our staff meeting in the morning.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Richard said. “I’m going to take off early tonight. Maria and I have a dinner date.” Richard and Maria have been married nearly fifty years. In this way-as in many others-he is my hero. He started to leave, and we followed him out. We entered the conference room to talk to Kelli, but it was empty.
“Hey, Kenny!” I called out. “Where’s Kelli?”
“She’s in the conference room,” he yelled back.
“I don’t see her,” I said to Toni.
“Me neither,” she said.
Kenny walked into the room. “She’s right-” He stopped when he saw the empty room. “Well, she was right here, only a few minutes ago. I brought her back here, just like you said.”
“Maybe she got tired of waiting,” I said.
“What? After three minutes?” Toni asked.
“More like five,” Kenny said.
“Okay, five then,” Toni said.
“She left.” We turned and saw Doc walking up the hallway. “She walked out a minute ago,” he said to Toni. “She asked me to tell you she’d call you later.”
I shrugged. “There you go,” I said. “At least one mystery is solved.”