FIve More Minutes, page 8
part #1 of Todd Jones Series
“Sure, honey. I got my social security check yesterday so you take all you need.”
“Thanks.” Todd stopped at the nearest ATM, borrowed his mother’s wallet, took out her bank card and withdrew five hundred in twenty dollar bills.
Todd pushed the card back in its slot and noticed the photograph on her driver’s license. His mother hadn’t looked like that in years. She’d had purple bangs at the time the photo was taken. No longer.
He looked more closely at the details on the license. “Jesus.” He handed her the fat wallet, most of which consisted of unpaid parking fines and expired coupons. “Mom, your license expired more than three years ago.”
“I know.” She sounded unconcerned.
Todd pulled away from the bank. “Don’t you think you ought to get it renewed?”
“Nah. The lines are too long.” She coughed uncontrollably for a minute. When she got her throat and lungs under some level of control, she said, “And my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”
Todd glanced at his mom out of the corner of his eye as she absently lit another cigarette. She wasn’t joking. “Right.”
He dropped her off at Port Lauderdale Condominium Towers and told her not to wait on him for dinner.
“Do you want me to save you something you can heat up?”
“No, thanks. If I’m hungry when I get home, I’ll warm up Mr. Squeals.”
“Not funny, Todd.” Rasping loudly, Mrs. Jones stepped out of the car and the doorman slammed it shut.
“Bye, Mom.”
“Wait. What about your clothes? Don’t you want to shower and change first?”
Todd hung his head. He had a change of clothes at the office but one glance in the rearview mirror told him that his face was still smudged with soot despite having washed his face twice with paper towels in the restroom at the car rental agency.
His hair looked like it had been used at the end of a long pole to clean out somebody’s chimney. Smelled like it too.
Todd ordered the doorman to leave the car close at hand. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
Showered and wearing a suit he’d gotten back from the dry cleaners only the day before, he hurried from the condo before the outfit ended up smelling of pig and cigarettes.
Downstairs, he discovered that the doorman had moved his mother’s butt-ugly purple car to the back of the tower.
Todd didn’t bother to complain because he really couldn’t blame the guy. Not to mention, a car like that parked in front of the building would only be detrimental to his and everybody else’s property values.
10
Paul Strom was a top-selling agent—as evidenced by the palm tree-shaped gold pin they’d awarded him and that he wore proudly on his lapel—with Dugan and Associates, a real estate firm run by a mother and daughter team who’d managed to maintain a thriving business despite the ups and downs of the South Florida economy. In fact, Todd knew for a fact that they wouldn’t touch any listing for less than one million dollars.
Their midsize office was at the other end of Las Olas Boulevard, nearer to the beach. And the closer you got, the more the rent went up.
He parked in the small shopping center of which their business occupied the middle third and headed for the spotless double glass doors with twin oiled-bronze handles.
Dugan and Associates was a study in white: white carpets, billowy white draperies, white sofas and divans, white chairs and white desks. From the looks of the agents’ teeth, they all went to the same dentist where they got the same ultrawhite whitening treatments.
A curved staircase with a gold stair railing rose to the ceiling near the center of the main room and stopped at a ceiling painting of brilliant blue sky and wisps of cloud. The artist had skillfully created the trompe l’oeil making the staircase look to ascend infinitely into the faux sky.
Wiping his feet carefully on the mat outside the door, Todd stepped inside the cool, white world that was Dugan and Associates.
Kathy Dugan, the younger of the two Dugans, greeted him. Coolly, of course. That was the world she lived and thrived in.
Her platinum blonde hair fell straight along the curves of her pale, narrow face. She wore an equally pale blue dress. It provided just enough color to keep her from disappearing into the background. A double strand of pearls draped from her neck. “Good to see you, Todd.”
As she held out her hand to Todd, he noticed she’d added yet another diamond in a platinum setting to her left hand.
Unless the young woman grew some extra fingers, she was in danger of running out of room for new jewels.
“Hi, Kathy. You’re looking lovely as ever.” That was no lie. She was a beautiful woman and she did everything necessary to maintain perfection. Todd and Kathy had had a fling once—fling meaning that she had once flung him down on the plush mattress in the master suite of a penthouse condominium overlooking the ocean and proceeded to have her way with him.
Not that he had put up a fight. Though he had done a little boxing in college, Todd knew when to take a dive. And when a hot, sex-starved real estate professional wants to strip you naked and have her way with you, you let her.
Sadly, there had been no repeat performance to date. Kathy Dugan had no time for personal relationships, so she had explained as they untangled and picked their clothing up off the carpet and got dressed. “Don’t go getting any ideas,” she had told him, as she locked up the condo behind them on their way out.
By then, Todd already had a head full of ideas but he’d stuck them on the backburner. With a woman like Kathy, there was no telling what the future would bring.
“Thank you, Todd,” Kathy said in response to his compliment now, though there was a certain tiredness to her response that said that she heard compliments on her beauty all too often.
She leaned in and planted the merest kiss on his cheek. He caught the scent of a delicate perfume.
“Is Paul around?” He glanced toward Strom’s office. Nobody at Dugan and Associates worked a desk on the floor or even in a cubicle. Everybody got a private office.
“Sorry, he’s out with a client. Was he expecting you? He didn’t mention it.”
“No. I was in the area and wanted to discuss a couple of listings with him.”
“I see. I’m glad you’re here. Come.” She turned on her white high heels and started for her spacious private office in front. She didn’t bother to see if Todd was following.
Kathy Dugan’s office was sparsely furnished and fastidiously neat. Not a scrap of paper was allowed to be visible. Shelves held artwork and not a speck of dust. A large floor to ceiling window filled the front wall.
Her spotless desk consisted of a rectangle of thick glass with smoothed edges, resting on a base of some rare exotic wood that might or might not have been cut down illegally.
Kathy settled behind her desk in a white leather chair and beckoned for Todd to have a seat.
Todd sat and crossed his legs in one of the two smaller leather chairs for guests. He was determined to act casual but his stomach was tied up like a monkey’s fist. Paul Strom had told him that Kathy and her mother did not know about the purported theft of Gunther Graff’s collectibles. Had Paul lied to him? Had they since found out?
“What’s up, Kathy?”
Kathy’s glossy silver fingernails tapped rhythmically atop her glass-top desk. Somehow, she managed to do so without leaving a smudge. “I wanted to be sure that you were comfortable with the situation.”
“Well,” began Todd, fearing the worst, “it is a little disconcerting. But like I told Paul, I didn’t do anything wrong. That’s not to say that I won’t do everything I can to make things right. In fact, I have some ideas about that—”
Kathy nodded absently. “Fine. That’s fine, Todd. I’m glad to hear it. You know,” perfect white teeth flashed at him, “when Paul suggested we hire Holly, my first thought was that I didn’t want to poach from another broker, even if it is for a non-agent position.”
Kathy stood, came around to Todd’s side of the desk and perched her perfect little butt on the edge. Todd was staring at a sea of leg, which immediately had the same effect as lowering his IQ about twenty-two points.
“When Paul explained to me that you and Holly were no longer an item, I was somewhat mollified. Still, I’m glad you stopped by because I had been meaning to call you and discuss the situation.”
Todd took a sudden gulp of air, realizing that he had stopped breathing and was in danger of passing out. His fingers dug into his thighs. Holly had gone to work for the Dugans? And what the hell was Paul doing telling Kathy, telling anybody, that he and Holly were no longer an item, as he put it?
Todd felt a dampness growing over his upper lip and swiped his finger across the space below his nose.
Kathy’s hand reached out and alit on his left shoulder. Her knees were practically in his face. “Can I get you something to drink, Todd?”
Todd forced his eyes upward where they met hers. “No, I’m fine.”
“Wonderful. We’ll all be quite relieved when Holly starts work tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Holly had wasted no time lining up a new job. Unless she’d been planning the breakup and the move for some time.
That was entirely possible.
Kathy nodded. “By the way, are you free this evening?” Her hand still gripped his shoulder, signalling that she wasn’t done with him yet.
“Not exactly,” replied Todd. He’d be busy trying to save his business and his neck. While Kathy was speaking, his smartphone vibrated against his chest but this was no time to answer it.
Kathy’s lips formed a pretty pout. “What a pity. I’m having a small soirée at the house for clients, friends and associates. It would be wonderful if you could make it.”
Todd shook his head no. “Sorry.” He started to rise and her hand fell to her lap. “Some other time maybe.”
Too bad, perhaps he could have done a little discreet poaching of his own. If he could snag a client from the Dugans, he’d earn himself a fat commission.
Kathy walked him out. “If you change your mind, cocktails are at seven. Dessert,” she added with the merest of winks, “is whenever we want it.”
11
Todd’s mind was racing as he sped off. He needed someplace where he could be alone. Some quiet place to gather his thoughts. Sadly, there was no place currently more solitary than his office.
He parked his mother’s purple Camry on the street, ignoring the glares and smirks of passersby and went inside.
It bothered him that Holly had left. It bothered him that she had found another job. It bothered him that that job was working in the same office as Paul Strom.
Most of all…
It bothered him that it all bothered him.
Todd sat and pulled out his phone to check his messages and missed calls. A couple of bill collectors, his dentist and Det. Nick Durham. He erased the messages from the bill collectors without listening to them—what would be the point? He couldn’t pay them. He ignored the message from his dentist—he couldn’t afford to get his teeth cleaned—and pressed play to hear what the detective had to say.
“Call me back.”
Todd rolled his eyes. “Mister Melodrama.” Nick was apparently too paranoid to leave a message. He dialed the number and waited six interminably long rings before the detective answered. “Hello?” Todd heard flushing sounds in the background.
“Yeah.” Nick sounded breathless.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the john. I’ve gotta keep my voice down.”
The image of the out-of-shape detective calling him from inside a bathroom stall was off-putting. Todd forced himself to think of something better—like girls in string bikinis on Fort Lauderdale Beach. “Did you find out anything?”
“Her name is Cynthia Graff.”
Todd frowned. He already knew that. He was the one who’d given Nick the name to start with. “Where can I find her?”
“She’s checked into the Boca Beach Club.”
Todd’s brow went up. The Boca Beach Club and the proximate Boca Resort and Club were iconic South Florida destinations for the well-heeled. He knew the BBC well. He and Holly had spent a couple of weekends there themselves in better times. “Are you sure? Could it be a different Cynthia Graff?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Shit.” Todd slapped his phone on the desk. He should have remembered: Nick didn’t like to be second-guessed.
By the time Todd had finished the remainder of the bottle of scotch at his desk, he’d made up his mind. He would drive to Holly’s father’s house and confront her before driving up to Boca Raton to confront Graff’s conniving, thieving ex-wife.
Was it his imagination or was everything that was going wrong in his life related to women lately?
Todd shut off the office lights. He used to let them blaze all night figuring it was good advertising. Now every penny counted. He locked the doors and stumbled into the sedan, no longer caring how butt-ugly the car looked.
In fact, in his inebriated state, he was starting to think it looked pretty damn awesome. Who else in South Florida drove a twenty year old purple Camry?
Unique—that was the word for it. It never hurt to be unique.
Todd drove unsteadily but unstopping to Charlie Gaines’ house. The first time around the block, he missed the Gaines house completely, his brain clouded with alcohol.
“What the hell?” Todd slammed his fists against the steering wheel when he reached the main artery. He made an illegal U-turn so he could try again.
Driving more slowly, he finally spotted the small white house with green shutters. What had thrown him off was the silver Aston Martin Vanquish Volante sitting in the driveway with a pair of bright surfboards sticking up from the backseat like a couple of tropical shark fins.
Todd pulled in behind the flashy convertible, twisted the key to the off position and, with something akin to a death rattle, the Camry shuddered to a stop. A long-haired hippie backed out of the house in baggy surfer trunks and a red tank top. His feet were bare.
Todd glared. Did Holly have a new boyfriend already, too? The car sure as hell didn’t belong to Paul Strom. He couldn’t afford a set of wheels like that.
Prepared to confront his competition, Todd threw open his car door and leapt from the Camry. He landed unsteadily on his feet and raised his fists.
The young man turned around, ponytail flopping. “Hey, dude!”
Todd dropped his hands. “Steve? What on earth are you doing here?”
Grinning ebulliently, Surfer Steve covered the distance between them in long strides and lifted Todd off the ground in a rib-cracking bear hug.
“Put. Me. Down.” Todd gasped, struggling vainly to free himself from Surfer Steve’s apelike grip.
Steve dropped him.
Todd’s feet hit the ground. He looked up at Surfer Steve, as he had come to know the guy. His real name was Steve Brezhinski.
“Looking good, bro.” Surfer Steve punched Todd in the left shoulder.
“Ow.” Todd reeled. He had met Steve in Boca Raton under less than auspicious circumstances. At the time, Todd had been sloshing through the mud on some submerged intracoastal house lots at the insistence of one of his more demanding, and scary, clients. Todd had ruined one of his best suits that day and his right shoe had been sucked off by the viscous man-eating mud and had floated away never to be seen again.
Steve lived across the street from those submerged, vacant lots in his father’s house. The luxury estate, a sprawling Tuscan villa, for some reason always struck Todd as the sort of place Mussolini might have lived out his retirement years in, had he gotten that chance.
Surfer Steve’ father, Yevgeny Brezhinski, was a successful gun manufacturer. Todd had his suspicions that not everything the businessman did was legal. Not that Todd had a problem with that. He’d learned in his dealings with the ultra-rich that they often considered such things as law and morality to be the rules and dictums that others should live by. Not them.
Steve was several years Todd’s junior, with sun-bleached blond hair and a solitary, dime-sized, 18kt gold loop earring dangling from his right earlobe. As far as Todd knew, the kid had never worked a day in his life.
Although he did work hard at playing. Steve was nuts, mad as a proverbial hatter. The lay-about considered life to be a game and guns, drugs and alcohol to be his toys.
“What are you doing here, Steve?”
“Me and Hol’s dad were surfing.”
Todd glanced back at the Vanquish. That explained it and the surfboards. “I didn’t realize the two of you were friends.”
“Holly gave her old man my number. She wanted to find him a surfing buddy.”
“Funny, she didn’t mention anything about that.”
“I told him I’d teach him a few tricks.” Surfer Steve pulled a pack of Camels and a lighter from a watertight plastic bag in his shorts and lit up. “Turns out, the old dude knows a few tricks himself. We had a blast.”
Surfer Steve’s eyes went wide. “Hey, bro, why don’t you join us next time? It’ll be killer.”
Yeah, Todd thought. Killer it would be. Holly’s father would probably kill him. If not death by his hand, then the surfboard and the sharks would have a go at the job. He didn’t like those odds.
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” he lied. The truth was something Todd liked to dance around. “Speaking of Holly? Is she here? Do you know?”
“Nah. You just missed her. She was leaving at the same time we came back to the house. Her sister, Debra, is inside though.”
Todd cringed at the name. Debra had never ever liked him.
“Holly left with some tall guy.”
Todd’s lips tightened. “Paul Strom?”
“Not sure.”
Todd described the man and Surfer Steve nodded. “That’s the dude.” Surfer Steve sucked on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of death.
Todd took a step back, seeking some smoke-free breathing space. “Good seeing you again, Steve.”
“Where are you going, dude? It’s been, like, forever. Let’s go down to the beach and watch the sunset. I’ve got a stash in the car. Good stuff. It’s from Colorado.” He sucked on his cigarette. “We’ll get Colorado Rocky Mountain high, get it?”
“Thanks.” Todd stopped at the nearest ATM, borrowed his mother’s wallet, took out her bank card and withdrew five hundred in twenty dollar bills.
Todd pushed the card back in its slot and noticed the photograph on her driver’s license. His mother hadn’t looked like that in years. She’d had purple bangs at the time the photo was taken. No longer.
He looked more closely at the details on the license. “Jesus.” He handed her the fat wallet, most of which consisted of unpaid parking fines and expired coupons. “Mom, your license expired more than three years ago.”
“I know.” She sounded unconcerned.
Todd pulled away from the bank. “Don’t you think you ought to get it renewed?”
“Nah. The lines are too long.” She coughed uncontrollably for a minute. When she got her throat and lungs under some level of control, she said, “And my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”
Todd glanced at his mom out of the corner of his eye as she absently lit another cigarette. She wasn’t joking. “Right.”
He dropped her off at Port Lauderdale Condominium Towers and told her not to wait on him for dinner.
“Do you want me to save you something you can heat up?”
“No, thanks. If I’m hungry when I get home, I’ll warm up Mr. Squeals.”
“Not funny, Todd.” Rasping loudly, Mrs. Jones stepped out of the car and the doorman slammed it shut.
“Bye, Mom.”
“Wait. What about your clothes? Don’t you want to shower and change first?”
Todd hung his head. He had a change of clothes at the office but one glance in the rearview mirror told him that his face was still smudged with soot despite having washed his face twice with paper towels in the restroom at the car rental agency.
His hair looked like it had been used at the end of a long pole to clean out somebody’s chimney. Smelled like it too.
Todd ordered the doorman to leave the car close at hand. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes.”
Showered and wearing a suit he’d gotten back from the dry cleaners only the day before, he hurried from the condo before the outfit ended up smelling of pig and cigarettes.
Downstairs, he discovered that the doorman had moved his mother’s butt-ugly purple car to the back of the tower.
Todd didn’t bother to complain because he really couldn’t blame the guy. Not to mention, a car like that parked in front of the building would only be detrimental to his and everybody else’s property values.
10
Paul Strom was a top-selling agent—as evidenced by the palm tree-shaped gold pin they’d awarded him and that he wore proudly on his lapel—with Dugan and Associates, a real estate firm run by a mother and daughter team who’d managed to maintain a thriving business despite the ups and downs of the South Florida economy. In fact, Todd knew for a fact that they wouldn’t touch any listing for less than one million dollars.
Their midsize office was at the other end of Las Olas Boulevard, nearer to the beach. And the closer you got, the more the rent went up.
He parked in the small shopping center of which their business occupied the middle third and headed for the spotless double glass doors with twin oiled-bronze handles.
Dugan and Associates was a study in white: white carpets, billowy white draperies, white sofas and divans, white chairs and white desks. From the looks of the agents’ teeth, they all went to the same dentist where they got the same ultrawhite whitening treatments.
A curved staircase with a gold stair railing rose to the ceiling near the center of the main room and stopped at a ceiling painting of brilliant blue sky and wisps of cloud. The artist had skillfully created the trompe l’oeil making the staircase look to ascend infinitely into the faux sky.
Wiping his feet carefully on the mat outside the door, Todd stepped inside the cool, white world that was Dugan and Associates.
Kathy Dugan, the younger of the two Dugans, greeted him. Coolly, of course. That was the world she lived and thrived in.
Her platinum blonde hair fell straight along the curves of her pale, narrow face. She wore an equally pale blue dress. It provided just enough color to keep her from disappearing into the background. A double strand of pearls draped from her neck. “Good to see you, Todd.”
As she held out her hand to Todd, he noticed she’d added yet another diamond in a platinum setting to her left hand.
Unless the young woman grew some extra fingers, she was in danger of running out of room for new jewels.
“Hi, Kathy. You’re looking lovely as ever.” That was no lie. She was a beautiful woman and she did everything necessary to maintain perfection. Todd and Kathy had had a fling once—fling meaning that she had once flung him down on the plush mattress in the master suite of a penthouse condominium overlooking the ocean and proceeded to have her way with him.
Not that he had put up a fight. Though he had done a little boxing in college, Todd knew when to take a dive. And when a hot, sex-starved real estate professional wants to strip you naked and have her way with you, you let her.
Sadly, there had been no repeat performance to date. Kathy Dugan had no time for personal relationships, so she had explained as they untangled and picked their clothing up off the carpet and got dressed. “Don’t go getting any ideas,” she had told him, as she locked up the condo behind them on their way out.
By then, Todd already had a head full of ideas but he’d stuck them on the backburner. With a woman like Kathy, there was no telling what the future would bring.
“Thank you, Todd,” Kathy said in response to his compliment now, though there was a certain tiredness to her response that said that she heard compliments on her beauty all too often.
She leaned in and planted the merest kiss on his cheek. He caught the scent of a delicate perfume.
“Is Paul around?” He glanced toward Strom’s office. Nobody at Dugan and Associates worked a desk on the floor or even in a cubicle. Everybody got a private office.
“Sorry, he’s out with a client. Was he expecting you? He didn’t mention it.”
“No. I was in the area and wanted to discuss a couple of listings with him.”
“I see. I’m glad you’re here. Come.” She turned on her white high heels and started for her spacious private office in front. She didn’t bother to see if Todd was following.
Kathy Dugan’s office was sparsely furnished and fastidiously neat. Not a scrap of paper was allowed to be visible. Shelves held artwork and not a speck of dust. A large floor to ceiling window filled the front wall.
Her spotless desk consisted of a rectangle of thick glass with smoothed edges, resting on a base of some rare exotic wood that might or might not have been cut down illegally.
Kathy settled behind her desk in a white leather chair and beckoned for Todd to have a seat.
Todd sat and crossed his legs in one of the two smaller leather chairs for guests. He was determined to act casual but his stomach was tied up like a monkey’s fist. Paul Strom had told him that Kathy and her mother did not know about the purported theft of Gunther Graff’s collectibles. Had Paul lied to him? Had they since found out?
“What’s up, Kathy?”
Kathy’s glossy silver fingernails tapped rhythmically atop her glass-top desk. Somehow, she managed to do so without leaving a smudge. “I wanted to be sure that you were comfortable with the situation.”
“Well,” began Todd, fearing the worst, “it is a little disconcerting. But like I told Paul, I didn’t do anything wrong. That’s not to say that I won’t do everything I can to make things right. In fact, I have some ideas about that—”
Kathy nodded absently. “Fine. That’s fine, Todd. I’m glad to hear it. You know,” perfect white teeth flashed at him, “when Paul suggested we hire Holly, my first thought was that I didn’t want to poach from another broker, even if it is for a non-agent position.”
Kathy stood, came around to Todd’s side of the desk and perched her perfect little butt on the edge. Todd was staring at a sea of leg, which immediately had the same effect as lowering his IQ about twenty-two points.
“When Paul explained to me that you and Holly were no longer an item, I was somewhat mollified. Still, I’m glad you stopped by because I had been meaning to call you and discuss the situation.”
Todd took a sudden gulp of air, realizing that he had stopped breathing and was in danger of passing out. His fingers dug into his thighs. Holly had gone to work for the Dugans? And what the hell was Paul doing telling Kathy, telling anybody, that he and Holly were no longer an item, as he put it?
Todd felt a dampness growing over his upper lip and swiped his finger across the space below his nose.
Kathy’s hand reached out and alit on his left shoulder. Her knees were practically in his face. “Can I get you something to drink, Todd?”
Todd forced his eyes upward where they met hers. “No, I’m fine.”
“Wonderful. We’ll all be quite relieved when Holly starts work tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Holly had wasted no time lining up a new job. Unless she’d been planning the breakup and the move for some time.
That was entirely possible.
Kathy nodded. “By the way, are you free this evening?” Her hand still gripped his shoulder, signalling that she wasn’t done with him yet.
“Not exactly,” replied Todd. He’d be busy trying to save his business and his neck. While Kathy was speaking, his smartphone vibrated against his chest but this was no time to answer it.
Kathy’s lips formed a pretty pout. “What a pity. I’m having a small soirée at the house for clients, friends and associates. It would be wonderful if you could make it.”
Todd shook his head no. “Sorry.” He started to rise and her hand fell to her lap. “Some other time maybe.”
Too bad, perhaps he could have done a little discreet poaching of his own. If he could snag a client from the Dugans, he’d earn himself a fat commission.
Kathy walked him out. “If you change your mind, cocktails are at seven. Dessert,” she added with the merest of winks, “is whenever we want it.”
11
Todd’s mind was racing as he sped off. He needed someplace where he could be alone. Some quiet place to gather his thoughts. Sadly, there was no place currently more solitary than his office.
He parked his mother’s purple Camry on the street, ignoring the glares and smirks of passersby and went inside.
It bothered him that Holly had left. It bothered him that she had found another job. It bothered him that that job was working in the same office as Paul Strom.
Most of all…
It bothered him that it all bothered him.
Todd sat and pulled out his phone to check his messages and missed calls. A couple of bill collectors, his dentist and Det. Nick Durham. He erased the messages from the bill collectors without listening to them—what would be the point? He couldn’t pay them. He ignored the message from his dentist—he couldn’t afford to get his teeth cleaned—and pressed play to hear what the detective had to say.
“Call me back.”
Todd rolled his eyes. “Mister Melodrama.” Nick was apparently too paranoid to leave a message. He dialed the number and waited six interminably long rings before the detective answered. “Hello?” Todd heard flushing sounds in the background.
“Yeah.” Nick sounded breathless.
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the john. I’ve gotta keep my voice down.”
The image of the out-of-shape detective calling him from inside a bathroom stall was off-putting. Todd forced himself to think of something better—like girls in string bikinis on Fort Lauderdale Beach. “Did you find out anything?”
“Her name is Cynthia Graff.”
Todd frowned. He already knew that. He was the one who’d given Nick the name to start with. “Where can I find her?”
“She’s checked into the Boca Beach Club.”
Todd’s brow went up. The Boca Beach Club and the proximate Boca Resort and Club were iconic South Florida destinations for the well-heeled. He knew the BBC well. He and Holly had spent a couple of weekends there themselves in better times. “Are you sure? Could it be a different Cynthia Graff?”
Silence.
“Hello?”
“Shit.” Todd slapped his phone on the desk. He should have remembered: Nick didn’t like to be second-guessed.
By the time Todd had finished the remainder of the bottle of scotch at his desk, he’d made up his mind. He would drive to Holly’s father’s house and confront her before driving up to Boca Raton to confront Graff’s conniving, thieving ex-wife.
Was it his imagination or was everything that was going wrong in his life related to women lately?
Todd shut off the office lights. He used to let them blaze all night figuring it was good advertising. Now every penny counted. He locked the doors and stumbled into the sedan, no longer caring how butt-ugly the car looked.
In fact, in his inebriated state, he was starting to think it looked pretty damn awesome. Who else in South Florida drove a twenty year old purple Camry?
Unique—that was the word for it. It never hurt to be unique.
Todd drove unsteadily but unstopping to Charlie Gaines’ house. The first time around the block, he missed the Gaines house completely, his brain clouded with alcohol.
“What the hell?” Todd slammed his fists against the steering wheel when he reached the main artery. He made an illegal U-turn so he could try again.
Driving more slowly, he finally spotted the small white house with green shutters. What had thrown him off was the silver Aston Martin Vanquish Volante sitting in the driveway with a pair of bright surfboards sticking up from the backseat like a couple of tropical shark fins.
Todd pulled in behind the flashy convertible, twisted the key to the off position and, with something akin to a death rattle, the Camry shuddered to a stop. A long-haired hippie backed out of the house in baggy surfer trunks and a red tank top. His feet were bare.
Todd glared. Did Holly have a new boyfriend already, too? The car sure as hell didn’t belong to Paul Strom. He couldn’t afford a set of wheels like that.
Prepared to confront his competition, Todd threw open his car door and leapt from the Camry. He landed unsteadily on his feet and raised his fists.
The young man turned around, ponytail flopping. “Hey, dude!”
Todd dropped his hands. “Steve? What on earth are you doing here?”
Grinning ebulliently, Surfer Steve covered the distance between them in long strides and lifted Todd off the ground in a rib-cracking bear hug.
“Put. Me. Down.” Todd gasped, struggling vainly to free himself from Surfer Steve’s apelike grip.
Steve dropped him.
Todd’s feet hit the ground. He looked up at Surfer Steve, as he had come to know the guy. His real name was Steve Brezhinski.
“Looking good, bro.” Surfer Steve punched Todd in the left shoulder.
“Ow.” Todd reeled. He had met Steve in Boca Raton under less than auspicious circumstances. At the time, Todd had been sloshing through the mud on some submerged intracoastal house lots at the insistence of one of his more demanding, and scary, clients. Todd had ruined one of his best suits that day and his right shoe had been sucked off by the viscous man-eating mud and had floated away never to be seen again.
Steve lived across the street from those submerged, vacant lots in his father’s house. The luxury estate, a sprawling Tuscan villa, for some reason always struck Todd as the sort of place Mussolini might have lived out his retirement years in, had he gotten that chance.
Surfer Steve’ father, Yevgeny Brezhinski, was a successful gun manufacturer. Todd had his suspicions that not everything the businessman did was legal. Not that Todd had a problem with that. He’d learned in his dealings with the ultra-rich that they often considered such things as law and morality to be the rules and dictums that others should live by. Not them.
Steve was several years Todd’s junior, with sun-bleached blond hair and a solitary, dime-sized, 18kt gold loop earring dangling from his right earlobe. As far as Todd knew, the kid had never worked a day in his life.
Although he did work hard at playing. Steve was nuts, mad as a proverbial hatter. The lay-about considered life to be a game and guns, drugs and alcohol to be his toys.
“What are you doing here, Steve?”
“Me and Hol’s dad were surfing.”
Todd glanced back at the Vanquish. That explained it and the surfboards. “I didn’t realize the two of you were friends.”
“Holly gave her old man my number. She wanted to find him a surfing buddy.”
“Funny, she didn’t mention anything about that.”
“I told him I’d teach him a few tricks.” Surfer Steve pulled a pack of Camels and a lighter from a watertight plastic bag in his shorts and lit up. “Turns out, the old dude knows a few tricks himself. We had a blast.”
Surfer Steve’s eyes went wide. “Hey, bro, why don’t you join us next time? It’ll be killer.”
Yeah, Todd thought. Killer it would be. Holly’s father would probably kill him. If not death by his hand, then the surfboard and the sharks would have a go at the job. He didn’t like those odds.
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” he lied. The truth was something Todd liked to dance around. “Speaking of Holly? Is she here? Do you know?”
“Nah. You just missed her. She was leaving at the same time we came back to the house. Her sister, Debra, is inside though.”
Todd cringed at the name. Debra had never ever liked him.
“Holly left with some tall guy.”
Todd’s lips tightened. “Paul Strom?”
“Not sure.”
Todd described the man and Surfer Steve nodded. “That’s the dude.” Surfer Steve sucked on his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of death.
Todd took a step back, seeking some smoke-free breathing space. “Good seeing you again, Steve.”
“Where are you going, dude? It’s been, like, forever. Let’s go down to the beach and watch the sunset. I’ve got a stash in the car. Good stuff. It’s from Colorado.” He sucked on his cigarette. “We’ll get Colorado Rocky Mountain high, get it?”
