Adverse Events, page 16
“Let’s go watch the games, see what everyone’s talking about. You can come back up here in a bit and see if the bartender’s feeling chatty. I think you got his attention.”
Kate grimaced. “Mission accomplished?”
“Not yet, but it’s a start.”
They weaved between the tables, smiling at the men as they went. Kate spotted a few other women, but not many. Now that she was here, she was even more grateful that Delilah had insisted on coming with her.
The men surrounding the first pool table made way for them to join the circle. Two men, both wearing coveralls, were about halfway through what looked like an evenly matched game. Her fake smile still plastered to her face, Kate glanced at the other spectators. They were a mix of nationalities. Some had the angular noses and chins of Eastern Europeans. Others looked to be from the Philippines.
Delilah was already chatting with the man to her left. Kate smiled at the man to her right. He grinned back, revealing two gold teeth. Before she could think of anything to say, he turned his attention back to the game. The other spectators seemed equally focused on the table. Delilah leaned over to whisper-shout in her ear.
“They’ve all got money on the outcome.”
Kate nodded. That made sense. They watched the two players sink ball after ball. The onlookers kept up a running commentary with each shot. Kate couldn’t understand any of it, but it seemed good-natured enough. Maybe no one was betting enough to get upset about losing it. When the winner sank the last shot, about half the crowd cheered while the others let out a chorus of groans. The losers tossed their money on the table’s worn green felt. About half of them melted away, making trips back to the bar or returning to the smaller tables.
The winner of the game leered at Kate and Delilah.
“You like play?” he swept his hand over the table invitingly. Kate tried not to look as repulsed as she felt.
“Sure,” Delilah smiled at him. “But not for money. We’re just here to have a little fun.”
The man grinned and wiped chalk-stained fingers across his chest. Then he gestured at Delilah.
“Just fun. We play.”
Delilah handed Kate her empty beer bottle. “I’m out. Be a dear and get me another one. But don’t rush back.” She looked pointedly at the bartender.
Kate dropped Delilah’s bottle in a trashcan on her way back to the bar. As if on cue, one of the men camped out on a bar stool slid down as she approached. He tossed a $20 bill on the bar, waved at the bartender, and shuffled toward the door. Kate hopped into the empty seat before anyone else could take it. She took a long swig from her bottle and set it down empty in front of her.
The bartender looked over and grinned. “Back so soon?”
“Evidently, my friend and I were more thirsty than we thought,” she said with a sly smile.
The bartender sidled over to stand in front of her, folding his long arms on the top of the bar. He leaned toward her with a suggestive smile.
“I’ve never seen you in here before,” he said. His eyes raked over her, making the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
She forced herself to keep smiling. “It’s my first time.”
“That so? Well, I guess it’s my lucky night.”
Kate glanced back over her shoulder. Delilah was laughing with the man at the pool table, who was setting up his next shot. She couldn’t tell who was winning.
“Doesn’t seem like you get many women in here,” she said, turning back to face him.
“Not usually,” he drawled. “But the word must be getting out. You’re the second sight for sore eyes we’ve had come in recently.”
“Oh, yeah?” Kate tried to sound as casual as she could, but her heart had picked up speed.
“Yup. I thought the last girl to come in here was a professional, if you know what I mean,” he said with a wink.
Kate cocked her head to the side and smiled hesitantly. She has no idea what he was talking about.
“A professional?”
“You know, a working girl?”
Kate felt her cheeks flush. She tried to laugh off his obvious suggestion. “Oh, that. And was she?”
“Nope. At least, I don’t think so. The guys weren’t sharing that info if she was.”
Kate affected a giggle. “Too bad for you, I guess.”
“That’s right. Too bad for me.” He grinned at her again and whipped the white towel off his shoulder to wipe at a spot on the bar. “So, what about you? What’s your story? You’re not here on… business… are you?” He arched an eyebrow suggestively.
Kate shook her head and tried her giggle again. “No, sorry. I’m not. Just here for a little change of scenery.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I hope it’s to your liking. It certainly is to mine.”
Her smile felt brittle. She tapped her beer bottle lightly. “How about another round?”
“Sure thing. Coming right up.”
She watched him carefully as he pulled the bottles out from under the bar and popped the tops. Both billowed condensation, reassuring her they hadn’t been opened previously. In college, she’d written a series of stories about girls unknowingly taking date rape drugs while out at bars. She had no intention of becoming a victim.
He placed the bottles in front of her, a slow smile spreading across his face as she picked one up and took a swig.
A chorus of good-natured whooping and peals of laughter snapped her attention to the pool tables, where Delilah was doing a little victory dance.
“Looks like your friend beat Ivan,” the bartender said, surprise rippling through his voice. “I hope she wasn’t betting. He can get pretty mean when he loses.”
Alarm prickled up Kate’s back. She hoped Delilah knew what she was doing. She turned back with another forced smile.
“She told him no betting. But I’d better go make sure she’s ok.”
She snagged both beer bottles and hopped off the bar stool. Delilah spotted her coming and waved at her with a big smile.
“‘Bout time! I was looking for that.” She took the bottle and tipped it back.
Ivan waved his stick at them. It would have been menacing if he hadn’t been grinning from ear to ear.
“Your friend is good,” he said to Kate. “She no play for money. Too bad!”
Kate laughed. “But she beat you!”
“I let her win!” he said with a guffaw. “Next time, I win.”
“Then I don’t have much incentive to play again, do I?” Delilah said with a wink. “You’ll have to find another victim.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, waving her off good-naturedly. He took his post by the table and looked around the room while grinding the square of blue chalk onto the tip of his cue. A skinny man with a shock of red curls and a mosaic of freckles across the middle of his face finally stood to meet the challenge.
Onlookers quickly gathered around, whispering wagers. Delilah scooted closer to Kate while the men were distracted.
“Did you get any info?” she asked in a low voice.
“Maybe. The bartender said I was the second girl to come in here worth looking at. Could be Emily. That’s about all I got before I came over here to see what all the hollering was about.”
Delilah rolled her eyes. “So, basically, you got nothing.”
Kate huffed. “I was working on it.”
“Well, if you want to get out of here with any solid info, you need to work a little harder.”
Delilah nodded back toward the bar. Kate pursed her lips but swiveled on her heel and walked back the way she’d just come.
“Looks like your friend did just fine,” the bartender said when she sat back down on the empty bar stool.
Kate laughed. “It was just a friendly game. She doesn’t play for money. Ivan didn’t seem to mind. He’s found someone else to take on.”
The bartender nodded knowingly. “That’s a frequent match up. Reynaldo isn’t bad. But he loses to Ivan pretty regularly.”
“He loses, and he still wants to play?”
The bartender shrugged. “He’s a glutton for punishment. But he takes his beatings like a man. Better than he takes his heartbreak.”
Kate laughed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That girl I told you about? Reynaldo fell for her the minute she walked in the door.”
“Oh, yeah?” Kate tried to look as nonchalant as possible.
“It was the hair.”
“The hair?”
He leaned on the bar and raked his eyes over her again. “Redhead. Just like him. His buddies convinced him it was a match made in heaven.”
Kate sucked in a breath. A redhead. What were the odds?
“So what happened? She wasn’t interested?”
“Nah. She was friendly enough, but she was looking for something different, I guess. He keeps hoping to see her every time his ship comes into port, but she hasn’t been in here in weeks.”
“Poor guy,” Kate said. Her mind raced with questions. “I wonder what happened to her.”
The bartender shrugged. “No idea. She got all buddy-buddy with some of the crew from a boat that left out of here last week. I think they’re due back before too long. Maybe she’ll reappear then.”
“You think she stopped coming in because her friends left?”
“Maybe. Who knows?” He said it like he really meant, who cares?
She was losing him. She leaned forward again and smiled admiringly.
“You must know these crews pretty well.”
His face lit up and his chest puffed out. “Sure thing. Most of the men who come through the port end up here eventually,” he said with a smirk.
“You have quite the international establishment.” She batted her eyelashes at him.
“It has its perks.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
He leaned in even closer and motioned for her to turn her ear toward him. She could feel his breath as he whispered, “Sometimes they bring me a little somethin’ somethin’.”
Kate arched her eyebrows and tried not to breathe through her nose. His breath reeked with the sharp tang of nicotine.
“Really?”
“Uh huh.” He looked at her through half-lowered lids and traced a circle on the back of her hand. “That interest you?”
Kate laughed and leaned back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as an excuse for pulling her hand away.
“Maybe. Depends what you have to offer.”
“What are you looking for?” he countered.
Kate smothered her frustration at the verbal game. She needed more information. He had to keep talking.
“I’m up for just about anything,” she said with what she hoped was a sly smile.
“That so? Well…” He trailed off, licking his lips as he raked his eyes over her again. “I don’t have anything special right now. But in a few weeks, it will be a whole other story.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. You like to smoke a little?”
Kate shrugged up one shoulder but smiled suggestively. He motioned her to lean toward him.
“You haven’t smoked hash until you’ve smoked Cuban hash.”
Kate’s heart leapt. “Cuba? I didn’t know ships came here from Cuba. Isn’t that illegal or something?”
He laughed. “Naw. They come here regular. And it’s a lot easier for them to smuggle in the good stuff. Fact, that’s what I figured Reynaldo’s girlfriend was after. That was the crew she attached herself to.”
“Oh, yeah?” Kate gripped the barstool with both hands to keep from falling off. It took every bit of her self-control to contain the vortex of excitement spinning in her mind.
“She had to be gettin’ something out of it, if you know what I mean,” the bartender said with a wink.
Kate grimaced, and he laughed again.
“Don’t worry, baby. Stick with me and you won’t have to do any favors for these dock rats.”
Kate forced herself to laugh and looked over her shoulder at the pool tables. Delilah was chatting away with several of the men. When she turned back around, her source was at the other end of the bar, dealing with another customer. She slid off her stool and hurried to the back of the smoke-filled room.
“Where’s my beer?” Delilah demanded. “Here I am dying of thirst while you were over there flirting. Shameless hussy!”
Kate rolled her eyes. Several of the men around her laughed.
“I got ya, mami,” one of them said. “Be right back.”
When the others turned their attention back to the pool table, Delilah raised her eyebrows in inquiry. Kate nodded slightly, amazed her excitement wasn’t written all over her face. The older woman grinned.
“Good work,” she said in a low voice. “We’ll stick around for a bit longer and then make ourselves scarce.”
For the next forty-five minutes, Kate chased possibilities around in her mind. When Delilah finally said goodbye to her new friends, they made their way to the front of the room. Kate hoped they could make it out the door without the bartender noticing, but he waved them over before they could escape.
“Where ya going, baby? I thought you were going to come back to see me.” He affected a pouty face that made him even more unappealing, something Kate didn’t think possible.
“Oh, we’ll be back,” Delilah said, pulling some bills out of her back pocket and dropping them on the bar. “Don’t you worry.”
Kate smiled and gave him a flirty little wave as she followed Delilah out the door. She could hardly wait until they had climbed into the car to spill everything she’d learned. Delilah listened without interrupting. When Kate was done, she let out a low whistle.
“There it is. Cuba.”
“It’s got to be her, right?” Kate asked.
“If not, it’s an incredible coincidence.”
“But is that enough to convince Mattingly?”
Delilah sucked on her front teeth. “I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”
Chapter 16
Kate tossed and turned through the few hours she had to sleep before making her case to Mattingly. She had no doubt Emily Gibson had escaped to Cuba. But would her boss give her what she needed to prove it?
If she could resurrect the dead researcher, she’d have the story of the year.
Kate beat Delilah to the office. Both editors were on the phone. She got a cup of coffee and scrolled absently through emails for thirty minutes before the senior reporter finally walked through the door to the newsroom.
“About time!” Kate burst out before she could stop herself.
Delilah chuckled. “I figured you’d be here at the crack of dawn. Relax. Mattingly needs time to get through his voicemails before you hit him up, anyway.”
Kate glanced through the window into the managing editor’s office. He slammed the phone down in its cradle and leaned back in his chair.
“See there,” Delilah said, dropping her computer bag in her chair. “My timing is perfect. Now he’s ready for us.”
Kate took a deep breath and forced herself to walk toward Mattingly’s closed door. Butterflies swirled in her stomach. Two steps behind her, Delilah called into Hunter Lewis’s office.
“We got the goods! We’re about to tell Mattingly.”
The news editor jumped up and followed them next door.
“What?” Mattingly growled as Kate and Delilah sat down in the chairs in front of his desk.
“Kate’s been doing a little digging on the Emily Gibson story,” Delilah said. “She’s got a lead that will blow this whole case out of the water.”
Mattingly’s bush eyebrows scrunched together over his beaked nose. His temporary unibrow somehow conveyed interest and skepticism at the same time. Kate smiled despite the nervous energy coursing through her body.
“Let’s hear it then,” he said.
Kate started with her own doubts about Newhouse’s claims and recounted her visit to Emily’s apartment with David Knowles. She told him about her brainstorming session with Lewis and Delilah and ended with their trip to the bar. Mattingly listened without interrupting. She wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. When she was done, he looked from her to Delilah to Lewis.
“Interesting,” he said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands behind his head.
“The bartender did everything but give us her name and show us her photo,” Delilah said.
Kate nodded. “Like Delilah said last night, if it’s not her, it’s an incredible coincidence.”
Mattingly grunted. “Wouldn’t be the first. Why didn’t you show him a photo?”
“Didn’t want to spook him,” Delilah said. “If he knew this had anything to do with a police investigation, he’d probably deny ever seeing her, especially if he thought she was trying to make a connection for drugs.”
Kate’s heart thumped uncomfortably when Mattingly fixed his narrowed gaze on her.
“So, what’s the ask? What do you think you should do now?”
She swallowed to keep her voice from shaking. “I want to go to Cuba to find her.”
The managing editor barked out a laugh. “That’s what I thought. No.”
“What? Wait! You didn’t even think about it.”
He scowled. “I did think about it. There’s no way I’m sending you to Cuba on a wild goose chase. I don’t have a line item in the budget for that. And the publisher would never approve the expense.”
Anger flushed Kate’s cheeks. Budgets again. She glanced over Mattingly’s head at the awards lining his wall.
“Then I’ll pay for the trip myself,” she said, balling her hands into fists in her lap. “If I’m right, this will be the story of the year. That kind of thing used to matter around here.”
Mattingly glared at her in silence.
“She’s right about this being a big story,” Lewis said. “If she can find Emily Gibson, it will be a big scoop for us. Even bigger if she’ll agree to an exclusive interview.”
“That’s too many ifs,” Mattingly said. “And those are on top of the biggest if: If she really did run away to Cuba. It’s a great story. But it’s hardly the most plausible explanation.”
