Double Whammy (A Davis Way Crime Caper) (10 page)

So No Hair, in a forest green jumpsuit, was pushing a cart full of pretty potted flowers when our mark strolled down the hall in one of his previous disguises, the spa robe and slippers. On the tiny screen it looked like he was running, so No Hair must have had the cart on the move, going about his blossom business in the opposite direction. And just in case I was in the closet doing my nails and eating bon-bons, No Hair’s voice boomed through my earpiece, “Coming your way.”

“Right,” I said, just as I was attacked by serious vertigo. No Hair must have swung the cart around, and sure enough, there was our mark’s backside.

“I forgot my inhaler,” he pleaded to the second-shift supervisor, who I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting and who, incidentally, spoke perfect English. “And my wife has our room key,” he added.

“I need some identification, Mr. Edding.”

He showed off his spa wear. “I don’t have any! It’s in the spa locker.” He looked down the long hall. “Do I need to go get it?” Right about then, he sucked in a huge gulp of air. “I need in,” he squeaked, pointing at the door.

“Okay, hold on, hold on. Let me make a call.”

I measured him against the door and got a feel for how much space he would take up in the closet, choosing the spot and angle he’d most likely work from based on his size. No Hair and I continued to eavesdrop as the housekeeping supervisor called the spa. She asked if there were a Mr. Edding checked in. “And what’s his room number?” She said thank you and snapped the phone closed. She whipped out her passkey and granted him entry. “Have a nice day, Mr. Edding. Hope you get to feeling better.”

I drew a huge breath when I heard, and felt up and down my spine, the door to the room close. I switched the handheld off and dropped it into the pocket of a robe.

His padded footsteps grew closer, then the closet doors burst open. He didn’t pat around behind the robes for anyone hiding. First hurdle jumped. Almost immediately he pulled the doors closed behind him, plunging us into total darkness. He clicked a flashlight on; I could see the glow. The whole time he made a quick and quiet clucking noise with his tongue.

It took the guy four hours to get the safe open; you’d think he’d never done this before. I listened to my heart beating in time to his clucking and talked myself out of screaming and running for what felt like forever, but turned out to be only a hair more than three minutes.

When he finally got it open, I took my shot straight to the back of his knees with a quick kick, both shocking the holy stew out of him and sending him flying out of the doors and down to his knees. The bright lights popped on, and I let him get half of his bearings before I knocked his legs out from beneath him. He went down in an angry, fighting pile.

“Come on!” I screamed into my piece, and heard my own echo.

No Hair was right beside me. He planted a foot in the guy’s back, surely rearranging his vertebrae, and sending his curses and cries straight into the carpet. No Hair bent to calf rope the guy, and as he did, a tearing noise ripped through the air. The seams of No Hair’s flower-boy jumpsuit gave completely away, and it fell off him in shreds, like a monster green banana being peeled.

The worst of the entire assignment, EconoLodge included, was finding out that No Hair actually had a lot of hair.

*    *    *

Heidi Dupree and her brother, Mike, via separate service elevators, were thrown in an interrogation room together ten minutes later. Teeth and I watched through a two-way; I was still panting. Heidi Dupree took one look at her brother, then went for the garbage can, sticking her whole head in it—a nearly foolproof admission of guilt.

“Where’s Jeremy?” Teeth asked me.

“Putting some clothes on.” Thank goodness. Speaking of clothes, Teeth was dressed, top to bottom, in a dark camel color, including accessories: belt, tie, socks and shoes. As much as I hated to admit it, it was a snappy look.

No one else at the Bellissimo had a clue as to what had gone down, and the Edding’s room had already been put back together; they would never know what almost happened. We still had the red tape to deal with, but overall it was a quick and quiet takedown.

All of a sudden, though, it was anything but quiet. The Dupree siblings were trying to kill each other.

“I’d better get in there,” Teeth said.

“Wait a sec,” I held up a finger. “Wait and see what they say to each other.”

“Why? We’ve already got them.”

I turned to Teeth. “Do you really think they could have pulled this off alone?” I asked. “Look at them.”

Heidi had launched herself onto her brother’s back, beating him about the head, and he was riding her around the room trying to sling her off. The metal table was on its side, four metal chairs were on everything but their legs, and, gross, the garbage can was upside down. The soundtrack was deafening, the language atrocious.

Teeth pushed an intercom button. “You two settle down.”

The Duprees froze and both looked up as if God had fussed at them, then went right back at it.

“Neither of them is the mastermind,” I told Teeth. “There’s no way they pulled this off themselves.”

He looked at me a long minute. He had huge pores. “We’ve done this job for years without you.” He hiked his pants up. “We’ve got our guys.” With a nod in the Dupree’s direction, he said, “I’m getting in there. You can sit this one out.”

Almost immediately, Richard Sanders stepped in and replaced Teeth. He took a look at the Duprees. “Those two are going to kill each other!” As Mr. Sanders spoke, the room filled with the spicy scent of cinnamon. I fanned my face a little.

We both recoiled as Teeth accidentally took one on the chin that was meant for the brother, at which point, he’d had enough, and the family feud ended as Teeth promised them both they’d be leaving on stretchers if either of them moved another muscle or opened their mouths without permission. He could have put it this way: “Either of you move and I’ll bite you.” That’d have done it.

Mr. Sanders turned to me. “Great job, Davis.”

I said thanks, and then gave all the credit away.

“That’s very gracious of you, but I’ve worked with these guys for years, and they couldn’t have done it without you.”

I was too tired to explain to Mr. Sanders that it wasn’t that I was particularly good at this so much as I was, at times, particularly lucky. And luck, as everyone here knows, eventually runs out.

“How do you screen potential employees for this type thing?” I asked the boss.

“There’s no way to.” He shifted his weight. “You see, Davis, the thing is, I have a small percentage of honest employees, and I have an equally small percentage of dishonest employees.”

“And the rest?”

“Are just like these two.” He tapped a knuckle on the glass that separated us from the siblings. “They’re the middle ground,” he said. “They could go either way. And if a situation like this isn’t handled with discretion,” he paused, “and becomes a hot topic in the employee cafeteria, five hundred in the iffy group would figure out a way to do it bigger and better.”

His words hung in the cinnamon air, and it felt like there was something he wasn’t saying. I looked up.

“You’re my discretion, Davis.”

He put so much emphasis on the words that a goose walked over my grave. This man was putting too much faith in me, because I wasn’t exactly an expert in discretion. I had no idea what to say, and decided to let the moment pass without blubbering. When I’m tired, I say too much. So I summoned the most serious look of acknowledgement I could, then turned to watch the rest of the show.

Heidi and Mike Dupree were spilling their guts, confessing everything from stealing Double Bubble from the corner store to peeking at Christmas gifts, repeatedly incriminating each other for both the ancient and current crimes. Heidi was sobbing, her brother was staring at the wall, his chest rising and falling rapidly, and again, I felt certain that these two weren’t alone in this.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mr. Sanders sneak a peek at his watch.

“I’ve got this from here, Mr. Sanders.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Positive.”

“I could use some sleep.”

“Go ahead. I’ll stay with them until they’re booked.”

He stuck his hands in his pockets and began backing toward the door. “If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” I tried to smile. Not sure how it came out.

He gave me a smile and a wave, then I collapsed into a chair.

The sun rose and ushered in Friday before No Hair and Teeth finished up with the Duprees and called Metro to come get them, and not once in all that time did Teeth begin to ask if there’d been anyone else involved. He didn’t even hint at it.

I tied up the loose ends with Natalie (“Davis! You need some coffee!”), then fell into the backseat of George’s cab. I hadn’t slept in more than thirty hours. He’d actually shown some concern for me, so I jumped all over that.

“Where to?”

My head was back, my eyes were closed, and I pointed in the direction of the EconoLodge.

“Staying there?”

I pointed to Alabama.

Three blocks later, he stopped for a red light. “What in the world is the matter with you?”

“I was up all night.”

“Well, you look like something the cat dragged in.”

“Thanks a lot, George.”

“You don’t need to be driving to Alabama.”

And here, I took my shot. “I can make it today, George, but I really need your help on Monday.”

“I wasn’t volunteering to drive you to Alabama.”

I used my last drops of energy to roll my eyes. “I need your help on Monday, George, not right this minute.”

I asked him to drive me all over Biloxi looking for apartments.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why?” We were staring at the EconoLodge. “
Why
, George?”

He hemmed. He hawed. He threw in the towel.

“I’ll meet you at the regular place on Monday?”

He waved me off, which was George’s whatever, anything to shut you up, just get out of my car.

“See you then?” I had a weary leg out the door, the teeniest bit energized by knowing I’d never be back at the EconoLodge again. “About noon?”

He waved again.

I dragged myself the rest of the way out of the car, and was pointed toward my own car when George cracked his window.

“Good job.”

I barely heard him. “
What
?”

“I said good bust.”

I stood there, staring straight ahead, feeling George’s eyes on my back. There was almost no way for him to know what had happened. No way at all. No police chatter, no Bellissimo Security breach, he’d have to have been a fly on the wall.

“By the way,” George said, “their mother’s a blackjack dealer.”

I spun. “
What
?”

“Different last name. Kempler. Lorraine Kempler.”

He had his hand on the gear shift, about to drive off.

“Wait! Wait! George!” Somehow my legs managed to close the space between us. I took a peek at his radio scanner. (Off. But probably warm.)

He stared straight ahead.

“What the hell is going on, George?”

Finally, he turned his head. There were the eyes, the thousand-year old eyes, the eyes that had seen Evil.

From the EconoLodge parking lot, George’s taillights long gone, I located the Bat phone and chose the first big guy on the list, hoping it was Teeth. I pushed Go.

“What?”

It sounded like Teeth. “A blackjack dealer named Lorraine Kempler needs to be picked up on the room-safe thefts. She’s the mother of the two we just turned over to Metro.”

“Who told you that?”

I hung up. Jerk.

NINE

After an equally glorious and nightmarish weekend—which is to say after time spent with one’s immediate family—I saw my twin. They say everyone has a twin, but I always thought it meant someone on the other side of the world. Like Iowa. I found mine in Biloxi, practically my own backyard. She was me, plus a billion dollars.

Natalie put me on the road after the Duprees were behind bars with the only clue to my next assignment being nose into a marriage. (Marriage, my specialty. I couldn’t wait.)

“And let’s look at Wednesday morning, okay, Davis?”

“Sure.”

“Take a long weekend. You deserve it.”

I hadn’t had any decent sleep in so long, I’d’ve agreed to take off until May.

“Also, Davis,” Nattie pushed a set of keys and a brochure across her desk, “I want you in the executive apartments for your next assignment. I’m sure you’re tired of living out of a suitcase.”

Dammit. I loved the Bellissimo.

She caught my look. “Don’t worry,” she laughed. “I can assure you that you’ll be back in the hotel soon enough. For now though,” she said, “we’ll do the apartment. I’ll have it set up for you by Tuesday afternoon, and I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

“See you then, Natalie.”

But at the strike of noon on Monday, not Wednesday, I parked the Bug in the parking garage for casino patrons, then hiked the mile to George. I had zero intention of spending my non-working hours under Bellissimo surveillance if I could help it, and now that I had my own paycheck, I came back early to find my own apartment.

I was weaving in and out of the landscaping, taking the exterior shortcut to the VIP entrance when my twin exited the building through the gold doors.

I was fifty feet away, between Southern oaks wearing thick capes of Spanish moss, about to step onto the sidewalk, when I heard someone say
Mrs. Sanders
.

My head snapped up and my feet quit working.

This
was Bianca Casimiro Sanders? I caught my breath, my mouth hung wide open, my heart stopped beating, and I couldn’t have looked away if the trees I stood between had burst into infernos. I almost passed out. There was no doubt in my mind we’d been poured from the same mold. We were double whammies. She was me on my forty-sixth interview for this job: the blonde wig, the green contacts. I remembered Natalie taking all those pictures. I remembered Mr. Sanders looking at them when he interviewed me. They
knew
we looked alike!