T. Lynn Ocean - Jersey Barnes 01 - Southern Fatality (7 page)

The sudden realization that my bar manager could comfort just as effectively as he could kill made something elemental move inside me. What could be more sexy than a man who was both wise and lethal? I’d bet money that his performance in bed would be just as perfect as his performance in combat.

Pleasantly aware of the boats gliding steadily by the Block, I watched my beer disappear and threw a tennis ball for Cracker. It occurred to me to wait until I knew what the flash drive contained before I decided whether or not to drop the Chesterfield case. Meanwhile, something told me that it would be a good idea to get a tracker on Chesterfield’s digital phone. Smaller than a dime, the trackers I use provide an avenue to listen in
and
track the location of the individual carrying the phone. They are basically a miniature GPS device, with the added benefit of a nifty chip that allows me—or Trish—to listen in by dialing a preprogrammed phone number.

Trish is a local street dick who does occasional contract jobs for me. I’d have her accidentally bump into Chesterfield, ask to use his phone, and insert the tracker inside the battery compartment. As long as he didn’t change the rechargeable battery, the tracker would go unnoticed. It was an expensive gamble that would cost the Barnes Agency several thousand dollars if we didn’t recover the device. With electronics, the smaller, the more expensive, and most everything was available in a miniature version if you were willing to pay for it.

Feeling good about having a plan of action, blind though it was, I celebrated with another draught and a dozen hot wings. Maybe I’d call Bill and cajole him into joining me for an evening of total-body massage therapy. Maybe spending the night with him would take my mind off of Ox. Or maybe not. Either way, I’d worry about Lolly, Samuel Chesterfield, and their problems tomorrow.

A steady drizzle
fell outside my window and an empty bed greeted me when I awoke Monday morning. Bill had left me a handwritten note, propped against the bathroom mirror and held in place by a foil-wrapped protein bar: “Enjoy your breakfast, and see you Wednesday. Luv U.”

He’d mentioned something about doing a photo shoot for a new casino opening in Vegas. Wondering what type of costume they’d make him wear, I unwrapped the granola bar and headed for the Mister Coffee machine. Spud sat at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and drinking a bottle of chocolate Yoo-hoo. An empty plate with remnants of what resembled scrambled eggs rested on the table in front of him. Cracker had wedged himself between the legs of Spud’s chair, hoping for a fallen morsel.

“The damn dealerships are advertising two-percent financing on selected new vehicles, for crying out loud,” he grumbled.

“Morning, Spud.”

“Who’s gonna buy my Chrysler, when they can keep their money in the bank to earn interest and get a new car at two percent?” he demanded.

I eyed the empty plate in front of him and decided that he’d had grits, too. “Good breakfast?” I asked, munching on a bar of what tasted like toasted dirt with dry leaves mixed in.

“Bill cooked for me. Two scrambled, cheese grits, bacon, and toast. He even shook my Yoo-hoo.” Spud traded the classifieds for the metro section and made a show of wadding up the former.

“So glad my boyfriend thinks more of my father than me,” I muttered, stomach growling.

“Some cantaloupe left. Eat a piece of that with your horse food.”

My brain was still foggy with sleep and I couldn’t grasp a snappy retort to throw back at Spud. The phone rang as I poured a much-needed cup of coffee. “This is Jersey.”

“It’s Soup. I’ve been up all night.” He sounded wired. “You’re not going to believe what was on that flash drive.”

My brain perked up in an instant. “Lay it on me.”

“Social Security.”

“Come again?”

“Remember the Social Security Reform and Privatization Act that went into effect in January?” he asked.

“Of course.” Everyone remembered the Social Security Reform Act. It was one of the most hotly debated political issues that had come along since cloning.

The SSRP Act said that Americans, beginning at age thirty, could elect to leave their Social Security benefits in the hands of Uncle Sam or choose to manage their own retirement money. The
idea was that by age thirty, an adult knew enough about investing to make a wise decision. If one wanted to control their own Social Security funds, they could transfer their entire balance from Uncle Sam into a Social Security investment privatized account, or SIPA. Future Social Security taxes withheld would be transferred from the government’s account to the individual’s account four times a year, on the first day of each quarter. And it was all going to take place electronically.

Some people claimed the new program could only result in tax increases, while others believed it was time to make a change because the Social Security retirement program originally enacted by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 had grown into an unmanageable monster.

Regardless of the continuing debate, the act passed last year and took effect in January. So far, only four national firms had been given Uncle Sam’s blessing to handle SIPAs and I recalled reading something about Chesterfield Financial joining the SIPA-approved list.

“Well, I’ve got what appears to be Big Brother’s list of taxpayers who turned thirty last year and elected a SIPA,” he explained. “Or, at least a piece of the list. From two states. In the file for each individual, there’s a little chunk of data inside another encoded field. I haven’t gotten into it yet. The code is different.”

“Different how? Somebody accessed a federal database of names, then added their own stuff to each name?”

“Something like that.” Soup sighed, not wanting to waste time explaining technical details. “Basically, somebody is using these names for another purpose, other than what the original database was set up for. I just don’t know what yet.”

It was not unfeasible that Chesterfield Financial would have a list of taxpayer’s names, especially if they had just made the approved list of SIPA brokerage firms. But, what was the additional
data that had been tagged on to the database? And, back to my original question, why was the flash drive hidden inside a gym bag in Chesterfield’s home?

“How long before you break it?”

“Damn, Jersey, you don’t ask for much,” Soup complained. “I do have other jobs on my schedule, you know.”

“A week’s vacation on
Incognito.
With Captain Pete. Fueled up, fully stocked with food and booze, anywhere you want to go.” Pete transported yachts for a living and he owed me a favor. I’d probably owe him after he had to put up with Soup and his techie pals for a week, but that was the nature of my business. Give and take. Keeping tabs on who owed whom.

“Deal,” Soup said immediately, envisioning the party he would throw on my boat. “I’m on it.” The line went dead while I still had the phone pressed to my ear.

Energized, I called Trish and explained how I wanted her to tag Chesterfield’s wireless phone. She agreed that it would be done within a day. My kind of private investigator.

When I hung up the phone, Cracker licked my bare feet in approval but Spud wasn’t as enthusiastic. “I thought you retired.”

“I did. I am. This is just a little job I’m doing as a favor.”

“Uh-huh.” Looking above the reading glasses that were perched low on his nose, he studied me from across the top of the newspaper. “Don’t go an’ let your guard down, now, kid. Be careful.”

“I always am, Spud.”

“Jersey, you’ve got
to tell Lolly what you know,” Bill told me over the telephone from Las Vegas, after interrogating me as to the status of my investigation. He had never before been concerned with any case I was working, and even though Lolly was an old friend of his, I didn’t appreciate Bill trying to micromanage how I dealt with her. Unaccustomed to discussing my work with anyone other than Rita and Ox and sometimes Spud, I asked why he was so anxious about Lolly and her situation.

“Because I’m the one who got you into this thing to begin with,” he said.

“True,” I agreed.

Changing the subject, I asked about his Vegas photo shoot. He confessed that they made him wear Roman warrior headgear and
carry a long-handled spear, adding that the only other part of the costume was a thong fashioned from real copper. Ouch.

“Did the metal thong, uh, damage anything down there?”

“No, it was only metal in the front. The rest of it was made from cloth. And before you start giving me a hard time, you should know the job paid six grand, even though I’m worth much, much more.”

“Can you keep the costume? I’d like to see it.”

He ignored me. “At least tell Lolly that Sam isn’t cheating on her. If you don’t, she might go public and the tabloids would go nuts. She already told that dumb social columnist that her marriage might be in trouble. Now the lady’s hounding her for the rest of the story.”

I asked myself again: why did he care so much? “How well do you really know Lolly, Bill?” I asked. “It’s been, what, fifteen years since you’ve spent any time with her?”

“Well, yeah. That’s about right. Even though we stayed in touch for a few years after graduation, I don’t know what she’s been up to. But what difference does that make?”

“If I talk to her now, Lolly might be so relieved, she’ll confess to Chesterfield that she hired me to tail him. Then my cover’s blown for whatever
is
going on.”

“So, what’s going on?” he prodded.

“That’s the problem. I don’t know. But it’s looking real interesting.”

“Do you really need to be involved anymore, Jersey? I thought you were retired,” he said. “When I get back tomorrow, I’ve got a whole week with nothing to do but pamper you. Please, just talk to Lolly and walk away.”

It sounded decadent. Once again I was tempted to drop everything and escape with Bill on the boat. But not tempted enough to do it. Like a swamp gator with her teeth sunk into something
that tasted sweet, I wasn’t going to let go until I found out exactly what it was.

“I
am
retired,” I said for what seemed like the fiftieth time in the past week. “But I’m involved with this now, and I have to get to the bottom of it. You shouldn’t complain since, as you just said, you are the reason I’m involved to begin with.”

“Okay,” he relented. “Just tell Lolly that Sam is involved with something but he is not seeing another woman. So she should just go about her normal routine.”

“Right.” To say I was skeptical was saying that the pope attended church.

“Please? That magazine lady is going to wear her down.”

“All right.” I gave in. “I’ll talk to Lolly today.”

“Thanks, hon. I’m having a ball in Vegas, but I miss you. Let’s do something fun when I get back. You game?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “See if you can smuggle out the Roman warrior helmet. I’ve never had sex with anyone from the B.C. years before.”

The costume attendant had already taken the helmet, he informed me. But he might be able to sneak the metal thong out, he said, and added something about loving me bunches.

“Same here,” I said and hung up. One of these days I’d work up to telling Bill that I loved him, too. One thing at a time.

I called Trish and asked her to keep tabs on Chesterfield’s place. I’d already done the hard part. All she had to do was plug in, turn on the recorder, and wait for something worthwhile. She would also keep an eye on who was coming and going from the building and monitor the tracker she’d placed on Chesterfield’s phone. I only wanted her for two or three days and luckily, her schedule was open.

Next, I called Lolly and arranged a lunch meeting for one o’clock. Finally, I jogged to the gym, which was only half a mile
from the Block. I did the free weights for forty-five minutes, then put on some boxing gloves and rendezvoused with the heavy bag. I finished with a sauna and a shower. I didn’t feel retired but overall, I felt pretty darn good.

Lolly wore a revealing silk tank top and a pair of tight button-down jeans that tapered to hug each ankle. She sat at the bar of Paddy’s Hollow Restaurant & Pub with an untouched glass of wine in front of her and had attracted two horny businessmen in the short time she waited for me. Ignoring the ridiculously large rock on her finger, they stood in stereo on either side of her and boyishly argued about who had cheated on his golf score last weekend. Too polite to tell them to get lost, Lolly pretended to listen. I verbally elbowed my way in.

“Lolly,” I said. “Great to see you. Is that hunky cowboy husband of yours coming tonight? I’d love to see another bone-crunching brawl, like the one that happened the last time a couple of schmucks couldn’t take a hint.”

Lolly smiled.

The two suits took a look at me and wordlessly disappeared. I watched closely, thinking they might be more than a couple of corporate suits trying to flirt during a business lunch. They weren’t.

Lolly and I moved to a table and ordered drinks. She asked for an iced tea and I requested ice water and a Bass ale. I’d drink them in that order. When the server returned with glasses in hand, we ordered two Caesar salads topped with grilled shrimp and a basket of garlic rolls.

Lolly sat with a leg tucked beneath her in the chair, giving me a look that was half victimized wife and half seductress. Her elbows were on the table and a pinkie finger, in a nervous but guy-catching
gesture, played with her bottom lip as though her mouth was a toy. A nearby patron stopped eating his hamburger to openly stare at her.

“He’s not cheating on you, Lolly,” I said.

“He’s not?” She looked genuinely surprised.

“No. There may be something going on at his firm that could be troublesome, but there is definitely not another woman. Feel better?”

She looked at the ceiling and breathed a deep sigh of relief. Her breasts swelled momentarily with the effort, causing our neighboring diner’s eyes to nearly bulge. Just for kicks, I mimicked Lolly and stuck out the twins, as Spud had aptly named my government-paid implants. The fellow’s eyes moved from Lolly’s chest to mine and when I winked at him, he nearly choked on a mouthful of food. It was good to know that my semiretired self still had it.