Chapter 14 Tallus
Tallus
In the Jeep, I directed Diem where to drive.
The heavy morning traffic had cleared, but not enough for Diem to coast slowly by as I scrutinized houses.
It didn’t help that once we were in the right area, all the structures mirrored one another and were in a similar state of disrepair, matching Marcy’s vague description.
On the third pass through the neighborhood in question, as Diem seemed primed to tell me to forget it, I spotted a brownstone that met the criteria. “Whoa! There. Stop. I think I see it.”
He didn’t stop—couldn’t with the flow of traffic—but turned down the next side street, circling the block. Locating a parking space a short way down the road, Diem pulled over and put the Jeep in park.
We studied the complexes, and I pointed to one several car-lengths away.
“There. That one. See the flag in the window? Orange, like she said. No teeth on that animal, and it’s definitely not a lion or tiger, but close enough, right?
How many orange flags are there in windows in this area?
Plus, I saw basement access and a wrought iron railing. ”
“Longhorns.”
“Excuse me?”
“The flag. Texas Longhorns. It’s college football.”
Puzzled, I tipped my head to the side and studied my boyfriend. “I’m sorry, but how do you know that? You don’t follow football. Oh my god. Do you follow football? Are you a football fan? How did I not know that?”
Diem shrugged noncommittally. “I don’t give a shit about football, but I know the flag.”
“Oh. Wow. Impressive. Extra point goes to you. Shall we?” I unbuckled my seat belt, eager to confront the kid who had not only stolen Kael Scarrow’s identity but also used it to scam an elderly man out of his savings.
I would bleed the asshole for information.
Put the fear of god in him. Make him talk, even if I had to strap him to a chair and tear his—
“This is my rodeo,” Diem said. “You aren’t threatening him or breaking fingers or strapping him to a chair.”
“I wasn’t planning to… How do you do that?”
Diem diverted his attention from the building, his smug expression suggesting my plan was written all over my face.
“Fine, but you do not get to have all the fun. You are not the leader of this operation. Be a good Diem and share the case with your boyfriend.”
“We have a kid who is potentially responsible for scamming a senior citizen out of tens of thousands of dollars. Without resorting to threats or causing bodily harm, which one of us will be more apt to get him to talk?”
“There is nothing wrong with a little bodily harm.”
Diem arched a brow.
“Are you insulting my size? Because I’m offended.”
“Which one of us, Tallus?”
“Echo… if she bares her teeth and growls. Can you make her do that?”
Diem bared his teeth, a deep rumble emanating from his chest, a wicked gleam shining from his stormy gray eyes.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Fine. You’re right. The bear trumps the dog. Sorry, Echo. I tried, but Daddy is winning all the points today.”
Echo chuffed from her place in the back seat, and I liked to imagine she agreed with the unfairness and was equally offended.
“For the record,” I said as we got out of the Jeep, “I can be intimidating.”
Diem rounded to the sidewalk and approached me instead of the building.
His towering height forced me to crane my neck to maintain eye contact.
He stopped less than a foot away, chest puffed, shoulders back, his shadow swallowing me whole, and with a humoring guise that dared me to go for it. Try to intimidate him.
“That’s not fair. You’re built like a tank and wearing a sexy trench coat and hat. You have this whole mob boss aura thing going on. How can I compete with that?”
Diem removed the fedora and set it gently on my head before tucking two fingers under my chin and bending to kiss me—right there in the open where anyone could see. I melted at the contact.
“You’re too sexy to be intimidating.”
“Well, duh, but do I look more intimidating with the hat on?” I posed and scowled.
“You look like a kid playing dress-up.”
“I do not.” I went for a haughty lift of the chin, but the hat slipped and fell over my eyes, ruining the effect. “Goddammit. Take your stupid hat back. Your poor mother. I hope your head wasn’t that big at birth.”
He chuckled and fit the accessory back on his melon-sized noggin, tipping it forward at an angle to shadow his face.
“You’re intimidating, and you put my sexiness to shame.
It’s not fair. Those two things should not go together, but somehow, you make it work.
” I forcibly spun my tank of a boyfriend and patted his bum, encouraging him to get moving.
“Now, go bully the kid into shitting his pants. Tell him to give back Elwood’s lunch money or else. ”
Our suspicious man, who called himself Kael, did not respond when we knocked on his door.
Either he wasn’t home, or he had peeked through his peephole and decided the giant linebacker of a man on the other side was not someone he wanted to tango with.
If he was into the illegal business of scamming senior citizens, he would rightfully be wary of strangers showing up at his door unannounced.
Giving up, we ascended the concrete stairs to street level, leaving the urine-smelling stairwell and alcove behind.
“Thoughts?” I asked as Diem scanned the street in both directions, scratching his unshaven jaw.
It was a busy area. Two bustling lanes of traffic plus an extra lane on both sides of the street for parking and tracks down the middle of the road to accommodate streetcars.
Although not a main thoroughfare, it was not a quiet side street.
A conglomeration of low-end shops and boarded-up windows occupied one side, while multilevel brick houses monopolized the other.
The homeless camped in alcoves. Pedestrians bustled along in both directions.
“He has to come home or go out at some point,” Diem said. “We’ll wait. Confront him when he shows his face.”
I spun on my trendy loafers and clutched my chest, dramatically gasping. “Say it ain’t so. Puuuleeze tell me you’re suggesting a stakeout. I love stakeouts. I never get to do them.”
“Surveillance.”
I swatted the air and pffed. “Same difference. I’m calling it a stakeout. We need a better spot and snacks. You can’t have a stakeout without snacks.” I analyzed the street, but every available parking slot was taken as far as the eye could see.
“We’re fine where we’re at, and we don’t need snacks.”
“Location, location, location. It’s imperative we have a good view of the building. The Jeep is much too far away.”
“It’s two houses down, Tallus. It’s fine.”
“Not in my books. I need front row seats. If a spot opens up, we’ll move the Jeep, okay?”
He glared.
“Agree with me, Guns.”
“Fine. We’ll move the Jeep if necessary.”
“Yes! Echo, we get to have a stakeout.”
Echo tilted her head, tongue lolling as she stared at me with golden eyes.
“We’re doing surveillance,” Diem corrected.
Echo chuffed and nudged his leg with her snout.
“I hate that she always takes your side.”
“She’s my dog. She knows better than to argue, unlike my boyfriend.”
“I’m not arguing.” I was and decided to stop.
I wasn’t worth it. I rarely got to partake in stakeouts—surveillance operations—since they often occurred late at night and were part of the infidelity cases Diem worked, or they involved tracking thugs who thought they could screw their bosses over or avoid parole meetings.
Although Diem was highly intelligent, if not more so than me, his six-and-a-half feet of height and two hundred and sixty pounds made him the automatic brawn in our partnership.
He was the one who got his hands dirty in the field.
He was the one who got to growl and intimidate and threaten those who needed a little threatening.
While I got to use my cunning social skills to the best of my ability, it was not nearly as fun.
We returned to the Jeep and commenced Operation Stakeout sans snacks, which was truly disappointing since I was hungry.
As we whiled away the morning, watching a rundown building for any sign of the kid from the video, I quickly remembered the flip side of the coin.
Stakeouts, although cool and fun-sounding in theory, were boring as shit.
Watching grass grow would have been more exciting, but god help me, I couldn’t say it out loud. Not now. Not after I kicked up a fuss.
Although the streets of Toronto were ripe with entertainment of a different sort.
I got to witness a drug deal in action, a near fight between an Uber Eats driver and some punk with a skateboard who almost ran him over, and a homeless man who dropped his drawers and took a shit beside a lamppost. All this happened to a soundtrack of honking horns, sighing air brakes, a construction drill I couldn’t see, and a female pedestrian belting out the lyrics to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” as she clunked down the street in a fur coat and four-inch heels.
When I struggled to sit still, I used the iPad to create a thin profile of our impostor. The information we’d collected was scarce. We knew the boy bore a striking resemblance to the real Kael, and Elwood confirmed he had dark hair that often tumbled in his face and covered his blue eyes.
The photos of Benaiah’s son on social media showed a man without facial hair, but Elwood distinctly remembered a wispy moustache, one that was not well developed, he’d said. Like fuzz, he’d said. It suggested our perp might be younger than the real Kael.
I included the tattoos Marcy recalled, the fidget ring, and jotted notes about his anxious demeanor. Under that, I wrote possibly on drugs?
Diem remained quiet as I worked, gaze never straying from our point of interest. He was good at this stakeout thing. The man barely blinked. When Echo poked her head between the seats, he absently scratched her ear.