4. Rio
Ilooked at the photos, noted the different angles and shots, and swore quietly. “You have several tails, I think,” I told Saint, who was pacing his office. “Notice how close together some of these are, but from different angles and then the quality. Someone is using a real, decent quality camera and someone else is using a camera phone that is at least a few generations old.”
“How did I not notice someone taking pictures of me?” Saint snapped.
“I would guess at least the one with the good camera is a professional,” I said. “And I’m thinking he was probably hired by Greene.”
“Greene. Damn fucking homophobic bigoted assholes,” Saint snarled, mostly to himself. I elected to not address that, instead rereading the note.
“Either he doesn’t know your nickname–” I began, and Saint whirled.
“Nope. That’s Ginny. Has to be. Well there’s confirmation I guess. Christ.” He scrubbed his face with one hand and finally sat down in his desk chair.
“I’m going to reach out to some of our resources at Alden Security,” I said. “I’ll find out the status of the trace on your sister. We also have some… alternative means that might get us a more reliable picture of her movements.”
“Yeah, yeah, do what you want,” Saint said, waving his hand. I could tell he was angry, but I wasn’t sure if he was more angry over the invasion of his privacy, the tails, or his sister. I decided that I didn’t need to worry about that, though, and pulled out my phone.
“Hola mí amigo,” Marcus’s chipper voice said a moment later. “How can I help you?”
“Marcus,” I greeted him. I hadn’t dealt with Marcus a lot, since this was the first job where I was lead. I’d met him around the office, of course, and I liked him a lot, but man, he was high energy. The kind of kid who drank caffeine to calm himself down. “I assume you’ve been working on the job Jackson Lee was on in Tennessee?”
“Oh my god the crazy sister. Yes. What about her?”
“Well I’m not sure how closely you’ve been tracking her, or if we let it go once she was arrested, but I’m working for that client’s brother, and it looks like the she has come here and is after him. I was hoping you might work a little of that tech magia of yours and see if you can get eyes on her or track her whereabouts. Se?or Durand received an envelope today that makes it plain he is being followed and there is a plan to harm him in the works.”
“Fuck,” Marcus said succinctly. “Well, I can put those feelers out again for sure. Do you want to scan and send us what Mister Durand received and I can see if we can find anything from that too?”
I asked Saint that question and he waved his hand in a ‘do whatever you want’ sort of way. He was actively gnawing a pencil and I idly hoped that the paint was non-toxic.
”Sí, I’ll scan and email them,” I told Marcus.
“Awesome. I’ll get started right away.”
“I assume you can’t do the same on Douglas Greene,” I said.
Marcus made a wary-sounding hum. “I can try, if we’re sure that he’s the threat, but it’s going to be a lot harder.”
“Do what you can,” I said, “I’m pretty sure,” and he hummed again. “I clocked someone watching Saint this morning, I can send the photo of him too.”
“Sounds good,” he said distractedly, and I could here the sound of a keyboard in the background. It seemed like he was already on the case and working.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll get this stuf sent to you. Let me know what you find.”
We hung up and I looked at Saint, who had abandoned the first pencil and was nibbling a second one. “He’s on the job,” I said, and Saint looked up at me. “Marcus is great at his job,” I assured him.
“Hope so…” Saint shook himself a bit and stood up. “I should be working,” he said. “Why don’t you go back out to the desk and make sure the kids are safe.”
I nodded. I understood the desire to just get back to what you were supposed to be doing, even when the shit was hitting the fan, and I could absolutely do that for him right now. Marcus would call when he found something, and watching the door was absolutely within the scope of my job.
Mark, the very, pretty young man who had come in when Levi left, smiled at me when I came back to the front desk. “What’s up with Saint?” he asked.
“Family matter,” I said, not wanting to share something Saint didn’t want to have public knowledge. “He said he was going to get back to work.”
Mark nodded and returned to his word search. He was at the front desk until four pm, I had been told. He had spent a few hours doing some work on a laptop, but that was done and now he was finding all the words relating to Ireland. Once in a while one of the kids would come past, and once he helped one of them with an algebra problem, but for the most part it was just hurry up and wait. I decided if this was the plan tomorrow, I’d be safe to bring my book.
The rest of the day was quiet. We headed back to Saint’s place at the end of the day and he made a quick dinner out of some very nice spicy sausages he had in the freezer, rice, and some vegetables that, if they looked a bit past their prime, didn’t taste like it. He was quiet, not that I blamed him. I offered with a gesture to clean up since he had cooked, and he nodded. “Thanks,” he said.
“No problem. It was good, thank you.” I did the dishes quickly, wiped down the surfaces, and then wandered into the living area. He was watching Sherlock Holmes again, sipping a beer, and he nodded towards the sofa. “Wanna watch with me again?”
I nodded, grabbed a water, and settled in. Sometimes you just had to be, and if he wanted that from me, I was willing to accommodate that.
***
Saint wanted to run the next morning. I was pretty sure that he went nearly everyday. I was up and ready again, and with a resigned look he nodded when I offered to come along. He was fast and while running isn’t my favorite form of exercise, it felt good. The LA air was still fairly cool at that time of day. I kept an eye out for the man I had seen the day before, and for anyone who might be taking photos or watching us, but I didn’t see anyone. That didn’t mean they weren’t around, of course.
Saint’s building was a locked one, with a keycode to get into the front or back doors. Saint usually went in the back door, but when he was running he approached it from the front. We raced one another up the stairs, keeping our steps light enough not to disturb the neighbors but definitely making it a competition. He was smiling when we reached his door, but the smile vanished the moment he put his hand on the knob.
“It’s unlocked,” he murmured to me. “I never leave it unlocked, and I know I locked it this morning.”
I gestured him back, putting his back to the wall outside of his door, and reached behind me for the .38 I carried. I had a holster in the small of my back, and I could tell from the way his brows rose he hadn’t seen it. I put my finger to my lips, gestured for him to stay there with a firm motion of my hand, and silently opened the door.
A faint trace of marijuana hit me when I stepped into the apartment, which hadn’t been there when we left. I doubted his crazy religious sister imbibed the devil’s lettuce, which pointed to it being someone else. The most important question for me right now was were they still here?
I swept the apartment quickly and carefully, finding no one hiding. Finally I holstered my gun and went back out to Saint. Saint nodded to me, as he was on the phone. “Clear,” I said.
“Good. Rio, I’m talking to Cas, my police officer friend. Would you give him a statement too?”
“Sí,” I replied.
“Thank you. He says he’ll be here in thirty minutes.”
I nodded, and as he ended the call we went into the apartment. “Is anything different?” I asked him, gesturing around.
He looked around carefully, frowning hard. He walked to the kitchen, scanning the counters and then looking around the room at large. “No…” he said slowly, then tilted his head to one side. I followed his line of sight and then looked quickly back at his face. “Except…”
“Except what?” I asked.
He opened the one cabinet door that was ever-so-slightly ajar, his frown getting worse. “That jar. I keep it in the cupboard with brown sugar in it. We didn’t use brown sugar this morning. It shouldn’t be moved. The cupboard shouldn’t be open.” He frowned down at the orange Tupperware container that was just askew.
I followed Saint and looked at the container too. It was shut tight, sitting there surrounded by some other, similar containers of different sizes. I could see he was tempted to pick it up and open it, but was wary of it. “Let me,” I said after a minute, and took it down and shook it carefully.
It was lighter than I would have expected if it contained brown sugar. I shook it gently, and heard a soft scratching sound. I glanced at Saint.
”That doesn”t sound like brown sugar…” Saint said slowly.
I shook my head in agreement. I was sure that whoever had been here had left something inside that container. The question was, what was it, and how toxic was it?
I was debating how I should open the container when there was a knock and a uniformed police officer opened the door and came in. “Saint, I –” he said, then took in how we were both studying the container now on the counter. “What’s going on?” he asked warily.
“We think there’s something in there,” Saint said. “It’s been moved. Sounds odd too.”
The police officer frowned.
“I was thinking over how to open it,” I said, and then I heard it. A soft scrabbling sound inside the container. “Oh, hell no,” I said. “There’s definitely something alive in there.”
Saint took a step back as the officer shifted on his feet. “We’ll open it together,” he said. “You open the lid, I’ll catch whatever it is. Saint, you go stand over there.” He jerked his head to the other side of the apartment.
I watched Saint retreat and nodded. The officer fished in the drawer Saint pointed to for a kitchen towel, and then I decided to take it all over to the sink in case it was messy. I had a feeling whatever it was would have eight legs, but I didn’t know if it would be bad or just scary. There was a difference.
The officer got into position with a towel at the ready and I carefully put the canister in the sink. I pulled the tab to open it away from me and as the lid cleared the officer threw the towel over the top. Something impacted with the towel, and he wrapped it up tight while whatever it was struggled.
I looked in the jar quickly and saw nothing else but a layer of brown sugar in the bottom, so I discarded it while the police officer held the twitching towel out in front of him. “What do I do with it?” he asked slightly urgently. “It’s a spider, it has to be a spider. I don’t do spiders.”
Then Saint was there, thrusting a clear plastic bin at us. “I have the lid, throw the towel in there and I’ll put the lid on before it can get out of the towel. Then we can see what it is.”
My first instinct had been to crush it, but I appreciated the more humane approach on an intellectual level. The officer nodded and threw the bundle into the bin and Saint slammed the lid on, holding it on while he snapped the two locks on either end.
The three of us stared at the towel, and saw several black legs struggling to free themselves from the towel. In a moment a huge black spider worked its way out of the cheery red pepper print towel and took its bearings before it waved its front legs at us and then crouching down, trying to be invisible.
I noticed the police officer’s hands shaking next to me, and he swiped one over his face. “Christ, do I know when to come into a room.”
That startled a laugh out of me. “Sí, man, but I thought it was just in time.” I held my hand out. “Rio Torrez. You’re Officer Hallie?”
He nodded and shook my hand. “Casimir Hallie, nice to meet you. Now, what kind of spider is that?”
Saint was on his phone and I heard him suck in a breath. “That’s– Oh. Uh. That’s an Australian funnel web spider. That thing– Fifteen minutes. A bite can kill a human in fifteen minutes and–”
Casimir took several steps back from the bin, shaking his head. “Nope. Not in animal control, not doing that.”
“Maybe you should call them,” I said, eyes riveted on the bin. I knew a bit about spiders, and I knew it wasn’t going to try to break out of there and kill us all but I sort of agreed with Casimir. I had signed up to guard people from other people, not from one of the world’s most venomous spiders.
Casimir nodded vigorously, got on his radio, and a short while later an officer in very thick gloves was removing the spider from the apartment while some others began to fingerprint the door and the container.
Saint and I talked to Officer Hallie, gave statements, and then told him about the photos from yesterday too. Casimir looked distinctly unimpressed with all of this, which I didn’t blame him for.
After everyone was gone, we finally went to the shelter, several hours later than usual. Mark and Minnie met us with concern, but Saint waved them off.
When we got to the office, I looked at Saint. “You know, maybe you should take a little trip. Get out of town until things die down.”
Saint’s face showed utter shock and disgust. “I’m not running away from my kids.”
“No, I don’t mean to suggest that you run away from them, but, you know, while they investigate this and look for your sister, maybe a weekend away…? I mean someone just tried to kill you,” I pointed out.
Saint paled a little, it seemed that he hadn’t thought about the spider in quite that way yet. But then he shook his head. “No. The kids are what’s important and I won’t run off and leave them. They’ve had enough of that.”
I put my hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, but at least get a camera for your doorway.”
Saint sighed. “That’s not a bad idea, yeah.” Saint ordered a ring camera while I called Marcus to update him.
“Shit, a what??” Marcus asked when I told him about the spider.
“Yep,” I said. “Any news on your end?”
“Mmhmm. I was going to call you in a little while. I have the name of the person who signed Ginny’s bond, and we’ve traced him back to Douglas Greene’s payroll. There is also some activity with a midlevel gang. I can’t find the link between them yet, but now that you mention the spider… the gang has a bit of a finger in the illegal animal import industry.”
“Hijo de puta. That has to mean that it was one of them that broke into the place this morning. Maybe they were in on the surveillance too,” I said. “Explains why I smelled weed when we got back to the apartment. Didn’t think the crazy religious sister would smoke, but you never know. Maybe used it to chill out a little for dealing with a fucking insanely venomous spider.” I looked over at Saint, who was reading something on his computer.
Marcus snorted. “Can’t blame them for that. What all of this boils down to, though, is Saint’s life is pretty much over if they get the chance.”
“Yeah, I get that,” I said. “I asked him about laying low for a while but he doesn’t want to leave the kids.”
“Leaving them might be doing something for them, if people are breaking in and leaving spiders to kill him and shit,” Marcus said. “Maybe point that out to him.”
He had a point. We exchanged good byes, and I hung up.
“Saint,” I began, and he looked up. I could tell he had been ignoring me in favor of what he was reading on his screen, and whatever it was had not improved his mood.
“One of the kids is the daughter of a gang leader,” he said, turning the screen. There was a picture on the screen, one of the girls I had seen briefly yesterday. The picture was part of a post on a social media site, and I knew the name below it. Julio Fernandez.
Well, there was the gang connection Marcus had mentioned.
I filled him in on what Marcus had said, and then I mentioned again the possibility of taking some time away. “If you stay, you’ll just draw the danger here,” I finished.
Saint’s face had turned red as I spoke, and when I was finished he stood up and pointed towards the door. “If you think– Who else will protect them? If you’re too afraid, go back to Colorado. We’ll manage. Get out.”