PART I COLD CASE #2
One day when I went out for Starbucks, I lingered at the back of the parking lot and eyed the ‘plumbing’ van as its back door opened and a man emerged from it to smoke a cigarette . . .
. . . and I got a nice view of the high-tech communications gear in the van’s interior.
Yep. FBI.
No doubt they were keeping tabs on the Saudis’ activities at the hotel, too.
At the time, I’d shaken my head.
It said something about the world that a private corporation could afford to put me up in the Four Seasons for almost a month but the United States Government made its agents camp outside in shitty vans.
Maybe the FBI had done me a favour rejecting me.
When I’d first seen—on my monitors—the Saudi hit-team’s GMC Savana van arrive in the hotel’s loading dock with the bound and hooded Dr Cartright, I’d glanced out my window at the FBI’s vehicle-of-the-day down in the parking lot to see if they were responding to it.
Nothing.
No movement.
No agents leaping out of the flower van with guns drawn.
They didn’t know.
Or if they did, they weren’t doing anything about it.
I sprang into action.
A few weeks earlier, I’d prepared an exit plan in case I needed to make a hasty escape from the hotel.
(See above: being prepared.)
(See also: being chopped up into tiny pieces.)
I used it now.
I hit a switch on a remote, setting off a small explosive device I’d attached to the fire alarm system down in the gym on the fourth floor . . .
. . . setting off the sprinklers in the gym and triggering alarms all over the building . . .
. . . and plunging the hotel into chaos.
As alarms wailed and emergency lights flashed and a robotic voice intoned, ‘Please evacuate the hotel—This is not a drill—Please evacuate the hotel—This is not a drill’ guests dressed in pyjamas and bathrobes emerged from their rooms, confused and annoyed.
Reluctantly, they headed downstairs to gather out front on Lamar Street.
I threw on my bathrobe, cap and M50 gas mask—you’d be amazed at all the military surplus stuff you can buy in Texas—kicked off my shoes and raced out of my suite.
I joined the slow flow of other guests on my floor as they headed toward the fire stairs, but when we all got there, I lingered behind them and as they went down the stairs, I cut back and hurried into the ‘Staff Only’ area of the floor and hit the call button for the freight elevator—hoping to catch it before it reached the 20th floor.
A few moments later, the elevator pinged and its doors slid open to reveal the five-man hit-team and the hooded figure of Dr Cartright.
At the sight of me, the leader of the hit-team gaped in surprise.
He wasn’t expecting to see some guy dressed like an apocalyptic version of The Dude from The Big Lebowski: cap, gas mask, fluffy bathrobe.
Nor was he expecting the military-spec flash-bang smoke -grenade that I tossed into the elevator.
The elevator flared with light and shook with an ear--shattering boom and in a second the whole thing was filled with billowing red smoke.
Protected by my gas mask, I grabbed Dr Cartright, yanked off his hood and pulled him out of the smoke-filled elevator.
Then we fled for the stairwell to the roof.
We burst out onto the roof.
The sun had risen fully and the city was starting to come alive: buses and cars on the streets, people on the sidewalks.
I pulled Dr Cartright to the edge of the roof, where a -window-washing platform was set up.
They washed the hotel’s windows on Wednesdays.
I could see guests flowing out onto Lamar Street in front of the hotel.
I drew my knife and cut his flex-cuffs.
‘Get on!’ I nodded at the platform.
‘On that?’
‘The drop might kill you, Doc, but those guys coming after us definitely will.’
He leapt onto the platform.
I did, too, and immediately jammed down on its brake-release lever and . . .
. . . phwoosh! . . .
. . . we fell like a rocket down the side of the building.
Dr Cartright wailed as the window-washing platform free-fell down the side of the Four Seasons.
‘Waaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!’
I kept my wits, watching the ground rushing up toward us for a few seconds before I pulled sharply on the brake lever.
The brakes locked.
Sparks flew.
The falling platform squealed as it jolted to a halt three floors above the sidewalk.
‘Move,’ I said, hurdling the safety rail and jumping down onto . . .
. . . the roof of the elevated glass pedestrian tunnel that connected the hotel’s second floor to the second floor of a multi-level parking structure across the street.
Dr Cartright landed clumsily by my side and together we dashed across the roof of the enclosed walkway over to the car park.
Then we raced through the parking structure and disappeared into the morning crowds.
By the time the Saudi hit-team reached the street several minutes later—surrounded by angry hotel guests in their pyjamas and bathrobes—we were long gone.
After that, well, I put Dr Cartright into an Uber—handing him my gas mask, cap and gun—and sent him directly to the safety of his oil company’s offices.
As for me, I bought a coffee at Starbucks and ambled back to the Four Seasons, still wearing my bathrobe, looking like just another guest who’d been forced to evacuate.
The Saudis never knew.
The rest of my morning, as you’d imagine, was filled with emails and calls to and from the oil company, which promptly put a 24-hour guard detail on Dr Cartright and called the government to complain.
I went back to my office in Upper Kirby around 11:30 and at noon, went for lunch.
I was having lunch at my regular place when the DNA results from the baby-in-the-doll came in . . .
. . . which was when my life really got out of control.
Hooters, Upper Kirby
2 October, 1200 hours
To be more specific, I was having lunch at Hooters when my phone pinged with the DNA results.
This is the Hooters off Kirby Drive, beside the Southwest Parkway near Rice University, not the one down on the Gulf Freeway at Webster. That Hooters is nice and all, and I mean no disrespect, but I prefer the one off Kirby Drive.
For one thing, it’s walking distance from my office.
(I once tried eating at Whataburger, which is also close to my office, since Dr Lucy said I should try new things but I didn’t like Whataburger.)
The main reason I like the Kirby Drive Hooters is, well, me.
I can be a little particular about certain things—clothes, food, the order in which I eat my food—and the waitresses at that Hooters have always been very understanding about this.
Back in high school, the other kids weren’t so understanding.
Ernie McFayden called me fucking four-eyed freak.
(I’ve been called a ‘four-eyed’ something 115 times in my life: four-eyed freak, four-eyed fuck, four-eyed motherfucker. This is because of my glasses.)
Billy Hunsacker called me retard.
Dillon Fogerty called me a weird fucking emotionless robot.
It was different with the waitresses at Hooters.
Darla called me darlin’.
Sequoia called me sugar.
Charlene called me champ.
And Honor called me honey.
I wonder if they ever saw the pattern in their pet names for me. They each called me by a name that started with the same letter as theirs.
My favourite waitress, though, was Millie-Mae and she did not conform to this pattern.
Millie-Mae called me handsome.
I thought this was most peculiar since I am not in any way objectively handsome. With my lean build and small face, I have always looked young and boyish.
For another thing, my glasses.
As I mentioned before, they’re thick.
With my -6.25 prescription, I’m extremely near-sighted.
Biologically speaking, human females prefer males who have strong genetic traits and near-sightedness is not a strong trait.
For thousands of years, women have preferred to mate with men who can see—and back in prehistoric times, hunt—without the aid of glasses as it increases the likelihood of their children surviving.
I’m also shorter than most men.
The average American male is five feet nine inches tall and I am five feet seven inches tall. Height is a sign of virility and strong genes. Being short is not something women usually desire.
I was also 37, much older than Millie-Mae who was 23, so unless I was obviously rich—young women often seek out wealthy older males to ensure a higher quality of life—there was no reason for a beautiful young waitress like Millie-Mae to flatter me.
In addition to this, I’m prone to conversing—animatedly and happily—about subjects that regular people do not find interesting, like dead bodies, putrefaction, blood splatter patterns and serial murder.
For a professional detective, I’m not good at detecting whether someone I am talking to is (a) not interested in what I’m talking about or (b) disgusted by it.
I’m working on this.
In any case, I found that I liked it when, after I ordered my ‘usual’ (Hooters Original Buffalo Chicken Sandwich with a side of waffle fries and a Sprite, followed by a caramel fudge cheesecake with only one scoop of vanilla ice-cream, not two, and no whipped cream) Millie-Mae said, ‘I gotcha covered, handsome.’
I mentioned this once during a session with Dr Lucy.
Dr Lucy said, ‘This is good, Sam. You might have a little crush on Millie-Mae.’
‘She is objectively beautiful,’ I replied.
Millie-Mae was a backup cheerleader at U of H.
She had a narrow waist and a flat abdomen plus shapely legs and small buttocks which were given added emphasis by her tight orange Hooters shorts.
She also had long auburn hair and very white teeth that shone when she smiled.
All of these things are signs of a healthy and fertile female, especially the teeth: white teeth are a sign of excellent inner health.
I added, ‘I mean, biologically speaking, she’s what people call a catch. She’s also very kind and sweet, but that isn’t biological, it’s personality. To connect intimately with such a woman—-beautiful and sweet—would be most fortuitous.’
Dr Lucy nodded. ‘You do have a very honest way of putting things, Sam.’