Chapter 10
Wizard and Slick walked into Hot Miami Messengers the following morning to get their shift assignments and were greeted by the other messengers in the lobby staring at them as they headed to dispatch for pickup. They were always getting strange looks, but something was different about today.
“Do we smell?” Slick asked, bending his elbows and raising his arms so he could sniff under his armpits.
“Naw,” Wizard said. “It’s our new threads and haircuts. We look smokin’ hot in our biker threads. They’re jelly.”
“That must be it,” Slick agreed, and he strutted toward the back to pick up their messenger packs.
The television monitor in the break area caught Wizard’s attention when he saw the Amber Alert plastered on the screen for the eight-year-old boy they’d taken from Zoo Miami two days before and he jerked Slick in that direction.
“What’s wrong with you?” Slick demanded, cursing under his breath until he looked up at the screen where Wizard was pointing and he saw photos of themselves in a shabbier state plastered up there. “What the…”
Wizard turned to face him with murder in his eyes. “It’s about that kid,” he mouthed, not making a sound.
“What?” Slick whispered.
“That kid,” Wizard whispered.
“She-e-t,” Slick replied, letting the word roll off his tongue. He pulled out a chair at one of the break tables, falling into it. Wizard did the same, sitting beside him.
Slick stared into space for the longest time until the Amber Alert came on the television again and Wizard nudged him as they watched in silence.
“Eight-year-old Travis McGinty was last seen in the non-custodial presence of these two leaving Zoo Miami two days ago. If you know the identity of these men please call the police hotline being flashed on your screen. They are men of interest in this case.”
For a long moment, Wizard and Slick could only stare at each other.
“What the hell are we going to do now?” Wizard finally asked.
“I don’t know, dude,” Slick said. “But we better think of something quick ‘cause it looks like we’re freaking kidnappers.”
“Sanders! Davenport!” Hugh Clemmons their supervisor bellowed. “Are you going to lollygag all day or are you going to get out and deliver your assignments?”
They both jumped up and turned to look at the man standing in the doorway of his office.
“We’re going,” Wizard assured him. “Just going to get our backpacks now.”
“Yeah, picking them up and heading out the door,” Slick mimicked grabbing the TV remote from a nearby table and turning it off so no one else would see what was being televised.
But instead of going to get their backpacks, the two high tailed it out of the building and grabbed their bikes out of the rack.
“Where do you think we should go? We can’t be seen by anyone. Someone might recognize us and report us to the police,” Slick said.
“I knew Carlton wasn’t on the up and up,” Wizard said, getting on his bike. “I kept trying to tell you something wasn’t right, but you wouldn’t listen. This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”
“It’s too late to be pointing fingers,” Slick said. “We’ve done the job and got paid. We have to live with the consequences.”
“But what are we going to do?” Wizard demanded, his voice rising. “Where are we going to go? We can’t go home; that’s the first place the cops will come calling if they find out who we are.”
“I know,” Slick said, fastening his bike helmet. “We’ll go to our favorite hangout and hide there until dusk when the food trucks come out. Then maybe we can get something to eat without being recognized. By then surely we’ll have a plan in place on what to do.”
“I can’t wait to get my hands on Carlton,” Wizard ground through gritted teeth, kicking off and peddling away from the building. “He didn’t pay us enough to get thrown in jail.”
“What the fluff are you clowns doing?” Hugh Clemmons watched Sanders and Davenport furiously pedaling away without their backpacks. He headed to the receptionist’s area to check in with Cynthia, who always knew what was going on. “Did you speak to Wizard or Slick this morning?”
“No sir,” she said, swiveling around in her chair to face him.
“They didn’t pick up their assignments before leaving?” he said.
“They didn’t,” she confirmed as her phone blasted with the Amber Alert signal.
“What’s going on?” Clemmons asked.
“It’s an Amber Alert notification,” she said. “Another one. I haven’t had a chance to check it out, but this is the third one this hour, which is odd. Normally you get one, but there’s either a glitch in the system, or they really are hard up to find this missing kid.”
“Take the time and let’s see what it’s about. You’ve got me curious now,” he said.
She clicked on the link in her message, and it took her over to the Amber Alert announcement where it flashed the photo of a little boy and then photos of the two men who were last seen with him as men of interest.
“Holy crap. It’s Wizard and Slick!.” She showed him her phone. “They’ve kidnapped a child?”
Clemmons grabbed her phone and replayed the alert. “Write down this number for me. I better call the hotline and report them.”
Cynthia did as he asked and handed him the piece of paper. “I’ve always thought there were kind of weird, but I’d never have suspected them of doing something like that.”
“Neither would I.” Clemmons returned her phone back. “But whatever it is, they’re into it up to their eyeballs.”
He went to his office and called the hotline. After it was clear he had legitimate information, he was immediately transferred to a detective.
“This is Detective Simons,” a gruff voice identified. “You say these two work for you as bike messengers?”
“They do,” Clemmons replied. “Their names are Will Sanders and Jack Davenport but call themselves Wizard and Slick in that order. They are twenty-one years old and have worked for the company since graduating high school. I’m not sure what the two of them may have gotten mixed up in, but I just don’t see them kidnapping a child on their own.
Frankly, I don’t think they’re smart enough to plan, much less pull off a kidnapping.
Someone else got them involved in this.”
“That may be, but we still need to talk to them to find out what they know,” Simons said. “Do you know where we can find them?”
“They were just here, but left, without their work assignments,” he said. “They share an apartment at 1452 West Valley View. If you need any more information on them I’ll be more than happy to provide it.”
“You gave the officer working the hotline your particulars, so if we need to get in touch with you for a follow-up I know where to reach you,” Simons said. “Thank you for calling in. One more thing. You said they were at work today?”
“Like I said, they showed up, but I think they saw the Amber Alert and it spooked them,” Clemmons explained.
“They got on their bikes and left without taking their morning assignments for delivery. I’m sure they were afraid of being turned in by anyone who came in contact with them and saw the alert. ”
“That’s good to know. Any favorite hangouts of which you are aware?
“No. Sorry.
“Okay. Thanks,” Simons said. “We’ll be in touch if we need you again.” And he hung up.
Jillian turned down the volume on her phone’s blaring Amber Alert as she walked into the kitchen.
“How many of those are they going to send today?” Mrs. Hudson asked, sorting through the day’s mail.
“I don’t know. I’ve never received so many for one single missing child before.
Or maybe I just dismissed it because it wasn’t important enough to me,” Jillian said.
“Maybe I need to call Detective Simons and find out what the frequency of the alert broadcast is. I want Travis to be found, but not at the cost of others being so annoyed they disregard future alerts.”
“I agree,” Mrs. Hudson said. “We want people watching, not ignoring.”
“Ignoring what?” Nick asked, coming into the kitchen carrying an open laptop.
“Has Swede’s program picked up movement again?” Jillian asked.
“Yes.” Nick sat the laptop on the counter, pointing to the screen. “The only problem is I don’t know whether it’s them or not. One moment the red dot is flashing over here and the next it shows up in the upper quadrant of the screen. How do I know which location to trust?”
Jillian frowned. “That’s a problem, but he did warn us about that being a possibility with his altered program. Excuse me for a moment. I have to make a phone call.” She stepped outside on the patio and called Simons.
The detective answered after a few rings. “Simons. How can I help you?”
“It’s Jillian Grant. I have a question now that the Amber Alerts have started. We’ve been getting several notifications this morning. Is that typical?”
“How many alerts have gone out?” he asked.
“There were three in the first hour…well thirty minutes actually. And then one every hour since then,” she said. “I don’t ever recall another child case having this many alerts broadcasted. I want Travis found, but…isn’t this excessive notification?”
“Yes, it is,” he said without missing a beat. “Let me call you back. I haven’t been getting those myself, so I didn’t know.”
“As an officer you don’t get Amber Alerts?” Jillian said.
“It’s a configuration I put in place to avoid spam calls or texts, and it can’t differentiate between good and bad, which an Amber Alert is good,” Simons said. “I’ll call you right back.”
He rang off and she walked back into the kitchen where Mrs. Hudson was preparing quesadillas for lunch.
“Do you want chicken in yours or just cheese and veggies?” she asked.
“Both,” Jillian said.
“Can do,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Will you get the plates down for me and make the drinks? Nick is busy talking to that computer swami.”
Jillian grinned as she went to the cabinet. “You mean guru.”
“That’s right. I knew it had a funny sound to it,” Mrs. Hudson said.
Jillian’s phone rang and she answered, not bothering to leave the room. “Hello?”