Dead Fall (2 page)

Big Buck was at my shoulder. I spared him a glance, then a last one for Candice. “I've no intention of going there.”

S
HERIDAN
B
ROWN WASN'T
her real name. It was a pseudonym more befitting the madam of a brothel. Then again the brothel also had a pseudonym, and proclaimed to be a massage parlor. Anyone with any brains knew what went on behind the smoked glass windows, and that the masseuses were happy to straighten out kinks not necessarily found in bunched shoulders and lower backs. The cops pretty much left Sheridan and her girls alone, preferring that they kept their trade off the sidewalks, but some of the older girls had began soliciting on the nearby street corners when they were no longer viable posing as masseuses. As cover for their illegal activities, they generally went out with a bunch of flyers, handing them out to likely takers and offering “extras.” Some cops had laughingly referred to Sheridan's al fresco scheme of employing the older girls as her way of ensuring that she couldn't be prosecuted for age discrimination in the workplace.

Even when I was with the British Armed Forces, and later with Arrowsake, I had never slept with a prostitute. The practice just didn't appeal to me. But neither was I such a prude that I frowned on the oldest profession. To some women it was a lifestyle choice, and who was I to cast aspersions? It was only when women—or God forbid, children—were coerced, forced, and trapped into prostitution that I took umbrage. Not with the women themselves, but with their pimps and handlers. But I had nothing against Sheridan. She ran a clean shop, and also looked after her staff well, and only after they came to her seeking gainful employment. Higher up the ladder, though, that's where the issue lay.

Sheridan Brown was allowed to operate so long as the majority of her profits went to Marvin Whalen, who owned Sheridan's and a number of other massage parlors throughout Tampa. Marvin “Moby Dick” Whalen was of course only fronting the chain of parlors on behalf of his boss man, Mick O'Neill. It was the likes of Whalen and O'Neill I couldn't tolerate.

When I arrived at Sheridan's parlor, the cops had not yet paid a visit. Sooner or later they'd question Sheridan about Candice Berry, and it would be a waste of all their time and energy. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Sheridan could neither blab about her bosses, or about what Candice had been up to before she was grabbed off the street corner. Her position was untenable. But I hoped that she'd be more truthful with me. Some of the girls working the streets jokingly referred to me as “Our White Knight” because I'd come to their rescue on more than one occasion, and had even taken out a deviant scumbag preying on the younger girls last year. When I say taken out, I mean the evil game that he was playing. Carl Riley would pick up girls, then beat and rape them, all under the threat of a knife. One night I used the knife on him. Without major reconstructive surgery there was no fear he'd entice a girl into his car again, and if and when he did, he wouldn't have the tools necessary to rape them. I'd left his family jewels in a jar alongside his rape kit of duct tape, rope, and knife, when I dumped him outside an ER.

I parked my Audi A6 opposite Sheridan's Parlor and fed the parking meter. Before crossing the busy street I adjusted my SIG Sauer P228 in the small of my back, allowing my shirt to hang over it. I didn't expect trouble from Sheridan, but who knew if Whalen or one of his underlings were on hand to ensure she said all the right things when the cops did show up? There was no hint from the opaque shop front that anything was amiss, or that Sheridan had even heard the news concerning Candice yet, but she'd know all right.

The Floridian sun was beating down mercilessly, but the streets were packed with tourists, and as I approached the parlor I received more than one knowing look from passersby. I ignored them, and entered the shop, the little brass bell above the door tinkling. The front of the house looked like any other salon or parlor I'd ever graced, and there was no hint of what went on behind the door to the right of the reception counter. I ignored the posters on the walls proclaiming the treatments—everything from Shiatsu, to Swedish massage, to something applied by the way of heated stones—and asked the receptionist if Sheridan was in.

The woman behind the counter was Seminole, with raven hair, high cheekbones, and dark eyes. She was a stunner. She was also suspicious. Offering her my most open face, I said, “Don't worry, I'm not a cop.”

“Isn't that exactly what an undercover cop would say?” she asked, her voice as sweet and mellifluous as warm honey.

“Yeah, but then anything he would later say or hear would be deemed entrapment. Don't worry, I'm not a cop and I'm not here to cause Sheridan any problems. I'm a friend.”

“What's your name?”

“Joe Hunter.”

Her eyelids closed a fraction. “I've heard of you.”

“Good things, I hope?”

She smiled, but didn't enlighten me. She checked that no one else was about to enter the shop. From inside the smoked glass wasn't as opaque. People moving past the windows appeared as dim shadows, but none looked to be interested in entering. “Wait here, I'll go and see if Sheridan can see you.”

With that the woman went through the interior door and closed it behind her, but not before I noticed that her white uniform smock was cut inordinately short and revealed a splendid set of dusky legs set off by six inch heels. I briefly wondered what the rest of the uniform concealed, before scolding myself to keep my mind on the job.

Less than a minute later the woman was back. “Would you like to come through?” she said, holding open the interior door for me, leaning up against the frame.

“Thank you,” I said and went forward. The woman didn't move, and I had to squeeze past her. We were so close I got a pleasing waft of her perfume, and felt the warmth rising from her. Her eyelashes batted up at me and I could see my face reflected in her dark irises. My earlier resolve about never making out with a prostitute wavered slightly, and I told myself that the beauty was a receptionist, not one the actual girls. But I was kidding myself, and so it seemed was the beauty, because I heard her chuckling at my expense before the door swung shut behind me.

Sheridan Brown was waiting for me at the end of a corridor. Doors to the left and right had been closed, and from behind them I could hear moans of pleasure and the gentle strains of relaxing music. All that you'd expect to hear in a massage parlor. Yeah, right.

Sheridan showed me into her office and I sat on a leather chair against one wall. She perched herself on her desk, crossing long legs as she studied me in turn. Sheridan was in her early fifties now, but there was no denying her beauty. She was part Cuban, part African American. She had a delicious tilt to her eyelids, and full lips, straight black hair to her shoulders as sleek as a panther's hide. The only thing to spoil her looks was the sadness I caught behind her green eyes.

“You've heard about Candice?' I said.

Sheridan nodded. “I'm expecting the police around anytime soon. I wasn't expecting you to show up, Joe.”

“Normally it would be none of my business, but I think Candice's death is tied to something else I'm looking into.”

She surprised me by saying, “William Murray's suicide?”

“We both know it wasn't suicide,” I said, “the same way we both know that Candice wasn't murdered by a random killer.”

Sheridan didn't reply. She leaned behind her and picked up a pack of Marlboros and flipped them open. She thumbed a cigarette to her lips, then paused, looking at me. She took the cigarette out of her mouth. “Would you like one?”

“I'd kill for one, truth be told. But I've given it up. Three years, three months, and twelve days since I had my last one.”

“You actually keep count?”

“I was told things would get better, but I think it was lies. I still crave a cigarette every day. I keep count of how long it is since I gave up just so I can prove the doctors wrong.”

“Why not give in to the inevitable? You'll return to them sooner or later.”

“I'm a sucker when it comes to inevitability,” I agreed. “But this is one thing I'm sticking with. My other vice—too much caffeine—keeps my mind off nicotine most of the time. I'll take a coffee if you've one on the go.”

She shook her head apologetically. “I send out to Starbucks when I need a kick start,” she said. Placing the Marlboro between her lips she paused once more. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Go for it. This is your place, after all.”

Sheridan laughed to herself as she struck a match. She spoke around the cigarette as she puffed to get it going. “You're very accommodating, Joe. Some of the johns we get in here are happy to snort coke, or to smoke crack, but pull out a Marlboro in front of them and they get all holier than thou.”

“Hypocrites,” I said.

“Isn't it a little hypocritical of you giving up smoking when you chance injury or death all the time? I mean the odds of cancer finding your lungs before a bullet does are kind of slim.”

“I wasn't aware that my activities are such common knowledge,” I said.

“Joe, you've taken down more mobsters than Eliot Ness. Everyone on the streets knows that. So do the cops, for that matter. What we don't know is how you keep getting away with it.”

“Funny isn't it? I was just wondering the same about Mick O'Neill.”

She went quiet, concentrating on her cigarette. I knew she was thinking hard on how much she could trust me to keep my mouth shut.

“O'Neill was responsible for murdering William Murray; I think he was also behind Candice's murder. But I need validation, Sheridan.” I waited, hoping my words were enough to prompt her. But she surprised me yet again. She hopped off her desk and walked back and forth, one arm across her chest, the other hand holding her cigarette an inch from her mouth. Then coming to a conclusion, she nodded at the door.

“I think it's best that you leave, Joe.”

“A minute longer, that's all I need.”

“There's nothing I can tell you.”

She was afraid and it was understandable. She didn't want to end up in an alleyway with a slug in the back of her head the way Candice had.

“So don't say a thing, other than tell me if I'm on the wrong track, and then I'll be out of here. No one will hear your name from me, OK?”

She halted in her pacing. Her chest rose and fell a few times before she resigned herself and sat back against the desk.

“Candice saw or heard something she wasn't meant to. Am I right?”

Sheridan's silence told it all.

“Maybe she overheard Whalen or one of his boys bragging about what happened to William Murray?”

She shook her head almost imperceptibly.

“But Whalen does know, yeah?”

Her mouth pinched around the cigarette butt.

“Whalen was at O'Neill's place when Murray supposedly jumped from the roof?”

She took out the cigarette and blue smoke wreathed her features. “I didn't say that.”

“Hang on,” I said, “are you telling me that Candice was at O'Neill's penthouse, too? With Whalen?”

“I'm not telling you anything of the sort,” Sheridan said. “All I'm saying is that William Murray was a nice guy. Candice was a nice girl. You understand what I
am
saying?”

I did.

I stood up.

“Did Candice mention what O'Neill was so pissed at her boyfriend for?”

“Not to me,” she said.

“OK, last question and then you'll be rid of me: was Whalen the one who took Candice on a drive to Palmetto Beach?”

“I'm going to admit that, am I? Don't forget who owns this building, and who owns me for that matter. If anything happens to Whalen, then that's my livelihood down the can.”

“Not necessarily. See the thing is, these criminals do certain things through the books to make their businesses appear aboveboard and legal. I can guarantee you that the lease you signed on this place, it will still stand whomever your next landlord is. Plus, the next person to own the building might not take so much off you to turn a blind eye.”

“Better the devil you know . . .” Sheridan was thinking hard, and I could see that the sadness had gone from her gaze, now replaced with something much harder.

“So Whalen is a devil, then?”

“Put it this way,” she said. “Whalen's boys turned up to collect his usual take of the profit and Candice was standing outside handing out flyers. Then they were gone and so was Candice.”

“That's all I needed to hear.”

We said our goodbyes and then I saw myself out. I passed the Seminole beauty, who was sitting at the front counter, and she batted her eyelashes at me. “How was everything, Mr. Hunter?” she said teasingly. “Did Sheridan look after you? Maybe you'll come back, yes? When the boss isn't in next time?”

I chuckled. “My relationship with Sheridan is strictly professional.”

“Sheridan's not the only pro you'll find here,” she assured me.

“You are shameless,” I told her with a grin.

“I am,” she replied with a wink.

I headed for the exit door, grinning like a mad thing, but the expression was wiped off my face as the little bell tinkled above the door and in stepped Detectives Holker and VanMeter.

“Now why doesn't it surprise me to find you here?” demanded Holker.

“Old war wound,” I said, rubbing my shoulder. “The hot stone treatment works wonders for me.”

I caught a disapproving glance from VanMeter, as if it pained her to find me in an establishment like this. I thought that maybe it was wishful thinking, but then her next glance went to the Seminole woman and it was definitely one of the green-eyed variety. She knew that we'd been flirting like crazy and that annoyed her as much as my being there at all.