No Time To Run (Legal Thriller Featuring Michael Collins, Book 1) (4 page)

Helix wasn’t interested in dealing to people in poor neighborhoods. He hated poor people, and there were also far too many cops floating around in those neighborhoods as well as too many small-time hustlers looking to avoid jail time by ratting out the next guy higher up in the chain. That guy would then rat out the next guy, who would then rat out the next guy, and on and on until they got to him.

Instead, Helix laid low. He kept the houses quiet, mowed the grass (which was all his new neighbors cared about anyway), and quietly serviced his growing list of customers.

They were, by and large, young rich kids who were killing time at college before landing a cushy job through a family friend upon graduation. They all had the cash-advance PIN memorized from daddy’s credit card and a willingness to pay 35% above the street price, either because they didn’t know any better or because they liked the convenience of on-campus delivery.

It was all going smoothly until last year when a campus rent-a-cop busted a kid urinating outside the Beta Chi fraternity house at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The kid was so high and freaked out that he started rattling off the names and addresses of every one of his fraternity brothers as well as the location of one of Helix Johannson’s properties.

The house was located in the nearby lily-white Dallas suburb of Highland Park. It was a two-story brick colonial with an immaculate yard, two-car garage, and about a quarter-million dollars of marijuana and Vicodin in the basement.

The discovery of that house had led to the discovery of another, and then another. The FBI had been called in to help, and shortly thereafter Helix Johannson had become a priority target.

The FBI had thought they had a tight net around him. Then he disappeared. Seven days later Helix was found with five bullet holes in his chest. Michael found it hard to believe that the FBI had lost him, but that was what the report stated. It wouldn’t be the first time that the FBI had messed up an investigation.

According to the police reports and the indictment, investigators believed that Helix Johannson had met Andie Larone at approximately 10:20 p.m. in an alley near West Fourth and Mercer by New York University.

An anonymous man supposedly witnessed the shooting from his apartment above, rushed down the stairs, and followed a “brown-haired woman” carrying two heavy suitcases to a Ford Taurus parked about three blocks away. The man called the license plate in to the police. The police tracked the license plate to a rental car company, and then to Andie Larone and the hotel where she was staying.

The police had gotten a warrant, the car had been searched, and inside they had found a gun and two suitcases filled with drugs and cash. As far as the police were concerned, the case was closed.

###

“
Stop right here.” Michael pointed, and the driver pulled over to the curb. “Last stop before I call it a night, I promise.”

“
Whatever,” the driver said, “just get me home before two.”

Michael grabbed his knapsack and got out of the car. It was nighttime now, and the financial district had lost its daytime hustle. The sidewalks were deserted, and it had somehow gotten even colder as gusts of wind howled down the empty avenues.

He crossed the street, walked up to the First National building on Vesey and Church, and then ducked inside.

When the large glass doors closed behind him, the sound of the wind was cut and Michael found himself in a silent, cavernous Art Deco atrium designed in the late 1930s by architects Harvey Corbett and D. Everett Waid.

Polished black stone shot up five stories with inlaid images of Greek gods and goddesses blessing a temple of commerce and the divine wisdom of unfettered markets. It was designed to inspire, and the architects were specifically instructed to ignore the stock market crash of 1929, the Midwest’s transformation from farms to dust, and the 35 percent of the country who had become card-carrying members of the Communist Party.

Michael walked up to the security desk. A man and a woman dressed in blue blazers adorned with plastic badges looked him over. Their nametags read Cecil and Flo, respectively, although no formal introductions were ever made.

“
Can I help you?” Cecil asked.

“
We’re closed for the night,” Flo added.

“
I know you are closed,” Michael said, “but I was wondering if I could just ask you a few questions.”

“
Give you a minute,” Cecil said.

“
Maybe two,” Flo added.

“
Before we ask you to leave.”

Michael took a breath, as he wondered whether Cecil and Flo had attended the same communication and customer service training as the guard at the Singer Center.

“
I have a friend who came here after hours two nights ago,” Michael said. “She’s been accused of doing something, and I was wondering if I could look at your sign-in sheets.”

“
To show that she was here,” Cecil said.

“
Instead of there,” Flo added.

“
Exactly. She signed in, but the cops either didn’t follow up or didn’t care.”

Cecil and Flo looked at one another, as if engaging in a telepathic argument regarding who would get up out of their seat to retrieve the daily log or whether they should both remain seated and do nothing.

Finally, Flo pushed her romance novel aside and with great effort began the process of extricating her body from the chair.

“
What night you say?” Flo walked toward an unmarked door.

“
Last Friday,” Michael said. “Her meeting was at 9:30 p.m., probably arrived a little after nine.”

Flo disappeared into a small back office that Michael had thought was a closet. He heard her shuffling papers, opening and closing file cabinets. Then he heard her sigh and say to herself, “Right here on top the whole time.”

Flo came back and handed Michael a folder containing two dozen pieces of paper. They were stapled together. “These are all of them?” Michael asked.

Flo shrugged her shoulders. “It’s what we got.”

Michael flipped through the pages, scanning the various entries. Nearly all of them were visitors who had arrived before five o’clock. The last sheet contained the list of people who had arrived after-hours. There were only eight names. Andie Larone was not one of them.

“
There’s not another log?”

“
That’s it, sugar,” Flo said.

“
Who was she trying to see?” Cecil asked.

“
Green Earth Investment Capital,” Michael said. “A man named Harold Bell. He’s a vice president there. Her resort was in trouble, and they were going to talk about refinancing and maybe bringing another investor to ...” Michael’s voice trailed off, as Cecil and Flo shook their heads.

“
Sure you in the right place?” Flo asked.

Michael told her the street address. “The First Financial Building.”

“
Right,” Flo said.

“
But no Green Earth here,” Cecil said. “You can check the directory, but I never heard of it.”    

CHAPTER EIGHT

Lowell’s house was exactly as Michael remembered: Huge. It was one of about four dozen such McMansions in a gated community about an hour outside of New York in Westchester County. There was no subtlety or craftsmanship. Each house looked like the other, and sat atop its own 1.5 acres of former farm land. They were designed for the single purpose of impressing upon visitors that those who resided there were rich.

Michael gave the driver a healthy tip, and then got out of the car. It was a little after midnight, and hard to believe that less than twenty-four hours ago he had been sitting on the beach getting drunk and watching the moonlit waves fall onto the white shore.

He lifted his knapsack onto his shoulder, and walked up the driveway toward the house. When Michael got to the front step, he noticed that all of the lights were on and loud rap music was thumping from inside.

Michael checked the numbers above the door, confirming that it was the right place. He rang the door bell and waited, but nobody came.

The rap music continued, with a thump-thump and a tragic tale of “bitches who been wronged by their nasty man, nasty, nasty man.” 

After a minute or two, Michael rang the bell again, waited, and then decided to try the door. It was unlocked and he went inside.

The front foyer was marble, a winding oak staircase rose up on the right and a formal sitting area was to the left. On the wall in front of him was a small line drawing of a fish in a bowl. The drawing was dwarfed by an elaborate and ridiculously large gold frame. The drawing was not an inspiring piece of art, but, in the corner, there was the signature of Picasso. That was all that mattered.

“
Hello?” Michael took two steps into the sitting area. “Hello? Anybody here?”

The further Michael went into the house, the louder the rap music became. He walked through the kitchen, and then eventually to the source of the thumping.

It was a stereo in an entertainment room outfitted with a large plasma television, leather couches and chairs, and all of the audio equipment one could imagine. Three of the walls were filled with CDs and gadgets that Michael didn’t understand, and the fourth wall was all glass. It opened up onto a dimly lit pool area that looked like a large greenhouse.

Michael walked through the sliding glass doors.

“
Hello?”

A bleached-blonde woman in mid-dance-move turned toward him, a look of annoyance on her face.

She wore a small, red silk robe, which hung over a similarly small, red string bikini. The ensemble was completed with a pair of red high heels and a string of white pearls around her neck. This had to be Lowell Moore’s new wife, Michael thought, but the two men standing behind her in matching Speedos were definitely not Lowell Moore.

“
Excuse me,” Michael said. “The door was open and I  – ”

The woman looked at her two companions and rolled her eyes.

“
One minute,” she said like a mother to her children. Then she walked toward Michael. She made no attempt to cover herself, and Michael couldn’t help but notice that the woman’s unnatural appendages remained firmly in place.

She leaned into Michael, and then softly and almost sweetly asked, “Did Lowell send you here to spy on me?” Without waiting for a response, she continued in a hushed voice. “You tell that man that if he wants a divorce it’s gonna cost him, and if he still wants my ass to poke he better give me some damn privacy once in awhile.”

“
I just came into town,” Michael said. “Lowell offered the guest house.”

“
Well, Lowell,” she said, continuing her hushed tone, “didn’t clear it with me, and since I’m here more than he is, that’s a violation of my constitutional rights under God.”

“
Constitutional rights?”

“
You know what I mean.”

“
Is Lowell coming back?” Michael asked. “Or maybe we could call him and get this straightened out.”

“
He had to go somewhere for some type of emergency legal crap.” The woman looked Michael up and down as she teetered on her high heels. “But now I think he just wanted to set me up and send in his spy.”

“
I’m not a spy.” Michael edged backwards toward the door. “Listen, I can go and stay at a hotel. It’s not a big deal.”

The woman crossed her arms in front of herself, sighed, and then looked back at the two muscular men standing by the hot tub. Her eyes lingered in certain places.

“
If you could stay in a hotel for the night, I would really appreciate it.” She twirled a strand of her hair and batted her eyes. “It’s been a rough year, being newly married and all.”

Michael nodded and turned away. “I’ll see myself out.”

The young and nubile Mrs. Lowell Moore responded with something like a thank you as Michael opened the sliding glass door and went inside.

As Michael walked back through the house, he noticed a leather jacket. It was draped over a chair in the dining room. Obviously the jacket belonged to one of Mrs. Lowell Moore’s companions.

Michael picked it up. The jacket was black with a nice thick lining. Not really Michael’s style, but the night was cold. It was no time to be picky.

He unloaded the pockets onto the counter, slipped the jacket on, and continued out the door.

###

There was a guard booth about four blocks away. It was unclear who the guard was protecting the residents from, since the “executive” development was isolated from the rest of society. Michael was, however, thankful for the residents' fear of the outside world.

He walked up to the door and tapped on its small glass window.

The guard was startled at first, and then waved Michael inside.