First Class Killing (4 page)

“The client—Mr. Wolff—is scheduled for his budget review in two weeks. He plans to present one of two scenarios. Either we brought the case in and he is a hero, or we failed to bring the case in and he has fired us.”

“How can they fire us when they’re under pressure to deal with this problem?”

“Apparently, the wife who complained and threatened to go public has been mollified with the promise of several free tickets to destinations of her choice.”

“So they fixed the immediate problem. This ring is not going away. In fact, it’s getting bigger. More wives will find out about it. At some point, one of them will decide not to be bought off and she’ll go public. An airline that is aware of illegal activity going on in the operation and doing nothing to stop it would make a great investigative report, don’t you think? If they’re allowing prostitution, what else are they turning a blind eye to? Smuggling? Maintenance problems?”

“The client is aware of what is at stake. Do not forget that he has the option to hire someone else to take our place.”

My tempura had materialized in front of me sometime during the debate. It looked heavy and smelled greasy compared with the clean and simple sushi I should have ordered. Another opportunity missed.

“What do you want to do?” I already knew the response, but every once in a while, I held out a hope that Harvey might surprise me.

“We should put what we have in a final report and turn it in with our last invoice. They are not going to court. All they want is for the suspects to resign quietly. For that, they need reasonable evidence, which we have given them.”

“It won’t work. I’m getting to know these women, or at least about them.” I picked up a photo. “If you put these in front of one of them, she will not dissolve in tears. She will not implicate her friends. She will say, ‘So what? I went out on a date with a passenger in Pittsburgh. That’s not against the law, and let me introduce you to my union rep.’ The union is solidly behind these women. If we confront them now, we will drive them further underground, which is exactly what happened the last time they tried to get them without the proper evidence.”

“What is your suggestion?”

“Give Carl a plan that gives me until the end of the month, when I have to go back to flying reserve. That’s the two weeks up to his budget review.”

“What will you do in two weeks that you have not already done?”

“Find a way to get under the bed.”

Chapter

4

T
HE VESTIBULE OF MY APARTMENT BUILDING
looked shabbier than usual when I rolled in. The tiles were mud streaked and the grout a few shades smudgier than when I’d left. The mailbox area looked like a flea market, littered as it was with free newspapers, delivery notices, and piles of take-out menus from Wong Fu’s Wok and Gianella’s Pizzeria. Both rows of boxes were festooned with yellow sticky notes and scraps of taped paper, temporary tags meant to identify permanent residents.

My mailbox wore a clean, computer-generated label I had slotted neatly into the cutout provided for that purpose. My life felt like a mess in so many ways, I figured I’d try for neat and tidy wherever I could find it. The inside of my box was another story. When I keyed it open, it looked like a cross-section view of a trash compactor. As near as I could tell, the postman loaded the narrow boxes from the top, making the envelopes fit by jamming them down with a pile driver. Anything that didn’t fit—magazines, catalogues, tax returns, divorce decrees—went into the communal pile on the floor and ultimately into the trash if not promptly claimed.

I dug out the slug of mail and locked the box. I pulled two magazines from the pile that were mine. With arms full, I maneuvered my key into the front door, made my way to the elevator, and punched the button with my elbow. It wheezed into action, sounding much the way I felt. After three days on the road, including two nights of surveillance, I was anxious to get off my feet.

Inside the elevator, I rejiggered my cargo so I could sort through the mail. One of the magazines was from the Wolfborough Gun and Hunt Club. I couldn’t get used to seeing my name on anything with the word
gun
in the title. Stranger still was the presence in my mailbox of the
Wings Report,
the official publication of the Union of Professional Flight Attendants. Labor relations in the airline business are on a par with those of coal mining, and I had spent fourteen years on the other side of the table as a manager. If anyone had told me I would be a member of the UPFA, or any labor union, I would have thought that person clinically insane. It just wasn’t in my background.

My apartment when I opened the door was dark and cool, which meant I had left town once again with the window open. The damp air from outside had pooled in my one-bedroom unit, but it wasn’t cold enough for the radiators to kick in, and I was glad to be wearing long sleeves. I flipped the switch in the entryway and immediately felt warmer for the light.

I dropped the mail on the kitchen counter and went to close the window. The old wooden frame was warped and stuck. When I finally banged it loose, it slammed shut. The thick old leaded glass shuddered but held firm. I turned on a lamp in the front room and searched around for the remote for the stereo. It was never where it was supposed to be, which was a strange problem for someone who lived alone. The search took me into the kitchen and past my answering machine, where not a single message had come in during my absence.

I needed a dog.

The remote was not in the kitchen, so I manually started the CD player, going with whatever disc was already in there. It was the Blind Boys of Alabama. I loved the Blind Boys, the way their gritty and imperfect voices blended perfectly in songs about sin and salvation, eternal damnation, and the promise of redemption. I cranked it up so I could hear them in the bedroom, where I went to peel off my uniform. I found a soft gray sweatsuit in the pile of wearable play clothes, the ones I didn’t use for running. In what was becoming my favorite part of every workday, I went into the bathroom, ran the warm water, and washed the makeup from my face. During my long hiatus from work, I’d gotten used to the way I looked without powders and pastes. Wearing them now made me feel like a rodeo clown.

Marginally rejuvenated, I went out to the couch and dug out my laptop to do some work. Harvey had e-mailed a new batch of surveillance photos from one of our contractors in Florida and he wanted me to review them. I had little energy for the task. I was tired of looking at the same faces on the same women, strutting, primping, and going about their business as if I had not spent the past two months trying to get each and every one of them fired.

While waiting for the computer to do the mysterious things it did when called upon to wake up and be useful, I went through my daily ritual of self-flagellation. What had possessed me to give up a good corporate career with a very agreeable income to become a private investigator? On what evidence had I concluded that I could successfully perform a job for which I had no training, no background, and no support, except from Harvey, who leaned on me almost more than I did on him? How did I expect to support myself, who did I expect to hire me, and would I ever have made this decision had I known the cost of health benefits for a self-employed individual? In summary, what the hell did I think I was doing?

The photos were up on my screen. Here was Sylvie Nguyet, the French-Vietnamese exotic flower, wearing a liquid blue silk dress that hung on her delicate shoulders from wispy spaghetti straps. She was caught in the embrace of her client, laughing like a child, her face more animated than her usual serene demeanor ever allowed. When Sylvie was on a date, she seemed to have a need to convince herself she was having a good time.

Not so with Ava Ashby. Ava, cool and lithe, had the boneless quality of a boa constrictor and the personality to match. She looked as if she could squeeze herself in or out of any situation. Her silver lamé dress—sleeveless with a choker neckline—clung to her like a second skin as she uncoiled from the limo.

I plowed through the batch, clicking faster as I went, putting names with faces and generally ignoring the photos of the men nuzzling the women’s necks or glancing out furtively from inside the limos. When I got to the end, I closed the file, but then I clicked it open again almost instantly. Without knowing why, I went straight to the shot at the end, the last one I’d seen. I had given it no more weight than all the others, perhaps less. When I pulled it up and studied it more closely, I understood what had drawn me back, and what I saw there made me smile because I knew we had finally caught a break. I knew I had something to work with, and that feeling, all by itself, was enough to get me through tonight and all the way to tomorrow, when it would be time to ask again what the hell I thought I was doing.

Chapter

5

T
HE RAIN HAD PASSED THROUGH DURING THE
night, leaving in its wake one of those high-resolution fall days, the kind that make living in New England worth the endless, bone-cracking winters. The Commonwealth Avenue mall, which would spend much of the next several months in monochromatic stasis under a blanket of snow, was vibrant with fall colors. The venerable old elms that lined both sides of the wide promenade were thick with broad leaves at the vivid end of their life. They looked spectacular, but what I loved most was the sound they made. When the wind blew against them, the large, stiffening leaves shook into a sound that had the soaring resonance of applause, as if the trees were rewarding your walk among them.

I was in search of my car, certain of the general vicinity of where I had parked it last but fuzzy on exact longitude and latitude. It had been a while since I’d had the old Durango out, but I knew it was on Commonwealth somewhere west of Exeter.

The car did not reveal itself in the Exeter-to-Fairfield block, so I headed for the next block, pulled out my cell phone, and turbo-dialed. I was certain I would get voice mail, but a real, live human picked up.

“Dan Fallacaro.”

“Hey.” I was pleasantly surprised. “What are you doing?”

“I’m working, Shanahan. Hold on.” I could hear the familiar sounds of the Majestic Airlines ticket counter behind Dan, and then his voice. “What flight are you on, sir?” The response was too far away to be clear, and I knew he had stuck the cell phone under his arm to take the man’s ticket and scan it. Dan’s voice was, as always, loud and clear. “Do you have any bags to check today? No? You need to go over to that line. You see the one that says first class?”

The response was muffled but probably something like, “I’m not flying first class.”

“Tell them I sent you. I’m the boss. Tell them Fallacaro sent you.”

Dan was doing his favorite thing, monitoring the lines in front of the Majestic ticket counter, making sure no one missed a flight. He was one general manager who spent less time in his office than in the operation, and I was always secretly envious that having taken over my job, he did it better than I ever had.

“What do you want, Shanahan?”

“I want to stop by and see you. I can be there in twenty minutes. You’re right on my way.”

“Only if you want to come over and help me lift tickets. They’re hanging from the rafters out here.”

“I like to get paid when I work. We can meet in front of your ticket counter at what? Eight-fifteen? Better make it eight-thirty in case the tunnel is backed up.”

“Shanahan—”

“Come on, Dan. Take a break. I haven’t seen you in…too long.”

“You’re full of shit. You want something from me.”

“That, too. I need your help.”

“I’ll give you fifteen minutes,” he said. “Don’t be late.”
Click.

Dan approached the way he always did—walking fast and talking faster. When he spotted me, he vectored over, barely clearing the slow movers as he sliced through the crowd.

“Hey, Shanahan, get me a pillow from the overhead bin, and top off my rum and coke. Just kidding. C’mon, let’s get a doughnut or something.”

He took off again and I caught up with him at Dunkin’ Donuts, leaning over the counter, having a speed-talking contest with the woman pouring his coffee.

“What do you want to drink, Shanahan?”

“Tea.” I pulled out my folding money, ready to slip him a couple of bills.

“Fucking tea from a coffee stand.” He shook his head. “Put your money away.”

“I invited you.”

“I’d hate for my cup of coffee to tip you over into bankruptcy.” He reached for his own cash, digging deep into the pants pocket of his very sharp charcoal suit, which, I noticed, was suspiciously well tailored to his wiry frame. His tie was silk instead of a polyester blend, and it matched his precision-pressed cotton shirt.

“Is that a custom-tailored suit, Dan?”

“Don’t talk about the suit.” He reached up and dragged the knot of his tie off center, as if to make it less perfect. He was trying hard to be insulted, because true operations guys never cared how they looked. He certainly hadn’t the first time I’d ever seen him. On my first day on the job at Logan, I looked out the window to see him sprinting across the ramp in a heavy rain with a kidney in his hands. Not his. A transplant kidney in a cooler. It had arrived on a late inbound flight from Chicago and was overdue at the hospital. He was soaking wet. Just another day at the office for Dan.

“Awfully spiffy, Mr. Fallacaro.
Very
corporate.”

“I’m warning you, Shanahan. Don’t start.”

But now, despite himself, he had become a mucky-muck, and he had people to run out into the rain for him. He liked his job, had been surprised to find out how good he was at it, and I would have bet any amount of money I didn’t have that he loved that suit and the way he looked in it. God forbid he should let anyone know.

He handed me my tea and took his jumbo steaming brew, and we walked to a couple of chairs that faced the ticketing lobby. “What do you want from me now, Shanahan? I already got you a job, for Chrissakes.”