Photo Finish by Terry Ambrose

Author:Terry Ambrose [Ambrose, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-07-19T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

Meyer’s voice was raspy and frightened—his visitors obviously weren’t friends. Without thinking, I whispered back, “Are you okay? Who was it?”

“What? Speak up, you know I’m half deaf.”

Uh, yeah, and the other half obstinate. “What visitors?” I bellowed. Shit! Now I’d probably wake up the next-door tenant, an 87-year-old Japanese ex-schoolteacher who kept strict hours and guarded her quiet time by calling me whenever other tenants got the least bit noisy.

“Dunno. Two guys I ain’t seen before. They said they were police. They were no more police than you’re a newspaperman. Besides, the police would’ve had a warrant. And they wouldn’t be stopping around in the middle of the night for an apartment tour.”

“Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

“I thought at one point they might try something funny, but they didn’t do anything they weren’t supposed to do, unless you count showing up here in the middle of the night.”

“So they acted like police?”

“They weren’t cops.”

I sat straight up in bed. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Could it have been that guy whose flight Shapiro canceled? What was his name? That’s right, Daniels. “What did you tell them?” And there it was, the banging on the wall. Tomorrow, Mrs. Nakamura would give me hell for waking her up. I got out of bed and trotted off to the living room.

“Exactly what we discussed, that I destroyed the records by accident because I didn’t know no better. I’ve got to say, I was pretty good. I begged them not to report me to the Department of Landlord Monitoring and Corrections for messing up with the records.”

“There’s no—” I stopped and did a quick check of all the windows. I was standing there, stark naked and hadn’t thought to check the blinds, which I occasionally leave open on hot nights. Thank goodness they were all closed.

“Exactly. Cops would have known that was horse pucky.”

I shook my head in amazement. In a normal tone, I said, “You’ve got guts.” Who would think of lying to a couple of thugs when they visited you in the middle of the night?

“What? Speak up.”

“I said—never mind. Did you look at the photos before you packed them up?”

“Some.”

“Did you see the partnership photo?”

“Yup.”

“Did you recognize anyone? Were those the guys who visited you tonight?”

“Nope. These were a couple of big, intimidating looking bozos. I never saw these two before.”

Okay, what about the other guy? “There was an entry in Shapiro’s flight listing about someone named Daniels. Do you know anything about that?” Laughter and voices from outside broke the night silence, the clickety-clack of a woman’s high heels came, then went. It was probably the young woman from 18 with her newest boyfriend. Big hair, lots of makeup and a parade of men that made me wonder if maybe she had a sideline.

“Yup.”

“Okay, what do you know?”

Meyer stopped whispering and was speaking in a low, but more normal tone. “Thought you’d never ask. I was talking to Bob one day when he mentioned that he had this flight coming up with a guy he’d known in high school.

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