Chapter Seventeen

Present time, McDonald’s in Mount Pleasant, Tuesday evening

  

Blu stood outside the McDonald’s, thinking hard about what he was going to say to his business partner. Crome was normally the smartest guy in the room, but recently he’d been acting like a complete jackass.

In any other situation, this would be grounds for dissolution of the partnership. But this wasn’t any situation. Crome was all screwed up inside. He cared for Maureen and he wasn’t used to caring for anything but his motorcycle. Blu had come to realize this was new to him.

Some whack job had taken her and only God knew how the man had been treating the poor woman.

So, with all that, Crome deserved the benefit of the doubt. He deserved help.

Blu stepped inside the McDonald’s.

  

Crome watched as Blu took the bench seat across from him, neither of them saying anything for quite a long time.

After staring at his partner, Crome picked up his sandwich and continued to eat.

“How do you want to play it?” Blu asked.

It was typical of his partner to do exactly the opposite of what was expected. Like now. Crome knew his partner was livid. He’d spent a lot of time and effort tracking him. He said, “All the way.”

Leaning forward, fingers laced, hands out in front of him, Blu said, “That’s a given. You got me and Harmony and Tess and Patricia and Pelton and his wife. And you got this big chip on your shoulder.”

Crome finished his sandwich. “Good. What have you got?”

Blu said, “I’d say we’ve arrived at the same place. Only I had to spend extra time tracking some tool who thought he didn’t need any help.”

Crome drank from his Coke, the liquid cavitating in the straw as the last of the drink got sucked down, the noise echoing in the restaurant. Setting the cup on the table, he said, “That’s the difference between you and me, partner. I’dda known what you were doing and tried to work on what you weren’t.”

“Because you’d’ve known I wouldn’t have done anything rash.”

“You mean to tell me,” Crome said, “that when those men took Hope that one time, you and the kid played by the rules?”

Blu didn’t respond.

“It ain’t as if I stashed Phineous someplace you couldn’t find. That would have been stupid. Jesus, Blu. You always think the worst.”

“No,” Blu said. “I want to help my friend.”

There wasn’t anything Crome could say that would make Blu understand. Hell, he didn’t really understand it himself.

“What do you suggest we do?” Blu asked.

Crome took out a piece of paper and set it on the table. “I got the people who stayed on the floor of the hotel where Maureen was held. All of the rooms have changed occupants at least once since I got the picture so I’m assuming she isn’t there anymore.”

Blu pulled out his own piece of paper and laid it over Crome’s sheet.

“What’s that?” Crome asked.

“The list of credit cards used to pay for the rooms.”

Rule number one, follow the money.

Blu had been busy.

  

Blu’s irritation with his partner went back a long time. He loved the man like a brother, but damn if Crome didn’t always have to do things his own way. And he still hadn’t forgiven Crome for talking him out of taking a six-figure security job—with benefits—because Crome couldn’t be faithful to more than just his motorcycle. Sliding out of the booth, Blu said, “The ladies are working on getting more intel.”

“Good,” Crome said. “I got something else I need to follow up on.”

“Really?” Blu asked. “You think I’m going to let you ride off and do your thing after I just found you?”

“Well,” Crome said with an actual chuckle, “you showed yourself you can find me. I’m sure you can do it again if you really work at it.” He stood.

This wasn’t happening. Not this way. Blu wasn’t going to let it. He got up in his partner’s face, making him turn his back to the big plate glass window overlooking the parking lot. “You think that’s how this is going to play out?”

Blu needed thirty seconds. That was five and counting.

“Get outta my way, partner,” Crome said.

Ten seconds.

Blu grabbed his partner’s vest. “No chance.”

Fifteen seconds.

Crome pushed Blu backwards.

Eighteen seconds.

Blu’s butt hit the table behind him, stopping Crome from pushing any further.

Twenty seconds.

He pushed back but Crome held firm.

Twenty-three seconds.

With both hands and what felt like all his strength, Crome lifted Blu off the ground.

Twenty-five seconds.

It went against all of Blu’s training not to be beating his partner senseless right now.

Twenty-seven seconds.

Crome used his momentum and tossed Blu over a table and chairs.

Thirty seconds.

Blu landed hard but rebounded in time to see the door swing shut as Crome hiked a leg over his bike’s saddle, fire off the motor, and roar away.

The thirty seconds was so Harmony’s friend had time to plant a LoJack on Crome’s bike. The guy who planted it did surveillance for the Charleston office of the DEA. Crome would not find the device with a ten second once-over.

  

As Crome wound out his Harley, a bad feeling came over him. Not about throwing his partner out of the way. It was that it had all been too easy. Blu was up to something.

Any other time, a real fight between him and his partner would have ended with two tickets to the emergency room.

He checked his mirrors. There were a lot of cars behind him. Memorizing their makes and models as best he could see, he’d check again in five minutes to see if any of the same were still behind him.

With Blu on the hotel gig, he could focus on the other aspect of this that bothered him: Why Maureen?

She worked in a dive bar for her tax-evader boss and served drinks to dope pushers, thieves, and murderers. This was too sophisticated to be any one of them. Was the case about him or was that also a decoy? Did someone think Maureen was important enough to cause a reaction but minor enough so as not to be considered family?