Harris, the security guard, was waiting as Tess and Po exited the elevator, holding open the door to the foyer so there was no illusion about where they should go next. He’d dropped the pleasant expression, his features now set, mouth pinched. His flawless complexion had grown waxy. Perhaps he anticipated trouble, so Tess aimed a smile at him to show there was no rancour. Beside her, Po was loose and relaxed. The young guard breathed a little easier as they approached him.
‘Thank you,’ said Tess as he stood aside to let her through. Po followed with a nod to him. Behind them, Harris ensured that the doors were closed securely, using the moment to allow them to progress towards the exit. When he noticed them waiting for him he grimaced. They hadn’t been in the elevator long enough for his bosses to relay a message that they were unwelcome visitors, but he’d guessed that much due to the narrow space of time since they’d been upstairs. His prosthetic leg gave him more trouble as he walked towards them, purposefully angling towards the exit doors so they got the message. Neither of them moved. Tess smiled at the young man again, and it was obvious he was wondering if he’d misread the situation.
‘Worked here long?’ Tess asked amiably.
He answered with a shrug. ‘Only a few weeks.’
His answer meant: ‘Don’t ask me anything, I’m the new guy and know nothing’.
‘Good company to work for?’ Tess went on.
He shrugged disarmingly. ‘I guess.’ Then he smiled conspiratorially. ‘It’s a job at any rate. Beats patrolling a shopping mall.’
‘Did you serve?’
‘Military? No. I was law enforcement.’ He gave a dismissive glance down at his leg. ‘An off-duty motorcycling accident finished that off.’
Tess could sympathize with him; her law enforcement career had come to a screeching halt after almost losing a hand to a drugged up robber with a knife. ‘I was law enforcement too,’ she said, hoping to form a bond due to their shared histories. ‘Sheriff’s deputy up in Portland, Maine.’
The guard glanced at Po.
‘Uh-uh, not me, bra,’ said Po.
‘I read that Elite primarily sources its employees from veterans; military and law enforcement?’ said Tess. The guard didn’t answer, her question being rhetorical. He aimed for the exit once more, expecting them to fall into step. He looked back at Tess, and was torn between demanding they leave and relaxing into a longer chat. Tess motivated him toward the latter. ‘How does that work out? I bet there’s some friendly rivalry between the vets and ex-cops? Do you guys tend to mix more with your own kind?’
‘I’m a glorified receptionist,’ Harris said, his tone dry. ‘You think I have much to do with the guys in the field?’
‘Oh, I just wondered if maybe you spoke with the ex-cops whenever they were here, you know, like sharing funny stories and stuff?’
Harris shook his head. He was young, and his law enforcement career must have been short-lived. It was unlikely he had many tales to share with older, more experienced cops.
‘Did you ever speak with Aaron Lacey?’ Tess pushed. ‘He was former NYPD, did his full twenty-five and more …’
A flicker of uncertainty danced across his features, but he took hold of it, set his shoulders squarely. ‘Like I said, I’ve only been here a few weeks; can’t say as the name means anything to me.’
Tess didn’t believe him. He was the new guy and probably wasn’t privy to the goings on beyond the entrance to the elevator bank, but she’d bet she’d overheard his name spoken rather a lot lately.
‘I guess not. Lacey’s much older than you, probably not someone you’d have much in common with,’ Tess said, as if brushing off the question. Her next was more pointed. ‘What about Ethan Prescott?’
Harris looked as if he’d swallowed something sour. His headshake came far too quickly to be believed. ‘No, no, I haven’t heard of him either.’
‘I’m surprised,’ said Tess. ‘His name has been in the news lately. He’s the guy found murdered a few days ago at Squantum Point. He worked for Elite, right? Surely everyone round here’ve been talking about him?’
‘No,’ he said, again far too quickly to be sincere. ‘If they have, I haven’t been in on the conversation.’
Tess exhaled in disbelief, but he made no further denial, only gestured at the exit, anxious now to see the back of them. He’d definitely heard about Prescott’s death, Tess decided, but was likely instructed not to talk about him with anyone. The young guy was fearful, and she understood why: if he spoke out of turn his job was on the line, and there probably weren’t many openings in the local security industry for a guy with his disability. She pitied him, but he was also an asset to push for more. Before she could continue she sensed Po shift alongside her. His attention was directed on the entrance. Beyond Harris the doors opened, and a large man stepped into the foyer. He was easily as tall as Po, and much heavier built, none of it excess fat. He didn’t proceed further, only stood before the open door, holding them under a stern frown.
‘Aah,’ said Po for Tess’s ears, ‘I’d assume this is our friend from the van.’
Harris followed Tess’s gaze, and whatever the sour thing was he’d swallowed moments ago he was on the verge of throwing it back up. The newcomer had shifted his attention on the guard.
‘Are you bein’ paid to stand there like a lame ass?’ the big guy demanded. Harris fluttered a hand, but was lost for words. Flustered, he looked from the guy to Tess and then back again.
‘I’m, I’m just showing out these visitors …’ Harris motioned them for the door.
‘Yeah, they’re unwelcome here.’
Po strode forward, meeting the big guy eye to eye. The guy pushed out his chest and stood square on, except his bulk failed to intimidate Po. He stood an arm’s length before him, his arms loose at his sides.
‘You need to get gone, pal,’ said the big man. ‘Orders from the boss upstairs.’
‘If Holbrook wants us to leave, you’re goin’ to have to stand aside,’ said Po.
The man didn’t appear ready to clear their path, more as if he was prepared to throw punches. Tess stood a yard behind her partner, hoping things didn’t turn ugly but ready to back Po up if things went sideways.
Po held the stare off. ‘What’s it to be? You look conflicted to me. You want us gone, or you want to stand there blocking the door?’
‘I want you gone.’ The guy leaned into his words, jaw thrust out. It was an awfully tempting target, or a ploy to draw in the unwary.
‘So move,’ said Po.
The man jabbed a finger in Po’s chest. ‘I’ve just been told by my bosses to throw you out. Don’t make me look an idiot in front of them, pal.’
‘You didn’t need much help from me before. Surveillance ain’t your strong point, is it?’
‘Surveillance? Fuck all that creeping around shit, I’m not the type to hide from any man.’ The finger jabbed at Po’s pectoral muscle a second time. ‘Least of all a skinny-assed hick like you.’
Behind Po, Tess momentarily squeezed her eyes tight and emitted a curse under her breath, even as she took a subtle step backwards. Po had been radiating frustration ever since they’d quietly brought in Moondog Becker, he was literally itching for a fight, and even a stern warning from her would do little to restrain him now. In a blur, his left hand clamped over the big guy’s and the edge of it jammed against the knuckles as his thumb curled under the extended finger, trapping both against his chest. Immediately Po slid back, levering up the man’s index finger against his own knuckle. The guy hollered in unexpected agony and surprise, folding at the waist and lunging out with his right foot to avoid having his finger dislocated. Instantly, Po’s left foot swept the man’s right foot an inch or two more to the front, overextending him and throwing him off balance. Po loosed the trapped hand, but only so he could step back in, butting his shoulder against the big guy and sending him crashing over sideways.
While the big man sprawled, Po waved Tess through the gap he’d made. She side-skipped past, one eye on the fallen man, one on the guard. If Harris even considered intervening, his body didn’t obey him: he stood gawping. Tess got to the open doorway, held it open for Po who stood within kicking range of his fallen opponent, who by now had spun onto his back, staring – enraged – up at him. Po wouldn’t kick the downed man, not unless he continued the fight, as he fought under a different set of rules. Apparently the big guy guessed so, as he didn’t rise, only cupped his tortured finger to his chest with his other hand. He did, however, pull in his heels to guard his groin from a sneaky jab of Po’s boot.
‘This isn’t finished with,’ the man snarled up at Po. ‘Next time I see you your stupid tricks won’t work … I’ll rip your damn head off and crap down your neck.’
Po offered him a curl of his lip. ‘Y’know, a wise woman recently said: “overconfidence can prove fatal”. Don’t make threats you can’t back up, pal, and in future don’t go sticking your fingers where they’re goin’ to get hurt.’
Tess tugged at Po’s elbow. ‘Come on, for Christ’s sake,’ she cautioned him.
Po mocked the fallen man with another salute, then backed out of the door. Harris, still agog, stood peering at him. Po winked, then turned to follow Tess towards where they’d left the Mustang.
‘Happy now?’ Tess asked the second he drove them out of the private parking lot.
‘He started it,’ said Po.
‘But you had to finish it, right?’
‘You know me,’ he said, and grunted in mirth. ‘Besides, if you poke a hornet’s nest you’re gonna get stung. That big idiot back there just learned a valuable lesson.’
‘So … have you got your appetite for violence out of your system, or are you hungry for more?’
‘Nah. That was just a canapé before the main course. You heard that bozo, he promised next time he saw me he was gonna rip off my head. Think I’m gonna stand around an’ let him do that?’
‘You promised me you’d behave. What was it you said, you’d be the model of integrity?’
‘I did behave. And I did show integrity: the old me would’ve broken off his damn finger and shoved it so far up his ass he coulda tickled his tonsils.’
Despite herself Tess chuckled at the image. ‘You are incorrigible, Nicolas Villere.’
He winked. ‘You did say I wasn’t to lose my brutish charm, right?’
She shook her head, and dug under her seat for where she’d left her tablet running while they’d been inside the tower block. She made a rapid check of the results, which took no time at all as there was nothing to see. She switched to a web browser and brought up Elite Custodian Services’ website. Unfortunately, or probably more sensibly due to the nature of their industry, personal details about the company directors was sketchy. Moreover, stock photographs had been used in the web design, so that the identities of their employees, and more importantly their clients, were protected. Expecting to find a useful list of employees was asking too much, she supposed. She shut it down and switched to a more general search, firstly typing in Ben Holbrook’s name alongside the keyword ‘security’. She was rewarded with a long list of links, but not all were applicable to the person they’d recently met.
‘Holbrook’s a retired Army Ranger; he made Major. He’s a veteran of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Says here that he worked for various PMCs before setting up Elite Custodian Services.’ She explained that PMC were private military companies and Po nodded in understanding.
‘What about the Limey?’ he asked.
She searched again, this time for Clarissa Glenn.
‘Royal Air Force. She was a group captain before retiring. That’s a high-level rank, by all accounts, equivalent to a colonel in the army. In other words she outranked Holbrook.’
‘Explains why she has a stick up her butt.’
‘Yeah. She probably feels she should be in charge at Elite, but we both know who was calling the shots back there.’
‘Holbrook tried playing at diplomacy,’ Po said. ‘At least Glenn made no bones about disliking us. What did you make of him offering you a job?’
‘It lacked sincerity, and then some. He was just testing me to see if I could be bought. He knows now that I can’t.’ Tess clucked her tongue. ‘Maybe speaking with them in person was a bad idea. We’ve learned little about why they’re after Lacey, and possibly caused ourselves unnecessary trouble from them.’
‘What was it Holbrook said: Lacey’s disappearance has caused them some embarrassment and they’d like to resolve the matter without injury to their reputation?’
‘Yeah,’ Tess agreed, ‘and that client confidentiality is very important to them. Do you think Lacey was involved in some kind of corporate espionage; that he’s been stealing info about their clients and Elite are worried he’ll hand it over to a competitor? It’d explain why they’re so intent on finding him.’
‘Would that information be sensitive enough they’re prepared to kill to get it back?’ Po grew more sombre as he contemplated the dire possibilities. ‘What if we jumped to the wrong conclusion before and Lacey had nothing to do with Ethan Prescott’s death? Could they have been working together and Elite caught up to Prescott first, and that’s why Lacey has run away? Would explain why they denied knowing who Prescott was.’
‘I’d be interested in hearing if the cops made the connection between Prescott and Elite,’ Tess said, ‘and how Holbrook dug them out of that hole.’ She brought up the recent news reports about the discovery of Prescott’s body. ‘There’s nothing here about him working for Elite Custodian Services.’
‘So maybe Stella got it wrong, and the name she heard her dad mention had nothing to do with this Ethan Prescott.’
‘You asked earlier if I still wanted to find Lacey; and I’ve wondered about it since. What if he is the bad guy in this, Po? If we locate him before Elite do, is it right to protect a criminal from them?’
His only answer was a rising of his eyebrows. To him, and by association her, the line between criminal and lawful was blurred. Their best friend, Pinky Leclerc, was the definition of a criminal, but also one of the most loyal and wonderful people either of them could wish for in their corner. ‘Yeah,’ she said softly, having answered her own question. Lacey’s criminality would have to be measured and as long as he hadn’t progressed too far along the spectrum then it should not be an issue to her. Besides, she’d been hired to find Lacey for her old school friend, and despite the many years separating their friendship she wasn’t about to renege on the agreement she’d made with Stella. And then there was her mom. She still hadn’t figured out her mother’s involvement in this: she’d acted averse to the idea of Tess taking on the job, but that’s exactly what it was, an act. Her mother definitely wanted Lacey found too, although she’d obviously been concerned that Tess would be the one to go and look for him, and Tess couldn’t figure out why. When she met with Stella earlier, the young woman had given no hint, only that she’d tracked Barbara down through her dad’s contacts in an old address book she’d discovered in his apartment, in the vague hope that she’d spoken with him recently. Apparently it was her mom who’d raised the subject of Tess being a private investigator and put the notion into Stella’s head about hiring her. A major issue for her was why her mom’s number was in Aaron Lacey’s contact list, after all these years. In fact, as she recalled, it was her grandfather who’d been Lacey’s patrol partner, and there had never been any love lost between her parents and the arrogant young patrolman. Again she flashed back on the memory at her granddad’s graveside, and Lacey comforting her while her mom and dad dropped roses into the grave … but the memory didn’t end there. Her dad returned from the graveside, and literally tugged her from Lacey’s arms with a snarl of animosity. No love lost whatsoever. Who knew: perhaps afterwards they’d straightened out whatever issue existed between her dad and Lacey, and they’d reconnected later, sharing contact details after her parents moved the family north to Portland. Without asking her mom about it, Tess had no way of knowing if they’d kept in touch during the passing years, and if Lacey had been considered an old friend. When her dad succumbed to cancer so many law enforcement officers had attended his funeral that Aaron Lacey could have been among them, but she couldn’t recall. At the time she’d been crushed by grief, and the faces of mourners at the graveside were indistinct in her memory at best.
‘We might have another tail,’ said Po and growled a curse under his breath.
In the last minute she’d thought about two funerals, and had to give a mental shake to rid herself of the morose scenes. She checked her side mirror, to see if she could spot what had alerted Po. They were in heavy traffic, having cut through midtown back towards Stella’s hotel. She had no idea which of the dozens of vehicles behind them had caught Po’s attention: this time there was nothing as obvious as a panel van with blacked-out windows.
‘The black Chrysler,’ Po pointed out, ‘four cars back. It’s been with us through three different turns now. I’ve given it an opportunity to close the space between us twice, but the driver’s deliberately sitting back.’
‘Is it the same guy you pushed over?’
‘Couldn’t say,’ Po admitted, but took a longer look in his rear-view mirror and changed his mind. ‘Don’t think so. This driver’s head isn’t as fat as that blowhard’s was. Plus, this time, he’s making an effort at stealth.’
‘Could you lose him?’
‘In a heartbeat.’ His head cocked as he squinted sidelong at her. ‘D’you want me to lose him?’
‘Do your stuff.’
Po’s teeth flashed.