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Summary: Miss Parker and Broots are drawn into a deadly pretend with Jarod posing as a drug dealer to bring down a dangerous crime lord. Jarod faces the questionable results of his brand of justice. PG-13, violence, mild cussing.
Pretend Game
By Allie Davidson
Miami Beach, Florida
Miss Parker watched Jarod stand on the beach and stare out over the Atlantic Ocean. A few bikini-clad women cast him interested glances as they walked by, but he paid them no mind. Ankle-high breakers foamed around his bare feet and the faint breeze ruffled his dark hair, a lone lounge chair and small round table sat in the sand near him. In one hand he held a clear glass containing ice and amber liquid, in the other hand, held between thumb and forefinger, was a fat cigar. She grimaced, when did Jarod start drinking hard liquor and smoking cigars? And whoever picked out the gaudy Hawaiian shirt he wore should be shot, but he looked nice in the white slacks.
Despite the warm, humid air she had worn a linen outfit with a blazer to conceal her weapon. She looked around her at the elegant beach hotel. Early diner's enjoyed food and drinks in an outdoor restaurant and a group of dancers cha-cha'ed to a Latin band. At least he chose classy accommodations, probably on the Centre's bill, she reminded herself. As much as she wanted to stay, it was time to bring Jarod home.
Miss Parker loosened her gun its shoulder holster and walked across beach toward Jarod, her heels sinking into the sand, her short skirt brushing against her thighs. The sound of the ocean masked her approach.
"Hello Jarod. It's time to come home."
He stiffened, then turned and set the glass and the cigar on the table. Two thoughts came lightning quick, her first being that Jarod looked like hell, the second being that he didn't attempt to escape, but those thoughts evaporated at what came next.
"What a surprise!" he said loudly, then grabbed her hand and pulled her into his arms. "I didn't expect you." Without waiting for a reply, he cupped her face between his hands and kissed her. Not a chaste peck, but a tongue in the mouth, deep sensuous, desperate kiss that almost, but not quite, had to power to make her think of Jarod as something other then an assignment. She resisted the urge to bring her knee up between his crotch.
"Jarod, you must be delusional" she ground out between clenched teeth as she pulled back and reached for her gun. His hand on her wrist stopped her, and he drew that arm around his neck, and never let up on his crushing grip. And when he looked at her, his smile appeared welcoming, but the expression in his eyes was anything but.
"You couldn't have picked a worse time to appear. Better start pretending and it better be convincing or we're both dead where we stand," Jarod whispered as he nuzzled her ear. His fingers dug into her back. "Do it now!"
Reluctantly she wrapped her arms around his neck and returned another passionate kiss. She recalled their first tentative kiss when they were both children, and there was no comparison. Then, she had had a girlhood crush on Jarod and liked holding his hand under the table and looked forward to their moments together. Then he had been her best friend. This was a man, not a boy, who held her now and it took all her willpower to remind herself that she was out to catch Jarod and bring him back to the center.
"It's so nice to see you, dear," she managed loudly, though the words almost stuck in her throat. "I miss you when you're gone. The place seems so empty without you." Jarod released her, but put his arm around her waist and pulled her against him as he turned to face the ocean, their backs to the hotel. "Who else is with you," he whispered.
"Broots is somewhere on the hotel grounds."
"Just hope for his sake and ours that he doesn't find us."
"You better tell me what this is all about before I put a bullet in your foot," she ground out between smiling lips. "You deserve it for that ridiculous assault."
"Now Miss Parker, I think I any man would be offended that their best attempt at a passionate embrace was referred to as an assault."
"Then you obviously have a lot to learn, loverboy."
He swatted her butt and she dug her fingernails into his side, gaining some satisfaction from watching him wince.
"Do that again and I will shoot you," she said.
"I love the things you say to me," he said aloud for the benefit of whomever watched them. This time his smile was for real, as he said under his breath: "I've never had you at my mercy Miss Parker."
"Enjoy it while it lasts," she returned.
Jarod's amusement dimmed. "I have a room in the hotel, let's go and we'll talk there."
With his hand still at her waist, he held her against him, her gun under her blazer pressed against his side. She didn't think he could get it out of the holster even if she had to. Looking like a happy couple, they walked up the beach together toward the hotel.
"There are two men, one in the restaurant and the other in the pool area," Jarod said quietly while maintaining a smile. "Don't look at them, just look happy as if I am the most important person in the world to you."
"Why Jarod, you are, didn't you know that?" she said pseudo-sweetly.
"Maybe you should tell me more often," he returned.
"I would if you were around more often, pookie." She purposely raked her heel of her shoe down the side of his bare ankle. Jarod grimaced. "But you're always running off."
"Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight, darling," he said as they walked through the pool area.
"I never thought you noticed." Miss Parker's eyes swept the pool area casually and noticed a man wearing dark glasses and sitting in a lounger. He wore a lightweight jacket, a dead giveaway to her that he too packed a weapon.
"I notice," Jarod returned. "You just so busy hanging around your friends at the Centre club that I never get a chance to talk to you alone." At the edge of the pool area he slipped into a pair of deck shoes and picked up a towel and slung it over his shoulders. "I don't think your friends liked me."
"They like you. They want you to have a permanent membership."
"We discuss this before. There are too many rules."
"I'm certain they'd lift some of restrictions just for my little snookums," she said sweetly.
They entered the hotel through the outdoor restaurant. Miss Parker spied the second man sitting by himself at a table with his back to a palm tree, he held up a menu and over the top of it watched them cross the restaurant into the hotel. Jarod led her across the lobby crowded with vacationers, suitcases, and bellboys, to a bank of elevators.
"Griffin!" a man said, coming up to them. His flat, cold gaze flicked to Miss Parker.
Jarod's hand tightened on her waist as he shook the man's hand and Miss Parker had a hunch that it was time to start pretending. The man drew them off to a quiet corner.
"Illario, I didn't expect you for another day," Jarod said.
"Who's the chick," the man said without greeting. "I thought you were here alone." He was short, stocky, with the shoulders of a line backer, and slicked-back dark hair.
Miss Parker was acquainted with more than a few men who led morally corrupt lives. Raines came to mind first, followed by closely by Lyle. Neither of these men intimated her, but this man was on a level above either Raines or Lyle. She had a feeling that if she made one misstep, said one thing out of character that this man would not hesitate to pull out the gun he probably had hidden in his Armani silk suit and blow both her and Jarod away. Where Lyle and Raines were sneaky, this man was under no such restraint.
"This is... Parker. I wasn't expecting her until after conclusion of our business." He leaned close to Illario. "She won't be a problem."
"Just keep the bimbo out of the way." Illario grunted. "Hey honey, why don't you go and powder your face or something."
Jarod must have realized she was close to ramming the barrel of her gun up Illario's nose, for he swiftly pulled a room keycard out of his pocket. "I'll meet you in the room, darling. Put on something nice for me."
Miss Parker bit her tongue, resisting the urge to tell both men to go to hell, then nodded and extracted herself from under Jarod's arm. Heading into a crowded elevator, she pushed to the back and took a deep breath as the doors closed. The confined space smelled of suntan lotion and sweat and she fought down a moment of claustrophobia. Damn, what the hell was Jarod doing becoming mixed up with a man like Illario? She couldn't walk away; at least she wouldn't without Jarod in handcuffs. She looked at the room card Jarod passed to her: Room 3023. She asked a woman up in the front to press the button for the thirtieth floor.
Jarod's breathtaking suite looked across the Atlantic Ocean from a balcony beyond a sliding glass door in a separate bedroom.
To the left and right she could see the other resort hotels lining the coastline. She decided not to get comfortable, for if every thing went as planned, she would be taking Jarod out of this hotel this afternoon.
To pass the time she searched through his belongings, but found nothing other then more tasteless Hawaiian shirts, slacks and oddly enough, several large bottles of imitation Almond extract. Maybe he was baking cookies, she thought. There was a locked safe in the bedroom closet and she had no key. The wetbar in the outer room revealed nothing except a half dozen
bottles of liquor and several bottles of soda pop. Having exhausted places to search, she sat on the bed and surveyed the luxurious room. She wondered if Jarod would take this opportunity to run out, but the opening door in the outer sitting room answered that question as Jarod stepped into the suite.
"What the hell is going on?" she ground out as she stood from the bed and went to the doorway of the bedroom. "I'm not going to be pulled into one of your ridiculous pretends. You may feel you have to save the world, but I do not share your delusions!"
Jarod ignored her, locked the door, strode across the room and closed all the curtains. He then returned to the bed and stood her over. Even with her heels on, Miss Parker had to look up at him, and staring up into his face, she realized this was one of the few times she had seen Jarod angry. Well, he could throw his little tantrum on the Centre plane back to Blue Cove.
"Let's stop this farce, Jarod. You're coming with me." She pulled her gun and a pair of handcuffs out of an inside jacket pocket. "Turn around and put your hands behind your back-."
With an angry roar, he backhanded the gun from her hand, shoved her onto the bed and straddled her. He crossed his legs over hers, pinning her while his hands on her wrists pushed them into the mattress. She struggled against him, but he outweighed her by at least sixty pounds.
"Listen to me!" he said low and angry. "When you walked up to me on the beach, you became involved whether you liked it or not."
"If you stayed at the Centre where you belonged, none of this would matter," she returned in the same tone. She tried to pull her wrists from his grasp but couldn't. His faced lowered, inches from her own. He looked ready to strangle her and a tendril of fear traveled up her spine. She had never been afraid of Jarod before--exasperated and angry, never afraid.
"I'm not going to get into this with you right now," he said slowly, deliberately. "But suffice to say that if we walk out of here looking anything other than a happy couple, and Illario has any suspicions that we might be the authorities or working for them, he will not hesitate to shot us." He seemed to suddenly realize the position they were in, and his face flushing, he stood up releasing her. He walked over to where the gun lay on the floor, picked it up and popped out the clip. He tossed her the gun and she caught it. He put the clip in his pocket.
"What the hell is this good for without the clip?"
"You wouldn't be asking that if you saw the situation from my end." The anger flowed out of him and he sighed and ran a hand through it hair. The dim light of the room emphasized dark circles under his eyes and his shoulders sagged.
"You look like hell, Jarod."
"You would too if--." Jarod trailed off, cocked his head then exited the bedroom and stood quietly by the outer door for a moment as he listened. He returned to the bedroom and as he passed back by the bed he held his finger to his lips, then went into the closet. She heard him fumbling with a key, probably to the safe, then he appeared with a large envelope.
"I'm sorry about," he said gestured toward the bed then ran a hand through his hair again. His shoulders slumped. "I haven't been sleeping much lately."
"Jarod apologizing?" She wondered what was in the envelope.
"Let's talk," he said, ignoring her comment and motioning her to the bathroom with the envelope. Curious, Miss Parker complied.
In the spacious bathroom he closed the door, reached over and turned on the water jets to a marble Jacuzzi. He sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi while she took a seat at a lighted vanity.
"What does an 800 pound gorilla do?" he asked her. The sound of the Jacuzzi jets helped to muffle their voices.
"I don't see what-," she began, then sighed. She didn't have time for stupid jokes. "I don't know, what does an 800 pound gorilla do?"
"Any damn thing it wants to," he answered. "A friend told me that, and I didn't understand it until I met Illario. Right now Illario is that 800 pound gorilla. Just remember and we may both live through this. Look at these and you'll see what I mean." He took out a half dozen photos and passed them to her.
In growing horror Miss Parker flipped through the pictures, some were official police forensic photos, some looked like Jarod had taken them. All of the photos, though, had one thing in common; all the dead victims were young men and women in their early to late teens. Some of them looked younger. Jarod pointed one photo out. A young girl, her light brown hair splayed in the dirt and filth of an alleyway, lay in a curled position. Drug paraphernalia lay near her.
"This was Lisa." Jarod cleared his throat. "She was sixteen years old when she died. She was a prostitute in an organization headed by Illario. Most of the girls working for him are underage runaways that he brings in and then hooks on drugs-crack, heroine, you name it-then to maintain their habit, they work for him." Jarod pointed to a gruesome photo of a young boy with a bullet hole in the side of his head. "This is Derek. He was seventeen. Gender or age doesn't make any difference to Illario, he supplies what his customers want and if the kids try to defy him, or try to get out, they die. I befriended Derek through Lisa. After Lisa died, he became scared and was suppose to meet me. We were going to go to the police together. Derek died before our meeting, and if Illario knew who Derek was meeting, I'd be dead, too."
"How did you get involved?" Miss Parker asked, bile rising in her throat as she continued to flip through the photos.
"I was working in an ER when Lisa came in. She had been battered, her body covered with bruises old and new, and she suffered from the effects of a drug overdose. I treated her, then coaxed her into telling me what had happened to her. She needed someone to talk to. She told me about Illario and the other kids under his control. After two days, I had to release her. I couldn't keep her in the hospital. A week later Miami police found her dead in an alleyway from an alleged drug overdose.
Illario had her killed." Jarod rubbed a hand over his face. "It's just as if I killed her myself by releasing her."
"Jarod, you can't blame yourself," Miss Parker told him, this was just like Jarod to internalize this kind of guilt.
"I do blame myself, I could have got her help instead of just releasing her back to the streets. Now you see why I have to do something."
Miss Parker wondered if she could have turned her back if she had been in Jarod's place. Her own mother hadn't, she tried to save the children the Centre had kidnapped and were using for their own purposes, and paid the price with her life. She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. She was crazy for allowing Jarod to involve her in this. Against good sense she asked: "What are your plans?"
Jarod studied her for a moment before speaking. "Does that mean you're going to help?"
"Look Jarod, don't get any ideas of your crusade becoming mine". Catherine Parker made it her crusade to help children. Miss Parker pushed those troubling thoughts away. "For now it serves my greater purpose to help you," she answered, not about to tell him where her thoughts had taken her. "Maybe Raines would like to see me bring back your cold dead body, but pleasing Raines has never been my aim."
"Thank you, I think," Jarod said, then cocked his head, stood and slightly opened the door. "We have company," he whispered. "Oh baby, do that again!" he said aloud, then prompted her with a gesture of his hand.
"I missed you so much, Jarod."
"Start moaning," he said under his breath.
"I'm not moaning for that dumb bastard-."
"Oh baby!" Jarod said louder to drown out what Miss Parker had been about to say.
"Yes, I like that sweetiekins," Miss Parker said in a breathy voice as she stared daggers at Jarod.
"I didn't know you knew any words of endearment."
"You owe me for this," she whispered.
Jarod smiled. "Well, if anyone is listening as least they believe we missed one another." He leered at her, yet looking at his unhealthy pallor and sleepless eyes, Miss Parker knew his gaiety was just a facade.
"You need to call Broots and warn him away," Jarod was saying, unaware of her scrutiny. "If we pull in too many people, Illario will become suspicious. Your sudden appearance could have killed the deal. I don't...." he began, and drew a breath, "I don't think I could go through convincing him of my sincerity again." He began unbuttoning his shirt. "Let's get out of here so we can talk without worrying about who might be listening."
"What the hell are you doing!" Miss Parker whispered furiously.
"Convincing our visitor that we were doing what he thought we were doing."
"Where's some burlesque music when you need it," she said under her breath, and Jarod smiled faintly at her.
"I'm sorry that we don't have time for anything else."
"Lack of sleep has made you delusional," she replied, watching him undress. He left his white slacks on and Miss Parker didn't know whether to be disappointed or thankful.
Jarod leaned over the sink, wet his hair and his chest and shoulders, and then draped a towel around his shoulders. "Get undressed, then give me a few moments before you come out."
Miss Parker nodded and shrugged out of her blazer and began to unbutton her silk blouse. Damn, Jarod looked good without a shirt on, but she wasn't about to tell him that. She ignored the fluttering in her stomach as Jarod opened the door and walked out.
From without she could hear voices. Quickly she finished undressing and stepped into the shower, after her long trip the warm water felt good. She wished she had other clothes with her, but she had left an overnight bag in the Centre's jet still at Miami International Airport. She stepped out, toweled and wrapped the towel around her hair and another around her body, relieved that the towels were oversized.
She stepped out of the bathroom. "Oh, Jarod-," she began, then as though surprised, she stopped short at the sight of the stranger standing next to Jarod in the outer room. "I didn't know we had company. I would have dressed more appropriate," she simpered. Their visitor was the man she'd seen in the restaurant. She forced herself to smile at him as his eyes raked over the body.
"Nice," he said to Jarod as he stared at Miss Parker. She felt her skin crawl. He returned his attention to Jarod. "So, you got that, Griffin?" he said, his voice held a hint of a threat. To Jarod's credit he didn't appear intimidated.
"I got it. Tomorrow night."
"One of our cars will collect you in front of the hotel."
The man glanced once more at Miss Parker then turn and left the suite.
"Get dressed, darling," Jarod said, "why don't we take a walk."
"Okay sweetie," Miss Parker answered.
"Miss Parker, you look good in a towel," Jarod said in a lower voice as he walked into the bedroom. "I think we should do this more often."
"In your dreams, Jarod." She planted a hand on his shoulder, shoved him out of the bedroom and closed the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
!±
Miss Parker and Jarod strolled down a wide sidewalk that followed along the beach. Bars, nightclubs and open air cafes lined the opposite side of the road across a wide avenue. Bathing suit clad men and women roller-bladed in the warm early evening air. Miss Parker stayed close to Jarod, her hand curled in the crook of his arm. Jarod seemed more relaxed now that they were away from the hotel, though he still looked ready to collapse. She wondered what was bothering him, but didn't think she could get him to tell her. Still, she was entitled to know some of it.
"So," she began, leaning closer to him and keeping her voice low, "I think I'm owed an explanation."
"Illario believes I'm Jarod Griffin, a drug dealer from California."
Miss Parker cast him a sideways glance of surprise. "Seeing first hand how suspicious he is, I'm impressed with your persuasive abilities."
"It's taken more than you can imagine to convince him I'm the real thing."
"Like?" Miss Parker prompted.
Jarod stopped and drew a deep breath, his eyes shadowed for a moment before he shook his head and continued: "Illario's been drawn up on drug trafficking charges twice before, and once on child pornography but nothing sticks. His high-paid lawyers get him off; they don't want their cash cow going to prison. And he has help from other sources as well."
"You think he has the police department on his payroll?"
"I know he has one insider in the department, maybe more, but I can't point any fingers without hard evidence to back me up."
"If you think Illario has the Miami police department on his payroll, how did you plan to make certain anything you find on him stick?" Miss Parker looked up at Jarod's grim face and saw her answer there.
"Jarod, since when did you become judge, jury and executioner?"
"I can ask the same thing of the Centre."
Miss Parker held his steady gaze for a moment then looked away. "Touchè'."
Jarod glanced over his shoulder. "We're being followed."
"One of Illario's goons?"
"I'm not certain. Keep walking." They strolled up the walk while making small talk. Jarod unconsciously patted the hand she had tucked in his. He was nervous and edgy, unlike the Jarod she usually knew. "Over here," Jarod said, wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her into a shadowed overhang of a closed clothing store.
A furtive figure stopped by the alcove. Jarod slipped by Miss Parker, his hand snaked out, grabbed the man, spun him around and had him up against the wall with a forearm cranked up against his throat before he recognized the face.
"Jarod!" Broots said. "Ma-Miss Parker!" His nervous gaze darted between them. "How-how did you know I was following you."
"Broots, the whole world probably knows you were following us," Miss Parker said and shook her head. "I told you to stay away."
"I... I was, but I wanted to make certain you were okay."
"I can handle this myself."
Jarod took a deep breath and let Broots go. "I'm certain one of Illario's men saw him." Jarod gestured to Miss Parker. "You'll have to give him your gun."
"Why, so he can shoot himself and save Illario the trouble?"
"I don't know how to handle a gun," Broots said.
"You're Miss Parker's new bodyguard," Jarod informed him. "And the gun isn't loaded."
"Bodyguard!" Broots burst out. "You're both crazy."
"There are men watching us who will not hesitate to shoot if they have any doubts about who we are pretending to be."
"And, uh, exactly who *are* we pretending to be?" Broots asked and swallowed as if knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.
"Jarod is a drug dealer, I am his girlfriend and now you're my bodyguard."
"Jarod's--Jarod's girlfriend!" Broots burst out, slapped his knee and laughed. "Now that is funny..."
"Not as funny as you're going to look with a gun shoved up your ass, which is exactly what is going to happen if you don't look convincing."
Broots' laughter died away. "This is for real."
Jarod nodded and Miss Parker listened as he briefly explained to Broots a condensed version of what he'd already told her.
"But... I don't know how a bodyguard is suppose to act."
"Look tough and stupid," Miss Parker said.
"Like this?" Broots pulled his brow down, frowned and hunched his back.
"You look like constipated monkey, you idiot," she ground out. "Just don't do anything but wander behind us and look alert."
"No, he doesn't look the part." Jarod pulled out his wallet and peeled some bills off a wad of money and handed it Broots.
"Holy cow, Jarod, this is five hundred dollars."
"Take it Broots," Miss Parker said. "It probably belongs to the Centre anyway. I'll just take it out of your paycheck." Broots drew his hand back. Miss Parker snatched the money out of Jarod's hand and shoved it into Broots' shirt pocket. "Just go do as Jarod asks."
"There's a mens store up the street. Buy yourself a dark suit," Jarod said.
"And for God's sake, buy a pair of sunglasses," Miss Parker added. Perhaps that way he wouldn't look like such a geek.
"But--," he started and Jarod gave him a little push.
"Broots, just go!"
At a sidewalk cafè, they waited for Broots to return. Jarod ordered an ice tea while Miss Parker ordered a glass of wine.
"What happened to the scotch and the cigar?" she asked. Jarod looked confused for a moment before he realized she meant the drink and the cigar he had on the beach.
"Props," he said.
"You mean you haven't yet succumbed to the same habits as the rest of us?"
Jarod stared hard at her for a moment. "Thanks to Lyle, I have. More than you know."
"What are you mixed up in Jarod? What are you doing?"
"I decide who... what needs to be done." He drew a breath and looked away into the passing pedestrians.
"Jarod," she said, "one day you'll need to face what Lyle did to you and come to terms with it, whatever it was. You can't play these dangerous vigilante games to make it go away."
"And when did you become a psychoanalyst," he returned her gaze steadily. His hands clenched on the table.
Their conversation ceased as Broots walked up.
"Oh no," she mouthed.
Broots looked pleased with himself. "How do I look"
Miss Parker noticed Jarod ducked his head to hide a smile. She mentally rolled her eyes.
"Like a bad imitation of one of the Blues Brothers."
"But... but weren't they tough?"
"They were musicians you moron." For the first time wished she hadn't found Jarod on the beach.
Jarod stood up and held out a hand for her. She took it and allowed him to help her to her feet, then he turned to Broots.
"We're going back to the hotel. Just stay behind us and scan the crowd, try to recall how Sam acts."
Broots blinked rapidly as he tried to digest what Jarod just told him. "I-I think I know what you mean."
"If we all end up dead, we'll know you didn't," Miss Parker growled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Nighty-night," Jarod said to Miss Parker's unconscious form as he picked her off the floor and carried her into the bedroom. Broots had passed out on the couch in front of the television. Jarod switched off all the lights, then looked at the luminous face of his watch. They should be out for the rest of the night. He felt a little guilty about slipping them a mild narcotic in their food and drinks, but what he needed to do tonight he had to do alone and knowing Miss Parker, she wasn't going to let him out of her sight.
Jarod pulled out a key and opened the connecting door to the next suite. No one knew he had reserved this one as well and it was where he kept his working gear: explosives, gunpowder, video equipment and a box of old fashion firecrackers.
In the bathroom, he began his transformation as he had every night for the past month, strategically applying dark makeup and slipping in a pair of prosthetic teeth and finger combing a combination of mud and hair gel through his hair. Next he opened a bottle of cheap whiskey and slapped some on his face like aftershave. Pleased with this phase of the transformation, he went back into the bedroom, pulled some clothing out of a bag and slipped them on, put on an old coat, then shouldered a ratty backpack. He went back into the bathroom and sprinkled more of the cheap booze over the clothing and caught his reflection in
the mirror.
"You stink," he told himself, then chuckled. He looked at his watch again. Illario should be finishing his dinner soon in his favorite restaurant down the street. He quietly opened the door and slipped out of the suite to the outside hallway. Pulling a wool cap low over his forehead, he slinked down the hall.
Time to get to work.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Was he begging in the kitchen again!" the restaurant manager shouted. From his position just inside the doorway in the waiting area, Jarod watched the manager gesture to a bouncer in the doorway of the bar area. He took a quick glance at the wall clock; it was almost showtime. Jarod took a small object out of his pocket and palmed it loosely in his hand, preparing himself.
"Get him out of here before he stinks the place up," the manager ordered.
"Come on old fella, you can't stay here, what're the guests gonna think," the bouncer said, and slipped a hand across Jarod's shoulders.
"I have my rights," Jarod slurred but allowed the man to help him to his feet just as Illario walked out of the dining room, he had a toothpick in his mouth. He glanced toward the commotion, grimaced then tried to detour around, his henchmen following.
"Wait, my pack!"
"I'll get your pack," the bouncer told him.
Jarod wrenched away from the bouncer and collided into Illario taking down both him and one of his henchmen. The three of them tangled on the floor. Jarod rolled to the side, pinning Illario's legs while he pressed a small square object with tiny sharp pins to the bottom of one of his expensive Italian shoes. The second of Illario's bodyguards stepped over and kicked Jarod in the ribs, then shove him away with the bottom of his foot.
The hotel manager ran over, wringing his hands. "I am so sorry Mr. Marsano, so sorry. It won't happen again.
Jarod groaned as he rolled to his hands and knees and scrambled to his feet, grabbing his pack as he did. Illario looked straight at him with no glimmer of recognition in his eyes.
"Get this piece of crap out of my sight," he said as one of the bodyguards helped him to his feet. He straightened his jacket, brushed off his pants and made his way to the limo waiting in the front of the restaurant.
"If I see him here again, you will be looking for another job," the manger yelled at the bouncer, then spun around and headed back to the kitchen.
Jarod scrambled outside just as the limo pulled away from the curb. While in his homeless persona, he usually hunched over to disguise his height, but this time he didn't have to feign it. The pain radiating up the side of his ribcage made breathing difficult, and pressing his arm against his bruised ribs, he lurched down the walkway. He expected something like this. He had to take the chance that Illario's bodyguards wouldn't do more than rough him up a little in plain view of the public. In any other circumstance, they would have put a bullet in his head.
No one paid any attention to him, many looked away, and others ignored him as he shuffled down the sidewalk along the very same route he and Miss Parker walked earlier. He stopped at a bench and drew a paper bag out of his backpack. The bottle inside contained water, but no one would know. He took a swig and continued on. He took a few turns down side streets away from the waterfront and pedestrian traffic. Out of sight of the main thoroughfare, he wrapped an arm around his bruised ribcage and jogged up three more blocks. On a quiet side street he stopped by a late model car, dug keys out of the pocket of his dirty trousers, unlocked the car and climbed inside.
Out of the backpack he took a small device about the size of a hand-held game pad and pushed a slid switch with his thumb. With a quiet whine the device booted up. A small plasma screen glowed in the darkness of the car and on the screen a 2D-grid image of the Miami streets illuminated. On the street grid, a solid red light moved slowly. Jarod smiled and turned the key in the ignition.
"Gotcha!" he said.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jarod followed the beacon to an old district of dilapidated, abandoned buildings and warehouses and chose a deserted canning factory as his base. He cut a padlock on an overhead sliding door, and drove his car into the cavernous main room filled with canning machinery. After a quick search of the factory, he found just what he needed, an old walk-in refrigerator. The door was padlocked, but he cut it and walked in.
"Perfect," he said as he looked around at the old white walls.
He went out to his car and retrieved an armful of items from the trunk. He had a lot to accomplish before the night was over and he needed to work quickly. He cleaned out the debris in the walk-in, pinned photos on the wall, setup projection equipment and strung cable to loudspeakers that he mounted outside the warehouse under the eves. Last, he pulled a heavy pressurized tank into the walk-in and set it to the side.
Next came the more dangerous stage of tonight's work. He backed the car out of the cannery, then activated the tracking device. With the car headlamps off, he drove through the narrow, unlit streets and followed the beacon to another warehouse the next block over. He hid the car in an adjacent alleyway then camouflaged the car by arranging a pile of old cardboard boxes
over it. Backpack loaded with the items he needed he began a reconnaissance of the area.
In a crouch-walk, he circled the warehouse, peering in through dusty windows and getting an idea of the outside area and the inside layout. At the west side of the warehouse, a metal stairway led up to a second story door. It was locked. He pulled a penlight out of his jacket pocket and shinned it around the door and into the cracks between the door and the wall. Illario wasn't stupid and wouldn't leave a door like this unguarded. The penlight illuminated a thin insulated wire running down the doorjamb. It was an alarm wire. Jarod snipped it with a pair of nippers. He then extracted a needle-thin object from the pack and quietly
unlocked the door.
Jarod opened the door and entered an office. He could hear voices now and recognized Illario's voice. Maintaining a low crouch-walk, he made his way to the inner office door.
In the middle of the main warehouse room Illario sat at the head of a table covered with sacks of white powered: Heroin. Four of his henchmen stood behind him, and his lieutenant, whom Jarod recognized as a man named Remo, sat at the table with him. Around the room on this second floor, a steel walkway followed the square circumference of the room, doors to other offices led off the walkway. The set up was better than Jarod had hoped for. From his pack, he took out a digital camera, a recording device and a voice amplifier that looked like a miniature inverted umbrella. He set up the equipment and pointed the amplifier toward the men. Another man entered the warehouse and joined those at the table. Jarod smiled and his eyes narrowed.
"There's your cut, Matson," Illario said and handed the new comer a large envelope. Jarod snapped off some photos as the crime lord continued: "Tomorrow's the night. Did you come up with anything on Griffin."
"Naw, he's clean and one ruthless son of a bitch, but what did you expect after he took out Tamsin Lanie for you? He left a note of some kind that had the homicide crew scratching their heads."
"And what was that?"
"Shit, I don't remember. Though I know it was nothing about you and this deal." Matson drew a stack of bills from the envelope and flipped through them, then returned them to the enveloped and stuffed it in an inside coat pocket. "I checked him through the database at work, and everything he's told you checks out. Looks like he runs a clean organization."
Illario nodded. "I needed a distribution channel in California. Maybe Griffin's the man."
"Now this is a bonus, Sergeant Matson" Jarod said to himself, recognizing the man from the Miami police department, the vice division if he remembered correctly.
"You and you," Illario pointed to two of his men. "You go get Griffin tomorrow at the agreed upon time. Have him put on this then bring him here." He tossed a black cloth bag onto the table. And you," he pointed to Matson. "You'll follow them tomorrow, make certain they ain't being tailed." Illario leaned across the table. "Got it?" When he received affirmative nods he continued. "Now get the hell out of here, and you two boneheads," he pointed to two henchmen. "Let's pack all this up and get it into the coffee crates."
Jarod watched as the men gathered the bags of heroine, storing them in coffee filled crates, then vacating the warehouse. Two men stayed behind to watch the warehouse. That made his task difficult but not impossible, he'd just have to work around them. He packed up his own equipment, stored the pack between a stack of crates and drew out the gunpowder, fireworks and dynamite and a device that looked like an ordinary ink pen.
Staying to the shadows of the upper floor, and hugging close to the wall, Jarod began to work. Dawn was only an hour away when he finished. He left the car hidden underneath the cardboard boxes and began a long trek back to the hotel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You son of a bitch!" Miss Parker hissed in his ear as she grabbed his wrist when he walked into the hotel room. She jerked him inside.
He was too tired to fight her. Earlier, he had stopped and ditched the clothing in a public restroom, and wore jeans and a T-shirt, so at least he didn't look like a dirty homeless man.
Miss Parker spun him around, shoved him forward and with a well-placed kick in the back of his knees, he collapsed face-first to the floor. That jarred his ribs and he groaned. She sat on top of him, gun in her hand, the end of the barrel indenting the area behind his jaw. He turned his head as far as he could manage to look at her and judging by the pleased smirk on her face, it appeared she had found the 9mm's clip. What worried him the most was a silencer she had snugged onto the barrel. Miss Parker meant business.
"You drugged me." Without taking her eyes off him, she yanked one of his arms behind him and slapped one end of a pair on handcuffs on his wrist. He grimaced at the pain shooting up his shoulder blade as she yanked around the other arm and slapped the other handcuff on.
"I had to do it. I needed to work alone last night and I knew you wouldn't let me leave without you," his voice was hoarse and he was desperately tired. "You have to let me finish this." He clenched his teeth. Miss Parker's knee dug into his ribs.
"I don't know exactly all that you're mixed up in, Jarod, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm saving you from yourself."
"Miss Parker, maybe we should listen to him," Broots said, standing behind them wringing his hands. "I think this Illario guy may be dangerous."
"If I want your opinion Broots, I'll give it to you," she ground out without looking at him, her eyes never leaving Jarod.
"I think Jarod is hurt," Broots spoke up as he leaned over them.
"What's wrong?"
"My ribs," Jarod managed.
She moved off him and pulled up his shirt. An ugly purple bruise covered the right side of his ribcage. He hadn't looked, but wasn't surprised given the force that Illario's bodyguard put behind that kick.
"Jarod, you need a combination nursemaid and bodyguard to keep you out of trouble," she said, exasperation in her voice. She unlocked the handcuffs. "Broots, help me get him on the bed."
Jarod felt Miss Parker and Broots pick him up and half-drag, half-carry him to the bed. His vision blurred and their voices grew indistinct. He had to get some sleep; he had to be alert for tonight.
"Parker," he said, "I think I'm going to sleep now. Just make certain to wake me at 8pm."
"Don't you dare go to sleep, you have to explain..." she began, her voice trailing off for he had fallen asleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I hope you know what you're doing," Miss Parker said quietly to Jarod as a black sedan pulled up to the hotel. She, Broots and Jarod stood outside the hotel. Jarod held a black briefcase. He hadn't spoke of its contents, and Miss Parker didn't want to know. She already knew more than she wanted to.
Against better judgment, she had awakened Jarod at the appointed time of 8pm, and she and Broots helped him get dressed. What convinced her to let him continue with this pretend game was another stack of photos she found in his backpack along with a few other items she couldn't identify, some firecrackers and several empty bottles of the almond extract.
One of Illario's henchmen climbed out of the sedan's passenger seat. His hulking figure reminded Miss Parker of a Neanderthal, he just needed a big wooden club. As he approached them his gaze locked on Broots.
"Who the hell is this?" the man stared eye to eye with Broots. Miss Parker hid her surprise when Broots didn't blink and managed to keep his tough-looking mien.
"My bodyguard," Miss Parker explained.
"I know Kung Fu, and five other dangerous words," Broots added under his breath as the man turned away to open the backseat door for them. "Jarod, this isn't going to work," Broots continued.
"It is going to work," Jarod said, and ducked into the car "Trust me."
"Why doesn't your answer give me a warm fuzzy feeling," Miss Parker whispered joining him and Broots inside.
"Because you have a brother like Lyle and a father who married a woman who tried to kill him," he said. "If I had your family history, I don't think I'd trust anyone either."
"At least I have a family history!" Miss Parker hissed, then quieted as the Neanderthal climbed into the front passenger seat and tossed them three black cloth bags.
"Put these on," he ordered. "Better be glad I had extras or the bimbo and her bodyguard would have to stay."
"Hey, Illario doesn't trust his own customers?" Jarod asked.
"He don't trust no one," the Neanderthal replied. "Not even his own brother if he had one."
"If this messes up my hair and you're going to be floating face first in the Atlantic," Miss Parker grumbled.
Neanderthal smirked as he looked at them through the rearview mirror. "Yeah, honey? And whose gonna help you? The mouse in your pocket."
Miss Parker gritted her teeth. She didn't care what Jarod did to the rest of these creeps, she just wanted to go toe to toe with this Neanderthal jerkoff.
"This is just a precaution," the driver said, almost apologetic, as he pulled the sedan away from the curb and into traffic.
Jarod and Broots pulled the black hoods over their heads, and after a moment she drew a deep breath and followed. She didn't like this, not at all.
The ride was short. When the car halted, Miss Parker heard the door open and someone leaned in and pulled the bags off their heads. She looked around her at the dilapidated state of the buildings.
"Not a very nice neighborhood," Broots commented. "I think I prefer the hotel."
"You and you," Neanderthal in the passenger seat turned and pointed to Miss Parker and Broots, "stay in the car." He got out and took a straddle-legged position near the front of the car.
Miss Parker hesitated, then settled back in the seat. She gained nothing from antagonizing him. Jarod retrieved the briefcase on the seat next to him.
"Keep your heads low," he whispered, then flanked by Illario's men, he was escorted across the asphalt lot and into the warehouse.
"What do you think he meant by that remark?" Broots asked, leaning down and watching through the window as Jarod disappeared though a doorway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Inside the warehouse, two men flanking the door stopped Jarod. One stood in front of him while the other patted him down. Finding no weapons they allowed him to proceed to the table that he had seen the night before. Ilario smiled as he approached.
"Sorry about the formalities. I have to be certain, ya' know."
Jarod nodded. "No problem. Now let's get down to business." He sat down, popped open the briefcase and displayed its contents and pulled out a stack of one hundred dollar bills that he passed to Illario. "Laundered, untraceable and non-sequential."
"You're a prepared man, Griffin."
"Always," Jarod replied with a predatory grin. "Now lets see the merchandise."
~~~~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker sat in the car and stared out the window toward the warehouse. "I don't like this. I don't think Jarod knows what he's gotten himself in to."
Broots fidgeted beside her. "Jarod knows how to take care of himself. I think I like it right here."
"Well, I think it's time I made a trip to the ladies room." She opened the door. As soon as she stepped out, Neanderthal stepped forward, his hand creeping toward the inside of his suit jacket.
"What you want, honey?"
"I have to go to the ladies room," she said sweetly as she came up to him.
"What does this look like, a freakin' full service station? Get back into the car and shutup."
Miss Parker stepped forward and ground her heel into the man's foot. He grunted and bent over. She brought her knee up into his face, feeling his nose crunch against her kneecap. He grabbed for his bleeding nose, and she brought her knee up again into his crotch as she turned at the waist and elbowed him in the eye. One hand holding his broken nose, the other his crotch, the man fell to the ground. Miss Parker brought the butt of her gun down on the side of his head several times.
"Never say no to a woman who needs to go," she informed the unconscious man, then gave him a kick in the ribs. "That was for Jarod."
Broots scrambled out of the car and stared at the man. "Is... is he dead?"
"Lucky for him he'll just have a big bump on his head, a black eye, a broken nose and a bruised groin."
"Huh?" Broots asked.
"Never mind," she said as she opened the man's jacket and found his gun. She passed it to Broots. "Take it! It won't bite." Then she found the car keys. "Help me get him into the trunk."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Illario stood at the head of the table, a pleased grin on his face. "So Griffin, do we have a deal?"
"I think we can come to a mutual agreement." He took a pen out of pocket.
"What the hell you gonna do? Write a love letter?" Illario joked.
"This is my lucky pen," Jarod said, and clicked the pen twice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker closed the sedan trunk door over the still unconscious body of the man. "Now let's see what Jarod is up to."
A blinding blast of fire lit up the sky as the abandoned warehouses around them exploded, and the concussion wave temporarily deafened them. Miss Parker instinctively took cover against the sedan as debris showered around her. She looked for Broots and saw him cringing near the car's front bumper. She expected him to be scared out of his wits, however, when he looked up he had an odd smile on his face.
"Cool!" he shouted. "Now I know what Jarod meant by 'keep your heads low'."
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Oops, maybe I used an excessive amount of dynamite," Jarod said as the rear of the warehouse exploded and Illario's men scattered. Burning debris fell around them and Illario and Matson dove under the table. Jarod laughed as a siren shrilled from the direction of the neighboring warehouses. "Naw. Excess is never enough."
Upstairs, the firecrackers caught fire and started to pop. Illario's men, confused and disoriented, began wildly snap firing then scattered. Jarod opened the suitcase, moved a top layer of the money to reveal a cutaway hole in the bottom layers that hid a gun. He picked up the gun, leaned under the table and fired twice, catching Illario on the side of the neck and Matson in the back, between his spine and shoulder blade.
In the distance Jarod could hear the sound of real sirens and he looked at his watch. "Perfect timing." Out of his pocket he pulled the keys to the car he left in the alleyway. Time for Matson and Illario to take a short ride.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first siren that went off had startled Miss Parker, but quickly she realized it was faked and part of whatever plan Jarod had concocted along with the explosion. The man had to be mad. Now, the sirens she heard in the distance were for real. She crouched against the car and waited for Jarod to come out of the burning warehouse, they had to leave soon. When he didn't appear, she knew he had either ditched her or was trapped inside. Covering her head with one arm, Miss Parker ran into the warehouse. She saw yellow flames consuming the upstairs. No one was in sight. Broots stumbled behind her.
"Damn him!" Miss Parker fumed and stamped her foot.
"I don't think anyone is here," he said.
"No kidding, Einstein. I'm glad you're around to tell me these things. Help me look."
After searching the building as thoroughly as possible, considering the back was on fire and smoke filled the building, Miss Parker concluded that Jarod had once again escaped. They ran out of the warehouse to the sedan. The sirens were closer now. Probably not more than a few blocks away, she estimated, and she didn't want to be around to justify her involvement in this
mess to the police.
"I think we need to get back to Miami International." The Centre's jet would still be waiting to take her and Broots back to Blue Cove. Her gaze fell on the black sedan. "And the 800 pound gorilla's car is going to take us there."
"What 800 pound gorilla?" Broots ask.
"Just get in." She sat in the driver's seat and started up the car.
"What about the, uh, guy in the trunk." Broots sat next to her and turned slightly toward the rear of the car.
Miss Parker heard a faint pounding noise coming from the back of the trunk. She smiled. "When we're safely in the air, someone will make an anonymous call to the long-term parking attendant."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Illario groaned, opened his eyes and rubbed the side of his neck.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," Jarod said and gestured toward the red circular wound on his neck. "Tranquilizer dart. It's going to be a little sore there for a few days."
"Where the hell am I?"
"An old walk-in refrigerator. You never know when they'll come in handy."
Illario tried to bring his hands up to his head but discovered they were handcuffed together behind to a wooden chair. "Griffin!" Illario strained at the handcuffs. His ankles were also cuffed together. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Doing?" Jarod echoed innocently. "Can't you guess? Look around you."
Illario did, seeing for the first time the hundreds of photos pasted on the walls, faces of the children and teenagers he had killed. Photos of him beating the victims, photos of him sitting at a table with bags of heroin, photos of him handing money to Matson, photos of crates filled with coffee and containing the bags of white powder. Photos everywhere. Photos that Jarod had been collecting for weeks while in disguise as a homeless man.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Now that's a question I've been asking myself for a long time and I still don't have the answer, but I can tell you that I'm not a drug dealer," Jarod replied. "Oh look, it appears that Matson is waking up, too."
The cop, hog tied with wrists tied to ankles, lay to the side behind Illario. He groaned and opened his eyes as Jarod shoved him with his foot.
"Wake up Sergeant Matson."
"What the hell?" he said, blinked, looked around then focused on Jarod.
"There you are Sergeant Matson." Jarod bent at the waist and looked down at him, his voice pseudo-friendly. I'm glad you could join the party. Sorry there's no finger food, but there's a movie."
Jarod stood and hit the on button to the slide projector. It started clicking through all the photos, bloody photos, forensic photos and the photos Jarod had taken, all projected onto the white wall on the back of the walk-in. Matson moaned when he saw the photo of him taking money from Illario.
"What's wrong, Matson? You don't like family pictures?" Jarod asked.
Illario sneered. "You think you're gonna make me feel guilty for these worthless street rats, Griffin? They were nothing to me except human merchandise."
"Oh, I forgot something," Jarod said pleasantly, quelling the rage building inside him. He reached over and rested a hand on the valve knob on the pressurized tank. "How about some Hydrogen Cyanide with your slide show?"
"Hydrogen Cyanide?" Matson stuttered.
"It's just a deadly pest control substance," Jarod said and leaned down close to Illario, his voice rough in anger. "You never know when you have to do some exterminating."
Matson's eyes bulged. Illario stared at the tank then at Jarod's face. "He's bluffing."
"You think? Let me tell you about Hydrogen Cyanide. It is a colorless gas, but has a distinct odor resembling bitter almonds, and it is particularly dangerous because of its toxic asphyxiating effects on any life requiring oxygen to survive. That would specifically be you two, in this case. You see, Hydrogen Cyanide renders oxygen unavailable to the tissues and causes death by asphyxia. First, you're going to get a headache and feel a little dizzy. Then you're going to feel like you're suffocating and while you gasp for breath, you're going to get nauseous. Then within, oh say forty minutes, you're gonna die." Jarod wrapped his hands around his throat, stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes. "Acckkk!" He gagged. "I just want you to remember the faces of the innocent children that you murdered, remember each innocent life that you corrupted."
"No Griffin, wait! Griffin!" Matson screamed, fighting the ropes tied around his hands and feet. "I'll testify, if you grant me immunity I'll testify. I know everything about Illario's organization. Everything! Griffin!" the man continued to scream in pure terror. "I know about all the kids he killed. I know about how he gets his drugs into Miami. I know who all his suppliers are."
"You should have thought of the consequences of your actions before taking that first payoff. Sorry, Matson." Jarod shrugged and twisted the knob on the tank, releasing a rush of gas out of the needle valve. "Smell that bitter almond scent? I think that's my cue to exit this little gathering." Jarod walked out of the refrigerator, closed the door and latched it. He listened to Matson's amplified screaming coming from the loud speakers he had hooked up outside the warehouse. Through the dirt-crusted window, he saw the revolving lights of the police cars and heard the door in the front of the warehouse burst inward, and the sound of a multitude of running feet coming toward the refrigerator.
Jarod took a small recorder out his pocket and sat it on a workbench near the refrigerator. The police would have everything on tape, too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sydney sat at his desk checking the statistics on his latest project when the phone rang. He picked it up on the second ring.
"This is Sydney."
"Sydney, I need to talk to you."
"Jarod," Sydney said, pleased to hear from him, at the same time worried at the frantic tone of his voice.
When Miss Parker had returned from Miami several weeks ago, she mentioned in confidence that she had seen Jarod and he didn't look well. And when he didn't hear from Jarod, he had begun to worry. Sydney maintained a neutral tone in his voice.
"It's been awhile since we last spoke," Sydney continued. "What is it you want to know?"
Jarod paused and Sydney heard him draw a deep breath before he spoke. "When you do something very wrong, but the outcome from that wrong is good, does it all balance out?"
"Jarod, you've heard the saying 'Two wrongs don't make a right'. Have you done something... questionable?" There was a long silence on the other end of the line and for a moment Sydney thought Jarod had hung up. When Jarod did speak, his voice was thin and strangled sounding.
"I don't know, Sydney. I can't tell."
There was another long pause and this time Sydney broke the silence. "What does your conscious tell you? Ultimately, it will your own conscious that you have to answer to." He quelled the urge to ask Jarod to meet him. That would be too dangerous, Lyle might have him followed. "Jarod, you have to learn that not everything we do is black and white, right and wrong, good or bad, there are some gray areas in between, and that's when we have to stop and question ourselves and our motives. We have to ask ourselves how the things we do effect others."
Sydney realized as he spoke, that his words also applied to the questionable things he had done in his life. Perhaps if he had heeded those words in an earlier era, Jarod would have been reunited with his parents. As it was, he helped create a man who was desperately trying to find his place in a world that didn't hold a place for people like him.
"Jarod?" Sydney began again, but the line had gone dead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jarod hung up the phone and glanced across the street where Illario Marsano was on trial. News reports said a multiple convictions on drug trafficking and murder were almost assured. Jarod opened up a newspaper that he had tucked under one arm. He looked at the story on the second page. "Runaway's story has Happy Ending" read the headline. A picture of a young
girl accompanied the article. Her name was Judy, Jarod knew. She had been reunited with her parents, and would be going home with them after having been gone for almost two years. She had been working for Illario, she had been Lisa and Derek's friend. Unlike them, she had survived. He also knew that though Marsano would be behind bars for years, not all the kids who had been under his influence would enjoy happy endings to their lives. Some would go back to the streets into the same situations.
Judy's story did end happy, but did that justify what he had done? Jarod laid the newspaper to the side of the phone in the phone booth, hunched his shoulders, stuck his hand in his pockets and shouldered through the multitude of people gathered around the courthouse.
"Electrocute Marsano!" one man yelled, then a woman screamed "The death penalty is the only justice!" The crowd began chanting for Marsano's death.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"One of my researchers found this article in a month old Miami Herald newspaper," Raines rasped as he handed a copy to Lyle.
Lyle sat forward in his desk chair and took the article, scanning it, his eyes moving back and forth. "Tamsin Lanie, a prominent drug dealer found executed, drugs and money untouched." Lyle shrugged. "So another scumbag bites the dust. It appears to me like somebody decided to skip the trial and move right on the sentencing phase while saving taxpayers money in the process." He tossed the article to his desktop.
"We didn't think much of it until Miss Parker received this fax this morning." He handed Lyle two newspaper articles with headlines reading 'Runaway's Story has Happy Ending' and 'Marsano convicted'. "She and Broots were in Miami during this time."
"What is this leading to?" Lyle tried to keep impatience out of his tone.
"This is Tamsin Lanie," Raines said, then dropped several 5 x 7 photos on Lyle's desk. Lyle picked them up and looked them over. A manacled man sat slumped in a chair, a bullet hole through his forehead. Raines pointed to a small note that had been pinned to the body's chest.
"I had this note enhanced." Raines handed Lyle another photo, and took a deep raspy breath. "A similar note was found with Marsano, though unlike Tamsin, he was found alive by police. He claimed some man tried to poison him with Hydrogen Cyanide. Turned out to be oxygen and almond extract. Sounds like Jarod's tricks to me."
Lyle looked at the photo for several minutes without speaking as he tapped a finger on his chin. "It has to be Jarod. I think he may be cracking. It's imperative that we find him as soon as possible." He moved the photos to a desk drawer and locked it, then stood. "We need to figure out his next move." He nodded toward a man seated in the back of the room. "Can we arrange to have Sydney's phone monitored?"
"It can be arranged," answered the cultured voice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the shadowed doorway in the hall, Angelo watched Lyle's office. The door opened and three men walked out. Lyle turned and locked the door behind him and the three walked off toward the elevator. Angelo snickered as the elevator dinged and the door opened. The three disappeared inside. He edged out of his hiding place and approached Lyle's office door. As if a locked office, or for that matter a locked drawer, ever kept him out.
Angelo crept forward, pulled a slender instrument out of his trouser pocket and slipped it into the door. The lock mechanism clicked opened and Angelo slipped inside. He quickly repeated the trick on the desk drawer and slid the drawer open, taking the photos and scurrying out of the room, closing up everything behind him.
Climbing to safety inside the Centre ventilation system, Angelo looked at the photos, pausing at the enhanced photo of the note found on Tamsin's body. He laid a finger on it. Angelo snickered, then laughed the sound rising to a hysterical, maniacal pitch. He rocked back and forth and pressed the photograph to his chest.
"I decide who lives or dies!" he screamed. "I decide who lives or dies!"
The End
By Allie Davidson
Miami Beach, Florida
Miss Parker watched Jarod stand on the beach and stare out over the Atlantic Ocean. A few bikini-clad women cast him interested glances as they walked by, but he paid them no mind. Ankle-high breakers foamed around his bare feet and the faint breeze ruffled his dark hair, a lone lounge chair and small round table sat in the sand near him. In one hand he held a clear glass containing ice and amber liquid, in the other hand, held between thumb and forefinger, was a fat cigar. She grimaced, when did Jarod start drinking hard liquor and smoking cigars? And whoever picked out the gaudy Hawaiian shirt he wore should be shot, but he looked nice in the white slacks.
Despite the warm, humid air she had worn a linen outfit with a blazer to conceal her weapon. She looked around her at the elegant beach hotel. Early diner's enjoyed food and drinks in an outdoor restaurant and a group of dancers cha-cha'ed to a Latin band. At least he chose classy accommodations, probably on the Centre's bill, she reminded herself. As much as she wanted to stay, it was time to bring Jarod home.
Miss Parker loosened her gun its shoulder holster and walked across beach toward Jarod, her heels sinking into the sand, her short skirt brushing against her thighs. The sound of the ocean masked her approach.
"Hello Jarod. It's time to come home."
He stiffened, then turned and set the glass and the cigar on the table. Two thoughts came lightning quick, her first being that Jarod looked like hell, the second being that he didn't attempt to escape, but those thoughts evaporated at what came next.
"What a surprise!" he said loudly, then grabbed her hand and pulled her into his arms. "I didn't expect you." Without waiting for a reply, he cupped her face between his hands and kissed her. Not a chaste peck, but a tongue in the mouth, deep sensuous, desperate kiss that almost, but not quite, had to power to make her think of Jarod as something other then an assignment. She resisted the urge to bring her knee up between his crotch.
"Jarod, you must be delusional" she ground out between clenched teeth as she pulled back and reached for her gun. His hand on her wrist stopped her, and he drew that arm around his neck, and never let up on his crushing grip. And when he looked at her, his smile appeared welcoming, but the expression in his eyes was anything but.
"You couldn't have picked a worse time to appear. Better start pretending and it better be convincing or we're both dead where we stand," Jarod whispered as he nuzzled her ear. His fingers dug into her back. "Do it now!"
Reluctantly she wrapped her arms around his neck and returned another passionate kiss. She recalled their first tentative kiss when they were both children, and there was no comparison. Then, she had had a girlhood crush on Jarod and liked holding his hand under the table and looked forward to their moments together. Then he had been her best friend. This was a man, not a boy, who held her now and it took all her willpower to remind herself that she was out to catch Jarod and bring him back to the center.
"It's so nice to see you, dear," she managed loudly, though the words almost stuck in her throat. "I miss you when you're gone. The place seems so empty without you." Jarod released her, but put his arm around her waist and pulled her against him as he turned to face the ocean, their backs to the hotel. "Who else is with you," he whispered.
"Broots is somewhere on the hotel grounds."
"Just hope for his sake and ours that he doesn't find us."
"You better tell me what this is all about before I put a bullet in your foot," she ground out between smiling lips. "You deserve it for that ridiculous assault."
"Now Miss Parker, I think I any man would be offended that their best attempt at a passionate embrace was referred to as an assault."
"Then you obviously have a lot to learn, loverboy."
He swatted her butt and she dug her fingernails into his side, gaining some satisfaction from watching him wince.
"Do that again and I will shoot you," she said.
"I love the things you say to me," he said aloud for the benefit of whomever watched them. This time his smile was for real, as he said under his breath: "I've never had you at my mercy Miss Parker."
"Enjoy it while it lasts," she returned.
Jarod's amusement dimmed. "I have a room in the hotel, let's go and we'll talk there."
With his hand still at her waist, he held her against him, her gun under her blazer pressed against his side. She didn't think he could get it out of the holster even if she had to. Looking like a happy couple, they walked up the beach together toward the hotel.
"There are two men, one in the restaurant and the other in the pool area," Jarod said quietly while maintaining a smile. "Don't look at them, just look happy as if I am the most important person in the world to you."
"Why Jarod, you are, didn't you know that?" she said pseudo-sweetly.
"Maybe you should tell me more often," he returned.
"I would if you were around more often, pookie." She purposely raked her heel of her shoe down the side of his bare ankle. Jarod grimaced. "But you're always running off."
"Did I tell you how beautiful you look tonight, darling," he said as they walked through the pool area.
"I never thought you noticed." Miss Parker's eyes swept the pool area casually and noticed a man wearing dark glasses and sitting in a lounger. He wore a lightweight jacket, a dead giveaway to her that he too packed a weapon.
"I notice," Jarod returned. "You just so busy hanging around your friends at the Centre club that I never get a chance to talk to you alone." At the edge of the pool area he slipped into a pair of deck shoes and picked up a towel and slung it over his shoulders. "I don't think your friends liked me."
"They like you. They want you to have a permanent membership."
"We discuss this before. There are too many rules."
"I'm certain they'd lift some of restrictions just for my little snookums," she said sweetly.
They entered the hotel through the outdoor restaurant. Miss Parker spied the second man sitting by himself at a table with his back to a palm tree, he held up a menu and over the top of it watched them cross the restaurant into the hotel. Jarod led her across the lobby crowded with vacationers, suitcases, and bellboys, to a bank of elevators.
"Griffin!" a man said, coming up to them. His flat, cold gaze flicked to Miss Parker.
Jarod's hand tightened on her waist as he shook the man's hand and Miss Parker had a hunch that it was time to start pretending. The man drew them off to a quiet corner.
"Illario, I didn't expect you for another day," Jarod said.
"Who's the chick," the man said without greeting. "I thought you were here alone." He was short, stocky, with the shoulders of a line backer, and slicked-back dark hair.
Miss Parker was acquainted with more than a few men who led morally corrupt lives. Raines came to mind first, followed by closely by Lyle. Neither of these men intimated her, but this man was on a level above either Raines or Lyle. She had a feeling that if she made one misstep, said one thing out of character that this man would not hesitate to pull out the gun he probably had hidden in his Armani silk suit and blow both her and Jarod away. Where Lyle and Raines were sneaky, this man was under no such restraint.
"This is... Parker. I wasn't expecting her until after conclusion of our business." He leaned close to Illario. "She won't be a problem."
"Just keep the bimbo out of the way." Illario grunted. "Hey honey, why don't you go and powder your face or something."
Jarod must have realized she was close to ramming the barrel of her gun up Illario's nose, for he swiftly pulled a room keycard out of his pocket. "I'll meet you in the room, darling. Put on something nice for me."
Miss Parker bit her tongue, resisting the urge to tell both men to go to hell, then nodded and extracted herself from under Jarod's arm. Heading into a crowded elevator, she pushed to the back and took a deep breath as the doors closed. The confined space smelled of suntan lotion and sweat and she fought down a moment of claustrophobia. Damn, what the hell was Jarod doing becoming mixed up with a man like Illario? She couldn't walk away; at least she wouldn't without Jarod in handcuffs. She looked at the room card Jarod passed to her: Room 3023. She asked a woman up in the front to press the button for the thirtieth floor.
Jarod's breathtaking suite looked across the Atlantic Ocean from a balcony beyond a sliding glass door in a separate bedroom.
To the left and right she could see the other resort hotels lining the coastline. She decided not to get comfortable, for if every thing went as planned, she would be taking Jarod out of this hotel this afternoon.
To pass the time she searched through his belongings, but found nothing other then more tasteless Hawaiian shirts, slacks and oddly enough, several large bottles of imitation Almond extract. Maybe he was baking cookies, she thought. There was a locked safe in the bedroom closet and she had no key. The wetbar in the outer room revealed nothing except a half dozen
bottles of liquor and several bottles of soda pop. Having exhausted places to search, she sat on the bed and surveyed the luxurious room. She wondered if Jarod would take this opportunity to run out, but the opening door in the outer sitting room answered that question as Jarod stepped into the suite.
"What the hell is going on?" she ground out as she stood from the bed and went to the doorway of the bedroom. "I'm not going to be pulled into one of your ridiculous pretends. You may feel you have to save the world, but I do not share your delusions!"
Jarod ignored her, locked the door, strode across the room and closed all the curtains. He then returned to the bed and stood her over. Even with her heels on, Miss Parker had to look up at him, and staring up into his face, she realized this was one of the few times she had seen Jarod angry. Well, he could throw his little tantrum on the Centre plane back to Blue Cove.
"Let's stop this farce, Jarod. You're coming with me." She pulled her gun and a pair of handcuffs out of an inside jacket pocket. "Turn around and put your hands behind your back-."
With an angry roar, he backhanded the gun from her hand, shoved her onto the bed and straddled her. He crossed his legs over hers, pinning her while his hands on her wrists pushed them into the mattress. She struggled against him, but he outweighed her by at least sixty pounds.
"Listen to me!" he said low and angry. "When you walked up to me on the beach, you became involved whether you liked it or not."
"If you stayed at the Centre where you belonged, none of this would matter," she returned in the same tone. She tried to pull her wrists from his grasp but couldn't. His faced lowered, inches from her own. He looked ready to strangle her and a tendril of fear traveled up her spine. She had never been afraid of Jarod before--exasperated and angry, never afraid.
"I'm not going to get into this with you right now," he said slowly, deliberately. "But suffice to say that if we walk out of here looking anything other than a happy couple, and Illario has any suspicions that we might be the authorities or working for them, he will not hesitate to shot us." He seemed to suddenly realize the position they were in, and his face flushing, he stood up releasing her. He walked over to where the gun lay on the floor, picked it up and popped out the clip. He tossed her the gun and she caught it. He put the clip in his pocket.
"What the hell is this good for without the clip?"
"You wouldn't be asking that if you saw the situation from my end." The anger flowed out of him and he sighed and ran a hand through it hair. The dim light of the room emphasized dark circles under his eyes and his shoulders sagged.
"You look like hell, Jarod."
"You would too if--." Jarod trailed off, cocked his head then exited the bedroom and stood quietly by the outer door for a moment as he listened. He returned to the bedroom and as he passed back by the bed he held his finger to his lips, then went into the closet. She heard him fumbling with a key, probably to the safe, then he appeared with a large envelope.
"I'm sorry about," he said gestured toward the bed then ran a hand through his hair again. His shoulders slumped. "I haven't been sleeping much lately."
"Jarod apologizing?" She wondered what was in the envelope.
"Let's talk," he said, ignoring her comment and motioning her to the bathroom with the envelope. Curious, Miss Parker complied.
In the spacious bathroom he closed the door, reached over and turned on the water jets to a marble Jacuzzi. He sat on the edge of the Jacuzzi while she took a seat at a lighted vanity.
"What does an 800 pound gorilla do?" he asked her. The sound of the Jacuzzi jets helped to muffle their voices.
"I don't see what-," she began, then sighed. She didn't have time for stupid jokes. "I don't know, what does an 800 pound gorilla do?"
"Any damn thing it wants to," he answered. "A friend told me that, and I didn't understand it until I met Illario. Right now Illario is that 800 pound gorilla. Just remember and we may both live through this. Look at these and you'll see what I mean." He took out a half dozen photos and passed them to her.
In growing horror Miss Parker flipped through the pictures, some were official police forensic photos, some looked like Jarod had taken them. All of the photos, though, had one thing in common; all the dead victims were young men and women in their early to late teens. Some of them looked younger. Jarod pointed one photo out. A young girl, her light brown hair splayed in the dirt and filth of an alleyway, lay in a curled position. Drug paraphernalia lay near her.
"This was Lisa." Jarod cleared his throat. "She was sixteen years old when she died. She was a prostitute in an organization headed by Illario. Most of the girls working for him are underage runaways that he brings in and then hooks on drugs-crack, heroine, you name it-then to maintain their habit, they work for him." Jarod pointed to a gruesome photo of a young boy with a bullet hole in the side of his head. "This is Derek. He was seventeen. Gender or age doesn't make any difference to Illario, he supplies what his customers want and if the kids try to defy him, or try to get out, they die. I befriended Derek through Lisa. After Lisa died, he became scared and was suppose to meet me. We were going to go to the police together. Derek died before our meeting, and if Illario knew who Derek was meeting, I'd be dead, too."
"How did you get involved?" Miss Parker asked, bile rising in her throat as she continued to flip through the photos.
"I was working in an ER when Lisa came in. She had been battered, her body covered with bruises old and new, and she suffered from the effects of a drug overdose. I treated her, then coaxed her into telling me what had happened to her. She needed someone to talk to. She told me about Illario and the other kids under his control. After two days, I had to release her. I couldn't keep her in the hospital. A week later Miami police found her dead in an alleyway from an alleged drug overdose.
Illario had her killed." Jarod rubbed a hand over his face. "It's just as if I killed her myself by releasing her."
"Jarod, you can't blame yourself," Miss Parker told him, this was just like Jarod to internalize this kind of guilt.
"I do blame myself, I could have got her help instead of just releasing her back to the streets. Now you see why I have to do something."
Miss Parker wondered if she could have turned her back if she had been in Jarod's place. Her own mother hadn't, she tried to save the children the Centre had kidnapped and were using for their own purposes, and paid the price with her life. She closed her eyes for a moment and sighed. She was crazy for allowing Jarod to involve her in this. Against good sense she asked: "What are your plans?"
Jarod studied her for a moment before speaking. "Does that mean you're going to help?"
"Look Jarod, don't get any ideas of your crusade becoming mine". Catherine Parker made it her crusade to help children. Miss Parker pushed those troubling thoughts away. "For now it serves my greater purpose to help you," she answered, not about to tell him where her thoughts had taken her. "Maybe Raines would like to see me bring back your cold dead body, but pleasing Raines has never been my aim."
"Thank you, I think," Jarod said, then cocked his head, stood and slightly opened the door. "We have company," he whispered. "Oh baby, do that again!" he said aloud, then prompted her with a gesture of his hand.
"I missed you so much, Jarod."
"Start moaning," he said under his breath.
"I'm not moaning for that dumb bastard-."
"Oh baby!" Jarod said louder to drown out what Miss Parker had been about to say.
"Yes, I like that sweetiekins," Miss Parker said in a breathy voice as she stared daggers at Jarod.
"I didn't know you knew any words of endearment."
"You owe me for this," she whispered.
Jarod smiled. "Well, if anyone is listening as least they believe we missed one another." He leered at her, yet looking at his unhealthy pallor and sleepless eyes, Miss Parker knew his gaiety was just a facade.
"You need to call Broots and warn him away," Jarod was saying, unaware of her scrutiny. "If we pull in too many people, Illario will become suspicious. Your sudden appearance could have killed the deal. I don't...." he began, and drew a breath, "I don't think I could go through convincing him of my sincerity again." He began unbuttoning his shirt. "Let's get out of here so we can talk without worrying about who might be listening."
"What the hell are you doing!" Miss Parker whispered furiously.
"Convincing our visitor that we were doing what he thought we were doing."
"Where's some burlesque music when you need it," she said under her breath, and Jarod smiled faintly at her.
"I'm sorry that we don't have time for anything else."
"Lack of sleep has made you delusional," she replied, watching him undress. He left his white slacks on and Miss Parker didn't know whether to be disappointed or thankful.
Jarod leaned over the sink, wet his hair and his chest and shoulders, and then draped a towel around his shoulders. "Get undressed, then give me a few moments before you come out."
Miss Parker nodded and shrugged out of her blazer and began to unbutton her silk blouse. Damn, Jarod looked good without a shirt on, but she wasn't about to tell him that. She ignored the fluttering in her stomach as Jarod opened the door and walked out.
From without she could hear voices. Quickly she finished undressing and stepped into the shower, after her long trip the warm water felt good. She wished she had other clothes with her, but she had left an overnight bag in the Centre's jet still at Miami International Airport. She stepped out, toweled and wrapped the towel around her hair and another around her body, relieved that the towels were oversized.
She stepped out of the bathroom. "Oh, Jarod-," she began, then as though surprised, she stopped short at the sight of the stranger standing next to Jarod in the outer room. "I didn't know we had company. I would have dressed more appropriate," she simpered. Their visitor was the man she'd seen in the restaurant. She forced herself to smile at him as his eyes raked over the body.
"Nice," he said to Jarod as he stared at Miss Parker. She felt her skin crawl. He returned his attention to Jarod. "So, you got that, Griffin?" he said, his voice held a hint of a threat. To Jarod's credit he didn't appear intimidated.
"I got it. Tomorrow night."
"One of our cars will collect you in front of the hotel."
The man glanced once more at Miss Parker then turn and left the suite.
"Get dressed, darling," Jarod said, "why don't we take a walk."
"Okay sweetie," Miss Parker answered.
"Miss Parker, you look good in a towel," Jarod said in a lower voice as he walked into the bedroom. "I think we should do this more often."
"In your dreams, Jarod." She planted a hand on his shoulder, shoved him out of the bedroom and closed the door.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
!±
Miss Parker and Jarod strolled down a wide sidewalk that followed along the beach. Bars, nightclubs and open air cafes lined the opposite side of the road across a wide avenue. Bathing suit clad men and women roller-bladed in the warm early evening air. Miss Parker stayed close to Jarod, her hand curled in the crook of his arm. Jarod seemed more relaxed now that they were away from the hotel, though he still looked ready to collapse. She wondered what was bothering him, but didn't think she could get him to tell her. Still, she was entitled to know some of it.
"So," she began, leaning closer to him and keeping her voice low, "I think I'm owed an explanation."
"Illario believes I'm Jarod Griffin, a drug dealer from California."
Miss Parker cast him a sideways glance of surprise. "Seeing first hand how suspicious he is, I'm impressed with your persuasive abilities."
"It's taken more than you can imagine to convince him I'm the real thing."
"Like?" Miss Parker prompted.
Jarod stopped and drew a deep breath, his eyes shadowed for a moment before he shook his head and continued: "Illario's been drawn up on drug trafficking charges twice before, and once on child pornography but nothing sticks. His high-paid lawyers get him off; they don't want their cash cow going to prison. And he has help from other sources as well."
"You think he has the police department on his payroll?"
"I know he has one insider in the department, maybe more, but I can't point any fingers without hard evidence to back me up."
"If you think Illario has the Miami police department on his payroll, how did you plan to make certain anything you find on him stick?" Miss Parker looked up at Jarod's grim face and saw her answer there.
"Jarod, since when did you become judge, jury and executioner?"
"I can ask the same thing of the Centre."
Miss Parker held his steady gaze for a moment then looked away. "Touchè'."
Jarod glanced over his shoulder. "We're being followed."
"One of Illario's goons?"
"I'm not certain. Keep walking." They strolled up the walk while making small talk. Jarod unconsciously patted the hand she had tucked in his. He was nervous and edgy, unlike the Jarod she usually knew. "Over here," Jarod said, wrapped his hand around her waist and pulled her into a shadowed overhang of a closed clothing store.
A furtive figure stopped by the alcove. Jarod slipped by Miss Parker, his hand snaked out, grabbed the man, spun him around and had him up against the wall with a forearm cranked up against his throat before he recognized the face.
"Jarod!" Broots said. "Ma-Miss Parker!" His nervous gaze darted between them. "How-how did you know I was following you."
"Broots, the whole world probably knows you were following us," Miss Parker said and shook her head. "I told you to stay away."
"I... I was, but I wanted to make certain you were okay."
"I can handle this myself."
Jarod took a deep breath and let Broots go. "I'm certain one of Illario's men saw him." Jarod gestured to Miss Parker. "You'll have to give him your gun."
"Why, so he can shoot himself and save Illario the trouble?"
"I don't know how to handle a gun," Broots said.
"You're Miss Parker's new bodyguard," Jarod informed him. "And the gun isn't loaded."
"Bodyguard!" Broots burst out. "You're both crazy."
"There are men watching us who will not hesitate to shoot if they have any doubts about who we are pretending to be."
"And, uh, exactly who *are* we pretending to be?" Broots asked and swallowed as if knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.
"Jarod is a drug dealer, I am his girlfriend and now you're my bodyguard."
"Jarod's--Jarod's girlfriend!" Broots burst out, slapped his knee and laughed. "Now that is funny..."
"Not as funny as you're going to look with a gun shoved up your ass, which is exactly what is going to happen if you don't look convincing."
Broots' laughter died away. "This is for real."
Jarod nodded and Miss Parker listened as he briefly explained to Broots a condensed version of what he'd already told her.
"But... I don't know how a bodyguard is suppose to act."
"Look tough and stupid," Miss Parker said.
"Like this?" Broots pulled his brow down, frowned and hunched his back.
"You look like constipated monkey, you idiot," she ground out. "Just don't do anything but wander behind us and look alert."
"No, he doesn't look the part." Jarod pulled out his wallet and peeled some bills off a wad of money and handed it Broots.
"Holy cow, Jarod, this is five hundred dollars."
"Take it Broots," Miss Parker said. "It probably belongs to the Centre anyway. I'll just take it out of your paycheck." Broots drew his hand back. Miss Parker snatched the money out of Jarod's hand and shoved it into Broots' shirt pocket. "Just go do as Jarod asks."
"There's a mens store up the street. Buy yourself a dark suit," Jarod said.
"And for God's sake, buy a pair of sunglasses," Miss Parker added. Perhaps that way he wouldn't look like such a geek.
"But--," he started and Jarod gave him a little push.
"Broots, just go!"
At a sidewalk cafè, they waited for Broots to return. Jarod ordered an ice tea while Miss Parker ordered a glass of wine.
"What happened to the scotch and the cigar?" she asked. Jarod looked confused for a moment before he realized she meant the drink and the cigar he had on the beach.
"Props," he said.
"You mean you haven't yet succumbed to the same habits as the rest of us?"
Jarod stared hard at her for a moment. "Thanks to Lyle, I have. More than you know."
"What are you mixed up in Jarod? What are you doing?"
"I decide who... what needs to be done." He drew a breath and looked away into the passing pedestrians.
"Jarod," she said, "one day you'll need to face what Lyle did to you and come to terms with it, whatever it was. You can't play these dangerous vigilante games to make it go away."
"And when did you become a psychoanalyst," he returned her gaze steadily. His hands clenched on the table.
Their conversation ceased as Broots walked up.
"Oh no," she mouthed.
Broots looked pleased with himself. "How do I look"
Miss Parker noticed Jarod ducked his head to hide a smile. She mentally rolled her eyes.
"Like a bad imitation of one of the Blues Brothers."
"But... but weren't they tough?"
"They were musicians you moron." For the first time wished she hadn't found Jarod on the beach.
Jarod stood up and held out a hand for her. She took it and allowed him to help her to her feet, then he turned to Broots.
"We're going back to the hotel. Just stay behind us and scan the crowd, try to recall how Sam acts."
Broots blinked rapidly as he tried to digest what Jarod just told him. "I-I think I know what you mean."
"If we all end up dead, we'll know you didn't," Miss Parker growled.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Nighty-night," Jarod said to Miss Parker's unconscious form as he picked her off the floor and carried her into the bedroom. Broots had passed out on the couch in front of the television. Jarod switched off all the lights, then looked at the luminous face of his watch. They should be out for the rest of the night. He felt a little guilty about slipping them a mild narcotic in their food and drinks, but what he needed to do tonight he had to do alone and knowing Miss Parker, she wasn't going to let him out of her sight.
Jarod pulled out a key and opened the connecting door to the next suite. No one knew he had reserved this one as well and it was where he kept his working gear: explosives, gunpowder, video equipment and a box of old fashion firecrackers.
In the bathroom, he began his transformation as he had every night for the past month, strategically applying dark makeup and slipping in a pair of prosthetic teeth and finger combing a combination of mud and hair gel through his hair. Next he opened a bottle of cheap whiskey and slapped some on his face like aftershave. Pleased with this phase of the transformation, he went back into the bedroom, pulled some clothing out of a bag and slipped them on, put on an old coat, then shouldered a ratty backpack. He went back into the bathroom and sprinkled more of the cheap booze over the clothing and caught his reflection in
the mirror.
"You stink," he told himself, then chuckled. He looked at his watch again. Illario should be finishing his dinner soon in his favorite restaurant down the street. He quietly opened the door and slipped out of the suite to the outside hallway. Pulling a wool cap low over his forehead, he slinked down the hall.
Time to get to work.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Was he begging in the kitchen again!" the restaurant manager shouted. From his position just inside the doorway in the waiting area, Jarod watched the manager gesture to a bouncer in the doorway of the bar area. He took a quick glance at the wall clock; it was almost showtime. Jarod took a small object out of his pocket and palmed it loosely in his hand, preparing himself.
"Get him out of here before he stinks the place up," the manager ordered.
"Come on old fella, you can't stay here, what're the guests gonna think," the bouncer said, and slipped a hand across Jarod's shoulders.
"I have my rights," Jarod slurred but allowed the man to help him to his feet just as Illario walked out of the dining room, he had a toothpick in his mouth. He glanced toward the commotion, grimaced then tried to detour around, his henchmen following.
"Wait, my pack!"
"I'll get your pack," the bouncer told him.
Jarod wrenched away from the bouncer and collided into Illario taking down both him and one of his henchmen. The three of them tangled on the floor. Jarod rolled to the side, pinning Illario's legs while he pressed a small square object with tiny sharp pins to the bottom of one of his expensive Italian shoes. The second of Illario's bodyguards stepped over and kicked Jarod in the ribs, then shove him away with the bottom of his foot.
The hotel manager ran over, wringing his hands. "I am so sorry Mr. Marsano, so sorry. It won't happen again.
Jarod groaned as he rolled to his hands and knees and scrambled to his feet, grabbing his pack as he did. Illario looked straight at him with no glimmer of recognition in his eyes.
"Get this piece of crap out of my sight," he said as one of the bodyguards helped him to his feet. He straightened his jacket, brushed off his pants and made his way to the limo waiting in the front of the restaurant.
"If I see him here again, you will be looking for another job," the manger yelled at the bouncer, then spun around and headed back to the kitchen.
Jarod scrambled outside just as the limo pulled away from the curb. While in his homeless persona, he usually hunched over to disguise his height, but this time he didn't have to feign it. The pain radiating up the side of his ribcage made breathing difficult, and pressing his arm against his bruised ribs, he lurched down the walkway. He expected something like this. He had to take the chance that Illario's bodyguards wouldn't do more than rough him up a little in plain view of the public. In any other circumstance, they would have put a bullet in his head.
No one paid any attention to him, many looked away, and others ignored him as he shuffled down the sidewalk along the very same route he and Miss Parker walked earlier. He stopped at a bench and drew a paper bag out of his backpack. The bottle inside contained water, but no one would know. He took a swig and continued on. He took a few turns down side streets away from the waterfront and pedestrian traffic. Out of sight of the main thoroughfare, he wrapped an arm around his bruised ribcage and jogged up three more blocks. On a quiet side street he stopped by a late model car, dug keys out of the pocket of his dirty trousers, unlocked the car and climbed inside.
Out of the backpack he took a small device about the size of a hand-held game pad and pushed a slid switch with his thumb. With a quiet whine the device booted up. A small plasma screen glowed in the darkness of the car and on the screen a 2D-grid image of the Miami streets illuminated. On the street grid, a solid red light moved slowly. Jarod smiled and turned the key in the ignition.
"Gotcha!" he said.
~~~~~~~~~~
Jarod followed the beacon to an old district of dilapidated, abandoned buildings and warehouses and chose a deserted canning factory as his base. He cut a padlock on an overhead sliding door, and drove his car into the cavernous main room filled with canning machinery. After a quick search of the factory, he found just what he needed, an old walk-in refrigerator. The door was padlocked, but he cut it and walked in.
"Perfect," he said as he looked around at the old white walls.
He went out to his car and retrieved an armful of items from the trunk. He had a lot to accomplish before the night was over and he needed to work quickly. He cleaned out the debris in the walk-in, pinned photos on the wall, setup projection equipment and strung cable to loudspeakers that he mounted outside the warehouse under the eves. Last, he pulled a heavy pressurized tank into the walk-in and set it to the side.
Next came the more dangerous stage of tonight's work. He backed the car out of the cannery, then activated the tracking device. With the car headlamps off, he drove through the narrow, unlit streets and followed the beacon to another warehouse the next block over. He hid the car in an adjacent alleyway then camouflaged the car by arranging a pile of old cardboard boxes
over it. Backpack loaded with the items he needed he began a reconnaissance of the area.
In a crouch-walk, he circled the warehouse, peering in through dusty windows and getting an idea of the outside area and the inside layout. At the west side of the warehouse, a metal stairway led up to a second story door. It was locked. He pulled a penlight out of his jacket pocket and shinned it around the door and into the cracks between the door and the wall. Illario wasn't stupid and wouldn't leave a door like this unguarded. The penlight illuminated a thin insulated wire running down the doorjamb. It was an alarm wire. Jarod snipped it with a pair of nippers. He then extracted a needle-thin object from the pack and quietly
unlocked the door.
Jarod opened the door and entered an office. He could hear voices now and recognized Illario's voice. Maintaining a low crouch-walk, he made his way to the inner office door.
In the middle of the main warehouse room Illario sat at the head of a table covered with sacks of white powered: Heroin. Four of his henchmen stood behind him, and his lieutenant, whom Jarod recognized as a man named Remo, sat at the table with him. Around the room on this second floor, a steel walkway followed the square circumference of the room, doors to other offices led off the walkway. The set up was better than Jarod had hoped for. From his pack, he took out a digital camera, a recording device and a voice amplifier that looked like a miniature inverted umbrella. He set up the equipment and pointed the amplifier toward the men. Another man entered the warehouse and joined those at the table. Jarod smiled and his eyes narrowed.
"There's your cut, Matson," Illario said and handed the new comer a large envelope. Jarod snapped off some photos as the crime lord continued: "Tomorrow's the night. Did you come up with anything on Griffin."
"Naw, he's clean and one ruthless son of a bitch, but what did you expect after he took out Tamsin Lanie for you? He left a note of some kind that had the homicide crew scratching their heads."
"And what was that?"
"Shit, I don't remember. Though I know it was nothing about you and this deal." Matson drew a stack of bills from the envelope and flipped through them, then returned them to the enveloped and stuffed it in an inside coat pocket. "I checked him through the database at work, and everything he's told you checks out. Looks like he runs a clean organization."
Illario nodded. "I needed a distribution channel in California. Maybe Griffin's the man."
"Now this is a bonus, Sergeant Matson" Jarod said to himself, recognizing the man from the Miami police department, the vice division if he remembered correctly.
"You and you," Illario pointed to two of his men. "You go get Griffin tomorrow at the agreed upon time. Have him put on this then bring him here." He tossed a black cloth bag onto the table. And you," he pointed to Matson. "You'll follow them tomorrow, make certain they ain't being tailed." Illario leaned across the table. "Got it?" When he received affirmative nods he continued. "Now get the hell out of here, and you two boneheads," he pointed to two henchmen. "Let's pack all this up and get it into the coffee crates."
Jarod watched as the men gathered the bags of heroine, storing them in coffee filled crates, then vacating the warehouse. Two men stayed behind to watch the warehouse. That made his task difficult but not impossible, he'd just have to work around them. He packed up his own equipment, stored the pack between a stack of crates and drew out the gunpowder, fireworks and dynamite and a device that looked like an ordinary ink pen.
Staying to the shadows of the upper floor, and hugging close to the wall, Jarod began to work. Dawn was only an hour away when he finished. He left the car hidden underneath the cardboard boxes and began a long trek back to the hotel.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You son of a bitch!" Miss Parker hissed in his ear as she grabbed his wrist when he walked into the hotel room. She jerked him inside.
He was too tired to fight her. Earlier, he had stopped and ditched the clothing in a public restroom, and wore jeans and a T-shirt, so at least he didn't look like a dirty homeless man.
Miss Parker spun him around, shoved him forward and with a well-placed kick in the back of his knees, he collapsed face-first to the floor. That jarred his ribs and he groaned. She sat on top of him, gun in her hand, the end of the barrel indenting the area behind his jaw. He turned his head as far as he could manage to look at her and judging by the pleased smirk on her face, it appeared she had found the 9mm's clip. What worried him the most was a silencer she had snugged onto the barrel. Miss Parker meant business.
"You drugged me." Without taking her eyes off him, she yanked one of his arms behind him and slapped one end of a pair on handcuffs on his wrist. He grimaced at the pain shooting up his shoulder blade as she yanked around the other arm and slapped the other handcuff on.
"I had to do it. I needed to work alone last night and I knew you wouldn't let me leave without you," his voice was hoarse and he was desperately tired. "You have to let me finish this." He clenched his teeth. Miss Parker's knee dug into his ribs.
"I don't know exactly all that you're mixed up in, Jarod, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm saving you from yourself."
"Miss Parker, maybe we should listen to him," Broots said, standing behind them wringing his hands. "I think this Illario guy may be dangerous."
"If I want your opinion Broots, I'll give it to you," she ground out without looking at him, her eyes never leaving Jarod.
"I think Jarod is hurt," Broots spoke up as he leaned over them.
"What's wrong?"
"My ribs," Jarod managed.
She moved off him and pulled up his shirt. An ugly purple bruise covered the right side of his ribcage. He hadn't looked, but wasn't surprised given the force that Illario's bodyguard put behind that kick.
"Jarod, you need a combination nursemaid and bodyguard to keep you out of trouble," she said, exasperation in her voice. She unlocked the handcuffs. "Broots, help me get him on the bed."
Jarod felt Miss Parker and Broots pick him up and half-drag, half-carry him to the bed. His vision blurred and their voices grew indistinct. He had to get some sleep; he had to be alert for tonight.
"Parker," he said, "I think I'm going to sleep now. Just make certain to wake me at 8pm."
"Don't you dare go to sleep, you have to explain..." she began, her voice trailing off for he had fallen asleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I hope you know what you're doing," Miss Parker said quietly to Jarod as a black sedan pulled up to the hotel. She, Broots and Jarod stood outside the hotel. Jarod held a black briefcase. He hadn't spoke of its contents, and Miss Parker didn't want to know. She already knew more than she wanted to.
Against better judgment, she had awakened Jarod at the appointed time of 8pm, and she and Broots helped him get dressed. What convinced her to let him continue with this pretend game was another stack of photos she found in his backpack along with a few other items she couldn't identify, some firecrackers and several empty bottles of the almond extract.
One of Illario's henchmen climbed out of the sedan's passenger seat. His hulking figure reminded Miss Parker of a Neanderthal, he just needed a big wooden club. As he approached them his gaze locked on Broots.
"Who the hell is this?" the man stared eye to eye with Broots. Miss Parker hid her surprise when Broots didn't blink and managed to keep his tough-looking mien.
"My bodyguard," Miss Parker explained.
"I know Kung Fu, and five other dangerous words," Broots added under his breath as the man turned away to open the backseat door for them. "Jarod, this isn't going to work," Broots continued.
"It is going to work," Jarod said, and ducked into the car "Trust me."
"Why doesn't your answer give me a warm fuzzy feeling," Miss Parker whispered joining him and Broots inside.
"Because you have a brother like Lyle and a father who married a woman who tried to kill him," he said. "If I had your family history, I don't think I'd trust anyone either."
"At least I have a family history!" Miss Parker hissed, then quieted as the Neanderthal climbed into the front passenger seat and tossed them three black cloth bags.
"Put these on," he ordered. "Better be glad I had extras or the bimbo and her bodyguard would have to stay."
"Hey, Illario doesn't trust his own customers?" Jarod asked.
"He don't trust no one," the Neanderthal replied. "Not even his own brother if he had one."
"If this messes up my hair and you're going to be floating face first in the Atlantic," Miss Parker grumbled.
Neanderthal smirked as he looked at them through the rearview mirror. "Yeah, honey? And whose gonna help you? The mouse in your pocket."
Miss Parker gritted her teeth. She didn't care what Jarod did to the rest of these creeps, she just wanted to go toe to toe with this Neanderthal jerkoff.
"This is just a precaution," the driver said, almost apologetic, as he pulled the sedan away from the curb and into traffic.
Jarod and Broots pulled the black hoods over their heads, and after a moment she drew a deep breath and followed. She didn't like this, not at all.
The ride was short. When the car halted, Miss Parker heard the door open and someone leaned in and pulled the bags off their heads. She looked around her at the dilapidated state of the buildings.
"Not a very nice neighborhood," Broots commented. "I think I prefer the hotel."
"You and you," Neanderthal in the passenger seat turned and pointed to Miss Parker and Broots, "stay in the car." He got out and took a straddle-legged position near the front of the car.
Miss Parker hesitated, then settled back in the seat. She gained nothing from antagonizing him. Jarod retrieved the briefcase on the seat next to him.
"Keep your heads low," he whispered, then flanked by Illario's men, he was escorted across the asphalt lot and into the warehouse.
"What do you think he meant by that remark?" Broots asked, leaning down and watching through the window as Jarod disappeared though a doorway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Inside the warehouse, two men flanking the door stopped Jarod. One stood in front of him while the other patted him down. Finding no weapons they allowed him to proceed to the table that he had seen the night before. Ilario smiled as he approached.
"Sorry about the formalities. I have to be certain, ya' know."
Jarod nodded. "No problem. Now let's get down to business." He sat down, popped open the briefcase and displayed its contents and pulled out a stack of one hundred dollar bills that he passed to Illario. "Laundered, untraceable and non-sequential."
"You're a prepared man, Griffin."
"Always," Jarod replied with a predatory grin. "Now lets see the merchandise."
~~~~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker sat in the car and stared out the window toward the warehouse. "I don't like this. I don't think Jarod knows what he's gotten himself in to."
Broots fidgeted beside her. "Jarod knows how to take care of himself. I think I like it right here."
"Well, I think it's time I made a trip to the ladies room." She opened the door. As soon as she stepped out, Neanderthal stepped forward, his hand creeping toward the inside of his suit jacket.
"What you want, honey?"
"I have to go to the ladies room," she said sweetly as she came up to him.
"What does this look like, a freakin' full service station? Get back into the car and shutup."
Miss Parker stepped forward and ground her heel into the man's foot. He grunted and bent over. She brought her knee up into his face, feeling his nose crunch against her kneecap. He grabbed for his bleeding nose, and she brought her knee up again into his crotch as she turned at the waist and elbowed him in the eye. One hand holding his broken nose, the other his crotch, the man fell to the ground. Miss Parker brought the butt of her gun down on the side of his head several times.
"Never say no to a woman who needs to go," she informed the unconscious man, then gave him a kick in the ribs. "That was for Jarod."
Broots scrambled out of the car and stared at the man. "Is... is he dead?"
"Lucky for him he'll just have a big bump on his head, a black eye, a broken nose and a bruised groin."
"Huh?" Broots asked.
"Never mind," she said as she opened the man's jacket and found his gun. She passed it to Broots. "Take it! It won't bite." Then she found the car keys. "Help me get him into the trunk."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Illario stood at the head of the table, a pleased grin on his face. "So Griffin, do we have a deal?"
"I think we can come to a mutual agreement." He took a pen out of pocket.
"What the hell you gonna do? Write a love letter?" Illario joked.
"This is my lucky pen," Jarod said, and clicked the pen twice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Miss Parker closed the sedan trunk door over the still unconscious body of the man. "Now let's see what Jarod is up to."
A blinding blast of fire lit up the sky as the abandoned warehouses around them exploded, and the concussion wave temporarily deafened them. Miss Parker instinctively took cover against the sedan as debris showered around her. She looked for Broots and saw him cringing near the car's front bumper. She expected him to be scared out of his wits, however, when he looked up he had an odd smile on his face.
"Cool!" he shouted. "Now I know what Jarod meant by 'keep your heads low'."
~~~~~~~~~~~
"Oops, maybe I used an excessive amount of dynamite," Jarod said as the rear of the warehouse exploded and Illario's men scattered. Burning debris fell around them and Illario and Matson dove under the table. Jarod laughed as a siren shrilled from the direction of the neighboring warehouses. "Naw. Excess is never enough."
Upstairs, the firecrackers caught fire and started to pop. Illario's men, confused and disoriented, began wildly snap firing then scattered. Jarod opened the suitcase, moved a top layer of the money to reveal a cutaway hole in the bottom layers that hid a gun. He picked up the gun, leaned under the table and fired twice, catching Illario on the side of the neck and Matson in the back, between his spine and shoulder blade.
In the distance Jarod could hear the sound of real sirens and he looked at his watch. "Perfect timing." Out of his pocket he pulled the keys to the car he left in the alleyway. Time for Matson and Illario to take a short ride.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first siren that went off had startled Miss Parker, but quickly she realized it was faked and part of whatever plan Jarod had concocted along with the explosion. The man had to be mad. Now, the sirens she heard in the distance were for real. She crouched against the car and waited for Jarod to come out of the burning warehouse, they had to leave soon. When he didn't appear, she knew he had either ditched her or was trapped inside. Covering her head with one arm, Miss Parker ran into the warehouse. She saw yellow flames consuming the upstairs. No one was in sight. Broots stumbled behind her.
"Damn him!" Miss Parker fumed and stamped her foot.
"I don't think anyone is here," he said.
"No kidding, Einstein. I'm glad you're around to tell me these things. Help me look."
After searching the building as thoroughly as possible, considering the back was on fire and smoke filled the building, Miss Parker concluded that Jarod had once again escaped. They ran out of the warehouse to the sedan. The sirens were closer now. Probably not more than a few blocks away, she estimated, and she didn't want to be around to justify her involvement in this
mess to the police.
"I think we need to get back to Miami International." The Centre's jet would still be waiting to take her and Broots back to Blue Cove. Her gaze fell on the black sedan. "And the 800 pound gorilla's car is going to take us there."
"What 800 pound gorilla?" Broots ask.
"Just get in." She sat in the driver's seat and started up the car.
"What about the, uh, guy in the trunk." Broots sat next to her and turned slightly toward the rear of the car.
Miss Parker heard a faint pounding noise coming from the back of the trunk. She smiled. "When we're safely in the air, someone will make an anonymous call to the long-term parking attendant."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Illario groaned, opened his eyes and rubbed the side of his neck.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," Jarod said and gestured toward the red circular wound on his neck. "Tranquilizer dart. It's going to be a little sore there for a few days."
"Where the hell am I?"
"An old walk-in refrigerator. You never know when they'll come in handy."
Illario tried to bring his hands up to his head but discovered they were handcuffed together behind to a wooden chair. "Griffin!" Illario strained at the handcuffs. His ankles were also cuffed together. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Doing?" Jarod echoed innocently. "Can't you guess? Look around you."
Illario did, seeing for the first time the hundreds of photos pasted on the walls, faces of the children and teenagers he had killed. Photos of him beating the victims, photos of him sitting at a table with bags of heroin, photos of him handing money to Matson, photos of crates filled with coffee and containing the bags of white powder. Photos everywhere. Photos that Jarod had been collecting for weeks while in disguise as a homeless man.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Now that's a question I've been asking myself for a long time and I still don't have the answer, but I can tell you that I'm not a drug dealer," Jarod replied. "Oh look, it appears that Matson is waking up, too."
The cop, hog tied with wrists tied to ankles, lay to the side behind Illario. He groaned and opened his eyes as Jarod shoved him with his foot.
"Wake up Sergeant Matson."
"What the hell?" he said, blinked, looked around then focused on Jarod.
"There you are Sergeant Matson." Jarod bent at the waist and looked down at him, his voice pseudo-friendly. I'm glad you could join the party. Sorry there's no finger food, but there's a movie."
Jarod stood and hit the on button to the slide projector. It started clicking through all the photos, bloody photos, forensic photos and the photos Jarod had taken, all projected onto the white wall on the back of the walk-in. Matson moaned when he saw the photo of him taking money from Illario.
"What's wrong, Matson? You don't like family pictures?" Jarod asked.
Illario sneered. "You think you're gonna make me feel guilty for these worthless street rats, Griffin? They were nothing to me except human merchandise."
"Oh, I forgot something," Jarod said pleasantly, quelling the rage building inside him. He reached over and rested a hand on the valve knob on the pressurized tank. "How about some Hydrogen Cyanide with your slide show?"
"Hydrogen Cyanide?" Matson stuttered.
"It's just a deadly pest control substance," Jarod said and leaned down close to Illario, his voice rough in anger. "You never know when you have to do some exterminating."
Matson's eyes bulged. Illario stared at the tank then at Jarod's face. "He's bluffing."
"You think? Let me tell you about Hydrogen Cyanide. It is a colorless gas, but has a distinct odor resembling bitter almonds, and it is particularly dangerous because of its toxic asphyxiating effects on any life requiring oxygen to survive. That would specifically be you two, in this case. You see, Hydrogen Cyanide renders oxygen unavailable to the tissues and causes death by asphyxia. First, you're going to get a headache and feel a little dizzy. Then you're going to feel like you're suffocating and while you gasp for breath, you're going to get nauseous. Then within, oh say forty minutes, you're gonna die." Jarod wrapped his hands around his throat, stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes. "Acckkk!" He gagged. "I just want you to remember the faces of the innocent children that you murdered, remember each innocent life that you corrupted."
"No Griffin, wait! Griffin!" Matson screamed, fighting the ropes tied around his hands and feet. "I'll testify, if you grant me immunity I'll testify. I know everything about Illario's organization. Everything! Griffin!" the man continued to scream in pure terror. "I know about all the kids he killed. I know about how he gets his drugs into Miami. I know who all his suppliers are."
"You should have thought of the consequences of your actions before taking that first payoff. Sorry, Matson." Jarod shrugged and twisted the knob on the tank, releasing a rush of gas out of the needle valve. "Smell that bitter almond scent? I think that's my cue to exit this little gathering." Jarod walked out of the refrigerator, closed the door and latched it. He listened to Matson's amplified screaming coming from the loud speakers he had hooked up outside the warehouse. Through the dirt-crusted window, he saw the revolving lights of the police cars and heard the door in the front of the warehouse burst inward, and the sound of a multitude of running feet coming toward the refrigerator.
Jarod took a small recorder out his pocket and sat it on a workbench near the refrigerator. The police would have everything on tape, too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sydney sat at his desk checking the statistics on his latest project when the phone rang. He picked it up on the second ring.
"This is Sydney."
"Sydney, I need to talk to you."
"Jarod," Sydney said, pleased to hear from him, at the same time worried at the frantic tone of his voice.
When Miss Parker had returned from Miami several weeks ago, she mentioned in confidence that she had seen Jarod and he didn't look well. And when he didn't hear from Jarod, he had begun to worry. Sydney maintained a neutral tone in his voice.
"It's been awhile since we last spoke," Sydney continued. "What is it you want to know?"
Jarod paused and Sydney heard him draw a deep breath before he spoke. "When you do something very wrong, but the outcome from that wrong is good, does it all balance out?"
"Jarod, you've heard the saying 'Two wrongs don't make a right'. Have you done something... questionable?" There was a long silence on the other end of the line and for a moment Sydney thought Jarod had hung up. When Jarod did speak, his voice was thin and strangled sounding.
"I don't know, Sydney. I can't tell."
There was another long pause and this time Sydney broke the silence. "What does your conscious tell you? Ultimately, it will your own conscious that you have to answer to." He quelled the urge to ask Jarod to meet him. That would be too dangerous, Lyle might have him followed. "Jarod, you have to learn that not everything we do is black and white, right and wrong, good or bad, there are some gray areas in between, and that's when we have to stop and question ourselves and our motives. We have to ask ourselves how the things we do effect others."
Sydney realized as he spoke, that his words also applied to the questionable things he had done in his life. Perhaps if he had heeded those words in an earlier era, Jarod would have been reunited with his parents. As it was, he helped create a man who was desperately trying to find his place in a world that didn't hold a place for people like him.
"Jarod?" Sydney began again, but the line had gone dead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jarod hung up the phone and glanced across the street where Illario Marsano was on trial. News reports said a multiple convictions on drug trafficking and murder were almost assured. Jarod opened up a newspaper that he had tucked under one arm. He looked at the story on the second page. "Runaway's story has Happy Ending" read the headline. A picture of a young
girl accompanied the article. Her name was Judy, Jarod knew. She had been reunited with her parents, and would be going home with them after having been gone for almost two years. She had been working for Illario, she had been Lisa and Derek's friend. Unlike them, she had survived. He also knew that though Marsano would be behind bars for years, not all the kids who had been under his influence would enjoy happy endings to their lives. Some would go back to the streets into the same situations.
Judy's story did end happy, but did that justify what he had done? Jarod laid the newspaper to the side of the phone in the phone booth, hunched his shoulders, stuck his hand in his pockets and shouldered through the multitude of people gathered around the courthouse.
"Electrocute Marsano!" one man yelled, then a woman screamed "The death penalty is the only justice!" The crowd began chanting for Marsano's death.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"One of my researchers found this article in a month old Miami Herald newspaper," Raines rasped as he handed a copy to Lyle.
Lyle sat forward in his desk chair and took the article, scanning it, his eyes moving back and forth. "Tamsin Lanie, a prominent drug dealer found executed, drugs and money untouched." Lyle shrugged. "So another scumbag bites the dust. It appears to me like somebody decided to skip the trial and move right on the sentencing phase while saving taxpayers money in the process." He tossed the article to his desktop.
"We didn't think much of it until Miss Parker received this fax this morning." He handed Lyle two newspaper articles with headlines reading 'Runaway's Story has Happy Ending' and 'Marsano convicted'. "She and Broots were in Miami during this time."
"What is this leading to?" Lyle tried to keep impatience out of his tone.
"This is Tamsin Lanie," Raines said, then dropped several 5 x 7 photos on Lyle's desk. Lyle picked them up and looked them over. A manacled man sat slumped in a chair, a bullet hole through his forehead. Raines pointed to a small note that had been pinned to the body's chest.
"I had this note enhanced." Raines handed Lyle another photo, and took a deep raspy breath. "A similar note was found with Marsano, though unlike Tamsin, he was found alive by police. He claimed some man tried to poison him with Hydrogen Cyanide. Turned out to be oxygen and almond extract. Sounds like Jarod's tricks to me."
Lyle looked at the photo for several minutes without speaking as he tapped a finger on his chin. "It has to be Jarod. I think he may be cracking. It's imperative that we find him as soon as possible." He moved the photos to a desk drawer and locked it, then stood. "We need to figure out his next move." He nodded toward a man seated in the back of the room. "Can we arrange to have Sydney's phone monitored?"
"It can be arranged," answered the cultured voice.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the shadowed doorway in the hall, Angelo watched Lyle's office. The door opened and three men walked out. Lyle turned and locked the door behind him and the three walked off toward the elevator. Angelo snickered as the elevator dinged and the door opened. The three disappeared inside. He edged out of his hiding place and approached Lyle's office door. As if a locked office, or for that matter a locked drawer, ever kept him out.
Angelo crept forward, pulled a slender instrument out of his trouser pocket and slipped it into the door. The lock mechanism clicked opened and Angelo slipped inside. He quickly repeated the trick on the desk drawer and slid the drawer open, taking the photos and scurrying out of the room, closing up everything behind him.
Climbing to safety inside the Centre ventilation system, Angelo looked at the photos, pausing at the enhanced photo of the note found on Tamsin's body. He laid a finger on it. Angelo snickered, then laughed the sound rising to a hysterical, maniacal pitch. He rocked back and forth and pressed the photograph to his chest.
"I decide who lives or dies!" he screamed. "I decide who lives or dies!"
The End
