“You’ve got his license number.”
I thought for a moment. I’d been intimate with his car. We’d been physical, and I didn’t even have the number. “You must have taken it down, James.”
“Jeez. Great spies we are.” James banged his fist on the steering wheel. “What’s our last stop?”
“This is stupid. Let’s go to the bar you talked about and have a-” I stared hard into the side mirror, making sure of what I saw.
“What is it?”
“Gray Honda. Maybe two blocks back.” There were a couple of cars and another box truck between us. I viewed the Honda as it maneuvered behind the other vehicles.
“How would he know where we were?”
“It’s probably all a coincidence.”
“Where do I turn, pard?”
“Next street. Forty-seventh.”
He turned and picked up speed. Not much, but a little. The engine chugged along. The Little Engine That Could. There were some commercial buildings, then a rundown strip mall with three of the five businesses boarded up.
“Any sign of the graymobile?”
There were none.
“On your right, James. Right there.”
He stepped on the brakes and there was a metal on metal sound. Another problem with the truck. We needed new brakes.
“It’s a day care center.”
“So Feng’s got a kid. He had to pick him up.” James shrugged his shoulders.
I noticed the name. Recognized the name. Tiny Tots Academy. Somewhere Carol Conroy had picked up one of their pencils. I was sure she didn’t have any kids. “Keep driving.”
He did. Swerving to avoid the caverns in the road and trying to maintain a speed at about forty miles per hour. Quick for Forty-seventh avenue. I glanced in the mirror and there it was. No mistake. A gray Honda. It never slowed down at the day care center, but hung back, blending in with the light traffic.
“He’s back, James.”
“Son of a bitch. He knows exactly where we are.”
“I should have brought the laptop. Why didn’t I?”
James took a sharp right, then a left. Then back out to Forty-seventh. “You never thought about him following us.”
“If I had it, we could tell if the Honda was Feng. It would be so easy. We’d just check out his car, and we’d know immediately if it was him.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, pard.” James braked hard, the grinding and squealing painful to my ears. He took a hard right into a parking lot of a small restaurant. Anita’s Place. The sign in the window said closed for family emergency. It was a Mexican restaurant. Just as well. I’m not a big fan of Mexican food.
James opened the door and got out of the truck.
“Hey, man, it’s closed.” I yelled out the window after him.
He didn’t respond, but ducked down, and I lost sight of him. I jumped out of the truck and looked around. No sign of James, no sign of the gray Honda. Nothing. “James?”
Everything was quiet. A couple of cars passed, kicking up a spray, and the gentle raindrops spattered around me. Nothing. “James?”
“Skip, here. Check it out.”
He was nowhere.
“Skip?”
From under the truck.
For the second time in two days I scooted under a vehicle. “What?”
James pointed to the gas tank. “Check it out, pally.”
Feeling the wet pavement through my soaked shirt, I gazed up. Fastened to the metal tank was a gray box, very much resembling a GPS unit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
M y cell phone rang on the way back. The ring was Springsteen, the musical opening to “Born in the U.S.A.”
“Mr. Moore?”
I didn’t recognize the voice.
“This is Carol Conroy.”
I reached over and nudged James. He glanced at me and took his eyes off the road as we hit a crater that went halfway to China. The truck shook like we’d encountered an earthquake. We had to do something about the shocks. “Yes, Mrs. Conroy. What can I do for you?”
“For what I’m going to pay you, I hope you can do a lot.” There was venom in her voice.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I need to know what’s going on in one of the offices at Synco.”
“What’s going on?” Maybe someone was having sex on a desktop. Maybe someone was doing a second set of books or taking drugs.
“Is there any way that you can record conversations? Without being obvious?”
“Mrs. Conroy, can you hold on for just a moment?”
“Of course.”
We were pulling into the Synco Systems parking lot, and I scanned the blacktop looking for Feng’s gray Honda. It didn’t seem to be on the property. “James,” I put my hand over the phone and spoke in a loud whisper, “she wants us to bug somebody’s office.” It hit me that no matter how much this lady was willing to pay, I could be in a lot of trouble. But I also remembered that this lady thought her life was in danger. If I could save a life “We can do that.”
“Yeah? What if we get caught?”
“She’s calling the shots, amigo. She’s the owner’s daughter. Not only that, she’s the president’s wife. She’s a double threat, amigo. If she tells us to do something, it’s part of the job.”
For the right amount of money, you can justify just about anything. Sarah Crumbly had already reached that conclusion. James seemed to have always been there. And, for a split second, I thought about James’s rationalization and figured he was right. This was going to be a really nice paycheck.
“Mrs. Conroy?” James drove through the puddles and parked the truck in the identical spot he’d parked it this morning. He turned off the ignition and we sat there listening to the engine sputter and crackle. “We can probably handle that.” Feng’s office. It had to be. And, it would serve two purposes. We could find out what the little man’s agenda was. Find out why he was following us, and, at the same time, we could report to Carol Conroy on his conversations.
“Good. How soon can you report to me?” Maybe she was trying to get evidence on the little guy so she could go to her father. Maybe she needed to worm her way back into papa’s good graces. This was my imagination at work, but it all made sense. She’d told me that she and her dad were not on the best of terms. Finding a mole in the company might help cement that relationship and at the same time help her insure her inheritance. Of course, this was all a guess.
“How soon can I report to you? Um, tomorrow. Will that be soon enough?” I couldn’t wait to give her the news that Feng was the guy who was messing with her Lexus.
“No. That’s not soon enough. However, it’s probably the best you can do.”
The lady was a stone-cold bitch. Getting a shot in as often as she could. “We’ll find a way to do it.”
She was quiet for a moment. I could hear her breathing on the other end of the line. “Mrs. Conroy?”
“Yes. Just do it, okay?” I wasn’t sure that she was sure. The tone of her voice led me to believe that maybe she was hesitant. But here was someone who thought her life may be in danger, and she was taking steps to find out.
“Okay. You can call me late tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll give you a report. We’ll have some sort of recording, or notes.” James and I would figure out how to do it later. Right now, I just wanted to cement the project. And my bonus. I wanted to nail Feng myself. And we could get this done.
“Okay.”
I hung up the phone.
“We’re going to bug somebody’s office?”
“We are.”
“Feng?”
“Yes.” And then it hit me. Just as the phone rang again.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Moore, I seriously wonder if I hired the right person for this job. Are you a complete idiot?”
“I can assure you, Mrs. Conroy, this will be taken care of.”
“You don’t even know whose office I want you to monitor. I am seriously reconsidering my decision here.”
I realized she’d never told me whose office needed bugged. But I’d figured it out on my own. I just didn’t want her to realize that James and I had already started looking into Feng.
“Mr. Moore, I want you to gather conversations from office number one.”