Part 14 (1/2)
”Fifty bucks upfront.” E.J. peeled off the bills from an impressive roll of cash that had the little man practically salivating. It took so little to impress such people.
”I need room eighteen.” He smiled conspiratorially. ”My lucky number.”
”Right. My lucky number is twenty.” E.J. peeled off another twenty, waving it in front of the man's beady eyes. He shrugged, handing him the key to room eighteen.
”Your money, pal.” He looked over E.J.'s shoulder to where Sarah lounged against the doorjamb looking impatient and Ian leered at her convincingly. ”Don't pull a muscle-she looks like a wild one.”
”You can only imagine.”
Within a few minutes they were in room eighteen, and though they searched the place thoroughly, there was no sign Logan had been there. Sarah turned to E.J. and couldn't help grinning.
”You make a convincing dirtbag when you work at it. Do you come to these places often?”
”Please, Sarah, you insult me. I only take women to the best hotels.”
He looked down at the tacky clothes he'd picked up from the station's lost and found-he didn't really want to think too much about where they had come from-and ran a hand over his thick, sandy hair now slicked back with hair grease. None of the women he dated would touch him with a ten-foot pole looking like this.
”Will this stuff ever come out?”
”Sure. Just don't go for a swim or the EPA will be after you.”
Ian glared at them, ceasing the teasing with an intense look in Sarah's direction-Ian was almost always intense.
”You sure you can do this? We won't have much time.”
”You're kidding, right? Of course I can do it. All I have to do is hook into their PBX, find the numbers he called, if any, and we can do a reverse lookup back at the office. Piece of cake.”
She pulled off her leather jacket, tossed her shoes away and stripped down to her bra and short skirt without blinking an eye. It was only Ian and E.J., after all. She smudged her lipstick with her fist and mussed her hair, leveling them a look.
”Uh, think maybe you should join me, here?” E.J. wiggled his eyebrows lasciviously. ”G.o.d, I love it when you go all Brooklyn.”
They quickly stripped down to basics as well, and Sarah took a deep breath, grabbing a sheet while the guys did their part, wrecking the bed and breaking a lamp, and then turned to each other. E.J. smiled. ”All in good fun. Remember, stay away from the face. I have a date tonight.”
Sarah took a deep breath, wrapping the sheet around her as she went for the door, flinging it open, another crash sounding behind her as the guys did their part. She took off at a run for the office and burst in the door, yelling at the top of her lungs for help. A couple was signing in at the desk and stared at her wide-eyed. The scrawny man from behind darted out to face her.
”What the h.e.l.l? What are you doing?”
Sarah gulped breaths, doing her best imitation of being panicked, and poured it on. Grabbing his shoulders, she let the sheet slip a little and watched his eyes dip, the worm.
”You gotta get up there, they're wreckin' the place, they're gonna kill each other!”
The smarmy desk clerk looked at her in confusion, then seemed to remember she'd come in with two men-she imagined short-term memory loss was an advantage in his line of work. Grabbing his shoulders, she pushed him toward the door.
”Go! I'll call the police! You aren't going to have a room left by the time they get done.”
”d.a.m.n losers, come in a place and wreck it-I shoulda known when I saw you.” He dove behind the desk, emerging with a baseball bat, and tipped it in Sarah's direction. ”I knew you you would cause trouble. Could tell the minute I saw you.” would cause trouble. Could tell the minute I saw you.”
The other couple had already hightailed it out the door, and the worm followed behind. Sarah screamed at him about it not being her fault as she watched him go and then hurried behind the sign-in desk to the computer.
”s.h.i.+t. Pa.s.sworded.” She didn't have time to try to figure it out, but had a hunch and lifted the keyboard, then searched behind the monitor, and finally under the TV. Nothing. But the sleazeball obviously had a hard time remembering his own name, so he had to have it here somewhere.
Taking out a slim drawer in the center of the beat-up desk, she saw a small, ragged piece of paper with a nasty acronym and what was probably his PIN number. She shook her head.
”Dumber than I even thought.”
She punched in the acronym, the screen freed and she wiggled gleefully in the chair, her fingers firing over the keys like a machine gun as she accessed the information they needed. Within minutes, she had the numbers-two calls had come from room eighteen last night.
She hurriedly wrote down the numbers and shut down the screen as she heard hollers and cursing just before the clerk burst through the door again, Ian and E.J. right behind him. He spotted Sarah.
”Hey, what are you doing back there? Get out of there!”
She let her head sag to the side. ”I was calling the cops, moron. I couldn't reach the phone from back there.”
He held the bat threateningly toward Ian and E.J., and Sarah almost smiled. Her friends were under no threat at all from the little man-either of them could put that bat where the sun didn't s.h.i.+ne within a hot second if they wanted to.
”You two done fighting over me now? Maybe we can get down to having a little fun.” She walked up to E.J. and dragged her finger down his chest. ”Now that you're all worked up.”
”You bet, baby.” E.J. caught her by the waist and drew her close, winking at Ian. But the little man was having none of it.
”No way, you guys are freakin' crazy. The cops will be here, and you're paying for that room. I'm pressing charges!”
Of course, there were no cops coming. But he didn't know that.
E.J. loosened Sarah's hold and reached for his wallet again, bending his head down to talk with the clerk in a whisper. ”Listen, I can't afford another arrest, okay? How about I pay you for the damage, let my girl get her clothes, and we'll take this party elsewhere?”
The clerk's beady eyes reflected his indecision as he looked at Sarah again, now draped over Ian, but then he caught view of E.J.'s wad of cash. He backed off, putting down the bat.
”Yeah, okay. Whatever. Give me the cash and get the h.e.l.l out of here.”
BACK AT THE OFFICE, it didn't take Sarah long to do a reverse lookup on the phone numbers. She was even more motivated to work fast because she was still wearing the hooker skirt she'd worn to the motel and it kept riding up far higher than she was comfortable with.
”Okay. I got it. He called Starline Cruises. Twice.”
”That's a gaming cruise service. They run short trips, out past the legal boundaries, where state and federal gambling laws don't apply.”
”That's legal?”
”Gambling is a big part of southern history-think of the Mississippi riverboats-and in this case, they don't gamble until they're far out on the water. So it's a loophole, but it works. There's a lot of it along the coast, some legit, some a cover for other operations.”
Sarah sat silently for a minute, then snapped up straight in her chair, the pieces of the puzzle clicking together.
”Yes, that's it! I remember now, when I was arguing with Logan, he said something about how jurisdiction didn't matter. That's gotta mean he's out on one of those boats.”
”Give me the number,” Ian said.
Sarah and E.J. waited while Ian called, and he turned back to them as he hung up.