False Witness Page 5

  “Russian, huh?” Bones paused, apparently mulling it over. “Here’s the deal. I’ll drop a dime on this guy on two conditions. First, you keep my name out of it. Period. Nobody ever knows where you got your tip.” Bones paused and coughed.

  “Done,” Clark said. He would agree to anything. This was his first and only lead.

  “Second, you wire the five hundred K into my account. Angel will give you the wiring instructions. I’ll call back when it shows up.”

  Clark, of course, didn’t have the money and suspected Bones knew it. “He might be gone by then,” Clark said quickly. “Tell me where he is. I bust him. Then you get paid.”

  Bones laughed—a big, throaty, taunting laugh. “I was born at night, but not last night. Call me back after you make the wire transfer.”

  For the second time in half an hour, someone holding all the cards hung up on Clark.

  Clark called him back immediately.

  “Quad-A Bail Bond Office—”

  “Get me McGinley,” Clark interrupted.

  “Who is this?” Angel asked, sounding perturbed.

  “Clark Shealy.”

  Without comment, she put Clark on hold. A long minute later, she was back on the line. “Mr. McGinley asked me to give you wiring instructions for our account,” she said. “Do you have a pen and paper?”

  Clark felt his temper flaring again but beat it back. He needed some allies right now. “I can only do a hundred fifty thousand right this minute,” he explained. “I’ll do the rest later today after Mr. McGinley gives me the information I need. Ask him if that’ll work.”

  “Please hold.”

  When Angel came back, she was all business. “Mr. McGinley says we need all five hundred thousand before he’ll talk to you. Do you want those wiring instructions or not?”

  Clark bit his tongue and wrote down the wiring instructions. “I’ll need your tax ID number and business address for tax purposes,” he explained. After he hung up, he entered the address into the Escalade’s onboard GPS.

  “Turn left at the next light,” a sexy female voice instructed him.

  “My pleasure,” Clark said.

  9

  The AAAA Bail Bond Office was located about two blocks from the city jail, across the street from the Bad Boyz Bond Office. The neon sign for Bones’s operation was larger, though the modular trailer that served as an office couldn’t compete with the real brick building that the Bad Boyz called home. Bones plainly didn’t believe in burning money on overhead.

  There were only two cars in the parking lot—a Lexus that undoubtedly belonged to Bones and a run-down foreign car. Clark parked the Escalade, stuffed his Glock into a shoulder holster, and threw on a blue sports coat to cover the gun.

  He barged through the door and surveyed the seedy waiting area. A few wooden chairs. A messy reception desk manned by a chubby lady with too much red lipstick—Angel Sparkman, according to the nameplate. She had a phone stuck to her ear and was looking at her computer. She motioned for Clark to sit down.

  He tried to get her attention. “Clark Shealy. I’m here to see Mr. McGinley.”

  Without looking, she frowned and gave him an exaggerated sit-down motion.

  “Thanks for your help,” Clark said. He marched past Angel and down the narrow hallway toward what he assumed would be McGinley’s office.

  “Can you hang on a second?” Angel said loudly into the phone. Clark heard the sound of her desk chair wheeling back and the huffing of an indignant Angel behind him.

  “Sir. Wait just a minute.”

  He turned into a large, cluttered office and stared into the wide-eyed amazement of a man who could have passed for George Foreman’s Anglo twin brother.

  Bones stood and narrowed his eyes.

  “I’m Clark Shealy and I’ve got your money,” Clark managed to spit out before Angel came barreling into the office behind him.

  “I tried to stop him, Mr. McGinley. He just barged right on past—”

  Bones held out a beefy palm, stopping Angel midsentence, though his eyes never left Clark.

  “You’ve got the money?”

  “Yes.”

  Bones turned to Angel. “Two coffees,” he ordered. To Clark: “How do you like yours?”

  Just what Clark needed—another cup of coffee. “Have you got any bottled water?”

  Bones snorted. “This is a bail-bonds office, not a gay bar.”

  “I’ll take it black.”

  Angel lumbered out of the room, mumbling something about it taking a few minutes to brew a new pot. Bones asked Clark to take a seat in one of the wooden chairs facing the metal desk. Clark reached over and casually shut the office door, then settled into the unpadded chair.

  The office looked like Bones had never thrown away a piece of paper in his life. Stray piles of paper and folders covered his desk and spilled onto the floor and credenza, as if a tsunami of bond files had flooded his office and left this chaos in its wake. His desk also featured at least four foam cups, three grimy glass mugs with varying amounts of coffee in them, and about fifty yellow sticky notes with chicken scratch on them. A monitor sat on the credenza behind Bones, its screen saver building multicolored crisscrossing pipes. The walls had nothing on them except a few water stains from an apparently leaky roof.

  Clark leaned forward and began pleading with Bones for help. He was not above begging for Jessica’s life. “The Chinese mafia is using my wife as a hostage,” he explained. He quickly told Bones about his attempt to nab Johnny Chin and how that led to the current hunt for Moses Kumari. “I’ve got sixteen hours,” Clark said, glancing at his watch and feeling the panic tingle down his vertebrae, “or they start torturing my wife.”

  Bones watched impassively, his beady gray eyes giving nothing away.

  “I’ve got my checkbook right here,” Clark said, pulling it out of his sports coat pocket while cautiously shielding his holster. “I can write two checks right now. One for a hundred and fifty thousand, which will clear today. The other check, for three hundred and fifty thousand, you can cash by Friday. That will give me time to get my wife back and liquidate a few things. If it bounces, which it won’t, you’ll have a rock-solid lawsuit against me based on the check itself.”

  Bones leaned forward, his solid forearms resting on the haphazard piles of paper littering his desk. “Maybe you don’t understand who I am,” he said slowly, contempt riding on every word. “Or what I do. I enforce bail bonds. I get sad stories every day from felons who tell me about their poor little children or an innocent wife or a mother who will starve to death. I don’t operate on sympathy, Mr. Shealy. I operate on Mr. Green—cash, wire transfers, not bogus checks.” He leaned back in his chair again, point made. “Now, get out of my sight. And don’t come back until you have the money.”

  Maybe it was a carryover from the tranquilizer or the three cups of coffee—or the fact that his wife could be raped or tortured any minute. But Clark didn’t have time for arrogance, and he wasn’t in the mood. He had always prided himself on being that rarest of bounty hunters—a gentleman. A fast-talking genius who seldom resorted to violence.

  But something snapped.

  Clark bolted out of his seat and halfway across the desk. He grabbed Bones by the collar with his left hand and jammed his gun into Bones’s temple with his right.

  “Listen, you fat, arrogant slob. They’ve got my wife.” Clark pushed the gun a little harder into the big man’s temple and watched the beads of sweat begin to form above his eyebrows. “You think I won’t kill you if you don’t help?”

  Clark sounded crazy. Heck, he felt crazy. Even he wasn’t 100 percent sure he wouldn’t pull the trigger.

  “I hear you, man,” Bones managed, croaking the words out, the high-pitched voice going even higher. “Put the gun down.”

  “Where is Chin?” Clark demanded. He squeezed the trigger ever so slightly.

  “Put it down, man! Are you crazy?” A sheen of sweat covered Bones’s entire forehead. He tr
embled slightly, the bravado gone.

  “Three seconds,” Clark said.

  Bones squared his jaw, his eyes at once frightened and defiant.

  “One . . .” The big man didn’t move. “Two . . .” The trembling increased, the eyes widened in disbelief. “Three . . .”

  “Okay, okay,” Bones said quickly. “Let go of me, man. The file’s yours.”

  Clark pushed him back in the seat but kept the gun aimed at Bones’s forehead. “Put your hands behind your head,” Clark ordered, “and tell me where the file is.”

  Bones interlaced his fingers behind his head, his wary eyes fixed on Clark. “It’s on my computer. If you let me take my hands down, I can print it out for you.”

  Clark nodded his assent, and Bones turned slowly toward the keyboard and monitor behind him. He pulled his hands down cautiously, scrolled through to an e-mail, and hit Print.

  Clark moved to the printer and grabbed the document, keeping his gun trained on Bones. “Behind the head,” he barked, and Bones did as he was told.

  The e-mail was from jhenriques@bha.com.

  Johnny Chin is registered at the Mirage, room 8127, under the name Peter Chang. He checked in on August 9 and registered for three days.

  Clark folded the e-mail and stuffed it in his sports coat pocket. He sat down in front of the desk, placed his gun in his left hand, and took out his checkbook with his right. Pointing the gun at Bones, he used the butt of the gun to hold the top of the checkbook open as he wrote out the check.

  “How much?” Bones asked, his hands obediently locked behind his head.

  “One-fifty. That’s all I’ve got right now.”

  Clark placed the check on the desk and returned the checkbook to his pocket. He would have to detain both Bones and Angel until he could make his move on the hit man. He couldn’t risk having them tip off Chin.

  “Take one hand down, and dial Angel on the speakerphone,” Clark said. “Tell her to bring some packaging tape into the office.”

  Bones reached down and pressed the Speaker button. As he did, Clark noticed a subtle change of expression—a brief glint in Bones’s eyes, a smirk starting to play on the lips, and then, too quick for Clark to move . . .

  Ka-bam!

  It felt like the bullet hit his chest before Clark even heard the noise. The pain shot through him and drove him over backward, the chair and Clark crashing to the floor.

  “Gullible moron,” he heard Bones say.

  10

  Clark opened his eyes and flinched at the sight of the stubbled red face of Bones, inches from his own, exhaling like a panting dog. “Don’t mess with me, boy,” Bones snarled, leaning over Clark. “I knew you were wearing Kevlar. Next time, I’ll aim a little higher and blow your face apart.”

  Lying on his back, Clark felt light-headed, as if an air bag had just exploded in his face. His whole chest ached from the force of the blow, but the Kevlar vest had saved his life. Bones must have had a spring gun cocked and loaded in the leg well under his desk. He probably aimed it with his knee and maybe even triggered it with some kind of foot pedal. There would have to be a small opening in the desk for the nose of the barrel. Clark should have seen it coming.

  He moaned and kept his eyes nearly closed, watching through slits while Bones smirked, then relaxed a little and rose to one knee. Clark saw his opening, reached up, and grabbed Bones’s head, pulling it down violently. At the same time, Clark ducked his chin and delivered a brutal head butt to the bridge of Bones’s nose. He heard the big man scream, then felt the warm blood spurt all over him. Clark grabbed his gun and pistol-whipped Bones, heard the crunch of gun on cheekbone, and saw Bones crumple to the floor.

  Angel came screaming into the office, and Clark grabbed her, threw her into the vacant wooden chair, and yelled for her to calm down and stop her hysterical crying. Meanwhile, Bones had struggled into a sitting position, holding his nose as the blood rolled down his hands and dripped on the floor. Clark shifted his Glock back and forth from Angel to Bones. “Nobody move,” he barked. “Angel, hands on your head!”

  She cried and shuddered but raised her hands. Clark grabbed Bones’s cell phone from the desk and stuffed it in his pocket. He yanked the desk phone out of the wall.

  He now had a big problem. Two hostages, no rope. Angel sobbed loudly, making it impossible to think. Clark had left his plastic FlexiCuffs in the Escalade, never expecting it would come to this.

  Clark turned to Bones. “Where are your handcuffs?”

  Bones lifted a middle finger. Angel wailed, stopping intermittently to yell at Clark.

  “Shut up!” he yelled back. Then he tossed a box of Kleenex to Bones. “Stop the bleeding!” he ordered.

  Bones pulled his hands away from the bridge of his nose, and Angel shrieked even louder. Blood flowed not just from the nose but from a huge gash below Bones’s left eye, ten to fifteen stitches, Clark estimated. The right cheek was also bruised, bloodied, and swollen.

  “Look what you’ve done!” Angel cried. “You’re lucky he’s not dead!”

  Bones cursed at Clark and yelled at Angel to shut up. She quieted a little, but not much. Moving quickly, Clark used scissors to cut the pull cords from the miniblinds, all the while keeping his gun on Bones. Using the cords and some packing tape he found on the shelf of the credenza, Clark bound them both, hand and foot. He positioned them next to the desk and anchored them to it with generous layers of tape, using almost the entire roll, saving just enough to tape their mouths shut. The cursing from Bones turned into muted grunts.

  He inspected the sheet of computer paper in the left pocket of his sports coat. The bullet had pierced the upper corner of the folded paper, but Clark could still read the room number for Johnny Chin. Looking at the bullet hole lessened the guilt pangs he felt. A few inches higher, and Clark would have been dead.

  He knelt in front of Angel and looked into her tear-rimmed eyes. She still cried uncontrollably, but the sound was muffled by the tape.

  “My wife is being held hostage by the mob,” Clark said, feeling sorry for the terrified woman in front of him. “Your boss wouldn’t tell me where to find the one person that might lead me to my wife unless I paid him five hundred thousand dollars. So I pulled a gun on him and wrote him a check for a hundred and fifty thousand, which is basically all I have. That’s when he shot me with that spring gun in his desk.” Clark tapped his chest. “Kevlar,” he said. “Needless to say, I survived and turned the tables. That’s when you came in.”

  Clark stood. He thought he saw a flicker of understanding through Angel’s tears. “The check is still on the desk. As soon as I get custody of this man, I’m going to call 911 and send the cops out here.”

  Angel nodded, and Clark felt a tinge of vindication. Then he checked his stopwatch: 20:12:14.

  He used the bathroom to wash off the blood and then grabbed a change of clothes from the Escalade. He left Bones’s cell phone on Angel’s desk.

  He left without saying another word.

  11

  It was nearly 11:00 a.m. when Clark slid into the grandiose lobby of the Mirage wearing running shoes, baggy shorts, and a “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas” T-shirt. He had taken off his wedding ring in case flirting was required. He had parked the Escalade in the adjacent garage and then went for a hard run for a few blocks down the sidewalk of the Vegas Strip away from the hotel and back again. At a drinking fountain inside, he splashed some water on his hair and forehead, adding a little on the underarms of his T-shirt for pit stains. He jumped into a check-in line, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, anxiously checking his watch.

  A dozen clerks stood in front of a huge aquarium set into the wall behind the check-in counter. It was filled with colorful coral and exotic sea creatures of all types—black-and-white-striped angelfish, orange and yellow puffer fish, tiger fish, tangs, and some kind of see-through fish that Clark had never seen before. And of course . . . sharks. The other fish were all swimming with the sharks. Clark
knew the feeling.

  He stepped up to the counter and checked the name tag on the pleasant-looking blonde with unnaturally white teeth. Clarisse Robins.

  “How big is that tank?” Clark asked.

  “About twenty thousand gallons of saltwater.”

  “How many times a day do you get asked that question?” Clark inquired, flashing his best smile.

  “About twenty thousand.” She smiled back. Perfunctory, but still a smile.

  “Well, here’s something else you probably get a lot. . . .” This time he gave her a sheepish, I’m-an-idiot grin. “I went out for a run and forgot my keys.” He pulled his license from a pocket on the gym shorts. “Room 8127.” He held his breath.

  “Happens all the time,” she said pleasantly. Clark watched Clarisse perform a few keystrokes and then glance at his California driver’s license. She did a double take.

  “I’m sorry,” she said pleasantly. “Our records show someone else in that room.” She tilted her head. “Are you sure that’s the right room?”

  “Positive,” Clark responded. “8127. Peter Chance.” He had figured the Chinese surname that Johnny Chin used—Peter Chang—might give a desk clerk cause for concern if an Anglo like Clark waltzed up to the desk claiming to be that man. But he wanted Clarisse to figure out the “typo” on her own, making it more believable.

  “C-h-a-n-c-e,” he said slowly, his stomach flipping.

  Suddenly a light came on in Clarisse’s eyes, and Clark wanted to hug her. “I’ll bet somebody just typed it in wrong,” she said. “The guest’s name is listed as Peter Chang.” She nodded, and Clark nodded along to encourage her. “That’s pretty close to Peter Chance.”

  “It’s probably my handwriting,” he said. “But you’d think they’d notice that I’m not a Chang.”

  Clarisse smiled and coded in a new card. “I’ll change it in our records,” she offered.

  Clark thanked her, took the key, and strode casually away from the front desk. He was grateful she didn’t notice the credit card securing the room was also under the name of Peter Chang. Though he had an excuse for that as well, he wasn’t sure even Clarisse would buy that one.