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PI Blake Tanner has been hired by Malcolm MacDonald to find out what happened to the Attorney's missing son. Little do they know, Tanner is about to make some very bad people, very uncomfortable.
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THE STREETS OF LAKE CITY
BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 MunichPrologue
The man in black pushed through the revolving door of the Harbor Lights Club and stepped into the small, dimly lit lobby. Happy Days Are Here Again resonated down the stairs, filling the lobby with the festive song. Anderson Spangler’s mayoral campaign was in full swing and one of his biggest supporters, Attorney Jonathan Graber would be here in all his glory.
The man in black smiled and nodded at people as he made his way up the stairs to the second floor and he peered in the banquet hall. There he saw Graber, walking beside Spangler, smiling, shaking hands and working the crowd.
With a smile, the man in black turned and stepped back down the stairs and around the corner to the back of the staircase. He sat down in a nearby chair beside an end table and here he would wait. They always say good things came to those who wait. He smiled again and settled into his chair.
He watched two women, who he’d seen on many occasions working in the kitchen of the Harlor Lights Lounge, stride toward him, their shift obviously over. One sat down on a bench in front of him and waved at her friend as she stepped through the revolving front door.
She sat on this bench every night to wait for her daughter to pick her up, but not tonight. The man in black rose from his chair and leaned over to whisper in the woman’s ear. “You don’t want to sit here tonight. Walk home.”
The woman’s eyes grew wide with fear. She grabbed her work bag setting next to her on the bench and, without looking to see who spoke to her, hurried down the hall and out the back door.
The man in black heard a number of people come down the stairs and he rose from his chair, stepped under the staircase and peeked around the corner. Half of the group went into the lounge and the others left through the revolving door. Seeing the lobby empty, he hurried over and locked the revolving door, then stepped back to the staircase..
“Thanks for coming, Jon,” he heard from the top of the stairs and removed the .45 Smith and Wesson from the shoulder holster under his jacket.
Jonathan Graber reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat as he stepped down from the staircase into the lobby. Graber cursed and detoured into the lounge. He stopped at a cigarette machine near the door, dropped in a few coins and pulled the lever, releasing a pack of cigarettes. Graber stepped back into the lobby, opening the pack of cigarettes. He found the revolving door locked and moved to the glass door beside it.
The man in black moved quickly, ignoring the people in the lobby. He stepped up behind Graber and triggered the .45, point blank, at the back of the attorney’s head and was out the glass door as Jonathan Graber crumbled to the lobby floor.
Panic in the lobby was immediate and the man in black barely had time to slide through the double set of glass doors and out into the cool night air. He slid the .45 back into the shoulder holster, as he hurried around the corner of the building and into the open door of the black Lincoln that seemed to appear out of nowhere to the curb in front of him. The big car squealed off into the night as the panic-stricken crowd flooded out the door of the Harbor Lights Club. In all the confusion, no one saw the blinds slowly close on the second floor window in the apartment building across the street.
Chapter 1
Blake Tanner snaked his arm out from under the covers and slapped the top of the buzzing clock. He’d just used up the last of his self imposed quota of hitting the snooze alarm.
He poked his head out from under the blanket and looked into the hard stare of Max, his Rottweiler, sitting next to the bed.
“Five more minutes, Max,” said Tanner and threw the blanket back over his head.
Without warning, the blanket flew off the end of the bed clamped in Max’s big jaws and the Rottweiler ran out the bedroom door trailing the blanket behind him.
“MAX!” Tanner shouted and chuckled when he got a loud baritone answer from somewhere in the house.
The strong aroma of fresh coffee persuaded Tanner to swing out from under the sheet. He sat for a moment on the edge of the bed before sliding his feet into his slippers as he stood up and stretched before slipping into the robe that lay on the chair next to the dresser.
He shuffled down the hallway from the bedroom to the kitchen where Max was sitting, in all his glory, on the blanket near the back door.
“Some friend you are,” Tanner grumbled, as he poured the steaming black brew into the mug next to the coffeemaker. He carried the mug to the back door where Max sat squirming and looking at him in anticipation. Tanner barely unlocked and opened the door before the big Rottweiler squeezed past him and bolted outside and down the flight of steps.
Tanner stood at the back door sipping his coffee and smiling as he watched Max go through his morning ritual of flushing the rabbit from under the Lilac bush, chasing it at full speed across the yard and then crashing head on into the chain link fence as the rabbit scampered through it. Tanner had always wondered, after all these years, what Max would do if he ever surprised himself and caught that slippery rabbit.
Tanner stood sipping the last of his coffee until Max finally concluded the ritual by lifting his leg on the fence and then came charging back up the steps. The big Rottweiler nearly knocked Tanner over as he squeezed between Blake and the doorjamb. Tanner closed and locked the door and turned back into the kitchen, putting his empty coffee mug in the sink.
Tanner shuffled back down the hall to the bedroom, took a quick shower and then made the decision to change his usual business attire and put on a pair of khakis, a v-neck sweater and dug his pair of loafers out of the back of the closet. Finally, after making sure he was presentable, he slipped into the shoulder holster holding his .357 Remington, grabbed his brown leather jacket from the door knob of the closet and returned to the kitchen.
Tanner filled Max’s food and water bowls, unlocked his oversized dog door, and after taking a minute, Tanner decided to forego driving the jalopy and grabbed a set of car keys from the wall peg.
He left through the side door and jogged down the steps into the adjoining two-car garage. He stepped around the old jalopy and removed the cover from his Midnight Blue Ford Thunderbird. Tanner was determined to make this a good day.
* * * *
Tanner took the shortcut through the Waterfront District to the city. The lack of foot traffic and the faded signs on the abandoned buildings were evidence that the waterfront had seen better times. His attention was drawn to an old man in a tattered overcoat and a battered fedora walking unsteadily from the door of a rusted warehouse. But Tanner knew, after dark, the waterfront would morph into a whole different world of booze, women, drugs and illegal gambling.
Tanner entered the city and turned the Thunderbird into the entrance of the parking garage. He flashed his parking pass at a smiling Nate Stokes, standing outside his booth at the gate.
Nate waved Tanner with a smile. “Mornin’, Mister Tanner.”
Tanner returned Nate's wave as he passed him and drove the T-bird up the ramp to the second floor, pulling it into his regular spot near the stairwell. He retrieved the car's cover from the trunk, slid it gently over his pride and joy and then made his way down the stairs and across the street level of the parking garage.
“Brought the good car this mornin’, eh, Mister Tanner?” shouted Nick from the window of his booth.
“Needed to give her some air,” Tanner shouted back and waved as he left the garage. Seeing a break in the traffic, Tanner jaywalked across the street and stepped up on the curb in front of the Lake City National Bank.
He reached into his pants pocket and peeled a couple of George Washingtons from his thin wad of folded money. An old guy, dressed in an army fatigue jacket and sitting on a rug near the door of the bank building, looked up at him, nodded his head and smiled as Tanner dropped the bills into the old guy's upturned hat.
There had always been talk that this guy didn’t need the money. But, whether he needed it or not, if he was going to sit all day on that hot pavement, Tanner was going to give him a couple of bucks just for the effort.
Tanner returned the small wad of paper money to his pocket, opened the bank’s glass doors and stepped into the outer lobby.
“Howdy, Mister Tanner,” said Sadie Hixson from her customary post on the padded stool in the elevator. Sadie had been operating that elevator as long as Tanner could remember and some of the old timers swore Sadie was the only operator that elevator ever had. Tanner didn’t know if he believed that, but he sure couldn’t dispute it either.
“How are you this morning, Sadie?” Tanner asked as he stepped into the elevator after waving at the bank security guard.
“Fine, Mister Tanner, just fine.” She slid the elevator door and the inner security gate closed and started the elevator on its upward climb. Tanner leaned back against the wall of the elevator and watched the big, black numbers of each floor slowly slide by until Sadie stopped the car and opened the doors on the eighth floor.
“Have a good day, Mister Tanner,” she said, holding the doors open. A light buzzed as Tanner stepped from the elevator. “Alright, I’m comin’,” said Sadie and closed the elevator doors.
Tanner's footsteps echoed down the hall and he nodded and smiled at the cute blond he passed just before he opened the frosted glass door with the arced block letters declaring TANNER INVESTIGATIONS.
“Well, look who decided to join us, Harvey,” said his secretary, Amanda “Mandy” Parker, to the big, gray, Bengal cat lying on his side next to the phone on her desk. Harvey lifted his head to give Tanner an annoyed look and then resumed his attempt to take a nap.
Tanner had found Harvey one morning wandering the halls and, being the Good Samaritan that he was, Tanner brought the big cat into the office where it didn’t take Harvey long to claim the office as his own. He’s been ruling the roost ever since.
“This was left in the drop box,” Mandy said and held up an opened envelope as Tanner stepped to the coffee pot beside her desk. He filled a mug with coffee, set it on the end of her desk and took the envelope from her hand.
He removed a letter, read it and held up two box seat tickets to the Lake City Stallions baseball game. “There’s a VIP parking pass, too. Wanna go see a baseball game?”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Who sent those?”
Tanner shrugged his shoulders. “Letter says we should come to the game and we'll be got in touch with.”
“Do I get to ride in the ‘Bird?” Mandy asked, raising her eyebrows.
Because of the assortment of bullet holes Tanner had to patch, Mandy didn’t ride in the jalopy unless she had to. Dodging bullets was not her idea of having a good time. So, if Tanner wanted her to go anywhere with him, he had to take the “nice car.”
Tanner picked up his coffee mug from her desk. “We leave at six.”
