Damaged Goods

Chapter Nine

As I trudged uphill toward my car, I wondered where the safe might be located. I could've sworn I had checked every inch of Kandinsky's house. Maybe his killer made off with the safe. If so, surely they'd find a way to force it open.

However, if the killer didn't have the safe, it had to be somewhere accessible to Kandinsky. I'd checked the attic and basement. Maybe it was buried in the yard or under a floorboard. Was it worth returning there, not only to take another look, but to make a waxed impression of the key?

I unlocked the car, got inside, and sat there, staring through the windshield. My head slowly filled with a jumble of thoughts, which were mostly suppositions. For all I knew, Kandinsky had siphoned off the money to an account in the Bahamas. I was not at all sure the key was worth all this mental effort, so I turned my mind to other matters.

Did Kandinsky steal the money, as Blaine suspected? And if so, how? And did he have an accomplice? On top of that, why was he hanging out at the coffee shop where Melissa worked?

I pulled my flowchart from the file and gazed at the diagram. It had nothing new to offer.

Right now, my best leads were the letters and photos I'd found in Kandinsky's closet. Since I couldn't read a word of Russian, I needed a translator. My friend Two-Bit Terry claimed to know almost every one of the world's current languages.

Two-Bit Terry was the name the then 20-year-old Terry Morris acquired while performing on the Ocean City boardwalk. I had known him since high school where we shared the status of "invisible nerds." I spent my lunch break with my face buried in a graphic novel whereas Terry had learned to read at age 3 and seemed to know a little bit about everything.

In Ocean City, Terry was one of those guys who guesses your weight and age, within a certain range of possibilities (plus or minus whatever number Terry had devised). But first you had to pay him a quarter. If you stumped him, he'd give out a cheap prize. If he was right, no prize. Terry had good intuition, and all those two-bit wins added up.

Unfortunately, he had no license to perform on the Boardwalk. This led to a few misunderstandings with the local police. It was Ocean City's finest who had endowed Terry with a nickname worthy of a bit part in Guys and Dolls. Rather than reject it, Terry relished the idea of being such an official pain in the ass that he had (in his own words) "acquired the moniker." So Terry began using it on a regular basis, even after leaving Ocean City for more promising opportunities. He thought his old nickname lent him a certain gravitas. Two-Bit Terry may have been a genius, but his idea of gravitas was kinda messed up.

None of that mattered, at the moment. I needed a translator, and Terry could probably do the job.

I tried to raise him on the phone. His voice mail was full. Weird.

I fired up the car and headed toward Laurel. Last I heard, Terry worked from home as an On-Call Geek fixing computers and doing other cyber stuff. After a quick spin down Route 29, plus a fifteen-minute drive after exiting the main highway, I pulled into a space near Two-Bit's apartment. His car sat nearby.

It was late afternoon, and I hoped Terry would answer the door. I clanged up the metal steps to reach his third floor flat. Knocking gently on the door, I waited.

When there was no response, I knocked louder. Still nothing. His car was in the lot, which worried me.

I fished a bump key from my shoulder bag. In the old days, only locksmiths had these. But now, anyone can buy them online. Terry's not exactly a health nut. His notion of a balanced meal is to have fries with his burger. Hopefully, if Terry was in there, passed out or worse, I was in time to help.

After inserting the key, I wiggled and smacked it lightly with my small notebook until the lock turned. I opened the door, stepped inside, and froze.

Terry sat on the sofa—the biggest piece of furniture in his sparsely-decorated living room—pointing a gun at me. He was tall and skinny, with disheveled light brown hair. In his baggy jeans and loose-fitting T-shirt, he looked like a criminal scarecrow.

A feeling of deva vu and an adrenaline rush washed through me. If Terry hadn't been a familiar face, I might have taken serious defensive measures. Thank God I didn't have a weapon.

He lowered the gun. "C'mon in," he said. "Sorry about that." He set the weapon down on the coffee table.

"Expecting guests, Terry?" I asked, after finding my voice.

There's something about walking into a friend's home and finding the occupant pointing a gun at you. It tends to throw you off.

"Good thing I'm not carrying, huh?" I added, pouring on the sarcasm.

Terry approached me, a flush of shame spreading across his face. He extended a tentative hand. When I didn't slap it away, he placed it on my arm.

"I'm really sorry, Erica," he said. "I just need to be prepared."

"Prepared for what?" I glanced at the gun, grimacing. "You setting someone up for an ambush?" Didn't seem like Terry's style.

He waved a hand. "Just a couple of knuckleheads who think I hacked into their system. They've been getting nasty. And, yeah, I'm thinking they might be making an unannounced visit at some point."

"And you're going to stay here and provide a reception?" I asked. "Why not hide out in a motel for a while? Or get a better lock for your door?" Uh, who's the real knucklehead here?

"I can defend myself, but I can't hide in motels forever. I figured, okay, fine, if you want to play it that way, let's get it done with." Terry strolled to the door, locked the doorknob lock and threw the deadbolt securely into place. Apparently, Terry had conveniently left that unlocked for his unwanted guests. "But, forget about that. Let's talk."

"Yeah, let's. I tried to call. How long have you ignored your voice mail? I couldn't even leave a message."

Terry picked up his phone. "A while, yeah. Got tired of taking calls from those dipshits I mentioned." He grinned. "Sorry."

"This won't take long," I assured him, my eyes darting from the door to him and back. "I just wanted to ask you to translate this letter. It looks like Russian, but I'm no expert."

I thumbed to the photo of the letter on my cell phone. Terry squinted at the screen. "Let's take a closer look," he said. He strolled down a short hall, with me in tow and took the first right into his home office. A computer was parked by the window, its psychedelic screensaver in constant motion.

Terry jiggled the mouse, then scrabbled through a small pile of cables, pulling out a thin one to hook my phone up to his computer And with a few key taps and mouse clicks, he transferred the photo to his computer and enlarged it.

After one quick look, he nodded. "Yeah, I'd say you're sorta right. It's actually a bastardized version of Georgian. As in the former Soviet Georgia." Terry looked at it more closely and frowned. "Where did you get this?" he asked.

I cleared my throat. "I found it."

Terry leaned back in his chair and stared at me. "Not in your mailbox, I hope."

"Of course not. It's not addressed to me, is it?"

Terry shrugged. "No, but it's addressed to . . . well, not a nice word. It would translate roughly to 'Jerkoff.' Or the Georgian version of it."

"So, uh, what does the letter say?"

Terry sighed and stared back at the screen. In a halting manner, as if struggling a bit with the odd use of language, he read: "Dear Jerkoff, It's been nearly a week since we last talked. You are way overdue at this point. You will either pay us in full by the end of the month or you will get an unwelcome visitor. You know how this works. We're very disappointed in you. One with such a stellar record as you should know better. Don't bother to answer without payment included."

Terry continued, his eyes glued to the screen. "It pains me to write this letter, since we've always been friendly, but what you've done is unacceptable." He paused, squinting at the page. "Business is business. End of discussion."

Terry turned from the computer toward me. "The letter ends there."