Say the Word(64)

Not that I couldn’t use his help. After all, he’d spent his college years as a semi-professional celebrity stalker. A simple stakeout would come practically second nature to him, at this point. But where Simon went, Fae soon followed. And, though I loved my best friend, when the name of the game was stealth, she wasn’t the first person who came to mind. With her knockout good looks and designer fashion addiction, she made a lasting impression everywhere she went — which just so happened to be the exact opposite of my intentions for this mission.

Alas, beggars can’t be choosers, so here we were, crammed into what I think at one point in ancient history had been a Volvo, but now more closely resembled a dumpster with wheels. There were so many mismatched replacement parts in various colors, it was impossible to tell what the original hue had been. None of the four doors were the same shade, nor did the trunk match the hood. What resulted was a patchwork of lemon yellow, dark red, shiny green, and matte blue, that came together in the approximate shape of a car.

Totally incognito. A trained police officer would never spot us tailing him.

I groaned and began to bang my head against the dash, wishing I’d never dragged the two of them into this. It had all the makings of an impending disaster and, frankly, I’d have been better off alone, on foot, holding a large sign that said “HEY SANTOS, I’M FOLLOWING YOU!” Because, let’s face it, even that spectacle would probably draw less attention than Fae and Simon’s secret-mission shenanigans.

“Baby, you’re gonna mess up my dash if you keep that up,” Simon chided.

I glanced at the dusty, peeling, faux-leather dash incredulously, wondering what Simon’s version of “messed up” looked like. Fae giggled from the backseat.

“This is going to be a disaster,” I muttered.

“Chin up, sweets.” Simon grinned at me. “I’ve got mad stalker skills. Just you wait.”





***


As much as I hated to admit it, Simon was kind of right. He did indeed possess mad stalker skills.

Finding out which station Santos worked at had been easy enough with the help of the internet. Once I’d finished my own search last night, Simon and Fae had come over. I’d quickly brought them up to speed on the Miri situation and they’d helped me hatch a plan to track down Santos. They were excited enough about the adventure we’d schemed up; whether they actually believed any part of my crazy theory or were just going along with it out of friendship, was a different matter entirely.

Simon had the wheels and the surveillance experience. But it was Fae, the Yoda of flirtatious Jedi mind-trickery, who really came through for us in the end. She called the station during her Wednesday lunch hour, while the more seasoned officers were likely to be out grabbing food, and caught a young recruit in her web. A few minutes of giggling at his lame jokes were enough to charm the love-struck rookie into slipping up about Santos’ shift schedule — especially after she mentioned how much she wanted to come by in person to “thank that nice older officer named Santos who’d helped her when her heel got stuck in a grate last week.” The young officer, all too eager for a chance encounter with the girl on the phone, promptly revealed that Santos came in each evening to work the night shift, from 6:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.

Fast-forward six hours, and the three of us were on our way to the 6th Precinct Station, in the heart of the Village. I supposed the only plus side to our mission was the fact that Simon and Fae were too distracted channeling Bonnie and Clyde to press me for details about my first three days of work with Sebastian. If I told them what had happened Monday night, they were liable to obsess for hours on end, dissecting each remark and gesture Sebastian had made until I was forced to throw myself from the moving vehicle. And, honestly, I’d been doing quite enough of my own obsessing, especially in light of Sebastian’s unexplained absence both yesterday and today.

We pulled up across the street from the police station and found a parking space about half a block down. According to Simon, that way we were close enough to watch who came and went, without being obvious about the fact that we were watching. I decided to take his word for it. The photograph of Santos I’d printed out last night was sitting on the dashboard, so we could be sure we’d spotted the right guy. I studied it as Simon hopped out of the car and crammed a handful of quarters into the meter. Fae was busy in the backseat, rooting around her seemingly bottomless black hobo bag.

“Aha!” Fae exclaimed, pulling a small item from her purse.

“What?” Simon asked, sliding back into the driver’s seat.

“Tell me those aren’t what I think they are.” I groaned.

“Binoculars!” She laughed excitedly, pulling the lens caps off and lifting them to her eyes. She fiddled with the focus knobs for a minute, turning fully around in her seat to check her view of the station through the rear windshield. “Oh yeah. These babies are ready to rock.”

“I’m not even going to ask why you have those,” I told her.

“She has a hot neighbor,” Simon explained. “Sometimes he hangs from his chin-up bar and does crunches…”

“Enough said.”

“Guys!” Fae interjected.

“Usually he does core workouts on Thursday nights,” Simon added. “You should come next week. It’s quite a show. We make popcorn and everything.”