“Want to make yourself a quick buck?”
The janitor hustled over to the wall. He was Hispanic with a face older than his years. South Florida was filled with boat people who’d fled Cuba looking for a better life, only to discover the best they could do was menial jobs in the service industry. Lancaster pulled himself up so he was sitting on the wall.
“My name’s Jon. What’s yours?”
“Jorge,” the janitor said.
“Hey, Jorge, nice to meet you. My girlfriend and I just had a fight, and she tossed my cell phone over the wall. That will teach me to forget our anniversary. I’ll make it worth your while if you’ll look around the grounds and find it for me.”
“You want me to find your cell phone,” Jorge said, sounding pissed.
“It won’t take five minutes. Come on, I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Sure you will.”
“You’re not going to help me?”
“No. I need to finish up.”
“What if I come over and look myself?”
“You can’t do that.”
His anger was palpable. Had Jorge been a doctor or professional person back in Cuba? Lancaster had met Cubans with degrees who weren’t allowed to practice in the States, and it had hardened them. Pulling out his wallet, he removed a handful of cash.
“Fifty bucks for your trouble. How does that sound, Jorge?”
Jorge stared at the money, and his eyes took on a faraway expression. Lancaster imagined him climbing aboard a makeshift boat made of tires and making the treacherous passage to Key West only to discover the promised land wasn’t so great after all.
“Make it a hundred,” Jorge said.
“You first have to find my cell phone.”
Jorge removed a cell phone with a broken screen from his pants pocket.
“I already did,” the unhappy Cuban said.
Chapter 17
The Skin Canvas
Back in his car, Lancaster attempted to power up Kenny’s cell phone and got a dark screen for his trouble. Under the hope it was a power issue, he plugged the cell phone into the charger connected to his car’s cigarette lighter. Nothing happened. Kenny’s smashing it on the pavement had been the kiss of death.
He was getting pissed. Nicki’s stalkers were good at covering their tracks, and he still didn’t have a solid reason why they were pursuing her. Did they share a crazy fetish about teenagers belting out songs from old Broadway musicals? It was a stretch, and he had to believe something darker was lurking below the surface.
Lancaster’s cell phone beeped. The battery was dying, and he replaced Kenny’s phone in the charger with his own. His phone was new, courtesy of his ex-girlfriend tossing the old one out of a moving car. Replacing it had been a snap. A quick trip to the Verizon store and forty-five minutes later he’d walked out with a new Droid, his contacts and apps restored. Kenny’s phone was also a Droid, and he wondered if Kenny had bought it from Verizon, which had more locations than a hamburger chain. If he had, then all his data was stored in the cloud and could be easily restored. It gave him an idea, and thirty seconds later he was talking to a Haitian named Croix Tedesco.
“How’s the forgery business?” he asked.
“Those days are behind me,” Croix said in his lilting Caribbean accent. “I run a tattoo parlor these days.”
“That’s not what I hear. I hear you’re banging out fake visas for immigrants who’ve overstayed their welcome. I hear these visas are so good that they even fool ICE agents.”
Croix coughed into the phone. “What do you want, Jon?”
“I need a fake driver’s license and matching credit card,” he said.
“I see. Come by tomorrow and I’ll make one for you. My tattoo parlor is called the Skin Canvas and is on Sunrise Boulevard across the street from the Family Dollar store. My office is in the back.”
“Let me rephrase that. I need a fake driver’s license right now.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. I’m heading out to dinner.”
“Stay right there. Understood?”
“It’s my wedding anniversary. My wife will not be happy with me.”
“Listen, my friend, I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. If I get there, and you’re gone, I’ll turn your life upside down. Am I making myself clear?”
The line went quiet. Lancaster waited him out. He’d been working undercover for the sheriff’s office when he’d inadvertently stumbled across Croix running a false passport operation. Some criminals were more useful not behind bars, and he’d used Croix to create false identities to help him catch some very bad people. Their relationship was a solid one, but at the end of the day, Croix was still breaking the law, and could be taken down with a single phone call.
“Loud and painfully clear,” the forger said. “I’ll be here.”
The Skin Canvas was doing a brisk business, and he drove behind the building to park. Back when he was a teen, the only people with tattoos were military or worked in carnival sideshows. Now everybody and his sister was getting inked.
He approached the back door. A Mercedes 500SL was parked in a spot marked Reserved. Croix had done well for a guy who’d come to the States with just the shirt on his back. On the Mercedes’s rear bumper was a Pine Crest School sticker. He knocked, and when the door swung in Croix pretended to be happy to see him. Croix was a small man, delicate boned, and favored silk shirts with colorful patterns and fine gold jewelry.
“You mad at me?” he asked.
“Yes,” the forger said. “My wife is pissed.”
“I’ll pay you back someday. This is important.”
Croix ushered him inside, and he entered a windowless room filled with the finest 3-D printing equipment money could buy. The room’s AC was kept ice cold to ensure the humidity did not harm the equipment. From the front of the building came the steady hum of mechanical needles puncturing human skin.
“How do you put up with that noise?” he asked.
“You get used to it. Have a seat so I can take your picture.”
He sat on a stool in front of a blue screen while Croix spent a minute adjusting the room’s light. The forger was usually talkative; not so tonight. Lancaster didn’t want to ruin the relationship and decided to level with him. “Let me explain what’s going on. I’ve been hired by a family to protect their teenage girl, who’s being stalked by a group of perverts. The girl is clean. Not selling drugs or posting dirty pictures of herself on the internet. She goes to Pine Crest School. Doesn’t one of your kids go there?”
Croix’s jaw tightened. “Who told you that?”
“I saw the bumper sticker on your car. Which one?”
“Brie, my oldest. She really likes it. What did this girl do to draw this unwanted attention to herself?”
“She didn’t do anything.”
“What you’re implying is that this could be my daughter.”
“Or one of her classmates.”
“This is disturbing. What is this girl’s name?”
“Nicki Pearl.”
“That name sounds familiar. Don’t move.” Croix snapped a head shot with a camera mounted on a tripod, then removed a thumb drive from the back of the camera and transferred the image to a computer sitting on a desk. Using a software program, he mounted the photo onto the template of a Florida driver’s license while Lancaster looked over his shoulder.
“What grade is she in?” Croix asked.
“Nicki’s fifteen, so I guess she’s in the tenth grade. You may have seen her in a musical the school put on, Once Upon a Mattress. She was one of the leads.”
“Ah, yes, now I remember her. A lovely child. But what you’ve said makes no sense. Why are these men stalking her? What has she done to make them want her?”