Chapter 14:
"If you were going to store something in a locker what would it be?" Khari asked curiously. He looked in the rearview mirror to see the black Escalade still following them. No reason to alarm Shiloh, he'd just drive in circles until he lost him.
"I really have no idea, Khari. Let's just get there. WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Do not turn left here. We're driving in circles." Another minute and she was going to knock Khari out. She needed to get to the locker before anyone else found out about it. Khari sighed heavily.
"I'm just not sure of where to go," Khari said drawing another exasperated sigh from Shiloh.
"I can tell you where to go," she grumbled.
"What was that?"
"If you didn't know how to get to the fucking bus station why didn't you say anything sooner?" she yelled instead of repeating herself.
"I'm trying to lose our tail," Khari explained.
"What?" Shiloh looked around feigning surprise.
"Black Escalade. It's been following us," Khari said as calmly as he could.
"You're not going to lose him going 25 and stopping to look both ways," she yelled at him. "How about this? You get us to the station and drop me off. I'll run in and get the stuff out of the locker and meet you back outside." Khari gave a sideways glance at her suggestion.
"But if he wants what we're after he's gonna follow you," he rationalized, shaking his head. "It's gonna be better for us if I just try to lose him." He heard the click of the safety being released from Shiloh's Glock. He felt the cold steel against his neck.
"Shit, Khari, it's gonna be better for you if you just do what I say."
"Black male, 6 feet 6 inches tall. Between 350 and 400 pounds. Driving a Black Bronco..." Joe had been hesitant about putting out an APB. He didn't know how involved with the game Khari was. Common sense told him that the best bet was to get Shiloh and Khari into a controlled environment and figure it out there.
"What do you think?" he asked turning to Stephanie. "You think Khari is mixed up in all of this?" She shrugged. "I don't know either. Where do you think he'd go?" Stephanie puckered her lips and put her forefinger to her ear and her pinkie to her mouth.
"Good thinking, Cupcake," he flipped open his phone. "You know I like you much better like this. That whole communication barrier has fallen." Joe ducked as Stephanie swiped at him.
"What's this all about, Shi?" Khari asked nervously. He was trying to drive as carefully as he could knowing that the slightest bump could cause the hair trigger on the gun to retract.
"It's about betrayal, Khari," Shiloh said. "Here I thought I had Ranger fucking wrapped around my finger. He even showed me a document where I inherit Rangeman if anything happens to him. Turns out he has Lester tailing me. I had to take care of him."
"You killed Ranger?" Khari asked, his voice unsteady.
"No, Bobby killed him. You might want to say that I ordered the hit. This locker, I'm betting it contains all of the evidence that Lester gathered while he was following me. Unfortunately Lester is a sick son of a bitch and tried to blackmail me. I was so sad to hear the someone had gotten to him first because I would have liked to torch his sorry ass. That boy had no morals." Shiloh looked back. "Maybe you should just pull over." She suggested.
"What about Baron? What did he do?" Khari tried to keep his voice from quavering and was nearly successful. He pulled over near a wooded area.
"Hell if I know," Shiloh said shrugging casually. "That was Bobby's game. Maybe when he's working on you, you can ask him. Bobby appeared at the window and Shiloh pulled the gun away. "He may be one sick bastard but he's also one useful bastard." she nodded and Bobby opened the door and pulled Khari out of the car. He threw Khari against the hood and started searching his pockets. Not finding what he was looking for, he stepped back.
"Where is it?" Bobby asked, his voice dangerously calm.
"Where's what?" Khari asked. Bobby smiled and pulled Khari away from the car.
"I was hoping you'd play hard to get," Bobby pulled a long knife from his boot and pushed Khari into the underbrush. Khari had no doubt that he could take Bobby with weight and size but Bobby was crazy and crazy goes a long way in a fight.
"Can I help you, Officer?" Aziza asked pulling the bloody gloves off of her hands. Joe felt his stomach turn.
"I'm Detective Joe Morreli, Vice Squad," Joe said flashing his badge. "I'm looking for Khari Kaplan. I know this is a long shot but I was wondering if you had any information as to his current whereabouts."
"I did talk to him this afternoon but he didn't say what his plans were. I'd guess that he'd be looking in to whatever information was on that note I gave him," she speculated. She washed her hands in the basin and dried them with a terry towel. "I do have some things that I found on Mr. Brown that I intended to give to Mr. Kaplan. I left a message but I've yet to hear from him."
"Note?" Joe asked.
"Oh yea, we were having coffee when a man handed me a note and asked me to give it to Khari. I glanced at the note," she blushed at the admission. "But it was just numbers mostly and I couldn't make any sense of it at all."
"Did Khari understand the note?"
"He didn't look at it. We..." she blushed deeper. "Well, we had a little tiff right after and I ran off before he could look at it."
"Okay," Joe said sympathetically. "Could I look at the information that you intend to pass on to Khari? It may give me some hint as to who would have wanted him dead." Aziza nodded and left the room coming back with the papers a few minutes later. Joe scanned the paperwork.
"Thank you, Dr. Houdra. This fits in to the information that I've gathered so far." He nodded to Stephanie, who had crossed her arms and was looking imposing as was appropriate for her role as the sidekick of Detective Morelli. She had been kicking herself for lacking the forethought to bring the plastic police shield that she'd won ages ago from a machine.
"Let's roll," Joe said handing her the papers. She threw Dr. Houdra and crisp nod and ran after Joe as quickly as her three inch heels would let her.