Someone Else

Chapter 30 (Marcus)

The sound of his cell phone buzzing was a welcome reprieve from the annoying drone of Tommy's whimpering. Marcus saw it was Key's number and answered with a distinct feeling of smugness. "Yeah?"

Key immediately cut in with his usual air of superiority, "I don't know what the hell's taking you so long, but it doesn't matter cause I got the waitress' address."

"How?" Marcus asked, momentarily forgetting that his news trumped this revelation.

"Seems Honolulu had a spy who got her plate number."

"And you called Squirrel to track down the address." Marcus instantly understood.

"He gave me her apartment info in less than thirty seconds." Key sounded impressed, but then his voice went cold again. "So you guys can quit dicking around and bust your ass down the canyon to meet us at her apartment. I'll text you the address."

Marcus bristled at the insinuation that he hadn't been pulling his weight. He could imagine the hushed conversation between Key and Tam'ra back at Virgin Ink, where his counterpart, as usual, would take all the credit. Of course, this time he had the perfect comeback and he wanted to let Key mouth off as much as possible, before hitting him with the mother lode.

"You think I haven't been doing anything, huh? Well, then I guess you don't want to hear my news?" He sounded more defensive than he intended.

"What news?" Key asked impatiently.

"I'll tell you after I finish dicking around."

"Tell me."

"Okay, okay." He didn't want to overplay his hand. "The guy we're searching for...the guy who looks like Ben...his name is Jeff Rydell."

"Jeff Rydell?" The name, of course, meant nothing to Key. "How the hell do you know that?"

"After spending some time alone with Ben's little bitch, I got him to give up the name," he said, chest puffed out with pride.

"He's probably bullshitting you," Key said dismissively. "That thumbless little shit still thinks he's gonna steal the money for himself."

"He's not bullshitting me," Marcus said with certainty. "We just searched for him on Facebook. Couldn't find a Jeff Rydell, but we found his brother, Revere Rydell."

When Tommy scrolled through Revere Rydell's page, Marcus noticed a photo of a guy he immediately recognized as Ben Flanagan. He and the Revere guy were wearing white dress shirts with ties and posed for the camera outside a church, their arms awkwardly around each other's shoulders. The photo had a caption that read, Finally got Jeff back to church (snuck off for a coke after sac meeting). The Ben-looking dude, Jeff, didn't show up in any other photos, but a simple Google search later and they had Revere Rydell's home address in Centerville.

"I saw a picture of the guy. He looks exactly like Ben. I'm talking i-fucking-dentical."

"And?" Key shot back.

"Well, we don't got Jeff's address, but we know where his brother lives. And he'll cooperate—he's got a wife and two young kids."

"And it just so happened that Tommy remembered the guy's name out of nowhere?"

"Give me some credit, man," Marcus responded. "I coaxed the name out of him."

"And you're sure he doesn't also know where this Jeff Rydell is? Thumbless bastard's probably in on it with him."

"I'm sure Tommy's told me everything he knows," Marcus said with absolute confidence as he glanced over to his reluctant partner, who sat sulking on a kitchen stool with a freshly bloodied rag draped over his injured hand. A hand that was not only missing a thumb, but now lacked a pinkie finger.

"Okay, text me the brother's address. Ben and I will hit him up while you and the gimp go check out the waitress' apartment."

"I'm on it," he replied with enthusiasm.

"And Marcus?"

"Yup?" He figured he would gracefully accept the praise for a job well done.

"Don't fuck this up."