The Missing Father-In-Law

A Romance Of The Rails Story

By Niagara Rainbow 63

© 2024 NiagaraRainbow63 All Rights Reserved

First Edition

I dedicate this book to the the absurdity of film noir.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Anna

Chapter Two: The Wise Guy Husband

Chapter Three: The G-Man

Chapter Four: Larry

Chapter Five: The Fustercluck

Chapter Six: Picking Up The Pieces

Chapter Seven: Frankie

Chapter Eight: Getting Ready

Chapter Nine: Dinner Surprise

hapter Ten: Turnabout

Chapter Eleven: The Raid

Chapter Twelve: Saving Them

Epilogue: Coast Starlight



Chapter One: Anna

George Caldwell sat in his desk chair, and pondered. George Caldwell, being George Caldwell, was not in an ordinary place, or an ordinary chair, or an ordinary life. He was a different man, marching to the beat of a different drum. The drum of adventure, and the drum of steel wheels over steel rails.

So the desk chair was not an ordinary one; it was covered in black Italian leather, and had originally been the passengers-side front seat of a 1982 Volvo 242c Bertone. It was mounted on a swivel base, and had hand carved arms of solid oak. It was before a large cherry wood desk that took up two-thirds of the room’s width, was against one wall, and was about 8 feet in front of a wall that took up 3/4s of the rooms width. Behind George, between him and that wall, was a hutch made of the same wood containing storage and a desk space for his computer.

Ten feet wide and twenty feet long, the office had many large windows on either side of it, and was paneled in a medium maple wood. This was hardwood, and the space in front of the desk was covered by an intricate Persian wool rug in primarily red and blue, but with many other color accents. Facing the desk were three chairs, also off to the side, arranged with one in the center, and the other two at 45° angles to it. In the angled spaces between them were tables. Continuing away from the desk, against the front wall of the office was a door in the center, flanked by wooden filing cabinets. Everything but the desk chair were bolted to the floor.

George’s desk was clean of everything but what one would expect on a desk: a blotter with a calendar, an elaborate date-and-pen set, a desk lamp, and a cup of coffee. The hutch behind the desk was messier, with papers spread out on top of it except for the space occupied by the computer monitor.

The computer monitor clashed with the office and the desk; it was a flat panel display made primarily out of clear plastic in a futuristic design with a grey bezel, enormous at 22” diagonal, and at the bottom center of the front was a grey logo shaped like an apple with a bite out of it. In front of it was a full function keyboard with black keys in a similar design motif, and a beige MacTrack trackball with three buttons and an enormous trackball that clashed mightily with the futuristic equipment. Underneath the hutch was a brand new PowerMac G4 tower with a 450mhz PowerPC G4 processor, the fastest machine then on the market.

The only other piece of electronic equipment was a NexTel Motorola i1000Plus sitting next to the computer, and an intercom on the main desk.

George was contemplating time and life. It had been good, it had been fun, and it had been fulfilling, but it had settled into rote. He considered spicing it up, but… why? He had the family he needed; his parents, his wife Jill, his partners Akilah and Josh, and their daughter Simcha, his friends Miguel, Sharon, and their kids. His force contacts, his friends at the railroad, all the possessions he ever wanted, and the fun of his business.

It was Wednesday, December 20th, 1999. Less than two weeks until the next century. It had been a over a week since he solved his last case, and he was bored. Bored, bored, bored. He picked up his coffee cup, an original from the City Of Los Angeles, and stared into the cup, as if for inspiration, before sipping some.

"Yo, listen up, we got ourselves a client," Jill's voice blared through the intercom, all high-pitched and cartoonishly receptionist-like.

“Look like Business?” George replied, holding down the intercom.

"Yeah, like, seriously, you gotta check her out. She's a total knockout, I'm telling ya. I'd be worried if Acky wasn't so damn jealous," Jill confidently declared, her voice oozing with a vibrant mix of excitement and arrogance, capturing that unmistakable New York-Chicago accent blend.

“Well, in with her, then.”

A moment later the center door at the other end of the room, and Jill ushered in the client. Jill had been both right and wrong; the woman was a knockout, but not as much of a knockout as Jill. Jill was 19, about 5’4”, with stunning blonde curls, compact yet powerful, with a pretty face. George had never met a girl quite like her, and like this and that she didn’t fit in with the decorum, dressed as she was in cut-off jeans and a blue tank top.

The client was more reserved, but closer to George’s age of 22, so also quite young. She was a knockout, about Jill’s height, but more shapely, although by no means buxom. She looked remarkably like Lola Albright in her heyday, but with straight, slightly wild red hair. She was dressed conservatively, in a light weight linen skirtsuit. The white blouse was cut quite low and went well with the cream suit, clearly indicating the cleavage of her large chest. George could tell that this particular woman had chosen this outfit to emphasize her assets for this visit, possibly indicating that she did not know George and Jill were married.

She must have sought him out specifically. There were quite a number of private investigators in Los Angeles, and he was not the cheapest, nor the best well known. However, his office was located adjacent to his home, on a private storage track belonging to Amtrak in the Los Angeles Yards. It was part of a three car set, consisting of his home, Silver Penthouse, this car, Silver Blanket, and Akilah and Josh’s home, Silver Bridle. That is why everything was kept bolted; the set was kept up to standards required for haulage behind Amtrak trains, and this function was sometimes used.

Getting to it required passage through the gatehouse into Amtrak’s yard, and you had to know he was there to find him. He was in the Yellow Pages, of course, but he didn’t exactly have a sign at the entrance to the yards saying “On-Track Investigations, private detectives.”

“Good morning,” George sad, “You neglected to tell Jill your name, or else she neglected to tell me.”

“Neglect?” The woman looked puzzled, “Oh you mean I didn’t tell her it, naw, I didn’t want to tell you that yet.”

“Do you want to tell me it now?”

“I dunno,” she replied, “We’ll see. I know a lot of you don’t do divorces.”

“Only in bad detective fiction,” George laughed, “If I didn’t do divorces I wouldn’t have any work practically.”

“I want a divorce.”

“I can’t give you a divorce, lady.”

“Why?” The woman looked dumbfounded, and George regretted his sense of humor a little.

“Because we aren’t married,” George grinned at her, “But I can help get you evidence to make your divorce go better, if that evidence is to be found.”

“Oh,” she replied, and then paused to collect herself, “Yeah, well, there’s evidence, man, lotsa evidence, believe me.”

Her conversation and diction contradicted substantially her well ordered and professional appearance, George noted. He had a suspicion that she had married above her station, and, with trouble, put on the facade of more money and class than she had.

“If it is there to be found, we will find it,” George told her, “But I assume there is a story here because California is a community property state and a no-fault divorce state, so I assume there is some reason you want to get all this evidence when you don’t need it or would ordinarily benefit from it. Normally people hire me to get evidence of this sort of thing in order to confirm their suspicions; you seem to already be convinced.”

George had some suspicions about what those would be, but he wanted it explained to him.

“I heard you dicks are hard guys,” the woman dodged the question, “You don’t seem like no hard guy to me.”

George stood up from his desk, rising to his full 6’4” height, letting his well tailored light grey linen suit jacket and pants fall into place, nicely falling around his light blue, open-collared blue shirt. He rested his fists on the desk and leaned forward, emphasizing his robust shoulders, tapered waist, and bulging neck, while also showing off a gold Vacheron Constantin Overseas chronograph on a bracelet on his left wrist.

This went well with a thick gold bracelet on his right wrist, a large ring on his right middle finger in gold saying ‘GCC’, a right pinky ring with a large ruby and four set small diamonds on it, and a heavy gold wedding band on his left ring finger. If the woman did not think George was successful in his business, it was from lack of observation.

“I can hold my own,” he voice boomed, “But if you don’t want to hire me, you can leave.”

“Don’t you loom over me,” she whined, “I want to test you, is all. Can I trust you? I mean really trust you?”

“I apologize,” George sat down again, leaning back in his Volvo, relaxing, “My business is discretion, madam. If you can’t trust me, you are going to have an awful hard time trusting anyone else.”

“Yeah,” she nodded as she stood up, “Ok, but you fuck me I’m going to make you regret it. Here’s the test, my husbands name is Lawrence Mendalbaum. If you can tell me who he is by this time tomorrow, I’ll hire you, okay?”

“By tomorrow? Sit back down, Mrs. Mendalbaum,” George chuckled, and then spun around and picked up the Nextel, pushed a few buttons, and spoke into it, “Acky, Josh, one of you there?”

“Yes, I am here, George,” Akilah’s formal voice came back flatly and crackly over the speaker, “I imagine you need some help, yes?”

“Could you write the name for me?” George said pushing a piece of paper at her; she complied and pushed it back, “I need you to email me a profile on a Lawrence Mendalbaum, resident of Los Angeles, that’s Lawrence, L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E, Mendalbaum, M-E-N-D-A-L-B-A-U-M. Five minute version.”

“You have got it, George,” Akilah’s voice crackled over the phone.

——————————————

Akilah had been laying down on her bed reading a book Josh had got her from the library, Three for the Chair, by Rex Stout, a compilation of three shorter novellas. The one she was reading currently, Immune To Murder had been amusing her. Josh had to go out to see a client for their IT and commercial web site design business, On-Track Designs, and she had been alone at home.

She and Josh really worked two jobs; they ran their consultation business full time, but their largest client, for which they did services entirely different from their main business, was On-Track Investigations. They ran the tech-end for George. It could be quite interesting, as there was often a lot of hands-on work.

She dog-eared the page, and put down the book. Their car, Silver Bridle, had originally been a dome coach, and the way their cars were arranged, their bedroom was at the front of the train, and the window for the inter-car door that faced the turntable had a curtain over it. The king sized bed they shared was against the side wall of the train, perpendicular to it, to provide for ideal space and to facilitate access through the car to the others when the set was under way; if they were under way, she and Josh slept in one of the bedrooms in Silver Penthouse. She left the room and took the two steps down to the under dome corridor past their bathroom and the guest kitchen and back up the stairs into the longer section of the car.

The stairs up gave the option of taking another set of stairs up into the dome, or going in to the living room. At the end of the living room was another corridor which accommodated their office. The car had been a wedding present from George’s father, John Caldwell, when she and Josh had been married, the same night as George and Jill. When she went into her office, she sat down at her desk at her brand new Apple Macintosh Server G4 very similar to George’s own and with an identical monitor.

She opened the search engine she and Josh had designed. It was designed to search practically all information service networks for news stories, dossiers, company records, and even- less than fully legally- government records. It was similar to the newly launched Google system in concept, but much more capable of finding data-driven information, provided adequate formatting of the search request.

She was good at what she did, but she wasn’t expecting to find so much information so fast, nor was she expecting so much of it to be so interesting. She quickly compiled a summary of what she found, along with a few relevant original documents, selected George’s printer, and hit print.

——————————————

“By the way, like, how much do you charge for your services, man?”

“For my services,” George said cautiously, “I charge $650 a day, plus expenses. Expenses include all direct money paid out on your behalf, as well as a number of other things. I could print you out a list, if you like.”

“Yeah, I’d like, man.”

George took the excuse to turn to face the computer as an opportunity to roll his eyes. He wasn’t at all sure he wanted to take the case. As he did so, however, the AOL Instant Messenger tone played, and a message popped up from AckyAbati77, “Printing.”

George opened the file on the desktop of his computer labeled “Price list,” and when it opened in AppleWorks, he selected print. He then turned to the desk surface between his computer hutch and his desk and looked at the Color LaserWriter 12/660. He waited. It did nothing. He waited for a bit more. It still did nothing. After two minutes his face started to turn red.

“$6 grand for this thing and it doesn’t work!” He grumbled angrily, turned back to the Computer, and responded to Akilah with: “It’s not. Not even the damned price list.”

——————————————

Akilah looked at her AIM window with exasperation. This wasn’t news to her; George was… a bit old fashioned. She knew better than to try to go to his office and fix it. She opened the price list, selected print, and her local printer, and then sent the other files to her local printer, draft quality, fastest speed.

In a screech of mechanical whirring and pounding, her speed printer swung into life, its carriage flying back and forth, pounding pixels through the ribbon and on to the paper. George’s insistence on getting the 12-page-per-minute color LaserWriter had baffled her when he chose to buy it two years ago. This ImageWriter II could print the kind of draft information documents they needed almost as fast.

When it finished printing the 20 or so pages, she picked up the form-feed pile of pages, ripped off the last one, ripped off and de-fed the price list page, and stood back up. She already knew that he must have a new client he intended to give the price list to; he wouldn’t have tried to print it, otherwise. She exited her room, turned left, and pulled open the door to the vestibule, stepped through to Silver Blanket, and opened the door into it, and proceeded to walk around the bathroom.

——————————————

The door behind George’s left opened, and a short and slightly nerdy girl walked in. She had straight, black hair, worn down, a bit more then shoulder length. She was dressed in a loose fitting t-shirt and slightly baggy jeans, wearing a pair of thin gold-rimmed glasses, perched on a slightly large Arabic nose. She was a bit swarthy in complexion, and she was carrying a sheath of papers. She placed most of them on George’s main desk, and reached out to hand the remaining sheet to the client.

“Oh, Acky, thank you,” George said, “Mrs. Mendalbaum, meet one of my agents, Dr. Abati.”

“I am still working on my dissertation, George,” Akilah replied, “You know this. Hello, Mrs. Mendalbaum.”

“I’m teasing,” George laughed, “Why didn’t it print?”

“You asked for it to print something at the same time I did,” Akilah replied, “It confuses it. Don’t forget the appendix.”

Akilah went back out of the room with a nod, and George glanced quickly at the front of the report. The guy was important, and owned quite a few things. It surprised him, as this would make things a bit difficult, but he knew this world; his father owned quite a few things, too, not the least of which was a sizable voting block of BNSF Railroad. He casually flipped through the documents, knowing that the final page would contain a doozie, because that was the code Akilah had relayed to him.

It was a doozie. Mr. Lawrence Mendalbaum was currently an important person of interest to the FBI, with the investigation having a task force headed up by an SAIC out of the Los Angeles field office. That officer was apparently a new hire, because last George had been aware, he had been a police detective in Phoenix, Arizona.

FBI Special-Agent-In-Charge Giacobbe DiAbbruzzo- Jack- was a friend of his father’s. Jack’s father, Ottiviano DiAbbruzzo, often called simply Otto Bruiser, had been the chief of Santa Fe Railroad when his father worked there, many many years ago. That was of interest to George, naturally. What he was under investigation for was unclear, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, Jack was attached to the FBI’s organized crime unit.

All of this information was highly classified and shouldn’t be in George’s possession, and he didn’t really know his client; he didn’t even know for sure that she was Mrs. Lawrence Mendalbaum. However, it had piqued his interest. It also made him a touch nervous, because he did not particularly enjoy going up against organized crime. He knew people.

“Incidentally, the charge of $650 is for any day or part of a day we work for you, and digging this up is part of a day,” George said and watched her nod her acceptance of this, “Mr. Lawrence Mendalbaum, born March 16th, 1928, to Hershel and Rachel, nee Lasky, Mendalbaum, primary residence 1027 Summit Dr, Beverly Hills. Owner of Strip Gaming Enterprises- which owns the Belagio, incidentally, Lets Play Entertainment, and 52% of the MendalRent REIT, among other smaller enterprises.

“Married three times,” George continued, “Most recently to Anne Louise McCarthy, July 19th, 1998, who was born May 3rd, 1979. I have a photo stat of your license here, but Dr. Abati’s printer is not good enough for me to tell if you are she. I have a lot more information, but I can tell I already have your attention. Larry’s a bit old for you, isn’t he? Can I see your drivers license?”

“He, lie, hate’s being called Larry,” Anne Louise said, and handed her wallet out of her purse to show to George.

“Anne Louise McCarthy Mendalbaum,” George read, “You look better than your license photo, but then anyone who looks like their license photo is too sick to drive. What do you want me to do with him?”

“I gotta be honest,” Anna Louise responded, “I’m really kinda worried about him, I think he’s cheating on me. Just, uh, just follow him tonight, okay?”

“I thought you wanted a divorce.”

“I wanna know what’s going on,” she shuddered, “I guess I don’t know what I want.”



Chapter Two: The Wise Guy Husband

Two days later, at about 7:30 in the evening, Joshua Abati was sitting in a swivel chair mounted in the back of a 1997 Grumman Route Star aluminum step-van, staring at the output on a computer monitor in front of him. The van was painted white, and had some magnetic signs on the side the identified it as belonging to the Beverly Hills Electrical Services company, one of a dozen such fictitious companies they had magnetic signs for in the step van.

“Still yuh doin’ the chase work I dunn like, Acky-luh,” Josh said into his Nextel, “Dangerous this meshugaus can be.”

Akilah sighed, sitting in her Volvo, and put her Nextel to her mouth, “It is ok, Josh, you just want me in the van with you. Right?”

“Of course in the van I want yuh to be,” Josh came back, “But if not in the van in the car chasing all over the city do I want you to do? Always the crazy exciting things you want to do. A mother you are!”

Jill was sitting next to Josh in the step van, rolling her eyes, looking at another monitor, when she jumped, “Hey, love birds, quit the chit-chat. There's some action happenin' at the gate.”

The van was parked slightly down the street from the Mendalbaum’s large estate on Summit Dr, watching what was going on in the house.

“Which car is it?” George called back on his Nextel, “They have several.”

“Dark the car is,” Josh told him over the Nextel, “Benz, big coupe.”

“That’s his car,” George replied, “Be ready.”

Josh got up out of his seat, while Jill buckled in to hers; Josh stood behind the curtain ready to get into the driver’s seat. Jill looked at him admiringly. He was not too tall, not a mountain like George was, and quite skinny. His mop of slightly shaggy black hair framed his thin face, and his thick glasses. He was a nerd, but a very cute nerd. His huge nose, large ears, brown eyes, and his attitude marked him out as the Brooklyn Jew that he was.

"Ya know what, it's pullin' out now," Jill replied to George.

“Which way is it going to?” Akilah replied, her fingers reaching to the ignition key on the steering column of her Volvo. She was parked on Cove Way, facing Summit Drive.

“He’s goin’ left,” Jill replied.

“I got him. Be ready, Acky,” George said, starting the diesel engine on his 1995 Mercedes E300 Diesel. He was parked on Benedict Canyon.

Starting her Volvo, Akilah replied, “I was born ready, George.”

Mendalbaum’s Mercedes left the house, continuing straight on to Chevy Chase, bypassing George’s Mercedes.

“Damnit, he went straight,” George growled.

“I got this,” Jessica came on from her 1993 Toyota Corolla.

“What the hell are you doing here?” George growled.

“Being back up, what else?” She had been parked on Chevy Chase.

“Jess,” Jill called out, "We freakin' promised your mom you wouldn't get involved in stakeouts, remember?"

Jessica followed behind the Mercedes coupe, a CL600, “I’m 18, I can do what I want.”

“A license you don’t have,” Josh transmitted on his phone as he started up the Grumman to follow the tailing party.

“Jill doesn’t have a license, either.”

“I’m just a secretary,” Jill responded, "And I ain't drivin' no chase car, neither."

George was too busy to weigh in on this, racing down an alley off Benedict Canyon called Roxbury Dr, finally saying, “Ok, Jess, when you get to Ladera, follow him if he keeps on it, I’ll take over if he goes down Whittier, and Acky, you take over from Jess if he turns left on Sunset from Ladera. Ok? We'll argue this out later."

"Why is Acky taking over for me? I can turn left on Sunset!"

"It's a rotating tail, Jess," Jill replied, "Nobody turns left on Sunset from Ladera, the car behind him doing that would be suspicious, we rotate, you want to join us, you follow the rules!"

Mendalbaum's CL600 turned on to Whittier, and George took over.

"Jess, you turn left on Sunset; Acky, you hold back in case he turns right on Sunset and heads your way," Jill called into her Nextel, keeping a close eye on Akilah's Volvo and George's Mercedes on her map display. "Man, I wish I had Jess's car poppin' up on this map too.”

The tale continued like this, the cars rotating as Mendalbaum continued down Sunset past the Beverly Hills Hotel, down West Halloway, onto Santa Monica Boulevard, and on to the 101 freeway.

"He's going 90!" Jessica called into her nextel, "What do I do?"

"I got him," George replied, the diesel straight six barely able to handle the speed, and grumpily, at that.

"I have him also," Akilah came back.

"For us do the holding back," Josh told her.

"Yeah," Jill added, "We're only a mile behind you."

A few minutes later, "Eye Ten," Akilah called to them.

"Got it," George replied.

"Excuse me," Akilah continued about five minutes later, "Does he have one of those get out of jail cards? He's doing a hundred and ten!"

"Tell me about it!" George replied, "I mean, Pamona, really?"

"He's fallin' off my map," Jill chimed in after a while, her voice carrying a sense of urgency. "You guys almost in Palm Springs?"

"Just passed the exit," George confirmed, "He's still going. I'll update you every few minutes."

"State 86," Akilah chimed in a bit later, "Indio."

“He’s still freakin’ going!” George chimed in a bit later.

“He is getting off 86,” Akilah chimed in as midnight turned over, “Brawley, I think, First Street. I am going past.”

“I got him,” George continued.

"Turn right right now, Acky!" Jill called out, her voice filled with a sense of urgency. "Limited chance to join later.”

“Don’t worry, he’s turning into a parking lot, thank god,” George added, “How far out are you two?”

“Three,” Jess chimed in.

“Oh brother,” George replied, “How far?”

“Forty minutes,” Jill said flatly.

“Shaitan,” Akilah cursed.

“Grocery store, Acky.”

“I see it. It appears to be abandoned, yes?”

“Yeah. You be ready, I’m going in.”

“Check that,” Akilah replied

“40 minutes out we still nearly are,” Josh squawked, “Blind we will be for a while.”

“At least 15 minutes,” Jill added.

“Can’t be helped,” George said in to his Nextel, nosing his car into a parking spot in front of the closed grocery store Mendalbaum had driven behind. The trip had taken four hours, and a man doesn’t leave his mansion for meeting in the middle of the desert behind a closed grocery store at midnight without a damned good reason.

George got out of his diesel, and shut the door softly, moving swiftly but silently along the side wall of the store and peering behind it. Mendalbaum was pounding on a back door of the store, apparently to some kind of office area with windows. George waited until Mendalbaum was invariably let inside the building, and then crept closer and peered into the window. It was dirty, but he could see in.

Mendalbaum had sat in a chair facing a desk in what looked to be a overly elaborate office for the backroom of an abandoned grocery store in the middle of nowhere. There were three other men in the room, one of which looked like a heavy, one looked like a nerd, and the third, who was sat behind the desk, gave the impression of authority. The man behind the desk was talking, occasionally pausing to let Mendalbaum speak.

This was confusing to George. Mendalbaum was a wealthy, powerful, influential man. This looked like an underling going to see a boss, an unruly child being lectured in the principals office. As the meeting went on the ‘Boss’ stood up and started to lecture, and then growing impatient, pacing around, talking in a manner that seemed grandiose yet angry. Mendalbaum almost seemed a bit flippant.

George slipped to the door Mendalbaum went in and momentarily tried it, and was surprised to find it unlocked. He opened it and looked into the hallway, finding it empty, and crept to the open door of the office, looking in. Now he could hear everything.

“Larry, Larry, Larry,” the boss said, now standing right in front of him, “We got your father-in-law, and we can get anything else we want. Frankie is done on the strip, forget about it. You just start the paying of the skim to us and we’ll take care of it.”

“Rico, when Frankie hears about this you are going to get it,” Mendalbaum said, “I’m still scared of him. Why don’t you-”

George had seen enough. The heavy had been watching this with great attention, and had been ignoring the door; George took out his trusted Sig-Sauer 9mm, and pistol whipped the heavy as he sprang through the door, sending him collapsing to the ground, and then pointed the gun a Rico.

“Follow me, Mr. Mendalbaum,” George said.

“Are you fuckin’ crazy, kid?” Rico spat at him, “Do you know who we fuckin’ are, or what?”

“Of course I know who you are,” George said, “An idiot with a gun pointed at him, so spare me the B-movie lines.”

“You ain’t gonna fuckin’ shoot me, kid.”

George aimed and fired the gun so that the bullet flew half an inch over Rico’s head and into the cinder block wall with a thwack.

“Want to bet your life on it?” George replied. Mendalbaum got up from his chair and started for the door.

“You just lost yours, kid,” Rico spat.

“Ain’t over until your mom sings, pal,” George replied, backing out after Mendalbaum.

“My mom can’t sing,” Rico replied.

“Nevertheless, she’s a fat lady,” George said as he urged Mendalbaum out the door, “Acky, back of the store, NOW!”

“15 seconds,” Akilah sqwauked back.

“Fuck you, kid,” Rico growled, “I gotta gun, too, and I’m gonna fucking use it!”

“I could use mine first,” George said coolly, listening to the approaching screaming engine and squealing tires, followed by more screaming as the car came to a stop outside, “Get in the back, Mendalbaum!”

Standing in the parking lot between Mandelbaum’s Mercedes and the door to the building was a large beige Volvo wagon. Mendalbaum complied with trepidation, and George ran in, pushed him to the other side of the car, and was slamming the door shut as Akilah already had it in reverse, gunning the engine, and dumped the clutch. The car shot backwards in a cloud of rear tire smoke.

Akilah jerked the wheel quickly to the right before twisting it sharply to the left, while shifting into first and holding the clutch, then as the car completed its Rockford turn, dropped the clutch again and the car took off with shocking speed for the exit of the parking lot.

Rico by this point had gotten out of the building with his gun and let fly three shots, one of which hit the back of the Volvo’s tailgate; by then it was out of range of any further shots.

It wasn’t just any Volvo; it had been Akilah’s 21st birthday present from George. It was a 1997 Volvo 960 wagon in beige, with what Akilah liked to call Paul Newman spec. It was a 960, but with a beefed up rear end, and a heck of a powertrain. It was inspired by similar cars built for that actor; it had a 360bhp 4.6 liter DOHC V8 from a Mustang Cobra breathed on to stage three levels by Roush performance, complete with a supercharger. Stiffened Bilstein shocks, wheels modified to be larger while looking stock, and a five-speed manual transmission.

While the stock Volvo 960 wagon had a 2.9 liter 201 bhp straight-six giving it a 0-60 time of 9 seconds and a top speed of 130 mph, this thing was different. Being only three hundred pounds heavier than a Mustang Cobra, the car didn’t really trail it much in performance. They had taken it to a drag strip, where it recorded a 0-60 time of five seconds flat, on to a quarter mile in 13.8 seconds at a trap speed of 108 mph. While it had no limiter, George had been in the car while Akilah had done some night testing, still perceptively accelerating when the car pinned its 145 mph speedometer, and clearly hitting a speed in excess of 160 mph.

Additional modifications had been made to ensure its potency was not obvious. It used a valved exhaust that made its idle sound a little weedy, and northing like the burble of its V8 engine. The wheels looked like the hubcaps on a 940 wagon of a few years earlier, and like they were 15”, when they were in fact 17”, an effect accomplished by adding fake tire rubber around the rim. It wasn’t totally convincing; looking at it from the front or rear would reveal that the tires were 260-width rather than the 195/15s the 940 came with, and the dual exhausts were visible if you really looked at the bottom of the car, even though a fake, stock looking single pipe exited where it normally would. It fooled almost everybody, until the hammer was put down.

Cars weren’t George’s thing, or Jill’s, or Josh’s. George was a good tail man, and pretty competent operator, but Akilah was an artist. Driving was her passion; she went racing for fun. The car exited the store’s parking lot in a handbrake turn, and shot through a just turned red light, making a fast left turn back onto 86.

“I hope the law is not around at this hour,” Akilah grumbled, “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” George said, “Jill, what motels are near the Salton Sea?”

“Ain't many options," Jill replied over the Nextel, her voice laced with a hint of contemplation. “'Specially this time-o-year. How about Sun and Sea in Desert Shores, maybe?"

“Alright, lets head there,” George replied.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Mendalbaum exclaimed, “Rico’s going to be fucking looking for us!”

“Exactly. And he’s going to think we’re going to be making a B-line for LA. Let’s fool him and not go far.”

“I was just wondering, George,” Akilah said carefully, “If you have any porpoise beyond sleep?”

That piqued George’s interest, and he responded, “Sleep, rest, hiding, mostly. I do wonder if it you are positive this should be questioned.”

“I am positive I do not want to question anything,” Akilah replied, “Is it a secret I want to know everything we are doing?”

“Not to me,” George replied, “But maybe to others. I do appreciate employees who provide model behavior.”

It was a little stilted, but Larry didn’t seem to pick up on it: Porpoise, instead of purpose, was telling George there was a tail- from Through The Looking Glass- ‘Could you go a little faster, said the swallow to the fly, there’s a porpoise close behind me and he’s trodding on my tail.’ George than asked her if she was sure, and she responded that she was, and wondered if George wanted to keep this observation from the client. George had indicated that he did want to do that.

“As such a model employee, things like that crown I got should not be so unaffordable,” Akilah responded, “It is more affordable to get an Amalgam filling, but those are so black. I could get three of them, for less green. It’s almost the same.”

Coded conversation wasn’t the easiest thing, especially for conversing details. Akilah was saying there were two almost identical Mercury Grand Marquis, in green, and black.

“Well, gee,” George responded, “I think I should give you a raise.”

“I agree,” Akilah responded.

They were agreeing, the cars probably belonged to the FBI.



Chapter Three: The G-Man

When the Volvo arrived at the motel, the step-van and Jessica’s Corolla were already there. Akilah parked the Volvo around the back of the motel as Jill secured three rooms for the night. The motel was typical of a tourist area, and not particularly run down. Lawrence sat down on the chair in the corner of the room. Josh, Jill, and Akilah sat on one of the beds, and George remained standing.

“Your wife thought you were cheating on her,” George explained, “I don’t think that’s what’s happening. What exactly is happening?”

“I hope you aren’t making a mess of it,” Lawrence said, “I love Anne, but she is so stupid sometimes, truly clueless, you know?”

“Trust me, that I know,” Gerge replied, “How she found my name, I’ll never know.”

“What is your name, boychik?”

“George Caldwell.”

“You kidding me? On-Track, am I right?”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“Well that’s where she found you from, okay?” Lawrence said, telling George that Anne was friends with a famous singer, “Remember you did that job for her about a year ago dealing with that fahrkakte blackmailer?”

"I din't know she was spreadin' that around," Jill muttered, her voice filled with a mix of annoyance and surprise.

“Yeah, well, they are that close, like,” Lawrence replied, “How long you been with this outfit, kid?”

“What is it with all the questions?” Josh spat, “Found us through her friend, she did, with how long we worked here, what’s that got to do? On the ground floor we all got on, ok?”

“Whoa, baby doll, no need to get all excited, okay?” Lawrence offered a placating pair of hands, “You don’t wanna tell me, don’t tell me, its all wonderful. Look, I’ll just spell it out, Anne, her father’s been kidnapped, okay? They want me to change sides to get him back, only, baby doll, I’m not that dumb.”

“Because they would kill Anne’s father anyway,” Akilah chimed in.

“I guess you don’t think as well as you drive, honey,” Larry said, “I like Cal, I do, but what I’m worried is Frankie’ll kill me. Rico don’t scare me as much as Frankie, you get what I mean?”

“I get what you mean,” George replied, “But I don’t know the players.”

“You’re better off not knowing, if you know what’s good for you,” Larry said, “Besides, you’ll know soon enough.”

Before George could grill him some more, Jessica called him on the phone and told him that two Mercury Grand Marquis, a Dodge Ram Van, and a Lincoln Town Car had pulled in together at a parking lot across the road.

“Jill, I got to go out and make a call,” George said, “Keep an eye on Mr. Mendalbaum for us, ok?”

“Yeah, sure thing,” Jill replied.

George walked out of the motel room, looked at the gathering of cars next door, thought for himself for a moment, and then decided to just walk across the road to see them. G-Men, alright- they were all reading newspapers. In the dark. Without dome lights. He walked over the Lincoln, which had tinted back windows, and knocked on the driver’s side rear window.

“Hey, Jack, open up,” George said.

The door unlocked, and George opened it, go in, an sat in the back seat, closing it behind me.

“Hi, Jack,” George said.

“Let’s drop the pleasantries,” Special Agent In Charge Giacobbe ‘Jack’ DiAbbruzzo growled, “and just tell me how the fuck you knew I was in the back seat of this car.”

“Well, I will say I was surprised you were here, Jack,” George replied, “I didn’t think you would be part of the tail squad.”

“I wasn’t,” Jack replied, “My guys tagged your van and your girlfriend’s Volvo as soon as you started that damned stakeout on Mendalbaum’s house, I mean come on, you think we don’t know there’s no Beverly Hills Electrical Services nowhere? As soon as they knew you was going out of LA they called me. Tell me why I shouldn’t have you arrested!”

“I didn’t design the cover to withstand FBI scrutiny,” George replied, getting annoyed, “I should’ve. I go up against pros sometimes, and if you can catch it, god help me.”

“Real funny,” Jack said without laughter, “I know I’m friends with your old man and all, but that don’t mean you get no special treatment. Tell me why I shouldn’t have you arrested, I tell you!”

“I would have called that a question, so I would have said ‘asked you’, rather than ‘tell you,’ which incidentally would also be the correct tense,” George said in a clipped tone, “But I would feel better asking you why you should have me arrested. Closed tails aren’t illegal.”

“It’s harassment of a private citizen.”

“No, open tails are harassment, closed tails are not.”

“It’s an invasion of privacy!”

“Jack, I know they don’t hand out SAIC badges in Cracker Jack boxes, so I know you know the law better than this,” George pointed out, “I know the law, and so do you, and we both know that I am not breaking any of them. You also know that I am not interfering in an investigation if I didn’t know you were investigating him, and I didn’t make your guys, god knows why, until we were driving to this motel.”

“My guys are good.”

“Which car was I in?”

“Your girlfriend’s Volvo.”

“Your guys suck,” George replied, “You picked out the two most conspicuous tail vehicles out of four of them, even though you should have been looking for my diesel Mercedes and it’s pretty distinctive, too. You also somehow think that Akilah is my girlfriend when I am married.”

“So your wife doesn’t know, big deal,” Jack leered, “You want some A-rab booty on the side.”

“She was in the step van,” George replied patiently, “We could continue this verbal jousting all night, and it would accomplish what we’ve accomplished so far, which is nothing. I know you didn’t line up what is clearly an FBI surveillance team and their controller’s car all nice and pretty like they had a neon sign on them because you have borscht for brains. I assume you wanted to talk to me. I assume talking to me had a point, because you probably underestimated me and didn’t think I had even spotted you yet. Assuming it did have a point, can we get to it?”

“We’re moving in on Frankie, and I don’t want you spoiling it for us. Back off.”

“His name is Lawrence.”

“We don’t give a fuck about Larry,” Jack replied, “He’s too clean to nab anyway. I want fucking Frankie. You know who Frankie is.”

“I know somebody mentioned it tonight, but no, I don’t know who Frankie is,” George said levelly, even though he did in fact have a good idea who Frankie was.

“I know I let you off for Charlie, but I’m not doing that again no more.”

“I’m sorry, you lost me at the last pass, Jack.”

“George, don’t kid me about this,” Jack replied, “Four years ago, in Arizona, you dismantled Charlie Croker’s gang. Charlie committed suicide, and his gang haven’t pulled a dang thing since. I know you and your dad were involved.”

“Charlie Croker?” George replied, “Like from The Italian Job? I’m not even a fan of Michael Caine.”

“‘Charlie’ Croker, the owner of Sea-Guard Trucking,” Jack said, “The one your father suspected of having something to do with the derailment of the Sunset Limited in Palo Verde.”

“I categorically deny knowing a ‘Charlie' Croker,” George said, “that such a man derailed the Sunset Limited attempting to derail and rob the freight train behind it, that Sea-Guard trucking was a front for a highly organized ring of thieves run by Croker, that I caught him and called him out for it, or that his death was because he couldn’t live with the death of a sleeping car porter on that train.”

That was a preview of The Missing Father In Law. To read the rest purchase the book.

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