Perfect Strangers

a bustling city complete with a downtown financial district and out-of-town commuter belt. There was barely an inflatable dolphin to be seen. Certainly not in Sistrunk, the run-down neighbourhood their taxi was crawling through. Sophie was feeling more uncomfortable by the minute as they pulled up at a red light. On both sides were pawn shops and pizza joints, along with a liquor store that had a grille instead of a door, presumably to discourage hold-ups. A group of kids – no more than nine or ten – sat on BMX-style bicycles outside the store, openly smoking a joint; Sophie could smell the sickly-sweet herb through the open window. The light turned green and they moved off, past a down-and-out pushing a shopping trolley full of cans, past a red-brick church with a hoarding reading ‘Thou Shalt Not KILL’, past a single palm tree jutting out of a vacant lot, waving like a flag of surrender for the American Dream.

‘You sure you guys want this address?’ said the driver, glancing at them in his mirror, as they turned into a side street and pulled up outside a crumbling apartment complex.

Sophie looked up at the graffiti-scarred walls and wished she was back in the comfort of Lana’s Gulfstream that had brought them from New York.

In the last twenty-four hours she’d clocked up more air miles than your average pilot. After their meeting with Andrea Sayer, they had checked into an anonymous two-star hotel on the Lower East Side and called Lana. She had told them to get some sleep, then meet her – and the jet – at Teterboro at seven a.m. From there they flew straight to Fort Lauderdale executive airport, then into town to meet Tyler Connor. Lana had gone south to Miami, where she apparently had some friends.

I’m not surprised she didn’t want to hang around here, thought Sophie, looking at the building’s barred windows. It was exactly how she imagined a drug dealer’s house to look.

‘Can you wait for us?’ said Josh, slipping the driver a twenty-dollar tip.

‘Sure, but don’t be too long, huh?’ he said, his gold tooth winking at them in the sunshine.

Michael Asner’s biker cellmate lived in a complex called Shoreside Villas, a run-down block arranged around a pool long since drained of water and, despite its name, without any glimpse of shoreline.

‘Shouldn’t we have met him by the beach or in a diner or somewhere?’ whispered Sophie to Josh as they walked around to apartment 2b. Josh’s glance told her he agreed with her.

‘We won’t be long. Just a few questions, then we’re out of here, okay?’

Josh knocked twice. Inside, they could hear the thump of rock music. He slammed his fist against the door instead; it immediately opened a crack. ‘Yeah?’ said a deep voice.

‘You Ty?’ said Josh. ‘I’m the dumb-ass Limey who called earlier.’

There was a pause, then a gale of booming laughter and the door swung open.

‘Come on in, funny guy,’ said the man-mountain standing just inside. ‘And bring your bitch with you.’

Despite six weeks of Miami sunshine, Tyler Connor’s skin was still jail-cell white and covered in the smudged spidery tattoos of the correctional system. He was at least six foot five, with a fifty-inch chest, Sophie estimated. He was not fat, just bulky from prison yard weights, his arms bulging under a T-shirt that read ‘No Wuckin’ Furries’. His beard was scrappy and his face narrow, but the one thing you noticed were his eyes – they were so dark, they looked like the ends of expired matches. He was quite terrifying – as was his apartment. It was dingy and cluttered, lit only by a lamp with a red bandanna draped over it and the glare of the TV, currently showing a porn video. There was a half-assembled motorcycle in the hallway and the low coffee table was covered in what looked like drug paraphernalia.

‘So who do we have here?’ purred Ty as Sophie shuffled inside. ‘A fancy bit of Euro-pussy, huh? So you lost all your money with Mikey, baby-doll?’ he said, leering at her. ‘You want Ty to make it all better, huh?’

Josh took a protective step in front of Sophie, but she turned to face the big man.

‘No, Mr Connor,’ she said. ‘Someone is trying to kill me and I need your help to work out who.’

The lecherous smile faded from his face.

‘And what’s in that for me, sugar?’

Josh pulled out a roll of dollar bills and tossed it to the biker. He gave it an uninterested glance, then pushed it into his pocket.

‘You got any smokes?’

Josh took a packet of Marlboro reds from his jacket and shook one out. Sophie was once again impressed. Josh was not a smoker – he’d come prepared. Ty lit the cigarette from a Zippo lighter, then spread himself across a creaking armchair, gesturing to the sofa next to the table.

He had the courtesy to switch off the porno video.

‘So who d’you piss off, English girl?’ he said, blowing smoke at Sophie.

She shrugged, determined not to show how much Tyler Connor intimidated her.

‘That’s what we want you to tell us. You shared a cell with Michael Asner for over six months. Did he ever mention a Benedict Grear to you?’

Ty blew a smoke ring into the air, then let his mouth open and close with a popping sound.

‘Never heard of him. Who is he?’

‘We think he helped Asner hide a hundred million dollars before his Ponzi scheme collapsed.’