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  He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “And if she was being used by someone, then these bad people might want to get rid of her, too.”

  “Alright. I’ll give you that.”

  “So I looked in the newspaper for any crimes against young women, and there she was, missing. I got the big print of her from a friend at the paper.”

  Albert’s face lit up. “Brilliant, Nando. Brilliant.”

  The newspaper article mentioned that Nicole Stephan worked as a personal trainer at a private health club in the Pearl District of Portland. “You should go there, Nando. See what you can learn,” Albert suggested. “You can buy a one-day membership if you tell them you’re interested in joining.”

  Nando gave his friend an uncertain look. “There are no private clubs in Cuba.”

  Albert laughed. “Don’t worry. Just act like an arrogant SOB, and you’ll be fine. A lot of the jerks I used to work with hang out there. Oh, go out and buy yourself a good workout suit and some new cross trainers. You’ll need to look the part.”

  Nando left the jail that day feeling good about his detection work and the faith Albert placed in him. Albert was not a man prone to high praise. Being called “brilliant” by his friend was a first.

  ***

  The Summit Health Club was located on the second floor of a restored warehouse on Couch Street, behind the city block occupied by Powell’s Books. Nando was an avowed capitalist but a thrifty one. The cost of a one-day pass, fifty dollars, made him yearn again for communism. After paying a young girl at the counter, he said, “I am looking for Nicole Stephan. I understand she is your best personal trainer.”

  The girl’s face clouded over, and he thought she was going to cry. “Nicole’s not here this afternoon. I can let you talk to the manager, if you’d like?”

  Manager Troy Davidson had broad shoulders and arms that rippled with muscles. He looked up at Nando from a stack of papers and without smiling said, “Can I help you?”

  “Yes. I would like to use a personal trainer for my workout today. I understand Nicole Stephan is not available.”

  Nando’s words must have surprised Davidson because his eyebrows rose slightly and his eyes got a little bit larger. “You know Nicole?”

  Nando smiled. “No. I have not had the pleasure. A friend recommended her.”

  Davidson looked at Nando again as if his mind was turning something over—some question about him, or maybe he was just deciding whether or not to mention that Nicole was missing. Nando continued to smile. “She’s not here this afternoon. I think Jennifer’s available. She’ll do a good job for you.”

  Nando was six feet, four inches tall with black, wavy hair, dark skin, and a smile—like his mother used to say—that shamed the morning sun. Maybe it was his smile or the fact he was raised the only boy in a family of six sisters that caused women to confide in him. He didn’t really know why, but it had always been so. Jennifer was worried sick about Nicole, but she was optimistic because her friend would never go hiking without being prepared. She told him everyone in the club was upset, and that several employees were up in the mountains helping in the search effort. He also learned that Jennifer had two cats, loved cooking and taekwondo, and had just broken up with her boyfriend.

  After expressing his sympathy about the breakup, Nando asked, “Does your friend Nicole have a boyfriend?”

  Jennifer laughed. “Not at the moment. She was in a relationship, but she got dumped, too. Trouble is, she’s not over it.”

  Nando’s father used to say una corazonada is a whisper from God. As he lay back on the bench to prepare for a set of presses, he said, “Your boss is a handsome man. He must be popular with the ladies here.”

  Jennifer got in position to spot him. “Oh, yeah. Troy’s quite the lady’s man, alright, just ask Nicole.”

  Nando squeezed off twenty repetitions and eased the barbell back in the rack. “Oh, so it was he who dumped her?”

  “Right,” Jennifer answered with a smirk. “He’s hit on just about every woman on the staff.”

  Nando wiped his brow with a towel and looked indignant. “Not you?”

  “Oh, yeah. He came on to me a couple of times.” She laughed. “I told him to take a cold shower…”

  Nando knew gossip was like an addictive drug. He waited.

  “…But he’s gone up-market now.”

  “Up-market?” he asked with a puzzled look.

  “Uh huh,” she said, nodding her head.

  “Not a client,” Nando said with more feigned indignation.

  “You guessed it. He likes ’em good looking or rich. This one’s both. Then she laughed and added, “She’s Nicole’s client, actually.”

  “No,” Nando replied, his heart beating faster. “Let me guess—this rich woman has a husband.”

  At this point, Jennifer furrowed her brow and cocked her head at him. “You’ve got me talking too much, Nando. Let’s see how many crunches you can do.”

  Jennifer was a gossip, but she was also a smart woman. Nando finished his workout without asking any more questions, although he wanted very much to know the name of Davidson’s current lover. Afterward, he took a shower, dried off, and busied himself packing his gear and then combing his hair until he was sure no one was in the adjoining restroom. He entered and stood with one foot on the sink and one on a paper towel dispenser to unlock the latch on the small, high window that faced the back alley. He left the club by the front door after saying good-bye to his new friend, Jennifer, and having convinced himself the club had no burglar alarms.

  ***

  At three o’clock the next morning Nando stood in the alley behind The Summit Health Club looking up at the restroom window, hoping it was still unlocked. Albert had said to him many times, “Nando, when you’re working for me, I don’t want you breaking any damn laws. Do you understand?” But this was different. He was sure his friend would forgive him for what he was about to do.

  He took a deep breath, leaped up, and grasped the window ledge with both gloved hands. Then, aided by the traction of his new cross trainers against the wall, he scrambled up, leaned his forehead into the windowpane, and to his relief it swung inward. He wound up draped over the ledge like a sack of rice, half in and half out. The paper towel dispenser hung on the wall below him. He worked his way down until both hands rested on it, lowered himself until his feet just cleared the window, and then swung into the room like a gymnast.

  He went straight to Troy Davidson’s office. It was locked, but he found a key in the middle drawer of the receptionist’s desk. In the top drawer of a filing cabinet behind Davidson’s desk Nando found what he was looking for—a series of folders with personal information and workout schedules for each of the manager’s clients. When he read the name on the third file in, his heart beat a little faster: Sergei Kuznetsov. He rifled through the other eight files, all women, and copied their names into a small notebook he’d brought with him.

  Nicole shared an office with Jennifer. It was unlocked. Nicole’s client files were tossed carelessly into a file drawer in her desk. Nando fished them out one by one and wrote down the names of her female clients. The last name he copied rang a bell, but he didn’t know why. As he was leaving the office, it came to him. It was the first name of the woman that was familiar. He would have to double-check the last name, but he was pretty sure what he would find.

  Building a raft in Cuba to escape to Florida was good preparation for being a private investigator. In those days, the Cuban authorities were watching carefully for signs of such activity, so Nando learned to plan carefully and work with stealth during the five years it took him to prepare his escape.

  So it is in the PI business. He went back to Davidson’s office and used the flat blade in his Leatherman to unscrew the plate covering an electrical outlet on the side wall. He had the bug—a matchbox-sized microphone a
nd transmitter—installed and the plate back on in under two minutes. He preferred room bugs to telephone bugs, because most people talk more freely behind closed doors than on the telephone.

  ***

  Nando was pretty sure Jennifer would agree to help him. He got her undivided attention when he guessed the name of the woman Troy Davidson was having an affair with, the name she had withheld from him the day before. When he told her about the blackmail plot and the scheme to frame his friend, Albert, she said, “That figures. Nicole would do anything for that rat, Troy Davidson.” When he told her that Davidson and his lover probably had done away with Nicole, she was horrified and wanted to immediately go to the police.

  “I understand your concern for your friend,” Nando said, “but I do not yet have enough evidence.” He met Jennifer’s eyes and held them. “I have an idea for a trap, but I will need your help.”

  Jennifer nodded eagerly. “Whatever it takes.”

  “It could be dangerous.”

  She laughed. “I’m not afraid. Nicole would do the same for me.”

  After Nando filled her in on his plan and coached her a little, she was even more enthusiastic. As Albert would say, Jennifer had chutzpa.

  The next afternoon Nando was in the back of his van with his headphones on, his receiver tuned in, and his tape recorder running. He could hear Troy Davidson handling papers on his desk and the squeak of springs as he shifted in his chair. He called Jennifer and said, “We are going.”

  A few moments later he heard her enter Davidson’s office and close the door. “I know what you’re up to, Troy.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nicole told me how you had her go to this lawyer to get some pictures back that a guy named Kuznetsov took of you and your latest fling. The pictures were no big problem for you, but that bitch sure as hell didn’t want her wealthy husband to find out she was jumping your bones. Now Kuznetsov is dead, the lawyer’s in jail, and Nicole’s missing.”

  Davidson stayed calmer than Nando hoped he would. He laughed. “That’s nonsense, Jennifer. Nobody’s going to believe that. From what I read, that lawyer shot the Russian and robbed him.”

  Nando’s heart began to hammer in his rib cage, but Jennifer didn’t miss a beat. “Nicole may be stupid in love with you, Troy, but she isn’t as gullible as you think,” she said, cool as an icicle. “She gave me a letter to be opened if something happened to her.”

  Nando held his breath and imagined Jennifer’s hand extended with a copy of the letter in it. She had typed it on the computer the way she thought Nicole would have written it. He began working on forging Nicole’s signature based on some papers Jennifer brought from the club. On his ninth try, Jennifer cried, “That’s it! You nailed it, Nando.” The back-dated notary seal was an added touch, something he procured from a friend of his in Southeast Portland.

  Nando waited. Finally, Davidson sighed heavily and said in a low but audible tone, “She was well paid for her little errand, Jennifer. She’s gone off to start a new life somewhere, I suppose.” He laughed and added, “She’ll be calling you in a few days, you wait.”

  “That letter’s going to cost you, Troy. I’d like some traveling money, too, so I can join Nicole.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” he answered. The words sent chills running down Nando’s back.

  “I want twenty thousand in cash. Then I’ll give you the letter and forget all about this.”

  Another long pause. “You drive a hard bargain, young lady.”

  “I’ll give you two days to get the money.”

  Nando heard a door open, then shut. He continued to listen, hoping Davidson would be tempted to call his lover, but that didn’t happen.

  ***

  Although the evidence they had would not be admissible in court, Nando hoped it would be enough to get the police to listen to him. He called the detectives working the Kuznetsov murder and got their voice mails. He punched off his cell phone angrily and said to Jennifer, “In Cuba, there is not so much voice mail. One can usually reach a human there.”

  They were both famished, so he took her to his and Albert’s favorite Cuban restaurant, Pambiche, for dinner. Afterwards, he tried the police again without success, so he suggested that she stay at a hotel that night as a precaution. She made a face, so he said, “I have a big couch in my living room. You can have my bed.” She agreed.

  Jennifer had gone to bed. Nando selected a Hoyo de Monterrey and stepped out on his porch to smoke it, thankful that good Cuban cigars could be purchased on the Internet. When he felt the barrel of a pistol on his neck, he thought of what his father used to say, “If you stir up a hornet’s nest, don’t be surprised if you get stung.”

  “Back in the house and keep your mouth shut or I’ll blow a hole in you.” It was Troy Davidson. He stayed behind Nando, pulled the door shut, and said, “Where’s Jennifer?”

  “Who?”

  Davidson hit him hard with the pistol, and he dropped to one knee. “You know who. You come in the club asking about Nicole, you spend the afternoon with Jennifer—”

  “It was your idea to give me Jennifer.”

  Davidson hit him again, knocking him to the floor. “I checked you out, Mendoza. You’re a PI, and I know you’re mixed up in this somehow.” Out of the corner of his eye, Nando watched him take a cushion from the couch and wrapped it around his pistol. “Last chance. Tell me where she is or I’m going to put a bullet in your head.”

  Jennifer was a strong woman. When she hit Troy Davidson with a piece of lumber that hung on the wall in Nando’s bedroom, he hit the floor—as Nando later described it—like a ripe mango. She stood there, her chest heaving, and looked at the stout piece of hand-carved wood in her hands. “What’s an oar doing in your bedroom?”

  Nando beamed a smile despite his injuries. “It is a souvenir from another life.”

  ***

  The charges against Albert Kleinman were dropped and Troy Davidson and his lover were arrested and charged with the murder of Nicole Stephan, whose bludgeoned body was found two weeks later. Nando and Jennifer were waiting for Albert in the lobby of the police station. When Albert saw his friend, who sported two large bandages on his head, he said, “Oh, God. Does this mean you’re going to charge me extra?” Nando laughed and filled his friend in on the final details leading up to his release. When he finished, Albert said, “You left one thing out, Nando. Who the hell is Troy Davidson’s lover?”

  Nando laughed again. “Your ex-wife. Who else?”

  Time’s Revenge

  Mary Reed and Eric Mayer

  We arrived on the doorstep of the Press via an unusual route. Having read the then-infant Poisoned Pen Press had been nominated for the 1998 Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical Work for their title AZ Murder Goes…Classic, we wrote to congratulate them, and at the same time asked if they would eventually be considering fiction. We learned later that Editor-in-Chief Barbara Peters had commented on the lack of a mystery series set in Byzantine times not long before our note showed up. An encouraging reply arrived and One For Sorrow was accepted in due course. The rest, as they say, is historical mystery….

  —M.R. and E.M.

  ***

  The clock filled the room with the drip, drip, drip of water dropping from its wide basin into a receptacle below. For the old wine merchant, Laskarios, lying on the mosaic grape clusters decorating the floor of his study, time had run out.

  As the palace physician, Gaius, examined the body, John, Lord Chamberlain to Emperor Justinian, looked on. A tall, lean man with a military bearing, he wore plain dark blue robes unbefitting one of his exalted position.

  Gaius propelled himself to his feet with a grunt. “No signs of violence, John.” He smelled as if he had been kneeling in real grapes, having been drawn away from one of his long conversations with Bacchus.

  “Senator H
onorius spoke of murder. I know him well enough to respect his word.”

  Gaius shook his head. “No blood. No wounds. No signs of poisoning.”

  John silently looked round the study, the wooden desk and chair in front of the window, the water clock with hourly markings engraved inside its ceramic basin, the frescoed vineyards on the walls. The open second-story window faced south over a courtyard with a distant view of the Sea of Marmara. Below the window sat a sundial, its gnomon a miniature obelisk. It was one of many such timepieces. The paths in Laskarios’ extensive gardens did not wind between flowers, shrubs, and statuary but between a bewildering variety of shadow clocks.

  Laskarios, frail and bald and clothed for the oppressive August heat in a thin white tunic, resembled an ancient infant curled up for a nap.

  The physician ran the back of his hand over his damp forehead. “My head’s pounding. I wish that infernal dripping would stop, John. Never mind. I’m off now. I’ll send someone from the palace to deal with the body. Tell the senator that Laskarios died because he was an old man. Death is time’s revenge.”

  ***

  Time’s revenge for what? John wondered as he made his way along the corridor from the study, passing by one clock after another. Revenge for wasting so much of it?

  If Gaius was right, John had wasted his time coming here. However, if Senator Honorius was right, he owed it to Laskarios to find his murderer. The wine merchant had helped John survive his early days in the city.

  John had arrived in Constantinople years earlier as a palace slave. Housed in a barracks, worked as hard as a farmer’s mule, but not as well fed or treated, he had all but lost faith in the world and might have sunk into a life of hopeless servitude. Then he was lent to Laskarios for several weeks after one of the wine merchant’s servants broke a leg while helping to haul a large bronze sundial to the house roof.

  Laskarios treated John, like the rest of his staff, with a kindness the young slave had almost forgotten existed. That respite had renewed John’s strength and helped him to endure until Fortuna offered him the chance to escape his servitude.