“Sorry. Right. You see, the driver who picked you up. We don’t know who he is.”
“What do you mean you don’t know who he is?”
“We received the request and a car went out earlier in the week…but none of our men were behind the wheel.”
Blake stopped undressing. “Well someone sure as hell picked me up.”
“Right. But it wasn’t our man.”
“He said he was from your service.”
“I guarantee you, Mr. Harrison. He wasn’t. We have security tape of the yard where we keep our cars. A man in our uniform is seen leaving the yard with a car and then returns a couple hours later.”
“If he wasn’t one of your men, then who was he?”
“We don’t know. Your privacy is paramount to us. We have the police coming here now to view the tapes. I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you. For that I’m very sorry.”
“How the hell did this happen?” More deals were made in the backs of limousines than boardrooms.
“I’d suggest you consider who you were talking with and what about on the way home. Perhaps there was someone in need of the information you relayed on that short trip?”
He and Dean had to talk in the car because Neil suggested the house was bugged.
“Oh, damn.”
“We’re gravely sorry.”
“Yeah, yeah…I’ll be there with Detective Brown in an hour. I want to see those tapes.”
“Of course, sir. Anything we can do.”
Blake shoved his feet back in his shoes and made a call to Dean.
Forty-five minutes later, they were sitting in the offices of First Class Services with a nervous Bernard and a half dozen uniformed officers.
Blake listened to the story of how a complete stranger made his way onto the property, managed to get the keys to a company car, and then proceeded to leave said parking lot to pick him up at the airport without being detected.
“It had been an exceptionally busy weekend. Several of our drivers were still out from the night before. It’s not unheard of for us to move drivers around from one lot to another.” Bernard rambled on about the company and how it was run. According to the sister service in Orange County and the one in San Diego, none of their drivers had been given the green light to take assignments in the LA area on the date in question, therefore ruling out a driver on their staff.
An officer took Bernard’s statement while another manager cued up the video of the man in question. The distance from the camera to the cars was anywhere from a hundred feet to three hundred feet. The man’s face never turned directly toward the camera, making Blake think the man knew the camera was there. He wore the driver suit and even opted for a hat. Not all drivers wore them, but some did, which was why Blake didn’t think much of it when he’d seen the man.
“Can you get in closer?”
As the image moved up, the quality of the picture dissipated. As Blake remembered, the man had a short haircut and nothing growing on his face or chin. Caucasian about six feet tall, medium build.
He looked familiar. But then he should. Blake had spoken briefly with the man and had given him a generous tip.
“We can enhance the image at the station, try and match him with those in the database.” Dean stepped away from the monitor and glanced around the room. “Someone here must have spoken with the man.”
Bernard shifted from foot to foot. “I’ve questioned my drivers. None of them have said they noticed him.”
“What about dispatch?”
“We’re not like a taxi service. We have a computerized system that lets our drivers know when one of their clients needs a ride. Like I explained to Mr. Harrison, we try to keep the same drivers with the same clients to better meet their needs. Mr. Harrison only uses us on occasion so we didn’t have a request in for any one person.”
“Then how do you pick which driver goes on the run?”
Bernard moved his stiff collar away from his neck. Blake almost felt sorry for the man.
“We rotate between who needs a run, and who best knows the area and protocols. Taking a car on the tarmac to pick up clients right from the airport requires a different level of security than someone taking a celebrity to a red carpet event. Lots of things are factored in.”
“Show me how your drivers check a car in and out,” Dean said.
Bernard moved to the monitor as the uniformed officer who’d been searching the video feed got up and moved. He opened up what looked like a home page for the service and clicked on an icon with a car graphic. A list of last names and locations sat neatly in a row. Beside them was a column for the driver to place their name.
“This first set of names are our regulars. Notice the color coordination of the drivers and the regulars. This next set of names are one timers. Special occasions, proms…beside the names are symbols. A martini glass for a known party where the driver is going to keep our passengers from driving while intoxicated. I try and use my male drivers, unless it’s a bachelorette party…” Bernard got a little carried away in his explanation of his system, obviously proud of what he did. “Here is the airport symbol. If a driver is free to take the ride and sees this, he knows the ride is only open to him if he has the clearance.”
“Let’s see the date Mr. Harrison arrived.”
Bernard clicked around on the calendar and brought up the date. Blake leaned forward and saw his name, location, time, and airport symbol. He was happy to see an absence of a martini glass. His mirth about that died when he saw the name of the driver. “Mac.”