Free The Man With the Iron-On Badge by Lee Goldberg Page B

lucky the blackmailer wasn’t staying at Disneyland, or the task ahead of me would have been a lot harder. They’ve got more hotels there, thousands of guests, and tighter security.
    I paid seven dollars and fifty cents to park in the tour lot, then walked down the hill and across the street to the Sheraton’s parking structure.
    It took me two hours of wandering through the five-story parking structure before I finally found it. The Ford Focus was parked near the stairwell on the third floor. The bumper sticker matched the one in my photo.
    I double-checked it against the photo a couple times to make absolutely sure, then I looked around. I didn’t see anyone or any security cameras and I was fairly certain there wasn’t going to be a car alarm in a rented Ford Focus. So I grabbed the hammer from the gym bag on my shoulder, took one more look, and then smashed the passenger’s side window of the car.
    I was right, the Ford Focus didn’t have a car alarm. But every other car within twenty yards did, and they were wailing. The alarms echoed off the concrete walls, amplifying the sound a hundred-fold and turning the entire parking structure into a loudspeaker.
    After the events of the last two days, I was developing a serious hatred of parking structures.
    I quickly reached into the Ford, opened the glove compartment, and grabbed the rental agreement, which was nicely folded inside a pamphlet-sized, Swift Rent-A-Car folder. I shoved the folder and the hammer in my bag and ran for the stairwell.
    Running is something you generally want to avoid when you’ve got an unknown number of broken ribs. It is extraordinarily painful. But the alarms panicked me. So did the sight of two security guards in a golf cart speeding down the ramp from the upper floor.
    I say they were speeding, because for the last few days I’d been driving a Kia Sephia, and compared to it, a golf cart is a formula one racer.
    I’m not much of a runner even without broken ribs, so I knew I couldn’t outrun them. As soon as I got in the stairwell, I peeled off my sweat suit and shoved it in the trash, which left me in my security guard uniform. I stuck the picture and the folder in my shirt and ditched the gym bag, too. Then I ran the rest of the way down the stairs.
    The instant I hit the street, I fell to the ground, clutching my sides. It was part of my plan to do that, but my performance was helped greatly by the fact I was in tremendous pain and too dizzy to stand. Not having to actually act when you’re supposed to be acting makes you a lot more convincing.
    A few moments later one security guard burst out of the stairwell, and another sped out of the exit ramp in the golf cart. The one from the stairs rushed up to me.
    “You looking for a guy in a red sweat suit?” I rasped.
    “Yeah, you see him?” the guard asked.
    What a stupid question, I thought. That guard would be a sergeant in no time.
    “He tackled me like a linebacker and ran into the structure across the street.”
    “You gonna be okay?”
    I nodded. “Just get the son-of-a-bitch.”
    The guard mumbled something into a walkie-talkie, jumped into his buddy’s golf cart, and scooted across the street in hot pursuit.
    When I drove down the hill fifteen minutes later, now dressed in my polo shirt and wearing sunglasses, the entrances and exits to the structure across from the hotel were blocked by private security patrol cars.
    I smiled to myself and wiped tears from my eyes. The smile was from pride, the tears were from the pain. But it was worth it.
    Now I knew who the blackmailer was.

Chapter Ten
    I arrived at Denny’s early to prepare my report, calculate my bill, and rehearse my presentation. I was impressed with myself and was pretty sure Mr. Parkus would share my opinion, once he learned the results of my work.
    Sure, I’d made a few mistakes along the way, but there’s a learning curve to any new job. The fact was, despite a car accident and a serious beating, I’d