Burning Heat

by David Burnsworth

  Her red and puffy face got redder. “What are you looking at?”

  “Just making sure you’re not hurt.”

  She shook me off. “I’d’ve told you if I was hurt, doofus.”

  Mutt cackled. “I call him Opie, but I like your name better.”

  “This is the silly friend I told you about,” I said.

  Mutt held out a hand. “Clarence Alexander. My friends call me Mutt.”

  She blushed again and shook his hand.

  “This is Megan,” I said, since she didn’t.

  He let go of her hand. “This a nice place, Megan. You like it here?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Then if I was you, I’d do whatever it took to get out.”

  That was deep, especially for Mutt.

  “We’re here,” I said, “and I’m glad to see you again.”

  Her interest shifted from Mutt to me. “I got a letter from Camilla.”

  She had my full attention.

  Megan dug through her backpack and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “She mentioned you in it.”

  Taking the offered envelope, I said, “It’s your letter. Are you sure you want me to read it?”

  With straight shoulders and the stare that soldiers got when they’d seen a lot more than their young years should have, she said, “I miss her every day. She was the only one that treated me as a person, and not some screwed-up kid. She was my big sister because my real one doesn’t care enough about me to visit or call. That’s a copy for you to take when you leave.”

  I asked, “Do you want us to go?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I’d really like to just walk around the grounds if you have time.”

  Mutt said, “We got all the time in the world for pretty young ladies.”

  Megan blushed again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “I really like that girl,” Mutt said. “She remind me of my daughter. Headstrong and not afraid of nothing. Just got some problems to get over.”

  “We should recruit her,” I said.

  “Maybe you right.”

  We were cruising on the interstate back into the city at a slow pace, thanks to a lost tourist in a slow SUV ahead of us. When a break opened, I downshifted to fourth and blasted past.

  At the Church of Redemption, we caught Brother Thomas sifting through a mound of paper. I read him the letter:

  Megan,

  I never told you how special you are to me. I am so glad I got to know you and that you shared so much with me. If the only good that comes out of our stay at Serenity Hills is that I got the chance to know you, it was worth it all. Don’t take my leaving as a sign I’m giving up. I’m not. I am in trouble and there are bad people out to get me, like they did my friend, Willa Mae.

  There is a man by the name of Brack Pelton, who is after the men who killed my friend. You told me you’d met him when he came to see me with Darcy Wells from Channel Nine News. Brack is the only one I’d trust with my life. Call him. Tell him I left town and plan on starting my life over. Tell him Willa Mae wanted the father of her baby to help support her but she was killed because someone close didn’t want a black sheep in the family. Tell him I know this because that’s who threatened me. Tell him to check out the Courtyard Suites, room 113, on Friday night.

  I love you, Pixie. Stay strong!

  C.

  After reading the letter, Brother Thomas asked, “What you wanna do?”

  I said, “I was thinking of hiring some call girls.”

  Brother Thomas cocked his head as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard what I just said correctly.

  Mutt got to his feet. “What we waitin’ on, Opie? Let’s hit it!”

  The preacher said, “I think we need to have a talk before you go and do something like that. Sin ain’t the answer, mm-hmm.”

  “You don’t want to join us?” I asked.

  The big man in the black suit gripped the arms of his chair like they were attached to a servant of the enemy he was about to choke to death. “Join you? What are you talkin’ about?”

  Knowing that if I kept this dialogue up, my poor friend would have a heart attack, I shifted gears. “How much do we know about how Jon-Jon got involved with Willa Mae? How much do we know about who else knew?”

  Mutt folded his arms across his chest. “This is just like at the Treasure Chest. All you wanna do is talk, talk, talk.”

  “We’ve run out of witnesses and information. You got any other ideas?”

  Brother Thomas got to his feet. “I wish you wouldn’t do that, Brother Brack. You almost caused me to have to take a nitro pill.”

  “And I wish you’d stop thinking the worst all the time. I made a promise to you and Aphisha.”

  Mutt said, “How we gonna pick up the girls with Pastor Fat Albert over here riding shotgun? They take one look at him and they gone.”

  I said, “I’ve an idea.”

  We dropped Brother Thomas at a hotel in Mount Pleasant with the instruction to get a suite for the night. Mutt and I headed downtown. While Mutt drove the Audi, I made a call to Caroline—Camilla and Willa Mae’s madam. How I got her number was through my Aunt Patricia, Darcy’s employer. How she got it she wouldn’t say.

  When a female voice answered, I said, “My name’s George. Last summer I was in town for a convention and hooked up with a couple of your girls. I was wondering if you still had any around from then. Some friends and I’d like company.”

  From the driver’s seat, Mutt said, “Amen to that.”

  The woman asked, “Did you have anyone in mind?”

  “I remember there were a couple ethnic girls and an Oriental. Their names escape me.”

  “I think we have what you’re looking for as long as you plan on treating them well. We have high standards for our girls. Their time is very valuable.”

  To keep from laughing, I said, “How does a thousand an hour sound for the three. Plus a bonus if the boys and I really take a liking to them.”

  “You know I will,” Mutt said, a little too loud.

  “And how many hours will you require?” she asked.

  “Four.” I asked where I could pick them up and said I’d be there at five o’clock. Before we hung up, she said she ran a cash upfront business.

  Mutt wheeled us to the entrance of the condo building on upper King Street the madam had described. He whistled and said, “This is some nice digs.”

  Feeling glad that I’d stopped at home and changed into a polo shirt and khakis, I nodded and opened my car door. “Don’t scare the neighbors, now, Clarence.”

  He lowered his window and took a cigarette out of his pack. “Call me Clarence one more time and see who gets scared.”

  “Who peed in your cereal this morning?” I asked.

  “You did. We pickin’ up three girls hot to trot and paid for and you invite Brother Goody-Two-Shoes to the party.”

  “I’m sensing one of us might have a problem controlling himself this evening. Let’s get one thing clear. We can’t touch these girls. All we can do is talk to them. Okay?”

  The cherry of his Kool glowed as he lit up and inhaled.

  “Okay?” I asked again.

  “Yeah, yeah. Now go get them.”

  It was not easy keeping the reins on Mutt, but it had to be done. One wrong move and we’d be in jail. Our plan to pay for and pick up three call girls flirted with incarceration no matter what happened next.

  Inside the building, a man in a suit at a desk pointed me to the elevators. Within thirty seconds, I was knocking on the devil’s door.

  A white woman answered my knock and I recognized her as Caroline, the madam from pictures Patricia had shown me from her archives. “Do come in, Mr. um—”

  “Nelson.” I held out a hand. “George Nelson.”

  She took my hand and my appearance in at the same time and apparently found everything in order. Her black silk dress exposed a healthy figure, even without the long slit up the side.

 
“Would you like to meet the girls, Mr. Nelson?”

  “You said you had ones who might remember me and my friends?”

  A grin formed across perfect teeth. She said, “Our girls will remember anything you want them to.”

  “Super.”

  She led me to a living room and motioned me to a couch, something not in my plan. The little voice in my head said to watch out.

  “Be right back,” she said.

  The couch was black leather and soft. Thick planks made up the hardwood flooring. Stainless steel track lights provided soft illumination. The sound of someone mixing a drink focused my attention on a granite bar to my left. A slender Asian girl in a red kimono shook a drink shaker and poured the mixture into a martini glass. She set the shaker down, smiled at me, and brought the drink over. “For while you wait.”

  “Thank you.” I took a sip of iced Absolut, the voice now screaming in my head.

  Though I’d quit drinking, I reasoned that I couldn’t afford to be anything less than a party in search of entertainment in front of this group. Declining the drink would have raised suspicions. At least, that’s what I told myself while I finished it off.

  As my head dropped and my eyelids grew heavy, I thought it peculiar no other men were in the room with me.

  “Get up!”

  A sharp pain shot through my side. I coughed and tried to sit up but couldn’t with my hands tied behind my back. Someone had been nice enough to bind my feet as well. Blinking a few times, I made out a rough concrete floor, poor lighting, and the shape of someone standing over me.

  “I said get up.” The voice was male. Not very deep.

  Swallowing hard, I said, “Kick me again and I’ll rip your head off.”

  He kicked me again. I grunted, bit back obscenities, and spit on a nice pair of black loafers.

  “Aw, man!” said the voice. He raised his foot for another shot.

  “Stop.” A woman’s voice, this time. The madam’s, I thought. “Maybe he’s ready to talk.”

  Coughing up a big wad of phlegm, I swore off cigars again. The fancy shoes moved out of range so I settled for a straight shot at the madam.

  She sidestepped my projectile loogie. “I guess not.”

  A stiff blow hit me between the shoulder blades and I saw stars. The bully threw in a few more kicks for good measure.

  “Ready to talk now, punk?” The man with the kicking fetish had to be her assistant or whatever he called himself. Whipping boy … lap dog….

  He said, “What did you call me?”

  I didn’t realize I had spoken aloud.

  Another direct pointy-shoe hit.

  Pain shot through my side. “Son of a—” I cut myself off because it wasn’t worth another hit.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Time you showed a little respect, old man.”

  Old man? I had maybe five years on this guy. Take these shackles off and I’d show him what an old man could do.

  The madam said, “The license in your wallet says your name is Brack Pelton. I recognize you from the news. Any reason why you lied to me?”

  Even through the pain, my brain put together the fact that the madam probably knew I was investigating the deaths of two of her girls. “I didn’t realize pimps had an honesty code.”

  She made a sound like a sigh. I couldn’t really tell, so I braced myself for another kick. It didn’t come.

  “We don’t have time for games,” she said.

  “You mean I don’t get to tie you up next?” I asked.

  That got me another kick, a hard one. I grunted.

  “Rafe doesn’t like you much,” she said.

  “That’s too bad,” I said through clenched teeth, my shoulder blades aching from the blows. “I was starting to enjoy his company.”

  The madam sat in a folding chair facing me and crossed her legs, showing almost as much flesh as the customers who wore bikinis in my bar. Certainly more than most clothed women her age would, even the immodest ones. The bindings on my wrists and ankles caused my fondness for the whole situation to wane somewhat.

  She said, “Why are you interested in girls from last summer?”

  “Why don’t you tell me why I should be?”

  Rafe raised his foot to kick me again but the madam held up a hand. “Not yet.”

  I said, “I heard that girl that got burned up in the barrel worked for you two. Care to comment?”

  Caroline looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What about the latest murder?” I asked. “Her name was Camilla Good. I believe she also worked for you. Seems to me your employee retention statistics are taking a beating lately. Especially when they seem to show up dead.”

  Rafe said, “Shut up, old man.”

  “What shall we do with him?” the madam asked.

  Rafe paced. “Not sure. We’ve got to think about this. He’s in with Darcy Wells. We can’t have her snooping around here, either.”

  Of course, there was only one solution to that dilemma and it wouldn’t end well for me.

  “I guess there’s only one thing to do,” he said.

  Caroline smiled and nodded.

  Here it came.

  As Rafe stooped down to lift me off the ground, someone kicked open the door. The madam screamed. Rafe let go of me and reached for something behind his back. I swung my body in an arch and swept his legs out from under him. He fell over the top of me.

  Mutt stepped through the doorway. “Opie!”

  Rafe scrambled to his feet with a gun in his hand. It was too late because Mutt swung the butt of his thirty-eight into his face and knocked him out.

  The madam yelled again, a loud screeching noise.

  Training the pistol on her, Mutt said, “You shut up.”

  She did as he asked.

  “Good,” he said, “now cut my brother loose.”

  “Br-brother?” she asked.

  “That’s right.” With the gun still pointed at the madam, Mutt lit a Kool. “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”

  A mile down the road, we found a pay phone and made an anonymous call to the police about the mess we’d left. They’d find Caroline and her muscle man tied up in some rundown apartment in North Charleston. That’s where they’d apparently moved me to—unseen by Mutt waiting for me in the parking lot—after knocking me out. With the first-aid training Mutt and I received in the Corps, we did our best to patch up Rafe. It wasn’t the time to rip his head off, although I secretly wished for a second chance to meet up with him. Instead, I found the four thousand missing from my pocket and then some, about ten grand altogether.

  Watching Mutt drive my car again, I asked, “How’d you find me, anyway?”

  Before he could answer, my cell phone vibrated and I looked at the screen. “Darcy.”

  “You best get it, then,” Mutt said.

  Smiling at the fact that despite all of my character flaws, and there were quite a few, my friends took care of me. I accepted the call from the person I believed had tracked me down for Mutt.

  Darcy said, “You all right?”

  “Never better,” I said. “So how’d you find me?”

  “Patricia used her sources and did a check on all the properties owned by Caroline and her company.”

  “She was incorporated?”

  “Yes, but that isn’t the point.”

  “What is?” I knew what was coming but asked it anyway.

  “You and Mutt can’t go around playing the Lone Ranger and Tonto.”

  “High ho, Silver.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “We’ll meet you at the news office.”

  She clicked off.

  Mutt said, “What was that high ho bidness? High ho what?”

  “Silver,” I said. “We’re playing Lone Ranger and Tonto.”

  “No, we ain’t.”

  “It’s better than Batman and Robin. You don’t want to be Tonto?”

  “I’m Shaft. You’re Opie.”

/>   My watch said seven in the morning. “I’ve been out a long time.”

  “You sho’ have. Where we headed?”

  “The paper. And step on it.”

  He floored the accelerator, humming the theme song of his favorite detective.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  At any other place of business, Mutt and I would have gotten quite a few stares. A six-foot-three black man, worn out Dickies, and a stained T-shirt, and me, a handsome specimen, if I do say so myself, except for the cuts and bruises from Rafe’s kicks. Both Mutt and I needed showers and changes of clothes.

  Miss Dell said, “Patricia expectin’ you, sugar.”

  Mutt stopped in front of her desk, leaned forward, and said, “How you doin’, hot stuff.”

  As he walked away, I caught Miss Dell pick up the small circulating fan and aim it at her face and neck, her eyes locked on Mutt like he was the next best thing to a Porterhouse steak. Love was definitely in the air.

  Patricia stood in the doorway of her office, waving us in.

  Mutt gave my aunt, the local media mogul, a peck on the cheek. I did the same.

  She said, “You guys need showers.”

  Darcy acted impatient and petulant. She asked, “Why don’t you tell us what kind of intel you were able to collect. That is, I hope you got something. Otherwise we all just wasted time.”

  Leaning against Patricia’s mahogany desk, I looked at the two beautiful women and Mutt and said, “They’re nervous about the same thing the Gardners were, something that happened last summer. And they’re afraid of being linked with Willa Mae and Camilla.”

  Patricia asked, “Any idea what that could be?”

  “Yeah, Opie,” Mutt said. “I thought we was lookin’ for Willa Mae’s killer.”

  “We are. But I think she was a casualty, collateral damage like Camilla.” I asked, “Anything big happen in the city then?”

  Darcy said, “Nothing’s come up so far. I’ve got some people on it.”

  She was my favorite news girl for several reasons, not only because of how good she looked in anything I’d seen her wear. Just like Jo. I saw the wheels turning in her mind. Whatever it was that happened, she’d find it.

  The roofie they’d slipped in my drink put me in a coma for the night so I was good to go. But Mutt wanted sleep so I dropped him off at his house. Now, with some free time on my hands, I stopped by Chauncey’s to visit Shelby. My dog ran down the drive to greet me, jumping and barking. We wrestled on the driveway until Trish came into view, at which point he gave me one last lick and went to stand by her side. Just like he always did whenever I left him here.