by Rick Reed
“Pussy. When I was with Iberville Parish Sheriff’s Department we trained with grenades just for fun. They would fire machine guns over our heads and drop mortar rounds on our position. If you came out alive you passed and moved on to the Blackhawk helicopter strafing runs with Hellfire missiles. It was messy but it separated the men from the boys. You wouldn’t have made it past the grenades.”
“Want to go buy some more beer?” Jack asked.
“I’m on duty, and it’s a little early for me,” Liddell said. “I usually have to be awake more than an hour. Want to go to breakfast?”
“No. Can’t you see I’m busy?” Jack said.
Liddell held a hand out for the binoculars, and Jack grudgingly gave them up. Liddell focused across the river, whistled softly, and said, “I can see you’re making the most of your days off.”
Jack took the binoculars back and shoved Liddell out of the way with his leg. “Yeah. I was mad at you for a while for wrecking the car and getting me into this mess.”
“Me? I got you in it? You’re the one that ran off like a one-man SWAT team.”
“Well, if you hadn’t played demolition derby without warning me . . .” Jack grinned. “That was pure genius, by the way. Saved us hours of a standoff.”
“Thank you,” Liddell said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Speaking of a standoff. You’re going to have to go toe-to-toe with Double Dick sometime. You should have come this morning. Double Dick almost had a stroke.”
“Now that I would have come to see.”
“Oh. In case you’re wondering, the shooting board cleared you.”
Jack opened the paper sack Liddell brought him and took out his confiscated .45 and the empty magazine.
“Captain Franklin says you can come back to work today.”
Jack worked the slide, locking it back, showing an empty chamber.
“Two questions,” Jack said, and laid the gun on the windowsill behind him. “Is the FBI taking the case? And . . . where are the bullets?”
“Oh yeah,” Liddell said. He dug in his pocket and came out with a handful of ammo. He held the bullets out in both palms while Jack reloaded the magazine and slapped it home.
“Since there are multiple robberies in multiple states involving banks, I’d say the FBI might go out on a limb and prosecute this one. But as of today, they haven’t committed. You got so much bad publicity I guess they don’t want to make us look any worse.”
“Since we’re on the topic of the federal government, did that asshole attorney, Boom Boom, file federal charges against me for punching the rapist? Because if he did I’m gonna need a lot more Guinness and Scotch.”
“I heard on the snake-vine”—he was referring to the supervisors’ grapevine—“that Double Dick is champing at the bit to have you fired for that. However, since you arrested this guy, several women have come forward and identified him and filed rape charges against him. I don’t think you have a worry there.”
“Maybe Prosecutor Higgins will take all this into account when he finally decides to either file charges against the rapist or to go after me.”
“And don’t forget, Double Dick wants your ass on the bank robbery, too, pod’na.”
Jack laughed and said, “He just wants my ass, but I’m not that easy. He’s going to have to take me out and buy me dinner first.”
Liddell chuckled then became a little more serious. “I’ve got some other news, pod’na. But it’s good news . . . I think. Anyway, Katie called Marcie last night.” Marcie was Liddell’s wife. “Katie asked about you. How you were, if you were eating right—you know.”
Without looking down, Jack slid the beer-eal mug under his chair with a foot.
“Marcie told her to call you. I hope you don’t mind. You know Marcie thinks the world of you two. I told her not to meddle.”
Jack felt the familiar sense of loss. He wanted to ask what else Katie had said, but he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.
“She still loves you, Jack. What the hell is wrong with you? Call Katie. Crawl if you have to,” Liddell said. “At least come back to work to keep busy. You can’t sit out here for the rest of your life, pod’na.”
Jack motioned to the sandbar. One of the ladies had taken off her top and was rubbing oil on herself. “Wanna bet?” But he was tired of sitting around, not leaving his cabin to avoid the press, or the looks people would give him because of the news media. He’d ventured out just once to go to the restaurant he co-owned, Two Jakes, and a woman had tucked her kid behind her. Jack turned around and went home. He didn’t want to run off business at Two Jakes. Although, he’d talked to Jake Brady, his partner, and business was booming. Jack was a celebrity. Yeah. Right.
“She’ll never forgive me, Bigfoot. The timing of her showing up really sucked, and the irony is that I didn’t kiss that woman. She kissed me.”
“Come on, pod’na,” Liddell said. “You didn’t resist too hard. She was laying in a hospital bed and barely able to move and Katie saw you leaning over and . . .”
“All right. All right, I get the picture. I’m an asshole,” Jack said.
“Well, at least Moira’s talking to you,” Liddell said.
“She hasn’t called or come out since I saw her in the prosecutor’s office. Maybe she hates me again. Let’s change the subject. How are things with you? I mean, after wrecking the car and all that.”
Liddell groaned. “Two hours at the hospital with you getting blood drawn and such. Then about six hours of accident forms, another four hours filling out the affidavits of arrest, then I got a reaming from Deputy Chief Dick, and then the lieutenant, and then the captain, and then Deputy Chief Dick again. Both times Dick threatened to charge me with causing the momma robber’s death. Vehicular manslaughter he called it. But the prosecutor refused to file charges, so Dick tried to suspend me and the chief wouldn’t let him.” Jack and Liddell had talked several times, but he’d never gotten the full story of what Bigfoot had gone through.
“That’s why we call him Double Dick,” Jack said. “He ‘dicks’ you over more than once. You’re lucky your name isn’t Jack Murphy. The dicking never ends.”
“Guilt by association?”
“Welcome to my world,” Jack said. “So what have they got you doing today besides delivering my gun and the message from Captain Franklin?”
“I’m in Missing Persons. I’ve been doing the research on the bank robbers but since the Feds are unofficially, or maybe, going to be in charge of that one, the Deputy Chief ordered Captain Franklin to reassign me. Double Dick thought I could be better used somewhere that I couldn’t get in a shoot-out or wreck anything.”
Jack couldn’t believe they had put an experienced detective like Liddell in the missing persons unit working with a waste of breath like Larry Jansen. Jansen’s uniform was a rumpled gray suit, a wrinkled red tie, and a trench coat with the buttons missing. He wore the same summer and winter and never took the trench coat off. He fancied himself like Columbo, the rumpled detective in the seventies detective series on television. The difference was that Columbo never snitched to the brass—plus he always solved his cases.
“By the way, Marcie wants you to come to dinner tonight.” Liddell said.
“I’m sorry I got you in trouble, Bigfoot. Listen, I appreciate the offer, but—”
“She said I should twist your arm.” In a confidential tone, he said, “She’s worried about you. Just between you and me, I think she’s invited Katie. Neither of you is supposed to know about the other one coming. Maybe you should come. Eh?”
“I really don’t need help with my personal life, Bigfoot. Tell Marcie I appreciate the offer, just not tonight.”
“Marcie’s not someone you want to get on the wrong side of, pod’na. She says jump, you find a cliff.”
“Okay. What time?”
“Five o’clock,” Liddell said and pointed at the empty beer cans. “You want me to come and get you?”
“I’ll
be okay, Mother.”
After Liddell left, Jack thought about their conversation. Mostly about Katie. She had probably seen the news too and knew he was going through a bad time. He wasn’t the type to sit around feeling sorry for himself. He wasn’t going to let Double Dick or the news media get to him. He waved at the sunbathers and one of them waved back and motioned for him to join them. It wasn’t even tempting. He would rather be over there with someone else. Katie looked really good in a bikini.
He picked up his empty cans, the binoculars, and his gun and went inside to change clothes. Captain Franklin said he could come back to work today. It wasn’t an order. A cruise upriver would help clear his head—both of them. Maybe he’d spend some time at Two Jakes. Get some breakfast. Maybe go out and shoot up a convent so he could get more days off.
* * *
Two Jakes Restaurant and Marina lay along a half-mile stretch of a sandy bank of the Ohio River west of Jack’s cabin. Two miles west of that was the newly built 2,700-passenger Blue Star Casino Riverboat. The New Jersey owners bought several blocks of riverfront on both sides of Riverside Drive and built nightclubs, hotels, restaurants, and a five-story parking garage. The “gambling district,” as it had come to be known, drew customers from far away, but Two Jakes had an already established reputation and hadn’t been hurt by the competition. If anything, it had helped Two Jakes’ business by allowing visitors to get away from the crush and rush and noise.
Two Jakes was named after Jake Brady and Jack’s dad, Jake Murphy. The two men had been street cops for the Evansville police force and worked the same car as partners for almost thirty years. Just before they retired, they bought thirty acres of mostly unusable, completely undeveloped, therefore undesirable, riverfront land. The lot was an uneven shape but included almost a third of a mile of land along the Ohio River. Over half of the land was swamp and the other half covered in wild growth of trees, vines, and one fishing shack with a caved-in roof that was home to water snakes. Everyone, including Jack’s mother, thought they were crazy—throwing good money after bad. So the two men bought another five acres of the surrounding property to give them access to two roads. They tore down the shack, and bought a barge that they permanently anchored where the shack had been.
They had cashed in their retirement and used all of their savings, not to mention taking on a huge loan, but soon a restaurant was built on the floating barge, parking areas were cleared and graveled, and Two Jakes was born. It was an instant hit. The loan had been paid off in just a few years. A marshy inlet was dredged out into a bay, and a marina where boats could be repaired and housed was built. The addition of a second-story bar on the restaurant turned Two Jakes into a multi-million-dollar enterprise.
When Jack’s father died several years ago, Jack and his brother, Kevin, had inherited half of Two Jakes and a cabin farther downriver that his grandfather had built. Kevin never had an interest in either the river cabin or the business, and so Jack bought him out. The deal had worked out for both of them. Kevin used the money to start a scientific consulting business. Jack elected to let Jake Brady, his co-owner, run things at Two Jakes. Brady proved to be a shrewd businessman and a skilled chef, too.
Two Jakes was a two-man operation, and with Jack’s dad gone, Brady couldn’t cook and tend bar by himself. So he hired Vinnie, a small, wiry man with a tan so deep his skin was as tough and wrinkled as leather. His face was creased with lines that belied his true age, probably somewhere between twenty-five and sixty. Thick blond hair was pulled back in a nub of ponytail. Year-round he dressed in short sleeved, tie-dyed shirts; blue jean cutoffs, and deck shoes. He fancied himself a “flower child” of the sixties. But, unlike most of the flower children, he was extremely clean, and polite. If he had a last name, Jack had never heard it. Jake Brady had hinted that Vinnie had a questionable background, but he also had a talent for mixing drinks and keeping customers happy.
Jack slipped his newly returned and loaded Glock in the waistband of his cargo shorts, pulled on a Tommy Bahama polo shirt, stepped back onto the porch, and checked on the sunbathers. Just to be sure none of them was getting too much sun. His earlier plan was to do nothing except soak in his hot tub, get seriously shit-faced, and do more of nothing. But now he’d promised Liddell that he’d come to dinner. It was a dilemma. Go to dinner at Liddell’s as promised or do nothing. He leaned toward doing nothing, but, as they say, “The problem with doing nothing is you don’t know when you’re finished.” The same could be said about drinking. In either case he needed to go to Two Jakes for more supplies. Maybe have something healthy for a late breakfast. A sausage sandwich, a Guinness, and a large slice of Jake’s homemade cherry pie. That was as healthy as it gets.
He headed down the steps of his private dock to the love of his life, the MISS FIT, a twenty-five-foot cabin cruiser with all the bells and whistles. The short trip to Two Jakes would do him good. He could forget about investigating the bank robbery because it was basically the Feds’ problem now. And he could tamp down his anger with Prosecutor Higgins and his frat buddy, Boom Boom. Who would be proud of that as a nickname? Jack knew he probably shouldn’t have let his temper reach his fists, but the “alleged” rapist was lucky it hadn’t reached his Glock.
Jack pushed these thoughts out of his mind and climbed aboard the MISS FIT. He stowed the top, fired up the twin inboard engines, and let them idle, savoring the deep guttural sound. Feeling the rumble of powerful engines under his feet never failed to cheer him. He’d have to mention that to the department shrink when he saw him, or her, again. He was sure Double Dick would insist that he see the department’s witch doctor, and he was equally sure that the shrink would tell him that his love for the MISS FIT was unhealthy. A Freudian-macho-sexual thing. Maybe Jack wasn’t breastfed enough as a baby, or maybe he’d been breastfed too much.
He slipped the port lines, backed out of the slip, and pointed the MISS FIT in the direction of Two Jakes. He pushed the throttle forward and took her out of the quay, and felt the bow lift as he opened her up.
Boner.
Chapter Five
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Special Agent George Killian took the off-ramp and zigzagged lazily through mostly abandoned neighborhoods of shotgun-style houses. The houses surrounded decaying factories and warehouses and parking lots that had turned to rubble and waist-high weeds. Between the 1940s and the 1990s this area had been known as the Franklin Industrial Complex. The factories had been built to aid in the war effort, and when the war was won, they employed the returning World War II veterans. And then more houses were built and the veterans’ offspring had found employment in the same factories where one or both of their parents had worked. A decent living could be had.
Time, an upturn in the economy, and the increased mobility of families had made the housing superfluous. The kids were no longer interested in working the same job for 25 or 30 years as their parents had done. They were the New-Agers. They’d never experience the inconvenience and sacrifice the war had demanded. They saw their future on the horizon, and not under their feet. They moved away for school, and sometimes didn’t come home, living their dream and not the one their parents had envisioned for them.
Back home, the parents were also more mobile, thus able to find more lucrative employment, and soon they were no longer satisfied with the small houses. Those who could move out had done so long ago; those who couldn’t had hunkered down and done whatever it took to survive. That included prostitution, selling drugs, street robberies, carjacking, burglaries, going on welfare, or any combination of these. Very few made it out except to go to prison. Killian was one of the few success stories.
He grew up in this neighborhood in a house no bigger than a cracker box. Two brothers and two sisters, a mom, and a dad made up one of a hundred large families of poor blacks. His father worked from sunup to sundown scraping a living out for a family of seven. His father would give you the shirt off his back. He was too proud to take handouts. He had instilled in his ch
ildren the deep-seated belief that right was right and wrong was wrong. The world didn’t owe you anything. If you wanted something you had to work for it.
His father had taught him that being black wasn’t any different from being white or Asian or Hispanic. The color of your skin wasn’t who you were, and because of your color you didn’t have to prove to anyone that you were just as good as them. Nor did it give you special entitlements. He had said, “Just be the best man you know how to be, the man I know you’ll one day become, son, and you’ll be fine. There are lots of black people and lots of white people and every other color, but there is only one you—only one Killian—and I’ll always be proud of you.”
Killian and his two brothers and two sisters had turned out all right. Killian had never forgotten where he came from, or the lessons his father taught, and he would make sure he passed them on to his sons. Being black didn’t mean the same thing now as it did when he was a kid. He had seen true racism, up close and personal. But he had also seen people try to use their race as an excuse for bad behavior or lack of ambition. He didn’t hold with that type of thinking.
He turned into the defunct warehouse/factory district and slowed to a crawl. He counted the warehouses as he passed them. At the fourth one he turned right, into an alleyway, and then another right. Behind the building he came to a set of speed bumps partially hidden by weeds. His Crown Vic bounced over them. He stopped when he came to a chain-link fence with gaps where it had rusted and been spread open by trespassers. He would have to go the rest of the way on foot.
His source said two cops were involved in a weapons deal. The source—he couldn’t really be called an informant because he didn’t know anyone and hadn’t seen anything—didn’t know who these cops were, and couldn’t even describe them, but he heard the word “explosives.” That got Killian’s full attention.
The source had explained that he had met a hobo who had jumped off a train near Mary Street, where the tracks run under the Lloyd Expressway. At first the source said the information he had came from that hobo. The source obviously was scared to be personally involved in any way, since cops were involved. Killian had pieced enough of the story together to merit a look-see. The guy said he was inside, actually underneath, what used to be one of the guard shacks here. He explained that he was under the shack because it was cooler and he needed a place to sleep. He had a bottle of hooch and had just finished it off when he heard someone come inside the shack. He peeked through a crack in the floor and saw legs and gun belts. Cops. He said they were talking, waiting for someone. The cops talked a little more and then left. When he heard their car—one car—leave, he climbed out of the back and got out of there. He said he had gone to St. Anthony’s Shelter, where he really did meet a hobo.
