by Jed Power
Chapter 11
Some days you just know Life is going to give you trouble–you stub your toe when you get out of bed, the coffee maker breaks just as you're brewing your first cup of coffee, you get to work and the door's locked when it should be open.
Saturday morning, cloudy with a chance of rain. Matched his mood. What the hell was Shamrock thinking, leaving the door locked? When Dan finally got the door open, he found the lights off, and by the time he'd found the light switch, he'd managed to bang into a mop and bucket, bruising his shin and making his bad mood worse.
Dan scowled as he shoved the bucket and mop back against the wall. Nothing had been right since those two state cops stopped to chat with him. He'd been tossing around what they'd said and mixing it up with a few other things that'd been rattling around in his brain recently, but he hadn't been able to put any of it together yet.
Maybe Shamrock had gone out for a box of sinkers. A couple of donuts would sweeten both their moods.
Dan made his way out front to the bar, turned on the overhead TV's, and flipped on the radio that piped soft music throughout the restaurant area. He took a cloth and swiped at imaginary spots on the bar, not quite ready to get to work–he still couldn't get the two state cops out of his mind.
Conover and Bartolo. They'd wanted information, information Dan wasn't willing to give. They wouldn't be too happy that he hadn't called, especially that Bartolo. Not too many things more dangerous than a pissed-off cop, especially one with the moniker ,"Plainview." A cop who wasn't above saying that seized evidence had been in "plain view" when it hadn't been certainly wasn't above planting evidence when he felt like it.
It all boiled down to the fact that Dan had decided not to do anything except maybe pray that the whole crazy thing would just fade away like a bad dream, although he knew there was fat chance of that happening. Still, knowing what he now knew was like sitting in the path of a tornado just waiting for the storm to hit–knowing it was coming and hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.
Dan walked over to the front door and unlocked it, just like every other morning. Even though the day felt heavy and portentous there was no reason to believe there were boogiemen hiding behind every doorway. He didn't mind if he had a customer or two while he was getting everything ready. The kitchen wouldn't open for a while so they couldn't order any chow, just a beer or a drink. Easy.
As he pushed the door open a bit to make sure it was unlocked, he glanced across the street at the ocean. It was calm, only a few white caps. Heavy clouds hung in the sky and the humidity was already building. Not unusual for this time of the year. Hampton got maybe a couple of weeks of high humidity each summer–if you added up all the humid days. He tugged at the shirt sticking to his chest, walked back to the bar, flicked on the air conditioner switches.
Next he pulled the fruit trays from the refrigerator underneath the bar, put a set of each at both ends, then took a stack of clean ashtrays and set them at intervals along the shiny surface. His movements were automatic. His thoughts, not so much.
What the hell was Shamrock thinking when he took that cocaine? Considering his old addiction, Dan figured he should be able to sympathize with the Irishman, but all he could do was think how stupid a move like that was.
Dan grabbed a five-gallon bucket from under the sink and headed through the kitchen to the ice machine. When he reached the machine, he set the bucket on a wooden counter and flipped up the cover. The machine had been making ice all night long and was practically overflowing. Dan used the big, metal scoop they kept beside the machine and started to shovel ice into the bucket.
No matter how stupid Shamrock had been taking the stuff, he was even stupider to think he could get away with it. Someone was bound to figure out where the coke had gone. No matter how hard Dan tried, he couldn't figure out a way to help the Irishman out of the hellhole he was in.
Dan's scoop hit something hard. Something definitely "not ice." He pushed the ice off to one side. Sometimes, the waitresses left a metal water pitcher inside and it'd get buried as the machine made new ice. He shoveled a few more scoops out of the way, moving ice into the bucket before he realized that what he was uncovering was definitely not a water pitcher.
Dan's stomach flip-flopped. The scoop fell from his hands and clanged on the floor. He used his hands, feverishly raking ice out of the machine and dumping it on the floor. It didn't take long before he'd cleared away enough ice to see why Shamrock hadn't unlocked the door.
"Jesus fuckin' Christ." Dan stumbled backward, heart thumping. He swallowed hard, grabbing his stomach to keep from losing his breakfast. He stared, stunned, at Shamrock's semi-frozen face. The Irishman's skin glinted with white frost and dark blood, looking more like a frozen pumpkin that some kid had done a poor carving job on than a human face.
After a long moment, the adrenalin kicked in and Dan tore at the ice with both hands like an animal, raking the cubes out and onto the kitchen floor in huge piles. He had to get the Irishman out of there. Find out if he was still alive.
While there was an off-hand chance Shamrock was the victim of a random robbery, Dan knew in his heart there was only one reason Shamrock would end up on ice–the harbor incident. And that meant Dan was in big trouble; Shamrock too, if he was still breathing.
Dan slipped on the pile of growing ice, regained his balance, shoveled some more.
Somehow he had to get them both out of what was turning out to be a deadly situation. But who could he trust? Certainly not the local cops. It was out of their league. And then Dan realized he had the answer right in his back jeans pocket, in his wallet–Conover's business card.
Suddenly Shamrock's shoulders were free. Dan reached under the Irishman and wrapped both arms around Shamrock's chest, then straightened his legs and pulled hard. The body unfolded and broke free, sliding out of the bin in a shower of falling ice and almost carrying Dan to the floor with it.
Dan stretched Shamrock flat on the floor and ran to the phone, struggling to hold his balance as he slipped and slid through mounds of ice. He grabbed the receiver from the wall phone and dialed 911 as fast as his shaking fingers would go.
~*~*~
