by Faricy, Mike
“Really? Is that because they found something in my car?” I asked.
“You are a cruel bastard, you know that? I plan to see that you get exactly what you have coming. If you so much…”
“Oh, you must be referring to your precious Mister Softee. Yeah, funny thing, I’ve got an alibi, pretty good one as it turns out. Wanna hear?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That is probably the only honest thing you’ve said to me.”
“What do you mean, alibi?”
“Well, it’s just that when someone stuffed your little love toy, Mister Softee, into the trunk of my car, to make it look like I did it, guess what? I was safely locked up in a jail cell.”
“Locked up in jail? That doesn’t surprise me, but I don’t see what that has to do with me. It’s something for the authorities to deal with and believe me they’re going to hear about this phone call just as soon as I hang up.”
“Good, while you’re talking with them, you might mention the shooting at the warehouse yesterday. Two dead. Interesting, and you running out barefoot carrying your heels with everything in a shopping bag, that was…”
“I, I don’t know what in the hell you’re taking about.”
“Oh, okay. I just thought it might benefit both of us if you wanted to discuss the situation. But apparently you don’t. Look, you go ahead and call the cops, because when you’re done I’m going to have a nice chat with them and I think they’ll find my story a little more interesting. What do you think?”
“I, I think you’re nuts, crazy. What did you want to talk about, anyway?”
“Maybe what it would take to get me to just go away.”
“Go away?”
“Yeah, everyone has a price, even me.”
“I can only imagine. Not that I give a damn, but what would your price be?”
“That’s why we should talk. I tell you what. Why don’t you plan on meeting me in a nice public place, tomorrow.”
“Why not tonight, maybe double your pleasure?” she said, suddenly eager to get together.
“Tonight, well, I can think of a couple of reasons. It would be dark, for one. And, the fact that I don’t trust you comes to mind, but actually, I’ve already got plans for tonight. So, I’ll call you tomorrow. Oh, one more thing. I’m going to tell you to come alone, so leave your bodyguards at home, okay?”
“Maybe you’d be a little more agreeable if I…”
I hung up then switched my phone off.
Chapter Fifty
I phoned Dog, arranged to meet him about midnight at The Spot where I explained my plan, such as it was, over a couple of beers. We were sitting in a booth, just the two of us. One thing about being somewhere with Dog, no one wanted to join you.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you just take them all out, no hassle, long as no one sees you,” he said shaking his head.
“Yeah, and no way to beat the rap for Softee’s body ending up in the trunk of my car. He could have been in there for days with that plastic bag wrapped around his head. Hell, I don’t know,” I said, then washed down my concern with more beer.
“Oh yeah, that.”
“Look. I’m meeting her, Lola, tomorrow. But tonight I need your help in dealing with her bodyguards. They’ll all be somewhere in the vicinity of that ice-cream truck, running their betting shop. If we could take care of them there…”
“Blow them away?” Dog asked. He almost sounded hopeful.
“No, I think it would be best if no one was killed here, Dog. But maybe if we could just get them out of the way, say for a day, possibly two. We can nail darling Lola and then turn the whole bunch over to the cops.”
“Maybe I forgot to mention it, but I’ve been sort of keeping a low profile around the cops, lately,” Dog replied, knowing full well he had mentioned it.
“That’s the beauty of this. We deliver this scum to the police on a platter, they wipe away the phony charges against me and the stuff against you. It’s simple, we can cut a deal” I said, sort of half believing it.
Dog didn’t look all that convinced.
“I still think it would be easier to just blow them all away.”
“Look, can we just do this my way, please?”
“Yeah sure, why not? You’ve certainly done well up to this point.”
Chapter Fifty-One
At two fifteen that morning I sat in the front seat of Dog’s Ram Charger watching the Mister Softee’s ice-cream truck from a block away. We’d left my new car at The Spot. It was after closing, and the streets had gotten pretty quiet downtown. The black Hummer was parked across the street maybe twenty feet back from the ice-cream truck.
“Let’s just keep it simple. I’ll walk up to the ice-cream truck like I’m gonna place a bet. The guy has a shotgun with him in there. I hold my gun on him.” I said.
“Then what?”
“That brings Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber out. Soon as you see them walking across the street you drive up behind, get the drop on them. We got all three. Easy. No one gets hurt.”
“You say so,” Dog sounded dejected.
“Yeah, it has to go down like this, otherwise we find ourselves in a lot more trouble. Use these plastic ties to cuff them, we’ll pile them all into the Hummer and bring ‘em back to the lake. Sound like a plan?”
“Whatever, let’s just get her done,” Dog groaned.
I walked down the street, trying to act as casual as possible with a Glock 17 stuffed in my belt. I only hoped the thugs in the Hummer didn’t recognize me before I got the draw on Baldy in the truck.
“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, approaching the window.
It was the same guy, bald, muscular, mustache, dressed all in black. The blue glare coming from his laptop reflected off his large bald head. He sort of looked like a full moon floating inside the darkened ice-cream truck. He half grunted an acknowledgement.
“Still taking action on the All Star game,” I asked.
“Hell yes, Jesus, it ain’t for another two…”
My Glock suddenly resting in the middle of the window cut the rest of his conversation off.
“Don’t think about doing anything stupid. Put your hands on top of that fat, bald head. Now just sit there real still like, and we’ll wait for your two pals.”
He raised his hands up onto his head, his biceps bulged, his forearms looked like logs, and I was awfully glad I had the Dog nearby to keep things calm.
“Hey, you’re that fuck…”
“Shut up!” I snarled then waited for the approach of his pals.
It took another minute or two before they came. Unfortunately, they started the Hummer, flicked the headlights on, then drove across the street toward me. I started glancing back and forth, from Baldy to the Hummer gaining speed, back to Baldy. The Hummer was almost there.
“Don’t!” I yelled, keeping the Glock trained on him as he started to move. He thought better of it.
The Hummer suddenly accelerated.
I dropped, got just a half a roll out of the way before it slammed into the side of the ice-cream truck where I had been standing a second before. The truck rocked and skidded sideways a couple of feet. I heard things crashing about inside, glass breaking. Baldy groaned and then seemed to be coughing. As I scrambled to my feet the glow from the laptop was gone. There was something electric zapping and sizzling from inside the truck.
The Hummer pulled backward, the right side headlights were smashed. As it screeched to a stop I was aware of glass tinkling onto the street. Something seemed to be dragging from the wheel well on the passenger side and scraping the pavement. Suddenly the engine roared and the Hummer lurched forward.
I heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun round being chambered behind me. I jumped just as the Hummer slammed into the truck again, missing me by a half inch. The truck rocked sideways another couple of feet. There was a blast and a simultaneous flash from inside as the shotgun fired and the sound of more b
reaking glass and things falling down.
I fired the Glock three or four times into the engine block with absolutely no effect. The Hummer had reversed again, and I watched as the wheels quickly cranked and zeroed in on me. I swung the Glock up to the windshield, fired three quick rounds just as Hummer leapt forward and then swept past me in a giant explosion.
Dog in the Ram Charger, flames painted across his hood, broadsided the Hummer, knocked it fifteen feet slamming it into a phone pole.
Everything was silent for a long moment, a couple of pieces of glass tinkled when they fell to the floor from inside the ice-cream truck behind me. I walked toward the Hummer, Glock raised, ready to shoot whoever came out. Dog backed up, stumbled out of the Ram Charger and fell down onto his knees, coughing, spitting, and laughing in a sort of insane, crazy way. He had his pistol in his hand. Nothing moved from inside the Hummer as the engine steamed and hissed.
I looked through the smashed passenger window, into the face of a black guy I’d never seen before. He stared back, glassy eyed, mouth open, very dead.
His partner was a red-headed guy with a scraggly beard that made him look like a pedophile. I didn’t recognize him either, not that it mattered now. He sat pinned behind the steering wheel with a hole in his forehead about the size of a nickel. There was another hole, just below his right cheek bone. The exit wound had taken off most of his right ear and a fist-sized section of the back of his skull.
I heard something behind me. It was Dog, ripping the back door to the ice cream truck open.
“Don’t,” he shouted.
I approached the truck cautiously, pistol pointed toward the door where Dog stood. He looked back at me, shook his head, coughed something up and spit into the truck.
“Stupid bastard shot himself,” he said, then stepped inside, opened the top of one of the coolers.
“Jesus,” I mumbled.
Baldy was seated on the floor, head tilted back, mouth open, and a disbelieving stare on his face. A gaping wound where his chest had been with the shotgun and the floor around him soaked in blood. The shotgun apparently discharged when the Hummer hit the truck.
“You want some of this ice cream?” Dog sounded nonchalant as he pulled boxes of ice-cream treats out of the freezer.
“Come on, we better get the hell out of here, man,” I said.
“Yeah, whoa, lookey here,” Dog said, pulling two purple bank bags out of the freezer, laying them on top of the boxes of ice-cream treats.
They looked just like the bag Baldy had dropped in the bank’s night deposit the other evening.
“Dog, come on, we gotta get going, the cops are probably on the way, now.”
“Coming,” he said, carrying three boxes of ice-cream treats and the two purple bank bags over to his truck. He threw them onto the seat between us then jimmied the screwdriver in the ignition until the truck turned over.
“Open up one of them boxes, give me an ice cream,” he said, pulling around the Hummer and heading out to the lake place.
Chapter Fifty-Two
We both heard the siren at the same time. Dog took the next right and quickly pulled over. A police squad raced past behind us, heading in the direction of the ice-cream truck and what was left of the Hummer.
“Let’s just get out of here,” I said.
“Don’t need to tell this old Dog twice,” he said, then pointed us toward I-35 North and the lake.
By the time we pulled in the engine had a noticeable ping and steam was coming out from beneath the buckled hood.
“Shit, coolant, oil, we might as well have dropped bread crumbs, any damn idiot could follow our trail from downtown,” Dog said shutting the truck off. The engine clanked, shook, vibrated a bit and then steam hissed from beneath the deep creases in the hood.
“Son-of-a-bitch might blow.”
“You kidding?” I asked.
“Naw, just giving you some shit. Come on, you carry the ice cream. I’ll take care of the money,” he said climbing out.
Dog slit the nylon bags with the knife he always carried, dumped the contents out onto the plywood counter.
“Holy shit, will you look at this, man?”
I was attempting to cram the ice-cream boxes into the frost-filled freezer compartment.
“What the…”
Dog had emptied out the two bags into one large pile of currency. He grabbed two fistfuls of bills.
“There’s probably five or six grand here, man! Whew, damn just look at all this shit!”
“Let’s count it up,” I said stepping over to the counter.
“You count it, I’m gonna celebrate,” he said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a box of ice-cream treats.
I was quickly sorting currency into stacks of hundreds, fifties, and twenties, carefully facing each bill the same way.
“Hey Dev, will you look at this shit here? Jesus Christ.”
Dog had taken the top off a box of ice cream treats, only it wasn’t full of ice cream. Bundles of currency were neatly wrapped and arranged inside the box. Each bundle labeled with a handwritten ‘$5000’ in blue ballpoint.
“There’s fifty grand in this damn thing,” he said looking up at me wild eyed. He tossed the box on the counter where I stood. Then tore the other two boxes out of the freezer and pulled the cover off the first one.
“Shit, ice cream,” he said, dropped the box onto the floor and tore the lid off the second box.
“Shit, more ice cream, damn it. You want one?” he asked, down on his knees scooping up a handful of treats and stuffing them back into the freezer.
“Let me count this up first,” I said losing count and starting all over again.
When we finished we agreed there was something in the neighborhood of sixty two thousand and change. It took four separate efforts, I never really arrived at the same figure twice, but I was always in the same neighborhood.
“Lot a damn dough for just selling ice cream,” I said. I was in the process of finishing my second drumstick, stuffing the tail end of the cone into my mouth.
Dog’s lips, beard, and mustache were coated in melted Fudgesicle. He wiped his hands across his T-shirt and began to tear the wrapper off another one.
“You know, that’s a lot of goddamn money. You think that little stand was capable of pulling all that in?”
“I don’t know, maybe, I guess. The All Star game is day after tomorrow. That could be some heavy betting action.”
“Reason I’m asking is, let’s say they didn’t do all this action. They’re taking bets, but maybe they’re also a collection point for other places. Softee had more than one truck, right?”
“Yeah, he’s got a lot of trucks, or at least the company does,” as I remembered Softee was lying on a block of ice down at the morgue.
“If they were all taking bets, or even some of them, I would guess your girlfriend, Linda, is it?”
“Lola,” I said.
“I would guess your girlfriend Lola’s got more bad actors on her payroll. You see what I’m getting at?”
I nodded, then said,
“The two guys in the Hummer, I’d never seen either one of them before. So she’s got at least two guys we know of still hanging around.”
“My guess would be more than two. They come looking for us we could be in real deep shit. And that kind of money is a pretty good reason to come looking,” Dog said then crammed half a Fudgesicle into his mouth.
Chapter Fifty-Three
We divided up the money that night. I took thirty and let Dog have the thirty plus, which made him very happy. I also paid back the twenty-five hundred for the Regal and tossed in another five hundred dollars for interest just because I felt generous.
Dog carefully covered his bed with his share of the money, then lay on top of the bills and began snoring. I settled into the recliner and eventually fell asleep with the reloaded Glock lying next to me.
I watched the sunrise news. They mentioned an early morning traffic accident downto
wn that claimed the lives of three individuals. They ran a five-second shot of the Hummer wrapped against the phone pole. Then moved on to a story about the home-run derby scheduled before the All Star Game. A little later I woke up Dog and had him give me a ride to The Spot so I could pick up my car.
“I wasn’t sure we were gonna make it,” I said as the Ram Charger wheezed into the alley behind my car.
“You’re telling me. Sucker’s going right into the shop from here.” With that I climbed out and watched as he clanged and pinged down the alley and around the corner.
Ten minutes later I was parked and on my cell.
“Yes,” Lola answered after about the fifth ring.
“Dev Haskell.”
“Yeah, I was waiting for your call. Look, I can’t meet you morning, something’s come up.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, just a little staffing problem, is all. Tomorrow morning would work a lot better for me.”
“I would really like to get this taken care of,” I pushed.
“Believe me, so do I, but I just can’t today. Tomorrow?”
“I’ll call you,” I said then hung up.
I reclined the seat and waited to see what, if anything, came down the alley to Softee’s house. I dozed off in the heat and humidity of the afternoon. The car doors slamming from in front of Softee’s garage woke me. There were two guys. I didn’t catch the first one but the second one wore glasses and had a ponytail with sideburns that followed his jaw line and tapered to a point. He was one of the guys I had expected to see last night.
My phone rang.
“Haskell Investigations,” I answered after checking the caller ID.
“Oh, so now you’re answering.”
“Hi Jill, how are you?”
“Still pretty pissed off, if you want the truth. Where the hell were you?”
“Something came up I had to deal with,” I was going to say a staffing problem like Lola had told me, but thought better of the idea.
