Iced (John Wads Crime Novellas Book 1)

by Jerry Peterson

  Wads up, hunched low. He skittered to the couch, pitched a cushion aside, recovered his nine mil, and raced out the apartment door. He galloped down the stairs three steps at a time, his bunny slippers slapping his heels. At the door, a bullet chipped a hole in the side glass.

  Wads whipped the door open. He dropped to his belly, his gun aimed out.

  A muzzle flash sparked in the window of a car across the street.

  Wads answered the flash with a volley as the car screeched away–what kind of car? Dark? A foreign job? Wads ran into the street, craning for a better look as blue lights and a siren came around the corner behind him. And a second siren.

  He raised his hands. Wads let his pistol dangle for all to see, one finger hooked through the trigger guard.

  SEVEN

  WADS SAT ON THE HOOD of an unmarked cruiser while sheriff’s Detective Howard Zigman stood with a cluster of city police on the front lawn, comparing notes. He came away.

  “Wads, I don’t know how you do it, but everywhere you’ve gone today, a dead body.”

  “Not at the Owls’ Club.”

  “Karns is going to sue you, you know that?”

  “For what?”

  “Running over his motorcycle.”

  “Did you see any damage to my truck to support a wild claim like that?”

  “The bashed-in door.”

  “You know where that’s from.”

  “All right, enough. Look, I’m here as your friend, and I’ve got to tell you the city police want to arrest you.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Discharging a firearm inside the city limits.”

  “Would they rather I be dead?”

  “No. By the way, I like your bunny slippers.”

  Wads peered off to the side. “When am I gonna get my gun back?”

  “You know the drill. Ballistics takes a couple days, even though they know you didn’t shoot the woman in your apartment. Missus Naseri, what was she doing here?”

  “Said she thought I could find the man who killed her husband.”

  “That’s my job. You’re not a sworn peace officer.”

  “I would be if you’d get me on with the sheriff’s department.”

  “She have anything for you?”

  “Not even a guess.”

  “Is that what Barb Larson’s going to say? The city detective says she’s upstairs.”

  “You’ll have to ask her.”

  “What’s she doing here, anyway?”

  “She knew I had a bad day, so she came over to hold my hand.”

  “Don’t smart mouth me.”

  “Look, we were in the shower together, all right?”

  “That I didn’t need to know.”

  “Howard, you are such a prude.”

  “And my wife likes it that I am. So go over it for me.”

  Wads stared at Zigman. “All right, some assailant shoots Shatha through the window of my apartment. I run out with my gun. He shoots at me and I shoot at him.”

  “Six times. Yes, they counted your shell casings. You hit him?”

  “I hit a window. I know because there’s glass in the street. Maybe a door or the rear fender as he careened the hell out of here, but not him.”

  “Are you sure? The lighting out here’s pretty bad.”

  “Howard, if I hit him, he’d be in a hospital with a hole in him or he’d be dead.”

  EIGHT

  A TANKER TRUCK, at the side of the Kwik Trip, dumped gasoline in the convenience store’s underground tanks while Wads, his fists parked on his hips, stared at a waste barrel by the pumps. He called to his tall cashier, Cindy, squeegeeing the glass of the store’s front door, “I thought the day shift was supposed to empty these things before they went off.”

  “Maybe they got busy.”

  “Aw cripes.” He punched the overflow down and tied off the top of the trash bag before he hauled it out of the barrel. A Lexus LS 600 rolled up to the closest pump as Wads grubbed around the barrel’s bottom for a new bag.

  The driver stepped out. He swiped his card. “Looking for money down there?”

  “Wouldn’t complain if I found a fifty.” Wads shook out the new bag. He tucked the excess around the outside edge of the barrel. “See you’ve got a new ride there, Mister Barnard.”

  “How many years have we known each other? Call me Ralph.”

  “All right, Ralph.”

  Barnard, in a suit and overcoat that matched the quality of his car, and a Tom Selleck mustache, triggered gas into the Lexus’s filler pipe. “Had this sweet thing for three weeks. Figured it’s time to fill up.”

  “Oh, one of those gas electrics.”

  “I’ve gone green. I heard you had a bit of excitement last night.”

  “More than a bit.” Wads slung the trash bag over his shoulder.

  “Do you think the man who killed that Naseri woman and shot at you also killed the woman’s husband yesterday? He was one of my accountants, you know.”

  “You’ll have to ask the police on that. Raheem working on anything special for you?”

  “Routine stuff. I hired him because you said I should. An awful good man. I liked him and his wife and their little girl. Real sweet people. Friends are looking after the girl, right?”

  “That’s what I understand.”

  “Well, I set up a trust for her.”

  “Ralph, that’s generous.”

  “It’s the least I could do.” Barnard put the nozzle back in the pump. “Are you arranging the funerals?”

  “Digger will get the bodies after the autopsies. He and I’ll work with the As-Sunnah imam to make sure we do everything right.”

  “I want you to give me the bills. Wads, I’m sure the Naseris didn’t have any insurance.”

  “Again, that’s generous.”

  “Well, I owe these people. We all do. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to be on my way–community concert board tonight.” He slid onto the leather driver’s seat and whisked away, the car silent as an owl on the wing.

  Wads headed for the dumpster near the tanker. The tankwagon driver clicked off the filler hose and pulled it up as Wads came by, splashing a slug of gasoline on him, startling Wads who dropped his trash bag. It burst, spilling the mess out everywhere.

  The driver gaped. “I’m sorry.”

  “Arnie, just don’t light a cigarette.”

  NINE

  WADS GLANCED at the antique Miller’s beer clock over the bar as he sauntered into The Library, the lady gliding on a floral swing beneath the clock.

  Twelve-ten.

  He dropped his parka and cap in a leather chair and flopped in another, waggled two fingers to Barb, his signal for the usual.

  She, in a red velvet top and black shorts, came over with a bottle of Muscle Milk–strawberry flavor. Her nose wrinkled as she came near.

  Wads stared at her. “What?”

  “You stink.”

  “Of gasoline, I know. Do you welcome all your customers this way?”

  “Only the ones that stink.”

  “Hey, the tankwagon driver splashed me.”

  “So you stank up the store all night?”

  “I guess.”

  She set the bottle on Wads’s table. He twisted the top off the Muscle Milk and tossed back a slug.

  “I’ll tell you this, big boy, if this bar weren’t smoke-free, you’d go up with a spark from someone’s Bic.�
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  “You make me feel so good.”

  “You ought to go home and take a bath.”

  “Can’t. The water’s off in my building.”

  She reached inside her bra and produced a key. She pressed it into his hand. “My place. Use my tub.”

  WADS TRUDGED up the final flight of stairs. He liked old Victorian houses, but a third-floor apartment–anyway, the key worked.

  He felt for a light switch, unsurprised when he found it was the push kind. Wads pressed it and a chandelier came on, a soft light made softer by the ruby crystals dangling from the fixture. A walk around his apartment in a plain-Jane building a couple blocks away told company the furnishings were a mixture of old college dorm and Ikea while this was Bed, Bath & Beyond.

  He found his way to the bathroom and turned on a spigot on a claw-foot tub, the tub a neat old thing. His grandparents had had one in their house.

  Wads shucked himself out of his boots and clothes.

  Ooo, stinky, stinky, stinky. There’s gotta be a washer around somewhere.

  He padded out into the hallway and opened doors until he found a laundry room. Wads pitched his clothes in the washing machine, poured in a shot of liquid Tide, and hit the start button.

  That done, he padded back to the bathroom and eased himself down into the tub. Ahh, comfort, but where’s the soap? A couple plastic bottles rested on a tray at the side. Wads helped himself to one–okay, liquid soap. He squeezed out a handful and lathered up. His nose vibrated. Wads turned the label. Ohmigod, bubble bath–Midnight Pomegranate. And the other bottle? Shampoo–Lord, avocado and kumquat.

  WADS STOOD at the pedestal basin, a plum-colored towel wrapped around his waist. He studied the face that looked back from the mirror, rubbed at the sandpaperish beard, more an eleven o’clock shadow than a five. He couldn’t go to work like that, and no water at home–hmm.

  Wads opened the medicine cabinet, and there on the bottom shelf laid a razor. He picked it up–gad, a Lady Schick–and a can of shaving foam. Lady Schick, just had to be.

  The ragging I’d get if old Sergeant Baker saw me now. Well, he’s not here.

  So Wads turned the hot water on in the basin. While the sink filled, he gazed around. Liquid soap. Yup, this time it really was. The label, Vanilla Brown Sugar. Oh jeez.

  Small pictures on the wall, in a grouping to the side–two little kids, one in cowboy garb, the other dressed as a pirate with a scar and beard painted on with makeup. Who could they be? Barb had never mentioned children, and there sure weren’t any signs of kids in the apartment–no toys or rubber duckies or Spiderman toothpaste.

  Well, a mystery for another time.

  He turned the water off and set to lathering up. The first stroke with the razor snagged skin. Wads grimaced. He tore off a piece of toilet paper and patted it over the wound, to stop the blood leak. Another nick on the next stroke and another dab of TP.

  Wads threw the blade out. He replaced it with a new one from the cabinet.

  And smooth shaving.

  Done, he washed off the excess foam and wiped his face dry as a key scratched in the apartment door’s lock.

  A female voice called out, “It’s only me. You decent?”

  “In here.”

  The bathroom door opened, Larson shelling herself out of her coat as she came in. She looked at Wads’s reflection in the mirror and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The toilet paper. My dad used to do that when he’d cut himself. He’d come out of the bathroom many a morning with four or five of those battle patches as he called them. He was always trying to get one more shave out of a blade that didn’t have one more shave in it.”

  Wads held up the razor. “This worn-out blade was yours.”

  “Sorry. My, such interesting scars.” Larson played her fingers along white welts under Wads’s arm, the scars going down toward his waist.

  “Souvenirs from Iraq,” he said. “I’ve got some you can’t see.”

  “Where?” She took hold of the towel.

  “Hey now–”

  Larson whipped it away.

  TEN

  WADS STROLLED into the Farm Credit Agency where he rapped on the door frame of Ed Velstrum’s office.

  Velstrum, a decade older than Wads but with gray hair and worry lines that made him look two decades older, glanced up from a stack of spreadsheets.

  “Eddie, I need your help.”

  “From what I hear, Wads old buddy, you don’t need me. You need a bodyguard. You’ve got a killer and Barb Larson after you, and I don’t know which is worse.”

  “Barb’s not so bad.”

  “Aggressive as all hell when she’s got a guy in her sights, and, you, my friend, you’re it.”

  Wads waved a thumb drive.

  Velstrum peered at it. “So what help do you expect from me? I couldn’t save you from financial ruin.”

  “You understand numbers far better than I do.”

  “Daffy Duck understands numbers far better than you do.”

  “Just can’t pass the chance to gig me, can you? Look, there’s stuff on here that I don’t know what it is.”

  Velstrum waggled his fingers, and Wads came in. He passed the drive to the accountant.

  Velstrum plugged the drive into his computer. “This better be good. I’ve got a headache.”

  “You’ve had a headache since Two Thousand Three.”

  “The Iraq war. Hell of it is I didn’t even get there. A damn concussion grenade blew out one of my eardrums in training.” He squinted at the screen. “Bunch of files here. Which one do you want me to look at first?”

  Wads leaned over Velstrum’s shoulder. He tapped an icon.

  Velstrum sniffed at the air. “You smell kind of fruity, my friend. What you been into?”

  “I’m going to pass on that one.”

  The accountant hunched forward. He studied the page of data that flicked up on his screen. Velstrum scrolled down every few moments, humming to himself. He raised an eyebrow. “The code for this company, I recognize it. It’s called America Invests. Buddy boy, what you’ve got here is a spreadsheet, shows the return over time on some pretty sophisticated instruments.”

  “How sophisticated?”

  “You a physics PhD?”

  “No.”

  “Neither am I. But as you say, I know numbers. See this, here, here, and here? A.I. has been giving its investors ten percent a year for a decade. Market doesn’t work that way.”

  Wads stared at Velstrum. “A scam?”

  “Who’s behind A.I.?”

  “How would I know?”

  “So where did you get the thumb drive?”

  “From the widow of an accountant who worked for Ralph Barnard’s bank.”

  “Ah, yes, I always thought old Ralphie was a little too slick. Wads, you gotta take this to somebody who goes elephant hunting with a cannon.”

  ELEVEN

  WADS SAT AT HIS DESK in the Kwik Trip’s office, poring over the next week’s work schedule with Cindy, his night clerk. He plugged an ear as he hollered at the hefty man standing on a chair in the corner, “Twigs, you have to make so much racket?”

  “Do you want your closed-circuit TV repaired or not?”

  “Repaired.”

  “Then don’t bitch.”

  “But do you have to use a ballpeen hammer?”

  “Sometimes these covers need a little persuading before they’ll jump back in place.” Twigs Kushmerick whanged the cabinet again.
“There, done.”

  He got down and, as he did, he hitched up his pants threatening to fall to his ankles. “Wanna see if we got a picture?”

  “That’s why Kwik Trip’s paying you the big bucks.”

  “Damn right it is. Double time plus travel.” Kushmerick punched a button on the panel of monitors. A flickering travelled across the series of screens followed by pictures–the pumps, the area in front of the cash register, the entrance. A hairy form came ambling in.

  Wads rocked back in his chair, his hands cupped behind his head. “Is that what I think it is?”

  The screen from the camera behind the cash register showed a gorilla moving around, examining the Ding Dongs and Ho Hos.

  Cindy stifled a giggle. “I could believe this if it was Halloween.”

  The gorilla turned to the banana display. He glanced over his shoulder, then grabbed the giant Kwik Trip banana that advertised the yellow fruit for thirty-nine cents a pound and ran out.

  Wads hooted.

  Twigs gathered up his tools. “You don’t know who that is, do ya?”

  “Probably some kid from the college stealing advertising stuff for his dorm room.”

  “Didn’t you see the story on the TV news last night?”

  “We were working, Twigs.”

  “That’s the by-damn Banana Bandit. He hit four stores in Madison last week and now yours. You gotta call Nine-One-One.”

  “You think the cops are gonna believe this? I’m not sure I do.”

  “Hey, thank you to my hard work, Wads, you got it on tape.”

  Cindy chortled some more. “I think we should put this up on YouTube.”

  A black car drove into the picture coming from a camera focused on pumps Three and Four. The driver stepped out. He ratcheted his ball cap down and strode toward the front door. The next screen picked up a hand movement, the man pulling a pistol from beneath his jacket.

  Wads reached for a button under his desk. He mashed it, setting off a wailing siren, like a police car’s.