by Larry Flewin
The lead was humming around my ears like bees. They seemed to have a whole lot of ammo and a whole lotta guns, and nothing else to do but use them. And they seemed intent on stopping me by shooting the truck to pieces. We were parting company one splinter at a time.
We were making pretty good time, judging by how fast the fence posts whipped past, but the lights were getting closer, and the bullets more personal. The other side mirror vanished. My expensive cargo was also leaving, through about a million holes in the tank. All it would take was one of those bees to set the whole thing off and then I'd really be in trouble. I didn't see I had much choice now except to step out and take my chances in the dark again.
I geared the old girl down to a crawl, eased her on over to the left side of the road and got ready to step off onto the shoulder. Not fast enough. Even as I steeled myself for the bruises to come, a lucky shot blew out a tire on the passenger side. Even in low she couldn't hold the road. I was tossed clear as the truck flipped over onto its right side in the middle of the road, slid for a short distance in a shower of sparks, and then blew up.
Imagine the surprise of the car right behind her. Too close to move out of the way, and too fast to slow down. They died without even having time to blink. And then the rest of them were all over the place trying to avoid ending up in the same funeral. By the time I’d stopped rolling and dived into the ditch, it was all over. I could see they were all gathered together, watching the flames grow higher. There was nothing they could do either.
Until somebody noticed a car in the ditch on my side of the road. It was upside down with the lights on and the occupants screaming blue murder. They were stuck inside and the fiery river coming a little too close for comfort. Even though I was closer I wasn't about to offer them a helping hand. Their gratitude probably wouldn't last much longer than the time it would take me to get them out of the wreck. Their friends however appeared to be more charitable.
I took one last look back before heading off towards the distant horizon. Friendlier hands heaved the car upright and everyone ran off into the welcoming arms of the night. Seems like they didn't want to hang around either. The bonfire we had tried to roast each other with was bound to attract somebody's attention, and I don't suppose they were willing to explain things any more than I was. A large chunk of the road was lit up, giving me plenty of light to see where I was heading.
I’ve been told many times that exercise is good for a clean mind and healthy body, but that wasn't how I returned to civilisation. It was damn cool out for a summer night, and I was in a for a very long hike in the mud. All I had to keep me going, and keep me warm, was my cursing and my singing.
It was clear that there was more to this than just a missing person. The guy in the clipping, what interest did a soaking wet socialite, and by extension, Michael have in him. After being out of touch for almost a year, I had bumped into him twice in two days. That wasn’t coincidence. It never was with him, he wanted something and I wasn’t it, I was just in the way. Or was I. If she knew him, even in passing, what did that really mean for me, and the guy I was looking for.
It was dawn by the time I stumbled back into the outskirts of town. I dog-tired and dirty, pretty much normal for me, unarmed and out of smokes, which wasn’t. I was anxious to correct that deficiency, but I still had a long way to go. Pavement came up to greet me, leading from nowhere to somewhere, another symbol of civilisation gone wrong.
It was literally stopped in the middle of nowhere, a black finger pointing directly at somebody at City hall with a need to impress, and a hand in the civic cookie jar. Road building was a sure way to put people to work for the short term and make him look good for the long term. And why not, it was a cush job with a lot of perks, legal or otherwise, a big fat pension, and the power of god when it came to deciding who did what where.
Roads also meant traffic, and that meant I was bound to bump into a cabbie, some poor schmuck banned to the outlying districts because he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, pay the extra for access to downtown and the classier fares.
The first couple to cruise by wouldn't give me the time of day. Looked at me, looked away, and kept on going. I guess I wasn't the prettiest picture, more like a sodbuster at a Sunday afternoon picnic, all dressed up and still covered in dirt. I pulled up a curb figuring that if I scraped some of it off I’d have better luck.
I was just starting to pick off the bugs when a door opened in front of me. No cigar smoke this time, just a quick nod and quiet ride. My man seemed intent on getting to where I wanted to go chop chop, which was fine by me. Breakfast calling and I didn't want to be late.
Karl’s pat-down technique needed work. Despite everything else, I still had a hundred big ones jammed into my left sock. A fin sailed over the back seat and my ride picked up speed. A man could do a lotta damage in this town with that kind of dough, but buying information wasn't my style. Call me old fashioned but I liked to ask my questions up close and personal.
And this was starting to get personal. The closer we got to home the more determined I got to start shooting back, even if for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity. Hell, I was the PI here, I was supposed to know what was going on. I seemed to have all the clues, and all the questions, and everyone else seemed to have all the answers. But none of them were being very forthcoming. It was time to go looking for trouble.
Familiar surroundings finally appeared in front of us, which is when the PI in me took over. It tapped my man on the shoulder and asked him to go around the block. We drove past the front door in the middle of some early morning traffic. I ducked down low as we went by, and it was just like I figured. My front door had company. Some cheap suit trying to pretend he was waiting for a bus. We circled around back and I jumped out. The cabbie left a rich man, and I left a live one.
Like all these old blocks, there was a fire escape at the back, a rickety collection of knotty boards, and rusty nails. On a good day it would burn first, and burn fast, but it was the only other way in or out. Which surprised me. It had to be Michael’s goon out front, but not know there was another way in. I thought he knew me better than that, there was always another way in, or out. Even with a railing to hang onto, it was like walking up a mountain, it was a relief to eventually to step onto the landing on the second floor.
That belonged to the laundry lady and her family. As usual, they had starch on the boil, which meant her kitchen window was wide open. She yammered away at me in Chinese as I climbed in and strolled through her kitchen. Gave me her usual big smile and waved me on through, everybody else seemed to be more interested in breakfast.
Across the hall and I was standing in the middle of what was left of my office. I shouldn’t have been surprised at the mess. Michael was, if nothing else, thorough, always crossing his eyes, dotting his tees, and paving over the bodies. What little I possessed in this world had been tossed around the room a few times and even my old friend in the corner had been frisked. The floor was only the only thing that was still where I'd left it.
But it was a safe bet the decorators wouldn't be back. They hadn't found anything so all they were going to do now was wait for me to make the next move. That's what the muscle downstairs was doing, waiting. And that made my little corner of the world, or what was left of it, the perfect place to hole up in for a while.
My sink was still attached to the wall, so I scraped the rest of the mud off, washed my socks, and splashed the rest of me. Everything else I owned had been slashed or burned, so I paid a visit to the rack in the hallway just outside the Chen’s apartment. It was full of stuff left behind by many of the citizens of this fair city too dead or too cheap to cough up once the job was done.
The Chen’s were nice folks, but like everybody else business was business. Nobody got anything for free anymore, it was cash on the barrelhead or get lost. And she was just the lady to do it, all of five foot nothing and armed with an iron fist. I guess that's what we respected in each
other, iron.
She did sell some of this stuff once in a while, and occasionally gave some of it away to family and friends. The rest of it was left hanging on a rack for a rainy day. Which meant me. I didn't always have the cash but I got what I needed. A shirt here, some socks there. It was like having your mother living next door, and like any good mother, she could read minds. No sooner had I touched the rack then her door flew open and out she came.
"What you want. Oh, I see, you wait." Like any good son, I put it in idle and waited. The loaded holster under my armpit went unnoticed. A practised eye gave me the once over, followed by a quick sizing of my shoulders and waist with a well-worn tape measure. The suit she eventually pulled out for me was a beautifully tailored navy worsted with a very thin grey stripe. She made me try it on right there in the hall.
It wore a bit looser than I liked, but I figured since my diet was over, I'd grow back into it. And how choosy could I be. These didn't exactly grow on trees, and I wasn’t always flush enough to waltz down the street and order a new one. Yeah, I had money but this kinda thing was never my priority.
"Good suit, good suit. Fit nice." That eagle eye of hers checked out each thread, seam, and button. She brushed me off here and there and nodded when she was done. I was presentable again, which meant I could put my arms down and breathe again. That's why I didn't like shopping. There weren't too many hands that I'd let near me let alone hitch up my pants.
I reached into my special hiding place and pulled out my wad. I lived on the edge mostly, hand to mouth at times, but I wasn't a deadbeat either. I paid when I could, and she knew that. I fingered a big bill and handed it to her. She mumbled something in Chinese again, slapped my wrist and stuffed into her pocket. I didn't know what she’d said but I had a pretty good idea what she was thinking.
I wandered back into my life and rescued what was left of it from the pile on the floor. How much of a hurry had they been in to wreck the place, and leave my Scotch alone? That was worth remembering. I took a good long pull and introduced my suit to my chair. My feet went up onto my desk and the bottle to my lips, but before it could show signs of empty I was out like a light.
CHAPTER FIVE
It was mid-afternoon when I woke up. A quick peek out the window and no sign of my doorman, but that didn't mean anything. He could be around the corner having a smoke, or outside my door waiting to invite me to dinner. Shook my head awake and made doubly sure there was no invitation anywhere.
I shoved aside some of the rubble, popped my floorboard, and took a quick inventory of the contents. It was all still there, several small bundles of cash tossed on top of some case souvenirs, all very out in the open, the last place anyone would think to look. They were well protected by a heavy angular object wrapped in oilcloth at the bottom of the hole. I dug it out carefully, closed up shop, and unwrapped it on my newly cleaned desk.
She was an older model Colt Forty-Five, the bluing mostly worn off but still shiny as the midnight oil I sometime burned. An old friend from way back. We'd been through a lot together, but about a year ago I decided to retire her. I'd picked up a new piece at that point and figured I'd hang onto that one for a while, for luck. The new piece had handled well and fired true, but the ammunition had been hard to find.
But since it was now back home, it was time to return to the old tried and true. I slid on the holster first, snugging it up tight under my armpit. It was well creased, showing a couple of old scars. Shows how close a divorce case can sometimes get to being fatal. But, more to the point, how a loose fit can also get you killed. Hook the hammer in your shirt on the way out and see how long you live. It was a man's gun, big and heavy, with a helluva kick on the recoil. It took a man to hold one, fire one, and take a hit from one.
I checked both clips, snapped one into the butt, chambered a round, and slid her home. The second went into my left front coat pocket. That done I started the day by actually working, taking a good hard look at the object of everyone's desire. It had survived my ordeal as well as could be expected but it didn't make for interesting reading. Not that I expected it to, and not with my stomach pleading for its life and my lungs for a smoke.
It was a still just a hunk of newsprint, less than a quarter page in size with a picture and a story. No telling how old it was or what paper it had come from. The picture seemed ordinary enough, just a head and shoulders of some guy. No one I recognised. The story identified him as some sort of minor government official from the new Russia. He was wanted for questioning about the murder of another minor government official, and the loss of some valuable state property, from that self-same embassy in London England. It was further believed that he had fled to North America to avoid arrest. The police continued to make inquiries.
So, murder, robbery, and Michael all mixed together. Didn’t surprise me somehow. Those three always seemed to go hand in hand in this town. The overseas bit was a new twist but considering his background that wasn’t too surprising. Question was, what did Michael want with him and why was it worth two grand. Friend maybe, family. It didn’t make sense but it didn’t have to. Like the man said, Michael wants so Michael gets, and that meant anything, the rackets, prostitution, shine, anything that made him money the old-fashioned way. Illegally.
That being said I assumed this guy was in town and that I was supposed to be looking for him. Mr. Russia went back into my pocket and I went out the way I’d come in. Now that my new clothes were armed and broken in, it was time to take them out to dinner. I could've eaten an elephant, but I didn't figure on going on over to Stella’s just yet. It was probably being watched, too. She had more than a few friends in town, but even they couldn't always keep her in the clear. Instead I gave some thought to the less reputable spots that I occasionally frequented. The one I had in mind served a classier form of life than the rest.
Even with radio, most people will tell you that newspapers are the heart and soul of any town with any kind of ambition. Without a paper you're just a dot on the map, with one you become an important dot. A dot full of faith, hope, and charity. Kinda like this dustbowl, where greed, pride, and ambition were trying to turn small town into big city. A city where faith was only in churches, hope was non-existent, and charity came in a soup bowl twice a day. The best place in town to drown my sorrows, save my stomach, and squeeze in a little research, was the bar at the local rag, the Daily Independent.
Great place the Independence building. It was just a few blocks from my office on the other side of the tracks so to speak. The eggs were pickled, the steaks were rare, and the old doughboy behind the bar in the basement had more taps running than a Turkish bathhouse. Trudging down the stairs the heady aroma of cheap cigars and stale beer greeted me like a long-lost friend. There was the usual assortment of stiffs crowding the room, mostly young news bucks waiting for their first big break, or any break for that matter. In this town that was all that counted. A juicy divorce, a gunfight, a crooked politician, we had it all and if you landed a couple you were made.
No sooner had I straddled a chair and called for a beer then Kelly staggered over from the back of the room. A big Irish lump of a reporter with a nose like a Chinese lantern, he rumbled out from the back where he'd been holding court. Greeted me like a long friend so he did, but then the Irish were always like that. And it was always a cause for celebration, which is what he was doing when I dropped in.
Never did say what the celebration was for, but it couldn't have been all that important. He was the only one celebrating, and that mostly with the singing I'd heard when I was coming down the stairs. Lying in between the heaps of peanut shells and empty glasses was his notepad and pencil, the tools of his trade. How he could see straight enough to even find his pencil, let alone write something, was beyond me.
Funny thing about reporters. Even before the beer had arrived, he'd smelled a story. In between the snatches of songs, belches, and fits of coughing I could see his beady little eyes hard at work. He was try
ing to figure out if I was going to make his day. Roared out a greeting like the drunken Irish bear he was and crashed down onto the other chair at my table.
"Tony boy," he roared. “Top of the morning to ya, me old son."
"Same to you, you great Irish lump. And it's the afternoon. Tuesday, I think."
He gave me this pained look. "Now is that any way to talk your old pal Kelly Walter Devlin of Dublin. Out of the goodness of me heart do I not welcome you like a brother with open arms, and that's the thanks I get, is it?"
"Thanks. Now, whatta ya got to eat around here. I'm starving."
"Bloody marvellous. And where did ya get them clothes, man, rob a corpse did ya? Who ya been playing with, and are they still alive?"
"Oh, they're still walkin’ and talkin’, but enough of this crap. Hey, coupla steaks, eggs over easy, and rye toast."
My man behind the bar nodded knowingly, a wide grin on his toothy lips. He vanished into the kitchen behind his bar, wiping his hands on his apron and shaking his head. He knew Kelly and he knew me, one soft touch and one hard head. No matter what the subject was or heated the debate between us, Kelly was going to come out the winner, as he always did. Maybe it really was the Irish in him, his worldly outlook on life, or the free beer he always threw at me. He was one of the reasons why I still had some standing in this town.
A loud belch turned my attention back to my second wife, just in time to see him empty my glass for me.
"Hey!"
"Ah, that was a rare one, so it was. Another here."
"Make it two."
Kelly hunkered over the table, fixed me with that boozy one-eyed stare of his, and said, in all seriousness. "So, what's this I hear you're trying to kill Michael’s car the other night. Short of work are you. Fancy yourself a body man, do ya."
"Word gets around."
