Nearly Departed

by Max Patrick Schlienger

  “Draadtrekker!” Dennis pounded on the front door of the shop in a fair imitation of himself from a few days prior. “We have a problem!” There was no sign of a response from inside, and Dennis could sense the curious eyes on him from the little restaurant across the street. Since being watched was already a major source of his anxiety, the thought of adding more spectators to his entourage was not an appealing one. “Damn it,” Dennis muttered, and he stalked away from the door before someone took too much of an interest in him.

  “Doctor!” an accented voice yelled. Dennis turned around, but the shop remained devoid of life. “Always when I am closed, you come!”

  “Bo- … Draadtrekker?” Dennis called, catching himself, “where the hell are you?”

  “Up!” replied Bobo. Dennis craned his neck to see a mess of dreadlocks peering at him from an upstairs window. “Hello, my friend! Such a good evening it is right now!”

  “Appearances can be deceiving, Draadtrekker! Let me in!”

  Bobo flashed his wide smile and ducked back inside the window. A few moments later, the door swung open, and Dennis hurried to follow his friend into the store.

  “Be with you in a jiffy,” Bobo said, dropping the accent. “Give me a second to lock up again.” As he fiddled with the door, Dennis walked further into the shop, and wound up banging his shin against a low table. “Watch out,” warned Bobo, too late. “I moved some things around since you were here.”

  “I noticed,” Dennis muttered, rubbing his leg. He adjusted the weight of his bag and waited for his friend to finish before trying to find his way through the clutter.

  “What’s the matter, then?” asked Bobo, leading the way past shelves and cabinets to the back room. “Getting cold feet about tomorrow?”

  “What are you – oh, the date,” Dennis responded. He had taken care to pack a change of clothes worthy of a romantic night out, but after the rest of the evening’s events, he had completely forgotten about his plans for the following day. “No, that’s not it. I have something to show you.”

  “You couldn’t wait until the morning?”

  “It’s something I found online,” said Dennis. “You really need to see it.” He started to pull his laptop from the bag, but Bobo stopped him.

  “Wait, let’s go upstairs,” he suggested. Dennis looked on with mild disbelief as Bobo approached the largest of the cabinets in the room and opened it to reveal a stairway hidden behind it. “After you, September,” he said, nodding his head at the opening.

  “Not that I’m judging you,” Dennis replied, “but would you care to explain this?” He ducked as he entered the cabinet, and quickly fixed his eyes on the light at the top of the stairs.

  “Seemed like a fun idea at the time,” explained Bobo. His voice sounded flat in the narrow stairwell, and the sound of his footsteps behind Dennis seemed to keep pace with the dull strains of classical music that were coming from elsewhere in the building. The pair emerged into an apartment with Spartan furnishings and the biggest stereo system that Dennis had ever seen. Speakers, both large and small, lined the room, and the melodies that Dennis had heard earlier jumped into clear definition. It was little more than ambient noise, but he had little doubt that the music could crack the foundation if it had been turned up to full volume.

  “Okay,” said Bobo, gesturing to a couch. “Sit. Explain.” Dennis took the invitation, and placed his computer on the coffee table in front of him.

  “Remember how you asked what the point of being a doctor or a priest was?” he asked, bringing the laptop to life.

  Bobo furrowed his brow, and pulled the wig from his head. “No, not really.”

  “I told you how everyone at the UFO convention was a doctor or a reverend,” Dennis reminded him. “It gave them more credibility, remember?”

  “Oh, right, yes,” replied Bobo, nodding.

  “Well,” Dennis continued, “it gave me an idea. So, I did a little research, and I found something that I thought you should see.”

  “You said that already,” Bobo pointed out. “Couldn’t you have just, you know, emailed it to me? Or called me?”

  “Uh,” Dennis stammered. “I was afraid my phone was being tapped.”

  Bobo gave him a strange look. “No you wasn’t.”

  “Fine, you’re right,” confessed Dennis irritably. “I just panicked and I wasn’t thinking straight. So sue me. Will you come look at this, please?”

  Bobo grinned, which Dennis had decided was the man’s response to just about everything, and moved to take a seat on the couch. Dennis turned the computer to face him, and sat back expectantly as Bobo read through the page.

  “Yes, very interesting,” Bobo said after a few minutes. “I like the part about the wrecking ball particularly. What does this have to do with us?”

  “Look at the picture,” Dennis prompted.

  Bobo leaned towards the computer again. “Oh, yeah. That’s Elspeth’s house, isn’t it? Looks like someone scanned it in from a newspaper.”

  “They did,” affirmed Dennis. “Read the caption.”

  “When was this taken?”

  “Read the caption!” Dennis repeated.

  “Keep your hair on, September,” said Bobo. “Uh, right. So, it says that the house’s owner – Elspeth Palin, look at that – was approached by an anonymous party about selling it, right after her father’s obituary was printed.” He sat back, a triumphant smile crossing his face. “Ah, it was taken eight years ago. That’s when Evy showed up, yeah?”

  “It isn’t related. Not to this.”

  “Good to know.” Bobo looked at Dennis expectantly. When Dennis didn’t reply, he rolled his eyes. “Come on, out with it. What am I supposed to be seeing?”

  “Look at who took the picture.”

  Bobo sighed and turned his attention back to the computer. “Photo by M. R. Spinner,” he read. He paused, and his eyes widened slightly. “Blimey, ain’t that the PI?”

  “It would be a pretty big coincidence if it wasn’t,” said Dennis. “And if it’s not a coincidence, then it means that he knew about Elspeth a long time ago.”

  There was a brief glimmer of understanding in Bobo’s eyes, but it was quickly obscured by a cloud of confusion. “Wait, I’m lost. This bloke knows about Elspeth, and he knows about Harding, right?” Dennis nodded. “What’s that have to do with the shrink’s niece, then?”

  “It’s Spinner’s niece,” corrected Dennis, “and I don’t think Spinner is a private detective at all.”

  Bobo blinked. “What?”

  “It’s been bothering me for awhile now,” Dennis explained. “I couldn’t figure out why he was interested in me, or why he cared what I was doing at Elspeth’s house. If he’s a private detective, then somebody must have hired him. If he’s not, then he must have some kind of personal investment at stake.” He took a breath, considering his own thought process. “Since Spinner was already suspicious of Harding, he must have figured that I was involved with the thing with his niece. Then, when he saw me at Elspeth’s house, he decided that I was up to something. So, he made a fake business card claiming that he was a private investigator, and tried to scare me off out of his own sense of personal justice.” He looked at Bobo, who was sitting in pensive silence.

  “Okay,” Bobo said, tilting his head. “Just a few problems there, September.”

  “Like what?” challenged Dennis. “What could I have left out?”

  “How about the part where he follows you to Elspeth’s house the first time?” Bobo suggested. “Or did he just happen to be there when you showed up? Speaking of bloody big coincidences, I mean.”

  “Well, he was already following me when I talked to Elspeth on the phone,” said Dennis. “He could have seen me write down the address, recognized it, and heard me set up my appointment with her.”

  “Alright, fine.” Bobo made a conceding gesture, which he turned into a pointing finger. “Why’d he follow you the next day, then? It’s nothing to do with his niece, right?�
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  “Right,” agreed Dennis, “but maybe it’s a similar situation. Maybe he feels personally obligated to help her out somehow. I mean, he was obviously there when the article was written.” He nodded at the computer screen.

  “Was he?” Bobo asked. “I don’t know, September. He took the picture, but that’s all we know for sure.”

  “I think we can make a reasonable assumption at this point,” Dennis countered.

  “Right, because reasonable assumptions are always on the mark,” replied Bobo. “Your man Spinner certainly thinks so.”

  A frightening thought occurred to Dennis. “Wait, do you think he could have followed me here?” he asked. He looked at the window nervously. “Shit, he could be right outside!”

  Bobo seemed poised to dismiss the thought, but hesitated and shrugged. “Let’s have a look-see,” he said, pulling his wig back into place. He stood up and walked to the window, where he brushed aside the curtains. “Blue car, right?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” Dennis confirmed. “Is he out there?” Bobo didn’t respond. “Well? Is he out there?”

  “Could be,” said Bobo, his voice low. “Come look.”

  Dennis stood and joined the larger man by the window. Bobo pointed wordlessly at a dark blue sedan that was parked across the street. As soon as he made the gesture, the car’s headlights flared to life and the vehicle pulled away from the curb with a squeal of spinning tires.

  “A bit over-dramatic, that,” Bobo commented. “I guess it answers your question, though.”

  “God damn it!” Dennis swore. “What the hell are we supposed to do now? The man is psychotic!”

  “He’s also gone.” Bobo let the curtain fall, and he pulled the wig off again. “Nothing much we can do now, except get some rest for tomorrow.”

  Dennis started to respond, but a loud buzzing made him jump. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his vibrating phone. The display showed that it was Luke calling, and Dennis hurriedly answered.

  “Hey, what’s up?” came Luke’s voice. “I saw you called.” Even without hearing the nervousness there, Dennis would have known that something was wrong. Luke never made small talk, and polite greetings, no matter how casual they might have been, were practically a personal taboo for him.

  “Are you alright, Luke?” Dennis asked.

  “Oh, yeah, fine.” There was a pause. “Only, did you talk to Sam today? Did he say anything about that money he was going to loan me?”

  “He said he’d have it soon,” replied Dennis. He pulled the curtain aside and stared out the window again, but there was no sign of Spinner’s car. “Listen, Luke, I’m sorry to do this, but I’m in a bit of trouble here myself. Are you sure that everything is okay?”

  “Yeah, really, it’s fine,” Luke answered, not at all convincingly. “I’ll just try to get in touch with Sam.”

  “Alright, let me know how it goes.” Dennis ended the call without waiting for a response. “This is messed up,” he said to Bobo.

  “Someone else involved?”

  Dennis shook his head. “No, that was something different.” He looked out the window again. “I just don’t know what the hell we’re supposed to do now.”

  The bigger man shrugged. “You can stay here for tonight, if you’d like. The couch is comfy enough, and we can head over to Elspeth’s bright and early.”

  Under normal circumstances, Dennis would have refused, but thoughts of being tailed and confronted again made the relative security of Bobo’s apartment look incredibly appealing. “Just for the night,” Dennis said.

  “Wife won’t mind?”

  “No.”

  The curt reply brought a hint of a raised eyebrow to Bobo’s face, but he didn’t push for an explanation. Instead, he walked over to a large cabinet, a twin to the one they had walked through earlier, and pulled open the doors.

  “Well, it’s still early,” Bobo said. “Do you want to play a game or something?”

  Dennis sighed, and mentally warned himself that he should try to calm down. “Sure,” he answered reluctantly. “What did you have in mind?” Bobo turned around with a wide smile, displaying an unopened box still in its cellophane wrapping.

  “Backgammon?”