BOOKER Box Set #1 (Books 1-3: A Private Investigator Thriller Series of Crime and Suspense)

by John W. Mefford

I nodded, and felt a lump in my throat.

  We both ordered our food, sipped our drinks, chatted about general rumors flying around the rank and file.

  “With the Feds hoarding office space, taking resources at will, if any other cases get attention, it’s sheer luck,” Felix said, then tipped his head back to finish beer number one. He raised his arm and wiggled the empty bottle until the waitress acknowledged him.

  “I would have thought that days off would be hard to come by, given all the attention on crime scene evidence,” I said.

  “The FBI has a world-class CSI team. Everyone on the DPD team, including myself, can learn a lot—when they want to keep us in the loop,” he said.

  “Outside looking in?”

  “We’re on the periphery, there to take them coffee, wipe their asses when needed.”

  We both shared a chuckle.

  “A couple of my colleagues, twenty-year vets, have actually sat in on a couple of meetings. But I’ve been told we’re to be seen, not heard.”

  “Hey, my granddaddy used to say that.”

  “Mine too.”

  We both finished off our burgers, and I ate half my onion rings. I couldn’t do enough sit-ups to offset this fat fest. But it sure tasted good.

  His entire aura much more relaxed and approachable, Felix didn’t wait for my next lead-in question.

  “Technically, everyone on the team has access to all the evidence from both crime scenes.”

  A spark of excitement shot up my spine, but I played it calm and cool.

  “Oh yeah, any theories thus far, at least from a CSI perspective?”

  “I really haven’t studied it enough to draw any conclusions. They have me working every other case that’s not related to the bombings.”

  I nodded, wiped my mouth, and put the napkin on the table.

  “You want me to take a look and let you know what I think?” he asked.

  I paused, ensuring I was speaking to the Felix in the second part of our conversation, the one who’d let down his guard and exposed a mostly normal personality.

  “I just want to find out who’s behind this and make sure they stop before they do any more damage,” I said. “Terrorism isn’t just about how many fatalities, it’s about scaring people into doing crazy things. I can feel the city tearing apart, but not at the seams. In the middle of the fabric.”

  He raised his beer. “Here’s to stopping the bomber.” We clinked glasses and downed the rest of our perspective drinks.

  We both walked to the door. “I need to run to the restroom. But I almost forgot to ask what they’re doing to your house.”

  He grabbed a toothpick and chewed on it. “Media room, back porch, and…” He mumbled the last word.

  “Did you say pool?”

  “Yeah, pool?”

  “Kick ass, Felix. Up top.” I raised my hand, and he stood on his toes and smacked my hand. I didn’t want to show him that I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

  Felix left, saying he’d be in touch. After a trip to the john, I’d waltzed outside to find the Harley convention set up behind my Saab. That’s when I put a call into Tows R Us.

  “Hey, can you guys take your argument and your two Harleys down about twenty feet?” I pointed away from my car. Both members of ZZ Top turned and glared. They were either high or from another planet.

  I got back in my car, made a couple of calls. Just when I decided to assert myself into the process, I noticed the three men exchanging fistfuls of something—drugs, money, who knows? Who cares?

  It got them the hell out of my way, and I zoomed off in my rotary rocket.

  16

  “Scotch?”

  Given the flurry of theories and prognostications about the bombings that had managed to scramble my thoughts over the last couple of hours, I seriously considered Justin’s offer. And it was free.

  As tempting as it appeared flowing from the bottle, I’d told myself working a job that didn’t have a shift name associated with it, one that allowed me a certain amount of personal freedom on how I conducted my work, shouldn’t revert my discipline or work ethic back to a ninth-grade level. At least not in daytime hours.

  I held up a hand, then laced my fingers behind my head and propped my boots on the block of wood serving as an ottoman in the lounge section at The Jewel. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. For now.”

  Justin shook his head, twisting his lips while he poured one for himself. “Not sure that offer will hold up when darkness settles in, adults come out and play, and the moon shines high in the sky.” He held up a hand, dramatizing his description in that cheesy, Justin way. Then he let out a Justin laugh, the cadence of his chortle matching his thin shoulders jostling up and down. He’d been the same since we met on the football field in middle school.

  I smirked, my body settling into the soft, brown, over-stuffed, leather chair, which was flanked by three others, all facing a flat screen TV, forty-eight inches, it appeared.

  “Speaking of moons, remember that spring break trip we made back in…oh, I don’t know the year, maybe after high school graduation. We were hauling ass down I-35 just outside of Waco, and that car of bowheads from Baylor drove up next to us and waved.”

  “I remember,” rolling my eyes at the visual coming to mind. But Justin wasn’t about to let that stop him from reaching the climax of his story.

  “I rolled down the window, dropped my drawers, and stuck my ass out the window, spreading my cheeks as much as I could.”

  I turned my head, trying to sort out all the Justin-mooning stories, which had started to turn into folklore.

  “Hey, I think you forgot the second part of that story.” Justin had set down his drink and was now fidgeting with the wires snaking out of the wall and into the back of the silver-framed flat screen.

  No answer. Now I was the one who couldn’t let it drop.

  “I was trying to keep your mom’s Chevy Cavalier on the road while laughing my ass off looking at your red face, while you were laughing your ass off.”

  He nodded but didn’t turn around.

  “And then we both know what happened.” I laughed out the last few words, then coughed on my own saliva.

  He turned and held up a finger. “You’re going to make me hear this?” he said half-seriously.

  Scratching my chin, I looked to the corner of the room. “Apparently, the girls were so enamored with your lily-white ass, that one of those bowheads hurled a cup full of hot coffee, connecting with both cheeks.”

  I smacked my leg and leaned over, laughing like I was back in the car, coffee splattered everywhere, Justin’s high-pitched shrill nearly popping an eardrum.

  “Dude, the expression on your face was priceless. It was like the grim reaper had invaded your body.” I roared with laughter, then coughed again out of sheer lack of control.

  “Hey, that coffee burned my ass. I had welts,” he claimed. “Come to think of it, I should have sued that bowhead and her rich daddy, and the chain store that serves coffee at over two hundred degrees.”

  “They could have sued you for indecent exposure.”

  Justin crinkled his eyes as if suddenly the scene was too fuzzy for him.

  “You don’t remember?

  A blank stare.

  “You were rolling around, rubbing your ass on the seat like a dog with fleas,” I laughed as I spoke. I wiped away watering eyes. “Then…” I could hardly get it out, and Justin put his hand to his face, shaking his head, a fireplug red. “Still yelping like a wounded puppy, you tried to flip around and stick your ass against the air-conditioning vents. But just as you turned to the window, you must have forgotten they were still there.”

  He rolled his eyes and nodded.

  “Just as you turned, I rolled up the window, catching your junk on the way up.”

  I howled and attempted to keep myself upright.

  “You almost tore my sac from my body.” Justin’s long arms spread out about eight feet, tip to tip.

  I heaved w
ith laughter, replaying the scene again and again in my juvenile mind. When I finally caught my breath, I grabbed a napkin and wiped perspiration from my forehead.

  “The absolute best part was then you finally got unhooked, sat down, and zipped up. You tried covering your face. They kept waving and waving, and when they finally got our attention, three of the girls held up their little pinkies, which meant that—”

  “I know what it means. They were fucking clueless, just like you. Prick.”

  Justin walked out of my vision behind me. I thought he was going to retrieve tools from behind the bar, but instead he tried putting me in a headlock.

  “You need a good ass kickin’,” he said with one arm locked around my neck, his right scrubbing the top of my thin fro.

  I pulled his arm, but he was locked in pretty good. I didn’t want to break his arm, so I chose a better option. With visions of Bruiser Brody and the Hulk, I twisted to sit on my knees, leaned over, and picked his ass up in my arms.

  “Whoa!” he said.

  I swung him around and just as I was about to drop him on my knee—a classic pro wrestling move—the front door opened.

  “Seriously?” Alisa crossed her arms, the strap from a white purse pulled tight across her chest.

  Justin released his grip, and I released him. Busted. Horsing around like a couple of teenagers.

  “I have a child, so wrestling around in a playful way comes with the territory,” I explained to Alisa for some reason, then turned my head toward Justin.

  “Uh…I’ve got nothing. No excuse, other than trying to keep this a-hole from thinking he’s got all this dirt on me.” Justin leaned over to the bar, grabbed his white towel, spun both ends, then snapped it against my leg.

  “You boys. Will you ever grow up?”

  “She’s right,” I said.

  “I have the need.” Justin lifted up his arm.

  I couldn’t leave him hanging, so I reciprocated and we completed our roundhouse high five as we both said, “The need for speed.” We laughed again, but by this time, Alisa had already disappeared.

  I took the liberty of pouring myself a glass of water and plopped back in my seat. Setting my drink on a small glass table that had soft, green lights shining from the inside, I realized how much I admired Justin, for being a loyal friend, and just now thinking about what he’d done with this old bar. When he first bought the building, the place was a mess, being a former car parts business that had been shut down for ten years or so. It was nothing more than four brick walls, a back room, bathroom, and an upstairs closet. He had a vision…and the drive to make it something special.

  Without thinking much about it back then, I realized he’d found his passion, which might be why he put so much thought into the name. “The bar’s name is like a book’s cover,” he said. “You win or lose the customers before they ever enter the bar, just with the name.”

  A die-hard fan of the Michael Douglas-Kathleen Turner romantic, suspense movies from the 1980s, Justin knew every line, every bit of trivia from Romancing the Stone and The Jewel of the Nile. He considered naming his bar The Stone, or some variation of it. But he said people would think of the ancient rock band, the Rolling Stones. Plus, as much as he wanted to provide a cool place for people to hang out, occasionally listen to some live music and imbibe, he wasn’t keen on people thinking this was a stoner’s bar.

  Then it hit him one night when he was watching The Jewel of the Nile for the hundredth time, which is why he added the accent green lights in various places around the bar. It was artfully subtle. Words I would normally never associate with Justin. The Jewel.

  Justin had returned to the TV, following red and black cables between wall and plastic box, trying to figure out why it wasn’t working. I spotted the remote on the chunk of wood and clicked the input button, scrolled down and…

  “Wallah!” I said.

  “Smart ass.”

  A few minutes later, Justin had one leg over the arm of his chair, his hand shoveling in popcorn. He had popped some in the microwave, and even gave me a bowl.

  “This episode of Suits is from season two. I think it’s the best season. Has the most tension, the best dialogue,” he said through a mouthful of popcorn, his eyes not leaving the screen.

  “Which one is Harvey?” I asked.

  He turned to me. “After the way my sister described this financial consultant, you really gotta ask?”

  I shook my head. “I just see a lot of white lawyers walking around in…suits. Well, there is that redhead, Brenda, his admin. She’s kind of hot, in a don’t-fuck-with-me-or-my-boss kind of way.”

  Justin chuckled once and continued shoveling popcorn.

  I studied the screen. “Okay, it can’t be this guy. He’s round, has a neck like Jabba the Hutt, and is way too hairy, in the wrong places.”

  Justin chuckled again. “That’s Louis Litt. Now you’re getting into it.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Alisa flipping chairs to the ground, lighting votive candles at each table. Then she disappeared upstairs.

  “Who’s this Mike guy?” I asked, mildly interested.

  “He’s the smartest guy in the building, but because he got caught cheating, he never went to law school. Harvey is constantly saving his ass, in a New York lawyer kind of way,” Justin said.

  I nodded, further observing the awesomeness that was Harvey Specter. I could also see why women melted around him—or the real version of him, David Bradley, if I had the name right.

  “Hey, check this out, a classic one-liner from Harvey,” Justin said. I was worried about my friend. He was like a savant with TV shows and movies.

  “Something told me you’d need it, and by something, I mean common sense. And by need it, I mean you’re an idiot.”

  We both chuckled, and I could see the ever-present power play between Harvey and Mike, Harvey and Louis, Harvey and…whoever. It was all about who had the upper hand.

  All the lawyer talk reminded me about my old college buddy Henry Cho, and my brief cameo at law school. It sparked another thought about the bombing case. I sent myself a quick text, slid the phone back in my pocket, and wondered if I was approaching my new small business with the same focus and entrepreneurial spirit that Justin had with The Jewel all these years.

  I heard Alisa trotting down the wooden stairs, emerging from behind the wall with a box.

  “Need any help?” I asked, obviously not as into the show as Justin.

  “I got three more upstairs. I’ll take help when I can get it, especially when Justin’s gone into his catatonic state staring at the boob tube.”

  Taking the stairs two at a time, I reached the top in seven Booker strides. A partially open door was straight ahead, about six feet from the landing. Inside, I found cans of paint, old pictures that hung from the walls in the early days of The Jewel, and an old sign that had been attached over the door out front. A smaller wooden bar sat to the right. I ran my finger across it and scooped up a thick layer of dust.

  “If you find anything you like, I’m sure Justin would let you have it, for a nominal fee.” Alisa’s voice had caught me off guard. I turned and she winked at me.

  “Uh, sorry. I got distracted.” I looked around the room, an idea peppering my mind.

  “Too bad this place doesn’t have any natural light.”

  “Not now, but that piece of plywood actually hides a cool stained glass window.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t recall ever seeing that.”

  “Justin didn’t want anyone breaking in through this one upstairs window, so he boarded it up on both sides. Since it faces the back alley, no ever sees the boarded window anyway.”

  One Nut did have a brain, maybe not one meant for school, but I never realized how much he had his shit together.

  I picked up two of the three boxes and went downstairs, then I ambled over to the lounge area where Justin was licking his fingers, the popcorn long gone.

  “Getting your Suits fix in
?”

  “Dude, you’ve missed a ton. Can I fill you in?”

  “That’s cool. I have an appointment.”

  Justin had not taken his eyes off the screen. “Check out this line,” he said.

  “So the ball’s in your court, but the truth is your balls are in my fist. Now I apologize if that image is too pansy for you, but I’m comfortable enough with my manhood to put it out there.”

  With both a strong visual and verbal image planted in my mind, I left The Jewel, on the hunt for the financial consultant version of Harvey Specter.

  17

  If Justin’s hole-in-the-ground bar was a jewel, David Bradley’s restaurant looked like a diamond by Cartier.

  I’d driven up and down Lemon Avenue a half dozen times, even searched the side streets looking for a parking spot, the free variety. With the time now approaching almost five thirty in the evening, I huffed out a breath and decided I had no other choice: I had to valet my new pride and joy.

  “Damn.” I watched a zit-faced teenager scoot away in my car, then turned and gazed upon the white stone building that housed Marvel. “Wonder how much he paid just for the lighting.”

  It wasn’t Vegas ostentatious, but David Bradley had invested heavily into the structure, perfectly-placed lighting, the fine detailed work along the window frames, a rusted steel structure built into the façade above the entryway. Everywhere I looked, I was impressed, at least on the outside.

  I strode through what looked like European, handcrafted wooden doors, my head on swivel, wondering how the guy would react once I pinned him down, verbally of course—if he was who I thought he was. I couldn’t declare him guilty just yet. The cop in me still existed. I’d expect some of that to have been infused in my DNA by now.

  “Can I help you?” A twenty-something man with sandy-blond hair that he swished to one side, wearing dark-rimmed glasses and a dapper black suit and blue tie, took two steps my direction.

  “Yeah, what do you serve?”

  It was obvious he wasn’t accustomed to pointed questions. He shifted his glasses and casually stuffed his right hand in his pocket.