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

by John W. Mefford

  He swiped his face, the lower right side rubbery, the rest hardly moved. Then I noticed his hair. I’m sure he had plugs, and it was oddly dark, like someone had spray painted it black.

  Sciafini was having a midlife crisis in his seventies.

  “Low profile? I keep a higher profile than the president of the United States. Did you know I just dedicated a new wing at—”

  “Art Institute of Chicago. Yes, people in Texas know how to access the Internet.”

  A slight twitch in one of his colored eyebrows. “You had an unfortunate incident with a Corporal Ernie Sims; he almost killed you and a homeless man. When you tried telling your commanding officer about the incident, the brass turned on you, made you take the fall. Sims continued his same role, while you, after serving a suspension, resigned, essentially kicked to the curb.”

  “Damn, I’m impressed. Do you have it written on the palm of your hands?”

  “I shouldn’t forget about your personal life: a mother who earned a nursing degree, a bit of a nomadic father. And a new girlfriend who enjoys the arts.”

  An icy patch formed on the back of my neck. I brought my hands together, popped two knuckles. “I guess we have something in common, an appreciation for the arts.”

  “And pretty young ladies,” he said.

  Butthead spoke, revealing his metal grill. “Mr. Sciafini just got married.”

  I nodded, forcing a grin. “Can she walk and chew gum at the same time?”

  “Ha. She’s a former Miss Italy, graduated from Wharton Business School. I guess some of us attract a certain ilk.” He was attempting to provoke me, but I wasn’t about to go toe to toe with a head of a crime syndicate. Besides, on the girl front, I’d take Britney over anyone.

  I crossed my other leg, repositioned myself. It was odd to not have my neck reach the top of the back of my chair.

  “So, both of us are lucky guys.”

  “Indeed,” he said, his eyes still reading my posture, my confidence.

  “All of your background is neither here nor there. Your current profession, that’s where I have an issue, at least with how you’ve put yourself in the middle of a…testy situation.”

  “If you’re talking about David swindling money from widowers, then yes, I have a client who asked me to find him and recover her money.”

  “Well, we can’t always get what we want.”

  “Now you’re going to tell me you wrote the Rolling Stones song?”

  He snickered. “Look, if you’re here to make threats you’ll regret because David’s boy toy, Dax, suffered a few minor injuries falling down a staircase…save your breath.” He raised a hand to my face. “What’s done is done. David got the message. The only business we’re in is the money-making business. Sometimes we just need to protect our assets.”

  “Your asset, David, just got kidnapped.” I just threw it out there, unsure if he thought I was bluffing or threatening him.

  Sciafini’s head moved up and down, his arms splayed out in from of him on the desk. Slowly, I could see pink invading his neck and ears, creeping into his cheeks and forehead.

  “Who has him?”

  “You already mentioned his name. Sims.”

  Leaning up, he narrowed his eyes. “Your old nemesis. What the hell would he want with a chef?”

  “It’s complicated. When Sims and his gang were spending big money at Marvel, David overheard him bragging about a drug deal they pulled off, using drugs out of the evidence room.”

  “Our tax money at work. Damn cops. Can’t trust a single one of them!” He raised up and swung his hand, launching his glass of green slime toward the window, splattering it on a small rug.

  He had the attention of everyone in the office.

  “You haven’t told me why he kidnapped David, though.”

  “David should have served time for stealing all that money. When he told me he had dirt on a cop, I promised to not go to the authorities if he gave me the name.”

  “So, you’re one of us now.” He flicked two fingers between both of us.

  “Fuck you.”

  Beavis and Butthead were at my side in no time. Sciafini raised a hand like the Pontiff.

  “I’ll ignore your rudeness.”

  Darts filled with venom shot out of my eyes, as I wrestled with how he’d associated me with his ilk.

  “Somehow Sims found out you knew, and he’s afraid that you’ll blow his whole operation, whether it’s out of spite or because you’re an honest guy looking to do the right thing. Is that about right?”

  “Yep.”

  “So what does this small-time asshole think he’s going to do with one of my most valuable assets?”

  “From what Dax said, he’s going to hold him until he has guarantees that no one will snitch to the authorities.”

  Fumbling with a saggy earlobe, Sciafini pulled out a fancy pen and started writing on a pad, pausing a couple of times.

  “Let me be honest with you, Booker.”

  “I’d have it no other way.”

  “We could toss your ass out that window over there, and then all of our problems go away, right? Sims would release David, who’d get back to focusing on repaying his debt, running a beautiful restaurant, helping with financial matters. I tell you, that man’s brain is a machine. Umm.” It sounded like he savored David’s financial prowess, which is what I’d hoped.

  “I don’t want to get in this macho battle about how I could take out your two Neanderthals, because I think you’re only brainstorming. I can respect that.”

  Sciafini cut a thin smile.

  I heard shoes shuffle off the carpet around me, but I didn’t know if the two gentlemen thought they’d received a compliment or a cut-down.

  Resting elbows on my knees, I put down my offer. “I’m here to make a deal. You have a lot of resources at your disposal, and probably a creative mind. If you take down Sims, then I’ll make sure David continues repaying your debt. Couple of conditions, though. First, his debt payment needs to be reasonable, and second, I want him to be able to use his second business to repay what he owes my client, or anyone else he milked.”

  “Interesting proposal.”

  I could see his eyes pondering a counter offer.

  “One more thing. No killing. I want Sims behind bars, serving time for the shit he’s pulled.”

  “So you’re basically saying I get an insurance policy on my financial asset, David. That’s you.”

  “I wouldn’t use that term, but if it works for you…”

  Finally on the same page, I observed a criminal mastermind hatch a plan. And I went along with every word of it.

  16

  Sitting in my Saab in a dusty parking lot east of Tulsa, I rubbed my hands to create a bit of friction driven heat. The temperature had been falling ever since I’d exited the plane, and now, just as dusk slipped into darkness, the weather app on my phone read twenty-seven degrees, with a north wind of ten to fifteen miles per hour, gusts up to twenty-five.

  I sipped a lukewarm coffee I’d purchased inside Tank’s Truck Pit. The complex must have been ten acres or more, but every inch of it was a page out of 1950. The diesel fuel stations were still analog, the hoses had no bibs to stop fuel spilling, and the entire surface was a combination of red clay and embedded rocks. Truckers didn’t seem to care, though, and on a Friday night, Tank watched plenty of customers come and go.

  Eyes never leaving the northeast corner of the lot, I waited for the signal, three quick flashes of light.

  A smack against the passenger window. I jerked my head around and spotted two hands framing a huge red nose and an Oklahoma State cap, its gold brim frayed, the man’s eyes full of anguish. I turned my key and punched the button to lower the window.

  “Yeah?” A gust of wind peppered red clay off leather seats.

  “Any idea where the john is around this place?” he asked in a thick country accent. “I’ve wheeled around the building twice, and I cain’t find it.”

  H
e jostled like a three-year-old who didn’t know how to hold it.

  “It’s that metal door over there, at the corner. There’s no sign on it. And you’ll need a key from inside.”

  “Much obliged.” He waved and hopped off as best he could in his cowboy boots while holding himself.

  I slurped a bit more of my coffee, then noticed an old U-Haul enter the complex, circle around, and park in the northeast quadrant. The logo was almost nearly nonexistent. Moments later, a Dodge Ram pickup came from the opposite direction, south, and it pulled up about twenty feet from the U-Haul.

  “This could be my ride,” I said with a foggy breath.

  Not thirty seconds later, a light flashed from the cab of the U-Haul, followed by two more in a similar cadence.

  Leaving my coffee inside the Saab, I clicked the lock button, zipped my jacket, and stuffed fists into my pockets as I walked toward the pair of vehicles.

  Just as I arrived, a pair of guys exited the van, leaving both doors open, and walked to an approaching vehicle, a dark sedan with an Illinois license plate. The sedan skidded to a stop, and before dust settled, the two men hopped in the car and the driver punched it, leaving a larger plume of red clay swirling in the gusty breeze.

  “We’re on,” I heard a man say. I flipped around, and a bearded man shut the door on the Ram, then pulled himself into the U-Haul. He stuck his head through the door crack and said, “You coming or what?”

  I didn’t answer, but instead, hoofed it to the passenger side, crawled into the cab, and slammed the door shut.

  The eighteen-foot U-Haul started on its first try, a growling diesel that vibrated the front cabin. Six tires wheeled through the parking lot, firecracker sounds popping through the churning engine. Lumbering onto the frontage road, we gained speed at a steady but slow pace, hitting twenty miles per hours after a hundred yards. We hit a stop sign and waited about five minutes for a parade of school buses to pass through.

  “Keep it going now,” the driver said, sounding remarkably calm. He checked his digital watch, but kept further comments to himself.

  Red and white graffiti a.k.a. shoe polish covered most of the windows on each of the twelve buses heading to a Friday night football game. “Lights Out on Chargers” read one window, “Catoosa Rules Memorial” was etched on another, and one on the back window read simply, “Memorial SUCKS!”

  Drug deals, murders, and organized crime were top of the mind at the moment, but for a second, I let nostalgia borrow my thoughts, recalling countless Friday nights as the James Madison Trojan quarterback, the whole student body, administration, band, cheerleaders, drill team, everyone whipped into a frenzy to win a football game. Bragging rights not only mattered, they were what drove our everyday existence. Looking back, it seemed over the top, even silly, to put that much emphasis on a game and its outcome. But it sure as hell was fun while it lasted.

  We finally veered left onto the entrance ramp for Route 66, a famous road if there was one in the states. How many roads had their own song, a TV show? The road dated back to the 1920s, a major path west during the Dust Bowl. One notable fact I was made aware of a day earlier was that its originating city was Chicago.

  But the Chicago connection had left the scene back at Tank’s Truck Pit, as planned. I was now riding shotgun with a gentleman who worked with Ernie Sims. In just twenty-four hours, Sciafini had pulled together an ingenious plan, which would hopefully allow David to drive away a free man—as free as he could be while still under Sciafini’s thumb. The one aspect of this that didn’t settle well was the plan involved an illegal transaction.

  “There’s no way they give us David unless we make this a drug deal to bolster Sims’ bank account and his ego. I know how guys like this think.”

  The old crime boss’s confidence was both reassuring and disturbing, given his own set of experiences.

  The tree-lined landscape on either side of Route 66 gave way to more concrete, and we headed south on US-75, known as Central Expressway once we hit the Metroplex. But this far north, it was just a lonely, dark highway. Shifting my vision to the front, light sprinkles of snowflakes fell from a gray sky, like they were dropped twenty feet above the moving van. Windshield wipers squawked against glass, flakes appearing like an organized swarm of gnats in front of our headlights.

  “Over three hours still left on the trip south. What’s your name?” I asked.

  Two hands on the wheel, jostling in his seat from motoring down the highway at almost seventy-five, the driver looked my way, as if I’d broken a code of some kind.

  A shoulder twitched, then using one hand, he pulled a package of Wrigley spearmint gum from his front pocket.

  “Want one?” He held it like a pack of cigarettes. Perhaps he’d just kicked the habit.

  “Sure. Why not.” I unwrapped the piece and tossed it in my mouth.

  A few lip-smacking chews passed, then he spoke up. “Name is Marty. Marty McFly.”

  A smile parted his thick, brown beard, lips still smacking faster than my pulse, at least for the time being.

  “I get it. You can’t share your name. What do you do…in the regular world?”

  Another pause, but not as long. “I work in the security field.”

  “Oh yeah. I’m familiar with that.”

  Lips still smacking, his eyes shot me a look. “I know everything about you.”

  I figured as much, but I ignored the comment. “Corporate?”

  A look of confusion swept across his face, forming a monobrow.

  “Do you work security for a corporation, AT&T, Exxon, Kimberly-Clark?” I’d provided three of the largest companies based in Dallas.

  “I mostly work the night shift at NorthPark Center.”

  Recalling the frigid day when I’d lounged in an icy puddle to capture images of Sims and his group of thespians, I could hear my air flow shake. Embarrassment and anger ruled my adrenaline rush. Marty here, who looked to be in his mid-thirties, could have been the guy snapping pictures of me while I was high-fiving myself for outthinking Sims. Turns out, he wasn’t as dumb as he looked. I wondered how Tyler, the NorthPark security director, would respond to knowing about Marty’s business connections.

  “The mall,” I said, raising an eyebrow, my own frustration allowing a hint of mockery in my voice.

  “Sims. He’s got big plans. I’ve got a role in his organization, and it’s going to be prominent. I might get to lead security. It’s going to be big-time.”

  I wanted to enlighten this guy, possibly talk him back from the dark side. But now wasn’t the time or place. He just needed to get me and this truck to Dallas.

  Perhaps Marty could sense my self-doubt.

  “I know Sims, I trust Sims, and he’s a man of integrity,” Marty said with a straight face. He even thumped the steering wheel for emphasis. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe in him and our mission. It’s more than I can say about you.”

  Marty had taken his first shot. But he was right. I didn’t have the luxury of choice. Apparently, Sims had given Sciafini’s point man, Beavis, a specific request. “I want Booker in that truck. You do that, and we have a deal.”

  Eager to participate, I wasn’t keen on rolling out the red carpet for some type of baton death march. I let Sciafini hear my apprehension, suggesting I’d operate more effectively in a covert mode, surveying the deal, capturing it in photos and stepping in as necessary to ensure we didn’t miss the opportunity to bring down Sims while rescuing David.

  Sciafini added, “You worry too much. I’ve got it under control. It will work out. Trust me.”

  The trust wasn’t mutual, apparently. Sciafini kept most of the plan details between him and Beavis. “That way, we don’t worry about leaks. Trust me,” he said…again.

  By the time our conversation had ended, “trust me” had taken on a completely different meaning for me—the exact opposite feeling, in the form of a lead brick, parking itself squarely in my gut, and it wouldn’t disintegrate until we’d made
it to the safe side of the channel, maneuvering through turbulent waters, loan sharks included.

  Marty shot right down US-75, through Sherman, then past Plano and through the Telecom Corridor. It was almost ten o’clock when we motored under the High Five at Lyndon B. Johnson, still moving at a decent clip in southbound traffic, about forty miles per hour.

  “Want to share where we’re headed?”

  I literally had no idea as to our destination.

  Smacking his gum like it supplied oxygen, Marty winked and said, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.” He held his gaze for a moment too long.

  “Look out!” I rammed my feet into the floorboard, pointing at a Smart Car stopped in the left center lane, emergency lights blinking.

  Marty slammed the brakes, jerked the van right. We tipped onto our right side, wavering like a surfer hoping the tsunami wouldn’t crash down on top of him. Seconds seemed like minutes; my breath stuck in my throat. Finally, gravity pulled us down, the van shooting left, and another car, a massive Ford Expedition smoked its tires to avoid crashing into us. Three more wide swerves and cars spraying around us, but magically, metal didn’t connect, and then calm returned.

  Realizing my hand still gripped the Oh Shit bar, I peeled my fingers apart and glanced over at Marty, behind us, a symphony of horns shooting us the finger.

  Hands at nine and three on the steering wheel, arms vibrating from his vice grip, sweat dripped off his beard and forehead. He brushed it away with a swipe of his shoulder, but his breathing continued at a dog-like pace.

  “You okay?”

  He didn’t respond, eyes not blinking, and we appeared to pick up speed again, passing cars on both sides.

  “Marty. Marty, are you there?”

  I needed Marty McFly present and in control, not flying back to the future.

  Finally, he swallowed, and I saw his eyes blink. Once.

  “Marty, are you okay to—”

  “Sims. He can’t find out about this. He thinks I’ve got it together.” He continued panting, but removed his foot from the gas and we began to blend in with traffic, now slowing down, just south of the SMU exit.