Rick Cantelli, P.I. (Rick Cantelli, P.I. Detectives Book 1)

by Bernard DeLeo

“Rick will be fine,” Lois finally tells her.

  “What Lo means is I’m a visitor from another planet. Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall-”

  My attempt at levity is interrupted by another bullet into the doorjamb. Luckily no one was stupid enough to investigate either here in the building or out on the street. I leaned a little to yell out the door again. “Hey, Vito Corleone, drop the gun so I can come out there and bitch slap your eyeballs right out of your head!”

  I’m peeking through the crack when the idiot comes out from behind my car. He sets the gun down he’s carrying, motioning at me with his arms like he’s facing Apollo Creed in a Rocky movie. “C’mon, you chicken shit bastard! I’ll rip your heart out and eat it!”

  Lois eases over with the Taser, giggling. “Holy shit, Rick, this guy’s dumber than a bag of rocks. Can you get him to come closer? It’s been two years since Don Placid, huh? Let me smoke him.”

  Tempting, but this has been too much fun so far. Besides, Lo would enjoy it too much. “I’ll go quiet him down until the PD collect him. You can still shoot well enough with your real gun to back me up in case he has a hideaway, right?”

  “Bastard!”

  Heh, heh, heh, Lo can shoot the eyes out of a hummingbird from fifty feet. “Okay, I’m comin’ out, Vito. If I were you, I’d start running, you woman beating sack of shit!”

  I no sooner get on my feet and start to open the door than here comes Neil, fists pumping. He’s charging the door.

  “There you go, Lo, you sick puppy.”

  There’s a cackle of delight just before the Taser discharges, and then swearing. I looked around the doorjamb and there’s Neil writhing on the ground issuing little shrieks like a train whistle. Lois has come up in a sitting position with the Taser control, and she’s cranking up the juice.

  “I hit him high, Rick.” Lois sighs, and starts dialing back the juice. “This isn’t as much fun. Help me up.”

  I lift Lois to her feet, and then help the stunned Clarisse up. “I’ll get the bags. Let’s leave Vito where you dropped him and get the hell out of here. Man, the PD is sure taking their sweet time tonight. We’ll call in on the way to LA.”

  “I didn’t call the PD.” Lois grinned at me. “I called Shelly and let her listen to the whole thing. I think she passed out five minutes ago.”

  “Jesus, Lo… you’re just… mean. Stay here then while I load the bags, and collect Corleone’s gun. I’ll check him on the way back. Is he cold?”

  “Yeah, I turned off the juicer a moment ago. I’ll reel in the needles. C’mon, Clarisse. You can sit in the car while we tidy up.”

  “O…Okay.”

  I take the bags out to the car with Clarisse following closely. I get the bags stowed and Clarisse tucked into the backseat comfortably. After putting on a pair of Nitrile gloves from the trunk, I retrieve Neil’s weapon. Lois has already plucked the needles out of poor old Neil. She looks like she’s getting ready to start kicking him when I join her at Neil’s side. I hear sirens.

  “You’re a little on edge tonight. Did Shell answer yet?”

  “She’s fine. She called the PD though when he fired shots. See… we try to have a little fun, and someone always spoils it.”

  I crouch next to Neil and get him into a sitting position. I slap his face a few times until he starts to moan. “This is about Stacy… isn’t it, Lo?”

  Lois shrugs. “I figure if you’re going to be an idiot, we may as well adopt your stupidity into our business plan.”

  “I didn’t let her stay overnight.”

  “I guess that’s something,” Lois admitted, as the PD arrived in two squad cars.

  “Karen was coming over that night and I’m a little leery about threesomes.”

  “Oh… my… God…” Lois whispered in a hushed voice while twisting the front of my shirt in her fist. “This isn’t over, Cantelli! Payback is going to be legendary!”

  Officers Jamile Crosby, and Terrance Stanley are the first two approaching, hands on weapons. “Lois… is that you?”

  Lois lets me go reluctantly to face the PD. “Yeah, Terry. Cantelli’s been baiting me, and I’m ready to take a bite.”

  Both officers nod agreeably with a chuckle.

  “He affects me the same way, Lo,” Terry replies while gesturing at the groggy Neil. “What’s going on?”

  I hold up Neil’s weapon, a 9 mil Glock with two fingers. “This is his. He fired at us. His slugs are in the door and doorjamb of the apartment building.”

  “Wow, Rick, and he’s still moving.” Jamile holds out an evidence bag for the weapon. “See, Terry, Lois is back keeping Cantelli in line. The perp doesn’t even get Maced to smell up the squad car. Thanks, Lo.”

  “Who’s the woman?” Terry gestured toward my car.

  “It’s a bond retrieval from LA, Terry,” Lois explains. “This guy’s Cheech Garibaldi’s brother, Neil. He took exception to our ending his date. We tried to talk sense to him, but he decided to ambush us when we were coming out of the apartment.”

  “Do you have to transport tonight,” Terry asked.

  “Yeah, she has a court date on Monday. You can reach Rick and me anytime, and we’ll be back by early morning to help you with the wise-guy here.”

  “Good enough. Keep your phones on,” Jamile replied. “We’ll see if ballistics has anything on his Glock.”

  “You two are dead! You hear me?!” Neil has gotten his voice back.

  Lois cackled. “This guy is so dumb.”

  Terry nodded as the two officers get Neil to his feet. “You just threatened someone’s life in front of two police officers, Mr. Garibaldi. Add the fact you fired on them, and I don’t like your chances of seeing daylight too soon.”

  “We’ll be in touch, Lo,” Jamile told Lois, as Garibaldi shut his trap finally and stared down at his feet.

  * * *

  Lois found a rap music station Clarisse liked and tortured me all the way to LA. On the way back after stopping for some late night dinner, we rode in silence.

  “You didn’t really do a nooner with Stacy, and then kick her out because my sister was coming over for the night.”

  “Never.”

  Lois immediately cranked up the rap station.

  Damn it.

  Chapter 7: Family

  I heard the door to the beach house open – no alarms. A moment later as I’m poised at the bedroom door with my Ruger 9 mil, Lois walks in with her hands in the air. She growls when she sees her Hollywood star sister Karen sigh in her sleep. Her open hands clench into fists immediately. So much for being careful about no cars parked out front, the mind reading witch has bypassed all my precautions. This is another low for Lo, with invading my space. She could have had Steve practice his private detective expertise on me and just took a few outside pictures to rant about at the office.

  “You should call first, Lo. Have a little decency.” I pat her shoulder so she knows to put her arms down. No matter how well she and I know each other we don’t take unnecessary provocations into each other’s lives. Granted, I was at our firm owned beach house… but still.

  Lois puts her arms down and spins with unrepentant bravado. She gestures at Karen. “I thought we talked about this,” she hissed like an anaconda stalking a juicy rat.

  I pulled the geezer card. I shrugged. “I’m nearly sixty, Lo. I don’t have much time left. I can’t help it if your sister wants to mess around with the older generation. Have some respect for my feelings. At least I haven’t dived into our thirty something aerobics instructor’s bed.”

  Lois lost it. That one cracked her up. Her cackling, distinctive laugh woke her Hollywood star half sister. Karen jutted back against the bed headboard with a small shriek of recognition her mean girl relative had arrived. The interaction between these two was the most interesting dance of the thousand knives I’d ever run across. The questions abound. Why in the world would Karen fool around with a geezer like me for one? Secondly, why i
n the world would Lois care? The goofy family play percolating between these two was irresistible to me. I would have let it sink into the earth long ago if it wasn’t for the way Karen seemed to genuinely like me. That any interaction with Karen made Lois mental was a sustaining reason for my ill conceived actions I could not resist.

  Lois took a step toward Karen. “Put some clothes on before I put my foot so far up your ass you’ll be tasting sand from the beach for the next week.”

  Karen yelped and jumped naked out of the bed, getting dressed faster than any woman on earth I’d ever met. I walked over and grabbed her shoulders. “Karen! Look at me. Will you please stop acting like I’m going to stand around while my partner kicks the crap out of you? Calm down. You don’t have to run.”

  Karen kept jamming on her clothes at full speed. “You were right, Rick. She’s nuts. I didn’t tell you what she did after she found out we’d been together again.”

  Holy crap. I’m looking from one to the other of these two without a clue. One, I’ve known nearly all my life, and the other I’d been sharing a bed with. “Okay… tell me. What did she do?”

  Karen stopped dressing and looked at me in a very vulnerable state. “I woke with a stuffed horse’s head in my bed.”

  In a few seconds flat I was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe or stand. I was reduced to a grown man in his underwear rolling around on the floor helplessly pummeling his feet on the floor trying to get control again. Through it all, I could hear Lois’s howling cackle that sounded more like a castrated hyena than a laugh. Karen walked over and kicked me in the side which only made me laugh harder.

  “Rick! This is not a joke. She had a note pinned to it that if I didn’t want to play movie roles where they need a two legged amputee on a rolling sled, I’d be very careful of the company I keep – signed Sis. Damn it! I just had a state of the art security system installed, and she bypassed everything including my property guard.”

  I sat up, shaking my head. That horse’s head thing was an ace. I sighed and regained my feet. “Okay, I get that was impressive, but still. Lois is not going to hurt you. You must know that at some level. Come on, you two. Couldn’t this relationship at least be kept on a respectful basis? It’s not like you two have an actual grudge to work out. How about it?”

  “I’ve never done anything to Lois-”

  “Except trick me into jump starting your career you little wart!”

  “I said I was sorry! I paid for everything, didn’t I? I swear to God I’ll never do anything like that again. It was wrong to try and pull a con on you, especially since Sherlock Holmes here figured it out in one sitting with me.”

  I looked at Lois. She still wore her cranky look, but I could tell she was remembering we had made a lot of money off the notoriety my bodyguard work generated for us in the deal with Karen. “How about it, Lo?”

  She waved me off. “I’m thinking… okay, I’m willing to give you another chance. Why didn’t you have our firm install your security system?”

  Karen shrugged. “You wouldn’t even speak to me. I didn’t think you’d agree to putting it in.”

  “Yeah… fair enough, you’re probably right,” Lois admitted. “We’re even. No more feud. Stay in the bedroom. I have to talk to Rick.”

  “Okay, Sis.”

  “Don’t push it!”

  I grabbed my jeans and a t-shirt and followed crabby out to the kitchen. It was nearly 6 AM anyway. I hit the make coffee button and got dressed. Lois had something on her mind, but she didn’t seem too enthused with talking about it while I dressed. We both sat down across from each other at the kitchen table.

  “I need you to go North with me to install a security system for my daughter - a complete house monitoring system. She has a nice place in Burlingame, outside of SF, and I want the system in now that I have a grandson. Pack a bag. We leave this afternoon. I’ve already shipped the components to her place. You and I just need to do the install.

  “You want me to what?” Boy, this is bad, or I’m still groggy. Lois didn’t even begin this session with a threat or a reference to my love life.

  “I want you to leave for San Francisco with me, Rick. I’m pulling the family card.”

  “I can’t help you with babies born to your offspring, Lo. I know your daughters are there, but what would I be doing exactly you couldn’t have Steve and a couple of our install guys do? Not that I don’t love Sarah and Kim, but I just hate the North Bay. I’ll watch things down here until you get back.”

  “Steve can watch things.” Lois hesitated. She went to the coffee pot and poured for both of us.

  Yep. This interlude was getting strange. I kept my mouth shut until Lo sat down with our coffee. “Okay, Grandma, what’s the deal?”

  “Sarah thinks Kim’s in trouble. Kim rents a place in Piedmont.”

  “Yeah, she has her real estate license, and sells homes in the East Bay. What kind of trouble are we talking about?”

  “Man trouble. When Kim didn’t come over for a couple weeks, Sarah took the baby over to check on her. Kim gets cranky with too much sister get togetherness so she blocks Sarah for periods of time.”

  “Gee, I wonder where she gets that from.”

  “Never mind the smart mouth, Binky,” Lo warned me, complete with shaking finger. “Anyway, Sarah gets over there and Kim answers the door with a black eye and split lip. You and I taught those two how to hold their own in any kind of a fight, and any kind of a gun battle.”

  No doubt about that. Either girl could shoot expert, and we trained them in the Israeli form of self defense, Krav Maga. “You have my attention. Kim is like your Minnie-me. What did Sarah think of it?”

  “She freaked, and called me. Kim wouldn’t talk about it with either of us. She claimed it was none of our business. I need to find out what the hell’s going on.”

  Yeah, me too. It seemed like only yesterday when Frank, Lois, and I were going to plays, band practices, and sporting events. Then the teen monster years hit with the inevitable boy chasing. Lois’s head was ready to explode nearly 24/7 in those days. Ah… good times. “I’m in.”

  “Steve will take us there at eleven. Frank’s going to see the kids with us.”

  “Good. Then you’ll have an alternate target.”

  * * *

  Naturally, I had to sit in the middle of the Madigans on the plane ride north. When these two get into a closed space together, it’s always a good idea to keep them separated. Frank’s an easy going guy with a great sense of humor, but his high school sweetheart knows how and when to push all his buttons to make him mental. Plane rides bring out the worst in Lois. She hates the meaningless security measures at the airports, the disrespectful Nazis they hire to check you through, and the tight quarters in business class which the cheapskate deserves. We can afford first class, but no, we can’t be comfortable, not on Lo’s dime. I mentioned upgrading to first class while we were in line. Frank immediately seconded my idea, which is why I was positioned between the Madigans in business class. Frank had forgotten the eleventh commandment – though shalt not agree with Cantelli when at odds with Lois.

  To make matters worse, we had a stunning forty-something blond flight attendant who succumbed to the weird pheromone I’ve been giving off. No one can explain it, especially me. I can be witty, engaging, or stupid and obnoxious. It doesn’t matter. A big part of it of course had to do with the bodyguard role I played for sister starlet Karen, where she pretended to have a dangerous stalker. When I slammed some guy trying to douse her with something foul during our hoax at the Grammy awards I escorted her to, my dangerous deeds with killing three men in the preceding six weeks were revealed on the entertainment page. It was a two edged sword for Lois. We were making big money off the notoriety, but she had to endure my new found celebrity status. The flight attendant mentioned reading about me. She engaged me every trip down the aisle, my polite banter making her laugh and return for more. Frank enjoyed the hell out of it, because he had been unhappy a
bout being banished to the aisle seat for his inadvertent mortal sin of Cantelli agreement. He watched Lois’s annoyance level begin to boil over with sinful pleasure. When the flight attendant named Mandy slipped me her phone number, Lois nearly went ballistic, with Frank turning away while stifling laughter with both hands.

  “For God’s sake, Cantelli! What the hell is it with you? I gave you my sister, and already you’re cheating on her?”

  That one set me off and Frank lost it too. He knew the campaign of terror his wife waged at every opportunity in relation to Karen and me. Soon, Lois was cackling along with us, realizing how her last line sounded after all she had done. The remainder of the flight was more cordial, until I was reading from Mandy’s note she’d be in San Francisco for a few days. Spock-ella elbowed me in retaliation for the thoughts she stole out of my head during an unauthorized mind meld while I watched Mandy.

  * * *

  Surprise, surprise, Kim was waiting for us in the terminal. Her eye and lip had healed a little. What was left of the discoloration she covered with make-up. Kim is thirty-four, unmarried, and a genuine knockout. She was indeed a Lois Minnie-me, but with much softer lines, and a couple inches taller. Kim had driven Lois to the brink of insanity during her teen years. If not for Frank’s stern but gentle hand, holding on to the eye of the storm, I think Lo would have kicked Kim to the curb. The girls were only a year and a half apart. After college, Sarah married a software engineer, Mark Estes. Kim moved north to get away, and Sarah followed because Mark was offered a huge salary to work in the Silicone Valley.

  Kim dutifully hugged her Mom and Dad, and jumped into my arms. “Uncle Rick! Damn, I didn’t expect the harpy to blackmail you into coming too. I’ve had a crush on you since I was ten. We need to address that, especially after all your adventures these past few months. I read where you’re bangin’ my Aunt Karen, huh?”

  Oh sweet Jesus, God in heaven. “Hi Kim.” I disengaged from her, holding her at arm’s length. I looked back at Lois with that creeping feeling of dread you get down in the marrow of your bones when you know something’s wrong at an elemental level. Lois nodded at me with weary resignation. She knew too. Frank looked confused, but Lo and I have been dealing with the human element so long our human nature Geiger counters go off in an instant at times like this.