The inside of The Night Owl bar was cool, a bit crowded, and smelled like a bar. I sat down at the bar with the regulars squinting at me. The polite forty something bartender with blonde hair and an amiable smile greeted me. House of the Rising Sun was playing on the jukebox. Mama… I’ve come home.
“What can I get you, Rick?”
Uh oh. “Double shot of Bushmills, water back.”
“Coming right up.” Her nametag said Lacey. She served the drink and water back, lingering in a way I knew would be a conversation.
I put a twenty on the bar but I didn’t help her out. I listened to the tune, sipped my Bushmills, and pretended I didn’t have a care in the world. It worked great for about thirty seconds.
“Did you really kill three men last night?” Lacey whispered, which was nice of her.
I finished off the Bushmills and pushed it toward her. “I did. Another of these please, this time without questions.”
Lacey’s features took on a hurt attitude until I put a fifty dollar bill on the bar. “Take this Lacey, and just serve the drinks, payable separately. If you have a joke, a funny anecdote, lay it on me. Otherwise, just replenish my double Bushmills, okay?”
Lacey patted my hand with a grin. “You got it, Rick. Thank you. I do have a joke for you I got off the Internet: A Scotsman, an Englishman and an Irishman are sitting in a bar in New York reminiscing about home.
"Back in me pub in Glasgow," brags the Scotsman, "fer every four pints of stout I order, they give me one fer free!"
"In me pub in London," says the Englishman,"I pay fer two pint's o' Guiness and they give me a third one free!"
"That's nuthin'" says the Irishman, "In my pub back in Dublin, you walk up to the bar, they give the first pint fer free, the second pint fer free, the third pint fer free -- and then they take you upstairs and you have sex for FREE!"
"Is that true?" asks the Scotsman. "Has that really happened to you?"
"Well, no," says the Irishman, "but it happens to me sister all the time!"”
Okay, I admit it. I laughed at that sucker without pause for a full couple of minutes. It was worth the fifty buck tip by itself. Lacey clasped my hand, leaning forward.
“I know more than a couple of jokes, Rick.”
Shit! The buzz was going good and then I have to deal with the pheromone. “I bet you do, Lacey, but between the crime scene tape decorating my home and business, I have about all I can handle. Couldn’t we just be friends?”
Lacey laughed long and hard, patting my hand as she did. “Yeah… sure… you’re funny, Rick. You come back anytime. We’re buds.”
I nodded, pushing my empty shot glass toward Lacey. “Thanks, bud. Can I get another one of these?”
“Certainly, Sir.” Lacey handled the delivery of my Bushmills double with aplomb. I of course had five twenty dollar bills out on the bar to cover my tab.
“Big shot, Rick Cantelli,” a voice rang out from the opposite end of the bar. “What makes you so bad, killer, shagging poor guys out havin’ a drink like you done to T-bone? Then you got the gall to come back here for a drink. You’re pathetic. You don’t look up to the mark to me.”
I waved him off. “I’m not. It’s all fiction. I’m in here drinking because I’m all make believe. I hate the media telling their lies. I applaud you for your outrage in this debacle, Sir.”
“Huh?”
I smiled at Lacey, who was less than excited with the way my new companion’s face was going from belligerent to cunningly violent in seconds as he moved over next to me. I was buzzed and every part of me ached. I didn’t know what a barroom brawl would do for my already formidable pains, but I didn’t really give a crap. I decided to play this with straight forward blarney. “Spit it out, Sir. I deserve your animosity. It must seem I am less than a man to you, and should be flogged. I believe you are quite right.”
I stood and faced my outraged buddy, my hands clenched into fists. I planned to find the nirvana of pain, either mine, or his. I pulled out my Clint Eastwood variation from ‘The Outlaw Josie Wales’. “Well, you goin’ to throw those hands or whistle Dixie?”
He threw one, and I dislocated it from his shoulder. Very painful. I then sat back down and sipped my Bushmills, oblivious to the now screaming idiot who had disturbed my drinking binge. An ambulance and the police were summoned. I spent my second straight night in the gray bar hotel, despite witnesses insistence I didn’t start the fight. On the bright side, I didn’t kill anyone, and when they took me in, I showed them by confidential informant credentials. I got a transfer to Bill Staley’s University Avenue Department. As luck would have it, so did T-bone. I did not call Lois. I was in Cantelli land, a place of darkness and shadows. Bill Staley came and got me for the second straight morning.
“Hi Bill.” I gave him a little wave as he gestured me out. I also turned and waved to T-bone. He laughed like hell when he saw me get dropped off the night before at the Western Division. Having sobered a bit, he took great delight in the story leading to my arrest at the Owl.
T-bone nodded. “Don’t come after me again, Rick. You won’t like it.”
“Hell… I didn’t like it last night either. It’s a deal.”
T-bone laughed as did a few other cellmates.
Bill shook his head at the verbal exchange “You look like shit, Rick. What’s gotten into you? I would have thought a night in watching some TV would have been a better choice than The Night Owl.”
“Bad judgment.” He helped me get my belongings back, including my weapons before leading the way over to his office where I sat down across from him. “Steve and I busted T-bone Griffin on a skip outside the bar. I called out to him, and he pan-caked me even with Taser needles juicin’ him from front and back. After I came to we collected his ticket and I had Steve drop me off at the Owl. I guess you have the report on the rest of my lovely evening out on the town.”
Bill had snickered through my shortened version of Saturday night. “You’re lucky I caught the weekend duty, and you’re listed as my confidential informant. Lucky you, getting transferred with T-bone to my department.”
“Yep, that’s me – Lucky Cantelli. First I get dumped in with Griffin, and then we both get tickets here, me because of being your CI, and Griffin because of overcrowding. He was in a better mood, so T-bone and I declared a truce.”
“Think you can stay out of trouble today?”
“Good Lord, Bill, I surely hope so. The good part is I won’t have to deal with Lois today. I know I didn’t make the papers for that smalltime Owl dustup.”
Bill tossed the morning paper over to me with a big grin. I made the front page. I was an idiot to believe my T-bone takedown wouldn’t get photographed by everyone with a phone. Of course my altercation in the Owl had its own picture gallery. I looked at Bill with the creeping darkness of Cantelli land blurring reality’s edges.
“I am so screwed.”
“Maybe Lois will cut you some slack, killer.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen.” I stood. “Thanks for the news update. At least I’ll know why people are staring at me as if I had a third eye.”
“Your house is crime scene taped still, so you should have some privacy there.”
“That’s so sweet of you to put a happy face on Cantelli disaster land.”
Bill laughed. “Get out of here. The waitress at the Owl said you did everything you could to avoid that clown messing with you, and the other patrons backed her version. I’ll call you if I come across any other complications.”
“Aren’t you going to issue the Cantelli warning?”
“Huh… oh yeah… if you have to shoot anyone else, Rick, it had better be a suicide.”
“Thanks, Bill. I appreciate you bailing me out the last couple mornings. I will endeavor to stay out of your facility by all means necessary.”
“Get healed before your next Casablanca night, Rick. My wife is now an addict with our Friday night Casablanca outing, in spite of the shooting.”
“I plan to start the healing process right away. No rush, but will I be getting my two other weapons out of police custody anytime soon?”
“Stop back in on Tuesday,” Bill replied. “I should be able to get them out of lockup for you by then.”
I waved and hit the streets. I decided to walk a while. The only trouble was, a familiar old gray Toyota Corolla drove up as I exited the building. It was Stacy. My Karma curse had come full circle. I reached in under my jacket, putting a hand around the grip of the last handgun I owned, an old Jennings Arms 9mm. I didn’t figure Stacy would air me out in front of the police station, but you just never know. I checked out both directions for drive-by candidates. The Saturday morning University Avenue was relatively quiet. She popped out on the driver’s side, waving to me, dressed in only a black thong.
“Get in, Rick. Hurry!”
I shook my head. I’m not like Lois. A nearly naked sociopathic woman did not pique my curiosity whatsoever. “I don’t think so, Stace.”
“Please, Rick! They’re going to kill me!”
“If Lois sees me hanging around with you, she’ll kill me - right after she drills you right between the horns. My advice – head for Idaho or Montana.”
Stacy’s head was on a swivel, looking for errant vehicles or pedestrians, or police officers, since this was one of their stations. “Can’t you even hear my story?”
Damn it! I should FaceTime with Lois, and show her this predicament for laughs. Instead, I took off my windbreaker and threw it over to Stacy before getting into the car. Stacy stuffed herself into my jacket and leaped in behind the wheel, speeding off the moment she got settled in. The jacket was still open, so I could see she hadn’t been tortured or anything. Her dyed blonde hair looked like she had been out on a date. The black thong with the bikini trim job meant she had hung around the area working the oldest profession once again. I’m okay with that, but she should have left San Diego.
“I…I’ll take you home. Then we can talk.”
“My house is already a crime scene, complete with yellow tape. Is it going to become the scene of a second crime?”
Stacy glanced in her rear view mirror. I looked back too, wondering how many bad guys were on her tail. I only had two spare clips for my Jennings. Maybe I needed to find out where and how she got here with just a black thong on. Look, I dig Stacy. She’s my age and we have history. To me, she looks good. To a stranger, she probably looks like their granny trying to be a high priced hooker… and failing.
“No offense, Stace, but who the hell wants a sixty year old hooker?”
Stacy smacked my arm while turning to the front again. “Who the hell wants a sixty year old gumshoe?”
I chuckled. “Too many. Let’s stick to basics. What sad state of affairs placed you outside the cop shop I did an overnighter in wearing nothing but a thong. Spare no details.”
Stacy voiced something between a sigh and a snarl. “A guy picked me up at a bar over at the west end. He didn’t think I looked sixty. I had taken a taxi, because I felt like doing a little celebrating. I dressed for a little action, and the guy noticed. He told me his name was Tony, and bought me a couple rounds. We hit it off. Tony suggested getting a bottle and going back to my place.”
“Negotiations please.” As I said, my suspension of disbelief was seeping out of my ears.
She stopped for a light and blistered me with her outraged look. When I continued grinning at her, she faced straight ahead again, gripping the wheel until her knuckles turned white. “Fine! We settled on forty bucks for the night if I did a couple of kinky things.”
“Fair enough, go on.”
Stacy glanced over with a sly grin of her own. “Don’t you want to know what the kinky things he wanted were?”
No… and hell no! “That part I can do without hearing. Go on with how you and your thong arrived at the station.”
She actually giggled. “You’re jealous.”
Maybe in the Stacy dimension. “If you say so, but the only thing I’m actually jealous of is Lois.”
“Huh?”
“Yep, I’m jealous of Lois being at home without you.”
“You’re mean, Rick!”
We’ve covered that ground. “Just explain to me why your companion whom I’m jealous of is no longer with you, but I am.”
“He’s… dead.”
Oh boy. “I’m not playing twenty questions with you. Spit the story out or I’m leaping out of the car even if it’s still moving.”
“The Sandpiper let me stay with them again…” Stacy paused from having mentioned the motel she stayed with when I nearly died outside her room there. Then she confirms all suspicions about her complete self absorption. “They’ll never let me stay there again now. Anyway, we were getting ready to act out his more kinky suggestions. I went in the bathroom with my purse. Then I heard Tony scream ‘no, wait’, followed by muffled shots. I knew they’d kill me, so I unlocked the door, and tore down all the towels. I hid under the pile of towels in the corner. Someone flung open the door, cursed, and left. It was a woman’s voice.”
“The woman then said, ‘she must have gone out for a moment’. Then a man said, ‘her clothes are all over the floor. We’ll take the clothes with us and check the office, ice machine, and the parking lot’. They must have thought it was Tony’s room. They bitched about it for a while, waiting for me to come back. I heard them open and close the door. I grabbed my purse and ran straight out to look. They had headed toward the office and ice machine. I ran down to the parking lot, and here I am. I knew they were holding you at that Staley’s precinct where we were taken the first time. I ducked every time someone went by until I saw you come out.”
The story had the ring of truth, not that there is such a thing with Stacy. “Tell you what, Stace, I’ll give you some old sweats and sneakers, stake you to a hundred bucks gas money, and you leave for parts unknown – Montana, if you’re smart.”
Stacy wasn’t that smart. She gasped in shock. “What? Leave all my clothes and personals?”
“You can drop me off and die trying to retrieve them.” I saw the pouty lip form along with the hint of a sob. I lifted my iPhone. “Don’t bother. I have Lois on speed dial. If I FaceTime you with her, she’ll kill you anyway.”
Stacy dropped the act before it began in earnest. She took a different tact, shrugging off my windbreaker, and pulling aside her thong. “Don’t put Lois on me. How about one for the road? I just bared my soul down there. Want to take it for a test drive before you send me packing?”
Damn it!
Chapter 13: Stacy Again
There’s no need for me to go into detail about how stupid I can get. Maybe I’ll have Lois handle that part sometime. Let’s just say the last few days’ aches and pains faded away for a couple hours. I took the precaution of stashing her Toyota in my garage. We were pretending we were eighteen again for another gross geezer performance when the doorbell rang. Stacy bolted upright from under me. I pulled on pants like a teenager with a cop’s flashlight shining down on a Lover’s Lane intimate moment. With Jennings 9 mil in hand I went to my security display rather than put myself in front of my door for a possible execution. Stacy edged in next to me.
Over the decades, I’ve seen women killers. The babe out on my front porch was one of them. I have an HD security system. She stared at the door with the empty look of someone used to death. My boot camp D.I. said he could pick out a killer just by looking into their eyes. After ten years in the Seals, I believed him. The woman was tall, maybe five feet, nine inches. Lanky, but shaped. Brown hair cut short. No nervousness waiting at the door ready to kill, she waited exactly one minute between doorbell rings. She looked to be in her middle thirties.
“Is that… is that her?”
“It ain’t Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stace.”
“I don’t see her partner.”
“I know. He’s not stupid. He figures we’d never come to the door if he was standing there. I need you to do something u
seful for a change. I want you to answer the door and invite her in. Can you do that?”
Stacy smiled, while stroking the side of my face. “I invited you into my motel room to be tortured and killed. What do you think?”
Yeah, silly me. “Of course you can. What the hell was I thinkin’. Sorry, Stace. I didn’t mean to insult you. Once she’s in, back away, because I am going to make her glow in the dark. Remember that feelin’ dear?”
“You’re mean, Rick!”
“Let’s hope so. Shall we?”
I led the way to the door, retrieving my six million volt nightstick on the way. I stayed at the edge of the door as Stacy opened it.
“Yes?”
“I’m Detective Martha Wright with the San Diego police department, Ma’am. Can I ask you a few questions about last night?”
I could tell Stacy was pretending to be looking at a fake ID. She was good. “Sure, come in, Detective.”
The fake detective cleared the door. I zapped her until she was counting electronic sheep while closing the door behind her. She hit the floor writhing, but reaching for her gun with a nerveless unresponsive hand. I plastic tied her hands behind her back and her ankles. Stacy enjoyed the show, no yelps of surprise, and no cringing head turned away in anguish. I dragged our guest out of the way to get ready for the partner when we heard a scream of agony out in front. I opened the door with the Jennings in hand. It was Lois, toasting the shit out of the partner.
“Hi, Lo. I smell barbeque.”
“I drove here in order to kick your ass for not reporting all the latest Cantelli crimes,” Lois replied, collecting her Taser needles. “Then I saw Smoky creeping toward your door with his hand on the butt of a gun in the belt at his back. He’s a bad guy, right?”
I laughed, as I twisted Smoky’s hands behind his back and plastic tied them. She didn’t care. Lo barbeques first and asks questions later. After I did his ankles, I patted him down, and confiscated everything on him just as I had done with his female accomplice inside. I then straightened and shrugged. “Yeah, he and his partner killed a guy named Tony over at the Sandpiper. I’m protecting the witness.”
Rick Cantelli, P.I. (Rick Cantelli, P.I. Detectives Book 1) Page 17
