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

by Bernard DeLeo

  Lois growled and began rapidly reloading the Taser. “I’m going to singe your dick off, Cantelli! Then I’m going to put three shots in the back of that old floozy’s head! You hear me, Peaches?! I’m coming for you! Best make your peace with Gaia or Beelzebub or whatever demon you say your sleepy time prayers to, you useless piece of shit! Okay, Cantelli, let’s make music.”

  She aimed the Taser. I shifted into a sideways stance, waving my hands in warning. “You Tase me, Lo, and I will never tell you a single detail of all that has transpired since I last saw you. It’s a not to be missed harrowing adventure. It’ll eat you up inside not knowing.”

  Lois froze, her face a mask of angst, her finger actually set to fry me like a cracked egg. I kept my expression in neutral. I knew if my lips even turned upward in a slight grin I would pay dearly for underestimating Stacy’s ability to drive my partner stark raving mad. It had been a game before, part of our daily prank-a-thon concerning Lois’s need to oversee every aspect of my life as if she were still handling me in the CIA. Stacy had driven her completely whacko. Her hand finally dropped.

  “Damn it!” Lo kicked her barbeque victim to dispel the residue rage, eliciting a yelp. “Drag this cretin inside, you old whoremonger! Then get your ass on the phone with Staley. I never thought that confidential informant shit would be anything but a damn nuisance, but that was before your life entered some kind of hell dimension.”

  I said nothing, since Lo still had her Taser gripped in hand. I dragged Smoky into my house, and over next to his groaning accomplice. Then I called Staley, while blocking Lois from searching my house for Stacy. Staley answered, and I could tell he was amused to be contacted by me so soon. I put him on speaker.

  “Rick? What’s wrong, buddy? Did Lois leave you maimed by the side of the road or something?”

  “Well… she is standing here with a loaded Taser in her hand inside my house, but no, that’s not why I called. I have two killers already plastic tied and ready to be collected. They will solve the murder at the Sandpiper Lodge you probably don’t even know about.”

  It was a full two minutes before Bill could speak. He laughed so hard I figured he’d need oxygen. Lois even cackled a bit at Bill’s enjoyment of my new predicament. “Your… your old girlfriend… right?”

  “She’s not the victim. She’s the witness.”

  “Good Lord… that explains the Taser. Will I look good with this, my busy little CI?”

  “When I get done drafting the report, you may well be made precinct commander.”

  “That’s what I like to hear. It’s been boring here so far since I sprung you. Can you put the witness on with me for a moment, Rick? I need to record her telling me the name of the place, room number, and such. Will you be okay watching the killers until I check the scene out before coming over to gather my perps?”

  “Yes. Believe me, Bill, this may seem like a comedy, but these two are stone killers. They aced their prime target, and although Stacy got away, they knew where to find her. There’s more to this than what I’ve gotten out of Stacy so far. I think once you find out who these two killers really are, you will be solving more than one murder.”

  “Understood. Put the little minx on.”

  “On it.” I met Lois’s irritated gaze with my earnest Cantelli look. “You can’t shoot Stacy. Bill needs her. Give me your word you won’t beat her senseless either.”

  Lois waved me off. “What sense? I heard you. Go on.”

  I found Stacy huddling in terror beside my bed. I handed her the phone. “Talk to Detective Staley. He’ll need to record you telling him a few details.”

  Stacy nodded and took the phone. “Don’t let Lois kill me, Rick.”

  “Just talk to Staley and stay in here until he comes over.”

  “Okay.”

  I left her alone to join Lois. She had turned the woman over on her side, so she could get a better look at her. The woman stared back at Lois in a manner that left little doubt about what she would try to do if her hands were free. Lois patted her cheek and straightened. She looked at me while gesturing down at our hogtied female killer.

  “This one’s a keeper.”

  I nodded in agreement. “I don’t know if they’ll get her to say a word, but like I told Bill, she might be a key in solving a few cold cases once they trace her down. All kidding aside, Lois, I know you can’t stand the sight of Stacy, but you should have seen her bait the woman inside. She didn’t tremble, bat an eye, or get hitches in her voice.”

  “No shit? A psychopath who can lie with a straight face to another psychopath. Well, big whoopee do. What? You think that’s some kind of resume enhancement?”

  I chuckled, pointing down at the woman on the floor. “Shoot her with the Taser, Lo. She’s almost worked out of my damn plastic tie.”

  “No!” One startled negative was all she managed before Lo started the barbeque.

  “She must have a thumb she can displace,” I told Lois as I turned the woman on her side and confirmed that she had one hand nearly out of my binding. Once she became conscious, the killer probably thought a couple old geezers like me and Lois would never notice her almost imperceptible straining.

  “I was going to let her get the hands free so I could watch that smug look develop on her face before I nailed her,” Lois said. She waved me off when I gave her my annoyed Cantelli look. “We’re too old not to have a little fun, Rick, except for your love life.”

  After fixing my first binding and adding a second higher on the arms, I let the woman go and collected Lois’s needles. Then I rechecked the guy’s fastenings and rejoined Lo. “When you hear the circumstances, you’ll understand why I may have had a slightly weak moment. I nearly FaceTimed you the moment I saw her. That should count for something.”

  “Not hardly. That’s what you should have done. Now, here we are on a Sunday, babysitting a used up old hooker, and a couple of Bonnie and Clyde wannabes.”

  I gave out a heartfelt sigh. “Yeah, ain’t it grand?”

  Our female killer snorted a derisive epithet, rolling to face us. “So you two old crones think your precious Stacy was innocently involved in a hit, huh?”

  “Shut your mouth!” The guy hunched over on his side to order his cohort.

  Then we saw the veil lift to reveal yet another glimpse of violent reality. The female partner graced the guy with a look that wilted the rage on his face. She didn’t say anything, but the guy turned away without another word. Lois and I looked at each other with nodding recognition. We worked ages ago with a few women so dangerous people who knew them reacted exactly like the guy just did. I grinned.

  “Let me make you more comfortable.” I helped the woman into a sitting position against the wall, and did the same for the guy. “We’re not cops. No recorders, no funny business from us geezers. Can you tell us if the contract was for both the guy Stacy claims was named Tony, and her?”

  “You can call me Trish, killer.”

  Lois laughed like hell. I was less amused. “Did you get that from the papers?”

  Trish shrugged. “We had to know Stacy inside out. It was a possibility you’d be collateral damage. She’s poison, Rick. You know that, right?”

  Great. I’m getting romantic advice from a contract killer. “You know how uncomfortable it makes me feel when you talk to me like we’re old friends, right Trish?”

  She smiled. “I blew it big time. When the cops put me in the DNA hopper, I’m fucked. Letting that old bimbo lure me into your house was about the dumbest thing I ever did. Not seeing you should have set off my alarm bells. I’m kind of sorry I got Chet here fucked with me.”

  “For your peace of mind, I was going to shoot you in the head if you tried to walk away,” I replied, noticing Lo was putting things together with a grim look.

  “So Stacy was included, and she knew this Tony guy all along?” Lois wasn’t smiling either. The familiarity this cold blooded killer had with me warranted closer attention, and a hell of a lot more caution.<
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  “The Tony guy was Al Baylor. He ran that lab you unintentionally busted a few days ago, Rick. Baylor pinpointed the old bimbo as the one to have on tap in case the lab got hit. They had a deal. She’d testify against everyone, but leave him out of it. The problem with that was the two of them didn’t head for parts unknown after the lab was a bust. We heard the payoff was going down tonight at Stacy’s Sandpiper room. I guess I missed the boat there too. Where was she hiding?”

  “The pile of towels in the bathroom,” I replied. What the hell? I was getting a lot of information.

  Trish turned the air blue for a moment, cussing herself, and the world in general, while bringing a smile to Lois’s face. “Yep. That’s exactly the way I feel about that skank. If I had a time machine, I’d send you and Chet back to finish her off, while I zapped Don Juan Cantelli into unconsciousness.”

  “While you’re on a roll, would you like to tell us who took a contract out on Baylor and Barfly,” Lois asked.

  Trish chuckled. “No. I’m not that far gone. Prison would be a day to day battlefield for me. Give me a few minutes in the same room with Barfly and I’ll snuff her like a candle flame in a hurricane for you.”

  “So tempting. No. but thanks for the happy thought,” Lois replied.

  “I must admit I didn’t believe much I ran across when I researched you two.” Trish shook her head in a sadly pissed off way. “The Barfly’s past made me laugh. I’m not laughing anymore. You’re the only one lucky enough to not get singed during one of her flameouts, Rick. You look good for an old man. Too bad we didn’t meet under other circumstances.”

  It was then I noticed I didn’t have a shirt on. I went to get one. Stacy was gone and the window open. I then heard my garage door open, and grinned. I shrugged into my pullover black t-shirt and walked past my little group of guests to the front window. Staley blocked the end of my driveway. He held Stace at gunpoint while the officers in the second car collected Stacy.

  “She tried to run?” Lois asked.

  “Yeah, but Staley had just arrived. They have her. I figured she was at the stairs listening. I didn’t think she’d drop down out of the window.” I turned around toward Trish. “How long you been in the game?”

  “Ten years. I figured to be in it a lot longer though. Things change, huh?”

  “Yep, except with Stacy. She hasn’t changed a bit.”

  * * *

  Two weeks later, I was sitting on a beach chair sipping beer on the beach. Lois and I had come to a joint decision that it was time for me to step back for a little bit. The only time I left the beach house now was to get groceries and do our workout classes. I played Bogart on Casablanca night to a packed house again, even with the media circus that went nuts over my wild stretch of days. Our lawyer worked with Staley to help the DA process all of my adventures in such a manner he agreed to my testifying as the only duty I had.

  Someone with a lot of money hired a lawyer for Trish and Chet more famous than I was. It didn’t help them at the arraignment though. The PD traced their fingerprints, DNA samples, and ballistics from the weapons confiscated during their capture, and at the motel room they shared. Bill kept me updated. He claimed Interpol wanted them too. I spent a full day on the report for Bill. My creative writing instincts helped blend a very credible collaboration in which we had suspected something more tied into the lab bust. Anyway, Staley looked even better than before, and I was cemented in still as his confidential informant.

  Then there was my indomitable old girlfriend, Stacy. She attempted to rat out everyone in the Western Hemisphere, but was bound over for trial in connection with her illicit partnership with the deceased Al Baylor. Although she didn’t have a clue as to who ordered the hit on her and Al, Stacy named enough possibilities trying to get a deal, that the DA refused to listen anymore. Lois was so happy about Stacy’s incarceration, she almost let me off the hook for my Stacy liaison. Almost.

  Lois decided truth needed to be told in relation to my unsanctioned coupling with Stacy. She carried her truth to every one of my female friends in unctuous detail. It didn’t matter how much was fiction. Lois’s storytelling skills carried the day, earning me a shunning I had not been able to achieve on my own. She thought my sudden fall from female grace would send me into a fit of depression. Au contraire, mon ami. Gloriously, I now sat alone on a beach chair with a small ice bucket of beer, and the world was my pearl. Beautiful clouds drifted by over the ocean. The waves crashed onto the beach pleasantly with an audible enchantment no music could compete with. I had went swimming two miles in the ocean, absorbing the cool caress and soothing feel of the salt water’s gentle surf. Perhaps my time in Cantelli hell was at an end. I drifted off with only the waves and an occasional squawk from a seagull lulling my brainwaves into slumber.

  Dusk and sunset arrived in my head, a wondrous canopy of golden inlaid reds and yellows. From the ocean’s surf approached a gleaming Jadie, wet sultry gliding apparition of paradise lost in nude splendor. She held a finger to her lips, urging silence while sleekly enveloping me. Her wet hot lips brushed in moaning fervor over mine, breath like a soft ocean breeze, and-”

  “Cantelli!”

  I woke startled, drooling, and plagued once again. I looked over my shoulder, well aware of who trekked toward me, screeching my name, with a beach chair in her hand. I actually had my iPhone with me, so she could have simply FaceTimed me, but that just wasn’t Lois’s style. I wet a small towel in my ice chest and refreshed my face while adjusting myself from dreamland, the ice cold wetness sparking me into clarity. Lois grinned down at me while setting her chair in the sand and plopping onto it. She was dressed in black shorts, pastel blue top, and big sunglasses, wearing a hat the size of Texas fastened under her chin.

  “Spock-ella… what a pleasant surprise, you mind munching, thought stealing, Karma crunching demon. Don’t tell me. You felt happiness in the Force, and set out to destroy it. You’re on a mission.”

  She cackled adorably. Adorably somewhere fanged harpies flew in spiraling circles of death under blackened skies, picking at carrion below them. “You lazy bastard! I knew you were out here lusting in that perverted skull of yours. I felt your sinning smarminess all the way in my office. I knew you needed to be reeled into reality again, you lecherous old goat. It’s Friday, and I need a hero.”

  “I’m on leave of absence, and I’m not a hero. I’m a lecherous old goat.”

  “It’s a fun weekend gig, and you’ll get to use the tan you’ve acquired sitting on your ass for two weeks. It’s a lot of money, but only you can do it. Now stop playing hard to get, Rick, and get your Kevin Costner sunglasses dusted off. You have a body-guarding gig the client won’t take a substitute for. They want the old blade runner, the magic man, the protector of the helpless, the guardian of the shining city on the hill.”

  I choked audibly with the appropriate expression of distaste. “I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. If Karen wanted a suited escort, why didn’t she just call me? It’s strange she would go through you. I smell a rat.”

  Lois reached over and clipped me in the back of the head. “It’s not a bodyguard carnal coupling with my DNA matching skank of a sister, roving Hollywood now like she owns it. You see enough of her anyway, although thanks to my Stacy stories, not so much now, huh Romeo?”

  “Yes, harpy, you outdid yourself this time. Thanks to your wondrous telling of my off the books adventure with Stacy, my female entourage looks like they’ll barf whenever I brush against them while playing Bogey. Just out of curiosity, what did you tell them?”

  “I told them Stacy wanted you to be kinkier and you obliged. When you explained how you relapsed with the old whore, and that story she created about a kinky mark named Tony, I added a bit to it and made you Tony. Then I explained in what way she wanted kinkier. They were horrified.” Lois started cackling again.

  “And what perverted imaginary exploits did you tell them I was doing?”

  Lois patted my hand. “Belie
ve me, Rick, you don’t want to know.”

  I laughed at that statement. “What? You think you’ll shock me?”

  “It involved a few repulsive games better left to the imagination.”

  “In other words you used descriptions of your sex life to sour my female admirers.”

  That crinkled her harpy face into a tight mouthed, narrow eyed leer. She kicked back in her chair. “Okay, good one. I should have seen it coming.”

  I took a long satisfied sip of my beer. The complete shunning I received at workouts and Casablanca night was enough of a warning for me to know the harpy had been at work. Since I didn’t have to deal with Shelly at the office, I didn’t care. On Casablanca night, I worked it into the act with me trying to get close to Jadie and Karen, and them actively rebuking me. That almost backfired because when a few of our female patrons saw that, they decided to fill the void. Lois straightened in her chair again after a minute.

  “We have a new young client who has requested you personally as a bodyguard at events. She just turned eighteen, and hitting the fame ladder like lightning in a bottle. She’s been making blockbuster movies since she was ten.”

  I drained my beer and grabbed another. I decided to stick with the facts. “We’re doing great. We have all the media exposure you could hope for, and the restaurant is bringing in a ton of money. Why would we need to do this?”

  “We don’t need to do this. You need to do this, Rick. You’re losing your edge.”

  Now that was funny. “I’ve been on leave for two damn weeks, and I’ve lost my edge? What about the days prior to my leave? What’s this really about? Do you have a child or another kid sister I don’t know about?”

  “Very funny. One Hollywood twit is enough for my family. This one’s strictly business. She has five events she wants you at, and she’s willing to pay fifty thousand.”