by Mike Faricy
“That check for four grand should be good, I think.”
“Yeah, it was, but the teller brought it to some junior officer. He took one look at me and brought it over to his boss. I finally got the cash, but it took them awhile.”
“You heading toward Walter?”
“That guy at The Trend?”
“Yeah.”
“I should be there in the next fifteen minutes. Look, Dev, I don’t know what’s going on, but take some advice from your lawyer, here. Turn yourself in.”
“Remember what happened to Daryl Bergstrom?”
“You mean that kid who was murdered while in jail?”
“Yeah. Then the guy that killed him, Duncan Nixon.”
“Mmm-mmm.”
“I’m thinking even if they put me in protective custody, Tubby could find a way to get to me.”
“So where are you going?”
“The only place I can, I’m going after Tubby.”
“What the…”
“I’ll call Walter and let him know you’re on the way. Then watch your back, Louie. Tubby’s got a lot of folks looking for me, and he’s bound to have someone keeping an eye on you.”
“Hold on, think about this, Dev.”
“I have, Louie, and I’m out of options. They’re bound to find me wherever I try and hide.”
“God, just take care of yourself, man.”
“You just get that dough over to Walter, and thanks, I couldn’t do this without you.”
“I’m not sure that makes me feel very good.”
“I’ll call Walter,” I said, and hung up.
Walter wasn’t taking any chances, which is probably why he’s lasted this long, and been so successful. He asked where I was, then told me he’d call back as soon as he was paid with the location where my new car would be.
I found the car in an outdated mall parking lot, parked in front of a liquor store advertising 10% off all half pints. It was tough to miss, a Honda Integra sporting California plates, and missing the better part of its front grill. The thing was a faded powder blue, with the exception of the trunk which was a faded pink. A crack about four inches above the dash ran across the front windshield. There was a gaping hole where the passenger side mirror had been torn off and the door was buckled. A sticker on the rear bumper read ‘Grow your own dope, plant a man.’
The key ring was under the driver’s side floor mat, and sported a Palm Beach Feline Rescue logo. I flashed back to my ill-conceived evening with Brenda Livingston, and immediately began to itch. As I slid into the driver’s seat I noticed that the radio had been ripped out of the dash. At least the car started.
I’ll give it this much, it seemed to have speed, but then again I was comparing it to the Aztec which wasn’t much of a challenge. I drove back into town, then sat in the middle of an empty high school parking lot for the next few hours, constantly looking around in all directions. Once the sun went down, I drove over to Crickett’s house and parked up the street.
Sure enough, a little before midnight, two sets of headlights drifted down the street. Just like before, a shiny black car pulled to the curb while the second vehicle, an SUV of some sort remained in the street. The door opened on the first car, and a guy climbed out. Only this time it wasn’t Tubby, but what looked like a substantially thinner version of him. Tubby’s kid Ben?
Crickett held the door open for him as he trotted up the steps then slipped inside, she closed the door behind her and turned out the front porch light. A moment later the front drapes were pulled closed, and the second car drove down the street past me just as I ducked down behind the wheel.
I knew better than to window peek at the back of the house. Instead, I played it safe and took a round about route through the neighborhood, checking for the SUV. I didn’t see anything resembling the thing, so I parked a block over, then cautiously walked up the alley. I didn’t meet anyone.
I was thinking of maybe waiting in the back seat of the ‘BeniBoy’ Mercedes, but it was locked. Plus, I figured there might be a good chance he wouldn’t exit the house until his escort vehicle had been summoned. I crawled back in the Integra up on the next block and waited. I dozed off at some point and woke to the sound of a distant car door slamming. It wasn’t quite 6:00am.
As I blinked awake, I saw the Mercedes pull away from the curb, with the black SUV following right behind. I could just barely make out two silhouettes in the front seat of the SUV. With almost no traffic on the streets, I followed cautiously hanging back almost two blocks. Both vehicles entered the underground parking ramp of a trendy condo building along the river bluff. I pulled around the corner, and then checked the list I’d made of properties owned by Big Boy Enterprises. Sure enough the building was listed. It was a far cry from the ‘restoration in progress’ dives I’d been through the other day.
This building was ten floors of palatial million-dollar units, and it was a pretty safe guess, Tubby’s kid lived in one of them. I’d been in the building once before, some sort of wedding or funeral thing, I couldn’t quite recall. I did recall that it had a security system, and you had to dial a tenant from the lobby. There were security cameras in the entryway, the lobby, and the elevators. I figured there had to be a better way to spend my time.
Chapter Thirty-One
After ringing the door bell repeatedly, I started pounding until Crickett finally answered looking shocked to see me. She gave me this wide eyed sort of grimacing gasp when she opened the door, like someone she knew was just about to jump off a cliff.
“Hi, Crickett, mind if I come in?” I said then half-shouldered the door and pushed past her before she could slam it shut. She was dressed in another robe, but apparently she’d come up in the world since this one was an exotic looking black and red silk kimono with lapels, instead of the raunchy blue terrycloth rag from her distant past. The kimono covered barely an inch of her thighs, with a sexy slit on the sides that rose above her inviting hips.
I, on the other hand, had slept in my car last night and was wearing the same clothes I’d sweated in for the last two days. I hadn’t showered for over forty-eight hours of hot, muggy weather, and I was still coughing up the occasional cat hair. I held the snub .38 in my front pocket.
“You just better leave, Dev, if you know what’s good for you. Certain very important people won’t be too happy to learn you’re here.”
“Then maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell them, now would it?”
“I don’t think you quite understand…”
“Oh, I understand, honey, believe me, I’m understanding a little bit more with every passing hour. How’s Tubby by the way? It must be exhausting doing a father and son at the same time.”
“I wouldn’t have the slightest idea what in the hell you’re talking about,” she said, but the flushed face and the edgy tone of her denial suggested a much different story.
“Drop the act, Crickett, or should I just go back to calling you Karen? I saw you in here the other night gnawing on Tubby’s ear while he inhaled a giant pizza. I hope for your sake you get to take tops, I wouldn’t want him rolling over on me. Of course you were back riding ‘BeniBoy’ last night. God, such a busy girl you’re making it tough for me to keep up, sweetie.”
“They’re never going to stop looking for you after what you did to Ricky and Eddie the other night.”
“Ricky and Eddie? Are they the two thugs that had my hand in the vise down in your basement? The two guys pissed off because they were going to have to waste their night killing me and hiding the body? Those two fools? You’re lucky I didn’t come after you, bitch.”
The color drained from her face as she pulled the kimono tighter around her waist and stared at her feet. When she looked up she was a changed woman. She gave me that half smile and wide eyed stare that used to make me flop over on my back, and pant like a dog.
“It’s just that once you dumped me, Dev, I sort of went crazy. I’ve never been able to find the man who could completely r
eplace you. Honest, I’ve been looking. You know I’d do anything, and I mean anything to get you back,” she said, then let the Kimono fall open as she took half a step toward me. “Anything,” she half whispered.
“You mean like have me killed. They were going to kill me, Crickett.” I spit out her name.
She pulled the kimono tight around her waist again, like a bedroom door slamming in my face. “Oh get over it, you’re here to tell the story.”
“Here to tell the story? I wouldn’t even be here, wouldn’t be involved, God there wouldn’t even be a story if you hadn’t asked me to help you. The whole thing has been a set up right from the start. Why did you ever contact me? Why did you ask for my help with Daryl?”
“That loser? Spare me.”
“Spare me? The guy is dead because of you. You basically set him up just as much as your psycho lovers, Ben and Tubby. Hell, is that kid, the little baby even…”
“His name is Oliver.”
“Is Oliver even his, Daryl’s?”
“Yeah, well at least I think so. He probably is,” she said, then wrinkled her nose like she wasn’t all that sure.
“God. The guy was murdered waiting to make a plea bargain on a deal that was a setup right from the start. You were part of that, you helped set him up, and you might just as well have been the one who slit his throat.”
“I set him up? Where do you get that? I didn’t ask him to drive that van. I didn’t give him a hundred bucks. Don’t you think it’s just a little strange someone asks you to drive a van into a parking lot, and as an adult you don’t ask any questions?”
“Strange? Yeah, especially when you add the fact that your so-called girlfriend is sleeping with the guy making the offer, and his lunatic father. Maybe he wanted to get on your good side. Maybe he wanted to show you he was as good as your lowlife fuck-buddy Ben. Maybe he wanted to get you back. Maybe he didn’t want to lose the baby. I don’t know, maybe he was just plain stupid, which would explain a lot, starting with ending up with you. Jesus, Karen…”
“It’s Crickett!”
“God, you’re ten years older than he is. What the hell, maybe he just had a mother infatuation.”
She took a swing at me, but I blocked it.
“Get out of here, get out of my home, now.”
“Your home? You don’t own this place. Daryl’s father, Charlie owns it. You’re going to be out in the street, Crickett. You think the father and son Gustafson gang you’ve been tag teaming is going to take you in. They’ll have you dancing in one of Tubby’s strip bars for tips and snorts of cocaine.”
“They love me, and if I were you I’d be packing to go far away. Very far away, they aren’t going to rest until they get you, Dev. That’s not a warning, that’s a promise. You screwed up everything and they won’t forget.”
“You better think about it, Crickett, because you screwed up everything when you got me involved. You let them know I’m coming after them. I’m going to get Ben and Tubby and then you and nothing, not even that wacko psychopath Bulldog, is going to stop me.”
Her chest heaved, and I could hear her breathing heavily through her nose, like she’d just run a dash and lost. Maybe that was it, she realized regardless of what happened, she was going to lose. Probably sooner rather than later, both Tubby and Ben would grow tired of her. Charlie Bergstrom was going to kick her out on the street, and then my prediction about dancing for tips and snorts of cocaine wasn’t that far from the truth.
“Get out of here, get out of my house. I’m calling them right now,” she said. Her voice was cold, devoid of emotion, she strutted over to the coffee table, and made a show of picking up a cellphone, managing to expose herself in the process.
“That would probably be a good idea, Crickett. But while you’re talking to them, remember you’re on borrowed time. No matter how sexy you think you are, no matter how clever you think you are playing one off the other, sooner or later they’ll have had enough of your shit, and then you better start packing. When they answer, you tell them I’m on my way.”
She made a show of pushing a speed dial number, crossed her arms over her chest then gave me a look that suggested ‘I’ll show you’. She put the cell to her ear and stared. I decided it might be a good time to make fast tracks out the front door. I left the door open as my own departing gesture, then heard it slam behind me before I was off her front steps. The boom made me half jump, and I picked up speed heading to my car.
Chapter Thirty-Two
After making my big play with Crickett, I fled the scene as fast as possible with no idea where I could go. The Spot was out, same thing with Louie’s, Heidi’s, my office, not to mention my house. Just thinking about Brenda’s cats made me itch, and my nose started to run, besides someone had spotted my car there, and they were still probably watching the place. I headed back to Ben’s trendy condo building, and parked in the visitor’s space in the next building over.
Ben’s condo was just off Shepard Road, overlooking the Mississippi. There was a tugboat out there pushing six barges down river, probably heading to St. Louis, or maybe all the way down to New Orleans. For a half second I thought about trying to swim out to the thing, and just floating my way out of town. Instead, I grabbed a push broom from a side patio area, and made my way to the underground parking entrance.
I swept back and forth across the entrance for the better part of a half hour, then gave a friendly wave like an employee might do when the door finally opened, and some bald guy in a BMW zipped out of the parking area and up the ramp. He ignored me, didn’t give me so much as the finger which was just fine with me. I quickly swept my way into the parking garage just before the door closed.
It was a large, mostly empty parking area at this hour of the day. I recognized the black Mercedes with the ‘BeniBoy’ plates, and the black SUV parked next to it in the two spaces closest to the elevator. The spaces were numbered with what I guessed were unit numbers, 1001 and 1002. It figured, in a condo building with ten floors of course Tubby’s kid would want to be on the top floor, above everyone else, and then grab the two parking spaces closest to the elevator.
I guessed that if the two vehicles were still here, apparently Crickett hadn’t gotten around to actually making her phone call. Her picking up the cellphone and making a big scene had probably all been an act. Unless she’d called Tubby, but then it seemed likely that Tubby would have dispatched Ben and his two minders so he could remain at the food trough.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I thought about letting the air out of their tires, but noticed the security cameras mounted on the walls. On the off chance they were monitored some nitwit might be watching me, wondering what in the hell I was doing. I rested the broom next to the garage door, then walked over and pushed the ‘up’ button for the elevator. The doors opened a second later.
I stepped in and noticed another security camera, this one with a blinking green light. I pushed the button for the tenth floor. My ride up was uninterrupted, and all too fast. What sounded like a church bell clanged to announce my arrival. The doors opened onto a hallway with plush, floral pattern carpet on a navy blue background. Dark paneling ran up the wall to about shoulder height. I stepped out of the elevator and glanced around. My hand was tightly wrapped around the snub .38 in my pocket. It looked like there were only two units on the tenth floor, 1001 and 1002.
I figured since he was Tubby’s kid, Ben would naturally want to be first, so I knocked softly on the door labeled 1001 and waited. The door opened a moment later, and even with the surprised look on his face as I pushed the .38 against his nose, I could see the resemblance to Tubby. He had the beginning of a ruddy complexion on his full face, and a pair of ears that would continue to grow for the next thirty years. Add a bulbous nose, three or four more chins, maybe another three hundred pounds, with some food smeared around his mouth, and it was Tubby.
A .38 pressed against the nose is an impressive way of getting an individual to back up. Ben cautiously stepped
back into a large living room with a dark wood floor. He was in stocking feet and kept his hands raised in surrender. His eyes almost crossed, as he continued to focus on the barrel of the .38.
“You’re that Dev Haskell guy.”
“Anyone else in here?”
He shook his head no.
“And you’re Tubby’s son, Ben. That right?”
He nodded.
“Back up a little bit more and keep those hands up. You carrying, Ben? You got a weapon on you?”
“No sir. And no one else is in here.”
“I hope you’re not lying, because no matter what they do, I’ll have the half second on my side that it’ll take me to shoot you right between the eyes.”
“Honest, Mr. Haskell no one is in here, except for you and me.”
“What about your neighbors across the hall in 1002?”
“Who?” he asked trying to play dumb.
“Ben, don’t screw with me, two guys, thick necks, ride around town in a black SUV, that right now is parked next to your Mercedes.”
I caught the sudden flare in the pupils of his eyes. Like he’d made a mistake, and underestimated how much I might know. I decided to push a little further. “Ben, understand something here. You don’t tell me the truth, try to bullshit me, I’ll know and then you’ll never, ever see that little love pal of yours, Cricket, in her sexy little black and red kimono again. Understand?”
His eyes widened even more and he nodded.
“Tell me about the cocaine hijacked from the DEA, Ben.”
“I don’t know what…” But he stopped in mid-sentence and shook his head. “I can’t my dad will kill me.”
“Probably, but that’s really not my problem. Did you set Daryl Bergstrom up?”
“No, honest. Daryl knew, or well we both knew the van was being watched. But it was his idea, he figured it was worth the chance and he’d be able to just talk his way out of it if the cops actually caught him. He was thinking it would be a joy ride, an adventure sort of deal. He didn’t even know they were tailing him. Suddenly, everything just really backfired, and the cops were all over him. Then some lunatic killed him while he was in jail.”
