by Elaine Viets
“You can get a burger there. I’ve fed Thumbs.” Phil pulled her off the couch and pushed her toward the parking lot. “Hurry.”
“I’m never going to lose weight eating bar food,” Helen grumbled.
“You don’t need to,” Phil said, opening the Igloo’s passenger door. He patted her bottom as she sat down.
“Easy for you to say,” Helen said. “Your boss doesn’t think you’re fat. Did you get Mark’s accident report from Sunset Palms yet?”
“I waited by the fax machine all day. Nothing.” The PT Cruiser roared into life and the air-conditioning blasted out cold air. Helen was reviving.
“I’m going into that office tomorrow and pick up the report personally,” Phil said.
“What if the clerk won’t give it to you?”
“Then I’ll remind her about the paper trail and threaten to call the Florida attorney general. That should shake it loose.”
Two of Phil’s predictions were correct. Danny Boy was at the bar, and he was drinking—alone. His friends were engrossed in the Marlins game. Danny huddled over a nearly empty mug at the bar, surrounded by a wall of seething silence. His bloodshot eyes looked like they were bleeding. His T-shirt was dirty, but Helen could read it: 24 HOURS IN A DAY. 24 BEERS IN A CASE. COINCIDENCE? YOU BE THE JUDGE.
Helen judged that Danny had downed at least half a case.
“Phil!” he cried when they sat down. Danny Boy didn’t seem to notice Helen. “What can I get you?” Sour sweat poured off him. He was drunk. Tonight he didn’t slur his words so much as speak them with an odd, heavy emphasis.
“Helen and I will have burgers, and I’ll have a cold beer. What are you drinking, Helen?”
“I want a beer, too,” Helen said. Damn the diet. She needed a drink after Debbi’s wake.
Danny slid two beers in thick frosted mugs their way.
“Get ready to run,” Phil whispered to Helen. “I’m going to try something with Danny. It may set him off.”
Phil lifted his mug to Danny Boy and said, “May you live forever, and may I never die.” That was Mark’s toast on the ancient tape.
Danny paled, even in the bar’s dim light.
“You burned a DVD of Mark’s last birthday party and put it in Gus’s VCR, didn’t you, Danny? It has your fingerprints all over it.”
“Does not,” Danny said. “I wiped them.” He realized what he’d said and sobered up fast.
“You’ve got the know-how,” Phil said. “Why did you do it, Danny Boy?”
“For Gus’s own good. I had to warn him,” Danny Boy said. “If the wrong people found out someone is looking into Mark’s death again, Gus could get hurt. My sister Linda called and told me there was a detective nosing around in the files.” Danny Boy didn’t seem to know he was looking at that detective.
“You killed him,” Phil said.
Danny Boy moved in closer. He smelled rank, a combination of sweat, dirty clothes and stale beer. Helen saw an enormous blackhead on his left cheek. She stared at it, fascinated. There was a stray whisker growing beside it. “No, dude, you got it wrong,” he whined. “Mark was out of control. He talked too much when he got his crazy spells.”
“You were afraid Mark would tell everyone you were selling drugs,” Phil said. “You and Mark were dealing together, weren’t you? That’s how you got this bar. You bought it with drug money.”
“I inherited the money from my grandfather,” Danny said. “That’s his picture over the bar.”
“Bull,” Phil said. “I saw your grandfather’s obituary. He was clean-shaven. That guy has a mustache. You didn’t inherit anything from your grandfather. All he left was enough money to bury him. You made the money for this place selling drugs. Mark used his drug money for his brother Gus’s car business. You had to shut up Mark when he started babbling.”
“No, you got it all wrong,” Danny Boy said. “Mark had these crazy spells when he’d say Ahmet was the devil. He didn’t make any sense when he talked like that. Gus put him in the loony bin after he found Mark walking naked down Dixie Highway.”
“Mark was crazy, but he wasn’t violent,” Phil said.
“He was around us,” Danny said. “Mark was crazy and violent, especially when he did coke. We were all afraid of him—Me, Bernie, his own mother. Gus was the only one who could deal with him. You never saw the Mark we did. He wanted to die. Whoever killed him did Mark a favor. He was off his head and didn’t want to live like that. The doctors couldn’t regulate his medicine.”
“Of course they couldn’t,” Phil said. “Not with all the coke he took.”
“Coke was the only thing that made him feel better,” Danny said. “Mark knew he was getting crazier. He couldn’t work. He couldn’t get it up anymore. He couldn’t sleep. He was afraid he’d spend the rest of his life in the psycho ward.”
Danny was desperate to make Phil believe him. Helen thought the bartender was telling the truth.
“Two weeks before he died, Mark begged us to kill him. He asked his friends, one by one. He couldn’t do it himself. He was too Catholic to commit suicide, but he didn’t want to be a burden to his family. You weren’t there when he was walking around with a butcher knife, begging us to help him die.” Danny made it sound like an accusation.
“Killing Mark was a kindness,” he said. “It was putting him out of his misery like a sick dog.”
“So you shot him like a dog,” Phil said.
“No!” Danny Boy was sobbing now. “No, I didn’t kill him. I swear. Mark was going apeshit, freaking out all the time. He cut his wrists once at my house. Got blood all over the john. I had to repaint the walls. That pissed me off. He wouldn’t get better. He wouldn’t. I didn’t do anything to help him. I wished he was dead.”
Danny Boy’s rubbery drunk face was sloppy with tears. “When I first heard he was dead, I was relieved. That’s what I felt: relief. My best friend, and I wanted him dead. I can’t stand myself. I’ve pissed my life away. Mark killed himself. He succeeded at that, too. I wish I had the courage to do what he did. I wish someone would put me out of my misery.”
He reached under the register and pulled out a .44 Magnum. Helen froze at the sight of the huge, heavy gun.
“Put that gun down, Danny Boy,” Phil said, his voice low and careful.
Danny waved the gun at his head, then his chest. “I don’t deserve to live,” he said. “I’m lower than whale shit.”
Helen reached slowly for her beer mug.
Danny’s eyes stayed locked on Phil’s. Tears ran down the drunken bartender’s face, but he was defiant. Only the emotional wobble in his voice betrayed him. “I can do this,” Danny said. “I can get out of this. All I have to do is pull the trigger and it will be over.”
“Do you think your death will bring back Mark?” Phil asked. “Don’t waste your life, too.”
“Too late,” he said. “I’ve screwed it up royally.”
No one in the noisy bar noticed the drama at the register.
“You don’t want to die, Danny,” Phil said softly.
“I don’t want to live,” Danny said. “I’m a failure. My sister has to save me. I threw away my talent. It’s too late. Mark and I, we were dealing drugs, you got that right. We made a fortune. The money was rolling in. We couldn’t spend it fast enough. I was going to start my own film company in Hollywood as soon as I had enough. But I didn’t kill Mark. I swear it. Mark shot himself, and then I was too scared to go on dealing. I kept the bar and never touched coke again. I’ve been drinking beer ever since.”
“Who was your supplier? It was Ahmet, wasn’t it?” Phil asked.
“Yes.”
“Did Ahmet kill Mark?” Phil asked.
“I don’t know,” Danny Boy wailed. “No! Mark killed himself. He hated Ahmet. Mark kept saying if he killed Ahmet he would save the world. Mark didn’t make sense when he said shit like that. Ahmet doesn’t deal anymore. It’s over for him. I want it to be over for me, dude.”
Fat tears of sel
f-pity ran down his stubbled cheeks.
Helen was disgusted with Danny’s dramatics. She thought the bar owner wasn’t serious about shooting himself. But he was holding a loaded weapon. He might kill an innocent beer drinker.
Danny tightened his grip on the trigger. Phil was too far away to grab the gun from him. Time for shock treatment, Helen decided. She moved closer to Danny and yelled, “But what will I tell Mark?”
“Huh?” Danny Boy looked her way in drunken surprise. He finally saw her.
Helen swung her heavy mug with both hands and hit him in the face. Beer spattered everywhere. Danny Boy crashed into the back bar. The gun went off with a sound like a cannon.
Then there was a great silence.
CHAPTER 35
“I am such a coward,” Danny Boy said. “I can’t even kill myself.”
The scrawny bartender sat blubbering on the floor behind the bar, wallowing in self-pity. His forehead was covered with a red curtain of blood. The sharp stink of spilled liquor and gun smoke was overpowering.
Phil moved carefully behind the bar and took the weapon from Danny Boy’s hand. Danny didn’t seem to notice. Phil unloaded the gun. The cylinder did not open smoothly, the way guns did on television. Phil removed the remaining bullets and dropped them into his pocket.
Helen watched, dazed and unmoving. Her eyes couldn’t quite focus, and the gunshot blast had left her ears ringing. She finally managed four words. “Did Danny shoot himself?”
“No,” Phil said. “His head is bleeding because you conked him with a beer mug. He fell backward into the liquor bottles and smashed them. He cut his hands on the broken glass.”
“He fired the gun,” Helen said. “I heard it.”
“He shot the neon palm tree,” Phil said.
Helen noticed that the flickering glow on the wall was gone. “It was dying anyway,” she said, her laugh too high-pitched.
Phil moved quickly out from behind the bar, gently placed the empty gun on a stool, and put his arms around his wife. “You saved him,” he said into her ear. “He’d be dead now if it wasn’t for you.”
Helen burst into tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m such a girl,” she said.
Phil held her and said, “Sh, it’s all over now. He’s safe. You’re no girl. You’re an amazing woman. You moved in and saved a life. You risked your own. I’m so proud of you.” He kissed her tears away.
Danny, alone in his private misery, wept and rocked himself back and forth.
The gun blast and broken glass drew the other drinkers. They gathered in a knot near the bar. Bobby pushed his way forward. “He keeps that gun under the register for protection,” he said. “Put it back.”
“Right now he needs protection from himself,” Phil said.
Bobby tried to reach for the gun, but Phil blocked him. He was taller than the flabby bartender and fitter. He glared at Bobby, and Bobby backed away. Phil pulled out his cell phone, called 911 and reported Danny’s accident.
Bobby protested from five feet away. “Hey, dude, that’s not cool. Call his sister, Linda. You don’t have to bring in the cops.”
“Covering up for Danny hasn’t done him any good,” Phil said. “He needs stitches for those cuts.”
“I can take him to the ER myself,” Bobby said. “Nobody has to know. We can say he had an accident.”
“Don’t you get it?” Phil asked. “He’s drunk and he tried to kill himself. I want to talk to his sister. How do I reach her?”
“I’ll call Linda,” Bobby said. “But she’s going to be pissed.”
“Too bad,” Phil said.
Distant sirens settled the debate. Customers slipped out the back door at the sound. Danny’s good-time friends were deserting him.
Helen could hear the gravel crunching in the parking lot as they hastily drove away. By the time the police arrived, only Helen, Phil and Bobby were left standing. Danny Boy wept incoherently on the floor behind the bar, covered in blood and broken glass.
“What have we here?” the lead uniform cop asked. He had sergeant’s stripes, grizzled hair and a weary attitude. Danny continued rocking and mumbling that he was a failure. He didn’t respond to the officer’s questions.
Phil presented his PI credentials, then told the sergeant about Danny Boy’s suicide attempt. He pointed to the gun on the bar stool and handed the cop the rest of the bullets. Then Phil bragged that Helen had stopped Danny from killing himself by hitting him with the beer mug.
“Nice move, ma’am,” the officer said. “Maybe you knocked some sense into him.”
Helen nodded. She followed Phil’s lead. She’d noticed he never mentioned their investigation into Mark’s death. She gave her story, talking quickly and trying to make sure her facts dovetailed with Phil’s account.
Bobby knew the officer. When it was his turn to talk, the bartender downplayed Danny’s distress. “He gets these moods, Sgt. Rick. You know what he’s like. But it’s nothing serious. This outsider”—he pointed at Phil—“made a big deal out of it.”
“He should,” the officer said. “Danny Boy’s been causing the night shift a lot of trouble lately. It’s illegal to discharge a firearm in city limits, especially a weapon that may be unregistered. Attempted suicide should always be taken seriously.”
“But Linda—” Bobby began.
“I don’t care how important his sister is,” Sgt. Rick said. “I’m not having a homicide. Not on my watch.”
He looked Bobby in the eye. “And if I see any more Incredible Hulks hanging around that back room, I’ll haul your ass to jail. Got it?”
The paramedics had stanched the worst of the bleeding and strapped Danny Boy into a stretcher. They were wheeling him to the ambulance when a short, thick woman marched through the barroom door.
Linda Cerventi, Helen thought. Danny’s sister. Linda’s features were indistinct, as if a mediocre sculptor had made her face by pressing clumsy fingers into clay. Her eyes were angry. She barely gave her bleeding brother a glance before she turned on the officer. “What’s going on here, Rick?” she asked.
“Your brother appears to be drunk,” he said. “We’ll have him tested at the hospital to make sure. Witnesses say he was threatening to kill himself and discharged a weapon indoors. That woman there”—he nodded at Helen—“saved his life. You owe her thanks.”
Linda glared at Helen, and she figured she’d get those thanks when she won the lottery.
“Lucky for both of you, he shot the wall,” Rick said. “He’s on his way to the hospital.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” Linda asked. “I thought we had—”
Sgt. Rick stopped her. “I’ve been patient enough, Linda. I’ve respected Danny and you and your precious career. But for the second time this week, Danny’s been a danger to himself and others. I have to think about the safety of the other citizens of Sunset Palms. And I don’t like that side business Bobby is running in the back room. It stopped tonight. Here’s my card with the case number and my phone, if you want to call me. I’ve had enough. Oh, and my name is Sgt. Markban.”
They watched the weary officer depart in silence. Helen wondered if the sergeant had had enough trouble for tonight, enough of Danny or enough of taking orders from Linda. Maybe all three.
“Linda, I tried to—” Bobby said.
“Shut up,” Linda said, her voice like a slap. “You were supposed to watch Danny Boy. You failed. Were you too busy drinking with the boys to keep an eye on him?”
Bobby’s silence was his only answer. Helen wondered if Linda paid Bobby to be her brother’s keeper. “And that back room stays closed. Understand?” The bartender slunk away, and Helen heard a car start up.
Linda turned on Phil. “As for you, what gives you the right to stick your nose in my brother’s business?”
“When he started waving a .44 around a crowded bar, he stepped outside your family circle,” Phil said. “Let me introduce myself. I’m the detective asking for the last two pages of the report on
Mark Behr. The Sunset Palms records office was supposed to fax them to me today, but the clerk didn’t.”
“I told Rachel not to,” Linda said. “Mark Behr’s death is none of your business.”
“Oh, but it is,” Phil said. “Unless you want TV reporters here talking about the dramatic rescue of a drunken, gun-toting Danny Boy by an unarmed woman. That would be my agency partner and wife, Helen.” He squeezed her shoulder.
“I’m good friends with Valerie Cannata, the reporter for Channel Seventy-seven,” Phil said. “She would love to feature you and your cozy relationship with the powers that be in Sunset Palms on her investigative show, Double or Nothing—A Seventy-seven Exclusive Expose. Two sevens could be unlucky for you, Linda. Sweeps are coming up, and television stations want hard-hitting news. Valerie would like nothing better than to expose the corruption in your town. I could point her toward a good source, a sergeant who’s tired of doing you favors.”
Linda didn’t bother to stall or deny. “What do you want?” she asked.
“Those two pages, Linda. I want them faxed to this number.” Phil handed her a Coronado Investigations card.
“I sent that paperwork to our storage facility,” she said. “It will take three days to get it.”
“You have two,” Phil said.
“I’d have to do a special requisition and get approval from the head of the records department.”
“You can do it,” Phil said. “You’re a big shot. You have two days. After that, I go to Channel Seventy-seven, and Valerie Cannata gets a lucky break on a Double Seven exclusive.”
CHAPTER 36
“It’s two in the morning, Helen,” Phil said. “Do you have to go to the gym tomorrow?” The couple had crept into Phil’s Coronado apartment like burglars, trying not to awaken the sleeping complex.
Helen yawned and tossed her white blouse into the laundry basket. Even her shirt looked exhausted.
“No,” she said. “I’m going to jail.”
Phil raised one eyebrow.
“I want to see Evie, the gym member who was arrested for Debbi Dhosset’s murder.”
