The Hidden Throne (Hazzard Pay Book 2)

by Charlie Cottrell

  Clarence laughed, a short, coarse sound, and his scales shifted to a greenish-blue color. “You think that’s the real mystery here? You think who I work for really matters? You’re a fool.” The look of disdain in his not-quite human eyes was off-putting. “I’ll gladly tell you who I’m working for, then you can shout it to the rest of the city.

  “I’m working for Roger Kirkpatrick, soon to be the man running this town.”

  I sat and stared at Clarence for a moment, contemplating this new piece of information. “Who?” I said, finally, trying my best to radiate genuine, innocent ignorance.

  “Oh, he’s not someone you’ll have ever heard of, I’m sure,” he replied. “Mr. Kirkpatrick is from outside Arcadia, a gentleman who is going to change the way crime does business in this town. When Kirkpatrick’s finally in charge, things will definitely be different around here.”

  “Meet the new Boss, eh?” I said, leaning forward. Clarence was smirking in defiance, his scales shifting to a cooler blue spectrum.

  “Y’got that right,” he said. “If you’re smart, you’ll tell your ‘client’ to step aside and let Kirkpatrick take over without further violence. Hell, if you’re really smart, you’ll just step aside yourself and go away, somewhere safe. It’s a good offer, probably the best you’ll get.”

  I sat back again, mulling it over. “Hmm,” I said, pondering. “That is a good offer, I’ll grant you. I mean, it looks like we’ve got a gang war brewing, and those are never fun.”

  “It’s not going to be a war,” Clarence replied, “it’s going to be a slaughter. The Organization is old-fashioned, past its prime. They’re still operating under the old ways, and it’s going to get them all killed. Kirkpatrick’s got a different approach, one that’s guaranteed to earn more profit and have better control than the Boss ever did! The Organization’s a fossil, and it’s time it was shuffled off to the museum.”

  “That was a nice little speech,” I said, fishing a cigarette out of my pocket and lighting it. “Sounds like you’ve been rehearsing it.” I blew out a smoke ring, and stood as it rose to the ceiling and was filtered out of the air by the room’s atmospheric controls. I walked around behind my desk, rummaged in a drawer for a moment, then came back with an old-fashioned revolver in my hand. I generally don’t care for guns with actual bullets; too many things can go wrong with a weapon that hurls little pieces of lead faster than the speed of sound. But there are times when the popgun just doesn’t have the intimidation factor you need to get the job done. Clarence followed me with his eyes as I came back around the desk and checked the gun’s cylinder. It was fully loaded, as I knew it would be, but this it was all part of the pantomime. “Here’s the thing about old-fashioned,” I said, taking my seat once more and placing the gun across my knee. Clarence focused on the gun now, and his scales shifted back toward yellow, with a hint of green. “Old-fashioned can be pretty damn effective. It can handle things in a way that new-fangled just can’t ever manage.” I picked up the gun and fired a shot, catching Clarence in the right foot. He howled in pain, his scales flashing and throbbing in a rainbow of colors as his body tried to process the trauma. I’m not usually one for senseless violence, but sometimes you have to speak the language the thug understands.

  “For instance,” I continued, ignoring his wail of agony, “nothing really causes pain like the old reliables. I mean, this gun only holds six traditional, regular bullets, six small lumps of lead and copper and gunpowder. And yet…” I fired the gun again, taking out the left foot this time. Clarence again screamed. “…and yet they can do all sorts of horrible things to the human body.” I cocked back the hammer and placed the tip of the barrel against Clarence’s right knee. “So, here’s how we’re gonna do this. You can still drag yourself out of here on your hands and knees at this point. You can go back to your boss—who was it? Roger Kirkpatrick?—you can go back and tell him to get the hell out of my town. Tell him if he even thinks of trying to conquer Arcadia, he’ll have to deal with me and my old-fashioned ways. I’m not some damn hero, but I damn sure won’t let some asshole out-of-towner wreck my city. And, while I may not like the Boss or care to have crime and the Organization in my city, it’s better the devil you know, right?”

  Clarence sat there silently, his teeth gritted, the color of his scales mellowing like an Impressionist sunset. Sweat was beading on his brow, and I was pretty sure he was about to go into shock. “Tell Kirkpatrick all that,” I said. “I may seem merciful, but trust me, I’m not.”

  “You…you’re a dead man, Hazzard,” Clarence finally wheezed. “Kirkpatrick will make you weep blood, make you beg, and when you’ve given him his satisfaction, then and only then will he finally end your pitiful little existence.” He cackled, his face ashen yet flushed. “You’ll walk out of this building a marked man, Hazzard.”

  I sighed, standing. “Dear, oh dear,” I said sadly, “it’s always so sad when these negotiations break down.” I flipped the pistol around and smacked Clarence across the face with it, butt-first. Clarence cried out and toppled over, clattering to the ground with his chair. “Listen, Horace, all this threatening back and forth, all this tedious business, it’s growing pretty stale. I tell you what: You crawl out of here, and we’ll forget the whole affair ever happened, what do you say?”

  “Mraaaphf!” Clarence replied, his jaw apparently broken.

  “Very deftly put,” I said, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a black box and pressing it against Clarence’s arm. With the press of a button, Clarence’s body jerked as thousands of volts poured into it. When I let go of the button, he convulsed a couple of times, then lay still and unconscious.

  “Honestly, it’s like you weren’t even trying to work with me here,” I sighed.

  VII.

  I dragged Clarence down the stairs, his feet bouncing along as we went. Outside on the street, I pulled his limp form over to a bench and dropped him rather unceremoniously onto it. I probably should have taken him to the police, or maybe even a hospital, but I wanted to make sure Kirkpatrick got the message that I was on to him and that I wasn’t playing around. Wheezing from the effort, I paused for a moment to catch my breath, then headed back up to my office.

  Once inside, I sat back down in my chair and lit another cigarette, taking a long, shaky drag. As I exhaled, I poured myself a full tumbler of whiskey and downed it like it was water. My throat burned, but it helped steady my nerves. I had no idea what to do next, but I knew whatever I did would probably have a fairly serious impact on the future.

  Sitting in silence, I contemplated my options. On the one hand, I could call Vera Stewart, warn her of her approaching doom, and get out of the way. On the other, I could call the police, let them know about Roger Kirkpatrick and Vera, and try to break up organized crime in Arcadia.

  On the other other hand, I could pack a small bag and run like hell, never look back, and go settle in the country somewhere, maybe get a small farm and spend the rest of my days raising chickens and corn or whatever it is they do on farms.

  I opted for choice #2, to see if there was anything Captain Edison O’Mally—my contact in APD and the head of Precinct House #4—and the boys in blue could do about the whole business. Dispatch put me through after a few minutes of run-around, and O’Mally seemed pretty haggard and worn out by the time his face appeared in the vid window. I knew he’d been having a rough go of it the past few weeks, but even taking that into consideration, he didn’t look so good.

  O’Mally was a gentleman approaching his later years, large and strong but starting to thicken around the middle. His dark skin was rather splotchy around the jowls, but that was probably the result of the genetic modification: his face had the appearance of a walrus, tusks and whiskers and all. Rumor had it he’d been part of a rough gen-mod street gang in his youth, back when genetic modifications were still black market enhancements undertaken by the foolish and desperate. No one knew why he’d decided to splice walrus DNA with his own. He probably thought
it was rather intimidating, but the jowls wobbled every time he got angry—which was often—and it rather spoiled the effect.

  “Hazzard,” he said, his whiskers twitching a bit, “what’s going on?”

  “Working a case, actually,” I replied.

  “Oh? Who for?” he asked.

  “A private citizen, can’t really say more than that,” I answered, shifting uncomfortably in my chair. I didn’t like lying to O’Mally, even by omission, but it was probably best he didn’t know I was working for the city’s mega crime lord. “I did stumble upon some information you might find useful during my investigations, though,” I continued. “There’s some sort of…takeover attempt going on in organized crime in Arcadia. Those explosions from the past several weeks are all connected, and they’re all part of some bigger plan.”

  “Really?” O’Mally said, his jowls quivering in surprise.

  “Yeah,” I continued, “some guy named Roger Kirkpatrick. Still looking for the folks who actually devised the explosives, but he’s definitely connected to it. Think you could look into it for me?” I asked.

  “Let me see what I can dig up for you, Eddie,” O’Mally said. “No promises, though.” He paused for a moment. “It sounds like you’re in the middle of something pretty dangerous.”

  I laughed bitterly. “When am I not?”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  The next morning dawned with chirping birds and an overcast sky. I woke up at my desk, a bottle of whiskey in one hand and the revolver in the other. I stumbled blearily into the small restroom in the corner of my office, washed my face, and tried to decide what to do next. By the time Miss Typewell came in, a mug of coffee in one hand and a small clutch purse in the other, I was no closer to a solution.

  “Eddie, what’re you doing here already?” she asked in surprise. A frown crossed her face. “Did you sleep in the office again?”

  “Yeah,” I replied, slumping onto the couch in the anteroom. “This case is turning sour awful quick, Ellen.” I gave her a quick rundown of the events of the previous evening, including my short conversation with O’Mally.

  “So, what’re you going to do next?” she asked when I was finished.

  “Dunno,” I replied. “I guess I should call Vera Stewart and bring her up to speed.”

  Miss Typewell nodded. “Yeah, probably should, though I doubt she’s going to be very happy.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  Vera Stewart was not happy. I would’ve known even without her image shimmering in the vid window in front of me, arms crossed, lips a thin, straight line, and brow furrowed like a plowman’s field.

  “I am not happy with this news, Detective Hazzard,” she said, validating my deduction.

  “You think I was happy to have the guy try to kill me?” I retorted. “I mean, sure, he failed, but intention has to count for something.”

  Vera Stewart sighed, the weight of a criminal nation on her shoulders. “Detective, this…Kirkpatrick is becoming bolder. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news this morning, but there has been another bombing and the assassination of two of my top lieutenants in broad daylight.” A new vid window popped up on my left, flashing the news feed with reports of the incidents she had just mentioned. “Kirkpatrick is becoming truly dangerous. The assassinations were aimed at my people, but a half-dozen innocents died, as well.” Footage of the event popped up on the window to my left, with several unnamed civilians sprawled across pavement with nasty-looking wounds. “He won’t stop until he’s destroyed me, Hazzard, and there is talk within the Organization of a possible mutiny.” She looked as though the very thought was inconceivable to her. That was the problem with getting as powerful as she was: she assumed the structure of the criminal syndicate and the smoke screen of her secret identity as the Boss were sufficient to keep everyone in line and prevent them from getting to her. She was wrong, as the case with her late husband had proven all too clearly to me. “My people, planning to turn on me!” she continued heatedly. “If Kirkpatrick is not dealt with, and soon, the city will suffer greatly.”

  “You think I don’t know all that, lady?” I responded, my own blood rising. “I’ve seen what this guy can do, I’ve seen what he’s willing to do to anyone who gets in his way! Just shut up and let me do my job.” I snapped the vid window closed as Vera opened her mouth to give me a good verbal thrashing. Muttering curses under my breath, I rose from the desk and started pacing the office floor. The case was becoming treacherous. If I pushed back against Vera too hard, she might decide I was no longer a valuable asset to her. If that happened, there’d probably be no one to help me out if any of Kirkpatrick’s goons decided to pay me another visit. I’d blustered my way through the confrontation with Clarence, but I didn’t want to think about what would happen if Kirkpatrick returned in force, or decided to target Miss Typewell.

  My computer buzzed in my pocket, and a small vid window popped up over my left eye to inform me I had an incoming phone call from Pithman Construction. I tapped “Accept” and saw the image of Jonathan Pithman’s broad face coalesce in front of me.

  “Detective Hazzard, I said I’d call you when Walter Ellicott got in,” he said, his eyes darting back and forth. Mr. Pithman, for all of his qualities, was not used to being involved in what he clearly thought were clandestine undertakings.

  “You did indeed, Mr. Pithman,” I replied, settling back into my chair. “Can I assume Mr. Ellicott has arrived?”

  “Yes, he has,” Pithman answered, “and we’re here waiting for you.”

  “I’m on my way,” I said, grabbing my coat and hat as I headed for the door.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  Hard-boiled detective work is, according to most people who don’t know what they’re talking about, like putting together a really big puzzle. If you can find all of the right pieces, or clues, you can get a sense of the big picture and solve the crime.

  In reality, it rarely works like that. Cops and private eyes don’t like to talk about it, but more crimes than you can imagine simply go unsolved. Most violent crimes are crimes of passion, often committed by people with no prior record, no history of violence or arrest. One incident sets them off, there’s that moment of white-hot anger, and suddenly you find yourself standing over racist Uncle Walter with the butcher’s knife in your hand and no idea of how it all came to be.

  In a lot of those situations, it’s pretty cut-and-dry to figure out who did the deed. Hell, half the time, the perpetrator is the one who makes the 911 call. But that isn’t always the case. Folks disappear all the time, often without a trace, without any sort of obvious sign of where they went. A lot of so-called “clues” in a case are stumbled upon blindly, or never found at all. And clues don’t so much tell you what you want to know as affirm what you already think. Detectives don’t so much detect as they infer, then hammer in whatever pieces they find into whatever gaps exist. What you end up with could be a puzzle, I guess, but it looks like one done by Picasso, and nothing fits together like you think it should. Square pegs into round holes is probably a better metaphor, but even that doesn’t do the situation justice: things happen, and we often have no way of knowing who did the deed or why.

  I was starting to think the connection to Pithman Construction and Walter Ellicott might be a bit like that. It’s not that I thought Ellicott wasn’t involved, just that I didn’t think his involvement would be simple, or that figuring it out would be all that helpful to the overall case. Even if Ellicott was somehow involved in the bombings, I already knew who the big bad guy behind the thing was: Roger Kirkpatrick. What did it matter who pushed the actual button that detonated the bombs? Kirkpatrick was the source, the impetus for the whole thing, and anything I could gain from finding a connection between him and Ellicott was not really all that important, in the grand scheme of things.

  But one thing you can always say about hard-boiled detectives is that we’re very determined and stubborn, and will continue down a path until
it dead ends.

  I walked into Pithman Construction; the old woman behind the reception desk didn’t even look up, probably because she wasn’t aware of my presence. Again.

  Someone else caught me, though: Margaret Pithman, Jonathan’s wife.

  Mrs. Pithman, the up-and-coming real estate tycoon. I did a quick mental run-down of what I knew about the woman: she flipped commercial and large-scale residential properties, buying cheap, run-down buildings, then having her husband demolish them and replace them with gentrified loft apartments and condos that she sold for ridiculous profit over her costs. Some credited her with the reclamation process in Old Town, as though she were a philanthropic saint concerned with making Old Town a safe, clean place for residents.

  Of course, anyone who actually lived in Old Town knew the reality was quite different. The areas she was renovating were right on the edge of Downtown, far from the decayed heart of Old Town and the places that could use redevelopment the most. She was making money, hand over fist, by pushing the poorer residents of Old Town deeper into the worst of the slums, pricing them out of their homes in the rebuilt luxury buildings. I still didn’t think her husband was really fully aware of what their business was doing; the man seemed a bit on the naïve side, to be honest. But as I looked into the deep blue eyes of Margaret Pithman, I was under no such opinion about her: this was a woman who knew exactly what she was doing, and was fine with it.

  She stood nearly six feet tall, a solidly-built woman of middle years, with steel gray hair done up in a severe bun, a dark business suit, and sensible pumps. Mrs. Pithman’s face was blunt, like an old prizefighter long past retirement, with a flat nose, thin lips, and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth. The word “matronly” sprang to mind, for some reason, and I felt my knuckles tighten instinctively, even though she wasn’t wearing a nun’s habit or brandishing a ruler.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she asked me in a husky, almost mannish voice.