Die Laughing: 5 Comic Crime Novels

by Steve Brewer

  Big Jim was in the foyer, wearing his usual cowboy get-up and running a soft cloth over a man-sized statue of a rearing horse. The golden horse was so shiny, Nick wished he was still wearing his sunglasses.

  “What d’you think?” Big Jim brayed. “Ain’t it a beauty? Looks just like ol’ Lucky, don’t it?”

  Nick tried to look underwhelmed. It wasn’t hard.

  “Is this why you dragged me away from my office? To come see your latest toy?”

  Big Jim stepped back from the horse and gave it the once-over.

  “Hardly a toy,” he said. “That’s real gold there, Nick. Layered over a body designed by a professional sculptor named Dave Millard. Ever heard of him?”

  “Don’t have a lot of sculptors in my Rolodex.”

  Big Jim smiled. “Hear that, Shamu? His Rolodex.”

  Nick glanced over at the huge Polynesian, who didn’t seem amused. He had his tattooed arms crossed over his thick chest, and his bare feet spread wide. Looked like the goddamned Jolly Green Giant, scratch the “jolly” part.

  “I paid nearly a million dollars for this statue,” Big Jim said. “Another hundred thousand to get the finest security system available for the house. This is as close as either of us will ever get to Fort Knox.”

  “I’m impressed,” Nick said flatly.

  Big Jim cocked an eyebrow. “Security is important. You’d think you’d recognize that after some amateurs drove up to your casino and hauled off your money.”

  Nick said nothing. Big Jim stared at him a while, then said, “Come into my office.”

  They crossed the marble tiles to a wood-paneled room with plush carpet the color of money. The far wall was mostly glass, looking out at the highway and the gated entrance of Villa Mirage.

  Nick slumped into a leather chair, Shamu hovering behind him. Kelton sat at his oversized desk, backlit by the painfully sunny window.

  “We don’t have much going for us here in Fowler,” Big Jim said. “That highway out there is about it. People pass through, and they need a place to stop and rest and eat. Maybe throw a little of their money into our slots while they’re here. But they have to feel secure while they’re doing it. They want to know that our casinos are safe places, fun for the whole family. Right?”

  Nick nodded, though he didn’t like the direction this was heading.

  “We’ve got a reputation to protect. I hate to say it, Nick, but you’ve let us down in that department.”

  Nick could feel a muscle pulsing in his cheek.

  “Your security operation got sloppy,” Jim said. “That’s the only explanation for how easily those boys ripped you off.”

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business—”

  Big Jim slapped his palm on the desktop.

  “I’ll tell you how it’s my goddamned business. I got a call a little while ago from my insurance carrier. They’re raising my premiums by two hundred thousand dollars a year. Two hundred grand! You know why? They heard about your robbery and now they think all the casinos are security risks because we’re out here in the middle of nowhere.”

  “That’s too bad,” Nick croaked.

  “Too bad. You hear that, Shamu? It’s too bad.”

  Nick willed himself to not look over his shoulder. Eye contact with Shamu would be a mistake.

  “In all fairness,” Big Jim said, “I ought to send that new insurance premium to you. Make you pay the difference.”

  “Like hell,” Nick muttered.

  “It’s the same up and down the strip. All the casino owners will be paying out more for insurance and security because you screwed up. You owe us, Nick.”

  “I was robbed. Wasn’t like I wanted it to happen.”

  “Is that so?” Big Jim leaned back in his chair, grinning. Sadistic son of a bitch was enjoying this. “Because that’s not the way I hear it.”

  Nick’s insides clenched. “What are you talking about?”

  “I hear a robbery was just the thing you needed. A chance to rake off a little insurance money, maybe turn the Starlite around. That sound familiar?”

  “You’re crazy.”

  Big Jim shook his head.

  “Not me. Only crazy person here thinks he can profit from a crime that hurts everyone else in town.”

  Where could Jim be getting these ideas? Then Nick remembered how Cindy Duquesne was missing. Had they paid her off? Nabbed her? Forced her to tell them about the insurance fraud? She could be somewhere in this rambling house right now—

  “I don’t really expect you to pay my insurance,” Big Jim said. “Hell, you couldn’t afford it, not with the way the Starlite has gone downhill. But if I find out you helped those robbers in some way, I’m going to see that you’re prosecuted to the fullest extent of the—”

  “Is this the way you do things in this fucking town? Somebody gets held up, and you accuse the victim?”

  Big Jim held up his hands in a calming gesture.

  “Not at all. But we don’t stand by while people scam us, either. Not when it’s going to cost everyone more money. Not when it’s damaging our reputation.”

  Nick started to stand, but a big paw clapped down on his shoulder, holding him in place.

  “Get your fucking hand off me.”

  Shamu snorted, which only made Nick madder. He struggled to get up, and pain shot down his arm, making him gasp.

  Big Jim stood and leaned across the desk, his weight on his hands. Nick could see his features clearly now, the fire in his eyes behind those gold-rimmed glasses.

  “I’m gonna find those robbers. Then I’m gonna send Shamu to have a talk with them. You’d better pray to God they don’t say anything about you being involved in that holdup. Because if I find out you’re behind all this, it’ll be the last stunt you ever pull.”

  He lifted his chin in an unspoken command, and the pressure of Shamu’s hand disappeared from Nick’s shoulder.

  “You’re both nuts,” Nick said. “If you think you can scare me, then you’re even crazier than I’d thought. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Big Jim said.

  He turned to his back to them, and clutched his hands behind him as he admired his view.

  Nick kept his face blank, despite the twinge in his shoulder as he got to his feet. He didn’t look at Shamu as he slipped past him to the door.

  Then he got the hell out of there.

  Chapter 35

  Tony Zinn was taking a nap when the phone jangled him awake. Grumbling, he grabbed the receiver from the bedside table before the phone could ring again.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tony? It’s Leo.”

  He sat up, yawning. “What’s up, Leo?”

  “This phone safe?”

  That brought him fully awake. “Far as I know. But I’m always careful on the phone—”

  “That’s a good policy, especially now. I just got a call from our friend in Nevada. Things have taken a turn over there.”

  Uh-oh. If Nick Papadopoulos risked a call to Leo, it must mean something big.

  “He asked me to get hold of you,” Leo said, “and pass along a message.”

  “Okay.”

  “He said there’s strong local interest over there in our business dealings, if you know what I mean.”

  Enough beating around the bush. Tony said, “The cops?”

  “No. A private individual.”

  “You got a name?”

  “He wouldn’t say. But he did say this private individual is trying to track down some people who might’ve done work over there.”

  “You mean us.”

  “Our friend didn’t name any names.”

  “He doesn’t know any names. Except yours.”

  “Right,” Leo said. “He promised he’s keeping me out of it. But this private individual I mentioned still might send people sniffing around.”

  “How would they find us?”

  “Unclear. But we’re supposed to keep our ears open. E
xpect the worst.”

  “I always do.”

  “I know that, Tony. You’re a careful man. But there’s another thing. Our friend said his accountant is missing. She didn’t show up for work and nobody’s seen her since. Our friend thinks this private individual might’ve made her disappear.”

  “You mean, run her out of town?”

  “Worse.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “The accountant apparently knows a little about the operation. We have to assume she’s given up whatever information she had.”

  Tony said nothing for a moment, thinking it over.

  “She couldn’t have told much.”

  “You never know,” Leo said. “Maybe our friend let something slip. Maybe she knows the name of a city, a place where they could start looking.”

  “Okay, Leo. Thanks for the heads up.”

  Tony hung up the phone. He got out of bed and wandered into the living room. Eve was sitting in the lotus position on her yoga mat by the window, but she opened her eyes to look at him.

  “Who was on the phone?”

  “Leo Berg.”

  “What did he want?”

  “We may have a problem.”

  Chapter 36

  Leo Berg could manage most anything with his hooked pincers. He could button his shirts, tie his shoes, dial a phone, cook his own meals. But he couldn’t handle a gun. He sure as hell wished for one when he saw the two tough-looking assholes enter his pawnshop late that afternoon.

  The skinny fellow wore a cowboy hat and a Western-cut suit that did little to disguise the pistol stuck in his belt. The other man was a goddamned giant who had to turn sideways to fit through the door. The swarthy giant wore a black nylon tracksuit and a scowl. His jumbo feet were bare.

  Leo glanced at the phone on the counter next to him. He could dial 911, claim he was being robbed, but it might be fifteen minutes before SFPD showed up to an address in the Tenderloin. What would he do in the meantime? Hide?

  Too late. They were at the counter. Leo pushed up his thick glasses and said, “Help you gentlemen?”

  The cowboy pulled an old-fashioned Colt revolver from his belt and pointed it at Leo. “Open that goddamned cage.”

  Leo had been robbed before, several times, and the robbers never wanted inside the cage. Too much resemblance to a jail cell. They always asked him to hand the money across the counter. That these two wanted in there with him confirmed his worst fears.

  “What’s this about, fellas?” Leo couldn’t keep the tremble out of his voice.

  “Open that cage or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

  He reached for the button under the counter. The cowboy snicked back the hammer on the Colt and said, “Careful.”

  Leo pushed the button and the steel-mesh door clicked open. The giant was through it in a flash, reaching for him.

  The old man wouldn’t be taken without a fight. The steel hooks were all the weapon he needed in close quarters. He raked at the giant with them, but the man slapped them aside with one wide hand. With the other, he bashed Leo across the face. Leo’s glasses went flying. His knees turned to water and he crumpled to the floor.

  By the time he came to, the intruders had moved him to the storeroom in the back of the shop. He slumped in a metal folding chair, his belly wedged against the round table. The points of his steel hooks had been hammered into the wooden tabletop. The pincers were bent and scarred.

  Leo tried to pull them loose, but they wouldn’t budge. The cowboy stood in the doorway, watching, silently laughing at him. Bastard.

  The giant loomed into view, blurry because Leo didn’t have his glasses. But he could make out the rusty ball-peen hammer in the man’s big brown hands.

  Leo leaned back, yanking against the straps of the immobilized prosthetics. He was trapped.

  The big man casually tapped him with the hammer, right on the point of his bony shoulder. Leo groaned.

  “You’re gonna tell us,” the cowboy said, “everything you know about Nick Papadopoulos.”

  Leo summoned up his courage and said, “I’m not telling you a goddamned thing—”

  The hammer struck his collarbone. He clearly heard the brittle bone snap, then his ears were filled with his own screams.

  Chapter 37

  Fog rolled in from the ocean, misting the windshield and blessing the streetlights with haloes. A low moan rode the wind.

  “Hear that?” Rex said to Shamu. “That’s a foghorn. Reminds me of this hooker we used to have in Fowler, four or five years ago. Before your time. Everybody called her Foghorn. You know why?”

  Shamu sighed.

  “‘Cause she could blow all night long! Haw-haw-haw.”

  Enough was enough. Shamu climbed out of the car and stretched. Damn, he hated sitting around in cars. He’d been in this cramped Ford all day long. First, riding to San Francisco, with Rex driving like a little old lady in the heavy traffic on Interstate 80. Then all around this jam-packed city, tracking down that pawnshop and this apartment building, which perched on a hill near the ocean.

  The only exercise he’d gotten all day was working over the old man at the pawnshop, and that had been so easy, he hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  Rex leaned across the front seat of the black car and hissed, “What are you doing? Somebody’s gonna see you.”

  Shamu ignored him. He sniffed the night air. He thought the scent of the sea might trigger some ancestral memory of the warm oceans where his people originated. But to him, it just smelled fishy and salty. Made him hungry.

  In his hand, Shamu held a fuzzy photo of Tony Zinn, taken off the Starlite’s security video and generously provided by Fowler’s sweaty chief of police. A man who resembled the one in the photo had left this apartment building ten minutes earlier.

  Rex wanted to follow him, but Shamu had nixed that plan with a grunt. The man who might be Zinn bypassed the empty bus stop under the corner streetlight, instead walking westward on the dark sidewalk. This time of night, he wouldn’t go far on foot. He’d be back soon. Shamu would be waiting.

  “Shamu! At least close the goddamned car door so the light will—”

  He slammed the door. Chilly out here in the fog, and the sidewalk was damp under his bare feet, but such minor discomfort beat listening to Rex Mangrum. If the cracker cowboy complained about one more thing or told one more stupid joke, Shamu might bite his face off.

  Cars whispered past on the busy boulevard at the top of the hill, and the occasional bus squealed and growled, but otherwise this was a quiet neighborhood. The sidewalks were empty. Dark cars lined the curbs in front of apartment buildings and two-story rowhouses. Curtained windows showed nothing but the bluish flicker of televisions.

  The address Leo Berg had given them was a two-story cube with two slender cypresses growing out front, tight against the building’s façade. Between the trees, four steps rose from the sloped sidewalk to the front door, which was made of chrome and heavy glass. Shamu had seen opportunities to slip inside, as residents used their keys or visitors were buzzed in, but he was trying to be patient.

  He didn’t want to make a lot of noise. He needed some time with Tony Zinn, long enough to learn what the thief had done with the loot, and to find out the names of the rest of his crew. Then he and Rex would visit each of them, too, leaving examples in their wake, just as Big Jim Kelton had instructed.

  Word soon would get out among the criminal set: Mess with the boys in Fowler, Nevada, and they’ll come for you. Nobody robs casinos and gets away with it.

  Shamu heard footsteps on the sidewalk at the top of the hill. He tapped the window of the Ford to alert Rex, then crossed to the nearest evergreen. In his black clothing, he melted into the shadows.

  The man he believed to be Tony Zinn turned the corner onto this street. He, too, wore dark clothes. He carried a paper grocery sack in one arm. Shamu smiled to himself. A quick run to the market, just as he’d thought.

  Zinn walked downhill, leaning back against
the slope. As he reached the entrance of the apartment building, the door of the Ford popped open and Rex climbed out from behind the wheel.

  Maybe it was the cowboy hat, or maybe he was just being cautious, but Zinn kept his attention on Rex as he reached a foot up onto the first step. Shamu stepped out of the shadows and grabbed his free arm by the sleeve of his leather jacket.

  Zinn started, and Shamu whispered, “Don’t fucking move or you’re dead.”

  He froze. Everything but his eyes, which shifted back and forth between Rex and Shamu. Rex showed him the Colt.

  “You Tony Zinn?” Shamu said.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Leo Berg sent us.”

  A glimmer came to Zinn’s eyes. He seemed to recognize Shamu, which bothered the big man, who was certain they’d never met. Didn’t matter now. Rex stepped up behind Zinn and jabbed the barrel of the Colt into his kidney.

  “Let’s go up to your place,” Shamu said.

  The man tensed, looked like he wanted to make a move, but what could he do? Throw down his groceries and swing at Shamu? Rex would put a hole through him. Instead, he took a deep breath and said, “I don’t have my keys.”

  “Bullshit,” Rex said. “You wouldn’t leave home without your keys. How were you gonna get back in the building?”

  “My girlfriend’s upstairs. She’ll buzz me in.”

  “Do it now,” Shamu said.

  They went up the steps and crowded together on the little porch. A yellow light glowed above their heads, but anybody driving past would scarcely notice them here between the evergreens.

  A box on the wall held doorbell buttons for the four units. As Zinn reached for one, Shamu squeezed his elbow.

  “No funny business.”

  Zinn pushed a button. Within seconds, a buzzer sounded and the lock clicked. Shamu shoved open the door and dragged Zinn inside, Rex right behind them.

  The stairs weren’t wide enough for the three of them to walk abreast, so Shamu and Zinn led the way, Zinn still carrying his grocery sack, with Rex bringing up the rear. The stairs were padded with thick blue carpet, and their footsteps hardly made a sound.