Nimble Be Jack: A Jack Nolan Novel (The Cap's Place Series Book 2)

by Robert Tarrant

  It was almost five when Bracchi’s two thugs came in the front door. It was the same two who had been with him during his last visit. The ones Moe had confronted. I was standing near the back door, talking with one of our regulars about the upcoming Marlin’s season, as they sat down at an empty table near the front. Like a shot, Moe came from the kitchen area and strode up to their table. The ambient noise level was high enough that I couldn’t hear what he was saying but I could see him gesturing toward the door.

  It suddenly dawned on me that we hadn’t discussed what our plan of action was to be if Bracchi or his thugs did come in. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the two pool players lay their cue sticks on the table and start moving slowly in the direction of Moe and the thugs. At the same time, Ken and Barbie rose from their table and each moved to an opposite side of the room. Obviously, a plan had been discussed, I just wasn’t included in the discussion.

  This whole mess, Bracchi and these thugs, was my responsibility. I couldn’t just stand by and let Moe deal with it alone. I walked up to the table, “Is there a problem here?” The pitch of my voice was higher than usual. I’m normally no baritone, but I sounded like a teenager.

  The thug closest to me stood and glared at me with cold eyes, “This big trained monkey of yours says we’re not welcome here. I don’t think you mean that, do you?” His glare was bad enough, but his breath was borderline toxic gas. Some kind of combination of stale beer, cigarettes, and day old garlic.

  I felt the nerve in the back of my knee twitching like a broken torsion spring and hoped the rest of my body wasn’t shaking as badly. Doing my best to lower my voice a couple of octaves and gesturing over my shoulder toward the bar I said, “Sign says we reserve the right to refuse to serve anyone and we’re invoking that right. Please leave. Plenty of places to drink in Hollywood. Find another. You’re not welcome here.”

  By this time, the second thug had stood and was glaring directly at Moe. They had obviously picked their individual targets. My thug growled, “Bullshit. You ain’t throwing us out of this dump. If anybody leaves it’ll be you.”

  I took a partial step back, not so much out of fear, although in all honesty that may well have been a factor, but because his breath was so damn bad. As I was starting to speak in reply, I felt a presence to my right. I stated as sternly as I could muster, “Get out. Now. Or we’ll call the cops and have you arrested for trespassing.”

  His retort was short, “Fuck you,” followed by what was no doubt intended as a roundhouse right hook aimed at my head. The next two seconds happened in a blur, but are etched in my memory. A massive object, the hand and heavily muscled arm of one of Justin’s guys shot from behind me and grabbed the wrist of the incoming roundhouse and spun it in the opposite direction. The sound was of a dry branch cracking. The thug let out a scream of pain and collapsed to his knees.

  A second after I heard the branch snap, I heard a thud and looked to my right in time to see the second thug collapse to the floor in a heap of semi-consciousness. I had completely missed the punch that felled him, but based on the surprised look on Moe’s face I surmised that it had come from the second of Justin’s guys, who was standing on our other flank.

  The branch breaker leaned down toward the guy wreathing on the floor holding his wrist and said in a quiet, controlled, voice, “The proprietor of this establishment asked you to leave. I suggest you do so before you get hurt.”

  The two staggered to their feet and shuffled toward the front door leaning on each other for balance. The one with the broken wrist turned as they shouldered the door open and growled, “This ain’t over.”

  I turned to say something, thanks I guess, to the guy who saved me from getting flattened, but he was gone. Both of them were back over at the pool table debating who was due the next shot. Looking around the bar, I realized the whole thing happened so fast that most people weren’t even aware. I did notice that Ken had taken a position at the front corner of the bar and his right hand was inside the backpack he had casually slung over his shoulder. It took me a second to find Barbie, but located her at a table in the center of the room. Her right hand was hidden inside the beach bag she had laying on the table.

  I turned to Moe, “Well, I guess that worked out okay.”

  Moe smiled, “Piece of cake, Boss. Piece of cake.” He turned and ambled back toward the kitchen.

  I was making my way back toward the bar, when Justin came in the back door. This was the first time I realized he hadn’t been here during the confrontation. He subtly nodded toward Barbie and she stood and returned to the table she and Ken had occupied all afternoon. Ken rejoined her.

  Justin and I met at the stools we had occupied earlier. Sissy was gone for the day, so I waved at Dana to bring us a couple of beers. If Justin didn’t want his I’d drink both. I had to do something to treat the twitching in the back of my knee.

  After Dana set down the beers and walked away Justin asked, “Everything work out okay?”

  I took a very long pull on my beer and replied, “Ah, yeah, worked out fine. Your guys are very . . . ah, very efficient.”

  Justin chuckled, “That’s the goal, minimum force necessary to achieve maximum results.”

  I shook my head, “Well they achieved that. Sorry you missed it.”

  Justin looked toward me, “Oh, I didn’t need to see them in action. I knew they would handle the situation. My role was to cover the parking lot. See what, if any, reinforcements might be coming.”

  I felt naive, “Sure. That makes sense. Anybody out there?”

  “Not when they arrived. A car pulled in just before they stumbled back out the front door. Bracchi was riding in it, but he never got out. Put down the window and talked to them a second and pulled out again. The two guys got into their car and headed south following him.”

  I asked, “You think they’ll come back today?”

  He reflected for a second and answered, “I doubt it, but who knows. We’ll be ready if they do.”

  I took another drink of my beer and said, “Now they know what to expect, it may get more violent.”

  Justin shook his head, “I would expect so.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The remainder of Saturday passed without any sign of Bracchi or his thugs. Sunday was a beautiful day, a true beach day, so business was light until evening. I quit trying to spot Justin’s people and settled into a quiet feeling of assurance that they were there, even if I didn’t know who they were. I did spot Barbie when she came in Sunday evening carrying her beach bag. She had a glow that looked as if she had actually been at the beach all afternoon. She came in alone and joined a guy sitting at a table. It wasn’t Ken. The harlot!

  I talked to Justin Sunday evening, asking how much this whole operation was costing me. He actually looked hurt for a second before replying, “If this was going to cost you anything we would have discussed that before we started. This is our contribution to the security of Cap’s Place.” I wasn’t sure who our entailed, but was glad to have the help. Maybe Bracchi would just go away.

  Business slowed quickly Sunday night as is often the case. People spend the day out on their boats, or on the beach, and come in during late afternoon for drinks and dinner. After a couple of hours of eating and drinking, the day in the sun catches up with them and they head home. By ten, the only people left either worked directly for Cap’s Place or had been brought to us by Justin. I made the executive decision to close early. No sense keeping all of these people away from their lives just to sell a couple more bottles of beer. Justin and his people left and I helped Dana and Moe finish closing. By eleven everyone was gone, the doors were locked, the lights out, and I was headed upstairs.

  I grabbed a Landshark from my refrigerator and sat down on the deck overlooking the marina. The nighttime ocean was an inky black backdrop to the gently bobbing mast lights of the boats in the marina. The traffic noise on A1A had dropped to an occasional vehicle. The world, at least my little corner of it
, seemed to be slipping into quiet slumber.

  I reflected on the past couple of days and our strategy in dealing with Bracchi. I was clinging to Justin’s comments that Bracchi would eventually need to return north to attend to his businesses and lose interest in us. Unfortunately, I also remembered the comments when I met with Lieutenant Kaur, that Bracchi had been going back and forth lately, and hoped that didn’t indicate he had developed a focused interest in doing business down here. I was also mildly concerned that our aggression against his thugs yesterday would only antagonize him.

  Around midnight, I wandered inside, took a shower, and crawled into bed. The continuous stress of not knowing what was going to happen next with Bracchi was starting to wear me down. Although I felt bone weary, I tossed and turned fitfully for a couple of hours before finally drifting into a sound sleep.

  I was jarred from my sleep by a loud explosion somewhere outside. It was outside but close. I rolled over and saw an orange glow, resembling an intense sunrise, on the glass sliding door leading from my bedroom to the deck that runs the length of the back of the apartment. I slid the door open, stepped onto the deck and saw a huge fireball with a plume of black smoke rising into the night sky at the dumpster. Damn, something in the trash must have ignited! I ran back inside and called 911.

  After I got off the phone with the emergency operator, I remembered that my car was parked in front of the dumpster. I pulled on a pair of shorts, grabbed my keys and headed for the outside stairs.

  When I opened the back door, I could hear the sirens approaching. I dashed out the door and stopped dead in my tracks. My car was totally engulfed in flames. The fire must have already spread. It was then that I realized that the dumpster wasn’t burning at all. It was my car that had exploded not the dumpster!

  The fire department arrived and extinguished the fire in a matter of minutes. I was actually pretty impressed with their efficiency. Obviously, not their first car fire. That distinction was reserved for me.

  The captain in charge of the fire department response was huddled with one of the police officers on the scene. After a couple of minutes, they came over to talk with me. The fire captain, a short, squat, crusty guy in his fifties told me that he believed the fire was the result of a bomb in my car. He said he had put in a call for both an arson investigator and a bomb squad investigator. The young police officer told me that as soon as the area cooled a bit, he would cordon it off with crime scene tape and that he’d stay on the scene until the investigators arrived.

  The officer asked me when I’d last used the car and I told him it had been parked in that spot since mid-day Saturday. He asked if I could think of anyone who might do something like this to me. Rather than telling him the entire saga of my situation with Bracchi, and chance a misstatement, I merely told him that there was an ongoing investigation and referred him to PJ. Just in case I ended up testifying against Bracchi, I didn’t want to create the potential for multiple versions of the same story to work against the prosecution. Contradictory statements in police reports are a defense attorney’s bread and butter. He seemed relieved that he was going to be able to quickly divest himself of this whole mess.

  By the time the fire department had finished their clean-up and pulled out, it was nearly 6:00 a.m. My car had been reduced to a forlorn pile of charred metal and molten plastic with occasional whips of smoke and steam rising like puffy apostrophes from the scene. An area the size of a dozen parking spaces had been cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape and the officer I spoke with earlier was sitting in his patrol car looking very bored. I trudged up the back stairs and put on a pot of coffee.

  While the coffee was brewing, I took a shower. I felt like I was covered in smoke and toxic gases. Probably true. Even after the shower I couldn’t seem to get the acidic odor out of my nostrils. I can imagine myself doing lots of things in life, but firefighter is not one of them. Thank God some people are willing.

  It was about 7:30 a.m. when my cell phone buzzed. The screen told me it was PJ’s cell. I answered, “Good morning. Obviously good news travels fast.”

  She sounded hesitant, “Good news?”

  “Well yeah, if someone hadn’t blown up my car, I was going to have to get it washed again.”

  A smile in her voice, “Jack, sometimes you amaze me. Most people in your position would be spinning around in circles. You’re making jokes.”

  “Oh, I do my share of spinning, you just caught me on a good day.”

  Her cop voice, “Okay, kidding aside. I’m on my way there from home. I need to stop at the office and pick up my files, but I should be there about the same time as the arson investigators. There is a lab guy from ATF on his way as well. This will be a joint investigation and the feds will handle the evidence and lab work. Will make federal prosecution easier in the future.”

  “Federal prosecution? So the feds are taking the case?”

  PJ hesitated and then replied, “We’re just looking downstream. Unless you have enemies you haven’t mentioned, it’s a pretty good bet Bracchi’s behind this. No doubt the federal task force will take over anything that even smells of him.”

  “Sure, I understand. Just promise me you’ll stay my point of contact. I know what happens when alphabet soup gets spilled all over something like this. I just don’t want to deal with eight different agencies.”

  “I’ll do my best Jack, but depending on where this goes, it may get above my pay grade. I may not have a say in the matter. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Just do your best. That’s all I ask. Tell them I’m difficult to deal with.”

  “Oh, you want me to tell the truth.”

  I tried to sound hurt, “Now look who’s making jokes in my hour of need.”

  After the call from PJ, the reality of what had happened finally sank in. Bracchi had blown up my car. Well, he no doubt had someone else blow up my car, but the outcome was the same. The real question I asked myself was, did he intend to blow it up in the middle of the night or was it intended to blow up the next time I got in, but something went wrong.

  Knowing I was facing several hours with investigators, I decided a shave was in order. While shaving, I started thinking about the encounter we had with Bracchi’s two guys on Saturday. PJ didn’t yet know about that. Too many people around Cap’s had witnessed it, even if they didn’t know the guys were connected to Bracchi, to omit it when I talked with the investigators. Yet, that drags Justin and his guys into the mix. Not something I think Justin will find pleasing.

  Speaking of Justin, I recalled that several people staying on boats in the marina had wandered up to watch the festivities of my car burning. No doubt awakened by the explosion and responding sirens. Yet, I didn’t recall seeing Justin among them. Where would he have been? I know he’s been staying on Captain Bob’s boat. That’s where Moe found him Friday night.

  Realizing I should talk to Justin before I talked to PJ, I hurriedly finished dressing and went down the inside stairs into Cap’s. I wanted to go to the marina, but thought it would be less noticeable to the Hollywood officer in front if I went out the back door of Cap’s rather than down the outside stairs. That is, if he was even awake by now.

  I made my way to Captain Bob’s boat, but it was locked up tight. No Justin. I was just leaving the marina when Justin came ambling up. “Hi Jack. Looking for me?”

  I was startled to encounter him on his way back to the marina. Seemed odd. “Yeah, I thought we should talk before I have to talk to the investigators. You know, my car and all. They’re obviously going to focus on Bracchi. I don’t know how I don’t tell them about Saturday. Those two thugs. That means your guys get involved.”

  Justin rubbed the stubble on the top of his head, “Well, let’s see exactly what you know. Two of Bracchi’s thugs came into the bar Saturday and you and Moe asked them to leave. They refused and two patrons intervened to help you. You were grateful, but didn’t get the patrons names. Looked like a couple of former military guys who were
killing the day playing pool. That’s what you know.”

  I thought about what he said. Omitting the fact that the two guys were around for just that eventuality wasn’t really material to the event. I really didn’t know their names. Then I remembered Justin telling me that he had seen Bracchi pull into the parking lot, talk to the two thugs, and then leave. That seemed to be significant. I told Justin so.

  Justin smiled and shook his head, “Jack, you must have misunderstood me, I said, ‘It’s too bad I didn’t see Bracchi pull into the lot and talk to those guys because it would have shown he was connected to them.’ That’s what I said. If anyone was to ask me that’s what I would remember telling you. You just misunderstood me. That’s certainly understandable, you had just experienced another stressful encounter with two thugs. There’s really no sense in mentioning your misunderstanding. It would serve no value.”

  I was reflecting on Justin’s words when he continued, “Look Jack, they interview Bracchi and he says he had pulled into the lot when two guys came stumbling out the front door, so he asked them what was going on. They said it was an unfriendly place that night so he decided to go somewhere else. Wouldn’t matter if I’d actually seen him here, but of course I didn’t, so there’s no sense in mentioning me.”

  “What about Moe? I’d better talk to Moe so we’re on the same page.”

  Again, the slightest smile, “Just got off the phone with Moe. He recalls the incident and the two patrons assisting. He was very grateful for their help but didn’t get their names.”

  Now it hit me. I wasn’t running the situation, Justin was. They might call me the team captain, but that was in title only. Justin was definitely in charge now. I only hoped I would be happy with his game strategy.

  I started to walk away but turned and asked, “You slept through the explosion and all of the commotion? Didn’t see you when the fire department was here.”