Frank Sinatra in a Blender

by McBride, Matthew;Bruen, Ken

  I rummaged through a box and grabbed a handful of 3-inch turkey loads for the shotgun and threw them in the leftover White Castle bag from the other night. I grabbed a bottle of Jim Beam from the same box. I’d made it a general rule to keep my ammunition and my alcohol within reach for emergencies such as this.

  My vision all but returned in my left eye, but the right was still ridiculously swollen and full of blood. I moved my jaw around and it didn’t feel broken. I thought about Frank.

  I grabbed the White Castle bag and handed it to Clyde, told him to follow me to the Vic. I scooped up Frank and what was left of his paw and wrapped him tight in a dishtowel. He stopped yelping, then he stopped moving altogether.

  “Hang in there you little son-of-a-bitch.”

  With the other hand I picked up the shotgun and ran from the room, careful not to fall with Frank in my arms.

  I hit the key and the engine roared to life. I pumped the pedal twice to make the glass packs rumble, dropped it in D, held it to the floor as I cut the wheel, then I spun that bad motherfucker completely around in the middle of Blackmore Road.

  The Vic took turns fishtailing from left to right through sections of mixed ice and dry pavement until it finally caught traction. I ordered Frank to stay with me. I kept one hand on the bloody dishtowel that covered him.

  I had to get him to the Animal Hospital off Big Bend and I didn’t know how much time he had.

  I wondered how bad No Nuts was hit. It looked like I’d blown the top of his face off. I’d done my best to aim high and prayed like hell I didn’t hit Frank. The irony of possibly killing him myself, in a failed attempt to save him from the blender, was not lost on me.

  Amish Ron was going to shit himself when he found out what happened. He’d never believe me now. I knew there were already cops back at my place and Clyde was telling stories.

  Everything happened so fast that I had to wonder how much Clyde saw. Then I remembered the Englishman’s broken hand and I smirked.

  •••••

  I raced across the hospital lot and parked up close by the entrance. I yanked the key out of the ignition and grabbed Frank. I pulled my shirt down over the .45 and ran up to the front, kicked the door open. I told the attractive young girl at the desk I was a detective and this was my K-9 unit, asked her to cease all other functions at once and operate on Frank as if he were the President of the United States.

  I handed Frank to the girl and her gorgeous face dropped when she saw all the blood.

  “Oh my God! What happened?”

  I hadn’t considered such a question so I told her the first thing that came to my mind.

  “He was injured in the line of duty.”

  “Oh my God!” she exclaimed again. “Poor thing. He’s really a police dog?”

  She looked skeptical.

  I told her of course he was a police dog. Narcotics.

  “Poor thing,” she repeated. “He’s so tiny.”

  I agreed Frank was small for a Yorkshire but I assured her that he was still a force to be reckoned with.

  An older gentleman walked by in a white coat, glasses pushed down to the end of his nose. I grabbed him by the arm. “You a vet?”

  He tried to pull away, but I wouldn’t turn him loose.

  “Are you?”

  “Well yes,” he growled.

  “This is a crisis,” I declared, and I told him we were dealing with a police emergency. Said I’d be back in the morning, and I made it clear in no uncertain terms Frank had better be alive and kicking with all fours, and not just three and a half.

  I left the hospital and took a shot of Jim Beam from the bottle just as soon as I found the car. I loaded up the shotgun and turned up the heat. I couldn’t stand to see Frank like that. I took another drink as I rummaged through the glove box for any painkillers. My face was swelling up; the skin around my eye was tight and filled with blood.

  I felt my guts begin to smolder and I knew that bourbon fire was on its way. Slow at first, but then it would come on strong like it always did.

  Finally I felt a bottle of something I hoped was stronger than Tylenol, pushed at it until I had it trapped in a corner and it stopped moving. I sat up and read the bottle. Percocet, a personal favorite of mine. They would do quite nicely.

  I wasn’t sure about my next move. I didn’t know where to find Sid and No Nuts. Didn’t know where to find Big Tony or Doyle. The one thing I did know was I needed to get back to my apartment and start answering questions. But maybe I should get a drink first and think about that. It was still early enough to catch Happy Hour at a little hole in the wall I knew just a mile or two down the road. I took a healthy drink of Beam as I left the parking lot.

  •••••

  I parked the Vic in front of a dirty battered shithole called the Queen of Hearts. The kind of place where the girls from the better titty bars across the river end up after they lost whatever it was they once had. This was the end of the line, home to fractured dreams and failed ambitions. The girls were heavier and they had to wear pasties and g-strings, but the beer was just as cold and the drive was half as far.

  I scanned the glove box for any more medication that may have escaped my attention. I knew I hadn’t given the Perc’s enough time to do their job but my face was sending out violent shockwaves of excruciating pain.

  One final belt of Jim Beam finished off the bottle and I tossed it behind the seat. I tried to avoid my reflection in the mirror as I got out and walked across the lot.

  I walked through the door and kept my head down, pushed ahead to the bar.

  I got lucky, found an open seat at the end and I did my best to ignore the questioning looks of those around me. I told the barmaid I needed two Corona’s and a White Russian.

  “Is that all?”

  “Better throw in a shot of Knob Creek just to be safe.”

  “Do I know you?” I saw her face search my face with curious amusement.

  “Doubt it.”

  She contemplated my order. “Well, you expectin’ company?”

  I told her I was, then turned my back to the bar. Even in my current physical state I scanned the immediate surroundings for the best the Queen had to offer. I prepared to endure what was sure to be a painfully substandard striptease, performed to the appalling beat of music that should’ve never been recorded.

  The sturdy dancer on the stage moved her body slowly against a pole that seemed to give an inch in each direction when she grinded. It looked like it might come unbolted from the roof at any minute.

  “Here ya go, hon.”

  The barmaid returned with a full tray and I thanked her, left a twenty on the bar, and walked to a private table to drink alone.

  The first Corona helped put out the fire created by the bourbon. The second Corona left me wanting more. I slammed the Caucasian. I slammed the Knob.

  As I opted for a refill, the dancer from the stage walked up to me and told me I looked like I’d had a pretty bad day.

  I asked what could make her say such a thing.

  She laughed a little too deeply, and I heard the phlegm inside her lungs break loose and move about. As close as she was, I started noticing her flaws. Her skin was stretched and worn. The top of each ass cheek was broad enough to use as a drink ledge to set my drinks. But to be honest, she had a great smile. And who was I to talk about flaws?

  I touched her gently on the shoulder and nudged her to the right, just a step, so she was out of the light, a strategic move that rendered her far more attractive than she was just moments before. I took a step closer, told her I liked the way she wore those pasties. I asked her if she wanted to come out to the Vic? Said I had plans for her.

  “What kind of plans?” She smiled at me behind a nervous glance then I smiled. Let my eyes wander up and down her body.

  When she stepped into the light, I pushed her back into the shadows, knowing this would go better for the both of us if we could pretend we were someone else.

  She a
sked me what I wanted and I told her she already knew.

  She looked around playfully then stepped forward. I felt her hand on the outside of my jeans, compelling me to pitch a tent in my boxers.

  “Poor baby,” she said. She was looking at my face.

  “You should see the other guy.”

  “Oh, I bet.” She ran her hands over my shoulders, felt my hard, tight chest.

  “Oh, I betchya fucked him up good, big boy.”

  I assured her I had. I smiled when I thought of No Nuts’ face filled with shotgun lead. Smiled so hard it hurt.

  She looked around again then pulled me to the darkest corner they had.

  Finally, I could feel those Percocets kicking in.

  “Whaddya want, Stud?”

  I told her I wanted her forbidden fruit, and we better do it quick before I changed my mind.

  She nodded, told me I could have it by the way she moved her body up and down my leg with an ancient rhythm, the only honest dancing she’d done all night.

  She spoke to me slow and held her mouth open like she was offering me something I’d be a fool to pass up. “You want me baby?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  She brushed her lips against mine and I did my best to ignore what could’ve been light mustache stubble. Then she reached down and slid her hand into my pants, wrapped her fingers around my package.

  “Oh,” she said. “That’s nice.”

  I did my best to picture the girl from Cowboy Roy’s with the American flag bandana and that ass that could fit on a breakfast plate.

  She pulled me toward her and told me nobody could see us.

  I concentrated on those pasties while she worked my lower unit. Best-case scenario, I ended up with a free handy and a mess to clean up. Worst-case scenario, I ended up banging her then shooting myself in the parking lot.

  We faced each other and our mouths came together but did not touch. I pushed my swollen nose into her cheek, felt her warm breath against my neck.

  “Valentine!” I heard my name in the distance.

  I told her not to stop. Just a few more pulls and I’d be golden.

  “Valentine, get over here, you fuck.”

  She shrugged, then slowed down to a complete stop.

  “No!” I snapped. “Work that wrist!”

  “Hey, screw you!” She yanked her hand from my trousers.

  “Oh, c’mon,” I said. But we got a good look at each other in the unforgiving light and my boner died faster than a two-dollar watch battery.

  “Asshole!” She stormed off.

  Across the room, Big Tony shook his head and waved me over.

  “Jesus, Valentine,” he said once I got close. “Them boys fucked you up.”

  I was surprised as hell to see them. I asked him how he knew.

  “Let’s go outside.”

  I followed him out to Doyle’s van.

  Big Tony climbed in the passenger side and I climbed in the back.

  Doyle turned and looked at me, said I was in bad shape.

  “I thought you guys left town?”

  “We couldn’t leave ya here like this, kid.”

  Big Tony turned around and said we were in this together. Said we were going to see it through.

  “I’m fifty-four years old, Doyle said. “I ain’t gonna spend the rest of whatever time I got left lookin’ over my shoulder.”

  “Me either,” said Big Tony.

  I asked Big Tony how he knew about the gunfight.

  He said, “We’s just turnin’ onto Blackmore when you stumbled out into the street with that hand cannon. We seen the Englishman, and we done our best to chase him down. We lost him for a while, then we picked ‘em up on the highway. Doyle here run him off the road.”

  Doyle was shaking his head in agreement. I noticed he wore a new watch.

  He asked me what kind of burner I carried and I told him a .45.

  “Holy shit, that’s a big gun.” Told me all he carried was a .38 Special. “Why you use a .45?”

  I told him they didn’t make a .46.

  Doyle told me what he’d heard. Joe Parker was on a rampage on account of this money and everyone who had anything to do with the case was dead.

  I told him I already knew. I said I’d seen the security guard, told him how those sick assholes burned out his earholes with red-hot pokers.

  “Jesus,” Big Tony said. “That’s some old-school Mafia shit right there. The Englishman done this?”

  “Indeed.” I told him how they stuffed Frank into a blender, the one he always hated.

  “Those limberdick cocksuckers,” Doyle whispered.

  Big Tony said we only had one chance, we had to do it now and we had to do it right. He said once you cross that line there was no turning back.

  I said the only lines I cared about were chalklines around their dead bodies. “Well, in that case they’re holed up just down the road,” Big Tony said.

  “What?” I put my hand on the door handle. “Let’s go!”

  “Hang on a minute,” Big Tony said. “There at Angie’s. One’uh those bitches from the club. That English prick used to drill her.”

  “Good,” I said. “Let’s go.” Then I took one last look around the Queen of Hearts.

  •••••

  We left in Doyle’s van. The Vic sat in the parking lot; I left the money in the trunk along with the cooler and at least nine empty bottles of top-shelf liquor.

  I held the shotgun in my lap, filled with turkey loads. Powerful enough at close range to blow a hole through a man the size of a kitchen table. Beside me was the chainsaw.

  “What the hell you do with that thing anyway?” Doyle asked.

  I told him Nick Valentine didn’t leave home without it, and Big Tony thought that was funny. Doyle laughed too. “Have chainsaw, will travel.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “Something like that.”

  Doyle romped on the pedal and the ass end jumped to the right.

  “Easy big fella,” Tony said.

  Doyle rubbed his palms on his pants, said he just wanted to get this over with. This time tomorrow he’d be in Florida.

  I sipped on the rest of the Hot Damn I’d pulled from the floorboard of the Vic. I wished I’d had something more potent, but at least it was alcohol, something I desperately needed to maintain my edge. I thought about poor Frank and my face turned hot. That poor little bastard was never gonna sprint those stairs again with the same pride or fervor. I racked the 12-gauge and Big Tony jumped.

  “Calm down,” I told him.

  “Shit, Valentine. You scared the fuck outta me.”

  I told Big Tony I was ready. I needed to see them dead for what they’d done to Frank.

  “Valentine, I gotta ask. That’s really a hell of a name for a dog, ain’t it?”

  It caught me off guard. Got me thinking about things I didn’t need to think about just before I killed a man.

  “Guess I done it on account of my old man. He loved the guy. Sinatra was like a God to my old man.”

  Big Tony nodded. Said he understood. “We’s just talkin’ ‘bout our Pop’s the other day, weren’t we Doyle?”

  Doyle nodded. “We were. Both of ‘em were real pricks by the sound of it.”

  Big Tony agreed. He asked, “What about your old man? He gone?”

  I said he was.

  “What happened to him?”

  I hadn’t thought about the old man in a long time. In the hum of road, I thought about the man he was to me. Remembered only in short clips of distant memories. He was loyal, the most honest man I knew, a cop who played by the rules. Then I thought about the way he died.

  “He loved being a cop,” I told them. “He and Chief Caraway, they were partners. One night they interrupted a robbery.” I swallowed hard and stared out the window. I felt the 12-gauge in my lap, squeezed it tight. I hadn’t shed a tear for the old man in twenty years. I wasn’t gonna start now.

  Doyle switch lanes and got off the interstate.
Turned onto Charbonneau.

  I cleared my throat. “So, they interrupt this robbery and my Pops took two in the gut by some tweaked out biker. But that didn’t kill ‘em. He crawled on his belly for a hundred feet and shot the cocksucker who’d just gut shot him and left him for dead. Saved Caraway’s life, too.”

  Doyle pulled over and killed the lights. They listened to me ramble on.

  “So this biker whore comes up behind him, this other guy’s old lady I guess. She’s all whacked out on PCP or something, who knows? She caved in my old man’s head with a splitting mall. Caraway shot her, but it couldn’t bring him back.

  I was in high school. Decided I was never gonna end up like my old man. I was gonna do things my way.”

  “Well you been true to your word, I’ll give you that,” Doyle said.

  We felt gusts of wind push hard against the van and listened to the sounds a car makes once you kill the engine. Dinging, hissing, an unexpected pop. I passed the bottle up front, asked them if they wanted a hit before we shotgunned those motherfuckers.

  Then we heard gunshots, fast and wild.

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “Holy Christ,” Doyle said. “What do we do?”

  I jumped from the van as Parker’s crew ran out into the yard, but the Englishman stopped hard. He said something to his partner then returned to the house.

  Doyle was beside me; Big Tony was still in the van.

  “I told him to stay put, he’d just be in the way, the fat fuck.”

  I agreed one hundred percent. I told Doyle he should go back too.

  “No, I got this,” he said.

  I told him he should go back to the van and wait.

  “Bullshit, I’ll take the Englishman, you get him.” He pointed to the one Sid called No Nuts then took off. He said killing Sid was something he had to do.

  I dropped low and tried to stay in the shadows but the full moon spotlit my every move and the snow made it hard to walk. I scanned the street for signs of life, but it was late. Everyone slept, their furnaces working overtime. Soon their comfortable homes would be disturbed by the sounds of gunfire. There was only one house close by, where the Lexus was parked, the one I’d shot the fuck out of earlier.