by Mike Faricy
“Looks like you could probably use a towel.”
‘Fat Freddy’ Zimmermann grinned then held out his hand and nodded at the towel bar. One of two huge thugs wedged in the doorway pulled my towel off the bar, placed it in his hand, and then he handed it over to me.
“You don’t mind me saying you look like shit, Dev.”
“I think I’ve heard that once or twice before. Just what the hell are you guys doing here?”
“Fortunately the front door was open so we just thought this might be the perfect time to stop in and say hi. Oh yeah, and Tubby would like to talk to you, like fucking right now.”
Tubby Gustafson was St. Paul’s version of a home grown crime boss. He was also a psychotic whacko, which was probably why ‘Fat Freddy’ got along with him so well. Last I heard, Freddy was serving as Tubby’s enforcer, although given the size of the two Neanderthal thugs standing behind him, Freddy probably didn’t have to get his hands too dirty on most days. We had at least a passing working relationship, Freddy and I. He pretty much did what he wanted and I pretty much tried like hell to stay out of the way.
“Mind if I put some clothes on?”
“I think we’d all prefer if you did. By the way, what in-the-hell did happen to you? You look like shit. Another bout with the sidewalk or did someone’s husband come home early?”
“Something like that.” I said then took the towel and began to dry off.
“No offense, but I’ll take a pass on this show, think I’ll just hightail it downstairs. Tubby doesn’t like to be kept waiting so help him get dressed,” Freddy said to the thugs then exited the bathroom. I could hear the stairs creak as he made his way downstairs, no doubt intending to raid my refrigerator.
“Who the hell can you please with that little thing?” the thug leaning against the doorframe asked then they both laughed.
“Sorry boys, guess you’re just not my cup of tea. But, hey, whatever you do on your own time is none of my damn business.”
They gave one another a confused look then growled, “Get your ass out here and get dressed, jerk-off.”
My headache had returned to full throbbing force by the time we walked back to the kitchen. There were already a couple of candy bar wrappers crumpled up on my kitchen counter. Freddy held about a dozen Oreo cookies in his hand. Two or three were already crammed into his mouth.
“God,” he said spitting cookie crumbs across the kitchen counter. “Can’t really say you look much better, but I guess it will just have to do. You know how Tubby is.”
Unfortunately, I did know and it wasn’t doing much to improve my mood. “Can you tell me what this is about? Give me some idea what it is I was supposed to have done.”
“I can give you about a hundred thousand reasons. So if I were you, I’d start thinking pretty damn hard. Come on, let’s go,” Freddy said then snatched up what was left of my package of Oreo’s on his way to the front door.
Chapter Seven
The ride to Tubby’s private dining room was uneventful, as long as you didn’t mind being wedged between six hundred plus pounds of degenerate thuggery. We unfortunately seemed to make the drive in record time and pulled into the no parking zone directly in front of the opulent double doors leading into The Derby, Tubby’s restaurant.
The door on the right side had a piece of plywood where the glass should have been and there were two guys dressed all in white getting ready to install a large glass panel in the space. One of them was busily unscrewing the piece of plywood. A set of sawhorses stood on the sidewalk with a beveled glass panel resting across it. Brown paper that had been wrapped around the glass was torn off and lay crumpled on the sidewalk.
A thug leaning against the building straightened up then hurried over to open the car door for ‘Fat Freddy’. As he oozed out of the front seat the empty, crumpled Oreo package fell onto the sidewalk. The workman with the drill stepped aside and gave Freddy a nod as we entered The Derby. I followed between the two Neanderthals and the workman sort of shook his head when he looked at my battered face as if to say, “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes.”
I felt that was a pretty accurate assessment.
The Derby’s dim interior featured larger than life bronze colored, plastic statues in a sort of ‘Roman’ motif positioned about every ten feet along the exterior walls. Naked women in various stages of toasting with a stemmed wine glass, each statue had a black blindfold tied securely over their eyes. It seemed vintage Tubby and I tried not to contemplate any further pictures of Tubby’s debauchery.
A large bar ran across the length of the back wall with mirrors behind shelves holding what looked like every liquor bottle known to man. Small blue lights ran along the length of each shelf and twinkled off the massive array of bottles. Six more naked lady statues with arms extended over their heads appeared to be standing on the back of the bar and holding up the ceiling.
The room was dark, ostentatious to the point of being garish, and completely empty with the exception of a heavy round table in the middle of the place draped with a white linen tablecloth that hung almost to the floor. The table was illuminated by an overhead disco ball that spun slowly and cast reflections out into the darkened recesses of the room.
Tubby Gustafson sat at the table with a large linen napkin tucked beneath a couple of his chins. With the exception of a few wine dribbles, the napkin matched the table cloth.
A large steak platter was in front of Tubby with an even larger steak hanging over the sides of the platter. Tubby gingerly cut a bite size piece of steak with a sterling silver steak knife. He placed the steak in his mouth then reached for a crystal wine glass that looked more like a large chalice and made a loud slurping sound just as I was pushed into the light.
“What the…Haskell? Do tell. Is that really you?”
“Hello, Mr. Gustafson.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you look like absolute shit. I’m trying to eat here and you aren’t exactly helping my appetite.”
This brought chuckles and nods from the two heavy suits sitting on either side of Tubby and he glanced left and right acknowledging his great sense of humor.
“And back so soon,” he said then took another giant slurp.
“Actually, I’ve never been in here before,” I said sort of moving my head around to indicate the room.
“Really? I suppose you mean technically not in here. Isn’t that right?”
“I’ve never been inside and I’ve never been here, ever.”
“You don’t say. Hmmm-mmm, funny, must be our mistake then. You see, Haskell, early this morning, someone arrived uninvited. He crashed one of my card games, Haskell. He was rude, Haskell, very rude, not at all nice. And the bastard wore a mask, a Batman mask. I don’t like Batman, Haskell.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I’m sure you are. See, he somehow made it in here with a gun, a big gun, wouldn’t you say?” Tubby asked then glanced at the jerks sitting on either side of him.
They nodded then gave me a cold, hard stare.
“Then Batman waved this big gun around and pointed it at me. Can you believe that? My card game, my friends, he’s not invited and he points that big God damn gun right at me. Then he keeps it pointed at me until all the cash gets collected. He even had a little pink suitcase with flowers on it to stuff the cash in. Then this Batman bastard backed out the door. But, before he left he shot a bullet through my beveled glass window right out there, shattered the glass in one of the front doors to The Derby as a warning to me.”
“I’m not sure I’m following here, Mr. Gustafson.”
“Hear that, he’s not following,” Tubby said to no one in particular. “Which way do you think Batman ran, Haskell?”
“I, I really wouldn’t have any idea, Mr. Gustafson. Really, I wouldn’t.”
“I guess that would be reasonable, at least that would sound reasonable if it weren’t for one tiny little thing,” he said then held out his right hand.
The jerk to h
is right placed a piece of folded note paper into his hand.
“Help me out here, Haskell. I’d just like to get your input on this, seeing as how you’re such a big time investigator,” he said and unfolded the notepaper.
Both jerks smiled and seem to chuckle to themselves.
“This ring any bells in that thick skull of yours? A black Infiniti QX,” Tubby glanced up at me and suddenly looked very pissed off . “A 2005 model with a rear taillight covered in red tape and a cracked windshield. Minnesota license FNL seven-four-nine. Ring any bells?”
Yeah, alarm bells.
“Guess who that vehicle turns out to be registered to?”
“It’s mine, it was stolen last night, part of a kidnapping of two little girls. That guy, his name is Carlos, he assaulted me. Hell, you can see what he did to my face then he kidnapped the two little girls I was babysitting.”
“Really? And you expect me to believe that? Business is so bad that you’ve taken to babysitting?”
“Yeah, honest Tubby he…”
“You disgusting halfwit, you can’t even tell a proper lie,” he shouted. “Who in the hell would trust you with children? You’re telling me this Batman character kidnapped two little girls, stole your car and then since he had all sorts of time on his hands he waltzed into my card game last night, and put a gun to my head? Relieved me of a hundred grand and then shot the window out of my front door?”
“Yes, sir, it sort of looks that way.”
“Fuck.” Tubby screamed and then his crystal wine chalice sailed past my head, close enough that I heard it whistle and felt the breeze. It made a distinctive, expensive sounding tinkle when it smashed somewhere behind me. A trail of red wine ran across the white linen table cloth in my direction.
“I was being questioned by the police the whole time this must have been happening. After he stole my car I had to get a ride home this morning from the police. I wasn’t involved Mr. Gustafson, I swear on a stack of bibles, I really wasn’t involved. I could have been unconscious for all I know. If it’s the same guy, this Carlos O’Kelly person, I only met him last night and then just long enough for him to knock me out. I swear I had nothing to do with the robbery and putting that gun to your head.”
I noticed my hands were folded together like I was pleading, which in a way probably wasn’t too far from the truth.
“What was that name?”
“O’Kelly, Carlos O’Kelly.”
Tubby looked at the jerks on either side of him, both of them just shook their heads.
“Freddy?”
“Never heard of the guy.”
“I can find out about him for you. I know up until maybe forty-eight hours ago he was in rehab and I guess he just got tired of the straight life and walked away,” I said.
“I’ll find out about him, you just sit there in the dark and stay quiet, Haskell so I don’t have to think about you.” Then he turned to the two jerks on either side of him and said, “Get on it.”
The jerks quickly left the table.
“He’s got curly….”
“I think I told you to sit in the dark and shut up. You’re interrupting what’s left of my meal, and I’d like to finish it in peace,” Tubby said.
A small waiter in a white coat suddenly stepped out of the darkness behind Tubby and placed a freshly filled crystal chalice in front of him.
“There, better, much, much better,” he said and shoved another piece of steak in his mouth.
Chapter Eight
It was toward the end of his dessert course before the jerks hurried back from wherever they’d run off to. They placed a sheet of paper on the table next to what was left of a lemon meringue pie. Tubby was on his third piece.
“Mmm-mmm,” he grunted then shoveled another forkful of pie into his mouth and read. After a brief moment he looked up and growled, “Where in the hell are you, Haskell?”
“Right here, exactly where you told me to sit and be quiet.”
“Get into the light where I can see you, damn it.”
I stepped into the circle of light surrounding Tubby’s table.
“So, according to this shit.” Tubby nodded at the paper then shoveled another giant piece of pie into his mouth. He chewed a couple of times as if in contemplation then talked with his mouth full, occasionally spitting bits of lemon filling and meringue out in my direction.
“This jackass was in for a third visit to rehab when he just up and walked away, so much for third time being a charm. Says here the cops are looking for him for a kidnapping last night. That where you met him?”
“Yeah, I was….”
“I don’t recall asking you for any sort of explanation, Haskell. So, this bastard grabs these two little kids from you, throws them in your piece of shit car, and then swings by to ruin my night. That about right?”
“Not exactly, see….”
“Haskell, will you please just shut the hell up.”
One of the jerks leaned over and whispered something into Tubby’s ear then glared at me.
“Yeah, that’s right, good point,” Tubby said and seemed to think for a moment. “Haskell, let me ask you another question. I don’t want an explanation, I just want a simple yes or no. Did you have a gun in that horseshit car of yours?”
“Yes.”
Tubby threw his fork onto his dessert plate, it bounced off the plate and skidded across the linen table cloth toward me.
“You dumb shit, a, what the hell was it?” he asked the jerk who’d whispered to him a moment ago.
The jerk mumbled something to Tubby I couldn’t hear.
“A Sig Sauer P224? Was that what you had in your car?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact.” Wondering for just a nanosecond how Tubby would know that.
“Well surprise, surprise, surprise. Guess what? It all seems to come back to you Haskell, another one of your major screw ups. This time a really big screw up. So let me get this straight, this O’Kelly douche bag links up with you, uses your car and borrows your gun to rob me. And, he kidnaps a couple of little girls in the process. That sound about right? For Christ sake, even I think that is really fucking low. Where in the hell does it end?”
I started to say something, but Tubby cut me off by slamming both fists down on the table causing the plates and silverware to jump an inch or two.
“Shut up, damn it, just shut-the-fuck-up, Haskell. Alright, here’s what’s going to happen Mister Private Investigator. I want those two kids returned to someone responsible, like their mother. Then, you’re going to get my money back from this Carlos friend of yours before I become the laughing stock of this city. And, you are going to bring that bastard to me, do you hear? To me. I don’t want to turn on the ten o’clock news and learn that he’s been arrested and is burning up my tax dollars sitting on his ass in some comfortable damn jail cell somewhere or back in a posh rehab center. I want him brought to me. You got that?”
“I hear you Tub…Mister Gustafson, but, well if you’ll recall I’m currently without a car so it’s going to be pretty difficult for me to find….”
“Does it ever end?” Tubby screamed. “Freddy, get this dunderhead a set of wheels, now. And Haskell, forty-eight hours, that’s it, got it? Freddy, get him the hell out of my sight before my generous side stops working and gives up in absolute disgust. Jesus Christ.”
I massive paw pulled me back into the darkness and then out the front door. The new glass panel was already in the door and one of the workmen was in the process of reinstalling the trim that held the thing in place.
Freddy pulled me aside. He didn’t look all that happy. “God, you can sure screw things up. Here,” he said and handed me his car keys.
“Oh man, thanks, you’re giving me your car?”
“Are you kidding? Don’t be stupid. What the hell do you think I am? No, I want you to drive,” he said then waited while one of the thugs who served as his shadow opened the passenger door for him. “Just wait here for me, I’ll be back in a minu
te.”
Both thugs glared at me, but didn’t say anything as I hurried around to the driver’s side…
To be continued with just one click below….
Well, at no surprise, Dev seems to be in over his head right from the get-go.
The city’s laziest Private Investigator, Dev Haskell, agreed to help out his friend Isabella and babysit her two young daughters. But, as you can see he’s on the job for little more than an hour before he’s assaulted and the girls are kidnapped by Carlos O’Kelly, along with Dev’s Sig Sauer pistol and his car.
Apparently the world’s dumbest criminal, Carlos knocked over a mob card game, using, of course, Dev’s gun and car. Which put Dev in something of an awkward position with local crime lord, Tubby Gustafson. Tubby gave Dev forty-eight hours to get his money back. And Isabella’s kind of missing her kids, no pressure or anything. You can help Dev out by clicking on the appropriate link below. Many thanks and enjoy the read. Mike Faricy
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