The Invisible Crown (Hazzard Pay Book 1)

by Charlie Cottrell

  There were a lot of details to this case that weren’t adding up just yet. If Wally Stewart’s death was an internal Organization matter, how come Tuba hadn’t known anything about it? Who was trying to set me up to die in fiery explosions? Were Guido and Billy Sunshine still working for the Organization, or had they gone rogue and performed an unsanctioned execution? How was Carly Jennings tied up in it all? And just what was Wally Stewart’s fate?

  I had lots of questions and very few answers. Just a typical day in the life of Eddie Hazzard, Hard-Boiled Detective.

  “Mrs. Stewart, when you first approached me about the case, you mentioned that you thought he might be caught in something related to the Organization. What made you suspect that?” I asked.

  Mrs. Stewart sniffed and wiped her nose with a handkerchief. “He’d been acting . . . odd, lately,” she said. “He was secretive about phone calls, disappearing in the middle of the night for several hours at a time . . . and he was irritable. His personality seemed to change. He became harsher, colder, more distant . . .”

  “That could’ve just been a midlife crisis, or him trying to hide an affair with his secretary,” I said. Mrs. Stewart’s lower lip started to tremble, so I pushed ahead before she could turn on the waterworks again. “What made you think Organization?”

  “It was . . . just a feeling I got,” she said quietly, not meeting my eyes.

  I rose and walked around the desk to sit next to her. “At any rate, I’m on the trail of the guys I think might’ve killed him, a couple of mooks named Guido and Billy Sunshine. Even if I can’t bring you back your husband, I can at least catch the guys who did him in.”

  She looked up at me again, a faint smile playing across her full lips. Something in my chest did a backflip, and I could almost see myself falling for this woman if I wasn’t careful. “Thank you, Detective Hazzard,” she said, dropping her handkerchief and clutching both of my hands in hers. “I know you’ll do your absolute best to see that justice is done.” It was my turn to look away; earnestness and optimism are fine in moderation, but they’re downright embarrassing when aimed at you like that.

  I stood up again and she rose with me, taking my arm like I was escorting her to a fancy ball. “Do keep in contact with me, Detective Hazzard,” she said, that sad look on her face again.

  “I will,” I said, trying to give her a comforting smile as I opened the frosted-glass front door to the office. It probably landed somewhere a little south of comforting, since comforting isn’t really my stock in trade.

  “Your able assistance in this matter is most appreciated, detective,” she said as we paused at the door. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek, blushed coquettishly, and hurried out the door. I stood there for a minute, my hand still hanging on the doorknob, before Miss Typewell cleared her throat loudly from behind me.

  “What?” I asked, flustered. She had a look I knew all too well on her face. “What?”

  “What, what?” she asked, the look still plastered across her features.

  “C’mon, out with it, I know that look. What’s the matter?”

  “There’s something off about that woman, Eddie,” Ellen said.

  “Well, she did just find out that her husband’s probably dead,” I shot back. “No one’s at their best in a situation like that.” I thought for a second. “And the guy was probably a criminal. That’s a bitter pill to swallow.”

  “Eddie, I know fake tears when I see them,” Miss Typewell replied coolly. “That woman wasn’t actually crying.”

  “I know,” I said, smirking slightly.

  “I mean—wait, you know?” Ellen was thrown off her game by my response.

  “Yeah, I know she was faking it. I’m hungover, not blind and stupid.” I made a grandiose gesture, pretending to rend my clothes and falling to my knees. The knees responded with a series of painful clicks, and I winced as I stood back up. “The bit with the handkerchief-wringing was especially well-done, I thought. The way she kept toying with it and all. Masterful acting, really.”

  Ellen sat on the corner of her desk and frowned at me. “So, don’t you think that’s a little . . . strange? You tell the woman her husband’s probably a criminal and almost definitely dead, and she fakes an emotional response? Isn’t that kind of suspicious?”

  “Sure,” I replied, “it’s suspicious as hell, but I’m not sure what it means yet.” I went back into the inner office and grabbed my coat, hat, and shoulder rig. “I think you need to do a bit of digging on our client, Ellen. I’m off to see Mackrel.”

  X.

  Falone’s Restaurant was, in keeping with mobster tradition, an Italian bistro, because some narrative conventions are too powerful to be denied. It was an Organization front, of course, but they make a damn good calamari. In fact, the place was a legitimate restaurant, with a slew of amazing reviews on social media and with traditional food critics. It’d been featured on any number of travel and cooking shows, and everyone raved about the food.

  I pulled up in front of the restaurant in Miss Typewell’s car. It was almost noon, and the lunch crowd had the place fairly packed. A neon sign in the window declared Falone’s had the Best Neo-Italian Food in Arcadia, a claim that was hard to dispute. I didn’t see any thugs lurking around the door, but this place did its best to appear legitimate, so I didn’t really expect to see any. There could’ve been some of those damn ninjas hanging out in the shadows, but that seemed unlikely.

  Of course, with my luck, the fact that I couldn’t see anyone just meant they were all hiding up on the roof with a pot of boiling oil to dump on my head.

  I made the door without challenge. It swung open at a touch, a small bell tinkling musically as I entered. The interior of the place was done up in the traditional faux-Italian villa style, with the red-and-white checked tablecloths, a ham-fisted mural of Tuscany on the back wall, and electric candles flickering like the real things on each table. The shades were down across all the windows, blocking out the bright midday sun and giving the place a cozy, comfortable feel. The restaurant was packed, and I was struck by the thought that, if the Organization were to try to go completely legitimate tomorrow, and all they kept was this restaurant, they’d still probably be able to make decent bank.

  I saw a couple of waiters flitting back and forth through the dim murk of the bistro, floating trays bobbing in their wake as they moved between tables with practiced ease. They were all dressed alike, in form-fitting black unitards with a white apron tied around the waist. One of the staff, a young woman with gen-mod skin that was a deep shade of blue, came up to me and asked how many were in my party.

  “I’m not here for a meal, honey,” I replied offhandedly. She got pretty mad about that; I probably shouldn’t have been antagonizing the waitstaff, but I was tired and not really thinking straight. “I’m just here to meet someone, miss,” I said in a much more polite tone. She wandered off to do whatever it is that hostesses do when not seating people.

  Despite the rather brisk business the restaurant seemed to be doing, I noticed that one area toward the back by the kitchen was almost empty. A circle of empty booths formed a halo around a single table in the far back corner.

  At the table was . . . well, not a person, exactly, because that would imply he had a physical body that was capable of sitting down and that had limbs and stuff. This was . . . a head. In a jar.

  It was more complex than that, admittedly. The jar was a life support system designed to keep the head alive, floating in a soup of nutrients and antibiotics, and the jar itself possessed a number of useful tools and features, but head in a jar is a nice shorthand for the guy’s situation.

  He was currently using a pair of metal pincers to manipulate a fork and feed himself spaghetti, slotting the pasta into his mouth through a port in the jar. It was a bizarre thing to watch, and was likely to put you off your own feed if you didn’t have a cast-iron stomach.

  I slid into the seat across from the head and said, “Hiya, Fish.” His eyes swive
led up to take me in, then bulged like they were about to pop right out of his head. A mouthful of spaghetti hung from the fork just in front of his face, forgotten, the pieces of pasta waving like tentacles in the eddies and currents of his nutrient soup.

  Steve “the Fish” Mackrel was the head of Kidnapping for the Organization. No one got nabbed in Arcadia without his knowledge or approval. If Guido and Billy Sunshine were sanctioned players and had kidnapped Wally Stewart, the whole thing would’ve gone through the Fish.

  The Fish gulped heavily. You’d think not having a neck would make the motion difficult, if not downright impossible, but he managed. Come to think of it, I’d never figured out how eating worked for the guy, either. Where the hell did the spaghetti go after he swallowed it? I made a mental note to find out sometime.

  “What’s the matter, Fish?” I asked with mock concern. “You look a little green around the gills.” I’ll admit, the pun was probably overkill, but there are times when I just can’t help myself. I never claimed I was a nice guy.

  The Fish started stammering and stuttering, his eyes looking like they wanted nothing more than to escape his eye sockets. Meanwhile, a small panel slid aside on his jar, and the thin barrel of some weapon poked out. A faint hum filled the air, and the scent of ozone started to rise from it.

  I reached across the table and casually grabbed the barrel, applied a little leverage, and bent the thing at a ninety-degree angle. There was a fizzle and a ribbon of smoke wafted up from the tip of the barrel.

  “A laser weapon? I’m wounded, Fish,” I said, settling back on my side of the table. “Well, okay, I’m not actually wounded, but the fact that you just tried to shoot me when I just came to talk? Well, I’m hurt. Really. I think you won’t be on my Christmas card list this year, Steve.”

  “Eddie, uh, it’s nothin’ personal, really,” the Fish squeaked. “I don’t know nothin’, anyway!”

  I gave the Fish my most skeptical look. “That was a pretty fast answer, and I haven’t even asked a question yet. You’ll forgive me if I have my doubts, Fish.” I draped my arms over the back of the booth. “And why would you try to shoot me as soon as I walked in if you didn’t know anything?”

  “You’re bad news right now, Eddie!” he squealed, his head rocking back and forth in the jar. Liquid sloshed around inside, sending the few strands of hair across the top of his pale head waving frantically in the eddying nutrient slurry.

  “The news could get much, much worse if you don’t cooperate, Steve,” I said, leaning forward and grabbing a jar of Parmesan cheese from the table and twisting the lid off. The Fish watched me carefully, his eyes still large. Sure, the hard-ass, bad-cop routine was cliché and overdone, but leaning on a little fish like Mackrel was quick and easy. It got results from him, because he wanted to talk. I probably could’ve used sweeter bait, but I didn’t think that would be as much fun, and in this job you find your entertainment where you can.

  “I need to know if a kidnapping was sanctioned or not, Steve,” I continued conversationally. I reached over and flipped the lid of his jar open, then started sprinkling Parmesan cheese into the fluid inside. The Fish’s jar became cloudy with little flecks of grated cheese floating around in it. I knew, given time, that the jar’s filtration system would clean it out, but he’d be inconvenienced in the meantime.

  Steve didn’t say anything, but gulped again.

  “I don’t have a lot of patience today, Steve,” I said, dumping a couple of tablespoonsful of cheese in all in one go. “I don’t know what dumping all this cheese in your jar at once will do. Probably clog the filters something awful, I’d bet. I’d hate to think something bad would happen, but I may not be able to control myself.” I sprinkled another dash of cheese into the jar.

  “I don’t know anything, I swear!” the Fish squeaked in fear.

  “Sure you don’t, Fish.” Sprinkle sprinkle. “Look, I nearly got blown up yesterday, got into several fights, and had to borrow my secretary’s car.” Sprinkle sprinkle. “I’m really not in a good mood.” Sprinkle sprinkle.

  “I’m out of the loop on this one, I swear!” he cried.

  “Out of the loop?” I roared, dumping half the jar of Parmesan cheese in. “How can the head of the department be ‘out of the loop,’ Fish?” He didn’t respond, just squeaked and whimpered wordlessly.

  “Besides,” I said, subsiding, “I still haven’t even told you what I’m after, so how can you know you’re out of the loop?”

  The clumps of cheese floated to the bottom of the Fish’s jar, settling against his chin and wobbling in the faint currents of the fluid.

  “Wh-what do you want to know, Eddie?” he asked. I allowed myself a faint grin of victory. I’d just won, after all. Sure, it was against a head in a fishbowl, but any victory was worth celebrating at this point.

  “Guido and Billy Sunshine,” I said, grabbing the Fish’s plate of forgotten pasta and helping myself. Whatever accident had left the Fish as just a head in a jar hadn’t altered his food intake, at least. It was normal spaghetti, normal marinara sauce, normal meatballs. All pretty delicious, I might add.

  “Eddie, I can’t tell you about them,” he said, cringing. “They’ll kill you.”

  “That seems like my problem to deal with, Fish, not yours,” I replied around a mouthful of spaghetti.

  “They’ll kill me if they find out I told you!”

  “Guess we shouldn’t make a scene in the crowded restaurant then, huh?” I said, winking conspiratorially. “My concern is this. Someone tried to blow me up in a warehouse over on the pier. Are Guido and Billy Sunshine demo guys?”

  “No,” Fish said, shaking his head and sending up a cloud of grated cheese. “They were part of my department, but they were just snatch-and-grab guys, not explosives experts.”

  “They run with anyone who might be?” I asked.

  “Could be Boom-Boom Borglioni,” Fish hypothesized. I chewed on that and the spaghetti for a moment. Borglioni was well-known in law enforcement circles. He was an expert at blowing things up and setting things on fire. Borglioni was short and stout, and much like a little teapot, was known to blow his top at the slightest provocation.

  “Okay, so the question is, was that a sanctioned effort on my life, or was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time?” I asked, more to myself than the Fish. He answered anyway.

  “There’s no contract out on you at the moment, Eddie,” he said.

  “So Boom-Boom is just blowing up warehouses to, what, keep in practice?” I mused. “Or is there some bigger conspiracy at work here that I just don’t see yet?”

  “I couldn’t say, Eddie,” the Fish replied. “But he might’ve gone rogue when Guido and Billy Sunshine did.”

  That was some new information. “Really? Guido and Billy Sunshine are freelance now?”

  The Fish nodded, sending up yet another cloud of Parmesan cheese in the bowl fluid. “Yeah, they broke ties with the Organization about a week ago. Real public about it, too. They’re now officially persona non grata with the Boss and anyone loyal to the Organization.”

  “Well, that is interesting information,” I said, thoughtful. “So they’re operating unofficially and cut off from the Organization’s resources?”

  “I’d imagine they had some money and materials hidden away for a situation like this,” Fish said.

  “Not that I’m ungrateful or anything,” I said, “but you seem awfully forthcoming all the sudden.” I arched an eyebrow at him. “What’s the catch, Fish?”

  “Those two jerks were part of my department for years,” Fish said bitterly. “They were always a danger to themselves and everyone around them. Too sloppy, too careless. They always left everything to chance. If you catch them first, the Organization would like a chance to deal with them before Arcadia PD takes custody.” In other words, he wanted me to turn over criminals to other criminals so they couldn’t spill the beans on the Organization and get everyone else arrested, too. Revenge and retribution might also
be on the menu, and I found myself almost sympathetic to Guido and Billy Sunshine. Almost.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I replied, promising nothing I couldn’t take back later if I needed to. I may not have been on Captain O’Mally’s list of favorite citizens, and I may’ve been willing to bend the rules when I needed to, but I wasn’t about to help out the criminal syndicate just because a head in a jar threw me a bone.

  I reached across the table and grabbed a small bottle of olive oil, there for dipping bread in. It went into Fish’s jar, too. He cried out wordlessly, his little robot arms flailing wildly. “So long, and thanks for all the information, Fish,” I said as I stood up. “Enjoy the rest of your meal.”

  XI.

  Outside of Falone’s, I climbed back into Miss Typewell’s car and headed back to the office. On the way, my personal computer pinged from my pocket. A notification popped up on a vid window over my left eye to let me know it was the coroner’s report from Markus Franklin. It came with a message that I should stop by and see him at my earliest convenience, which happened to be right that minute. I made a left onto 4th Street and headed for the Precinct House.

  Precinct House #4 is a building I have a strange history with. It’s where I was stationed as a cop, lo’ those many years ago, and it was where Captain O’Mally and Markus Franklin were stationed now. They also sent me most of the officially-sanctioned assignments I got as a private eye, not that there were ever that many of them. O’Mally and I had reached a détente, an understanding of sorts, where we agreed to stay as far away from each other as possible.

  The Fourth Precinct was a squat, blocky building about six blocks from my office. I pulled into their parking lot and considered the entrance for a moment. It hadn’t changed much in the ten or so years since I’d been kicked off the force. The marble plaza was abuzz with foot traffic, individuals from every strata of society coming and going from the building, hoping to grease the gears of justice however they can.