Body Blow

by Dan Ames

  He looked around.

  The back of the truck was filthy and smelled like shit. Even in the dim light he could make out some ropes, a bag of fertilizer and some greasy rags.

  Two door slammed up front and then he heard the engine fire up. He felt the truck being backed out and soon they were going down one of those washboard country roads and Dawkins felt sure some of the fillings in his teeth were going to rattle out.

  Up front there was country music and then Dawkins could smell marijuana.

  As they bounced down shitty country roads, he thought about what he might be in for.

  Someone had ordered his kidnapping, of that he was sure.

  He had a few theories of who it might've been; after all, he had a lot of enemies not just Good Isle, Michigan but also in Detroit and frankly, all across the country. During his career, he’d pissed off a lot of people.

  There was no way these two jokers were working for themselves. They didn’t have enough IQ between them to light a campfire. Although, Darnell seemed to have some animal cunning. Troy was a walking tree stump.

  The drive took nearly two hours and by the end of it Dawkins still had zero answers.

  But when the truck stopped, one of his theories was proven true because just before they opened the door to the rear of the truck he heard a sound that was very familiar to him.

  His fists clenched instinctively.

  There was no mistaking the sound as he’d heard it dozens and dozens of times throughout his career.

  It was unmistakable.

  It was the sound of a crowd cheering.

  Chapter Nine

  Beau was paying, everyone decided. It would just be easier that way. Lindsey’s husband was extremely fastidious with the household’s finances, even if he didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to his wife.

  “He’s got a real passion for our checkbook,” Lindsey had explained.

  Ellen was once again surprised at how life was a nonstop cavalcade of unforeseen incidents. You woke up in the morning and figured where you’d be at by the end of the day, and quite often, it turned out you were wrong.

  It’s what made life both interesting and an occasional pain in the ass.

  Like today, for instance. She had imagined she would spend the day hanging out by the pool with her brother and his family, and instead, she was a co-investigator into the disappearance of a legendary Detroit boxer named Billy “Dynamite” Dawkins.

  It would have to be handled carefully.

  “John, my involvement in this will have to be handled delicately,” she said. “And let’s be honest, discretion isn’t your strong suit.”

  “I know,” he replied. “I think this might be the first time I’ve ever heard you and the word ‘delicate’ in the same sentence.”

  “Good Isle may not have a chief of police right now, but they still have a police force,” Ellen said. “And it wouldn’t look good if one of their job candidates started poking around in an active investigation. Especially as I’m still the chief of police in Grosse Pointe.”

  “Don’t worry, delicate flower,” John answered. “I’ll handle the investigation. You can hang out with Anna and the girls. Be a surrogate parent.”

  “Right,” Ellen said. “I’ll follow your lead. Let the girls do whatever they want, make sure I follow Anna’s orders, and try not to make a mess.”

  “That about sums it up. You’ll have to cut the grass, too.”

  Ellen laughed. She actually thought her brother was a great dad, but she would never admit that or tell him. The Rockne family was more into dry humor, than outright, open affection.

  It made it more fun, if not always as warm and mushy as other families.

  “Have you got a plan?” Ellen asked. “Or are you going to wing it like you usually do?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw John look out the window. He always did that while he was thinking. He rarely answered instantly, preferring to think through what he was going to say.

  “First, I plan to go to the site of his disappearance,” he said. “Someone may have seen something, in addition to Lindsey’s friend. A marina can be a busy place. Maybe some of the other fishermen saw something.”

  That’s what Ellen would have done.

  “What about his place?” she asked.

  Lindsey had given John her key to Dynamite’s house. She had told them it was a historic house in the downtown section of Good Isle, that the retired boxer had totally renovated. Ellen got the impression that Dynamite liked old, vintage things. His Bronco. And his house. He sounded like an interesting man.

  “I’ll go there after the fishing pier,” John said. “Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless you get tired of hanging out with the Rockne clan and want to check out Dawkins’s house,” he said, with that expression on his face he always got when he was asking her to do him a favor. It wasn’t terribly subtle. “A historic house?” he continued. “That sounds like it’s right up your alley.”

  Ellen’s house in Grosse Pointe was a labor of love for her. And the thought of leaving that house was almost impossible to imagine. She’d restored every inch of it. But then again, it had been done for several years now.

  Maybe she was ready for a new project.

  She could make a lot of money from that house downstate, and the cash would go a long way up here. Despite the enormous price tags of lakefront homes, quite a few houses downtown in the historic district were probably very affordable and ripe for renovation.

  “Let me sleep on that little tidbit,” she finally said to John.

  They got back to the resort, and while John went back to his room and to his family, Ellen returned to her room.

  She put her keys and purse on the desk by the bed and reached into her little refrigerator. She, too, had stocked up on some alcoholic beverages and she pulled out a beer, twisted off the cap and went out to her little balcony.

  Ellen had grabbed her iPad as well and as she took the first few sips of beer, she looked out at the trees. Her view was amazing in that to the left, she could see Lake Michigan. And right now, the sun had faded but the sky was a brilliant orange with undertones of red and pink.

  “Beautiful,” she said to herself.

  After several minutes of quiet contemplation, she launched the email on her iPad and read through everything. Nothing important, and she made a few cursory responses and then closed her email.

  She launched the browser, and spent nearly a half hour reading about the life and times of Billy “Dynamite” Dawkins. A young, tough kid who grew up on the mean streets of Detroit. Apparently, his parents were nowhere to be found and an owner of a boxing gym had rescued him from the streets.

  Before long, the skinny white kid was knocking out men twice his age. Soon, there were rumors that he might be the next great boxer to come out of the Motor City.

  As his reputation grew, so did the caliber of his opponents. But Kid Dynamite, as he was called when he was still very young, knocked them all out.

  And then a scandal hit.

  Rumors of organized crime’s involvement with Dynamite’s manager and promoter were leaked to the press. An investigation ensued and Billy Dawkins lost his next match, the first loss of his career.

  People lost a lot of money on that fight, and some claimed he had thrown it, but Dawkins never spoke to anyone.

  He came back with a vengeance, though, and knocked out his next twelve opponents. He was one fight away from a shot at the title when disaster struck.

  A detached retina.

  The very same injury that had paused the career of the great Sugar Ray Leonard.

  Doctors had told him not to fight, that he would go blind with one wrong punch.

  So he retired.

  He had the operation, but it was botched.

  And he had to have it again.

  By then, he was past his prime and he never fought professionally again.

  Ellen snapped her iPad shut and
got herself another beer.

  One fight away from a shot at the title.

  That must have sucked, royally.

  She lifted her beer toward the distant lake.

  “Dynamite, I hope I find you and get to meet you. You sound like a helluva guy.”

  Chapter Ten

  For me, it’s all about compromise. Marriage, that is. And when I say compromise, I mean it’s all about my wife making the necessary compromises.

  Kidding, of course.

  But Anna is a reasonable woman and when I told her about the meeting with Beau Gordon and the actual check I’d been handed, she became a lot more understanding. So as soon as the girls were up, I took them to a nearby nature trail and we had a nice walk, some goofing around and then we stopped for donuts and coffee. No coffee for the kids. Anna would kill me.

  Once we were back at the resort, we did the switch-off. Anna got the kids and I immediately took the minivan and drove down to the fishing pier.

  It was easy to spot, because it was one of the key points of Good Isle’s downtown. It had only one marina, and one giant pier that thrust its way out into Lake Michigan.

  A fishing boat was just pulling out of the harbor, out to troll for some salmon and lake trout. Its steady drone from the engine was the only sound, except for the occasional squawk of a seagull looking for breakfast.

  The town had been sleepy as I drove though it, people just finishing their late breakfasts and figuring out what they were going to be doing for the day.

  I couldn’t stop imagining Ellen here, working as chief of police. Would she love it initially because it was so calm and peaceful and quiet? And then a few months later would she find herself being driven batshit crazy by the lack of any, you know…crime?

  Well, who really knew? And how could anyone predict what it would be like? It seemed like one of those things that would only become known once you made the leap.

  Plus, I caught the logic flaw in my thinking.

  Here I was talking about a lack of crime, and I was on my way to a missing persons investigation. I figured it wouldn’t be much, though. A retired boxer, missing after fishing from the local pier?

  He’d either fallen in the lake and been carried to the bottom or out into deeper water. Boxers had a ton of brain injuries for obvious reasons. Maybe he’d had an aneurism or a stroke and toppled off the pier into the lake. It was possible.

  Or, it was quite possible he’d gone back to Detroit, ditching his married girlfriend in the process. Professional athletes were well-known for their success with the ladies. Maybe he had multiple girlfriends in multiple cities and was just making the rounds. Like a rock band with a summer of tour dates.

  Even cynicism felt out of place in Good Isle.

  I found my way to the pier, parked, and walked out onto the wooden dock. It was impressive. Very long, and the size of the boats parked nearby was impressive. There were some monster yachts that probably cost eight figures.

  The lake was eerily calm, like a sheet of blue-green glass. No one was on the beach as it was still very cool, and a few lonely fishermen on the pier stood guarding their fishing poles. But nothing was moving.

  I made my way to each fisherman, casually chatting them up about what was biting or not, and asking if they’d seen Billy Dawkins. None of them had, but they all knew who he was, that he fished on the same pier frequently and inquired after him.

  Keeping in mind the need for discretion, I just claimed to be an old friend from Detroit looking for him.

  One guy suggested I talk to Herb in the marina office.

  I left the pier, nosed around until I located the marina office and found a young woman, similar to the one who worked at the resort. She was young, perky and I guessed that her name wasn’t Herb.

  The office looked like it belonged to an old man. There was a famous Farrah Fawcett poster from forty some years ago tacked to the wall, stained coffee cups, and the unmistakable scent of an old guy.

  “Are you Herb?” I asked.

  She laughed. “No. Tonya. Herb called in sick today. I normally work in the restaurant, but they told me to come down here and act like I know what I’m doing.”

  She was cute as a button, this Tonya. Smart, articulate, and, I hoped gullible.

  “Oh, I was supposed to drop off a check for Herb from his old employer down in Detroit. Do you know his home address?”

  “Ah, sure,” she said. She looked at a piece of paper tacked to the bulletin board. She ran her finger down a list of what I guessed was employees and their contact information.

  “Let’s see,” she said. “Herb Watters. Ah, here it is. 729 Maple Avenue.”

  “Great, thank you,” I said. “By the way, I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  Tonya grimaced. “Yeah, I guess I should spray some deodorizer around this place or something.”

  “That would probably piss off Herb. Old guys hate change.”

  Back in the parking lot, I studied the vehicles next to the fishing pier. I wondered where Dynamite’s favorite parking space was.

  I figured if he drove a vintage Bronco that was his pride and joy, he would have parked in the safest spot imaginable. There was a corner parking space, bordered by trees on one side, the farthest spot from the pier and the marina.

  It was currently empty.

  I walked over to it and studied the ground.

  There was a stray piece of fishing line, an oil stain, and some loose gravel.

  Nothing else.

  I went back to the minivan, fired it up, and plugged 729 Maple Avenue into my navigation app. It took me less than five minutes to pull up in front of a tiny white house, with a white picket fence, and a twenty-year-old Chevy pickup in the driveway.

  If there was ever a house that looked like it was owned by an old, single man, this would be it. I was just guessing that Herb was single. Maybe I was wrong. But there was no garage and only one car.

  Or was his wife at work?

  For some reason, I didn’t think so.

  I parked on the street, got out and looked up and down the neighborhood. It was an older section of town, clearly, but not a prosperous one. The houses all looked like they’d been slapped together quickly in the fifties or sixties and no one had bothered to do any additions or renovations. No fancy cars on the street, either. Mostly trucks and older sedans. A lot of Buicks and Fords.

  They like to buy American up north.

  I rang the doorbell but there was no answer.

  That truck in the driveway was Herb’s as sure as I knew my pants were on correctly. Which meant he was home. Unless he was, in fact, married and the little lady had carted him off somewhere.

  Another press of the doorbell caused some commotion inside and the door was pulled back just slightly.

  The stench of liquor wafted into my nostrils.

  “Herb?”

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  I could just make out a gray face, bloodshot eyes and a wrinkled shirt.

  “I want to ask you about Billy Dawkins,” I said. “I’m a private investigator.”

  There was an audible gasp behind the door.

  “Oh no,” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  “You got some ID?” he asked me. “You don’t look like you’re from around here, but I better be safe than sorry. Lot of crazies out there.”

  I showed him my driver’s license and a PI card the good state of Michigan had provided me.

  “Hmph,” he said.

  Finally, the door opened and I stepped into a cloud of gin vapors.

  My first thought was, who drinks gin anymore?

  While the house looked vaguely cute from the outside, the inside was a different story. Apparently, Herb didn’t know how to use a vacuum or a mop and apparently there were no cleaning services in Good Isle because Herb’s house was a pig sty.

  There was a living room set made out of corduroy cloth and plywood, a sagging entertainment center with a television that h
ad to be twenty years old, and a card table that served as the dining room table.

  On the card table was a big glass of orange juice.

  No doubt laced with bargain-basement gin.

  “I can’t help you,” he said. “I don’t even know why I let you in.”

  “I have a very trusting face,” I said.

  Herb looked at me, trying to gauge if I was correct.

  “How about I ask you a couple of questions before we make that determination,” I said. I wished I could plug my nose because it smelled bad. Asking him to crack a window would be terribly bad manners.

  “Wanna crack a window?” I asked.

  “Go ahead and ask your questions,” he said. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in a half hour,” he said.

  It was as if he just remembered he was supposed to be sick. A doctor’s appointment. Yeah, right. With Dr. Cheap Gin.

  “Billy Dawkins,” I said. “Also known as Dynamite. Have you seen him lately?”

  Herb shook his head back and forth so energetically he looked like a dog who’d just gotten out of a swimming pool and was trying to dry its fur.

  “Nope. Nada.”

  He took a big drink of his orange juice. I wondered if Herb was as bad a liar when he was sober. Because he was terrible at it when he was drunk. Which is what he was now.

  “Do you know him?” I asked.

  “Sure, of course,” he said. His tired, old face seemed to light up. “Everyone knows Dynamite. The man’s a legend! One of the girls at the office used the computer to find video of his old fights and we all watched a greatest hits movie. Get it? Greatest hits!”

  Herb made a punching motion, like a left cross, and sloshed some of his gin and juice mixture onto the carpet. He didn’t notice.

  “Those were some exciting fights,” I said. I’d watched a few of them myself on YouTube.

  “That man was a beast,” Herb said.

  I hoped he used the past tense because he was talking about Dynamite’s fighting career, and not because of something more sinister.

  “And he lives here now!” Herb said. “Right here in Good Isle! Year round!”