by David Berens
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Vito said, “but be careful. Eddie ain’t always the most up and up guy.”
“Eddie?”
“Yeah, Eddie Vargo.”
“Cool.”
“I’ll text you his number,” Vito said. “Tell him I sent you, but don’t expect that to get you no favors.”
“Thanks, Vito.”
“Yeah, don’t thank me yet,” Vito said, “I dunno how helpful that’ll be. Anyways, when you gonna get out to Vegas again?”
Troy shook his head. “Not sure ‘bout that one. I’ll let you know if I ever do.”
“Aight, cool, brother,” Vito said, “be safe.”
“You too,” Troy said and hung up the phone.
As soon as he did, a text came through with a phone number and the name Eddie Vargo. Troy sniffed and punched the number to dial it. It went to voicemail.
Dangit, Troy thought, don’t nobody answer the dang phone anymore?
He left a short and sweet message: “Vito sent me. Call me back. I’m interested in that paintin’ I keep seein’ on the news. Name’s Troy. Call me back on this number.”
He dropped his phone on the coffee table and picked up a Ziploc bag full of dollar bills. He proceeded to count his haul from Club One. As he counted, he couldn’t help but grin.
Part III
Finishing Strokes
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
30
Pumpkin’ Chunkin’
Troy was belly up to the bar at the Rail Pub when the cute blond girl almost young enough to be his daughter hobbled up and stood next to him. He was four Coronas in and sipping on number five and not necessarily against some company. His head had begun to ache, thinking about all the heavy stuff he’d been involved in with the suicide… er, murder, of Tayler.
He’d pretty much excluded Mortimer LeFleur as a suspect with the video evidence from Club One, and was basically at a loss about how to proceed from there. Since Eddie Vargo hadn’t yet called him back, he figured it would be a good idea to grab a beer with some of his stage money. And he knew for dang sure he wasn’t goin’ back to Club One… yet.
The girl with unbelievably big brown doe-eyes stared at him for at least five minutes before she finally spoke.
“Well?” she asked.
Troy put his beer down, still almost half full, and looked at her. Is it just me, or is the college female population gettin’ prettier and prettier every single year? He smiled and put a finger on the front brim of his Outback Tea Stained straw cowboy hat.
“Well what?” he asked.
“You gonna offer to buy me a drink, or what, cowboy?” she said, batting her eyelashes.
Troy took the final sip of his fifth Corona and held two fingers up toward the bartender.
“Orange slice?” the college kid wearing the VAN HALEN KICKS ASS t-shirt asked him.
“Okay by you?” Troy asked the girl.
“Sure,” she said and propped a pair of crutches up beside her against the bar. “Little help?”
Troy got down off his own stool and grabbed her around the waist. Firm, young, and muscled more than he’d expected. Hoisting her up, he plopped her down on the next seat and noticed the bright pink cast on her left leg.
“How’d ya get that ding?” he asked, nodding toward the cast.
She inhaled, and suddenly Troy wondered if he’d gotten himself into a long and drawn out story he didn’t really want to hear. But she was diving in, so he had no choice but to hear her out.
“Well,” she said as the bartender sat the two beers in front of them, “have you ever heard of a Spartan Run?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Okay,” she said, “it’s like an obstacle course, but for adults. Most of the time, it’s a three-mile run with about twenty obstacles. Sometimes wall climbs, rope climbs, spear throws, Atlas balls—”
“Atlas balls?” Troy interrupted her.
“Yeah, big stones you have to move from one location to another and sometimes put up on a pedestal,” she said quickly. “So, anyway, I had just competed in my first beast run—”
“Beast run?” he asked.
“Uh huh,” she said and nodded vigorously, “fourteen miles of crazy. Hell yeah!”
She fist-pumped the air at this last comment, but when she realized Troy wasn’t going to react more, she launched back into the story.
“And this one was going to complete my Trifecta,” she said, and then as Troy opened his mouth to ask, she held up a hand. “That’s when you do a sprint, a super, and a beast all in the same year. Anyway, there I was coming down from the ape hanger, and I felt somethi—”
“You broke your leg on the landing, eh?” Troy smiled and sipped his beer.
“Uh, no.” She looked like she thought he was stupid. “I felt my shoe sink into the mud. I didn’t have time to get it back, so I just left it and ran on.”
“Oh,” Troy said.
“Yeah, and wouldn’t you know it,” she huffed, “the last obstacle was the dang inverted wall.”
“Ahhhh,” Troy said, pretending he knew what that was, “the old inverted wall.”
“I know, right?” she said, now smiling. “So, I say to Ben – my boyfriend – you’re gonna have to go up first and when you get to the top, just hang there and pull me up.” She paused, swallowing the last of her beer.
“Another?” Troy asked.
When she nodded, the bartender was already popping the top on another one.
“So, yeah,” she continued without skipping a beat, “he gets up there and starts to drop down to the other side. I’m like, ‘excuse me, you forgot something’.”
“The nerve.” Troy was too deep in to stop listening now… he needed to know how she broke her leg.
“Am I right?” she huffed. “So, like, Ben – my boyfriend – climbs back up the other side, reaches over the wall, and grabs me by my wrists, but by this time I’m covered in sweat and mu—”
“He dropped you and you broke your leg?” Troy asked.
“No, he didn’t drop me,” she said matter-of-factly, “he pulled on me and I slipped… and his hand caught hold of my sports bra.”
She started laughing as if she’d gotten to the punch line of the joke. Troy shrugged.
“So, yeah, basically, I finished the race topless,” – she laughed harder – “and with one shoe!”
Troy smiled a little. “Well, I’ll be.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said and shook her head. “Can you believe that?”
“Hard to believe,” Troy said. “So, you finished the race without breaking your leg?”
“Yeah, totally,” she said, “but then, that’s when Ben – my boyfriend – says he’s got tickets to the game.”
“The game?”
“Yeah, the football game. Duh.”
“Right,” Troy said on an inhale, “the football game.”
“So, I’m like, what the hell am I going to wear?” She pointed to her shirt. It was an oversized men’s dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbow. Troy noticed for the first time that her shorts were black spandex.
“Let me guess,” Troy said, “that’s Ben’s shirt?”
“Uh, no,” she said and huffed again, “why would I have his shirt on?”
“Oh, well, um—”
“No, but anyway,” – she launched right back in – “so, I’m like, okay sure, I’ll go to the game, but uh, I’m basically topless.”
“So,” Troy asked, now slightly more interested, “you just stood there at the end of the race… without a shirt on?”
“Well, yeah,” she said, “lots of girls lose their tops during the race. It’s just kind of a thing.”
“Gonna have to check one of these things out,” Troy said through a grin.
“Yeah, you’d really like it,” she said, missing his innuendo completely.
The bartender laughed as he slid two new beers in f
ront of them. Troy shrugged his shoulders at the guy, but he backed away with his hands raised in a don’t-ask-me-bro kind of look.
“Okay,” she said grabbing the beer, “so, where was I?”
“Football game?”
“Right,” she said, “the football game. So, anyway, Ben gave me his shirt to wear for the car ride and drove me over to the thrift store.”
“The thrift store?”
“Duh,” she said, “you can get all kinds of cool vintage stuff there.”
“Naturally,” Troy said.
“So, anyway, I ran in and grabbed this totally awesome shirt,” she said.
Troy waited, but she seemed as if she’d come to the end of her story.
“So…” he started, “your leg?”
“Oh, yeah,” she giggled, “that’s what I was telling you.”
Troy mentally slapped his forehead with his hand. He’d just slammed his exit from this conversation shut.
“Shots?” he mouthed at the bartender.
The guy laughed and grabbed a dark green bottle out of a nearby refrigerator. All the while the girl continued with her story.
“But outside the stadium, they had this pumpkin patch set up,” she said, “you know, corn maze, pumpkins, hay bales, pony rides, petting zoo, all that jazz.”
“Uh huh,” Troy said, throwing back the ice-cold shot of Jaeger the bartender had slid in front of him.
“So,” she continued, “Ben says, ‘Hey let’s do the slide together’, and I was like, okay, cool!”
Troy sniffed. Maybe.
“And the sign said, only one person allowed at a time, but Ben said it would be fine, so we went together. And at the end of the slide, he slammed into me and my leg twisted to the side. Heard it snap and everything.”
“Dang,” Troy said, “that sounds painful.”
“Oh, it totally was,” she said. “I screamed pretty loud I guess, cause some girl came over and grabbed me pretty quick. She threw me over her shoulder like I didn’t weigh anything at all. I mean, I’m not big or anything, but I have muscles. See?”
She flexed her good leg and the quad muscles tensed and became rock hard.
“Impressive,” Troy said.
“Thanks,” the girl said sheepishly.
“I was talkin’ bout the gal who picked you up.”
“Oh.”
“So, what the heck happened to Ben,” Troy asked.
“I dumped his ass,” she said. “I mean, he basically threw me off him at the bottom of the slide.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “I mean, if it weren’t for Becky, I’d probably still be at the pumpkin patch waitin’ on a ride.”
“Becky?”
“Yeah, that’s what she said her name was, I think,” the girl said. “Super cute and strong, too.”
“Picked you right up, eh?”
“Yeah,” the girl nodded quickly.
“Huh, ain’t that somethin’.” Troy motioned the bartender for the check.
The girl droned on about something else, but Troy was long gone. His mind was drifting back to something he’d heard a day or so ago… something to do with Becky acting strange about the whole mess with Savannah and Tayler. Troy thought about what it would’ve taken to get Tayler up to the rafters. And it could’ve been that Becky was strong enough to grab Savannah too.
“Where’s that check?” he said to the bartender.
“Oh, you leavin’?” the girl asked.
“Yeah,” he said, dropping a couple of twenties on top of his tab. “I gotta see somebody.”
“Will I see you again?”
“You never know,” he said, and tipped his hat.
31
Seal The Deal
Eddie Vargo’s head was spinning around as he watched the streets of downtown Savannah roll by. He and his associate, T.D., were following the last known destination recorded in the rental car’s G.P.S. to hopefully track down where the thief had taken the car.
It became clear soon enough that they were headed back into town… exactly where, he wasn’t sure yet. But as they drove, the picture became sharper and sharper. Heading slightly southeast on Oglethorpe Avenue, they passed by the SCAD Museum of Art first, then the Savannah Civic Center, and eventually reached their destination at the Jepson Center for the Arts… the museum where the painting they were supposedly buying had been displayed.
So, the thief had been to the museum… big surprise. They drove past the Jepson and passed more likely destinations; The Savannah Theater, SCAD’s Bradley Hall, and eventually the Colonial Park Cemetery, a frequent hangout for the artsy-fartsy community around the college. Eddie pulled over and pointed at the G.P.S. unit.
“Gimme a new one,” he said to T.D.
The big man punched a few buttons and scrolled through a list of addresses. He clicked one with his finger.
“Let’s try this one,” he said. “It’s pretty close by.”
“Sounds good ta me.” Eddie pulled the car back into the lane.
As he did, a big red Jeep slammed into the side of their silver rental car.
“Holy geezus!” yelled Eddie.
“Ooof,” T.D. grunted as their car tipped up on its side, but then fell back down on all four wheels.
“What the ever-lovin’ hell?” Eddie punched the steering wheel.
It honked loudly and then, apparently stuck in the on position, honked continuously.
“Make it stop, boss,” T.D. said with his hands over his ears.
“Donchu think I would if I could?” Eddie said and smacked T.D. on the shoulder. “Just get out.”
The Jeep was sitting a few feet away, but there was almost no damage to it. The front bumper had a little silver paint on it, but that was the only evidence of the crash. Inside, Eddie could make out two female figures, both blonde, and could hear their voices screeching at each other.
“Why’n the hell’d you go and do ‘at?” one voice demanded.
“Cause, he done pulled out in front a me!”
“Well, hell, why donchu watch whar yer goin’?”
“If’n you din’t have at damn music up so loud, I could think better.”
“You ain’t thought better ever in yer life, Daisy!”
This continued for a minute before Eddie reached the driver’s side door of the Jeep and rapped hard on the window.
The driver, a not-quite-pretty blonde woman, smiled broadly at him. He noticed the girl in the passenger’s side seat was an almost exact copy of her. Twins. In the back he saw a little boy quietly working on a coloring book, or something like that. Poor kid, he thought.
The window rolled down and the woman grinned at him.
“I hope to hell you got insurance,” Eddie barked to her.
“Oh, we got insurance, right, Ellie Mae?” The woman laughed and looked at the twin.
“You wanna see it?” the girl – Ellie Mae, he gathered – asked him.
“Well, that is how things like this wo—”
Before he could get to his next thought, the woman in the passenger’s seat had stood up, turned around, pulled down her pants, and mooned him. The girl in the driver’s seat put two middle fingers up in his face.
“Eat that insurance, why dontcha!”, and as she said it, she stomped the gas and the giant Jeep screeched away, running over the tip of Eddie’s left toes.
“Sonofabitch!” he yelped and grabbed his left foot, jumping up and down on his right. “Ow, shit, ow, shit, ow, shit…”
T.D. jumped out of their car and ran over to him. “Boss, you okay? What the hell happened?”
“Those bitches ran over my goddamn foot!”
“Oh, damn,” T.D. said, scratching the back of his neck, “do you need to go to the hospital?”
Eddie smacked him on the shoulder. “Hell no, you idiot. All they can do is tape my toes together and give me some aspirin.”
T.D. shrugged. Eddie put a hand on the huge man’s shoulder.
“Here,” h
e said, limping gingerly on his damaged foot, “help me back into the car. You drive this time.”
“Sure thing, boss,” T.D. said, helping Eddie over to the car.
The Honda was smashed pretty good behind the passenger door with part of the fender rubbing against the wheel.
“Shit,” Eddie said, eyeing the damage, “did you get the insurance?”
“Uh, yeah, boss.” T.D. laughed nervously. “Course I did.”
“You better have!”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it, boss,” he said and waved a hand, “it’s all good.”
Eddie Vargo wasn’t so sure, but that didn’t matter right now. All he wanted to do was track down the asshat who had swindled him out of a bunch of cash and a crazy valuable painting.
“Just get me to the next address,” he said. “I’ll check on my foot when we get there.”
“Right, boss,” T.D. said and pushed the gas.
A metallic screeching and a grinding sound followed them all the way to the next destination… which was exactly 1.1 miles away. Two turns later, they pulled into The Coffee Fox – a local competitor to Starbucks. Eddie had no freakin’ idea why someone would pay so much for a cup of coffee, but he could feel his foot swelling badly in his shoe, so he decided to get a drink and some ice for his foot.
32
It Ain’t Me…Again
Eddie and T.D. walked… well, T.D. walked, Eddie limped… into the café and he slumped down at the first table.
“Grab me something strong,” he said to T.D., “and a bag of ice.”
“You got it, boss.” T.D. jogged toward the counter.
Eddie looked around. Typical. Bunch of hippie artist types hangin’ out discussing all things etherical and esoteric. Bullshit, if you asked him. But the thief had come here at least once, so it had to be important.
With great care, he reached down and unlaced his Bostonian dress shoe – a great choice for getting run over in – and eased it off his foot. For a second, the pain flashed into his foot and he was sure he was pulling his actual toes off… but he wasn’t. They were all still inside his sock. He rolled the top of his sock down and was about to pull it off when T.D. returned with two cups of coffee and a small baggie of ice.
