Jake Caldwell Thrillers

by Weaver, James

  “Blue Heron Industries. How may I direct your call?”

  “Sorry, wrong number,” Jake said and hung up.

  He went to his make-shift desk on his dining room table and booted his laptop. He punched up a Google search on Blue Heron Industries. The company was located in Olathe, Kansas, a south Kansas City suburb thirty miles from Jake’s apartment. Blue Heron was established ten years ago and employed a hundred people making antibiotics for the pharmaceutical industry. The President and CEO was Wyatt Drabek.

  He searched the Internet for another thirty minutes but couldn’t find much of note on the company. Why would a girl make a terrified call for help from a pharma company? And why would she call the phone of a guy involved with Voleski? He thought of calling the police, but he’d have to explain how he came to know about it. He could make an anonymous call, but it wouldn’t lead to any answers for him or Logan.

  Jake’s stomach growled. His refrigerator sat barren except for a bottle of ketchup and a lone pickle swimming in an expired jar. His finger hovered over Logan’s number on his cell but decided to let the man sleep a couple more hours. A minute later he climbed in his truck and drove to a Mexican joint named Ponak’s on Southwest Boulevard, options on what to do about the mystery girl dancing in his head. He waited for the right one to stick.

  The restaurant was packed. People huddled in talkative groups while they waited for tables. A group of dedicated drinkers hung out at the carved-up bar on wobbly stools that saw their better days two decades ago. An open window revealed a bustling kitchen packed assholes to elbows with sweaty Hispanics dancing around each other to get food on the plates. Jake waited for a table but ended up taking a single seat vacated by a guy in a power suit at the end of the bar. He ordered enchiladas and a beer.

  He set his fork on his empty plate and finished the last swallow of a Corona when Tommy Vitore sat at a table in the corner. Tommy was his former boss Jason Keats’ third in command. Jake still had nightmares over what Tommy did in a dingy apartment with a fireplace poker to some poor schlep so deep in the hole with Keats he would never see daylight again. He still heard that guy scream in his dreams. That very event first raised the thought that he needed to get out of the mob. Tommy noticed him at the bar and offered a slight tick with his massive head. It was not a “come over and let’s catch up” motion, and not surprising since Jake was out of the family. Jake returned the nod, tossed a twenty on the table and left.

  He drove south on I-35 into Kansas, traffic picking up as people got off work for the day. Thirty minutes later, he found himself sitting on a two-lane access road outside Blue Heron Industries in Olathe. The non-descript, white building, two stories high and a hundred yards long sprawled fifty yards back from the road behind a manicured expanse of grass. Giant block letters spelled out Blue Heron along the side of the building with a long-necked caricature of a bird nestled in the background. Six semi-trucks backed into loading docks with two dozen cars parked in a lot on the building’s west side. A thick aluminum pole set in a flowered rock garden hosted a flapping American flag that reflected from the tinted windows covering the building’s entrance.

  The sound of the screaming girl calling from the building echoed in his mind when a man in a dark suit emerged from the front entrance. Crew cut, thick in the shoulders with dark sunglasses, like a Secret Service agent without the earpiece. The man paced the dock perimeter and spoke into a walkie-talkie. Probably security. Jake’s cell phone rang. It was Logan.

  “Catch a good nap?” Jake asked.

  “I wish. What’s the old saying about beer and liquor?”

  “Beer before liquor and you’ll even be sicker.”

  “That’s the one. You’d think I’d be able to get it right by now. Anyway, got a guy with a bead on Voleski. I gotta track down a couple things but meet me at my office around seven tonight. Since I found Voleski this morning, we’ll see if a broken clock can be right twice a day.”

  Jake hung up. It was hard not to like Logan. As Jake observed the security guy doing his perimeter sweep, he asked himself again why a terrified girl would call from a small business and why she would call a guy chasing after Alexander Voleski. With no answers, Jake shifted the truck in drive and headed home. An all too familiar guilt settled on his shoulders as he left, wondering if the girl was still inside.

  * * *

  Alexander Voleski huddled in a darkened doorway in Kansas City’s downtown, chest heaving and tired of running. He was built for fighting, not a track meet. Ever since he stole the silver briefcase it seemed he did nothing but dodge people and hide out. A lot of people wanted the contents of the case and would pay well or kill for it. He just had to reach the last safe house and stay out of sight until the exchange. Three more days.

  He shivered against the cool breeze and zipped up his leather jacket, too thin for the weather and too tight for his large frame. Three more days and Voleski would have more money than he’d know what to do with. If he could stay alive long enough.

  Chapter Four

  At six-thirty that evening, Jake rolled off his bed and cranked out fifty quick pushups and fifty crunches to get the blood flowing. He donned blue jeans and a long-sleeved red and blue flannel button down over his broad shoulders. Shutting off the lights, he headed out the door to meet Logan.

  He wound from the parking lot into a blood-red setting sun and onto Oak Street traveling north. His aging truck tugged to the left. Dollar bills he couldn’t afford to spend on an alignment tugged at his wallet. He cruised past the bar and restaurant-packed Power & Light District on his left and the Sprint Center, a glass walled arena, on his right. Concert goers lined up outside to jam to Def Leppard. One of his favorite 80s bands. He wished he was heading inside instead of chasing after Voleski.

  Five minutes later, he stopped in front of a plain brick, three-story building on the edge of downtown. A sandwich shop nestled next to a laundromat on the ground floor. The clientele in both locales wore dour expressions, equally unhappy to be in there. He was early so he bought a sub and stood on the sidewalk eating and watching the few pedestrians pass, trying to ignore the rancid smell coming from the alley dumpster. He ate half the bland sub before tossing the rest in a nearby trashcan. The soap in the laundromat would probably have more flavor.

  At five till seven he opened the door to the left of the sub shop and climbed the groaning wooden stairs to the third floor. A cheap, brown door with an opaque glass window read “Jack Logan, Private Investigator”, like something out of a 1950s-gumshoe detective movie. The door stood ajar a couple inches. Jake pushed it open and scowled.

  Someone had trashed the outer office where a part-time secretary worked during the day. Either that or Logan was the world’s shittiest filer. He’d met the meticulous Victoria a few times, and she would be pissed. Papers strewn over the floor, file cabinets and desk drawers either hung open or lay empty on the hardwood floor. Cheap couch cushions rested below a solitary window, their stuffing sticking out from the slashed fabric. Whoever did this left no stone unturned. The door to Logan’s office was closed. Jake drew the Glock from his concealed waistband holster and gripped it two handed, barrel down. He edged toward the closed door.

  “Logan? Jack?” No answer. Jake heard nothing but car horns and rolling tires from the street outside. He twisted the knob and flung open the door, raising his gun to sweep the room. Logan’s office was as trashed as the outer lobby. The one difference was the crumpled and bloody heap lying alongside an overturned chair.

  “Jesus,” Jake whispered. He tucked the gun into his waistband and squatted at Logan’s limp body. Checked the neck and found a weak pulse. His eyes were swollen shut, his nose broken, and two large lacerations ran down his cheeks. Dried blood caked his cracked face and cheap suit. Deep, raw rings ran around both his wrists. Someone cuffed him to the chair and beat the shit out of him.

  The last thing Jake wanted was to get involved with the police, but he couldn’t let Logan die. He dialed 9-1-1 from Lo
gan’s desk phone. The ambulance and police arrived six minutes later.

  “How do you know, Mr. Logan?” a uniformed cop named Murphy asked Jake while a couple of young paramedics tended to Logan. Murphy had a low forehead and wide set eyes and spoke like he’d been dropped on his head multiple times as a child.

  “We work together.”

  “You a PI, too?”

  “Sort of. I was learning the ropes from Jack. Don’t have a license yet.”

  Murphy jotted in a notebook. Paramedics wheeled Logan out of the office on a stretcher, and Jake wondered how they would get him down those three flights of narrow stairs. A rail-thin, black detective with a shaved head and a cheap, tan suit slipped into the room. His polar opposite partner squeezed through the door; red faced with beads of sweat rolling down his jowls from the three-flight climb. The fat one was as tall as he was wide and waddled into Logan’s office. The bald one talked to Murphy, took some notes, and turned to Jake.

  “I’m Detective Ogio. You know Jack Logan long, Mr. Caldwell?”

  “Three years,” Jake answered. “We were supposed to meet tonight.”

  “To do what?”

  The detective waited with raised eyebrows for an answer. Ogio’s acorn eyes were hooded, giving him a sleepy look, but there was light there. The guy wasn’t stupid. He was suspicious of Jake, which pissed him off because he’d given them no reason to be suspicious. Plus, Jake couldn’t tell the cop the truth because it would start a whole line of questions he didn’t want to answer. He had to stonewall them.

  “We were going out to dinner,” Jake lied.

  “Where?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It does if I’m asking the question.”

  “I didn’t do this,” Jake said.

  “I didn’t say you did. You’re a big guy, though. Six two and what…two hundred twenty pounds?”

  “Six three, two thirty. Like that matters. Why would I beat the shit out of him and then call you guys?”

  “Like I said, I didn’t say you did. Why are you getting defensive?”

  “You think I’m being defensive?” Jake asked.

  Ogio’s head ticked to the side. “A little.”

  “I’m worried, that’s all. My buddy just got his ass kicked.”

  “What were you guys working on?”

  Jake shifted, tired of answering these banal questions.

  “We were between jobs.”

  “Must make it tough to learn the ropes.”

  “What ropes?”

  Ogio’s thin lips pressed together. “The ones Officer Murphy said you were learning from Mr. Logan.”

  “A bit. We done here? I want to go to the hospital.”

  “Why do you think Mr. Logan’s office was trashed?”

  “Somebody was looking for something.” Jake hoped the detective caught his sarcasm. He laid it on pretty thick.

  “You think? Maybe you should be a detective.”

  “Maybe you should too.”

  Ogio grinned. He clearly had a good nature. “He say anything to you about anyone being after him?”

  “He said he did a lot of divorce cases. Maybe someone looked for photos of their cheating wife.”

  “Always possible,” the detective said. He handed Jake his card—Thomas Ogio.

  “Where are they taking Logan?”

  “Truman Medical Center,” Ogio answered, flipping his notebook shut. “You got my number. Call me if you think of anything else. Stay reachable.”

  Ogio headed toward Logan’s office to join his partner. Jake strode out the door, down the steps, and out into the early March evening. He stood on the sidewalk wondering what to do. Did Logan meet with his contact that would lead them to Voleski? Did the contact do this to him? Was this about another case? Somebody wanted something up there and it wasn’t divorce photos. What did Logan say? The less you know on this one, the better.

  Jake rubbed his hand over the day’s growth on his face. The one person who could answer his questions and give him a direction to go was Logan. Jake jumped in his truck and headed toward Truman Medical Center.

  Chapter Five

  Truman Medical Center was a conglomeration of towering white buildings off Holmes Road southeast of Kansas City’s downtown. It was the busiest level-one trauma center in the city. If you were shot or stabbed in the downtown area, there was no better place to end up. Logan didn’t appear to have any bullet or puncture wounds, but Jake supposed Truman had seen its share of people who’d been beaten like a piñata.

  He parked in the visitor lot and weaved through the cars and lamp posts cutting away the night. A minute later, he flowed through the double doors of the emergency room. At nine in the evening, the room was half crowded with a wide mix of ethnicities and ailments. From his experience, it would be packed floor to ceiling in about three hours. He asked for Logan’s room, and an elderly volunteer directed him to have a seat. He chose one in the opposite corner as far as possible from a skinny, meth-head woman who coughed like she had tuberculosis.

  An hour later, the desk nurse called him up. Jake lied and said Logan was his brother. They buzzed him through double doors, and he drifted along a hall. Logan was in the fourth bay on his right surrounded by bleeding and groaning patients and separated by a paper-thin curtain. Logan lay on his back, his bloodied and shredded suit in a ball on the floor. Seeing one of his few friends lying there and knowing he could do nothing immediate about it made Jake’s blood run hot. Logan cracked open a swollen eye when Jake whispered his name.

  “You should see the other guys,” Logan said. His front teeth were broken, and he talked like he had a mouthful of gauze.

  “Who did this?”

  “Some gorillas. Four of ’em. Never seen them before.”

  “What did they want?”

  “Voleski.”

  “Why’d they think you had him?”

  “Beats the fuck outta me.” Logan coughed and winced. Probably had a few broken ribs to go with his other maladies. “These pain meds they gave me rock. Ask the doc what they are and go get me some more.”

  Jake laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Gimme a direction to go, Logan.”

  Logan started singing. Jake thought it might be a clue until he realized it was the Star-Spangled Banner, and Logan was invading la land.

  He tapped him on the cheek. “Jack? You had a bead on Voleski?”

  Logan nodded in slow motion, drifting further out to sea.

  “Where?” Jake asked. “Who was the guy you talked to?”

  Logan mumbled something, but Jake couldn’t make it out. He had to get it out of him before he dipped any further into oblivion.

  “One more time, Logan. What did you say?”

  “Under my desk. Key in my jacket.”

  Logan sang a last unintelligible line of an unknown song and faded, breathing steady but ragged. Jake searched the jumble of clothes on the floor, fishing a keychain from the bloodied suit jacket. Seconds later, a rail-thin Indian doctor who looked like he was still in high school came in with a clipboard.

  “You family?” the doctor asked.

  “His younger brother,” Jake lied again. “How is he?”

  “I’ve seen worse. Broken nose, four broken ribs, fractured orbital bones, some deep lacerations on his face. We need to do some more tests, make sure there’s no internal bleeding. I’m concerned about a concussion. Looks like he was struck in the head multiple times.”

  “How long will he be in here?”

  The doctor wrote some things on the clipboard. “If we don’t find anything worse, I’d guess three to four days. We’ll transfer him upstairs in a bit.”

  Jake snatched the doctor’s chart and wrote his cell number at the top. “Call me if anything changes.”

  Jake stomped into the spring night, anger building and adrenaline making his hands tingle. Somebody was going to pay for this. He just had to figure out who. Finding Voleski started out as a simple job. A few low-lifes just made it pers
onal. Their mistake. He decided to head back to Logan’s office to figure it out, starting with whatever Logan had under his desk.

  * * *

  The police were still combing through Logan’s office when Jake returned. He drove around the block a few times before parking nose out in an alley where he could still see the building. He dropped low in the seat and pressed his head against the rest. He fantasized about what he would do to the guys who beat up Logan if he caught them. Jake used to administer painful sentences and broke more bones in people over the years than he cared to count. Even though he tried to go on a gentler path to please Maggie and his conscience, he had to admit there was a certain pleasure in dishing pain to someone who deserved it.

  As if on cue, a couple of dickheads, one white and one black, both gaunt and dressed in dirty jeans and t-shirts, crept along the cracked sidewalk toward Jake’s truck from the west. Jake watched them in his peripheral vision, sliding his Glock close to his leg. The black guy had a hitch in his step, dragging his left foot behind him, but his head on a swivel checking their surroundings. The white one approached Jake’s window, jeans hanging low with a snatch of boxers crumpled in the back, and leaned in. A blind barber must have cut his uneven brown hair; his face was pockmarked and drawn against his skin. His goggle eyes were wide and tweaked, and he smelled as if it had been a week since his skin last kissed a bar of soap.

  “Hey, man,” the guy said. “Can you spare a few bucks?”

  Jake’s head leaned back against the headrest. He tilted it a few degrees and eyed the guy with as much steel as he could muster. “No. Go away.”

  The guy’s pupils were the size of golf balls. “Maybe you didn’t hear me right.” He whipped out a switchblade and sprung the blade forth. The black guy lurched a few steps forward, head jerking back and forth looking for potential witnesses.

  Jake didn’t move. The tweaker’s hand trembled, and he held the knife all wrong. Jake could instantly tell how worried he should be about someone by how they held their knife. This guy didn’t know shit. He might as well have been holding a crayon. “I heard you fine, friend. I’m telling you to go away.”