Burning Heat

by David Burnsworth

  “Where’d you get the Audi?” I asked.

  “Police auction. Belonged to some drug dealer, what they told me. I got it for a good price ’cause it’s a standard. You can drive a standard, can’t you?”

  I nodded, thinking this could even be my old car.

  Mutt said, “Batman and Robin ride again.”

  The tow truck driver asked, “Who is which?”

  “I’m Batman, of course,” said Mutt. “Already got the color.”

  The man drove the Audi off the truck and we exchanged keys. While he loaded the rental car, I sat in the Audi and revved the motor a few times. It sounded fine. I shut the door and took off hard. After two laps around the lot, I sped up to sixty and slammed on the brakes. Everything worked like it was supposed to. I drove back to where Mutt and the man stood watching, got out, and handed over an envelope with twenty thousand dollars, gotten from cash I kept on hand at the Cove.

  The man took the money and held up a small black box. “We gotta get gone. They could come lookin’.”

  After the old man signed over the title to the Audi to me, Mutt and I got in and sped away.

  That afternoon, Mutt and I took up a post by the pavilion at the Market. He lit a cigarette and offered me one, trying to return the favor of the cigar. Though tempted, I knew the stogies were already doing a number on my lungs. Adding another vice wouldn’t help my jogging.

  In response to Gardner sending his goons after me, Patricia turned over the copy of Willa Mae’s diary to the Charleston police chief. It didn’t take him long to find Jon-Jon’s name in it and decide that, maybe, the case wasn’t only about the murder of some worthless hooker. I guess it helped that the Gardner name meant the case would turn high profile and put him and his department in the limelight. Darcy’s source had tipped her when and where the takedown would be, which is why Mutt and I happened to be standing partially hidden behind a street vendor, getting a clear view of what was about to occur. I got a call from my old friend Sergeant Wilson.

  “Kind of busy right now, Detective,” I said.

  Wilson said, “Yeah, right. I forgot how good you think you are at solving crimes.”

  I laughed. “What’s up?”

  “Get up here. I got something for you but I’d rather give it in person.”

  He wouldn’t normally just ask me to make the drive. Something was up. I looked at my vintage Tag watch. “Okay, Mutt and I will be there—how is two hours from now. Where you wanna meet?”

  Wilson told me where and hung up.

  “When this is all over,” I said, “my dog and I are going to Mexico for a month.”

  “You ain’t gonna go without me, are ya?” Mutt asked.

  “Or me,” said a voice from behind us. A female voice. One that sounded a whole lot like—

  “Detective Warrez,” I said. “Did you come to watch all the fun?”

  Almost under his breath, Mutt said, “Whoa.”

  My friend was right. With her black hair tucked behind her ears, her unblemished face, and her piercing eyes, she had our attention.

  She said, “I got word that you were in the vicinity, and darned if my intel wasn’t spot on.”

  “We wouldn’t miss this for anything,” I said. “I thought you’d be the one snapping the cuffs on the spoiled brat.”

  “Conflict of interest,” she said. “I might accidentally shoot him, and who’d want to have to explain something like that?”

  Mutt chuckled.

  “My real concern is what you two are doing here.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And why.”

  “It’s a free country,” I said.

  “Freedom I believe in,” she said. “Coincidence I don’t.”

  Jon-Jon and his buddies came out of the restaurant they’d been in.

  Mutt said, “Check this out.”

  We watched the awaited event unfold.

  As soon as the rich punk reached the sidewalk, the police were on him like flies on a dog turd. The first officer spun Jon-Jon face-first into the wall and wrenched his right arm behind his back. I couldn’t see Darcy, but I was sure she was capturing all this in digital.

  Jon-Jon yelled, “What are you doing?”

  From experience, I knew cops didn’t like being questioned while they violated your rights. The second uniform pulled out a card and Mirandized Jon-Jon.

  Jon-Jon’s entourage took a few steps back, and stared, speechless. Then, one of the other privileged brats said, “You can’t do that. My dad’s a lawyer. He’ll have you fired.”

  The cop turned to the smart-mouth. “Well, since I’m going to get fired, I guess I’ll haul you in, too.”

  The smart-mouth reeled back and said, “Hey man, just sayin’.”

  The cop smiled. “Well, you can say it at the station or shut up.”

  As an officer slapped the cuffs on Jon-Jon, another searched his pockets, pulling out his keys and wallet. Then they escorted him to their waiting cruiser. Jon-Jon’s entourage followed close behind, as if in a trance, crowding the officers trying to do their jobs. In the commotion, the police told them to stay back or they’d be coming with their friend. The brat-packers looked at each other, shrugged, and backed away. Each took out his phone and snapped photos.

  Jon-Jon looked at his friends as the police loaded him into the cruiser and drove off. I almost felt sorry for him. His picture would be all over the web before the cruiser made it through the first traffic light.

  “Well,” I said, “Jon-Jon’s used to being chauffeured.”

  Mutt took a drag off his smoke. “They’re gonna love him in lock up. Cute white boy like that.”

  Detective Warrez said, “Remember, stay out of the way unless you want to ride with your friend Jon-Jon.”

  We watched her walk away.

  “Ma-an,” Mutt said. “She got some nice action.” He turned back to the scene. “You see them po-lice officers drop some-thin’ when the kids tried to stop them?”

  “No. What was it?”

  Mutt walked over to where the arrest had just concluded. He stooped down and picked up something small, shiny, and metallic. Cigarette dangling from his lips, he examined the item, then raised his eyes to meet mine. The lines of his mouth stretched into a smile that created the best imitation of the Grinch who stole Christmas I’d ever seen, if the Grinch were a middle-aged, Kool-smoking black man with a boxed afro.

  I spread my palms. “What?”

  Mutt held up his new treasure. I saw the shiny yellow key-chain and knew exactly why he was smiling. The cops had dropped Jon-Jon’s key fob.

  Jon-Jon had parked his Ferrari diagonally across two spots in the public lot. It sat low and mean in the nastiest shade of blood red.

  “Man,” Mutt said, “I hate it when people park like that.”

  “Did you notice the sign out front of the lot?” I said. “It read full.” I stood by the driver’s side. “I think we need to do our part to support Charleston tourism.”

  Mutt stood across from me. “You mean free up two spots for the good peoples what came down to support our fair city?”

  “Something like that.”

  He tossed me the keys.

  “You think this is what Detective Warrez meant by getting in the way?” I asked.

  “Naw.”

  I pressed the button to disengage the alarm and opened the door. Mutt ran his hand across the smooth leather seat before getting in.

  “I ain’t never been in one of these,” he said.

  “Me either.” We sat and my fingers curled around the steering wheel, getting the feel of it. “If the cops stop us, we found the keys and were looking for the owner.”

  “Yeah,” Mutt said, “that’ll work.”

  The Italian V-8 barked to life with the fury of a thousand gunshots going off at once.

  “How!” Mutt yelled.

  “How is right.”

  I tried to remember what the car magazines had said about how the automated transmission worked and finally found the r
ight sequence. Lucky for us, the attendant was nowhere to be found and I inched out of the lot to avoid scraping the front spoiler on the dip at the exit. Once on East Bay, I opened up the throttle. The “waaaaa” of the engine located behind the seats as it went through the gears sounded like something that should be in a fighter plane. With no cars in front of us as we headed onto the new bridge, I got it up to a hundred and glanced at Mutt. “You look a little white.”

  Then I really pushed it. The force made time stand still—like in the Star Wars movies when Han Solo put the Millennium Falcon into warp drive and the stars became lines. Air turbulence baffled the cockpit. I felt every groove in the road surface through the steering wheel but the car tracked straight and true.

  What seemed like seconds later we descended into Mount Pleasant. At the first traffic light, Mutt’s hands shook as he fumbled to light a cigarette. He took a long drag and exhaled slowly. His eyes looked straight ahead. “Opie,” he said, “this is one bad whip.”

  The light turned green. I took a quick glance around, then floored the accelerator again.

  Luck was on our side. Anyone dumb enough to steal a bright red Ferrari belonging to a murder suspect and speed through busy suburbs needed something to counteract his lack of brains. We spotted no police and were in Georgetown, fifty miles north of Charleston, before the next challenge occurred. A light appeared on the dash.

  I said, “I think we need to stop for gas.”

  At the next intersection I slowed and pulled into a filling station, hoping the gas cap would be easy to find. It was and on my side of the car, too. I found one of Jon-Jon’s dorky visors stuck behind the driver’s seat, added a pair of wraparound sunglasses from the glove box, and went inside to pay the attendant fifty bucks. In high-test dollars, that equaled not very many gallons at the pump. We’d be stopping again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Detective Sergeant Wilson had said he’d meet us at the Dirty Laundry Bar in Myrtle Beach. He was late. Mutt spent the time shooting pool with some local sharks. I smiled when he let them take him the first two games for ten bucks and suggested doubling up the next one. If Wilson didn’t get here soon, Mutt would own these guys.

  Wilson walked into the bar dressed in a yellow knit shirt and cotton trousers with more wrinkles in them than Hugh Heffner’s face. He looked like he’d lost a few pounds off his stocky frame, along with a little more hair off his head. A Glock sat in a holster clipped to his belt. His eyes scanned the room until they found me.

  I stood and shook my friend’s hand.

  From the pool tables, I heard Mutt yell, “How!”

  Wilson looked over at him.

  I said, “The sharks just met a killer whale.”

  “Don’t tell me Mutt’s cleaning out the local guns?”

  I smiled.

  “And,” he said, “don’t tell me you and Shamu over there drove up here in a red Ferrari owned by a certain individual I just learned got popped today?”

  I said, “Okay. I won’t tell you that.”

  The bartender asked if we wanted anything.

  Wilson said, “Iced tea. And make sure I get one of those plastic umbrellas.”

  The bartender said, “Plastic umbrella?”

  Wilson smiled. “Yeah, like the ones y’all put in the mixers.”

  “We don’t have those here, sir,” the bartender said.

  “Well then surprise me,” Wilson said.

  The bartender smirked and walked away.

  Wilson turned to me. “About that certain red sports car. There ain’t an A.P.B. on it or anything. But, if I knew its owner was in jail and had wondered why it was a hundred miles north of where it outta be, I’d have to call it in. Lucky for me, I didn’t get a good enough look.”

  I said, “Now that we have that settled, why don’t we get Mutt out of here before it gets ugly?”

  “Probably a good idea. A couple of those guys have records.”

  The bartender returned with Wilson’s iced tea. The lemon had a toothpick stuck in it.

  Wilson said, “That the best you could do?”

  He said, “Surprise.”

  Outside, the sun was so hot I felt the hair on my head begin to singe. The three of us walked along the sidewalk, passing the tourist shops and bars.

  Mutt said, “Two more games and I’da owned those guys.”

  I said, “Two more games and we’d have had to shoot our way outta there.”

  Wilson said, “You guys wanna stay here and complain or you wanna know what I got for you?”

  “Since you brought it up,” I said, “why are we here?”

  Without replying, Wilson led us to his unmarked Charger.

  “You arrestin’ us for stealin’?” Mutt asked.

  Opening the driver’s side door to his Dodge, Wilson hesitated before getting in. “I could do that. It’d be a good collar, too. Grand theft auto of a Ferrari.” He smiled and inhaled through his nose. “Don’t get opportunities like that around here very often.”

  The three of us stared at each other for a moment. Mutt lit a Kool. Detective Wilson stuck a toothpick in his mouth. I put my hands in my pockets.

  Finally, Wilson said, “Two uniforms rolled a scumbag for selling Ativan to kids and getting a little too friendly with the teenage girls. On a hunch, a buddy of mine got the perp in the box and sweated him out a little. We got him on possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute, and of course it ain’t his first rodeo. He was small fish and we really wanted his source. Lo and behold if he don’t start talking about a dead, high-priced hooker in Charleston.”

  Sweat dripped into my eyes and I wiped my head and face with my T-shirt. The distraction kept me grounded. My mind spun faster than the engine in Jon-Jon’s Ferrari.

  “Well spill it!” Mutt said.

  Wilson said, “This is way off the record.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “For a ‘get out of jail free’ card,” Wilson said, “he’ll give a name.”

  “Why aren’t you talking to Charleston P.D.?” I asked.

  Wilson’s eyes met mine. “We did. They weren’t interested in what some drug dealer in Myrtle Beach looking to cut a deal had to say.”

  “But you believe him?” Mutt asked.

  “Something about it rings true,” Wilson said. “He said the guy was an amphetamine freak and a gun for hire. Any job that paid his rate, which is not cheap. No questions.”

  “How’s he know this?” I asked.

  “My snitch’s supplier was also the killer’s.”

  “Was?”

  “He’s dead.”

  I asked him if he knew Detective Warrez.

  “You betcha,” he said. “I tried six ways from Sunday to get into her pants. I think she may hit for the other team.”

  “Either that,” I said, “or she’s actually got taste.”

  He laughed and said, “You’re not the only one that has a grudge against Jon-Jon. She can’t stand him.”

  “What’s the connection?”

  “Warrez’s got a daughter. Must be twenty, now. Anyway, a couple years ago Jon-Jon gets hold of her and next thing you know the teenager’s pregnant. Wonder boy finds out he’s gonna be a daddy and pressures the girl to have an abortion. Her mother didn’t find out until after the fact. Last I heard the poor girl had a nervous breakdown. She’s in treatment in some facility near Columbia.”

  That was why Warrez couldn’t be involved in Jon-Jon’s arrest. Her “conflict of interest” comment made sense.

  What Wilson provided was good information, but I wondered why he couldn’t give it to me over the phone. Especially since that seemed to be all he had. In any event, it was good to see my friend again. Because I thought it would be funny, we left the Ferrari in Myrtle Beach. Let the punk figure out how his car got there. Mutt and I spent twenty minutes wiping our prints off the interior and door handles. I stuck the keyfob in the glove box and walked away. Detective Wilson assured us the lot where we’d par
ked it did not have camera surveillance, and he gave us a lift all the way back to Charleston.

  The beeping of the Audi’s rear bumper sensors sped up to one steady hum as I backed into a spot about fifteen cars up the block from Mutt’s Bar. I thought I had another inch until I heard a crunch. After pulling the emergency brake, Mutt and I got out to assess the damage. It was just an old trash can that someone had left too close to the curb. I’d pinned it to a telephone pole also too close to the curb. I got back in the car, pulled forward to release the can, and killed the motor.

  As I moved the crushed can away from the street and picked up the spilled trash, a brown Cayenne SUV—a dead ringer for Jon-Jon’s—sped past us heading for Mutt’s Bar. The only time a Porsche ventured on this particular street was if the driver was lost or trying to score drugs or prostitutes. Mutt and I watched it double-park in front of his bar, too far away to read the tag number.

  Wearing a white visor, a white male who could have been Jon-Jon got out of the SUV carrying what looked like two liquor bottles. While I contemplated how he could have been released so soon from the clutches of the police, the figure lit a rag or something sticking out the top of one, opened the screen door, and threw it inside.

  I screamed, “No!” and ran toward the rich snot.

  He lit the second bottle and threw it at the front of the bar. It shattered against the siding. The contents ignited in a wave and the white bastard jumped in his SUV and sped away.

  In seconds, an explosion blew the screen door off its hinges. It landed on the sidewalk in front of me.

  Immediately behind me, Mutt screamed, “Willie!”

  Flames engulfed the narrow building. Mutt ran across the busted screen door to the inferno. I grabbed him and dragged him away.

  He pushed and punched, screaming, “Willie’s in there!”

  A second explosion erupted. The front of the bar collapsed in on itself with the most god-awful groan.

  “Willie!” Mutt yelled, struggling to get free of my grip.

  Another wall fell in. The abandoned house next door burst into flames. A lone siren pierced the roar all around us.