[Lady Justice 17] - Lady Justice and the Pharaoh's Curse

by Robert Thornhill

“Well, congratulations for a job well done,” he said, handing her the statue.

  She gave a little curtsey and jiggled back to her chair.

  “Our next award is for best supporting actor in a mystery drama, and the award goes to Willie for his portrayal of Reginald, the chauffer. Come on up Willie.”

  From the look on Willie’s face, he would probably have been happier going for a colonoscopy than enduring Jerry’s nonsense, but he reluctantly headed for the center of the room.

  “So Willie, after such a magnificent performance as Reginald the chauffer, have you considered auditioning for the part of Hoke Colburn?”

  “Who de hell is Hoke Colburn?”

  “That was Morgan Freeman’s role in Driving Miss Daisy. I think you’d be splendid for the part.”

  “An’ I think you belong in de nuthouse. Now get away from me.”

  He grabbed his trophy and stalked back to his chair.

  “Our last award goes to the two wonderful people that produced, directed and wrote the script for the magnificent production that brought our heroes back to us, Judy Wilson and Kevin McBride.

  Everyone stood and applauded.

  When Kevin accepted his little statue, I figured that he would respond with some off-the-wall comment, but he was actually serious.

  “It’s always a sad day when two cops go over to the dark side, but these two crossed the line when they planted the evidence to frame our two guys for their evil deeds. We all just did what any good friends would do to make things right. Ox, you’ve gotta know that you have one special lady here. I would be proud to be her partner anytime.”

  Judy blushed and gave him a big hug. “And this old fart is as good as any cop we have on the force.”

  I stood and looked around the room. “Ox and I want to thank you all for your support and for believing in us. Each and every one of you are like family to us. Like most families, sometimes we’re a bit strange, occasionally we’re dysfunctional, but in the end, we’re always there for each other. We love you all.”

  Ox, who isn’t much for big speeches, simply added, “What he said.”

  After more hugs and tears all around, we headed to the dining room for coffee and pastries.

  When the last crumb was gone, Dad got everyone’s attention. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I had just spent the last few days in jail, not knowing if I’d ever get to see my sweetie again, I know what I’d be wanting to do.”

  He patted Bernice on the butt.

  “How about we all clear out and give these kids some privacy?”

  There were nods and knowing smiles as our friends filed out the door.

  When we were finally alone, Maggie leaned close. “So how about it, Al Capone. Are you up for a conjugal visit?”

  “How could I say ‘no’ to a hot dame like you?”

  CHAPTER 17

  The next morning, Ox and I met at the firing range.

  Thankfully, neither of us fired our weapon that often, so with recertification just around the corner, a little practice was just what the doctor ordered.

  The last time I shot my gun, it was only by the grace of God that I hit the cobra and not Ox’s ear.

  “So, how did your evening go?” I asked.

  Ox smiled. “Can we just say that Judy welcomed me back with open arms? How about you?”

  “Please! A gentleman will never kiss and tell. Say, you seem to have lost some weight since we were tossed in the slammer.”

  Ox grinned like the Cheshire Cat. “You noticed! I had already lost three pounds. Then, when our first meal arrived, I almost puked. I just couldn’t stomach the stuff, so I decided it was as good a time as any to diet. Altogether, I’ve lost fifteen pounds. With nothing else to pass the time, I did a lot of sit-ups and push-ups. I’m a lean, mean fighting machine.”

  I wouldn’t have gone that far, but I wasn’t about to discourage my portly friend.

  “So then, the only thing that stands between us and recertification is putting a few rounds in the bull’s eye.”

  “I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s do this!”

  When we retrieved the targets from our first volley, the black silhouette of the bad guy was unscathed. At least most of the rounds were in the paper.

  “It appears that we’re a bit rusty,” Ox observed.

  “I think ‘rusty’ might be a bit generous,” I replied. “I hope you brought plenty of ammo.”

  Three boxes later, we were at least winging the perp on the target.

  “Whew! My trigger finger is screaming at me,” Ox said. “One round in the guy’s head and I’m done. Just one round.”

  It took one more box for both of us to achieve that lofty goal.

  “That’s it!” Ox declared. “Stick a fork in me cause I’m done! Do you want to stop off at Denny’s and get a grand slam before we head home?”

  I would have preferred Mel’s Diner, but Ox was a Denny’s guy.

  “Sure, why not?”

  At that moment, my cell phone buzzed.

  “Walt, this is Mary. Can you come over here right away? There’s something I want you to see and --- well--- I’m kind of scared.”

  Mary Murphy doesn’t scare easily, but I could tell by the tone in her voice that she was terrified.

  “Sure, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Everything okay?” Ox asked.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to take a rain check on the grand slam. That was Mary and something has scared the bejesus out of her.”

  “Mary? Afraid? The grand slam will have to wait. I’m going with you.”

  When we pulled up in front of the hotel, I figured that Mary would be waiting for us on the porch, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  I knocked on her door and saw her cautiously pull the little lace curtain aside. Seeing it was us, opened the door quickly and pulled us inside.

  “Mary! What in the world?”

  “Mr. Walt, I don’t mean to be a big baby and it’s probably nothing but ---.”

  “But what? Tell me!”

  “Well, I poured me a cup of coffee and fixed me a piece of toast and went out on the porch to get the newspaper. When I brought it in and took it out of the plastic sleeve, I found this inside.”

  She handed me a piece of typing paper.

  Written on the paper in bold, red letters were the words, “BANG! YOU’RE DEAD! AN EYE FOR AN EYE!”

  I handed the paper to Ox. “What do you think?”

  He gave a low whistle. “I think this might be a note from Phil Rollins. ‘An eye for an eye.’ I’m guessing he might be talking about payback for losing his partner.”

  “Yeah, that was my thought, too. He’s toying with us. He wants us to know that he could have hurt Mary if he’d wanted to, but he didn’t. He wants us to sweat.”

  Mary was visibly shaken. “Phil Rollins. Is that the cop that was shootin’ at Kevin and Judy?”

  I nodded.

  “But why me? I never done nothing to him. I wouldn’t know him if he was sitting right there on the porch swing.”

  “Because you’re someone special to us and he lost someone special to him. An eye for an eye.”

  “Damn!”

  “Mary, I want you to pack up a few things and come stay with Maggie and me until we catch this guy. Will you do that?”

  “Hell yes, I’ll do it! Just give me a minute.”

  While we were waiting, I noticed Mr. Feeney wandering around on the porch. The old guy always seemed to know what was going on around the hotel.

  “Mr. Feeney, good morning.”

  “Hi, Mr. Walt.”

  “Say, I was wondering if you might have seen any strangers hanging around the hotel this morning?”

  He thought for a moment. “No, not really. Just the guy foolin’ around with Miss Mary’s paper. I asked him what he was doin’ and he said he was puttin’ a coupon for a free pizza in with her paper. Who wouldn’t want one of those? He seemed like a really nice guy.”


  “Is that all he said?”

  “Well, he asked me if I’d found any more big scary dogs in the basement. I told him, ‘hell, no.’ I don’t go down there no more. If the toilets are full and I gotta pee, I just go in that big old flower pot of Mary’s.”

  I looked at the pot and noticed that Mary’s geraniums were starting to wilt.

  I handed Feeney my card. “If you see him around here again, please give me a call.”

  Feeney grinned. “Bet you want one of those pizza coupons. Am I right?”

  About that time, Mary appeared. “Let’s make like a hockey player and get the puck out of here.”

  Then she spotted Mr. Feeney. “And you! If I see you pee in my geraniums again, I’ll cut off your dick!”

  “Uhhh – yes, Ma’am,” he said, as he disappeared around the corner of the building.

  We had just buckled up in the car when my phone rang again.

  “Walt, it’s your dad. Where are you?”

  “We’re at the hotel. What’s up?”

  “Are you heading this way?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I found something under the wiper on my windshield this morning. It’s probably nothing but I thought you should see it.”

  “Be there in ten.”

  When we pulled up in front of the building, Dad and Bernice were sitting on the front porch.

  “Hey, Son,” he said, handing me an envelope. “Sorry to bother you, but this is just weird.”

  I opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of typing paper just like the one with Mary’s newspaper. In bright red letters, it read, “POW! GOTCHA! AN EYE FOR AN EYE.”

  I handed it to Ox. “Okay, you two, back in the building right now. Where are Willie, Jerry and the Professor?”

  “Jerry and the Professor are in their apartments,” he replied, helping Bernice to her feet. “Willie left about a half hour ago. He said he was going over to Emma’s place for a little ‘you know what.’”

  “Okay then, get Jerry and the Professor and stay with Ox and Mary in my apartment. I’m going to get Willie.”

  On the way to Emma’s house, I dialed Willie’s cell phone.

  He answered in a breathy voice. “I wasn’t gonna pick up, but den I saw it was you, so I did. I hope dis is important.”

  “It is. I’m on my way to get you.”

  “But I don’t wanna be got. I’m kind of in de middle of somethin’ here.”

  “Well finish up and get dressed. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “Ten minutes! I can’t do my lady justice in ten minutes. Mr. Walt, I got a reputation, you know.”

  “Tell her it’s a matter of life and death. I’m sure she’ll understand. Give her a rain check or something.”

  “I ain’t never called off my game on account of rain. Can I tell her it’s police business? She always gets off on dat stuff.”

  “Yes, tell her that --- but hurry!”

  When I pulled up in front of Emma’s house, Willie came out, zipping up his pants.

  “Mission accomplished,” he said, grinning. “Now what’s so important? I was plannin’ on a double header.”

  I told him about the threatening notes to Dad and Willie.

  “Dat is bad,” he said, shaking his head. “Ain’t nothin’ skeerier dan some dude wantin’ revenge. Dey don’t care ‘bout nothin’ but gettin’ even.”

  I knew that Maggie was supposed to be showing houses to out of town buyers. I called her cell hoping she was about through.

  “Hi, Sweetie. Are you and Ox finished at the firing range?”

  “Yes, all through. How are you doing with your buyers?”

  “I just dropped them off at their hotel. I was about to join Jan for lunch. Want to join us?”

  “No, what I want is for you to cancel anything you had for the rest of the day and come straight home. Will you do that? I’ll explain when you get there.”

  “Well --- uhhh --- sure. If that’s what you want. You sound serious.”

  “I am. Just get home as quick as you can.”

  Call waiting clicked on my phone just before she hung up.

  “This is Walt.”

  “Kevin here. You’ll never guess what has happened.”

  “Let me guess. You got a note in an envelope. Who got it, you or Veronica?”

  “Veronica --- but --- how did you know?”

  “What did her note say?”

  “It was on a plain piece of typing paper. It said, ‘BAM! LIGHTS OUT! AN EYE FOR AN EYE!” Veronica was scared shitless.”

  I told him about the notes that Dad and Mary had received.

  “It’s Rollins, isn’t it?” he asked. “What’s the plan?”

  “Well, I’m gathering everyone at my apartment building. I figure that it’s better to circle the wagons and keep everyone together. My building is the one place where we have control of everything inside and out. I think you and Veronica should come too.”

  “I agree. We’ll throw some stuff together and be right over.”

  When we arrived at the apartment, Ox met us at the door. “Maggie just got here and Judy’s on her way. What now?”

  “Now that we know everyone is safe, we should call the captain.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  I called Captain Short and filled him in on our morning’s adventure.

  “Jesus, Walt. The guy’s really gone over the edge. Listen, I don’t want you, Ox and Judy to set foot outside that building until we get a handle on this thing. You stay there and keep everyone safe. In addition, I’m sending over a black and white to keep an eye on the place. Be safe.”

  When everyone was safely inside, we gathered in my living room.

  I explained as best I could what we were facing and why we had to stay put until Rollins was captured.

  We made sleeping arrangements for everyone in the five apartments and decided that we should have someone on lookout twenty-four hours a day.

  “Four of us, Ox, Judy, Kevin and I will each take a six hour shift.”

  I was about to dole out the time slots, when Mary jumped up. “Hey, what about me? I brought my bat. I can watch for that scumbag just as well as you.”

  “Me too,” Willie said. “I ain’t gonna just sit aroun’ wif my finger up my butt.”

  “Okay then. Six four hour shifts. Let’s get to it.”

  Maggie took on the job of Camp Quartermaster and started taking inventory of our food supplies. We soon discovered that we were woefully short of rations for that many people.

  We decided we would stretch our food by ordering take out.

  Everyone was a bit on edge to begin with, and when the first poor pizza guy knocked on the door, he found himself staring down the barrel of Kevin’s .44 Magnum. He stood there shivering while Dad patted him down. Bernice had watched the whole thing and when Dad had finished, I heard her remark, “Say, I might be interested in doing that.”

  Needless to say, I gave the unfortunate guy a big tip.

  Somehow, we made it through the first evening. Everyone had tucked away for the night, but I just couldn’t fall asleep. I tiptoed into the living room and looked out onto the deserted boulevard. The black and white was there just like the captain had promised.

  As I listened to Mary snore on our couch, and thought about all my friends scattered throughout the building, I realized that if it was Rollins’ intention was to intimidate us, he had done a smashing job.

  Fear of the unknown can be a powerful force.

  I remembered going through one of those goofy haunted houses with several of these same friends. Even though we knew that we were perfectly safe, the idea of creeping around dark passageways expecting at any moment to be confronted by some hideous creature of the night, sent shivers down our spines.

  As I looked out into the dark night, I wondered if Phil Rollins was hidden out there in the shadows just waiting for his chance.

  This time, it wasn’t a game of make believe.
This time the threat was real.

  CHAPTER 18

  We were all friends and as much as we loved each other, our forced cohabitation was beginning to take its toll.

  Before the end of the first day, there was an overwhelming consensus that if Jerry didn’t stop with his corny jokes, he would be banned from the building and thrown out into the street where Rollins could have his way with him.

  Once it finally dawned on Bernice that Veronica was a practitioner of the world’s oldest profession, she pulled her aside and asked her to share some tricks of her trade.

  Unfortunately, Ox inadvertently walked in while she was practicing her new-found skills on my dad. He ran into the hall screaming that he had been scarred for life and that he might never have the stomach for sex again.

  Maggie and I soon discovered that Mary was definitely a sound sleeper --- all kinds of sounds. Evidently, once she conked out, every muscle in her body relaxed, including her sphincter. With snorts coming out of one end and toots coming out of the other, it was like lying in bed listening to a dripping faucet. We eventually had to resort to earplugs to get some shuteye.

  Our situation closely paralleled the old board game, Clue. If a dead body suddenly turned up, was it the Professor with a candlestick in the laundry room or Willie with a pipe wrench in the basement?

  I was beginning to think that it was Rollins’ plan all along to have us cloistered together so that we would bump one another off and do his dirty work for him.

  Our reprieve came on the third day of our sequestration.

  My cell phone rang and it was the captain.

  “Walt, how’s it going over there?”

  “Not well. Please tell me you’ve collared Rollins.”

  “I wish I could. The guy’s a ghost.”

  “Well, if we don’t get out of this building soon, I may be calling to report a murder.”

  “That bad, huh? Well, I may have a way to get you out of that apartment. As you know, we boxed up all the treasure that was scattered around in that storage unit and have kept in under lock and key. We notified the State Department and they have been in touch with the Egyptian embassy. Long story short, the treasure is to be returned to Cairo where it will be reunited with the other original artifacts from King Tut’s tomb.