Searching for Harpies

by Charlie Vogel

  I awoke as gray shadows of dusk filled our room. The smell of fast-food made me hungry instead of nauseated. After handing me a burger, Harry said his goodbyes. Lori filled a plastic bag with ice from an ice chest and gently laid it over my elastic rib belt. I controlled my grimace as she tucked a pillow under my head. I even managed a weak smile when the burger stayed down.

  “You are such a dick-head, Bob. You’re not fooling me with this macho shit.” She opened her cell phone. “I’m calling Dr. Burroughs. You need pain pills.”

  “She’ll be pissed that I left and will want me back in that hospital. Just give me some more of the store stuff you have in your purse.”

  “Is your memory shorting out? You just took four of them less than an hour ago.”

  “They’re probably time release and just digesting slow. You’d be more help if you called that number you found on the elevator guy and see where it goes.”

  She leaned those fine breasts toward me as she slid a hand in her pants pocket. Pulling out the slip of paper, she reread the note. “The prefix is the one used at Bison Insurance. Any ideas what I should say?”

  “Like the note says, ask for Peg.”

  “Will this be a violation of that protection order?”

  “Only if someone recognizes you. Disguise your voice and ask about an insurance policy. Tell them you were to talk to Peg.” As she started to dial, I added, “No profanity. That would give you away.”

  “Fuck you,” she snapped and jostled the bed as she pushed away and completed the call. She paced the tight quarters, murmuring into the phone in a prissy tone I didn’t recognize. Finally she ended the call, but just stood thinking.

  “Find out anything?”

  “The number was answered by a receptionist somewhere at Bison Insurance.”

  “She didn’t identify her department?”

  “Nope, only mumbled ‘Bison Insurance’ and wanted to know where to direct me.”

  “She didn’t know a Peg?”

  “The only Peg she knew was her girlfriend, and she’s home having a baby.”

  Her cell jangled. She answered, “Yeah? Harry. Yup, that’s the number.” Her gaze met mine. “It can’t be. It’s not in the phone book. Got it. Okay, we’ll see you later. Great, I’m glad she can make it.”

  She slid the small device back into her purse on the table and turned to me. “Harry returned to his office and is coming back. He found out the phone number is one of the half dozen that go to the reception desk in the lobby.”

  I ground my teeth, stopping when I found a cracked one. “A lot of corporate numbers default to the main number. People not available, a flood of calls, whatever. You said Harry is coming?”

  “He’s bringing a Dr. Hartford with him. And he suggested moving to another hotel.”

  “He doesn’t like our stylish home? And who’s this Dr. Hartford?”

  “Is your concussion making you nuts? Are you calling this shit hole stylish? Besides Harry mentioning the cockroaches, he’s afraid Harpies will make another attack on us.”

  “The head is getting better. Your turn to think. Haven’t you ever heard the saying ‘Lightning never strikes twice in the same spot’? I’m hoping this would be the last place she will look for us. If we were followed, we would have been attacked by now. Wait. Shit, I hear someone coming up the stairs.”

  She cocked her head to the door. “Sounds like someone staggering. Probably our new neighbor. He moved in yesterday.”

  “You know who he is already?”

  “Some damned wino on veteran benefits.”

  “He didn’t move into the room with Kobo, did he?”

  “Nope. The cops found your little Kung Fu friend about two hours ago, while you took your nap. Some rookie came to the door to ask if we’d seen or heard anything. I put on my dumb look and bored him to death telling him how you got mugged in the alley.”

  I pushed a finger through my beard that needed trimming to scratch at the whiskers under the dressing. “You think the cops will tie that with Kobo’s death and figure someone’s lying?”

  She shrugged. “You and I haven’t had the best luck trying to figure out what the goddamn cops think.”

  The image of the oriental’s body in the closet without air circulating made my touchy stomach roll. I swallowed hard. “Sometimes cops act dumber than you can look. What name did you use for us?”

  “He didn’t ask for any.”

  A knock shook the old door. Lori glanced at me and called out, “Who’s there?”

  “Roy.”

  I nodded. She responded, “Come in, the door’s open. Surprised it didn’t fall in when you knocked.”

  The tall, dark haired, bearded man stepped inside, his gaze sweeping the room, hesitating on the bullet holes in the ragged wallpaper beside him. He stepped to the foot of my bed, crossing his arms and shaking his head at me.

  I attempted to sit up, but stopped when pain had me catching my breath. I fell back and breathed shallow for a bit. “What’s up, Roy?”

  “What in hell are you doing here? You should be in the goddamn hospital.”

  “You offering to line up the shifts of cops to guard me there?”

  His expression didn’t change. He huffed a breath. “No, but what makes you think Harpies won’t find you here?”

  I waved my hand at the bullet holes. “Oh, she tried it once. Lightening twice? Nope.”

  He nodded at my logic.

  I ignored the disgusted Lori flouncing to the ice chest. “How did you find me?”

  “I just asked the whore working outside the hotel’s door.”

  When I jerked at that and grimaced, he held up both palms as if pleading with me. “Norris, you’re a crazy bastard. Let me call a squad or transport you myself. You need a doctor.”

  “I have a doctor coming who makes house calls.”

  He took a seat on the nearest wobbling kitchen chair. “You’re a sorry looking son-of-a-bitch. I can’t believe you would get the shit beaten out of you for the price of finding Penny’s murderer.”

  “I was mugged in the alley.”

  “Harry ran into me at the Tickle Pink a bit ago and told the same story. You guys must think I’m a really stupid cop.”

  Lori cocked her head at me, but I refused to respond to that. “So, what’s being said on the street? What’s your gut telling you?”

  “I have a lot of hunches. The beer I downed after Harry left helped me put some things together. About you.” Lori stiffened, her eyes cutting him to shreds. He merely smiled back at her then winked at me. “You shot Kobo full of holes. Before that you placed the ever popular shit-faced Sgt. Moore in a box that you sent to Kansas City.”

  We had a stare-down. He broke first, glancing at Lori.

  “And if any of that is true, would you file a report?” I nudged.

  He picked at his front teeth with one fingernail. “I haven’t decided. Hell, no one downtown would believe me, so I guess not. You want to share what you found out about Harpies?”

  “Nothing new. How about you?”

  A smile peaked through his beard. “Could be something, could be nothing. A manager at a Short Time Stop-and-Fill asked me if I wanted to make some extra money. He found out I’m undercover and his boss wants to put me on the payroll.”

  I glanced at Lori. She reached into the cooler and removed a bottle of beer. After twisting off the cap, she held it out to him. “Want one?”

  “Had my quota for the day, but thanks.”

  She took a sip as she returned to sit beside me on the bed. “So, what’re you going to do next?”

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “That depends on you two.”

  I let Lori respond. “Why the fuck would we matter?”

  He grimaced, sat up and held his palms up for a moment. “Because for some damn reason I can trust you and Bob more than the idiots I work with. I know the reason you killed Moore. And I know it had to be you and not Norris he was after. Moore was
a crooked cop. Can I prove any of that? Nope.” His expression turned more intense, as if he shifted into thinking-cop mode. “Working for this asshole at the Short Time would be a good opportunity for me to find the bitch-from-hell. My only problem would be if one of the old farts downtown discovered me on the take. I would be gone in a heartbeat.”

  Lori’s voice softened, almost as if she were taking his side. “How could they fire you? You work undercover. Ain’t all that part of your job?”

  “Yeah, but . . . I don’t know who Harpies has on the take or how high up her network goes.”

  I raised one finger. “Roy, I have an idea. You ever thought about taking a leave of absence?”

  “No, why?”

  “If you took a few days off—like ask for vacation time—then I could hire you like a P.I. to help with this Harpies thing. You wouldn’t have to report your actions or hand in any official report.”

  He leaned back in his chair. “Interesting. Let me think it over.”

  Lori asked him about some of her old crowd. With the subject of Harpies suspended, the tension in the room relaxed. Roy even got a laugh out of her. I didn’t know if I liked that or not. An hour and the rest of the six pack later, Lori had to made a quick run to the package store.

  While she was gone, Roy studied me. “I think you really do care about that girl.”

  I shrugged then regretted the movement.

  “Well, Norris, you need to work a little harder to keep her under control.”

  “I don’t tell Lori what to do and vice versa.”

  He shook his head. “I think you two are bad influences on one another. People just seem to get dead or into serious shit around you. That’s not exactly an attractive work atmosphere for me, ya know?”

  “You saying you’re not up to it?”

  “Fuck you, Norris.”

  We were laughing when Lori returned. “Bastard clerk just had American beer. Franks’ Draft is the best I could do.”

  “That’s what I drink,” Roy said as he stood, “but I gotta go.” He stretched to slap me on the leg, a little harder than necessary I thought. “Bob, you take care of the both of you.”

  “So, asshole, you want to work for me or not?”

  “I’ll get back to you. Promise.” As his hand reached for the doorknob, a knock startled him and his hand flew under his open denim vest.

  Without invitation, Harry pushed the door open and waved a suited man in. Again relaxed, Roy stepped to Harry’s side to whisper something in his ear. Harry’s eyes flitted from Lori to me. Hand raised in parting, Roy then disappeared into the hallway.

  The stranger set a ratty, black leather bag on the rickety table.

  Harry waved at the man. “Bob, this here is Dr. Hartford. Doctor, that’s Bob Norris, your stubborn-assed patient.”

  “I thought those doctor bags went out of fashion,” I tried to sound cheerful, but from the frown on the man’s face, I wasn’t distracting him.

  His store-bought brown suit showed wrinkles where he had been sitting. He had unbuttoned the neck of an also-wrinkled blue shirt, above the loosened knot of an ugly blue patterned tie. A thick, bushy mustache curved down under his nose. His gray-streaked, brown hair had been combed behind his ears, needing a trim but showing he didn’t take time for much personal nonsense. I was surprised a man of his age didn’t wear glasses. The wrinkles around his gray eyes made him look intense, as if he were a hawk that missed nothing. His gaze was focused but non-judgmental. I immediately liked and trusted the guy.

  He leaned over to stare intently into my eyes. “You’re in pain aren’t you?”

  I lowered my voice so only he would hear. “A little, but I’ve been through worst.”

  He carefully loosened the Velcro of my rib belt and eased it open. The slow release of the support created a twinge here and there, but nothing to scream about. His fingers carefully ran along each rib. My periodic grimaces had him glancing up into my eyes as if measuring the truth of my reaction. When he bent forward to press two fingers to the pulse in my throat, I caught a whiff of beer on his breath.

  Lori watched from beside the table with Harry. She murmured, “Where did you find a doctor who would make house calls to this fucking Hotel Cockroach?”

  “At the Tickle Pink.”

  When he saw her scowl, he shrugged.

  Hartford opened his bag and pulled out a stethoscope. He barely pressed its cold diaphragm against my chest. “Breathe in until it hurts then blow it out.” He moved the flat piece. “Again. And again.” After repeating the exam of the other side of my chest, he motioned Harry forward to assist him in carefully sitting me upright. My gritted teeth were ignored. “Deep breathe and out.”

  “Everything working okay?” I asked in a strained whisper.

  “You’re only able to take shallow breaths. I concur with what the hospital told Harry. Broken ribs and possibly a bruised lung, and I detect no bleeding. Yet.”

  “Good to go then.” I carefully reached for the ends of the rib belt to put it back on.

  “You need to be back in the hospital because of the danger of blood clots. You can get breathing treatments to medicate the lung tissue and speed the healing.”

  I blew out a breath and fastened the elastic band as tight as I could tolerate. “Did Harry tell you why I’m here and not there now?”

  “Yes, but you need the treatments administered by a respiratory therapist, medications that require blood levels to be drawn, and a bed that can keep your body upright and supported. A stack of shifting pillows would do more harm than good. I can have a private ambulance here in fifteen minutes.”

  “Not going to happen. Just give me a prescription for pain killers. I’ll tough it out over the next couple of days. I’ll be fine.”

  “Not if a clot blocks part of a lung or floats into the heart’s blood vessels and causes a heart attack.”

  I wanted to slug the guy because Lori again looked upset. “You aren’t giving me much choice, are you?”

  He shrugged then pushed his stethoscope back in his bag. “I’m the one with an M.D. after my name, not you. I can’t believe you’d rather be in this dump than a clean, comfortable hospital.” His head came up like a listening dog. “What’s that noise?”

  Shoes tapped on the hall’s hardwood flooring as someone ran. Lori and Harry were already moving toward the door. Muffled pops like small firecrackers in a Chinese parade sent them into crouches. A mega-firecracker explosion rattled the door. Dr. Hartford dropped to the floor beside the bed as I threw myself back, my arms covering my face.

  Another loud boom and the door exploded open. A body catapulted across the room onto my bed, knocking the breath out of me, its weight smothering me. I couldn’t shift my arms to push it off. I struggled harder but that only made my pain worse.

  From across the room Roy shouted, “Everyone okay?”

  The body on me moved. I couldn’t control a deep groan. “To hell with it,” I spoke through gritted teeth and wrenched myself free. When I looked down the bed I found myself staring into Harry’s eyes. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He shook his head then pushed up and off the mattress. “Protecting your dumb ass from being shot.” He rubbed his face with his good hand and steadied himself on the bed with his artificial one. “Whatever exploded screwed with my hearing. Shit!” He bent down to assist the doctor from under the bed. “How you doing, Hartford?”

  “Fine, I think. Do I have more patients out of this?”

  Lori spoke from the floor at the foot of the bed. “There’s someone down here.” Roy stood in the doorway, his .50 Magnum Desert Eagle still drawn but pointing at the ceiling. He shoved it into the shoulder holster under his vest. “Make sure Harry didn’t damage Bob more, will ya, doc? That guy near Lori has a big hole venting his head and is beyond anything you can do.”

  I forced myself up until my back rested on the head board of the old bed. “Hey, everybody, I’m okay. Harry surprised the shit out of me is all. What happ
ened?”

  Roy walked to look down at the body I couldn’t see. “This bastard thought I didn’t see him. As I went to my car he entered the building. His coat only partially covered an AK-47. Seen too many of those in my day to miss it. When I hit the building running, he fired a couple of rounds at me across the lobby. That gave him time to hot foot it up the stairs and head straight for this apartment. With that kind of firepower I think he was hired to wipe you all out.”

  Harry quickly scanned the room. “I don’t see any goddamn, big-assed gun”

  “Just before my cannon knocked him through your door, I blew his arm off. The arm and rifle are in the hall.”

  Harry hammered his fist on the table. “That settles it, Bob. You’re moving your candy ass out of here. I can’t handle any more of this!”

  “Where can I go that Harpies wouldn’t find me? I’m not having an army of killers follow me home and I don’t want to endanger patients at a hospital.”

  Dr. Hartford’s hand shook as he wiped it across his mouth. His rounded eyes looked a little glassy. “I-I can’t believe I was this close to . . .” He cleared his throat and glared at Roy. “I hope you’re a goddamn cop and will take care of this mess.” When Roy nodded, he turned to me. “My car is downstairs. You two men can help him down there and I’ll take him to my place.”

  Harry started to speak, but I interrupted. “No. There are eyes all over. Someone could follow. While getting to me, you could be killed, doc.”

  Roy spoke up. “I’ll go rent a panel truck. Won’t be fancy but won’t be noticed either. Doctor, you leave alone and go home. We’ll use the alley and get Bob inside. If anyone decides to follow me, I can shake them in the downtown traffic and, once we get on the interstate, I can outdistance them.”

  Lori frowned at the medic. “You sure you can give Bob all the care he needs at your home?”

  “What I don’t have, I’ll drop by the Med Center and pick up.”

  Realizing I didn’t have any more say, I relaxed and shivered. Shit. Is a cold sweat normal or a bad sign? I decided to keep the question to myself.