by L. J. Martin
He nods his head, looking a little confused. The girl on his right, across from me, is not half-bad looking, and answers my question. "You can buy a drink, but it won't get you anywhere." So much for my natural charm.
"Speak for yourself, white eye," the big lady next to me says to her, laughs and then gives me a grin showing a missing front tooth. She sighs a little too deeply. Pizza breath. Pizza with anchovies. Boy, I can pick 'em.
"We gotta go to the head," DiAngelo says, stands and waves me up.
I rise, but hesitate long enough to tell the ladies, "I'll send one over. What are you drinking?"
"A half yard of Guinness," the big lady announces.
The other giggles and adds, "A grasshopper."
I nod and follow DiAngelo, who doesn't look particularly happy. I pause at the end of the bar away from where Maggie's working, tell the tall handsome Indian kid the girl's order and throw a twenty on the bar. "Keep the change," I say, getting a nod from the kid as I follow the detective into the hallway then into the restroom.
There's another guy in there taking a piss. DiAngelo goes to the sink and washes his hands, while the guy finishes and leaves without washing his.
DiAngelo gets about a foot away from me, eye to eye. "What the fuck are you doing? I'm on a stakeout here. I thought you were leaving town? What the fuck's with the blonde?"
"Slow down, detective. Let's have breakfast or lunch tomorrow. You're onto the right guys, at least part of your problem. Go back to work and I'll find somewhere else to play. How about your daddy's joint at noon tomorrow?"
"Make it one fifteen. I don't like the lunch crowd, and breakfast is out. I'm working late."
"You're on. Good luck with the Russian boys."
He eyes me like I know too much, then nods and pushes his way out the door. I wait a good five minutes before I follow, then go out the back door, carefully checking to see there's not five guys waiting for me with pipes or baseball bats. I'm carrying my coat thinking I'll pull it on while heading for my van, then am glad it's in hand as my armor and its spikes are only covered by a couple of wrappings of gauze.
There’re not five guys, but there's one guy, a very big guy, standing having a smoke near a garbage dumpster, and just beyond it is a snow bank where the plow has stacked snow six feet high.
It's one of my Indian buddies. Big John Broken Toes if my memory serves, three hundred twenty pounds the last time he was arrested; easy to tell the difference as this one has braided hair to the center of his back. The other guy, Many Horses, is taller, a measly two eighty, and keeps his mop in an Elvis doo lap. Big John glances at me, then turns, quartering away.
I've promised myself not to test the condition of my wrist for a while, but this is just too good not to take advantage of.
He starts to cough and turns his back completely to me.
I guess it's time to test the wrist. I drop the coat and, in three strides, whack him a solid one across the very crown of his head with the bottom bar on the wrist armor. It's a blow that should have dropped him like the bag of shit he is, but he merely oofs and sags a little before he regains his feet. So, I spin and side-kick him behind his knee, and that folds him. He goes to his knees then pitches forward on his face. With everything I have, like I'm going for a fifty-yard field goal, I kick him in the ribs and he oofs again. The hell of it is, I lose my footing on the back stroke on the damn icy pavement, and my feet go out from under me.
He's up on all fours, crabbing forward, and I lunge after him. He's trying to turn to face me, and this time, I give him a forearm and drag it across his face. The spikes do their work and he's spouting blood from his forehead. I again get my footing as he rolls and sits on his massive butt, trying to wipe the blood out of his eyes.
Scrambling up, I step back and wind up. This time the kick catches him on the point of his chin. His eyes roll up in his head, and he goes to his back, his head at the base of the snow bank.
He's out cold. I'm tempted to drag some snow on top of him and hope no one finds him until spring, but I've yet to know enough to sentence him, not even to frostbite and the loss of his ugly nose and Dumbo ears.
I give him a couple more kicks in the ribs, just for good measure, hoping I've broken at least three or four, then gather up my coat and haul ass to the van before someone else wanders out for a smoke.
Since I don't want the prick to freeze to death, at least until I know that he deserves an icy grave, I call Rosie's on one of my throwaway phones and tell them there's some drunk about to buy the farm in a snowbank outside their back door.
"Who is this?" the girl who answers asks.
"Jack Frost," I say and disconnect.
I'm feeling a lot better. There's nothing quite like the spice of revenge to flavor up your night.
Turning on the Sirius, I find some Credence Clearwater and smile all the way back to the camper. I kicked ass and didn't even split a knuckle. I have to buy my new sculptor a tall cold one, if I run into him in a pub.
And to put a cherry on top, my camper water's thawed and working.
I add some ice-cold tap water and a couple of ice cubes to a couple of shots of Jack Daniel’s, find a good Louis L'Amour novel I've been wanting to read and curl up. It's midnight, and I've got to get used to staying up extra late. Dope dealers don't go to work early, so I plan to read a couple of hours.
Tomorrow, I'll try to make a friend and compatriot out of the Italian stallion, Detective Tony DiAngelo , even if he does use the beauty shop to do his full perfectly-coifed head of hair.
13
Late is never in my bag of tricks unless I have a tactical reason to be so. So, I arrive at DiAngelo’s after a lazy morning with L'Amour's The Sacketts, cold cereal, hot coffee—thanks to my water thawing—and a spit bath with real hot water. I have a shower in the camper, but have yet to give it a try. It sprays the whole tiny bathroom, and I'm shoulder to shoulder with the walls and have to duck my head. A shower in the camper might result in a crick in my neck.
It's one forty when DiAngelo finally wanders in and walks right past me to the kitchen door. Then an older guy, who I presume is his father, comes out of the kitchen and they b.s. for another fifteen minutes before he deigns to join me at a corner table near the front—out of the view of passersby through the windows. I don't want it thought that I'm friendly with the law—in fact, just the opposite—so I'm not excited about being seen with the fuzz.
He sits, orders some dish that's not on the menu, and I tell the girl, "two," presuming that he's well versed on what's really good that comes out of a kitchen that is, at the moment, smelling like the best of the south of Italy.
It's soup, served with half a loaf of great hard-crusted bread.
"So," I ask, "what are we eating?"
"Zuppa trippa."
"Soup, okay, what kind of soup?"
He laughs as if I'm going to run for cover when he tells me.
"Tripe, the lining of a cow's gut."
"Wow, it's good. I've had lots of menudo, the Mexican version, but this is every bit as good."
"If my old man comes out of the kitchen you better say it's the best thing you've ever eaten."
"Damn near is."
He looks at me with new respect, then asks, "So, how the hell did you know about those boys being Russian?"
"I haven't exactly leveled with you, Detective. I'm on a private contract here to see who's screwing up a company's formerly great safety record."
"Insurance investigator?" he asks. Then, before I can answer, suggests, "I don't drink on duty unless I'm undercover, but you should have a glass of red with that."
I nod my , and he yells at the bartender in Italian. He delivers a glass filled to the very brim with something that looks like it will put permanent purple stains on my teeth, but on first sip tastes like Ambrosia.
"So," he continues, "insurance investigator?"
"No, sir. Private security. I carry a bail enforcement officer’s badge, but do little of it."
&n
bsp; "So, who's your employer?"
"Can't say."
His eyes narrow. "What the fuck do you mean, you can't say?"
"I'm contractually obligated not to divulge my employer."
"You met Amber at Owens-McKittrick, so you must be working for them?"
"Can't say, but that could have just been part of my investigation. I'll try and meet with all the oil well service companies before I'm through—here and on the Montana side."
He seems to chew on that a moment, then shrugs his shoulders. "So, what do you know about the Russians and human trafficking?"
"To be truthful, I'm more interested in kicking the stilts out from under the dope dealers."
"Same guys," he says.
"So, we have the same target, if for different reasons."
"Yeah, but all it takes to get a bail enforcement shield is two hundred pounds of stupidity and about forty bucks for the brass. You have no authority in North Dakota, or in neighboring Montana, or hell, anywhere so far as I know, so why are we having this meeting unless you're planning on being a CI?"
"Mutual interest. And I have plenty of authority if I have a contract from a bondsman. You should catch up on your Supreme Court rulings." I know that by CI he means confidential informant. I add, just so he knows I do my homework, "In North Dakota, the surety, the bondsman, may arrest a defendant at any place or may empower any person of suitable age and discretion to do so. And I think that's a verbatim quote of the law. I'm 'any person of suitable age' in case you haven't noticed. By the way, I carry the proper concealed carry authority."
He laughs. "I already made the lump in the center of your back. You weren't getting out of here without me calling you on it. Still, no matter, I can't divulge anything to you as you have no standing in law enforcement."
I smile and shrug. "Then I'm not obligated to you in any way to divulge what I know. And unless you have the best computer crew in the country, like I have, and warrants to snoop like you're the NSA, I know one hell of a lot more than you do."
"How about I drag your ass in and hold you for a while since I think you're withholding evidence? And maybe for suspicion of assault and battery. It seems some old boy got the double dog shit kicked out of him right about the time you walked out the back door of Rosie's."
"To be somewhat less than polite, detective, go fuck yourself. If you're trying to make sure you don't learn anything from me, ever, haul me in on some bullshit charge. It'll only enhance my standing among the shitheads I'm trying to get next to." Then I hold up my arm with the cast under my coat. "Besides, I've got a broke wing. Wouldn't do to be scrapping."
Again, he laughs, only louder. Then he sighs deeply. "Okay, I'll show you mine after you show me yours. What do you have?"
"First, give Detective Andre Bollinger with Vegas PD a call. He'll clue you in on me." Bollinger and I bounced off each other several times during the last gig I had in Vegas, circling each other like two old hound dogs, but ended up being friends, and with mutual respect. "Second, I'll have to find a copy machine, but, in the meantime, give me an e-mail address, and I'll have some stuff sent to you. Cell phone number, too, if you would. We'll talk again."
He nods, makes a note on another napkin and hands it over, then his attention is distracted. I'm rising and turning, when I see it's the beautiful copper-blonde Amber entering. She moves our way, and I drop my gaze and brush by her. I get no sign of recognition and hear her ask, "Hey, Tony. I was down the street and thought I might catch you here. Who was that?"
As I push through the door, I have to smile as I hear, "Some bum. I ran him out of here."
"Oh."
So, I have a good contact with local law enforcement. I'll pray he's not a crooked cop.
So now it's time to get serious.
14
I hit the gym again to work up a sweat, shower but don't shave as I want the phony goatee surrounded by stubble, and I dress again in my dumpster-diver duds. I've got to watch it as the stubble grows in darker than my bleached brows, wig, and phony goatee. I'll have to shave every three days or so or risk getting a raw face from bleaching my cheeks and neck.
I've got a personal hotspot on my iPhone that provides Wi-Fi for my computer, so I return to the camper and e-mail Pax for some help. My e-mail is routed through a friend in Mumbai, India, then his brother in Malta, and is very hard to track, thanks to the machinations of Weatherwax Internet Service. I ask him to track Speck's iPhone as I'd like to dog his trail for a while. I know where his Apple laptop lives, in the double wide out off One hundred Thirty-sixth, and now it's time to discover where he travels and who else he runs with.
Pax has discovered there's a Cadillac registered to Speck down in El Paso and sends me his license plate number, the color of the car—candy apple red—and an address where the iPhone is at the moment. He even e-mails me a .jpeg showing Google Earth's aerial picture of the building, a rundown barn on a farm northeast of town, away from any oil fields. It's a twenty-minute drive to locate the place, but I do, and it's truly remote, sheltered by the hills from view from the small county road. It snowed a couple of inches last night. There are no vehicle tracks going into the place, and the gate is locked, but it's a cheap master lock, and I pick it in three heartbeats. I only drive far enough so I can see into the wide and deep coulee where the barn's located. There’s smoke snaking up from a pipe on the roof, and a couple of pickups—one black, one canary yellow, no Cadillac—are parked near the double barn doors. Another road leads toward the back of the property. If Speck was here, he's gone now, or he's driving a pickup or is with someone who is. Or his phone is there and he's not, which is unlikely.
A hundred yards from the barn squats the remnants of a farmhouse—brick chimney and a pile of rubble. This says to me that the farmhouse burned some time ago. There's also a windmill, but it's broken down and not turning. I back the van away, walk the few yards back to the crest of the hill and study the place for a few minutes through my binocs. It would be a little hard to explain the picked lock if someone wandered in behind me, so I beat a trail, locking the gate behind me, concerned that I've left tracks in the snow.
It's time I checked in with the Colonel, so I give him a call.
"Where the hell you been?" he answers, and I presume I'm the only one who has a number to this particular phone.
"Been busy. Somewhere we can meet?"
"Hell, I've snuck by your camper and truck a half-dozen times. I was afraid one of these assholes got lucky and buried you out in the boondocks. I've been worried as hell."
"Out of town a while. Sorry, Colonel."
"It's Oscar, remember."
"Yes, sir. Somewhere we can parlay for a half hour?"
"I'm heading home in a half hour." He gives me his address. "There's a city park a block from my place. Drive by the front, count the houses to the corner next to the park. Leave your van there, hoof it down the alley and come in through the back gate. I'll have a shot of Jack waiting to warm you up."
"Yes, sir. How many houses are you from the corner?"
"Hell, I don't know...six or seven."
"Okay. See you in an hour or so."
It's just getting good and dark when I arrive at his back gate, which he's left ajar. Nice house, maybe the nicest on the block. A lady, I presume his wife, is working at the sink, when I reach the back door, start to knock, then reel back when a Rott hits the back door hard enough and loud enough, that I think he's coming through. I damn near fall off the back porch.
In seconds, the lady is at the door, yelling at the dog. "Brutus, down. Down!" She opens the door and I can hear the low rumble of his growl. Sounds like an idling Mack truck.
"I'm sorry. Big O is showering and was supposed to have Brutus back there with him. You must be Mike. Come on in." She notes my hesitancy and laughs. "He's fine. He'd eat you if I wasn't here, but now he'll lick you to death."
"Yes, ma'am," I say and walk on in where angels might fear to tread.
"Brutus, this is Mike.
He's an old buddy of papa's."
The low rumble stops. He walks right up and puts his muzzle in my crotch, and I fear I'm a half second from never having a reason to have an assignation again. Then I step back and offer a hand. He gives it a good sniff, then as promised, a lick. I scratch his ears, and then he wanders away into a family room and curls up in front of the roaring fire in a firebox big enough to contain a decent sized hog to roast for the next luau.
I watch him, then turn back to the lady. "Yes, ma'am, Mike Reardon." I extend my hand, and instead of taking it she sticks a glass of booze into it.
"I'm Houston, the first mate around here."
I have to smile. "I've heard the Colonel called a lot of things, some of them not so polite, but Big O—that's a new one."
"A hell of a compliment coming from a guy's wife, particularly one fifty-three years old, wouldn't you say?"
"Yes, ma'am, I would, but who are you talking about, as you're sure as Hell's hot not over thirty-three years old. I figured you for the trophy wife or girlfriend."
"Aren't you a smooth-talking devil?"
"Hey, jarhead," the Colonel calls, exiting the hall into the family room, "Watch your step. I can still take you." The big Rott, Brutus, trots over and nuzzles up to him to get his ears scratched again.
"No doubt, Colonel. Not fair though; you've got half a Roman legion helping you."
He corrects me again. "Oscar." Then asks, "She make you a decent drink?"
"Yes, sir."
"Come on back to my study and let mama fix some chow."
I smile all the way to the hall. I haven't had a real home-cooked meal in a month of Sundays, and I presume I'm invited.
"It's meatloaf and mashed—nothing fancy," she calls after me.
"Fabulous," I say over my shoulder.
"Isn't that the same as 'bullshit' in Marine-lingo?"
I wave over my shoulder and hustle after the Colonel, who still walks like a freight train rolls.
He sits behind a big rosewood desk. The walls are covered with memorabilia of the Corps and framed medals are everywhere, as well as dozens of pictures of him in exotic places and a few of him with prominent politicians.