Ice Chest

by J. D. Rhoades

  “No, no,” she said impatiently, “he literally doesn’t have any testicles.”

  Stewart looked like he’d been slapped. “What?” he said.

  “Look,” Zoe went on, “I kicked that son of a bitch like I was trying to drive his ’nads through the uprights from the fifty-yard line. He should have been rolling on the ground crying for mama. But he shrugged it off and kept going.”

  Wilmore recovered his composure. “Wearing a cup, maybe?”

  “Or on some kind of drugs?” Stewart said.

  “Even with a cup,” she said, “a kick like that would have at least made him yelp. And there’s no drug on earth that’ll get a man past getting his eggs scrambled like I was trying to do. He’s a damn eunuch, I’m telling you. And how many eunuch hijackers can there be in the database?”

  The two detectives looked at each other. “We’ll follow up on that.”

  “Yeah,” Zoe said, “see that you do.”

  “We have to take your statements first,” Wilmore said. He took out his notebook.

  When they were done, the detectives got up. “Don’t forget what I told you, now,” Zoe said.

  “We won’t,” Stewart said. The two of them left.

  “They totally didn’t believe me,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Chunk said.

  She turned to him, eyebrows raised. “For what?”

  “That was a good observation. It makes us look less like idiots.”

  She shook her head. “No one’s perfect, boss.”

  He sighed. “Guess you won’t be calling me that much longer.”

  “What?” she demanded. “You just giving up?”

  “The bra got stolen, Zoe,” he said. “And Clarissa Cartwright’s missing. I failed. I’m going to lose my job over this. But I’m going to try and make sure you don’t.”

  “Best way to do that,” she said,” is for us to find it.”

  “Us?”

  She pointed at him. “You. Me. Anyone else we think we can trust. I get it, boss. We screwed the pooch. Only way to save our jobs is to unscrew him.”

  “What about the local cops?”

  She snorted. “Those guys? They couldn’t find a stolen bicycle.”

  “Didn’t seem that dumb to me,” Chunk said.

  “Hey, they’re your tribe,” Zoe said.

  “My what?”

  “Cops. You know. They’re your people. I expect you to stick up for them.” She stood up and stretched. “I’m gonna make some phone calls and see if my old fuck-buddy can find me something on eunuch armed robbers. Officer Jethro there didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about it, but I think it’s a good lead. Meantime, why don’t you try and run something down on this Branson kid. He had to be the inside guy.”

  “I’ll get an address,” Chunk said. “Does this mean you don’t call me ‘boss’ anymore?”

  “Yep,” she said cheerfully. “How do you feel about ‘partner’?”

  “Not bad,” he said.

  “Then let’s get to work, partner.”

  “ALDO,” CLARISSA said, “I need to get back.”

  “We’ll see,” Aldo said. He didn’t take his eyes off the road or his hand off the gun that rested on one knee.

  She looked out the car window. It looked like they were on a freeway, headed away from downtown. When she turned around, the tall buildings shone brightly behind her.

  “Where are we going?”

  “I called Mario,” he said. “He’s on his way. He’ll know what to do.”

  “Aldo,” she said, “I don’t want to see him. We broke up, okay? Both of you need to accept that.”

  “Shut up,” he said.

  “Plus,” she went on doggedly, “every cop in Georgia is probably looking for me. They’re going to think I’ve been kidnapped. And they’ll be right. So they’re probably going to bring in the FBI. They’re going to assume you’re one of the people who took me. And the Fantasy Bra.”

  “Is that what those guys were after?” he asked. “That jeweled bra?”

  “Well, it’s what they took off me,” she said, trying not to sound too bitchy or sarcastic. He did have the gun after all. “So I assume that’s what they wanted.”

  “Clarissa,” he said, glancing over at her for the first time, “I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to be straight with me.” He hesitated before taking a deep breath and plunging ahead. “Did they, you know, mess with you?”

  “No,” she said. “They didn’t rape me. Or sexually assault me.” She thought back to what the waiter had said. “One guy…the guy who took me to the kitchen…said they couldn’t.”

  “What,” he snorted with laughter, “they didn’t have no balls?”

  She remembered what she’d seen when Zoe had come in to try to rescue her. “I think that may have been it. One of the security people who tried to help me kicked one of those robbers in the crotch. Hard. He didn’t even flinch.”

  “Huh,” Aldo said. “So how much was this bra thing worth, anyway?”

  “About five million.”

  “Holy fuck,” he said. “I gotta tell Mario.” He saw an exit coming up and yanked the wheel to get them across traffic. Horns blared.

  “Way to be inconspicuous, Moose,” Clarissa muttered. “Speaking of which, I need some clothes, unless you want to drag me around Georgia dressed in sequined panties and a tablecloth.”

  They had pulled off onto a broad boulevard lined with strip malls and chain restaurants. “I’ll ask Mario,” Moose said again. “He’ll know what to do.”

  “Yeah,” Clarissa said. “You do that.”

  CHUNK SIGHED as he surveyed his former command center. What had once been a bustling, crowded hive of activity just seemed small and cluttered now, littered with empty Styrofoam and paper cups and the forlorn ends of disconnected cables where people had packed up their laptops and gone. He stopped dead as he noticed his Paragon-issue laptop was missing. They must have taken it for evidence, he thought. There was nothing personal on the laptop’s hard drive. Chunk, having seen some security disasters caused by not keeping personal and work files on separate machines, was fanatical about that. Still, he felt a brief flash of anger, as if his personal space had been invaded. Did they take the tablet, too? he wondered. Then he spotted the edge of the device sticking out from under a copy of the Journal-Constitution on one of the work tables. Zoe had rolled her eyes at his insistence on putting down his tablet to read a physical paper. “They have an app for that, grandpa,” she’d said. He’d ignored her. There was just something about the rustle and snap of newsprint that he liked, even as he saw papers getting flimsier and thinner.

  He picked up the iPad and turned it on. All the dossiers were still there. He flicked through the virtual file folders until he found the ones for the hotel staff. Another few moments and he had the information for Branson Suggs, former kitchen assistant and room service waiter. He assumed the young man wouldn’t be coming back. He quickly located an address and went off to find Zoe.

  He ran into Gane in the back hallway. The man was striding down the corridor, head down, absorbed in something on his phone screen. Chunk considered passing by without speaking, but it felt wrong. “Mr. Gane,” he said.

  Gane stopped and looked up. His brow furrowed in an angry scowl. “Mr. McNeill,” he said in a voice slightly chillier than a Dakota winter.

  Chunk took a deep breath. “I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  The expression didn’t change. “Sorry,” Gane replied. The temperature of the voice had migrated north, to somewhere around Winnipeg.

  “Yes, sir,” Chunk said, “we failed you.”

  “Yes,” Gane said, “you did.”

  “I’d like to try and make it right if I can.”

  Gane straightened up. “Mr. McNeill,” he said, “I am entirely uninterested in your childish and pointless effort to,” he made the air quotes, ‘make this right.’ Your carelessness and lack of planning have resulted in a serious blow to the fortunes
of this company.”

  “And gotten a woman kidnapped,” Chunk said. He couldn’t keep the edge out of his voice as he added, “Let’s not forget that.”

  “Yes, yes,” Gane said, “and that. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He made as if to walk away, but Chunk was nettled by the Enigma executive’s apparent lack of concern for Clarissa Cartwright—because, he realized with a guilty start, he himself had been concentrating more on recovering the object than the woman. He stepped in front of Gane, who stopped, the annoyance on his face turning to apprehension. “I mean,” Chunk said, “the bra’s insured, right? Enigma will be getting paid for that.”

  Something changed in Gane’s expression at that point. His eyes skittered away from Chunk’s. “Of course,” he said. “I’ve just been in touch with the company.”

  He’s lying, Chunk realized. He started to say something else, but Gane sidestepped and juked around Chunk as agilely as any halfback he’d ever tried to tackle. “I have to go,” he muttered, his eyes still averted. Chunk stood and watched him go, every cop instinct jangling with alarm.

  “Hey.”

  He heard Zoe’s voice behind him and turned. She was standing in the hallway, Hermione Starr by her side.

  “What’s up with that guy?” Zoe said, nodding at Gane’s retreating back.

  “I’m not sure,” Chunk said, “but he’s hiding something. About the bra.”

  “Mr. McNeill,” Hermione said.

  “Chunk. Please,” Chunk said.

  “Chunk, then. To hell with the bra.”

  “Agreed,” Chunk said.

  “I miss a meeting?” Zoe asked.

  “She means,” Chunk said, “we need to work on finding Clarissa Cartwright. The bra’s not important.”

  “Oh,” Zoe said. “Well, yeah. Isn’t that what we were doing all along?”

  “I’m coming with you,” Hermione said.

  “No,” Chunk said.

  “Okay,” Zoe said at the same time.

  Chunk looked at Zoe in exasperation. She shrugged. “What? I like her.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Hermione said.

  Zoe made a face. “Not crazy about the whole ‘dear’ thing, though. Just sayin’.”

  Hermione nodded. “Noted.” She fell silent for a moment as a uniformed hotel maid trundled a cart along the hallway. “Chunk,” she said when the maid was out of earshot, “it was my responsibility to look after that young woman. I failed. I want to make up for that.”

  “Wow,” Zoe said. “Sounds familiar.” She looked at Chunk. “You got that address?”

  “Yeah,” Chunk said. He looked back and forth between the two women. “I just got outvoted, didn’t I?”

  “Maybe you should get used to it,” Zoe said.

  “Only thing is,” Chunk said, “this isn’t a democracy.”

  “It isn’t?” Zoe said.

  “No.”

  “Well, it isn’t the army, Chunk,” Hermione said with false sweetness, “and it isn’t the police force. None of us have any rank to pull. So how are we going to resolve this?”

  “Damn it,” Chunk muttered. “Okay. Fine. But if anything starts, any rough stuff…”

  “We’re going to need every gun,” Zoe said.

  “And I’m willing to bet I’ve been to the range more recently than you,” Hermione said.

  At the word gun, Chunk looked around the hallway to make sure no one was listening. “Hermione, you’re a civilian.”

  “Right now,” Zoe pointed out, “we all are.”

  “And we’re wasting time,” Hermione added.

  Chunk rubbed a hand over his face. “Okay. Okay.”

  “Cheer up,” Zoe said. “Tell you what, you can drive the car.”

  “Thanks,” Chunk said.

  “Don’t mention it,” Zoe said. “Besides, we need gas. And you’ve still got the company credit card.”

  IT WAS an apartment complex like thousands of others in hundreds of cities, identically nondescript buildings surrounding a patchy, ragged-looking courtyard with a half-collapsed volleyball net. There was a pool off to one side with leaves floating in it.

  The apartment that Branson Suggs listed as home was the upper left unit in a building that held four apartments, with a rickety metal stairway granting access to the upper floors from a center breezeway that clearly hadn’t been swept since the first Bush administration. A rusting bike with flat tires was shackled to the railing at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Lovely place,” Zoe said.

  “Brings back memories,” Hermione said.

  Zoe grimaced. “Sorry to hear it.”

  “Come on,” Chunk said. The stairs groaned and squealed in protest beneath his feet as he led them to the upper landing. Behind the closed door, they heard the heavy thump of a bass drum and what sounded like someone torturing an electric guitar with a power drill. Chunk took up a broad-legged stance, put on his best cop scowl, and knocked firmly on the door. There was no answer, only the thud and yowl of the music. Chunk knocked again, harder. After a moment, the volume decreased slightly. The door opened.

  The young man standing there was skinny and pale. His thick dirty-blond hair was plaited in sloppy dreadlocks. The cloud of pungent smoke that rolled out from behind him explained the redness of his eyes, which looked like burning coals in the snow. Those eyes widened when he saw Chunk standing there. “Whoa,” he whispered. He started to close the door, but Zoe sidled around Chunk and gave him a brilliant smile.

  “Hey,” she said. “Is this where the party is?”

  The young man looked back and forth between Zoe and Chunk, as if trying to process the connection between them. Hermione picked up her cue and stepped around Chunk’s other side, deftly hip-checking him backwards. “Branson said we could come over and party when he got off work,” she said, her voice light and teasing. “Is he here yet?”

  “Uhhh…” the young man said. “No.” He seemed to recover some small percentage of his wits. “He’s not here.”

  “Can we come in and hang till he gets back?” Zoe said.

  “Uuhhh…sure,” the young man said.

  The two women led the way in, both smiling brightly in a way that seemed to short-circuit any idea the guy had about denying them access, or anything else for that matter. He seemed to have forgotten Chunk was there as he stumbled after the two female apparitions who’d suddenly entered his life. Chunk shook his head and followed.

  The smell of weed in the living room was throat-clogging . The lighting was low, just a small table lamp providing illumination. A large glass bong held pride of place in the center of the coffee table, in front of a sagging faux-leather couch patched here and there with duct tape. A plastic fast-food tray sat next to the couch covered with marijuana. The TV was on, the screen showing a lurid riot of blood and body parts frozen in mid-explosion, partially obscured by the word PAUSED in large letters across the screen. A fat young man in running shorts and a T-shirt that said “Planet of Weed” sat on the couch. He looked up and blinked in stoned confusion as his friend entered the living room, followed by Zoe and Hermione, with Chunk bringing up the rear.

  “What the fuck?” he said.

  “Some friend of Bran’s,” the first young man said. “And, like, her parents.”

  Hermione’s smile slipped a notch. Zoe slipped smoothly into the awkward silence. “You guys got anything to drink?” she said. “I’m parched.”

  “Hank,” the fat guy said, “get the ladies a beer.”

  “Oh. Yeah,” Hank said. He disappeared into the kitchen. The fat guy looked them over for a moment, then held out his hand to Zoe. “I’m Freddie.”

  “Zoe,” she said, still smiling. She took the hand and shook it. “These are my friends, not,” she chuckled, “my parents. Hermione and Chunk.”

  “Chuck?” Hank said, coming back into the room. He was carrying five opened longneck beers, the necks clasped between his fingers.

  “Close enough,” Chunk said. He reached out and took one o
f the offered beers. Zoe and Hermione took two more. They all sat down, Hank and Freddie on the couch with Zoe between them, Hermione on the arm of the couch, Chunk in a wrecked armchair with a spring that poked him uncomfortably in the ass. They each took long pulls off the beers. In the awkward silence, the racket on the stereo ended. Within seconds, another one began, this one sounding as cacophonous as the first one, only slower.

  “So,” Zoe said brightly, “when’s Bran expected back?”

  Hank shrugged. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off Zoe. Freddie’s eyes darted back and forth between Hermione and Chunk.

  Chunk broke the silence. “Can you tell us if Branson’s been hanging around with anyone, say, different lately? Someone he hadn’t been with before?”

  Zoe sighed. Freddie banged his beer down on the coffee table. “I knew it!” he said. “You’re cops.” He stood up. “You people need to leave,” he said. “I know my rights. I majored in Criminal Justice for a semester.”

  Chunk stood up as well. He seemed to loom in the dimness of the smoky living room. “Kid,” he said, “if I was a cop, you’d be on your way to jail by now. Now, we need some answers, and we need them…” He advanced on Freddie and accented each of his next words with an index finger poking Freddie in the chest. “Right. Fucking. Now.”

  With the last word, Freddie had reached the couch and collapsed back onto it, all bravado gone. He looked up at Chunk, face crumpling as if he was about to cry. Chunk turned to the other man. “Turn that damn noise off,” he growled. Hank was trembling as he got up and killed the stereo, his face even paler than before. The sudden silence was deafening.

  “Please, man,” Freddie whimpered. “Take the weed. There’s another pound in the footlocker in my room. Primo kush, bro, I swear it. And a couple of thousand bucks in the dresser. Take it. Just don’t hurt us. Please.”

  Chunk started to protest, but Hermione cut him off. “We don’t want your drugs, honey,” she said. “Or your cash. But we do need to know where Branson went. And with whom.”

  Freddie’s eyes darted from her to Chunk, then to Zoe, then back to Chunk. “Wh—what’d he do?”

  “We think he helped some people in a kidnapping,” Zoe said. “And a robbery.”