by Mike Faricy
“Look, here’s the deal. While I was being interrogated by you and Officer Friendly, that blonde who doesn’t know how to smile…”
“Gutnacht?”
“Yeah, anyway, Swindle Lawless was passed out at my place on my couch. When I got back home she was gone. I thought at first she may have left under her own power, but now I’m thinking she may have been forcibly removed. You know, someone took her.”
“Or maybe it was a half dozen sailors who’d just gotten paid and she ran off with them. So what’s your point? Other than I can add perjury to the laundry list of charges I intend to file against you?”
“Thanks. My point is can you check your monitor records and see if Gino and Tommy D’Angelo were at my house? I’m guessing you can track them off cell phone towers or something.”
“We can, and no, they weren’t anywhere in the vicinity of your lair. I checked the reports personally. And like I told you earlier, they haven’t left their home for the better part of the past week.”
“The past week?”
“Correct. Anything else?”
“You’re sure?”
“Haskell, I want you to listen to this very carefully,” Manning said and hung up.
I thought about what he said; they hadn’t left their home for almost week. I had a tough time picturing Swindle making it out of my place barefoot, on her own, while carrying a sawed-off twenty gauge. I phoned Louie back.
“Yeah, Dev.”
“Your clients have another home in town here?”
“My clients, the D’Angelos? No, they got the joint on the River Boulevard, a lake place up north, some sort of condo thing out in Vegas, but far as I know they haven’t been out there for the better part of a year. I think they’re renting out the Vegas condo on a time share program.”
“No separate condo for Gino here in town? Maybe a trailer or something?”
“No, they live together. Have for maybe the past eight to ten years. Why?”
“I’m talking to Manning just now and he told me they haven’t left the house for the better part of a week.”
“Yeah, they’re not supposed to, well unless it’s been cleared with the cops. They got the monitor…”
“Screw that. If they aren’t supposed to leave the house then where the hell were they when I pulled Swindle out of the pool? Louie, I could have ransacked that house and they weren’t around to stop me. I walked through the entire place and believe me she was the only one home. I took her out of there and Cazzo called you looking for her, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what he said. That house is a pretty big place. Maybe they were just in a different wing and didn’t know you were there.”
“They didn’t know I was there, that’s for sure. I never would’ve been able to get Swindle out of there if they’d been anywhere near the place. It’s just that Manning said they were home and hadn’t left for the better part of the past week, but they sure as hell were gone when I went through the place. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s a big joint,” Louie suggested.
“It ain’t that big. And they’re definitely not my biggest fans, so they wouldn’t put up with me wandering around the place looking in rooms. I walked through the entire house and didn’t see anyone else. I think they got a way to beat that ankle bracelet monitoring system.”
“Dev, the thing is programmed to send an alert the moment they try to screw with it. Believe me, better guys than those two have tried and been nailed.”
“Well something ain’t right.”
“Probably, but this time I don’t think it has anything to do with the D’Angelos.”
Chapter Forty-Five
I phoned Candi to see if she was working. I arranged to meet her at the Tutti Frutti toward the end of the evening which gave me plenty of time to check out her place. I pulled up in front of her house just after dark. I walked around the side, through the gate, and into her backyard. I carried a bouquet of flowers from the grocery store just in case someone questioned what I was doing. I was hoping she might have a spare key hidden near her back door.
I found the key, but it took me the better part of an hour. The thing was cleverly hidden along the edge of a flower garden in a Styrofoam rock made for hiding keys. I unlocked the back door and stepped inside, my ears perked for an alarm system, although there hadn’t been a little plaque out front touting one. There were no stickers on her windows from an alarm company either. But I really didn’t need a breaking and entering charge added to my laundry list of trouble, so I remained just inside the kitchen door for the better part of five minutes.
Some lights were on around her first floor. They looked like the lights you would leave on when you left the house to make it look like you were still home.
Once I was convinced the place was empty, I left the flowers on the kitchen counter and started to go through the place. Candi had a nice home, a lovely home actually, and it suddenly struck me that even with the tips she made it was pretty pricey for someone slinging drinks in a bar three or four nights a week.
I peeked inside her attached garage. The place was spotless and had some sort of coating on the garage floor that looked mopped and scrubbed regularly. There was a silver car parked in the second space. I panicked thinking someone might be in the house. I quietly walked over and felt the hood, cold to the touch. If someone was home they’d been here for a while.
I looked at the logo on the front of the hood; a small shield, red and black in the upper right and lower left corners. A Porsche. I walked to the rear and checked; a 911 Carrera 4S. I didn’t know the cost, but I think they started in the six figure neighborhood and headed north. The thing was too rich for my budget. I wrote down the license number on the back of a dollar bill and stuffed it back in my wallet.
I tiptoed back inside and stood in the kitchen straining my ears. I failed to pick up any telltale sounds in the house. I cautiously moved to the front staircase and stood listening again but didn’t hear anything. I crept up the staircase as quietly as possible and stopped at the top of the stairs to listen again. The only thing I could hear was my heart pounding.
I remained alert as I quietly checked each room just to make sure no one was in the house. When I had satisfied myself I was indeed alone I began to search, although I didn’t know what it was I was searching for.
I started with Candi’s room. I looked under her bed expecting to see the infamous riding crop and handcuffs. Nothing was there. I went through her dresser drawers; the usual thongs and bras in the top two drawers, blouses and tops neatly folded in the next two drawers. The bottom drawer contained jeans and a bottle of lubricant. No real surprise until I did a closer look at the jeans. They were men’s jeans and folded next to them a Patriots jersey, a Boston Celtic’s T-shirt, and a couple of golf shirts from clubs I’d never heard of. None of it would have fit Candi.
I checked her closet. The usual thousand plus garments on hangers crammed into too small a space and shoes, lots of shoes. At the back of the closet there were two sport coats that looked to be fairly expensive on dark wooden hangers with brass hooks. One coat was sort of a creamy color, the other black with a subtle check pattern. Each coat had two pairs of pressed slacks hanging from the horizontal bar and black belts hanging from the brass hook.
Next to that was a plastic bag from a dry cleaner with five pressed and starched men’s shirts hanging inside. The tag had been removed from the plastic bag. Two pairs of men’s shoes sat on the floor in a far back corner; a pair of loafers that looked handmade and Italian with little brass buckles. Next to them sat a pair of lace-up shoes that looked like they cost a lot more than I would pay. Both sets of shoes were black and highly polished.
I checked the other rooms and didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. I wandered into what served as an office, again maybe strange for a woman who served drinks three or four nights a week but maybe not. There were no paper files in the file cabinet, which might just suggest Candi paid everything
electronically. I turned on her computer but it asked me for a password the moment the screen lit up, so I turned the thing off.
Nothing out of the ordinary in the bathroom; her medicine cabinet held the usual array of aspirin, band aids, toothpaste, and some creams. There were two electric tooth brushes in a drawer in the double sink vanity, but nothing else that suggested another individual. Maybe the clothes were her father’s when he came to visit.
I went back down to the first floor, looked through the rooms, and didn’t see anything that suggested nefarious activity. The basement had a large finished room off a sort of laundry room work area. All the laundry consisted of Candi’s clothes, all neatly folded on a table. There was an exercise bike in the corner near the dryer but, based on the half dozen hangers holding blouses arrayed along the handle bar, I guessed it hadn’t been used in awhile. Against one wall was an olive drab sort of metal shelf affair. Miscellaneous tools, laundry soap, and basically just junk littered the shelves. The second shelf held a couple of glass vases like the cheap one I’d seen on her dining room table the other day.
In the finished basement room a large flat screen television was mounted on a wall opposite a Jacuzzi that could fit four to six comfortably. I guessed the flat screen was at least sixty inches across. There was an extremely well stocked bar holding, among other things, eight bottles of Grey Goose Vodka.
Whatever I was looking for I was pretty sure it wasn’t here. The men’s clothing was sort of interesting, but Candi was certainly entitled to a personal life before I showed up. There was a fresh bouquet of flowers in a cut crystal vase on the dining room table.
I’d been there for the better part of an hour and figured I was close to wearing out my welcome. I locked the door and returned the key to its hiding place then went to meet Candi at the Tutti Frutti.
Chapter Forty-Six
It was Biker at the front door of the Tutti Frutti Club. He waved me up to the front of the line then gave me a suggestive little wink and let me in so I didn’t have to pay the cover charge. I was able to dodge the requisite greeting spank by giving him a hug.
“Thanks, Biker.”
“Just let me know if you need anything, anything at all. I mean it, Dan,” he smiled.
I let the wrong name thing pass. “Actually, I’m looking for Candi.”
“Candi? Oh sorry, I didn’t recognize you. I mean I thought you were… hey look, I’ll send her over when I see her.” He appeared more than a little disappointed.
I settled in at the far end of the bar and searched the room for Candi but didn’t see her. She tapped me on the shoulder a number of beers later.
“Hi, Dev. Been here long?”
She was wearing her standard too-small latex outfit with the zipper three quarters of the way down revealing her bottomless grand canyon of cleavage. A thick wad of bills was nestled in there comfortably between the hillsides.
I was at the point where I really couldn’t remember how long I’d been at the bar. “No problem,” I said, thinking that covered a multitude of sins and hoping I hadn’t slurred my words too much.
“I’m just going to log out. You hungry? We could maybe grab a late bite somewhere, or we could just go back to my place and rustle something up,” she winked.
“Your place sounds more fun.”
She smiled, squeezed my arm then said, “Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll be back.”
It was more like forty minutes or two more beers, take your choice.
“You all set?” she asked.
I nodded. “Let me just pay my tab,” I said and handed the bartender my card.
“Maybe I should drive,” she said.
I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea. The bartender was back in half a minute. “I’m sorry sir, but your card has been declined,” he said.
“Declined? You gotta be kidding, better run it again. There must be something wrong.”
“Well, what’s wrong is it’s been declined. If you had another one I could try that.”
“You must be doing something wrong. That card is perfectly good.”
He looked over my shoulder at Candi and shrugged. “I ran the thing twice, sorry.”
“I’ll sign off on his tab, Petey, don’t worry about it,” she said.
“Hey look the card is good, pal,” I said maybe just a little too loud.
“Relax, Dev. Here, Petey,” she said pulling the wad of cash from her cleavage and peeling off a couple of twenties. “Sorry for the hassle.”
“Candi, I think I can pay my own God damn bar bill.”
“Dev, no need to get upset. My treat. Come on. Besides, I know how you can work it off.”
We headed out the back door to her car. I forget what we chatted about on the short drive to her place. But all of a sudden we were on her street and the next thing I knew she pulled into her driveway and parked.
“Do you ever park in your garage?” I asked careful to annunciate clearly.
“Yeah, in the winter I guess, or if it’s raining. Otherwise, I just don’t need the hassle of hitting the wall when I pull in, or backing out and snapping off a side mirror. I just park in the driveway, at least as long as the weather stays nice.”
“Maybe it’ll rain tonight, might be a good idea to pull in,” I said.
“Dev, hello, anyone home?” she asked, climbing out of the car. “In case you forgot, we’ve been in a drought for the better part of two and a half months. Rain?” she asked, looking up into the clear sky. There was a half moon up there and lots of stars. “I don’t think so. Come on, I’m hungry.”
I couldn’t put my finger on it, but as we walked into Candi’s house I had that feeling I’d forgotten to do something. I reflexively checked my fly, it was zipped up.
“Grab a stool and let me throw something together. Chicken sandwiches okay with you?”
“Yeah, sounds great,” I said following her into the kitchen. I realized what I’d forgotten the moment I saw the four-dollar flower bouquet I’d left on her kitchen counter earlier.
Candi spotted the flowers the same time I did and moved toward them quickly acting like they belonged right where they were.
“I better put these in some water. You want another beer?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
“Yeah right, let me get you one,” she said. She tore the cellophane off the flowers I’d left behind. She opened the refrigerator, grabbed a beer, and handed it to me. She tossed the cellophane in the trash, opened a cupboard, and took down a nice looking vase, which she proceeded to fill with water. It took her about five minutes to prepare our sandwiches.
“Another beer?”
“Better not,” I said.
She reached into the refrigerator, took out another beer, and handed it to me.
“I was thinking I should be on my game tomorrow.”
“Sure you should,” she smiled.
“Nice flowers,” I said, giving the nod to the vase she’d put on the kitchen counter.
“Yeah, I love flowers. I always have some in the house. It just seems to brighten up the mood of the whole place. You know how it is.”
Did I know? Not really. Had she meant to buy flowers and thought she did? Flowers struck me as the sort of item you don’t forget whether you purchased or not. A bar of soap, lettuce, dinner? Yeah I might not remember if I bought that stuff. But flowers? Really? I don’t think so, I felt pretty sure I’d remember. Yet here she was acting as if everything was normal. I kept thinking this isn’t making sense.
“Ready for bed?” she asked, snapping me back to reality.
I drained the remnants of my beer bottle then pushed the empty across the granite counter.
She took my hand and led me upstairs to her bedroom. Everything looked the same as I’d left it. I was still curious about the men’s clothing in the bottom drawer of her dresser and the sport coats hanging in her closet, although right now there were other things on my mind. I crawled onto her bed then watched her undress.
“Little something to get us started. God, no matter how hard I try to stop it, you just seem to have this effect on me,” she said. She bent down and kissed me along the side of my face. She pulled back a little and held the glass to my lips. I attempted to just take a sip, but she kept raising the glass forcing me to gulp until I’d drained the thing. All the while she kneeled over me and giggled.
“What the hell is that stuff?” I gasped. It burned on the way down and felt like it was taking the enamel off my teeth.
“Like it?”
“It’s hot or strong or something. It must be about a thousand proof.”
“Got this in Mexico. It’s pretty strong but you’re gonna need it to get through what I have in mind.” She sort of laughed then pushed me back on the bed and slowly unbuckled my belt nibbling her way through my jeans.
I remember thinking this is going to be great then wishing I maybe hadn’t had all of those beers. I thought I heard the TV again and was vaguely aware of the show sort of playing in front of me. Were those real people? It was hard to tell and I couldn’t seem to find the remote or reality.
The sound wasn’t very good and I looked at one of them and tried to say something clever like, “She’s with me,” only I couldn’t seem to get the words out and then everything just went black.
Chapter Forty-Seven
I was uncomfortable. Let me rephrase that; I was in a hell of a lot of pain. I was slowly regaining consciousness, gradually becoming aware of a conversational rumble from some distant corner. My hands were secured behind my back, and I couldn’t seem to move them.
I was seated on a wooden chair that seemed vaguely familiar. I stared at a concrete floor that rang a distant bell. I shook my head a couple of times in an attempt to clear it. Not that it really worked. The voices sounded like a bad recording on slow speed. They were deep, drawn out, and unintelligible.