Caruso 01 - Boom Town

by Trevor Scott

  “No!” Tony yelled a little too dramatically. “Never mind. Go ahead.”

  Now Shabato looked confused. So did Reese, only in his case confusion required some sort of higher thought patterns that seemed to escape him. Perhaps his mother had dropped him one too many times on his head as a baby, Tony thought.

  Reese’s perplexed expression came out as, “Huh?”

  “Don’t you see, Reese,” Shabato said, his gun waving haphaz-ardly about. “He wants us to open the case. Why is that, Caruso?”

  Tony shrugged. “Maybe my dirty underwear will knock you out.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Shabato looked back at his partner and Tony took that as a sign to make his move, pulling his cell phone from inside his pocket.

  “Something’s in there. And it’s not your damn jockeys.”

  Shabato turned to see Tony with his cell phone flipped open and his finger next to a button.

  “What’s that?” Reese asked.

  “It’s his fuckin’ cell phone you idiot,” Shabato said, moving a step closer to Tony.

  “Hold it there,” Tony said. For some reason the man stopped.

  “Think about it, boys. Until a short while ago, what did I do for a living?”

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  Reese and Shabato looked at each other, unsure what to think.

  Shabato took a stab at the answer. “Crazy motherfuckin’ bomb jock. What—”

  “Think about it, Shabato. You’re a smart guy. We gotta build

  ‘em to understand them, and those who try to blow the shit out of perfectly good bodies.”

  Eyes shifted about the room. Uncertainty. That’s all it could have been.

  Shabato looked back at the box. “You’re saying you got a bomb in there?”

  “Damn, you are smart. And the phone is?”

  The synaptic connections were starting to work overtime in Shabato’s head, yet that was nothing compared to Reese, who was now moving a couple feet from the case.

  “Fuckin’ A,” Frank said, rising up from the chair.

  “Motherfucker’s got you by the short and curlies. He hits his fuckin’ speed dial, the number sets off a switch in the god damn case, and the crazy bastard blows us all to hell.”

  Tony smiled as if to thank Frank for filling in the blanks.

  “That’s about it. Although I could give you a long, drawn out schematic, with details of each device. But I’d hate to bore you with details in the last few minutes of your life.”

  “You’re bluffin’,” Shabato said. He wasn’t a convincing liar.

  Tony could tell that he was just as scared as his partner, who was now across the room near the door. Like that would somehow spare him.

  “Are you willing to take that chance?” Tony asked him.

  Shabato thought it over, his gun down at his side. “Let’s go, Frank.” He pointed his 9mm at Frank now.

  “He stays here,” Tony yelled. “I need him as a witness for the local murder.”

  Reluctantly, Shabato holstered his gun and went to the door. He let his partner scurry through the door and then started out himself before stopping and pointing at Tony. “This isn’t the end of this, pal. And I’m sending you a bill for those tires you slit. Crazy BOOM TOWN 193

  bastard,” he mumbled under his breath as he left.

  Tony went and locked the door behind them. When he turned around, Frank was up to his waist in the refrigerator.

  “You want one of these?” he asked Tony, holding one of the microbrews over the top of the door.

  “Yeah, what the hell.”

  Tony accepted a beer from him and shoved his phone back into his jacket and then threw the jacket onto the sofa.

  “Hey, easy,” Frank said.

  “What?”

  “The phone.”

  They both took seats. “You bought that?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who threw me into an ice-cold river in a pitch-black blizzard. Anything’s possible.” He took a drink of beer and then pointed a finger at Tony. Frank tried to clear his voice. “I think I’m catchin’ a bit of a cold from that. Should I send my doctor’s bill to you?” He hesitated and laughed under his breath. “What is in the case?”

  “My camera equipment.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Sure. Is that a piss stain on your pants?”

  Frank looked down at his crotch. “The beer’s sweating. I set it on there.”

  “Sure. So, what did those two beat you for?”

  “How do you know it wasn’t your good friend the sheriff?”

  Tony didn’t even give that one a thought.

  “Those two don’t need a reason to beat someone,” Frank said.

  “You gonna tell me the story? Never mind.” Tony laid out his version of what he thought the three of them had been up to, including Frank’s considerable skill at either re-keying locks or saving the records of those potential robbery victims. When he was done, Frank sat dumbfounded across from Tony.

  “Son of a bitch,” he finally said. “How—”

  “That’s not important,” Tony said. “But you’ve got something that’s theirs; I’m guessing money laundered from some of your 194

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  escapades, and they don’t seem like the type to give up until they’ve got what they want. So, your hiding out at the cabin had a dual reason. You saw someone run out of the Humphrey house, but you had also decided to take a little extra from the robberies.

  Stop me when I make a mistake. You see these two at your Portland house and you bolt. But they weren’t looking for a robber, they were looking for a double-crossing partner.”

  He sat there drinking Tony’s beer and shaking his head.

  “Where’s the money?” Tony said.

  “It’s around. I’m not giving shit to those two.”

  “They will kill you, Frank. And then they’ll blame the whole thing on you.”

  He mulled it over, his eyes shifting with various thoughts.

  Finally, he pointed a finger at Tony and said, “Not without the money. That’s what drives them, man. The money.”

  “Eventually you’ll give in,” Tony assured him. “They’ll wrap an electrode to your balls and start zapping you until your dick sinks so far up into your body you’ll think you swallowed a hot-dog whole.”

  He shuddered with that. “Jesus Christ. Sounds like you know that from experience.”

  “You need to go to the sheriff and tell him everything. Say you’ll testify against the cops. You could get off with a slap on the wrist, especially if you also give up the name or at least a decent description of the guy you saw running from the Humphrey house that night. You give Sheriff Green something to go on?”

  He hesitated way too long as he finished his beer.

  “Well?”

  “I told you. I didn’t get a good look.”

  “Then why’d you run and hide?”

  “Think about it. He saw me. There’s lights in the Jacuzzi. And, he could have gotten my license plate before he took off.”

  That’s right. But there was something else bothering Tony about that whole mess. It was coming to him now in a hurry.

  BOOM TOWN 195

  “You said the guy ran around the side of the house. Which side?”

  Frank closed his eyes as he visualized that night. “The right side,” he said.

  “Toward the basketball player’s house?”

  “No. The other way.”

  “Did you hear a car take off?”

  He was in deep thought again. “Don’t think so. But it could have. The damn house blew all to hell. I was asshole and elbows around the other side of the house, trying my best to get the hell out of there.”

  “What about the sliding glass door? Did you have to unlock it when you came downstairs after your romp with Barb?”

  Slipping back in his chair, he cocked his head to one side. “No.

  That’s weird. I didn�
�t think about it until you just brought it up.

  At the time I noticed the door was open wide enough for someone to step through, but I figured either Barb or Dan must have left it that way. Yeah, that’s what must have happened.”

  “What about the screen?”

  “There was no screen.” Frank got up and headed toward the kitchen with the empty beer. “You want another one?”

  Tony got up and went after him. “No. And neither do you. I gotta get you somewhere safe.”

  “But—”

  “Shut the fuck up. You’re coming with me.”

  Tony hauled Frank down to the Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, handed him over to Sheriff Green, who listened to the story patiently, and then handed him over to some of his men to throw into a lock up.

  When they were gone, the sheriff sat back in his chair and gazed at Tony seriously. “Something’s up with you,” the sheriff said. “You gonna let me in on the secret?”

  “Quite the intuition on you,” Tony said.

  “Women have intuition. I got a gut feeling you aren’t telling me everything.”

  “I’m still looking into a few things. Maybe that’s what your gut 196

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  is telling you.”

  “It’s more than that. You’re holding out on me.”

  Checking his watch, Tony saw it was a quarter to three. He got up and started to go. Humphrey would be waiting for him at the condo.

  “Hold it,” the sheriff yelled after Tony, as he got up from his chair and caught him at the door. “We got a murderer out there.

  You start poking your nose around and who knows what might happen. It’s not a great leap from two murders to three. And besides, I’m now investigating this case.”

  “Sheriff. I didn’t think you cared.”

  “Well. It’s just more paperwork for my people. And it doesn’t look good for the tourism.”

  “You’re quite the Rotarian, sheriff.” Tony opened the door and started to go but then stopped. “If you can get a hold of Shabato and Reese, I can handle myself. Besides, I think most of my work will be in front of a computer screen tonight. But, just in case, give me your cell number and I’ll update you later.”

  The sheriff gave him the number.

  “Call me,” the sheriff screamed. It wasn’t a request.

  Tony left him standing there. It was wrong to underestimate a local sheriff like Green. Especially a former Marine.

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  CHAPTER 31

  By the time Tony got back to the condo, Cliff Humphrey’s Mercedes was already parked in front of the garage door that still had a couple of bullet holes in it. The car also blocked Tony from parking inside. Humphrey was slumped in the driver’s seat, staring straight ahead, his hands grasping the steering wheel like he was on a roller coaster. The engine was running, plumes of smoke billowing from the exhaust pipe.

  Tony got out. “Hang here, Panzer,” he said to his dog through the side window.

  Then he rapped his knuckles on Humphrey’s car window. He slowly swiveled his head toward Tony and then powered the window down.

  Smiling at him, Tony said, “You stay out here and they’ll find your frozen carcass in the morning.” When Humphrey didn’t respond, Tony continued. “What’s up?”

  “Why don’t you get in,” he said. “Let’s go for a ride.”

  Tony thought about it for a second, knowing he needed to get onto the computer to look a few things up before Dawn came for dinner. Despite that, he got into the passenger side and let the heated leather seat envelop him.

  Cliff Humphrey pulled out and made his way slowly down the snowy road. He didn’t say anything for more than a mile.

  “I thought it would make a difference,” Humphrey finally said.

  “What?”

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  “Finding out my son didn’t kill his wife and then himself.”

  Now it made more sense. Guilt had been replaced by misunderstanding. “Why? Because now you realize someone must have really hated your son?”

  He turned to glare at Tony way too long, considering the condition of the roads. When he turned back to his driving, he said,

  “You do everything to raise them right, make them good citizens, and then this happens. How can you still believe in God after that?”

  “Without evil, how would we know good?”

  The car circled through a roundabout and Humphrey turned right onto Century Drive, which eventually lead all the way to Mount Bachelor some eighteen miles up the mountain. Tony checked his watch from instinct and wondered where he planned on taking him.

  “Larry Gibson called me this afternoon,” Humphrey said.

  “Wanted to know what my plans were with his company.” He placed extra emphasis on ‘his.’

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “He said you went to see him and stopped the meeting, temporarily.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted? What do you mean, temporarily?”

  Humphrey slowed the car and turned onto a small road that for some reason had actually been plowed. After a few blocks, he pulled over and left the engine running. Clouds still lingered in the air, making darkness seem ever closer.

  “You said temporarily,” Tony reminded him.

  “Larry signed the deal this afternoon.”

  “What? What about your son’s estate?”

  “The partnership arrangement reverted all company assets to the remaining partner, upon the death of the other.”

  Tony’s mind reeled now. He had made a major blunder by not getting his hands on that partnership agreement. How stupid.

  Turning toward Cliff Humphrey, Tony saw it for the first time.

  His jacket was open slightly and there under his left arm was the BOOM TOWN 199

  butt of a gun, probably a 9mm automatic, but he couldn’t tell for sure. Tony thought about why he might bring him way out into the sticks to talk about this, and his instincts told him things that reason could only speculate on.

  As he reached with his right hand inside his coat, Tony flinched slightly and almost went for the man’s hand. He slid his hand out with an envelope, not a gun, and stared at it for a moment before extending it to Tony, who accepted it but didn’t look inside.

  “There’s a thousand dollars and I paid your emergency room visit,” he said. “Plus I’ll have the garage door repaired or replaced for Joe. Also, I got you a week at that condo on the coast.”

  Now Tony was confused. He looked into the envelope at the hundred dollar bills, thought about what was going on, and then shook his head. “What about the case? Finding your son’s killer?”

  “The sheriff will find out who did it, now that the case is really open again.”

  Something wasn’t right. Earlier that morning Cliff Humphrey was adamant about Tony staying on the case. What had changed his mind?

  “Are you sure about this?” Tony looked at the money again, feeling more like he had just been paid to keep out of it, instead of for anything he had done.

  Humphrey nodded his head and checked his watch. “I have to go.”

  Turning the car around, he headed back toward Tony’s condo.

  Neither of them said a word the whole way back. He simply dropped Tony off, said he could use him as a reference, and dismissed him.

  Tony stood in the gathering gloom of sunset and watched Humphrey drive away, feeling something like a male whore who had just been fucked royally.

  When Tony got back inside the condo, Panzer at his side, he sat 200

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  for a minute running the entire case through his thick skull. Either he was the dumbest motherfucker in Central Oregon, or he had just been kissed off. Maybe both. Humphrey should have never done that. It was true that he had hired Tony to prove his son had not killed his wife and then himself, and he had done that. But why stop now? What had changed?

  Tony thought about all those things while he mixed
up a crock pot of pasta sauce. Dawn Sanders would be over in a couple of hours, and he had a few more things to check on the computer.

  By the time Dawn Sanders got to the condo, the entire place smelled of garlic and onion and olive oil. And in the background Vivaldi seeped from two Bose speakers.

  Tony took her coat and hung it in the closet while he watched her. She was wearing loose slacks and a tight sweater that made him realize he had completely underestimated a couple of her assets.

  “It smells so good in here,” she said, taking a seat in the same leather chair that Frank Peroni had slumped in only hours ago.

  Without asking, Tony poured each of them a glass of Chianti, which she accepted and instantly started to sip.

  Taking a seat on the sofa across from her, Tony asked, “How are the roads?”

  She smiled. “Starting to ice up. All that snow melting, the sun goes down, and then the remaining water freezes.” She got up and took a seat next to him. “You know you didn’t have to do all this for me.”

  Tony took a sip of wine. “All what?”

  “The cooking. The music. The wine. If I wasn’t the trusting type, I’d say you were trying to get me into bed.”

  Tony hesitated for a moment. Maybe too long. “I—”

  “I’m just messing with you.” She moved closer to him and set her glass of wine on the coffee table. “Although I am usually up for some antipasto.”

  She slipped her hand around the back of his neck and kissed him passionately on the lips, her tongue slipping in and out. Tony BOOM TOWN 201

  kissed her back, the whole time wondering what more she could do to him than Melanie Chadwick had. After all, Dawn had called her sedate.

  Dinner would have to wait.

  Tony was under some sort of spell, it seemed. She stood up in front of him, and in perfect sync with Vivaldi, she slipped her clothes off. Her hands caressed her naked form like two snakes wrapping themselves around her, the fingers of one hand finding a nipple while the other went inside her. Tony found it hard to concentrate on anything but her. He had to face it, it was just damn hard. He stood and released himself from his clothes, meeting her in the center of the room.

  “I was wrong,” she moaned.

  “About what?”

  She reached down and grasped his erection. “I didn’t think it could get any bigger than before. I was wrong.”