by Mike Faricy
I slowly made my way over to the far wall, then got down on all fours and crawled behind the dining room table toward the door. I picked up the board Bonnie had placed behind the sliding door. It was a 2x2, maybe three feet long. The guy was focused on the lock with his back halfway facing me. I slowly pulled the board toward me, then backtracked a foot or two until I was hidden again by the dining room table. I exhaled, then took a deep breath, stood, took three quick steps to the door and flicked the lock, making a loud click.
Just as I pulled the door open ‘Grunge’ said, “Finally.” Then he looked up and his eyes grew wide as I slammed the 2x2 down onto his forehead like I was splitting a piece of wood. He crumpled backwards onto the deck and remained very still. I unbuckled his belt, dragged him over to the deck railing, then wrapped the belt around his ankles and attached it to the railing. At this point he was starting to groan but wasn’t really moving. If he was able to sit up, and that was a big ‘if’ based on the massive egg growing on his forehead, he’d be here for at least a couple of minutes. I stepped back inside, pulled the door closed, locked it, then wandered back to Bonnie’s bedroom. She was still sound asleep and hadn’t moved. Morton had climbed into the bed and stretched out on my side.
I gently shook her shoulder, “Bonnie, wake up. Bonnie.”
She rolled over on her back, said, “Hop on,” and pulled the pillow over her head.
I lifted the pillow and said, “You’ve got a visitor. I think it might be your ex, Wayne.”
Her eyes opened wide and she focused on me. “What?”
“Some idiot was out on the deck attempting to pick the lock on your sliding door and not doing a very good job at it.”
“Did he run away? Where did he go?”
“He’s, ahhh, still out there. At least he was a minute ago. Maybe put something on and you can check him out. I didn’t know if you wanted to call the police.”
“If it’s Wayne I want to push him off the deck,” she growled and rolled out of bed. I pulled on my jeans and a t-shirt. Morton lifted his head for a moment, then went back to sleep.
Chapter Eleven
She turned on the hall light as she stepped out of the bedroom. At the end of the hall she turned on the kitchen light and then the light out on the deck above the sliding door. Wayne, or whoever he was, held his head in his hands and was still on his back with his feet tied to the deck railing.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Bonnie growled as she ripped the sliding door open. “Wayne, you absolute moron. What in the hell are you doing here?”
Wayne groaned a couple of times, then said, “I was just gonna stop by and maybe have a beer?” His tone suggested he knew exactly how lame his excuse sounded, but it was the only one he could come up with.
“ A beer? At four in the damn morning? You worthless piece of shit. You’re three years behind on child support payments and you think you can just sneak in here in the middle of the night and have a beer? God, you are so unbelievably stupid. And what’s with your forehead? It looks like you’re trying to grow something,” she said, then looked at me.
I just shrugged and said, “He was trying to pick the lock, and I thought maybe that wasn’t the best idea.”
“Breaking into my house?” she yelled, then kicked him in the side. “I ought to call the cops on you, you stupid idiot. Now, get the hell up, come on, quit lying there like the worthless piece of shit you are and stand up.”
Wayne attempted to sort of half move his feet, then groaned, “I can’t.”
Bonnie looked up at me, “Dev, would you please undo that, so asshole here can get up?”
I unwrapped the belt from the railing and his ankles, then let his feet drop.
Wayne groaned, but didn’t do anything beyond that.
“Get up, scumbag,” Bonnie half shouted and kicked Wayne in the side again.
“God, will you please take it easy,” he said and slowly began to stand. “Just in case you haven’t noticed, I’m injured here. I ought to sue the both of you. What do you think about that? Think you’re some kind of tough guy, blindsiding me like that, buddy? See how you like it when…”
I hit him, hard. Gave Wayne a haymaker just as he was getting to his feet. I caught him on the bridge of his nose, I think I heard a ‘crack’ sound, but I couldn’t be sure. I was pretty sure I felt his nose give way as he crumpled back onto the deck, and there was suddenly an awful lot of blood.
“Oh, God, you completely worthless shit, stop bleeding on my deck. I’ll never get the stain out. Dev, sit him in the chair. Mother of God, I’ll get some ice,” Bonnie said, then stormed into the kitchen muttering a variety of invectives.
I grabbed Wayne by the arm and the back of his grunge t-shirt and hoisted him into one of the lawn chairs.
“Ahh, man you didn’t have to do that. I just…”
“Let me advise you of your rights here, Wayne-o. You say one more stupid thing or in anyway raise your voice or threaten Bonnie and I promise I will throw you over the railing of this deck. You got it?”
He looked at me with blurry eyes that were already beginning to swell and nodded. I really hadn’t paid attention to his nose before I hit him, but I was pretty sure it hadn’t been in that ‘C’ shape, leaning over a good inch to the right. Blood ran down his chin and pooled onto his Grunge t-shirt, hiding three of the letters so it just read ‘GR E’.
“Here, put this up against your nose,” Bonnie said and thrust what looked like a cloth diaper with ice cubes toward Wayne. “Then put this on that second head you’re growing,” she said and handed him a ziplock plastic bag with more ice cubes.
Wayne dutifully obeyed and suddenly, with an ice pack on his nose and another on his forehead, about all we could see of his face was his chin.
“Tilt your head back, Wayne. It’ll help stop the bleeding. God, you big dope,” Bonnie said shaking her head. “What in the hell were you thinking?”
“Oh, God,” Wayne groaned tilting his head back. The egg on his forehead was an absolutely perfect rectangle almost two inches wide and three inches long. It was in the process of turning a definite purple color. His nose was probably going to require surgery, just to get it back to something vaguely normal, and then it might only serve a cosmetic function.
“Wayne, I asked you a question,” Bonnie said. She was soft spoken, but there was a decided edge to her voice, and it was pretty clear groaning wasn’t going to get Wayne off the hook.
He groaned anyway, then shot her a sideways glance, checking to see if Bonnie was really serious.
“Well?”
“God, I can barely breathe. I should probably get my ass to a hospital.”
“Okay, that sounds like a good idea. Let me help, I’m gonna call the cops, they’ll be able to get you there faster than anyone else. Then, once the ER has finished, the police will lock you up and you’ll have plenty of time to think about an answer to my question. Sound like a good idea?”
“Ahh-Ahhh,” Wayne groaned.
“That’s it, I’m calling the cops,” Bonnie said and pulled the door open.
“Okay, okay, just hold on. God, in case you didn’t notice I’m dealing with some major injuries here. I’m the innocent victim of an assault and…”
“Innocent victim? Wayne, so help me…”
“Alright, calm down. Look, all I know is some guy contacted me.”
“Some guy?”
“Yeah, sort of a creepy looking dude. Asked me about the layout of your place, said he was a contractor. Something about redoing your ceilings or something.”
“Why would he talk to you? You’ve never even been here before. If you’ll recall, the few times we had to meet I insisted on a public place.”
“Yeah, well, believe me, first and last time,” he said giving me a quick glance.
“How did he even know who you were?”
“I don’t know, and I didn’t bother to ask. He gave me a hundred dollar bill, said he just wanted to know what the layout of the joint was.”
>
“And this didn’t seem strange to you?”
“Strange? Hey, you listening? Who the hell cares, it was a hundred dollar bill.”
“How’d he even know who you were? Where’d he find you?”
“Benny’s, I’d just stopped for one and…”
“Figures, and no you didn’t just stop for one. You basically live there.”
“It’s an okay joint.”
“Why would some contractor what to know about the layout here?”
“I just told you, to work on your ceiling. You telling me you don’t know anything about this?”
“Wayne, if I knew about it the guy could just come over and look, couldn’t he?”
“Well, yeah, I ‘spose, now that you mention it.”
“So someone gives my ex-husband-the-idiot, a hundred bucks to get the layout of my house and you don’t think it’s strange?”
“Were you listening? I already told you, it was a hundred bucks, cash.”
Chapter Twelve
Wayne was either really, really stupid or an incredibly talented liar. My money was on the first option. Bonnie gave him the third degree for another half hour, took a couple of cellphone pictures of him to document his attempted intrusion, and then had me help him into his truck.
She was right, it was a bright red F-150 with flames on the hood, and it was hard to miss. He’d parked a block away and I had to walk over and retrieve the vehicle. There was a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the front seat, stupid for at least two reasons. First, it was an open bottle in the vehicle and second it was in plain sight. I provided a third reason. Any more drinking from the thing would be a bad idea, I proceeded to add my own special blend until it was two-thirds full, then squirted the rest on the passenger side of the floor. I figured about an hour after sunrise, once the day began to warm, Wayne would have one more thing to contend with.
We watched as he backed out of the driveway. He had the ziplock bag of ice pressed against his forehead and about a two-inch length of toilet paper extending from either nostril, which in the hazy light of dawn made him look even more ridiculous than normal. As Wayne drove off he rolled down the window, honked twice and gave us the finger.
“Well, what do you think?” Bonnie asked.
“You kidding, it’s more like where to begin. You were married to that guy?”
“Oh believe me, there isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t ask myself the same question. But no, I mean about his story, the guy giving him a hundred bucks. You think he was telling the truth?”
“I think the whole thing sounds so stupid it just might be true. With your software release coming up, I don’t know, maybe someone got wind of it. It suddenly makes some of Iggy’s eccentrics look a little more sane. Obviously, I don’t know Wayne at all, but the way he told that story about the hundred bucks some guy gave him at Benny’s I mean, that is so lame it almost has to be true.”
“You mean they knew enough about me to know Wayne was my ex, but didn’t know I had a restraining order filed against him? Or, that he’d never, ever been here in his life? None of it seems to make any sense.”
“Maybe Wayne convinced the guy he could get what he wanted. That’s actually what we should be paying attention to, someone wanting the layout of this place. Sounds to me like they’re planning to pay you a visit.”
“Think they know about Iggy?” she asked.
“I would guess they do. If someone stole all his computers, wouldn’t they essentially have the program? I mean, couldn’t they take the thing and present it as their own?”
“I suppose, but we’d file a lawsuit, list the break-in, a robbery. I can’t see anyone getting away with that.”
“Unless you weren’t around to file a lawsuit. Think about it.”
“Oh.”
“If someone had programmers and they had access to Iggy’s computers, they could probably pull this off, right?”
“Possibly, yeah, sure.”
“So maybe they just want to get access to the computers, not steal the things. Somehow take control of the programs and…”
“But we could still file a lawsuit and…”
“Like I said before, unless you weren’t around to file.”
Chapter Thirteen
I’d been nursing Cokes in a back booth at Benny’s for the past three hours. I was thinking maybe I’d misjudged Bonnie’s idiot ex, Wayne, when he suddenly stumbled in the front door apparently over-served and feeling no pain.
“What the hell happened to you?” the bartender asked then drew a beer and slid it across the bar to Wayne. “On the house, man.”
“Thanks, I don’t know, I lost count, three or four of ‘em, I think. Last night, just as I got home. I parked the truck, headed for the front door of the building when this one dude pops up, big bastard, asks me if I can lend him a dollar. I told him to get screwed, and the next thing I know there’s a bunch of ‘em coming at me.”
I couldn’t see any toilet paper in his nostrils, but only because it had been replaced by a silver metal splint that covered his entire nose. It looked like it was edged in a blueish-green foam or rubber and taped to his face with white surgical tape. His nose sounded plugged, but that could have been due to the splint. The egg on his forehead was still in the shape of a perfect rectangle and had grown purple. Both eyes were swollen and black.
“Yeah, I took two or three of ‘em out. It happened so fast I sort of lost count. Then one dude pulled a gun on me and said, ‘I don’t want no more trouble, you just get away from me and I won’t shoot’. I figured I had a couple of beers in the fridge up in my apartment so I went inside.”
“Oh, bullshit,” some guy groaned from a couple of stools down the bar. Two other guys who’d been listening just shook their heads and walked back to their table.
“Give me that free beer back,” the bartender said. Wayne grabbed the glass, stepped back and immediately gulped down two thirds.
Some guy rose out of a booth, walked over to Wayne and put his arm around his shoulder, then sort of guided Wayne down to the end of the bar. He was a good foot taller than Wayne with a hook nose and a wandering left eye. He was angular, all elbows, knees, bony shoulders and wrists plus a bouncing adams apple. A receding hairline left him with what looked like a thinning mohawk. They seemed to be in a rather animated conversation. The guy poked Wayne in the chest with a bony index finger while Wayne shook his head and pointed to the metal splint covering his nose.
If I had to guess I would have said the guy was looking for the layout to Bonnie’s house or his hundred dollars back. Suddenly he pushed Wayne into a couple of empty stools and shouted, “A hundred bucks, asshole. Let’s go.”
“I told you, I don’t have it. I deposited it in the bank last night.”
“Bullshit, you were buying drinks all last night, you blew it and then you didn’t deliver. You…”
“Hey, fellas,” the bartender yelled. “Take it outside. Go on, get out of here.”
“I didn’t do nothing, he’s threatening me,” Wayne pleaded.
The guy pushed Wayne again and he half fell over a couple of bar stools.
“Okay, that’s it. Both of you, get the hell out of here, now. Go on, get out or I’m calling the cops.”
The guy leaned forward, looked down at Wayne and growled something. It was impossible hear what he said but I had a pretty good idea.
“I’m calling the cops,” the bartender said and put a cellphone to his ear.
The guy glared, then hurried out the door. Wayne remained on the floor. I hurried out of my booth and headed toward the door. Wayne’s swollen eyes grew wide when he recognized me.
“I, I, I didn’t tell him nothing, honest, you can even ask him,” he sputtered.
“I intend to do just that. And you better watch yourself or I’ll come looking for you. Got it?”
Wayne nodded meekly.
“Wayne,” the bartender yelled. “This is your last warning, get the hell out of here, now. Yo
u’re chasing away business.”
Chapter Fourteen
A dark green Jaguar was pulling out of the parking lot as I stepped out of Benny’s. The odd-looking guy who’d just pushed Wayne into the bar stools was behind the wheel of the Jag. Fortunately, he was focused on the street traffic and didn’t pay attention to me. The Jag took a right onto the street and drove off.
I jogged a half block to my car, jumped in and prayed it would start. It did and I sped off down the street in pursuit of the Jag. I was driving an ’87 Lancer. It had originally been painted red, but with almost thirty years of fading it was now various shades of pink. I spotted the Jag a few blocks later, then dropped back just far enough so a car could pull between us.
I followed him through downtown, then along West Seventh until he took the 35-E entrance and headed south on the interstate. We drove for another ten minutes, through Mendota Heights and Eagan, where he took the Cedar Ave exit. Mercifully, another car was in front of me on the same exit. I followed at a discreet distance, saw him turn and was about to do the same when I realized the street was just a cul-de-sac. I drove past, pulled over, then strolled back to the corner. I wrote down the address and the license number of the Jag, then pulled to the opposite side of the road and waited.
I checked in with Bonnie on my cellphone. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened. A little after nine that night I drove home, packed a suitcase and drove over to Bonnie’s. She made me a couple of Iggy’s hot dogs and we sat out on the deck while Morton investigated the backyard.
“Thanks in advance for cleaning up after Morton,” she said, then indicated him leaving a deposit back by the kid’s sandbox.
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. He was in the car with me for a few hours tonight, it’s when we usually take a walk.”
“Charming, just remember to clean it up, you can wait ’til morning if you want.”