R.P. Gannon - Barney, Willey and Oscar 01 - Geezer Paradise

by R. P. Gannon

  The bartender came over and asked us what we were drinking. We both ordered draft beers. Then he went back to talk to Flaherty again. My hearing isn’t all that good, so it was up to Willey to eavesdrop on the conversation, and relay it back to me.

  “What’s Flaherty saying?” I asked.

  “Nothing important. Baseball stuff.” I nodded and tried to look bored. Then Flaherty started telling the bartender jokes. The bartender laughed and Willey started laughing, too. So Flaherty could be charming when he wasn’t having people killed.

  “I elbowed Willey. “Stop laughing and pay attention. He might say something important.”

  After an hour the beers were starting to affect us. We didn’t want to drink anymore—we had to have clear heads.

  “We can’t sit here all day,” I said.

  Willey said, “The police have a warrant out for his arrest. We could make a citizen’s arrest. After all, he’s a fugitive from justice.”

  “Do you think we could pull it off? Maybe we should call the police.”

  “What if the police are busy and can’t get here for a while? Flaherty could waltz out of here free as a bird.” He had a point. This was the chance we’d been waiting for. If Flaherty was arrested it would solve all of our problems.

  “But what if he resists?” I asked. “It could get nasty. I don’t think the sight of two old men would scare him into surrendering.”

  “Maybe the bartender will help us. Don’t they usually keep a baseball bat under the counter to deal with unruly customers?” Willey asked.

  I rubbed my chin. Would the bartender help us? I wondered. “It looks like the bartender is Flaherty’s friend. He might use his baseball bat to crease our skulls.”

  “We can’t just let him walk out of here,” Willey said. “Not after what he did to Freddy and Mary.” He was right. I looked around for a weapon. There were three empty beer bottles on a table behind us that the bartender hadn’t yet picked up. I leaned over and grabbed two of them.

  “We could use these for weapons, “I said. I handed a bottle to Willey. “Let’s try it. We got off our barstools and strolled down the bar. I got on one side of Flaherty and Willey got on the other side. We lifted our empty bottles in a way that said we were going to use them to clobber Flaherty.

  I said, “John Flaherty, you are under citizen’s arrest. There is a warrant out for your arrest.”

  Flaherty went wide eyed. “What?” he asked.

  The bartender yelled, “What the hell do you guys think you’re doing?” But he didn’t reach for a baseball bat. That was an encouraging sign.

  “We’re putting Flaherty under arrest,” Willey said. “The police want him.”

  “I don’t know who Flaherty is,” the bartender said. “But this man is my brother-in-law. Now get the hell out of here.” Whoops!

  “Oh, were so sorry,” I said. “But he looks just like Flaherty.” We put the empty beer bottles on the bar. “I hope you’ll excuse us,” I said. The brother-in-law looked at us as if we were insane.

  The bartender reached under the bar and came up with a baseball bat. “Get out of here,” he yelled. We hurried to the door and pushed our way out onto the sidewalk. We just stood in the glaring sun for a few seconds, letting our eyes adjust to the light.

  “I’d have sworn he was Flaherty,” Willey said.

  “Me, too. He looks just like him.”

  “I think we handled the situation pretty well, though,” Willey said. “I mean, considering the circumstances and all.”

  “Yes. We handled it better than the average moron, that’s for sure.”

  “I don’t think we should tell Sofie about this,” Willey said. “Or Eduardo.”

  I agreed. We walked up Dodecanese Boulevard toward the Wrangler.

  Our lips were sealed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ****

  JOHN FLAHERTY EASED his boat between the overhanging bushes. The island was across the river from the where the old woman’s house sat at the river’s edge. The island made a perfect hideout. He could watch the house from there. Buckland finally did something smart, hiring a private detective to watch the old bastard’s Wrangler in the swamp. The detective had followed the Wrangler to this house. That’s where Flaherty’s enemies were now. Flaherty only wished he could get a shot at the Attorney General, too. Imagine him throwing his crazy old father into a dumpster and squashing him, just for the insurance money—and then blaming it on him.

  But none of that mattered any more. Now everything was lost because those two old bastards that had been hounding him. They must have stolen the flash drive with the books on it. And Snydely had to have helped them. He knew the combination to the safe. Now the Attorney General had the real books … it was all over. Flaherty took another swig from the bottle of rum and rubbed his four day growth of beard. His eyes were burning from lack of sleep. He would lay over at the island for the night and get a fresh start in the morning. He didn’t want to miss his targets. First he would shoot the two old fools who had ruined his life. Then he’d find Snydely and shoot him, too. After that, well maybe he’d head to the Bahamas. He hadn’t thought things out that far. But first things first. And the first thing John Flaherty wanted was revenge.

  ****

  Later that afternoon Willey, Snydely and Oscar, were sitting on Sofie’s back deck. Oscar was minus the bandage but he had a good sized lump on his forehead from where Lulu had bopped him. Sofie made him sit on a cushion as if he were an invalid. Snydely was strangely quiet. He was still worried that Flaherty’s henchmen would find him.

  I had noticed a cabin cruiser idling in the middle of the river, with a fishing pole stuck into a holder, but nobody was fishing. Didn’t the clown know that the middle of a crowded waterway was no place to catch fish? Sofie came out of the kitchen with a pair of binoculars. “Have you noticed that boat stopped out there?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “He’s not going to catch any fish out there.”

  Sofie yelled, “Look out. He has a rifle!” The crack of a rifle shot rang out across the water, and the flower pot next to me exploded. We all went down to the floor of the deck. Sofie was peeking out between chairs with the binoculars.

  Sofie said, “He can’t get a good shot at us because the boat traffic is bouncing his boat around. And he looks like he’s drunk.” Two more shots came at us but they both hit high up on the house. Then the boat turned sharply and sped away. We watched as the boat disappeared behind a bend in the river. We picked ourselves up from the floor and plunked ourselves back into our chairs. Except for Oscar. Sofie had to pick him up.

  “Well, now we know where Flaherty is,” I said.

  “Yes,” Snydely said. “And he knows where we are.”

  Willey took out his cell phone. “I’m going to call Eduardo and tell him what happened.”

  “Don’t call Eduardo,” Sofie said. “He has three more days at Quantico, and they have a shortage of agents. It will be hours before someone gets here, and Flaherty will be gone by then. I’ll get a boat and we’ll find out where he’s hiding, then we’ll call Eduardo and let him decide how to handle taking Flaherty in.”

  We followed Sofie into the kitchen and she got on the phone. She talked for a minute, then said goodbye and hung up. “The boat is on the way,” she said. “Get your guns while I change.” I hoped she knew what she was doing.

  When she came out of her room she was wearing those jeans again. She had her pistol in a shoulder holster under her left arm. I noticed she had taken the silencer off. She looked like a sexy gun moll.

  A few minutes later a car pulled into the driveway. Sofie went out and talked to the woman driver. Then a boat arrived at the dock. It was a good sized cabin cruiser. A boy about sixteen with curly black hair, climbed onto the dock and tied the boat off. He ran up to Sofie and gave her a kiss, then he got into the car with the woman. Sofie waved them goodbye and we headed for the boat. Once aboard, Sofie gave us each a life jacket. She put a child’s
life jacket on Oscar, and made sure we put ours on the right way.

  I untied the lines and Sofie started the engine. We headed straight to the spot where Flaherty had turned out of sight. We reached the turn in the river running at high speed. There was no sign of Flaherty’s boat.

  “It’s about a thirty-five footer with a red stripe running down each side,” Sofie said. “We’ll go to the marinas and check them out.” We idled into the first marina we came to, and checked the place out—no sign of Flaherty’s boat. We headed out to the next marina and did the same. Still nothing. We spent the afternoon going from one marina to another and found no trace of Flaherty.

  “He could be anywhere,” I said. “With all these small islands, he could be hiding in any one of them.”

  Sofie looked up and down the river. “That’s what I was thinking, too. Let’s circle some of the islands. I’ll need you boys to keep a sharp lookout for his boat. He’ll have it hidden in the brush.” Oscar was looking over the side of the boat watching the waves. He thought we were on a pleasure trip. He had forgotten all about Lulu.

  “That means you, too, Oscar,” I said. “Keep a sharp eye on those islands.” Oscar turned and smiled at me. He was having a great time. We headed to the nearest island and slowly circled it—nothing. Then we went to the next island and did the same. Again, nothing. After a while we figured Flaherty had left the river and gone out into the Gulf. From there he could have gone anywhere. We wouldn’t find him until he showed up to kill us again. We started back to Sofie’s house.

  We were coming around a bend in the river when Snydely said, “Look. Over there.” He was pointing to a canal which had been cut into the mainland. Houses lined both sides of the canal, and their boats were tied up in front of the houses.

  “This isn’t a marina,” Willey said. “Those are private homes.”

  Snydely said, “I remember Stevens telling me that Flaherty had a mistress he keeps in a house by a canal.” Sofie swung the wheel and we slowly approached the mouth of the canal. It was a short canal, but it was ocean side property. They had access to the ocean. I could only imagine what it must be like to get into my boat at my front door and be able to go anyplace I wanted—if I had a boat.

  Sofie threw the engine into reverse and stopped the boat. She pointed. “Half way down the line on the left,” she said. It was a thirty-five foot cabin cruiser with a red stripe running down the side. “What do you think, Barney?”

  “I think we should come back after dark and check it out.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, too,” she said. Sofie backed the boat out and we headed back to her house to wait until dark.

  When we got back Sofie called Eduardo to get the registration number of Flaherty’s boat. Eduardo wanted to know why she wanted it. He was worried she might get involved with Flaherty and get hurt. Sofie didn’t tell him Flaherty shot at us, instead she told him she thought she had found Flaherty’s boat and she just wanted to verify it. She promised she’d let me and Willey check it out for her.

  Eduardo had to call his office and have someone find the registration numbers in his files. He called back with the numbers and Sofie wrote them down. Once again he had Sofie promise she wouldn’t take any chances. Sofie promised. Sofie handed me the paper with the numbers and a small flashlight. We decided we all had to go together. We couldn’t leave Snydely or Oscar behind. It would be too dangerous. Especially now that Flaherty knew where to find us.

  As the sun started to set we got into the Wrangler and headed north. Sofie sat in front with me. Willey, Oscar, and Snydely were in back. Oscar stood behind the back seat in the cargo area, holding onto the back seat for balance. Sofie had used her computer to get a satellite view of the canal area. There was a wide spot in the road just before the canal. Snydely wasn’t sure he wanted to go poking around Flaherty’s house—if it was Flaherty’s house. The registration numbers on the boat would tell us. We all walked up to just before the parking lot and read the street sign, “Pirates Cove”. Then we went into the bushes along the back yards. Snydely took Oscar by the hand. There was an older couple cooking out on their back deck, so we moved deeper into the brush.

  We reached the rear of the house we thought might be Flaherty’s and moved in for a closer look. There were no lights on inside. It appeared to be empty. We moved through the shadows to the front of the house. There we crouched close to the house and hoped no one could see us from across the canal. Across the sidewalk sat the boat, rocking gently in the water. One of us had to cross the sidewalk and read the registration number on the side of the boat. The area was well lighted and there was no cover.

  “How’s your eyesight?” I asked Willey.

  “It’s better than yours, but that isn’t saying much. I was about to ask Snydely how his eyesight was when Sofie pulled a notebook and a pencil out of her pocket.

  “My eyesight is fine, and a woman always looks like less of a threat than a man,” she said. “I’ll go.” She stood up and walked out onto the sidewalk like she owned the place. She went out to the dock and wrote down the numbers on the boat. She turned and wrote down the house number. Then she casually walked back into the shadows. We gathered around to block the light from the flashlight and checked the numbers against the numbers Eduardo had given us. They didn’t match.

  “Okay,” Willie said. “Let’s get out of here. “I looked at the numbers again. There was something strange about them. There were a lot of the same numbers in the same order. Except a few of them didn’t match.

  “Look at this,” I said. “There’s a ‘T’ where there’s supposed to be a ‘one’. And there’s an ‘H’ on the end, that’s supposed to be another ‘one’. Do you know how easy it would be to change a ‘one’ into a ‘T’, or an ‘H’? All it would take would be a little bit of black electrical tape. Flaherty simply changed the numbers. “

  “You know, Barney,” Willey said. “You’re not as dumb as you look.”

  “Thanks too much,” I said. “Now let’s get out of here and call Eduardo.”

  We scrambled back into the bushes and worked our way back out to the road. We all piled into the Wrangler.

  Sofie said, “There’s no sense calling Eduardo if Flaherty isn’t there. He could be half way to Mexico by now. We’ll have to sail by the canal later and check it out to see if there are any lights on. Then we can call Eduardo and he won’t be wasting his time sending agents to an empty house.”

  “So, do you want to go back and get the boat?” I asked.

  Willey said, “How about we stop and get something to eat. I’m starving.”

  Willey, the skinny glutton. But it did seem like a good idea since we might be up all night trying to catch Flaherty at home.

  “There’s a little place near here that has good fried chicken,” Sofie said. “It’s called Spiro’s.” We walked back to the Wrangler and headed for Spiro’s with Sofie giving directions. As soon as we pulled into Spiro’s parking lot we could smell the fried chicken. It smelled delicious. We couldn’t bring Oscar inside, so Sofie said to get two orders to go and she and Oscar will eat in the Wrangler. Willey, Snydely, and I went into the restaurant with Snydely in the lead. Suddenly Snydely came to an abrupt stop.

  “There he is,” Snydely stage whispered, and pointed down the bar.

  Willey and I looked down the bar. “There is who?”

  “Flaherty,” Snydely said. “He must have seen us and went out the back door.” We ran back out into the parking lot just in time to see Flaherty race out onto the road in a green BMW.

  “Damn,” I said to Willey, who was standing right behind me. “Now he knows we’re onto him. He’ll never go back to the canal house now.”

  “He might go back to get his boat,” Snydely said. We hurried back to the Wrangler and piled in. We got back on the road and headed to the canal house.

  “That was Flaherty that just drove out of here,” I told Sofie. “We think he might be heading back to the canal house to get his boat.” When we
pulled into the canal parking lot we could see Flaherty’s boat lights disappearing into the night. There was nothing we could do. We went back to Spiro’s and had some of the best fried chicken in the state.

  As we left the restaurant we realized we couldn’t go back to Sofie’s house. Flaherty would probably set the house ablaze while we slept, and shoot us one by one as we ran out of the house.

  Sofie came up with a plan. “We’ll take the boat and sleep on board tonight at the marina where it has a mooring. In the morning we’ll check back at the canal house just in case he goes back there.

  We drove back down to Tarpon Springs, pulled into Sofie’s driveway and looked the place over. With our guns in our hands we got out and checked the back deck, looking for signs of Flaherty. We scrambled onto the boat and Sofie started the engine. So far, so good. We watched to see if Flaherty was following us as we headed to the boat’s marina. We moved quietly, watching the lights go by on the shoreline. It reminded me of the night we broke into the nursing home. Oscar hung over the side watching the luminescence in the water, as he did that night. And once again I held onto the back of Oscar’s shorts so he wouldn’t topple into the water. That trip had ended with someone getting killed. I hoped that wouldn’t happen this time.

  Soon we pulled into the marina. The only light came from the security spotlights on the small marina building. We idled down the length of the slips until we came to an empty one. Sofie backed the boat in and we tied off. Sofie turned on a few lights in the boat’s cabin. I hadn’t noticed before, but the cabin was spacious. Not luxurious, but comfortable. There were two side berths in the cabin and a ‘V’ berth in the bow. “I’ll take Oscar with me and we’ll sleep in the bow.” Sofie said.

  “We don’t take up a lot of room, but one of you will have to sleep on the floor. There’s a sleeping bag in the drawer under each side berth.”