The Hidden Throne (Hazzard Pay Book 2)

by Charlie Cottrell

  “Hello?” I called out, feeling like an idiot. The last thing you want to do in a hastily-abandoned construction site was to make yourself an obvious target by calling out. I reached under my left arm and undid the snaps on my holster rig, loosening the popgun and making sure it was ready to draw if I needed it. I kept my eyes constantly moving, alert to the possibility of an ambush from any side.

  When it came, it came from above.

  Three guys, all in body-obscuring blur suits, dropped down from a scaffold and landed all around me. Two were carrying long stun batons, while the last one held two Tasers. The blur suits, which covered my assailants from head to toe, made it impossible to distinguish their features. Each suit distorted and bent light around it in weird ways, making it hard to even look at them. They were expensive and difficult to maintain, and the blur effect only lasted about five minutes before the suits sapped their batteries dry. Whoever’d sent these three, they meant serious business and had some financial muscle to back the more traditionally physical muscle.

  The guy in front of me—at least, I assumed it was a guy; it was hard to tell with the blur suits—swung his stun baton toward my head, a swift strike designed to either scramble my brains or render me unconscious from the sheer force of the blow. I ducked under the baton, heard it whistle just over the top of my hat, and reached for the popgun.

  Most of the time, thugs and goons attack one at a time. They’re hired for their brawn, not their brains, and they don’t think about how effective fighting as a group would be compared to attacking one after another. I guess there was also the danger of doing damage to your own guys rather than the enemy, but a well-coordinated attack would offset any dangers. On the plus side, it makes it easier to beat groups, assuming you’ve got the stamina or a method of ending things quickly.

  Unfortunately for me, these guys were pros. While I was ducking contestant #1, the guy behind me with the Tasers pulled the triggers on both of them and sent 10,000 volts arcing through my body. My hand never made it to the popgun; instead, I dropped to the ground, shaking and twitching in an electric maelstrom that I couldn’t have gotten out of if I’d wanted to.

  Everything went black.

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  I didn’t expect to wake up.

  I mean, would you have? Three professional hitters, attacking in a coordinated strike, had taken me out like I was the recycling. I figured they’d just go ahead and kill me, toss me in a pit somewhere, and outfit me for a cement coffin. It’s the expected thing in situations like this.

  So I was pretty surprised when I woke up in an empty room lit by a single bare bulb. There was no furniture, no windows, and only a plain door made of wood or, more likely, some synthetic material. The lock was on the outside. They’d taken my coat, hat, and equipment, leaving me in a rumpled gray suit and a dark frame of mind. As I mulled over the incident, I decided they hadn’t planned on killing me to begin with. Three pros in blur suits could’ve put a bullet through my head from a quarter mile away and never even had to risk direct confrontation. No, whoever was behind this wanted me alive, and I had no idea why.

  That can be less than ideal, actually. The sort of people who send professional hitmen after you don’t leave you alive for nice things, generally speaking.

  All in all, though, I decided to take it as a positive. Better to be alive and in danger than dead, I say. I leaned against the plain drywall of my cell and waited.

  I didn’t have to wait long. The lock was thrown and the door swung inward, revealing a tall individual silhouetted against the doorway. I stared up at them, too surprised to have even tried to plan at ambush. “Get up,” the figure said, their voice rough and coarse. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, though they sounded like a lifelong smoker either way. I struggled to my feet unsteadily; I didn’t know how long I’d been out, but it had been longer than I’d’ve liked. I tried to take stock of my jailer; they were tall, lanky, and holding a lethal-looking large-caliber pistol in one hand. It was, of course, aimed directly at me.

  “So you don’t get any heroic ideas,” my captor rasped. I nodded. The shadowy figure backed away from the door as I came toward it, stepping out into a brightly-lit hallway done in a shade of mundane beige that could have been found anywhere. The jailer gestured with their gun and motioned me down the hallway. I started at a slow pace, my mind racing to figure out what the hell was going on and how I was going to scrape myself out of this one.

  My jailer stopped me in front of a door that looked identical to the half dozen others we’d passed, and told me to open the door. I did, apprehensive about what I might find there.

  It was pretty much exactly what I expected.

  Inside was another simple room like the one I’d awoken in. Unlike my room, this one wasn’t empty. It contained a folding card table, two folding chairs, and Mrs. Margaret Pithman, the gun in her hand leveled at me.

  VIII.

  “Detective Hazzard,” Mrs. Pithman said as my shadowy jailer pushed me into the room and closed the door behind me, “please sit.” I stood there, feeling fairly unsettled. I thought this woman might be a bit crooked—hell, I was sure she was committing some sort of fraud with her business dealings—but I didn’t think she was the sort to hire professional mercenaries and threaten people with guns.

  “This might sound crazy, but I really do not feel comfortable when people wave guns in my face,” I said evenly. “I’m a pretty reasonable guy, and I think we could do without the imminent threat of violence.”

  “This is just a security precaution, Mr. Hazzard,” she replied, her tone light and nonchalant. I knew from experience that no one holding a gun was ever as nonchalant as they appeared. “I have heard…rumors of your exploits, the sort of things you can do when you think you have nothing to lose, and I’d like a little extra insurance that we will have a civil conversation.”

  “Funny,” I said, crossing my arms, “I don’t feel particularly civil when someone threatens me, either.”

  Mrs. Pithman sighed dramatically. “I fear we’re going to get nowhere if we keep talking circles around each other, sir,” she said. “I promise not to shoot unless you do something drastic.”

  “And I promise to take it personally if you shoot me,” I replied, dropping into the empty chair. Mrs. Pithman lowered the gun, but kept it clutched tightly in her hand. Just in case.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I want you to drop this case,” she answered.

  I arched an eyebrow. “What’s your stake in all this?” I asked.

  “Not your concern, frankly,” she said. “I want you to stop your investigation into the death of Terry Wallace. In exchange, I will pay you the sum of $10,000.”

  I snorted derisively. “Lady, if you think you can buy me off that cheap…” I started.

  “Per month,” she continued, cutting me off. “For the next ten years.”

  That brought me up short.

  “That’s…an awful lot of money,” I said slowly. “Why don’t you want me pursuing this case?”

  “It’s in my interests for you to…lose interest,” she replied.

  “And what happens if I refuse your generous offer?” I asked, leaning back and crossing my legs. I had to give the appearance that I, myself, was nonchalant, now. This was tricky territory; if she got too upset or too concerned about my involvement, she might decide to just plug me and be done with it.

  “I would be sorely disappointed, Detective Hazzard, but I would admire your professional integrity,” she replied casually. “But you would make me an enemy for life.”

  I chuckled softly. “Lady, you and half the other people I’ve ever met,” I mused. I looked her in the eye. “Mrs. Pithman, I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t look the other way here. It’s got nothing to do with integrity or money or anything like that. I just flat-out don’t like or trust you, and I’m gonna figure out how you’re tied up in all of this. Count on it.” I rose from my chair. “
So, we done here?”

  Mrs. Pithman met my eyes and held my gaze for several seconds. Finally, she looked away, an expression of deep sadness on her face. “I…I can’t stop you, Detective Hazzard. I just…wish you wouldn’t pursue this. I really do.”

  “That’s not something I can do, ma’am,” I replied. “Now, where’s my stuff?” The shadowy figure who’d been my jailer reappeared in the doorway, my coat, hat, and other accoutrements held before him. I could see clearly now that it was a man; a tall, thin man with slumped shoulders and a weak chin. I mentally catalogued the shape of him for future reference as I gathered up my belongings and stalked out of the room.

  IX.

  I found myself stepping out of an office building Downtown, several blocks from where I’d started. I managed to hail a cab and get back to my own car, noting the time as I arrived. It was almost 6:00, when I was supposed to meet back with Bodewell at my office and get ready for the evening’s activities. I could still make it if I hurried.

  I rolled through the door at 6:08 to find Bodewell already waiting for me. Miss Typewell was sitting at her desk looking tremendously dissatisfied.

  “Eddie, if people are going to keep coming in here and shooting up my desk, I’m going to have to ask for a new one,” she said wryly.

  “You can have mine,” I replied as I shut the door.

  “Why? Yours is worse than mine,” she shot back. I ignored her as I walked into the inner office and found Bodewell lounging on the sagging couch in the corner of my office.

  “Looks like you had a rough afternoon,” my old mentor mused.

  “You don’t even know the half of it,” I grumbled, settling into my chair. “What’d you find out?”

  “It’s gonna be tough getting in the building, Eddie,” he told me as he sat up. He packed and lit his pipe as I fished for a cigarette. Most people had abandoned tobacco products a few decades back, and we stalwarts were still clinging to the habit like barnacles. I’d picked it up when I was in foster care, as an act of teenage rebellion, and my time partnering with Bodewell a few years later had only cemented my position as a life-long smoker. “The front door looks like it’s got some pretty heavy security,” Bodewell continued, blowing smoke rings. “Lots of fancy modern stuff, mostly. Could do a smash and grab, though I don’t think that’ll help us get up that elevator, if it’s rigged the way you say it was.”

  “Yeah, you definitely need a key card to get upstairs,” I said, taking a drag and exhaling slowly.

  He took a couple of contemplative puffs of his own, then said, “We could go in through the roof. It’d be tough, and we’d need specialized equipment.”

  “No,” I countered, “the roof is too difficult to get to, there are too many unknowns with security. We go in the front, and we use the Boss’s computer expert to hack security systems as we go. I saw the setup on the front door. If this girl’s half as good as she’s supposed to be, she’ll have no problems.”

  “Know anything about this supposed wunderkind?” Bodewell asked.

  “Not a thing,” I said, flicking ash from the tip of my cigarette. “All I know is that the Boss told me this girl’s one of the best.”

  “Well, let’s hope she wasn’t exaggerating,” Bodewell said, standing up and walking to the desk. He tapped out his pipe in the ashtray, then stretched. “I need a drink,” he declared.

  I nodded, stubbing out my cigarette in the ashtray. “Definitely.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  We took a couple of stools at the bar in the Funeral Parlor, my favorite watering hole over on Purgation Avenue. It actually used to be a funeral parlor, but the place shut down years ago when Old Town became the sort of place where people couldn’t afford to pay their last respects to the dead. I know Higgins and O’Mally tended to drink here on occasion, too, as did Franklin, when the dead bodies piled up too high. The place was designed with heavy drinkers in mind: it was fairly dark, so you didn’t have to see the guy sitting next to you. The liquor was cheap, but strong enough and served in large-enough quantities to get you fall-down drunk with ease. The bartender, a veteran of the police force named, Rex, who had seen one too many things no man should see and finally just quit, never asked questions, kept a generous tab open, and only threw you out if you caused real trouble. It was quiet, dark, and as comfortable and familiar as a pair of old shoes.

  I was there pretty much every day.

  Between our first and second drinks, Bodewell tried to catch up with me.

  “So, how’ve things been, Eddie? It’s been years.”

  I stared at him over the rim of my beer glass. “John, don’t start trying to pretend we’re buddies. I may’ve asked for your help, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how you treated me on the Sweltzer Case.”

  Bodewell downed his whiskey in one go, then cleared his throat. “Eddie, there was nothing personal there, you know that.”

  “You stabbed me in the back,” I said flatly. I meant it quite literally, too: I had the scar just above my kidney to prove it.

  “Only a little,” Bodewell said, smirking a bit. “I had to make it look good, or they’d’ve killed us both, Eddie.”

  “Yeah, you were just looking out for me, I’m sure,” I grumbled, downing the rest of my beer.

  Bodewell placed a hand on my shoulder in a companionable way, and I gave him a glare that would melt through steel. “Take. Your hand. Off,” I managed to say through gritted teeth.

  “I was trying to protect you. That case was too big for you. Hell, it was too big for me. If I hadn’t done that to ya, you’d be dead for sure.”

  I shook his hand off my shoulder and turned away from him. “Doesn’t matter. It’s the past, now. I only asked for your help because I honestly didn’t think you’d give it. We work this, then I never want to see you darken my damn door ever again,” I said, keeping my voice flat and expressionless.

  “Sure, Eddie, sure,” Bodewell said in a subdued tone, ordering another drink and nursing it silently on his stool. I sat and stewed in my own juices for a while, then glanced at a wall clock hanging over the bar.

  “It’s time,” I said, standing up and throwing a handful of bills on the bar. Bodewell finished his drink and did the same.

  “Eddie, look, I’m—” Bodewell began.

  I cut him off. “Save it, John. We’ve got a job to do.”

  └●┐└●┐└●┐

  We arrived back at the office a few minutes before 7:00. Bodewell sat on the couch again while I paced the floor like a caged tiger. I kept thinking back to the Sweltzer Case, twelve years ago. It had been the last case I worked with Bodewell, the last time I’d laid eyes on the man, in fact.

  We’d been working together for about two and a half years. I’d been kicked out of the police academy for flagrant insubordination and suspicion of tainting evidence, and Bodewell had taken me on as an apprentice private eye. He’d worked on the police force himself before losing his job in what he swore was a frame job that left him holding the bag on some nasty narcotics deal. Internal Affairs had agreed to drop the charges against him if he just left the force quietly, which he did. “Ex-PD have to watch out for each other,” he’d told me when he first took me on. “Sure as hell ain’t nobody else gonna watch out for us!”

  For a time, it went great. Bodewell was a patient, encouraging mentor, a man who knew his business and seemed pretty dedicated to it. He taught me how to tail someone, how to examine evidence, and how to grease palms and get into things people didn’t want you getting into. He’d been exactly what young Eddie Hazzard needed, fresh from the sting of betrayal that I’d felt after getting kicked off the force. Bodewell had a paternalism that felt comfortable, and I really did learn a lot from him. I figured we’d be in business together for years to come. At least, I thought that until the Sweltzer Case.

  The Sweltzer Case started as a simple missing persons’ investigation. Benjamin Sweltzer’s wife was missing, and Arcadia PD had him figured as the guy who�
��d made her disappear. He, of course, proclaimed his innocence, and hired us to track Mrs. Sweltzer down. In the course of the investigation, we’d run across some human traffickers grabbing folks out of Old Town. Bodewell and I traced Mrs. Sweltzer to the slavers and confronted them in their base of operations in the old City Herald newspaper building.

  We were brazen, back then. No real plan to speak of, no idea how many guys we were up against or what sort of weapons they had on them. We just walked in the front door, guns held casually in our hands, and demanded to see whoever was in charge. It was bold, and tremendously stupid. It led to a gunfight between the two of us and a cadre of well-armed thugs who made a living out of dragging unwilling victims out by the hair. They cornered us, and offered us a choice: we could let them kill us, or one of us could kill the other.

  Bodewell opted to stab me.

  In hindsight, with the benefit of another twelve years or so on the job under my belt, I could see his side of things: he aimed for someplace non-vital, didn’t give me any warning so it’d look like he was really killing me, and he got me deep enough for it to be convincing but not so deep that I’d bleed out too quick. Bodewell himself was dragged out of the warehouse and beaten within an inch of his life; I managed to crawl out of a side door and get to a hospital while they were rearranging his internal organs with their feet.

  While I might have seen his point of view, I hadn’t ever really forgiven John Bodewell for what he did to me that night. When I finally got out of the hospital, I made an effort to avoid him at all costs. He was poison, he was dangerous, he was a threat to health and my liver. And I’m enough of a threat to my liver on my own.

  I got my private eye license. I started up my own practice, took on my own cases. Made new enemies, new contacts, a new life.

  But I still knew the old contact tricks. I still knew where his dead drops were. I kept a wary eye on him by proxy, made sure to keep my distance, and knew that if it ever came down to it, I’d be able to put a bullet in the old man.