Joey was milliseconds away from having to find space to accommodate a third corpse. Whether it was the scenery or the fresh air, Joey was feeling charitable, and he delayed unleashing a volley of lead. Despite this, the sight of the camouflage, eventually — for it was particularly good — filled him with panic. Were the Army onto him? He thought for a second, ticking off various modes of response, and he weighed his options.
As the figure moved from the shadows, it became apparent that the offensive weapon was in actual fact a metal detector, however, and the person wielding it merely a scrawny middle-aged man who looked like he would still live at home with his mother.
The man overexaggerated a wave and gave Joey an overemphasised smile. This man clearly did not realise how close he currently was to death.
“I’ve not seen you around here before,” he said, with a jolly expression. “Are you detecting?” he said, scanning the ground for machinery.
Joey relaxed a little but remained poised. “Sure,” he said slowly, in response to the question. “Detecting.”
“You’re a little smartly dressed?” the camouflaged detector said in reference to Joey’s immaculate black suit and polished shoes that were now partially covered in mud. “My name is George,” George said, offering a handshake which Joey grudgingly accepted.
“I like to make an effort,” replied Joey. “So, you, uh, you like digging stuff out of the ground, do you?”
“Oh, I love it,” George responded, with genuine enthusiasm. “Digging things up is my life!”
“Great!” said Joey, reaching into his pocket. He took out the coin and pressed it under the nose of the quizzical visitor.
“Where did you find this?” George asked, barely able to contain his excitement.
Joey looked at George, then down to the big hole in the ground and then back to George. “I found it in this hole,” said Joey.
“You know what you’ve found?” said George, all but dancing on the spot. “Do you’ve any idea?”
Joey was not a man who readily displayed emotion, but he was now salivating like Pavlov’s dog. “It’s valuable, is it?” he asked.
George took one final look. “Nah,” he said. “It’s from about nineteen-sixty, actually. And dead common.”
George started to laugh to an extent that a snot bubble formed and burst over his top lip. “I had you going there, though, didn’t I? I had you going good!”
Joey reached back inside his jacket. George was about to be severely pistol-whipped.
“Don’t be down in the dumps,” continued George. “We have a club. With patches you can sew on. And membership certificates. You should join. Meet the lads! I’ll take you out and show you the ropes. You’ll be a professional before you know it, you’ll see!”
George was like an eager puppy — very difficult, as it turned out, to kill. Joey took a look over his shoulder and could still make out the sleeping form of Mikey.
“George,” said Joey. “George, men have died for doing less to me than that. But I like you, George. Now, I’m about to do something to you that, when you wake up, you won’t be immediately grateful for. But, trust me, there are currently two outcomes for you. And this one, believe it or not, is the one you want.”
George screwed up his eyes, unsure what was going on, and began to laugh, nervously. “What do you mean by…”
Joey jabbed him on the chin. Not full pelt, but sufficient to render him unconscious. Joey was like an anaesthetist; one could very reasonably describe him as a consultant of unconsciousness. Like a consummate professional, he’d calculated the optimum force required but without causing permanent damage.
Joey picked him up like he was carrying his shopping. If Mikey woke up and saw him, George was a dead man, of course. There was nothing for it. And so Joey carried him, very quietly, around the corner of the building and dumped him in a bush that’d thrived in the harsh conditions and would likely continue to thrive. Joey was dejected about the coin, but he smiled as he covered George’s feet. Joey had just saved a man’s life. It was a first for him, and he found he liked the feel of it very much.
He returned to his shovel and looked at his shoes. “Crap!” he shouted, as he tried to rid himself of the filth, to wipe it away onto the grass. “I’ll never get all this off now!”
“Is that all you’ve done?” shouted Mikey, roused from his slumber, from the comfort of the car.
“What?” asked Joey. “It’s done. You need to buy yourself some glasses. Get them two out of the car.”
Mikey dragged the women who were, to say the least, reluctant to leave the car — like Mikey, earlier, though for entirely different reasons. He escorted them over to Joey, but, with ankles bound, progress was slow. As they kept tripping over their own feet, Mikey removed the pillowcases to restore their ability to see. The sight of a shovel and a hole, of course, did little to calm Madeline and Abby.
Mikey did nothing to hide his frustration. “What’s that?” he said looking at the hole that would, at best, be described as a shallow pit. “A kid with a plastic bucket and spade could’ve made better progress by now. Seriously, what the—?”
He never got a chance to finish, however, as Dr Joey Schmidt, the anesthesiologist, had not yet clocked off. He walked forward two paces and delivered a right hook that connected with Mikey’s chin with medical precision. Mikey Montgomery was unconscious before he crashed to the earth below. Joey clapped the palms of his hands in satisfaction as Mikey dribbled.
Joey moved towards the two women, who recoiled as best they could — which, considering their bindings, wasn’t much. Madeline closed her eyes, bracing for the inevitable, as Joey produced a knife, which had been strapped to his ankle, and advanced it in the direction her face.
With the skill of a butcher, the gag around her mouth was cut free, allowing her to take a hungry gulp of air. He continued with similar slashing motions, and both women were, in short order, released from their restraints.
“Are you going to kill us?” asked Abby.
Joey laughed. “I should. But, no. I’m not. I can see you’re both desperate to run away. But, honestly, I won’t hurt you. If I wanted to, I would’ve done it by now. If you don’t mind waiting for a few minutes, I’ll give you a lift to wherever you need to go.”
Abby rubbed her wrists, still sore from having been bound. She looked at Madeline for assurance.
“And what about this one?” Madeline asked her captor-turned-saviour, motioning with a nod to the crumpled heap that was Mikey Montgomery. “How are you going to stop him from telling Mr Esposito that you let us go? Are you going to kill him now? Because if you were going to kill him, that wouldn’t exactly break my heart.”
Madeline massaged her neck, trying to get the kinks out, and then did some twists to loosen up her back. “I might even help,” she added.
“Once again, I should. But I won’t. Wait here a sec, okay?” Joey said to them.
Joey took the shovel back to the car, opened up the boot, and returned the shovel from whence it came. He removed a tatty-looking brown fabric hold-all. He marched with purpose back over to Mikey and picked up his arm, feeding the hand through the handle, and then placing it carefully back down by his side.
“C’mon,” said Joey. “Let’s get out of here.”
Joey opened the car door, this time like a proper gentleman, and the relief on the women’s faces was evident. Joey was half in the car when he stopped.
“One minute,” he said, marching back over to the house. He was tempted to give Mikey a kick as he passed him, but continued round the corner, leaving him unmolested.
Madeline and Abby peered out the window, unsure where he’d gone. “Does this man collect bodies?” asked Abby as Joey appeared with the barely-conscious detectorist slung over his shoulder.
“I couldn’t leave this guy. Mikey would most probably kill him if he found him,” Joey offered by way of explanation.
George lay with his head rested on Madeline’s lap. His eyes o
pened briefly but they soon glazed over and he drifted off, once again, into slumberland. “I shouldn’t have eaten that boysenberry pie,” he muttered, just before he did.
Joey carefully completed a three-point turn, taking care to avoid the larger rocks, and started back down the narrow lane.
“What about your partner?” asked Madeline, glancing behind them. “You’re just going to leave him there?”
Joey shook his head. “Yes and no. See, you guys are going to phone the police when I drop you off. You’re going to tell them where he is. And I’ve got a funny feeling that, today, they’re going to find the largest stash of cocaine that’s ever been recovered on this island.”
“That bag you placed around his arm,” Abby said, nodding. “And what then? What about you?” she asked.
Joey paused for a moment before replying.
“Because I’ve saved your life today, I’ve put a death sentence on my head. I’m hoping you remember that when you speak with the police. But, while Joey Schmidt still has breath in his lungs, Joey Schmidt is going to get off this island and do something that Joey Schmidt wants to do.”
“Speak about yourself in the third person?” Madeline suggested, hazarding a guess.
Abby took a large sigh of relief as she adjusted George’s feet. “Shit!” she shouted.
“Schmidt,” Joey corrected her.
She put her hands to her face. “Shit, I forgot about Sam! Joey, do you know what they did with my friend, Sam?”
Joey shrugged. “No idea. But if he’s with that artist woman, then I wouldn’t bet on his chances of survival.”
“That artist woman is my sister!” protested Madeline.
Abby reached for her phone, but it wasn’t there. Then she remembered it’d been taken from her. “Joey, I need your phone. I have to call him and warn them. Please.”
Joey threw his phone into the back seat. Abby was frantic. “What’s the password?” she shouted.
“Bambi,” Joey replied.
Abby blinked, eyes wide, but didn’t question it. She pressed the keys, but her fingers were operating quicker than her brain could process. “Pick up, pick up,” she said, finally successful, and with the phone to her ear. “Sam, it’s me! Don’t meet those two guys, they’re not… Shit! Bloody answer machine. Why does he have a bloody phone if he doesn’t answer??” she said in desperation.
She held her head in her hands. Every possible eventuality ran through her head. She knew her options were limited. “Joey, you have to take me back to the house in Laxey. That’s the only place I can think to go. I’ll give you directions, but you need to be quick. If we don’t do something, those two fake FBI tosspots are going to kill Sam and Madeline’s sister. Joey, you need to step on it!”
“Sure,” said Joey, ever the faithful servant. “I’m just going to pull the car over and we can leave George here by the side of the road. He’ll be fine, I think. Probably think he’s detected an entire car bumper-first or something.”
Once they’d pulled over, Joey picked him up once again, and placed him gently against a grass verge, safely away from the edge of the road. “He’ll be okay here,” said Joey, reassuring himself as much as the others. “Oh,” he added, knocking on the car window. “Pass me out his metal detector, will you? I was tempted to steal it, but from now on, Joey’s a reformed character.”
“Next stop, Laxey,” he said, sliding back into the driver’s seat, pressing the pedal to the metal, tyres spinning as they found purchase, and leaving a cloud of dirt and gravel in their wake.
Chapter Fourteen
Piss on Your Chips
J oey’s abilities at disposing of surplus corpses was bettered only by his skill behind the wheel. Madeline and Abby’s knuckles were white as they clung onto the rear grab-handle for fear of being catapulted through the window.
Still…
“You’re slowing down, Joey?” said Abby. “Why would you do that, Joey? You need to speed up! Speed up!”
Joey shook his head. “This car isn’t much good to you if we’ve got the police chasing us. Besides that, this car has probably been involved in more murders than Jim Rockford.”
“Jim Rockford?” Abby asked, confused.
Madeline was about to translate, but Joey beat her to it. “Miss Marple,” he said.
“Oh. I see,” replied Abby.
“Yeah. And I could really do without attracting any additional heat. If you catch my drift,” Joey responded.
“Catch your…?” But Abby decided it wasn’t worth trying to work out. “I’ll try Sam’s number again,” she said. It was evident by the aggressive profanity a moment later, however — of which a drunken sailor would’ve been proud — that Sam’s phone was still going to answer machine.
“What if we’re too late?” said Madeline in despair. “What if those two goons got to them first?” The blood drained from her face. “We should phone the police,” she said desperately, reaching for the phone.
“And say what, precisely?” Abby replied, putting her hand over Madeline’s. “We don’t know where they are yet. We also don’t know what that psychopath Esposito will do if the police turn up en masse. We’ve actually got an advantage at the moment.”
Madeline was not overly convinced, and her expression did little to hide her feelings.
“Think about it,” Abby continued. “Mr Esposito thinks we’re both dead, or dying. He doesn’t know that Joey has gone rogue on him. We’ve at least got the element of surprise on them.”
“I’m not sure how that’s going to help,” said Madeline. “I don’t mean to piss on your chips. I just don’t know how we can do anything. We don’t even know where they are.”
“Hang on. Did you just say piss on your chips?” Abby asked, impressed.
“I pick things up!” Madeline replied. “Anyway, shouldn’t we maybe go back to Mr Esposito’s house?”
“You’ll be going all by your lonesome,” said Joey, from the front. “Are we here?” he asked, passing by a huge Welcome to Laxey sign.
“Yes,” said Abby. “Take the next right. Don’t go too quick, it’s really steep and there’s a narrow bridge on the way down,” she told him. “What do we do if Mr Esposito is there?” she asked.
“Leave that to me,” said Joey. “He doesn’t know I’ve punched Mikey’s lights out. If he or any of his goombahs are in there, I can make something up. Or at least give you two the heads-up you’ll need to make yourself scarce.”
Abby smiled. “Thank you, Joey. I mean that. Just think, Joey, you’re no longer a ruffian. You’re technically a retired ruffian,” she told him. “Just up that lane on the left,” she added, pointing to show the way.
Joey pulled the car up and gestured for the two women to stay in the car. “If I’m not back in two minutes, get running,” he said, pulling out his gun.
The holiday cottage was covered on all sides by a rainbow of flowers, and enclosed by a waist-high white picket fence. Joey looked for a discreet point of entry, but for a brute of a man like him discretion would often prove challenging. After discounting any other form of entry, he pushed on the flimsy-looking gate — but it resisted his advances.
Joey looked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn't followed, before stooping over to see how the gate was fastened. There was nothing obvious to be seen, so he tried again, with a little more pressure. But, once again, the little white wooden bastard of a gate wouldn't shift. All hopes of a covert entry were gone when he placed his shovel-like paws on top of the gate, giving a final forceful nudge… with the gate coming clean off in his hands.
“Crap!” he said, flapping his hand to dislodge it. The knuckles on his right hand had slipped between the wooden slats and he now wore the gate on his wrist, like some gaudy oversized wooden bracelet. He placed the gate between his legs and used the resistance to try and break free, but every time he tried to release it, folds of skin on his hand formed and blood was prevented from circulating around his pale-looking digits.
Mr C
lover, from Clover’s Cottage, was a permanent fixture. Permanent in that he didn't rent out his cottage, rather living in his full-time. The sound of splintering wood had interrupted his garden maintenance (his garden maintenance being a somewhat continuous endeavour). His head appeared, as if floating, from behind his perfectly-manicured privet hedge. He adjusted his glasses, which were as thick as milk bottles, and zoomed in on the hulking figure of Joey presently having some sort of disagreement with his neighbour’s fence. “This simply will not do,” he said, picking up his trowel and marching with vigour to intercede. “Not if Francis Clover has anything to say about it. No, sir.”
Joey, normally keen on remaining aware of his surroundings, was at that moment preoccupied.
“What are you doing, you great lout?” Mr Clover demanded.
Mr Clover continued his advance. As he was an ageing pensioner, however, his ‘vigorous march’ was in fact a rather protracted shuffle.
Joey was too engaged in his current struggle and began to smack his wooden wrist accessory on the remaining intact segment of fence. He cursed as a trickle of blood ran down his fingers.
“Put that down, this instant!” shouted Mr Clover. He was getting close now. Just a little farther…
Joey became aware of a small yapping sound, and looked over his shoulder to discern the source of the noise and assess its importance.
It was an elderly gentleman, brandishing a trowel, and gesticulating with it in pointed jabs to the air.
“Put that fence down, or you'll get a good thrashing, I can promise you that!” came the final demand from Mr Clover, almost on top of Joey.
Now Mr Clover was a few feet away, however, the sheer scale of Joey seemed to become apparent. Mr Clover adjusted his glasses, once more, as if to confirm that the image his brain was receiving was indeed correct.
“I’m trying to put the stupid thing down!” Joey protested. I’ve been trying! But it's stuck!”
Like a scrappy Yorkshire terrier picking a fight with a Rottweiler, there was still some fight left in Mr Clover — though some of the wind had been taken from his sails, and his garden trowel now drooped in his hand. “I’ve been in the war, you know!” he managed, and gave his trowel a bit of a wave like it was the Union Jack.
The Seaside Detective Agency_The funniest Cozy Mystery you'll read this year Page 14