Mike Faricy - Devlin Haskell 06 - Last Shot

by Mike Faricy

  “Driscoll, damn it,” I shouted and charged.

  He half jumped as he looked up surprised. He seemed to stumble, then fell backwards in an effort to regain his balance, tumbling head over heels down the staircase, picking up speed before coming to a stop once the back of his head bounced off the stone floor.

  I followed him down the staircase, ready to club him with the candlestick. I needn’t have hurried. He lay still, looking off to the side, but with his head cranked at an odd angle. He didn’t appear to be breathing. I sat down on the staircase and waited until discoloration began to appear around his lips. The blue silk robe had wrapped around his waist and the small Ace of Spades tattoo Desi had mentioned was just barely visible.

  I stared at him for a few minutes. I didn’t have any feeling one way or the other, except that I knew he’d caused a lot of harm to a lot of people and in the end he deserved far worse than a brief tumble down the stairs.

  So that was it. After all the schemes, all the lies, all the careful planning, it came down to a full body check from an old high school hockey player who was too tired to drive and just happened to see you in a pub one night. Serves you right, Gaston.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  “Anything to declare?” the agent asked in Detroit. He stamped my passport and handed it back through the slot in the window before I even had the chance to answer.

  “No, nothing,” I said, taking my passport and walking toward a domestic flight concourse. I had three hours to kill and it felt good not to be sitting after almost eight hours on the plane. I landed in the Twin Cities later that afternoon and gave the taxi driver the address.

  I saw her down the block the moment we turned the corner onto the street. She was out in her front yard, picking up toys and putting them in the wagon. The double stroller was parked next to the front steps. We pulled up and I told the taxi driver to wait a minute.

  “Daphne,” I called as I climbed out of the back of the taxi.

  She looked at me, but didn’t smile. She quickly glanced back toward the house behind her, maybe double checking.

  “Sorry to show up unannounced, but I’ve got something for you,” I said, then handed her the DVD with her name scrawled across in blue marker.

  She glanced at it, then up at me with a questioning look.

  “I didn’t watch it. See you around,” I said, then climbed back in the taxi and we drove off.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  I arrived home and opened a beer, then checked my phone messages.

  Beep.

  “Hi, Dev, Lydell. Thanks for putting in the good word and getting me out. Ah, hey, don’t bother to call back. You can just send the check down to my new Chicago address. I’ll text it to you. Annie’s being Annie again and I’m kinda tired of it. You ever need Ultimate Fight Club tickets, look me up. Thanks, man.”

  Beep.

  “Hi, Dev, Marsha. I’m down here spending some time with my sister in North Carolina. Probably best if you don’t contact me. I’ve got a lot of thinking to do.”

  Beep.

  “This message is for Mr. Devlin Haskell. Please do not attempt to contact me, ever again.” Click. I was pretty sure it was Annie’s angry voice.

  Beep.

  “Haskell? Pick up.” Followed by a long pause then, “Haskell? This is Detective Norris Manning. Please get in touch with me. The sooner we can talk, the better.”

  Great, three people who didn’t want to talk to me, and the one who did want to talk, I’d just as soon never hear from. I was on my third or fourth beer when the phone rang.

  “Haskell Investigations.”

  “Hi, Dev, Karla. So you’re back. Everything go okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess I accomplished what I needed to do.”

  “You mean Desi?”

  “Yeah, Desi.”

  “You’re so sweet. I don’t care what everybody says.”

  “Thanks, Karla.”

  “Hey, I got some chilled white wine. I was thinking of stopping and getting some takeout. You interested?”

  “You mean dinner?”

  “Maybe for starters.” She laughed.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mike Faricy is the Award Winning Author of Crime Fiction Mysteries woven together with a rich strain of humor and even some romance.

  His entertaining tales are populated with the sort of quirky, oddball characters we’re all curious about, but wisely prefer to keep at a distance. They serve not so much as examples as they do warnings to the rest of us. None of his characters will be saving the world from terrorism, international banking conspiracies or coups to topple the government. His characters are individuals inhabiting a world just below the surface of polite society. The difficulties they find themselves in are usually due to their own bad decisions, but then, bad decisions make for interesting tales.

  Mike’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MikeFaricyBooks

  Mike’s Twitter: @mikefaricybooks

  Check out all of Mike Faricy’s Books on Amazon

  http://www.amazon.com/author/mikefaricy

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  Chow For Now http://amzn.to/1chMJci

  Slow, Slow, Quick, Quick http://amzn.to/16RNJo3

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  Dev Haskell – Private Investigator Case File Series:

  Russian Roulette: Case 1 http://amzn.to/16wi0U6

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  (Mr. Swirlee Was Formally Entitled Mr. Softee)

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  Tutti Frutti: Case 5

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  Last Shot: Case 6

  Irish Dukes (Fight Card Series)

  written under the pseudonym Jack Tunney

  Here’s a free sample from Chow for Now happy reading.

  Chow For Now

  Chapter One

  Craig Cullen gripped the wheel tightly and fishtailed off the paved road splattering mud against the side of his BMW. He raced down the gravel road to the processing plant, and then skidded to a stop next to the black SUV parked in front of the building.

  Terry Taggert slammed the rear hatch, smiled and whispered, “Oh shit!” to himself.

  “Hey, Doc, didn’t expect to see you all the way out here.” Terry’s eyes blinked and darted like a cornered rat.

  “We have to talk,” Craig said over the roof of his car.

  “Just delivering our first box of steaks, want to take some home?” He almost had to yell to be heard over the noise from a hundred-and-fifty cinnamon-colored Chow’s barking in the kennels behind the building.

  “Good God, no! Are you crazy? It’s one thing to try and pass the pelts off as exotic fur, but steaks, my God! You aren’t really planning to go through with this insane scheme, are you?”

  “What’d you mean, insane? You were all for it, came into this with your eyes wide open, even thought it was kinda funny. Hell, your wife, Marti begged me to let you in on the ground floor, give you a little taste of the action. You sure as hell loved the old projected profit ratio on the fur coats.”

  “That was then, before…”

  “What? Now all of sudden when things are about to happen you’re getting cold feet? A conscience? We’re just a little old import company, Doc, nothing more, nothing less.”

  “The coats, well yeah, that was okay. But, this meat thing, I mean come on. Look, I want nothing more to do with your ‘import company’. The idea of jail time doesn’t really appeal to me.”

  “Marti kn
ow you’re out here? You check this out with her?” Terry asked.

  “No! I don’t have to check with her. I make my own business decisions and I just want my investment back. We’ll call it even, I’ll just go away and not say a word to anyone, I promise.”

  “Hmm-mmm, well long as you promise, Doc. Not much I can say ‘cept sorry things didn’t work out better. Come on into the office, I’ll cut you a check. Sure I can’t talk you out of this?”

  “I’m quite sure,” Craig shook his head, relieved things had gone this well. He followed Terry into the cinder-block building. The office was actually more of a grimy lunchroom. The counter littered with dirty coffee cups and empty fast food containers. A table strewn with pornographic magazines stood at a haphazard angle to the counter. On one corner of the table a cup of coffee steamed next to a phone.

  Tilted on the rear legs of a chair sat the rumpled figure of Luther Suggs, psychotic face hidden behind a foldout and a two day beard. He lounged in a grimy, blood-stained lab coat, a white baseball cap emblazoned with ‘Chow Industries’ perched backwards on his head.

  “Luther, look who came to visit.” Terry said, eyes darting from side to side signaling there might be a problem.

  “Something in your eyes?” Luther asked looking up from behind a foldout.

  “Let me see, Doc, we were gonna cut you a check,” Terry plunged ahead.

  He emphasized the word check and raised his eyebrows, then gave a palms-up gesture suggesting Luther remove his size-twelve feet from the table.

  “Mind if I use that chair a minute and cut the Doc here a check?”

  “Huh?”

  “Move damn it.”

  “Oh yeah, just reading an article here.”

  “That the phone?” Terry asked, inclining his head in Craig’s direction.

  “What phone?” Luther asked, vaguely aware he might be missing something.

  “Thought I heard this phone ring. Hello?” Terry said picking up the receiver. “Hmm-mmm, oh yes just a minute, he’s right here. It’s for you Doc,” he said holding the phone in Craig’s direction.

  “Me, who would…”

  Terry slammed the receiver across Craig’s left temple with a dull thunk. Thunk, thunk, thunk he hammered until receiver shattered across Craig’s skull.

  “Ughhh,” Craig collapsed pulling Luther’s scalding coffee mug down on top of him.

  Terry quickly followed with his loaded thirty-eight, pounding on the top of Craig’s head. “Luther! Damn it, give me a hand here.”

  Luther watched passively for a long moment before he reached down with a massive hand, grabbed Craig by his perfectly quaffed hair and slammed his head against the cold concrete floor. The third slam made a noticeably different sound, like a ripe melon falling off a truck.

  “There, he ain’t going no where’s.”

  “It’s about God damned time, what did you think I was doing?”

  “I was busy, sort of.”

  “Take his keys and wallet, pull his car behind the kennel. Then dump him in the grinder. Grind him up a little at a time so there’s no trace. Doubt anyone knew he was coming out here. I was with that pain in the ass wife of his last night, she would of said something if she knew. I’ll call her and set something up. Damn, think I might have torn a rotator cup.” Terry rolled his shoulder, winced then kicked Craig’s body for effect.

  Luther grabbed Craig by the heels and dragged him across the floor, out through the door to the processing area and the large stainless steel meat grinder.

  Chapter Two

  “Come on, I can’t breathe! Oh man, Dickie, I’m not kidding, get off me!” DJ gasped in a futile attempt to push him off.

  Eventually, Dickie Mullins rolled onto his back, gasping for air.

  “You know, Dickie, it’s a good thing for me I’m not picky about who I climb into bed with,” she laughed then crawled out of the bed and put her glasses back on.

  “No complaint from me,” he said.

  “Hey, what’d you do with my underwear?”

  From his angle on the bed, Dickie watched her crawl along the floor in the reflection of the full-length mirror. In the relative close quarters of his thirty-foot houseboat there was no room to spare and her bare hip squeaked against the mirror.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said, grabbing the errant garment from under the bed. She stepped into the thong, stopped, thumbs hooked in the straps around her thighs and peered at his police academy graduating class. The light streaming through the small window cast golden highlights off her thick auburn hair.

  “Looking for anyone in particular?” he asked.

  “Yeah, my favorite arresting officers,” she said, snapping the elastic across her hips. “Just looking, you were quite the stud back then. Hey, can you spot me twenty bucks? Oh, come on don’t give me that look. You’re gonna make a Federal case out of …”

  “Relax, there’s twenty bucks on the dresser there.”

  “Forty would go further.”

  “Twenty. Sure you can’t stay?”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Look, I got an early day, see you around,” she said stuffing the twenty in a front pocket, bending over Dickie to give him a quick peck on the cheek before grabbing her cotton top and strolling out the door to the small deck area.

  “Hey, put your top on for Christ sake.” He stepped out of bed, hopped across the floor and into his boxers.

  “Good morning, Vernon,” she said.

  “DJ, always a pleasure,” Vernon sipped from a coffee mug and stared.

  “You know, Vernon, what do you think about an ex-cop who lives on a boat with a view of the city jail?” She asked gazing at the early morning reflection of downtown across the surface of the Mississippi.

  “Real nice,” Vernon replied, ignoring the river.

  Dickie stepped out the door clad in Hawaiian print boxers.

  “My God, that’s too much to take in at this hour,” Vernon said.

  “Dickie, put something on because you’re scaring poor Vernon here. See ya later,” she said pulling her top over her head then stepping onto the wooden dock and walking in the direction of the Wabasha Bridge.

  “Dickie, Lord knows you sure as hell don’t deserve it, but you’re one lucky son-of-a-bitch,” Vernon scoffed.

  Dickie silently watched DJ climb up the marina steps and disappear before he went back inside.

  His houseboat consisted of a room paneled in cheap knotty pine with a double bed, kitchen counter seating for one, a sink currently filled with dirty dishes, two cupboards and a refrigerator. He poured a mug of coffee from the pot DJ had started and went back outside.

  He sat on the tiny deck in the folding aluminum chair, every time he bent his elbow to sip coffee the chair creaked. He had almost finished the cup when he caught DJ’s figure in the middle of the bridge making her way to the downtown side.

  She was a computer geek who walked dogs for a living, it didn’t seem to make sense, like just about everything else in his life.

  He absently ran his hand across his midsection where his t-shirt rode up and his boxers wedged down revealing an ample spare tire. He was going to lose twenty pounds last summer, get back into some semblance of shape. He’d have to lose closer to thirty now, starting tomorrow. Once he picked up the surveillance case from Darcy.

  He’d been on a disability pension from the police department since 2003. Some guy coming out of a liquor store at high noon. Who robs a liquor store at noon on a Monday? The dirt bag came out, car wouldn’t start. First squad on the scene calmly pulled behind the fool’s car, blocking it. By the time Dickie and his partner show up, they’re just watching the show.

  Some department shrink talked the idiot into giving up. The poor guy, dressed in a cowboy outfit with a black ten-gallon hat, sat in the front seat of his car
crying with a six-shooter strapped to his hip.

  They had him surrounded on one of the first nice days of spring. Sunny, warm, and the only question is what kind of paperwork will have to be filled out, an arrest or a coroners report.

  Eventually the shrink talked the fool into tossing his weapon out the car window, which he did, unfortunately with the hammer cocked. The damned thing discharged, ricocheted off a snowplow and clipped Dickie’s left hip before exiting out his ass.

  He was just minding his own damn business, thinking about how great it felt to be in the sun, warm, safe, glad he wasn’t the lead officer on this cluster fuck when, Boom! Just like that, quick as you could say, “kiss my ass”, Dickie ended up retired and on disability.

  It wasn’t long after that, once he had completed his correspondence course, that he had started his private eye gig. About a year after that, he got the brain fart to buy a bar and restaurant, the Emporium of Dance. A local meat market for lack of a better term. Now, with the economy still tanked, he’d been working overtime just to keep it afloat. He glanced at the clock, six-thirty. He had an appointment at eleven which gave him almost three hours of sleep, if he hurried.

  He crawled onto the pile of leopard print sheets reeking of spicy lubricant. A hint of DJ’s perfume still lingered around the pillow and he promptly fell asleep.

  Chapter Three

  “Knock, knock, knock, Sleepy Head, rise and shine!” a female voice, frighteningly familiar and way too cheery, called from the door.

  “Come on, I brought you coffee. Mmm-mmm, here smell, Baby, fresh black coffee, just the way you like it,” the voice was suddenly next to his bed.