The Invisible Crown (Hazzard Pay Book 1)

by Charlie Cottrell

  “I guess, um, keep fighting it, big guy?” I suggested, feeling uneasy. If I made a run for it, would I get the knife in the back? I’d already been stabbed there a few times in my life. It didn’t hurt any less than getting stabbed in the front, but you didn’t see it coming and had even less hope of dodging.

  “You should get out now,” Xavier said. “My boss wants you dead. The further away from me you stay, the safer you’ll be.”

  “And just who is your boss?” I asked.

  Xavier’s eyes narrowed. “You would ask now, at a time like this?” he growled. It was the only way to describe the sound he made. He sounded like a wild animal, barely reining in its desire to go for the throat.

  “It’d go a long way towards helping me end all of this,” I replied. “I could shut him down, figure out how to reverse your brainwashing.”

  “Leave. Now,” Xavier growled again.

  “Nah, I don’t think so.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a Taser. Before Xavier could speak or react, I shot him. Two metal prongs hit his body, closing the circuit and unleashing thousands of volts into the guy. He jerked and twitched, no longer in control of his spasming muscles. When I let go of the trigger, he slumped over in the booth, still twitching slightly. Another rummage through my pockets turned up what looked like an emergency epi pen, but was in fact a hypodermic filled with a strong sedative. I hate killing folks, even the bad guys, so it was often the best course to just knock them out and drag them back to the nearest precinct house than try to deal with them still awake and surly.

  “Sorry, guy,” I said, pumping him full of the sedative. I saw his body—especially his face—relax as the tranquilizers took hold. My antagonist sufficiently managed, I started digging through his pockets, looking for anything useful. I turned up a couple of datachips, a personal computer, a folding knife with a wicked-looking blade, and a wad of cash the size of my fist, but nothing else particularly helpful. I slotted one of the datachips into my personal machine and pulled up a vid window to check its contents.

  All the files were on me: my habits, frequent haunts, known acquaintances, the works. Then there were the files about my friends and coworkers: Miss Typewell, Captain O’Mally, even Officer Higgins. They all had a file in the folder. There was something deeply unsettling about some random stranger knowing that much about you and the people you were closest to.

  I switched to a second datachip as the waitress came by to check my coffee. She did a double take when she saw Xavier slumped over in the booth across from me.

  “Too much to drink,” I said to her with a friendly smile. She kindly ignored the ziptie I’d used to anchor him to one of the table legs.

  “Who the hell are you working for?” I wondered aloud as I dug through Xavier’s files. Nothing in there seemed inclined to tell me, unfortunately. I copied over everything from the datachips and dropped them into my mug of coffee, which ought to have corrupted any data on the thin slivers of silicon. I cut the ziptie holding Xavier to the table and grabbed him under the armpits. “C’mon, Sleeping Beauty. Rise and shine.” Xavier didn’t even groan or make a sound as he flipped straight from unconscious to fully alert. His elbow swung around almost of its own volition, a purely instinctive act, and caught me in the temple. The blow sent me reeling back, stumbling into a waitress and bringing her, the tray she was carrying, and me down in a heap with a crash. Dishes shattered, mugs full of hot coffee splashed their contents across my back, and the waitress cursed me in such colorful language, she could’ve been a sailor in another life. I tried to extricate myself from the pile as quickly and politely as possible, failing on both accounts as Xavier came up behind me, grabbed me by the collar of my jacket, and hauled me up and away. I was tossed—one-handed, mind you—across Spiro’s, landing with a crack on the countertop and sliding down it like some slapstick character in a silent film. I squeaked to a halt at the end of the counter and tried to sit up, but Xavier was already there, grabbing me around the throat and lifting me off the hard marble surface.

  “You should have killed me when you had the chance,” he hissed between gritted teeth. “I’m too far gone, now. I can’t stop this. I’m sorry, Detective Hazzard.” His fingers began to squeeze, inexorably, crushing my windpipe and closing off my access to precious, precious oxygen.

  Spiro, proprietor and line cook of Spiro’s Diner, came to my rescue. As my vision was going black around the edges, he stepped up behind Xavier and brought a baseball bat down hard against the guy’s skull. Xavier dropped me from numb fingers and collapsed to the floor, out cold once more. I fell to the floor, too, coughing and sputtering and gasping deep, grateful lungfuls of air into my abused body.

  “Thanks, Spiro,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  “You owe me $12.83, plus tip,” Spiro replied. “Make sure you pay your bill before you get into a fight next time, Eddie.” The big line cook held out a hand and helped me back to my feet. “Who is this guy, anyway?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Damn good question, my friend,” I replied. “I’ve been trying to figure it out myself, but so far I’m just coming up with dead ends.” I pulled up a vid window and snapped several photos of the unconscious Xavier, then pulled out a couple more zipties. “Let’s get him trussed up as best we can, and I’ll call Captain O’Mally over at the 4th to come pick him up. Maybe the police can give me some answers.”

  XIV.

  “Sorry, Eddie, I can’t give you any answers,” Captain O’Mally said. We were standing out in front of Spiro’s, and the captain was taking my statement. We were having Xavier locked up on assault charges; that he’d been in no way capable of controlling his own actions at the time was pretty immaterial, as far as O’Mally was concerned. It would keep Xavier out of my hair for a couple of days, and give me a chance to track down whatever I could about the powerfully-built man with the mysterious past.

  “Nothing?” I said, surprised.

  O’Mally shook his head. “The guy isn’t in any of our databases. He doesn’t have a criminal record. He’s barely even on any CCTV screenshots. He might as well be a ghost, as far as Arcadia PD is concerned.”

  I scratched at my chin, felt the thick stubble there rasp against my fingertips. I was going to have to run this guy past some of my sources, see if any of them could provide me with any background information on my guardian-cum-assassin.

  “Thanks, Edison,” I said, shaking the captain’s hand and turning away. They were hauling Xavier into a police van; his eyes were hooded, his expression blank. He was probably more than a little concussed. I only felt a little sorry for the guy. Brainwashed or not, he had tried to choke me to death.

  I walked off down the street and ducked down the first empty alley I could find. I stopped and lit a cigarette, considering my next move. “Hey, footie pajamas,” I said to the open air, “come on out. Let’s have a chat.”

  Instead of the ninja I was expecting to see—at this point, I assumed the Boss was having me tailed everywhere I went by the black-clad warriors—I saw a young woman, maybe mid-twenties, dressed in fairly typical street clothes: dark pants, dark top, dark hair pulled back from a smooth, heart-shaped face with intelligent eyes and a thin, straight line of a mouth. She wore a long coat over her outfit, and I’d almost swear I heard a faint clink as she walked. Whoever she was, she was probably armed to the teeth and an expert in finding unusual ways to kill an enemy.

  I suddenly found myself hoping very, very much that we weren’t enemies.

  “Who’re you?” I asked, taking a long drag on my cigarette.

  “You can call me Kimiko,” she said, with only the faintest trace of an accent. “I am second-in-command of the Boss’s ninja. I have been sent to aid you in any way I can.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Really? If you’re a ninja, how come you’re not dressed like one?”

  Kimiko looked slightly embarrassed. “Most of my comrades prefer the old ways. I am more . . . forward thinking.” She gestured down at her clothes. “I look
like anyone else in the city of Arcadia. I blend in better. I can walk down the street, and no one bats an eye. My comrades cannot say that.”

  “I wouldn’t think so. Those black pajamas are great for hiding in the shadows, but you’d stick out real bad walking down Mignola.”

  Kimiko nodded agreement. “Now, how may I help you, detective?”

  I pulled up a vid window and showed Kimiko the pictures I’d taken of Xavier. “Do you recognize this guy?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. I have only been here for a short time, Detective Hazzard. I do not yet know everyone in the city.” I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

  “Okay. I need to meet with the Boss and see if he knows this guy. Think you can make that happen?”

  Kimiko nodded. “Certainly.” She handed me a small card with an address printed on it. “Be there tomorrow afternoon at 3:00, and I will take you to the Boss.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I got into the office early. For me. It was before noon, which is an accomplishment, okay?

  I walked into the office feeling good about the day. Sure, there was absolutely no support for such an assertion, nothing to indicate it was actually going to be a good day, but I had the feeling. Something good, something useful, was going to happen today.

  Hope springs eternal, even when it’s empty hope and it’s springing a trap.

  “What’s the plan for today?” Miss Typewell asked as we sat in her office drinking coffee.

  I shrugged. “I’ve got the meeting with the Boss at 3:00. Nothing else on the schedule, aside from that.”

  The sound of breaking glass from the inner office interrupted us.

  “What was that?” Miss Typewell asked.

  “Nothing good, I’ll bet,” I replied. I peeked my head through the doorway and saw a brick on my desk, a piece of paper tied around it. I approached cautiously; sure, it was just a brick, but that didn’t mean whoever’d thrown said brick wasn’t still waiting around outside with another one at the ready, or something far, far worse.

  I unwrapped the brick and examined the piece of paper. There were two short sentences scrawled there in an uneven, jittery hand that I didn’t recognize.

  Boom-Boom is at the Sleep Inn. Watch yourself.

  I turned the paper over, searching for identifying marks and finding none. That wasn’t a surprise. This was just a handful of letters cut out of magazines away from being an anonymous ransom note in form and style. I figured whoever had sent me the message wished to remain anonymous at the very least.

  I brought the note back out to Miss Typewell to read and tossed the brick from hand to hand as she pored over it, searching for some detail that wasn’t there.

  “That’s it?” she said, after she’d read it over a dozen or so times.

  “Yup,” I said, taking the note back and folding it up. I stuffed the thing in my coat pocket and grabbed my hat, heading for the door. “See about getting someone to come clean up the glass and put in a new window, wouldya? We’re tryin’ to run a business here.” Ellen frowned at me. I knew I’d pay for ordering my secretary around later, but I was feeling almost manic and couldn’t help myself.

  “And what the hell are you going to do, Eddie?” Miss Typewell asked, annoyed.

  “I’m gonna see a man about some explosives,” I said with a grin.

  * * *

  The Sleep Inn is neutral territory in the city of Arcadia. By tacit agreement, neither the police nor the Organization will raid the place, preferring to maintain the sacrosanct nature of at least one space in town. Hell, everyone needs a place to sleep and do other bed-related activities. You could get a room at the Sleep Inn for anything from an hour to a couple of weeks, depending on your needs, and you could rest easy knowing no one would be busting in while you were horizontally-occupied and shoot you full of holes. In a world of cold uncertainty, the Sleep Inn was a warm spot in the pool where you knew some kid had definitely peed. It wasn’t necessarily a comfort, but it was a consistent certainty.

  Knowing that Boom-Boom was probably at the hotel, I set up a stake-out in a diner across the street. Paw’s Diner was a lot like Spiro’s: same split and worn vinyl upholstery on the booth benches, same scarred and stained tabletops, same greasy feel to the very air of the place. The coffee wasn’t nearly as good, but it was acceptable. I settled into a corner booth that gave me a good view of the front entrance of the hotel and waited.

  A good ninety percent of my job is waiting around for something to happen. Most of the time, a private eye is just killing time, waiting for the mark to show his face, or for evidence analysis to turn up some vital piece of information, or just waiting around for a case to come your way. Over the years, I’ve developed lots of ways to cope with the boredom of waiting: heavy drinking, chain smoking, losing games of solitaire, and staring blankly at the ceiling are my favorites. I once developed an entire civilization, with its own culture, rich history, and complex social structure in a water stain in the corner of my office ceiling.

  Miss Typewell usually organized things. She was a devil for organization. I’m the sort of guy who just puts everything in piles, but Ellen would develop entirely new organizational systems based on archaic mathematical puzzles and the like. She also maintained a massive list of contacts in the city government, the police force, various businesses around town, and even a few shadier characters I refused to ask about, for fear she might give me an answer. We didn’t get many cases, but Ellen was always ready to track down exactly what we needed when one finally did come our way.

  Waiting for Boom-Boom was interminable. I made use of the time as best I could by sending the photos of Xavier to my contacts, checking to see if anyone recognized the guy. No one did. It was just one more dead-end in a case that seemed to be made of them.

  By noon, I was starting to wonder if Boom-Boom was going to emerge from the hotel or if he was even there at all. A call to the front desk of the Sleep Inn didn’t reveal any useful information; if he was there, he was using an alias I didn’t know or the desk clerk had been bribed well. I was about to give up and make my way to my appointment with the Boss when I saw Boom-Boom walk out of the hotel.

  Boom-Boom was a thick-necked, rotund individual who’d never met a Mafioso stereotype he didn’t embrace wholeheartedly or a cannoli he didn’t immediately devour. He’d changed his clothes, but he was still very obviously the same guy who’d tried to blow me up earlier. His thinning, wavy hair was slicked back with some sort of gel, and he wore a bright-red tracksuit that might’ve been made of velour, it was hard to tell from a distance. The midday sun glinted off the heavy gold chain he wore around his neck, though, blinding passers-by. He walked with a waddling swagger, his hips swiveling and his knees locked as he lumbered across the street and directly into Paw’s Diner. It’s nice when the universe giftwraps your mark for you.

  I slid down into my booth, hunching my shoulders and pulling the collar of my jacket up around my ears. Boom-Boom ignored me and took a seat at the counter, grunting something I couldn’t quite catch at the waitress who came to take his order. She bustled off to hand in his ticket to the cook, and Boom-Boom settled into his stool with a creak that I could hear across the diner. I slid out of my booth and made my way across the diner to the counter, hopping up onto the stool next to Boom-Boom with a casual grace that I usually couldn’t have mustered if I’d tried.

  “Get lost,” Boom-Boom growled at me without looking. “There’s plenty’a other seats in this place, pal.”

  “But I like the company here,” I said with a grin. Boom-Boom froze momentarily, then his head slowly turned toward me.

  “Y-you!” he stammered, his mouth dropping open.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “You’re supposed to be dead! I set the bomb myself!” He shouted, trying to stand up and failing because his gut rammed into the counter. I grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him back into the stool, hard.

  “I’ve never been real big on ‘
supposed to,’ Boom-Boom,” I said conversationally. “Or on assholes who repeatedly try to blow me up. Care to explain why you’ve suddenly got this vendetta against little ol’ me?”

  “It’s business, Hazzard!” he yelped, trying to rise again. I grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back down again.

  “Your business is feelin’ awful personal, Boom-Boom,” I snarled. “Now, you’re going to tell me who you’re working for. You’re going to tell me why Wally Stewart and his secretary were killed. And then you’re going to go to jail for a very long time, I’ll make sure of it.”

  Boom-Boom laughed nervously. “You’ve got it all wrong, Hazzard. You don’t know jack shit about what’s going on!”

  “So, fill me in,” I snapped. “Who are you working for?”

  “I don’t know! He doesn’t trust anyone. He’s just as mysterious as the Boss, but way more hardcore. The Boss don’t stand a chance.”

  “You’re being awful vague, Boom-Boom. Better give me something useful, ’cause my patience is about worn out.”

  Boom-Boom didn’t get a chance to reply. The sound of tires screeching out on the street dragged my attention away from Boom-Boom. A pair of cars pulled up in front of the diner, windows down and gun barrels sticking out.

  “Everybody get down!” I shouted, grabbing Boom-Boom by the collar and dragging him to the floor. Gunfire erupted from the cars outside, shattering the windows of the diner. The sound of bullets ripping through glass and concrete filled our world, accompanied by the screams of patrons.