Hard Day's Knight (Black Knight Chronicles)

by John G. Hartness

  “Alright, but I don’t think it’s the cops.” I didn’t either, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I didn’t think we were going to find our kidnapper anywhere in this list of companies. It just didn’t feel right, if you know what I mean.

  “So where to first?” Greg asked, gingerly backing the car out of the garage. It’s always amazed me how he can be so careful with his car but such a spaz on two feet.

  “I think we start with the path of least resistance – Joe Arthur, owner of Joe’s World of Tires and school board member. We should be able to play the P.I. card and find out who was representing the World of Tires at the Career Days straight from the source.” I gave him the address and we headed out to meet the tire king. I looked out the window and watched the city roll by, thinking a lot more than I wanted to about ten missing children and the fact that we only had a couple of nights left to stop something from coming to town that even a fallen angel was scared of.

  It took us about half an hour to get to Joe Arthur’s house, a modest ranch in one of the better, but not ridiculous, parts of town. I noted the bicycle laying beside the driveway, and guessed the owner to be no more than eight or nine years old. “Looks like Joe’s got a kid right in the target age range,” I whispered as we walked up to the front door.

  “Yep. How do you want to play this? Good cop/bad cop? Two bad cops? Fangs out? Subtle?” He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet and shadowboxing his way up to the door. I grabbed the back of his utility belt and dragged him down the steps back to where I stood.

  “I thought we’d ask him very nicely to invite us in, then see what he knows about the disappearances.” I spoke very low and very slowly, and held one hand on Greg’s shoulder to steady him while I tried to reign in his excitement. When you pair his enthusiasm with the fact that we haven’t aged in fifteen years, it’s pretty easy to forget that he remembers the Carter administration.

  “Oh.” He deflated a little, and I shouldered my way past him up the steps and rang the bell. No one answered, so I rang again. A couple of minutes passed, and still nothing. I could hear people walking around inside, so I knocked on the door. After a couple more minutes, a light flipped on over my head, and the door cracked open.

  “Can I help you?” A sliver of a middle-aged woman’s face appeared between the door and the jamb, as she looked at me through the security chain. The last time a woman was that unhappy to see me, it was my date for the senior prom.

  “Is Mr. Arthur home?” I asked, reaching in my coat pocket for my investigator’s license.

  “No, he’s not,” she said, and moved to close the door in my face. I’d already wedged one foot in the opening, though, so she met with limited success.

  I held my credentials out where she could see them and said, “We’re investigating the disappearance of some children. Maybe you’ve heard about the situation?”

  “Yes, yes, I’ve heard of that. Awful stuff. But I don’t see what that has to do with Joe. He’s never hurt anybody…” She looked around like she was afraid of somebody seeing her talk to us, and I began to doubt her assertions of Mr. Arthur’s harmlessness. Maybe Greg had found something after all.

  “We understand that, ma’am. We’re just hoping that he could answer a few questions for us about the Career Day events that he attended at several of the schools prior to the disappearances. He may have seen something that could be useful in our investigation. Could we come in and wait for him?” She looked more and more nervous, and I suddenly became aware of another heartbeat in the house.

  “Um…no, I’m sorry. I’m alone here you see and it wouldn’t be proper. You understand? You’re welcome to come back later, when my husband is home. Maybe tomorrow afternoon?” I could hear the heartbeat moving closer to the door and was trying hard to figure out how to get inside before whoever was in there with her did something seriously bad, when Greg pulled on my sleeve.

  “Come on, James. We’ll come back and visit when Mr. Arthur is home. Thanks for your time, ma’am.” He led me down the steps by my elbow and steered me towards the car.

  “Dude!” I whispered. “What the hell was that about? She might have been in trouble! I could tell something had her wound up – her pulse was up, her skin was flushed, and there was definitely somebody else in that house! I could hear a man’s pulse, and he was pretty excited, too.” I put my elbows on the roof of the car and looked over at where Greg stood by the driver’s door. “Why aren’t we doing everything we can to get her to let us in so we can help her?”

  “Because I don’t think she would appreciate our help.” He said, with what I guess he meant to be a meaningful glance, but meant nothing to me.

  “What are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “Let’s see – skin flushed, heart racing, doesn’t want us in the house, husband not home, someone else in the house with her. Even the man with a thousand strikeouts like you should be able to put those clues together.” He smirked at me as realization dawned, and we got in the car.

  “Okay. I get it.” I said as I closed the door. “She’s having an affair and her boyfriend was there. But where does that leave us with the tire king?”

  “Headed to Lucky Strikes.” Greg put the car in gear and headed towards the big outlet mall north of town.

  “Why do you have a sudden urge to go bowling in the middle of an investigation?” Greg didn’t really baffle me that often, but this time he had me flummoxed. Okay, he often baffled me, but it was usually with his staggering ineptitude with women. I can’t understand how anyone can be immortal, live through all these years looking like he’s in his twenties, and still have no more game than the dorky kids we were when we were turned. But that’s neither here nor there.

  “I have no more interest in bowling than I’ve ever had. Which is none. But while you were trying to get the Real Housewife of Charlotte to let us interrupt Date Night, I was peeking through the kitchen window checking out the calendar on the fridge. Tonight is Joe Arthur’s league night, so he’ll be bowling for at least another couple of hours. So all we need to do is grab him when he heads for his car, interrogate him, maybe munch on him a little, and find out what he knows.”

  Greg said all this very matter-of-factly, but I was completely blown away by the suggestion. “Munch? Did you, the closest thing to a vegan vampire I’ve ever met, just suggest that we actually eat a suspect? Who are you and what did you do with Greg Knightwood?”

  “I just thought that since you were off the wagon, you might want another excuse to behave like an animal.” Okay, that made more sense. It wasn’t that he wanted to eat, he just wanted to make me feel like a monster again. Whatever, I am a monster. And monsters eat. It’s what we do.

  “No, I think we can do without snacking on the suspects for tonight at least. Besides, I’m still full from yesterday.”

  “Well, if you’re sure…”

  “I’m sure.” I leaned back into my seat and contemplated staking my partner while he pulled into the mall’s gargantuan parking lot. I’ve never gotten the hang of navigating that place, it’s over a mile to walk the entire inside of it and the mere concept of trying to drive through the parking lot always gives me the heebie-jeebies. Greg pulled up in front of the bowling alley, and we headed in.

  “So do you really want to grab him as he exits?” I asked.

  “Nah, I thought we’d go for the impersonating a police officer and humiliate him in front of his friends shtick.” Greg didn’t like the nouveau riche of Charlotte, so I figured he’d want to make the tire king’s night as crappy as possible.

  “Alright, but we don’t talk about his wife’s boy toy unless he’s really irritating.”

  “Nah, if he’s really irritating we eat him. We ruin his marriage if he looks at me funny.”

  “You’re wearing a utility belt. Everyone looks at you funny.”

  “Point. Alright, we only ruin his marriage if we get something out of it.”

  “Deal. I’ll lead.”r />
  “Why do you always lead?”

  “I’m taller.” By now we were most of the way across the bowling alley, and I recognized Joe Arthur from his commercials. The tire king was carrying a spare or two of his own, and I don’t mean the bowling kind. He was a sixty-something Italian guy with more hair coming out of his ears than he had left on his head. He was about 5’ 8”, which put me at a serious height advantage. I’m a couple inches over six feet, and even Greg had a couple inches on the Rubber Royalty. He and his league buddies had by far the least flattering bowling shirts I’d ever seen, since they were designed to look like the Michelin Man, only in turquoise. I’ve never met any guy over fifty (and over two-fifty) who can pull off horizontal stripes in turquoise, and these guys were no exception.

  We waited until Big Joe, as his bowling shirt announced him, was up to bowl, and right in the middle of his backswing I asked “Joe Arthur?” in my loudest voice. Since I was only about four feet from him when I did this, he jumped like a startled, albeit very overweight, cat and threw a perfect gutterball.

  “Jesus Christ!” He yelled. He got as much in my face as he could from his height and bellowed, “What the holy crap do you think you’re doing? This is a league game! We’re in the running for the championship! What kind of crap was that?!?” He had some seriously foul breath, and I was really glad the whole garlic thing was an urban legend. If it had been real, his breath could have put me down for the count.

  I flashed my badge. “Mr. Arthur we have a few questions to ask you about some missing children. Is there somewhere we could talk?” The whole trick to flashing a fake badge is to make it a real flash. You have to open and close the wallet before anyone can get a good look at the contents. I’d actually practiced in front of a mirror when we first started detecting. If you think that’s embarassing, I won’t tell you the inside scoop on how I learned to draw from a shoulder holster.

  “I don’t know anything about any missing kids. And I don’t feel like talking to you. If you want to talk to me, talk to my lawyer first. And he’ll tell you I don’t know anything about any missing kids and don’t feel like talking to you. Right, Mason?” He pointed over to a scrawny, balding man drinking beer from a plastic cup at a table near their lane. The man, who I assume was Arthur’s lawyer, nodded like his head was spring-loaded and started over to us. “Now get out of my face and let me finish my game.” He turned back to the ball return machine, but I grabbed his wrist and turned him back to face me.

  “I asked nicely first, Mr. Arthur. If I have to ask again, it won’t be nicely.” I spoke very slowly and kept my voice low. I didn’t need his buddies seeing me threaten him and deciding to start something. That wouldn’t end well for anyone, especially them. Arthur looked into my eyes and I put just enough mojo in them to show him I was not screwing around. “Now bowl this ball and then come meet us at that table.” I gestured to where Greg had settled in at a round plastic table with a pitcher of cheap beer and four plastic cups. “Bring your lawyer if you need to.” I let go of his wrist and went over to the table with Greg.

  The guy Arthur had referred to as “Mason” beat his client over to our table and began a list of officious demands that I could tell had Greg re-thinking his stance against drinking from annoying humans. Me, I find pretty much everyone annoying, so I just drink from whoever I want to. I figure I still only drink from annoying people; it’s just that my list of annoying people is about six billion names longer than Greg’s. Mason had just gotten a good head of steam under him when I leaned forward, looked straight into his eyes and said, “Go to the men’s room. Sit in a stall. Fall asleep for two hours. Then go do that thing you’ve always wanted to do but have been afraid would be too embarrassing.” Mason got up with a decidedly glassy look in his eyes and headed for the crapper.

  I leaned back in my chair. “Well, that’s one nuisance taken care of.”

  “You’re evil. What do you think he’ll go do?” Greg asked.

  “I figure either some sheep somewhere will wake up with a new boyfriend or our nebbishy friend there will be the newest attraction at The Runway before the sun comes up.” The Runway was a gay strip club out by the airport. Don’t ask how I know that. Let’s just say that some things can never be unseen, and there are some cases that don’t pay enough, no matter how high the fee is.

  Joe Arthur, the Tire King himself, joined us at our table after picking up the spare. “Where’s Mason?” He asked.

  “He went to the can. Something about an upset stomach.” I replied. Greg snorted a little beer out of his nose and I kicked him under the table.

  “Alright, you got me away from league night. Now what’s this about?” Arthur asked. Obviously a man used to being in charge of conversations. I decided to put an end to that as quickly as possible. I reached into the briefcase Greg had brought in from the car and brought out a stack of photographs. Smiling faces began to litter the table in front of us, some of the pictures curling a little as they soaked up spilled beer on the table. I didn’t care. I wanted to watch Arthur’s face as he realized who these children were. Ten pictures - school pictures, family vacation shots, all pictures of happy kids, beaming into the camera.

  “Do you know who these kids are, Mr. Arthur?” I leaned forward, forcing his attention away from the photos and to my eyes. He looked up and I could see that he was shaken. There was something going on with this guy, and I need to know what it was.

  “These are the kids that have gone missing. But I don’t know anything about…” I cut him off before he could go any further.

  “I know that, Mr. Arthur. You’re not a suspect in these disappearances. But you were at seven of these children’s schools just days before they went missing. You were there for Career Day, right?”

  “Yeah, some of them. Some of those Career Day things I sent Jake to.”

  “Jake?” Greg leaned forward, suddenly very interested. I was, too. We hadn’t heard anything about a Jake before now. “Who’s Jake?”

  “Jake’s the manager of my Pineville store. I sent him to the schools on the south side of town, cause they’re closer for him to drive. But what’s this got to do with me? I don’t know anything about any of this stuff.” But he did, I could see it in his eyes, and more importantly, I could smell it. Like I said before, we can’t smell a lie, not exactly. But we can smell the little sweat that comes with fear, and after a while you figure out what different kinds of fear smell like. For example, oh-crap-I’m-about-to-get-eaten-by-a-vampire fear smells completely different than yeah-I-really-raised-a-super-demon-and-I’m-lying-out-my-butt-about-it fear. This was somewhere between I-cheated-on-my-taxes fear and I’ve-got-corpses-buried-under-my-tomato-plants fear, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But of course that’s exactly when my whole night went right to crap.

  Chapter 16

  I sensed a disturbance in the force just as I heard Greg whisper “Oh, crap.” Alright, I didn’t sense a disturbance in the force. But I did hear a silence fall over the bowling alley and a smell a wave of fear rippling out from the main entrance. I looked over at the front door and saw the female detective from the night before talking to the shoe rental guy. He pointed over to where we were sitting with the tire king, and she started our way.

  “Wow. Looks like an evening of coitus interruptus for Mrs. Tire King.” I muttered.

  “Huh?” Arthur asked.

  “Your wife’s screwing around on you. A lot.” I said. As his eyes got big and his forehead turned that interesting splotchy purple color I looked in his eyes and said, “Sleep.” He passed out cold and fell face-first onto the table, crushing his plastic cup full of Miller with his forehead. I turned him to the side to make sure he wouldn’t drown in cheap domestic beer, and tried to formulate a plan.

  “What are we gonna do?” Greg asked.

  “I was really hoping you’d have a plan.” I replied, my mind working as fast as it could, which really isn’t that fast, all things considered.

  “I never h
ave a plan. At least, not one you like.” He had a point there. Greg’s plans usually involved some expensive piece of equipment that only existed in comic books, or so many plot twists that by the time he finished explaining the plan, I’d already punched somebody.

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything. But obviously tonight ain’t it.” I stood up as the detective got to our table. It was the same detective I'd seen at the hospital, and the look on her face dispelled any lingering hope that she hadn't seen me looking out Tommy's hospital room window. She was tall, with her curly hair pulled back in a severe ponytail. She probably had a killer body underneath the blazer she was wearing, but my attention stopped at her Sig Sauer .40 pistol in a shoulder rig. I'll admit it; I have a bit of a thing for women who pack heavier ammo than me. She snapped her fingers in front of my face and brought me straight out of my happy place and back to the beer-soaked reality of the bowling alley.

  "This would be an excellent time for you to explain to me who you are why you keep showing up around my investigation." She said. The look on her face said she was a woman who brooked no BS, but I gave it my best shot anyway.