Killer Groove: A Cooper & Rockne Mystery #1 (Cooper & Rockne Mysteries)

by Dan Ames

  “Do most tuna wranglers carry a gun?” John asked. “When the commotion broke out, I saw you reach for your sidearm out of habit. Seemed like a pretty practiced move to me.”

  “Well aren’t you just a little nosy Rosie?” Mary countered.

  “And you’re clearly not with the DEA otherwise you’d have a car, and a radio and a partner of some sort,” he retorted. “You wouldn’t be freelancing with some guy you just met on the plane.”

  What the hell, Mary thought. "Okay, here’s the deal. I'm a private investigator from Los Angeles looking into the disappearance of Zack Hatter. Now, quid pro quo, Clarice.”

  She saw the puzzled expression on John’s face.

  “You never saw Silence of the Lambs?” she asked.

  “Oh, I get it. That’s right. Quid pro quo. Okay, screw the plastics story.”

  Mary paused and raised an eyebrow. "Okay, this is going to be good."

  "What a coincidence,” he said with an easy smile. “I'm a private investigator from Grosse Pointe, Michigan looking into the disappearance of Zack Hatter."

  Mary shook her head. “How in the hell did a private investigator from Michigan get assigned to the case of a missing singer from Los Angeles? Are you doing some kind of long-distance marketing I should know about?”

  “I wish,” he replied. “No marketing. The truth is, it’s a long story, let's just say that I had a previous case involving a musician and that person had a connection with Zack."

  “Obviously, two different clients,” Mary said.

  John sighed. “Now that you asked, though,” he said. “How about you? How did you get tied up with this case? Obviously you’re in LA so you must know people in the music business. "

  “Excellent deduction,” she said. “You really are a good detective.”

  John laughed.

  “Yeah, I consider sarcasm a lost art,” she said. "Some people fail to see its value. True sarcasm must be defended at all costs.”

  “That’s great, but you still didn’t answer my question,” John pointed out.

  A city bus wheeled around the corner, went wide and jumped the curb in front of them before correcting and careening back into the street.

  “A former client referred me to the new client, which is how I get about 99.9% of my business,” Mary said as they continued walking. “I considered plastering Hollywood with billboards featuring my face but figured I would only get calls from movie producers.”

  John nodded. “I tried coffee cups once,” he said. “But after a couple of rounds in a dishwasher the ink wore off.”

  Mary realized they were in front of her hotel.

  “Okay, how are we going to do this?” she asked.

  "Seems to me like it would make sense to work together,” John said. “And I don't think it would be unethical to our clients because if we solve the case faster they’ll come out ahead in terms of money. So it’s perfectly logical to me.”

  "If you promise not to slow me down, I’ll let you be my assistant and we can meet in Bucerias,” Mary said with a straight face.

  John’s face took on a serious look as he contemplated the notion.

  “I've got some people I'm traveling with,” Mary added. “You might remember my horny aunt. Alice. It sounds like a kind of insect. The Horny Ant. Anyway, I have to go back and we’ll check out of the hotel.”

  "Okay, I agree to you being my assistant,” John said, “as long as you don’t get in my way. I have to check out, too, and then I’ll head up to Bucerias. Let’s meet either late today or tomorrow morning and figure out a strategy for finding Zack or the Zetas.”

  They exchanged cell phone numbers.

  “Let’s shoot for Zack and try to avoid the Zetas,” Mary said. “Mexican gangs aren’t good for a gringo’s health.”

  "All right,” John said. “And try not to get into any trouble between here and Bucerias. I don’t want to have to save your life again.”

  Mary put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Yeah, you avoid trouble, too,” she said. “I can’t always be around to bail you out.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  It’s gone and you know and it won’t come back.

  It went to hell when you fell off the track.

  -Straw Dog (by Groovy Train)

  Mary walked in the hotel room and saw Alice and Jason standing over Kurt who was sprawled on the couch slathered in some kind of white cream. He had a wet, rolled-up towel across his face.

  "What the hell is wrong with him?" Mary asked. “He try some comedy on the beach?”

  "He’s doing his best impression of a lobster," Alice said. “The big dumbass went down to the beach, drank too much cheap beer and fell asleep and then got scorched by the sun."

  "Please Merciful Mother of Jesus take me into your blessed arms!" Kurt wailed.

  "Come on Dad. Toughen up man," Jason said. He was sitting in a chair across from the couch. Mary had thought he was asleep.

  Kurt tried to sit up but then fell back onto the couch. "You go straight to hell, Jason! God damn, you should've woken me up!"

  "I fell asleep too,” Jason said. Then he added with a touch of snark. “In the shade.”

  Mary was surprised. She had never heard Jason speak so coherently. Maybe the Mexican air was waking up his brain.

  "Come on, pack your shit up. We're leaving,” Mary said to the group. She still couldn’t believe Bulldog had been shot and tossed out a window. Maybe there was more money at stake than she’d been led to believe.

  No matter what the truth was, getting out of Puerto Vallarta as soon as possible was a good idea. She had a feeling the Mexican authorities wouldn’t be knocking on her door anytime soon, considering how many hundreds of people had been at the party. But still, why wait around to find out?

  “We can’t leave,” Alice snapped at her. “I met a hottie. Remember the stud on the plane? And I need to have my way with him before we leave. Several times,” Alice said. “I just need another hour with him and maybe a drink or two to get him into my web.”

  “That sounds gross, Aunt Alice,” Jason said.

  “Shut up, Jason,” Alice replied.

  Mary sighed. Sometimes it was tough being a Cooper.

  “I hate to break the news to you, but your hottie is a private investigator from Michigan,” Mary said to Alice. “And he’s meeting us at our next stop, which is a small town about an hour north of here. We’re working together on the case. Now get packed up, or I’m leaving without you.”

  “What about him?” Jason said, pointing at Kurt.

  “I don’t know, throw some ice on the lobster and get him into the car,” Mary said.

  Alice waggled a finger at Mary.

  “Keep your damn hands off him,” Alice said. “I’ve put too much work into him to have you try to snatch him out of my bed.”

  “He’s married, Alice,” Mary said, rolling her eyes. “And I’m sure his interest in you was part of his cover. Like saying he was into plastics.”

  “Bullshit,” Alice said. “That young man may not know it, but I’m gonna rock his damn world.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I snorted coke from off the stripper’s ass.

  My face looked back from a sheet of pale glass.

  -Eclipse (by Groovy Train)

  My favorite part of the drive north to Bucerias were the bars sporting a ten-foot tall bottle of Corona.

  There were several of them and they made me feel nostalgic for some reason. Maybe because during the summer in Michigan, cold bottles of Corona were Anna’s favorite beverage. With a lime, of course.

  Or maybe the roadside bars seemed familiar to me because they looked like relics from the past. They had a 1950s feel to them, like kitschy roadside restaurants from sixty years ago in America.

  Being on the road here, in fact, reminded me a lot of what my imagination told me the United States had been like decades ago. It seemed like there were less rules. I saw a motorcycle driven by a man with a woman behin
d him and a child in the woman’s arms.

  None of them wore helmets.

  At least I had a room waiting for me in Bucerias. I had placed a slightly nervous, slightly urgent call to my travel gal in Grosse Pointe, who had managed to find a place for me to stow my gear and get a decent night’s sleep. I had no idea if it was nice, or if I would need to sleep with one eye open.

  The murder of Bulldog had been a shock, to say the least. Who had killed him and why?

  Was someone else looking for Zack Hatter? It seemed like a ridiculous idea, especially as there are now two private investigators working together on the case.

  Could it be there was a third party? One that was willing to kill to get their hands on the Mad Hatter?

  I had more questions than answers, unfortunately.

  In any event, without lodgings to worry about, my mind naturally turned to another unanswered question. Mary Cooper.

  I laughed in spite of myself. She reminded me a little bit of the other women in my life. Both Anna and my sister Ellen were known to be smart-asses. And Mary Cooper seemed to have a personality along those same lines. Although, with Mary, there seemed to be a little bit more of an edge.

  There was still some doubt in my mind whether or not I should believe her. Was she really a private investigator in Los Angeles? Maybe she was looking for Zack Hatter for some other reason. An overzealous fan? A lawyer? A bail bondsman?

  Still, I kept finding myself wanting to believe her. She seemed genuine, at least with why she was looking for Zack. And if she could help me find him, I wasn’t about to complain.

  As I got closer to Bucerias I started to get the hang of Mexico traffic. It seemed if you wanted to take a left you had to exit the main road to the right, drive along the street and look for either an intersection or an underpass in order to cross over to the other side.

  According to the map on my phone, which surprisingly worked fairly well, I needed to make a left so, naturally, I exited to the right, drove about five hundred feet and saw an underpass. I drove through it, passing three tables of vendors selling stuffed animals, skulls painted the colors of NFL teams and candy.

  Eventually, I found my way to a two-story house with a purple door. The number above the door matched the address my travel agent had sent to me via email. There was an open parking spot just past the entrance to the house, next to a stand that was selling tongue tacos.

  Interesting.

  Tongue tacos.

  Sounded like slang for some sort of sex maneuver.

  I locked up the rental car and knocked on the door. A woman in an apron showed me to my room, which was in an upstairs hallway with its own bathroom. There was a common area where the woman said dinner was served for the guests. I could smell something cooking and I realized how hungry I suddenly was.

  Still, I wanted to at least explore the area. So I threw my bags on the bed, took the key I was supposed to use for the front door and walked outside.

  How hard could it be to find Mexican gangsters in Mexico?

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It comes for you when knives don’t see the light.

  It comes for you when blood spills out of night.

  -Part Four (by Groovy Train)

  “Put the Human Blister in that room,” Mary said. She’d lucked out. A quick call to her client, Connie Hapford, had resulted in impressive digs – a cool house in Bucerias with a view of the ocean. There were at least six rooms, and Mary chose to put Kurt and his horrible sunburn in the room closest to the bathroom. It also happened to be the farthest away from the master bedroom and bathroom that Mary had chosen for herself.

  “Wow, check out this bar!” Jason called from the courtyard.

  They had passed it quickly en route to getting Kurt situated in his room, but Jason, always open to the possibility of a good time, had stopped at the far end of the pool.

  Alice threw a tube of cream at Kurt who was now on his back on the bed. The tube hit him directly on the chest.

  “Ow goddamnit!” he yelled.

  “Oh shut up,” Alice said. “You’re probably used to rubbing lotion on yourself.”

  Alice glanced at Mary. “Let’s go get a drink.”

  She and Mary went down to the courtyard, whose centerpiece was a spectacular saltwater pool bordered with gorgeous Mexican tile. The bar featured six barstools, multiple racks of liquor, sinks and a full-sized fridge.

  Jason was working a blender and poured margaritas for the three of them.

  Mary took a sip, and then poured the rest of it into the sink. “Wow, Jason. That was the worst margarita I’ve ever tasted.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t know how to make one.”

  Alice dumped hers into the sink.

  “Let me show you,” Alice said.

  Mary debated the merits of waiting for a fresh margarita. Instead, she swung down from her barstool.

  “Okay, folks,” she said. “I’ve got some stuff to do. Hold down the fort while I’m gone and if Kurt ends up being in too much pain, go ahead and shoot him. We’re still in Mexico. No one will care.”

  “Waste of a bullet,” Alice said.

  “Can you buy some weed for me?” Jason asked.

  “Nope, sure can’t,” Mary said.

  The building had a second courtyard which featured a big wooden door and iron gates. Mary stepped through both and shut them behind her, not just to keep people out, but to keep her dysfunctional gringos from getting loose in town and causing an international incident.

  Mary strolled up the street, past a tourism office, a coffee shop, a stand advertising whale watching and a Laundromat. The air was cool and clean, fresher than in PV.

  Finally, she came to a side street that led directly to the beach. There was a taxi stand on the corner with a half a dozen men sitting around a single white car.

  “Buenos tardes, señorita,” one of them said.

  “Hola,” Mary replied.

  There were a few murmurs in Spanish but Mary kept walking. At the entrance to the beach was a huge bar, filled with what she instinctively knew were Americans, Canadians or a mixture of both.

  Several of them looked up at her as she passed by. The drink board caught her eye. More accurately, the prices caught her eye.

  Could they really be that cheap?

  She glanced down the row of the bar. She needed just the right kind of person. Probably a guy, but these days you never really knew.

  There.

  She spotted him at the corner, with his back against the wall. Middle-aged but he looked young. Facial hair, tattoos. Both ears pierced.

  She didn’t know him, but she knew exactly what kind of guy he was.

  Mary made her way to the end of the bar and squeezed in between her target and a guy who would win an award for Most Preppy bar customer.

  “Pacifico,” Mary said to the bartender who looked like he was about twelve years old not because he was young looking, but because he was in fact twelve years old.

  Apparently there were no liquor laws in Mexico.

  She got her beer and the man in the corner said, “Put it on my tab, Oscar.”

  Mary turned to him. “Gracias.”

  He held up his beer and they clinked glasses.

  “Not to be blunt, but do you know anywhere I could get a pick-me-up?” Mary asked. “I just got off the plane and I’m kind of jonesing.”

  “Not me,” he said. “I’ve been clear for ten years. You oughta try it. You’re beautiful, and nothing will ruin your good looks faster than getting hooked on that stuff. But if you’ve got your mind made up, he can help you.”

  The man pointed with his bottle to Mr. Preppy. Mary turned to him. Was the guy in the corner serious?

  The preppy guy looked at Mary, sensing he had just been the object of a referral.

  “Hi, I’m Ward,” he said.

  He had on a pink Ralph Lauren polo shirt, madras shorts, and leather sandals. A Rolex was on one wrist. He had a pasty face with squinty eyes and delicate
hands. His eyes were shifty and she knew that the guy in the corner wasn’t kidding.

  Not only did it appear Ward sold drugs, he seemed to be a consumer, as well.

  “Let’s go to my office,” Ward said, pointing to an empty table near the beach.

  They each took a chair and the boy bartender brought over another beer for Mary and a clear plastic cup for Ward.

  “A mojito,” Ward said to Mary. “These are killer for these prices. Two-for-one now, you know? And super strong.”

  Mary hadn’t really finished her Pacifico but she tossed it down and grabbed the new bottle. The prices she’d seen on display, she realized, were not only unbelievably cheap, but it was two drinks for one.

  Wow, no wonder everyone seemed blotto at the bar.

  “So what are you looking for and how do I know you’re not a cop?” Ward asked her. He squinted his eyes, like he was trying to be tough. Clint Eastwood in neatly pressed khakis.

  She burst out laughing. “A cop? Here in Mexico? How would that even work? Would I be cooperating with the government? The police force? Do they even have one down here?”

  Mr. Pink Shirt laughed. “Oh, they have cops. But they only pay attention to you if you forget to pay them.”

  Mary took a sip of her beer. Ward drank hungrily from his mojito.

  “What about Los Zetas?” Mary asked. “Do you have to pay them, too?”

  Ward’s face turned the same color as his shirt. “Los Zetas? Jesus, no. I stay away from them. I’m just a party guy. Not big-time at all. You get big-time around here, you end up dead. Fast.”

  Mary pulled out a wad of cash she’d been saving for just this moment.

  “I want to buy from you. But just information. If the Zetas had somebody I wanted to find, who would I talk to?”

  He shook his head. “They don’t do that. They don’t hold people. They kill them,” he practically hissed at her. His face had gone pale. “Even if they said they were holding someone, which they would never say, they would have already killed them. If you’re looking for a person the Zetas have, they’re already dead. Save your money. I want nothing to do with you.”