by Mike Faricy
“And?”
“Like I said, I’m thinking.”
“Hotwire it, I guess,” Louie said.
“Except, I’d notice someone had been screwing with the ignition, wouldn’t I?”
“Yeah, probably.”
On the radio Farrell suddenly stumbled over the word ‘anarchists’ then kept on reading.
“There, I heard that shit before,” I said.
“What?”
“Him screwing up ‘anarchist’, then just keeps right on going. Come on,” I said, and stepped out of the car.
“Where’re you going?”
“Up to their office. I’ll lay you odds no one is even in there.”
“You sure?” Louie was still seated behind the wheel, calling to me out the driver’s window.
“Come on, man.”
By the time we’d climbed the stairs to the sixth floor Louie was scarlet faced and looked like he was going to have a coronary right there in the hallway.
“Jesus, my heart’s beating like a rabbit,” he said, gasping for breath.
“Must be the altitude, come on, it’s just down here.” I led the way.
The wooden door to the office was locked, the hand written sign, ‘KRAZ National Headquarters’ was still crookedly taped above the mail slot. Looking through the slot I could see a pile of envelopes and circulars on the floor, the lights seemed to be off.
“Damn it, I don’t have my tool kit,” I said.
“Tool kit?” Louie said he was slowly waddling down the hall behind me.
“Yeah, to get inside.”
He gave me a long look, then knocked on the door. No answer.
“I knew it,” I said.
“Here,” he pushed me aside, glanced back down the hall, then gave the door a solid hip check, then another and it suddenly flew open, bouncing off the front of the desk just a foot and a half inside.
“Problem solved,” Louie said and smiled.
I stepped inside, listened for an alarm, but didn’t hear anything. Louie made his way to the chair behind the desk and sat down.
“God, those steps damn near killed me. How high up are we?” He was still breathing heavily.
“Six floors.”
“Six, that all?”
“Six.”
“Gotta be more like ten, I’d get up and check, but I’m too exhausted.”
The pile of mail hadn’t been touched in four days. Beyond that I couldn’t tell that anything had changed. The place looked as messy and disorganized as ever.
“This has all the ear marks of people slipping under the radar,” Louie said, looking around.
“Well yeah, except two of them are dead.”
“Plus your pal over at the U.”
“Doctor Death.”
“Yeah, that makes three.” Louie said, looking sideways at the desk like he was going to go through the drawers.
“Can’t be long before Manning washes up on shore, here. Don’t touch anything in this place.”
“Oops, okay, just my fat ass on this chair.”
I did a very quick walk through the place and came up with nothing.
“Might as well go, we’re not gonna learn anything else here,” I said. Louie was still huffing and puffing in the desk chair.
Chapter Sixty
“You know we’ve gone back and forth, over and over this shit, maybe we’re making it too hard,” Louie said.
“Meaning what, exactly?”
It was after ten that night. We were back at Louie’s, working our way through the better part of a case of Summit Extra Pale. Louie was flaked out on the couch, empty beer bottles lined up on the floor in front of him. I was running a couple of beers behind and straining my ears. I thought I heard some sort of rodent scurrying around inside the ratty recliner where I sat and I was listening for the thing.
“I’m not sure,” Louie said, then tilted the bottle up and drained a good third. “The radio deal is a hoax, at least with Kiki, probably was with Farrell, too. I’m guessing Thompson Barkwell believed it, but they just used him. Sweetened the pot with Kiki, told him she was Farrell’s sister. He probably couldn’t believe his good luck, dumb bastard. But why? Sell drugs to Evangelical Christians and the Tea Party? That just doesn’t seem to work,” Louie said, burped and then drained the rest of his beer.
“It’s something, that’s not it, but it’s something.”
“The other thing I don’t get,” he’d grabbed another beer, opened it using his key ring. “Why continue running the radio spots?”
“Make it seem like Farrell was still alive,” I said.
“Okay, so then why would you call the cops and tell them he was run over by a car? Your car as a matter of fact, and then have the radio spots still playing? It just doesn’t add up.”
“That’s the only thing you’ve said that makes any sense, none of this adds up.”
“Do the broadcasts say anything? Is there information imparted? Are they…”
“No, you heard the damn thing today, just a monotone rant. Hell, if the guy didn’t make a mistake or cough his chain smoking lungs out, we never would have picked up on it. Fifteen minutes of him just droning on and on and on. Then all that bullshit a half dozen times about sending cash donations to…”
“That’s it,” Louie said, suddenly sitting upright, kicking an empty over on the floor and spilling beer down the front of his shirt in the process.
“What do you mean, that’s it?”
“Cash donations, the post office box. That rant, if it’s picked up and beamed across North America, how many crazies you think send them cash?”
“I don’t know, one or two, who would…”
“What if it’s more than that?”
“More?” I said, sitting up.
“What if it’s one or two percent?”
“Percent?”
“People send them cash, it’s untraceable. That’s what they used to fund your drug guy…”
“Doctor Death?”
“Yeah, and that’s another cash business,” Louie said.
“But Thompson Barkwell? The guy was a flake, but I don’t think he was into drugs, well unless they were suppositories.”
Louie groaned, then said, “Maybe Barkwell found out they were skimming funds. It’s all cash coming in, I’ll lay you odds they didn’t put it in a bank. Maybe Doctor Death wigs out when Barkwell’s killed. Maybe that was why they tried to pin it on you and…”
“Jesus, Louie, maybe the guys in black helicopters did it, you know, the real government. Just like Farrell rants about, international bankers or whatever it…”
“The post office box,” Louie said.
“What?”
“Where the money goes, their post office box. She’s still collecting cash donations, Dev, that’s why those rants are still running on the radio. Cash is still coming in and your girlfriend Kiki is collecting it.”
All of a sudden Louie didn’t sound so far fetched.
Chapter Sixty-One
We took Louie’s car to the KRAZ parking lot the following morning. We didn’t expect to see Kiki, but on the off chance she showed up, we’d be there waiting for her. There was no sign of her. The broadcast came on, Farrell’s usual monotone drone. As soon as he mentioned the address to mail cash donations Louie turned off the radio.
“Let’s go, man.”
“Go where?”
“Five-five-one-oh-seven, the zip code.”
“You’re going to drive around a zip code area?” I asked.
Louie gave me a long dead-pan-look.
“No, I thought we’d maybe go to the post office there, check their box, you know. Maybe grab her when she picks up the mail.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said, not sounding too sure.
“And you’re the private investigator?” he said.
The post office KRAZ used was on Eva Street. The building looked fairly small from the front and if I had to guess I’d say it was built in the late s
eventies. It sat just off of Plato Boulevard, across the river from downtown in a light industrial area. As you walked in the front door there was a sort of lobby with a couple hundred post office boxes set into the wall, each one numbered. Beyond that a door that led to a counter where you could buy stamps and conduct business.
From what we could tell there were three sizes of postal boxes, the one for KRAZ, number fourteen-seventeen, was the largest size.
“That can’t be because they’re getting so much mail coming in, can it?” I said.
“Maybe they’re subscribing to Penthouse or the New Yorker,” Louie said.
There was a small glass window in the box and we could see envelopes when we peeked in. Lots of envelopes.
“Jesus, frightening,” I said.
“Let’s wait in the car. She sees us in here, she’ll run.”
“I got an even better idea,” I said. “We park in the lot across the street.”
We did that, parked in the lot across the street, then sat there for the rest of the morning. Then we waited all afternoon. A guy locked the inside door to the postal counter promptly at five, then turned out the lights. At seven, another guy locked the door to the outer lobby where the Post Office boxes were and turned out that light.
“Any other bright ideas?” I asked.
“I thought that was your department. Yeah, actually I got one, let’s find a bathroom, with a bar attached.”
“Not the Coal Bin,” I said.
Chapter Sixty-Two
At seven the following morning, we were parked across the street from the post office, hiding behind a five inch wide tree trunk. Around eight-fifteen we watched a half dozen people arrive for work at the building behind us. Then watched the nine-o-clock rush at the post office, by nine-forty-five things had settled down and customers were barely dribbling in.
At my prompting Louie called Detective Manning a little after ten and left a brief message mentioning the finger tip and Farrell Early.
About ten-forty-five a guy came out of the office behind us and walked up to Louie’s window. He was dressed in nice khaki slacks and a starched, open collar blue shirt, shinned shoes. He wore a gold wedding band, had closed cropped hair and looked to be in his late thirties. He also carried a cell phone in his right hand and I guessed he was ready to call nine-one-one at the least provocation.
“May I ask what you two gentleman are doing here?”
The words were polite, but the way he said gentleman suggested anything but.
I pulled out my wallet, reached past Louie, flashed a badge then counted to four and snapped my wallet shut.
“Sorry, we’re working surveillance. We’d appreciate it if you kept this under your hat.”
“Someone’s gonna rob the post office?” he said, then gazed across the street as a woman wrestled a baby stroller out the door.
“No, just looking for an individual, I think we’re drawing a blank, but you can never be too careful, appreciate your help all the same.”
“Let me know if you guys need anything, name’s Bob Ross,” he said, nodding and backing up.
“Where’d you get that bullshit badge?” Louie asked, once Bob went back into his office.
“Toy store, six of ‘em in a bag for a dollar-ninety-eight.”
Louie shook his head.
Bob came back out about fifteen minutes later with two steaming mugs of coffee.
“Listen you guys need anything, feel free to come on in, bathrooms, coffee, hope you take it black, I didn’t think to ask cream or sugar?”
“Thanks Mister Ross,” Louie said.
“Appreciate you looking after us,” I said.
Bob ducked back inside.
“Nice enough guy,” Louie said, and sipped his coffee.
His phone rang sometime after three that afternoon and jerked both of us awake. He glanced at the number.
“Christ, my former office, probably calling to give me the date on my disbarment hearing. Hello,” he said, after letting it ring two more times.
I was about six inches from Louie so it was impossible not to listen. Not that I learned anything.
“Yes. No. I have no idea. I see. I understand. Did they? Oh really. No. Yes. What time? Thank you.”
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, as a matter of fact better than okay. They want to meet with me tomorrow, seems some things have been brought to their attention.”
“Such as?”
“I’m guessing the autopsy report for starters and that finger, just a guess. Mentioned they got a call from Manning. He wanted to know how to reach you?”
“Did you tell them?”
“You’re sitting right next to me, did you hear me tell them?”
“Guess not.”
“If they want to know how to get a hold of you they can talk to your attorney, if they can stand her attitude.”
“Was it Daft who called?”
“No, Jerry Hamel, he’s the big cheese. He didn’t mention Daft, but I’m guessing she’s going to be getting a lot of personal attention in the near future. Her advice that you plead guilty, which by the way, would give you life with no chance of parole, is against all rational thought. If Hamel hasn’t heard about it I’ll lay it on him tomorrow, anyway meetings at eleven.”
“Now, if we could just deliver Kiki,” I said.
“Yeah, that would help.”
I dashed across the street and looked in the KRAZ box, then quickly returned to Louie’s car.
“There’s a lot more mail crammed in there than yesterday, thing looks to be just about over flowing.” I said.
“Well, there you go, figure each envelope holds a cash donation, even if it’s just ten bucks…”
“Gotta be a couple of grand sitting in there right now, just waiting for her to pick it up.”
The interior doors were locked promptly at five, and the lights turned off. At seven the same guy as last night locked the lobby door and then hit the lights.
“Dinner plans?” Louie said.
***
I had the recliner fully extended eating sausage pizza with extra cheese. Louie had just started working on a new case of Summit.
“You’re not having a beer?” he asked from the couch.
“No, I’m going back out in a bit.”
“Not back to that post office?”
“No, I’m gonna swing past Kiki’s place and…”
“Thought you said she wasn’t there?”
“I’m pretty sure she isn’t. But, I just want to make sure.”
“Suit yourself,” Louie said, then shrugged and drained his beer.
Chapter Sixty-Three
A little after ten that night I parked down around the corner, about four doors from Kiki’s. I sat for a long time, it was just as boring as the day I’d wasted watching the post office, only darker.
I walked past the front of her house and then down the alley, nothing. After I lost count of how many times I’d made that pass I walked up onto the front porch and rang her doorbell. I could hear the thing go off inside the house, a Big Ben chime. No one came to the door. I tried the knob and it was locked. I walked though her back gate across the yard and up the steps onto her back porch. Her back door was locked, so was the garage door. I peered inside her garage with the help of an alley light, no car, the place was empty.
She could have gone to a late movie, just been out on a date or she could be shacked up somewhere with a pair of twin brothers, but she was probably already out of the state.
I went back to Louie’s and slept fitfully in the recliner. The following morning I found myself seated behind the wheel of the Fiesta in Bob Ross’s parking lot as people arrived for work.
Bob brought me coffee a few minutes after he arrived.
“See you switched vehicles,” he said, indicating the Fiesta.
“Trying to keep a low profile.”
“Well, this thing certainly does that,” he laughed. “Offer still stands, feel free
to use the bathroom or anything else you need.”
“Thanks Mister Ross.”
I dialed in KRAZ a little before the ten-o-clock broadcast. It was ten-ten when I realized I hadn’t heard Farrell’s voice. I crossed the street to check the KRAZ box, it was still stuffed with envelopes. As the day slowly passed the clock seemed to come to a complete stop. After sitting there for what felt like a month a guy drifted out and locked the inner lobby door, then turned out the lights. Another month later, at seven, he returned and locked the front door and turned off those lights.
Apparently Kiki wasn’t in desperate need of the funds in the post office box. I drove past her house on the way back to Louie’s, the lights were off and the place looked dark and quiet. Louie’s house was dark, too. Fortunately it never dawned on him to lock a door so I let myself in.
I fell asleep a-half-dozen beers later. I’d been watching a baseball game, theoretically, when I nodded off. There was an exercise show on the television when Louie shook me awake.
“You want a beer?” He held two open bottles, I took one, stretched and yawned.
“What time is it?”
“Little after one. Here’s to you, man,” he said, raising his bottle.
I nodded, sipped.
“You want the good news or the not so good news?” he said.
“Give me the not so good news first.”
“They can’t find your girlfriend.”
“Kiki?”
“Yeah,” he chugged down a good portion of his Summit.
“What happened?” I asked, watching him almost empty the bottle.
“That autopsy on Thompson Barkwell, the finger tip checks out as your buddy Farrell’s. Manning’s guessing Farrell was drugged when he was run over, but we won’t have confirmation from the Medical Examiner for a couple more days.”
“No kidding?”
“Yeah. You were right about the bandage, it’s his, the tip of his right index finger.”
“He told you this, Manning?”
“No, I was down at the morgue, looked at the guy on a slab, saw it for myself. They took a print of the tip. It’s a match, man.”