by Mike Faricy
“Snicker’s ice cream cones, just to sort of, you know, keep her happy.”
“Happy? I told you before, the woman is nuts. Don’t let her looks fool you, Dell. You’re thinking with the wrong head.”
“Yeah, well like I said before, she hates you, so she can’t be all bad.” Dell pulled on the Tweety Bird mask, knocked on the door then nodded at Mickey to pull it open.
“Oh, hey, Tweety. What, for me?" She nodded at the pile of folded clothing he carried, thinking what in God’s name is that disgusting black thing with the red lace.
“Say, I was able to give you a couple of different versions of what you wrote down. I’ve got a sad, sadder and saddest version, whichever one you want to use, no additional charge.”
“That was a joke,” she added, not really able to detect any reaction from behind the mask. “I still think you’re way too low with the money thing, but then again, you’re the professionals. Anyway, I’m sure you don’t need me telling you how to run your business. Okay, thanks,” she said, taking the clothing and handing Dell the recorder, dismissing him, taking a closer look at the black garment with the red lace.
Dell lingered for a moment, hoping she’d move the top and uncover the Snickers ice cream cone he’d hidden.
“Mmm-mm, I love it,” she said, suddenly spotting the ice cream.
“Can you believe it?” Dell said once he was out of the room. “She made versions. Christ, we’ll have her out of here in no time.”
Mickey smiled for the first time in almost two days, then winced at the sudden pain it caused.
Chapter 56
Mickey chose the version he thought would have the best effect, Nikki’s saddest, then drove to the state capitol, pulling into a White Castle parking lot, almost kitty-corner from the capitol grounds and waited.
It didn’t take too long for the perfect targets to show, two kids, no more than eleven, skateboarding down the sidewalk.
“Hey, guys, can you give me a hand here?” he called, holding a manila envelope addressed to Torsten Theisen, Room 211, Capitol Building. “You see that building over there?”
“You mean that big one?” the shorter of the two said, then pointed at the Capitol just across the street and giggled.
No, the other one you little brat, Mickey thought. “Yeah, that one, you’re very smart, son. Look, I’ll give each of you guys five dollars,” he held out two fives with the envelope. “All you have to do is deliver this little package to the office written on the front.”
“You play the piano, mister? My uncle, he plays.”
“Huh?”
“Your shirt. It looks like a piano there,” the kid pointed to Mickey’s shirt, a broad keyboard running the length of the front from the top of the collar down to the hem, a pale pink on pink background pattern of swirling champagne glasses.
“Oh, no, I don’t play,” Mickey half stuttered. “Think you guys can deliver this?”
“Why are you wearing plastic gloves,” the shorter one said.
“I injured my hands and I have to wear gloves. Hey, I can ask two other guys, maybe they’d like to make five bucks.”
“Why don’t you do it?” asked the taller of the two. Both kids hung back a few feet, just out of reach, and more than a little street wise.
“Why don’t I do what?”
“Why don’t you deliver the package?”
“Good question, son. As two smart kids like you can see, I was in a horrible accident and I don’t have the strength to make it all the way over there. So, I thought maybe you guys could help me. Okay? Five bucks.”
“Why don’t you just drive?”
“Because I thought maybe you two would be able to use five dollars. Well, what do you think, fellas?” He rubbed the bills back and forth slightly, letting them hear the sound of currency.
They looked at one another and communicated, somehow, two inner-city entrepreneurs. “Ten bucks . . . each.”
“Ten bucks. Are you . . . are you sure you can get it there for me? Because, it’s very important that the man gets this package.”
“Sheesh,” the taller one snorted. “We’ll get it there, just show us the ten bucks first, man. Else, we got other things we gotta do.” His shorter companion didn’t say anything but nodded in agreement.
Mickey was sure they’d learned the street haggling trade from exposure to their mother’s chosen profession, but found himself trapped. He pocketed the fives and pulled out two tens. “The name and office number are right here. Thanks for your help,” he said, then watched as they skate boarded off against traffic before he fled the scene.
Chapter 57
“Children aren’t allowed in here. Get out,” Torsten Theisen yelled at the two young boys entering his outer office carrying skateboards.
“We got us a delivery,” one of them said.
“What do you mean a delivery?”
“Man give us this package, said we was to bring it here to the address what’s on the front. Then this here Mr. Torsten, he gonna give us ten dollars, each,” the shorter of the two said.
“Look, I don’t know what the two of you think you’re trying to pull. Hmm-mmm, a package you say?” he said, focusing on the manila envelope they carried, suddenly interested.
“Yes, sir. Man told us to bring it right up here. Give it to this man here,” he pointed to Torsten’s name penned on the front of the envelope. “Soon as we get ten dollars.”
“Ten dollars?” Torsten exclaimed.
“Each,” the taller boy added, moving back a step.
“Okay, son, here’s for you,” he fished the last two bills from his wallet, thanking God they were tens and quickly snatched the envelope. “Now, run along.”
Twenty minutes later, he turned the recorder off after listening over and over again to the heart-breaking plea from Nikki Devereaux. Obviously, she was just holding on by a thread. He reread the written instructions demanding one hundred thousand dollars in twenties.
How had this happened? How had they found her? How had they been linked together, Torsten and Nikki? God, it couldn’t be his fault, could it? Not for the first time he shook his head and cursed the den of iniquity the capital city had become.
On the other hand, if he could get this mess off his plate, keep the whole thing quiet, keep his seat in the house, keep his unrelenting wife, Arliss, at bay, all for just a hundred grand, it was a bargain. The good Lord was watching over Torsten, that was for damn sure. A hundred grand? Goodness, he had that in campaign contribution cash stuffed in a safe up at the lake. Not in twenties, maybe, but that was a small matter, and if he left now, he could be back before morning.
Chapter 58
“I’m barely back, things are just starting to finally go our way, and you drop this on me,” Mickey said, as he paced back and forth across Dell’s kitchen. “Why the hell did you even answer the damn thing?” He was waving the beer Dell had handed to him the moment he opened the door.
“Hey, last time I checked it was my house. I mean, the phone rings, I answer the thing. It’s a novel concept, I know,” Dell said.
“Well, you’re nuts. Janice is coming out here? Did you tell her anything else besides I would be back later? God save me, I had it all covered. I was going to tell her we decided to go up walleye fishing in Canada, ‘course now, you’ve managed to screw that plan up royally.”
“Mick, you gotta be kidding, that’s your plan? Walleye aren’t even biting this time of year, it’s too damn hot.”
“Knock it off,” Mickey said and stormed out of the kitchen.
Dell remained leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping his beer, figuring he would just let Mickey calm down for a while, it was three maybe four sips later that he heard the first loud crash from outside.
* * *
“What in the hell are you doing?” Dell shouted, as Mickey hoisted another concrete block over his head and threw it onto the hood of his car. “Mick, stop it, stop it.”
“Well, thanks to you answ
ering the phone, just because it rings, Janice is going to take one look at me and wonder what the hell happened?” he hoisted another concrete block over his head and launched it onto the hood. “Where do you keep the baseball bats?”
“What the . . .”
“I’m going to tell her I was involved in some sort of accident. Her next question is going to be . . .” Mickey picked up a four-foot length of fence post, swung it into the right headlight, then moved to the side, forcing Dell to jump back and out of the way as he swung into the windshield. Dell winced at the sound of the impact and saw a crystal web that radiated out perhaps eighteen inches in all directions.
“Her next question will be, what does my car look like? Well, thanks to certain people who feel they have to answer the phone, now my car has had an accident. Happy?” Mickey had a sort of half smile on his face that, combined with his nose, made him look not quite sane.
“I was thinking you could tell her you fell off a ladder or something. You know, like maybe we were working on the roof and you slipped. I never told her you had a car accident. I just said an accident.” Dell punctuated the last statement with a long pull on his beer can.
Mickey stopped, stood quite still, then dropped the fence post. He accessed the damage he had done to his car, the hood, both front quarter panels, the windshield, the right head light. “You never told her a car accident? Thanks for sharing,” he said and calmly walked back into the house.
Chapter 59
“Let me just share a little something with you, Mickey,” Janice said, as she paced back and forth across Dell’s living room. “I was worried. Okay? I know I’m stupid, but I was worried about you. Not that you give a damn. God only knows why I even bother, because you don’t care about anyone except your own self. I called and called and called. All the while wondering where you were. Were you dead in a ditch? Did you drown? Had you been hit by lightning? And, when I wasn’t calling, I was crying, my heart was literally breaking.”
She’d been going on for the better part of thirty minutes, pacing, yelling, crying, screaming and Mickey was eyeing the vial of pain pills longingly, thinking he had heard all of this somewhere before. He had, three times before as a matter of fact, all within the past half hour.
After Dell had foolishly answered the phone, Janice had hung up and raced out there. She pounded on Dell’s front door and began to unload the moment she saw Mickey pretending to be semi-conscious on the couch. He barely had enough time to set the stage, damage his car, wrap gauze around his head, and get the ice packs out. He’d collected every prescription container he could find, filling them with breath mints he found in a drawer, lining them up on the coffee table so it looked like he was on a ton of medication. He was just getting a robe out when he spotted her car raising dust as she roared up the driveway. He’d barely had enough time to slip the robe on over his piano shirt, toss his jeans behind the couch and pretend to be napping when she burst through the door. Dell, the worthless coward, was suddenly nowhere to be found.
“What?” he groaned.
“I said, have you bothered to listen to even one damn thing I’ve been saying? Or, are you off in some ridiculous fantasy world again, where you seem more comfortable living your life instead of making any commitment to a responsible, worthwhile endeavor . . .”
‘Commitment.’ Now he did need those pain pills. Had he heard that right? The word ‘commitment’ shot across the bow.
She paused, “Here, let me help you. How many?” opening up the vial of pain killers.
Mickey signaled with two fingers, not wanting to look her in the eye, choosing instead to appear more injured and completely miserable, which, under the circumstances wasn’t all that difficult.
“Okay, I’ll stop for now, we’ll continue this some other time, when you’re feeling better.”
‘I can hardly wait,’ he thought.
“Look, I’d kiss you, but you’re so banged up I don’t know where.” She kissed her finger and gently touched the gauze he had wrapped around the top of his head.
“Be good, get some rest. I’m still mad at you but call me when you’re able. I’ll check up on you tomorrow,” she added, slung her purse over her shoulder and softly closed the door behind her.
Mickey nodded silently from the couch, pretending to drift off to sleep, then watched, peeking from the corner of the window, to make sure she left.
“Man, that was one pissed off lady,” Dell said, suddenly appearing from nowhere. He stood behind Mickey, the two of them watching as her car reached the county road and roared off. “Look at her go, she must have that thing floored.”
“Yeah, thanks for all your help. Where the hell did you go?” Mickey turned away from the window and began unwrapping the gauze from around the top of his head.
“I hid under my bed,” Dell replied, matter of factly. “What the hell is all this crap out here, and what’s with the head?”
“Are you kidding? You heard her. This is probably the only reason I’m still alive. There were a couple of times when she was pacing back and forth, I thought for sure she was going to run into the kitchen and grab a knife. Man, I tell you.”
“Yeah, she was pretty pissed off.”
“I’ve got to get moving so we can unload that witch downstairs.”
“Nikki?”
“No, the other witch. Don’t even start,” Mickey said, gently touching the outer edges of his nose. The swelling was gradually receding, giving way to a variety of different hues, all in the purple family. “I just want to bring this whole chapter to a close and go back to living my simple life. I’ve got to get into the office tonight, burn some instructions for our pal, Torsten, and hopefully, within the next 48 hours we’ll be another hundred grand ahead of the game.”
“What office?”
“The real estate office, where I clean?”
“Oh yeah, your office. I guess I just forgot.”
Chapter 60
“Mmm-mmm, I’m sure this is the right address. Anyway, it’s the one on the corner, the door actually faces the side street, but it’s really easy to find, Tweety,” Nikki said, then stuffed the last of the ice cream cone into her mouth.
Dell had just handed her a written request for Torsten Theisen’s address, the unit he stayed in when he was doing the people’s business, except for those night’s when he was doing Nikki. He had sweetened the request with two Snickers ice cream cones. Nikki was sitting cross legged on the bed, wearing a robe and the grey sweat pants. She licked her fingers and anxiously tore open the second cone. “Why let this melt?”
“Just remember, the doorbell doesn’t work. Hasn’t all session. Really gets Torsten mad, but the landlord doesn’t seem to give a damn. So, anyway, you have to knock,” she said, then took a large bite of the ice-cream cone.
Dell cautiously took the piece of paper she handed him and quickly exited the room.
“When’s dinner?” she called after him.
* * *
On his way home from cleaning the office, Mickey drove past Torsten’s address, finding it just as Nikki had described, a corner unit, set behind a thick hedge and two large elm trees. One of a half dozen, two-story brick town homes. Each front door was inset slightly, affording a bit of privacy to residents and providing Mickey the opportunity, at 3:00 in the morning, to quietly slither up to the door and leave his payoff instructions.
He hadn’t planned on ringing the doorbell or even knocking for that matter. That was the nice thing about leaving items on a doorstep in the middle of the night, you never ran into anyone. He just left the instructions along with an empty cardboard box for Torsten’s payment on the front stoop, hoping Torsten had the good sense to exit out the front door when he left in the morning.
He was back in his car in just a few seconds. A minute or two later he was making a left hand turn onto a busier street. At this hour there was only one other vehicle he had to wait for. Wouldn’t you know, no blinker and a left hand turn right in front of him, forcing
Mickey to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting the fool. What were the odds?
Chapter 61
Odds were, his trip should have taken a lot longer and Torsten was amazed he was back in town, hours ahead of what he thought it would take to get up to his cabin and back. He would have been happy, if it weren’t for the dreadful circumstances. Still, all in all, he was relieved to have the cash, although it would entail months of hard core fundraising to get the old slush fund coffers built up to where they had been. Up to the lake and back, no real traffic either way, and wouldn’t that just be his luck, broadsided by some fool in a wreck of a car turning off of his street at this hour. All those miles round trip, ahead of schedule, and just when you think things might be going your way you run into a moron. The car was missing a head light, had a damaged windshield, and the hood was all banged up. It might just be an idea for a bit of proper legislation next session, keep folks like that off the road and away from law abiding citizens like himself.
After parking in front, he waited in his car for a few moments, lights off. He checked the street for a long minute before he pulled out the bag of campaign contribution cash. He carried it from the front seat up to his door where he saw the box and envelope Mickey had left only a few short moments before.
Torsten slept like the dead on his living room couch, never even bothered to get out of his clothes. The phone ringing woke him from his dream of Nikki. There was only one call he was interested in today and it wasn’t supposed to come through until eleven fifteen. Torsten rolled over, closed his eyes fighting to regain his sleep, and ignored the phone.
The instructions seemed relatively clear and straight forward. He would be told where to drive, leave the box they had provided him with the cash inside, then return home and wait for Nikki. Under the circumstances Torsten had no choice but to trust them.