by Mike Faricy
“Yeah,” Kelley said. “I want to get it taken care of as quickly as possible. There might be an additional complication, but nothing we can’t handle. I’ll give you details as soon as I know more.”
Chapter 71
Mickey could only hope Jack Kelley would answer the phone. He didn’t want to contemplate the guy not caring enough to come back and pay a ransom for his wife. He could feel himself stressing out, hadn’t felt this stressed in a long, long time, so he was having a cigarette, just one, just to calm down, if that was possible. There was still something that just wasn’t making sense here.
He dialed Kelley’s home number from yet another payphone. He held a balloon in his lap, inhaling a lung full of helium on the first ring. Kelley picked up on the third.
“Kelley, thanks for coming back,” Mickey said, sounding more like a demented munchkin with a high squeaky voice than anything threatening.
Kelley was momentarily caught off guard by the voice, it took a lot for him not to have a response ready, right there on the tip of his tongue, but for once he was actually speechless. Maybe he had underestimated these guys.
“Kelley?” squeaked Mickey.
“Yeah, go ahead, I’m listening.”
“Good, see that you do,” said Mickey his voice suddenly changing on the last words, dropping to a more natural octave. He quickly tucked the receiver against his shoulder and inhaled another lungful of helium.
Kelley listened during the unnatural pause. Another message? Something wasn’t right, he’d done a bit of this in his younger days and this was not how it was supposed to work.
“Do you have the hundred thousand dollars?” Mickey said.
“No. I only just got in from the airport,” Kelley lied, gambling they weren’t watching him. Waiting for them to get to the real point, positive the hundred grand was just a signal that said they knew all about the payoffs and contracts. Knowing they had him, for the moment. If he just bided his time he could solve this problem and a few others in the process.
“You are to follow our directions carefully,” Mickey said, glancing at his watch, it was already after four. “You’ll be phoned tomorrow morning, have the money and be,” Mickey’s voice began to drop again, “prepared to act.” He thought he better inhale another lungful of helium, and he brought the balloon up to his mouth, cradling the receiver against his shoulder. The receiver, the balloon, the cigarette in his hand . . . Boom! “Ahhh, hell!” he screamed, dropping the receiver, fumbling with it before hurriedly hanging up.
“Hello, hello, hello!” Kelley shouted into the phone after hearing the gunshot. Jesus, he thought, animals. Damned animals. Maybe he had underestimated? What sort of organization was he up against? Did they just shoot Bunny? It would save him the time, but also demonstrated a ruthlessness that caused more than a little concern.
Chapter 72
Three hours later Mickey’s ear was still ringing as he sat in the restaurant booth deep in thought. He turned the situation over and examined it from a number of different angles. Something just wasn’t right, hanging there just out of his reach.
He had told Dell to mix a large pitcher of manhattans and feed one to Bunny every thirty minutes, it was time to get back to Dell’s and figure out their next step provided Kelley came up with the cash. If he didn’t, Mickey was ready to throw a blindfold over Bunny and just take her back.
He watched Janice moving from table to table pouring coffee. This was the part he liked, she would come up to him put her hand on his shoulder and whisper the meal was on the house. He would leave a generous tip, and everyone would be happy.
“Will there be anything else, sir?” The same thing she always said, not quite as playful as usual, but maybe she was a little busy. She always said it in bed after they’d romped around for an hour or two and were finally exhausted. This afternoon she sounded more like a waitress than a lover, and she’d actually left the bill before walking into the kitchen where he couldn’t follow. God, it just doesn’t end.
A half hour later he was pulling into Dell’s driveway, trying to remember if he had left a tip or not, half wondering what new disaster awaited him inside. It didn’t take long to find out. As soon as he opened the door he saw Dell sitting on the steps, listening to Bunny howling. Dell wide eyed, a little pale with his hair standing on end and the Lassie mask at his feet.
“Man, where in the hell have you been? I ran out of Manhattan’s an hour ago, been listening to that for the past forty minutes. She’s been screaming and throwing things, howling like a damn dog.”
“Lassie, you son-of-a-bitch, my glass is empty! You hear me? Lassie, woof, woof, woof! Lassie, come, sit, heel, roll over. Lassie, I need another drinkie.”
“She drank the whole pitcher?” Mickey asked, looking at the empty pitcher next to the mask at Dell’s feet. “You didn’t have any?”
“Have any? You kidding? She would have killed me if she thought I took some,” he shifted on the stairs, seemed to push himself a bit further away from Bunny’s room. “Mick, she just went through that pitcher like it was water. I’ve never seen anything like it. She got a little meaner every time I came in to pour her another. The last glass was about half full and she damn near took my head off. I’m sure she would have thrown the glass at me if it had been empty. I would have mixed some more but kept thinking you were going to be home soon. That was over an hour ago.”
“Man, she can really pound ‘em down,” Mickey said, scratching his head wondering what to do next.
“Well, I can tell you this, that is one mean little woman in there. I don’t know if that lawyer Kelley is gonna be in any hurry to pay money to get her back. I sure as hell wouldn’t.”
“He should have our money tomorrow morning and we can be finished with this. By the time he got back from his place in Naples, it was too late to get to the bank and set it up for today,” Mickey said.
“Naples, like in Florida?”
That was the second time Mickey had run into that implication, and it reverberated somewhere in the back of his mind. “Yeah, Naples, Florida. Why, do you know another Naples where people have condos?”
“Well no, it’s just that you said they had two places, a house in town and a cabin up north. I don’t remember you mentioning anything about a condo down in Naples. That would make it three places, unless they ditched the cabin for the condo, right?”
“That’s probably exactly what they did,” Mickey said, thinking this is part of what had been bothering him. The real estate files had never mentioned a condo in Florida, they must be out of date he thought knowing in the same instant that was rather unlikely.
“All right, I’ll have to get a few things arranged before tomorrow, so we can get paid and get this creature off our hands. But before I go, let me mix up another round, double strength, for our guest so we can all get some peace and quiet tonight.”
Chapter 73
“No,” Jack Kelley said to the voice on the other end of the line. A voice he’d dealt with in the past, but never actually met. “I don’t think it would be wise to use local talent for this particular problem. These people are far more shrewd than they appear on the surface. They seem to know exactly what they’re doing, telling me just a hundred grand, and then firing the pistol. Christ, I don’t know how, but they know all about it.”
“So, you’re sure she talked?” the voice asked. Kelley knew he was on the hot seat right now.
“Yeah, I’m not just sure, I’m positive. She told them everything she knows, but, she didn’t know that much. I mean she knows we got the contracts, but in all honesty, that’s never been hidden, it’s a matter of public record. Hell, the trucks have been out there with our name on them pouring four lanes of concrete every day for the past eighteen months.”
“But your involvement, it’s not common knowledge, if it was, the deal never would have gone through, the . . .”
“The deal was set to fall apart until I had that pesky reporter whacked, set it up to look li
ke he was mugged. I paid a hundred grand, cash, to have him eliminated. We got the deal and now it all comes back to haunt me twenty-four months later. Obviously, Bunny didn’t know about that part, and I’m not blaming you. But, you had better check and see if you got a leak somewhere, or maybe someone doing business on the side, yanking our chain.”
Kelley was on thin ice, skating out at the edge, but he’d had a point to make and now he had made it. “I think it best we get some outside talent up here, only because I’m not sure how far this goes. These guys I’m dealing with will contact me tomorrow and tell me what they really want.”
“I thought you said they told you?”
“Nah. They said they wanted a hundred grand. Come on, what’s that? They’re just sending a message that they know about the reporter we had taken out, that stiff named Tarbox.”
“Yeah, that was the guy. Remember? He had all those dogs with him, Dalmented’s, the ones with them spots. And they didn’t do shit. Didn’t bark, or bite, nothing, the dumb things just sat there. That the way it went down?”
It was always Timmy White’s favorite story and Kelley had long ago given up telling him he’d already told him. He just launched into the tale, pictured the aging thug getting comfortable in a favorite chair, listening to him as if it was the first time he had ever heard the story.
“Yeah, okay, so there were two dogs, Dalmatians. You were right, they’re the ones with the spots. We just walked up and shot the guy. He was standing at the ATM, the dogs sitting next to him. He was getting twenty bucks, that’s it, just twenty. You know anything you can do for twenty bucks these days? And when we shot him, the dogs just sat there and looked at him, and then looked at us.”
Kelley looked at his watch, wanting this conversation to be over, but knew he had to finish the story about how the dogs just sat there. “They didn’t do a thing, no barking, nothing, just looked up at us, then at him on the ground. Rather well behaved, actually.”
On the other end of the line, White erupted in laughter. “Oh, that’s the best part, hot shot reporter and the mutts don’t even bark.” His laughter erupted into a coughing jag that lasted ten or fifteen seconds, coughing into the phone and Kelley’s ear until he finally cleared the phlegm.
“Anyway, look,” Kelley said, trying to get back on subject once the coughing stopped. “We need to get this contained and nailed down. Preferably sooner, rather than later, before we have a real mess on our hands. All you’ll have to do is sit back, keep counting your money, while I make sure there aren’t any other problems for either one of us. But like I said at the beginning, I want you to be aware of exactly what’s going on so there aren’t any surprises. I’ll continue to keep you informed.”
“Yeah, okay, keep me informed, Jack.” White cleared his throat a couple of times, rumbling more phlegm. “You’re the guy on the scene, let me know if you have any problems. I don’t like problems, you know.”
“I’ll keep you appraised of the situation and talk to you in a few days.” With that he hung up the phone and gave himself a small pat on the back. That hadn’t gone too badly.
“Appraised of the situation,” White mumbled to himself. “Throw all those big college words at me. Tell your old lady about our business deal. I need this like I need a hole in the head. Appraised of the situation, I’ll appraise you of the situation you just got yourself into. You’ll wish you had some of them Dalmented’s to just sit and watch. Twenty bucks from an ATM, you ain’t gonna be worth even that by the time I’m finished with you.” Timmy White started laughing which started another coughing jag.
Chapter 74
Once Bunny had finally passed out Dell began to calm down. Mickey promised him she would be gone in the next twenty-four hours. Then he drove over to Janice’s to see what her problem had been. There were times he felt like he was the only sane person in the whole world and this was one of them. He stood pleading his case out on her front porch.
“Look, Janice, I already said, the only reason I didn’t leave a tip is I only had ten bucks. Would it have made you feel any better if I left seventy-five cents? Cause that’s all I had, seventy-five cents, that would have pissed you off even more. I’ve already explained on the phone. I’ve been working on a project, that’s why I wasn’t home when you stopped by. That’s why I haven’t answered your phone calls. And, that’s why I haven’t been over to see you until tonight.”
He could hear her on the other side of the front door. “Well, anyway, I just wanted to let you know that. I have to get to the office now,” he said, checking his watch seeing it was already after midnight. “I know you have to get up early, but I wanted to just stop by and tell you.”
The porch light suddenly came on, the lock clicked and the door slowly opened no more than an inch. “Oh, hi Mickey,” Janice’s daughter Ashley said. “Mom isn’t here right now, I’ll tell her you stopped by,” she said and closed the door before he had a chance to reply.
Chapter 75
“I’m telling you for the last time, I had absolutely nothing to do with anything that happened, okay. Don’t you understand? Don’t you get it?” Janice pleaded to her father as she leaned against his kitchen counter. “Do you really think I would kidnap myself, burn down your damn garage with your precious car in it while Ashley was here, make you pay the ransom and then come to this house tonight? Jesus Christ, you have a more warped viewpoint of life than I ever thought possible. Bulletin to you,” she said, tears welling in her eyes making her furious at herself for crying in front of him.
“I’m not like you, at all, I’m like mommy, good and kind and I might make mistakes, but that’s all they are is mistakes. It’s never intentional, like you. I don’t try to hurt people. So, you are just going to have to accept the fact that I knew nothing about this. Just let me get on with my life and leave me alone. If I never, ever heard from you again it would be too soon.”
“Shit,” said Huey, shaking his head, thinking of pouring himself another drink, but wanting to get his next dig in first. Watch her run out of the house, discovered, caught, guilty and owing him a hundred grand. He was leaning against the pale green Formica counter, his back to the kitchen sink and the window. The pale light above the window added to the orange cast bouncing off the old varnished cabinets. The light just barely enough to catch a peek of the newly framed garage standing just beyond his back door.
“So, you didn’t set this up? You know nothing about it?”
“Why don’t you believe me?” she sniffled.
“Okay, goody two shoes, so if you had nothing to do with it, then just who the hell is this Michael Donnelly jerk?”
“I don’t know any Michael Don . . . wait, Mickey?” She stopped suddenly in mid-sentence and stood a little straighter with genuine surprise on her face. “You mean Mickey? I’m sort of seeing a Mickey Donnelly, but I’ve never heard him called Michael before, by anyone. In fact, I never really had a conversation with him until weeks after this whole thing happened.”
Her reaction was not the one Huey had expected and it caught him off guard. When she mentioned the name Mickey, a very dim bulb went off in the dark recesses of his mind. It rang a bell, but he couldn’t put it together. The same thing had happened when Buster Keegan had first given him the name. “How old is this jerk, Donnelly?”
“I don’t know, maybe my age, a year or two older, I never asked him?” she lied.
It wasn’t adding up to Huey. Some guy her age, that connected, and Huey didn’t know him? It didn’t make sense. Buster had given him some bullshit information, that seemed clear. And, he was half convinced this idiot of a stepdaughter was telling him the truth, she didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping.
“I’m going to find out what the hell is going on here, then I’ll deal with it,” he paused, letting the silence hang in the night air for a long moment. “In the meantime, just get out,” he said.
She left without saying another word, trying her best to storm out looking hurt and wounded.<
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* * *
“You got a big problem, Buster,” Huey shouted into the phone.
Buster Keegan, on the receiving end of Huey’s rant gave a long, silent sigh.
“That information you gave me just ain’t right. For one thing, how can a guy my stepdaughters age be connected the way you figure he is? Pup’s still wet behind the ears, for God’s sake. Second of all, this guy Donnelly, you said Michael, she said Mickey. What the hell? Which one is it? Either way, I can’t place him. About all I can come up with is maybe some punk might of worked for me way back when. I don’t know, the name rings a bell, but I got no idea why.”
“So, what you need to do is find out more about this idiot for me. Find out if he’s really connected, cause I don’t think he is. This whole thing just ain’t adding up. So, find out for me and fast!” Huey screamed.
Buster sat starring at his phone for a long moment and sighed, another day ruined. He reviewed the information he had passed on to Huey. And there it was, right in front of him, the guy he had watched doing the gun slinger routine, cautiously stepping onto the porch, looking up and down the street, that guy was easily fifty, more like Huey’s age. Huey had referred to Donnelly as his stepdaughter’s age, late twenties maybe early thirties. No way they were talking about the same person. He thought about calling Huey back, then thought it might be better to let him calm down while Buster rechecked his own facts.
Chapter 76
After cleaning the office, Mickey checked and rechecked the lenders file on Jack Kelley. There was no mention of a condo in Naples. For that matter there was no mention of a wife named Bunny.
Jack Kelley’s wife had been saddled with the name Petronella at birth, by otherwise loving parents. The nickname Bunny had probably been given to her during her high school years.