Whiskey For Breakfast

by Liliana Hart

  “I like how you say we need to dig deeper on him. I hope what you mean to say is that you’re going to turn everything you’ve found over to Nick so he can be the one doing the digging.”

  “Right. That’s what I meant.”

  Kate sighed. “Look, there’s Carly Mathis.” Kate turned on the car but left the headlights off and we watched as Carly got into a canary yellow Jeep Cherokee. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face was scrubbed free of makeup. She’d changed out of her workout clothes into casual jeans and a T-shirt. Not exactly seductive gear.

  Carly pulled out of the lot, and Kate waited until a couple of cars were between them before she followed. She flipped on the lights once we turned onto Victory Drive. I got the long range camera out of the bag and slung the strap around my neck. The camera and I had a long and eventful history together. I’d named her Elvira just for the hell of it.

  Carly took the exit for the freeway to avoid the city traffic and headed for Bay Street.

  “Shit, she’s parking street side,” Kate said, slowing down as Carly parked the Jeep at a metered spot and got out to put her coins in. “I don’t see anything close by. You get out and follow her on foot and I’ll get parked and meet you. Keep your phone somewhere you can feel it.”

  I put my phone inside my bra and got out of the car to follow Carly. She walked along Bay for a bit, looking like she had a destination in mind. She took the River Street access to the lower level down by the waterfront. I gritted my teeth and followed after her.

  This was the area that was always teeming with tourists. To get to the riverfront you had to take a road below the city. It was a road of uneven rocks that jarred teeth and ruined tires. Cars were parked in every available space and a big cement truck sat in the middle of the lot blocking the way. They were always trying to patch things down in this area, and when they got done with the cement they used powerful sprayers to move the remaining cement to the bottom of the hill closer to River Street. The lesson to learn is to always watch where you’re stepping.

  I thought for sure Carly was headed to the Bohemian Hotel, but she kept going and went up another block to a two-story building. She took the stairs up a level and I dashed to the other side of the street.

  The area along the docks was made to look like a park, only with brick on the ground instead of grass. There were trees and streetlights and fountains and park benches. I stood on a park bench at first and hoped it would be tall enough for me to see up to the second level of the building across from me. There wasn’t a sign I could see on the outside, but there was definitely activity going on on the inside.

  I sighted through the camera, but I was only able to see the top railing. I needed to be up higher.

  “You’re on my bench,” a lady said from below me. She swatted at my legs with an old towel.

  “Sorry.” I jumped down and looked around to see what else I could climb. I didn’t have a lot of options. I was going to have to go up the stairs and look in the windows. If anyone asked I could just say I was lost.

  I waited until the workers had finished using the high-powered sprayers to send down the next batch of cement and I watched as it gathered in a big gray blob at the bottom of the stairs. I tip-toed across the area, careful to avoid the wet spots or the cement and then I went up the stairs as if I belonged there.

  No one screamed at me or told me to leave so I took a chance on looking in the windows. Stacked chairs on top of tables were obstructing my view so I moved down a little ways and put my face to the window again.

  “Huh,” I said. It looked like a giant kitchen. Like the ones you see on cooking shows on The Food Network. Carly was standing behind the counter with a big apron, mixing stuff in a bowl. A woman instructor stood next to her and showed her which steps to do next. Unless they were about to get naked and smear cake batter all over themselves in a lesbian fantasy, I was thinking Hugh was dead wrong about his wife having an affair.

  I snapped off a couple of shots to prove it to him and then headed back towards the stairs. I was right at the railing when the door opened and Carly Mathis came storming out. “Hey, you! Why are you following me around? I got a look at you back when I parked my car. It’s Hugh, isn’t it? He put you up to this.”

  “Sorry. You’re mistaken. I was just thinking about signing up for a cooking class.”

  “Sure you were,” she said, coming closer. She put both her hands on my chest and shoved me back. She didn’t look like the All-American Girl anymore. She looked like Linda Blair in the Exorcist.

  “Hey, stop that.”

  “You can tell stupid Hugh that if he doesn’t start learning to trust me then I’m going to divorce his sorry ass and take all his money. Just because his first two wives cheated doesn’t mean I’m going to.” She shoved again and my back hit the railing. “I was going to surprise him with a goddamned,” shove, “birthday cake,” shove. “And now I’m going to take the cake,” shove, “and shove it up his ass.”

  Quite a crowd had gathered below and I could see Kate coming to the rescue out of my periphery, but I knew she wouldn’t make it in time. “You need to take some anger management classes. I was just out for a walk.”

  Her eyes narrowed and I swore I saw them turn red for a second or two. Then she grabbed the camera strap on my neck and jerked it hard enough I was surprised my head didn’t pop off.

  “You’re crazy, lady.” I grabbed for the camera to keep it protected and brought my elbow up to block her next shove. Somehow my elbow connected with her nose and she went ballistic. Blood was spraying and her nails raked down my neck. And then I was flying ass over teakettle over the balcony.

  The crowd gasped and seemed to hold their breath to see if I was dead. The air had been knocked out of me and I wasn’t sure if my spine was still connected to the rest of my body. Something wet and squishy was under me and I hoped it wasn’t my inside leaking out.

  “Jeez, Addison,” Kate said, kneeling beside me. “Are you okay?”

  Carly was standing at the top of the railing and she spit down on me to add insult to injury.

  “Do you want to press charges?”

  I was finally able to blink my eyes. I wasn’t sure if I could actually speak yet. I wiggled my fingers and my toes, and then excruciating pain seemed to catch up with the shock my body had been in until then.

  “We need to get you up and hosed off before the cement hardens. Can you stand?”

  Kate was asking a lot of questions. Too many for me to answer. But the cement bit got me into motion. I’d already had to get one haircut. IF cement hardened in my hair I’d have to shave myself bald.

  Kate got under one arm and one of the cement workers got under the other to bring me to my feet. “Someone called the cops. If you press charges you’ll have to stay and answer questions.”

  “No thanks,” I managed to get out. “Just charge Hugh double. It sounds like they deserve each other.”

  Kate propped me against the wall and the worker took one of the high-powered sprayers and hosed me off from head to toe. There wasn’t a crevice that hadn’t been violated by the time he turned the hose off.

  Kate brought the car down to river level so I wouldn’t have to walk so far and I managed to get in under my own steam. I was feeling the aches and pains now from head to toe, and I was going to need a few hundred aspirin.

  “Look on the bright side. If we’d brought Nick’s car you’d have a lot of explaining to do right now. The Taurus is just the right car for an accident like this.”

  I hit the recline button on the seat and laid all the way back. It would take fifteen minutes to get to my house. Maybe if I closed my eyes and went to sleep it would all be a dream by the time I woke up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Kate helped me to the front door and all of a sudden Savage materialized out of nowhere. “I’ll take it from here,” he said.

  “Call me if you need anything,” Kate said.

  I waved her off and let Savage prop me up
. He took my key from my hand and unlocked the door.

  “Do I want to know what happened?” he asked.

  “I got violated with a water hose. And I think I have concrete in some very private areas.”

  “Why don’t you get a shower and I’ll get you some aspirin and coffee.”

  “Sounds good.” I stumbled into the bathroom and stripped down to nothing. My body was a symphony of colors that would only get worse over the next couple of days. I knew this from experience.

  I stood under the hot spray until I felt my muscles start to relax and then I toweled off and realized I had to get from the bathroom to my bedroom with nothing on but a towel. I didn’t really care at this point, so I opened the door and went to my bedroom for another change of clothes. I was sore, and was going to be worse in the morning, but for now I was at least functional. I still had work to do, and it couldn’t wait another day. It might be too late by then.

  I pulled on my last clean pair of jeans and a black Bon Jovi T-shirt. I didn’t know if my tennis shoes had survived the cement and hose down, but it wasn’t looking too promising. I put on my Chucks instead and did a quick blow dry on my hair.

  By the time I made it back to Savage I was feeling halfway human again. He handed me a cup of black coffee and three extra strength pain pills.

  “Tell me about your run-in with Anthony Franco?” Savage asked.

  “You’re working with Nick on getting something on Johnny Sakko, aren’t you?”

  “We’re circling from different directions. Sometimes we have relevant information to pass along to each other.”

  “It wasn’t coincidence that you invited yourself to dinner at his restaurant, was it?”

  Savage just smiled. “Tell me what happened at the clinic.”

  I started at the beginning and told him everything from the moment I found Smash Nose in my apartment to the package I’d had to deliver at the Bayonette Street clinic.

  “We’ve got someone assigned to watching Franco and a few other key men of Sakko’s. You should be okay, but you’re going to want to stay on your guard. We’ve got so many drugs coming into the city we can’t keep track. We know Sakko is involved somehow but we don’t know how. He’s making us look like idiots.”

  “When was the last time you visited Summer’s Eve Assisted Living?” I asked. “Heard any rumors?”

  Savage shook his head and then I explained about Norman Hinkle and the greenhouse. Savage stood perfectly still, his hands on his hips, and stared at me incredulously.

  “You’re shitting me,” he finally said. “All this time it’s been the old folks.”

  “They’re pretty crafty. And they’re armed so you might be careful,” I said, thinking of Deloris.

  “I need to put a team together and get on this. Where’s your sister? Isn’t she staying with you?”

  “She’s having a girl’s night out with a friend tonight. I think she’s staying down in Whiskey Bayou. My sister wants to sleep with you,” I said, out of the blue.

  “She told me.” Savage and I stared at each other for a long while without saying anything. “What do you think about that?” he finally asked.

  “Well, I love my sister. And I like you a lot. I think it could work out okay if you didn’t kill each other first.”

  “That was pretty much my thought.”

  “I’m thinking of moving in with Nick. She’s wanting to take over my lease here.”

  I’d stopped trying to interpret the expressions on Savage’s face, but I knew I was feeling a little sad. This was a big step, and the end of something that never really had a chance to get started. I felt a tear slip from the corner of my eye and I wiped at it viciously.

  “The NAD Squad won’t be the same without you.” He smiled a little and opened his arms. I didn’t hesitate to walk into his embrace. He held me there for a few minutes, and I might have cried some more. I was a wreck.

  “Nick’s a good guy. You’re good for each other. And it’s not like you won’t see me around.” He kissed me on the top of the head and then let me go.

  I stood there in the dark for a few minutes after he left and had a little bit of a pity party. I’d made the adult decision of choosing Nick over Savage. I loved Nick. And I was pretty sure he loved me too. Sometimes that had to be good enough when just starting out in a relationship. I guess we were going to see because I’d just committed myself to moving in with him.

  ***

  A couple of hours later I was in the alley behind the clinic on Bayonette Street. I’d parked the car on the adjacent street and had kept to the shadows behind the buildings. The clinic had closed at ten o’clock and it was well after midnight now. The streetlights were out around the clinic and it seemed Harry and his friends had moved on. The area was completely deserted. It was eerie as hell.

  This wasn’t a great area of town. I was taking a chance coming here by myself, but I had my gun and I could scream with the best of them. I looked both ways down the alleyway to make sure I was alone. A dumpster and crumpled trash that rolled across the cracked pavement like tumbleweeds were my only company. I’d gotten lucky—the moon was only a sliver in the sky and not enough to make me visible to any passersby. I was still new at this whole breaking and entering thing.

  I opened my brand new Kate Spade clutch and pulled out the black cloth packet of lock picking tools I’d bought online. I’d been practicing my B&E skills by watching YouTube videos and using the back door of my house as a test dummy. It had only taken me three tries before I’d managed to click the tumblers into place. Smash Nose should’ve taken a shot at my back door instead of breaking my window.

  It was fortunate the back door of the clinic couldn’t afford better locks, but it still took a good fifteen minutes before the tumblers gave. The night air was cool, but I was sweaty as a stripper’s G-string due to nerves. I had to rub my hands on my jeans twice before I could turn the knob. I cursed as I thought about fingerprints, so I quickly wiped off every surface I’d touched with the hem of my Bon Jovi T-shirt, pulled a pair of rubber medical gloves out of my purse and snapped them on.

  I slipped into the clinic, closed the door at my back and then bit back a yelp when the air conditioning unit came on with a rumble.

  “Shit,” I breathed out. I relaxed and decided I should’ve gone to the bathroom before I’d left the house. My bladder couldn’t take the stress of illegal activity.

  The clinic smelled of Lysol and antiseptic and it was long and rectangular in shape. Patient rooms on both ends, reception and waiting area in the middle, and Dr. Blackbeard’s office at the opposite end. After what I’d seen from my previous visit there wasn’t enough Lysol in the world to make this place clean.

  The door I’d entered was on the opposite side of where I’d been before, and I passed through a long narrow hallway with white floors and wood paneled walls. The lights were off and the only reason I could see at all was because of the red nightlights spaced every twenty feet or so in the ceiling.

  I stifled a nervous giggle at the thought that I’d once seen a horror movie that reminded me an awful lot of my current situation. I reached into my purse and pulled out my gun just in case there were zombies. At least I’d worn my Chucks instead of high heels in case I had to make a run for it.

  I’d wasted enough time building up my courage so I set forward with determination. I snuck past two bathrooms and a water fountain and wondered if it was against the criminal’s code to sneak into the bathroom and relieve myself. But with my luck, that’s when the SWAT team would break down the doors and the Enquirer would be standing there to take pictures.

  I pulled the strap of my purse over my body and held the gun in a two handed grip. In my mind I was just like Laura Holt from Remington Steele, only curvier and without eighties hair. I made my way to where the hallway met the main area, squatting low and peeping around the corner to make sure I was alone.

  The place was silent as a tomb. I squatted low and crossed behind the reception d
esk so no one could see me through the front windows. There wasn’t even a squeak from my sneakers. I was pretty awesome. My stealth abilities had improved by about a hundred and fifty percent since my first day on the job. Which wasn’t saying much. It was the same thing as saying a kindergartener could finally use the paste without eating it.

  My heart was thudding a hundred miles a minute and the red glow from the lights was creepy as shit. My goal was fairly simple: I needed to get into the locked room I’d noticed on my first visit to the clinic and see if the bag was still locked inside.

  I was halfway down the hallway when I heard a horrible moan. My heart stopped and I turned around to run back the way I’d come when I heard it again. And though it was horrible, it wasn’t a death moan. I’d heard a few of those sounds over the past months. I’d maybe even moaned like that myself over the last couple of days. From the increasing volume I was guessing she was enjoying herself, whoever she was. Either that or she was declawing a cat without anesthesia.

  To say my curiosity was piqued was an understatement. I’d never been very good at listening to the part of my mind that told me I shouldn’t stick my nose where it didn’t belong. I made my way closer to the sounds, hurrying my steps because it sounded like she was winding up for the finale, and I noticed the door was open a crack and light flickered from beneath. It was Doctor Blackbeard’s office.

  I meant to be quiet. I really did. But the sight that greeted me was enough to draw a gasp from my lips. A pair of familiar blue eyes met mine and widened in surprise. My own eyes narrowed and I felt sick to my stomach as I took in the scene. It was worse than I could’ve imagined.