CHAPTER 11
JAIL BREAK
I woke up with a splitting headache and an aching jaw. I was slumped in the hot seat of interrogation room number three, the room that we cops had always called the ball buster. We called it that because the room was located way in back of the building, where we could work someone over good without being heard. Me and Joe had some productive times messing up punks in that room, back in the good-old days. I glanced at my watch. It was late afternoon; I had been unconscious for several hours.
“Ready to talk, flat worlder?” asked a munchkin voice. I shifted my eyeballs painfully, just enough to see Dopey standing nearby. In back of him Kebony towered, his blanker than usual eyes staring through me.
“What you want me to say, creep?” I managed.
Dopey slapped me across the face, hard enough to draw blood. It was an amateur move, hitting me where it shows. Now when my lawyer got here I’d be all bloodied.
My lawyer was Zeke Feltstein, of Harding and Feltstein; Zeke Feltstein junior, not the old man. I had helped the kid out once when he got into trouble at the track, and I still hit him up for favors. He really wasn’t that much of a lawyer but even he should be able to spring me from this stupid deal. Elaine probably called him hours ago; I figured he would show up any second now. Actually, he should have been here hours ago.
“Where is the troll?” demanded Dopey. He slapped me again.
It was the last straw. I was just sitting there like a sap, cuffed hands on my lap, and as the little creep went to slap me a third time I clutched my hands together and with all my anger rocked forward and up out of the chair, gathering my feet beneath me for leverage. My balled hands shot up with a wicked uppercut to Dopey’s dopey little chinnie-chin-chin, lifting him off his feet and throwing him back against the wall like a rag doll. Little Dopey was laid out on the floor, out for the count.
A second later, Kebony swung a thunderous right at me. I partly blocked it but it still grazed my already sore jaw with such force that I was knocked off my feet. Moments later he was kicking my ribs with size fourteen-triple-E shoes.
I knew I was in big trouble. On a good day I might be able to take Joe, given my better speed and some lucky breaks. Cuffed and on the floor and already tired and sore as hell, I didn’t have a chance. What about Zeke? It occurred to me for the first time that these folks didn’t give a shit about lawyers; mine probably wouldn’t ever get past the dwarf at the front desk. I was on my own.
I drew up my legs in a fetal position to protect my ribs, then lashed out with one foot, trying to knock Joe down. My foot bounced off his massive leg without budging the big guy, but it got his attention and he stopped his kicking, reached down and hauled me up off the floor by my jacket cuff with his big left hand, so he could hit me better, as he cocked his massive right arm. “Traitor,” he said, sneering as a partly blocked roundhouse right caught me in the gut, sending me back to the hard cold jailhouse floor.
I had to do something. I couple more blows like that and I’d be unconscious, if I was lucky. If he landed one square on target I could be in a lot worse shape than that. As he stepped up to me again I locked onto one of his legs with both my legs and bit the other one with all my strength, my teeth sinking into muscle through cloth.
“Ugh,” he yelled, and then, off balance and with me holding both his legs, he fell forward to the floor. I scrambled onto his back and got my right arm around his thick neck with a chokehold and held on as the big guy stood up, never mind my extra two hundred twenty pounds on top of him. Joe is one big strong bastard. He shook me and swung me around like a rag doll against the brick wall, but I held on. Then he mashed me between the wall and his back, knocking the breath out of me, but I still hung on, as I still didn’t have any other plan. I figured we could go on like this for a while, until I was knocked unconscious, but at least for now we seemed to be stuck in a stalemate.
Then suddenly the big guy just stood there motionless, with me on his back and my arm sore from squeezing his ugly neck. “What the fuck is going on?” he managed to ask, through clenched teeth.
“You tell me, buddy,” I replied. “This whole deal ain’t my idea.”
“Jake? Is that you? Let me the hell go or I’ll break you in two.”
“That’s why I’m hanging on, you dumb lug, so you don’t break me in two.”
“Why the fuck would I do that? You’re going to give me that fifty, ain’t you?”
“Sure buddy,” I lied, as I slipped the arm over and off him, dropped to the floor, and backed away from him towards the door, ready to dodge if this was some kind of trick. “Soon as I have it.”
Joe looked around the room, noting the unconscious dwarf on the floor and me in cuffs, than sat down heavily. “So Jake, you want to explain why it is I find myself in the ball-busting room with you choking the crap out of me? Why do you have cuffs on? Who is the ugly shrimp on the floor? What the fuck gives? Does this have anything to do with Elaine?”
“Elaine? What the hell are you yapping about? You arrested me for murder, you big dummy, don’t you remember nothing?”
“Murder? Did you murder someone?”
“Hell no!”
“Then why the fuck would I arrest you for murder?”
“The elves and dwarves drugged you or something. They got the whole damn station under their control, using drugs or hypnosis or whatever. Don’t you remember anything like that?”
“No. I mean, I had a really weird bad dream about something like that. But this ain’t a dream, is it?”
“If it is, we’re having the same nightmare.”
“So who’s the sleeping shrimp on the floor? Hey, someone bit my damn leg!” He was poking at the hole in his trouser leg where I had bit him. He withdrew bloody fingers and held them in front of his darkening face. “Son of a bitch!” he swore, really steamed.
I pointed at Dopey. “Loranda’s henchman dwarf did it.”
He got up slowly and walked over to where the little dude lay with his face down and rolled him over with his big foot. “I’ll wait until he’s awake to clobber him. I remember some of it now. We were supposed to find out from you where the troll is hiding. Do you know where he’s hiding?”
I hesitated. Maybe this was a trick after all.
Suddenly Joe threw his big hands over his ears. “Wait Jake, don’t even tell me. I can’t control myself around those elves and dwarves. If you tell me maybe I’ll tell them, you get it?”
“It’s OK, Joe; I don’t know where the troll is.”
“They said you do. They said you know more than you think you know. They said that it's troll magic.”
“It's bull shit,” I said.
“Maybe, but that’s what they said. You got to get out of here, Jake. Go out the back door. Get out and work on this until you figure out what’s what.” He took off the handcuffs!
“OK, I don’t mind getting out of this crazy house. You coming with me?”
“No. I’m staying here to see what’s up here at the station. I came around; maybe some of the other guys will too. Right now I want you to hit me Jake, to make it look good.”
“The hell you say!”
“Come on Jake, slug me where it shows, unless you got a better idea.”
I shrugged, and then as the big dummy just stood there, I slugged him hard in the jaw. He crumbled to the floor like a rag-doll, the lucky bastard, leaving me to do all the tough work, just like in the old days.
I headed for the fire exit door, figuring that they never fixed the alarm that was supposed to go off when it was opened. I pushed the door open. No alarm. The damn thing had never worked, as far as I know. I was in the clear.
Behind the Precinct building, my luck held: Zeke Feltstein Jr. was just getting into his illegally parked Lexus. “Hey lawman, can I bum a ride?” I hailed him. As I slid into the seat next to him, I enjoyed the wide-eyed, slack jawed expression of surprise on his face.
“Jake? What the hell is this? I just busted my balls for hours try
ing to get in to see you! I was turned away by a damn ugly little dude at the front desk, and it wasn’t Kalhoony.”
“Thanks Zeke, but they sort of let me go anyway. Say, could we just scram, before they change their minds?”
Zeke swung the Lexus into the light early-evening traffic, and we moved away at a leisurely pace. “So, you want to fill me in?”
“Not especially, you being an officer of the court and all.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. What did they take you in for? Elaine said something about a murder.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Sure. And the cops apparently agreed, because here you are.”
“Not exactly.”
“Lack of evidence?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well then, how did you get out?”
“I escaped.”
“Shit no! What the fuck is wrong with you!” He suddenly drove a lot faster, and made a sharp right turn down a side street, studying his mirrors for a tail. There wasn’t any. I could have told him that to begin with, but I didn’t mind seeing him squirm just a little bit. Lawyers sure are a nervous bunch!
“Relax, buddy, it was a clean get-away. But maybe escape is the wrong word. See, the cops are being controlled by evil elves and dwarves.”
“You've been drinking again.”
“No I ain’t. You got anything though? I sure could use a belt of something.”
“Under the seat.”
Under my passenger seat was a pint flask of cheap bourbon, half empty. I took a big swig, and then passed it to Zeke. He took two big swigs, and then didn’t pass it back; I had to wrestle it away from the cheap stingy bastard to get my share. That’s life in the city.
"Actually, the cops being controlled by elves and dwarves would explain a lot, now that I think about it," Zeke noted. Like I always say, bourbon can often clear things up. “You want me to drop you at your office or apartment?” he asked.
“No. They’ll have those staked out.”
“So where do you want to go?”
He had me there. I thought it over. This was an unusual situation. There were two intermingled cases: the bank branch manager and the troll were both my clients. The troll was wanted by the cops for screwing around with a billionaire and maybe for murder, if they were smart. The cops, or at least the elf cops and those they controlled, wanted me too, for the same murder. So I had to keep a low profile.
The elves had wanted me to give up the troll. Why? And who the hell really killed Henry? The elves? The dwarves? The troll? Why? Did this stuff all fit together somehow? How? I decided not to try to explain it all to Zeke; hell, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it enough to explain it.
In my head I tried to list good guys and bad guys, as sometimes that helps. Trolls, elves, and dwarves? Bad. Grisim was a super-rich client, so he was good. After all, he had given me a big check, and it even cleared. Margie was good, especially the legs and cleavage. Henry was dead. That probably got him off my lists for most stuff, including his murder. The King family and Uncle Vinnie mob, scary. The cops, hypnotized or something. Me, confused and on the lamb. OK, so going through my list hadn’t helped.
“So where the fuck do you want to go?” asked Zeke again.
Tibet could have been nice this time of year, I figured. Yakety-yak, and don’t come back. Do they shrink people there too, I wondered? Is that where they do that shrunken head thing, or was that the Andes? Hey, if they knew about shrinking, maybe they knew about un-shrinking. That could come in handy sometimes. “Lend me some dough and drop me at my bank branch manager client’s place,” I finally decided. “I’ll cab it from there.”
Fifteen minutes later, Zeke slipped me four twenties and dropped me across from Margie Wainwright’s townhouse. I stood around in the dark shadows of trees for a while, making sure her place wasn’t staked out, and letting night settle in.
Fifteen minutes later, when I was just about to walk to her front door, Margie came hurrying out. I was standing at her car by the time she reached it. In the dim lighting provided by a nearby street light, she looked startled to see me. Me, I felt happy to see her, though I wasn’t exactly sure why, since it was too dark to see her legs. There was something attractive about that woman though, something weird that I still couldn’t figure out, like I said before. I didn't like that. I don't like not knowing why I'm thinking something.
“Jake Simon! What happened to you? You’re a mess. And where is your fancy hat?” She was a mess too. That is, she seemed to be really upset.
“The usual. Worked over by cops and dwarves. The Mob's turn is next, then probably the troll. But at least my hat is safe at home. What happened to you?” We sat together in her car where we were less conspicuous.
“Too much happened, but not to me. The cops just called. They said Henry has been murdered.”
“Yah, I heard about that too. I’m sorry. He seemed like an OK little old guy to me.”
“Good thing my kids are visiting my sister; the cops want me to officially identify Henry at the morgue. He didn’t have any family.”
“They say anything else?”
“They said you did it.” She stared at me close, looking for my reaction.
I shrugged. “I’m not surprised; they probably figure to hang it on me because I went to see him yesterday and left some fingerprints.”
“Why would anyone kill Henry,” she asked, close to tears.
“That’s one of the things I was going to ask you.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know that he had any enemies. When you talked to him, did you find out anything about what has been happening at the bank?”
“He claimed he was innocent. He could have been lying, but I don’t think so. He didn’t tell me all that he knew, but I don’t think he was lying. Talking to him, I got the idea that his trip out west had something to do with starting all of this. Tell me about his trip.”
“Not much to tell. He was a week in Arizona somewhere. He came back to work all happy, and then a couple days later I had to fire him.” She looked at me with sad eyes. “You don’t think, I mean, he wouldn’t have done this to himself, because of getting fired?”
“No; no damn way,” I reassured her. “He wasn’t all that upset about getting fired when we talked. He even said he knew that it wasn’t your fault. He was eager to continue his hobby. I agree with the cops that he was murdered. He didn’t strike me as a guy that would snuff himself, not at all.”
“No, I don’t suppose so.”
“He mentioned having lost something at work. You didn’t happen to find something odd there, did you?”
She shook her head. “Now that you mention it, Henry complained about losing something on his last day. A little figurine. I told him I hadn’t seen it.”
"A figurine? You mean like a statue of something?"
“A little statue of a man, he said."
"No kidding." That didn’t sound quite right to me; I don’t know why. Maybe I had hoped it would be a black falcon made of gold or something.
"What else did Henry say about that day?" she asked.
“Nothing, really. Strange stuff wasn’t going on at that point yet, was it?”
“Strange stuff?”
“You know, like was in the news a day or two later,” I explained. “Even before the bank stuff, there were Elves and dwarves helping human cops search for trolls in Arizona. You mentioned the Arizona stuff yourself, when you hired me. Was there any weird bank stuff happening before you fired Henry?”
“Not that I noticed. Do you think there is a connection between the bank incidents and the Arizona business?”
“Well, one of the guys that drugged your boss Grisim is a troll, according to the elves. Not that I trust the so-called elf woman that told me.”
“Elf woman? That last time Kebony questioned me about the inside-out car he had a weird looking woman with him.”
“Right,” I explained. “That would be Loranda the elf cop.”
“That was her? She didn’t say much, though she glared at me a lot. Freaky looking woman.”
“That’s her. She’s one of the so-called elves.”
She smiled. “I can’t believe that this elf, dwarf, and troll stuff is serious. What do you think? Are they really for real?”
“Of course not. They’re all just nut cases. Tripping on something. You can buy drugs on almost any street corner that can make you think you’re Santa Claus. If these weirdoes want to call themselves elves or dwarves or whatever, it's no skin off my nose. Did Henry ever talk about trolls and elves at work?”
“Not to me. I was his boss, and his strange hobbies never interested me. He talked the most to Eric. Eric is one of those dungeons and dragon freaks. Henry wasn’t, but they seemed to get a kick out of exchanging lore.”
“Any word on Eric’s hair problem?”
“Good news. The problem has disappeared. He’s not back to work yet, but he’s home. He sounded OK on the phone.”
“Any other weird bank stuff going on?”
She shrugged. “I hear that Grisim and the Board are acting strange.”
“Strange how?”
“Some of them went into our bank vaults and were seen playing with the money or something.”
“Playing?”
“Grabbing wads of paper money and change and just holding on to it compulsively.”
It sounded like something I would do, if I had that much cash. “Is that unusual behavior for rich guys?”
“Very. There are rumors of something else too, a hair problem similar to the one Eric had.”
“Similar?”
She laughed. “They have been seen to have a lot of long hair poking out of their pants.”
“Hair growth like Eric’s, but more localized?”
“So it would seem.” She looked at her watch. “Listen Jake, I’m supposed to meet Kebony at the morgue.”
“I wouldn’t go near the morgue or the cops without a lawyer. They could grab you like they did me. I’d go with you myself, but they want to get me. Go by my apartment and pick up Elaine, and then try to get my lawyer to go with the two of you to the morgue.”
“Good, I’m too scared now to go alone. But poor Henry had nobody. At least I can do this much for him; identify him I mean. You going to try to find his killer?”
“Solve a murder for fifty bucks a day?”
“To show it wasn’t you that did it.”
She had me there. “Sure.”
“Good. Henry was a really nice guy.”
“But he was mixed up in this business somehow. You might be too. The elves say that you stink of troll magic.”
Her eyes went wide. “They do? That’s crazy.”
“That’s what I said when they said the same thing about me. You have any idea why they would think it of you?”
“No idea. What about you?”
“The so-called-troll cursed me. That could be why they think that stuff about me. But you ain’t seen any trolls?”
“No, not really.”
“If not really, then un-really?”
“OK, I have had some strange dreams,” she admitted.
“How strange?”
“Silly. That I’m all alone and hiding in the dark.”
Why did that seem familiar to me? “Hiding from what?”
“I don’t know.”
“What has that got to do with trolls?”
“I don’t know. It just feels like it might.”
Woman’s fucking intuition, probably. I hate it when they do that. Women are always trying to make something out of nothing. God, if there is a God, is probably a broad, and she created this whole damn mess of a world out of a torn stocking or something. That could explain a lot, philosophically speaking I mean, though even the Greeks and Shakespeare never had that part worked out. “Anything else you can tell me?”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Drop me at Eric's place then; it’s on the way to my place. I’ll catch a cab from there.”
A few minutes later she dropped me off in front of Eric’s apartment and drove off to pick up Elaine for their trip to the morgue.
I hardly recognized the guy that answered Eric’s door. He was completely bald, and his breath stunk like garlic, but otherwise he seemed OK. “Yeah, that’s a trip, isn’t it,” Eric said, pointing to his bald head. “How was I to know the last time they shaved it off that it wouldn’t be growing back again in a minute or two?”
He showed me into his place, which also was hairless, compared to the first time I saw it. We were both sitting comfortably before I told him the nasty news of the day. “Henry Jenkins was murdered, probably sometime last night.”
It was a bad shock and surprise to him, or he was a damn good actor. “No! Hell no! Who? Why?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. I got to talk to him a little, about his hobby. He ever talk to you about magic and trolls and elves?”
“Lots of times. But it wasn’t a gaming thing for him; he was into it for real, big time. He had old books on the stuff, really old books. I’d tell him about a game character, and he’d tell me that his research had found out different stuff about it. It was sort of interesting.”
“What did he say about trolls?”
“That was his big thing, trolls. He said there was a lot to them, besides what the old kid stories say.”
“Like what?”
“He said that they have magic powers and live in a parallel universe. Said they’re pretty nasty characters.”
“And elves?”
“Said they’re enemies of the trolls, and just as nasty as the trolls or maybe even worse; not cute little cookie makers at all.”
I wasn’t too surprised. I couldn’t imagine Loranda wearing an apron and mixing flour, sugar, chocolate chips and other crap in a little bowl or whatever. That was a good thing though. If I ever found out “Did he talk about his trip out west?”
“He was all excited about that when he got back. Said he visited some old Indian digs and found an ancient troll totem, proving that Indians knew about trolls. He found some old Indian legends about trolls too.”
“Troll totem? Did he show you what he found, or tell you any of the legends?”
“I asked him to, but he wouldn’t. Said he had to keep things to himself until he published his findings.”
“Published?”
“In some sort of journal on ancient stuff, I guess. I didn’t ask.”
“He ever talk about enemies or anybody else that was out to get him?”
“No. Hey, he was just a cool old dude, doing his own thing. I tried to get him into the gaming side of things, but he just laughed. ‘This isn’t a game, this is my life’s work,’ he’d say. I’m going to miss him.”
“You talk to him after he was fired?”
“Just once, that night he was fired. He phoned to ask about a figurine of his missing from work. I hadn’t seen it. I haven’t talked to him since. There was too much going on after that: the tires, my hair, and so forth. I was going to call him next week, just to check up on him. He was a loner you know, just him and his old books.”
“Who would want him dead?”
“Nobody. Not me, that’s for sure. Hell, I really liked the old dude.”
I sighed. This case was dragging. I longed for rich broads with nice legs and rotten husbands and/or small dogs. Keep it simple, that’s my motto. “Hey, could you drop me somewhere local? My car is laid up.” Don’t pay for cabs if you can avoid it, that’s my motto.
“Sure. You going to find out who got to Henry?”
“Sure thing.”
“Good.”
“Could I use your phone too?” I asked. Don’t pay for phone calls if you can avoid it, that’s my motto. I phoned my office answering machine first, and found out that I had gotten calls. Joe had called twice, telling me to turn myself in, the last time only ten minutes earlier. I figured he was back under elf control. I couldn’t
tell for sure, but in the message he hadn’t mentioned anything about me owing him fifty bucks, and that's not like Joe, the cheap bastard.
Uncle Vinnie had called me to say that he wanted to see me, pronto. Great. I was wanted by both the mob and the cops.
Finally, Grisim had called. He wanted to see me about work. He sounded upset, and said he had another unusual problem for me to help him with. When money talks, I listen really close. Grisim moved to the very tip-top of my to-do list. I had Eric drop me off outside the Tower Arms building.
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The Shrinking Nuts Case Page 11