Scrambled Hard-Boiled

by E.R. White, Jr.

I’ve been in this business over thirty years now, and have been in some dire spots where I was close to meeting my maker on a number of occasions. Even so, this was the first time it’d happened to me, and it’s like when you lose your virginity—it always sticks in your memory. You might forget the unimportant stuff like the girl’s name, but never those critical details—like the year and make of the car whose backseat you were in, for example.

  So I can never forget the eyes of the man who held a gun to my head for the first time. They were the flattest and blackest eyes I’d ever seen. Sunken deep into his face, they held no hint of humanity, no spark of compassion. They were the eyes of a man who had decided to pull the trigger on a fellow human being. To this day when I have a nightmare, those eyes are always a part of it.

  Nevertheless, I can proudly say I didn’t panic! In the split second, I realized the predicament I was in, my gift kicked in. I coolly evaluated the situation, plotted a definite course of action and without any hesitation put my plan into motion. Most men, I can honestly say, couldn’t have reacted as quickly and as forcefully as I. They would have just sat there, frozen, while this bastard blew their brains out. Not me, oh-no, not me. I immediately began to call the man a Jew.

  “Jesus H. Christ, don’t shoot!” I moaned as I sunk to my knees, arms outstretched. “I don’t know nuthin’, Christ, I’m just trying to help, Oh please, please don’t kill me, I’m begging you, don’t kill me, pleeeeeease…”

  Well, what the hell did you expect, a kung-fu kick to the stomach, followed by a rapid disarming of the man and the situation reversed with me holding a gun, telling him to “freeze or die”? That happens only in the movies and dime novels, folks. In real life when a man has a cocked gun to your head and is getting ready to pull the trigger, if you want to live, you beg for mercy—period. There’s no other option. Stoic silence or ill-advised karate moves will only result in you getting blown to hell.

  Nope, the only thing that can possibly save you in this type of situation is pure, unadulterated, self-abasement.

  And a little luck.

  My quick thinking and actions had an immediate benefit. He hesitated and I saw the first hint of emotion express itself in those eyes…disgust, with a touch of sadism thrown in for good measure. I immediately began to blubber incoherently, forcing tears to stream down my face—well, not really forcing—in hopes of making him decide that I was not worth shooting. I thought for a few seconds that I’d succeeded in my efforts, when I saw the light of reason go out of his face. I knew he’d decided to go ahead and waste me. I began to wail in one last, desperate attempt to get him to change his mind, when I got lucky…real lucky.

  The front door to the house opened and a paramedic walked in.

  “I’m unarmed, unarmed, don’t shoot, I give up!” I screamed as soon as I saw the medic.

  The ambulance guy froze and said, “Oh shit.”

  That was enough to save my life. The guy with the gun knew that he couldn’t blow me away now, not unless he killed the witness. His eyes came back to life with a flash of bloody hate, and he yelled at me, “Sheriff! Face down on the floor! Hands on top of your head!”

  He got no argument from me. With relief washing over me, I slapped myself straight down on the floor and put my hands on my head. “Black Eyes” was behind me in a flash and in a few seconds, I was handcuffed. I was then roughly jerked to my feet and slammed against the wall. He started to search me.

  “Hey, there’s a guy overdosed in the bathroom, shouldn’t you be helping him?” I said, trying to act the part of concerned citizen.

  About the same time I said it, the cop found my gun in its holster.

  “Unarmed, huh?” he snarled as he took it away from me.

  “I got a license for that. I’m a private investigator.”

  He snorted and shoved me down the hall.

  “See to the guy in the crapper,” he told the paramedic.

  “Sure thing, Sgt. Bradshaw.” The medic called for his partner outside to join him. The two of them stepped around the dead body and went into the bathroom.

  Bradshaw turned to me and said, “Outside.”

  I headed for the door with Sgt. Bradshaw right behind me. As soon as I stepped outside, three Sheriff patrol cars came up to the house, lights flashing. It was starting to look like a used-car lot outside. I could see the lights on in the two houses up the road and people had stepped outside to see what the fuss was about.

  Sgt. Bradshaw shoved me roughly down the three steps in front of the door. I staggered down them and then fell to the ground. Bradshaw yanked me up. Three uniformed deputies came running up to the front of the house, guns drawn.

  “It’s okay,” announced Bradshaw, “he’s cuffed. There’s a dead woman inside and a guy overdosed in the bathroom. The paramedics are working on him now.”

  He pointed to two of the deputies, “You two, secure the house, keep the contamination of the crime scene to a minimum. Make sure the paramedics touch as little as possible as they get the druggie in the ambulance.”

  He motioned to the remaining deputy, “Help me get this guy into your cruiser. He claims he’s a private dick, but for all I know he may be the perp, himself. Take him down to the main station in Loganton and lock him up. I’ll radio ahead, let them know you’re coming and arrange for the lab boys to examine the crime scene. He’s to talk with no one—I repeat—no one until I say he can, got it?”

  “Got it, Sarge.”

  About this time, the two medics had wheeled Sonny out on a stretcher and were starting to put him in the back of the waiting ambulance.

  “Hey, Sgt. Bradshaw, this guy was naked when we found him…no ID. You know who he is?”

  “Sonny—Sonny Slatterson,” I volunteered.

  “Good God Almighty,” murmured the deputy next to me.

  Bradshaw just looked at me one last time with those flat, dead eyes and then motioned for the deputy to take me away.

  It took about thirty minutes for the deputy to get me to the main Sheriff’s station in Loganton. It was a sprawling one-story affair, only a couple of years old. Two more deputies met me when I got there and after a rapid and thorough strip search, I was thrown into an empty holding cell, and the door was slammed shut behind me. Hardly a word was spoken. I demanded at once to make a phone call, but I was told politely, but firmly, to shut the fuck up.

  I sat in that cell for over three hours, staring at the door and barren walls, all the while reviewing the events of the past few hours and getting my story straight. Finally, around two o’clock in the morning, the door was swung open and two deputies came in, handcuffed me, and told me to stand up. I was led out of the cell and taken to an interrogation room, equipped with a table, a few metal chairs and what was obviously a one-way mirror on the wall.

  Just like on TV.

  I sat there alone for a minute or so, when the door opened and in walked Sgt. Bradshaw followed by a man in his late fifties. He was somewhat overweight, balding, had steel-rimmed glasses on and was dressed in a blue sport-shirt and khaki slacks. Sgt. Bradshaw had a folder of papers with him. Both took a seat across from me. The older man motioned for the folder from Bradshaw. He opened it and sat there and studied it for a minute. He looked up at me for a second or two then looked back at the folder.

  “I’m Sheriff John Crump. Says here you’re Jacob Luke Dafoe, age twenty-nine,” he started. “Also says here you’re a private investigator, located out of Charlotte. That right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now what kind of business would a young feller like you have in our county?”

  “I’m here in town in my capacity as a professional, private investigator. That’s all I can say right now.”

  I had that line ready to go. Just like Mannix on TV, don’t tell’em anything, client confidentiality and all that.

  I didn’t even have the words completely out of my mouth when Bradshaw had rocketed out of his chair and was on me. I rolled backwards and fell on my back, tryin
g to ward off the blows from my head with my handcuffed hands, but Bradshaw just switched to kicking me in the balls. I yelled for him to stop, but he just kept on kicking.

  “Stan! Enough!” Crump eventually yelled, reaching out to constrain his pissed-off deputy. “Enough—I think he might cooperate now.”

  Reluctantly, Bradshaw stopped beating me. I just laid there and moaned a minute or so. I slowly got to my feet and sat back in my chair. Crump looked at me sort of sad like for a few moments and then got back to questioning me.

  “Let’s cut to the chase, boy, did you kill that woman we found?”

  “No.”

  “Well, what were you doing at her home? Answer me that.”

  That bastard Bradshaw was looking at me with those dead eyes of his, just waiting to pounce on my ass, and I could tell that Sheriff Crump wasn’t going to try to stop him, at least not right away.

  Mannix be damned. I decided to tell them everything.

  As soon as it was apparent that I was spilling my guts to them, Bradshaw’s look of hate turned to contempt. I never hated another man as much as I hated Sergeant Stan Bradshaw that night, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do. I was handcuffed, alone and sure as hell didn’t want another beating. So I started to sing like a bird.

  I told them about being hired by old man Slatterson to follow his son and the subsequent tailing him to the Bowman house that evening. I told them about going out for dinner and coming back, only to hear the argument and apparent murder inside the house. They listened to my claim to have heard someone leave via the backdoor and run to the adjacent trailer park and drive off. Sheriff Crump appeared somewhat relieved with this news, but Bradshaw snorted in disbelief. I finished up telling them about going in, finding the dead body and Sonny passed out and my subsequent phone call for help.

  Then I just sat there and waited. I wanted to ask to make a call, but with Bradshaw around, I didn’t want to press my luck. By now, it was near to four o’clock in the morning, according to the clock on the wall.

  Crump and Bradshaw got up and walked out of the room. I sat there. A few minutes later I was escorted back to my cell, and my handcuffs were removed. Exhausted and sore from the beating, I soon fell asleep on the concrete floor.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep when the door to the cell was swung open, and I was woken up. They had confiscated everything, including my watch, when I had first arrived at the station. Two more deputies came in and told me to get up. This time they didn’t put the cuffs on me. I was allowed to go to the bathroom and then taken back to the interrogation room. When I was escorted in, Sheriff Crump was there with another man. This man was dark haired, slim and was dressed in a suit. The Sheriff was polite and asked me to sit down and make myself comfortable. The man in the suit stuck his hand out for me to shake.

  “Mr. Dafoe, I’m Tim Anderson, the county prosecutor. I know it’s been a long night for you, but could you please go over the events of last night that you told Sheriff Crump about earlier?”

  “I don’t know Mr. Anderson. I really think I should be seeing my lawyer first, since I’m being held here against my will.”

  The polite attitude of the Sheriff had emboldened me a tad, plus the fact that Stan Bradshaw was nowhere to be seen.

  “Of course, I can understand your reluctance, but I can assure you that you’re not under any suspicion—whatsoever. Indeed, if it wasn’t for your timely assistance, we might have two deaths on our hands, instead of one.”

  So Sonny Slatterson was still alive. I decided to press my luck further.

  “I want—no let’s make that I demand to be allowed to contact my superiors in Charlotte. They need to be appraised of my situation and to arrange an appropriate response.”

  “Of course,” purred Anderson. “Sheriff, can you arrange for a phone to be brought in?"

  Crump went out of the room and soon returned with a phone that he plugged into a nearby outlet. He placed it in front of me.

  “Dial nine to get a line out.”

  I looked at the wall clock. It was a little past ten in the morning. I called the office. Maisy answered and I told her to get Ernie on the line if he was there. Within seconds, he was on the phone. I told him what my situation was and told him to get his ass down here and get me out of jail.

  “Have they read you your rights, kid? Just answer yes or no.”

  I said no.

  “Good, that means they aren’t lying to you about not being a suspect, at least not yet. Since you’ve already come clean, it won’t hurt to tell them again. It’s an hour and a half drive to Loganton. I’ll be there before you know it.”

  We hung up and I turned to face the two men.

  “Satisfied?” asked Anderson.

  “Yeah, I guess so. What do you want to know?”

  “Just tell me what you told Sheriff Crump earlier.”

  So I told him.

  Anderson just sat there while I told him the whole story. After I was done, he asked a few questions, mostly concerning the fact that I heard someone leave by the backdoor and drive off. He also confirmed the fact that Eric Slatterson had hired me.

  After about an hour, I was told I was free to leave, but they might need for me to testify later. The Sheriff called one of his deputies in and told him to get my personal belongings and return them to me, including my gun. I then was allowed to go freshen up, and by the time I was finished, the deputy had come back with my stuff. I took it and made my way to the front of the building. Then I just sat on an outside bench and waited for Ernie to pick me up. About forty-five minutes later, he drove up in his Caddie. I got in and we drove off.

  As we were leaving the parking lot, I just happened to see Prosecutor Anderson standing outside a side door, having a conversation with none other than Sgt. Bradshaw. I tried to shrug it off as of no importance, but a cold lump in my gut told me otherwise.