Maddog 1 The Begining

by Tom Golabek

There were four of them as a rookie led the way through the door. He had his pistol in his mitt, and it was pointed at me. I was tired of having guns pointed at my gut, but better sense told me to play along. I was pushed up against the wall, hands above my head, and frisked. The rookie reminded me of the Humphrey Bogart character lying in the hallway. He stood back a couple of feet from me, his gun aimed at my midsection. Damn, why did everybody want to point their guns at me? The rookie’s face was full of power, lips tight, eyes slit, and a hint of a grin. The kid had the kind of face that I would like to smash just on general principles. He didn’t seem to care too much for me either.

  A couple of the veteran cops were checking out the remains of the bodies. One of them saw me standing against the wall with “itchy fingers” ready to shoot me if I breathed too hard. The cop hustled over with his hand outstretched, and I realized it was Bob Landry. He was a really honest cop who was in on a couple of deals that I had helped out on with the NYPD. I grabbed his hand, feeling his tight, warm grip.

  The rookie was startled. He stammered out with a, “But this guy’s a m-murderer,” as he looked at the mangled corpses on the floor.

  Bob holstered his gun, looked at the young apprentice and muttered, “You wouldn’t know a murderer if you walked down death row. Go outside and keep everyone out of our hair.” The rookie shuffled off muttering to himself.

  I looked at my forty year old, muscular pal and wearily said, “Bob, is it OK if I wait till the Captain gets here? Then I’ll do my explaining.”

  He nodded, turned around, and joined the other policemen checking out the carnage. I felt tired, and sat down in the huge leather chair at my side. Lola, poor Lola. She wouldn’t hurt a fly, and now she was lying in a pool of her own blood. I should have treated her better. She was so fragile, soft, tender, and loving. People were going to die for this. At least one of those lifeless bodies on the floor used to belong to Dragon’s crew.

  I bent over, laid my cold face in my hands, and closed my eyes. Never would I feel her warm touch again. It was hard to believe that she was dead. With all the killings that I have done, and dead bodies I have seen, this was the first one that has affected me so heavily. I felt a strong sense of loneliness as I rubbed my fingers through my hair. The police didn’t yet know that her cold, breathless body was lying on the floor in the other room.

  I’d miss cuddling up with her at night. Who would I love and tease? I would sorely miss sharing the highs and lows of our business, and seeing the dancing in her eyes about the adventures we encountered. I stared at the door as if I could burn a hole through it. No sounds came to my ears; no movement came to my eyes. All I could do was to stare at the door, and think of Lola. I lost track of time. I just stared in sadness.

  The doorknob turned. No, it couldn’t have. Nobody was in there except Lola, and she was dead. My imagination was playing tricks on me. It turned again, and this time a click sounded with it. I jumped to my feet, wondering if I was in the Twilight Zone. The door swung to the side revealing who had opened it. There was Lola standing with her legs spread, and her hands on her bloodied head. My beautiful, ditzy, love kitten wasn’t dead after all. She looked across the office at the mangled bodies, rubbed her eyes, and looked again. The first words out of her mouth were, “What the hell went on here?”

  What a damn fool I was. I should have known that Lola could have been just knocked unconscious. A ten-year-old kid would have checked for a pulse, put a mirror under her nose, or at least put his ear to her chest.

  She stumbled over to me, asked why I looked so astonished, and told me that her head was hurting. My mind was all mixed up. I told her, “I thought you were dead. When I opened the door, and saw you lying in a pool of your own blood, I knelt, and cradled you in my arms. I looked into your lifeless eyes, and my heart went heavy. Tenderly, I laid your head back down, and left the room in a blind rage for vengeance.”

  My arms closed around her, and my lips kissed her face. I felt new life in me, as I whispered words of love into her ear.

  I yelled out, “Bob.” Landry came from the hallway looking puzzled when he saw Lola. It doesn’t happen often, but I was at a loss for words. I couldn’t talk, so my finger pointed at her, and mumbled, “My sweetheart is alive! Ask her what happened.”

  He did, and Lola answered in her usual non-intellectual manner. She squealed out, “I was just watering the flowers, and those dead men on the floor were alive then. At least I think that’s them. I can’t really tell. Boy, they look awful.”

  Then she looked towards me and said, “Mike, my head still hurts.”

  I grabbed a towel from the bathroom, filled it with some ice from the fridge, and placed it on her head wound. Softly, I told her, “The ambulance will be here soon.”

  She began relating her full story to the cops. As long as she had somebody listening to her, she could talk for hours.

  An ambulance whined to a stop outside the building. I walked to the window, looked out, and saw the janitor being interviewed. The Medical Examiner, photo boys, and other crime scene investigators filled the office.

  The ambulance attendants came rushing up the stairs like they were going to a fire. Their eyes grew to the size of silver dollars when they saw the mangled body parts I had decorated my office with.

  Lola spotted them, ran over, and asked in her high-pitched voice, “Hi, I’m Lola, and my head hurts because one of those dead men hit me in the head. That happened when they were alive. Can you mend me?” They looked at each other, then back at her like she was loony, but one of them attended to her, while the other sized up the situation on the others.

  Reporters started to show up by the pairs bringing flashes and havoc with them. The police were trying to hold them back but were having a hard time. Finally, the cops gave up and let the news hawks in. They came charging in like a pack of wild elephants tramping over a tribe of helpless natives. Seeing that it was time to make my flight, I got up, grabbed Lola, the attendant, Bob Landry, and pulled them into the back office. Before I closed the door behind us, I glanced back. The reception area looked like Time Square on New Year’s Eve. I cursed to myself, turned around, and shut the door, which cut off most of the racket and commotion going on.

  I pulled out my pack of Camels, pushed one out, lit up, and sat back on the large soft sofa. Lola was sitting by the window getting her wound treated, as Bob sat down beside me.

  The door opened letting in a cloud of smoke and noise that spread throughout the room. Through it charged Matt Zima, Captain of the Bronx Homicide Division. He was my age, and just as ugly and mean as me. Now came the storm. I’ve killed a lot of people in the Bronx, and that just meant more work for Matt. He was the toughest cop on the force, and he had the brains to go with his muscle. He also didn’t like paperwork. If he wasn’t working for the city, I would have taken him in as a partner.

  Before I could blink, the tall, stocky dynamo was standing in front of me. He seemed too happy for a guy who had three bodies on his hands. His paws swung out towards me, and I shook it.

  This wasn’t kosher. He was usually screaming his mouth off after one of my killings.

  The first words out of his mouth were, “Mike, now you have killed a total of sixteen people in the Bronx, and this is the first time I don’t mind cleaning up your mess. You probably don’t know who those boys out there were. One of them is a local, small time hood who has been getting in our hair. But he is not what I am happy about. The other two are wanted for murder in half the States in the Union. They were out of town boys from Miami. Those two worked as a pair, killing anyone for a price. They were contract killers Mike, and it looks like someone bought them for you. Somebody wants you dead.”

  I shot out, “Yeah, It looks that way.”

  “You got any ideas who it is?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, start from the beginning, and tell me what went down.”

>   I told him everything except that one of the boys out there was part of Dragon’s outfit. Nor did I tell him that Dragon must have been the one who put the contract out on me.

  Matt pulled out his little notebook, and scribbled down a few facts as I lit up a smoke. I answered all his questions. His face tightened up at some of my answers, but after a half hour, he seemed satisfied. Matt closed his pad, and stuffed it in his jacket. You could tell this guy was a cop. His clothes were old, and out of style. Speaking of clothes, mine were full of blood. This time it wasn’t so bad though. At least it wasn’t one of my tailored blazers.

  The guy who was working on Lola’s noodle finished up, and we walked out the door. As the door opened, I could hear and see the animals trampling down my office.

  Lola squeezed between Bob and me, and wrapped her arms around my neck. She nibbled on my ear and squeaked, “Gee Mike, I feel like I never even got hit.”

  I muttered, “Did it do any damage to your brain?”

  “How am I supposed to know? You always say that I don’t have a brain.” She thought that was very clever. I smiled, and gave her a hug.

  The third degree was over, and we all headed out of the room, Matt in the lead.

  We were immediately attacked by reporters, but that didn’t last long. I heard Zima roar, “Get these maniacs outta here.” When Matt shouts, it sounds like a bellowing wild gorilla. The cops moved like lightning, for there wasn’t a reporter in the office twenty seconds after he had yelled.

  Matt saw the bottle of Four Roses lying invitingly on the floor, picked it up, and put it to his lips. A smack sounded from his mouth. I stepped over to him and whispered, “Matt, I could still use a partner like you. Why don’t you come over to my side? There’s a lot more money than you’re making now.”

  I got the answer I expected, “No!”

  Casually I said to him, “OK, I’m gonna keep killing in the Bronx.”

  The city had an efficient M.E. He had already taken the bodies away, eyeballs, and all. Too bad he couldn’t take the blood and the stench that was left also. I could see that the joint was going to have to be painted again. Fumigation wouldn’t do any harm either.

  Matt gathered up his boys, told the reporters he would give them the story if they followed him to the station house, and left.

  The newsboys followed him like a hound follows a rabbit, trampling down the stairs. I shut the door behind them. There was a sullen quietness now. My eyes looked around the room, and were tired of seeing guts and blood.

  I walked over to the window, picked up my bottle of Four Roses, and poured a shot for each of us. It had been a frenzied and terrifying day, and I hoped the drink would help mellow us out.

  The ambulance attendant had cleaned the blood from Lola’s head, and had applied a number of butterfly stitches to her wound.

  Before leaving, I called the janitorial service, to clean this place up ASAP. I’m sure that this would be a cleaning that the custodians would never forget.

  Lola and I gathered up our things, shut off the lights, and locked the door behind us.

  * * *

  CH 8 Working the Case