Dead On My Feet - A Thriller (Phineas Troutt Mysteries Book 1) Page 4

  “Is your car in the lot?” I asked.

  “Yes. It’s the blue Volkswagen Beetle.”

  I found it parked three cars away from the Buick. “How many times have you called the police?”

  “Seven or eight.”

  “Always from here?”

  “Here, or from the clinic. It follows me there, too.”

  “And the sedan always leaves before the cops come?”

  “Always.”

  To me that could mean a couple of things. Maybe her phones were tapped. Or they had a police scanner in the car, and just listened to dispatch. Or they had police connections. I turned around and faced her. She didn’t have a T.V. in the bedroom either.

  I asked, “Is your T.V. in the bathroom?”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have a television in your living room or your bedroom.”

  “I don’t watch television.”

  I nodded. “Neither do I. Too much violence. Wait here.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked after me.

  “To get my gun and a baseball bat.”

  For a woman who did such a good job concealing her emotions, the alarm on her face surprised me.

  “You didn’t hire me to make friends with them,” I said.

  “I realize that. But I’m concerned—

  “I’ll probably be fine.”

  “—about the legality of your actions.”

  Oh. “Don’t worry. You won’t go to jail for anything I do. As far as the authorities are concerned, I’m your bodyguard.”

  She began to say something, then stopped. I’d seen this reaction before. People pay me money to do mean things, then they get weird when I actually do the mean things they paid me to do.

  “They started this, not you,” I said.

  “I know. But this goes against my teachings.” She looked away from me, into her own head. “My parents were from Panaji, in Goa. I was born in Chicago. I’ve never been to India, and was not raised in Hinduism. But my mother and father, and my aunt and uncle, were followers of the teachings of Bapu.”

  “Bapu?”

  “Gandhi. He valued ahimsa. Nonviolence. Nonviolent activists accept violence upon themselves, but it is blessed to not inflict violence upon others.”

  Passive resistance in the face of violent oppression will get you hurt and killed. Gandhi had the world watching, and the world tended to react negatively when skinny guys on hunger strikes got beaten up. Pasha didn’t have that luxury. But instead of bringing that up, I said, “Passive resistance, huh?”

  “Bapu taught of satyagraha. It means to hold firmly to the truth. To go beyond civil disobedience, and follow the love-force, under all circumstances.”

  “So do you want me to beat the shit out of these guys, or what?”

  “I’m… conflicted.”

  “What if I beat them up, but do so lovingly?”

  “You’re mocking me.”

  “Do you want to be morally superior and dead? Or do you want the threats to stop?”

  “I want them to stop. But I’d prefer this ends nonviolently.”

  “You don’t buy a dog for protection, and then muzzle him.”

  “Is that what you are? A dog?”

  “No,” I said. “Dogs are friendly.”

  “Can you promise me you’ll do your best that no one gets hurt?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Sure,” I lied.

  She wanted to believe me, so she did. I wondered, for a moment, what it would have been like to grow up with a family that endorsed nonviolence rather than natural selection.

  “I’m going now,” I said. “If I get shot—”

  “I’ll call 911.”

  I’d intended to say, ‘Rush over and give me mouth-to-mouth.’ But that could have been construed as creepy. It probably was creepy. It had been a long time since I’d been around an attractive woman who wasn’t a sex worker, and I’d forgotten how to banter. And flirt. And converse. And pretty much act like a decent human being. Besides, she was a doctor who hired me for a job, and I was just a scumball dying of cancer. I wasn’t on her level, and she already had too many male predators in her life.

  Better to keep my hormones out of it.

  As I walked to my Bronco, I shook away the oxycodone dullness and focused on the caffeine pumping through my veins, hoping it was enough to carry me through the confrontation that was about to happen. Fear and I have always had an odd relationship. I experienced the physical symptoms of fear; rapid heartbeat, dry mouth, sweaty palms, a churning stomach, and all the other clichés. But I was also able to detach myself from the situation. Like I was a mildly curious observer, controlling the events that unfolded with the same unemotional connection as playing a videogame.

  Someone was probably going to get hurt in a few minutes. Maybe it would be me. And somehow I was at peace with that.

  In my tailgate I dug out a zippered hoodie. I opened up the Snoopy lunchbox, slipped on my holster, sheathed the Hardballer, and put the sweatshirt on over it. Then I took out Mr. Louisville, as well as a softball.

  Walking around with a bat is suspicious. But if you have a bat and a ball, you’re just going to the game.

  I locked my truck and headed over to the side parking lot, bouncing the ball in my hand, walking past a gaggle of indifferent Canadian geese who were doing their best to cover every inch of asphalt with their green droppings. The occupants of the sedan were sleeping, or just plain lousy, because I strolled right up to the rear window carrying a bat in my hand without them pulling away or shooting at me.

  Batter up…

  I dropped the softball, planted my feet, and with one big swing I hit the window dead center, using enough force to knock it out of its moorings and into the back seat.

  Two men in front spun around to see me training the Hardballer on them. The driver was forty and fat, with gray curly hair coming out of his pork chop ears and a neck that was spilling all over his tie. His partner was thin and balding, younger, with a smattering of hair on his upper lip that an optimist would call a mustache. I witnessed both of them go from surprised to terrified in less than a second.

  I extended the Hardballer through the missing back window and cocked it. There was a police scanner on the dash between them. Tuned to Flutesburg police dispatch, I assumed.

  “Gentlemen,” I said. “Throw your guns into the back seat with your left hands.”

  The Hardballer was having the desired psychological effect of instilling absolute terror. The fat one’s eyes bulged out so far he looked like a Tex Avery cartoon. The bald one went so completely white even his lips lost color.

  I aimed at the bald one. “If I have to ask again, I’m going to paint the dashboard with your last thought.”

  He said something, but I couldn’t understand because it came out like a wheeze.

  “Okay, then. I guess I’ll kill you both.”

  The fat one ripped ass. It was so loud that the Canadian geese—who hadn’t been bothered by my breaking the window—scattered, scurrying off in all directions and honking their objections.

  “We don’t have guns,” the bald one wheezed.

  I considered this. It didn’t mesh with my preconceived notions of what bad guys did. But standing there, watching them shake like league members of the palsy club, I had to wonder how bad these guys really were.

  “Give me your driver’s licenses,” I ordered. With much comical floundering, they managed to get out their wallets.

  They held them out at arm’s length, afraid I’d bite them if they got too close. Fatty was named Nick Rialta, and Baldy, ironically, Phillip Wig. Both lived in Milwaukee. I memorized the addresses and dropped the IDs in the back seat.

  “Please don’t kill us. We were only following her,” the fat guy volunteered. He had a high, whiny voice, like Lou Costello.

  “Why?” I asked. Seemed like a good question.

  “To pay off our debts,” the bald one
wheezed.

  “We don’t even know her name,” said the fat one.

  “What debts?” I asked. Another good question. Maybe I should do this for a living.

  “Gambling,” offered wheezy. Wasn’t Wheezy one of the Seven Dwarfs? The one with emphysema and the hole in his throat?

  “What gambling?” I queried.

  “Riverboat gambling. In Oldridge. On The Delta Queen. Last Friday. We lost a lot of money and couldn’t pay it back.”

  “They were gonna break our arms,” offered Fatty.

  “So Mr. Mulrooni said if we did this favor for him, we could have some more time.”

  “Just follow her around.”

  “We weren’t going to hurt her.”

  “We don’t even know her name.”

  “Please don’t kill me.”

  “I’ve got a family.”

  “Please don’t kill me.”

  They continued to plead and beg, and I began to get embarrassed.

  “Who is this Mr. Mulrooni?” I asked.

  “Jimmy Mulrooni. He owns The Delta Queen.”

  And as simple as that, I had a lead.

  “And where is Jimmy keeping himself these days?”

  “He’s in Oldridge. He has a big stakes poker game on the boat every Friday. You need five grand to get in.”

  “I lost twenty thousand.”

  “I lost twenty-five.”

  “Please don’t kill me.”

  “I have a family.”

  I drew a breath through my nose, and almost gagged.

  “Did you… did you shit yourself?” I asked the fat one.

  “I have IBS. Irritable bowel syndrome.”

  I tried to fan the air with my free hand. “That’s nasty, man. Does this happen a lot?”

  “I wear diapers.”

  “You need to buy a better brand. That one is leaking.”

  “I will. I promise. Please don’t shoot me. I have a family.”

  “How? How do you still have a family? IBS and a gambling problem? What do you actually bring to the table?”

  “I’m a good listener.”

  I crinkled my nose. “Who would stay in a room with you long enough for you to listen to anything?”

  Then the crying began. The fat one started it, and the bald one immediately joined in. Two soul mates, sobbing for their bad luck and bad situation. Begging for understanding. Pleading for their lives.

  At least they had someone to plead to.

  “Give me the police scanner,” I told them.

  They both reached for it, handing the device over to me.

  “Now get out of here. And if I see either of you again, especially you,” I said, pointing at the guy sitting in his own feces. I left the rest unsaid.

  After a second of incredulity, the fat guy turned the ignition and threw the car into gear faster than I thought possible.

  I holstered my Hardballer, picked up my bat and ball, and watched them drive off. Then I made sure I had a parked SUV between me and Pasha’s apartment window, bent over, and threw up.

  Might have been my nerves. Or the cancer. Or the drugs. Or the banana rolls, which no longer looked like bananas when I deposited them on the street.

  After wiping my mouth on my sleeve and popping a mint, I walked back to the lobby, where Pasha was waiting for me, her arms folded across her chest.

  “You just let them go?” was her affectionate greeting, filled with drippy concern for my well-being.

  “They were harmless.”

  “They were harassing me.”

  “And now they’re gone. And I’d like to be paid.”

  She narrowed her eyes, but rather than look mean she just looked cute.

  “I have to go to the bank.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I think I can handle going to the bank by myself.”

  “Those guys I scared off; they were amateurs, working off their gambling debts. They’ll go running back to their boss, moaning about the big, bad man who pulled a gun on them. The next men following you won’t be amateurs. Do you want to face them alone? Or will you let me do my job?”

  We held the stare for a moment, then she whirled around and walked off. I scanned the parking lot. Nothing suspicious, but the geese had wandered over to where I’d puked, and were pecking at it.

  That made me aware of the fact that I’d thrown up my meds. I fished some oxycodone from a pocket and swallowed my last two.

  Time passed. I squinted up at the sun. About four and a half billion years old, and halfway through its life. It predated humanity, and would outlast humanity.

  “You’re making me feel insignificant,” I said to the sun.

  The sun didn’t respond. Mr. Big Shot.

  More time passed.

  In the parking lot, one of the geese honked in a way that sounded like it was being squeezed. I looked and saw it take a few wobbly waddles, and then keel over.

  Apparently codeine worked on waterfowl.

  “What happened to that goose?” Pasha asked.

  She was in the same outfit, but she’d done some updo thing with her hair, and had put on a bit of make-up, which somehow accentuated her Indian features.

  “Tough day,” I said. “Must be taking a nap.”

  “Is that how they sleep? Sprawled out like that?”

  “Sure.”

  Another goose flopped over, its little black feet sticking up in the air.

  “So odd,” she said, frowning.

  “The bank, then the clinic?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll follow you. I’m in the Bronco.”

  We got into our vehicles and got on our way.

  The four K in cash wasn’t literally burning a hole in my pocket, but I felt the bulge of that thick roll with every step, and I had to fight the urge not to drive directly to my dealer. The only thing stopping me was the promise of another four grand at the end of this rodeo. Smarter to delay gratification.

  “I don’t want you talking with the women that come in,” Pasha said, clearly and directly.

  “I’ll mind my own business and be unobtrusive. You won’t even know I’m there, unless something happens.”

  I was going to ask where her clinic was, but found I didn’t need to; there were about fifty people holding up picket signs out in front.

  Now it made sense why we’d parked a block away.

  “They don’t look friendly,” I said.

  I stopped walking, but Pasha didn’t. My reaction was slow and I missed catching her shoulder, instead snagging my fingers in her hair. This jerked her backwards and she yelped. I apologized.

  “Walking into that crowd is a bad move,” I told her.

  “I’ve got two girls coming in today for counseling, one coming in for an abortion, and a staff of seven who will be scared to death. I’ll be damned if a bunch of protestors are going to keep me from work.”

  Her eyes were steeled, and I knew I had the same chance of talking her out of it as I did of seeing next Christmas.

  The problem was, some of the protestors had signs that said “Murdering Bitch!” and “Let’s Abort You!” When Pasha arrived, the crowd would converge on her. I couldn’t assess all potential threats with only two eyes, and couldn’t stop them all with only two hands.

  “Have you had this many before?”

  She shook her head. “Never more than a handful.”

  Now I was wondering if this protest was paid for by the same guy who sent those morons to follow Pasha around.

  “Can’t you just take the day off, come in tomorrow?” I already knew the answer.

  “Of course not.”

  “Is there a back entrance?”

  “If I don’t go through the front door, how can I expect my patients to? I refuse to be intimidated.”

  She might have refused, but I was intimidated as hell. There were few things more dangerous than an unruly crowd. Someone was willing to pay Pasha fifty large to close up shop. Paying some goons to
rough her up would cost a lot less than that.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re going to walk straight through them. You do exactly what I say. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Use your cell. Call 911. Tell them you’re at the clinic, and there’s a man with a gun.”

  “There’s a man with a gun?”

  “There is,” I said, patting my holster. “A very bad man. Call, tell them, then hang up.”

  She made the call.

  “Okay, walk ahead of me, straight for the entrance, don’t stop.”

  We got within ten steps of the crowd without anyone noticing us. Then some sharp-eyed guy with a bullhorn yelled “That’s her!” and within ten seconds we were surrounded by one of the ugliest sights I’d ever seen.

  They were hate, that’s the only way to describe it. Women and men both old and young with teeth bared and hands clenched, waving signs like rifles and shouting words they’d be punished for saying if they were in grammar school. We were enveloped like a queen bee surrounded by drones. A man with a sign that read “Let God Be the Judge” condemned Pasha to hell. A woman spat at her. Several old ladies, in their Sunday best, shoved their way through the crowd to give us the finger.

  Pasha stayed calm, which seemed to enrage the mob even more. The object of their polite demonstration wasn’t listening to their infallible logic.

  I was on sensory overload, and my judgment was further impaired by the oxycodone I’d taken. I saw something coming at Pasha, shoved her aside, and watched, shocked, as a bloody, dead baby splattered onto the sidewalk.

  No, not a baby. A doll, covered in wet, red paint.

  That was enough for me. I dug into my hoodie and yanked out the Hardballer.

  “Gun!” I yelled.

  No one was paying attention to me. So, in a moment of poor judgment, I fired into the air.

  They fled so fast it was a blur, and within five seconds all that remained were some abandoned picket signs, the paint-soaked doll, and a wrapped Subway sandwich.

  I told Pasha to get inside, then tucked away my .45 and picked up the bagged sub. I took it into the clinic with me.

  “You okay?” I asked her.

  Pasha nodded. She appeared anxious, but keeping it together.

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  She pointed. I walked to it, took out the baggie of Hydro and the last of my Xanax, and hid them on top of the florescent light fixture over the sink with the holster and Hardballer, and the Seecamp in my boot heel. I also unwrapped a corner of the sandwich.