5 Tutti Frutti (27 page)

“Oh, a few nights back. I think she just mentioned it in passing.”

Louie’s back was to me and I watched his neck grow red a
s he shook his head then poured all of the Jameson into his coffee mug.

“Please tell me that wasn’t you who phoned the Tutti Frutti Club last night asking for her. Som
eone called a little after nine. Was it you?”

“No, I didn’t call the Tutti Frutti last night.”

Louie turned round with a shocked look on his face then gulped down the contents of his coffee mug.

“Good,” Aaron said. “We’ll have the phone records soon enough and we can check on it
. We’ll track the number that phoned in. Anyway, stay the hell away, got it?”

“Yeah, relax, I know all that shit. You guys run into the
D’Angelos?”

“That’s the beauty of the monitor system
. We can check from here and never have to deal with that kind of slime in person. They haven’t left their house for days.”

That was a red flag
because I knew differently even if Aaron didn’t.

“Sounds pretty dull to me. M
aybe you should pay them a visit,” I suggested.

“You just let us worry about that and make sure you stay the hell away, got it?”

“Not to worry.”

“Anything else?” he asked.

“Well now that you mention it, I just think it might be wise if you guys…” but Aaron had already hung up.

“You i
diot,” Louie said. His back was to me as he pawed unsuccessfully for another bottle of Jameson in the back of the cupboard. “Why did you even say that? They probably already know it was me that called to see if she was working.”

“Yeah, well they also know that the
D’Angelos haven’t left their house for days. Bullshit. That just proves Tommy and Gino are up to something and those two fools have found a way to beat the system. God help the two of them if they hurt one hair on Candi’s head.”

Chapter Fifty-Two

Louie let me borrow
his car provided I first made a run to the liquor store and replenished his supply of Jameson. It quickly became apparent why he always drove with the windows down. Even roaring down I-94 with the accelerator pressed to the floor and the needle inching up toward fifty miles per hour I was worried about asphyxiation.

I was on my way to
Candi’s hoping to find her sunbathing in the backyard, asleep with her head under a pillow or listening to music wearing a pair of headphones. I needed something, anything that might serve as a logical explanation for why the police couldn’t contact her. I was hoping she just didn’t hear the phone ring or the knock on the door when the police had attempted to reach her. Let’s be honest, I was grasping at straws.

I didn’t see a police presence
as I came down her street, so I pulled into her empty driveway and rang her doorbell. Louie’s Geo Metro still continued to cough and sputter before gasping to a stop. I went around back, retrieved her key from the Styrofoam rock then pounded on her back door before letting myself in.

“
Candi? Candi, it’s Dev. Are you home?”

The stillness in
her house was not the answer I’d been hoping for. I did a quick walk through the first and second floor then started in the basement and methodically went through every room in the house looking for something, anything. I didn’t find it.

I did find the knee-
high spiky heeled boots I last saw her in. They were neatly placed side by side in her walk-in closet along with a couple hundred other pairs of shoes and boots. I noticed that the sport coats, slacks, shirts from the dry cleaner and the men’s shoes were gone. I checked the bottom drawer of her dresser. The jerseys, jeans, and golf shirts I’d seen before had been replaced by Candi’s shorts and some cotton tops, although the bottle of lubricant was still there.

Nothing else seemed amiss. There was no sign of a st
ruggle. No blood-splattered carpet or bullet holes in the wall. I checked her garage, empty. The silver Porsche was gone. Next stop the Tutti Frutti.

I thought it only appropriate that I parked Louie’s car next to the dumpster.
The same faded, red Chevy van from a couple of days ago was parked two spaces over. The rear door to the club was open and I could hear the hum of a vacuum as I walked down the hallway toward the bar. Just like before, the same couple was working. She was vacuuming and he was pulling stools off the bar then lining them up against the brass rail.

“Excuse me,” I said
.

The woman quickly vacuumed the carpet
up toward the front of the bar getting as far away from me as possible.

He nodded, pulled another stool off the bar
, and in a heavy accent said, “I have not seen Miss Swindle for many days. I don’t know where she is.”

“Lucky you. A
ctually, I was looking for Candi Slaughter, the waitress. Do you know her, she’s sort of…”

“I know Miss
Candi, she our boss lady. She not here,” he said, shaking his head back and forth.

“Not here? She told me to meet her here,” I fished.

“I no see her. You should wait maybe, senor,” he said. He pulled another stool off the bar.

“Thanks,” I said. I
wandered toward the front of the room. In an effort to avoid me, the woman seemed to frantically vacuum herself into a corner near the fire base area where Heidi and I had sat that first night a thousand years ago. I walked past her, around the end of the bar and the corner stool where I’d deposited drunken Swindle the night she said Heidi and I raped her. I climbed up the stairs to the private party room. It was empty.

If anyone was upstairs they did an awfully
good job of hiding. I saw no sign of life. There was a storeroom crammed with stacks of chairs and long folding tables, a unisex employee restroom, and a small office with the lights turned off.

I flipped on the lights and entered the office
. Once again I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was looking for. There were the usual stacks of invoices, order forms, and brochures along with a laptop and a printer on a credenza. Next to the laptop was a State Of Minnesota liquor license form. The signature in the applicant’s block was the same coiled slinky-like signature that had been on the two thousand dollar check Manning had shown me. The typed name below the signature block read Candi Slaughter.

That didn’t seem to make s
ense. Why would a waitress sign the liquor license form? Maybe Cazzo had forged the signature? Maybe they had forced Candi at gunpoint to sign the check? Maybe I was kidding myself?

I went back downstairs, nodded at my pal pulling down the last barstool, walked through an empty kitchen and back out to the rear parking lot.

I had one option left, the D’Angelos.

I parked on the r
iver boulevard in front of their mansion then walked another twenty yards to their front gate. I pushed the security button and smiled into the camera as soon as the green light began to flash.

I
waited for what seemed like a long time and was set to drive around back when a voice barked, “Yeah.”

“Oh
, you’re home. Dev Haskell to see Tommy and Gino D’Angelo.”

“What about?”

“I’ll tell that to Tommy when I see him in person.”

“This is Tommy
, what the hell do you want?”

“No offense if you’re Tommy, but I don’t know that
for sure and I’m only talking to him.”

“Then you’re out of luck
, jackass, cuz you ain’t getting in.”

“Okay,
suit yourself,” I shrugged and turned to leave. I was taking a gamble.

“Wait a minute, wait a
minute, okay I’m buzzing your ass in. Jesus Christ,” he growled. A buzz sounded followed by an audible snap, which I took to be the lock on the gate releasing. I pushed the gate open and walked up the brick path to the front door. Tommy opened the door as I was just about to ring the bell.

“What the hell
do you want?” he said.

“Gee, f
ine, thanks. I wanted to check on a friend of mine. She told me I could find her here.”

“You can s
ave yourself the trouble, dumb shit. If you’re looking for that worthless slut Swindle, she’s run off again. We ain’t seen her for almost a week. Check the bars, you find her, tell her not to bother coming round cuz she ain’t getting back in.”

“Actually, I’m looking for an employee of yours,
Candi Slaughter.”

“
Candi. And she told you she was here?”

“Tommy?” A voice from somewhere behind him called out.

“Just a minute, Gino, I’m dealing with a jerk.”

“Gino?” I called. I wondered if he was in a wheel chair after I shot him yesterday.
To tell the truth, I was shocked he wasn’t in intensive care after I blew part of his leg off with the shotgun.

Tommy pulled the door
open and there was Gino, walking across the massive entry way toward the front door. He didn’t seem to have a problem walking, didn’t seem to be injured. He smiled, sort of bobbed and weaved back and forth, waved at me and flashed his idiotic grin. He was dressed in pajamas with a powder blue Terrycloth robe pulled over them. He wore white socks and fuzzy blue slippers with “Cookie Monster” emblazoned across the top of the slippers.

“Hi, I’m Gino,” he said.

“He knows who you are. You finally up, sleepy head?” Tommy said then directed his attention back to me. “Look, pal, we been home all week and we ain’t seen no Candi. You want anything else?” He seemed to smirk, or was I just imagining that?

Looking at Gino
I was too stunned to answer, so I just shook my head.

“
Maybe you should just call the cops. See ya,” Tommy chuckled then slammed the door in my face.

I stood there staring at the front door, replaying the
scene of the two of them racing up my basement stairs. I’d fired the shotgun, actually saw the leg shatter. I was sure it had been those two. Was there someone else?

Chapter Fifty-Three

“
Great, that’s just great!
So you’re telling me I’ve lost my best clients of all time and they weren’t even down there in your basement?”

“Best clients of all time? They’re crooks for God’s sake.”

“Exactly, eternal clients,” Louie whined. He had pretty well worked his way through the fifth of Jameson I’d purchased that morning. Things had gone full circle and there was maybe just an inch and a half left in the bottle. Louie was stretched out on his couch, propped up by some mismatched, threadbare pillows, still sipping from his coffee mug, which had ceased to hold coffee hours ago.

“I must be losing what’s left of my mind. Who in the hell was with Cazzo if it wasn’t the
D’Angelos and, more importantly, where the hell is Candi?”

“Yes you are losing your mind. B
y the way you’re driving me crazy, too,” Louie said then took a sip from his mug.

“Jesus.”

“Look, Dev, I’m not doubting you on the Cazzo thing, I mean the three guys. I don’t think the cops are doubting you either because they let you go. But maybe you were just wrong and it was two other scum bags and not the D’Angelos.”

“So
mething isn’t right here,” I said.

“
Brilliant. But I don’t know that we’re going to figure it out. The cops said they’ve been stuck in that house for a week. D’Angelo told you the same thing today. It was probably someone else with Cazzo.”

“No, it was the
D’Angelos and they’ve done something to Candi I just know it.”

“
Well if you’re so sure call Manning or your pal LaZelle. Better yet, since you’re so clairvoyant, you can pick the winning numbers for me on the lottery ticket you’re gonna buy while you’re out getting me a refill here,” he said then held up the almost empty Jameson bottle.

“Too late
, the liquor stores are closed.”

“Already? What the hell time is it?”

“It’s after eleven, Louie.”

“Oh
, no wonder I’m tired,” he said then snuggled down, closed his eyes, and promptly began to snore.

I waited a bit longer
and then got in Louie’s car and drove past Candi’s. It was dark and you couldn’t have done a better job of making the place look like no one was home. I sputtered past the D’Angelos’ house. The lights were on in a couple of second floor rooms and through partially closed blinds I could just make out colors flashing on a flat screen TV.

I
was really worried about Candi, but there seemed to be absolutely nothing I could do. I decided to park on the side street back beyond the D’Angelos’ garage and wait. If they decided to go anywhere I could follow them.

The birds woke me
up, the damn things were chirping happily. It looked to be just before sunrise, growing a brighter grey to the east with every minute. If the D’Angelos had gone anywhere I’d slept right through it.