Bingo Barge Murder (18 page)

“Excuse me,” I said to JT as I slipped from the booth and headed toward the exit, flipping the phone open as I walked. “Hello.”

The voice on the other end of the line stopped me in my tracks before I made it out the door, and simultaneously sucked the air right out of my body.

“Girl, where the hell are you? You gotta come and rescue my plump behind!”

“Eddy? Eddy?!” My voice went up a number of octaves as I repeated her name.

“Shay, you listen to me, girl. I’m at the World Market Square in the old Sears building on Lake. Don’t know how much time I have before those two nincompoops come poking around, and you need to get me before they do. They gonna be two mad ’nappers when they wake up.”

I was having a hard time keeping up. “Eddy! You—”

Eddy cut me off. “Child, you get over here and rescue these old bones. I can’t keep hiding out in a bathroom, again
.
I don’t dare go outside. I’ll be by the restroom next to a tent where some shyster’s telling fortunes. They ought to get Hazel working there. She knows what she’s talkin’ about. Gotta go.” Before I could reply, Eddy was gone.

My mouth hung open for a number of seconds, and the waiter, the cook, and JT all stared at me. I managed a chagrined face for the staff and made a split second decision. In three long strides, I was at the table. Hand in pocket scraping for change, I came up with a five, tossed it on the table and grabbed JT’s arm. “Come on,” I said. She stared at me as if I’d lost my mind, probably trying to decide if she dared follow this lunatic or not. Then she slid from the booth and nearly fell on her face as I dragged her toward the door. We burst out of the restaurant, cut through parked cars and across a grassy median that separated parking lots. JT didn’t say a word as I pulled her across the asphalt toward my pickup.

Coop saw us coming fast, and he opened the door and stepped out of the truck. As we bore down on him I yelled, “Make room for JT. Crawl in back.” The Dakota had an extended cab, with a miniscule bench seat in the rear. If a body could fold up like an accordion, as Coop’s could, it worked. He opened his mouth to speak, but the expression on my face shut him up. He scrambled into the tiny space, coaxing a now panting Dawg in next to him.

JT watched Coop and Dawg’s quick version of musical chairs and, to her credit, did not decide we were crazy enough to arrest or scary enough to bail on.

“Get in,” I barked at her. I crawled inside and slammed the door. She hesitated, obviously processing another internal debate. Decision made, she walked around the front of the truck and climbed in. I yanked at my seatbelt and cranked the ignition.

Tires squealing, we peeled out of the lot and followed a secondary road to the entrance of the freeway. In moments, we were flying along the interstate at eighty miles an hour.

Dawg sniffed JT with his lip-stuck-on-tooth thing going on again. “Do you want to tell me what the hell this is all about?” she asked.

I took a gulp of air, blew it out through pursed lips, and hazarded a peep at her. Most of her was blocked by Dawg as he energetically welcomed her into his new pack. Both of her hands were on either side of Dawg’s head, rubbing his jowly cheeks, trying to keep his bouncing tongue from slobbering on her more than he already had. I gently put a hand on the top of his head and pulled him away from JT’s face. Coop sat frozen in back, and from the rear-view mirror he shot me a what-do-you-think-you’re-doing glare.

“First off, JT, I guess you should say hello to Dawg.”

She ducked away from another swipe of Dawg’s tongue and peered over his head at me. “Didn’t know you had a dog.”

“I didn’t, ah, until very recently. He’s part of this long story we need to tell you. And, behind you is the elusive Nick Cooper. Coop, this is JT.”

JT tried to peer over Dawg at Coop and settled on a simple hello.

“I want you to know that I had nothing to do with Kinky’s death,” Coop told the back of JT’s head.

I had to give JT credit for remaining calm. I didn’t know how I’d feel if I was dragged along by someone suspicious, stuck riding in a car alongside a giant drooling canine, with a person who was wanted for questioning in a murder case sitting behind me. Instead of pulling her gun on us, she said, “I know.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly. “You know? What do you know?”

“I know Mr. Cooper didn’t kill Stanley Anderson.”

“Coop,” Coop said.

“But—you kept showing up asking me if I knew where he was.” JT met my eyes and held my gaze until I had to look back at the road in front of us.

She quietly said, “I never said he murdered Stanley Anderson. We told you we had some questions to ask him.”

I thought back to that first conversation, and what JT claimed was indeed true. They never did accuse Coop of anything.

“Why were you searching so hard for me, then?” Coop asked.

“First, we always question the entire staff when there’s a homicide at a workplace, and second, we thought you might have knowingly, or unknowingly, been witness to some of Mr. Anderson’s underhanded dealings.” JT sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “We’ve been investigating the man for the last six months.”

“The last six months?” Coop said, surprise evident in his tone.

“Yes.”

“For what?” I figured maybe it had something to do with selling sleazy amateur porn.

“Various stuff. We’re pretty sure he was in cahoots with the Mafia, using Pig’s Eye Bingo to launder mob money. And your boss was up to his eyeballs in a few other nefarious deals. He’s probably a small fish, but the investigation was progressing nicely until he got himself killed. We retrieved the video from his office, but nothing on it pointed to the killer. Your prints, Coop, were on the murder weapon, but you work at the bingo palace, and that was to be expected. The one very interesting set of prints came back to a known member of the Massioso crime family out of New Jersey.”

My fingers tightened on the wheel. “His name wasn’t Pudge, was it?”

JT shot me a look. “His name is Theodore Mahoney, but he goes by Pudge. If you want to get really sick, his crime family nickname is Pudge the Package.”

“The Package?” I grimaced.

She nodded. “Yup. He’s rumored to have some sizeable family jewels.”

“Ugh. Stupid question. I did not need to know that.”

“Anyway. We’ve been hunting for him and another member of the crime family named Vincent Ragozzi.”

“Oh,” I said, amusement slipping away like a phantom as the weight of JT’s words sunk in. I caught Coop’s gaze through the rear-view mirror. “We were right, Coop. Eddy was kidnapped by the mob after all.”

JT stiffened. “Kidnapped? Who’s been kidnapped?”

With Coop throwing in his two cents now and then, I filled JT in on the events of the previous day and night. I told her about Eddy’s kidnapping, our investigations, Lazar’s unfortunate demise, Dawg’s decision to follow us, a very abbreviated version of the borrowing of the nuts, and the subsequent abduction of Rocky. There’d be time later for full confessions, as soon as Eddy and Rocky were safe and sound.

JT nodded thoughtfully as she said, “I assume you’re coming to the part where you get a phone call and drag me out of Denny’s.”

“Oh, holy crap! How could I forget? Jesus. That was Eddy. She’s okay! We have to get to her before Pudge and Vincent find her.”

I merged onto 94 and whizzed around a UPS truck.

“What?” Coop shrieked, leaning as far forward between the seats as he could. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“She’s at the old Sears building off of Lake. Don’t ask me how, but she escaped from Laurel and Hardy and is hiding out by the fortune teller in the World Market Square.” I passed a car dawdling along in the right lane and briefly wondered if a cop could ticket someone for speeding when they were a passenger in the car.

“Un-freaking-believable,” Coop said.

“She okay?” JT asked.

“I think so. She was her usual feisty self, anyway.” It was when Eddy went quiet that you knew you were in deep crap.

“I should call this in—” JT said as she flipped her cell phone open.

A moment of hysteria seized me. “NO!” I interrupted her as panic blossomed like a mushroom cloud. “JT, wait. We don’t know—”

Coop butted in, surfing my urgency. “Please, JT. Vincent explicitly said they’d kill Eddy if we called the cops. What if they get to her before we do and then the cops show up? Those two are obviously ruthless. Who knows what they’d do.”

JT sighed, stared out the window, and slowly snapped her phone shut. Then she said, “I can’t believe I’m going along with this. It’s so against my better judgment. But if things get even the slightest bit hinky, I’m on the phone before you can say a word.”

I was grateful for her understanding, regardless of how tentative that understanding might be. We rode in a heavy silence for a couple of minutes.

Then she said, “So. These nuts you ‘borrowed.’ Where are they, exactly?”

“At my dad’s cabin, safe and sound. Once we retrieve Eddy, we need to run back up and get them. Then it’s Rocky’s turn for freedom.” I alternated between outrage at Rita and Buzz and fear at the thought of what they may have done to Rocky. Innocent Rocky, who wanted nothing more than to feel needed and to eat at Popeye’s. JT pulled me back into the moment when she said, “I knew something was up last night when I caught up with you behind the Rabbit Hole.”

My face grew hot, and my ears burned.

“I wish you’d have told me what was going on,” she said.

Coop leaned between the seats. “We didn’t dare. First of all, those yahoos threatened to kill Eddy if we didn’t cough up the nuts. Then we figured you were ready to haul me in and throw away the key. Shay was trying to protect both of us.”

Ah, my tarnished knight, standing up for me again.

A smile tugged at the corners of JT’s mouth. “You do have quite the record, Mr. Greenpeace.”

“Yeah, I know. Only for good causes, though.”

“We need a plan. Who’s got a plan?” I asked.

JT said, “We get Eddy and then deal with Rita and Buzz.” She drew out her cell phone and flipped it open. “What are Buzz and Rita’s last names?”

Dread and fear thundered back into my consciousness. “You said you weren’t going to call this in.”

JT’s drilled me with hard cop eyes. “I gave you my word. When I say something, I mean it, Shay. I want to run these bozos and see what comes back. So we know what we’re getting into, okay? And I need to talk to Tyrell so we can figure out the best way to attack this mess.”

“Okay, okay.” Consider me spanked.

“She’s just worried about Eddy and Rocky,” Coop told her.

I gave her the names, and we rode in silence as JT um-hmmed and uh-huhed into her phone. Tyrell’s voice rumbled in reply through the cell’s earpiece, but I couldn’t make out any of his words. She disconnected with a sigh.

“What’s he say?” I snuck long peeks at her profile as she stared out the windshield.

“Buzz has a long record that includes assault, petty theft, a grand theft auto charge that was tossed on a technicality, and some other minor stuff. Rita comes back clean.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Coop said. “He’s a first-class jerk.”

“We’re all going to meet up with Tyrell at two o’clock and we’ll map out a plan of action.”

From the back seat, Coop leaned forward again. “I think Buzz’s running a chop shop out of that junkyard in Brooklyn Park.”

I tuned out Coop and JT as they discussed the finer points of chopping and swapping, my mind focusing on Eddy’s rescue. Part of me still felt like we were trapped in some kind of psychotic, never-ending nightmare and any second I’d wake up snug in my bed, safe and sound. Eddy would be downstairs puttering around, and Rocky would be visiting people and hoping to score a meal at Popeye’s.

Neither Coop nor I
had been inside the Sears building since it turned into the World Market Square. JT had, but it was some time ago, and she didn’t remember any fortune tellers. We trooped up the cement stairs and slipped inside. A mélange of fragrant odors, both pungent and subtle, wafted through the air, making my mouth water. The place was abuzz with shoppers of various nationalities, surging through narrow aisles lined with tiny storefronts advertising everything from exotic food to textiles from countries around the world. Many secondary aisles shot off the main ones, creating mini neighborhoods.

“I swear this is a maze from hell,” JT said. “You have your cell, Shay? Coop?”

I grabbed my phone and flipped it open. Still had half the battery life left. “Coop’s got one, too, why?”

“I think we should split up. We’ll cover more ground, and whoever finds the fortune teller calls the others and we’ll meet there.”

JT took off in one direction, Coop struck out the opposite way, and I took the middle route, hustling past a pizza joint, a Greek eatery, and Cambodian cuisine in rapid succession. I played the bob and weave game as I made my way along, cursing under my breath at shoppers moving at a snail’s pace.

The aisle ahead of me opened into an area the size of a high school gym with a stage situated in the center. Five kids gathered around a piñata suspended from the ceiling, taking turns trying to crack the bright green donkey open. One preteen boy, blindfolded with a multi-colored, striped cloth that flowed gracefully around him, took a mighty whack at the piñata. Laughter floated as the club he wielded sliced through empty air, the piñata swaying safely behind his head. His friends howled and shouted unhelpful directions as he took another ineffective swat.

I hurried past, thinking how ironic it was that people could be having such a good time when so much was at stake. I entered another aisle on the far side of the stage. To my right was an East African stand with hundreds of objects carved in wood so dark it was almost black. To my left incense floated from an Indian boutique. No fortune teller. I was about to head down an adjacent aisle when it occurred to me that we were a bunch of idiots. Why didn’t we just ask someone where the fortune teller was?

The next stand had Thai, and my stomach rumbled as I stood impatiently behind a chubby mom rooting around the bottom of her handbag looking for her billfold, a squirming kid on her hip. I was about to grab her purse and find it for her when I felt the vibration of my cell phone.

“Yes,” I answered.

“I’ve got her,” Coop said. “Where are you?”

Eureka! “I just passed an African place.”

“Go toward the windows along the back side of the building, and make a right down the last aisle. I’ll call JT.” Coop disconnected, and relief shot through my veins, the rush of it was how I imagined cocaine would feel. The shakes set in. I spotted a row of windows at the far end of the aisle and speed-walked through ambling shoppers. I careened around the corner, and nearly crashed into a shabby red-and-black-velvet tent with tassels hanging at each corner. A rough piece of plywood sporting hand-painted white letters announced:

MS. FORTUNA
Fortune Teller

$25 and the future is yours

Eddy, dressed in a black T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Don’t Mess With A Knitter,” and blue jeans rolled at the cuffs, stood with Coop and JT outside the entrance of Ms. Fortuna’s establishment, along with a woman who couldn’t be anyone but Ms. Fortuna. She was dressed in a blood-red robe and her dyed ink-black hair was swathed in a filmy purple and scarlet scarf. Deep-set, dark-shadowed eyes peered out beneath a heavy brow.

I flung my arms around Eddy. A lump the size of a grapefruit lodged in my throat as she squeezed me hard. She whispered, “You get yourself together. I’m fine. But you’re kind of smelly.” She squeezed me again and then stepped away. “You think a couple rotten bad boys could keep me down? Hell no! Took a frying pan to their thick heads while they were sleeping. They should come to a Knitters’ meeting to learn how to tie a proper knot.”

I tried to unobtrusively sniff my underarm. Yeah, I needed a shower.

Eddy introduced us to Ms. Fortuna, who said in a gravelly voice, “You kids come back any time and I’ll do a reading for you. And you,” she squinted one black-rimmed eye at Eddy. “Remember what I said, and stay away from the man with bad breath.”

Eddy slapped a hand to her chest. “You got it, sister. Thanks for saving me from the bathroom. I’ll call you with the next Mad Knitters meeting date.” I guess the shyster was okay after all. They did a complicated handshake, one I couldn’t even begin to replicate, and we made tracks. I didn’t know what kind of magic Eddy had in that heart of hers, but give her ten minutes and she could create camaraderie with anyone.

I was about to hit Eddy up with questions as we hustled along when Coop said, “I’m going to run ahead and let Dawg out before we take off.” He bolted before anyone could say a word.

“He’s in the throes of a nic fit,” I said. “Have you met JT, Eddy?”

“Coop did the honors,” JT said.

Eddy turned and leaned conspiratorially into me. “She’s a babe, that one.” Oh God. Before I had a chance to come up with a reply, we shifted into single file to pass a large group of people milling around an Indian food stand. From somewhere nearby the sounds of a flute floated over the crowd.

Eddy eyed me once we were past the throng. “What dog?” she asked.

Oh boy. I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times. “Ah, yeah, the dog. We kind of adopted a dog, and his name is Dawg. D-a-w-g.”

“Huh. Dumb name. Didn’t know you wanted a dog. What’s he like, a cute, bitty, fuzzy poodle with one of those adorable balls on his tail?”

“Not exactly.” Eddy loved animals, but I wasn’t sure how she’d take to a pooch the size of a baby moose.

I was about to try to explain Dawg when JT said, “Hey, I’ll catch right up. Got to hit the bathroom. Get out to the truck and lock the doors. ”

JT veered out of the main aisle, making a beeline for a restroom in the distance. Effectively interrupted, I dropped the Dawg conversation.

“Child, you know where you’re goin’? I’m confused as all get out in this place. Although,” Eddy stared longingly at a food stand hawking aromatic Mexican tamales as we walked rapidly past, “I wouldn’t mind coming back when we’re not running from Ding and Ling.”

As I took a breath to answer her, she squeaked once and froze. I followed her gaze, and at the far end of the long aisle, maybe two hundred feet away, two men dressed in black suits made their way toward us, threading past milling shoppers. One man was tall with slicked-back dark hair and the other was short and round. They looked like a couple of mobsters. I blinked once, then again. They
were
mobsters.

Eddy grabbed my arm as she began backpedaling. “Come on child—that’s—”

Before she could utter another word, the tall man stopped for a moment, and our eyes locked. Vincent. We were too far away to hear him clearly, but the words “—old bat! Get her—!” floated clearly through the air. He started plowing his way down the aisle like an out-of-control locomotive, Pudge hot on his heels, both of them shoving unsuspecting people out of their way. Angry customers scowled as the two men bumbled past.

“Run!” Eddy yelled, her usually gravelly voice high-pitched. We backtracked and rerounded the corner that we’d passed moments ago. I searched for JT, but she was nowhere in sight. Bad timing for a potty break. We were on our own.

_____

We threaded our way down the crammed aisle, not quite running but moving as fast as we could. I shot a quick look over my shoulder. Pudge and Vincent hadn’t made the corner yet. Frantically we scanned the area for a place to hide. We’d dodged down almost half the long corridor when I heard one of the Mafioso’s yelling again, and the voice sounded nearer. Vincent and Pudge rocketed around the corner and were closing the gap, paying no heed to people in their way.

Eddy’s hand clenched my arm. Without warning she veered off the main drag into one of the many narrower corridors, nearly giving me whiplash. We scrambled around a hot dog shop on the corner and shot past two more food stands.

The path dead-ended about fifty feet ahead. On our left a textile shop, easily double the size of most of the businesses in the Market, displayed hundreds of colorful fabrics. Across from it stood a fresh fish stand, and a fruit and vegetable mini-mart ended the road.

“This way!” I hauled Eddy through the fish seller’s storefront. Fishy stench assailed my nostrils. We screeched to a stop in the center of the tiny store, and I nearly wiped out as one of my shoes hit a patch of wet tile next to a big, round live-fish tank. The tank was waist high, filled with a variety of what appeared to be tiny lobsters. Their mini-pincers waved madly about as they waited to be purchased and probably boiled. Without Eddy’s steadying hand I would have run right into the side of the huge container and taken a nose dive in with the smelly crustaceans.

A white, refrigerated display case stocked with assorted fish parts sat beside another coffin-sized, glassed-in tank. More live lobsters, much bigger than those in the pool on the floor, shifted around in slow motion within the glass. The proprietor was nowhere to be seen, and we ducked out of sight behind the refrigerated display.

The rumble of pedestrians and shoppers was muted. The air was overly warm and stagnant. Eddy panted beside me, mumbling under her breath. All I could make out between her gasps were whispered comments:
honky bastards
,
goddamn arthritis
, and
pasty white knee-huggers
, whatever that meant. Behind us a swinging door led into what I suspected was a storage room. On my left a three-foot gap separated the refrigerated display we were hiding behind from the lobster coffin.

My heart thumped hard in my chest. With any luck the bumbling duo would simply stick their heads in the store, see nothing, and continue on their way.

I strained to listen, my eyes locked on the dirty grout in the gray tile floor. Eddy suddenly poked me hard in the side, and I shifted slightly toward her. As I did, a sturdy pair of what old folks might call sensible shoes filled my vision. Nylon knee-highs that had long ago lost their elasticity bunched around a set of thick ankles. Varicose vein-covered calves disappeared beneath the ragged hem of a faded skirt. As I raised my head, I saw two meaty hands propped on wide hips. A stained, off-white apron protected the woman’s outfit. Back in the day, she would have had boobs out to there, but now it was boobs down to there. A dark-blue shirt was buttoned up tight under her chin.

The woman’s tired, lined eyes peered down at us with a mixture of anger and curiosity. Narrow granny glasses rested on her forehead instead of on her nose, and she’d tucked a piece of wadded up Kleenex under the bridge of the glasses. She scowled at us and then spoke, her voice emanating from below the thick rubber soles of her shoes. “What you doing down there?”

Before I could utter a word, Eddy gave the woman a huge grin. She was charming even on her knees. “Hi there! Don’t mind us, we—ah, see, there’s these two very bad—” A loud crash, a splash, and a string of oaths from the front of the store stopped Eddy mid-sentence. The woman’s head snapped up, and her scowl deepened.

“You clumsy man! You get out of my crawfish right now or I call police.”

A familiar voice sounding slightly tinny and very strained rumbled, “OW! Goddamn—UGH!” It sounded like Pudge picked the wrong pool to plop in. He was about to get one serious ass-whooping. More spluttering and more splashing. Then the clack of hard-soled shoes hitting the tile floor echoed in the store.

I was dying to stick my head around the side of the cooler, but restrained myself. As long as the woman didn’t give us away, we had a fighting chance.

“Lady, did you see a little old black lady and a taller white girl come by here?” Pudge asked, then mumbled, “Goddamn lobsters. I freaking hate lobster.” Unbelievably, Pudge and I had something in common. A soggy slapping sound was followed by a crunch as something hit the floor. “Oh—Christ, that’s disgusting. You seen them or not?”

Eddy and I waited for the woman’s response. Her face had turned impassive. “Not lobsters. Crawfish, stupid fat man. You owe ten dollars.”

“Jesus, what the hell, lady?”

I wondered where Vincent was, wondered if Pudge was distracting the woman so Vincent could get a gander behind the display cases.