Bulldog (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 9) (11 page)

“It’s still awfully strange,” Louie said.

“It’s one of those coincidences that I can’t believe is just a coincidence.”

“What?” Louie said.

I just shouted, “Yes” and nodded at the same time.

A few minutes later the crowd began to disperse, heading out the front and side doors on to the next venue wherever that was. It was suddenly blissfully quiet.

“Let’s grab a stool,” Louie said sliding out of the booth. “You better give us another round,” Louie said to Jimmy a moment later.

He just looked at us and smiled.

“Jimmy, Jimmy,” Louie said and snapped his fingers to get Jimmy’s attention.

Jimmy grinned then pulled a pair of yellow foam ear plugs out of ears. “Thank God,” he said, “I’d be permanently damaged if it wasn’t for these things.”

“Give us a round,” Louie said. We sat and sipped and contemplated some of the finer things in life, like the next round.

The flat screens were on in the two corners above the bar, tuned to the baseball game. The sound had been muted when the loud crowd had been in earlier and Jimmy had never turned it back up. That was okay, the Twins were getting spanked by Chicago. It was bad enough giving the game the occasional glance and catching the score. I didn’t need to hear how bad things were going, too. Mercifully the disaster came to a close and five minutes of commercials started up. The first was for the ten o’clock news.

The screen was filled with the photo of a heavyset guy with a blond Mohawk. He was leaning against a picnic table and appeared to be shouting and waving what looked like a large turkey drumstick. The caption across the bottom of the screen read ‘Assault Victim.’ The photo looked an awful lot like Fat Freddy.

“Jimmy, turn up the sound will ya, I think I know that guy,” I said.

“Let me just find where I left that damn remote, Dev,” he said walking down the length of the bar looking from left to right. He eventually found it next to the pull-tab box and turned up the sound just as the news broadcast began.

“Police tonight are looking for four men involved in the vicious daylight assault that occurred about three-thirty this afternoon in the parking lot of Nasty’s. Apparently the victim, thirty-one year old Fredrick Zimmerman was assaulted while on the way to his car. Zimmerman, an employee of Nasty’s is listed in stable condition tonight at Regions Hospital. Police are asking anyone with information to please contact them.”

“In other news the Twins suffered yet another defeat…”

“Is that…?”

“…Fat Freddy,” I answered. “I was just with him a couple of days ago. Jesus Christ.”

“Someone beat him up in the middle of the afternoon in Nasty’s parking lot?” Louie said.

“Yeah, and I’m willing to bet I know exactly who had a hand in it if he didn’t attack him outright.”

“Who?”

“Bulldog.”

“Hey, look, Dev. I know you were kind of warming to Fat Freddy and you are no fan of Bulldog’s. By the way, neither am I, but it might be a little farfetched to pin this on him.”

“Not a fan? No, I’ll lay you odds on it, he’s responsible. I just know it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because it’s my fault.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I was at Nasty’s the other night. I went in there to talk to Fat Freddy, to see if he could tell me who Lowell Bulski is.”

“That name you got off the property records at PRR? I checked online and couldn’t find anything. Remember?”

“Yeah, but just ‘cause it’s not online doesn’t mean there aren’t other sources.”

“Now Fat Freddy is a source?”

“I had a hunch, Bulski, Bulldog, get it?”

“No.”

“Bulski, the last name, it’s why that bastard Bulldog is called Bulldog, well, that and the fact the guy is such an asshole.”

“And Freddy told you this?”

“No, as a matter of fact I never even talked to Freddy, never saw him, he’d already left. The place was jammed with all sorts of upstanding citizens and ‘swells’ getting their fill. Then this chick came on the stage, they hyped her as the nastiest woman Nasty’s has ever had or something like that. She was clearly the reason all the suits were there. Anyway, she does a couple of half-ass numbers then is out fleecing the crowd for lap dances. Can you believe she get’s forty bucks?”

“So who was she?”

“I’m getting to that. I can’t get near her for a couple of hours. They got these big, thuggy bouncers literally guarding her ass. She’s out there doing lap dances and shit, she’s on some guy and at the same time signaling me that I’m next. You know who it was?”

“I got no idea.”

“The name Swindle Lawless ring any bells?”

“You are kidding me, Swindle Lawless? That porn star slut who was with Tommy and Gino D’Angelo until they got sent to prison? Do you mean to tell me she hasn’t died from some sort of overdose or been run over by a group of enraged wives? God, the female version of Keith Richards and she’s still out there proving everyone wrong. I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. She tossed down seven or eight shots while I tried to talk to her. Ten bucks a crack.”

“That’s what she charges?”

“No, that’s what the shots cost.”

“God. So what does any of this have to do with your husky friend Freddy being put in the hospital?”

“Oh yeah, so I’m trying to talk with her, asking if she knows who Lowell Bulski is? I’m thinking she may have lived at Casey’s when it was cut into sleazy apartments. One of the neighbors I talked to described a woman who lived there as strange and unbalanced.”

“That could be just about any woman who would go out with you.”

“I’m asking old Swindle if she knows Lowell and she’s kind of drunk and sort of staggers. I had to grab her by the shoulders so she wouldn’t fall. Next thing I know some bouncer wants to throw me out. So, I told him Tubby and Bulldog sent me over to watch Swindle and they had told Fat Freddy to pass on the info to the rest of the bouncers. Anyway, that bouncer checks with his pals, they start to come after me and that’s when I just got the hell out of there. Long way around the barn, but I think that’s why Freddy was attacked and I’d be willing to bet Bulldog had something major to do with it.”

“So now what?”

“I think I’ll finish this beer and head back to Casey’s place. Maybe go see Freddy in the hospital tomorrow morning.”

“You think that’s wise?”

“I doubt Tubby or Bulldog will be there at his bedside. I just might cheer him up, you never know.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Regions Hospital is located
on the northern edge of downtown Saint Paul just across from the Minnesota State Capitol complex. The facility covers two blocks and rises up nine stories. I stopped at the information desk in the front lobby to get directions up to Fat Freddy’s room.

“Are you with the newspaper?” the woman asked. Her volunteer nametag said ‘Eleanor’ and she flashed me the briefest of smiles that disappeared almost before it began.

“No, just a friend,” I replied.

“Mmm-mmm,” she murmured suggesting I was a disappointment and held no further interest then she gazed past me into the lobby indicating I was dismissed.

I made my way down the hall, onto the elevator and up to the third floor. Freddy’s room was two right turns, a left turn, then down a hallway to another right turn then straight ahead. I’d need a compass just to find my way back. I would have dropped breadcrumbs except that the maintenance staff was waxing the hall floor so my effort would have been for naught.

I half expected a police officer or some sort of security to be sitting in front of his room. There wasn’t any. No one questioned me as I entered the room. The bed was raised so Freddy was able to sit. He was propped up by three or four additional pillows and just staring out the window at his personal view of the interstate. His powder blue hospital gown seemed to contrast with his bruised arms and his swollen black and blue face.

A shiny metal sort of splint was positioned over his nose then covered with gauze and layers of white adhesive tape. The right ear where I’d pulled the gauge from his ear lobe a couple weeks back had been reinjured and looked like a giant tooth hanging on the side of his head. The massive ear lobe was split and dangled in an inverted ‘V’ like the roots of an extracted tooth. His eyes seemed to flutter like he was fighting sleep and losing the battle.

There were two IV bags dripping into a tube attached to his left hand. I guessed one was probably some sort of pain medication and the other maybe just fluid to help keep him hydrated.

“How’s it going, Freddy?”

“Kinda horseshit right now,” he mumbled. When he spoke he made an effort not to move his swollen lips.

“What the hell happened?”

“I got no idea. Bulldog said he had information I was trying to move in on one of their stars.”

“One of their stars?”

“That old witch Cougar. I guess she told him or something. I don’t know what the hell she’s talking ’bout. She ain’t said more than two words to me in all the time I been there.”

Swindle, it figured.

“The night crew said some guy told them he cleared talking to Cougar with me. I don’t know nothing about any of that. I kept telling them I didn’t talk to anyone and that’s when they started kicking the shit out of me. Bastards didn’t stop for a hell of a long time. Then Bulldog walks up, tells me I’m fired and kicks me some more. Shit, the son-of-a-bitch coulda just sent a text message,” he said then looked like he might smile, but thought better of it.

“I saw it on the news, last night. Hell of a way to get free press,” I joked.

“You’re telling me.”

“Well look, I just wanted to see if you were alive, it looked pretty bad watching TV.”

“Think I might be a star?” He sounded halfway hopeful.

“Maybe not just yet, Freddy.”

“Shit,” he said and then his eyes started to flutter until they gradually closed. I checked the pulse monitor just to make sure he was still alive then pulled a business card out of my wallet and placed it on the bed table in front of him. I only made one wrong turn on my way back to the elevators then drove to the office.

“Sleeping in,” Louie asked when I came through the door, then he went back to the files spread across the picnic table in front of him.

“Actually, I was down at Regions, visiting Fat Freddy.”

Louie sat back in his chair and tossed his pen on the pad in front of him. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough, but he’ll live. I don’t think anything was broken.” I said then settled into my chair, picked up the binoculars and scanned the building across the street.

“Did you even ask if anything was broken?”

“He was on meds, pain killers most likely, God the poor bastard fell asleep while he was talking to me.”

“I’m not sure that’s the fault of the meds.”

“He was black and blue, swollen, had a splint on his nose and maybe some teeth knocked out, but he’ll live.”

“Jesus.”

“Oh, and get this, they fired him.”

“Who fired him?”

“Bulldog, it was him and that night crew of bouncers that assaulted Freddy.”

“They physically assaulted another employee, in broad daylight, in the company parking lot?”

“Yeah, and then fired him.”

“God, I’d like to sue that organization.”

“I don’t think that’s exactly how they settle their ‘issues,’ Louie.”

“Well, yeah, but Jesus.”

I set the binoculars down and turned back to face Louie. “You know, there might be a silver lining here, an opportunity.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m not sure yet, I just have a feeling.” I said then turned round and scanned the third floor again. I thought the refrigerator door might look like it was open when suddenly a girl stood up from behind the kitchen counter. She had a towel wrapped around her head and was wearing a smile. My luck was definitely changing.

Chapter Twenty-Five

My positive vibe was
relatively short lived. I was in the den at Casey’s sipping a cranberry juice because I’d run out of beer and the liquor stores were closed. I’d called Heidi to see if she wanted to come over and misbehave, but she was getting ready for a hot date. I was watching the Twins slowly being beaten to death, one long inning at a time. There had been a light rain falling, unfortunately not heavy enough to call the game. My phone rang. I could only hope it was Heidi calling to tell me her hot date had turned out to be gay.

“Haskell Investigations.”

“Dev?” Casey’s voice cried from the other end of the phone.

“Casey? What’s wrong?”

“Someone ran into my car and they’re towing it away. It’s all smashed up and wrecked.”

“Are you okay?”

“I think so, but my car, what am I going to do?”

“Where are you?”