Bulldog (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 9) (16 page)

A large guy with a shaved head and a snarl on his face was just opening the front door. I watched as Freddy stabbed the end of the baseball bat into the guy’s solar plexus then grabbed him by his T-shirt and yanked him out onto the porch. He slammed the bat up into the guys chin causing his head to snap back. The poor bastard attempted to raise his arms in a sort of defensive position, but Freddy wound up and gave a low, full force swing into the guy’s knee with the bat.

I couldn’t hear the crack, but it looked like the knee completely snapped. He half rolled and attempted to crawl off the porch as Freddy stepped over him and with all his three-hundred-and-fifty-plus pounds stomped on the guy’s back then held him in place with his foot. He slammed the bat into the guy’s right hand then adjusted his swing and nailed the left hand to the porch floor. As the guy lifted his head to scream Freddy kicked him so hard in the side of the head that he rolled over.

I was in the process of getting out of my car as Freddy reached down and tore the front pocket of the guy’s shorts open, then stood up and triumphantly brandished a set of keys. He stepped over the motionless figure lying on the porch floor and walked back toward me. The entire assault couldn’t have taken more than fifteen seconds.

“What the hell do you think your doing? Are you insane?”

“Meet Dallas,” Freddy said thrusting a thumb over his shoulder. He hurried past me and tossed the baseball bat into the back of the pickup truck. “I told you, once they screwed with black beauty they were gonna pay.”

“But, Jesus Christ, did you kill him?”

“No, unfortunately, but he ain’t gonna be chasing me or anyone else for that matter, probably ever again. Appreciate you doing this for me, Dev. I’ll be in touch,” he said then pushed a button on the keys and the pickup’s lights blinked. “Always nice talking to you, Dallas,” he called, then climbed into the pickup and drove away.

I started across the lawn toward the figure lying halfway down the front steps. Suddenly the porch light came on next door, curtains on a side window twitched as a woman stared out and the front door began to open. I panicked and hurried back into my car and quickly pulled away with my lights off. I screeched around the first right turn, flicked on my lights and slowed down. I took the long way back to Casey’s and constantly checked for someone following me, I never spotted anyone.

I parked in Casey’s garage then hurried to the back door, looking left and right across her backyard with every other step. I quickly closed the door behind me, locked it then proceeded to turn all the lights on throughout the first floor. I double checked to make sure both the front and back doors were locked then pulled a bottle of Jameson down from the cupboard and poured a healthy amount into a glass. I didn’t waste any time getting an ice cube.

I drifted off to sleep well after midnight, or did I just pass out? The following morning I was aware of the contractors working for a good while before I crawled off the couch. The Jameson bottle was empty and lay on its side underneath the coffee table. My empty glass sat on the end table next to the .38. The ceiling light and both lamps were still on in the den. I tucked the .38 in my belt, pulled my T-shirt out to cover the gun and made my way to the bathroom.

Even though it was a cloudy day I was wearing sunglasses on my way to work. I bought a newspaper from the machine on the corner then climbed upstairs to the office. Louie was at his desk.

“Out till the wee hours were we?” Louie asked as I threw the newspaper on my desk and made my way to the coffee pot.

“No, I never left the house. Stayed in all night doing some research on the internet,” I said, then hurried back to my desk without looking at him.

I opened the paper and read the headlines on the front page then quickly paged through the entire paper, scanning page after page looking for an assault report or worse, a murder. I couldn’t find anything.

I was aware Louie would look up and study me from time to time, then go back to the files spread out across his picnic table. Finally he said, “Dev, is everything all right?”

“Yeah, sure, just fine. Why?”

“I don’t know you just seem sort of jumpy or something.”

“No, no, everything’s just fine. No problems.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.

“Okay, ‘cause if there was something wrong you could tell me, you know.”

“Louie, relax everything’s fine, just thinking some stuff through is all, no problem.”

“Okay. Casey all right?”

“Yeah, I’ve gotten a couple of text messages from her, sounds great. I sent her an email late last night, told her to have a good time and just relax. I can only hope she’ll take that advice to heart.”

Louie nodded and studied me for a long moment then said, “I’m sure she will.”

I’d calmed down by mid-afternoon. I was taking my time driving home and listening to the news reports on a couple of different stations. I didn’t pick up anything regarding Freddy’s assault on Dallas. It looked like we were in the clear.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Haskell Investigations,” I said.
I was fumbling with the backdoor key trying to get it into the lock while at the same time juggling a new bottle of Jameson and my cellphone.

The audible snap of a wad of gum coming through my phone launched my heart up into my throat. “Haskell, Detective Manning, how are you?”

“Just fine, thanks,” I said, then got the door unlocked and stepped inside. I locked the door again as soon as it closed then glanced out the window just to make sure Manning wasn’t lurking in the bushes.

“Say, your name came up this afternoon,” Manning said.

“Was the chief suggesting me as your replacement?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. No, seems there was a spot of trouble last night over in the Midway district, an assault, pretty brutal.”

“Sorry to disappoint, Detective, but I wouldn’t know a thing about something like that. As a matter of fact, I was home all night working on my computer. I think I was online until close to ten, sent a final email off then I had a nightcap and crawled into bed.”

“Amazing, you sound like the picture of responsibility.”

“That would be me.”

“You sent that email on your computer I suppose.”

“No, Manning, I used smoke signals, it’s so much more fun. Yeah, I sent it on my computer.” I was thinking tech probably wasn’t Manning’s strong suit.

“What OS are you on?” he asked.

“OS?” I thought he was making a joke about some new kind of street drug.

“OS, it stands for operating system, Haskell it’s the working brains of your computer. What is it Windows XP? God it couldn’t be, probably more like 7, 8 or 8.1.”

“I’m not sure.”

“You a MAC guy, MAC 10 ring any bells?”

“I don’t actually know. To tell you the truth, I just turn the thing on and most of the time it works.”

“And you were on last night around ten?”

“Yeah, I was looking at some stuff then sent an email to a friend down in New Orleans.”

“I wonder if you’d consider bringing that in here so we could maybe take a look.”

“Take a look at my computer?”

“Yes, it wouldn’t take us but a couple of minutes to verify the time of your activity and then you could be on your way.”

“I suppose, if you really want me to, what time would you like me down there?”

“Actually, Haskell, if you’re willing to come in, I’m not really interested in seeing you.”

“Okay, anything else?”

“No unfortunately, can’t thank you enough for your time,” he said then snapped his wad of gum and hung up.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and was convinced he knew I was involved in Fat Freddy’s assault on Dallas. Those nosey neighbors probably took down my license number, or maybe Freddy just called in an anonymous tip.

I fell asleep in front of the flat screen later that night and woke up thinking I heard the workmen whispering out in the hallway, but it was still dark outside. Then an unpleasantly familiar voice snarled, “Let’s check upstairs, that bastards probably passed out in bed with some cheap slut.” The unmistakable voice of Bulldog trailed off as a number of feet cautiously tiptoed up the staircase. I heard them enter the room over head, a moment later the footsteps headed back down the hall going from room to room, looking for me. They were no longer tiptoeing and Bulldog was screaming, “Haskell, Haskell, where the hell are you?”

I grabbed the .38 from the end table then tore open my suitcase, pulled out a .45 and quietly stepped out of the den. I was barefoot and wearing a pair of cutoff gray sweatpants.

They came clomping back down the stairs a moment later, three of them. The guy in the front of the pack said, “He’s probably out getting laid somewhere.” I recognized the tribal tattoos wrapped around his massive biceps. He was the bouncer from Nasty’s that had hassled me the other night when I was trying to get Swindle to make some sense.

Bulldog said, “I got some things to take care of upstairs, you two…”

“That’s far enough, stop right there,” I shouted and flipped on the light.

They looked shocked for half a second before Mr. Tribal Tattoo half jumped down three or four steps to the landing. I fired the .38 at him then pointed the .45 up at the other two. “Go ahead, just give me a reason, Bulldog. I’ll kill you, I swear to God.”

Both of them spread their hands out in surrender and Bulldog said, “Now just hold on there, Haskell. Take it easy, we just wanted to talk to you, try and find out where Fat Freddy is.”

The guy on the landing was rolling back and forth, holding his knee and groaning.

“Yeah, sure that’s what you were going to do, just talk. I’ve seen you do that before, I’m not interested. Now listen up, Lowell, I want you to take that piece out of your belt with your left hand, carefully, and then drop it over the railing. Hold it between your finger and thumb.”

Bulldog wasn’t used to being told what to do and his eyes seemed to flare when I called him Lowell. He half shouted, “Now you just hold on a God damn minute.”

I cocked the hammer back on the .45. “You got about three seconds and then I’m gonna blow what little brains you got all over that wall behind you and I’ll get a medal from the city for doing it.”

He hesitated, maybe trying to read me.

“Three. Two.”

“Alright, just calm down, I’m doing it, I’m doing it, damn it, I’m doing it,” he said then carefully pulled the pistol out of his belt using just his thumb and forefinger. He dropped it over the railing to the hallway floor below. It landed with a thunk then slid a couple of feet.

“You next,” I said to the other idiot on the stairs.

“I don’t have a gun,” he said.

My eyes glared and I shoved the .45 in his direction.

“Honest, I don’t have a gun, please don’t shoot, please,” he cried out.

The guy with the tribal tattoos groaned and let out a loud cry, “God, my knee why’d you have to do that, God.”

“Get him out of here,” I said and waved at them with the .45 to move down the stairs. They hurried down and picked the groaner up by the arms. “Get him out of here, I see either one of you around here again, ever, I’m gonna shoot first.”

Bulldog looked like he was going to say something then thought better of it. They helped the other fool hobble on one leg out the door. I slammed it shut behind them, clicked the lock then dropped to my knees and threw up.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

I couldn’t go back
to sleep. By the time I cleaned up the front entry, screwed the window back in place that they’d forced open and put some coffee on, the sun was almost ready to come up. I wandered upstairs with the coffee, wondering what it was Bulldog was referring to when he said he had ‘something to take care of upstairs.’ I went into each of the bedrooms and stared for a few moments, but nothing jumped out at me.

Maybe he planned to set a fire, or turn the faucets on in the bathroom and plug the drain. Maybe he planned to steal some furniture although that didn’t seem likely and God bless Dermot and Casey, but they didn’t have the sort of furniture a guy like Bulldog would spend much effort stealing.

I went back through the rooms this time looking under beds, behind chests of drawers. I pulled the mirrors off the walls. The only thing I found was behind the mirror in the master bedroom ‘I love you’ was penciled on the wall in Dermot’s handwriting.

There was an entrance to the attic in the hallway ceiling. A panel that you pushed up into the attic then climbed in. I hauled a stepladder from the front parlor back upstairs. I climbed the ladder then pushed the panel into the attic and popped my head in, it smelled of dust with just a hint of pine. The vast space was empty except for a few boxes stacked against a wall. Even in the early morning the temperature was about fifteen degrees warmer up here.

I pulled myself up into the attic and walked over to investigate the boxes. Unless Bulldog had been interested in a wedding dress, outdated college text books or an empty antique steamer trunk there was nothing there. I lowered myself back onto the ladder and replaced the access panel in the ceiling.