Bulldog (Dev Haskell - Private Investigator Book 9) (20 page)

It was one of those pregnant pause moments. We’d been joking and laughing and then we were suddenly quiet for the briefest of seconds at exactly the same time. The unmistakable sound of a mouse trap snapping reverberated through the kitchen like a howitzer going off. Then we heard high pitched squeaking coming from under the kitchen sink.

Heidi looked at me, whined, “Dev” and jumped off her kitchen stool and onto the kitchen counter, kicking over the wine bottle in the process. “Dev, do something, damn it.”

The squeaking continued and occasionally something rattled from under the sink. My first thought was to just shoot through the cabinet door.

“God, Dev, don’t just stand there stupid, do something. I think he’s trying to open the door.”

“I was going to clean up the wine you spilled.”

“Leave that. Oh my God, listen to that thing. Do you think he’s hurt?” she said and then her eyes began to tear up.

I didn’t want to open up the cabinet door, but I was running out of options when all of a sudden the squeaking stopped.

“Oh God, now what?” Heidi half screamed, she was still on top of the kitchen counter with her legs drawn up and her arms wrapped around them. Her face was buried between her knees.

“I think I better open another bottle of wine.”

“Don’t you dare, not until you deal with that,” she said and pointed beneath her kitchen sink.

“All right, all right,” I said then took a deep breath and cautiously opened the cabinet expecting to see a dead mouse. Instead the thing jumped onto the kitchen floor dragging the trap behind him.

Heidi shrieked.

The thing startled me and I went to stomp him with my foot. It must have been the wine because I missed and just caught the trap. The pressure was enough to cut his tail off and the little bastard shot across the kitchen floor, minus his tail and dripping blood along the way.

“Oh my God,” Heidi screamed.

He was at the kitchen door trying desperately to squeeze underneath and getting stopped by the riser on the floor.
Heidi continued screeching.

I grabbed the wine bottle off the floor and backhanded it at him. The bottle caught him just as he rose up on his hind legs. He splattered in a bloody mess against her white enamel kitchen door.

“Oh God, I can’t look, I can’t look. Clean it up, Dev. Get rid of it, please, I’ll do anything, just get it out of my house.”

I grabbed a handful of paper towels and wiped up what was left of the mouse, then picked up the trap and opened the drawer with the wastebasket. I dropped everything in the wastebasket then pulled the trash bag out, knotted it and marched out to her trash bin.

Heidi was still on the kitchen counter when I came back in. I wet some more paper towels, cleaned up the little trail of blood running across her kitchen tiles then wiped the door clean. I sprayed some Windex on the door for added measure and wiped that off.

“I’ll be back in a moment, I expect you to be off the counter and sitting on the kitchen stool by the time I return.”

She stuck her tongue out at me, but didn’t say anything.

By the time I came back in the kitchen, she was on the stool, but she was sitting cross legged making sure her feet were nowhere near the floor.

“How would it be if I opened another bottle of wine and we can put this all behind us? Maybe you’d feel more comfortable in your living room.” I said. I was on my hands and knees, mopping up wine from the kitchen floor with a sponge.

“I’ll wait for you out there,” she said and quickly exited the room. She was back to happy a glass of wine later.

We both slept in late the next morning, but only because we were up a good portion of the night paying and collecting the debt. Just in case any little visitors might still be lingering, I banged around the kitchen while I put the coffee on the next morning, then I went out and picked up caramel rolls and we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast.

Chapter Forty-Four

I didn’t make it
into the office until well past the noon hour. I’d gone home to get cleaned up then swung by Casey’s just to check on things. Everything looked fine, both the front and back door were in one piece. I was still worried about her coming back to town tomorrow, but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I could only hope Bulldog assumed one of the low-life renters he’d brought in had gotten their hands on the money and disappeared.

I thought it might not be a bad idea to check in on Swindle Lawless, aka Cougar to see if Bulldog had tried to shake her down. If she was the main attraction at Nasty’s for the after-work-banker crowd I figured she probably arrived an hour before, right around four. I was in the parking lot waiting for her.

She drove in about fifteen minutes before she was due to go on stage. I might have missed her, in fact I was ready to take off after sitting in the parking lot for the better part of an hour waiting for her to show up. At first I thought it was a motorcycle with rumbling pipes, then I saw the Lincoln with the cracked windshield, buckled hood and the trunk held down with an elastic cord.

Swindle pulled into a parking place, scraping the side of someone’s car in the process. An alarm sounded on the car and she backed out of the spot then hurriedly pulled into another spot a row over. I was pretty sure she’d been talking to Bulldog. At least I thought it was probably a safe guess once I saw her black eye.

“Swindle,” I called and then hurried to cut her off before she made it to the ‘Employee’s Only’ door. The car alarm continued to chirp.

She attempted to dodge me and go around the far side of another car, but I was too fast and caught up to her.

“Hold on, Swindle, I just wanted to talk to you for a moment.”

“Not really interested, sweetheart,” she said then looked at me and said, “Hey, I know you, don’t I? How’d you know my name?”

“Yeah, Swindle, it’s me, Dev Haskell. I was buying you some shots the other night, hoping to get a little more personal, but it didn’t quite work out.”

“There’s always tonight, Denny.”

“What’s with the eye?” I asked.

“Oh nothing, a little misunderstanding is all, someone thinking wrong, or just not thinking at all.”

“Your friend Bulldog?”

“That son-of-a-bitch better watch it if he knows what’s good for him. Accusing me of stealing. I got no idea what in the hell he’s even talking about.”

“I heard he’s been shaking down a lot of folks.”

“Not you, too. Why is everyone suddenly interested in Bulldog? First it was Tubby, then that young fool that was the bouncer.”

“Fat Freddy?”

“That’s the one. Why all the sudden interest in Bulldog? Ungrateful is what he is, he ain’t getting’ anymore from me after the other night, that’s for damn sure. He’s cut off as far as I’m concerned. Not that he was any good at gettin’ it up, anyway. Look, we should maybe link up after, I’ll give you a discount, but I’m on in a couple of minutes. All them suits just can’t seem to get enough of old Cougar. What’d you say your name was again?”

“Dev.”

“I’ll remember that and I’ll be looking for you in there, Des. You just remember to tip me real nice now, hear?”

“Yeah, Swindle, I’ll do that.”

She headed toward the ‘Employee’s Only’ door, unbuttoning her blouse along the way. She punched in a code on the key pad and by the time she had the door open the blouse was hanging over her arm. She’d just begun to undo her belt when the door closed behind her.

As I walked back to my car I thought, ‘Well, there was my answer, Bulldog was still looking.’ The car she scraped was chirping intermittently now. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go so I headed down to The Spot.

Chapter Forty-Five

I hadn’t been at
the bar for very long and for all practical purposes I’d been behaving myself. Mike was bartending and I was content to sip and just think. Casey was due back in town tomorrow and after seeing Swindle sporting a black eye I had fresh concerns. I had just signaled Mike for another when my phone rang.

“Haskell Investigations.”

“Dev?”

It was Heidi and she sounded frightened. I really didn’t feel like dealing with another mouse. “Yeah, Heidi, what’s up?”

A rough voice snarled across the phone, “You better get you ass over here if you ever want to enjoy your little friend, again.”

The juke box was playing. People were talking and laughing. Mike was sliding a fresh pint across the bar to me. I was unaware of everything except Bulldog on the other end of the phone.

“I’m coming, so help me, you touch her and I’ll kill you.”

“Sure you will,” Bulldog laughed. “Better hurry or we’re gonna start without you,” he said then hung up.

I left Mike holding the beer with a shocked look on his face and ran to my car. I pulled a U-turn across Randolph and blasted through the red light on the corner. I was climbing the hill, doing about sixty on the city street and picking up speed. At the Lexington stoplight I veered into the right turn only lane, gave a quick look then shot through another red light. I figured Bulldog heard me from a block away as I skidded around the corner then screeched to a stop halfway up the block in front of Heidi’s house. There was a long green Jaguar parked across the street. I was pretty sure it was the same vehicle Fat Freddy slit the tire on the other day after he stole Bulldog’s protection money.

I hurried out of my car and ran across the front lawn pulling the pistol out of my belt as I went. The front door was wide open and all the lights in the house were off. I jumped up the front steps, stepped inside and then waited. My heart was pounding so loudly I couldn’t hear anything else. My eyes began to grow accustomed to the dark and I could begin to make out the shapes of living room furniture.

“Maybe just set the piece on that table against the wall,” a voice growled from a far corner. I could just barely make out two figures, it looked like Bulldog had Heidi on his lap.

“Are you okay, Heidi?”

“Just do like I said or the bitch is going to get it.”

“Let her go, Bulldog. She can’t help you with whatever it is you want.”

“This is the last time I’m telling you, dumb shit. Put that gun down or your girlfriend is going to have a great big hole in her pretty little head.”

“It’s down, Bulldog, I’m putting it down,” I said and set the pistol on the small table then I turned to face Bulldog and raised my hands.

“Move away from that table,” he said.

“Are you okay, Heidi?”

“She might be coming with me, Haskell. I kind of like the way we seem to fit together,” he laughed then bounced her on his lap and grabbed her chest.

A slight sound seemed to escape from her lips.

“I’m looking for something I lost, Haskell. Your name keeps coming up.”

“If you mean that protection money, I heard that was Fat Freddy. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Except drive the truck, I seen ya, you were there helping him. You think I’m stupid? We’ll get to that money later. Right now, I think you know what the hell I’m talking about.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really, maybe this’ll refresh your memory,” he said then hit Heidi across the back of her head. She fell off his lap with a groan, he quickly reached down and pulled her head up by the hair and then held on.

“I’m really running out of patience here, Haskell. I could use a little cooperation from you right about now,” he said then yanked Heidi again by her hair.

“I already told you, I got no idea what in the hell you’re talking about.”

“Oh, really? Funny, ain’t it? Everyone I talked to so far said pretty much the same thing. The difference was they were so scared to death they were shitting themselves. You on the other hand, I got a feeling you know. You’re just such a stupid son-of-a-bitch you think you can play me.”

“If I knew what you wanted I’d give it to you, honest. But I don’t know, I don’t.” I made my voice sound pleading hoping he’d buy it.

“Bullshit, you know what I’m talking about, it was in a nylon bag. And I’m through playing games with you. You think you’re so fucking smart? Someone tried to be cute and sent Tubby a currency band in the mail. So I asked myself, now, who in the hell would know to send that to Tubby? Most of the folks I talked to can’t see much past their next drink or score. They only read about Tubby in the papers, they’ve never seen him, wouldn’t know a hell of a lot about him and certainly wouldn’t know that Jackie Van Dorn was his attorney. What sort of asshole do you think would know that sort of thing?”

“I was talking to Van Dorn about a real estate matter. That’s all. Its common knowledge the only client he has is Tubby. Hell, I got that information from the cops.”

“A real estate matter. Hear that, baby doll?” he said then yanked Heidi’s hair again and she gave a sort of yelp.

“Just let her go, I’ll do anything you want.”

“You know what I want, Haskell, that bag, get it.”

“Let her go, Bulldog I don’t know anything about a bag.”