Matryoshka Blues (The Average Joe Mysteries Book 1) (6 page)

10

I
hear a click over my shoulder, soft and faint.

It comes from somewhere beside the office door. A panel in the wainscoting has popped open in time for the first wispy flash of police lights to touch the scene outside the bay window as the sirens grow louder. The cops are beyond close.

The open panel reveals a locked compartment, the keyhole larger than the key in my pocket. That’s not good. If I had time I’d beat the crap out of it, but, well, I have zero fucking time here.

That means Plan B.

Plan B means I get to grope a dead body.

Shit on a popsicle stick. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to fondle a corpse…

I’m really not happy about this. I’m already stealing the man’s book—now I have to touch his meat suit too? Who did I piss off in this life or another to ever deserve this?

Don’t answer that. Not even the condensed version. I don’t have the time, and there’s no use living in the past. Forget I said anything.

This is Sandecker’s house, so it stands to reason he has a key to everything. His killer may have taken it, not realizing what it was to. Otherwise, one would think the panel would already be open and the contents within removed. They aren’t, so the keys must still be somewhere on his ex-person.

They’re not on a chain around his neck, and they’re not in either of his shirt pockets. Which means they’re probably in his damn pants. Fuck me.

Or, hey—maybe they’re on the desk under a day planner, which is where I spot a key ring poking out as I finish patting down the dead man’s junk.

Can’t believe I touched a dead penis before I checked the desk.

Oh shut up. You didn’t know it was there either.

Sirens are now ear-splitting. Time to get crackin’.

I cycle through the keys like Goldilocks in a male whorehouse—this one’s too big, this one’s too small; this one’s for his Audi, that one’s for his pink, fuzzy handcuffs in the nightstand upstairs.

I mean, probably. How the fuck would I know? I’m making a joke here, not a lifestyle judgment or anything. All I know is they don’t fit in the lock behind the secret panel opened with a switch hiding behind a book I totally stole to read later.

Halfway through the ring, a little brass key slips inside the lock like a lubed-up virgin on prom night, and I’m so stunned I almost forget to unlock the damn thing.

Outside, three cop cars block up the street outside Sandecker’s house. Doors fly open, and six of the city’s finest get out with weapons drawn. Two of them take a profound interest in my lopsided conveyance.

Not that I blame them. I hear that with a little training, shit like that can be seen as evidence.

Please let all of this be worth something
, I pray to who-, whom-, or whatever is listening. Then I open the compartment door.

Inside the secret cubby is a cheap decorative box; mass produced and store-bought. It’s the kind of box you get from hobby stores to hold stationery or grandma’s recipe for shepherd’s pie, or some dried-up flower you got from that one guy you met on that dating app who took you on that magical date right before he fucked your sister’s Pilates instructor on the picnic table outside your third cousin’s old grade school—the flower you’re desperately holding on to because even though the guy was a major fuck-nozzle, the date was still so goddamn special.

I hear shit like that all the time, you know. And not only from women. People are weird.

The lock on the box is new, sturdier than what would have come with it originally, and it looks to take a small key, hopefully like the one burning a hole in my pocket.

“This is the police!” a voice shouts from the front door. “We have you surrounded!”

I tuck the box under my arm and run.

“Freeze! Police!” the voice shouts again. It sounds like it’s right at my shoulder.

Shit.

I really hope they haven’t covered the back door yet.

11

T
he back yard is clear, as is the space between it and the line of trees separating the houses on this street from the golf course on the other side.

Growing up, I’d have taken all of my dates to a deserted golf course like this for a romantic night of Jack in the Box, Boone’s Farm, and making out. That is, if I’d lived anywhere near such a useless piece of land as a golf course or had enough girls interested in me to get a date once in a while. Even with Jack in the Box on the table.

I mean, come on—how is that not a no-brainer?

None of this is relevant to the point at hand, of course, which is that Sandecker’s back yard is a beautiful spot with a great view of the stars above.

Anyway…

You know that joke where you don’t have to outrun a bear, only the person you’re with? Well, I
do
need to outrun a bear; or in this case, a pair of them. I was spotted on my way out, and now I’m trying to lose two cops in much better shape than I am by leading them through a layout I can’t figure out for the life of me.

Seriously, people think it’s fun hitting a tiny ball through all this shit? How the hell do you know where you’re going? Damn it, people.

This is why I like billiards. None of that snooker shit, either. Real pool. I have either nine or fifteen balls, and a stick—a straight fucking stick, mind you, not this wonky, crippled golfing crap—and I can see where I’m sending a ball when I hit it with the stick. Forests are for owls and Bambi and fucking Bigfoot; not humans.

And while I’m on the subject—what in the name of kitty litter does a giant sandbox have to do with
anything
?

I lose the cops in the trees. Hell, I probably lost myself in the trees. I’m sure there’s some tiny piece of my genetic code that once knew how to navigate by the position of the moon and stars, but screw that. This is the twenty-first century, and everyone knows the world is round now.

Okay, yeah, I know everyone knew it back then too. Just making a point, so don’t go getting all butt-hurt on me here. What is this, the Internet?

The cops split up. Damn. If they know where they’re going, they’ll probably box me in. Wait—can you box someone in when there’s only two of you? That seems counter-intuitive. If one’s in front of me, and another’s behind me, doesn’t that make me the ball in a fucking game of Pong?

Can’t have that, so must run faster.

As stated previously, I’m not an athletic type. Again, I’m no slouch, but most everything I know and can do has been Achievement Unlocked thanks to a steady diet of tenacity, rugged determination, and no small measure of divine serendipity. There’s no training involved here. This is one hundred percent, grade-A luck. And genetics.

So, like, fifty percent luck, and fifty percent genetics then. Maybe sixty-forty.

Hell with it, I believe more in genetics than luck, so let’s call it eighty-twenty.

Son of a bitch, my legs are killing me. I’m a lover, damn it, not a fucking marathoner. I’m certainly not a marathoner who carries a stupid box clutched to his chest like he’s training for that Tough Mudder bullshit or something.

Now, if we were talking about a box of Thin Mints or something…

Hang on—where am I?

North. Tully said I had to go north. Holy hell, this exercise thing is seriously jacking with my ability to think straight.

This time of the month, this time of night, the moon is to the west. If I keep it on my left side, that means I’m heading in the right direction.

Right? Crap, one more thing for the Shit I Really Should Know By Now list.

Most people have bucket lists, but I find them grandiose and self-serving. Far more interesting, I think, to keep a running tally of all the things you don’t know at the point in your life in which you realize you didn’t know them.

Motherf—does that even make sense? What is wrong with me? When the cops tackle me, I’ll be sure to ask them right before they jam a stun gun between my ribs.

One cop is still behind me, though it sounds like he’s got as good a fix on my location as I do on his. For all I know we happen to be running in the same direction. No idea where the other one is. Hopefully he has the moon on his right, or he’s busy fucking a date in a sand trap.

Or she, I guess. Didn’t really get a good look. Hopefully she remembered the Boone’s Farm.

I breach a tree line and run into a street. Not sure which one this is—probably Kitty Cat Shit Box Boulevard or something. Whatever it is, it’s running north and south, so I choose to not look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth as I follow it northward.

Side note: you check inside a horse’s mouth to help determine its age and health. Therefore, if you take one that’s gifted to you and look in its mouth, you are basically being rude and insulting to the individual who gave you said horse.

Now you know where the expression came from. Trust me, knowing is half the battle. Of course, the other half is knowing what you’re doing, and not even fucking G.I. Joe can help me with that one here.

Sandecker’s box feels like an anchor in my arms. It’s not especially heavy, but I’m out of shape enough for it to be a problem. Running with it is akin to a three hundred pound defensive lineman scooping up a loose football and taking it ninety-nine yards for a touchdown. Say what you will about the man’s athletic conditioning, but you put a fat fucker in that situation and he’s going to pass out in the end zone like a boss.

I run through an intersection, and the street signs tell me I’m on Clubhouse Avenue. Like, for real? Holy shit. Always said I had stellar luck.

Somewhere between eight seconds and nine decades of pulse-stopping exertion later I see the jagged lines of what is either a brand-spanking-new mountain range, or the roofline of the clubhouse. I’m sucking down air in bulk right now, and my legs feel like spaghetti noodles stuffed inside cheap shoes.

So naturally that’s when a lone cop shows up out of fucking nowhere to block my one shot at freedom.

12

S
tellar luck, my ass. Forget I said anything.

The cop’s a guy, as tall as me, but infinitely more in shape. And he’s…well,
gorgeous
, for lack of a better word. Even with his uniform on, I can tell he’s a superb specimen of human physiology. I mean, does this bastard live in a 24-Hour Fitness or something? Where do people find the time?

He’s smiling at me. Whether it’s because he’s looking for a fight, or because he thinks we’re playing Red Rover or some shit, I don’t know. I do know that even his smile is freakin’ beautiful.

And before you say anything, this has nothing to do with being straight, gay, bi, quasi, curious, or any other nonsense that insecure people use to label others to justify what is essentially a basic human reaction. According to men and women far smarter than I’ll ever be, we’re all made of star stuff, of cosmic bits fused together with the random glue of a DNA crap shoot. It’s who we are, every single one of us. So if I, as a heterosexual man in his late forties, look at another man nearly half my age and say he’s beautiful, it’s not a sexual thing. Okay? It’s all about jealousy, baby. Plain and simple. He’s hot, and if you were me right now you’d totally agree.

Oh, and you’d be running
away
from him, because he’s also a cop armed with a fucking pistol and a stun gun, and it’s the sensible course of action.

Me? I’ve already stated I’m a walking fuck-up, so my racing toward him should hardly come as a surprise to anyone.

The cop and I are both in the middle of the road, and he’s a good nine or ten yards from the gate I need to somehow get over. That puts him twenty yards ahead of me. I don’t know if I’m still being followed by the first cop, but he/she hasn’t shot at me in all this time, or yelled at me to stop, so I have to assume I lost him/her somewhere.

Cop number two unclips his radio from his shoulder clip as I race toward our inevitable hug. That’s what people do in these situations, right? Hug that shit out because they’re so happy to see each other?

I know, I know. Stop being stupid. To hell with you. Let’s see you stand up right now and run a bloody fucking marathon.

Asshole.

I can’t hear what the cop-who-should-be-a-model says, but my oxygen-deprived brain swears it’s something along the lines of,
“Can you believe this guy? If he thinks I’m hugging him he can eat my jock strap.”

I’m twelve yards from him, and he gets into a wrestler’s stance, preparing for an open-field tackle so he can body-slam my out-of-breath ass to the street and manhandle me into a submissive pose. I half-wonder if he’s got a pair of pink fuzzy handcuffs he’s been dying to use.

Yes, that’s an unfounded character attack. Fucking shoot me. We’ve already established I’m not thinking straight. Besides, for all you know he does. Who would look stupid then, huh?

Why he’s not arming himself to shoot me like Indiana Jones against a giant swordsman, I don’t know. Maybe this guy’s never seen the movie before. Which is possible, I suppose. Stupid, but possible. Who doesn’t adore the shit out of
Raiders of the Lost Ark
? I don’t want to live in a world where people don’t know that movie.

Maybe he’s one of those artsy-fartsy types who only enjoys French impressionistic crap, like a man in clown makeup smoking a cigarette while staring at a bowl of plastic fucking fruit while some female narrator in a breathless foreign accent whines about the futility of human existence, all in high-contrast black and white.

I’m talking out of my ass here. I’ve never seen a French impressionist movie in my life, and I don’t plan to. Forget I said anything.

But
Raiders
? Fucking classic. End of story.

Damn it, I need a nap. If they didn’t hurt so much with each step, I’d swear my feet broke off somewhere around the second sand trap.

Five yards from getting my ass whooped I hear the roar of an engine on the other side of the wall—the glorious, heaven-sent rumble of a Boss 302. A periwinkle blue Mustang roars past the gate, pedal to the metal and its horn blaring nonstop. The ruckus causes the cop to turn his head at the absolute worst time. For him, at least. I reach him and slow up enough to put the last of my arm strength into swinging Sandecker’s box two-handed into the poor man’s jaw.

His head snaps around and he falls unconscious to the asphalt. Meanwhile I’m running past him like a trophy wife to a shoe sale.

I leap to the top of the gate, forgetting in my exhaustion that I haven’t evolved enough as a member of the human species to have suddenly sprouted a third arm. Or a kangaroo-style fanny pack, although of the two I’d prefer the arm. The box slips from my grasp, bouncing off the gate with a dull ring and landing on the street.

Goddamn it.

Momentum carries me to the top of the gate, my body reserving enough energy to kick and scramble and haul my way over it, falling like a lead-ass balloon to the other side. I hunch over, gasping for air, my hands braced against my knees to keep me in the general vicinity of vertical, staring at the box separated from my possession by that fucking Judas of a gate.

You know what? Hell with this. My lungs will never work the same again. All I hear about is this supposed runner’s high, but that’s fucking bollocks. I don’t feel euphoric; I feel nauseous. I want a fucking cigarette, and I don’t even smoke. Who in their right mind thinks this running garbage is even remotely entertaining?

Not the golden-god cop sprawled out in the middle of Clubhouse Avenue, I’ll tell you that much. I mutter a useless apology to him as I squeeze an arm and shoulder through the bar to grab Sandecker’s box. It’s far enough away that my adventure in exercise is temporarily extended, but I finally get enough of a hold to drag it closer, pulling it through the bars and stepping further into the street.

The Mustang roars as Tully swings back around to pick me up, spinning the car in a boner-inducing one-eighty of smoke and squealing tires that stops five feet from where I’m trying not to throw up.

Between you and me, I never knew she could drive like that.

Still doesn’t justify her painting that work of art such a shitty color though.

And I plan on telling her, soon as I remember how to form words again.