Ting-A-Ling (5 page)

I followed the tire tracks up to the backdoor and pulled alongside the Mercedes. I think I could have fit two of the Mercedes in the trunk of my Lincoln. I climbed out and placed my hand on the sleek silver hood next to me. It was cold and had to have been sitting there for at least an hour. There was a short trail of foot prints leading to the back door marked
‘Employee’s Entrance’
. A shovel rested against the brick building and the concrete pad in front of the door looked to have been recently shoveled. Someone named Peaches had spray painted his name across the buff colored brick. Amazingly no one had bothered to steal the security camera mounted above the door.

I pushed the buzzer and waited. I heard what sounded like distant banging from inside, then footsteps approaching from the other side of the door.

“Who is it?” a deep voice growled from behind the metal door.

“Dev Haskell. I’ve got a three o’clock appointment with Renee Paris.”

There seemed to be the murmur of brief conversation coming from the other side of the door, but when it opened there was only one person standing there. I adjusted my gaze downward. Renee Paris looked a good deal shorter and a lot uglier than his driver’s license had indicated, which was a real accomplishment.

He looked me up and down, then stuck his head outside and looked around, I guess to make sure I was alone. “Humpf,” he mumbled, then glanced around again before he closed the door behind me. The hallway was dark with the exception of some light oozing out a doorway maybe twenty feet away. Paris headed off in that direction while I attempted to let my eyes adjust from the bright outside. “You coming?” he called over his shoulder just before he walked through the lit doorway.

I hurried to catch up and entered an industrial kitchen area. There were at least half a dozen, large aluminum caldrons sitting on a massive stove over low burners. Each caldron was partially covered by a flat, metal lid slid halfway across the top. The caldrons looked to hold about five gallons and something was slowly bubbling in each one. You could just make out the sound of a soft boil, like a distant brook rippling. The scent was rich, almost tangy and my mouth began to immediately water.

A large metal table, maybe ten feet long stood alongside the stove and was littered with cooking debris. Onion skins, garlic skins, empty spice containers, a couple empty flats that had apparently held tomatoes and empty packages of butter and brown sugar were scattered all over. Large, sharp chef’s knives with black handles and white plastic cutting boards lay amidst the mess.

Opposite the stove was a long aluminum sink with water running out of the tap and a cloud of steam rising up off a stack of industrial sized frying pans. The sink gurgled and there was a half filled bucket beneath it on the floor catching a steady drip from the drain.

“So?” Paris said accusingly, like I was already wasting his time. He leaned back against the metal table, folded his arms across his chest and sized me up. Apparently charm wasn’t his strong suit.

“Mr. Paris.”

He gave a single cold nod, like a cop or a pissed off school principal. I felt like I was standing before him having to ask forgiveness for somehow being foolish and growing taller than he was.

“Mind if I call you Renee?”

He shrugged, then said, “Whatever,” sounding like he really couldn’t be bothered. His attitude rankled me. A faded image of my childhood pal, Jimmy White popped into my head and I could feel my temper begin to rise. My face flushed slightly and I wanted to brace the little bastard up against the table, slap a pair of handcuffs on him and then stab him in his fat butt with one of those sharp knives.

Instead, I smiled sweetly and asked, “What can you tell me about your sauce?”

Paris sort of shrugged and shook his head like he couldn’t believe I was that stupid. Then he said, “Get screwed, you prick. We both know why you’re here and it hasn’t got one God damned thing to do with a newspaper article. You got a message to deliver, do it, quit wasting my time and then get the hell out.”

“Okay, fair enough,” I said and cut to the chase. “Danielle wants her fifty-grand back. Or, at the very least some sort of payment plan.”

“Payment plan? I made her the beneficiary on my damn life insurance policy. Anything happens to this place and or any number of my other investments and she’s the beneficiary there as well. I’ll tell you another thing…”

“I think she’s looking for something a little more immediate than thirty or forty years down the road. She lent you some cash with the idea you would pay her back. I think you even used the line,
‘You were good for it’
and
‘Your word was your bond.’
”

“That’s what it always is with your kind, isn’t it? You just can’t comprehend the intricacies of high finance, it’s simply beyond you. What you need to do is take…”

I straightened and held my hand up to cut him off. “Wait a minute, I’m not finished. I know you’re a savvy guy. You rub shoulders with the ‘swells’, the movers and shakers here in town. You got the right people as friends. Let me just give you a word of advice. If you’re thinking of not paying her, maybe just lying low or even hiding, it took me about four minutes to find you. Only because my phone call was put on hold for three of those minutes. You may be some hot shot banker with a law degree, but you’re swimming in the same toilet with me right now. I’m the nice guy. Next time someone comes around they aren’t going to be so nice.”

“You’re threatening me. Is that it? I should have known. Typical of your kind. Trying to scare me…I suppose you’re going to yell some ridiculous profanity next and beat your chest.”

“No. I don’t threaten. I’m going to warn you right now, if I’m yelling there really isn’t a problem. But when I’m speaking softly, like I am now, that’s when I’m most dangerous.” I could feel my very short fuse suddenly become exposed

“Dangerous?” He half laughed. “You muscle bound clown, where in the hell did she find…”

Boom. In a flash I remembered Jimmy taking the heat on a broken neighbor’s window and not telling on me. We were maybe eight or nine. Suddenly, everything seemed to go in slow motion. It always does. Paris was leaning back against the work table with his arms folded, looking smug, calling me names and talking tough. I guess he was just used to being able to insult people for no particular reason. I took a quick step and kicked his feet out from underneath him. As he hit the ground he let off a loud, “Uff!” when he landed on the concrete floor. On the way down the back of his head caught the edge of the table with a dull sort of thunk. There wasn’t any blood, at least that I could see. But, he was going to have a hell of bump, maybe even a slight concussion. One could only hope.

His eyes crossed as I grabbed him. I half threw him, half rolled him over facedown, then took his left arm and twisted it up behind his back. I grabbed him by the back of his collar and yanked him to his feet.

“Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, ahhh,” he groaned as I raised him up. I marched him toward the sink and the steaming water, picking up speed with every step. By the time we reached the sink we were moving at a fast paced trot and I slammed him into the edge of the sink and shoved his head under the tap.

It burned my hand which suggested it was even worse running over his thinning hair and down the back of his neck. He struggled to get free and I slammed his head into the faucet a couple of times in an effort to hold him under the stream of scalding water.

“Ahhh, ahhh, God damn it, please, stop, please, please,” he screamed from beneath the faucet.

I pulled his head back then released my grip on his arm. As he staggered back his skin appeared scarlet from the water. He might have even gained a blister or two. He fell to his knees, then slowly slouched onto the ground, gasping.

“I’ll sue your miserable ass off you son-of-a…”

I reached into the sink, grabbed an aluminum pan and back handed him across the side of his face. The pan made a dull sort of gong noise which I thought sounded rather appropriate.

“Now, see what you made me do, Renee. God, how typical of my classless kind. And, I’m usually such a nice guy. I’m gonna suggest to Danielle, you remember Danielle, you told her you were good for the fifty-grand you borrowed. I’m going to tell her not to take the legal route. I’m going to tell her that won’t work with you. I’m going to give her the names of a couple of guys and they’re going to come visit you. They won’t be as nice as me, Renee. So, if I were you, I’d give Danielle a call and work something out, something a little better than your damn insurance benefits and
‘your word as your bond’
. If you haven’t called her by this time tomorrow, well, all bets are off. Nice chatting. Don’t worry. I’ll let myself out. Catch you later,” I said. I tossed the frying pan back into the sink and left him there in a steaming puddle on the floor.

Chapter Eleven

“That’s what he called
you? A muscle bound clown? That’s not very nice.” Danielle held her wine glass out to be refilled. She sat facing me with her legs curled up beneath her. She seemed oblivious to how very short her little black skirt was and I certainly didn’t intend to tell her.

We sat together on an incredibly comfortable leather couch opposite a warm roaring fire. The fireplace was surrounded by an elegantly carved white marble mantle and glazed Victorian tiles. There were real Tiffany stained glass lamps on little antique tables at either end of the couch, and a large oriental rug about two inches thick covered the polished oak floor between us and the fireplace. We were in the library, three of the walls were covered with walnut shelves and lots of leather bound books. Danielle had inherited the home and apparently it came with lots of inherited money.

“I guess he’s used to getting his way and intimidating people. Somewhat of a Napoleon complex, I think. You find it from time to time in short males.” It might have been the four or five glasses of wine that had me expounding and waxing eloquent.

She smiled, looked deep into my eyes and rubbed her hand gently up and down my arm. “I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt,” she said. She ran her finger back and forth along my shoulder. I tried not to stare too long at her chest as she breathed excitedly. Then I heard what sounded like footsteps above us on the second floor.

“You hear that?” I asked.

“Ghosts.” She giggled.

“Sounded more like footsteps.”

“Just an old house. Happens every winter, well, and the summer too. Things creak. Glad you’re here to keep me safe,” she said. Her eyes seemed to flare and the fire crackled. “Do you think he’ll call me?” she asked and took another sip.

“I hope so. I really don’t know any guys who we could send to threaten him. One guy, maybe, but he’s got this really high voice and no, that would be a bad idea right from the get go.”

“What if he tries to hurt me? What if he breaks in and comes after me?” she asked.

“I don’t believe he’s in any condition to do that. Hopefully, you’ll get a phone call tomorrow. I don’t think you should meet with him, at least not alone. I wouldn’t invite him over here. If you do have to meet him maybe bring me along, let him know I intend to be there.”

“God, Dev, I don’t know. It’s so scary. What was I thinking when I loaned him that money?”

“You were just being nice and trusting and it didn’t quite work out.” I decided not to mention naïve, awfully dumb and clueless.

“Damn it, why does something like this always seem to happen? What if he tries to come here tonight?’

“I don’t think he will. He’s probably…”

“But what if he does, Dev? God, I just don’t want to be alone.” She was running her finger down my chest - actually all her fingers, sort of scratching me through my sweater.

“You’re really frightened?”

She nodded, bit her lower lip and squeezed my hand. I was envisioning her with those silk cords around her wrists. “Well, if you’re really frightened, I guess I could maybe stretch out on the couch here. I mean, if you think it would help and make you feel safer.”

“I think it would make me feel a lot safer if we were in the same room. In the same bed,” she said, then raised her eyebrows and stared at me.

I drained my glass of wine and felt my heart pounding. “Yeah, I can do that for you. That’s probably a good idea. You can never…”

“Come on, I’ve got a bottle of wine open upstairs,” she said, cutting me off then she stood and took me by the hand.

Chapter Twelve

If there were little
silk cords, I couldn’t remember them. I was in a very large bed beneath a very thick down comforter. There was a large, polished wooden headboard with gold carvings along the top rising up toward an ornate ceiling. The corners of the bed had four massive, carved posts with what looked like heavy, red curtains draped along the side and running all the way down to the floor. Each one of the posts had a gold wreath of carved leaves wrapped around the top. The walls of the room had dark wood paneling running up about five feet from the floor and then what looked like red, silky wall paper covering the walls. On the wall above the fireplace a painting of some old, bald guy with a white beard and holding a bunch of papers hung in an ornate gold frame.

My immediate thought was I had woken up in a museum. I couldn’t tell what time it was, but there was a razor thin slice of bright light seeping through the edge of the heavy red window curtains.