I figured after everything I’d put him through recently, Nick could use a breather, and a bit of actual hospitality. Of course, then I threw him right back into the fire, but that’s the nature of these things. I also figured it was time to meet Charlie Dyer, now that I’ve figured out who and what he is a bit more.
If you’re paying close enough attention, you may notice that certain things are inconsistent between the earlier installments and the later ones. For example, the Sienna Club is refered to as being “in town” in earlier ones, now here we find that it’s outside of town. Well, I changed my mind, simple as that. Since this is a rough draft I figure I’ll simply make adjustments as I go, and, as they say in the movie industry, I’ll fix it in post.
For Idle Hands (working title) - Part 16
I woke when the car stopped and Carolyn got out. We were at our house. Her house now, since the divorce. It had never been much, a tiny little ranch house on half an acre of land near where Idle Village became North Idle. It was a good location, near town but far enough away that there were trees between us and our neighbors. The house itself needed constant work that I never seemed to have time to do. The roof leaked over the cellar-way, the toilet ran, the floor creaked and sagged in a few places, and nothing in the house was even close to square or level. It wasn’t much, but it had been home, for a time.
I hardly recognized it now. Carolyn had been busy, and business must be good, because the house had been resided, the driveway had been repaved, and the windows and front door looked new.
As I got out and stretched, listening to my back crack and my knees pop, I marveled at the extensive landscaping that had been done in the years since I’d been here last.
I turned full circle, eventually coming to Carolyn, hands on her hips, looking at me. I smiled sheepishly then followed her inside.
The inside had been equally transformed. The floors were hardwood now, and barely sagged at all. The walls had been painted in pastel tones, and the furniture was new, cream colored leather. I followed Carolyn into the kitchen, which sported new cabinets and a marble counter top, and sat down at the small table under the room’s new picture window. Carolyn put a tea pot on the stove and sat down opposite me. For a long time neither of us spoke, then the kettle whistled and she got up and prepared two mugs of black pearl tea, put mine in front of me, and sat down with hers in hand. I told her what had happened at the police station before I left with her, and a brief account of my day leading up to that, to bring her up to speed.
“So what’s going on, Nick? Did Wally really try to kill you?”
“It seems that way. It was his car in any case.”
“Do you think he killed Yadira?”
“I just… I don’t know. Wally’s a thug, definitely a violent person, but murder is a long way from burglary.”
“What about assault? Or rape?”
“OK, yeah, I guess it wouldn’t be too far out of the question for Wally to kill someone. He did have a few run ins with Yadira over the years.”
Carolyn sipped her tea slowly. She liked hers piping hot, I always waited until it was closer to room temperature. It had always driven her crazy, especially since half the time I got distracted with something else and forgot to drink it at all.
“That might explain why they’d been seen together,” I continued. “Maybe he was harassing her, or stalking her, and she tried to fight back? Of course, I only have Dante Henrikson’s word for that so far, and I know he’s not trustworthy.”
“Why would he lie about that?”
“I don’t know. As far as I know he’s never had any direct run ins with Yadira, at least not more than with any of the other cops in Idle. Of course, that nephew of his seems all to eager to deal in violence. He did have a shotgun when they grabbed me, but the guy who shot me was using a different one.”
I touched the butterfly bandages over the gash on my forehead. It still hurt a bit, but the headache was tolerable now. It had been like a voice screaming in my head all morning, but now it had faded to background static.
“Could it have been Wally who shot Detective Gunn?” Carolyn asked.
I thought for a moment. “It could have, I guess, but who knows? The laser sight and poor marksmanship speaks to the shooter being an amateur. A pro wouldn’t leave the shells behind either. Wally’s an experienced hunter, but the circumstances are different enough to throw that kind of experience out the window.
“I just don’t know.”
Carolyn sipped at her tea, and I picked mine up to test it out. It was just right, and she’d remembered how I like it, lots of milk and just a little sugar. No wonder she’d kicked me out, I didn’t deserve a woman like this. I’d known it all along, but I just thought I’d gotten extraordinarily luck, and wasn’t about to blow the whistle on it.
“Why are you doing this Cara?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you helping me? We’ve barely spoken for almost three years, and then out of the blue you’re stopping by the office to see how I am, and bailing me out, and making me tea,” I trailed off. “I’ll admit, it’s nice, and I’ve just been letting myself fall back into the patterns of being around you, but… I can’t do this.”
She smiled sweetly, “for now, let’s just say I heard you were in trouble and wanted to help.” She set her mug down. “I still care about you Nick, but… Let’s figure this mess out before we tackle the rest of it, OK?”
“Yeah.”
“So, what’s next?”
“Well, I still need to find Charlie Dyer.” Then a realization hit me, “shit, I need to find Derrick an let him know what happened before he hears it from someone else first. And I need to pick up Bertha, she should be ready by now.”
Carolyn sighed. She’d hated Bertha from the start, and hated that I’d named her even more. She’d tried to get rid of Bertha once we were married, but I wouldn’t hear of it. You never know when you’ll need a car you could drive into war, and besides we had a long history, Bertha and I.
“Can you give me a ride to Harvey’s garage?”
“Fine, but first, finish your tea."
Carolyn dropped me off at Harvey’s, then took off after she’d made sure that Bertha really was ready. It was only a short distance from the office, I could have walked back easily enough if Harvey hadn’t gotten to o it already, but I appreciated the gesture. I wasn’t sure I just wanted to stroll down the street today. Bertha didn’t exactly stand out around here, and if there was trouble she was a damn sight more bullet proof than Nick’s rice racer, even if she was a bit more sluggish.
Harvey had replaced all four tires with studded snow tires, figuring that the snow would be flying soon enough. I didn’t bother to point out that they weren’t technically legal yet, Harvey gave me a fresh inspection sticker every year whether I deserved it or not, and I didn’t feel like opening up that can of worms. He had also reattached the muffler, replacing the rusted section of pipe and the hangers that had let go.
She wasn’t good as new, but she purred like she used to, only barely loud enough to shake the fillings in my teeth. On the way back to the office I swung by Amato’s and picked up a bucket of ziti, with meat sauce of course. It was almost noon, and I hadn’t eaten since early that morning at Rosie’s. Most of that meal, come to think of it, was sitting on the side of thee road coming into Idle village from the south.
Also, Derrick was likely to be pissed, and free food seemed to be a currency all college students accepted.
When I walked through the door, Derrick was sitting cross legged on the floor, the crumpled license plates from his car on the floor in front of him, and a box containing everything that had been in the car - including my cell phone, I remembered - sat nearby. He looked up at me as I closed the door, he looked so hard I could just about feel his eyes piercing through to the back of my head.
“Um, hey Derrick.”
“Hey Nick. What’s in the bag?”
“What? Oh, yeah, ziti with meat sauce.”
He jumped to his feet. “Good, I’m starving to death here.”
He bounded off towards the kitchenette in the rear of the office. He was taking this a lot better than I’d expected.
“Derrick?”
“Yeah Nick?”
“Are you OK? I mean, you should be trying to beat me with something large and heavy right now, at the very least.”
He pondered a moment. “Yeah, I should, I don’t think I’m going to though. I’m pissed Nick, don’t get me wrong, but what’s the point?”
“Well, I’m impressed.”
“Besides, you already got shot, so at this point it would be redundant.”
Now it was my turn to glare at him as he came back from the kitchenette with two bowls, two forks, and a couple paper towels. We set up on the conference table and between the two of us devoured the whole bucket. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was, but I guess stress, pain, and adrenaline had taken their toll and my body needed fuel.
“So what’s on for the afternoon?”
“No, you’re not coming. I’ve been shot at twice already today, this is my thing, my choice, I won’t put you in danger too.”
“I’m a big boy, Nick, you don’t have to protect me. Besides, I could always just follow you.”
I sighed, I could tell he wasn’t going to let this go. “Fine, but you’re going to hang back and let me take point, got it?”
“Yes sir. So where are we off to?”
“We’re going to find Charlie Dyer, and we’re going to start at the Sienna club.”
“Cool, but they don’t open until like four, or something.”
“Then we’ll get the best seats in the house."
The Sienna Club was something of an oddity for a town like Idle. Not only did they feature a full bar, greasy food and sports on a wide screen TV like so many other places around here. What made the Sienna Club unique is the fact that on Friday and Saturday nights they featured live entertainment. Of the exotic variety. There was an uproar when the club first opened, but ultimately it was allowed to stay thanks to the enormous amounts of tax money the town made from various sin taxes that were hastily enacted. The college kept the Sienna full on the weekends, and the Sienna paid for new street lights, extra cops, and so on. The place itself was tucked out of sight, a bit outside of town in West Idle, so most of the people who might have cared that it was there at all were happy enough to pretend it wasn’t in light of all the good that money was doing the town.
I’d never been to the Sienna myself, but Derrick spent the ten minute drive rifling through stories of bachelor parties and random nights out with the guys, of the the dancer he swore was into him for more than just the fives he was handing out, and more. it was incredible, the amount of soul crushing detail he could cram into every breath. I still felt bad about his car, and about making him walk back to the office, so I let him ramble. Thankfully, he shut up as we pulled into the nearly empty parking lot, sparing my sanity.
There was a few cars parked next to the squat, brick faced building. One of them was Dyer’s blue Subaru Forrester. I parked Bertha and we got out. I jotted down Dyer’s license plate number, just in case it might come in handy later.
“They’re closed, Nick. What are you going to do, go flash that tin badge of yours as if it’ll mean anything to them?”
“Never make things more complicated than they have to be, Derrick. Remember that, it’ll come in handy.”
I walked up to the front door and pulled it open. It was shit luck that it was unlocked, but I figured it was worth checking before working out alternate ways inside. I strode in as if I owned the place, and Derrick followed a few steps behind.
The inside probably looked great when the club was open and the lights were dimmed, but with the house lights turned up full it looked like what it was, a cheap dive guessed up in satin, leather, and chrome. It was a large open room with two dozen tables set up in it. There was a bar along one wall, and a stage that protruded into the center of the room along the back wall. The chairs set up at the tables were all oriented towards the stage.
Indistinct music pulsed from what sounded like a boom box - definitely not the sound system - and a lone dancer strutted across the stage in bicycle shorts and a sports bra. Another woman, in a long black jacket, stood behind the bar polishing glasses.
Several men sat watching the dancer on stage, eyeing her appraisingly. One of them, a mountain of a man with a crew cut and a cheap pinstripe suit, shouted directions, coaching her performance.
“No no, Candy, make love to the damned pole!” he shouted in a booming voice. “The slobs you’re dancin’ for got shit for brains, you got to be in their faces with it! You got to give them sex!”
“Well,” I whispered to Derrick, “he knows his audience.”
“And how!”
Shaking my head, I headed towards the bar. The woman polishing glasses was stunning. An athletic asian woman with wavy raven black hair that reached halfway down her back. She turned her dark, almond shaped eyes towards us as we approached.
“We’re not open, Mac, come back at…” she trailed off as she caught sight of Derrick behind me. She lit up. “Derrick! What the hell are you doing here now?”
“Hey Lili, I guess we’re here to talk to the owner,” he held his hands up in an “out of my hands” gesture.
“So,” she said, eyeing me, “who is tall dark and handsome, does he have a name?”
“Oh, yeah, Lili, this is my boss Nick Shamus. Nick, this is Lili Tsao, she’s in my political science class.”
“Working your way through college?” I asked dryly.
She shrugged, “it pays the bills, and then some. Besides, I might as well use it while I’ve got it. You know, I’ll be on the bar all night,” she leaned across the bar towards me, provocatively, resting her hands wide apart and holding her head high. As she did this her jacket fell open, the arch in her back caused her small breasts to strain against the top of the short leather halter she wore beneath. “You could come by and let me know what you think of what I’ve got.”
I hoped my face wasn’t too red, but the smile playing on her too red lips told me it probably was. Derrick whooped beside me, the bastard.
“I’m just here to talk to Charlie Dyer.”
“Lili,” the booming voice of the large man came from close behind us, “who are your friends?”
I could be wrong, but as I turned to look at him a note of confusion rippled across his pock marked face.
“This is Nick, Charlie, says he wants to talk to you.”
“That so, Nick?” He said my name like it tasted bad.
“Yeah, I have a few questions about Yadira Cheevers, you knew her didn’t you?”
“Not really, she was that cop got chilled up on Geraldine, right? Maybe I seen her around town, but I don’t think I ever met her.”
“Dante Henrikson says otherwise.”
“Dante is liar, and I will speak to him about what he said to you. And now, gentlemen,” he looked from me to Derrick and back again, “we are not open, so I am going to have to ask you both to leave.”
Derrick made a move towards the door, I just leaned back against the bar, looking as nonchalant as I could manage.
“No, I don’t think so, not until you’re a little more forthcoming with me.”
“Andre,” he called, one of the goons he was sitting with near the stage stood up, “Steve, the other stood, “come here.”
The two men, even more mountainous than Dyer, sidled up behind him, trying to look menacing. They were probably former football players from their builds, they each had about six inches on me, and I’d guess at least forty pounds. Crap.
“Mr. Shamus here was just leaving, but he seems to have forgot where the door is.
“Show him the way for me, boys.”
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