BY ROBERT D. BENNETT

ROBERT D. BENNETT is the author of three novels, Sector-12, Rendezvous 2.2 and Shaft-235.  These works were released through Fawcett-Gold Medal, a division of Random House.  Rendezvous 2.2 received a stellar review in Publisher’s Weekly. Mr. Bennett is currently putting the final polish on White Slave, the next installment in the Dillon McDonaugh hard-boiled crime series.
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Dedication
For Nan

"Never sleep with your client’s only daughter. It tends to put a definite dent into your resume."

Dillon McDonaugh

 

Chapter One

Cull De Heat

I don’t like being boosted out of a down and dirty dream two snores shy of the crack of dawn. Sleep is hard enough to come by for a full time insomniac and the few hours that I am able to grab shouldn’t be interrupted by an after hours idiot calling in on my private line.

Benny Bourdreaux knew where I’d be and I gathered by his tone that he had more on his mind that me snagging the last half of twenty-one winks.

"McUnna!" he blurted at the tone of the answering machine. "Git ova here. I gotta job ferya. Hurri-ip. Ya know I can’t cull de heat. De dun’t gib-a-chit about what happens over here."

Benny has a slight speech impediment. His legendary lisp dates back to the days when he used to make his living as a body slam artist along the upper mid-west junior gym circuit. A disgruntled ham and egger scrounging a living out of Moline, Illinois didn’t think that twenty-seven eighty quite covered a full careen into a turnbuckle and took out the difference in Benny’s face with the business end of a folding chair.

Benny opened a bistro over on Adkins Avenue with the stipend his lawyer squeezed out of the settlement and since he was into me for the better part of my next three lease payments, I figured it was worth a while to drop an answer onto his distress call.

I don’t owe Benny a lot of money. Nobody owes Benny a lot of money, we’re all just nickel and diming ourselves to death, it’s just that a few of the lucky ones get to shave points off their vig by volunteering ourselves for a few front line favors. Benny’s a very understanding guy.

I sat up in my "bedroom" which sits about as far back inside of Juan’s Tex/Mex Taco Emporium as you can get without sharing a snore slot with the winos that guard the back alley dumpster. When Juan owned the joint he used to list the back room as El Encantador, a lover’s hideaway. That was his idea of real class and as soon as I duped him out of his deed in a swindle that involved the procurement of a genuine imitation green card, I tore out two of the booths and fashioned the third into a high rise futon. The cannibalized boothes got remodeled into clothes racks and the fourth I keep in pristine condition in case I need to call in a raid for spare parts.

Be it ever so humble.

Since Benny’s club didn’t stress any dress codes I wasn’t worried about making Mr. Blackwell’s starting lineup, so I slipped into a standard, single B’d blue business suit and wrestled that semi-stylish under a specially adapted flak jacket that doubles as an oversized liner to my frayed as hell trench coat.

When I pile the suit, the jacket and the trench over my size fifty-two long shoulders I look like I’m ready for a remake of King Kong, but since intimidation is part of my basic bailiwick, I put up with the added weight and try to avoid slipping into swimming pools at all costs.

I knew I couldn’t cover cab fare on what I had rattling around in my pant’s pockets, so I was forced to rely on the fumes in the Rustmobile’s ready reserves to cruise me somewhere close to Benny’s back door. The rig never has managed much more than single digits in the mileage department, so making a cross town run on what I had siphoned into the trip tank qualified as a major league long shot.

I wasn’t too concerned with what Benny had lined up for me. His jobs never constitute much of a sweat and although I’ve never had to resort to leg breaking to recover any outstanding dues, I have had to lay a heavy lean onto some of the less original dead beats especially when they start using some of my semi-patented whines.

I don’t make much working for Benny. The percentages that I eke out of the sliders ends up in his coffers anyway and what I squeeze out of Juan’s wouldn’t keep me in arcade candy for five fucking seconds, so when I’m not spreading taco sauce I pass myself off as a private eye.

Being a private investigator in my neighborhood is like being an investment counselor in Tiajuana. There aren’t a whole lot of clients who come knocking and those that do usually want things done that only a mercenary can cover, but I do manage to scrounge up a few supplementals doing some down and dirty divorce work, which allows me to keep my license and a modicum of self-respect.

It beats the hell out of kowtowing for Hizzonner.

When the Rustmobile pulled into its sometimes reserved spot behind Benny’s, I found Gary "the gaunt guy" standing sentry on the back stoop. Gary and Benny have an arrangement. Gary keeps a jaundiced eye staked out on Benny’s recycling bin and in exchange for his semi-vigilance he gets to park his cardboard box condo somewhat out of the weather.

A driving rain had picked up during my cross-town coast and before the Rustmobile could sputter itself completely dry, I shut the engine down and dropped all the theft deterrents in place. One canister of pepper spray and another of CN will usually plant a serious crimp in your average car-jackers day and those whose sinuses aren’t so susceptible get treated to a host of severe violations that aren’t covered by any clauses in the Geneva Convention.

Gary came shuffling around his condo as I did a duck in out of the weather and the strobe-light effect that was dropped onto Mr. Gaunt by a shorting neon sign flashed him out in all his best bib and tucker. Gary had ground a fresh coat of grime into the sleeves of his splayed greatcoat and one shoe almost matched the other. Gary dragged a blackened paw through the greasy mat that constituted his mangy mane and gave a thoughtful scratch to his stubble beard that was bent on a permanent angle by the sleep he snores sixteen hours a day. Gary palsied a palm in my direction and tossed in a cool drool for effect.

"Change," Gary slurred. "Spare change?"

"Put your specs on, Gary" I growled.

Gary made a quick fumble-jumble with the Salvation Army spectacles he dons from time to time, but since he’d pumped a suck onto most of the bars empties the best his beer fried brain could muster was an almost-focus that didn’t register as anyone familiar.

One thing did register however, and that was the derelict’s filthy mauler as he tried to plant a clumsy boost on my empty wallet. It took a moment to remind Gary of the consequences associated with that transgression and, for an instant, he thought he was Greg Louganis just before he plastered a three-quarter gainer into two inches of sewer puddle.

"Jesus, McDonaugh," Gary groaned. "I didn’t know it was you."

I gave Gary a five on the dive and a zero for his entry into the pool and explained that the penalty for trying to rip me off was two hours worth of watch duty pulled on the Rustmobile.

So much for charity beginning at home.

 

 

Chapter Two

Bob Mackies from Hell

When I walked through Benny’s kitchen, the place smelled of stainless steel seasoned with a fresh crush of garlic. Benny’s a real stickler when it comes to meeting code. He has to be. The city would use any excuse to shut him down short of arson so I didn’t bother sweeping a search for any table scraps to smother the growl that was rumbling through my stomach.

Benny calls his place Ric’s. His is the original, not that paper-mache palace over on Adams Avenue and that’s the correct spelling. Benny swears he got all the furniture off a guy that used to work on the set of Casablanca, like that would bring in all the boobs from the burbs. Get real. Most of the sports bars in Chicago change their decor before spring training and right after the playoffs. Benny’s still waiting for Bogey and Bacall to wander in.

I made a circle of the dance floor that never gets used and I could almost make out a few familiar faces through the fog that hung over the bar. If one more Marlboro had entered the fray the EPA would have had to list the place on its ten most-wanted list.

Nobody ever paid any attention to the No Smoking signs that Benny was forced to post. The day they went up Methel Ethel Withersby wrote: "if you want clean air stay out of here" on every one in red lipstick. Nobody noticed, but the graffiti turned grey in a week.

I laid my eyes into a rolling rove that turned up a glimpse of Benny. He had parked his bulky butt close to a meager group of sorta-regulars who were camped out under the ESPN sports ticker. I recognized most of the career losers. They were a corps of hard-lucks who were divvying up a pool of pocket change for an all out assault on the last trifecta.

Yeah. A dollar down and a quarter on the field.

I didn’t see anything in the way of semi-stiff competition outside of a slap-happy drunk who was blowing off about his forgotten ring career, but a woman’s shriek did put me onto the general direction of Benny’s basic complaint.

There was a swarthy, urban/suburban bunch who had set up a bivouac on the south side of the dance floor and the loud claim they had laid to Big Al’s booth had cleared most of the walk ins out of that area.

Al Capone never set foot in Benny’s place and from the looks of this crew, they didn’t belong there either. The leader registered as a face out of an old collar. His name was Edwardo "Something Very Latin" and he had brought along two testosterone junkies to act as his bodyguards.

Mr. Line was wearing a white linen suit that might have made him a real stand out in Saturday Night Fever and Mr. Backer was draped in about the same gag in green. Hired muscle. Both gorillas were swimming in machismo and had occupied themselves in a flex contest that threatened to tear the seams out of their "suits."

Edwardo showed a little more imagination. He had on a suit that was a cross between Billy Ekstein and Bill Blass, a custom piece of tailoring that must have set him back about a week’s worth of rations from the string of fillies that he had plying their charms over on Eighth Avenue.

The lone girl in the group proved to be more of a puzzler. She was done up in a creation that was as out of place in Ric’s as a golf cart on the dark side of the moon. An original Bob Mackie from hell. She had strung an orange leather sheath around her voluptuousness with enough crisscrossing straps to harness her ample assets into mounds of bounce and jiggle. She had the look of an arm decoration for a registered high roller, something you’d see looking bored at the baccarat tables in Atlantic City or patrolling the main salon in Monte Carlo.

Those were the flies that had to be shooed?

 

 

Chapter Three

Enter the Dragon

I wandered over to Benny and waited while he refereed a list of rule changes that the career losers wanted to lay down before they fell into the next trifecta. They were wasting their time on Benny. The only time he ever cuts anyone any slack is to get a better grip on the rope.

While I stood on the sidelines and counted the times that Benny shook his head at the career losers, Sid the bartender did his best to ignore my mountainous presence. Sid is a lousy bartender. He can’t mix anything. If it can’t be poured directly from a bottle into a glass, Sid simply forgets your order. I had to say shot six times before Sid tore his single digit attention span out of the sports page and looped a look in my direction.

"Yeaaaah!" Sid snorted, but he didn’t stop reading and he didn’t get my shot either.

So much for ambience inside of Ric’s.

Benny scarfed up the last of the loser’s pocket change and left the career losers to whine about the rules changes he wouldn’t make on account of them being such good customers. He caught sight of yours truly and limp-waddled over to where I was standing and during the trip he made some dig and pull adjustments to his shirt collar stays which were already stretched to three times the legal limit.

Coming out of the haze I could see that Benny was wearing "the tux". Benny is always wearing "the tux." Benny thinks he’s Bogart. With Benny, that takes a lot of imagination.

Benny combs his hair straight back like Bogart and wears a white tux like Bogart and even sucks on an occasional Bull Durham like Bogart, but Humphrey never weighed two-sixty, peeped at people through trifocals or spit on them when he got "ex-thi-ted".

Benny’s got to get a new dodge.

"Git ridda’ dem," Benny said, enunciating his lisp with a thumb toss in Edwardo’s direction. "Dey chased haf mah reglars off."

"What do you want them charged with?" I scoffed. "Unlawful assembly or abuse of polyester?"

"Jes trow dem out," Benny said.

I dropped another gander at the group to see if any reinforcements had arrived and gave some thought to a roust that might park the persona non grata in another establishment. Benny was into me for the better part of a seven-hundred dollar slide, but I didn’t feel like risking a round trip through the emergency room for the pittance he was willing to provide.

"Uh, there’s four of them," I pointed out.

Benny didn’t bite on the odds or the outrageous retainer that I dropped on the bar.

"Cunts dunt count," Benny said. "Juke’ em for yer jewsuel fee."

"Fifty!" I wailed. "Hell, for that you can cull de heat yourself."

Benny knew I wasn’t bluffing. I never do, so he made me a counter offer on the usual fee plus a week’s grace on the seven and a no-interest bye on the ass-end of the slide.

"Okay," I said. "But I’ll need a bar rag full of quarters."

Sid heard that. Benny watches the till like a cobra on a snake charmer’s flute and he wasn’t interested in covering any deficiencies that might arise out of my temporary amnesia.

"It’s otay," Benny said.

Sid doubled the rag over with enough quarters to cover a two hour clean at the local Laundromat and I secreted the surprise into my coat pocket before I drew down on Edwardo and company.

Edwardo had taken to amusing himself by dialing a wake up call into Ms. Bounce and Jiggles vulva and judging by the honey blonde’s reaction, blatant fondling was nothing new to her, in fact, she encouraged it and when the floor show started to gather a crowd, she tossed in a spread of her thighs as a lingering tribute to Sharon Stone.

So much for my feign of indifference.

"What are you gawking at?" Edwardo snarled.

"Well, hell," I said, getting a good grip on the quarters. "If Debbie’s gonna do Dallas, count me in for the ride."

Mr. Line didn’t like that retort and neither did Mr. Backer. They both came to their feet and kicked their chairs back for effect.

Jiggers.

Mr. Line led the charge sporting a set of matched brass knuckles. His first swing at me took a nick out of my chin, but before he could counter his roundhouse right with a follow up left, my bar rag/black jack slapped a full-scale fracture into his left cheek.

While Mr. Line did his impression of the Philadelphia Fish Flop on the dance floor, Mr. Backer leaped into the fray and emphasized his intentions with the business end of a nine-inch stiletto. He countered his first slash at me with a parry that tore the towel from my hand and sent twenty-seven fifty in quarters scuttling across the dance floor.

I caught a glimpse of Gary "the gaunt guy" as he scooped up the spare change and while he and the career losers fought over the spilled silver, Backer and I got on with round number two.

I don’t know much about Karate, but I have seen Enter the Dragon twenty-seven times. I didn’t pick up much from Bruce Lee, but I have been known to take a few tips off Dr. Scholl’s. I wear a pair of steel-toed wingtips and what they do to shins can only be compared to Bruce’s ah-so on pine.

I caught Backer with a goal kick that would have made Pele proud and finished him off with a punt that qualified him for the next open spot in the Vienna Boys choir, but his audition had caught me off guard and Edwardo made up for my lapse in concentration by planting a fist into my kidney that should have seen me pissing blood for a week.

Unfortunately for Edwardo he hadn’t counted on pasting a hard right into my flak jacket liner and after he broke all of his knuckles his wrist followed suit with a shatter in sixteen places.

Edwardo’s screams started to get on my nerves, so before he broke both my eardrums, I decided to let him join the rest of the crew in a careful review of Lamaze breathing techniques. A quick right uppercut coupled with a whistling left hook put him out of his misery and earned me a staggering standing ovation from the drunks that were strung out along the bar.

"God, that was great," I heard Ms. Bounce and Jiggle say. "Come on, give me some. I can take it. I can take anything you can dish out."

I gave Benny a genuine dumbfounded which he answered in an off handed shrug.

"Ga-ahad," he said. "Ya like Smit Barney. Ya earned it."

Who was I to argue with Wall Street.

Copyright© 2003 Robert D. Bennett