Smoke and Mirrors (Goosey Larsen Book 2), page 7
We crept up King Street together until we finally hooked that left turn onto Spring. It was the first time all night that I’d actually made it into the target area, and I found myself nervous. Even though the chances were miniscule that I’d actually see someone setting a fire while on the detail, the odds did increase with every second I hung around. Jim must have been thinking along those same lines, because he stomped down hard on the gas pedal. We only slowed up for half a second as we ran the next two red lights, and in under a minute we were safe once again. Our two cars pulled into Taco Bell in unison, my front bumper only inches off Jim’s rear.
Jim hopped out of his cruiser and barreled up towards the entrance just as quickly as those hammy legs of his could manage. Whatever crazy side effects his new girlfriend might have been having on him, it sure didn’t seem like she was hurting his appetite any. I knew that Jim must have been positively starving since we pulled in at the Bell instead of driving another mile to his usual spot, the Waffle House. Usually, whenever a group of detectives would make lunch plans to eat at Taco Bell or any other Mexican restaurant, Big Jim would just launch into a spiel about how all the illegal wetbacks are killing this country. He’s probably right, although I personally try to steer clear of political discussions. The way I see it, anybody who can sell a quality chalupa for only ninety-nine cents is okay by me.
Big Jim flipped out his wallet and thumbed loose a single twenty dollar note, the bill folded so tight that the creases could have inflicted paper cuts. There’s no way of knowing how long that bill had been squirreled away in there, but I swear I saw Andrew Jackson blinking uncomfortably from the restaurant’s bright fluorescent overhead lighting. The cash register was unmanned when we walked inside, just a few minutes on the short side of one o’clock, although there was a skinny high school kid bent over a floor mop on the far side of the lobby. Jim spotted him first and called, “Hey Pepe! Over here!”
The kid glanced at his watch before looking up at us, both hands still gripping that mop. “Officer, you know we’re closing in five minutes, right?”
Big Jim snorted up a wad of phlegm, then swallowed it right back down. I could tell he’d been about to spit on the floor, but had caught himself just in time. No sense giving the hired help any ideas about what to do to our dinners, you know? “Well” Jim said, “Looks like we got here just in the nick of time, didn’t we boy? Now get over here and ring us up.”
The kid’s face flushed bright red. It was actually a good look for him, since it filled in the blank spots between his acne. He hustled over to the counter, slipping and sliding his way across the wet floor. Once his feet were firmly planted behind the register, he wiped his greasy teenaged hands on a towel and dutifully recited, “Welcome to Taco Bell, how can I help you?”
“Give me five soft tacos, a large Diet Coke, and a quesadilla.” Jim pronounced the last word with a hard ‘L’ like ‘armadillo,’ impressing me with his near-fluency in Spanish. He slapped the twenty down hard on the counter, then hooked a grubby thumb back toward me. “Plus whatever my date wants.”
I scanned the menu board quickly, just in case there’d been any changes since I’d visited the week before. The kid crossed his arms and gave me an impatient glare from behind the safety of the counter, so I came to a decision quickly. “Make it a taco salad and a Coke.”
Big Jim shot me a look of disgust. “The hell? A salad? You going soft on me, Goosey?”
“Just trying to keep my girlish figure, boss.” I patted my hand against my sagging belly, grinning. “You never know, there might be a special someone out there for me as well.”
Normally, I couldn’t stand the taste of salads. Something about the wet texture of all those slimy pieces of lettuce and chopped vegetables never failed to turn my stomach, but that night I’d started thinking about my health. The way I saw it, it’d be a lot easier to spot a fat blob of disgruntled employee spit on top of a pile of lettuce than buried way down underneath several layers of melted cheese. That’s the only bad thing about Mexican food, the way those people always serve everything wrapped up tight. Unless you actually open your order and poke through everything before digging in, you’ll never be certain that some cook didn’t see fit to add in an extra helping of the old special sauce.
Big Jim rubbed his own gut self-consciously. He was chewing his lip the way he always did when he was thinking, and I knew he must have been regretting his huge order. The cashier’s scratchy voice broke through his moment of reflection. “That’ll be seven forty-six, Officer.”
Jim’s veins bulged as both eyes flew open in a rage. “Seven forty-six?!” He examined the kid suspiciously with his lazy eye. “Just how long have you been working here anyway, Chico?”
The kid’s face flushed again as he started stammering. I tell you what, it was just as well that he seemed pretty handy with the mop, because they’d have to be crazy to let him work the drive-thru speaker with that stutter. The kid mumbled something unintelligible, speaking down into his shirt collar.
Big Jim let out a roar. “Pipe up, son!” He smacked both palms down flat on the counter and leaned his bulk forward in menacing fashion.
The kid gulped. “Five days now, Officer.” His Adam’s apple was doing this little quivering act, bobbing up and down like a yo-yo on a string, and for a minute it actually looked like he was about to cry. I crossed my fingers and prayed that he’d be able to hold off on the waterworks, at least until after my food was ready.
Jim’s face softened as he chalked the incident up to a simple rookie mistake. “Son, you mean to tell me that you ain’t never heard of the police discount?” He leaned up on his toes and craned his neck to look past the kitchen, back towards the tiny office space. “Where’s Esmerelda? She the manager tonight?”
The kid sniffled, wiping his nose into his sleeve. “She left a little while ago. It’s just me and the cook here for closing.”
Big Jim reached across the counter to pat the kid’s shoulder. “It’s all right, boy, you’re new. We’ve all had a first day.” He reached down to tap in a sequence of buttons and even working upside down, it seemed like he knew the keyboard pretty darn well for a guy who claimed he was too good to eat at the Bell. “See, when you ring up the sale you normally hit ‘Take Out’ and then ‘Total,’ got that? But next, make sure to hit the “Promotion” button so that the entire sale rings up at half off. Now that’s for police officers only, understand? Firemen and EMS weenies pay full price.”
Another kid, the cook apparently, walked our food up from the kitchen in a matching pair of brown paper sacks. Jim unrolled the top of his, pulled out a steaming soft taco and downed half of it in a single bite. The quick influx of ground beef seemed to calm his nerves, and we waited patiently for the cashier to fix his mistake.
“Okay…make that three seventy-three, sir.” The kid slid the twenty into the register gradually, with no sudden movements, almost as if he was expecting one of Jim’s huge paws to come slamming down on top of his. Jim managed to keep his bearing during the transaction, although it clearly pained him to part with such a large sum of money. His right cheek twitched nervously, although when he stuffed the other half of the taco into his jaw it fixed that problem. Even with a police discount, spending money still gave Jim a nervous tic, probably a result of all his chumming around with Abbie Rothschild. Jim balled up the waxy silver wrapper, crushing it so fiercely that his hands turned white. He still looked pretty tense, not exhaling until the cashier came back up with his change.
The kid stacked a few coins on top of the bills. He pushed them across the counter, as if trying to avoid making direct contact with Jim’s hand, and my boss had no choice but to unclench his fists in order to take his money. He snatched it up as the taco wrapper fell at our feet, scattering bits of shredded cheese and lettuce across the freshly mopped floor.
Jim counted his change twice. Once he was fully satisfied with the accuracy of the mop artist’s tenth-grade math, he folded the bills and slid them deep into his wallet. I hoped that both George Washington and Honest Abe Lincoln had gotten a good look at the outside world, because that was probably the last daylight they’d see in a good long while. The coins were a different story, though. Jim shuffled them around in his palm, making that quarter jingle against the two pennies. There was one of those charity donation jars on the counter, complete with a sympathy plea from kids crippled with some terrible disease or other. This sad black and white photo of a skinny little Cambodian runt teetering on a set of rickety crutches must have really gotten to him, because he dropped two pennies in the can before pocketing the quarter. Clogged arteries notwithstanding, Jim’s got a soft heart.
We grabbed our food and shuffled back out into the parking lot as the cashier raced over to lock the door behind us, definitely moving quicker than he had when we walked in. I leaned back against the hood of my cruiser, opened my bag and realized that while I’d snatched up ten packets of hot sauce, I’d forgotten to grab a single spork. The floodlights cut off just a second later, so I figured there was no chance in hell they’d be willing to open the door back up for me. One of those nights, I guess.
Jim squeezed back into his cruiser and pulled the door shut with a slam. He held another soft taco between his teeth while he fished the keys out of his pockets. “Where you headed, boss?” I asked. ”The night is still young!”
Big Jim finally came up with the ignition key and started the engine. He threw the cruiser into gear as he wolfed down the half of the taco that had been dangling from his mouth. It took him a couple of massive chews before he could make all that beef disappear, but somehow he managed. Afterward, he wiped his mouth clean with an old beach towel he always kept sitting on the passenger seat, one that was faded and fraying. “Taking it to the house, Goosey” he said. “You guys seem to have everything under control out here, so I’m confident you’ll be okay. There’s no reason for me to stay out till two bells. I’d just be in your way.” Jim leaned his neck out the window and pointed up towards the night sky, where the thick clouds were blackening overhead. The first fat drop of rain spattered down across his windshield. “And besides, the chances of a fire happening tonight are less than zero, so I’ll see you in the funny pages, kid!”
I stepped back and watched as he cranked up his window and drove off into the sunset. My appetite was officially shot, so I dropped the salad bowl down to the asphalt and ducked into the safety of my own cruiser. It miraculously started up on the first try, although the instrument panel gave off a bright orange glow as the “Check Engine” warning light flashed with a sense of urgency. I eased off the brake, then gently coasted the car back towards the station. There wasn’t a single officer hanging around the back parking lot, so I figured it was safe for me to turn in my fraudulent field interview cards. It was a fast trip but I was still walking on eggshells the entire time, half expecting Captain Russell to jump out of a doorway and catch me in the act of going home early. I kept an ear out for the sound of tiny feet marching, and no sooner than I’d remembered where to turn in my paperwork I was hightailing it back to the parking lot. In a last-minute act of generosity that Scooter Jones really didn’t deserve, I even pulled his Caprice around to our garage and filled out a repair slip before pulling out all of my gear.
The clouds were really starting to look menacing on the drive home. I kept one eye on the weather as I sailed across the James Island Connector and with nearly perfect timing, managed to hustle in the front door just as the sky opened up. My boots ended up on the hallway floor, I shed my uniform and gun belt somewhere in the kitchen, and with a huge sigh I fell into bed in record time. Not two minutes had passed before I was out cold, lost in that peaceful slumber that only comes after a hard day’s work.
SUNDAY
A lifetime on the streets of Charleston had conditioned the weathered black man not to scare easily, but the phone’s loud ringtone still caught him off guard. This was mostly because he was bent over, leaning inside the broken passenger window of a car that didn’t belong to him. He opened the car’s door, sat down on the leather seat and punched out the bright dome light, then rummaged through his raggy clothes trying to find and silence the cell phone before the chirping noise could attract any unwanted attention. As he flipped it open, he said, “Yeah. Who dis’?”
A laugh on the other end of the line. “Myron, I was the one who gave you this phone, remember? Who else has your number?”
The black man snorted. “True. What you need, boss?”
“Well for starters, I need you to be more careful! You’re getting sloppy. I can’t emphasize this enough, you have to be absolutely sure that the houses are empty before you go to work. No one should get hurt for this project.”
Myron spotted a flash of light as an approaching set of headlamps reflected off a storefront window. Could it be a Ford Crown Victoria, late model? He squinted to get a better look. As the car approached, the lights grew bigger and he was able to relax again as a Honda Accord pulled up to the stoplight. He resumed picking through the glove box, but halfheartedly now that a much bigger payday was on the line. He peeked up at the Accord’s driver and saw it was a white boy, but college aged and sporting a goatee. Probably going home after closing up at some restaurant, no chance he was an undercover detective with all that facial hair. “Sorry ‘bout that” Myron said. “Th’ house looked empty from th’street.”
The voice sighed. “Well, what’s done is done, no use worrying about it now. Just please, be more careful in the future.”
A thick smile crossed Myron’s chapped and cracked lips. “In the future?”
Laughter. “You’ve still got a lot of work to do, young man. I need another three properties, preferably by the end of the month. Oh, and try to make one of them a duplex, would you?”
“Duplex? Wha’s that?”
His employer sighed with impatience. “A multi-family house. Two apartments, standing side by side but both part of the same building.”
Myron scratched his chin. “Two apartments? So that gone be double pay, right?”
“Not quite, but you think like a true businessman. I’ll tell you what: Get me three more good ones and I’ll make sure Santa puts a little something extra in your stocking.”
“Ho muthafuckin’ ho. Christmas is still three months away, so wha’ you got for Thans’giving?”
“The usual, but if you need more advance money than usual, that’s fine. Hell, Myron, you’ve earned it. I wish all my employees worked as hard as you.”
“Tha’s what I like to hear. When you wanna meet?”
“Tomorrow, five o’clock. Same place as always.”
Myron slammed the glove box shut without bothering to see if it held anything worth stealing inside. “Sho’ thing” he said, pulling himself up and out of the car. “See you then.”
6.
There’s absolutely nothing better than sleeping in on a Sunday morning, and that’s especially true if you’re not hung over. Since sobriety had become a rare condition for me, I was in no particular hurry to rush out of bed. I rolled around in the sheets for a good couple hours after the sun had risen, just staring up at the wobbly ceiling fan and savoring my laziness. Even the thought of having to work later that day couldn’t bother me, since that moment of truth when I’d have to shave and shower and pull on the polyester slave suit was still nearly eight full hours away. Gradually, though, the call of nature increased in volume. When it finally escalated into a full-on scream, I had no choice but to shake off my bedsheets and shuffle to the bathroom.
Apparently I’d overlooked the tube of lipstick that Katie had left behind on the sink, so after I’d dumped it in the wastebasket I made sure to scrub my hands completely, using soap and everything. After a couple quick circuits around the apartment, once I was positive there was no more debris hiding anywhere, I finally allowed myself to let out a deep breath. Maybe I’ve got the obsessive-compulsive disorder or maybe it’s just that my prostate gland is growing bigger every year, but it seems that I’m simply unable to go pee unless my environment is completely in order. It’s a question of relaxation, I guess. But anyway, after flushing I wiped my hands clean on the back of my briefs and made a beeline for the kitchen.
The sun outside was high in the sky, and its light was doing its best to sneak in through the blinds. I tried to ignore it while I rifled through the cabinets, foraging for food with all the intensity of a grizzly bear fresh out of hibernation. The shelves were mostly empty except for one lonely box of Froot Loops, jammed way in the back. I took it down, peeked inside and saw that it was half-full, and thankfully clear of cockroaches as well. Over at the refrigerator, I crossed my fingers and opened the door to find a quart carton of milk staring back at me. It was only about a week out of date but still smelled okay, so at the very least I had both lunch and dinner covered.
I cracked the front door to glance outside. No one was moving across the parking lot, so it seemed as if the coast was clear. With nothing on but a pair of flip flops and my tighty whiteys, I hustled out to the curb as I rotated my neck in all directions to make sure no one saw me, although I’m not really sure why I was concerned about modesty. One of the only good things about living in an apartment complex is that you never have to worry about offending anyone since my neighbors are almost all college-age kids or retired senior citizens. The college kids would’ve probably laughed and let out a wolf whistle if they saw me sprinting past in my skivvies but hell, they’re just as likely to do the same thing. I mean, I’ve seen more than a few of them heading off to early morning classes in their pajamas. And as far as the geezers? Well, I figured I was safe since most of them can’t see that well without their bifocals.
