Bingo Barge Murder (19 page)

The woman raised her arm and pointed over the top of the refrigerated case. “My crawfish. You throw on floor. You break, you buy.”

We stared up at the woman.

“I’m not paying you a damn dime.” Pudge’s voice cracked with anger, or maybe frustration. “It was your fucking wet floor—”

“Ten dollars,” she interrupted, her voice rising.

I couldn’t help but try to peek around the edge of the case. Pudge stood next to the tank, his head, right shoulder, and right arm were soaked, dripping water on the floor. A nasty lump with a ragged, raw cut adorned one side of his face. Two crawfish lay belly up on the tile by his feet. A third one dangled from the sleeve of his jacket.

Before anyone could say another word, Vincent burst into the store and stopped short when he caught sight of Pudge and his new friends. “What the hell happened to you?”

Pudge’s head whipped from Granny Glasses to Vincent and back. I struggled to remain silent. Eddy scooched around behind me, elbowing me in the side, wanting to get an angle on the action. I tried to wave her away, afraid she’d lean out too far.

Water continued to dribble in an ever-growing puddle around Pudge. “I was checking in here when I slipped on some goddamn water and fell into that fucking tank.” His face turned redder as each word popped from his mouth. He shook his fist at Granny. “I coulda drowned. I should sue your sorry—”

“Ten dollars.” The woman’s face remained impassive as she interrupted him again.

With a grimace of disgust, Vincent grabbed Pudge by the dry arm and yanked him toward the exit. “For Christ’s sake, come on. We gotta find those two.” His voice faded as they made a left out the door and headed down the corridor, leaving a trail of water in their wake. After a couple of seconds, the crawfish that clung tenaciously to Pudge came flying into the shop, bounced off the glass display case, and hit the floor with a juicy splat.

Granny silently watched as Eddy and I rose and dusted ourselves off.

“Thanks for not giving us away,” I said.

“Yeah, you’re a good duck, even with that snot rag stuck on your head,” Eddy said, grinning at Granny.

My mouth fell open. The scary shopkeeper had effectively saved our necks, and Eddy complimented and insulted her in the same breath.

I grabbed Eddy and backed toward the door, not sure what Granny might do. The heel of my shoe came down on one of the lost crawfish with an unsatisfying, squishy crunch.

I shook my shoe, trying to dislodge the gooey remains.

Granny crossed her arms under her drooping chest. She gave us the evil eye, daring us to make another move. “Fifteen bucks.”

“But—”

“Inflation,” Granny said.

After coughing up the dough, we skirted the main thoroughfare and made our second bid for freedom. We hustled into the parking lot without further trouble, passing two uniformed cops and a number of security guards who looked like they were on a mission. I hoped they were on the hunt for the two mobsters.

JT and Coop leaned against my pickup with Dawg perched on his haunches between them. As soon as they saw us running toward them, Coop called out, “What’s wrong?” Cigarette smoke plumed from his nostrils and he reminded me of a bull exhaling in the icy air of winter.

JT headed for the passenger side. “Are you two okay?”

“Get in!” I yanked the driver’s door open. Coop flicked his cigarette to the pavement and scrambled into the back seat. Dawg hopped into the rear with him.

Eddy stopped a few feet behind me, in full brakes-on mode. “What in hell is that beast?”

“Eddy, it’s okay, it’s Dawg.” Don’t get stubborn on me now, I prayed. I looked over her shoulder for any sign of Vincent and Pudge.

“That—that monster is your dog?”

I began to sweat. “Come on Eddy, it’s okay. He won’t hurt you, I promise. You like dogs.”

Eddy’s tennis shoes didn’t budge. “I thought you got one of them poodle dogs, not some—some monstrous mutt!”

This was not the time to debate the relative size of the newest member of our family. After some swift cajoling, we were on the move. Most of Dawg’s front end was wedged between JT and me while somehow, Coop, the latter half of Dawg, and Eddy managed to cram into the back seat.

I peeled out onto Lake Street and headed for the freeway, watching for a tail.

JT said, “What in the hell happened back there? And what is that smell?”

A fishy odor wafted through the cab. Apparently I didn’t get all the squashed crawfish guts out of the grooves in the bottom of my shoe. Dawg swiped his tongue around his lolling lips. Dead fish was probably a favorite snack.

“Ding and Ling spotted us,” Eddy said, excitement still evident in her voice.

“Pudge fell right into the crawfish pond.” I said, my words tripping over each other in the after-rush of adrenaline.

“What?” Coop asked.

I said, “We ducked into a fish stand, hid behind one of the display cases—”

“And the snot rag lady—”

“Eddy!” I said.

“I wasn’t the one who stuffed a used tissue under glasses I stuck on my forehead instead of on my eyeballs.”

I eyed Eddy through the rear-view mirror. “The storekeeper at the fish place used her forehead for an eyeglass holder, and used the bridge of the glasses for stashing her Kleenex. Anyway—”

“She didn’t rat us out to Ding and Ling,” Eddy finished for me. “Then we snuck out of there and here we are!” Eddy punctuated the end of the tale with a nod and crossed her arms with a satisfied humph. She sat like that for a moment and then leaned forward. “Where are we going?”

“Vincent and Pudge are in the market? Right now?” JT whipped out her cell.

“Yeah, maybe. They were, at any rate.” I weaved through a pack of cars.

“Jesus,” she said. I could sense her eyes rolling skyward as she punched buttons on her phone. She was soon relaying information to The Powers That Be on the other end of the connection.

“Hope you get those two goof bats,” Eddy told JT once she’d hung up. “And hello! Where are we going?”

I said, “We have to get the nuts and spring Rocky.”

The blank expression on Eddy’s face reminded me we needed to catch her up on the traumatic events of the past day. She sure took being kidnapped in stride. I breathed deep and wished for a double Fuzzy Navel as I launched into it.

“So,” Eddy said once we’d concluded. “You found a dead body, stole a dog—”

“Not stole,” Coop said. “He followed us.”

Eddy waved her hand. “Semantics, child. Now, where was I? The body, the dog. Shay, you impersonated a warehouse inspector, you two stole a truck full of almonds after preying on the kindness of that poker buddy of your father’s, and you have a police officer who is sitting right here instead of hauling you both to jail. Gotta love that!” Her smile faded. “And Buzz and Rita have Rocky. Damn.”

After JT picked up
her car from the Denny’s parking lot, she followed us the rest of the way to the cabin. She’d shadowed us because she claimed she wanted to be sure we made it okay, especially since Vincent and Pudge were still unaccounted for. I didn’t know if it was duty she felt or if she really just didn’t trust us and wanted to keep her eye on things.

Everyone piled out and we scattered, JT and me to walk Dawg, Eddy to use the bathroom, and Coop to smoke. Thankfully the truck and container of nuts remained where we’d parked it.

With Dawg on a leash, I wandered away from the house, over scruffy leaf- and twig-laden ground to a pint-sized beach that lay directly in front of the house. JT trudged along behind us. Dawg pulled hard on the leash, no doubt wanting to take a swim. I didn’t want to deal with a soggy mongrel, so I kept a tight grip. We came to a stop on wave-rippled sand a few feet away from the water’s edge. Dawg got over his momentary pout at not being able to take a dip and nosed around the weeds growing on the bank.

The lake spread out in front of us, maybe half a mile across and a quarter mile wide. Ripples in the water sparkled in the sun.

I said, “JT, what exactly did you mean about working on the bingo situation, and that Kinky was a small fish?”

For a moment I wondered if she’d heard me. She breathed deeply, and then shifted to face me as she exhaled. The sunlight caught subtle, reddish highlights in her dark hair, and her eyes were obsidian. Her face was impassive, but a crease right between her brows implied conflicted emotions.

“I … we, I mean Tyrell and I, have been working in conjunction with the FBI for some time on Mafia infiltration in the Twin Cities.” Her gaze left my face and fastened on something over my shoulder. “We’ve been investigating gambling venues for traces of organized crime. We’ve mostly come up empty except for Stanley Anderson and Pig’s Eye Bingo. Mr. Anderson apparently owes—or I suppose I should say,
owed
—a hefty sum to the New Jersey Massioso crime family.” She crossed her arms as if warding off a chill. “We think the Family put pressure on Anderson to start laundering some of their dirty money through the bingo operation.”

“So you’ve been, like, casing the barge?”

“We’ve had our sights on Kinky for over a year. We were about to close down his operation when we realized something more was going on beyond dirty money. Theodore Mahoney—Pudge, to you—and Vincent Ragozzi are hanging onto their Family membership by an extremely thin thread. This nut deal was the last chance to hold onto their status in the Family, and maybe onto their lives.”

“But what’s the big deal about a load of nuts? Is it the nuts themselves they want or is it the symbolic act of following though on the deal?”

“No idea. But they’re absolutely desperate, and that seems to indicate a whole lot more’s going on than a simple case of stolen almonds. That’s why I hung around the other night. I just knew you all
were in trouble—”

“But Coop—”

“Shay, we just wanted to talk to him. Like I told you before, we didn’t think he was involved in the murder, but we have to cover all bases. He could have overheard something that didn’t seem important but might have broken the case for us. Or not.”

I could’ve kicked myself. If we’d come clean in the first place, none of this might have happened. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

JT put a finger under my chin and forced me to meet her eyes. I did so, reluctantly. “What’s done is done. We have to figure out what happens now. This time we have a solid opportunity to nab Pudge and Vincent and round up Buzz and Rita and free your friend.”

My mouth went dry and I swallowed hard, struggling for composure on a number of levels. Dawg’s rope suddenly jerked and nearly yanked me off my feet, effectively disrupting the emotion of the moment. Dawg fussed and whined as he tried to bully his way toward a huge old maple tree in pursuit of a couple of frisky squirrels.

JT stared at me a moment longer with those dark eyes, then looked away and took a breath.

“You make me crazy,” I said, my voice low. Both my hands were now on Dawg’s leash.

“Let’s not even go there. Jesus. I just can’t think when you get too close.”

A rakish grin spread across my face, but I remained prudently silent as I took a step away from JT and wondered why that confession pleased me so much.

_____

After Dawg had his fill of squirrel chasing (which didn’t take more than five minutes since all wildlife fled the vicinity as soon as he lumbered up to the tree), we regrouped in the living room with Eddy and Coop.

Eddy said, “Why you don’t get ’em together in some rock pit—isn’t that where stuff like that always happens?—and shoot ’em all!” She banged one fist on the coffee table. “’Specially Ding and Ling. Shameful, trussing an old lady up like that.”

I suppressed a grin and watched JT’s reaction to Eddy’s outburst. Her face remained passive, but the twinkle in her eye was unmistakable.

JT said, “Tell me again when you’re supposed to turn the truck over to Rita and company.”

I checked my watch. “At four this afternoon. It’s noon now.” I suppressed a yawn and rubbed my eyes. The scant hours of sleep were catching up with me. We’d been running hot on guts and adrenaline and I was just about tapped out. Again. “I’m glad we brought that damn nut truck up here, off everyone’s radar. Maybe we can crash for just a little—”

JT’s cell rang, interrupting me. She answered it, and as she listened, her face tightened. Eyes that had softened were once again remote. She hung up and said, “Sorry to do this to you, but I have to head back. One of my informants in an unrelated case was just found in an alley, and he’s barely alive, so—” She trailed off as she patted her pockets then pulled out her keys.

“Go,” I said. “We’ll meet up with you and Detective Johnson at two at the Rabbit Hole.”

“Okay. You all be very careful.” For a brief second, JT locked her gaze on me and then disappeared out the door.

We decided to eat something and heated up some old frozen dinners that were stashed in the freezer while we caught the end of the twelve o’clock news. Pudge and Vincent’s antics had not yet hit the airwaves.

My cell vibrated. I set my barely eaten chicken fettuccine on the coffee table and snatched the phone off my belt. The Rabbit Hole phone number flashed on the tiny screen. I stood, flipping it open as I strode into the kitchen in search of something to wash the fettuccine down.

“Shay?” Kate’s voice sounded unusually high pitched. “We have a couple of—visitors—here. They, uh, want to talk to you.”

My heart rate picked up and the couple bites of fettuccine in my stomach turned to shards of glass. “Who?”

“They didn’t give me their names but assured me you’d know who they were.” Her voice sounded more constricted by the moment, like she was about to burst into tears. “They have guns. They said they want the goods right now. What goods?” Her voice rose higher. “They said they’d cut off my fingers and once they were done with my hands, if they didn’t get what they wanted they’d start on my toes.” She made a panicked, strangled sound.

“Oh shit.” I paced around the kitchen table, one hand on the top of my head. Pudge and Vincent were pissed and deadly, like a couple of rattlesnakes who had their tails stepped on.

“Where are they right now?”

“Eddy’s living room. They closed up the café and now they’re drinking lattes they forced me to make.” Then she whispered fiercely, but so quietly I could hardly hear, “I hope they choke.” Kate was on the brink, but I was relieved to hear she still had some fight in her.

“Let me talk to them.” I stopped pacing and grabbed onto the back slat of one of the kitchen chairs for support.

Grumbling sounds bled through the receiver, and then Vincent said, “Listen, bitch. We’re through fucking around. We want the nuts and the tape. Now. No, actually sooner than now. Every ten minutes you aren’t here with our stuff your sassy little helper loses a finger.”

It would take at least forty-five minutes on a good day with no traffic to get to the Rabbit Hole, probably closer to an hour. At that rate, Kate would be missing all the slim appendages off one hand and they’d be starting in on the other.

Play for time. “I’m at least an hour and a half away.”

I heard a sharp intake of air and then a disgusted sigh. “Christ. You got an hour. Then little Miss Barista here’ll be whipping up those fancy drinks single-handed. And if we see any cops, she’s dead. Dead with a capital D!” Vincent roared the last part into the receiver. I heard Kate scream, and then he disconnected, leaving me staring at my phone. With great effort I suppressed a sudden urge to slam it against the wall.