Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund (14 page)
Read Duplicity Dogged the Dachshund Online
Authors: Blaize Clement
I
slept hard until four o’clock, when the alarm went off, and woke knowing I’d felt safer with Paco in the living room. I hit the alarm and stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, trying to be quiet so Paco could sleep. But when I had brushed teeth and hair, pulled on clean shorts and a T, and laced up fresh white Keds, Paco was up and at the door waiting for me.
slept hard until four o’clock, when the alarm went off, and woke knowing I’d felt safer with Paco in the living room. I hit the alarm and stumbled down the hall to the bathroom, trying to be quiet so Paco could sleep. But when I had brushed teeth and hair, pulled on clean shorts and a T, and laced up fresh white Keds, Paco was up and at the door waiting for me.
He said, “You have your gun?”
“Sure. Oh, wait, I forgot my keys.”
I did a U-turn back to the closet to retrieve the client keys from the floor safe. I knelt in the corner of my closet and pulled up the loose floor tile. I opened the top of the floor safe and then leaped backward, screaming. I collided with Paco in the closet door, and for a second we did a crazed dance while I tried to get past him and he tried to come in.
Then he looked over my shoulder and yelled, “Holy shit!”
A pygmy rattler had slithered out of the floor safe and was streaking toward us like lightning.
Paco began running, pulling me with him. I didn’t need any help, I was moving fast.
Pygmy rattlers are aggressive and mean, especially when they’ve been confined in a tiny space like my floor safe. Their venom can be lethal, or it can cause you to lose a foot or a hand. The snake was dark gray, about twenty-five
inches long, with a thick body, distinctive triangular head, and dark blotches along a reddish brown stripe running down the center of its back. It was pissed, its rattles sounded like a bumblebee.
inches long, with a thick body, distinctive triangular head, and dark blotches along a reddish brown stripe running down the center of its back. It was pissed, its rattles sounded like a bumblebee.
Paco and I raced for the living room sofa and climbed on it. We watched the floor for the snake, which didn’t appear. My heart was lurching crazily, and I kept remembering the folk myth that snakes always travel in pairs. But this snake hadn’t traveled on its own, it had been placed in my floor safe while Paco and I were eating sushi.
After a while, I sat down on the arm of the couch. “I don’t hear it, do you?”
He sat down on the other arm and listened. “No. What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I guess it means it’s not shaking its tail.”
“But it could be lying in wait.”
“Yeah. What’re you going to do?”
“What do you mean, what am I going to do? I’m not a snake handler!”
“Maybe you could just run in the closet and get my keys so I can go take care of my pets. Then you could call somebody to come get it.”
He gave me a round white-eyed glare.
“If it comes in here, I’ll shoot the son-of-a-bitch, but I’m not going in that closet.”
Paco spent his life infiltrating mobs and gangs ruled by vicious killers. He went into situations that would make the Terminator pee himself, but he seemed about as freaked by the snake as I was.
“Sissy.”
“Shit, Dixie.”
“Michael would get it.”
“Michael’s a fucking fireman. Snakes don’t bother him.”
We sat morosely for a couple of minutes, and then Paco stood up and gave me a desperate look.
“I’m going in there and get your keys, Dixie. But I swear if that snake bites me—”
I gave him a tremulous smile and a perky thumbs-up.
He took long strides, setting his feet down as quietly as he could, and disappeared from view. In a few seconds I heard a metallic jingle and Paco came sprinting back, carrying my key ring.
He climbed back on the couch and said, “You owe me big-time, Dixie.”
“I do.”
He dropped the keys in my open palm. I tried not to think about snake spit on them.
Paco said, “Okay, go walk your dogs. I’ll call somebody to come get the damned snake.”
I stood up on the sofa and gave him a cautious hug, both of us nervously watching the floor. I took my gun out of my pocket, slid off the end of the sofa, and scurried to the French doors, anxiously waiting while the hurricane shutters folded upward.
As I opened the doors, Paco said, “Dixie? You understand what this means, don’t you?”
“I understand, Paco.”
“Okay. I love you, kid.”
I smiled at him. “Me too.”
The sky was taking on the pearly sheen of false dawn, and a sleepy sea was halfheartedly lapping at the shoreline. A few mourning doves were beginning to check their voices to see if they still worked, and some early-waking cranes were stalking along the beach looking for breakfast. I said a silent good morning to the day and clattered down the stairs to my Bronco.
When I got to the end of the long curvy drive and turned north onto Midnight Pass Road, an unmarked car that had been parked on the shoulder pulled behind me. I would have been scared if it hadn’t been such a nondescript car. No self-respecting murderer would drive a car like that. Guidry must have assigned a deputy to follow me. He wasn’t making any effort to be invisible either, so the department wanted me to know I was being guarded. I gave a sentimental gulp until I realized that it wasn’t just for my safety that Guidry wanted me tailed. I was like a little fish
around a killer whale. Conrad Ferrelli’s killer was after me. If the cops followed little me, they had a better chance of catching big dangerous him.
around a killer whale. Conrad Ferrelli’s killer was after me. If the cops followed little me, they had a better chance of catching big dangerous him.
At the Sea Breeze, the tail pulled into a space at the far corner of the lot and waited while I ran with Billy Elliot. When I left the Sea Breeze, it left too, staying about half a block behind. It was with me for the rest of the morning, dropping farther back as traffic began to move on Midnight Pass Road, always parking well away from the site I went to. After a while I sort of forgot about it. I followed my usual routine, zigzagging back and forth between the Gulf side and the bay side of Midnight Pass Road, either to a condo on the main thoroughfare or down a short tree-lined lane to a private home.
I was on a lanai pulling my slicker brush through an American shorthair’s gray coat when I realized the full significance of the snake in my safe. The safe had originally been installed to hold valuables like jewelry or money, but since I didn’t have any valuables, I used it as a kind of unlocked fireproof holder of important papers. The person who put the snake in the safe had wanted to let me know he was familiar with my apartment and its secrets.
I finished grooming the cat and set him on the floor; then I pulled out my cell phone and called Paco. The phone rang several times before he answered, and his voice sounded breathless.
He said, “They’re here now—the snake guys. They’ve got him.”
I said, “Paco, before they leave, have them pull my bed out from the wall. There’s a drawer on that side of the bed. Ask them to open the drawer, but tell them to do it carefully.”
There was a pregnant silence on the other end of the line. Then I heard Paco’s muffled voice as he held the phone to his chest and called to the men in my apartment. I waited. In a minute or two the line became clear, and I heard thundering footsteps and shouts in the background.
A man yelled, “Use the hook! Use the hook! Goddamn it, use the hook!”
Somebody else laughed, and another man yelled, “Wahoo!”
Paco said, “Sweet Jesus.”
I said, “I slept on top of rattlesnakes last night, didn’t I?”
“Just one.”
“Are you standing on the couch?”
“You bet your sweet ass.”
“Are the guns still in the compartment?”
He held the phone to his chest again and yelled a question, then came back to me.
“They say there are three guns in Styrofoam niches. A nine-millimeter Glock, a Colt three-fifty-seven, and a Smith and Wesson thirty-two.”
A cold shiver ran up my spine. The gun drawer hadn’t exactly been a secret, but I hadn’t told anybody about it, not even Michael or Paco.
He said, “Those were Todd’s personals, weren’t they?”
“The Glock and the Colt were. The thirty-two is mine.”
Paco’s voice was grim. “I’ll have them check every inch of the place, Dixie.”
I said, “More than likely they won’t find anything. Somebody just wanted me to know I don’t have any secrets.”
There was more shouting in the background, and Paco began speaking in a rush.
“Michael just got home, Dixie. He’s a little bit—uh, rabid. I’ll call you later.”
He clicked off, and I grimaced in sympathy for him. Every man gets in a bad mood when he feels that he’s failed to protect his loved ones. When Michael gets in a bad mood, he’s like Godzilla on steroids. I was glad I wasn’t there to hear it.
I pressed the hang-up button on my phone. Now the phone showed only two batteries on its screen. As if I didn’t have enough stress, my stupid phone was nagging me to charge it. You’d think some electronic wizard could design a battery-free phone so our lives wouldn’t be controlled
by little passive-aggressive boxes and their blinking demands.
by little passive-aggressive boxes and their blinking demands.
I told the cat good-bye, gathered up my grooming equipment, locked the front door behind me, and went out to the Bronco. I felt numb, too scared even to work up a decent case of the shakes. I started the motor and let the AC run while I called Guidry. Surprisingly, he answered on the first ring.
I said, “Thanks for the tail.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Do you know about the snake in my apartment?”
“Sorry about that. I thought you’d be okay last night with Paco. We didn’t watch your place while you were gone.”
“I was just on the phone with Paco. There was another one in a drawer under my bed where I keep my guns. I slept on it last night.”
My voice went up an octave, and I recognized, with a kind of clinical detachment, the sound of rising hysteria.
Guidry must have recognized it too, because he said, “We’re not going to let anything happen to you.”
I clicked off and laid my head on the steering wheel. I felt the way a lobster must feel when it’s been out of salt water too long, like I was shrinking inside my own skin. Every instinct told me Denton Ferrelli was responsible for his brother’s death and for those rattlesnakes in my apartment. Every instinct told me he was responsible for the truck that had tried to run me down. If he hadn’t done it himself, he had hired somebody to do it.
This is war, I thought, and then almost laughed at myself for thinking it. How many times had I heard our grandfather say that? Probably half a million at least. If the county sent a tax bill he thought was outrageous, if the fishing commission declared a quota on red snapper, or if an invasion of no-see-ums sent him running for cover, he would bellow, “This is war!” Well, okay, so I’m my grandfather’s progeny. I don’t take injustice.
I got out my nagging phone and called Information to
get Denton Ferrelli’s office phone number. When I called it, a woman with a voice all in her nose obliged with the address. With the tail following me like exhaust smoke, I headed for one of the glass-fronted mainland high-rises facing the marina. I took a glass elevator to the penthouse and stepped into a lobby the size of my entire apartment. A sleek young woman wearing a red power suit sat in front of a telephone at an antique library table. She gave my hairy shorts a sneering glance and smiled frostily. If she’d known I had a .38 in my pocket and venom in my heart, she might not have looked so friggin’ smug.
get Denton Ferrelli’s office phone number. When I called it, a woman with a voice all in her nose obliged with the address. With the tail following me like exhaust smoke, I headed for one of the glass-fronted mainland high-rises facing the marina. I took a glass elevator to the penthouse and stepped into a lobby the size of my entire apartment. A sleek young woman wearing a red power suit sat in front of a telephone at an antique library table. She gave my hairy shorts a sneering glance and smiled frostily. If she’d known I had a .38 in my pocket and venom in my heart, she might not have looked so friggin’ smug.
I said, “Tell Denton Ferrelli that Dixie Hemingway is here to see him.”
She gave me a bunched-mouth little smile and said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Ferrelli isn’t in.”
This was definitely a woman who had let a career of answering a phone go to her head.
I wheeled away toward the row of closed doors. “Never mind, I’ll find him.”
She scrambled under the edge of her desk for an alarm bell, and I hotfooted it to the widest, most impressive-looking door and turned the knob. Denton Ferrelli and another man were sitting opposite each other in deep black leather chairs. Behind them, a glass wall overlooked the sun-sparkled blue marina and its rows of boats. It was a view that must have given relief to eyes strained from studying multimillion-dollar deals.
The woman in the red suit ran up behind me and screeched, “I told her you couldn’t see her, Mr. Ferrelli!”
Denton Ferrelli smiled lazily, those cobra-lidded eyes fixed in place. “Never mind, honey, I’ll take care of it.”
I said, “The rattlesnakes were cute, Mr. Ferrelli.”
He gave me a blank look that was either a terrific act or genuinely ignorant.
He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I assume it has something to do with your fetish for animals.” He tilted his head toward the man with him. “Leo Brossi, this is Conrad’s dog-sitter. She’s a big animal lover.”
Brossi was a lot smaller than Denton, probably not taller than me, and slim as a knife blade. He had a deep leathery tan and hair the brassy pink of a copper pan that’s had tomato juice spilled on it. He looked up at me with a smirk.
“Does that mean you like being fucked by big dogs?”
I don’t remember what happened next because I sort of blacked out for a minute. When I came to I was punching Leo Brossi’s head with both fists and he was cowering in the chair and cursing. Denton had risen to stand next to Brossi, and he was leering at me. It was the leer that stopped me. Denton was getting a hard-on from watching me beat the crap out of Leo Brossi.
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