Mr. Softee (20 page)

“De
v, don’t come over. Call me… please.”

“What the hell is it with you
? At least call for god’s sake!”

“Don’t
ever call me, ever! Do you hear, ever!”

“Fuck you!”

The last message had been left a little after midnight and pretty much summed things up. Ironic that I was where I was, due in some part because I had gotten involved with Jill, at least on a client level. Now two people were dead, I was hiding from the police on a murder charge and driving a stolen car with North Dakota plates. Perfect.

There was only one person who could help me
, and so I called her.

“Hello
.”

“Lola, Dev Haskell.
”

“
What do you want?”

“I thought we should get together and chat.”

“I really have nothing to say to you. Except to tell you that the police are looking for you.” She spit out the last word, implying the mere mention of me was distasteful.

“Really
? Is that because they found something in my car?” I asked.

“You are
a cruel bastard, you know that? I plan to see that you get exactly what you have coming. If you so much…”

“Oh, you must b
e referring to your precious Mister Softee. Yeah, funny thing, I’ve got an alibi, pretty good one as it turns out. Wanna hear?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That is probably the only honest thing you’ve said to me.”

“What do you mean, alibi?”

“Well, it’s just that when someone stuffed your little love toy, Mister Softee, into the trunk of my car, to make it look like I did it, guess what? I was safely locked up in a jail cell.”

“Locked up
in jail? That doesn’t surprise me, but I don’t see what that has to do with me. It’s something for the authorities to deal with and believe me they’re going to hear about this phone call just as soon as I hang up.”

“Good, while you’re talking with them
, you might mention the shooting at the warehouse yesterday. Two dead. Interesting, and you running out barefoot carrying your heels with everything in a shopping bag, that was…”

“I
, I don’t know what in the hell you’re taking about.”

“
Oh, okay. I just thought it might benefit both of us if you wanted to discuss the situation. But apparently you don’t. Look, you go ahead and call the cops, because when you’re done I’m going to have a nice chat with them and I think they’ll find my story a little more interesting. What do you think?”

“I, I think you’re nuts, crazy. What did you want to talk about, anyway?”

“Maybe what it would take to get me to just go away.”

“Go away?”

“Yeah, everyone has a price
, even me.”

“
I can only imagine. Not that I give a damn, but what would your price be?”

“That’s why we should talk
. I tell you what. Why don’t you plan on meeting me in a nice public place, tomorrow.”

“Why not tonight
, maybe double your pleasure?” she said, suddenly eager to get together.

“Tonight, well
, I can think of a couple of reasons. It would be dark, for one. And, the fact that I don’t trust you comes to mind, but actually, I’ve already got plans for tonight. So, I’ll call you tomorrow. Oh, one more thing. I’m going to tell you to come alone, so leave your bodyguards at home, okay?”

“Maybe you’d be a little more agreeable if I
…”

I hung up
then switched my phone off.

Chapter Fifty

I phoned Dog, arranged
to meet him about midnight at The Spot where I explained my plan, such as it was, over a couple of beers. We were sitting in a booth, just the two of us. One thing about being somewhere with Dog, no one wanted to join you.

“I don’t know
. Why don’t you just take them all out, no hassle, long as no one sees you,” he said shaking his head.

“Yeah, and no way to b
eat the rap for Softee’s body ending up in the trunk of my car. He could have been in there for days with that plastic bag wrapped around his head. Hell, I don’t know,” I said, then washed down my concern with more beer.

“Oh yeah, that.”

“Look. I’m meeting her, Lola, tomorrow. But tonight I need your help in dealing with her bodyguards. They’ll all be somewhere in the vicinity of that ice-cream truck, running their betting shop. If we could take care of them there…”

“Blow them away?” Dog asked
. He almost sounded hopeful.

“No, I think it would be best if no one was killed here, Dog
. But maybe if we could just get them out of the way, say for a day, possibly two. We can nail darling Lola and then turn the whole bunch over to the cops.”

“
Maybe I forgot to mention it, but I’ve been sort of keeping a low profile around the cops, lately,” Dog replied, knowing full well he had mentioned it.

“That’s the beauty of this
. We deliver this scum to the police on a platter, they wipe away the phony charges against me and the stuff against you. It’s simple, we can cut a deal” I said, sort of half believing it.

Dog didn’t look all that convinced.

“I still think it would be easier to just blow them all away.”

“Look, can we just do this my way, please?”

“Yeah sure, why not? You’ve certainly done well up to this point.”

Chapter Fifty-One

At two fifteen that
morning I sat in the front seat of Dog’s Ram Charger watching the Mister Softee’s ice-cream truck from a block away. We’d left my new car at The Spot. It was after closing, and the streets had gotten pretty quiet downtown. The black Hummer was parked across the street maybe twenty feet back from the ice-cream truck.

“Let’s
just keep it simple. I’ll walk up to the ice-cream truck like I’m gonna place a bet. The guy has a shotgun with him in there. I hold my gun on him.” I said.

“Then what?”

“That brings Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber out. Soon as you see them walking across the street you drive up behind, get the drop on them. We got all three. Easy. No one gets hurt.”

“You say so,” Dog sounded dejected.

“Yeah, it has to go down like this, otherwise we find ourselves in a lot more trouble. Use these plastic ties to cuff them, we’ll pile them all into the Hummer and bring ‘em back to the lake. Sound like a plan?”

“Whatever, let’s just get her done,
” Dog groaned.

I walked down the street, trying to act as casual as p
ossible with a Glock 17 stuffed in my belt. I only hoped the thugs in the Hummer didn’t recognize me before I got the draw on Baldy in the truck.

“Hey, how’s it going?” I asked, approaching the window.

It was the same guy, bald, muscular, mustache, dressed all in black. The blue glare coming from his laptop reflected off his large bald head. He sort of looked like a full moon floating inside the darkened ice-cream truck. He half grunted an acknowledgement.

“
Still taking action on the All Star game,” I asked.

“
Hell yes, Jesus, it ain’t for another two…”

My Glock suddenly rest
ing in the middle of the window cut the rest of his conversation off.

“Don’t think about doing anything stupid
. Put your hands on top of that fat, bald head. Now just sit there real still like, and we’ll wait for your two pals.”

He raised his hand
s up onto his head, his biceps bulged, his forearms looked like logs, and I was awfully glad I had the Dog nearby to keep things calm.

“Hey, y
ou’re that fuck…”

“Shut up!” I snarled
then waited for the approach of his pals.

It t
ook another minute or two before they came. Unfortunately, they started the Hummer, flicked the headlights on, then drove across the street toward me. I started glancing back and forth, from Baldy to the Hummer gaining speed, back to Baldy. The Hummer was almost there.

“Don’t!” I yelled, keeping the Glo
ck trained on him as he started to move. He thought better of it.

The Hummer suddenly accelerated.

I dropped, got just a half a roll out of the way before it slammed into the side of the ice-cream truck where I had been standing a second before. The truck rocked and skidded sideways a couple of feet. I heard things crashing about inside, glass breaking. Baldy groaned and then seemed to be coughing. As I scrambled to my feet the glow from the laptop was gone. There was something electric zapping and sizzling from inside the truck.

The Hummer
pulled backward, the right side headlights were smashed. As it screeched to a stop I was aware of glass tinkling onto the street. Something seemed to be dragging from the wheel well on the passenger side and scraping the pavement. Suddenly the engine roared and the Hummer lurched forward.

I heard the unmistakable sound of
a shotgun round being chambered behind me. I jumped just as the Hummer slammed into the truck again, missing me by a half inch. The truck rocked sideways another couple of feet. There was a blast and a simultaneous flash from inside as the shotgun fired and the sound of more breaking glass and things falling down.

I fired the Glock three or f
our times into the engine block with absolutely no effect. The Hummer had reversed again, and I watched as the wheels quickly cranked and zeroed in on me. I swung the Glock up to the windshield, fired three quick rounds just as Hummer leapt forward and then swept past me in a giant explosion.

Dog in the Ram Charger, flames
painted across his hood, broadsided the Hummer, knocked it fifteen feet slamming it into a phone pole.

Everything was silent for a long moment, a couple of pieces of glass
tinkled when they fell to the floor from inside the ice-cream truck behind me. I walked toward the Hummer, Glock raised, ready to shoot whoever came out. Dog backed up, stumbled out of the Ram Charger and fell down onto his knees, coughing, spitting, and laughing in a sort of insane, crazy way. He had his pistol in his hand. Nothing moved from inside the Hummer as the engine steamed and hissed.

I looked through the smashed passenger window, into the face of
a black guy I’d never seen before. He stared back, glassy eyed, mouth open, very dead.

His partner
was a red-headed guy with a scraggly beard that made him look like a pedophile. I didn’t recognize him either, not that it mattered now. He sat pinned behind the steering wheel with a hole in his forehead about the size of a nickel. There was another hole, just below his right cheek bone. The exit wound had taken off most of his right ear and a fist-sized section of the back of his skull.

I heard something behind me
. It was Dog, ripping the back door to the ice cream truck open.

“Don’t,” he shout
ed.

I approached the truck cautiously, pistol pointed toward the door where Dog stood
. He looked back at me, shook his head, coughed something up and spit into the truck.

“Stupid bastard shot himself,” he said, then stepped inside, opened the top of one of the coolers.

“Jesus,” I mumbled.

Baldy was seated
on the floor, head tilted back, mouth open, and a disbelieving stare on his face. A gaping wound where his chest had been with the shotgun and the floor around him soaked in blood. The shotgun apparently discharged when the Hummer hit the truck.

“You want some of this ice cream?” Dog sounded noncha
lant as he pulled boxes of ice-cream treats out of the freezer.

“Come on, we better get the hell out of here, man,” I said.

“Yeah, whoa, lookey here,” Dog said, pulling two purple bank bags out of the freezer, laying them on top of the boxes of ice-cream treats.

They looked just like the bag Baldy had dropped in the bank
’s night deposit the other evening.

“Dog, come on,
we gotta get going, the cops are probably on the way, now.”

“Coming,” he sa
id, carrying three boxes of ice-cream treats and the two purple bank bags over to his truck. He threw them onto the seat between us then jimmied the screwdriver in the ignition until the truck turned over.

“Open up one of them boxes, give me an ice cream,” he said, pulling around the Hummer and heading out to the lake place.

Chapter
Fifty-Two

We both heard the
siren at the same time. Dog took the next right and quickly pulled over. A police squad raced past behind us, heading in the direction of the ice-cream truck and what was left of the Hummer.