Mr. Softee (22 page)

“This is news
? Years back he was involved with the rackets as they called it. Gambling, prostitution, I’ve even heard drugs. Mind you I don’t have any proof. To my knowledge he was never caught. To be honest, he was never even investigated as far as I know.”

“You know anything about his girlfriend, this Lola woman
? I think her real name is Lucille something.”

“Lentz
. Yes, Lucille Lentz and no, I don’t know much about her anymore, well, except I don’t think she’s just his girlfriend, she’s his niece as well, to tell you the truth.”

“
His niece?”

“That’s what I heard.
”

“What do
you mean, you don’t know much about her anymore?”

“Just that I sort of knew her as a kid, a very young
kid. We played together you know. I really haven’t seen her for years.”

“So did you know Softee, too
? You said your grandfather…”

“
Yeah sure, a quarter of a century ago. Look, what do you care? He ended up the way of all bad guys, dead. Say, you’re cool with the police now on that whole thing, aren’t you?”

“W
ho me? Yeah, all cleared up,” I lied. I just sort of wondered about the guy is all.”

She eyed me for a moment, then drained her glass and held it out toward me
. About three and a half bottles later we were stumbling up the steps and into her bed. We wrestled as only drunken lovers can, then passed out. Later that night as she snored in bed next to me I lay awake and tried to answer the question Jill had asked. Why did I care?

Chapter Fifty-Five

I got back to
Dog’s around noon. As soon as his shack came into sight I stopped. A dark blue Crown Victoria was parked in front of the screen door. I quietly backed away. Then got out and approached the shack through the mud in the back, I crept up to the shack and peeked in through a grimy window. Dog was sitting in the recliner, sipping a beer and watching a black-and-white movie, alone.

“What the hell do you think
you’re doing?” I asked, a few moments later, tracking mud and weeds into the kitchen.

He laughed, then said,

“I heard ya drive up, watched you back out, figured that Crown Vic would get you. It’s the loaner from the body shop.”

“T
hing looks like a cop car,” I said.

“Don’t it
? You find anything else out about your girlfriend?”

“Y
eah, she’ll do anything but she really likes…”

“I meant Softee’s chick
.”

“You mean
Lola? Well, she said she had a staffing problem yesterday and couldn’t meet. I was following them later in the day but they spotted me, or at least the car. Chased me a little. Don’t know if they actually recognized me or just my car tailing them.”

“How many?”

“Guys? Three of them. Two I recognized. One, a big guy I’ve never seen before. I’d say after the other night it would appear they’ve tightened things up. You called the cops, right?”

“Yeah,
thought I told ya, they took my information. You know how they get, you never really know what they’re thinking. I mean, I gave them the license numbers and later that night one of the vehicles is all smashed up with two dead bastards in it. You’d think that might ring some bells but then again…”

“I gotta get to Lola, keep pressure on her,” I said taking my phone out and calling.

Dog lowered the sound with his remote.

She answered on the second ring

“Lola, please,”

“Dev, is that you
?” She actually sounded nice

“Hi Lola,
yeah, its me. Hey, what are the chances of us getting together this afternoon?”

“I can do that
. Listen, why don’t you come over for a late lunch? Maybe some special fun. I’ve been kind of starved for company…”

“
No, that won’t work. I got a better idea, you know City Hall?”

“City Hall
?”

“Meet me at the base of the
Indian statue, Vision of Peace or whatever it’s called. Probably be best if you come alone.”

“A little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Just trying to be careful, see you at three?”

“I’ll be there.”

“City Hall? The courthouse? Are you nuts?” Dog shouted when I hung up.

“Think about it,
a very public place, cops all around, you have to go through metal detectors to get in there. It’s perfect for us.”

“Us?”

“I’ll need you hanging somewhere in the background, just to keep me safe.”

“What are you gonna tell her?”

“I’m still fine-tuning that part of the deal.” Actually I had no idea.

Chapter Fifty-Six

We got to City
Hall an hour early, then hung around by the elevators on the lower level. We blended with the crowd, looking like two more low-life’s just waiting for our case to be called. At ten minutes before three I said to Dog,

“I’m going up
to the main floor. Wait here about five minutes, then come on up. Just act like you’re waiting for a lawyer or something. Don’t crowd me.”

“I gotta tell you, man this p
lace gives me the creeps. Nothing good has ever happened to me here. My first sentence was handed down in this building, I was fifteen. I’ve never really liked the place since.”

“Just relax, what can go wrong
? Like I said, they got cops and metal detectors up there watching everything coming in, we’re safe.”

I took the elevator up to the ground floor, got out a
nd walked toward the base of the statue. At almost forty feet high and made of polished onyx it wouldn’t be easy to miss. I passed a painter dressed in white pants and T-shirt setting up. There were maybe a half dozen unhappy people drifting around and all looking like they were waiting for someone. They all wore a similar sort of stressed look. Like Dog said, nothing good ever happened to him in this building. By the looks on all the faces that still seemed to be the case.

“Dev?”

It was Lola, and almost ten minutes ahead of schedule.

“Lola, hey
, you’re early. Wow, I didn’t think women did that sort of thing.” I said stalling for time hoping Dog would magically appear.

“Come on
, let’s go,” she said grabbing me by the arm.

“No, I
like it right here,” I said, planting my feet.

“I don’t think so,” she said, then nodded behind her
. The painter in white stepped forward. Unfortunately he suddenly looked a lot like the guy in the Hawaiian-print shirt from yesterday.

“Don’t be an asshole,” he said, then shoved a small revolver into my back.

“We’re going right out the door,” Lola said tugging on my arm again. “Just one big happy family. Before you get any ideas, take a good look at the security guard there, three hundred pounds of blubber that doesn’t want to be involved with any trouble you bring his way. So do us all a favor and just walk out quietly.”

We
headed toward the door. It suddenly became obvious to me you only passed through security when you entered. I was being led out at gunpoint and no one was going to know.

We walked past the
line formed to enter the metal detector. Past the three hundred pound guard who looked bored out of his mind. Lola seemed to snuggle against me, grabbed my arm even tighter. She smiled at the guard, then said to me,

“You did very well in there, very well, I’m so proud of you.”

“They got a gun here,” I said loudly and attempted to pull away. A couple of people in line glanced over at us, bored. Lola clasped my arm tighter, smiled. The painter punched the revolver into my kidney.

“Sorry,
we’ve had a commitment hearing,” she said to the guard by way of explanation and kept walking.

He paused
thinking for just a nanosecond, then nodded knowingly. People ranting in here were an everyday occurrence. He couldn’t have cared less and went back to placing the next briefcase on a conveyor to be scanned.

The three of us
stepped into the revolving door, the painter with his gun right behind me.

“That was really stupid
. Shoot his balls off if he does anything else,” Lola said.

We exit
ed the revolving door, the dumb-looking guy and his pal with the ponytail fell in on either side of us.

“Any problems?”

“Nothing we can’t take care of. He tries anything, you two hold him. I told Benton to shoot his balls off.” She let go of my arm and slid the side door open on a van waiting at the curb.

“Get
your ass in there,” Benton the painter said from behind me, then jammed the gun into my kidney again.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

No one said anything
during the drive. I had Benton squeezed next to me holding a revolver. The dopey guy with the crew cut sat behind me holding a weapon. The jerk with the ponytail sat in the front passenger seat and pointed a very large automatic at me while Lola drove.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” I said,
looking around.

Benton
clicked the hammer on his small revolver,

“
I can put a couple of these in you. They’ll rattle around and rip you up inside, or you can just shut up. Your choice.”

I nodded.

Fifteen minutes later the garage door at the Mister Softee building opened, Lola drove in and parked in front of a loading dock. The Mercedes and the red car, a Ford of some sort, were backed into two spaces against a far wall.

Benton
slid the door open, stepped out, but never took his eyes or the revolver off me.

“Get
your ass out here, funny man.”

Lola was already up on the loading doc
k, purse over her shoulder, clicking her high heels into a darkened office area. The other two goons remained focused on me.

I climbed out of the van, kept my hands halfway raised, followed the wave of
Benton’s revolver as it directed me up the small loading-dock stairs.

“Stop, right there,”
Benton said when I’d taken two or three steps across the dock.

He hurried up the stairs
, walked in front of me, and looked in the office. Before I knew what happened he’d spun around and kicked me on the chin. I went down, rolled to the side, started to get up when I felt a blast to my nose, then a second or two of weightlessness before I landed on the cold concrete next to the van.

“Guess you can’t fly none too well,” Dopey chuckled.

“Quit screwing around and bring him in here,” Lola called from the office.

I coughed
up blood, spit it onto the floor as I got up on all fours. Things were blurry, but I could tell blood was flowing freely from my nose. Hands grabbed me from either side and half dragged me toward the stairs. I was having trouble walking.

“God
damn it, I told you I wanted to ask him some questions. I won’t get any answers if he’s dead, now will I?” Lola screamed.

“He fell off the dock
. We thought he was trying to get away.”

I couldn’t tell who was talking.

“Get him cleaned up. And don’t let him bleed all over everything. Jesus, I got staff back in tomorrow morning. I don’t need any more problems right now. Get him a towel or something.” She waited a second or two the shrieked, “Come on, damn it, move.”

A few minutes later I h
eld a wet towel over my nose. When I tried to close my bottom jaw it felt like the alignment was off by about a half inch. The wet towel felt good, but it smelled like gasoline or motor oil.

“
Sorry about that, feeling better, Dev?” Lola asked soothingly, if I didn’t know better I would have thought she really cared.

I pul
led the towel away. I could detect the broken bridge of my nose swelling, blocking part of my vision. My nose was plugged and I had to breathe out of my mouth.

“Hell of a way to get me on your side,” I said, then felt the blood streaming from my nose again.

Lola shot a look at Benton, who just smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

“Put you
r head back, Dev, just relax. Now, I’ve got a problem, actually, I’ve got close to a hundred thousand problems. But I’m pretty sure you can fix all that for me.”

I took the towel away from my face.

“No, believe me, you’re not that much fun to look at right now. Lean back, that’s right, put the towel back up there. See, as much as some of us would like to kill you, we’re not going to do that. Are we?”

I didn’t hear any agreement.