Mr. Softee (8 page)
Authors: Mike Faricy
“Just go
, will you? Things are bad enough without you being here.”
I thought
that was probably a pretty good idea, and so I left.
Chapter Seventeen
I stood listening to
the ringing on the other end of the line. Either no one was home at Mr. Softee’s or they were ignoring me. The dogs were lying on the front steps, just resting. No doubt they were conserving their energy until the next innocent was buzzed through the front gate. I was in no mood for their routine and planned to tell Mr. Softee as soon as someone answered, but at the rate things were going that was liable to be tomorrow. I hung up, dialed again, someone picked up on the second ring.
“Yes
?” It was either Lola or a child from a nearby kindergarten.
“Hi
, Lola. Dev Haskell.”
“Dev?”
she asked, sounding more like she had no idea.
“Yeah, the investigator, I was
here last night. You signed a contract. Remember?”
“Contract?”
Suddenly there was a buzz, and the lock on the gate clicked open.
Heads shot up on the two evil dogs sitting on the front steps
. They held their position, but I could tell they were waiting for the gate to swing open. One of them licked his lips.
I dialed the phone again. It rang interminably
. Eventually the front door opened, and Lola stood in the doorway.
“It’s th
e dogs, could you put them away?” I called.
T
heir growls began to rumble across the lawn.
She looked a
t me for a moment, as if she were translating, then clapped her hands and said,
“Come on, come on
, puppies, lets go.” They followed her inside, tail stubs wagging.
Puppies
? I waited a few moments before I pushed the gate open, then walked to the open front door. Lola stood in the hallway,
“C
ome on, he’s in the study,” she called like she had been waiting for me all day. She motioned me forward. She was wearing a very short black skirt, some sort of spaghetti-strap black top, and a wide red belt.
I could hear
scratching and growling coming from the rear of the house, back toward the kitchen if memory served. I prayed the door held.
Mr.
Softee sat slumped behind his desk in a large black leather chair, the ever-present cell phone attached to his ear. His walker was pushed off to the side. He was nodding repeatedly to a voice on the other end. Eventually he snarled by way of acknowledgment and hung up.
“
Looking a little worse for the wear, what happened to you?” he said noticing my bruised face.
“Industrial accident, helping a friend clean up after a fire.”
He didn’t blink.
“What have you got for me
? And don’t tell me nothing!”
“
Actually something has surfaced,” I said.
“Oh?” he crea
ked the black leather chair forward, eyes riveted on me.
Lola shifted from on
e foot to the other, and then back again, she crossed her arms, bit her lower lip, and maybe looked just a little wide eyed.
“Yeah, I’m picking up re
ports of a disgruntled employee. He sounds a little unstable.”
“Christ, that could be just about any
one of them,” Softee shook his head.
“This guy seems to have made some threats, at least
he threatened to harm you in some way.”
“
Not much help. That could still be just about anyone I know,” he said.
Lola nodded
in agreement.
I wasn’t going to argue.
“You remember one of your ice-cream truck drivers from awhile back, last name Sneen?” I was looking for some sort of reaction.
Lola
may have shot a quick glance at Mr. Softee, maybe not. I wasn’t sure.
“Sneen, that the last name
? Can’t say I remember anyone like that, but there’s so damn much turnover with those bastards. What makes you think he might be the one?”
“Claims he was assaulted or something
. I’m still checking that part out although he seems to have gone missing all of a sudden. I was planning to follow him around, see what I might learn.”
“And now you can’t find the bastard
. I’m not surprised. Hell, he’s probably up in the tree out front with a high-powered rifle and a sniper scope. Wonderful! That’s just great!”
“No, I checked
the tree.”
“What did he say we did?” Lola asked.
“As near as I can determine he claims he was wrongfully discharged for stealing funds,” I sugarcoated Bernie’s version.
“Wrongfully discharged?
” Mr. Softee chuckled. “Bastard was stealing from me. I remember now, he was pilfering cash. I think he had some sort of chemical problem, nervous little son-of-a-bitch. We attempted some sort of rehabilitation, if memory serves. Yeah, definitely the unstable sort.”
Lola nodded in agreement.
“Rehabilitation.” It was my turn to chuckle.
“You know how these people are,” Lola said.
“Idiots, thieves, dregs of society,” Mr. Softee added.
“So you think he
’s the one that crashed into us the other night?” Lola asked.
“I think it’s entirely possible
. I’d like to check out a few more leads I have, see what I can come up with. Nail down his whereabouts, type of vehicle he drives, that sort of thing.”
“T
hat won’t be necessary, he’s our man. I’ll handle it from here,” Mr. Softee said, then picked up his phone and punched in a number.
“Well, in all honesty, Sneen looks like a good candidate
, but there are a lot of other people who don’t think all that kindly of you.”
“You don’t get to be a man like me without stepping on a few toes
along the way. No, that’ll be all. I’ll handle things from here. Just send me your bill so I can get this off my desk, I got a lot of things about to happen.”
“
Your bill? Look, you only signed up last night, less than eighteen hours ago. I really think it might be wise if I…”
“What part of no don’t you understand
? Hello. Carl, hang on a minute,” he said into the phone. Then looked over at Lola and nodded.
“Let me show you out,” she squeaked, sounding only too happy to do so.
“Carl,” Mr. Softee shouted as he spun around in his chair to face out the window.
I followed Lola back down the hallway toward the fron
t door. She was taking little steps again, this time due to a pair of black, sling-back stiletto heels, some sort of red flames emblazoned across the toes and up the sides, the perfect outfit to lounge around the house.
“Gee, really sorry we couldn’t do
more together,” she said at the front door. Then smiled and gave another of her patented shrugs. “Bye-bye” she giggled and hustled me out, closing the door before I had a chance to say anything. I heard the door lock behind me.
Fortunately,
my luck seemed to hold and the dogs were still inside. I made my way quickly to the gate, but not before glancing at the front steps. There, chewed almost in half, was a black high-top shoe, faded almost to gray, with a red shoelace. Cheap. It looked an awful lot like one Bernie Sneen was wearing the day I saw him at Dizzies. Just as I approached the gate I heard a buzz and the electronic click releasing the lock, a moment later the front door opened and the dogs were out.
Chapter Eighteen
I mailed my bill
to Mr. Softee that afternoon. I spent the next three days working on the phone attempting to confirm resume facts for a legal firm. It was dull work, but allowed me to sleep late, wear sweatpants, drink a few beers, and overcharge my client. I’d been doing just that, drinking beer, wearing sweatpants and in general being worthless when the phone rang waking me up.
“Yello,” is how it came out
, I had a beer burp at the same time.
“Oh, I think I might have the wrong number
. I was trying to reach Haskell Investigations,” a female voice said.
“You got me,” I replied,
coming awake and stretching on the couch. It was about two in the afternoon and researching statements on resumes had lost its luster days earlier.
“Dev?”
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“Jill
. Jill Lydell.”
It took me a moment
. I’d never gotten her last name and the send off she’d given me in front of the Giant Scoop the morning after the fire hadn’t left me with a lot of hope for future contact.
“Oh y
eah, Jill, nice to hear from you. How are things going?”
“Okay
, I guess. You know, everything considered. I was wondering if maybe we could get together and I first of all wanted to say I’m really, really sorry for the way I act…”
“Forget it, you were a lot better than I could ever hope to be under the circumstances
. Just for the record, I’m not working for Mister Softee. I had a contract with the guy that didn’t last twenty-four hours.”
“No surprise there,” she
said.
“Look, I’d love to get together
. I’m finishing up an investigation right now,” I said placing a can of warm beer on the floor and sitting up on the couch.
“What’s your schedule like?”
she asked.
“Schedule
? Well, nothing I can’t adjust. What did you have in mind?”
“T
he sooner the better. Would tonight work?”
“It could
. You tell me where and when, I’ll rearrange things.”
“Well tonight, if that’s
not too soon. You know the Sportsman’s Bar?”
“I do.”
I’d been kicked out of there years back for being underage.
“Say seven
thirty?”
“See you
there.”
Chapter Nineteen
I was on time
for a change, and Jill was waiting for me in a back booth looking a lot better than the last time I saw her.
She waved as I approached
. She tilted her head so I could kiss her cheek, and I caught a hint of her perfume, nice.
“Thanks for coming
. Get you something?” she asked. A waitress was right on my heels.
“
Leinenkugel for me,” I said and looked over at Jill.
“I’d have anot
her one of these,” she held out a glass that looked to be a Coke.
“Okay, so tell me where you
’re at. What are your plans with the business?” I asked.
“Well,
everyone has been really great. The neighborhood is holding a fund-raiser for us next Saturday, you oughta come. Obviously the biggest thing is getting some new vehicles, but they are so expensive. We’ll just have to see. To tell you the truth, it’s looking like the rest of this year might be an absolute wash. I mean once it gets cold, you can forget about sales you know. We’re doing a stand at the Farmer’s Market. They let us in ahead of all sorts of people because of the fire. That’s going okay, but it’s just Saturday and Sunday. Still, any little bit helps.”
“Any w
ord from your insurance company? You were a little worried about that when we talked.”
“Yeah, look
, I want to apologize, I was really upset and…”
“No need
. I get it. Like I said, I think you handled things a lot better than I would have done.”
Our drinks arrived, I took a long sip while Jill continued.
“Yeah, but you got my explosion and you didn’t deserve it. You said on the phone you’re not working for Mister Softee anymore?”
I shook my head
in disgust.
“No, man
, imagine one of my clients acting strange. Go figure. They signed a contract with me one night, then said they didn’t need me the following afternoon. I wasn’t even on the payroll for twenty-four hours.”
“You might have gotten off lucky,” she said.
“By the way, I was working on something completely unrelated to your situation. To be honest, he thought someone tried to kill him. I think it was a simple hit-and-run. Along the way I learned you’d have to rent Carnegie Hall to hold all the people who don’t like the guy.”
“Yeah, well, you can still count
Annie and me on that list.” She took a sip. “Not that we tried to do anything,” she added quickly.
“Not to worry, like I said
, I’m off the case. Now, I just have to get paid.”
“Lots of luck.”
“I sent him my bill.”