Sleep with the Fishes (14 page)

Price screeched his truck to a halt in the driveway. In his haste to get to the den, he not only failed to see the note stuck to his front door but also the Karmann Ghia that rolled to a stop across the street.

By the time Omer got to peeking through the yew hedge and into the living room window, Price had a videotape in one hand, a phone receiver in the other. Next to him on an end table Omer noticed a photo of Price and redhead Debbie on their wedding day. Price had his jacket on, and Omer could read lips well enough to see him say “I’ll come over right now. I’ve got something big to show you.”

There was no time to waste. Mr. Phillips marched himself over to the front of Price’s pickup, put his umbrella tip through the grille, and turned the crook. A sharp metallic note sounded as a small spring-loaded spike punctured the radiator.

“Penelope, what the hell are we doing here? The Five Star doesn’t open for another six hours.”

She tossed him an impish smile, left the car, and walked across the pool of light to the diner.

Russ killed the Dodge’s rattling engine and followed reluctantly. There were no cars in the lot. A few crazed moths lusted over the flood lamp above.

Penelope retrieved the key from over the door.

“Penelope, I don’t think we ought to—where’d you get that key? You know, I don’t think Chik would appreciate…”

Penelope pulled him into the diner by his sleeve and swung the door shut.

“What is this, Penelope? What are we doing here?”

She sashayed behind the counter and paused next to the potted palms.

“You want that tape, don’t you? Well…”

She led him downstairs. Confusion was Russ’s first reaction to Chik’s basement playroom. He didn’t get it. What were all the mirrors for, and the lights? On one wall was a Peg-Board loaded with chains, whips, silk scarves, strips of leather, and rope. Half the floor was done over in wrestling mats, a Jacuzzi gurgled against the far wall, and a sawhorse was piled high in fake leopard, zebra, tiger, and polar bear skins. Penelope flicked a series of switches—a phony fireplace crackled and a rack system played a CD of Zulu war chants. She disappeared around the corner as drums thrummed to soaring tribal choruses.

“What in God’s name is this? It’s like a, uh, rec room or something. I didn’t know Chik had this. He could put a pool table down here.” Russ unzipped his jacket and slid his hat back. “Boy, he keeps it warm in here, doesn’t he? So where’s the tape, Penelope?” Russ wandered over to a small wet bar, the top of which was littered with videotapes and boxes.

His eyes stung when he saw it, and an exclamation caught in his throat. Russ pounced on
The Elvis Conspiracy.
Trembling fingers snapped it open. The SUPER*PROCAM label was blank. But it just had to be the one.

“Yes! Yes!” Russ held the SUPER*PROCAM tape high and bounced on his toes, a Zulu warrior in high spirits. He whipped around when he heard Penelope reenter.

“Yes?” she purred, stirringly shrink-wrapped in a black rubber bikini.

“OO!” the Zulus shouted, stopped, then drummed spears on their shields.

Russell Smonig had been on a twenty-four-hour emotional roller coaster, from one extreme to the next. But Penelope really threw him for a loop.

They say every man has his breaking point. But when it comes to sex, most bend instead.

Price’s pickup was barreling up Route 52 toward Frustrumburg when a red light on the dash interrupted the latest of his practiced speeches.

“Captain, I had to come right over tonight because the man who shot me is in this cooler, and I have the videotape. Aw, dang!” Price pounded the steering wheel with a fist as he saw the overheat light.

He pulled over onto the narrow dirt shoulder of the lonely road in the middle of the night. There was no denying that his isolation scared him just a little bit, but he shrugged it off best he could, blew into his hands, and opened the hood. A great billow of steam vomited forth. He reiterated, “Aw, dang!”

Price flapped his arms helplessly at his side. There was nothing he could do, much less see, until the engine cooled off, so he shoved his mitts in his windbreaker and paced in the beams of his headlights.

O.K., so he’d give that guy Bifulco half the reward. Well, $5,000 anyway. That is, the reward was actually a hundred thousand smackeroos, and damned if Price didn’t intend on making most of that his. “After all, it was
me
that got shot, it is
me
who deserves monetary compensation.” Price nodded in agreement with himself.

That was ninety-five thousand bucks he had coming, which was enough to pay off the mortgage on his house and buy a bass boat, one of those slick-looking ones they had in the catalogs, home delivered. Would a U.S. Post Office truck trailer it to his front door or what? Hell, it sure as shit wouldn’t come in a box.

The mortgage? Did he really feel like blowing all that moolah on the bank? Sure, there were all sorts of things he’d
like
to spend the bucks on, like debauched vacations in the Caribbean or New Orleans. He’d never forgotten the Brotherhood of Troopers convention two years ago in Atlantic City. But he had a wife, and a kid on the way, and responsibility. Maybe he’d pay off a big chunk of the mortgage, get the boat, and put a slice of the pie aside in a “Motel Fund.” He liked the sound of that. It sounded sneaky: “Motel Fund.”

The growl and sputter of a sports car shifting gears wafted up the road, and Price got ready to wave the passerby down. It would probably be someone he knew. And it was—sort of.

Omer squeaked his car to a stop, engine a-sputter. He lapsed into his Five Star Diner persona.

“Well, friend, looks like you got a little car trouble. Radiator, is it? You know, that reminds me of Tommy Peason—you know him? He once lost all his transmission fluid, just like that, and—”

“You headed to Frustrumburg?” Price interrupted.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I am going that way. I was just heading home. Live up by Quinn’s place. Know it? It’s that gray house with the porch and the yellow Lab. I think the dog’s name is Ryan. Or is it Bristol?”

“Look, could you give me a ride—just about two miles up the road? You probably know the place. It’s in that development—Boxwood.”

“Boxwood? Sure I know it. There’s a cousin of mine who lives in St. Louis who has a bungalow on the Missouri River on Candlewood Drive. Not Boxwood, of course, but it always reminds me when I pass the sign. That is, the sign for Boxwood always—”

“Great! Thanks a lot, lemme get my stuff.”

A moment later Omer was helping Price strap the cooler to the luggage rack. As Price leaned over, the videotape fell from the inside pocket of his windbreaker onto the floor of the car.

“Dang.”

“I got it…” Omer saw his opportunity and stabbed a hand into the dark recess.

“No, let me…”

“Here.” Omer handed him the tape and Price quickly stuffed it back into his jacket.

Eggs sizzled
on the grill next to a pile of greasy home fries. Steam jetted steadily from the coffee silo. Buckwheats and a side of honeydew completed the breakfast special. Morning had arrived along with rain clouds, and the usual crew appeared at Chik’s.

The Bobs stood solemnly in ponchos at the counter awaiting their order. The English muffins were taking their own sweet time toasting. Jenny, decked out in a yellow rainsuit, squeezed in the front door behind them.

“Good mornin’, fellahs. Hey, Little Bob, where’s that camera of yours? I thought that thing was surgically attached to your hand.”

The Bobs avoided her eye, but she persisted. Jenny nudged Big Bob in the waist and looked up at him.

“Rent any good tapes lately, boys?” Jenny winked and headed down the counter to her seat at the end. The Bobs didn’t say a word. They blushed instead.

“Here’s cup number one, Jenny.” Chik slid a cup of coffee in front of her. “Say, today’s your day off, babe. What’re ya doing up this early? Thought you might catch me alone, get me to slip you the wood?” Chik flashed her his sauciest smile.

Jenny’s quickly raised hand made Chik duck for cover.

“Don’t ya call me ‘babe,’ weasel face. Next time I’ll smack ya.”

Chik snickered and put a pencil tick on the side of the coffee urn.

Lloyd entered with furrowed brow, shaking rain off his jean jacket, and when he saw the Bobs, he sidled up next to them. He whispered: “Ya guys see Russ recently?”

They shrugged.

“I got some real strange—hell, I’d say desperate—calls on my machine last night. Tell ya the truth, I’m a little worried. Tried calling him at home. On and off, all night. No answer. His messages said he called from the Duck Pond, but by the time I rang there they was closed. Think we oughta head over to his place?”

The Bobs looked from Lloyd to each other.

“Darn it, he’s suicidal, I tell ya,” Big Bob muttered. “Never second-guess
Newstime.
”

Meanwhile, Chik served Jenny two eggs Jersey-side, whisky down.

“So what’s got ya up so early on your day off, Jenny?”

“Got a lead on a good shad spot. Figured a nice drizzly day might be the best time to take advantage of it.” She stabbed the eggs with the toast and they bled yolk.

“Uh-huh—another secret shad spot, I’ll bet.” Chik twisted his dishrag. “Ya fishing from shore?”

“Cool your jets. That guy Bifulco owes me a favor. He’s showing me the spot, so I don’t know where it is yet. But I got my boat out there on the trailer. Gonna launch it at the Mink Run boat ramp, motor up to his place.”

The front door slammed shut and the toaster popped simultaneously. Chik pivoted and froze.

“Hey, where’d the Bobs go? Their muffins is done.”

Sid had only been asleep for three hours when a pounding on his door jarred him awake.

“Sid!” Russ was shouting. “Sid! Wake up! Sid, I’ve got the tape!”

Still in his plaid shirt and pants from the night before, Bifulco wobbled to his feet from the couch and fell upon the doorknob.

“Would you keep it down, for Christ sake!” he rasped. “You wanna wake Lachfurst or what? Jeez!”

Even in his sleep-deprived state, Sid noticed something different about Russ. Granted, the goofy smile and sparkly eye were different, and Sid supposed he hadn’t seen Russ with his collar up or his fedora full of rainwater before. But it wasn’t any of that, or the videotape in one hand. Sid looked him top to bottom. Russ’s grin twitched.

“Sid, I got the tape! Look! In my hand!”

Bifulco’s eye slipped past Russ to the Dodge in the drive. He could see Penelope asleep in the passenger seat.

“Russ, your shoes are on backward,” Sid noted. “You get lucky last night or what?”

Tripping over the stoop, Russ pushed past Sid.

“Where’s your TV?” He flashed annoyance, then disappointment at his misfit sneakers.

Sid gently pulled the door shut.

“Hey, Captain Fedora, you wanna keep it down? Like I said, we don’t wanna wake Lachfurst.”

Russ sat on the edge of the couch and pried off one sneaker, then the next.

“Look, Sid, all we gotta do is take a peek at the tape, make sure it’s the right one, then rip it to shreds!”

“Yo, Smonig, there’s a warden from a federal penitentiary in the next room.” Sid wagged a finger in front of Russ’s nose. “I don’t think we want him to see it.”

“A what?” Russ started putting his left sneaker on his right foot again.

“A warden from a federal penitentiary. An old friend, so to speak. Showed up last night. And the TV is in there, in my bedroom, right where he’s sleeping. So where’d you get the tape?”

“What difference does that make?” Russ reddened. “Sid, the sooner we make sure this is the tape, the sooner I can destroy it and go back to life’s simpler pleasures, like slowly going broke and being depressed.” Russ blurted, “I don’t have a video setup. You do.”

Forget that Sid had only three hours’ Z’s in his hat. After an enterprising career as hood, murderer, rat, and felon, it took a lot to fluster him. Frankly, he didn’t see the big deal. The tape was recovered. Hooray. So Russ holds on to it very tightly for a couple hours, a couple days, whatever. As far as Sid was concerned, the video crisis was over. Russ was being a schmoe.

“Would you keep it down! Look, I’ll go in there and get the equipment, give it to you, you take it over to your little shack and watch the tape. But you gotta promise something: stay away from me, ’cause I don’t want any part of whatever rackets you’re into. Deal?”

Russ fitted the right shoe on his left foot.

“Hold it, hold it. I thought the deal was that I was beholden to you for, you know, and that I had to show you the river. Now you’re saying you don’t want free guiding? You release me from that obligation?”

“That’s right. That’s right. I don’t want any part of your rackets.”

“Rackets?”

“Would you keep it down?”

“All right, all right—what the hell do you mean ‘rackets’?”

There was a knock at the door.

“Must be your girlfriend got tired of waitin’.”

They both pulled the door open a crack.

“Frank,” Russ burbled, “what brings you here?”

“Frank who?” Sid quizzed aloud.

“T-taxidermist,” Frank stuttered from under a handlebar mustache.

“Sorry, I already have a—wait, you’re Frank Highly?”

“Taxidermist,” Frank replied again. “I know I was s-s’posed to come last night, b-but it got real late an’ I th-thought…”

Sid pulled the door all the way open, stepped out onto the porch, and locked a familial arm around Frank’s long neck, turning him away from the cabin.

“You’re the taxidermist I called, that right?”

Frank blinked and gave a nervous tug at his mustache.

“You b-betcha. And you’re Sid, the guy that c-called me about a c-carp?”

“And you’re the guy that said you’d come by last night and pick up the fish on your way back from Honesdale, am I right?”

Frank rolled his eyes at Sid, then let them spring back to fix on his red VW Bug.

“H-honesdale, you b-betcha.”

“Don’t you have a friend, an assistant, that you sent over last night to pick up the fish?” A smile played with the mole on Sid’s cheek, as if he really expected to hear the answer he wanted.

Frank blinked and rolled his eyes over at Sid.

“N-n-” Frank didn’t finish. He just shook his head.

“Should I even bother asking you—Frank—who it was then that came by and took my big fish?”

“N-n-” Frank blinked hard.

“O.K., Frank.” Sid unclasped his chummy hold and forced a handshake on him. “I’ll find out where the fish is, I’ll get the fish back, and I’ll get the fish to you. O.K.? Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate it, really. You’re a prince.” Sid shooed Frank toward his Bug, which the latter mechanically boarded.

Sid waved until Frank putt-putted out of sight. Then he turned on Russ.

“Some friggin’ bastard stole my fish, and you’re gonna tell me who it was.” Sid pushed up on his T-shirt sleeves.

“Me? What the hell?” Russ tripped over the doorsill. “Who would steal your carp?”

“Some guy shows up last night, right about the time this taxidermist was supposed to show, and asks for the fish. Then he tells me there’s a reward for the fish, and in fact says that I better hand over half the reward for him to stuff it. And do you know why? Because I caught the thing with you. You’re out to fix this reward deal. You’re some kinda guy on the inside of the local rackets and you tried to make the favorite lose or something. I dunno. I don’t got it figured out yet, but frankly, Smonig, I don’t wanna figure it out.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Do you mean to say you think I’m, like, involved in some kind of betting operation? On fish?”

It did sound a little far-fetched, suddenly, when Russ said it aloud.

“Look, Sid, if some guy showed up here last night with that yarn, well, all I can say is he must have been pulling your leg.”

“A guy I don’t even know comes by and pulls my leg for no reason? Hey, the guy said he knew all about the fish. He said he knew you and me whacked it and that there was a $10,000 reward.”

Russ scratched his forehead. “And you’re sure he was talking about a fish?”

“Of course I’m sure. In fact, I joked that I’d chopped it up into little pieces to fit it into…uh-oh.”

“What? ‘Uh-oh’ what?”

“It’s possible he was talkin’ about that other thing.”

“What other thing?”

Sid shot Russ an exasperated look. “Jimmy Spaghetti.”

“But how? Who is he?”

“He musta seen the tape, maybe rented it outta the video store by accident. This guy knew about what happened with Jimmy and was tryin’ to shake me down.”

“And you gave him the carp.” Russ lowered slowly until he was sitting on the portico steps. “We’re done for.”

“Like hell! You got the tape, right? That guy—if he doesn’t have it, he’s got no evidence. No corpus delicti. Assuming, of course, that’s the tape.”

They both stared at the tape in Russ’s hands for a moment before Sid spoke again.

“I’ll get my VCR. We’ll take the tape over to your place.”