On the way home I drove past KRAZ. Farrell’s BMW was parked close to the front door. I pulled into the parking lot and tuned my radio to seven-forty and waited a couple of minutes until five-thirty when Farrell’s ‘Voice of Freedom’ or ‘Pilgrims Rights’ or whatever they called their broadcast polluted the air waves.
It was just as bad as I remembered. Part way through his rant Farrell got caught up in a coughing jag that burned up a good half minute, it was the highlight of the broadcast. He continued on, unfazed, droning along in close to a monotone. Not that it mattered, who could stand to listen?
I twiddled my thumbs for another twenty minutes after the broadcast, finally, afraid I was really pushing my luck if I remained, I left. I grabbed a couple of necessities at the grocery store on the way home, frozen pizzas, lime Dorito chips and a box of Snickers ice cream bars. I came in the front door and when I went to close it behind me I noticed something silky hanging from the inside door knob, in the pattern of an American flag, a thong. I didn’t put it there. A list of names ran through my mind, a short list. Very short.
I phoned Heidi from my front entry.
“Hello.”
“Pretty funny, look, I said I was sorry.”
“Not sorry enough, and I still fail to see the humor.” She still sounded pissed. “You didn’t just ruin the moment, you ruined the night. By the way, you missed a spot in my bedroom, by one of the outlets.”
“I’ll take care of it. No, I’m calling because of what you left for me, at my place.”
“Left for you?”
“Very funny. Yeah, today, when I came home, I just got it.”
“You’re sounding more obtuse than usual, what in the hell are you babbling about?”
“Please tell me you were inside my place today.”
“No can do, Dev. Your place, you kidding? I’m just coming out of an all day meeting, on the way to my car. Your place? I don’t have time to screw around like that. What are you talking about?”
“Look Heidi, I’ll paint your entire house, don’t play games with me, this is really serious, so give me a straight answer. Did you leave something inside my front door today?”
“No, I didn’t, I already told you, I’ve been in a client meeting the whole damned day. Honest to God, my head’s killing me, if I have to smile and nod at another stupid suggestion one more time I’m going to explode.”
“You didn’t leave a thong on my door knob? Looks like an American flag.”
“A thong? Like a flag? Not really my style. You’re not dating that Marine Corp chick again are you? Wasn’t she the one who threatened to shoot you if you ever tried to contact her again?”
“That’s beside the point and anyway, I’m not seeing her, in fact I haven’t seen her in at least a year.”
“Look, no offense, but you’re sounding kind of crazy. For what it’s worth, I wasn’t slumming in your neighborhood today, okay. And you are still on my shit list, bye.” Click.
I could think of three other women who had keys to my place. The first two hung up on me when I called. The third one explained, in rational tones, that the only thing she would think of bringing over was her boyfriend to beat me up. I put them all in the ‘unlikely’ column. Heidi was still my best bet, and I believed her when she told me she’d been in meetings all day. That left a frightening thought.
I decided to call an old friend named Felix Alkers. He was a locksmith and owned a little one-man-shop called Prevention Installations. I’d met him a few years back while we were both waiting to testify in a case that ended up settling at the last minute. We’d sent one another the odd bit of business since then. I left a message on his phone, everyone who called had to do that, Felix never answered. He phoned me back about ten minutes later. I was in the process of walking around the first floor, making sure all the windows were locked.
“Haskell Investigations.”
“Prevention Installations returning your call, is this Dev?”
“It is, Felix, good to hear your voice.”
“Likewise. What can I do for you?”
“The usual, need a new set of locks for a front and back door. Nothing too special, Schlage will work, that’s what’s in there now.”
“Okay, when do you want this done? I could maybe get to it in the next forty-eight hours, that work for you?” he asked.
“Actually Felix, I was hoping you might be able to do it tonight.”
“Tonight? This your place?”
“Yeah, I…”
“You’re not having trouble again with some woman, are you?”
“Well, let’s just say…”
“Save it. I’ll have to charge you time and half, Dev. Plus cost of the hardware, I’ll give you a discount, won’t put a mark up on materials. I’m looking up your account as we speak, yeah here it is, did ‘em both about two years ago for you. Well,” he chuckled. “At least, you seem to be moving up the food chain, time before that I think it had only been about ten months before you had to have ‘em changed.”
“You can make it over here tonight?”
“Yeah, let me check at the shop. I think I got replacement sets on hand, I should be there in an hour, hour-and-a-half, tops.”
Felix was knocking at my front door in forty minutes. He was a solid, square built guy, though you’d never think of him as fat. He sported a crew-cut. If I had to guess, I’d put Felix just north of sixty years old. I figured in his younger days he may have played some hockey. The nose had been broken once or twice, some pucker scars ran across his chin suggesting two to three stitches apiece. He had both sets of locks, front and back, replaced within thirty minutes.
“Just toss the check in the mail, Dev,” he said. Then tore off the original copy of the invoice he’d just written up while sitting at my kitchen counter. Sixty bucks a pop for the locks, ninety bucks for the labor. Two-hundred-and-ten-dollars for thirty minutes work and I was thanking him.
“Don’t mention it, Dev, good to see you again.”
“Now the old keys won’t work in these, right?”
Felix looked at me like I was nuts.
“No, it’s the same make as you had in there before, you can insert the old key, but its not gonna unlock your door. Now, here’s your new keys, four of them, why don’t you give me your old ones now, so you don’t mix them up, they all look the same.”
That sounded like a pretty good idea, obviously Felix had seen me in action. I took the old house key off my key ring, took a second one off a hook by the kitchen sink and handed them over.
He chatted for a minute or two about the work he planned to do on his rose bushes when he got home tonight. I had tossed the flag thong on the table in the dining room where it still sat as we passed to the front door. It was sort of crumpled up, but there was no mistaking what it was. Felix glanced at it, but didn’t comment. He shook my hand at the door and thanked me again.
“Maybe be a bit more on the cautious side when handing the keys out to your lady friends,” he followed that advice up with a wink, and then waved over his shoulder as he walked to his van.
I watched him drive off, closed the door and snapped the dead bolt on my new lock into place. I pulled at the door slightly, just to make sure it was secure. My monitor call came through a little after ten. I was in bed, asleep before eleven.
Chapter Fifty
It was dark in the bedroom and my eyes snapped open the instant I heard the rattling. It was subtle, I wondered for half a moment, thinking it might be the wind, then I heard it again. I slid out of bed, grabbed a snub.38 in a web holster I keep in my top dresser drawer. I tip toed toward the stairs, heard the sound again as I moved down the hallway. There was someone at my front door, trying the lock.
I peeked around the corner and looked down the staircase, I didn’t see anyone. I waited for three or four minutes, started to convince myself it really must of have been the wind on this still night when I heard the noise again. This time more distant, but definitely there. I stood in the dark looking down through the large, beveled glass window of my front door. No one was out there, then I heard the rattle again, my back door.