I flew down the staircase, quietly moved toward the rear of the house, heard the noise coming from the back door, this time a little more forcefully. I stepped into the kitchen, but couldn’t see anyone on the back porch. Over the course of the next hour I moved back to the front, then returned to the kitchen, checked the front again. Whoever it was seemed to have left.
My monitor call came through at seven-ten in the morning. Not a problem, I was already up and on my third cup of coffee. I’d never gone back to sleep. It had started to rain around five and the gray morning felt even worse with the steady drizzle coming down. I punched in my code, hopped in the shower and then drove to the office.
I watched the office girls going to work. There were some nice looking women huddled under umbrellas waiting at the bus stop. It was still about forty-five minutes too early for crabby coeds. Occasionally someone drifted into The Spot for a liquid breakfast, no one had left the place, yet. At five-past-nine I phoned Louie’s office.
“Louie Laufen, please.” I was prepared for the ‘he’ll call when able message.’ But to my surprise she said, “One moment please, I’ll connect you with Mister Laufen.”
The phone rang twice, followed by a nasty spat of coughing before I heard, “Yeah. Hello.”
“Louie?”
“Dev?”
“Louie, you just on your way home from last night?”
“I wish, I’m in trial today, thought it might be nice to prepare. What do you need?”
“Any word from Manning on that stuff you sent over?”
“You mean that stuff where your pal Farrell married his sister in Vegas?”
“Yeah, although she’s not actually his sister, that’s just how they presented her to me,” I couldn’t believe I was defending Farrell and Kiki.
“Well to answer your question, no.” Louie cleared his throat into the phone.
I desperately wanted to ask about Doctor Death.
“Not unusual,” Louie continued, “I’d give them a week to check things out, they’ll take their sweet time, but eventually they’ll realize you’re the wrong guy.”
“You sound a hell of a lot more optimistic than I feel.”
“I may have an inside track, nothing concrete, but I’m picking up some rumblings.”
“Like what?”
“Nothing solid, yet. Lets just say rumors are your buddies at K-R-A-Z maybe aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, things seem to be going in a couple different directions right now. Listen, Dev, your job is still the same, pretend to be an upstanding citizen, okay?”
“Can you tell me anything besides you heard a rumor there might be rumors?”
“No, that’s about as good as it gets, for now. Listen, I gotta run, anything else that can’t wait?”
“You can’t tell me anything? Maybe just give me a…”
“No, like I said, nothing to tell. Peace, love, dove, brother,” he said and hung up.
Chapter Fifty-One
I’d like to say I spent the night scrolling through boring cable channels, but in actuality I slipped onto an Internet porn site around eight-thirty, promising myself it would be no more than fifteen minutes. Sunnie’s laptop seemed to be working a little slower tonight so I didn’t get to bed until a little after one. I woke at about two-forty-five. I thought I’d heard a car in my driveway, but then drifted back to a fitful sleep. I was finishing my coffee at the kitchen counter the following morning when the monitor call came through. I punched in the code, then drove to KRAZ and nibbled blueberry muffins sitting behind the steering wheel in the far corner of the lot. It was a gorgeous morning, sunny but not beastly hot, very pleasant. Despite the trash around the place I almost thought I could pick up the scent of flowers or perfume. Farrell’s BMW was already parked in its usual spot when I arrived, pretty early in the morning for old Farrell.
A sleek silver Audi pulled in next to Farrell’s car a little before ten and a gorgeous brunette climbed out, Kiki. She nibbled an apple, dressed in tight fitting jeans, heels and a sort of slinky top with spaghetti straps. Even from this distance she looked delicious as she made her way to the front door. Her entire appearance lasted less than thirty seconds, she never glanced in my direction. That was a good thing since just my watching from this distance violated her bogus restraining order.
Another car pulled in, some nondescript SUV, nothing too fancy. The guy got out, stood for a moment and gave my car a long glance before he walked toward the building. That was enough attention for me and as soon as he stepped inside I left.
As I drove to the office Farrell’s voice droned on the radio. I had learned absolutely nothing, other than Kiki, crazy as she was, still looked great.
I was at my desk a little before noon, reading through my mail, which consisted of a grocery store circular featuring a special on brussels sprouts, chick peas and beets. I wondered what sort of clientele they were attempting to reach.
There was some high pitched, feminine screeching coming from in front of my building, nothing desperate, just loud and obnoxious. I looked out the window and saw the three coeds lumbering across Randolph toward a waiting bus, giggling, screaming and in general disturbing everyone’s peace. Once the bus pulled away I continued to watch as it disappeared up the street.
My car was parked at the curb, just a few spaces from my office door. I looked at it out the window, something wasn’t right. The headlight seemed to be broken on the passenger side. The bumper looked dented and was hanging at an odd angle.
I was swearing and grumbling as I raced down the stairs and outside to inspect the damage. Some idiot must have backed into me the other night at the grocery store and took off, I’d never even noticed.
It got worse as I walked closer. The head light was broken. The front of the car dented, the grill damaged, down along the edge of the bumper there looked to be rust. I scraped at it with my thumb nail, hoping. Unfortunately, it wasn’t rust, it was dried blood, I knew as soon as it flaked off. I could only hope a dog had been hit, closer examination suggested that wasn’t the case. There was a bit of hair around the outside edge of the headlight, threads snagged on the underside of the dented bumper. Someone had really been nailed. I hadn’t had a drop to drink for so long I’d lost an inch around the waist, it hadn’t been me behind the wheel, but that didn’t change the facts.
I decided I’d better get the car washed, so I hopped in, there was that smell again, subtle, but none the less there, flowers, perfume? I had a pair of shoes on the back floor I used for softball, that wasn’t it. On the way to the car wash I thought it might be a better idea to see Louie first.
Chapter Fifty-Two
I’d never been to Louie’s office, but I knew where it was located. The building was just across Fourth Street from the Ramsey County Courthouse, in the City Hall Annex. Another former commercial building the city took over as business receded and the downtown area went on life support. The Annex sat next door to the former Lowry Hotel, another Real Estate scam some developer had been milking for the past fifteen years and the city would ultimately pay a high price for their naivete.
Whoever did the layout for the Annex didn’t have romance as a strong suit. The walls were painted a sort of puke green, it might have been government olive drab at one time, now thinned out to stretch coverage and look even more unattractive. Louie’s office was up on the sixth floor, behind an eighties style glass door labeled 613. The numbers were rectangles, black with a silver background. The kind of peel and stick address numbers that used to be popular in hardware stores until the buying public judged them as too ugly. At which point the city apparently loaded up.