He rolled his head in my direction, attempted to focus, then mumbled what I could only hope was his address and we were off.
I parked in front, led him up the front walk using his tie as a leash, it worked, more or less. He attempted to pull his keys out of his pocket, dropped them on the front steps where I scooped them up. I opened the door, entered his living room and led him to a dilapidated couch. He wobbled for a brief moment, then collapsed face first onto the thing and was snoring in fifteen seconds.
I examined his bed, decided not to chance it, showered quickly and settled into a tattered recliner in the opposite corner of the living room.
It was bright and sunny out when Louie’s coughing woke me. He was sitting on the edge of the couch, in a t-shirt, red boxers and black socks. Not the vision you’d want on any given day and certainly not the first thing in the morning.
“Oh, fuck me,” he groaned.
I thought that pretty much summed things up. He sat there for a few minutes, coughing, clearing his throat, in general trying to focus before he rose to his feet. I thought it was pretty awful when he was seated on the edge of the couch, but the view once he stood was even worse.
“Tuck yourself in, man, Jesus.”
“Screw it, you want a beer?” he asked, lumbering into a small kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open, it grew quiet for a long moment. Then he groaned, “God damn it,” and the refrigerator door slammed shut. He reappeared a minute or two later empty handed.
“Guessing you heard what happened?” he said, scratching himself in the kitchen doorway.
“Depends. I heard you were taken off my case.”
“Pricks fired my ass.”
“Oh that, how come?”
“Various infractions. I’m not sure really which one set them off, I mean there could be tons of reasons, but that heartless bitch…”
“Daphne Cochrane?”
“…was involved.”
“She’s the one who called me. Told me to plead guilty and turn myself in to Manning because…”
“Actually, that’s still pretty good legal advice.”
“But, I didn’t do anything. Between him and that weasel cop Heller, those two would lock me up and just throw away the key.”
“Yeah, not your biggest fans, I meant the turn yourself in was good advice, you got your pal in there, LaZelle, he wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Daft has a tendency to forget the innocent until guilty part when dealing with the lower strata of society.”
I ignored his lower strata comment.
“I’m not turning myself in until I figure out what happened. It still isn’t making any sense to me.”
“It’s about to get worse,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m guessing Daft didn’t tell you.”
“She didn’t say shit except that I should plead guilty and turn myself in, immediately. Told her I didn’t do anything and all she said was ‘don’t use that tone with me’. Like she’s some damn school teacher.”
“Yeah, that sounds like her,” Louie said, then gave a tremendous belch. “Oh man, much better, much better.”
“So, you said it’s going to get worse?”
“They found your pal, Farrell.” Louie said, lumbering back to the couch.
“Found him?”
“Hit and run. Someone phoned in an anonymous tip, gave the description, a red, ’95, Cadillac DeVille, a blue door on the passenger side, sound familiar.”
“That’s my car.”
“You think?” Louie said.
“That’s probably the damage to my front end, right?”
“Pretty fair guess.”
“Someone phoned it in, let me guess, a female voice.”
“You got it. Amazingly similar to the report of shots fired at that bullshit press conference those clowns had. I’m guessing voice comparison would match this to the press conference call and the report of your vehicle driving over by Thompson Barkwell’s place. Amazingly, all the calls were made from some untraceable, bogus phone. Seems like someone is really pissed off at you.”
“I seem to have that effect on people. Did you ever get Barkwell’s autopsy report?”
“No, I was busy getting fired.”
“Think the Medical Examiner knows you’ve been fired?”
Louie shook his head, rubbed his eyes.
“Doubt it. They’ll know soon enough, though, Daft will probably have it up on Face Bag and Tawter, the bastards will probably have me disbarred by the end of the day.”
“Louie, let’s get cleaned up and go get that autopsy report, while we still have time”
“What? Do you think you’re going to actually accomplish something? I think I’d rather go back to the Coal Bin,” he said, then yawned and scratched himself.
“Even if it’s nothing, that would accomplish more than sitting on my ass and feeling sorry for myself.”
“As your former legal council I advise you to flee the country,” he said, groaning to his feet.
“You serious?”
“No, they’d probably nab you at the border anyway. Come on, you can drive me back to the Coal Bin.”
I looked at him, my mouth hanging open.
“Oh Jesus, will you relax, I gotta pick up my car,” he said.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Louie saw me and waved as he stepped in the door, then marched directly over to the booth I was sitting in.
“Been waiting long?” he asked.
“’Bout three hours.” I finished the last of my drink.
“Here, you can read through this while I grab something. You want anything?” he said, then dropped a file on the table in front of me.
“Maybe another coffee.” I opened the file and started to slog through the technicalities of Thompson Barkwell’s autopsy report while Louie ordered.
He returned carrying two Big Mac’s and my coffee. He also had French fries, some onion rings, a giant pink shake and some sort of dessert thing. He spread it out across the table and started cramming food in his mouth.
“Skip that technical bullshit,” he said, spitting a mouthful of French fries in my direction before slurping some of the pink shake. “Get over to page four, that’s the part that’s interesting, tells you the contents of the guy’s stomach.”
“Barkwell’s?”
“Who else?”
“Just wondered, I can hardly wait.” I turned to page four, about halfway down Louie or someone had highlighted a paragraph; ‘… partially digested rice and what appears to be the severed tip of an index finger. The finger tip appears to have come from the right hand of an adult Caucasian, aged between twenty-five and fifty. Separation occurred at the first joint. Examination suggests that severing possibly occurred from the deceased biting the finger tip and swallowing. Inner cheek, gum and tracheal bruising are consistent with the insertion of, and possible probing with, a foreign object. Possible effort to retrieve?’
“Someone cut a finger off and stuck it in some rice dish that Barkwell ate?” I said.
“Not exactly. He had a meal, part or all of which was rice. At some point, someone stuck their hand in his mouth. Your invoice was crammed in the guy’s mouth, when they found him, right?’
“Yeah?” I wasn’t getting up to speed with this.
“Somebody crams your invoice into his mouth. He reacts, maybe it’s reflex, maybe he’s pissed off, maybe he’s just hungry, but he chomps the guys finger, then swallows the damn thing. Whoever it is tries to get it back.”
“Tries to get it back? What the hell for?”
“Fingerprints for a starter? Maybe they’re just pissed off, I don’t know. We do know he swallowed the damn thing so they didn’t succeed.”
I was suddenly thinking of Farrell getting out of the BMW the other day, rubbing Kiki across her ass, all that gauze wrapped around his right hand and the index finger.
“It was Farrell.”
“Or the broad.” Louie said, then crammed the final half of a Big Mac into his mouth.
“No, it was Farrell,” I went on to explain while he chewed.
“Well, then they should be able to put this together when they do the autopsy on Farrell.” Louie said. He was licking his finger tips, getting the last bit of whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles, his appetite seemed to be unfazed by our topic.