In my own car, I hung over my steering wheel for a few minutes trying to find a way to breathe that didn’t make me want to stop breathing. Driving my car felt better. The holding of the steering wheel while turning made it easier. I drove slowly. I wouldn’t say life was good, but it had gotten better.
Axel had gone back to his place, or he could’ve been at Mackie’s, or with Hillie, or a movie maybe. He had become a big fan of movies during his years in stir. In any event, he wasn’t home. I wanted to go to bed and sleep until the twelfth of never, but first I needed to try to figure who had employed Ernest to work me over. The one thing I knew, whoever it had been would fail at keeping me off the job. I’d be after his ass in the morning.
With some Irish straight in a short glass I went out on the patio. Yeooow. Irish may be good for cleansing a wound, but in a half raw mouth it stung like riding through hell on a splintered board. I swished it around before swallowing. After a few drinks it calmed. As I saw it, or chose to see it, that addressed my need for immediate medical care. In the morning, I’d go see Doc Medford, one of my loyal readers, to learn if my rib was broken or whatever. I was hoping for the whatever.
The person who had hired Podkin knew the doctor had given the general about a week to live, that’s why he or she wanted me off my feet for that long. The quest for who killed Ileana Corrigan was the general’s private passion. Once he died, the personal representative for the estate could be expected to leave the cold case of the murder of Ileana Corrigan in police archives. Eddie Whittaker would take over leadership of the general’s assets and he considers having been released by the court to be enough. I would be taken off the case. To solve the woman’s murder and earn my fee, I had the same amount of time left the general had.
I was now convinced that the killer of Ileana Corrigan and the general’s unborn great grandson lived in the general’s house, an enemy within.
*
By two the next afternoon I had left Doc Medford and his dowdy nurse. Podkin had cracked a rib, a lower one on my left side. The doc also found a lot of bruising around my rib cage. He presented the crack as good news, saying it would hurt worse if it were broken. I doubted that, but in the end it was what it was. He wrapped it tight enough to make breathing harder. The upside being that I looked more svelte in my slacks than any time since I first got out of prison. Prison had kept me fit. I looked forward to exercise to work off the high carb foods the prison purchasing agents seemed to favor.
“Where you been boss?” Axel asked right off when I reached him on his cell phone. He and Buddha were back tailing Eddie Whittaker.
I told him about being abducted and worked over, that I had gotten away with a cracked rib and mushy face. He asked if I wanted him to come back and help. “No. I can manage. You two stay with Eddie.” Then I asked if Eddie had done anything suspicious since they put the tail on him.
“No. Not really, boss. He goes to the gym, his broker’s office, has lunch, and then plays golf or whatever. Like that. Usually eats supper with some doll. All in all, he’s living the good life. Just a minute, boss … Buddha just reminded me to tell you about Eddie going by a biker bar down in Pedro, near the docks. He went in and came out in under ten minutes. Like he’d gone in looking for someone and that person hadn’t been there.”
Eddie could have been looking for Podkin.
“Let me know if he goes back. Where are you right now?”
“It’s around four so Eddie’s at play. He’s over at the Skylinks course hitting golf balls on the driving range. You know, I gotta take up that game. You play, don’t you boss?” I grunted. “Like I said, this guy lives a very casual lifestyle.”
“Stay with him. If anything happens that looks suspicious, I wanna know about it. I’ll keep my phone near me.”
I checked in with Fidge by phone to let him know I was back at home.
“Brenda offered to fix you some of her homemade soup. You can rest up over here. She’ll have you back in the game in a day or two.”
I told him I didn’t have a day or two and that I appreciated the offer-and I did. I promised we’d all get together when I had this wrapped up. The best guess said the general only had a few days left, and I had the same. That without the general I would not be on the case and, damn it, I wouldn’t walk away with this half unraveled.
I felt like shit. Axel would be out until late. I expected he’d check in with me then. I went to bed, got up sometime after hard dark and made a soft-boiled egg, drank some cranberry juice, and then went back to sleep.
*
Before six, the sun started sliding into the room, doing its thing, the way cream softens black coffee. I’d had enough sleep, and wasting time wouldn’t make it hurt less.
Axel winced when he saw me, which didn’t make me feel any better. I understood because I had seen myself in the mirror. My face looked like uncooked beef Wellington with the puff pastry raw, and my eyeballs like one of those roadmaps printed off the Internet. The tissue around my left eye was purple and puffy, nearly shut. Axel had already made coffee and squeezed some fresh tomatoes in a juicer he had bought a few days ago. He sprinkled in some salt and ground pepper.
“I left out the dash of Tabasco,” he said, “figuring you didn’t want that in your mouth right now.” The coffee was too hot. I drank the juice while I gave him more details on my time with Podkin and how I had escaped. He said nothing other than, “You shoulda burned his ass the way Clara crisps bacon.” When I asked about Eddie, he said the general’s grandson did nothing suspicious yesterday or last night. And, no, he had not returned to the biker bar. Then Axel left to do some shopping for us and for Clara so she’d make us another pie.
Ten minutes later, the front bell rang. Having no reason not to open the door, I did, and found my ex-wife standing in the doorway. She had never been to my condo and, if you had asked before I opened the door, she would have been the last person on the planet I’d expect to be standing on the other side.
“Matt, what happened?” She walked in without my saying come in, but I was about to say it. I spent some time filling her in. Then I showed her around. She loved the view from the terrace. She put a hand on my face, gently on my cheek and then the back of my neck. The look on her face told me she didn’t like what she saw. But it was concern, not one of those hey, you’re double-ugly looks. She said a few of my facial cuts and abrasions had not been cleaned properly. She took my hand. The next thing I knew I was sitting on the toilet with her using cotton balls and witch hazel and, I don’t know what, to bathe some of my wounds. She had brought the stuff she was using with her. It figured that Fidge’s wife had called her. She rubbed some ointment on several places, put a bandage on one, and said, “The others we’ll leave open to the air.”
Helen left after inviting me to her house on Sunday for breakfast. I didn’t promise, but I told her I wanted to come. Today was Wednesday and I needed to cut some corners to bring this across the finish line while the general was still in the race. I needed to see him and give him a hang in there, I’m getting close talk. Even though I wasn’t all that sure it was true. He wanted the answer that would come at the end of my investigation. I was counting on the general soldiering through till then.
About noon I heated up some of that chicken soup that comes ready to eat in the can. All you need do is warm it. I did. It tasted good, but I was longing for something to chew. I’m a meat and potatoes guy. I wanted to chomp on something, but my chomper wasn’t ready. While I ate the soup, more like drank the soup, I opened the DNA report I had picked up at Chunky’s the afternoon Podkin had diverted my attention. I had expected the report to be a routine thing. Investigators are always running checks or tests of some kind to confirm what they already knew. But Chunky’s report didn’t confirm anything I already knew. It didn’t even fall within the shadow of anything I already knew.