Mr. Softee (11 page)

“Especially
barefoot and all wrapped up in duct tape the way he was.”

“Duct tape?”

“Yeah, over his mouth, around his legs, his wrists. Someone wrapped him up like a rug then laid him across the tracks. He’d been punched a couple of times, pretty hard. Had a real nasty dog bite on his ass. That’s why I was interested in that bruise you were sporting when you came in for your interview. But, there are a number of barflies attesting to the fact you were in The Spot until they threw you out sometime after two. A couple of hours after your pal Bernie caught it.”

“Jesus.”

“No, Jesus must have been busy.” Manning smiled at his joke. “Based on what was left of him, we’re guessing he had some idea of what was going on. The theory is he tried to roll into the center of the tracks, hoped the freight would just pass over him. That plan didn’t work too well.”

“Suspects?”

“Besides you? The usual. It wouldn’t be uncommon to have a murder like this over a fifteen-dollar debt or a half pint. There’s always that certain element, the puddle of slime that oozes around the ladder of society. It’s been almost a week now, with no real leads. This could well be a cold case in pretty short order. Not that I won’t keep working the damn thing.”

“What about Sofmann?” I asked.

“Mister Softee? That fuck? He’s slippery, but I don’t figure him for this. He may have a finger in a lot of things, but killing some lowlife like your pal, Bernie? I don’t think so.”

“He used to
work for Softee.”

“Yeah, we checked
into that, it was a couple years back. They fired his ass for stealing. I think he was one of four guys let go that season. We checked their records, seems to come with the territory. Usually hire college kids, but come mid-August they’re all heading back to school. So, they hire folks who shouldn’t be anywhere near kids, Sneen being one of them.” He licked more caramel off his fingers.

“
Besides, Softee was confined to bed, broke his leg in some sort of fall before this deal went down.”

“Did you check that out?”

“Who are you, internal affairs? Yeah, as a matter of fact, we did check it out. He was hospitalized. The nurses remembered him because he was such a pain in the ass.” He slurped more latte, glared at me over his cup.

“I don’t know,” I said absently.

“That’s probably the one correct thing you’ve said. What, you think you got something to add that might help?” he asked.

“Nothing you don’t already know
. I was trying to put together the distance to the train tracks and how screwed up Bernie was at the time. But, I guess I was way off base to begin with. I didn’t know about the duct tape and him being hit way over in the switching yard.”

“Yeah, we’re keeping that quiet
,” he said, then crammed the remainder of the sticky pastry into his mouth, slurped the last of his latte.

“Detective, thanks for setting me straight
.”

“Always a
pleasure, Haskell. Call me if you’d ever like me to do it again. Don’t forget to settle up before you leave,” he said pushing his chair in, giving me a little wink before going out the door.

I sat thinking of the shoe
Softee’s dog was chewing a few days back. Poor Bernie barefoot, bitten and wrapped in duct tape with a freight train barreling down on him. No one deserved that. Not a very happy thought.

Chapter Twenty-Five

It was a little past
noon. Another cloudless, scorching sky. The day was hot, muggy, and held the promise of getting much worse. I decided to pay a courtesy call on my former client.

As usual I
cooled my heels while the phone at the front gate rang and rang. Eventually Lola picked up.

“Yes?”

“Hi, Lola, Dev Haskell. Sorry to drop by unannounced, but I was wondering if I might steal a minute or two of your time.” I really wasn’t sorry.

“I’d love it,” she said
, and the gate lock snapped open almost immediately.

“Any worry about the dogs?” I asked peeking around the yard expecting the things to lunge out at any moment
. Amazingly she was still on the line.

“No,
they’re out getting a bath and their nails done. They’ll be gone for hours, come on in,” she said, and snapped the lock again.

Just as I got to the front steps s
he opened the door, and stood in the entry. She was wearing a very small bikini, a very large smile and sipping from a martini glass. Nice work if you can get it.

“You’re just in time
. I was getting ready to work on my tan. Come on, this will be fun. Close the door behind you,” she instructed, then walked down the hall toward the rear of the house. Her bikini bottom was a thong, a very small powder blue thong, to go with her extremely small, powder blue top.

I had the sense of compl
ete emptiness. Other than her heels clicking down the hallway as she walked, the only other sound was the clock ticking when we passed Mr. Softee’s office. The lights were off in the room and I noticed the hospital bed was gone. I couldn’t see his walker.

Lola strutt
ed across the kitchen, opened the freezer door, and refilled her glass from a frosted pitcher. She took a deep sip, then topped the glass off and returned the pitcher to the freezer.

“Delicious,” she grinned
, raising her eyebrows.

I waited in vain for the offer of a cold beer.

“Come on,” she said turning and heading out the patio door.

The back yard was pic
ture-postcard beautiful, not as much as a blade of grass out of place. Music was playing from somewhere, pure crap. I couldn’t tell who the band was but I knew I didn’t like them. There was a cushioned lawn chair stretched out on the patio, covered with a long striped beach towel, blue stripes to match her thong. A pillow rested at one end. A small round end table, metal with a granite top, stood close to the pillow. A tube of suntan cream and a coaster rested on the table. She carefully placed her martini glass on the coaster.

“Make yourself comfortable
, Mister Haskell,” she said. Then with her back partially toward me she dropped her top. She took her sweet time meticulously folding the tiny thing before placing it on the table next to her drink. Once folded it looked smaller than the coaster. She laid down on the lawn chair, stretched out, facedown, ready to bake in the relentless sun.

“Say,” she called, then turned
her head sideways in my direction, “be a dear and make yourself useful, will you. Put that suntan cream on my back.” She pointed to the tube next to her folded top.

Oddly
, given the circumstances, my first thought was about her dogs. If she was setting me up, and they so much as appeared, I planned to shoot the damn things without a second thought. I squirted a puddle of cream into my hand, and then nervously looked around for the dogs to appear.

“What are you worri
ed about? I told you before it’s very private back here, no one can see us. We could do absolutely anything, and no one would ever know.” She rolled onto her side, exposing a very impressive chest without so much as the hint of a tan line. Then reached for her martini glass and took a long, slow sip. She held that position with just the hint of a smile.

“Real n
ice and private back here, isn’t it?” she asked, then took another sip and licked her lips. Her eyes never left mine.

I could tell she was waiting for me to act stu
pid, babble some dumb guy line, or look away and comment on the flowers in the garden.

“Lola, you got a hell of a great rack
.”

“Enhanced,” she bragged.

“Real nice. Now roll over, will you? So I can do your back and get this suntan glop off my hands.”

“Oh, for a mom
ent I wasn’t sure what that was,” she giggled then took another long sip, shrugged, set her glass back on the coaster and settled in, face down.

I bega
n applying the cream. I purposely missed an area about the size of a silver dollar on her back, just where I thought the hooks from her bra would rub. I figured forty minutes in this sun without protection would leave a nice burn. I worked my way down to her hips.

“Do my
buns too, will you, it feels so good.”

I squirted the suntan cream directly onto her rear.

“Whoa, that’s cold.”

“Oh sorry,” I wasn’t in the least.

“Better rub it in deep.”

I massaged the suntan cream
. I’ll give her this much, she was toned. No doubt about that, she arched her back, raised her rear suggestively. I got up and grabbed a nearby chair.

“Afraid I’m too much
?” she asked, face still buried in the pillow.

“Afraid
? No, just on kind of a short time frame and I never like to rush.”

“
Really?” she said into the pillow sounding genuinely curious.

“
Lola, remember you told me about a guy used to work for you, Bernie Sneen?”

“
Oh yes, I do. As a matter of fact, we had a call from the police about him. Involved in some dreadful accident, I guess. They wanted some background information. Not that we could tell them much, other than he was caught stealing.”

“Did you tell them anything else?”

“Anything else? No, there was nothing to tell. I suppose I could have mentioned you thought he was the one who ran into us. Attempted to kill us with his car, but that’s really conjecture now, isn’t it? I didn’t want to get you in trouble. Besides, what difference would it make? He wandered around barefoot and then taped himself to the train tracks. Sad really, not to speak ill of the dead or anything, but I would guess he quite possibly never, ever, accomplished anything positive in his whole miserable little life.”

“I guess that pretty much sums it up,
” I replied.

“Maybe, I
guess, it’s just all sort of sad, you know? There are so many wonderful things to do and try in this world. They’re just there for the taking,” she said, then turned her head and squinted at me.

“Yeah, right
. Hey, did you guys get my invoice? I could save you the cost of a stamp if you…”

“
I think he put something in the mail to you the other day.”

“
Mister Softee?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, thanks. Look, I better get going. Mind letting me out the front?”

“
Tell you what, just go out the back gate. The lock release is right inside the garage door. Push that and it’s good for ten seconds. Mind getting me another refill before you go?” she said, then held her glass out, wiggled it back and forth at me and licked her lips.

I stood up, picked her top off the table and used it to wipe the excess suntan cream off my hands.

“As a matter of fact, I do mind,” I said, then strode toward the back gate.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I was still parked
in front of Mr. Softee’s when I phoned Detective Manning and left a message. I glanced in the rearview mirror after I hung up and watched as a large black Mercedes turned onto the side street. It was followed by a white Escalade. Through the tinted windows I could just make out two large silhouettes in the front seat of the Escalade.

I pulled away from the curb, rounded the next corner
, then slowed opposite the alley and watched just as Mr. Softee drove into his garage. The Escalade pulled in front of the garage, and my two pals from the other night casually climbed out.

The
y actually looked larger in the daylight, even from this distance. They glanced in my direction, but gave no indication they recognized me before they strolled into the back yard where Lola was presumably still stretched out.

Another one of those coincidences I didn’t like
. Christ, I was beginning to sound like Detective Manning.

I drove home, sorted through the mail, three grocery circulars
, an overdraft notice from my bank and the letter from Mr. Softee. I opened the envelope expecting to see a check. What I got was the invoice I had sent, with a note scrawled across the front in red ink.

“
Please furnish signed documentation of our contractual agreement.”

Documentation
! They’d signed my contract less than twenty-four hours before I mailed my invoice. I phoned Mr. Softee, left a message reminding him they’d signed my contract on his kitchen counter. I finished with a line indicating I planned to deliver my invoice, for full payment, and to please call me if he had any questions or concerns. I hoped I sounded suitably upset.

I drifted
down to The Spot, fortified myself with a few beers, then phoned Jill. It has never served me well to drink and dial.

“Oh hi, Dev,  look I…” she sounded cheery enough.

“I thought I’d just check in, see how your head was after last night,” I interrupted.