Mr. Softee (6 page)

“Then she has
me follow them, coming home the other night. Told me to ram him. I was gonna, but I chickened out at the last minute.”

“What?”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha,” he sort of laughed, but insanely, there was nothing funny sounding about it. He suddenly lurched off the bar stool, took two steps back, and looked at me.

“Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone
? Oh where, oh where can he be?” Bernie screeched over Bob Segar on the jukebox.

“Oh, oh,” Carey said and gave the nod to a rather large guy who gently took Bernie by
the arm and ushered him outside.

“With his ears so short and his tail…”

“Jesus, Carey, I had no idea. I’m sorry, I didn’t think he’d go off like that. All of a sudden he’s…”

“Relax
, Dev. It happens sometimes, he’s damaged goods, you know. It’s just real bad for business when he gets like that, sort of ruins the glow around here, if you know what I mean. Get you another?”

I nodded yes.

Carey returned with two more shots.

“Yeah, it
’s too bad. Poor guy was in some sort of industrial accident awhile back and just never got over it. Not that he was playing with a full deck to begin with, but…”

“Industrial accident?”
I asked.

“Yeah lost some fingers
. I don’t know if you noticed or not, probably a log-splitter or something like that. Not exactly the first guy who’d come to mind for following OSHA recommendations, you know.”

Bernie’s tale of
Mr. Softee, Lola, and the dogs rang truer than Carey’s log-splitter version. Now I was curious.

Chapter Twelve

Once again I remained
at The Spot longer than I should have, and then decided it would be a good idea at almost two in the morning to find Bernie’s old night spot.

I found one of Mr. Softee’s trucks parked on
East Sixth Street, just behind the Holiday gas station. The downtown location seemed a strange place to try and sell ice cream at two thirty on a Thursday morning.

I parked
in front of a white Escalade, opposite the ice-cream truck. At least it wasn’t playing the chime that helped drive Bernie Sneen literally off his rocker.

“What’ll it be?” the attendant rasped at me as I approached the window
. He had a laptop open, the blue glare off the screen lit his large bald head so it appeared to be floating like a full moon. No doubt he was social networking on the computer.

He had
a large black mustache and sported small gold earrings in both ears. The S curve along the bridge of his nose suggested the occasional difference of opinion. He wore a black T-shirt over heavy shoulders that stretched across even heavier biceps. His hands looked like hams, with fingers made from construction rebar. A blue, blurry homemade tattoo adorned the back of each hand. I guessed he got the tattoos in a state institution, not the U of M.

“Give
me a Fudgesicle,” I grinned, remembering the fat kid the day I was riding around with Jill.

“What?”

“A Fudgesicle.”

“Get t
he hell out of here,” he scoffed.

“Okay, okay, just checking
. I need to place a bet.”

He eyed me warily, then asked,

“You got a name?”

“A name,
you mean like Bernie Sneen or Mister Softee? Come on, what kind of odds you got? Tell me that, then I can give you a name.” I was beginning to enjoy this.

“I think you better leave, sir.”

“Aw come on, be a pal. I’m just screwing around. Look what can I bet on tonight? I need a sure winner, you know?”

“Actually
no, I don’t know. I got no idea what in the hell you’re talking about,” he said and slid a little window closed, then sat back down in his chair.

I
knocked on the window. I’d clearly gotten to him and even in my over-served state knew I was onto something here.

“Hey, hey
, buddy open up. Hey, come on, man, open up,” I called, then tugged on the window. Apparently he’d locked it.

I heard footsteps behind me, turned and faced t
wo fairly large individuals. Certainly larger than me, they wore blue jeans, black T-shirts like the guy in the truck, and had the definite shape of bodybuilders. One had a crew cut and a dopey look, the other wore glasses and had his hair pulled back in a ponytail. He had those sideburn things, the kind that followed the jaw line and tapered down to a fine point, like knives on either side of his face. They stood with their feet apart, arms loose at their sides. They were close but not on top of me. They clearly knew what they were doing.

“Jesus
, the guy won’t open up for me,” I said by way of explanation.

“Can we help you, sir?”

“Help me? No, not really. I just wanted to place an order is all, and Baldy in there won’t open up.”

One of them looke
d over my shoulder into the ice-cream truck. My gaze followed. The thug inside the truck shook his head no.

“I guess he
’s closed for the night. Maybe you should just head home. Probably be a good idea.”

“No, I don’t think I’ll
do that. I want a goddamned Fudgesicle, and I’m not leaving until…”

It happened
so fast I wasn’t sure which one had hit me. Whoever it was, he’d knocked me to the ground, and as I rolled onto my knees a boot kicked me in the ribs, hard. Steel toes based on the bruise and if memory serves. One of them jerked me to my feet effortlessly. I smelled garlic as he held me up on my tiptoes and very close to his face.

I reached
under my sport coat into the small of my back and pulled out the snub thirty-eight. Lifted his chin with the barrel just to get his attention. That worked. He let go and slowly took a step backwards.

“
Not such a tough…”

“Move another inch
, and you’re all over the street,” a voice behind me rasped. Baldy, in the ice-cream truck racked a round into the chamber. An unmistakable sound, especially when your back is to it.

I remained very still.

My two assailants backed off to the side out of the line of shotgun fire. I followed their movement with the thirty-eight but otherwise remained perfectly still.

“Probably be a good idea if you calmly got
your dumb ass back in your car and drove away, while you still can,” Baldy advised from inside the ice cream truck.

“Softee’s gonna hear about this,” I bluffed.

“Get the hell out of here,” Baldy said.

I slowly walked away, keeping the thirty-eight pointed in the general direction of the two idiots on the street
. I made it to my car, climbed in, waved, and then drove off quickly. I zigzagged for the next ten blocks to make sure no one was following me, all the while wondering how I could be so incredibly stupid?

Eventually, I
crept back to the general area where the ice-cream truck had been parked, but the street was clear. No vehicles anywhere so I drove home at three fifteen in the morning.

Chapter Thirteen

I woke the next
morning around ten. My neck was stiff, my head throbbed. and my side was killing me. I figured it was because I’d slept on the couch and in my clothes. Based on the empty fifth sitting on the floor I’d apparently poured myself a glass or two of Jameson once I got home.

I groaned to my feet, took off my sport coat
, and made it to the bathroom. I stared back at the mirror in disbelief at the purple bruise running the length of my cheekbone. I lifted my polo shirt, saw another bruise the size of a salad plate, and things started coming together. Gradually I remembered my stupid, stupid, stupid attempt to place a bet at Mr. Softee’s truck and the run in with those goons in the street.

“You idiot,” I sneered at the idiot staring back at me in the bathroom mirror.

I had barely enough coffee in the cupboard to make a pot and had just turned it on when the phone rang. It took me a minute to find the damn thing since it was still on the floor in my sport-coat pocket.

“Hello,” I croaked,
then cleared my throat. “Hello,” I managed with a little more authority.

“Well, how’s it going this morning?”

It was the police. Actually my pal Aaron LaZelle, a lieutenant with St. Paul’s vice-squad. I’d known him since we’d been kids, and not just because he was on the vice-squad.

“Fine, i
f you don’t go into detail,” I replied, wishing the coffee to hurry up.

“Say, I have a
Detective Norris Manning in front of me just now.”

I racked my brain, such as it was, but the name wasn’t ringing a bell.

“Is that supposed to mean something to me? I’m not placing him. This isn’t the guy we went ice fishing with, is it? The time that Janice chick…”

“No, this is a little more seri
ous than that. Detective Manning finds you to be a person of interest. He spends most of his waking hours working homicide in this fair city and your name seems to have surfaced.”

“Really
?” I asked cautiously.

“That’s why it would be a good idea for you to pay a visit to our downtown
office suite. Reacquaint yourself with some of our procedures and the responsibilities of upstanding citizens, such as yourself.”

“Do I need a lawyer present?” I asked, getting very concerned.

“What time would you like him here?” I heard Aaron ask. Apparently Detective Manning really was in front of him.

“Som
etime before noon would be fine.” Aaron said to me. It was already twenty to eleven.

“
Aaron, damn it, do I need a lawyer present?”

“I don’t
think so. Thank you for your cooperation. Ask for Detective Manning at the front desk. And make it soon, he’s got a noon appointment.”

“I’ll have to make some calls, see
if I can move a meeting around,” I replied.

“Yeah, sure,
you do that,” he said, then hung up.

I ran through
the events during the early morning hours at the ice-cream truck. They were a bit hazy through the Jameson fog, but I couldn’t come up with anything illegal. Well, except for the assault on me, and I wasn’t pressing any charges.

I gingerly showered and sh
aved. Thought about using makeup or something on my face then decided that could only make things worse.

Chapter Fourteen

Aaron had mentioned that
Detective Manning had a noon appointment. I arrived at eleven forty, calculating a ten-minute wait in the lobby, then five minutes to get to an interview room. Five or ten minutes tops for questions. Not that I knew what Manning would be asking me.

“Oh yeah, Mister Haskell, I was alerted to your pending
arrival,” the desk sergeant chuckled when I explained why I was there.

Alerted to my pending arrival?

I found myself sitting in an interview room in about ninety seconds. The place smelled of sweat, cigarettes and fear. I think the fear was from me.

“Ahhh,
Mister Haskell, is it? Good morning, thanks for coming in. I’m Detective Manning.”

I guessed him to be about six two, maybe two hundred ten pounds, balding, red hair
fringe, freckles, early forties, bright blue eyes, a hard charger. He looked a little like Terry Bradshaw and probably enjoyed a good joke. I didn’t have any at the moment. He held a manila file under his left arm, carried a machine-dispensed coffee cup in his left hand as he entered the interview room. He didn’t offer to shake hands with me. His body language was telling me he was in charge, not that I needed a reminder.

“So,” he said sitting down.

I wanted to ask what this was about, but experience told me to shut up and answer precisely and with as few words as possible. I was pretty sure we were being watched through the one-way glass, probably Aaron, maybe a couple of other folks. Manning switched on a recorder, read the opening statement covering his ass, gave the date, time, my name, asked me if I was there of my own free will, then got down to business.

“Your name surfaced as a person of some interest in a matter under investigation
. I’m hoping you’ll be able to clear up some questions we have.” He was doing what good investigators do, starting in generalities, suggesting the two of us could just work together to clear up a couple of items before I went on my way.

I was racking my brain trying to figure out what this was about
. The standoff last night? Pocketing a pair of diamond earrings I’d given an ex-wife right before she filed for divorce? Letting a former girlfriend’s parrot out the window last Memorial Day weekend? Stalking charges from another ex-wife? President of the PMS club, Sandy from Connie Ortiz’s office, about her DWI that I got pled down? Linda the…