Operation Bob Dylan’s Belt. Linn Wyllie
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ever so much.”
I just nodded and tried to smile as they left.
The wind chimes on the front door verified their departure.
I plopped down in my chair and leaned back. Sighed. My alligator boots went back up on the desk. Mr. Brain wasn’t bleeding as badly, and I desperately needed a drink. Anything but tequila.
Then it hit me.
No one had asked for the ten grand back. Ten grand, Jake. Did I really earn it? Don’t go all altruistic on me, Bub. Yeah, we damn well earned it. The umbrella will work because she believes it will work. Mr. Brain had advised wisely.
Right. Moral debate over.
Ten grand.
I picked up my phone.
Dialed Rebecca Lynn’s cell number.
Ten grand.
Rebecca Lynn, now my third wife, didn’t take my call. Probably was with a client or in maybe court. In fact, she rarely took my calls. It used to piss me off, but then I learned to just ignore her rudeness. She’s a prominent attorney, a legend in her own mind, and I’m just a normal guy who expects an answer to my very occasional calls.
OK. That’s not fair. She’s busy. Me, not so much. I cut her some slack. Hung up before the auto-answering menu chimed in.
Besides, the mood had passed.
I went downtown.
CHAPTER TWO
There’s only one way to deal with a tequila hangover. Forget those old wives’ tales. It’s whisky. Real made-in-America sour mash Tennessee corn whisky. And in this whisky connoisseur’s considered opinion, there are only two up to the task: George Dickel and Jack Daniel. You need not ask how I know. Your liver may hate you for it, but at least you’ll feel better.
Mr. Brain was showing off. He wanted to contrast and compare the whiskies for me. Again. Both whiskies are sour mash, with a slightly different recipe, but Dickel mellows thorough an oak charcoal rick at ninety proof, and Daniel mellows through maple at eighty. Both are simply fine sippin’ whiskies.
It was time to do battle with the nagging drum solo in my skull. The bar and pub was downtown, and during Clearwater Police Department’s late afternoon shift change, it was frequented by PIs and off-duty cops, sheriffs, and other wannabe types who worked in the law enforcement field. And at the lunch hour, it was attorneys, judges, bailiffs and legal assistants who cluttered up the place. Drinks were always a good pour, and the food was fast. And good. And it was convenient to the Pinellas County Courthouse. And to my office.
I found a stool and slid onto it.
“Well. It’s Jake Randall comin’ in, then, init? You look like shite, laddie. Jealous husband kick your arse?”
That’s what passes for a greeting at the Fort Harrison Pub in downtown Clearwater. It was a famous bar and pub, right on the corner at Fort Harrison Avenue and Court Street. It was currently owned by Gavin Connor MacFarlane, a Scot who lived in one of those fabulously expensive waterfront homes on Edgewater Drive on the way up to Dunedin. Everyone calls him Mac. Mr. Brain has no clue why. He thought Gavin—which means white hawk in Gaelic Scottish—was a suitable moniker. Anyway, Mac bought the Fort Harrison Pub years ago from a Turkish Muslim who had owned it forever and had eventually died. Before that it may have been a transplanted Cuban who originally owned the original frame shack back in the early 1900s. Like O’Keefe’s down the street, it was part of Clearwater’s history, like the Columbia Restaurant’s bar across the bay in Ybor City was famous in Tampa; or Old Ebbitt’s Grill in Washington, DC; or The Merger in San Antonio, Texas; or T. P. Crockmeir’s in Mobile, Alabama. Or even Mozie’s Saloon in Gruene, Texas, home to a hundred years of Texas cowboys. Or dozens of other famous centuries-old American watering holes with a long and vibrant history.
Fort Harrison Avenue was named for the actual US Army fort that was established in the early 1800s on Clearwater’s high bluffs overlooking Clear Water Harbor. That’s how the old maps of the area described the bay. Locals always called it Clearwater Bay. The fort was strategically located directly across the bay from a natural pass formed by Dan’s Island—now known as Sand Key—and the south end of Clearwater Beach. Beyond that pass—Little Pass as it was called when I was kid growing up here—was the open Gulf of Mexico. Army cannons of the day could easily reach the pass and beyond. So the pass was well protected from any who may venture there. Anyway, nobody ever changed the basic name of the bar and pub. It had been a Clearwater landmark forever. The company was good, and the drinks were reasonable. You could even get good wings and a decent hot-pressed Cuban sandwich here too.
I replied to Mac’s sardonic welcome.
“Nah. No such luck. Boy’s night out is all. Me and Mark-boy.”
“Aye, and you’re looking the worst for it, me boy.”
I nodded resignedly. Mac was short on diplomacy, long on factual observation. I guess I must have looked like I felt. I needed hydration. What I wanted was an ice water. What I got was a Jack and Seven-Up. My usual. Mac didn’t even ask, just set it front of me. I nodded thanks, sipped my drink, and looked around. Mid-afternoon was always slow and the place looked it. Shift change for the police department wasn’t for a couple hours yet, and the legal types were already back at work.
“Heard about the Boot Hill shootout you were in. Killed some nasty blokes from the Sandbox, I’m told. Now that’s some good work there, init?”
Sandbox. So named to refer to the Middle East. Troops in Iraq came up with that. He was referring to an incident that occurred after my last case. That was about a week or so ago.
I was in a shootout with a couple of bad guys. Killed them both. My fifteen minutes of fame.
I didn’t know then that that little gunfight would fuck up my life forever.
But it did.
It started out as a simple stakeout of an OSHA claimant. A normal run-of-the-mill case. My client is the insurance company. I was parked in the apartment complex where the claimant lives, watching his activities. Same old boring stakeout scenario. Sit in the car, drink coffee, watch the guy, pee in the jug. All night. Finally about midnight, the guy comes out of his apartment and goes to his car. I flick on my video camera. He opens the hood, checks the engine’s dipstick, and begins to add oil. Now that’s no big deal unless you’re claiming to have been blinded in a workplace accident. My video camera on the dash clearly shows him opening the hood, checking the dipstick, reading the label on the oil container, and filling the engine. Not bad for a blind guy at midnight.
But behind him, way farther back in the parking lot, a very different movie was being shown. It caught my attention. Two guys were struggling with a bound and hooded young thing and were trying to shove her into a van. My bit for my insurance company client was done. I had the evidence of fraud on video. That was the extent of my job. I turn the video over to the corporate types, and they pay me. They can do with it as they please. Rarely does it go to court, but if it does and I’m called as a witness, I get paid a flat rate for that. So I didn’t care. This one was a quick and easy job. And this job was done.
I was free to go home and go to bed. It was a compelling option.
But the abduction going on behind the fraudster had my undivided attention. Two physically fit males shoved the girl into the side of the van, and one perp got into the driver’s side. Perp two was having trouble with the kicking and thrashing girl. I saw him punch her in the face a couple times. Shoved her into the van. Then he closed the van’s slider and got into the cab on the shotgun side. The van roared off.
Well now. I’m an ex-cop, and to me that looked like a crime in progress. I put the Jeep in gear and slowly followed them out of the parking lot. They took their time, not speeding or doing anything rash, so I dropped way back. In the wee hours of the morning, it wasn’t hard to keep them in sight. They drove around the residential areas aimlessly for a while and finally headed for the Clearwater Municipal Cemetery.