Reed Ferguson Short Stories Page 8

  A moment later, the truck pulled into the street and drove off in the opposite direction.

  “Why don’t you go home and I’ll call you later,” I said.

  “Let me go with you,” Deuce pleaded.

  He was dying to be a detective.

  I thought for a second, then said, “Okay, but let me handle things with Max.”

  “Sure. You want to give me your gun and I’ll cover you while you talk to him?”

  I cocked an eyebrow at him as I started the car. “I didn’t even bring my gun.”

  “Why not? It might be dangerous.”

  Deuce was also dying to carry a gun. It didn’t matter to him that he couldn’t hit the side of a building if he was aiming right at it. Nor did it matter to him that my philosophy was more like TV detective Jim Rockford’s, who didn’t carry a gun because, as he always said, he didn’t want to shoot anybody. I carried my Glock when I needed to, but I hadn’t anticipated Deuce calling me.

  “There’s no danger,” I said.

  “Well, okay.” He wasn’t convinced.

  I followed the truck from a safe distance and kept it in sight as we drove east onto Colfax Avenue.

  “What’s the plan?” Deuce asked after a minute.

  “Let’s see where he goes.”

  “You think he’s still got the ticket? If it were me, I’d have turned it in. Maybe he did, and he’s spent all the money.”

  Deuce filled the time with nervous chatter, his hands resting on the dashboard as he peered out the windshield. I let him talk and kept my eye on the truck. It stayed on Colfax, passed Kipling Boulevard, then turned into a lot next to a bar. As I drove past the bar, Max was walking inside.

  “What do we do?” Deuce asked as he turned and looked back at the bar.

  “Hang on.”

  I went around the block and parked on the street, then got out.

  “I’ll go have a chat with him.”

  “What should I do?” Deuce asked.

  “Stay here.”

  He nodded seriously. “I’ll be your backup.”

  “Right.”

  I was grinning as I walked to the bar. I passed by a window and glanced inside. Max was sitting at a table with two other big guys. I hesitated. I could go in and confront Max, but the likelihood was he would not take that well. And I didn’t like the idea of talking to him with his friends there, so I hurried back to the car.

  “What’s he doing?” Deuce asked.

  “He met some friends, so they might be a while.” I got in and turned on the radio. “Which means we might be a while.”

  “We wait?”

  I glanced at him. “Unless you’d rather let this go.”

  “No, I want you to talk to him.”

  I nodded and stared out the windshield. Deuce looked toward the bar, then to me, and back to the bar. He sighed heavily.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  It had been two minutes.

  I gestured at the bar. “We’ll wait until he comes back out and follow him. Hopefully he’ll head home.”

  Deuce gnawed his lower lip, then shifted in his seat. He tapped the dashboard, and sighed again. He was worse than a bored kid.

  “This isn’t fun,” he said.

  “Deuce, you know I’ve told you this before – most detective work isn’t glamourous.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  I leaned back and smiled, and subtly turned up the music.

  “I’m hungry,” he finally announced.

  “Hold on.” I got out, sauntered past the bar window, and saw Max. He was eating with his friends. I jogged back to the 4-Runner. “He’s having dinner, so we have some time. There’s a Good Times Burgers across the street.” I pulled a twenty from my wallet. “How about you go get us something to eat?”

  “All right!”

  He snatched the money out of my hand, trotted across the street, and returned a few minutes later with burgers, fries, and sodas. We ate while we listened to music, and he seemed temporarily satisfied. I had to admit, the food hit the spot. The sun went down, and the sky deepened into black. Deuce was doing the shifting thing again when Max emerged from the bar. He didn’t notice us as he walked to the lot and drove off in his truck, with Deuce and me on his tail.

  Chapter Four

  The green truck headed east on Colfax to Wadsworth and turned north. On Twentieth Avenue, Max turned west into an older neighborhood that was a mix of duplexes and small houses. By the time I got to Twentieth, the truck was several blocks down. It turned south onto a side street and vanished. I flicked off my headlights and slowly drove to the corner. The truck had pulled into a driveway halfway down the street. Max got out, walked up to a small house, and let himself in. A light went on in the living room window.

  “Now what?” Deuce murmured, as if Max might hear us.

  I glanced around. The street was quiet.

  “Now I talk to him,” I said.

  “What do I do?”

  “If it was Max who robbed you, he’ll clam up the moment he sees you.”

  “What do clams have to do–” He suddenly grinned sheepishly. “Never mind. I got it.”

  “Sit tight.” I started to get out.

  “What if he tries to slug you or something?”

  “Dial 911.”

  “Okay.” He seemed disappointed that I didn’t want him to rush in to help.

  It was my turn to smile as I shut the car door and walked down the street to Max’s house. It was a tiny brick ranch with an equally tiny porch. I rang the bell and waited. The door soon opened and Max glared at me. Up close he was bigger and more muscular than I’d realized, and I could see how he could’ve subdued Deuce and stolen his lottery ticket.

  “Yeah?” he said, his voice deep.

  He was still in his jeans and long-sleeved work shirt, so I couldn’t tell whether he had the bow and arrow tattoo on his arm.

  “Are you Max?”

  His lips twitched. My knowing his name, while he didn’t know mine, had thrown him off, and he suddenly wasn’t quite so tough.

  “Yeah?” he repeated. “Whaddaya want?”

  “I’m helping out a friend of mine. Deuce Smith.”

  If the name meant anything to him, he didn’t show it.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re a man of true eloquence,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  I sighed. “Somebody stole a lottery ticket from Deuce.”

  His face revealed nothing, but I saw a slight flicker in his eyes.

  After he didn’t say anything, I went on. “He seems to think you might know something about that.”

  He stepped back and crossed his arms. The sleeves of his shirt pulled back, and I spotted part of a tattoo on his left forearm, although I couldn’t tell if it was a bow and arrow.

  “I don’t,” he said.

  He reached out to shut the door, but I put up a hand to stop it.

  “You work with Deuce,” I said.

  “That don’t mean nothin’,” he snarled. “I don’t know who he is.”

  “Were you at B 52s Monday night?”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a bar just north of downtown.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Yeah, I was home all evening.”

  Just then, the dog next door began barking excitedly from its back yard. I glanced over and saw a man in a security guard uniform walking up the sidewalk to the house. The dog’s bark grew even louder as the man called out to it. The man opened his door and disappeared inside his house.

  “That’s a dog who’s sure happy to see his owner,” I said.

  Max snickered. “Yeah, every night it’s the same thing.” He cocked his head and looked out the door. “Give it a second. He’ll let the dog in and it’ll quit.”

  Sure enough, the dog’s barking suddenly stopped. I looked back at Max.

  “It never changes,” he said with a shru
g. “Every night, he comes home from work and the dog goes nuts. Just like Monday night. That dog was barking away.”

  “So you were definitely here that night?”

  He nodded.

  “You don’t know anything about Deuce and his lottery ticket?” I asked.

  “Nope. If he says I stole from him, he’s lying.” His hands balled into fists. “Why don’t you tell him to meet me face-to-face and we’ll settle this?”

  I shook my head. “That’s not necessary.” I stepped back. Confronting him was getting me nowhere. I was sure he was lying to me, but I had no way of proving it. “I think I’ll ask some of the neighbors if they saw you around Monday night.”

  It was more a nonchalant comment on my part, but then he said, “Go right ahead.”

  That made me mad. It angered me that he was lying to me, and that he would rob Deuce. And that he was daring me to call his bluff.

  “Thanks for your time,” I said.

  With that, he slammed the door in my face. I slowly walked down the sidewalk. As I turned and headed for the next-door neighbor’s house, I noticed Max watching me from his front window. I glanced toward the 4-Runner. Deuce was staring at me eagerly. I was sure he wanted to get in on the action, but I subtly raised a hand and he stayed put. If Max saw Deuce, I didn’t doubt that he’d come out and try to settle things with Deuce right then. A fistfight out here would not be good.

  I went up to the door of Max’s next-door neighbor and rang the bell. Silence. Not even the dog barking.

  I rang the bell again, then stepped back. I hadn’t seen the neighbor go anywhere. I waited a few seconds longer, but he didn’t answer the door, so I decided to try a few of Max’s other neighbors. None knew whether Max had been home on Monday night. I ended up at a house across the street. I knocked on the door and an old man with twinkling eyes and almost white hair, and a paunch opened the door. With a red suit he could’ve been a “past-his-prime” Santa Claus.

  “What can I do for you, son?” he asked curiously.

  Behind him, a television was blaring. Across from that was a sagging couch and a coffee table covered with car parts, containers of oil and antifreeze, bowls of popcorn, and what looked like neon-green jello.

  Santa’s a mechanic, his diet is a disaster, and he doesn’t keep a very clean house, I thought.

  “Just a quick question.” I jerked a thumb behind me. “I’m trying to find out whether your neighbor Max was home on Monday night. Did you happen to see him or hear his truck when he came home?”

  He glanced past me. “Monday night? I didn’t see anything because I was watching TV. And the only thing I ever hear is that guy’s dog across the street. Barks all the time, the stupid thing. That’s why I turn the TV up,” he growled.

  “And you didn’t look outside and see Max’s truck?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry I can’t help you.”

  “I certainly appreciate your time,” I said as I backed away from the door.

  He stared out into the street. “Did Max do anything?”

  “Just following up on something.” I kept it vague.

  I left, and as I reached the sidewalk, I saw Deuce. He was leaning out the car window, having what appeared to be a friendly conversation with an older couple. Their laughter carried through the dark to me.

  Since Deuce seemed happily occupied, I decided to try Max’s next-door neighbor again. As I crossed the street, I looked toward Max’s house. He was no longer in the window, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still watching. I rang the neighbor’s doorbell, and this time the dog created a ruckus. A loud voice scolded the dog and it went silent. The door opened and the man I’d seen earlier stood there. He’d changed from his uniform into sweats and a T-shirt, and his hair was wet and slicked back.

  He’d taken a shower, the Great Detective deduced.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” I said, then questioned him about Max’s whereabouts on Monday night.

  He petted the dog’s head while I talked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what happened around here that night,” he said when I finished. “I had to take Boris here to the vet. When I got home from work, he wasn’t barking, and when I went in back to check on him, he was really sick. So I took him in.”

  “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure, but the vet thought he got into some kind of poison. I’m just glad I got him to the vet in time. I almost lost him.” His voice choked for a second.

  “I’m glad that didn’t happen.”

  He nodded.

  “So Boris didn’t bark at all when you got home Monday?” I confirmed.

  “That’s right.” He grimaced and looked toward Max’s house. “I’m afraid that doesn’t help you, though, because I don’t know if Max was home or not.”

  “No problem.” I thanked him and headed back down the sidewalk.

  By this time, the couple that Deuce had been talking to were gone. I walked to the 4-Runner and leaned against the passenger door.

  “Who were you talking to?” I asked.

  “That couple? They live at the end of the block. I told them about losing my lottery ticket, and they were really bummed out about it.”

  He still couldn’t resist telling people about the ticket, even though he was going against his own advice, and he didn’t even have the ticket anymore.

  “Did you find out anything?” he asked.

  I looked toward Max’s house, then at his next-door-neighbor’s, then across the street.

  “Yes,” I finally said.

  “Reed?”

  I looked at him. “Give me a second.”

  With that, I headed back to Max’s house.

  Chapter Five

  By this time I thought Max had given up on watching me. I rang his bell and waited a bit before he jerked the door open. His glare remained.

  “You still around?” he said, as if he didn’t know I’d been knocking on his neighbors’ doors.

  “Uh-huh. But you knew that.”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  “I did talk to the neighbors about whether you were home Monday night.”

  “I told you I was.”

  I nodded. “And none of them noticed you or your truck.”

  “So,” he said with a sneer. “I told you I didn’t have anything to do with that guy’s lottery ticket.” He put his hand on the door.

  I held up a hand. “Not so fast.”

  He took a quick, nervous breath.

  I jerked a thumb to the north. “I had a nice conversation with your next-door-neighbor. On Monday night, he had to take his dog to the vet.”

  His gaze darted toward his neighbor’s house, then back to me, but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Someone poisoned the dog,” I said. “Apparently Boris – that’s the dog – had been sick that day, probably for a while. Regardless, he didn’t bark at all when his owner came home.”

  “You think I poisoned the dog?” he snarled.

  “No, I don’t.”

  He smiled triumphantly.

  “But you stole Deuce’s lottery ticket.”

  The smile vanished, replaced by a string of curse words.

  “Beat it,” he said.

  I shook my head. “You lied when you told me you heard Boris barking Monday night. You thought that was a cool alibi, didn’t you? But you couldn’t have been here, or you would’ve known he wasn’t barking that night. He was too sick to make a whimper.”

  “Get lost.”

  “We can solve this nice and easy,” I said. “Give me the lottery ticket, or the money if you cashed it in. Otherwise, I’ll go to the cops with this.”

  “You’re not going to the police.”

  “Try me.”

  I pulled out my cell phone, but I didn’t think I’d actually have to call them. I figured Max wasn’t as tough as he thought he was, and I was right. Then I noticed a dark hoodie lying on the back of a couch near the door.

  “Whoever robbed Deuce was
wearing a dark hoodie, sort of like that one. We have video of the street outside the bar that shows someone in a hoodie.” I made a show of studying him carefully. “Now that I’m getting a better look, I think the man in the video was you.”

  Okay, it was a stretch, but that did it.

  “All right, I don’t want any trouble.” He swore again. “It wasn’t even that much money.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The ticket. I turned it in. It was only worth a couple thousand bucks. Your friend was making a big deal about how much money the ticket was worth, but it wasn’t.”

  I laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked. “If I’d have known that, I wouldn’t have stolen it.”

  “If you knew Deuce, you’d know that even a few hundred would’ve seemed like a lot to him. The important thing to him was the win, not how much the ticket was worth.”

  He snorted in disgust.

  I grew serious. “You’re lucky you didn’t hurt him seriously.” I held out my hand. “Where’s the cash?”

  He went into another room and returned with some bills. “There’s most of it. I spent about fifty of it.”

  “You can pay him back the rest at work tomorrow.” I pocketed the money, then pointed at him. “Deuce is a good guy. You leave him alone, or you’ll have to deal with me.”

  “You don’t look too dangerous.”

  I fixed him with a hard gaze. “I figured out who you were and that you were lying to me. I can make things hard on you if I want to.”

  “Whatever.”

  He slammed the door in my face.

  Okay, so I didn’t come across threatening, but I doubted he’d give Deuce any more trouble.

  I left and marched across the street. It took the old man a minute to come to the door.

  “It’s getting a little late to be bothering people,” he said.

  I got right to the point. “You poisoned Boris, didn’t you?”

  “What?” He got blustery. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I pushed into the doorway and gestured at the bowl of green liquid on the coffee table. “If you’re going to do something so cruel, you shouldn’t be so stupid that you leave the evidence out.”

  He pushed his lips in and out for a moment. “Joe should keep that animal quiet.”