Caruso 01 - Boom Town Page 6
“Really?”
“My gown went one way and I went the other.” He took a sip of wine.
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“Great. Now she’ll want to ask you out.”
He almost spit his wine out. “What makes you say that?”
“I know her. She has quite the appetite.”
Tony wasn’t about to mention the comment Dawn Sanders had made to him when she gave him her card. He had no idea how this relationship was going, having only met Melanie recently.
Besides, he wasn’t even sure he’d be in Bend that long. He had the condo until late January, so he didn’t want to get too close to anyone.
They finished their wine and then headed toward the door.
“Would you like to go to the bar and listen to some Jazz?” Tony asked.
She smiled and nuzzled closer to him. “I thought we could go to my place.”
He had a feeling this would happen, which is why he drove separate. He needed to talk with a few people in the Riverfront Bar. See if they knew anything about an Italian guy that hung out there.
“Why don’t I meet you there in an hour,” Tony said.
“Why so long?”
“I forgot I needed to stop by the condo and check my e-mail.
I’m waiting for some info to come in on this case I’m working.
Plus, I’ll need to let Panzer run before I bring him to your place.”
She kissed him quickly on the lips. “All right,” she said. “I’ll try not to start without you.”
He walked her out to her car. After she drove away, he went back inside to the bar. This lying thing was getting way too easy, and he almost hated himself for it.
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CHAPTER 9
The Riverfront Bar was just that. The place sat a few feet lower than the adjoining restaurant, with double doors that led to a wooden deck that hung over a tranquil set of rapids in the Deschutes. The deck was used year-around, but since it was cold-er out now, not many people were willing to go out. So, the inside was standing room only.
Tony let his eyes adjust as he squeezed in at the end of the bar, where a couple in their early forties were working on a microbrew.
The busy bartender flicked his chin at Tony, and he ordered a local India Pale Ale.
“Good choice,” the man next to him said, turning slightly toward him to allow the bartender to hand Tony his beer. “Let me get that.” He flipped the bartender a five from a stack of bills in front of him, and waved his hand, meaning keep the change.
Tony thanked the guy and took a long drink.
He introduced himself and his wife. They were from San Francisco. Up for the skiing. While he told his life story, Tony was able to scan the room, looking for anyone that fit the description Dawn Sanders had given him of the guy that had gone home with Dan and Barb Humphrey the night they died. But Tony couldn’t see anyone that fit. Then he noticed two people he did know. The two rocket scientists who had whacked him with the billy clubs that morning out at Cascade Peaks Estates. And they 56
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recognized him, as well.
The guy who had been talking with Tony excused himself to go to the bathroom, so Tony slid into the bar stool next to the guy’s wife.
She was a nice looking woman. Almost-real blonde hair to her shoulders. Bright blue eyes that said more in a few seconds than her husband had said with words in five minutes. She wore one of those tight silk shirts that was only that way because her obviously-unreal breasts were a little out of proportion to her shoulders. The surgeons in America were making a helluva living, Tony guessed.
“Steve can be quite the bore,” she said, moving closer to Tony and placing her hand on his right thigh.
Tony tried to block her out, but her hand was slowly inching toward pay dirt.
Luckily he got his break. A woman he recognized was making her way through the crowd. Dawn Sanders smiled when she saw him, and then followed that up with a knowing grin when she noticed the woman next to him. Tony waved her over. She looked different without her little round spectacles.
Twisting off the chair toward Dawn, Tony said, “You finally made it.” He gave her a big hug. “Save me,” he whispered into Dawn’s ear. Then he gave her a quick kiss and turned toward the San Francisco woman.
She had her lower lip pouting out.
“Thank your husband for the drink, again,” Tony said. “It was nice talking with you.”
Dawn and Tony walked out through the crowd. He brought her to the outside deck and they stood for a moment at the rail. The river churned loudly below them, but he couldn’t see it in the dark abyss. There was a chill in the air, like it was about to snow.
Raising a glass of red wine, she took a sip and then licked her lips. “Where’s Melanie?” she asked.
“Went home.”
“You work fast. I heard that about Italians.”
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“We might work fast, but we always finish the task at hand.”
She smiled and widened her eyes at him. “How’s your back?”
“I want to apologize for earlier today,” he said. “I don’t like to deceive people. Especially good people.”
“Right,” she said. “That doesn’t bother me, though. You’re an interesting man, Mr. Caruso. But isn’t Melanie a little too sedate for you?”
He had to laugh at that. Sedate wasn’t even close to describing Melanie. Yet, when he thought about it, she was probably just that compared to those who frequented the Humphrey Jacuzzi parties.
Suddenly, the door opened and the two rent-a-cops plowed out onto the wooden boards. They trudged to within five feet of them and stopped, their stances wide and identical. They reminded Tony of a couple of marines blindly popping into parade rest at a family picnic.
The one who had clubbed Tony, Goatee, spoke first. “You made us look like idiots this morning in front of our boss.”
“Sorry about that,” Tony said. “But I’m afraid I didn’t help you out much in that area.”
Dawn giggled.
Goatee twisted his head and lowered his bushy brows at Tony.
“Let’s go inside,” Dawn said, pulling on Tony’s arm. “I’m getting cold.”
Now the other guy, Flattop, spoke up. “You go. We need to talk with him.”
She hesitated.
Tony nodded. “Go ahead.”
She got to the door and looked back at him, unsure.
“Do you work on Sunday?” Tony asked her.
She stared at him blankly, the door against her shoulder.
“Someone might need a session,” he said, nodding his head toward the two rent-a-cops.
She smiled and went inside. But she didn’t go far. Tony could see her watching from through the window.
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There was usually a few ways these things could go, Tony knew. A lot of verbal foreplay, followed by pushing. And then someone takes a swing. Since he already knew how these two moved, he didn’t plan on letting them hit him first.
The only advantage he had was that the two of them were high school football types; the offensive line variety. The kind that got all worked up but didn’t have the agility to throw a straight punch with any speed. They did have muscles though, and if a wild punch did find its mark, Tony could be in trouble.
Fortunately, while in the Navy and not seeing how many brain cells he could destroy, he spent some spare time while stationed in Japan working on a couple of the ancient physical art forms.
“You wanted to say something?” Tony reminded them.
“Stay away from Cascade Peaks,” Flattop said.
“Or?”
“He’s not going to take our advice,” Goatee said to his partner.
“I think he’ll need some persuasion.”
“Wow!” Tony said. “Three syllables. Impressive.”
With that, Flattop wound up for a right roundhouse punch. It was like he was movi
ng in slow motion. Tony simply sidestepped to the left, parried his arm, let him slide by, and punched him in the kidney. He followed that up with a right roundhouse kick to his face. That phrase, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall,”
is true. Especially when the huge guy crashed into the wooden deck face first.
By now Goatee tried to tackle Tony, lunging at him with his arms spread outward. Tony caught the guy’s head in his right hand and hooked his left arm under his right, twisted around, letting his momentum carry him past Tony. He twirled flat onto his back on the hard boards. Then Tony drop kneed him in the gut and sent a palm into his jaw, knocking his head back into the floorboards. It didn’t knock him out, but he was dazed and confused. More than normal.
Tony left them there in pain, trying to figure out how one guy much smaller than either one of them could have done so much BOOM TOWN 59
damage so quickly.
When Tony went back into the bar, Dawn had a smile on her face.
“We could go into business together,” she said. “You beat the crap out of them, and then give them my card.”
The two of them went to the bar, where Tony bought a beer for him and another glass of wine for Dawn.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” Dawn asked.
“While you were studying traditional Chinese therapeutic techniques, I was learning Chinese and Japanese martial art forms.”
“You learned well, grasshopper.”
By now Tony saw the two geniuses had recovered enough to help each other through the crowd toward the exit. Blood streaked from the nose of each.
Having been distracted from his original intent for coming to the bar, Tony glanced at the bartender. Business had settled down some. The jazz band started playing a mellow tune; a soprano sax player trying out his best Kenny G. Tony thought he might be sick.
“Do you know the bartender?” Tony asked Dawn.
“Yeah. He’s here every time I come in.”
“Was he working the night Dan and Barb took the Italian guy home?”
“I think so.”
Tony nodded for the bartender, and he came directly to him, cleaning the bar with a wet towel along the way.
He was a tall skinny guy, with scraggly brown hair to his shoulders. His most remarkable feature was a nose that flared out at the end like a pig’s snout. That wasn’t a compliment.
“What can I get ya?”
“Dawn tells me you were working the night Dan and Barb Humphrey were...died,” Tony said, leaving it at that.
The bartender thought for a moment. “Work damn near every night,” he said. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”
He had one of those squeaky voices, like someone had clamped 60
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his balls in a vise.
“I understand they left with an Italian guy,” Tony said.
He shrugged. “I don’t worry about who goes home with who around here. Don’t pay no attention.”
Funny. Tony hadn’t said anything about them taking the guy home.
“You knew Barb and Dan Humphrey,” Tony said. It wasn’t a question, because he already knew the answer.
“Yeah, I knew ‘em.”
A man plopped an empty mug onto the bar, and the bartender scooped it up and refilled it. Then he returned.
“About the guy they left with that night,” Tony said. “Is he local?”
“Don’t think so.” He was in deep thought now. “Drinks vodka gimlets. Two filberts.”
“That’s a helluva memory.”
“It’s my job.”
“I know about Barb and Dan coming in here and picking up play things. I don’t really care about anyone but the Italian they left with that night.”
The bartender scooped up some dirty glasses and plopped them into soapy water. Tony could see his eyes checking him out from the side.
“Sometime today,” Tony said.
He turned quickly and said, “What the hell you want from me?
I’m supposed to be a picture on the damn wall. People tell me shit they don’t tell their priest. I keep my mouth shut and remember what they drink. That’s it.”
“Dan and Barb are dead,” Tony said. “And there’s no such thing as bartender/client confidentiality.”
The bartender shook his head.
Dawn reached across the bar and grabbed the guy by the collar.
“Tell him what he wants to know, Bradley. Or he’ll beat the shit out of you like he did to those two assholes.”
He shifted his eyes from her to Tony, looking quite scared.
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Maybe even more frightened by her than Tony.
“He’s from Portland,” the guy said. With that, Dawn let him go.
“Keep going,” Tony said.
“He’s some hardware rep for a Portland lock company. He stays at the Riverfront every time he comes to town. Comes in here every night to see what he can score. More successful than most.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
“That night.”
“You got a name?”
“Frank Peroni.”
“Like the beer,” Tony said.
“Exactly.”
Tony got the name of the lock company from the bartender, and then he and Dawn went out front. He was half expecting to find the two rent-a-cops waiting for him, but they were nowhere to be seen. Tony and Dawn stood out front by his truck.
“Remember what I said at my place earlier today?” Dawn said.
“If Melanie ever bores you.”
Unexpectedly, the entire truck shook, followed by a whining from the back end.
“What the hell was that?” Dawn asked.
“That’s Panzer.”
“A tank?”
“You’ll have to see him. He’s built like one.”
“I didn’t know you were a dog person, Tony.”
“I wasn’t. Remind me to tell you the story about how I got my hands on this beast.”
She pointed a finger at his chest and said, “I will.”
Tony thanked her for her help, got in, and drove off, the fading image of Dawn in his rearview mirror making him wonder if he was going in the right direction. After all, he had only been out with Melanie a few times. Not even close to point of no return, a place he had rarely allowed himself to reach.
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CHAPTER 10
Tony had told Melanie he would be at her place in an hour.
It took him an hour and a half.
She lived on one of the buttes on the west side of town in a large three bedroom place she had acquired, compliments of a cheating-bastard ex-husband. Her words. He had been a prominent lawyer in town until his proclivity for young flesh, an apparent perk of a criminal ethics class he taught at the local community college, became public knowledge. Irony is a funny thing, but not to the feminist judge who caught the divorce case.
Melanie’s ex-husband moved back to California about a year ago, his tail firmly between his legs.
Melanie told Tony her house was worth about five hundred thousand in today’s market. It was too big for her and her two cats, but she kept the place more as a constant reminder of how not to live life, than for any other reason.
Tony parked the F250 in front of the third garage door, let Panzer out of the back, and then walked the stone path to the front door. A light snow was falling, sparkling in the spotlight that clicked on by his movement.
Panzer found a place among the junipers to relieve himself.
Melanie was waiting at the door for him, having changed into a pair of jogging shorts that resembled silk men’s boxers, and an aerobics top that left her flat belly open.
“I was beginning to wonder if you were coming,” she said.
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“That’s entirely up to you.” He turned and watched his dog run from tree to tree. “You sure it’s all right for Panzer to terrorize the neighborhood?”
“He’
ll be fine. I’d let him in, but, as you know, my cats are de-clawed and never leave the house. They can’t really defend themselves against that monster of yours.”
“Panzer? He’s still a baby.”
“Yeah, well, I think my little girls would be one-bite snacks.”
Tony yelled for his dog. “Panzer!”
Seconds later the dog sat on the stoop next to him.
“Schlafen heir,” Tony said, pointing to the ground.
Melanie smiled and escorted Tony inside, closing and locking the door behind him.
“You sure he’ll be all right there?” she asked him. “It’s snow-ing.”
“He’ll be fine. Couple hours I’ll put him in the truck.”
“What were you telling him?”
“Oh, I told him to sleep there. He’s bi-lingual, but his first lan-guage is German.”
They went into the living room, which was a step down from the foyer. A fake gas fire was blazing, surrounded on both sides and all the way to the vaulted ceiling by smooth river stones. It looked like the same workmanship as that at Barb and Dan’s burned out house, without the recent charcoal coating. The overall affect of the room, which was ultimately important to Melanie, was that of a comfortable room. Brown leather chairs sat on hardwood floors. Large plants softened the boundaries.
Melanie had opened a bottle of California cabernet, and it sat on a marble top coffee table breathing.
She poured two glasses of wine and took a seat on the floor in front of the fire. Tony followed her down there, settling into the Navaho rug and leaning against large tan pillows that resembled the bloated belly of a chamois.
“That thing actually puts out some heat,” Tony said, feeling the air in front of the fireplace with his right hand.
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She took a sip of wine, glancing over the top of her glass at him. “Any e-mail?” she said.
He hesitated. Stalled longer by taking a long drink of wine.
“Listen. I don’t want to bullshit you. I wasn’t checking my e-mail. I had to go into the Riverfront Bar and ask a few questions.
I thought it was best that I left you out of it.”
“I guessed that,” she said, shifting her body closer to his. “You usually check your e-mail with your laptop from your phone in the truck.”