Bad Bones (Claire Morgan) (6 page)

“No, they’re not. I got them in Memphis last week, right out of the box.”

“Yeah, right.”

Oh, for God’s sake
, Claire thought,
can this interview get any more stupid?
“Is there somewhere we can sit down and talk, Mr. Randazzo? Or do you need to turn off your skillet and get your coat on?”

“Okay, okay, we can talk back in my office. Hey, Woodrow, come up here and finish cooking these steaks for the boys. I got business.”

A little old guy came rushing up. He looked like he probably had cauliflower ears, too, under his knitted dark blue sock hat. He was wizened, to say the least. She didn’t use
wizened
much in official descriptions, but he fit that moniker big-time. He looked around ninety plus, grizzled as all get out, faded blue eyes, gold front tooth in an otherwise rather nice smile. He didn’t say anything but he nodded an acknowledgment of their presence and started checking on Randazzo’s meat.

“Follow me, officers,” Dazz said.

Well, at least he didn’t call himself Dazzle or Dazzler—that would’ve been a little much, even for a guy of his obnoxiousness level. His office was walled off from the bloody beat downs going on at the moment, which probably occurred every instant the establishment was open. Inside Dazz’s personal space, it looked like a showroom at Pottery Barn, especially when lined up against the hillbilly setup and sawdust on the floors outside his door.

“Please take a chair. And that’s real leather, by the way.”

They all sat down. Nobody said anything. Nobody was very impressed with the leather, either, real or otherwise. Nobody wanted to be there. Especially Claire.

Loafers Aficionado Dazz said, “Can I get you a drink? Bourbon? Scotch? Beer?”

“We’re on duty, sir.” Claire hated him. She really, really did. Even after five minutes, her you-loathsome-pig-you barometer was pushing its needle into the extreme disgust and annoyance range. She bet he beat his wife, too. “Is your wife well, Dazz?”

“My wife? Yeah, I guess. I ain’t seen her in couple of weeks. Been out on the road with my fighters.”

“What fighters?”

“Not those guys outside. They’re just training for bare knuckles, tryin’ to get a start in the legit business. I decided to give ’em a chance, if and when Woody thinks they’re ready.”

“So you do train your fighters?”

“Oh, yeah. They need to know all sorts of moves. It’s mixed martial arts, you know. Not just street brawling. There’s a real art to it.”

Could’ve fooled me
, Claire thought, but she said again, “What fighters?”

“Well, I got three or four that I usually travel with out here in these parts. A few other guys come along sometimes. I’ve got a big operation outta New Jersey. Top-notch. Lots of contenders.”

“Right,” said Claire, going in for try number three. “What fighters?”

“Paulie Parker, Frankie Velez, Malachi Fitch, Shorty Dunlop, to name a few of the best. I got a second tier, too.”

“Where are these guys now?”

“They’ve probably already landed in St. Louis. We got a gig there on Friday and Saturday. We were in KC last week, won all our bouts, too. I gave them time off to, well, you know.”

“To what? Heal up? Get over their concussions? Buy themselves some boxing gloves?”

Bud laughed.

Dazz shook his head. “You don’t like our sport much, I take it?”

“I don’t care to watch exploited young men beating each other up, no.”

“I take offense to that, detective.”

“You should. It was meant harshly.”

He frowned. Claire frowned. Bud frowned, probably because she was frowning and he knew what that meant. She wasn’t in a good mood anymore. Her joy at the sunshine and bright day and Black being home was long gone. Gone to hell, in fact. Something told her that her loathing was starting to show. But the phony jerk sitting across from them made her feel woozy with disregard. Bud decided to take over, which was probably a good thing.

“Okay, Randazzo. Let’s cut the crap. Do you know where Paulie Parker is right now?”

“No, I sure don’t. But he’s a big boy. He don’t need no chaperone to baby him.” He looked directly at Claire. The self-satisfied smirk was back. “I bet the guy who gave you that rock has his hands full with you, huh, sweetie? I bet you give him what-for.”

Claire stared at him without blinking and let Bud handle him. Randazzo seemed adept at pushing her buttons so she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Said buttons were now on lockdown. Bud saw and knew the score so he’d deal with this guy. That’s the good thing about partners. Sometimes it was the other way around, and she had to intercede before Bud threw some irksome guy through a window. They couldn’t help it. Neither of them was patient and/or fond of nasty, in-your-face creeps. It was just a thing with them.

Quiet for a moment, she calmed herself and got her second wind. “Your big boy? Paulie Parker? Guess what? He’s dead. Beaten to death with a baseball bat or similar weapon.”

Claire watched the blood drain out of Randazzo’s face. He started stammering. “W-w-what? No way. You’re lyin’. Don’t do that to me.” He placed his hand over his heart. “Now don’t be makin’ jokes about Paulie. You wanna give me a coronary, or somethin’?”

“I’m not lying to you, sir. So now maybe you should try to be a little more forthcoming.”

“He won his last match with Frankie over there at the lake, but he wasn’t hurt all that bad. What happened? Where is he now?”

“We found his body in Ha Ha Tonka State Park,” Bud told him. “Did you know he was still in Canton County?”

He shook his head, no more smirks, no sirree. “He was supposed to fly out with the other boys. I know he was born around the lake somewhere, but I don’t know exactly where. He fought down there before he got to the top tier.” Randazzo sank back into his swivel chair and rocked back and forth. “Oh, shit, I can’t believe this. Paulie’s my top draw.”

Disgusted, Claire shook her head. “That’s cold, Dazz. Even for you. You really are a dirt bag, aren’t you?”

“No, no, uh-uh, I love the guy, ’course, I do. But I got a business here to run. Who beat him up? Tell me.”

“That’s what we want to know. How about your other guys? Velez, maybe? He have a beef with Paulie Parker since Paulie beat him bloody at the lake the other night?”

“Nah. They get along okay. All of these guys are from around these parts. They’re pretty tight. You oughta be able to find most of my fighters at the Holiday Inn in downtown St. Louis. That’s where I’m puttin’ ’em up until they fight this weekend. Except for Shorty Dunlop. He’s still in the hospital up there in KC. Broke his damn ankle falling on the ice, but not before he won his bout fair and square against Ike Sharpe. Good win, that was. Nothin’ but a freak accident, falling down the wrong way on that left foot, so he’s gonna be laid up a while and off the circuit. I talked to Shorty just this morning, just to make sure he was gonna be okay. Doctors want him to stay off that foot for a while.”

“Do any of your fighters have any reason to harm Mr. Parker? Any bad blood or death threats? Anything like that?”

“No, no, no.” He jumped up and started pacing around. “They get along just fine, I’m tellin’ you. They’re all fierce competitors, but they’re great friends outside the ring. They’re all buds, I’m tellin’ you. All my assets like one another. You ain’t gonna find any killers in my stable. Forget about it.”

Randazzo pronounced it
fergeddaboudit
like Tony Soprano and other New Jersey mobster characters. Claire wondered for the first time if this Ultimate Fighting thing could be mob-related. That could explain the kid being beaten to death with a baseball bat.
The Sopranos
were in reruns now, and she was pretty sure she remembered a baseball bat scene. Bats were always such readily available deadly weapons. Even she had one in her backseat.

Dazz was still rambling on. “I cannot believe this. I
cannot believe
this. Parker could take care of himself. He was good, one of the best. Fought like a demon inside the cage. Quick as lightning. Oh, God, this is just awful, awful.” For the first time, he looked and sounded human. Almost. “How am I gonna break this to his wife?”

Bud and Claire perked up. Bud said, “We can make that notification for you. Can you give us his wife’s name and address?”

“Her name’s Blythe, Blythe Parker, and she lives over at the lake. They got them a nice big house over there up high on one of those hills. Lake view, and everything. I pay my boys good, just like I told you. Tell her we’ll take care of her. Tell her not to worry ’bout anything.”

“What’s that address?”

He gave Claire one that she wasn’t familiar with so she wrote it down in her notepad. “We’re gonna need to talk to those other fighters. Can you arrange interviews?”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna have to come to St. Louis to do it. I got contractual obligations over there this weekend and all next week, too. No way can I break ’em.”

“Tell us about your other fighters.”

Randazzo began to list them, basically by their adeptness in the cage and their whereabouts on the rankings. “All of ’em have probably made it to St. Louis by now, except for Shorty. Like I told ya, he’s still in the hospital up there in Kansas City. Ike got him pretty good in the noggin a couple of times, too. He’ll come through, all right, though. I told him to take all the time he needed to get over the dizzy spells and get to walking again. You know, he’s got blurred vision and all that kinda stuff. Won’t take him long to recover, though. He’s a little guy, but he’s a hard case.”

“You’re a prince,” Claire said, trying not to grit her teeth. She envisioned getting him out back in an alley and showing him what the little lady could do with her own hands and feet. Maybe while wearing brass knuckles. She’d give him all the time he needed to get over his dizzy spells and blurred vision and inability to walk, too.

For the next thirty minutes, they questioned him at length, got quite a bit of nothing else out of him. But, nevertheless, enough for the next round of interviews. Despite his fast talk and sociopathic-like lack of true feelings, Randazzo turned out a lot like the three monkeys of legend. He saw nothing, he heard nothing, and he spoke of nothing that would help them one iota except for the name of Paulie’s wife. But he was not off Claire’s hook. Claire would just love to arrest him, and took the time to look around his office for a bloody baseball bat on her way out. She didn’t see one, but hey, maybe she’d still get the chance. He wasn’t off her list of suspects, not by a long shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the same day that Punk learned all about hatred and protecting his little beagle puppy, his pa held another fight out in their cow pasture. But this time only Punk and his brothers fought, and they fought one another. They started with his oldest two brothers first. Pa made them strip down naked and fight with bare knuckles. He pushed them out into the dirt ring, shouting degrading and humiliating things the whole time.

“Okay, boys, let’s see some blood now,” he called out. “You ain’t stoppin’ till one of you is lyin’ down there on the ground and beggin’ for mercy. Do it, or I’ll do it for you, by God.”

Punk sat beside Pa and watched his brothers go at it. It was hard to watch, the way they were kicking at each other and biting and trying to jab fingers into each other’s eyes. He averted his gaze, unable to watch, and wished that Bones was there with him. Then there came a terrible jolting blow to his ear, hard enough to knock him off the bench. He held his head and whimpered as Pa leaned down close.

“You keep them eyes open, you hear me, boy. Then maybe you’ll learn somethin’ from your big brothers out there actin’ like men.”

So Punk kept his eyes open, but he tried to think about other things as the fight went on and on, until the younger one fell half-conscious and exhausted in the dirt. His pa jumped up. “Good job, Tiger. You’re the best fighter by far. Go on inside now and grab yourself a beer. The rest of you drag that loser over to the table. I’ll deal with him later.”

“Want us to doctor him up, Pa?” said his next oldest son.

“No, let ’im bleed out for a while. Teach him to try harder.”

So they left him in the dirt under the picnic table, bleeding from his nose and mouth and his cut-up fists. The second set of boys walked into the ring, and his pa hit the bell with his hammer. “Now let me see some spilled blood, or I’ll whup you both myself. Hear me, do you hear me!”

It was then, in that moment, that Punk truly began to hate his father’s guts. He hated him with all his being, with all his heart and soul. Pa was evil, just like his ma had always whispered to Punk. He was cruel and mean and horrible.

The second fight was even worse than the first one. The boys were still too young to have developed big muscles and were skinny and uncoordinated. They whaled on each other for as long as they could until they both fell onto their knees in the dirt, exhausted and bleeding and crying.

“You weaklings, just look at you, out there blubberin’ like little freakin’ girls. What? A few blows and you give up. Good God, you oughta be ashamed of yourself. Now git on out there to that dog pen and stay there, you little shits. Now you both is gonna have to answer to me and the business end of that whip o’ mine.”

Angry, Pa stood up and paced around the dirt circle, shaking his head and ramming his fist into his palm. “I’m a telling you, I’ve never seen such a bunch of sissies. Hell, when I was little, littler than you, boy, my pa’d put us in the ring oldest to youngest and we never cried and took on like little babies. You gonna cry there, Punk. You gonna cry, too. Go ahead. Cry, crybaby, cry your eyes out.”

Punk didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know if his pa wanted him to say no or yes or just listen and say nothing at all. He was afraid to say anything wrong or Pa would hit him again.