Caruso 01 - Boom Town (26 page)

As he started to get out, the door suddenly swung open, wrenching his hand from the grip and pulling him out onto the slippery driveway. He put his foot down but it went out from under him. Seconds after he hit the pavement, he was struck by the first billy club on his right jaw.

Tony was dazed but not out. He rolled to his side and into the
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snow alongside the driveway, figuring on better footing. If he could get up.

The next blow was to his gut, taking his wind away. Then there were two of them and Tony’s first guess was the MENSA rent-a-cops. Somehow he took in some air and flailed his arms and legs until he was in some form of stance. His eyes, although blurred, had finally adjusted to the darkness and he could see the two of them better.

Panzer growled and then barked from the bed of the truck.

As one of them shuffled in the snow from behind, Tony thrust his right heel back and made contact on the attacker’s right knee.

Snap. The man twisted over to his side into the snow, screaming in pain.

Before the man in front could react, Tony planted a downward elbow into the injured man’s skull, knocking him out. Then Tony spun around with a heel hook kick to the approaching man, catching him somewhere in the left arm. A lot lower than he had hoped. The guy smashed his stick one more time into Tony’s ribs.

That was it. Tony took the guy out with a flurry of punches and a final knee to the groin and elbow to the jaw. He too went down.

Tony was exhausted. He tried to catch his breath while he searched inside his pocket for his penlight. After he swiveled it on, he scanned the two men. Shit! It wasn’t the rent-a-cops. It was the Portland detectives, Shabato and Reese. What the hell were they doing there?

He didn’t have time to find out. He hadn’t noticed, but Panzer was going crazy in the back of his truck, running back and forth and finally settling his nose against the side window. Tony opened the back of his truck and stroked the side of his dog’s head.

Panzer licked the side of his face and Tony closed the door again.

Tony took a couple of steps toward Mrs. Ellison’s house.

“Hold it right there!”

Tony shifted his flashlight toward the voice, and now saw the
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two young guys who he had fought a couple times already.

Goatee and Flattop.

“Get that outta my eyes,” Flattop said.

Tony did just that, instead directing the light at their hands to see what kind of weapons they held. Just their sticks. That was a relief.

“Listen, guys. I’m here for a meeting with Mrs. Ellison.” Tony trained his light on the two Portland cops still passed out in the snow bank. “You need to call in these two here. They just attacked me.”

“Caruso, you are such a lying motherfucker,” Goatee said. “We just saw you kick the shit outta them.”

“Look at this,” Tony yelled, pointing the light at his jaw, which was starting to swell up to near-goiter size. He picked up a stack of snow and set it against his jaw. “How the hell you think I got this?” His words came out garbled now.

They looked at each other. “We’ll go to see Mrs. Ellison,”

Flattop said.

“Yeah, that’s smart. In the meantime, those two freeze to death.

And that’ll be on both of your asses.” Tony didn’t have time for this shit. “Call it in.” He strode off toward the Ellison house.

When he realized the two of them were right on his heels, he had no choice but to go to round three with the two of them.

Luckily, he had a slight grade to his advantage. As he turned to confront them, something strange happened. Out of nowhere came a dark figure flying through the air, the huge body cutting down both men as they approached him. There was a jumble in the snow as Tony shot his light at the mesh of bodies. Then the largest of the three rose to his feet, a rent-a-cop in each of his large, black hands wrapped around each of their necks.

It was the security captain, Beaver Jackson.

“I’ve about had it with the two of you dumb asses,” Beaver Jackson said.

The captain glanced Tony’s way, and he tried not to shine the light in the man’s eyes.

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He said to Tony, “I take it you got some business with Mrs.

Ellison?”

“I’d like to,” Tony said.

The two underlings looked like a couple of kittens being held by the scruff of their necks.

“Trouble seems to follow you around, Caruso,” Jackson said.

“Like stink on shit.”

Tony nodded. Like the man was telling him something he didn’t already know.

Jackson continued. “Get going. I’ll take care of these two...and those other two.” He swished his head down the hill toward the two Portland cops.

Tony tried to catch his breath as he made his way toward the Ellison house. He pulled out his cell phone, dialed in a number, and waited. Nothing.

“Damn it, Green,” he mumbled under his breath.

He returned the phone to his outer jacket pocket. Then he went for the house.

For some reason the motion light didn’t come on this time, which was fine with him.

Making his way up the driveway, he noticed fresh tire tracks leading into the garage. There were also a set of human footprints that hesitated for a moment near his location before moving around the outside of the garage.

There were a couple of ways he could play this. Sneaky or straight. He decided, since Beaver Jackson would make sure the cops showed up sometime soon, he would be better off going to the front door.

He didn’t even get a chance to knock when the door swung open. It was Mrs. James Ellison. She was wearing tight blue jeans and a sweater that could have been the skin on a Georgia peach.

“Mr. Caruso,” she said, her hand against the door frame. “Are you causing trouble again?”

Tony stepped forward and started to open his mouth, but pain shot up into his brain from his swollen jaw.

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“Come on in out of the cold,” she said, finally letting her Southern accent flow.

Tony followed her into the living room, where a real fire was blazing, giving the entire area a warmth that only flames can bring. Then she left him there.

Sitting in a high-back leather chair, a brandy snifter in his right hand and a disgusted look on his face, was Larry Gibson.

“This is just fucking perfect, Caruso,” Gibson said. “I’ll have you know that your plan to stop the sale of my company...failed.”

He swirled some brandy and then gently sipped a little.

Tony moved farther into the room.

Mrs. Ellison returned with an ice pack, which she handed to Tony. “A doctor should look at that.”

Gibson finished his brandy and replaced the glass with an automatic pistol. From that distance it looked like a .22 Ruger. Tony’s shoulder seemed to ache once the gun appeared, easing the pain in his jaw somewhat.

“I think Mr. Caruso has more to worry about than a simple broken jaw,” Gibson said, waiving the gun about in the air.

“Larry, put that away,” she said. “That rug cost me two thousand dollars.”

Racking his brain, Tony tried his best to cool the situation. But he hadn’t really counted on Larry Gibson pulling a gun.

“You have insurance,” Gibson said.

“That’s not the point,” she said, her hands on her hips. “I bought that myself in Istanbul.” She said the name of that city like it was dog shit.

“Folks,” Tony said. “I think on T.V. this is where the bad guys say how bad they were and how the good guys, that would be me, says how many fatal errors you have made. Who wants to start?”

“I’ll give him this much,” Mrs. Ellison said, “he’s got balls.”

Gibson shook his head. “We don’t have time for this. Our guest should be arriving at any time. Or should I say intruder number two?”

“So that’s how it goes,” Tony said. “I’m just some common
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thief now?”

“You dumb motherfucker,” Gibson said. “You think you’ll walk out of here?” He pulled out a cell phone with his free hand.

“Speed dial, pal. And our friends show up.”

“You mean Sigfried and Roy? They’re out making snow angels. But thank you for implicating them. I wasn’t entirely sure that they were on your payroll. Now I know.”

Mrs. Ellison went over to the bar and poured herself a drink.

She looked nervous.

“You don’t know shit!” Gibson yelled.

“I know shit when I see it, and I’m looking at it, pal.”

Gibson aimed the gun in Tony’s direction, his hand shaking uncontrollably. “All right, asshole. You’re such a big T.V. fan, you tell me the story.”

Tony hesitated for a moment. Delayed actually. He wasn’t sure if his jaw could take too much action. But, then again, maybe the movement would keep it from locking shut.

“Okay,” Tony said. “This is simple. Two young men start a little software company, which grows rapidly. One is bored out of his mind and decides he’d rather dabble in real estate. So he looks for buyers. The second man doesn’t want to sell the company.

First man kills second man and second man’s wife, and then blows the shit out of second man’s house. Stop me when I get something wrong.” Neither said a thing, although Mrs. Ellison was starting to look a little pale.

Tony forged ahead. “You,” he said, pointing to Mrs. Ellison,

“are right in the middle of this thing. Your friend Larry blows up the Humphrey joint and comes scurrying over here like a rat. His car is parked in your garage like it is now. By the way, it took me some digging to find out that the E in HGE Enterprises, which says it’s Mr. James Ellison, was actually bogus. There was no James. Only a Jamie. That would be you.” He pointed his finger directly at her. “Jamie Montgomery, formerly of Mobile, Alabama. By the way, you’re still wanted down there for various indiscretions, none of which compare to murder.”

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“Okay,” she said. “Fuck the rug. Now you can shoot him.”

“Just a minute,” Tony said. “The story isn’t over.”

Larry Gibson looked at her and then shrugged. “Go ahead.”

Tony let out a breath, moved his jaw from side to side, and continued, hoping he wasn’t totally wrong. “Of course the G in HGE

is you, Larry. That took even more research, since you were a silent partner. You wanted to go into that new resort with Cliff Humphrey. You’d be a big dog in town, instead of a computer geek. A real player in this development boom town.”

“How could I have set Dan’s house to explode?” Gibson asked.

“I’m getting to that. You couldn’t do it without first implicating someone, just in case the local cops didn’t buy the murder suicide. So you set up poor, crazy Don Sanders to take the fall.

Someone has just ripped him off, along with some explosive devices and wire. He’s pissed enough to blow up the son of the man he thinks did him in and who wants his land. I even know how you had your receptionist, Susie, give Don Sanders those Blazers tickets so he’d be out of town. I also found out you worked for your father over in the Valley in the summer during college. His construction company, as you know, does its own blasting. You learned well. But what you didn’t plan on was me.

Of course, how could you know that Cliff Humphrey would hire a former weapons expert to investigate?”

As if on cue to the sound of his name, Cliff Humphrey came in from a back room, his pistol aimed at Larry Gibson.

Gibson shot first.

Humphrey followed with two shots.

By the time Tony grabbed the gun from Cliff Humphrey’s hand, he was shaking and sobbing. He dropped to his knees and started to cry. It was probably the first time he had shown emotion since he found out his son had died. He looked defeated and disheveled, his pants ripped and wet and his hair sweaty and matted to his skull.

Mrs. Ellison ran to Larry Gibson, who was now bleeding onto her two thousand dollar rug. Tony reached the .22 Ruger Gibson
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had been holding before she could pick it up.

“You’ve got everything wrong,” she screamed at Tony. “I had nothing to do with Larry’s little game. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Save your breath,” Tony said.

He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit re-dial. This time the sheriff answered. “Where the hell are you?”

The sheriff huffed on the other end. “I’m coming through the gate.”

“How’d you find out?” Tony asked.

“Dawn Sanders called me,” the sheriff said.

“Well what took ya?”

“The roads are slippery,” the sheriff said.

“We’ll need an ambulance.”

“Gotcha.” He relayed that through his radio and then said, “We ran across Cliff Humphrey’s Mercedes in the ditch about a mile back.”

That explained his appearance. He must have run the mile in his business suit, slipping and sliding on the ice.

“Yeah, he’s here. He shot Larry Gibson. Self defense.” Tony looked at the man’s wounds. He had a bullet in his right shoulder and one had grazed his left mid-section. “But I think he’ll live.”

“Ambulance is on its way,” the sheriff said. “They just patched through a call from Beaver Jackson. Mentioned something about those two crooked cops. You run them over with that rig of yours?”

“Shhhhh.... My cell phone is losing its signal.” Tony clicked off his phone.

Tony went over to Cliff Humphrey and knelt alongside him.

“You should have let me handle this.”

He shook his head and caught his breath. “I found out why Larry wanted to sell his company so badly.”

Tony waited and listened as Humphrey sobbed.

Humphrey continued. “The San Francisco company wants to expand their operation here, bringing in hundreds of high-paying
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jobs. The majority would buy housing at a discount at our new resort. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”