“What the he-”
His hands ran down each leg of my pants on the outside, then back up the inside. He bumped the inside of my crotch on his way up, then ran his hands up my sides. He pulled my wallet out, examined it, emptied my side pockets, pulled the small wire-bound notebook out of my shirt pocket. The man was a professional.
He grabbed the scruff of my neck, then pulled me back off the wall. Once I had my balance back, I glared at him. “You finished?”
He reached behind me and knocked twice on the metal door, then twisted the handle and opened it.
I stepped into a bank president’s office, or at least that’s what it resembled. What a shift in interior design. An enormous mahogany desk dominated the center of the room; a leather executive’s chair and a cherry butler’s table, surrounded by a leather couch and Queen Anne chairs, filled the rest. A color television and stereo system filled one wall, with a wet bar on the wall behind me.
Behind the huge desk sat Bubba Hayes. Remember Meat Loaf, the guy who sang “Paradise by the Dashboard Lights” back in the Seventies? Imagine Meat Loaf twenty years older and fifty pounds heavier, and you’ve got Bubba Hayes.
The three of us stared at one another for a moment. I cleared my throat, started to say something, but was interrupted by this twisted Jabba the Hutt lookalike.
“I understand you want to talk to me, boy,” he burbled.
Mrs. Rotier’s roast beef and gravy did a somersault in my gut. “Mr. Hayes, I’m Harry Denton. I’m an investigator looking into the death of Conrad Fletcher, that doctor who was murdered last night in the medical center.”
“I know who he is. I read the papers.”
Bubba’s voice was sonorous, filling the office with the same determined resonance that he must have once projected from the pulpit.
“Yeah, well. I was just wondering if you could answer a couple of questions.”
Bubba leaned back in his massive leather chair. The wheels groaned under his weight, but held. “Depends on what they are. You’re not a police officer. No warrant, no stroke.”
Bubba smiled, revealing a row of cracked, yellowed teeth. “Right, boy?”
I was starting to resent being made to feel like an extra in a remake of
“I’ve been asked by the family to investigate this matter. I understand from some close friends of Dr. Fletcher’s that he had a … well, a gambling problem.”
Bubba leaned forward in the chair, his bulk heading toward the desk like a flesh-colored glacier on the move. Then he stood up, moving with a dexterity and a speed that surprised me, and came around the desk. He faced me now, maybe a foot or two away. The skin of his face was pulled tight, with just a shadow of red underneath, as if he were translucent, like a monstrous gecko.
“What’s that got to do with me?” he asked, his voice coming from somewhere deep inside the mound of flesh.
“I’ve heard that you control the action in this part of-”
Suddenly, something came out of the corner of my eye. All too late, I realized that whatever was flying upward in my direction was attached to Bubba. He caught me square in the gut, his right fist the size of a small ham.
Every bit of air shot out of my body in a second. If you’ve ever had the breath knocked out of you, you know the feeling. If you haven’t, count yourself lucky.
My feet came off the floor, and my mind went blank. I felt myself becoming weightless, then suddenly the thick green carpet slammed me in the face.
I fought to keep down dinner, although in retrospect, I can’t figure out why. I should have blown chunks all over the guy’s carpet. Would’ve served him right.
I rolled over on my side, curled in a fetal position. One hand covered my battered gut; the other was under my head useless. As I turned, I saw Bubba’s face about six inches from mine. How he could bend down that far without falling over was a mystery I’ll never figure out.
“You ask a lot of questions, boy,” he hissed. Then the massive hams stretched out again and grabbed my shirt, scrunching it up so hard my shirttail came completely out of my waistband.
Next thing I know, I’m back on my feet. Wish he’d make up his mind. He’s holding me up, because I’m still not breathing yet, not even over the shock of getting hit yet. Which means the pain hasn’t really started either. Great, I’m already hurting like hell, and it’s only just begun.
Bubba pulled me up to eye level, and I got a face full of his hot breath. Something came over me, probably an attack of bad attitude, and I got just enough air to put my foot in my mouth.
“What’d you have for dinner, man?” I gasped. “Ever heard of Listerine?”
Damn if I’m not airborne again! This time, I landed in a chair against the wall near where Mr. Kennedy is watching all this deadpan. I hit the chair hard, the small of my back taking most of the impact, but my head snapping back against the wall right where the nurse put those butterfly closures last night.
It felt like a drill bit through the back of my skull. This time, I really did see red, and the shooting pain threatened to put me completely under for a second. It hurt so bad, I forgot about the first punch.
Dazed, I shook my head to bring myself to. Big mistake. That only works in the movies. After a second or an hour, I wasn’t sure which, I felt behind my head and came back with blood on my hand.
Then I was really torqued; that fat bastard busted my head back open. No more Mister Nice Guy.
“What’d you do that for?” I growled, my voice lowering naturally.
“I wanted to impress upon you, in a way that you couldn’t mistake, the distress that man’s name causes me.” Bubba spoke like a gentlemen farmer himself, when he wanted to. I was surprised, but no less mad.
“For all you know, I could be a cop,” I said.
“Hah,” he laughed. “I know every police officer in this town. And son, you ain’t one of them. Not by a long shot.”
I put a hand on each arm of the chair and pushed myself into a standing position. I’d had, simply put, enough.
“Sit down,” Bubba ordered.
I kept my ground. “Listen, Bubba, I don’t need this crap. You and that reject from a Lite Beer commercial over there can go to hell for all I care. You don’t want to talk to me, fine. Talk to the cops.”
I took a step toward the door.
“Sit down,” Bubba repeated. A moment later, “I said sit.”
I walked around him, settled myself on the couch. I’ll sit, all right, but where I want to.
Bubba crossed back to his desk, lowered himself into the seat. “Now what is it you think I can tell the police?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. I don’t think so.”
“What you mean, boy?”
“After the welcome I’ve been given here, I don’t feel like answering any of your questions. If there’s any answering to be done here, I’ll let you do it.”
Bubba smiled, as if he couldn’t believe I’d still be getting smart with him after all this. He don’t know me very well, do he?
“I’ll say this much for you, boy. You ain’t much to look at, but you got great big brass ones.”
“From what I can tell,” I continued, ignoring what I guess was supposed to be a compliment, “Fletcher had two kinds of people in his life. Those who hated him enough to kill him, and those who merely fantasized about it.”
Bubba looked over in Mr. Kennedy’s direction and smiled. “He was not the most lovable man in God’s creation.”
“I keep running into people who thought the world would be better off without him. To tell you the truth, Bubba, I just wanted to find out if you were one of them.”
Bubba reached down below the desk, tugged at his crotch. “The man had a problem. Loved to play. Hated to lose.”
