“He struck me as kind of a goofball at first, quite honestly. But I gotta hand it to him. He’s got some energy. Just give the guy a little money, point him in the right direction, and he’s all over it.”
Jackie was trying very hard not to laugh. I wanted to smack him.
“Do you want to know what this private investigator is doing for me tonight?”
Again, no takers.
“I’ll tell you,” he said. He took another hit off his glass of J.D. “He’s watching my wife. He’s been following her, in fact, for two weeks straight.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Bennett said. “If there’s something going on between you and your wife…”
“No, no,” Vargas said. “Not between me and my wife. Between my wife and somebody else.”
“Well okay,” Bennett said. “But come on, you don’t have to-”
“Oh, but I do,” he said. “I most certainly do. I’ll tell you why. I would like somebody at this table…” He gave Kenny a quick glance. “Kenny, you are excused from this question. I would like somebody else at this table aside from Kenny who has no fucking involvement in this matter whatsoever to tell me why our friend Mr. Swanson is not playing cards with us tonight.”
“He said he couldn’t play,” Bennett said.
“Yeah, we got that part,” Vargas said. “Tell me why he couldn’t play.”
“We don’t know,” Bennett said.
“You don’t know. Okay. And last week, when he couldn’t play, you didn’t know why then either.”
“That’s right.”
“Okay. So we play with five last week over at Bennett’s bar and the game sucks and we would have played with five this week, but fortunately, Jackie just so happens to have this friend Alex handy who can fill in for Swanson.”
“Leave Alex out of this,” Jackie said. “I asked him to play. So we’d have six. That’s all there is to it. We don’t know anything about Swanson.”
“What about next week?” Vargas said. “Is Swanson going to play next week? Or will Alex be sitting in again? Because we certainly wouldn’t want to cancel the game, now would we? Because then my wife wouldn’t have an excuse to go have a night out with the girls.”
“Vargas…”
“Which apparently, gentlemen, doesn’t mean that she’s actually doing anything with the girls like she says she is, but instead is getting a little free legal advice from our good friend the lawyer Mr. Swanson, Esquire, in room one-seventeen of the Best Western Inn, even as we speak.”
Nobody said anything. Vargas tried to pour himself another drink, dumping half the bottle into his little chip compartment. He looked down at the whiskey fizzing away on his brand new poker table.
The dog started barking. We just sat there watching Vargas, while his miserable little rat of a dog barked its little rat head off.
“Miata,” Vargas finally said. “What the fuck are you barking about?”
We found out about two seconds later. Just when I thought the night couldn’t get any worse, the men with the guns broke down every door in the house.
Chapter Four
“Everybody facedown on the floor! Move it move it move it move it!”
It all happened in a dreamlike unreality, something played out in slow motion, in another dimension where none of the rules apply. I had been in that place once before, the night my partner was shot and died on the floor next to me. I didn’t think I’d ever have to visit that place again. But here I was. Here we all were.
“I said on the floor now! Are you deaf?”
I heard the sound of a chair being upended, a body hitting the floor. It was Kenny, I thought. Somehow, I was already on the floor myself. I was trying to stop my own head from spinning, trying to breathe again and to make myself think clearly about what was happening.
One man. Another there. Was there a third? Yes. Three men. Some of the lights went out. The Tiffany lamp above the table was still on, casting a bright circle in the center of the room. The dog was running around the place in a total frenzy, making more noise than a dog that size should be able to make.
“Nobody moves. Are we clear on that, gentlemen? One move and we start shooting. All of you.”
Handguns. Three men with handguns. Glocks, I think-that sleek, black profile. I didn’t see any faces. Why didn’t I see any faces?
I was lying on the carpet, my face turned away from the table, away from the others. The other players must have been spread out behind me, I thought, all around the table in about the same positions as they were sitting.
One of the men walked by me. His shoes were covered with green fabric. Like they wear in the hospital. That’s why I didn’t see any faces. Just a flash of…Yes, of green. They were wearing surgical masks.
The dog took a run at one of them. I could see him tearing at the green fabric with his teeth.
“Goddamn miserable little rat! Get away from me!”
I needed to see the others. I needed to see Jackie, especially. I waited for the man to hop by me, trying to shake the dog loose. Then I flipped my head to the other side. I was facing Jackie now. His eyes were open.
“You! I thought I told you not to move!”
A gun was pressed to the left side of my head. I could feel the cold metallic sting of it. He pressed down on the gun, pinning me to the floor with it.
“I believe I asked you not to move? Did I not ask that?”
I didn’t say anything.
“You move again and I’ll shoot you in the head. Then I’ll pick somebody else and shoot him in the head. Are we clear on that? You have permission to nod your head now.”
I nodded my head.
“Good man.”
The same man was doing all the talking. I could only see his feet as he moved next to Vargas and stood over him. “You,” he said. “Is this your dog?”
“Yes.”
“On your feet. But keep your eyes on the floor.”
Vargas didn’t move. His eyes were closed.
“I said on your feet.” A hand reached down and grabbed him by the back of his shirt collar.
“Leave him alone,” Bennett said. He picked his head up.
I saw the second man move toward Bennett. He kicked him hard, right in the ribs. Bennett dropped his head back to the floor, his face gone red with the pain. He fought hard to breathe.
“Okay,” the first man said. “You’ve got ten seconds to get this dog off us and into a closet. Starting now.”
Canadian, I thought. This one sounds Canadian. The other two, they haven’t said a word yet.
Vargas came off the floor and grabbed the dog, who had gotten hold of one of the men’s shoes again. “Come on, Miata. Take it easy.” It took him a few seconds to pry open the dog’s jaws. Then the dog started barking again. “Good dog, Miata. Good dog. Good dog.”
I heard a door open and shut behind me, and then the muffled sound of the dog barking and trying to tear the door down with its teeth and claws.
“All right now, that’s better. You’re gonna go upstairs with this man here, and you’re gonna open up your safe. Make sure you keep your eyes on the ground, eh?”
Keep your eyes on the “groond,” eh? Definitely Canadian.
“We hear one funny noise, we start shooting your friends. Do you understand?”
They left the room. There were five of us on the floor now, with two men watching over us. They paced around the table, moving silently in their green slippers. Miata kept attacking the closet door.
