Still continuing the adventures of Detective Commons and the Dead Ginger...
- C!
Angus motioned towards me with one of his big, hairy gorilla arms, flinging cigar ash onto one of his beautiful Persian rugs as he did so. I hobbled towards the fireplace, trying to think of what I was going to say to the man, but coming up empty. He pored me a glass of scotch, and invited me to have a seat. I didn’t like the way he had his arms crossed, but he probably didn’t like the fact that I was here at all, so I called it even. Angus stated that he knew why I was here, and that he had already given a statement to the police. I reassured him that I wasn’t a cop, and that they didn’t like me very much anyway and only called me in when the situation was too fucked for them to deal with. This made him grin the shit-eating-est grin I’ve ever seen, for reasons that were his own. He was very forthcoming with his answers, as if he already knew the questions before I did. He told me that Molly was a bit of a troubled girl, and that she had run away more times than he could count. This last time she had left to be with Larry “The Limey” Johnston, the son of rival Albino mob boss Rich “The Snitch” Johnston, which obviously displeased him. That’s some Romeo and Juliet, family busting type bullshit right there. He had seen videos on the internet, of the type a father should never have to see, of his daughter in very compromising positions. She had a drug problem, of which she had done some very dangerous things to facilitate. He gave me names, a virtual who’s who of the city’s underworld. Then, suddenly, he went silent.
Angus stared me right in the eye, an unwavering, terrifying stare. He grabbed my wrists with hands that were two sizes too big for any man’s arms, and shed a single, solitary tear. “You find this cocksucker, you bring him directly to me, alive. She was always trouble, that girl of mine, but she was my baby. Bring him to me, and forget we ever had this conversation. You hear me, Commons?” I heard him. His voice rattled around in my brain like a bullet from a .22 caliber handgun. He turned back towards the fire, picked up his glass, and that was it. It was time to go.
I gave the “door-goons” the two-finger salute, hopped in my 1987 Toyota Corolla, and tried to shake the feeling that this was going to be even messier by the time it was done with me. I turned on the radio, as my cassette player stopped working years ago and I was far too cheap to buy a CD player. The local public access station was begging for money again so I tuned the dial to static and rolled the information I’d gotten so far around in my head. Something wasn’t adding up, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was. I looked in the rear-view as I was pulling away and saw chaos on the steps of Angus’ estate. I slammed on the brakes and jumped out. There was screaming coming from inside the house, and the two “door-goons” were hugging each other and crying just inside the door. The smell of gunpowder was overpowering, even from outside.
I ran in to see Angus’ lifeless body slumped over in his chair, the cigar still burning in his hand. He had three bullet holes, still smoking, in his chest and forehead. I called my buddy down at the station, told him what little I knew of the scene, and asked for twenty minutes alone in the house. I searched the “door-goons”, the wait-staff, his wife, even his prize Scottie dog. No guns. I searched the house, top to bottom. No guns. I checked the doors and windows. All locked. Interesting. Apparently his wife was in the next room when she heard the shots. She came running in and Angus was alone. I dusted for prints, checked for DNA, the whole nine yards. Nothing. All I had was another dead Ginger, and the smell of gunpowder. I needed a smoke.
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