Ten minutes later, when I had figured out how to work my almost new, probably hot, Motorola cell-phone and its twin, my first call was to Langdon. Neither he nor his wife was picking up, so I left another brief message including my new cell number. There was no way that I was going to use the Blackberry for anything other than extreme emergencies requiring Max; I needed to do this myself. I then tried to reach Fred Cooper, the detective I’d talked with the night before. I figured that I would be leaving a message on his voice mail. He was still on the job when I left the hospital at two in the morning. The way I figured it, he would probably still be in bed for another few hours before reporting back for duty—or taking a day off. He’d earned it. I was wrong. The old cop answered within seconds of the desk person asking me to hold for a minute. That minute ended up being more like an anxious five.
“Cooper here,” was the brusque reply.
“Joe Holiday, Fred,” I said. There was a long pause as if Alzheimer’s had set in. Maybe he had really forgotten who I was. “We met last night,” I prompted.
“Oh yeah, sorry. I’m a bit distracted today and damn tired to boot. What can I do for you?”
I took him through the Ida May Thornberry information and the fact that two guys had been scouting cars where I work at the Sand Key condo complex. I also told him that I hadn’t been able to get in touch with Langdon on the phone for the past day. I admitted that I was feeling a little spooked. I told him I was concerned about returning to Mrs. Reilly’s house. I was thinking it might be a good idea to go to ground in a cheap motel somewhere because these two clowns might still be somewhere on the beach looking for me.
Dead air. I wasn’t certain that he was even listening. Maybe the shifty kid in The Electronic Hut had ripped me off and was laughing his ass off at how stupid I was. Or maybe old Fred had fallen asleep and his head was resting uncomfortably on his desktop. Finally, I gave up waiting for some sign of life.
“Fred, are you still there?” I asked loudly.
“Yeah, sorry again. Aside from the two guys in the bar and the two guys looking for you at the library and the two guys looking at cars on Sand Key, are there any other two guys you might have pissed off?”
“No.”
“Give me your cell number. Do what you said. Find a cheap motel; pay cash. I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve had a chance to run this by Kemp. I’m supposed to be meeting him in a few minutes. You gotta a gun?”
“No.”
“Okay, so just lay low for awhile. Oh yeah, you know those two dickheads that you ran into at the beach bar—the ones that you described to Kemp and me last night?”
“Yeah. I think that they’re the same guys I’ve just been telling you about.” I resisted the urge to add “Duh”. Being so tired had made me cranky.
“Right, sorry. Well, Kemp put a priority on them. We think that we have the two of them identified. Your Billy Ray’s last name is Boyle. He’s been in and out of trouble from the time he was ten years old. Nothing too big though cause he doesn’t seem to have any ambition. At the present time, he is an enforcer for a local loan sharking group. No heavy violence—guns and such. Right now, he’s on probation. He also used to have a sideline in drug selling—mainly steroids and weed. And once, a few years ago, he got picked up for flashing his weenie at a little girl. He is probably back at selling steroids and weed again, but we haven’t caught him at it yet. He hangs out at an old dump of a Tampa gym called Toby’s. No one has seen in there for a couple of days now. His buddy is a sorry sack of skin named Sammy Tolla. He’s just a local moron who kind of hangs around Billy Ray telling him how great he is. He’s one of Boyle’s training partners at the gym. As far as we know, he is strictly a minor league player with a few B&Es thrown in. Wants to do more, but just can’t cut it. Both of these guys pal around with Terry Bullock, Mia’s stepbrother, so you’ll want to be careful.”
“I’ll take that under advisement Fred.” Goddamn.
“Actually, if they are the guys looking around the beach for you, we will find them sooner ‘cause now we know where to look. We’ve run out of all their regular hangouts with no luck. I should get back to you in about two hours.”
I shut off the cell phone to conserve its battery and went looking for a cheap motel. I was starting to get incredibly light headed from lack of food and sleep—the stress of the last days had done nothing to help. That combination often is a sign of an imminent migraine headache for me. I picked up some junk food on the fly at CVS and moved further north and back from the beach looking for a quiet cheap motel. I had just cut through a small parking lot on Papaya heading to Poinsettia, when a black Dodge Ram truck slid to a stop beside me. Two guys spilled out quickly and ran towards me. Sammy Tolla was one of them. The other guy was impressively large. I didn’t recognize him. I turned to meet their attack.
Sammy took a full running round house swing at my head. I ducked back and kicked him hard in the guts. The other guy had been more cautious. He watched me kick Sammy, then stepped in and delivered a crushing shot to my ribs. I felt my wind gush out. I backed away from him acting more hurt than I was. Sammy was picking himself ready to try again. I knew I was in deep trouble.
As the two guys moved apart, the big No Name smiled and said, “You’re history Mac.”
My ribs hurt too much for me to run. I couldn’t hide. The best I could expect was to take one of these clowns out with me. I made a quick move on Sammy. No Name bit and made his move. I knew he would. I wheeled on him and felt my fist smash into his nose. He cried out and fell back. Then, Sammy was on my back, his thick forearm trying to choke me off. As I tried futilely to fire my elbow into his solar plexus, the last thing I saw were little silver stars flashing before my eyes.