CHAPTER 15
TENSE HOMECOMING
It was dawn, and I had only slept a couple hours on the plane, but my body was telling me it was morning and time to get moving by the time we landed at Newark. It was also telling me that I was tired as hell, but that couldn’t be helped. Those freaky bastards had Elaine.
"We've got to find her," I told Vinnie, as we left the airport in his limo. Vinnie was sullen. He always was, but right now it was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
"We already have, Kid; she's at your old cop precinct house. Probably at your old desk right now, eating doughnuts with the elves and your old cop buddies. They're probably under their control, all of them in that joint, including the guys we just sent in a few minutes ago to check things out."
"So then let's go in and get her," I said.
"Sure, that's what we got to work towards, getting her out, but it ain’t that simple."
"It ain’t? I think it is! We just do it! You’ve got the firepower to make it simple!"
"Sure. We could level the fucking joint. But that wouldn't be too damn smart, would it. It's a police station, and she’s in it. You're thinking with your balls again, Jake. Brains are what we need now."
I thought about it. He was right. "Shit," I remarked. Brains are my Achilles heel; I’m smart enough to know that much.
"Exactly. Anyway, Elaine has probably been arrested for something or other, and the elves have the whole fucking government to stop us from springing her."
"What about lawyers and judges?"
"We're trying, but I don't think that will work either. The elves have corrupted our whole legal network."
Even corruption was corrupted. What a world. "I'll kiss the legal bastards and get them out of elf control."
"You're our not so secret weapon all right, but you can't kiss every damn cop and judge in town. Anyway, they'd just put them back under their control faster than you could free them up again. You only got one set of lips and there are hundreds of them."
He was right. "So what will we do?"
"Play it cool; use our heads. There's stuff they want and stuff we want. We'll work this thing out. First thing we do is go to your place."
"My place?"
"Right. The scene of the crime, so to speak."
There were lots of dark-colored sedans parked outside my apartment building, double-parked even, most of them probably still occupied behind tinted glass. Mob thugs and/or elf controlled cop thugs, I couldn't tell. Both, probably. I could feel dozens of their eyeballs looking me over as we walked into the building, but Vinnie ignored them, and nobody made a move.
The apartment door opened from the inside as we approached it, by a huge guy that could have been Tiny's east-coast twin, except for the shotgun he leveled at my head. He nodded and waved us both in when he saw Vinnie.
Inside the apartment, the place was all torn up, and someone was already sitting on what was left of my sofa. Two someones, as a matter of fact. Both of them MOMs. "Big Ma and Papa K the King Falconie!" I exclaimed in surprise. In my apartment twice in one week! Crap. I had just let their precious daughter get nabbed by evil elves. Not to mention the Hawaii bit. This was a real oh shit moment, all right.
The King motioned me with his hard eyes for me to sit down in what was left of my recliner, which I did. Vinnie and the copy of Tiny discretely disappeared.
"Is she alright?" I asked.
“Now that’s something you should know, ain’t it,” said the King, bitterly. He was pissed, I could tell that right away. “You are engaged to her, right?”
"It's hard to say exactly what her status is, Jake," said Ma. "Our people go in, but they don't come out. Nothing comes out. She’s their trump card though, so they probably wouldn’t be stupid enough to mess that up. That’s what we hope anyway."
"They show us disrespect," said the King, his voice almost a snarl. He stood up and started pacing around the room like a caged tiger. “Bastards won’t even negotiate with us. Instead, they gave us demands. We. Don’t. Like. Demands.”
"We're in an awkward position," said Ma. "First we figured they were using her against us, and that’s what brought this on, but that isn't what they claim, even though they have obviously discovered who she is and what she means to us. It’s just a little bonus for them, having something on us to get what they really want. They’re using her to get us to control you for them, Jake. They claim you have something of theirs, or know where to find it."
"They want the troll," I said, "but you wanted me to help the troll."
"Things are more complicated now," said Ma.
"That's for damn sure,” I agreed. “Are you going to trade me to them for her?"
"It ain't that simple," said Pa. "If it was, we'd have done that already. They don’t really want you; they want control over you to get at the troll and the thing the troll is after. The thing he paid you to find for him. Henry’s artifact, or figurine, or whatever, that's what they want. They want you free but doing their work to find it for them. For them to not harm Elaine they want us to help make sure you do your work for them. And we’ll do just that, but with a little twist of our own."
"We have our own business considerations," Ma explained. "Whatever they want from you could hurt the Family, so we have to consider the bigger picture. Besides, we of course don’t trust them."
“They’re fucking freaks,” said Papa K. “Worse than the damn Russian mob!”
"Awkward," I commented.
"We been in awkward spots before,” said the King. “But not with our Elaine in the middle of it. As you can imagine, this ain’t a happy situation for us. Especially when it seems to all come down to you, and you ain’t exactly our first choice to bank everything on. You ain’t much of a choice at all, based on that Hawaii business.”
“I screwed up. I was scared; everything was closing in at once. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
Ma shook her head. “Well, you’ve got to think straight now, Jake. For Elaine. And for your own skin, if you want to keep it.” She smiled. It was scary when she smiled. She looked a little like a shark. Worse, she looked a lot like Vinnie. Worst of all, I could see that she looked a little like Elaine. Very scary. “When it came down to it you done real good out west, according to Vinnie.”
The King snorted. “Maybe too damn good. The elves only grabbed Elaine when you got away from them again.”
“Shit,” I remarked. He was right. I was too dangerous to them and I wasn’t doing what they wanted me to do. So they were using Elaine to get to me. Someone might even think that Elaine’s predicament is somehow my fault.
The King nodded, staring at me with cold unblinking eyes. “That’s right. It is your fault.” It was like he was reading my mind again.
“I’ll take care of it,” I said, not sure exactly what it meant even as I said it.
“That’s exactly what you’re going to do,” agreed Big Ma.
The King pointed a big finger into my face. “You get your lazy, sorry ass the fuck to work on this case. Only now you’re working exclusively for us, get it? Find the troll and the damn thing he wants you to find, and make sure we know what it is and why the elves want it before anything is done with it. Then we’ll use it as leverage to get Elaine back somehow. That’s the goal. Use your fucking curse or whatever you need to get it done. Vinnie will make sure you don’t fuck up again. He’s going with you. You don’t piss or scratch your balls without checking with Vinnie first, you got it?”
“You’re the boss,” I croaked.
“Damn right. You got any questions?”
“How much are you paying me?”
I shouldn’t have asked that. I’m not even sure which one of them hit me, I was out so fast. When I came to I was laying on my sofa, moaning in pain. There were a couple of cold, wet, bloody wash-cloths on my sore jaw.
Vinnie sat comfortably in my recliner, watching me, with an amused look on his face. “You’re off to one hell of a good start, ain’t you? I don’t know
what you said to piss them off, but it wasn’t too damn smart.”
I nodded in agreement as I checked my jaw over. It was sore and swollen and I had a cut lip, but no bones or teeth seemed to be broken. Also my fedora was sitting unharmed on a nearby chair. Lucky me.
“So Mr. P-I, what you plan to do now?” asked Vinnie.
I thought it over. Compared to where I was a day or two ago I was back to square one, minus Elaine, plus Vinnie. All negatives, in terms of progress. I like simple cases that take maybe a day or two of work to get the goods on a scumbag husband and/or slutty wife, or to return a missing pooch; cases that could still be milked for a whole week or two of pay. This last week or so had been a nightmare.
Triggered by Vinnie’s question, the whole mess swirled around in my head again. Elves, troll, mob, cops, magic flying poop, shrinking nuts, inside-out car, slashed tires, Indians, figurine, etcetera, etcetera. My head was spinning. Guys have limits. Taken all at once it was too damn much.
I took a deep breath, and decided that I should get back to P-I basics. Take one step at a time. “A case is just a case. I just gotta keep collecting more pieces and putting the puzzle together, little bit by little bit. Once you eliminate the possible, whatever truth remains is lame; that’s how these things work. Eventually I’ll have it all worked out..”
“Right. Meanwhile, the elves will be watching you, making sure you’re doing what they want. I’ll be making sure too.”
“Sure, they all want me to go right after the troll and find him and his missing whatever, but I ain’t quite ready for that yet, since first I got to figure out stuff. We have some of the big puzzle pieces for sure, but I need to find some more small pieces to fit them together with.”
“Sort of sounds sensible Jake, but you’ll be walking a fine line. The elves want results, and they want-um fast, and so does the Family, especially with Elaine in danger. So there ain’t much time.”
I nodded in agreement. “A day or two tops, I figure. Hey, I’m just a working stiff. If you’ve got a better idea, I’d like to hear it.”
Vinnie shrugged his extra wide shoulders. “I'm mostly just a working stiff too. So what do you figure the first move is?”
“We backtrack. To the bank, the bankers, everyone I already talked to, and so forth, looking for a break. We follow up new leads we turn up. You know, detective stuff.”
“In other words, you don’t have a fucking clue.”
“Well, clue-wise we can start right now, with this apartment. Maybe the elves left a clue when they trashed this place.”
Vinnie shrugged and we began looking around the apartment. The mob guy paused when he came across a bowl of cat food on the kitchen floor. “Hey,” he said, “we should ask Prince what he seen.”
“The damn cat?” I responded. “I ain’t even seen him. Maybe the elves got him.” I had to smile at the thought. “That would be a damn crying shame.”
“Jake, I have something to tell you,” said a disembodied voice, right on cue.
“Elaine? What the hell!” I exclaimed. It was Elaine’s voice! From behind the sofa?
Prince meowed loudly and stepped out from behind the sofa.
“Son-va-bitch!” I exclaimed. “It’s the fucking cat!” It walked towards me with its sneaky cat eyes looking into mine, ready to take-off if I threatened it. I figured to kick it as it got closer, but then refigured that Vinnie might not go for that. “What you got to say, cat?”
“Jake bad,” the little son-of-a-bitch cat said, in its normal voice. Figuring it was safe from me for the moment, it jumped up onto the arm of the sofa, and scratched the hell out of it, right next to me, daring me to take a swipe at it, but I still held back.
“Yah, so what else is new,” said Vinnie. “What did Elaine say to tell Jake, cat?”
The cat stretched, jumped onto my recliner, arched its back and dug its damned claws into my nice leather, the little bastard. Then Elaine's voice resumed. “I decided to use Prince to take notes, Jake. I told Prince that if I go away and don’t come back, he should give you my notes.
“Note one. I love you Jake, remember that.” Vinnie’s beady little eyes rolled back.
“Note two. I talked to Jane Fey and Alicia Tweed about the shrinking nut case again. They both claim they weren’t behind the extreme shrinking of Grisim. I believe them. So was it Mick then? Why would he do it? He and Tweed got a pay-off if he shrank Grisim only a little bit. And then there was the tires and the inside-out car and the hair business and Henry’s flying poop problem. Was it elves? If so why? To make the troll look bad? Why are the stunts all connected in some way to the bank?” It sounded like Elaine was as confused as I was. Not good. "By the way, I'm being followed," the cat/Elaine added.
“Note three. I talked to Margie Wainwright. The woman has issues. She’s always spouting off about Grisim and other people in the Bank. The elves said she’s cursed; what if they’re right? Could she be behind what’s been happening? I asked her, point blank, and she laughed about it. But there's something about her I don't trust. Yeah, I know you guys all like her legs and so-forth, but that's not what I'm talking about. Maybe she's mixed up in this business, even if she doesn't know it. That happened to you, remember? Even if you didn’t know it or believe it? Maybe it happened to her too. Maybe she’s deeper into this than we know.
"Note four. You have to talk to Grisim. He's been trying to reach you. He isn't very happy about you leaving town while you're supposed to be working here for him. It's my fault; I shouldn't even have told him you are out of town. After all, you're going to be back soon, and you were still on the case anyway. But he wouldn't have even had to know that you had left town.
"Note five. I talked to Eric. He knows more about this magic business than we do. He says there are some things about magic that Henry told him. Henry said that there is still supposed to be some magic here in our world somewhere, strong magic. That's why the fairy folk split with us long ago; they didn't like the competition. He says some of the old tales are true, about human witches, silver and to some degree iron being sort of magic-resistant, and garlic repelling magic. To stop his hair growing, Eric ate some raw garlic and spent an hour in his mother's steel lawn shed. It worked. Or maybe the problem would have gone away anyway. On a separate topic, I think it’s cops following me, plus some of my Pop's guys. They haven't followed me around like this since I was a teen, but I'm not complaining this time.
"Note six. Last note for a while, probably. You should be in Arizona by now. I hope you don't mind that I got Vinnie to help you. I know you don't think you need help from anybody, me included. But I miss you and worry about you all the time, and knowing Vinnie is looking after you helps a lot.”
The voice stopped and the cat, looking bored, scratched behind his ear, stretched and leapt away.
So that was it; Elaine had done a lot in one day. She saved me and Vinnie some work, by questioning folks that way. I could fill in the rest. We whopped the elves' butts in Arizona and when that didn’t work out for them the elves decided to capture her instead. It must have been their backup plan all along. The King's mob guys tried to stop them but ended up zombies or worse.
"You learn much from that?" asked Vinnie.
"Some bits and pieces maybe. Hey, what you doing?"
Vinnie had pulled a revolver from under his suit coat and began dumping bullets from it out onto the floor. He pulled a little box from a pocket and started loading new bullets into the gun. "Using some of those bits and pieces, Jake. These are silver bullets. Just like the lone fucking ranger had. Based on what Henry left behind I had a hunch already about this, and what Elaine says cinches it. She didn’t say nothing about lead being any good, just silver and iron and garlic."
"Hey, you have a Smith and Wesson Model 64 thirty-eight just like mine!" I noticed.
"This is yours," he said, as he finished loading it and tossed it to me. He was right, it was mine!
"I left it in the Ford at the airport," I noted.
> "That's where we got it from."
"What about your gun?" I asked.
He patted a lump under his suit that I thought had been muscle. "Mine holds a thirty-round clip of steel jacketed lead slugs. Should rip those little fuckers in half."
Mob guys, you gotta love um. I put on my gun and fedora and we headed out.
****