Suckers - Jack Kilborn [39]
After an hour, Mrs. Drawbridge came out of the house and knocked on my window.
“George left before you got here.”
“Do you have any snacks?”
“No.”
I noticed she had some orange powder in the corner of her unattractive mouth.
“You have cheese curls,” I said.
“No I don’t.”
“Bring me the cheese curls.”
She folded her arms. “I don’t have any.”
“You have Cheetos dust on your lips.”
“I was eating carrots.”
“Were they powdered carrots?”
“Maybe.”
“Bring me the goddamn Cheetos, or I’m off the case.”
She frowned and waddled off. I called after her, “And anything Hostess or Dolly Madison!”
I air guitared in perfect synchronization with Jimmy Page until the ugly wife returned with my treats. The Cheetos bag only had a few left in the bottom, and Mrs. Drawbridge’s cheeks were puffed out chipmunk-style. She also brought me half a raspberry Zinger.
“You ate them,” I said, stating the obvious.
She shook her head. “Mmphmtmummuffff.”
“Don’t lie. You did. You’re still chewing.”
“Ummurrfumamamm.”
“Are too.”
She swallowed, and I watched the large lump slide down her throat.
“I think my husband went to his parent’s house,” she said after smacking her lips.
“What am I supposed to do with half a Zinger? It’s like the size of my thumb.”
“I said I think my husband went to his parent’s house.”
“Who?”
“My husband. After his parents died, he refused to sell it. I’m not allowed to go over there. He’s got all kinds of locks and security devices. I think he may be hiding something.”
I scarfed down the rest of the cheese curls, then washed them down with the remaining half a Zinger. It wasn’t even half. Maybe a third, at best.
“I’m the detective, lady. I’ll decide if he’s hiding anything. Gimme the address.”
She gave it to me. It was in the neighborhood of Streeterville, less than a mile away.
“I’ll call you in exactly two hours. If you don’t hear from me, I want you to call Lt. Jacqueline Daniels in District 26 and tell her where I am. Tell her it’s an emergency. Did you get that?”
“Yeah. Is that apple juice?”
I glanced at my pee bottle.
“Yeah. But it’s warm.”
“I have ice in the house.”
“Help yourself.”
She took the piss, and I started the car and drove off. Little did I know I was about to face the darkest moment of my entire career. A moment so dark, that had I known it was coming, I would have done something else instead, like see a movie, or go to the zoo and bang on the windows in the monkey house. But I didn’t know what was going to happen, because I couldn’t predict the future, because if I could I would have predicted the lottery numbers and been super-rich and never would have needed the money that caused me to go to that house in Streeterville, which was the darkest moment of my entire career. So that’s where I went. Unbeknownst to me.
In hindsight, I really shouldn’t have gone.
aka The Darkest Moment Of My Career
So I had no idea I was heading into the darkest moment of my career, but I went anyway.
Before going there, however, I stopped for red hots at Fat Louie’s Red Hots on Clark and got a dog with the works. It was terrible, and I have really low standards. In my humble opinion, hot dogs shouldn’t have veins. Or anything resembling a foreskin. I could barely choke the third one down.
Uncomfortably sated, I pressed onward to Phil’s parent’s house. The house was unassuming enough. Split-level, single family, red brick exterior. There was an oak tree out front, and a chainlink fence partitioning off the tiny backyard. I parked on the street, then took out my remote control surveillance tank. After double-checking the batteries, servos, memory card, remote sensor, camera focus, tread alignment, and wireless frequency, I gingerly set the tank down in the street and a taxi ran it over.
Damn taxi jerks. I decided to charge it to Mrs. Drawbridge’s bill.
My next course of action was to figure out my next course of action. I played a little more air guitar, broke an air string, put on a new one and spent a minute air tuning it, and then decided on my approach.
I could