Chow Down (Hotshot Book 4) Read online

  Chow Down

  Mike Faricy

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior and express permission of the copyright owner.

  All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2020 by Mike Faricy

  ASIN #B084261TJ6

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank Lana and Barbara for their creative talent and not slitting their wrists or jumping off the high bridge when dealing with me. Special thanks to Steve, Julie and company for their continued work and effort. Any typos and misspellings point to my talent in creative deception. I would like to thank family and friends for their encouragement and unqualified support. Special thanks to Maggie, Jed, Schatz, Pat, Av, Pat and Emily for not rolling their eyes, at least when I was there. And, most of all, to my wife Teresa, whose belief, support and inspiration from day one has never waned.

  To Teresa

  “Feck ‘em all and let’s just get on with it.”

  Mike Faricy

  Chow Down

  Chapter One

  Craig Cullen gripped the wheel tightly as he fishtailed off the paved road and splattered mud against the side of his BMW. He raced down the gravel road to the processing plant and skidded to a stop next to the black SUV parked in front of the building.

  Terry Taggert slammed the rear hatch on the SUV, smiled, and thought, ‘Oh shit.’

  “Hey, Doc, didn’t expect to see you all the way out here.” Taggert’s eyes blinked and darted from side to side like a cornered rat.

  “We have to talk,” Craig said.

  “Just delivering our first box of steaks. Want to take some home?” He almost had to yell to be heard over the noise from a hundred-and-fifty cinnamon-colored Chows barking in the kennels behind the building.

  “Good God, no! Are you crazy? It’s one thing to try and pass the pelts off as exotic fur, but steaks, my God! You aren’t really planning to go through with this insane scheme, are you?”

  “What’d you mean insane? You were all for it. You came into this with your eyes wide open. Hell, you even thought it was kinda funny. As a matter of fact, your wife, Marti, begged me to let you in on the ground floor, give you a little taste of the action. You sure as hell loved the old projected profit ratio on them fur coats.”

  “That was then, before—”

  “What? Now all of a sudden, when things are about to happen, you’re getting cold feet? A conscience? Far as anyone knows we’re just a little old import company, Doc, nothing more, nothing less.”

  “The coats… well, yeah, that was okay, maybe. But this meat thing, I mean, come on. Look, I want nothing more to do with your ‘import company’. The idea of jail time doesn’t really appeal to me.”

  “Does Marti know you’re out here? Did you check this out with her?” Taggert asked.

  “No! I don’t have to check with her. I make my own business decisions, and I just want my investment back. We’ll call it even. I’ll just go away and not say a word to anyone. I promise.”

  “Hmm-mmm, well, long as you promise, Doc. Not much I can say except sorry things didn’t work out. Come on into the office. I’ll cut you a check. You sure I can’t talk you out of this?”

  “I’m quite sure.” Craig shook his head, relieved things had gone this well. He followed Taggert into the cinder-block building. The office was actually more of a grimy lunchroom, the counter littered with dirty coffee cups and empty fast-food containers. A table strewn with pornographic magazines stood at a haphazard angle to the counter. On one corner of the table, a cup of coffee steamed next to a land-line phone.

  Tilted on the rear legs of a chair sat the rumpled figure of Luther Suggs, his psychotic face hidden behind a foldout and a two-day beard. He lounged in a grimy, blood-stained lab coat. A white baseball cap emblazoned with ‘Chow Industries’ was perched backward on his head.

  “Luther, look who came to visit,” Taggert said, eyes darting from side to side, signaling there might be a problem.

  “Something in your eyes?” Luther asked, looking up from behind the foldout.

  “Let me see, Doc. We were gonna cut you a check,” Taggert said, emphasizing the word check as he raised his eyebrows. He gave a palms-up gesture, suggesting Luther remove his size-twelve feet from the table.

  “Mind if I use that chair a minute and cut the Doc here a check?”

  “Huh?”

  “Move, damn it.”

  “Oh, yeah, just reading an article here.”

  “Did I just hear the phone?” Taggert asked, inclining his head in Craig’s direction.

  “The phone?” Luther asked, now vaguely aware he might be missing something.

  “I thought I heard this phone ring. Hello?” Taggert said, picking up the receiver. “Hmm-mmm… Oh yes, just a minute, he’s right here. It’s for you, Doc,” he said, holding the phone in Craig’s direction.

  “Me, who would—”

  Taggert slammed the receiver across Craig’s left temple with a dull thunk. Thunk, thunk, thunk. He hammered until the receiver shattered across Craig’s skull.

  “Ughhh.” Craig groaned and dropped to the concrete floor, pulling Luther’s mug of scalding coffee down on top of him.

  Taggert quickly followed with his loaded thirty-eight, hammering on the top of Craig’s head. “Luther! Damn it. I could use a little help here.”

  Luther watched passively for a long moment, then reached down with a massive hand, grabbed Craig by his perfectly coiffed hair, and slammed his head a couple of times against the cold concrete floor. The third slam made a noticeably different sound, like a ripe melon falling off a truck.

  “There, now he ain’t going nowhere.”

  “It’s about damn time. What did you think I was doing?”

  “Sorry, man, I was busy.”

  “Take his keys and wallet and pull his car behind the kennel. Then dump him in the grinder. Grind him up a little at a time, so there’s no trace. I doubt anyone knew he was coming out here. I was with that pain in the ass wife of his last night. She would’ve said something if she knew. I’ll call her and set something up. Damn,” Taggert said and rolled his shoulder, then kicked Craig’s body for effect. “I think I tore a rotator cuff.”

  Luther grabbed Craig Cullen by the heels and dragged him across the floor, out through the door, to the processing area, and the large stainless-steel meat grinder.

  Chapter Two

  “Come on. I can’t breathe! Oh, God. Dickie, I’m not kidding, get off me!” DJ gasped in a futile attempt to push him off.

  Eventually, Dickie Mullins rolled onto his back and gasped for air.

  “You know, Dickie, it’s a good thing for me, I’m not picky about who I climb into bed with.” She laughed, then crawled out of bed and put her glasses back on.

  “No complaint from me,” he said.

  “Hey, what’d you do with my underwear?”

  From his angle on the bed, Dickie watched the reflection in the full-length mirror as she crawled along the floor. In the relatively close quarters of his thirty-foot houseboat, there was no room to spare, and her bare hip made a squeaky sound as she brushed against the mirror.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said, grabbing the errant garment from under the bed. She stepped into the thong and then stopped, thumbs hooked in the straps around her thighs. She peered at the photo of his police academy graduating class. The light streaming through the small window cast golden highlights off her thick auburn hair.

  “Looking for anyone in parti
cular?” he asked.

  “Yeah, my favorite arresting officers,” she said, snapping the elastic across her hips. “Just looking. Hey, you were quite the stud back then. Oh, can you spot me twenty bucks? Oh, come on. Don’t give me that look. If you’re gonna make a Federal case out of—”

  “Relax, there’s twenty bucks on the dresser.”

  “Forty would go further.”

  “Twenty. Sure you can’t stay?”

  “Very sure. Look, I got an early day. See you around,” she said, stuffing the twenty in a front pocket. She bent over Dickie and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before grabbing her cotton top and strolling out the door to the small deck area.

  “Hey, put your top on for Christ’s sake.” He stepped out of bed, hopped across the floor and into his boxers.

  “Good morning, Vernon,” she said.

  “DJ, always a pleasure.” Vernon smiled, stared, and sipped some coffee from the deck of his boat next door.

  “You know, Vernon, what do you think about an ex-cop who lives on a boat with a view of the city jail?” As she spoke, she gazed at the early morning reflection of the downtown buildings across the surface of the Mississippi.

  “Real nice,” Vernon replied, ignoring the river.

  Dickie stepped out the door clad in Hawaiian print boxers.

  “My God, that’s too much to take in at this hour,” Vernon said and covered his eyes.

  “Dickie, put something on because you’re scaring poor Vernon here. See ya later,” DJ said. She pulled her top over her head, stepped onto the wooden dock, and walked toward the Wabasha Bridge.

  “Dickie, Lord knows you sure as hell don’t deserve it, but you’re one lucky son-of-a-bitch,” Vernon scoffed.

  Dickie silently watched DJ climb up the marina steps and disappear before he went back inside.

  His houseboat consisted of a room paneled in cheap knotty pine with a double bed, kitchen counter seating for one, a sink filled with dirty dishes, two cupboards, and a very small refrigerator. He poured a mug of coffee from the pot DJ had started and stepped back outside.

  He sat on the tiny deck in a faded, folding aluminum chair. Every time he bent his elbow to sip some coffee, the chair creaked. He had almost finished the cup when he caught DJ’s figure in the middle of the bridge, making her way to the downtown side. She was a computer geek who walked dogs for a living. It didn’t seem to make sense, like just about everything else in his life.

  He absently ran his hand across his midsection, where his t-shirt rode up, and his boxers wedged down, revealing an ample spare tire. He planned to lose twenty pounds last summer, get back into some semblance of shape. He’d have to lose closer to thirty now, starting tomorrow. Once he picked up the surveillance case from Darcy.

  Dickie had been on a disability pension from the police department since 2013. Some guy coming out of a liquor store at high noon. Who robs a liquor store at noon on a Monday? The dirtbag came out and his car wouldn’t start. First squad on the scene calmly pulled behind the fool’s car, blocking it. By the time Dickie and his partner showed up, they were just watching the show.

  Some department shrink talked the idiot into giving up. The poor guy, dressed in a cowboy outfit with a black ten-gallon hat, sat in the front seat of his car with a six-shooter in his lap, crying.

  They had him surrounded on one of the first nice days of spring. Sunny, warm, and the only question was what kind of paperwork would have to be filled out, an arrest or a coroner’s report.

  Eventually, the shrink talked the fool into tossing his weapon out the car window, which he did, unfortunately, with the hammer cocked. The damned thing discharged, ricocheted off a parked snowplow, and clipped Dickie’s left hip before exiting his rear.

  He was just minding his own damn business, thinking about how great it felt to be in the sun, warm, safe, and glad he wasn’t the lead officer on this cluster when— BOOM! Just like that, quick as you could say “What the hell!” Dickie ended up retired and on disability.

  It wasn’t long after that, once he had completed his correspondence course that he had started his private eye gig. About a year after that, he got the brain fart to buy a bar and restaurant, the Emporium of Dance. It was a local meat market for lack of a better term. Now, with the economy the way it was, he’d been working overtime just to keep it afloat. He glanced at the clock, six-thirty. He had an appointment at eleven, which gave him almost three more hours of sleep if he hurried.

  He crawled onto the pile of leopard print sheets, reeking of spicy lubricant. A hint of DJ’s perfume still lingered around the pillow as he fell asleep.

  Chapter Three

  “Knock, knock, knock, Sleepy Head, rise and shine!” a female voice, frighteningly familiar and way too cheery, called from the door.

  “Come on. I brought you coffee. Mmm-mmm, here smell, Baby. Fresh black coffee, just the way you like it.” The voice was suddenly next to his bed.

  According to the digital, it wasn’t quite eight-thirty, and Dickie could only hope he was in the midst of some strange nightmare and not really hearing his ex-wife’s voice.

  “Come on now, Baby. Open those eyes. Come on.” She bent down, letting her blonde perfumed hair brush lightly across his neck, chasing away the final vestige of sleep.

  Dickie had always been convinced his ex-wife, Rae Nell, held on to his last name just to piss him off. She was the youngest of four sisters, Rae Jean, Rae Dawn, Rae Lynn, and Rae Nell. They had been called the Sun Rae’s by their mother, and by the time of his divorce, Dickie thought of them as the Death Rae’s.

  Rae Nell divorced Dickie six years ago in search of her freedom. Following the divorce, Dickie got the house payment, Rae Nell got the house, along with the freedom to pursue any get rich scheme that piqued her interest, which seemed to be most of them.

  She sniffed as she stepped back to the kitchen counter. She picked up an oily hint of spicy something from somewhere.

  “New aftershave you’re wearing?”

  “I don’t suppose it would have done any good to lock the door,” he groaned.

  “Not really, Hon, you gave me a key. Remember? Besides,” she said, snooping in the bathroom, “it’s not like you have anything worth taking.”

  “Well, you’d know all about that, Rae Nell, since you already took everything. So what do you want?” Dickie said as he sat up in bed. He blinked in an effort to accept the brightness and rubbed whatever two scant hours of sleep might have deposited in his eyes.

  “Oh, don’t be such a sore loser. Here, just the way you like it, black, not too hot,” she said, prying off the plastic lid.

  “Mmm-mmm,” Dickie groaned, then rolled out of bed and stumbled the five feet to the counter.

  “Wow, there’s a lot more of you to love, honey,” she said, sounding genuinely surprised. She gave him the once over from head to toe before handing him the cup of coffee.

  “Rae Nell, darling,” Dickie said with an inflection, not quite suggesting warmth. “What in the hell are you doing here at this hour of the morning?”

  “Well, aren’t we just Mr. Crabby. A girl can’t even bring you a nice cup of coffee without being yelled at.”

  “I didn’t yell.”

  “Could have fooled me. For your information, Crabby Appleton, I was just in the neighborhood, and since I hadn’t seen you for at least half a year, I was wondering how you were getting along, that’s all. If you’re going to be a poop, I’ll just leave.”

  “Okay,” he said and sipped.

  “Honestly, Dickie, I just wondered how you were doing. Gee, I can’t be concerned without you getting upset? What’s that all about?”

  “I’m touched you’re so concerned, Rae Nell. I really am. But, you have to admit it’s only right I’m a little gun shy. Let’s see, there was that wrestler you were dating, you remember? You told him I was stalking you. That was great. He showed up at the Emporium of Dance with two other clowns the size of semi-trucks intent on wrecking the place.”


  “The Emporium of Dance? Oh, please, Dickie. It’s a weekend meat market. You serve up one-night stands as the house specialty with a side order of too much to drink.”

  “Hey, Rae Nell, you don’t have to describe what you did last night. I’m just a little leery about your so-called concern, that’s all. We could discuss the stockbroker, you remember him? Had you selling stocks to me without a license, the inside tip on the clapper for computers. Clap it on, clap it off.” Dickie clapped his hands.

  “Remember? Securities and Exchange parked out in front of your house, attempting to serve you a subpoena. So you hid out here for a week and a half while I was vacationing out west. I come home relaxed and all jazzed from seeing Mount Rushmore, and you make me get a hotel room because you couldn’t possibly be inconvenienced.”

  “Well, excuse me. I thought I was doing you a favor by giving you three more nights away from this scow! Besides, you were dating that underaged child, if I recall.”

  “She was twenty-four.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then, there was that guy who was mad at you and your imported pearl business, so he took a baseball bat to my car!”

  “That orange Geo Metro? That dreadful thing? Oh, really, Dickie, it belonged in the scrap heap, if you could even find someone to dispose of it. My God, talk about toxic waste. I can’t believe the state even allowed that death trap on the road.”

  “It was a classic, Rae Nell, a classic.”

  “Classic junk is more like it, Dickie. It leaked, just for starters. Did you ever get rid of the bean bag you had for a passenger seat?”

  “The passenger seat was reinstalled,” he said, declining to mention the fourteen-inch gash slicing across the leather.

  “Whatever.”

  “Well, we might discuss the shipping container of honey you imported from Thailand and had dropped off at the rear of the Emporium of Dance last summer. That was beautiful. I don’t know the thing is coming, and they punch a hole in the container with a forklift before leaving it by my back door. I had to shut down for three days because the wasps and bees were so bad. Neighbors started a petition against me, and I’m still battling with the Department of Health.”