Reduced Ransom!

  Before you go any farther I’d like to offer you two FREE Dev Haskell tales.

  Novella #1: Twinkle Toes is the fast-paced search for an exotic dancer Dev knew in high school as his pink-haired prom date, ‘Twink’. Twink hasn’t been seen since she went to a photoshoot for a sleazy car dealership and Dev sets out to find her.

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  Mike Faricy

  Mike Faricy

  Reduced Ransom!

  Published by Credit River Publishing 2018

  Copyright Mike Faricy 2018

  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.

  Reduced Ransom!

  ASIN# B07BNWH5B6

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following people for their help and support:

  Special thanks to Cheryl and Sylvia for their hard work, cheerful patience and positive feedback.

  I would like to thank Roy, Steve and Julie for their creative talent and not slitting their wrists or jumping off the high bridge when dealing with my Neanderthal computer capabilities.

  Last, I would like to thank family and friends for their encouragement and unqualified support. Special thanks to Maggie, Jed, Schatz, Pat, Av, Emily and Pat for not rolling their eyes, at least when I was there, and most of all, to my wife Teresa whose belief, support and inspiration has from day one, never waned.

  To Teresa

  “The more you eat,

  the harder you are to kidnap.

  Eat cake and stay safe.”

  Reduced Ransom!

  Mike Faricy

  Chapter 1

  “So, you’re in with me on this. I mean, if we figure it out and play our cards right, you’d be willing to do more than just consider it?” Mickey half whispered into Dell’s ear. He glanced around the darkened barroom then straightened up and arranged his swizzle sticks along the edge of the bar.

  If he’d ever had a prime, Mickey Donnelly was past it. He’d done a lot of living, more than a little of it in smoke filled bars within easy reach of a stiff drink or a cold beer. He’d put on three to four pounds annually over the last twelve years, ever since he got out of the Lino Lakes Correctional Facility, placing him on the far side of solid, heading toward fat. His once dark, curly hair had begun to gray, at least the hair that remained. With more than the hint of an extra chin, plus a natural disdain for ties, he had converted to the open collar look a number of years back. Today, he was wearing a button-down, black, rayon shirt. A flock of pink flamingos all standing on one leg were wrapped around the base of the garment.

  He took another sip, “Dell, you on board here? " he asked again, drawing close, giving Dell the conspiratorial nod.

  “Yeah,” Dell said, and took a sip before nodding to Cookie, the bartender, for another round. “Yeah, count me in. Come on, Mick, we go back a long way. Christ we were crawling when we first met, you know I’m in. I’m with you, man.”

  Dell tossed a twenty in Cookie’s direction as she set the next round in front of them. This was finally it, this was going to be big and wouldn’t you know, his old pal Mickey, the guy he’d known longer than anyone, had dumped it all right in his lap.

  “Amen, brother, I’m in,” Dell said and toasted Mickey. “To success, baby. Long may it last.”

  Chapter 2

  Dell had been rocking since he was thirteen. Not in a band. He’d been hanging it, sheet rock, and he was damn tired of it. He knew he was on borrowed time, aches and pain wise. But he didn’t know much else. He supposed he could go back to school, get his GED, take a computer course or some damn thing. Guys did that all the time. But he’d have to learn how to type first and besides, he’d never, ever liked school. And now old Mickey had a plan that would land them both on ‘Easy Street’.

  They were a Mutt and Jeff team. Mickey, always the idea man, an extrovert, quick with a joke. He knew everyone, cops, girls, all of the bartenders in town. Dell was Mickey’s opposite, almost whip thin, but muscled, not in a pumped iron sort of way, just hard, angular, sinewy strong. He had a full head of salt and pepper hair with a razor-sharp part. He kept to himself, always content to watch, listen, then just nod and do the damn job, whatever it was. People around town knew him as ‘that guy who was always with Mickey.’

  They did have one thing in common, they’d never had any money. Dell wanted to spread money all over the bed and sleep on it. He loved the smell of money, and he thought he could almost smell it, big time, with Mickey’s latest idea. He had no real problem with breaking the law, providing they didn’t get caught, and no one got hurt.

  “See, I figure,” Mickey said standing in the rear of the War Bonnet Lounge, his arm draped over Dell’s shoulder. “Who’s to even know? I mean where guys usually screw up is they get greedy. They think they need the high profile, the fancy car, the big house, and the women.”

  Dell nodded.

  “But, you and me, Dell. Hell, we been living on a five dollar cushion most of our lives, just a paycheck ahead of the sheriff. So, now we’ll just continue to take it low key, keep it quiet. It’s as simple as that.” Mickey clinked glasses with Dell. “To our new, simple success.”

  Dell narrowed his eyes for a brief moment, and Mickey caught the look.

  “What is it?”

  “Mick, when you say women, you’re not talking kids here, right? I can’t grab any kids, okay?”

  “Jesus, Dell, are you kidding me, kids? You mean like little kids? What’s wrong with you?” he punched Dell in the shoulder. “They’ll be women, not kids. Women rolling in the dough. The old man has to be able to get the cash. What we call in business, disposable income. Once we get the money, everyone goes off happy. The guy has his woman back, and we’ll have, one hundred thousand dollars. Think of it, Dell, a hundred thousand bucks, you and me. Us two schmucks! A hundred grand, cash! And no one tells the cops. It’s perfect, brilliant, pure genius, even if I do say so myself. Here’s to us and our new found success,” Mickey said and raised his glass.

  “Mick, why are you so sure they won’t go to the cops?”

  “That’s the beauty of the plan, a hundred thousand is nothing to these guys, they just get a second mortgage on their house. Hell, it’s almost paid off, anyway. I can check all that out. It’s enough money to work for you and me, but not too much so the guy goes nuts. And, we warn them. They go to the cops, something worse will happen. We can work out these smaller details later. I got a couple of thoughts to guarantee our safety, but don’t worry, nothing that would hurt anyone.”

  Dell nodded, pushed his baseball cap back a notch and smiled.

  “Plus, I’ve been doing research, watching all those cop shows and stuff. Learning things like she should never see our face, so we wear a mask. We keep them at your joint, because there’s no one around, no nosey neighbors and besides, you got that bedroom downstairs next to your workshop. Oh, and here’s just one of the beautiful points, just in case someone goes to the cops, we repaint the bedroom at your place after each one. I mean some wom
an says she was in a white room, whoops, excuse me, officer, this room is green. See, Dell? It’s all in the details. Well, and not getting greedy, of course."

  “Look, you’re working days, I work nights, we don’t change our schedules. We just slowly get rich and quietly change our address to Easy Street. Speaking of which, I better get to work now. We can talk tomorrow, and don’t say a damn thing to anyone. Got it?”

  * * *

  Mickey shook his head as he pulled into the parking lot, ready to go to work. At this hour of the night there was never anyone in the office. He parked next to the door, gliding into the spot reserved for Claudia Cummings, Manager. He’d never met Claudia, he guessed she was probably a nice person. But she’d be pissed off if she knew Mickey was parking in her spot, even after hours, which made parking in her spot kind of fun.

  He liked to tell folks he’d been cleaning up in real estate for the last couple of years, and that wasn’t too far from the truth. He cleaned up the office most nights between midnight and two. Just vacuum, empty the trash, clean the break room, hit the bathrooms, a little dusting around the front desk. He cleaned Claudia’s office of course, and a few obvious heavy hitters. Then he just sat back, relaxed, raided the fridge in the break room and wasted time while on the clock.

  That’s when he first started to put the key elements of his plan together, while he was wasting time. He’d been on one of the computers, looking for porn sites it turned out they didn’t have access to. Lucky thing for him, because he started snooping at files, checking out what folks were worth. Average folks who hadn’t done a damn thing different than Mickey, except buy a house on the cheap twenty-five or thirty years ago, make the payments and do the responsible routine. Now, all of a sudden they were sitting on all sorts of market value. That started Mickey thinking.

  All the information he needed was stored on a secure system, but it’s funny what you pick up, picking up after people. At least three of the associates, had their passwords taped to their computers. The sneaky ones, like Claudia the manager, had their passwords stored in a Rolodex, usually filed under ‘C’, for computer. With Claudia’s password, he’d been able to look at files from all the other branches around town. Once he could look at files, he began checking on people he knew, and then it just sort of started. The grudge list.

  He had never been aware he even kept a grudge list, it just sort of bubbled out one night. It started with Huey Evans, an older kid he knew growing up. Huey beat up Mickey every day after school for two years, just for fun. Fun for Huey, anyway. It got to where he would just run out after school trying to clear the playground before the beating began. That’s when he learned Huey could run faster.

  He hadn’t thought of Huey in years. Yet, there he was, and Mickey could hear the taunts, feel the punches, the kicks, see the faces of the other kids, none of them really knowing what to do. So, they all just watched. Except for Dell, he stood by Mickey, and then there were two guys for Huey to beat up, sort of a double your pleasure deal.

  It turned out old Huey had ‘market value’ and was worth some bucks, and that had started the ball rolling in Mickey’s mind. At first it was just a day-dream. But the more he thought about it, the more he saw real potential. For possibly the first time in his life, Mickey was going to work a job he enjoyed. It was going to be payback time, get even and get rich at the same time.

  Chapter 3

  Janice continued lecturing as she carried two bags of groceries from her car. “I said no. What part of that no, don’t you understand?”

  “But, Mom,” whined her daughter, Ashley. “You don’t get it, everyone can go, except me. It’s just because you never have any fun in your life. You just sit around the house. That’s why you never do anything, because you don’t know what it’s like to have fun.”

  Her daughter was half right. A single mom at thirty-two, raising a fifteen-year-old daughter. Janice Evans McGregor had forgotten everything about having fun. She was working two dead end jobs, getting five and half hours of sleep on any given night and she still couldn’t make ends meet. The grass needed cutting, everything in the house needed repair, paint, or both. For Janice, life had become one big sleep depraved blur. Do anything fun? How about eight hours of uninterrupted sleep on a set of clean sheets?

  “No, that’s final, young lady,” Janice said and pushed through the kitchen door. She scratched her forearm on the torn screen as she stepped over shoes, then stumbled on a backpack before side stepping the empty dog dish on her way to the cluttered counter. “Hey, Ash, I got some microwave popcorn in here somewhere,” she said digging around in one of the grocery bags.

  Ashley rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Like I want to be around this dump eating some crummy popcorn tonight. Mom, I’m not a kid anymore, I’m fifteen. God, why do you have to be so mean? Don’t you want me to have fun, to have a life? Do you want me to end up like you?”

  “That’s enough, young lady,” Janice said, still rummaging around in the grocery bag. “Don’t push me, Ash, I’ve had a really long day.”

  “But Mom, everyone gets to go except me. It’s just not fair, and it sucks. You suck, and this stinky house sucks, big time.”

  “All right, that’s enough, young lady. You haven’t done a damn thing around here all day except make more work for me. Look at this mess, did it ever cross your mind to clean up any of this?” Janice swept her arm around in a wide arc encompassing domestic devastation in every direction.

  “Do you think that maybe just once, I could come home and not have to battle with you about something you want? What about me? What about what I want? Oh no, I can’t think about that, can I? I’m just put on this earth to serve Ashley, and to make sure she has fun. Well, I’ve got news for you, young lady, life isn’t about having fun. We’re starting a new regime around here. Right now. You’re going to start pulling your own weight. You’re—”

  “No, no, I’m not. It’s not my mess, I didn’t make it. I hate you! I hate this sucky house and I’m going to go live with Dad,” she screamed and ran out the kitchen door.

  “You get back here, young lady. Do you hear me? Oh, shit,” Janice said, wishing she could run away as well.

  Chapter 4

  Mickey and Dell had spent the past two months getting every detail of the bedroom ready. Dell’s location was perfect, out in the country on the back side of Ramsey County, almost to Stillwater. No close neighbors, a tuck under garage, and the basement bedroom with an attached bathroom and one small window, too small and high to crawl out.

  “We’ll cover that damn thing up,” said Mickey, using the royal we and pointing to the window. “Disguise this room so next time there’s no window, after that maybe two windows. That way, anyone ever puts this together their description won’t make any sense."

  Dell had to give Mickey credit, if anyone knew about things that didn’t make sense it was Mickey. “I’ll put up two walls, shorten the room by four and a half inches but it’ll look like there isn’t a way out, except this door."

  Dell had removed all the furniture, except the metal framed bed, which he bolted to the floor. He pulled up the carpet and laid down two boxes of black and white self stick tiles. Another of Mickey’s brain storms, whoever was in here would remember the black and white tile floor. Once her old man made the payment, Dell could rip it out and lay the carpet back down. The cops ever show up, they pull back the carpet and there’s the floor that’s been installed since 1953. Gee, sorry guys, wrong house.

  Just to be sure, Mickey actually spent a night in the room, to see if he could pick up sounds, or anything that might help identify them later on. He’d seen a number of cop shows where the cops got their forensic clues from the drain trap below the kitchen sink and the shower drain.

  “Point is, we gotta pour bleach down the drains. I saw them do it on a show. They poured bleach down the drains after they cut up some dead gangster guy with a power saw,” Mickey said.

  “Why didn’t they just put all new pipes in?�
�� Dell said. “New plastic down past the water trap, get rid of it completely. A guy could plumb it for about thirty bucks and change. Ditch the old stuff, that way no sign or trace of anyone for sure.”

  Mickey took another sip from his beer and looked at Dell. “You think of that or did you see it on TV? It’s brilliant, Dell, that’s what we do. We’ll re-plumb the joint, put in new pipes and, we don’t leave the old pipes out back. We get them out of here the same day, drop ‘em in another county. We buy the new stuff over in Minneapolis, pay cash. Buy it at a different store every time. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.”

  The next night at the War Bonnet Lounge, Mickey sprung his little surprise on Dell. They were sitting alone at the far end of the bar, on the outside edge of a circle of dingy pink neon light. To be on the safe side, Mickey stopped talking every time some guy went in or came out of the men’s room. “Who’s the biggest jerk we knew in grade school?”

  “That’s easy, Huey Evans, he kicked the shit out of both of us all those times. I’d like to run that guy down, if I ever see him,” Dell said.

  “How’d you like to go it one better and have him give us a hundred grand? No questions asked, and we make him sweat a little?”

  “You kidding me, Huey Evans? That’s who you’re going after? Won’t he know it’s us?”

  Mickey waited as a fat guy wiping his hands on his jeans exited the men’s room. “What’s to know? Huey hasn’t thought of, or seen us since we were kids. He doesn’t even know we exist, Dell. I think it’s time old Huey gets taught a lesson. If he was that big of a jerk in grade school, it’s a pretty safe bet he hasn’t changed. The list of people who’d want to get back at him has to be a mile long. No one’s gonna come looking for us, Dell. Two kids from way back when, we’re under the radar.”