Chuck Freadhoff - Free Booze Tonight Page 11

  I glanced over my shoulder one more time, just to make sure, and turned to her again. She was stroking the elephant’s trunk. The animal was wearing a red harness on its head that for some reason reminded me of a Shriner’s fez, but I didn’t figure I’d see any tiny cars around.

  “Dimples, this is Joey,” Delilah said. “He’s personally responsible for the worst day of my life.” Dimples studied me with her dimpled red eye. “So, there something you want to say to me, Joey?”

  “You by any chance know a guy named Royal Rob?” I asked.

  “That pig.”

  Hmmm. She had enough venom in ‘pig’ to make a rattler sit up and take notice. At least she’d simplified things to a point. We wouldn’t be going back to the Alcatraz. But I’d still need to convince her to come to L.A. and become a rock star. A task probably akin to the wolf coaxing Little Red Riding Hood back into the forest for another look at Grandma’s big teeth. But I figured I could handle it. No sweat.

  Now I’m not saying that I’m the world’s best sales person, but I do have some gifts. Bullshit comes pretty easily to me. That and I change addresses a lot so it’s hard to track me down for a refund.

  I smiled at Delilah and figured how hard could it be to convince her to give the band another try? Of course, I’d have to be smart about it — maybe get her chatting and ease into the subject nice and slow. I’d been a Fuller Brush salesman once, so I put on my best trust-me look.

  Delilah gave Dimples another handful of peanuts.

  “So tell me, how’s your dad these days?” I asked.

  “Joey, my father wants to cut you into pieces and feed you to his pet pig.”

  “Your father has a pet pig?”

  She turned to the elephant and shook her head like they were sisters sharing an inside joke. I swear the elephant nodded and smiled, too. Delilah stroked the elephant’s trunk and nodded in my direction.

  “So, how’d you find me?” she asked.

  “It’s a long story,” I said thinking of Rex the Wonder Dog, dwarves with guns, and one really pissed-off pussycat that could probably take on Dimples. For a second I longed for those Fuller Brush days. True, I never sold anything, but, then again, the soaps, mops, and toilet bowl cleaners never tried to kill me.

  “Joey, why are you here?”

  Okay, time to kick the game plan into high gear. I had a whole line of patter worked out, but something weird happened. My mouth said something that I didn’t know was coming.

  “I want to hear you sing,” I said.

  Delilah rocked back on her heels, incredulous. The elephant eyed me suspiciously. I looked at the ground. I usually get through life with a combination of half-truths and half-wit charm. Now what was I going to do? If my mouth started telling the truth without consulting my brain, there’d be no wiggle room. Like volunteering to the IRS that you cheated on your taxes - there’d be no going back.

  Still, the truth had a couple of things going for it. One, I was pretty much out of other options and two, it was so new to me that I hadn’t figured out how to screw it up yet.

  Delilah leaned against Dimples and eyed me warily. “You want to hear me sing?”

  “Yeah, you told me yourself you could sing and you were right. I mean before … .” I paused not sure I wanted to relive the rehearsal. “At the bar, when you were singing … . You’ve got some great lungs.”

  She was wearing a tight t-shirt so maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words. Delilah crossed her arms as if to make a point, or a couple of them.

  “Lungs?”

  “Pipes ah … . vocal cords. Ah, hell, Delilah, you’re a great singer, or you could be if you’d get out of your own way and just let it rip.” I had no idea what that meant, but I was on a roll. Plus I was anxious to distract her from the lungs comment.

  She ran her hand along Dimples trunk once more, then turned to me. “You’re just saying that because my dad wants to kill you.”

  “I’m telling you the truth.” Okay, so it was only half the truth. Of course, I wanted her to return to L.A. and get Vincent the Hammer off my back. That way I wouldn’t become the poster boy for Mohawk carpets — pure wool, it lasts a lifetime — but she really could sing.

  I lowered my eyes to the ground again for a moment then raised them to her.

  “You sound like a blend of Etta James and Billie Holiday with a little Janice Joplin around the edge,” I said.

  She stood straighter, her shoulders square. “You really think so?” she said, a girlish hopeful pitch in her voice.

  “I don’t think it. I know it. Look, come back to L.A. with me. I can make it work. I really can.”

  “What, another gig with a burning drum machine, a two-ton base player who can’t play, zonked out bystanders and a bunch of neo-Nazi bikers? Not to mention … .”

  I held out my hands, palms up, pleading — or was it begging? “It’ll be different this time,” I said. “I promise.”

  “Oh sure.”

  “No, really. I’ve got a plan.”

  “Joey, you had a plan when you sold daddy that John Lennon guitar, remember?”

  “This is different, honest. One gig and you’ll be on your way to stardom,” I said. And I’ll be on my way to someplace Vincent the Hammer will never find me, like maybe Missoula or Minnetonka.

  “What’s your plan?”

  “I’m still working out a couple of minor details, but you’ll love it.” I had no idea what I’d do, but then again I never believed in planning too far ahead. I don’t even buy green bananas.

  Delilah looked at Dimples and put a hand on her shoulder. “What do you think?” she said and some type of silent message seemed to pass between them. Dimples trumpeted again. But what did that mean?

  Delilah spun back to me. She turned her head and squinted, her eyes almost closed, then nodded once.

  “Okay, one more try, Joey,” Delilah said. “But just one. You screw this up, and I’ll buy a pet pig.”

  “I won’t screw it up. Promise.”

  “I’ll get my things,” she said and started across the corral to the gate.

  I smiled. My heart soared like a hawk. I breathed in the wondrous air of salvation.

  That’s when I saw the first dwarf.

  Chapter 38

  Half a dozen dwarves, maybe more, were closing in on us. I recognized Shaq. He was just inside the barn and still wearing the fedora pulled low over one eye. A second one – the guy I’d spotted behind the potted palm - was approaching from the left and Bow Tie, the one from under the roulette table, was coming in from the right.

  I ducked between the railings of the fence, hustled over to Delilah, and glanced toward the barn. I didn’t see Toughie and wondered if she’d sold us out. I spotted a couple more little people in the barn behind Shaq.

  Delilah stopped just short of the corral gate. “Who are all the … .

  “They work for Royal Rob.”

  “What are they doing here?”

  “They want to take you to the Alcatraz.”

  “They’re taking me to prison?”

  “No, the Alcatraz is Royal Rob’s casino.”

  “Well, I’m not going, so just ignore them.”

  “I don’t think we can,” I said. “They’re armed. Maybe we can let the tiger out.” I had a vision of Shaq and his men scattering like tumbleweeds.

  “Timmy the Tiger is old, half blind, and doesn’t have any teeth. They could ride him and he wouldn’t mind.”

  You know you’re having a bad day when you can’t scare a dwarf with a Bengal tiger.

  There were more dwarves now. They formed a semi-circle and advanced toward the corral, Shaq running point a couple feet in front of the others. They were all impeccably dressed, I’ll give them that. Suits, silk ties, French cuffs, and vests despite the heat. A couple of them wore shades. A bushel of new potatoes to the Roo boys’ russets.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” Shaq said. His hand slipped inside his jacket where the bulge was. “Just hand
over the girl and we’ll be on our way.”

  “We’re going to L.A.,” I said.

  There it was again, my mouth not checking with my brain.

  “Your choice, Door Stop,” Shaq said and started to pull his gun.

  That’s when things got weird. Dimples knocked me aside, sucked up a trunk full of dirt and rocks and sprayed the dwarves right to left like an earth-spouting fire hose. Dimples knelt and Delilah scrambled atop her shoulders.

  The elephant trumpeted and charged like it was the start of the Indy 500 and Dimples was a supercharged Sherman tank coming up from the rear. She went through the gate, knocking it off its hinges like she was busting through the winner’s tape at the end of a marathon.

  The dwarves scattered. Shaq pulled his gun, but before he could get a shot off Dimples flicked him with her trunk sending him airborne for about fifty feet.

  Dimples headed full speed for the barn door with Delilah hanging on. I was sure the elephant would never fit – a Spanish galleon through a sewer pipe - but Dimples cleared it with about an inch to spare on either side. Delilah flattened herself and just slipped under the top of the door jam.

  I sprinted after them but damn, that elephant could move! Dimples cleared the barn and was in the parking lot in about thirty seconds. Tires squealed and by the time I got there, Delilah was gone.

  Shaq and the rest of the dwarves came running out of the barn.

  “Where’d she go?” Shaq demanded. His fedora, dusty and rumpled, was crooked on his head.

  “Beats me,” I said.

  Shaq reached inside his coat again, but Bow Tie next to him tapped him on the shoulder and pointed back to the barn. Shaq glanced over his shoulder.

  “Ah shit,” he squealed and sprinted for a VW microbus parked a little ways away.

  I turned. Timmy the Tiger sauntered out the barn. Half a second later, the last of the dwarves sprinted past me. His friends grabbed his arms and dragged him into the microbus like he was the last grunt to make a chopper as it lifted off a hot landing zone. Shaq was behind the wheel and cranked the engine.

  Dimples walked calmly over to the microbus, put her head against the side, and pushed. The microbus rocked once, twice, and over it went, pinning the driver side door against the asphalt and trapping the little people inside. Dimples strolled back to the barn and disappeared inside just behind Timmy the Tiger.

  I headed for the barn, stopped at the door, and looked back at the microbus full of dwarves – all of them too short to reach the passenger door which now faced skyward. They were screaming at me to help them out, alternating between threats and pleading.

  I took stock. Royal Rob would probably kill me on sight now. Vincent the Hammer would be here in less than twenty-four hours to measure me for a rug, and Delilah, my only hope for survival, had just disappeared. On the other hand, I’d just been saved from a band of heat-packing dwarves by an elephant and toothless tiger named Timmy. All in all, not a bad day.

  I went back into the barn to look for Toughie.

  Chapter 39

  I didn’t have to look far for Toughie. I found her tied to a chair in Ernie’s office just off the parking lot.

  “Shaq got the drop on me,” she said. She twisted in the chair to see me better, the rope biting into her beefy arms.

  “How’d they know where to find us?”

  “They visited Dr. Karl.”

  “What happened to Ernie?” I asked.

  “He went to the feed store. I told him I’d cover for him, that we’d be a while.”

  I untied her and we headed for the parking lot. The microbus, packed with really pissed-off little people, was still on its side. When we got to Toughie’s truck she nodded at the van.

  “How the hell did that happen?” she asked.

  “Dimples didn’t like them.”

  “Who says size doesn’t matter?”

  “Me usually,” I said before I caught myself.

  She eyed me up and down. “How’s that working out for you?”

  I shrugged.

  “Yeah, I figured,” she said and got in the truck.

  Normally I might have been insulted, but I had a bigger problem on my hands. I had to find Delilah. I got in the truck and the back of my legs immediately stuck to the hot seat. The thing was a microwave on wheels.

  “Which way did Delilah go?” Toughie asked.

  “She was gone by the time I got to the lot.”

  “Okay, I’m going to play a hunch, but you’re not coming. I’m taking you back to the motel and let the Roo brothers babysit.”

  “No way. Delilah’s going to be spooked after the run-in with Shaq. I’ve got to be there. She trusts me.”

  “Trusts you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Toughie smiled. “You let her choose, didn’t you?”

  I’m not much of a mental chess player, but even I could see that if I answered that question, I’d have to answer the next one — what did she choose? And, since I wasn’t totally convinced about Toughie’s motives — would she tattle to Royal Rob that the love of his life viewed him with the enthusiasm a rabbi holds for a pork chop? — I decided to change the subject.

  “How’d Shaq get the drop on you? You’re bigger than he is.” I cocked my head and tried to look skeptical.

  “He had a gun,” she said, her expression telling me that the question was more stupid than skeptical. “And stop trying to change the subject.”

  Maybe I should stick with mental checkers. I glanced out the truck window. Across the street was a gas station with a huge sign on the roof: SLOTS. A white-haired woman in an old housedress and slippers, pulling an oxygen tank on wheels, was trudging across the station’s baking-hot parking lot toward the entrance. She was smoking a cigarette. For a second I envied the simplicity of her life — pull the handle, pray for three cherries, and don’t get the cigarette too close to the oxygen.

  “Well, what’d she choose?” Toughie said.

  “L.A.”

  “Does Royal Rob know?”

  “Not yet but I told Shaq where we were going.”

  Toughie turned slowly and stared at me. You’d think I’d just volunteered to fit Timmy for dentures. “Why the hell did you do that?” she said.

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” I said. Like the time I ate sixteen aspirin reasoning that if one aspirin would get rid of a headache, just imagine how much faster it’d go away if I took sixteen.

  Toughie studied me for a moment. “You really like her, don’t you?”

  “I really like staying alive,” I said.

  “Yeah, sure,” Toughie said and fired the truck’s engine and finally turned on the AC. She glanced again at Shaq’s overturned microbus. “Once they get out they’ll go straight to Royal Rob with the news. I better get there first.”

  “I’m going with you,” I repeated.

  “If you go into the Alcatraz without Delilah, you’ll be going out alone in a laundry cart.”

  Sometimes making a decision isn’t really all that hard.

  “Great, quality time with Jimmy and James, what could be better?” I quipped. Actually, I thought, just about anything would be better than another evening with the mob’s very own psychopathic versions of Tweedledum and Tweeldledee. A night with Mrs. O’Leary’s cow came immediately to mind.

  Toughie called ahead, and when we got to the motel Jimmy and James were waiting on the edge of the parking lot, leaning against the Continental their arms folded across their chests. Toughie slid out of the truck and I followed. I noticed a few dozen beer cans scattered across the asphalt, each of them full of bullet holes.

  “What the … .?” I said. But Toughie touched my shoulder and shook her head.

  “Boys and their toys,” she said and made a gesture like she was throwing something in the air. I had an image of Jimmy tossing the cans to the sky while James plugged them. Hillbilly skeet.

  “You’re just in time,” Jimmy said.

  “In time for what?” I
asked and glanced back at the beer cans.

  James nodded to the room. “Animal Planet. Yaks In The Wild is on next.”

  I turned to Toughie. “Got any aspirin?”

  Chapter 40

  About two the next morning, Royal Rob pounded on the motel door. Jimmy and James jumped from their beds and went to it, each holding a handgun as big as a Buick.

  Jimmy jerked the door open, James a foot behind him. Both had their guns raised. Royal Rob glanced at them, a quick up and down appraisal, then pushed his way into the room undeterred. Perhaps the threat of deadly force was undercut somewhat by the brothers’ matching Winnie the Pooh boxers.

  “Where’s Delilah?” Royal Rob demanded. He stepped to the end of the bed and glanced at me on the floor. The Roo brothers had each taken a bed and once again assigned me the space between.

  “How’d you find us?” I asked.

  “Shaq’s a hell of a detective and I saw the Continental in the parking lot.”

  Royal Rob was wearing another Hawaiian shirt, this one with pink flamingos. The birds’ heads swiveled as he talked. I glanced at his forearms, but he’d left the water wings at home.

  “You were supposed to find Delilah and bring her to me. Toughie promised me you’d have her by now,” Royal Rob said.

  “I did have her,” I said. I was finding this honesty thing a little easier than I’d figured. “In fact, it was your guys, that damned Shaq and the others, who scared her away.”

  “You told Shaq you were going to LA.”

  “Well duh,” I said. Okay, so maybe honesty can only take you so far. I sat up and pushed aside one of the three nearly empty pizza cartons scattered around the room – Jimmy had ordered our dinner, double anchovies and pineapple. I hadn’t eaten much.

  “Duh?” Royal Rob said.