The Shrinking Nuts Case Read online

CHAPTER 6

  UNINVITED GUESTS

  I unlocked and stepped into my office to find it and my recliner already occupied by a well-dressed, husky, oldish tough. He was in his fifties, I guessed, but looked fit. I thought maybe I had seen him hanging around the neighborhood a couple times, but didn’t know him from Adam. “Who the fuck are you?” I asked, after deciding to be polite.

  The guy didn’t flinch; he just sat there, looking a hell of a lot more relaxed than I was. His black suit cost as much as my entire fancy new office, I figured. It fit his extra-wide frame perfectly without a wrinkle.

  “I the fuck am Elaine’s Uncle Vinnie,” he said, in a level, gravelly voice, but soft, like he was conserving his energies for something else. I didn’t like to think what that ‘something else’ was. The guy was built like he could walk through walls.

  She had mentioned an Uncle Vinnie a couple of times, but this is the first time I had met any of her family. As a rule I avoid women’s families like the plague, since only trouble ever comes of it.

  Male family members especially. They still have visions of their innocent little girl going to kindergarten or something. Nothing like the visions I had of them, and they knew it, as they were guys themselves. Rotten bastards, all of us. I relaxed a bit, shrugged, held out my hand and walked over to the guy. “Pleased to meet you,” I said, trying to sound sincere.

  I naturally expected him to stand up and shake my extended hand, but he didn’t budge an inch. “Sit down. We need to have a little talk,” he rumbled. "And take off that silly Panama hat, you look like a damned bookie."

  It wasn't a request "It's a fedora," I noted, as I took the hat off. I also sat down, but I was a little steamed. This was my place, not his, and he had insulted my hat.

  Uncle Vinnie followed my every move with small, unblinking eyes. “Let’s you and me get something straight right off. I don’t like you. You’re a two-bit bum and Elaine could do a hell of a lot better. But Elaine has the promise of her parents that they won’t interfere, as long as you don’t mistreat her. And of course that extends to me.”

  He shrugged ever so slightly his overly wide and thick shoulders. “As you might of heard, I keep an eye on things for her Mama and Papa, so it ain’t been easy sometimes for me to keep out of things, if you catch my drift.” He smiled at me for just a moment. Not a happy smile; this was more of a menacing shark smile that thankfully disappeared quickly. “But then I visited Elaine a couple hours ago, to give her a message from home, and I found her to be … in distress.”

  “You did?”

  He seemed not to hear me. “Now why would that be, I wondered, her being all happy the last few days about soon getting hitched to you and all. So I asked her. You know what she said?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Bull. She said she hasn’t heard from you today and you never came home at all last night.”

  Shit, he was right. But so what? I was on a case. “Your point being?”

  “The point being, things are getting much more serious now. Stuff you might have got away with in the past ain’t going to hack it no more. Marriage is serious business for her family, as you might imagine. VERY serious. You ain't hitched yet but seeing how she's shacked up with you now the Family's expectations of you are rapidly increasing, shall we say. Very rapidly.

  “It's a very delicate situation. Ve-ry del-i-cate. That’s usually my job, to take care of delicate situations for the Family, and to you know, do whatever it takes. But the parents will be visiting the two of you tonight to check you out for themselves. So far they ain’t too happy with my reports, but out of respect for Elaine they want to give you a chance. That, in a nutshell, is my message from them for you and for her.”

  I tried to remain as unblinking and impassive as he was. “I’ll try to make a good impression.”

  “That would be wise.”

  “I’m a wise guy.”

  He smiled grimly and shook his head slightly, still never taking his eyes off mine. “I’d hold back on wise-ass, wise-guy jokes tonight if I was you, if you want to live to see tomorrow. Big Ma and Papa K, they don’t have the sense of humor I do.”

  “Thanks for the tip.”

  All hints of a smile disappeared. “Understand I’m here telling you this for Elaine’s sake, not yours. If it were up to me you’d have quietly disappeared a while back, before things got this far. She’s a good kid and Big Ma and Papa K's only child. They are very concerned about this. I am personally also VE-RY concerned. You catch my drift?”

  “I’ll be on my very best behavior. What could possibly go wrong?”

  He shook his head and smiled his nasty shark smile. “You are either cool as all hell or one super dumb fuck.”

  “Both, probably.”

  He stood up slowly, as did I. I was half a head taller than him but he was much heavier; he was built like a gorilla and he moved like it was all muscle. He was still staring me in the eyes. “Kid, have plenty of beer on hand, that might be your only fucking hope. They usually don’t drink, but maybe you can get them to drink a little of it. That or leave town right now, and don’t stop until not even you can figure out where the fuck you are or what the fuck your name is. Got it?”

  “I sort of like it here.”

  “It’s your funeral,” he said, as he shrugged his huge shoulders again and walked slowly towards the exit. Then he paused. “One more little thing. Don't tell nobody but Elaine that they're coming to your apartment tonight. NO-BO-DY. Got it?”

  “Sure thing. Nice meeting you, Uncle Vinnie.”

  He swung around smoothly and was suddenly staring right into my eyeballs again with those beady little eyes, and his face got even harder. “Only the Family and close Family friends call me Vinnie. You call me Mr. Veracruz.” He turned away and smoothly walked out the door.

  I paced around the office to think things out. The new place had air conditioning up the ying-yang but I was sweating. I hadn't liked the guy’s looks. I had seen friendlier looking great-white sharks. I especially hadn’t liked his lingo and attitude, not to mention his body language. Funeral? Leave town? Quiet disappearance? Vinnie Veracruz. Big Ma. Papa K. Why did those names sound familiar?

  The King family? No, she had called them something else, when I first hired her. Falcon or something.

  Suddenly it all clicked. Falconie. It was Falconie. Big Ma Falconie. Papa K, 'the King' Falconie. Vinnie Veracruz, their chief hit man. The Family. THE FAMILY!

  I fainted.

  When I woke up I was lying on the floor with a wet face, looking up at Elaine, who was bent over me with an empty water glass, looking worried. "Jake! What happened to you? And where have you been?"

  I sat up. "Falconie! You're a Falconie! You're the daughter of the biggest mob bosses in the greater New York area! Hell, the biggest mob bosses in the Unites States! And they’re coming to my apartment for dinner tonight, according to Mr. Veracruz."

  "I know, Ma phoned me. Of course I am a Falcone, but you knew that already. I told you who my parents were when you hired me, remember?"

  She had. But I must have been too damn busy checking out her physical qualifications for the job to pay any attention. Women are dangerous that way. By the time you see past their legs and other nifty parts you're in deep shit. Or deep concrete and then a deep river maybe, in this case. I stood up, shaking my head. "Maybe you did, but I guess the name didn't register."

  It was her turn to look shocked. "It didn't? I figured anyone in your business would know about them."

  "Sure. But I’m so low in the food chains I don’t ever even meet anyone who knows somebody who knows anybody like that. Besides, I’d never expect someone connected like you to come looking for a two-bit job like yours. I mean, what are the odds? Shit Baby, why didn't you tell me?"

  "I did, Jake, I did tell you!"

  "So why the fuck didn't I listen?"

  She turned and stepped away from me. "So now what?" she asked coldly.

  "What do you mean?"r />
  "I mean, what about us?"

  "What about us?"

  "Does this change things between us, Jake?"

  My head was spinning. I didn't know what the hell to say. How couldn't this change things? Then again, why should it change things? What things? This was soap-opera talk, not the kind of stuff guys even think about. My mouth was open but nothing came out. She took my lack of answer as some sort of sign, I guess. Without another word she walked out the office door and slammed it shut behind her, leaving me standing there, confused as all hell.

  By the time I ran out into the hall to look for her, she was gone.

  I locked myself in the office, shut off most of the lights, and went to the back to take a cold shower and change my clothes. That would give me time to think.

  As usual, thinking didn't help. As I stepped back out into my office again wearing fresh clothes my head was still spinning. Despite the shower with deodorant soap I thought that I smelled something rotten, and I glanced around the darkened office, wondering what it was. That's when in the dim light I noticed that an extra-wide dude was again making himself comfortable in my recliner.

  Dear old Uncle Vinnie again. Vinnie the bone crusher Veracruz, the right-hand man for the Falconie family and most feared man on the East coast. He had seen Elaine after Elaine saw me, that had to be it. He had seen that she was more upset than ever. Now he had returned to fix things his way. It smelled like he had taken a detour through a sewer though.

  "Maybe we just got off on the wrong foot," I began. "Why don't we try to be friends?"

  The wide guy in the chair snapped his fingers and the lights came on, which was tricky since they don't normally operate that way. "Me think same thing," he said.

  My recliner was evidently irresistible to short guys with impossibly wide shoulders to whom locked doors meant nothing at all. Reclining on it right now was the ugliest and widest guy I had ever seen; a guy that had cursed me out in an unknown lingo when last we met, a guy that should have left town a week ago, given that the whole damn state, local, and federal police force was after him. I almost fainted again. It wasn't Vinnie, it was even worse. Grinning gap-toothed at me from my favorite recliner was Mickahl Al Calger, fugitive troll!

  He was wearing his white fedora, the damn copy-cat! He wore no ill-fitting suit though; now he wore a tea shirt, overalls, and gigantic sneakers. The fit was OK; he must have found a men's big and wide chothes department someplace.

  “Shit,” I managed to mutter sincerely. I had meant to say shi-i-it, but I didn't have enough breath.

  “We be friends now,” he said, grinning with brown teeth that stunk like a sewer full of dead rotten rats. He pulled something from an overall pocket and held it out to me.

  Despite the source, the something had such an appealing greenish look to it that I reached out and snatched it. It was a thick wad of twenties, maybe a hundred of them. I whistled as I stepped back from him a couple of steps, further away from the rotten breath and hopefully out of reach of those massive arms.

  “Now you work for me, de-tec-tive,” he said.

  I wish he hadn’t said that. I was hoping that he had just given me the dough out of the goodness of his kind little heart. Now the rotten bastard had forced me to think twice about it. I shook my head and reluctantly handed the stack of bills back to him. “Sorry pal, it don’t work that way. I already got a case, and you’re in it already somehow up to your fat head.”

  I regretted my unfortunate choice of words as soon as I said them and I saw his gap-toothed smile started to fade, and I promised myself not to call the big guy any more bad names. Just last week I had seen him throw two hundred pound cops all over the place like they were Barbie dolls.

  “I study people things,” he rumbled. “You be cop, for money. Me need cop on my side to help me. You smart; you ruin me plans to get money from rich bank man and find me. Me already give you curse. Now me give you money, so you work for me.”

  I shook my head. “It don’t work that way pal. I got to WANT to work for you, and you got to have some kind of problem you want me to fix for you. The bottom line is, I have to WANT to help you, and agree to do it.”

  “Me study humans. You want money, me have money to give to you. I have problem, you fix, when me give you more money.” He held the money out to me again. The smile was gone and he was tensing up, maybe getting ready to spring at me from the recliner.

  The guy stunk so bad I almost puked, and his brain must have also been as dense and rotten as a month old cheese pizza. After I got him out of my office, I’d have to fumigate the place, right after I called Kebony to come pick up this loony mountain of muscle. But for right now, how would I get him out of here without getting myself clobbered? I had seen him in action against the cops and I didn’t want any of that. I had to use my head fast or this guy might pulverize me.

  “All right, all right, let’s talk,” I said. “Maybe I’ll work for you and maybe I won’t. I don’t change money just to talk, so you keep your money for now. Relax, and let’s just talk.”

  Pushing back down into the recliner he relaxed and smiled. He was even uglier when he smiled. “Me like talk. Me like nice chair.”

  “Right.” I liked it too. I hoped I wouldn’t have to throw out my favorite recliner after he was done stinking it up. I sat down in another chair that was located strategically near the door. “First off, I already know about your big problem. The cops are after you, Mick.”

  The big guy shrugged, shook his ugly head, and grinned. “Humans not be problem. Me like humans. Humans help Mick.”

  I shook my head back at him. “If you mean that Tweed broad, you picked a rotten partner. She’s already confessed to assault, but she says it was all your idea to kill Grisim. The cops will try to charge you with attempted murder. They think that you planned to kill him.”

  Shocked surprise showed across his ugly mug. I had seen that expression before, on the faces of a hundred guys that had been done in by women. I had seen it in the mirror plenty.

  “Kill? Me not kill! Little old bank man take me here, so I come here to find me. Me need money, so make deal with Fey people to work for rich bank man and make money. Me make rich peoples little bit small, I get money. Then me use money to find me. But then Tweed find out. She want new deal. Me make Grisim little more small, then she make him big again. Bank man then be happy and give her money. Me get more money from her, money me need to quest for little old bank man me need to find me and go home. That be the plan, Mr. Jake.

  “That not happen either. Wrong things happen. Grisim be too small. Me not know how that happen.”

  “Listen friend, you still don’t get it. The cops want you for attempted murder and for resisting and escaping arrest. They want you in jail. They will catch you very soon and put you in jail. End of story.”

  He shrugged. “Me not have time for nice human jail visit. Nice human jail not a problem. Me have BIG problem. I give you money, and you help fix it.”

  “OK, what is your big problem?”

  He squirmed around in the recliner like a little kid. I had the impression that he was about to tell me something he didn’t like to tell anyone. Some sort of big secret. “Me need find me.”

  “You’ve said that before, about a dozen times. You need to find yourself?”

  “Me be here, this town. Need find bank man with Source. Need find me. You help me find me?”

  I shook my head. “Sounds like you need a shrink, not a P-I.”

  He shook his head. “Not need shrink again. Me already shrink. Me wait long time for me to wake up, find Source. Then me use Source to help me escape jail, and me look for me here.” His smile got huge. “Me happy am free, but want me return me to home, before Evil Ones come for me. Me need you find me, need you find me fast.”

  I still didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. “You escaped from a jail? In Arizona?”

  “No, not nice human jail; it be BAD place I escape from. Place of Evil Ones. Me shr
ink me to escape bad place, help me escape. Me follow me here to find me. Is only way to escape Evil Ones and fight Evil Ones. But me can’t find me, so me need help.

  “So me need money first. Everything need money in this place. So me sell shrinking magic, get money. Also get me to bank of bank man that has Source. Then you stop plan. Me see you smart, Mr. Jake. You be better partner. Jake job be to find lost people, and me be lost. You find me. Me already help you; me give you powers with curse.”

  “Powers? Me?” I asked.

  He nodded his big ugly head. “You be human. You know this world. You cop for money. Me give you powers so you find me and be protected from Evil Ones. Now I also give you money, and you find me. This is our deal, as you peoples say? You help me find me and me go home?”

  He seemed to be actually pleading with me to help him, though I still didn’t know what the shit he wanted. Still, he was starting to get to me, the way a big, ugly, stupid, homeless mutt might. “I don’t think so, or at least not until you tell me what you know about the Third National Bank.”

  “Yes, that be Bank me come to find.”

  Great. “What about slashed tires?” I asked.

  Blank stare.

  “Hairy people? Inside-out cars?”

  More blank staring.

  “Why are the elves after you?”

  His jaw dropped and his eyes bulged. He glanced around nervously. “Elves? Why you say human name for Evil Ones?”

  “Yesterday at the police station and at the bank, I talked to a dame named Loranda who claims to be an elf cop. She’s in this town looking for you right now, big boy.”

  The big guy actually looked scared. “Evil Ones be here already? Loranda be here? In this town? Now? Loranda be problem. She be strongest Evil One, she be Queen of all Evil Ones. That female be BIG problem!"

  Sure, of course the dame was a big problem. What other kind of dame was there? At least this one wasn’t my problem, and I wasn’t going to make her my problem. Let the weirdoes fight their own battles, I always figure. I just had to get this big stinking weirdo the hell out of my office, THAT was my problem!

  “Me hide now, and you find me,” he said. “Me give you more powers now. Me no find me anyway, that why me come see you now. Me give you ALL my powers to find me, Jake Simon, and it be ALL up to you, as you peoples say. Use human detective powers, use troll powers. Find me. Then I come back for me.”

  He got up out the recliner and walked towards the door, reaching out to shake my hand firmly with a giant hairy paw as he passed, damn near crushing bone. “Morgor Al Cragor Simplex Temporal,” he said, or something like that, and my arm seemed to tingle.

  “There, it be done. Now only you can find me, and we be friends and partners.” He smiled, exposing his huge rotten teeth. The stench was awful.

  “Oh sure, buddy,” I agreed and smiled a real smile this time, since at last he moved towards the exit door and opened it. “Right. We can play some hide and seek, friend. I’ll find you alright, sure thing!” Always agree with muscle-bound lunatics, that’s my motto.

  He nodded and smiled as he walked out. I locked the door behind him, for all the good it would do, then breathed a huge sigh of relief. The place still stunk, and I was breathing it, but at least I was still breathing. Beyond him stinking up the office, he had accomplished nothing, except to tell me a bunch of stuff that didn’t make any sense at all. At least I had confirmed that he was on the lamb from the freaky Loranda chick. The rest that stuff about finding him was obviously mixed up crap. The guy was loony tunes.

  Shaken, I washed my hand-shaking hand with lots of soap and hot water before checking out my recliner. The chair seemed OK to look at, and didn’t stink any more than the rest of the room. A few sprits of Lysol and it would be good as new, I figured. Things would soon be back to where they were before Mick had visited.

  Then I saw the money. The bastard had left the pack of twenties on the recliner. I ran out of the office with it to look for him, but he was gone.

  I had his retainer. So he had actually for real hired me, he had to figure. I had to figure it too. It was the code of the P-Is.

  “Shit,” I complained, as I counted the dough, but I had a smile on my face. Two thousand bucks is two thousand bucks. Besides, any guy that wears a white fedora must be OK. Right?

  ****