Mike Faricy - Bite Me

“Devlin Haskell?”

Farrell’s lunatic sister Kiki, only now she had clothes on and I didn’t see a knife. I still thought it might be a good idea if I kept the desk between us.

“Kiki?”

“Hi, I hear there was a lot of excitement yesterday.” She smiled, wrinkled her nose and shrugged her shoulders like a sexy teenager.

“Yeah, the good news is no one was hurt.”

“They catch the guy yet?” she took two steps around the side of the desk.

I folded my newspaper and then casually rolled it up just in case I had to swat her away.

“No, I don’t think they have any suspects, yet.”

“But they’re working on that profile, right? Farrell said you were involved in that this morning.” She took a step closer to me.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re working on that and a number of other things.” I attempted to back up, but bumped against the chair.

She suddenly squeezed my arm, leaned in close and whispered her breath tickled my ear.

“That was so hot the other day, God, I lost count, you, well, lets just say you made me crazy,” she smiled, bit her bottom lip and thrust her cleavage against my arm.

She was absolutely beautiful and certifiably nuts.

“I don’t think I can wait very long before we do that again. What do you say?”

I could hear her panting. As she let go she ran her nails along my arm then squeezed my hand, gorgeous brown eyes suddenly going wide. I felt like I had a gun to my head, or in Kiki’s case, a knife to my throat.

“Yeah, it was really unique.”

“Later Tiger, you may have just created a monster,” she growled softly, licked her upper lip, then turned and walked back to Thompson’s office eating her apple.

I was sweating and thought it might be a good time to go check out the rest of the building. I wandered aimlessly through the top three floors of the building then drifted out to the tree line at the back of the parking lot just to see if someone might be out there with a rocket propelled grenade.

No such luck, but I did see Kiki exit the building, bounce down the steps and walk over to the silver Audi parked next to my DeVille. She took her sweet time getting in, fumbling with her keys or something before she eventually got behind the wheel and pulled away. I went back up to KRAZ national headquarters where I twiddled my thumbs for the better part of the next three hours. The ringing phones prevented me from catching any serious shut eye. About five-thirty Thompson drifted out of his lair and stood in the doorway. Farrell hovered behind him in the shadows.

“Say, looks like the threat has subsided, I don’t think we’ll need your services tomorrow, or the day after for that matter.”

“What?”

“I feel rather certain the danger’s past.”

“The danger’s past? That’s interesting. When do you think you’ll need me then?”

“Either you’re trying to be funny and you’re not. Or, I don’t think you’re following what I’m telling you.”

“Which is?”

“Which is, do not come in tomorrow, or the next day or ever, again, for that matter. I think we have things well in hand, here, now. You can just leave and send us your invoice we’ll run it past the board.”

“Board?”

“Review board, before we sign off on any invoice over twenty-five dollars, our review board has to approve it. I’m guessing your invoice will be more than twenty-five dollars, won’t it? Look, don’t worry, the board meets every six weeks,” he added cheerfully.

“So, when did they last meet?”

“Oh about a week ago, on the twelfth, I believe.”

“So I’m not going to get paid for another five weeks?”

“I don’t know that I’d look at it exactly like that.” Thompson shook his head as he spoke. He placed his hands on his wide hips, apparently daring me to challenge the idea of waiting five weeks to have my invoice reviewed.

“My terms are payment due when the invoice is presented.”

“I understand, and we’ll certainly review that at the board meeting. Of course, we’ll have to be in receipt of your invoice before we can review it, for approval, that is.”

“Yeah, well tell you what, why don’t I drop it off sometime tomorrow,” I suggested.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary, don’t go to any additional trouble. You can just put it in the mail and we’ll…”

“What, and trust the government? I don’t think so, besides, they could just as easily be monitoring all mail arriving at this address.”

“Do you think so?” Thompson asked.

I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. I was afraid he was, very serious.

“I’ll drop it off, tomorrow” I said standing and stretching.

“Well, suit yourself. Of course, you could always donate your time. Our listeners would tend to look favorably on a gesture like that.”

Yeah, both of your listeners, I thought. Then said, “I’ll consider that, see you tomorrow,” and walked out the door of the asylum.

When I got to my car, someone had scratched a large “Fuck You” onto the driver’s door, probably with a key. Kiki?

My cell ringing the following morning woke me up. By the time I found it resting in a shoe under my bed the call had dumped into my message center.

“Yes, Mister Haskell, Detective Norris Manning. It’s eleven-forty-five, please give me a call at your earliest convenience. Today.”

I put some coffee on, showered, shaved, brought in yesterday’s mail, ate a couple of slices of cold pizza for breakfast, plucked some nose hair, then called Manning and left a message.

“Devlin Haskell, returning your call. I’m in meetings most of the day, but please call back, hopefully we can connect.”

I filled a travel mug with coffee, then drifted out the door in the direction of my office. I poked my head in The Spot, just to check for messages and then crossed the street to my office. I had just put my feet up on the desk when my cell phone rang.

“Haskell Investigations.”

“Did I catch you between meetings?”

“Detective Manning, you did as a matter of fact. How can I help you?”

“Sorry if my initial call got you out of bed,” he didn’t seem to be kidding.

“Like I said, I’ve been in meetings all day.”

“Sure you have. Listen, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind stopping by. We’ve got a couple of questions for you, possibly some new ground we might like to cover.”

“Oh?” I sat up interested.

“Just routine.”

“Name a time,” I said, leering out the window at a nice looking mommy in tight little yellow shorts, pushing a stroller across the street.

“I thought you had meetings?” he said.

“Things are moving along a lot faster than I thought. I could actually wind this up in, oh I don’t know, maybe the next thirty or forty-five minutes.”

“Sure, you can, that’s great,” he said, sounding like he didn’t mean a word of it.

“See you in an hour?” I asked.

“You know where we are?” he said.

“Yeah, been there once or twice before, see you in an hour.”

I strolled over to The Spot, figured a quick beer couldn’t hurt, stayed for two, before I drove down to Manning’s office at police headquarters. I cooled my heels in the lobby until someone came down to get me.

Wayneta Van Haug, pronounced Juanita, was decidedly overweight, always crabby and unfortunately named. She was a uniformed officer, and one immediately wondered where you purchased uniforms that large. She had not a drop of Hispanic heritage. She did however have four older brothers, Wayne, du Wayne, de Wayne, da Wayne. Her ill advised parents attempted to maintain the family tradition when their darling daughter was born and so named her Wayneta. We all make mistakes.