Thomas Scott - Voodoo Daddy

“What about the print off of the shell casing?”

“Blank. Who ever it was, they’ve never been printed.”

“So,” Miles said. “I stand by my original statement. We ain’t got shit.”

“You said ‘dick’ the first time,” Rosencrantz said.

Miles looked out over the top of his glasses. “I’m pretty sure I said ‘shit.’

“No, no,” Donatti said. “He’s right, you said ‘dick.’ I heard it.”

“Yep,” Rosie said. “I think you’ve got dick on the brain. Is there something you’d like to talk about?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Miles.

Put four cops around a pitcher of beer, I thought, and this is what you get. “Maybe we could stick to what’s important here?” I said. “Rosie, do you have anything at all?”

“Yeah, your sign’s wrong. The food’s good. And the beer is ice cold too.”

“Tell me again why I hired you.”

“My superior investigative skills.”

I stood from the table. “Work it out, guys. We need leads and I want a plan of action by tomorrow morning. The Governor and the press are going to be breathing down our necks, so let’s show ‘em something.”

As I walked away I heard Rosie tell Miles again that he was positive he’d said ‘dick.’

Twenty minutes later I was ready to pack it in for the night. I told Delroy I hoped to see him tomorrow, but I couldn’t be sure.

‘Dat alright, mon. Every ting come in its own time, no?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Your father, he worries about you.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, mon. Of course dat’s right. He wants you here, run the bar wid ‘im. Safer for you here, you know what I mean?”

“He’s never said anything like that to me, Delroy.”

Delroy laughed. “Yeah mon, you two a couple of talkers, you are.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Hey, what do I know? Probably not my bidness anyway, mon.” He nodded over my shoulder toward the front entrance of the bar. “Dat probably not my bidness either, but here come your woman.”

I turned and looked around just as Sandy slid onto a stool next to me. She wore a loose blue halter dress that hung almost to the middle of her thighs and a pair of platform sandals.

“Delroy,” Sandy said, her hand over her heart, “that voice of yours melts me every time I hear it.” Then to me: “Buy a girl a drink?”

I leaned over the bar and drew two Red Stripes from the tap. My eyes met Sandy’s in the bar mirror and I thought they were about the sexiest damn eyes I’ve ever seen. Ever. I set the mugs down and took a seat next her. “You don’t look too worse for wear. How you holding up?”

Instead of answering me right away, Sandy took three long drinks from her mug and set the half empty glass back down on the bar. Then she turned her head and saw the rest of the investigative team at the table in back. She looked back at me, picked up my mug and started toward the back.

“Hey, where are you going?” I said.

She stopped and turned back. “Gonna see what’s shaking back there. I love working for you, Jonesy. Have I told you that yet? But I’m either in or I’m out, you know what I mean?”

I thought her eyes were made of liquid blue. “Sandy, it’s not that.”

“It’s not what?”

“Well, it’s not…uh, well, hell, I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I just sort of thought-“

Sandy walked toward me and leaned in close, her mouth right next to my ear. “I know what you thought, Jonesy.” She kissed me on the cheek, then leaned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Then, almost as an after thought, “You look pretty good your damn self.”

I watched her cross the bar. So did everyone else in the room.

I moved behind the bar and pulled Delroy aside. “A minute ago you said something.”

“What’s that, mon? Delroy always saying one ting or another, no?”

“When Sandy came in. You said, ‘here comes your woman.’

Delroy laughed and shook his head. “I also say it probably not my bidness.”

“Yeah, you did. But she’s not my woman. She just works for me.”

“Yeah, mon. Dat’s all right. You keep telling yourself dat.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Delroy put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m just a happy go lucky Jamaican bartender. What do I know?”

I scratched the back of my head. “I don’t understand.”

“Hah. I tink you do. I grew up wid my family, you know? We live right by the beach. When I was little, after school get out, I’d run and play in the water. Sometimes when I do I see a fish and tink to myself, ‘there go a fish.’ Simple as dat, mon. Plain as day, no?”

“But what did you mean about Sandy?”

“Delroy mean what he say. I say here come your woman, then it mean here come your woman.”

I thought I saw a twinkle in Delroy’s eyes. “But you said my woman.”

“Uh huh. Dat’s true.”

“Is there something I should know, Delroy?”

“Yeah, mon. There sure is. Maybe I draw you a map. You and that one,” he tipped his head toward Sandy, “you were meant to be together. It’s simple. Plain as day. Just like the fish, no?” Delroy made a swimming motion in the air with his hand and grinned at me the whole time.

When I glanced over at the table in back I saw Sandy watching me and Delroy. I thought about going over and joining her and the guys, but then someone else walked in the front door and I discovered my evening was far from over.

In the dim light of the bar I couldn’t immediately tell who it was, but it didn’t take long before I recognized his familiar stride. It had been years since we’d last seen each other, or so I thought at the time. Our house band was playing a tune unfamiliar to me and the bass drum thumped through my chest until it was no longer a drum beat, but an explosion from over a decade ago when our HUMVEE was stopped in the sand and I was out in the dark with only my. 45 and a pair of faulty night vision goggles in territory unknown to a young Lieutenant from the heartland who was being ordered to kill on sight, no questions asked. One of my men, Murton Wheeler, had asked to stop the vehicle so he could relieve himself, and when he did not come back, I went looking for him. I found him about thirty yards from the HUMVEE, sipping on a flask filled with whiskey while simultaneously urinating on the body of a dead Iraqi Republican Guard. When the armor piercing round hit our vehicle, the explosion knocked us both to the ground and the smell of phosphorus hung in the air as the three remaining men inside the troop carrier burned to death before they could escape the twisted wreckage. It was the second time in my life I had almost burned to death. Those thoughts hung in front of my vision until I heard his voice, pulling me back.

“Hey, Jonesy, you alright?” he said. “Hey man, how about a double Jack with a beer back?”

I blinked the vision away and looked at the man in front of me. Murton Wheeler stood at the bar and waited for me to speak or pour him his drink. I took a glass from the shelf under the bar and filled it with tap water and set it on a coaster in front of where he stood and said, “This is on the house. You won’t be drinking here, Murt. Not tonight. Probably not ever. Are we clear on that, soldier?”

He sipped the water, his eyes never leaving mine, then set the glass gently on the bar. “It was a long time ago, Jonesy.”

“Not long enough, Murt. Heard you were in Westville. Assault or something like that, wasn’t it?”

He ignored my question as the jab it was and instead looked back over his shoulder at the front door. When he spoke again, his voice was soft but his eyes were rimmed in anger. “Look, Loot, I’ve got some information you should have. I give you what I think you ought to know, and I’m outta here, Jack.”