Worse, he always had to bring a receptacle for urine, preferably a two-liter bottle, something he could cap off so he didn’t knock it over and have a car that stank of uric acid and salt leaving him sitting next to his own greasy piss for hours and hours. Fine company, piss. So, no. Fuck stakeouts. They were a means to an end, not the whole goddamn job.
The dough kept him going. Price made a decent take for catching the wife’s infidelity or the supposed cripple working on his car while he told the insurance company sob-lies of an injured back. Most of the insurance companies and pissed off CEOs paid pretty well, but sometimes--like this time--he got a big gig from a major industrial corporation. Loomis Industrial had quoted Price one hundred dollars an hour to make find out if one of their top engineers had a side-gig selling specs for weapons manufacture on the black market. Evidently Greg Evans, CEO of Loomis, believed a cabal operated just under his feet though he could not prove it. So far, only gossip worked for evidence. But Evans had his suspicions. Price watched that suspicion right now.
Mason Mizik.
Ten minutes ago, Mizik had parked his Escalade in the driveway of an individual Price suspected to be in cahoots with Mizik. Price had done some research on the motherfucker. A few phone calls got him a name. William Bunting, clean as a virgin’s clitoris. Price was not, at least not right now, interested in Bunting. He only waited for Mizik to come out of the house and get in his car.
Price crushed an orange pill with his cigarette lighter, the powder spreading nicely on to a compact mirror Price kept for this express purpose. Adderall tasted like rotten sugar when snorted, and made his boogers look like Tang, but damn if they did not keep him sharp as a tack. He was addicted to the damn things, but so what? Whatever it took to get the job done. Fuck social taboos. Hell, the whole enterprise was a taboo, going under the cops, going after people because they were breaking other people’s laws, but not society’s; well, that made the client something of a contractor, did it not? Price valued such altruism, especially regarding his own wallet.
He wanted to turn on the radio so he could stop thinking about pointless crap. He could not, for that may draw attention to him. Fuck.
He began getting hard. Fucking drugs. They always did that to him. No matter, his penis would go back down soon as long as he did not think about--
Mizik came outside, carrying a laptop case. The man made few mistakes and always had that damn laptop in a hardshell case. Price knew that the case held every shred of evidence the company needed to nail Mizik and pay Price. He thought he might bill Evans for an extra hour due to the pain in the ass that stupid laptop caused. Ever try to photograph the inside of a closed laptop? Impossible.
Screw it. Time to take action. Price got out of the car, but slowly, so his legs would get the hint.
“Woof! Hey, buddy! Yeah, you sir. I need some help.”
Mizik saw Price coming and began frantically fumbling in his Jos. A. Bank pants for his car keys. Fumbling, Mizik blinked, and shook his head. Then, he reached out and pressed a button on the door of the Escolade. Dumb ass. He’d forgotten that the vehicle opened with the push of a button as long as the keys were within a few feet of the door. The luxury SUV blinked and beeped, and Mizik threw the door open.
But Price closed in with feline speed. “Oh, come on,” he said. “Please. I need a jump.”
Mizik stared now, having stopped in his tracks. He looked terrified.
“Sir, come on. I mean, this is suburbia. What am I going to do to you?” Did that argument suck? Who cares? Price stopped his approach short of getting in Mizik’s car. Mizik hung his head and fetched a sigh. Mizik raised his head to Price, who formed his eyebrows into an A-shape.
The mark, feeling backed into a corner, gave the lame excuse: “I don’t have any jumper cables.”
Price reached out to Mizik, maybe to put a hand on the man’s shoulder, unnerving Mizik into jumping toward the passenger seat. Could be, the idiot thought he could escape into the leather if he tried hard enough. Rabbit-ass businessman. Scared of his damn shadow. It figured.
2
“Where you headed, bro?” Price asked. Mizik sweated, clutching his
encased laptop to his chest and scooting ever closer toward the passenger
seat. Almost in the shotgun seat, half
an ass-cheek on the console, Mizik grabbed the door handle to make a break for
freedom. “You don’t need a jump,” he said. “Don’t even try it,” Price said. He allowed the grin he had been suppressing to take control of his face, making him feel like a shark. “Do you mind?” he asked Mizik. Getting into drivers’ seat, he forced Mizik to scoot the rest of the way over.
“Police,” Mizik said.
“No, I’m not a cop. What you got in there pal?” Price pointed at the laptop. “You’re acting like it’s your Precious, or something.”
“This is attempted . . . Grand Theft Auto.”
Price looked around for traffic. There was none. “Easy, fella,” he said. “You’re gonna bust a vocal cord. Show me what you got on that laptop, and I’ll go away.”
Mizik punched Price in the jaw, a soft, pathetic collision; the tougher man knew Mizik had pulled his punch at the end, as if he were afraid to hurt his very attacker. Price reached over and whapped a callused palm across Mizik’s temple.
“Bells a’ringin now,” he said. “Gimme the case.”
“No.” Mustering all his grit, Mizik brought a closed fist down on Price’s balls.
“You . . . oh, you sonofabitch,” Price said. “Now it’s gonna . . . augh.” Mizik went for the door handle again as expected, and Price snatched Mizik’s ear before the rabbit could so much as swing out one of his thin legs. Price yanked Mizik back almost fast enough to rip away the shell-pink shape of acoustic cartilage.
“You know how it gets up in your guts?” Price asked. “Makes you feel like you got to shit.” Mizik, sweating and whimpering, tried to nod. Price let go of him, satisfied Mizik had forsaken trying to escape. He tilted his head back and gave a snort. Mizik squinted, looking up Price’s nose.
“Why are your boogers orange?” Mizik asked.
Price broke Mizik’s nose with a hard, fast jab. Mizik began to howl, and Price slapped him in the mouth. Mizik began crying with his mouth open, his throat making no sound. Blood coursed freely down Mizik’s undoubtedly expensive button down dress shirt.
“Jesus,” Price said. He took the laptop case and inspected its foam rubber sides, shocked. “I can just unzip this? This whole time I’d been sure you had a hardshell briefcase or some shit.”
“By node! U bwoke it! Bwood aw over!”
“By node I did and if you don’t open this goddamn case I’ll rip the whole beak off your face.” Price was sick of fucking around. He wanted to get out of here. By now, with this weasel’s screaming, someone must have called the cops. Could he get away with lifting the laptop? No. Because Mizik would just say he’d been mugged by a crazy man, and Price would look like a marauder. Mizik scrambled to unzip the case. Good.
“You can’t just assault peepow. I’ll bress charges.”
“Go ahead.”
Inside the case lay a state-of-the-art, twelve-gig laptop. Now, he just had to get the password out of Mizik. Price opened the laptop and pressed the power button. After a light sigh from the underside of the laptop, the screen came on and requested a password.
“Password,” Price said.
“No.”
Price reached for Mizik’s nose. Mizik shrank back, throwing his hands up in defense. Price grabbed his left wrist, wrenching and locking the hand toward the wrist in a paintbrush hold. Mizik screamed. “I’m calling the police!”
“Call the cops, Mason. Go ahead. But first, password, or I’ll break this, too.”
“It’s hexagram42,” Mizik said. Price let go of Mizik’s wrist with a smile, and punched in the password. It worked. The screen came up, with a background pattern of spheres as decorum, dotted by icons. A few of them looked interesting, but there was no time to inspect their various avenues. Mizik waved his hand across the screen of his smart phone.
“Any other passwords I don’t know about?” Price asked. Mizik shook his head. “There better not be. Because I’m going to scope this out, bud. Make no mistake.”
“We’ll see,” Mizik said. He put his smart phone to his ear. Price wanted to leave, or beat Mizik some more so that the soft man could not make the call, but his inner voice--the one that made any investigator worth their salt--told him that possessing the laptop required he stay and watch the magic unfold.
3
Most people think that when the police answer a call, they show up on location fast, with blazing red and blue lights, and wailing sirens. This is false. What really happens is far less dramatic. They arrive in silence. Their cruisers are mouse-quiet and when they brake, the engine breathes rather than rumbles while idling, and the lights and sirens are off.
Price saw the police arrive on scene, but neither he nor Mizik heard them over Mizik’s high-pitched, petulant whining. Price was, for his own part, glad that the cops came when they did, because he was about to elbow Mizik in the gut so the wimpy bastard would lose the wind to yell. No air equals no bitching. Fuck the extra charge of aggravated assault. He wanted to go home after this, call Evans and put an end to this case. His chances of doing such were far better if the cops did not see him using Mizik’s ass to play Kick the Can.
“Mizik, shut up. The cops are here.”
“No! Wait, what? Fuck you.”
“Fuck me?” Price asked. “Shit, you called them.” He got out of the vehicle.
“Ungh,” Mizik said.
Price sighed, folding his hands at his chest and saying; “You know they’re going to want to see that laptop, yeah?” Mizik closed his mouth.
Mizik turned his head toward the open drivers’ side door, jumped out of the shotgun seat and began walking around the vehicle, intending to close the laptop Price had left open on the seat.
Price wondered why Mizik bothered to so much as exit the vehicle. The cops were here and they hated it when people took off walking once they arrived. Once again, rabbit-ass businessman. He had no idea how to conduct himself around police.
Price heard the door slam as the policeman got out of his car. He was of Mexican descent. Good. Mexican cops were a whole lot of fun. They liked to kick ass almost as much as the black cops.
“Sir, stop walking,” the officer said. His hand fell to his sidearm. Mizik took two more steps, his head bowed toward the ground as if he thought this might make him invisible. The posture would not help if the cop decided to shoot him in the calf, which he certainly would if Mizik did not comply. “Sir,” the officer said. Price recognized the Voice of Authority. The one that said ‘I’m through being polite’.
Mizik’s lower lip quivered like a wobbling clam. He looked like a spoiled little girl. Trying to suck up his emotions, his features accused Price of this new trouble, like it had been Price who had called the police, and not he. Mizik seemed to believe that Price had been remiss in not informing Mizik that once the police were on any scene, all present parties were considered guilty, and candidates for arrest. Well, fuck that. Mizik ought to have known the cardinal rule of the Shady: never call the police.
Still approaching, in the grass now, the officer instructed Mizik to step around to the back of the vehicle. Mizik tensed. Price could read that clenching of the muscles, saying “cut and run” to their owner. Wouldn’t that be hilarious, if Mizik cut and ran? Shit, it’d be a godsend, and Price began willing Mizik to do exactly that, to run.
A dull throb began pulsing in Price’s temples. The officer’s jackboots rustled the grass, soon to clang on the pavement of the driveway. Mizik was running out of time. Go. Come on. Go, you fucker.
“Sir,” the officer said, “you are not following my instructions. I want you to slowly walk around to the back of your vehicle and--SHIT!”
Price did not know whether his will worked in this case but Mizik shot off toward the back of the yard like a crazed cat on cocaine. “Stop,” the officer said. Whipping his head toward Price.
“Well, come on, let’s get him,” Price said.
The officer remained still, now looking only at Mizik, who was still within view.
“I’m a private eye. I’ll help you,” Price said. Knowing the time to think about it, or call for backup had passed, the officer bolted after Mizik, passing Price and leaving a light, pleasant breeze smelling faintly of Axe. Price started running after the officer. Both of them could see Mizik struggling in a poor effort to scale a seven-foot high chain-link fence of the common sort found in any suburban back yard.
Still running, the officer jerked his head left, to see if Price still followed. Price did, and seeing that, the officer pumped his legs harder, hell-bent for businessman.
Price dug in his heels; bending his knees and turning his head, he switched directions. He booked back to Mizik’s SUV, to the open laptop lying on the drivers’ seat. Its screen was black now, the computer having gone into sleep mode. Price reached out, and with only a split-second stop, he shut the laptop and took it.
In that second, he caught a glimpse of something next to the open carrying case on the floor, a small black thumb of technology. Yes. Score one external drive, a storage tool capable of holding a few gigs of useful information within its tiny shell. Price leaned over, firing his arm out as if throwing a punch, snatching the little guy from the floor.
He pocketed the thumb drive, simultaneously removing his car keys. They jingled at the end of a beer-bottle keychain as he ran so hard to his car that he slammed against the door before opening it. Dropping the laptop into the side-seat, amongst the McWrappers and the closed two-liter bottle of urine, ass found drivers’ seat; slamming the key into the ignition, he turned the crank, starting the car. The four cylinder awoke, barking and growling to life. Price gassed it, hoping that the officer was still occupied, maybe grappling with Mizik.
Throwing the automatic drive select to D-1, he found himself almost rooting for Mizik to get away. The car picked up speed, and Price shifted into D-2, gaining extra pick-up out of the engine. By the time he was shifting into D-4, the little Honda cruising almost up to seventy-five. Price pumped the brakes, spinning the steering wheel left, going into a controllable skid that fired him on to a side street, and out of view of the Mexican officer, should he be already leading Mizik back to the squad car. Price picked up speed again, using the same maneuvers to get the hell out of that suburban dream and on to the main road, where he would hit the freeway and be four towns away before the officer could so much as report a runner.
The little Honda had balls, if properly coaxed. Price checked his rearview once before hitting the freeway. No cops. After navigating the exit and seeing the freeway more or less clear--rush hour would have just ended by now--he floored it, hitting one-twenty and keeping it there. Any faster, and the car’s computer would shut down the engine. Four minutes and three towns later, Price eased off the gas, slowing down to a respectable, less conspicuous sixty-five miles per hour. Petting the steering wheel, he slowed his breathing, catching his wind.
He took the next exit, pulling into a KFC on the left side of the road. He pulled around the back of the restaurant, parking alongside of a dumpster opposite the street. He left the engine running, unbuckling his seatbelt. He knew he could not stay long or some half-smart manager may suspect him of drug activity, and call the police. Screw that action. It had not been long enough between excitements, for Christ’s sake.
Goddamn, had all that really worked? The officer was going to remember his face. How many private investigators were there in the city? How many of them had worked for the force in a previous life? Surely more than Price. Hope floated in his head again, doing everything to will the officer to not recall Price’s visage.
Running had been stupid. Now, he faced a charge of felonious evasion. Damn dirty drugs. They were the whole reason he had to run. Price opened the console, reaching for his bottle of pills. The label-free bottle did not belong to James Price. Each one of those orange bastards is a felony unto itself, Price knew. He would take the one over the other. Yet, the real bitch of everything lay within the fact that he could not go to Loomis Industrial, find Evans, and get paid though he now had the laptop Evans asked him to confiscate. By the time he got there the fucking cops would be waiting for him. Surely Mizik had spilled the beans by now. There was no way that soft fuck had managed to evade that fit, sawed-off responding officer.
Price had only one place to go, so he would go there, to her, and she would berate him for stupidity, but take him into their home, and other points of entry.
What a fucking life. Price pulled out his phone and began punching in a text message.
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