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  “Told ya, he’d be back.” Nana gave the massive intruder the once over. “You are one big son-of-a-bitch, No-neck. How big is your neck?”

  “Twenty-five inches and watch your mouth, old woman,” the man said. He pointed to the kitchen and all three went in. The man looked at Rhonda and pointed a finger the size of a bratwurst at the avocado wall phone. “Call him.”

  Rhonda couldn’t keep the reaction to his high pitched voice off her face.

  “What?” the man asked.

  “Ah … I don’t mean to be offensive, but your voice … “

  The man scowled then sighed. “Football accident. Now you gonna call him or what?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy who was with you last night.”

  “Sure,” she said with full sincerity.

  She dialed the office and left a message on Bernie’s answering machine. “You remember that little discussion we had just before you left this morning, well why don’t you stop over at my place and we can pick up where we left off. Or just call me. Bye.”

  “Hey, what were you talkin’ about?” the man asked.

  Nana raised an eyebrow. “Chief, I think she was just givin’ him some incentive to hurry.”

  “Huh? … Oh.” The man moved his hips back and forth in a pumping motion.

  “Nana!” Rhonda said.

  “Honey, you’ve had a grin all morning.” The old lady shrugged. “There are smiles, and then there are smiles.”

  “No. Things started in that direction once or twice, but something,” Rhonda nodded toward the intruder, “got in the way.”

  “Hmm, some days if you didn’t have bad luck, you wouldn’t have any luck at all,” Nana mused.

  The big guy pulled on his left ear lobe and looked down at Nana. “Who you callin’ chief?”

  Rhonda leaned against the kitchen counter. Now that her grandmother mentioned it, the man’s profile looked distinctly Native American.

  Nana dug a cigarette out of her purse. “Okay, what should I call you?”

  “Rudolph,” he said. “And, I’m Samoan.”

  “Really?” Nana asked.

  “Yeah, Rudolph. Not Rudy or nothing like that. Rudolph. Got it?”

  “Fine.” Rhonda raised an upturned palm.

  Nana blew some smoke out of her mouth. “Sure, what ever you say.” She took another drag. “We got anything here for lunch?”

  “I could eat,” Rudolph said.

  “I bet you could.” Rhonda walked to the refrigerator.

  Chapter 32

  Rhonda was dancing at a strip club. The smoke in the room gave the spotlight on her a hazy glow. Bernie hadn’t seen her face, but he could tell it was her from the tattoo on her butt, the eye of Horus. It seemed off that he would know that because as far as he knew she didn’t have any tattoos. The crowd of bald businessmen in rumpled suits stood on their feet cheering.

  His mother called him. “Bernie!” That wasn’t right. His mother never went to strip clubs and seldom called him Bernie.

  “Bernie!”

  “What?”

  “Wake up!” she said. It looked like his mother, but the voice was Helen’s, the receptionist at Sam’s office.

  He rolled on his back while Rhonda danced in his head. “What?”

  His mother said, “You need to call Rhonda Lapinski.” The dancer faded into the smoke and the voice was definitely Helen’s.

  He pulled his right hand over his face. “What?”

  “She left six messages on your answering machine. You need to call her right away.”

  “Who?”

  “Rhonda. She said its murder.”

  He opened an eye. “Yeah.”

  Helen stood at the door to his bedroom. “Bernie, are you awake?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sit up and tell me who you have to call?

  He did. “Rhonda, gotta call Rhonda.” He slumped forward.

  “Keagan!”

  “What?”

  “Call her now!”

  He sat back up and focused on the doorway where the voice emendated. Without his glasses he could just make out Helen’s fuzzy figure.

  “You came all the way over here just to make sure I got this message?”

  “It’s on my way home. Call her now,” she said.

  “How’d you get in here?”

  “Your door was unlocked.”

  “Not smart,” he mumbled. “Could you lock it on the way out?”

  Helen put her hands on her hips. “Sure.”

  The sunlight crept around the sides of the shades on the curitanless windows. “What time is it?”

  “Five-thirty.”

  “Damn.”

  He rolled over and stretched for the phone on the night stand. Retrieving it he heard her say, “Nice butt.” He realized he went to bed naked and wrapped a sheet over himself as he sat up. “Thanks.”

  She nodded, “The floor show was worth the trip,” and left.

  While he groped for his glasses with his left hand he dialed Rhonda with his right.

  “Where the hell are you?” came the greeting.

  With a yawn he said, “My place. What’s up?”

  “I need you here, right now,” she snapped and disconnected.

  He looked at the phone in his hand. “What’s your problem?” Still foggy minded he concluded that he needed to clean up before going out in public. “Shower, need a shower.” His window box air conditioner whirred on doggedly.

  Chapter 33

  There was a knock on his front door. He adjusted his brown and yellow paisley tie in front of a full length mirror from Walgreens. He ran a hand through his damp brown hair. The knocking picked up it’s pace and volume as he pulled on a dark olive suit coat and walked to the door. Clean laundry lay on the leather couch in the living room.

  “I’m coming,” he yelled. Three more strides and he pulled the door open. Rhonda and Nana stood on the back porch.

  Rhonda said, “Hi.”

  Nana said, “How ya doin’?”

  He didn’t respond because he was concentrating on the the man behind them whose body blocked out the light that should have been coming from the late afternoon sun. Run was the word that flashed through Bernie’s mind. He would have done that, except the monster in the doorway pushed Rhonda into him, hard enough to knock the both of them to the floor. Literally, the colossus picked her up by the back of the neck and tossed her into his arms.

  “Who’s your friend?” Bernie asked from underneath Rhonda’s familiar, but tense body.

  “This is Rudolph. He took care of our bag last night,” she said.

  “Ah.”

  She got to her feet and helped Bernie to stand facing the giant.

  “Where’s the other bag?” the big guy inquired.

  Bernie gave Rudolph a quizzical look and then turned to Rhonda. The visitor seemed to know that Bernie was thinking about his absurd voice. Rudolph gave him a slight shove and Bernie fell to the floor.

  “I had an injury playing football. That’s why my voice is so high,” Rudolph said.

  Bernie stood a second time. “Sure, fine.”

  “So,” Rudolph said. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?” Bernie asked.

  “The other suitcase,” Nana put in.

  Bernie looked from Nana to Rhonda. The granddaughter nodded affirmatively.

  Rudolph held out the light blue hard sided, two-suiter in his right hand. “Yeah, like this one. Only it ain’t filled with comic books.”

  “Can I see?” Bernie asked.

  The mountain of a man put the bag on the dark, wood floor and Rhonda opened it. There were two stacks of comic books in sealed plastic bags. Bernie leafed through them noting the volume numbers. From what he could tell they were all high quality, first editions - The Green Hornet, Spiderman, The Flash and other popular series.

  “Ah, this isn’t what you wanted?” Bernie asked.

  “Naw.”

  “I guess that means there
must be another bag and it’s probably back at the storage yard.”

  No-neck grabbed the women by the arms and began to drag them out the door like a couple of fresh caught fish.

  “Let’s go,” Rhonda squeaked.

  As the group stood on the sidewalk Bernie asked, “Did you kill the guy in Nana’s locker.”

  Rudolph gave him a blank stare.

  “You know, the fella with the ice pick in his ear,” he reiterated.

  The Samoan continued to stare blankly.

  “That’s reassuring,” Rhonda said.

  “Did you take a suit case from my locker?” Nana asked.

  “Yup,” Rudolph said.

  “Did you see anyone around when you were there?” Rhonda asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Hey Rudolph, if you took a bag from storage and and a bag from us, what makes you think there’s a third bag?” Bernie asked.

  “Never know if we don’t go look,” he said.

  “What exactly is it we’re looking for?”

  The man mountain shrugged.

  Now Bernie asked what he thought was a key question. “Hey, Rudolph do you ever lie?”

  Mammoth man held the car door open and stuffed the women inside. “Sometimes.”

  “That was not reassuring,” Bernie said to no one in particular.

  In half an hour, the mismatched quartet stood in the open bay where Nana’s worldly possessions rested. This afternoon was just as hot and sticky as the previous one.

  “Looks different from the last time,” Rhonda said.

  “With all the distractions, I’m surprised you remembered,” Bernie added.

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  “Well, where is it?” Rudolph asked.

  “My guess is that the cops took everything out, examined it and then but the stuff back in,” Bernie said

  The other three looked at him expectantly, but Nana asked, “And, that means?”

  “Maybe they took it with them.”

  “Oh,” the other three said in unison.

  “Hmm,” Nana said. “You mean we have to pull all that stuff out of there to check it out?”

  Rhonda nodded.

  After a moment’s silence Rudolph asked, “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Bernie asked.

  “Get goin’.”

  “Get goin’, where?”

  “Empty the place.”

  Bernie put his suit coat and tie on an end table and began to move things out of the garage. He picked up two chairs and looked at the trio leaning against the car. “It will go faster if I get some help.”

  Rudolph put a big paw in the back of each woman and pushed them forward. They stumbled toward the open door.

  “Hey,” Rhonda said. “You can help too fat boy.”

  The mountain looked at his waistline. “I ain’t fat.”

  “Who cares,” she hissed. “You can help.”

  Nana, Rhonda and Bernie watched Rudolph prepare to help. With great ceremony he took off his coat, tie and shirt, folded them and laid them on the passenger’s seat of his car. He stood and looked at his audience. “What are you waiting around for?”

  Nana took a seat in a kitchen chair early in the search. After half an hour they were pretty sure that another blue suitcase was not on the premises.

  With half of Nana’s things sitting out in the lane between the storage buildings, Bernie sat down on an old milk crate. His clothing stuck to his body. Rhonda wiped a drop of sweat from the end of her nose as she took a seat on a kitchen chair next to her grandmother.

  “I need something to drink,” Nana said.

  Bernie stood to check his pocket for change to buy sodas then turned toward the sound of the car door slamming. Rudolph drove off in his white ’73 Caddy El Dorado convertible.

  “That son-of-a-bitch,” Nana said, “Now we have to put all this stuff back by ourselves.”

  Chapter 34

  Eventually, a cab dropped the three of them off at Alice’s house. A line of thunderstorms grumbled over the neighborhood. Inside, the old woman sat down heavily in a living room chair and went right to sleep in the air conditioning.

  “Shit,” Bernie said. “I shouldn’t have let that cab go.”

  “Why?” Rhonda asked.

  “I’ve got to go back home and clean up.”

  “You can clean up here.”

  “I don’t …”

  She put her hands on his chest. “I’ll wash your back.”

  “What about …” Bernie nodded toward Nana.

  “She’s out like a light. Besides I don’t think she would mind.”

  “She wouldn’t mind if I screwed her granddaughter upstairs?”

  “She likes you.” Rhonda winked.

  “That’s a lot’a like.”

  “I like you, too.”

  He kissed her softly. “That’s probably more important.”

  The doorbell rang. Rhonda opened the door and saw a kid with two shopping bags standing on the porch.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “You owe me $52.96,” the kid said.

  “Why?”

  “For the food.”

  “What food?”

  “You ordered Chinese.”

  Before she could tell the kid that they hadn’t ordered any Chinese, a distinctive, high pitched voice spoke from behind the delivery boy, “Pay’em.”

  A glance behind the kid revealed the lower two-thirds of Rudolph’s torso and two light blue suitcases. As Rhonda and Bernie scrounged up sixty bucks Nana came up behind them.

  “You got Mu Shu in there?” the old lady asked.

  “Chicken and pork,” Rudolph said.

  Rhonda and Bernie looked at each other.

  “Why am I not surprised?” the granddaughter asked.

  “Come on,” Rudolph said. “Pay the guy and let’s eat.”

  The kid gave Bernie the bags and beat a quick retreat around the big guy. Bernie headed for the kitchen with the food and everybody followed him. Rudolph put the suitcases down and started to unload the white cardboard boxes onto the kitchen table. Rhonda got plates.

  “What’d ya want ta drink?” Nana asked.

  “Ice tea,” the man mountain said. “Orange Pico, if ya got it.”

  “Sounds fine,” Bernie said.

  Rhonda nodded and Nana dug into the refrigerator. Rudolph took a seat and began to open the food containers. “I got two blue suitcases. One was full of comics. The other was full of iron bars. Now what’s with that?”

  They looked at him then at each other. Nana opened her mouth and closed it. Rudolph and Rhonda looked at her.

  “Well?” Rudolph said.

  “Well …, the iron bars were used to keep the box underneath from floating up through the concrete,” Nana said

  Bernie jumped up. “What! What! I dragged that damn suitcase all over ….”

  “Hey,” Rudolph said. “Sit down.”

  He sat.

  “Is there any mustard in the bag?” Rhonda asked.

  Rudolph reached in the bag and brought a fist full of condiments in plastic packages.

  “So you’re tellin’ me there’s something else buried in the basement?” Rudolph asked.

  “Hmm … yes,” Nana said.

  “What is it?” Rudolph asked and passed Bernie some pepper steak with tomato.

  Nana spooned some rice on a plate and passed it to Rhonda. “Don’t know.”

  “Hmm,” the Samoan said.

  Chapter 35

  With the exception of being released from jai,l Knickerbocker Smith’s week was in the shitter. Rhonda stole his pornographic tour de force and his blackmail pics. His backup copies burned in the cabin fire.

  Thom’s clear voice on the answering machine gave him all he needed to take up the hunt again. “She’s dancing in Vegas.” Things were looking up. He broke his parole without a second thought.

  Rhonda had gone to Vegas and he followed. It was a six hour drive. He knew Thom’s information was d
ead on when he spotted Rhonda’s crappy ’63 Volvo in the employee’s lot at the Flamingo. He was hungry and the casino advertised a 24 hour buffet.

  Minutes later Nick looked up from his midnight lunch to see Dale Tomalchk standing next to his table.

  “Hi, mind if I sit down?”

  Nick took a moment to think if he wanted this weasel in a blue sharkskin suit to sit at his table. “What brings you here, numb-nuts?”

  Dale shifted his weight from his left to his right foot. “I bumped into a friend of yours last week. Or, maybe it was two weeks ago.”

  Nick took a spoonful of his beef vegetable soup. “Really, who would that be?”

  Dale took a chair and leaned irritatingly close to him. “That would be Rhonda Lapinski.”

  Nick’s right hand stopped half way between the bowl and his mouth. The sudden odor of Dale’s “Old Spice” was intense. He put the spoon down, leaned back in his chair then used his napkin to blot his mouth and wipe his hands. “Where was this?”

  “Like I said, in Vegas.”

  Nick rolled his eyes.

  “The first time, at a strip club. Sort of an interesting routine. She came out dressed as a nun …”

  Nick leaned in close. Finally, some good news.

  “I don’t give a fuck about the act. What’s the name of the club?”

  Dale looked away. “Doesn’t matter. She’s not there anymore.”

  “What! How do you know?”

  “Well, when I saw her I sent her a note. You know on a napkin. Sorta thought we could get together and share old times.”

  “You sent her a note. So she knew you saw her.” What were you thinking, if anything?

  “Yeah, well, you know she’s got that killer body. And the way she was throwing it around up on stage. Well, I figured …”

  “Did she come over?”

  “No, something about having other commitments. If you know what I mean."

  Whatever he thought of her this confirmed to Nick that Rhonda was no dummy. “Slick. What happened next?”

  Dale cleared his throat and pointed at the glass of water on the table. Too discusted to speak, Nick nodded.

  Dale took a long drink. “I went back the next night, but she didn’t show. Announcer said it was her night off.” He took another drink. “I went back the next night and she didn’t show again. This time the guy said she quit and he thought she’d left town.”