The artifact, p.2
The Artifact, page 2
I walked around to the driver’s side, wiping the syrup coating my hands off on my jeans, opened the door, and hopped in, just in time for Turbo to notice his surroundings.
“Hey Geronimo, what the fuck is up with all this shit?”
I glanced in the rearview and saw him looking at the divider in confusion.
I had taken special care when buying this cruiser, searching at auction after auction for one with a cage, a stainless steel chain-link fence type partition between the front and back seats. When I found this one, I jumped on it, despite it seriously limiting my legroom. The vinyl seats, which clean up so easily, were just a bonus.
Not bothering to respond to his question, I removed my piece and shoved it in the glove box. Then I started the car and pulled out of the lot.
Turbo went ballistic, scrunching himself up in the seat and kicking with both legs at the divider.
I stopped the car, put it in park, and turned around. I stared at him, arching an eyebrow as if to say, ‘Just what in the fuck do you think that’s going to accomplish?’ He kicked a few more times, half-heartedly. I continued to stare.
After a few moments, Turbo said a soft “Fuck you,” and spat at the passenger-side door before peering out the window.
I put the car back in drive.
A five-hour drive can be unpleasant in the best of circumstances, but it ratchets up in a big way when you are transporting a violent criminal half-drugged out of his mind. Truth be told, I hated these jobs, and people like Turbo were why.
Sure, you occasionally got a skip that cooperated, or was holed up at home, so you didn’t have to go very far, but those jobs never seemed to find me. Me, I got all the rowdy ones; all the ones who crossed state lines and hung out with packs of even nastier hoodlums.
Part of it was my size. People just assumed that when I rolled up on someone, they went all weak-kneed and caved. And sometimes, that did happen. But most of the time, most of these assholes, they had a little more spirit than that. Most of them, they wanted to see if I was willing to throw down. So I usually had to pound on them a little before they realized the truth of the situation. Like ‘ole Turbo here.
I glanced back, checking on Turbo. He was staring out the window, kind of nodding a little. Maybe coming down. Good. I focused back on the road.
This bounty was fifteen hundred dollars, ten percent of the bail for Turbo. That, minus my expenses, was what was going to keep me from getting an eviction notice this month, but I did not become a P.I. to chase skips.
My problem was that folks weren’t coming to me for typical surveillance or recovery cases, and those that did left in a hurry. I had the skills and confidence. I suspected folks down south just took one look at me and instantly wrote me off. The few decent cases I attracted all seemed to be from brown folks; Blacks and Latinos, mostly.
I was getting aggravated, and I willed myself to drop it. Epictetus said, ‘There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.’ I tried very hard to live by that.
It was all a numbers game, ultimately, and that meant I needed to get my business in front of more eyes. I had just begun chewing on that when my passenger decided he had something to say.
“I gotta go to the john, man,” Turbo stated in his deep south accent.
“So go,” I said, glancing up at the rearview mirror.
“What?” Turbo asked, face scrunched up in disbelief.
“Go ahead.”
“Man, I ain’t gotta piss, I gotta shit.”
I sighed inwardly. I looked for the next exit. It was about two miles down the road, and didn’t seem to have anything on it but woods.
Perfect.
I pulled off on the exit, Turbo being a model citizen now that he thought he was going to get what he wanted. I drove down the old country road for half a mile, then pulled off by some thick woods.
“Hey man, what are we doing here?” Turbo asked.
I didn’t respond. Instead, I reached into the glove box and removed my weapon. I then grabbed a wad of napkins from the console. I jammed the revolver in my holster, the napkins in my pocket, and exited the vehicle.
I had parked with the driver’s side tires just barely resting on the pavement; the car leaning off the pavement and down into a wide ditch. On the other side of the ditch were trees as far as the eye could see.
I walked around to the rear passenger door. Turbo was still sitting way over on the driver’s side of the long bench seat, so I unlocked the door and opened it. I stepped back and gestured to the woods. Turbo stared at me like I’d grown a third eye out of my forehead.
“Man, I can’t shit out there. I need, like a bathroom, man.”
I gestured towards the woods. “Out,” I said.
Turbo looked at me with his head cocked, that canine look of confusion, then towards the woods. Seeing no other option, he scooted across the seat and got out of the car, stumbling a little on the uneven ground.
I grabbed him by the upper arm and marched him into the woods. About a hundred yards in, I stopped. I walked around behind him.
Head craning around to see me, Turbo said, “Hey man, what’s going on?”
“Quiet,” I said, and Turbo hushed.
Behind him, I placed my left hand on his shoulder, my big thumb resting on his bony spine, palm on his sloping trapezius muscle, four fingers curled with the tips resting right above his collarbone.
Turbo was shaking. Probably thought I was going to shoot him.
My left hand set, with my right hand I pulled out the key to the handcuffs and unlocked the left one. When it clicked, Turbo immediately tried to bolt.
My left hand squeezed, hard, squashing his trapezius muscle. His whole left side collapsed inward towards his shoulder, like his shoulder was a black hole and his whole body was crossing the event horizon.
He stumbled and dropped to his knees, making a high-pitched keening sound while I drew my revolver with my right hand.
I stopped squeezing, and when he finished whimpering, I pulled the hammer back on the revolver. That ratcheting sound was unmistakable, and Turbo instantly went still.
“Stand up,” I said.
Turbo complied, whimpering a little again.
“Take five steps forward,” I said as I let go of his shoulder. Turbo did as told.
“Drop trow and squat.”
Turbo hesitated, looking back at me in total disbelief.
I made little circular ‘let’s get on with it’ motions with the firearm. He did as directed.
We sat there a few moments; him pretending to need to shit, me pretending to watch the birds and squirrels.
Finally he spoke up: “Ain’t got no paper.”
I tossed the wad of napkins at him. It pelted his shoulder, then separated, landing in a cluster in front of him. Turbo looked at the wadded up napkins, then resumed his silent squat.
After about three minutes, he said, “Hey man, I don’t think I have to go after all.”
“Tough,” I said.
“What?”
“We don’t move till you pinch one off.”
“What?!” he said again, turning his head around to look at me.
I made little spinning motions with my weapon, gesturing for him to turn back around.
“Eyes front,” I said.
A sickened look came across his face, and he turned around.
Normally, if I’d have had backup like I’m supposed to, I’d drag him into a rest area, preferably one guarded by the state patrol, and wait in the bathroom with him for him to do his business. But alone, it was too risky.
I didn’t have a concealed weapon permit, and even if I did, it would only be valid in my home state, Florida. So I would be alone in a public toilet with this violent moron, and would need to use physical force to restrain him if he got rowdy. That would probably go fine, but I wasn’t willing to risk Turbo hurting a civilian.
Besides, this wasn’t my first rodeo. I had a good suspicion Turbo didn’t actually need to go. And if he did, well, nothing wrong with going in the woods.
Turbo sat, pretending to strain for a few minutes, then piped up again, voice pleading: “Chief, I can’t do it man. I’m all stopped up.”
“Tough,” I responded.
After about fifteen more minutes, Turbo turned back to me, face pinched in frustration.
“Hey man, I know your people like to shit out here in the woods, but I need like a bathroom, civilized like.”
The word civilized came out missing a syllable: civ-lized. It was almost enough to make me grin, but I didn’t.
I made the turn around motion again with my pistol. He turned back around.
I made him wait, all scrunched up, ass hanging out in the breeze, for another twenty minutes. Waited until I could see him leaning back and forth, trying to restore circulation in his legs. That was the sign - Hard as hell to run away when you can’t feel your legs.
“All right Turbo, pull ‘em up.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, Turbo unsteadily rose to his feet, pulling his pants up as he did. As he buttoned, he turned around and started walking towards me. I pointed the weapon at him.
It was just a Smith & Wesson Model 60, a snub-nosed .38 revolver, nothing sinister looking. In fact, it looked rather dainty, swallowed up in my enormous paw. But the beauty of this revolver was that it could accept both .38 Special and .357 Magnum loads. I had loaded this one with the more powerful cartridge.
My depth perception was rapidly deteriorating as my eye kept closing up, but I wasn’t so far gone yet that I couldn’t plug Turbo from five paces.
“Turn back around,” I said.
“Ok, ok,” Turbo replied and did as bidden.
I walked up behind him, revolver pointed at the center of his back. I placed my left hand on his shoulder, and he jerked away. Good, he was afraid, which meant he might behave himself. I gently placed my hand on his shoulder again, and he remained still, trembling.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
Turbo did as directed.
I decocked the weapon and holstered it, then paused. If he was going to make a break for it, it would happen now.
He did not.
I snapped the cuff back around his left wrist and marched him to the cruiser. Inside, I stowed my weapon, then fired it up and flipped a U-turn, heading back towards the highway.
Turbo seemed subdued, reflective even. He stared out the window, eyes unfocused, lost in some world of his own.
Either he was thinking up another hair-brained escape plan, or he was taking an accounting of his life. I didn’t much care for him having philosophical epiphanies in the back of my cruiser, but I was a fan of anything that didn’t involve me having to hurt him some more.
I slapped my Fuzzbuster, the newer multi-band one, up on the dash, plugged it into the lighter, and cranked the car up to ninety. If I could keep up this speed, I could cut this five-hour trip down to a little under four hours, and one less hour with Turbo was worth the risk of a ticket.
As we got closer to Nola, Turbo began trying to bargain. Must be a first-time skip, I thought.
The old-timers, those who have been through this at least once, they know a bounty hunter won’t let a skip go just because they feel bad. We don’t get paid if we don’t return the bounty, and we spend our own money chasing these assholes down. Your reputation would be shot if it got out that you let one go.
Besides, it showed a complete misunderstanding of our role in the system. We weren’t juries. Hell, we weren’t even prosecutors. We were errand boys. Like dogs.
Here boy, fetch. Good boy.
Like that.
Releasing this asshole wouldn’t change a thing. He’d get a few days’ reprieve, then me or some other bail enforcement agent would track him back down, string him back up, and drag him back in.
Not that I was tempted to release him. He was back there whining about how he didn’t mean to hurt no one and how he couldn’t make it in prison. Same sad tale all the other perps had. I’d been in Law Enforcement for sixteen years, twelve with the New Orleans PD and four as a P.I. You needed a pretty damn good story to get my dusty tear glands working.
Of course, when he couldn’t bargain, he went through the other stages of grief. I had already helped him get over the anger thing, so now he was on to depression, and he sobbed and leaked snot all over himself for a while. It was pitiful to watch, so I didn’t.
By the time we had arrived at the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s office, Turbo had reached acceptance, and was gazing forlornly out the window. Somehow, this was even more pitiful than the bawling. I escorted him inside.
Chapter 3
Back Home
Pensacola, Florida: 9:12 PM, Sunday, June 3rd, 1984
When I got back to my office, the sun was already beneath the horizon. I drove around in front of the building, searching for anything taped to the door.
The office, built sometime around the turn of the century, was on Palafox street in the Pensacola historic district. Built in the style of a Creole townhouse, it had a ground floor overlooked by a full-length gallery with intricate antique iron railings on the second floor. The first floor was mine.
Glancing at the door, I let out a pent-up breath. No eviction notice, just my signage on the glass:
PARATA & ASSOCIATES
Private Investigators
I pulled the Caprice around the building and parked in the little secluded lot out back. I swiveled in the seat, letting my bad leg straighten out while I massaged the knee back to functionality. Exiting the car, I unlocked the office door, flicked the bank of lights, and entered.
The room was long and thin, with bare concrete floors, worn brick walls, and no AC. The heat escaping felt like a blast furnace. I propped the door open for ventilation.
Old buildings have a distinctive smell, a scent of old paint, dust and wood off-gassing that always reminded me of home. I breathed in as I looked around.
Half of the long room was bare. It was originally a storage area for the bar and grill that had been here before, and frankly, P.I.s have less demanding storage needs.
That’s not to say I hadn’t taken some advantage of the space. My battered desk was halfway down the left wall, back flush to the old brick. I had mounted a cork board with colored push-pins on the wall above it. My TV, an old thirteen-inch, was on a cheap stand on the other wall, directly across from the desk.
Further on, I had a row and a half of filing cabinets and a rolling clothes rack by the far wall, on which hung my only suit. I had piled the rest of my clothes inside a huge old trunk near the filing cabinets. My bed was in the corner across from me, a single that was little more than a cot.
Almost everything I owned in the world, and it didn’t come close to filling one room.
I crossed the room and opened the door on the far wall. Cool AC flowed out, and I moved quickly through and shut the door. I walked down the long hallway, passing the bathroom, and made a right turn into the kitchen.
I opened the battered fridge and pulled out a gallon of milk. In the cupboard, I grabbed a bowl the width of a hubcap, a serving spoon, and two boxes of cereal.
I emptied the boxes into the bowl and topped it with milk. I ate right there on the counter, finishing by upending the bowl and drinking the milk, like a cultist at some black rite.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, put the bowl in the sink, and left the kitchen. Turning right, I moved into the main office.
I reflected, not for the first time, on how oddly beautiful this building was, even in its current state of disrepair. The floors were some kind of ancient hardwood, stained and restained so many times it seemed to swallow light, the coating on top so thick it was like a sheet of glass.
The ceilings had intricate patterns done in plaster, and even though they were cracking and crumbling in places, they were still breathtaking. Sometimes I would sit at night, chew on a cigar, and let my imagination transport me back to an age when such things were common.
This room, the only room most clients saw, was the one I had spent the most effort on. My public desk was a huge, ornately carved, antique hardwood job that I purchased at a consignment shop. It was an enormous pain in the ass to move, but the gravitas it lent to the room was worth it.
Behind my desk hung my certificates and awards. My medals from the service in a shadow box, my Bachelor’s in Criminal Justice from Southern University at New Orleans, my plaques from the force. My P.I. license and business license also hung here, looking like lesser citizens among the more elaborate paperwork.
The desk’s surface was tidy, containing a blotter, typewriter, inbox, telephone, fax machine, and neatly organized pens in an antique cup. Clients tended to generate an impression of me, an impression borne of stereotypes and bigotry, that I did my best to dispel. Having a spotless office, with an organized desk, was part of that effort.
Two side chairs sat facing the desk, and my plush executive chair, a relic from the ‘60s, sat behind it. Across the room was the front door, flanked by viewing galleries where a retail establishment would have placed sale items or displays.
I kept the blinds for the gallery windows down while away, but I usually opened them and sat two potted plants there during the day. The impression, I hoped, was of a professional, inviting space.
I was sleepy and grubby, but the storage room would take a few hours to cool enough to sleep in, and the YMCA, where I showered, was closed on Sundays. I walked over and scooped up the pile of mail lying beneath the letter opening on the front door. As I walked back to the desk, I sorted mail into bills and junk.
I sat the hefty stack of bills down in my inbox and chucked the rest into the trashcan under my desk. Sitting down, I took out some stationery and began typing up my expenses for the Franklin job. Then I typed up a brief report, summarizing the trip.
When I finished, the sun had fully set, and I was getting chilly from the AC. I removed the last page of the report, blew on it to dry the ink, and laid the paper on the blotter. I’d make a copy tomorrow and mail the original to the bondsman.
