Death by Sarcasm (7 page)

“Point that cane at me again and you’ll get it back as an enema,” Mary said.

“So do the police think Brent’s murder and Barry Olis’ murders are connected?” Braggs asked.

“I’m not exactly the person they like to share intimate details with,” Mary said. “In fact, they keep warning me they’ll take my license away. I think they feel threatened.”

“Do they know it’s a cosmetician’s license?” Alice said.

“Okay,” Braggs said. “Then let me ask you this, Mary. Do you think the murders are connected?”

“They’re tied together more tightly than Alice’s black lace bodystocking.”

“It’s not black, it’s fire-engine red, baby,” Alice said, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh, boy. This is serious,” Braggs said, resting his chin in his hand and looking out Alice’s picture window. There wasn’t much to see out there, Mary thought. A few little houses. Not a whole lot of inspiration. Nonetheless, Braggs sat straight up and clapped his hands together.

“Brent also mentioned you,” he said to Mary.

“I’m sure it was a real Hallmark moment,” Mary said.

Braggs smiled, an easy, comforting smile. “He simply mentioned he had a niece who was a helluva private investigator. I swear, that’s what he said.”

“He was probably joking, testing out some new material,” Alice offered.

“That’s a good point, Aunt Alice,” Mary said. “Thanks for coming. Are you here all week?”

“Well, that’s kind of why I came to see Alice,” Braggs said.

“You need a good reason. No one would do it on their own volition,” Mary said.

“I came here to see Alice, but I also came to find you,” he said.

“Visiting Mary is like rubbernecking at a car accident – you don’t really want to, but sometimes you just can’t stop yourself.”

“Why me?” Mary said.

“The group of guys I told you about? The ones who all started out with Brent and me way back when?”

Mary nodded.

“We want to hire you to find Brent’s killer,” Braggs said. “And now Barry’s too.”

Her first inclination was to say absolutely not. But she was looking into the case anyway, so she may as well get paid for it. Plus, since she had a legitimate client now, she actually had a legal right to do some investigating. At least, enough right to challenge the Shark the next time they butted heads.

“There’s only one condition,” Braggs said.

Uh-oh, Mary thought.

“I’m coming with you.”

M
ary shot up Pico, then hooked a left onto Lincoln. A few minutes later she pulled up in front of the Leg Pull. Mary hoped that this would be the last time she had to come to this shithole. It was depressing.

But then she smiled and laughed about Mr. Whitney Braggs. Thinking he could tag along just because he’d hired her. Fuck that. What was she, a ride share program for the elderly? That’s why she had slipped out the back door of Aunt Alice’s house. She didn’t have time to babysit some old man. She eased out of the car, her body still ached. Mary dry swallowed some more Tylenol.

She walked into the Leg Pull and saw her good friend Mr. Cecil Fogerty, standing at the bar, watching the bartender, a very well-endowed young woman. Mary figured the woman would last about a week, or at least until Cecil started putting the moves on her and she slapped him silly. At least, hopefully that’s what she would do, for her own sake.

Fogerty glanced out the corner of his eye when she walked in, stiffened as if someone had shoved a cattle prod up his ass, then immediately turned his back on her. Mary walked right up to him.

“Hey Cecil! Long time no see!” she said.

He turned to look at her over his shoulder. The bartender moved on so Cecil had no choice but to turn all the way around and face her.

“I told you everything I know,” he said.

“Ah, come on,” Mary said. “You must be a real fountain of knowledge. You went to MIT, right? Molecular biology? Tell me about your thesis. I’m dying to hear it.”

“Please go away,” he said, his voice small and sheepish.

“I can’t stay away from you,” Mary said. “I’m hooked. It’s like asking a bird not to fly. The sun not to shine. Your pits not to stink.”

“You know,” he said. The light of a small challenge coming into his eyes. “I reported you to the cops for pulling your gun on me,” he said. He even puffed out his chest a little.

“No you didn’t,” Mary said just as loud. “You changed your soaked panties and told everyone you did me on the desk.”

“Yeah, but after that, I called the cops.”

Mary could tell he was lying. He wouldn’t dare call the cops and get involved with them. She was sure Cecil had all kinds of sideline activities the police would love to know about. And she didn’t have time to listen to his bullshit. Mary closed the distance on him and stood so close her boobs were hitting him in his chest. She could smell his body odor mixed with some high-octane Hai Karate. Mary tried not to look at the greasy pores on the man’s nose.

“Jimmy Millis,” she said. “Where is he?”

“Here we go again,” Cecil said. His voice actually shook a little and his chest caved back in.

“Is that your breath or are we standing over an open sewer?” Mary said.

Cecil gritted his teeth. “I have very active glands,” he said. “It’s not fair of you to make fun of something I can’t control.”

Mary reached up and grabbed the front of Fogerty’s shirt. The bartender looked over as well as a cocktail waitress who had reappeared from the back room.

“Tell me where that fuckstick is,” Mary said. “Or I’m going to bitch slap you like your Mommy used to.”

“Jesus! You’re nuts!”

“Speaking of nuts, how about I kick yours right up into your uterus? Tell me where he is. Now.”

“I don’t know,” Fogerty said through clenched, yellowed teeth. “Go look in one of those Comedy Club flyers – it shows where everyone is. He’s probably listed in there.”

Mary nodded. “That’s a good idea. But since you know the clubs, you could probably find it much faster than I could. Go.”

She pushed him away from the bar.

“Then will you leave and never come back?” Fogerty said, and walked over to the pile of thin newspapers. He picked one up, then mumbled under his breath. “Maybe go get some horrible disease and die a miserable death?”

“Stop trying to sweet talk me,” Mary said.

He flipped through the pages, scanning them quickly. Mary took a look around. The place was mostly empty. She pictured her Uncle Brent here, waiting to go on stage for his final performance. She hoped he had gotten at least a few laughs.

“Donny B’s,” Fogerty said. “On Sunset in West Hollywood. Okay?”

“Even though I trust you implicitly, show me,” Mary said. Fogerty held open the paper and Mary saw Jimmy Millis’ name in the rectangle for Donny B’s. She took the paper and headed for the door.

“Please don’t come back. You’re not welcome anytime,” Fogerty said.

“Don’t wait up for me, honey,” Mary answered.

Mary had figured the Leg Pull was at the bottom rung of the comedy club ladder.

She was wrong.

Donny B’s was under the ladder, down a manhole cover, on par with the sewer lines. Small, dirty and nearly empty, Donny B’s looked less like a comedy club and more like a dive biker bar even hobos would be embarrassed to frequent.

Jimmy Millis was on stage. Mary checked her watch. According to the flyer Mr. Greaseball had read for her, he was most likely in the middle of his set. She sat at the bar and ordered a beer. In a bottle. She swiveled on her stool and took in Jimmy’s act.

“And you know what else I love about black women?” he said. All nervous energy on the stage. “It’s okay to insult them. Just don’t do it in their house!” He waved his finger in front of him and raised his voice up a pitch or two. “You gonna say that to me
in my house
? You got another thing comin, bitch!” There was chuckle or two from the audience, Mary thought. Well, just one.

“So I can call you a mutherfuckin’ ho’ bitch, as long as I stand on the front steps and don’t actually come
in the house
?” Jimmy said. This time, he was met with dead silence.

Mary turned away from the carnage and took a drink of her beer. She thought about what had happened. Uncle Brent murdered. Barry Olis murdered. One attempt on her life. And a message conveyed by somebody shooting up her Buick.

Robbery certainly wasn’t a motive. The only drugs involved were Viagra. So why the hell would somebody want to murder a couple of washed up comedians? It made no sense. Was the killer just after the Coopers? Did Barry Mitchell become a collateral victim? Mary went through the case again but there was nothing. Nothing she’d missed anyway. But you never knew. You had to just keep plugging away.

Mary took another pull of her beer and glanced back at the stage as a smattering of applause broke out. Jimmy Millis stepped off the stage, wiping his sopping wet face. Nothing makes you sweat like dying on stage, Mary thought.

Jimmy headed straight for her. How could he not, she thought. She stuck out of the crowd so badly, she might as well have been phosphorescent.

“So now you’re going to buy me that drink, baby?” Jimmy said, and plopped onto the bar stool next to her.

“Sure, what the hell,” Mary said. “You must be thirsty after all that hilarity.”

“Yeah, I remember you,” he said. “The one that’s always got something to say.” The bartender set a beer in front of Jimmy.

“Here’s to silence,” Mary said and clinked Jimmy’s bottle.

She watched him drain half the beer in three big swallows. “So now that I’ve bought you a drink,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me who paid you to send me off to Vista del Mar?” she said. Mary watched his reaction closely and recognized the briefest flash of surprise in his eyes. He recovered quickly.

“Fuck no!” he said. “Nobody told me to send you over there! You one of them conspiracy theory people? Aliens landed and shot Kennedy? Oprah is Satan in disguise?”

“Ah, the beauty of true words being spoken.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” he said. “I’m serious. That old dude told me where he lived, like he wanted me to come over and grill some hot dogs with him or somethin’. Maybe he’s into handsome black dudes. Can you blame the poor bastard? Shit.”

Mary let it all go by. “Now, Jimmy. I hate to point out your blatant lies…”

“Hush your mouth!” he said.

“-but the first time I asked you where the old guy lived you told me it was part of his act,” she said. “You said that’s how you knew where he lived. Remember?”

“Fuck no.”

“Now you’re telling me something different. That this old guy told you where he lived, as opposed to it being part of his act. So which one is it? Which one is the truth?”

“I hate to use harsh language on such a pretty lady,” he said. “But you’re fucking up the wrong tree, baby.” He took a long drink from his beer and set it back down on the bar, empty. He stood up to go.

Suddenly, a deep, cultured voice behind Mary spoke. “Why don’t you shut your filthy mouth and tell the woman what she wants to know?”

Mary turned into the face of Whitney Braggs.

“Oh, Christ,” she said.

“More like Moses without the beard,” Jimmy said.

“Fuck you, punk,” Braggs said to Jimmy. To Mary, it was incredibly odd to hear curse words come from a man who looked like a spokesman for the AARP.

“Who the hell are you?” Millis said. “Bob fuckin’ Barker? Why don’t you go back to the Price is Right, dickhead? Or if not that, the goddamned nursing home you denture sportin’ colostomy bag wearin’ muthafucka!”

To Mary, it was the funniest thing Millis had said all night.

Braggs walked past Mary and to Jimmy’s other side. He looked at the bartender. “I’ll have what they’re having.”

When the bartender turned to get the beer, Braggs slammed his forehead into Jimmy’s face.

“Shit!” Mary said.

She heard the crunch of cartilage. Jimmy sagged but Braggs held him aloft and half-walked, half-dragged him to the door.

“I don’t believe this,” Mary said as she threw some bills onto the bar.

She stepped outside just as Braggs propped Jimmy up against the wall. With lightning fast speed, Braggs hit him twice in the belly, then threw a wicked uppercut that made Jimmy’s head snap back into the brick wall. Another right and another left drove into Jimmy’s face. Blood covered the comedian’s face. Teeth dropped onto the sidewalk.

“Stop it,” Mary said, stepping toward Braggs. Braggs ignored her and grabbed a handful of Jimmy’s greasy hair and held him upright against the wall.

“Who told you to lie, nigger?” he shouted. “I’m gonna kill your black ass, eggplant. Who got to you? I need a name. Right here. Right now.”

Mary reached inside her coat and reached for her .45.

“Braggs, you are going to let him go right now,” she said.

Just as her automatic cleared leather, Jimmy coughed and spat out blood.

“No name,” he said.

“Liar.”

“Sheet of paper,” Jimmy gasped. “Two hundred bucks if I did it. Bad news if I didn’t. What did I care?”

“So you never knew Barry Olis?” Mary asked, keeping the .45 inside its holster for the moment.

“Fuck no!”

“You don’t know anyone,” Braggs said, sneering. “How convenient. Tell me someone you know, Jungle Bunny. You fucking goddamned worthless spoon!”

“Shut up Braggs, you fucking Nazi!” Mary said.

“Matter of fact, I don’t!” Jimmy said. “I don’t know no names. But I do know something else.”

“Yeah?” Braggs said, his voice dripping with doubt.

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “I know who killed Brent Cooper.”

“H
e was a big guy,” Jimmy said, and spat out more blood and another tooth.

“Did you see the actual murder?” Mary asked.

“Nah, but…”

“Then how do you know who did it, moolie?” Braggs said.

Mary grabbed a handful of Braggs’ shirt. “Shut up with that crap.”

“Cuz he and Cooper were really goin’ at it, man.”

“What do you mean going at it?” Mary said. She heard the sound of sirens in the distance and shot a look at Braggs. “You mean like fighting?” she said to Jimmy. “In the alley?”