Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) (13 page)

As the songs were
in the process of changing, the place chose that particular
moment to go absolutely, church-house quiet. Toni’s words
seemed to echo through the bar. The other customers in
the bar turned and saw what was happening. Immediately, some
froze in place while some ran for the exits. A
couple just hit the floor.

Mike was still frozen, so
Toni yelled at him. “I said, step the hell back
! Now!” When she yelled, her arms moved just a smidge
, causing the laser beam on Mike’s chest to do
a little dance right above his heart. He noticed this
too, and the effect was immediate. His hand opened automatically
and the knife clattered to the ground. He raised both
hands above his head and took a step backward.

“Kick
the knife over here! Now!”

Mike did as Toni had
commanded and she, in turn, kicked it all the way
over to the other side of the room.

I looked
down at Leatherman. “I’m going to let you go
now, okay? You promise to be good?”

“Yeah,” he said
, quickly. I let him go, and he slumped to the
floor. I looked at him for a second, then I
looked up to Terry. “I think he may have just
peed himself. Sorry about the mess.”

Toni moved a few
steps to her right, giving me room to step out
from between the stools. She glanced over to me. “You
about ready to go?”

I nodded. “I am.” I pulled
my Les Baer 1911 Thunder Ranch Special out. I had
no idea whether we were the only ones armed in
the place, but I didn’t want to leave it
to chance. I turned to Terry. “We’ll be leaving
now, Terry. Thanks again for all your help.”

He flipped
me off. I smiled back. The man had guts.

We
lowered our weapons to the low, ready position, about forty
-five degrees to the ground, then we slowly started our
exit. I walked backward, covering our rear, and Toni watched
the front. A minute later, we made it through the
vestibule door.

I was a little concerned about Samoan Randy
. I was afraid he might be waiting for us in
the vestibule with bad intent. He was big enough that
this could have been a problem. Fortunately, I needn’t
have worried.

“That was pretty cool, man,” he said, when
we got into the vestibule and closed the door. “I
had the door opened a little, and I watched the
whole thing. Those little assholes come in here every night
and cause trouble. They harass the women, and they get
in fights with the men. I gotta toss one or
another of them from time to time.” He smiled. “You
took good care of them tonight, though. Good work, bruddah
!” He held up his massive hand and we did a
little fist bump.

I looked at him. “Thanks.” I noticed
that he had a pool cue standing in the corner
. I pointed to it. “Can I borrow that for a
second?”

He shrugged. “Sure.” He reached down and handed it
to me. I turned it sideways and slid it between
the door handles on both of the swinging doors. A
strong rush at the door would break it, but anything
short of that would slow someone inside down. I only
needed a few minutes—just long enough for us to
get to the Jeep and get the hell out of
there.

I looked around. “Where’s Amaranth?”

He laughed. “She
freaked, man. She saw what was goin’ down, and she
grabbed her phone and bounced.”

I nodded. “Randy, do me
a favor, would you?” I pointed to the door I
’d just blocked. “Watch our backs. If anyone comes to
this door, stall ’em for a few minutes. I need
just long enough to get to our vehicle and clear
out of here.”

He smiled. “No problem with me, dude
. But before you go, there’s a couple of things
you should know.”

“What’s that?”

“First off, that dude
you’re looking for? The one in the picture?”

I
nodded.

“I couldn’t say anything with Amaranth here, but
I think his name is Josh—I don’t know
his last name. I read it on his uniform one
time. I think he works for UPS or something.”

“Thanks
. We appreciate that. What—is he like a delivery guy
or something?”

“I don’t know. He wears a brown
uniform—looks like a UPS uniform. He tried to get
in one night wearing it. When Amaranth charged him for
not wearing black, he got upset. Didn’t want to
pay. I had to toss him.”

“Thanks. That helps.” I
turned to leave.

“Wait,” he said. “There’s one other
thing.”

“What’s that?”

“The cops are outside.”

“What?” I
looked toward the front door and sure enough, I noticed
for the first time the blue-and-red lights flashing
through the gap under the door. “Oh, shit!”

“Yeah. They
pulled up just before you came out. Amaranth must have
called 9-1-1 and someone must have been like driving right
past.”

“Great.” I turned to Toni. “You know what this
means, right?”

“Yep. It means we’re about to get
some shit for having a gun inside the bar.” She
paused for a moment. “Maybe they’ll buy the self
-defense angle. The short bald guy pulled a knife.”

“That
’s true,” Randy said. “I’ll back you up. I
saw it.”

I shook my head slowly and took a
little peak through the crack in the door. As I
watched through the crack, another squad car pulled up. “We
’d better go,” I said. “We don’t want them
barging in here all SWAT-like.”

We raised our hands
high above our heads and stepped outside.

The glare from
the spotlight on the police cruiser was blinding. This was
good because then we couldn’t see the officers with
guns drawn, pointed at us.

“Get on the ground!” an
officer yelled.

Wonderful
, I thought to myself as I dropped
to my knees. We could have been at Duke’s
watching a ball game.

C
hapter 7

THANK GOD FOR THE
AWNING OUTSIDE
the front door. We immediately dropped to a
facedown position on the little rug beneath the awning. This
was none too pleasant, given the leaves and mud and
other crap that had fallen off people’s shoes as
they’d entered, but it beat the hell out of
having to lie down in oily puddles on the dirty
asphalt in the parking lot. That would have been tons
of fun. The police would have probably found it amusing
, but they damn sure wouldn’t have cared about our
clothes getting dirty as long as we were immobile.

“Nobody
move!” the patrolman yelled. The red-and-blue flashing lights
reflected off the wet pavement, while the radio calls from
the squad cars punctuated the night.

“Who’s idea was
this,” I said quietly to Toni. She was by my
side, slightly behind and to the right.

“Yours.”

“Bull . . . shit
.”

“I wanted to go watch the football game.”

I laughed
quietly. “Yeah, right. You’re full of crap. You’re
going to owe me big-time.”

We lay still for
several seconds, waiting for the cops to do something. “Remember
Ramon’s Cantina?” she asked. Ramon’s was a bar
in Kent where we’d nearly got into a fight
with three drug cartel guys last year.

“Yeah.”

“See any
kind of pattern here?”

“Yeah, I’m starting to,” I
said. “I think we need to stay away from bars
.”

“No talking!” one of the officers yelled. We shut up
.

A few seconds later, another squad car drove up, bringing
the total now to three. Backups now in place, three
officers walked up carefully, guns drawn. One stood watch while
the other two placed us in handcuffs, then helped us
roll over and get to our feet. Once we were
standing, they grabbed us firmly by the arm and marched
us over to a patrol car, where they leaned us
over the trunk, searched us, and took our sidearms and
IDs.

After a minute, they turned us around. One of
the men, apparently the ranking officer, walked over. His name
badge read
R. Bennett
.

“Why are we being detained?” I
asked.

Bennett ignored me and inspected our credentials. After a
minute, he looked up at me, then back down at
the paperwork. “PI licenses and concealed carry permits. Logan, Daniel
C. and Blair, Antoinette M.” He looked up. “So you
’re PIs. Don’t you two know that it’s
against the law for a civilian to take a gun
into a bar in the state of Washington?”

“We’re
on assignment with SPD. We were working,” I said. Not
a great defense, probably not even a valid one for
that matter, but it’s the best I could come
up with on short notice.

“On assignment, huh?”

“Yeah. We
’re on the Sophie Thoms Task Force. Call Lieutenant Bergstrom
.”

Bennett gave us a “that’s bullshit” smile. “Nice try
. You’re not law enforcement—you’re civilians. You get
no extra privileges that your ordinary citizen doesn’t get
. You know that, right? Nothing.”

“Do we look like we
belong in this place?”

He looked at me, then at
Toni. “She does.”

“Never mind that,” I said. “I had
to pay twenty bucks to get in because I was
‘out of uniform.’ That’s because we’re working. We
wouldn’t even be here if we weren’t on
the job. Call Bergstrom.”

He stared at me for a
moment while another officer unloaded our sidearms and inspected them
, sniffing them even, looking for the distinct smell of gunpowder
residue. “Did you discharge your weapons?”

“Hell, no. We just
used them to get out of the bar. All you
’re going to smell there is oil. The bald-headed
man inside was threatening us with a switchblade.”

“We know
about that,” Bennett said. “The bouncer called.”

Right on cue
, two officers led Mike with the knife outside in cuffs
. On his way to a squad car, he saw us
and got all agitated. “Hey! There they are!” He tried
to wrest himself free, apparently to make his point. This
didn’t go over too well with his escorts. “They
’re the ones with the guns!” He protested as one
of the officers arm-locked him and shoved him toward
a squad car. “Why don’t you throw their asses
in jail!”

“Shut up, mutt,” one of the officers said
as he loaded Mike into the car. They read him
his rights and two minutes later, they drove him away
.

Not long after, they put me in the back of
one car and Toni in the back of another. I
expected them to drive us off to jail too, but
instead nothing happened. So we waited.

Fifteen minutes later, we
were still waiting. I started to get a little hopeful
that perhaps Ron had intervened on our behalf. After still
another fifteen minutes—fifteen minutes during which the police gave
us the complete silent treatment—we were still sweating it
out in our respective backseats when sure enough, I saw
Ron and Yoshi drive up. They walked over to Officer
Bennett and began talking to him, glancing over in our
direction several times through the course of their conversation. Hopefully
, Ron wasn’t telling the officer to lock us up
and throw the key into the Puget Sound. The gun
-in-the-bar thing was dicey and could go either
way, depending on whether Ron backed up our task force
credentials. Five minutes later, Ron pulled out his phone and
dialed a number while Bennett walked over to the car
I was in. For better or worse, here goes.

He
swung the car door open and said, “Come on out
. You’re clear.” Thank God.

Getting out of the backseat
of a squad car when your hands are cuffed behind
your back is a little more awkward than it might
seem. I swung my legs out and kind of lurched
my way out of the car.

“Mr. Logan,” he said
as he removed the cuffs, “I’m sorry about this
misunderstanding tonight.”

I looked at him, confused. “Misunderstanding?”

“I didn
’t believe you when you said you were on department
business.” Then he added, “And I also didn’t recognize
your name from the Donnie Martin case. The lieutenant straightened
me out both ways.” Donnie Martin was a despicable pimp
who was about to shoot a police lieutenant and her
partner when I interrupted him. Or, should I say, a
230-grain Hydra-Shok hollow point traveling at about 1,100
feet per second from my .45 interrupted him. Permanently.

I
looked at Ron and he nodded. I turned back to
Bennett. “No sweat, Officer.” I shook my hands to get
the circulation going again. “You didn’t get in any
trouble, did you? You need me to go talk to
the lieutenant?”

“No, no. I’m good.”

Another officer walked
Toni over to us where my guy removed her handcuffs
as well. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” she said as
she, too, shook her hands.

“You giving the officer trouble
, Ms. Blair?” I looked over and saw that Ron and
Yoshi had walked over. “Don’t you think the two
of you’ve caused enough turmoil for one night?”

“We
’re just about done,” Toni said, smiling.

“You give these
two their weapons back yet, Officer Bennett?”

“Just about to
, Lieutenant.”

“Good. We got places to go.” Bennett went to
retrieve our sidearms.

I turned to Ron and Yoshi. “Thanks
for springing us, guys. We really appreciate it.”

Ron smiled
. “It’s no problem. You
were
working the case, right
?”

I nodded.

“See, Yosh. What’d I tell you?” Ron
turned back to me. “‘Course, now you owe us.” He
smiled. “We like it when you owe us favors.”

“Big
time,” Yoshi added, nodding.

Uh-oh. This didn’t sound
good.

“Yosh, what’s the going rate for springin’ wayward
PIs from felony firearms beefs?”

“What’re you talking about
?” I said.

Yoshi ignored me. “That’s easy,” he said
to Ron. “A medium-rare Delmonico at Daniel’s Broiler
.”

Ouch. A shakedown. And one that was going to be
worse than I’d thought. “Daniel’s Broiler?” I protested
. “‘C’mon, guys. Bail would have been cheaper.” Daniel’s
is a posh steakhouse located in Chandler’s Cove. It
’s about 150 yards west of Duke’s, but a
whole different world when it comes to price. If Toni
and I had to take these guys to Daniel’s
, we could be staring at a $400 dinner tab, depending
on how much they drank.

“Well,” Ron said, looking toward
the patrol cars, “I can still call Officer Bennett over
. I don’t think it’s too late . . .”

Fortunately, Toni
came to our rescue. “Don’t get us wrong, Lieutenant
. It’s not that we don’t appreciate you springing
us, ’cause we do. So please keep that in mind
. But there are a couple of things to consider.”

Ron
looked at her, squinting. He said nothing for a moment
, then, still staring at her, he said, “I got a
funny feeling about this, Yosh. You pay attention now.”

Toni
smiled. “First, technically speaking, as you made clear to Officer
Bennett, we were in fact on police business. In fact
, as you’ve made it clear to us just a
few hours ago, we’re a part of a team
—
your
team. It’d be a little awkward for you
to have a couple of members of your own team
arrested for working on your own case.”

Ron stared at
Toni for a second, then he turned and looked at
me; then he turned back to Toni. He smiled. “That
’s it? That’s all you got?” He rubbed his
hands together. “Oh boy, I’m getting hungry! I can
just smell that steak. I like it with that peppercorn
sauce on top.” He gave Toni a wry smile. “You
’re going to need to do better than that, sweetheart
.”

Toni stared at him for a second, and then a
smile slowly appeared on her face. I looked at her
—she has different smiles for all occasions. This was a
sly, little “gotcha” smile that Ron couldn’t have recognized
, but I did. I started to have a little hope
. “How about this then,” she said. “All this—” she waved
her arm around to the squad cars “—this being busted
for taking a firearm into a bar—you said it
’s a felony beef worthy of Daniels, right?”

He nodded
. “Damn straight.”

“Your premise is faulty,” she said. “It’s
not a felony.”

Ron didn’t say anything for a
second. Then he said, “Sure it is.” But all of
a sudden he seemed to recognize what he was up
against, and his voice lost its conviction. Suddenly, he wasn
’t so sure of himself.

“No,” Toni continued, shaking her
head, “actually, a violation of RCW 9.41.300 section 1 subsection
(d) is . . . a misdemeanor.”

We all looked at her.

“No
shit?” Ron said. “Section what? A misdemeanor? You know that
?”

Toni nodded. “It’s true.”

He looked at Yoshi. “Damn
.”

“That’s right,” Toni said. “A misdemeanor. A slap on
the hand. Maybe a ticket or something if the judge
is in a bad mood. Probably not even that, though
, given the circumstances—seeing’s how we were working for
you and all.”