Now with the door kicked open, they looked a little confused. Maybe they thought I had been hiding inside, cowering with fear. The one doing the kicking stuck his head inside the door. He popped back out and motioned the others to follow. As they spilled into my office, I climbed the rest of the stairs two at a time and removed my pistol and entered behind them.
They were all big men, broad shouldered, wearing jeans and tee shirts. I glanced down. My doorjamb was demolished.
“
Turn around and I’ll shoot,” I said.
They flinched, and one considered turning. I drew a bead on him. But then he thought better of it and froze. Best decision of his life.
“
Good boys. Now the two goons are to bend down slowly and set their guns on my office carpet. Ignore the sorry condition of the carpet. And, yes, that’s a bloodstain in the center of the room. Don’t ask.”
They did as they were told. And they didn’t ask.
“
Okay, this next part could get tricky, and really depends on how coordinated the goons are. I want them to sort of kick their guns back to me without turning.”
They were both coordinated enough, kicking back their guns with their first try, although the one on the right stumbled a bit. The guns skittered to a stop next to me, and I kicked them into the far corner of the office. Actually, considering the size of my office, the far corner really wasn’t that far.
I stepped around the three men and slid into my leather chair behind my desk. I held my gun loosely in front of me.
“
Everyone empty your wallets,” I said.
“
What?” said the third man. He was quite a bit older than the two goons. Not to mention he looked vaguely familiar. He’d recently had some plastic surgery done. His cheeks were as taut as two Samoan war drums.
“
I need some cash to fix my door,” I said. “Unless you would prefer I call the police?”
They started for their wallets.
“
Not so fast. One at a time. You, on the left.”
“
Me?”
“
No, my left.”
“
Who, me?”
“
Yes, you. You first. Nice and slow.”
He reached back and slowly removed a fat wallet.
“
Good, now drop it on my desk.”
He did so, and I went through this routine with the others. I next removed a total of two hundred and eight-two dollars. Then, using my scanner, I made copies of all three of their licenses. “For my records,” I said, grinning.
I tossed back the wallets and studied the photocopied licenses before me. The two young thugs were brothers; the older man was the father.
“
You’re running for a House seat,” I said, recognizing the name.
Tafford Barron looked sick to his stomach, sweat running down his too-smooth face. His sons’ names were Jack and Bartholomew. Both were just a little older than I was, although certainly not as handsome.
“
Which one’s Bartholomew?” I asked.
The one on the right—my right—nodded. “I am.”
“
What do you think of your parents naming you Bartholomew?”
He shrugged. “Don’t mind it so much.”
Tafford said, “Look, can we get on with this, I have things to do today.”
I looked at the older Barron. “Like putting together a campaign to run for Congress?” I asked. “Or more breaking and entering?”
“
We weren’t going to hurt you,” he said, shrugging. “We just wanted to talk.”
“
So talk,” I said.
“
We want you to back off the case,” he said sheepishly. “Of course, it was supposed to sound a little more menacing than that.”
“
I’m hard to menace,” I said.
“
I gather that.”
“
So why should I back off this case?”
“
You mind if I sit?” he asked.
“
I mind.”
He inhaled and continued standing. “Because I’ll pay you ten grand to drop the case.”
“
Does that come out of your election fund?”
“
Look, pal, this is serious business, and I don’t want you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“
I make a decent living sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“
Decent? Look at this dump. Take the money and get yourself a respectable office.” He paused. His too-tight face was flushed with heat.
“
Will you also include a cowboy hat like yours?”
He blinked. “Sure.”
“
And the name of your plastic surgeon. He’s done a marvelous job.”
He inhaled. “Will you take the money and go away?”
“
No.”
He was furious. Tafford was used to having his way. His sons were agitated, shifting from foot to foot. They were used to their father having his way.
“
Taff, did you have one of your boys ambush me in the desert a week ago?”
“
No,” he said. “I don’t need any more dead bodies in my town, and I certainly don’t need any more bad publicity.”
Strangely, I believed him. Didn’t seem his style to set me up in the desert, or to ambush me. He was more of the in-your-face, you’ve-been-warned type.
“
Of course, getting arrested for breaking and entering wouldn’t help my public image much.”
“
No,” I said.
“
Pretty stupid, in fact,” he said.
“
Yep,” I said.
“
Christ, what was I thinking?”
“
You weren’t.”
“
We just wanted to scare you.”
“
I’m terrified.”
He shifted where he stood and looked at his open palms. He looked like a man waking from a bad nightmare. His two sons hadn’t stopped staring at me. Perhaps they were soaking in what a real man should look like.
I said, “Taff, this mess isn’t going to go away by paying me off. Someone killed Willie Clarke, and someone tried to kill me. You have a killer loose in your town.”
Now he looked just plain sick. I almost shoved my trashcan over to him in case he was going to lose his lunch.
“
Tell you what,” he said. “You find the killer and I’ll give you the money.”
“
Sounds like a job,” I said.
“
Consider it one.”
“
When it’s over, I’ll send you a bill.”
Tafford nodded. “Can we go now?”
“
Yes,” I said.
And they did, although I kept their money. Consider it a retainer.
Chapter Thirty-one
Across the hallway from Cindy’s lecture hall was a classroom that was rarely, if ever, used. Best of all it was rarely, if ever, locked. It was furnished with a dozen or so of those wraparound desks with attached plastic chairs. Wraparound desks and I don’t get along. Mostly because they were made for people half my size.
So I positioned two of them near the classroom door, where I used one to sit and the other to prop my ankles up on. From that position, sitting in near darkness, I could see down the hallway in either direction, and had a clear shot of the elevator that opened onto Cindy’s floor.
It was late, almost 10 PM. My feet were up on the desk in front of me, ankles crossed, hands folded across my stomach. In the hallway next to my door, the drinking fountain gurgled. The gurgling kept me company, like an old friend. An old mentally challenged friend. I had spent the last ten minutes trying to discern the different chewing gum scents wafting up from under the desk, when the elevator chimed open.
A heavy-set, middle-aged woman stepped out, blinking rapidly and peering around. Unremarkable, if not for the fact she was wearing a heavy coat, as this wasn’t exactly heavy coat weather. Hell, this wasn’t exactly heavy coat country. Sensing a clue, I watched her closely.
She came hesitantly toward me. Or, at least, towards my part of the hallway. She had short black hair, perfectly trimmed bangs, and thick eyebrows that needed to be plucked or weed-whacked. She stopped in front of me, her back to me, and gazed up at Cindy’s lecture hall doors as if they were the gates to Heaven.
There was a slight hump in her upper spine, and I wondered if the Humanities building here at UCI had a bell tower. Then again, maybe she was carrying something heavy inside her coat.
The hallway was silent. The fountain gurgled. I could hear her breathing through her nose, saw her shoulders rise and fall with each breath.
And then, amazingly, she turned. I have no idea why. Maybe she heard me breathe. Maybe she sensed my overwhelming
manliness
. Maybe she had eyes in the back of her head.
Either way, she turned and looked right at me. We stared at each other. Her nose was a little wide, complete with a mini hump. Chin absent. Certainly not beautiful, but neither was she unattractive. I judged her age to be about forty. Didn’t look much like a student, but she certainly could have been. In the least, she looked like she was up to something.
“
Hello,” I said.
Her mouth dropped open. Her tongue spilled out over her lower teeth like a pink tide. And then she was moving. Quickly. Back to the elevator. There, she punched the button hard enough to have hurt her hand. The elevator, which hadn’t gone anywhere, opened right up. She turned her face away from me as the door closed around her.
I would remember that face. Especially those eyebrows.
When she was gone, I eased my feet off the desktop and onto the floor. I stood and moved over to the bank of classroom windows. From there, I had a clear shot of the main entrance to the building below.
I waited.
My breath fogged on the window before me. I resisted the urge to write:
I Heart Cindy.
The door opened below, yellow light spilling out. A male student exited, followed immediately by Bushy Brows.
A tall man met her outside. He came out of the shadows of the building and the two argued for a bit, and then left together. They headed down a side trail that led to the Staff parking lot, where Cindy kept her Jetta. I watched them go until they blurred into oblivion.
I think I just met her two stalkers.
Chapter Thirty-two
Cindy was attending to a throng of admiring students. I waited in the back of the lecture hall and watched her. She spotted me and beamed me a full wattage smile that sent my heart racing.
When the last of the student groupies had dispersed, I made my way down to her desk and set a polished red apple on the corner of her desk. Cindy, who had been hastily shoving books and scraps of paper into her oversized handbag, paused and looked at the red delicious.
“
Is that for me?”
“
Call it a school boy crush.”
Tonight Cindy’s hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She knew I liked her in a ponytail. She crammed the last of her junk into her bag and walked around the desk, looked around her room, saw that we were alone, and kissed me full on the lips.
“
Mrs. Franks never did that,” I said.
“
Who’s Mrs. Franks?”
“
My fifth grade teacher.”
“
You had a crush on her, too.”
“
Yes,” I said. “May I carry your oversized handbag?”
“
Would be a shame to waste all those muscles.”
Outside, I draped my free arm over her small shoulders. Because I was a foot taller than she was, holding hands was difficult. She was, however, the perfect height for hugging, and so we worked with nature rather than against it.
“
Have you ever noticed that you were naturally selected to be the perfect height for me to hug?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’m nearly certain that’s what nature intended when I grew to be five foot five, on the off chance of meeting you someday.”
“
Nature works in mysterious ways.”
“
The
Lord
works in mysterious ways.”
“
A Darwin quoting the Bible.” I said. “What is the world coming to?”
We were walking through a verdant, tree-filled section of the campus the students called Middle Earth, although I had yet to see a hobbit. Beyond, the sun had set, although the sky was still alight with its passing. Our smog-enhanced sunsets, with their pinks and oranges and purples, are out of this world.
Along the way to my car, I described my encounter with the bushy-browed woman. Cindy, amazingly, knew of her, flunking her last semester.
“
You think she could be one of the vandals?”
I shrugged. “No way to know. Tell me more about her.”
Cindy frowned. “Well, she was an older student, very opinionated. Outspoken Christian. Seemed to take it as a personal affront that my great grandfather was the evil Charles Darwin.”
“
For some, akin to Hitler.”
“
I’ll buy that, at least on the hate-o-meter.”
Now we were driving west along University Way, wending our way between stately trees, behind which were dormitories. The Mustang’s windows were down. The evening air was laced with a 50/50 mixture of nature and exhaust, which, out here, is a pretty healthy percentage. Cindy looked good in my car. Her brown eyes were watching me drive. She often watched me while driving. I think she might have thought I was cute. With her ponytail, and in the old Mustang, we could have been two teens back in the sixties out getting milkshakes.