Crime Takes No Holiday: A Detective Story Novella Read online

  John Daniel Investigations now has a reputation. Much of the credit for this goes to Howard Thorne’s best friend Samuel Thomas, an investigative journalist who was already making quite a name for himself in southern California.

  Thomas wrote a glowing piece for the Times about our takedown of a tech giant, making us look like heroes. Armando and I got our picture in the papers, much to the chagrin of Captain Janks and the Hollywood division, who were not made to look like heroes. Thomas did a follow-up piece that uncovered a number of clandestine shenanigans in the Hollywood division, some of which I’d suspected at the time were behind my unceremonious departure there three years ago.

  I knew there was something off about Janks and his cronies, I just knew it. This put them under a microscope and sparked a departmental investigation that busted Janks back down to lieutenant. He and Dooley are now riding desks together out in Pacoima.

  But ironically, even with all the new clients, the shotgun wound on Thug Number One, and the crossbow, while legal, had somehow led to a warranted search of the DeSoto and a determination that the boom stick, ‘Young Bessie’, used to take out Number One was one-eighth of an inch short of legal, at least according to Dooley’s ‘careful’ measurement. Almost literally a ‘smoking gun’. These days, ‘Young Bessie’ could possibly imply a stay at Club Fed.

  It was touch and go for a moment. They couldn’t find a charge that would stick to me regarding the four home-invading evil mother-effers now no longer a menace to society, and they had no proof I’d ever fired these weapons, but possession got my PI license and permit jerked for a couple years, not to mention the simultaneous two years probation.

  We can thank ‘Defective’ Dooley for that one. While most of us were strategizing how to save Elle, he was planning how to put the screws to me. Again.

  I nearly did time. The fact that lives were saved at the risk of my own life, and five despicable murderous goons were now either locked up or taking dirt naps, a gift from me to society, did not favor as well in that decision as we had wished.

  But the reason I didn’t do time was perhaps because of Kate. She didn’t just go to my apartment that morning and pace and worry. Nope, Kate’s an engineer. She removed Young Bessie from the trunk, removed both firing pins and dropped them into a plastic bag in our toilet tank for safekeeping, ditched all the shells, cleaned Young Bessie, then hung her over our mantel like a samurai sword.

  So when Dooley showed up with a warrant later, his search found an illegal shotgun, not in my trunk, but as a museum piece displayed over our fireplace. Only as a very clean weapon in ‘collector’ condition and not in firing or operating condition.

  They had no way to connect the shotgun injury to Thug Number One to me, or Kate, or Bessie. They knew what likely had happened, but they had no evidence, and no proof.

  There was also the whole turf battle with Westwood Division that’d bought us no friends, since this all went down in their neighborhood on their watch, while they snoozed. The only people who were happy with the way this ended were the people whose lives were saved. And the people who saved them.

  Although, Chang seems to have renewed respect for me. I think. Not sure I care. Captain Janks was happy enough at first to accept the accolades this brought him and his department, which he tried to spin in his favor. But not happy I was involved. Not at all happy.

  But Armando, now also booted from Hollywood Division in the aftermath, got his own PI license, and we both worked a lot of cases together under that out of JDI during this period, me on the down-low and Armando as the front man. We took clients in my office, and I made sure Mando’s desk and office were both smaller than mine. He didn’t get the raised platform.

  Turns out he’s a much better investigative private detective than he was a Hollywood Division homicide detective, anyway, away from all the bad apples. And a much better friend, and still a standup guy.

  With enough work to go around, and my new outlook on where Parker and I stand with each other, it was a nice couple of years that went by quickly. Then something else developed. Yes, there was a ‘baby bump’ and a shotgun wedding, but something else.

  It took a couple years for the legal wheels to turn, but what assets Waldheim, who had no heirs, had left after mounting a failed criminal defense were lost in a civil suit against him filed by, you guessed it, Kate and Elle, who ended up seizing his assets, which newly minted Ph.D. Kate then used to help fund her own growing company, assisted by Professor Emeritus Howard Thorne, himself.

  I particularly liked the thought of Kate setting up shop directly in Waldheim’s own building and working out of his old office, but when the Bell Labs dough began rolling in, Kate and Co. sold and got new digs. Something about ‘karma’, or some new-age falderal. I guess I understood, to a degree.

  The physical assets went to Kate, but the cash mostly went to Elle, who’d suffered the most from Waldheim’s shenanigans. In gratitude, I was awarded five percent of the IPO, and I now head Kate’s very successful new company’s state-of-art security division. I’m the ‘CSO’, as she calls it. It's a cush job, and I get to spend even more time with my feet up looking out a giant window than ever.

  Armando’s my second in command. We go for Italian pretty much every week, sometimes with Kate and Elle. Parker, who is now Kate’s Office Manager/Administrative Assistant, is OK with this, as long as she goes along too.

  'Working' security’s a kind of a yawn, so even with our new jobs Mando and I still take a case or two off books when it suits us. Gotta preserve this other giant desk, chair, and window. Kate’s dollar is even framed there, right next to the giant window.

  Our new inside guy at Division? Yep. Newly promoted Captain Louie Chang. Mando was right; he’s not half bad. And he got me my seven iron back, which since I bent it a little, now hangs over the mantel right above ‘Young Bessie’.

  That’s right. Lou even got Young Bessie back to me, on the QT.

  “You can have it, Jack, just don’t ever use it again. I had nothing to do with this. And now you owe me one.”

  But back to the evil plan, once Waldheim’s goons (R.I.P.) had snatched Elle, Waldheim didn’t know what to do with her. Disappearing Elle would not solve his ‘Kate’ problem.

  In Waldheim’s mind, Kate was destined for the white sex trade market in some new little third-world country called North Vietnam, so they held Elle while they tried to also kidnap Kate, and they were going to send both of them there, deep in the hull of one of his freighters, all gooned on morphine.

  Can’t imagine what a prize like that must go for. Blonde, young, tiny, gorgeous. The potential level of inhumanity is pretty horrifying. You’re a come catcher … a literal receptacle for the lust of any monster who can afford to rent you for twenty minutes, as many times a week as they can schedule you, every day until you die.

  The only saving grace is that your life expectancy drops precipitously, especially if you become pregnant. When you’re no longer ‘fresh meat’, you’re no more than dog food, sometimes even fed to the hounds live, as your final perverted performance. Or at least that’s the horror as I try not to imagine it.

  I sure hope our country never gets into a war with these Vietnam guys. I think the commies run stuff over there. Waldheim, it turned out, frittered away much of the family fortune orchestrating diabolical bad illegal business deals with some low-lifes in that area, but that all happened before the Truman Doctrine, so the Attorney General had declined to prosecute.

  But instead of our two gorgeous little heroines suffering a fate of being invaded physically against their wills over and over for the rest of their lives by big, ugly, hairy, scary sociopaths, Waldheim got this perk instead, inside the walls of San Quentin, where he also got shanked, seven years later in the laundry, and succumbed to sepsis nine days after that, on Thanksgiving day, of all days, in the prison infirmary.

  Shanked. Stabbed in both kidneys nineteen times with a sharpened toothbrush dipped in shit, two days ahead of his first
parole hearing. Now dead as a doorknob. He got off way too easy. I knew the con who shanked him; put him away in ‘45. No, I had nothing to do with it. Really, I didn’t.

  And good riddance. I’d prefer to think that all of my Thanksgiving holidays, from the moment I met Kate and on forward, which typically include the families of Kate, Armando, Howard Thorne, Elle, and Parker, will certainly be more merry than Waldheim’s last few Thanksgiving holidays in Q.

  ◆◆◆

  Speaking of ‘shotgun weddings’, to announce this shocking event to Parker’s parents, we flew them in from Indianapolis to help us celebrate Thanksgiving. They’re both just wonderful people. We had them here in our living room with everyone.

  I took ‘Young Bessie’ down from her perch above the fireplace and handed her to Parker’s father.

  “We have a surprise for you, Mr. Peterson, and you might need this. Ahem! Parker is going to have a little baby, and I’ve asked her to marry me. I love Parker more than anything in this world.”

  Parker’s hand went to her mouth as a tear appeared in the corner of her eye. Her father looked at me, looked at Mrs. Peterson, looked down at Bessie, then started to laugh.

  Then he hugged me until I couldn’t breathe.

  ◆◆◆

  Author's Note: 'Crime Takes No Holiday' (what a silly title!) is a flashback story taken from the longer novel 'Double Rainbow', a present-day story told by Jack's grandson, also named 'Jack', after him.

  This is a real story (no). It really happened (no, no, it didn't).