Bookshelf Battle

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Hatcher’s on the hunt for Craig Henneman, a stick-up man who committed a mortal sin in Hatcher’s eyes, namely, offing the guy who supplied him with alcohol.

Part 1    Part 2    Part 3    Part 4    Part 5    Part 6

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

For a lawman, there’s nothing more unsettling than a locked door.

I’d found myself outside a slew of them in my day and each time, only God knew what was waiting for me on the other side.

And he was never in a sharing mood.

Hatcher and Betsy back together again.

I was standing outside Henneman’s apartment, Wanda still resting snugly under my arm in a nondescript flower box.

Though the scumbag I was after had taken his ID back when he rifled through my pockets earlier, I remembered the address with the help of my photographic memory.

A good memory is just one of the many traits a man has to hone in order to become an investigator of my caliber.

I rapped three times on the door.

“Delivery!”  I barked.  “I have a delivery for a Mr. Craig Henneman.”

Come out and get delivered to your maker, you rat bastard.

Hearing nothing, I pulled out my tension wrench and lock pick, two tools any good locksmith has on him.

I inserted my two little helpers and searched for that special lineup of pins that would gain me entry to the home of a murderer.

Snap.  The bolt turned and I was in.

No need for the subterfuge any more.  I dropped the box and started clearing rooms, letting Wanda’s double-barrells to lead the way.

The bathroom was clean.  To clarify, I’m saying it was “clean” in that there was no one hiding in there waiting to smash my coconut open with a beer bottle, not in the tidy sense.  The toilet looked and smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned in the history of the world.  The only ones happy about that were the cockroaches who were using it as their own personal swimming pool.

Pretty sure I saw one of those nasties do the backstroke.

Moving on, I hit the kitchen.  No one there either.

In my LAPD days, I cleared out crapholes like this all the time.  As long as you treat every nook and cranny as if its being used for cover by some delinquent who wants to introduce you to the business end of a gun, there’s nothing to it.

I headed for the living room.  It was a mess, but a mess the local coppers would be interested in.

The coffee table was lousy with heaps of white powder.  Another hundred  or so small bags of stuff sat in a pile on the couch.

China white.  Columbian nose candy.  Big time booger sugar.

Called by any other name, it was still cocaine.

There was a bedroom off to the right.  I kicked in the door.

No one.  Nothing but trash, moldy food plates, and empty take-out containers.

It was like someone was waiting for a maid that was never going to come.

I stepped back into the living room and was about to clear the bedroom on the other side when three shots were fired through the door, the bullets narrowly missing my squash.

Wanda belched out of both barrels as I dove backward, landing on the coffee table, which smashed into splinters as it broke my fall.  The white powder went flying everywhere, turning the living room into a blizzard.

Some of it got into my mouth.  It had a fresh, pleasant smell almost like…baby powder.

Another shot.  I was flat on my back on the floor so it came nowhere near me.

I pulled two shells out of my pocket, inserted them into Wanda and cocked her with great gusto.

One more shot.

I was a firearms expert and I could tell by the sound of the blasts and the size of the holes in the door that the goon holed up in the bedroom was using my very own Betsy against me.

The sixth shot came.  The idiot was out.

“Get your ass out here and face the music, Henneman!”

The response?

“Wah gwaan, mon?!  Irie, irie!”

I sprang to my feet, kicked in the door and pointed Wanda at a fella who wasn’t the man I was looking for.

I’m not sure how to describe him.  He was white but he had these long dreadlocks, a pair of pants with a bunch of pockets and a green and yellow shirt that depicted the Jamaican flag.  I assumed his eyesight was subpar, since he squinted behind a pair of round black glasses.

I get we live in very politically correct, racially sensitive times now, the logistics of which can be hard for a fella from the 1950’s to wade through sometimes, so I’m just going to say he looked like a white guy trying to pass himself off as a black guy and hope I don’t offend Mr. Battler’s 3.5 readers into flying the coop.

“Drop that piece and kick it over here.  And keep your hands where I can see ’em.”

He did as I ordered.

“You aren’t fit to have your grubby paws anywhere this six-shooter, slime ball.”

“Jah mon!  Yah come up herr actin’ the bombaclad fool!”

“Where’s Henneman?”

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” I said.  “Craig Henneman.  He lives here.  Where is he?”

“Jah mon me yardie Craig jammin off to de Jamrock mon, the birdy fly fly away to de funkyside.”

I grabbed the weirdo by his shirt collar and slammed him against the wall.

“UNHAND ME JAH FILTHY BALDHEAD!”

“TALK NORMAL!!!”

Suddenly, the clown’s accent moved from Rastafarian to clueless Californian.

“OK sir,”  he said in a shaky voice.  “I apologize for shooting at you but I hope now cooler heads can prevail and we can talk this out with some rational dialogue.”

“If you don’t tell me where your buddy is in two seconds…”

“It’s cool man, it’s cool.  He’s out there.  He’s rustling up some cash.  You can go back to Diego and tell him he’s going to get his money soon and then we can put this whole silly misunderstanding behind us.”

“Who’s Diego?”  I asked.

“You’re not here to collect for Diego?”

“No.”

From behind me, I heard the metallic sound of a hand gun slide being racked up.

“Then step aside because I am.”

Copyright (c) 2015 Bookshelf Q. Battler.  All Rights Reserved.

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