CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - New Terror on the Block
Middle of the morning, a typical day already underway. The streets are littered with commuters, shoppers, schoolchildren, and the United States Postal Service. One particular area resembles a small town, a bit of a cul-de-sac where all the neighbors know each other, waving as they see each other on their way to whatever lay ahead in the next 24 hours. The houses are all bungalow-style, some two-story, some one-story. Mailboxes are kept in front, at the start of the walk-up to these homes. A postal delivery truck pulls up, the mailman gathering his parcels to deliver. He gets about mid-way through this leg of his route, when he comes up to what looks like a typical mailbox, or IS IT!
The mailman opens the lever to this box and suddenly there are several banging noises ring out, the mailman clutches himself, screams and falls backward, nearly hitting his head on the curb. How could this be? A gun rigged to automatically shoot whoever opens the mailbox door? How sinister!
I'm reading about this in the paper over breakfast and I can't believe it. I tell Eddie about this. "Wow", he says, "I heard about bees nests and that kind of thing, but an automatic gun? How badly was he hurt?" "Uh, let's see here, he's in fair condition at the hospital, had surgery and all that." I continue scanning the article, " AH! Good. It gives his name. Scott Fahey, age 35. Holy Mother of Christ, he's just a young guy." Eddie ribs me with a sly grin, "really? He's about your age". One glare of mock indignation from me attempts to wipe that grin off his face, "exactly....a YOUNG guy". Eddie's grin opens up into an open-mouthed belly laugh. I grin as I tap him on the noggin with the newspaper, "no laughing with your mouth full." "Ya wanna go and see him?" "Love to - if the hospital lets us see him, that is." "I don't see why not. You're a Private Eye and all, it's worth checking out."
On the drive up to the hospital, I start to ponder somethin' I've been thinkin' of that's been on my mind for a while. My lease is comin' up on the office space. It seems like a kinda waste to go over there and come back home, it's too much like a real job. I put my hand on Eddie's leg and start strokin' it and say to him, "Hey, uh, what would you think if I gave up the office space?" "I dunno. Makes no difference to me? What's up?" "Well, I think we can operate the agency from our place, still use the phone line at the other space, and I don't have a huge lot of files, or nothin', so it's been on my mind for a while." Eddie puts his arm on top of mine and interlocks his fingers with mine, raisin' my hand and kissin' it, then puttin' it back on his leg. Oh, by the way, he's wearin' a pair of shorts (I love summertime) which kinda fall to just above his knee when he's out walkin', but when he's sittin' down, the pants ride up about an inch or two, showing off them lucious thighs. Oh, yeah, I sure do love puttin' my hand on that. You know how you see someone walkin' around with form-fitting shorts and the material creases back and forth around the crotch with every step you take? MM-mmm. They're beige, too, lookin' like butterscotch - my favorite flavor. He's got a baseball cap on him, too. A cloth one. I really love his hair, but he looks so adorable in that cloth hat which goes right around his head, with the slightly angled beak out in front, or whatever that thing is. He's so cute, I could eat him up, but that's for later on. Now, we gotta go see a man about a loaded mailbox.
We get to the hospital and I'm kinda pissed we gotta pay to park. "What the hell? What if we were patients and if we couldn't afford to park here, we gotta go home and die or somethin'? Holy Christ." Eddie laughs at that and I turn to him and start laughin', too. Oh, beautiful, for that boy's lovely, bright, effervescent smile which makes his eyes flash. I can still see them under that visor on his cap. I tap his left cheek, then keep my hand there. Eddie leans closer to me, as I do him and we kiss each other good mornin'. Yeah, we already did that at the house, but it's still mornin', we still wanna kiss, so.......
Goin' in the hospital, I inquire about Scott Fahey - or at least I'd like to at some point. The admissions clerk is really not about her job. She's overweight, black, her uniform is about ready to pop at some areas, she doesn't look at us, but she holds her finger up as if to say, "wait about a half-hour". She cackles loudly and is practically shouting and laughing. She's on the desk phone with her best girlfriend. You can tell by all the "girl, please" she keeps spewing forth. Eddie and I give each other quizzical looks. He takes action (that's my boy), leanin' forward and pressin' on the switch, cuttin' off her con-fab. Of course, she gets pissy, what useless bitch wouldn't when she's called on the carpet. "Hey I was talkin' to my girlfriend!" Eddie snarls, "yeah, that's right - you WAS! That's a pretty big chance you're takin' there. How do you know we're not connected with Administration in some way?" I interject, "or that we won't squawk to Administration?" I spot her name tag, "Tell them all that..." (how the hell do you say this?) "....Lake-Shi-A... blew us off when we needed somethin'!" "Tell them WHO?" "You know, ya got a pretty stupid name, there, did your parents really hate you or were they hopped up on shit when they had ya!" She grows indignant. In fact, any growth on her part is of no surprise. "It's pronounced La-Kee-Sha! Now what did you need, sir?" "I need to speak to another admissions clerk, one who doesn't quite have your busy social life with which to contend." "I'm the only one here on this shift. You're gonna need to talk to me." Eddie just can't resist this, "you promise not to call us girl?" "What is it?" "Okay, okay, we're wastin' time here. I'm comin' in here about this guy, the mailman who got shot. The paper says he's here." "Are you family or close friends?" "Naw." "Well, he's only allowed visits from his loved ones." Eddie pipes up, "how about Private Eyes?" I take my badge out, "name's Mike Batz, the kid's family wanted me to talk to him, check out what his story is." Lakeshia's face lit up like a Christmas tree, "oh my God, you're the Dashin' Detective? I didn't recognize you." She turns to Eddie and says, "then you've gotta be the Boy Friday." I chuckle, Eddie and I look at each other and turn back to grin at Lakeshia, "yeah, we sure get around, all right." Lakeshia gets excited, "my momma's got a crush on you two - I gotta call her and tell her..." I interject again (I'm kinda good at that), "uh..please, not until we leave. For our best interest and even our safety, we can't let civilians know where we are until afterward." "Sure, I understand. She won't believe me even if I did." Lookin' up the rolodex, she spots Fahey's room number, 227. Eddie and I are directed to the elevators and such and as we're walkin', Eddie giggles to himself, makin' me laugh, too, "oh, what are you goin' on about now?" Still giggling, "227, man, 227!"
Eddie and I make it up to Fahey's room. He's not doin' so bad for himself, I think. He's sittin' up readin' watchin' the tube. I flash my badge and introduce the two of us. He holds his hand out to shake ours, then me and Eddie sit down and try to get some info out of him. Poor kid, he can only tell us what he knows, hopefully quite a bit.
"Ya gettin' outta here pretty soon?", Eddie asks. "Yeah, couple to three days oughta do it", says Scott. "It hurt a lot and kinda still stings, but the wounds weren't all that serious, doctors tellin' me I got popped with BB's." "BB's?", I say. "yeah, they got in my skin and cut me up, and hurt like a mother, but they didn't do nothin' to my organs or nothin'" "You were very lucky out there", I say. "Can ya tell us anything you remember about it, I mean, somethin' the newspaper missed, maybe?", Eddie asked. "Well, I came up to this mailbox, opened the slot, and this gun pops out. The box is like up to near my chest, and the gun was pointed up a little, like it's expectin' someone my height. Who knows, maybe it was meant for me. Some customer gettin' really pissed, ya never know. So, I open the door, the gun comes out, and I look down the barrel, ya know, really scared, for what felt like 5 minutes, I thought I saw some kinda string around the trigger. Maybe it was a spider web, I ain't sure. Then I start to duck, I hear the bangin' and I'm hit right up here" (pointin' to his left pec), "I fall back in that direction, then another bang, I'm hit in the right arm, which I grab, then when I finally hit the ground, my legs go up and I'm hit in the shin. I'm lyin' there, screamin' help I got shot, someone calls the ambulance and they operate on me right away. That's when the doctor tells me it was BB's and I should be okay, nothin' more serious than havin' a rock thrown at me or somethin'." I say to Eddie, "yeah, I think it sounds like some kind of sick prank or somethin' ". "That ain't all that happened, though" "Oh, yeah? What else?" "When I was waitin' for help, I kinda crawled around, pickin' my stuff up 'cuz I dropped it, I didn't want no one else gettin' their hands on my stuff, so I see this note right near the box. I even got it with me." "Excellent!" says Eddie. "Yeah, we get a handwritin' sample, check this for prints and all, we should bust this one pretty soon. Where's the note now?" "It's in the top drawer with the rest of my effects". I look at it, then give it to Eddie, whose eyes kinda open up and he gives it back to me. "I'M BACK - DID YA MISS ME", it reads. "who do ya think it is, Mike?" "No idea, hence we gotta check this out and see whose DNA is all over this. Did you know anyone ya pissed off or anythin' - someone who knows what you do for a job?" "It's hard to say. I mean, I might get a raise and someone else doesn't or I go out with someone for a while and that ends, but I don't think there's anyone out there that hates me that much, or whatever." Eddie and I thank Scott for his time, shake his hand, I give 'im my card, and we're outta there.
"Who'd wanna take revenge on a mailman?", Eddie asked. "Hard to say. But I'm really gonna be blown away when we find out who. This sounds like it's really gonna be somethin'. I thought what we had on our hands was a new terror on the block, but some poor stiff out there is gonna get a blast from the past, lemme tell ya that."