you saying Scott is fooling around with one of our friend’s girlfriends?” Corwin asked slowly.
“I’m new to this scene and don’t know everyone here, well, anyone really, but if you want to know if I believe Scott is behaving badly with that blonde in the red dress, standing beside my boy Herman, then the answer is yes.”
“The blonde in the red dress,” Corwin stammered incredulously, “is my girlfriend, Elizabeth.”
Simultaneously exhilarated and bored, I couldn’t be bothered to feign shock or outrage and shrugged my shoulders, as I moved my left foot back a step to counterbalance what I knew was coming next.
“You son of a bitch!” Corwin screamed, lowering his head and taking a run at me with all the finesse of a linebacker, which he no doubt was during his teenaged glory days.
My left leg withstood the human onslaught for a moment, before my tackler’s forward motion carried both of us toward the front foyer. Corwin’s downfall, literally and figuratively, was his earlier alcohol consumption. Like a drunk at a bar, he was all speed without agility, allowing me to easily grab his shirt and toss him aside to the floor. This slowed him temporarily and I soon had him bent over in a violent headlock, as I inched toward the now open front door.
“I’ll start the van! Hurry up loser,” Dawn taunted me from the sidewalk. “Oh, and we have to give Doug a ride home,” she laughed.
I was afraid I might do the ever-flailing Corwin real harm, and pushed the bulk of his body against the doorframe for support. I looked up to see our stunned hosts cutting their way through the crowd and decided it was time to go.
“One more thing you didn’t know, Corwin,” I said as Team Wallace was almost upon us. “Daniel here was the one who personally recommended you be laid off, because you’re such a toolbag.” I dragged out the last word: t-o-o-l-b-a-g.
After this completely fabricated utterance, I heard a collective gasp from the halted tag team and many of the living room spectators. During the following five seconds of shocked silence, I dropped Corwin and hastily exited the house, slamming the door closed behind me.
The last words I heard screamed were, “You son of a bitch!” and knew that all’s well that ends well.
“That was fantastic, don’t you think?” I asked as I climbed into the passenger seat, out of breath. “We should do this party crashing thing every week.”
“Are there any other customers likely to ask us over after this gets around, Dawn?” Doug began to laugh in the backseat.
Dawn quickly pulled away from the curb and sped down the deserted street.
“I can’t take you anywhere,” she said to me. “Either of you!” she added, looking up into the rearview mirror and beginning to smile ear to ear. “You owe me, Mr. Cassidy. Daniel was one of my biggest tippers and now he’ll never come back.”
“Never? Is that what you think?” I countered. “After meeting his wife, I’ll bet you’re his only daily oasis.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked hopefully.
“Sure,” I said, “just as soon as he’s out of the hospital or jail. I’m thinking he’ll be at his regular table Monday, after we return from our murderous vacation. If not, I’ll find a way to make it up to you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise with whipped cream and a cherry on top.”
Waiting at a stop light, we heard the first emergency response sirens wailing through the cool crisp night air.
“I always get confused,” Doug piped up. “Is that a police, fire or ambulance siren?”
Dawn and I glanced back and in unison said, “Yes.”
As the streetscape behind us was suddenly awash in red and blue lights, I remembered we hadn’t really eaten all night.
“I’m starved. Anyone up for a burger or wings?” I asked.
Chapter Three
Arranging personal time off is a chore. When panicked clients reach out at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, they’re not accustomed to hearing that I can’t do surveillance on a so-called injured employee. “I overheard he’s going to be playing shortstop in a baseball tournament tomorrow and Sunday! Please, I beg of you, Steve.” Depending on the sport, I might work out some deal. Baseball, yes. Hockey, maybe. Soccer, probably not. As a one-man operation, there are only so many hours in a day and as it is, I work seven of them each week. If I only clocked in the standard 40 hours, my take home pay would be halved.
Dawn’s restaurant schedule is infinitely more flexible. She waitresses during the day Monday-Thursday and Sunday evening. So for us to get away means finding someone to take the short Sunday dinner shift and presto, a long weekend!
The Tour of True Terror was written up in the You’re The Man, Man! men’s magazine I read during stakeouts. Like the infamous S.S. Minnow trip, the tour lasts three hours aboard a snazzy bus and on foot. There’s even a Master of Ceremonies to guide us down the true crime memory lane of the mid-sized metropolis known as Dannenberg. A short jaunt from our own City of Darrien, it’s far enough away to constitute a mini-vacation and close enough not to waste much time driving, which could be more wisely used in our hotel room.
“What’s the deal with Dannenberg anyway?” Dawn asked as she replaced my Springsteen disc with her Sex At Seven CD in the van’s stereo. “Is it like the murder capital of the region or just a really poor choice to call home?”
“A bit of both,” I answered as the first guitar chords of Dawn’s new favourite song, The Trouble With Lies, kicked in. “It’s always been a rough industrial city, full of factories, especially during wartime, making tanks, planes and ammunition.”
“There isn’t much need for that today.”
“Exactly, at least not on that scale. When the last two recessions hit, the first casualties were manufacturing plants. Now instead of producing cars or clothing or canned goods, Dannenberg produces the unemployed, and as witnessed with Broker Boy Corwin, anger is the number one by-product.”
“Followed by crime. I gotcha.” Dawn sang along to the chorus before saying, “I’m surprised there’s even a tour like this. Who thinks this stuff up? A couple of drunks sitting around the bar trying to find a get-rich-quick scheme?”
“You’re close. Two Dannenberg police detectives got bored and thought they could use all their experience to make a buck or two.”
“Still . . . ”
“It does seem a bit macabre, but it’s really no different from the Criminal Hall of Fame wax museum we visited in Niagara Falls.”
“I guess. That was kinda cool.”
“Plus, at the end of this we won’t have to exit through the gift shop,” I said with a smile.
“What, no I Almost Died on The Tour of True Terror t-shirt or keychain or magnet?”
“Sad but true.”
We
