Zero Island (Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners Book 2) by Chris Bauer (mobi ebook reader .TXT) 📗

“What thing? The mud?” Philo looked at Patrick, expectant. “What’s new?”

“This far out. Not the mud, the sweeper. Big as a trash truck, and big orange brushes. New, sir.” Patrick coiled his lower lip, turned around to check out the group of houses they’d just driven through. “No sweepers out here, because there were no houses. These houses all look new, too, sir.”

It was clear to Philo they were newer homes. Patrick deducing the same wasn’t a stretch, but how much was deduction, how much was from memory?

Moving again in the SUV. “If we go this way,” Patrick said, indicating a right turn, “we’ll hit downtown Koloa, sir. Restaurants, pizza parlors, dry cleaners, hotels. If we go that way”—he indicated left—“we’ll find where the old sugar plantations used to be. And behind us, that was…” He squinted, a memory materializing for him. “That was all overgrown. No one lived out here.”

“You know this because?”

“I played here, sir, in this forest, when I was little. Where these houses are now. Rode bicycles through here, played in treehouses and forts. Used ATVs, too, and three-wheelers.” Patrick blinked intermittently, recoiling like someone had flicked water at his face, into his eyes. “This… this is it, sir. I remember this. I grew up around here. I remember being a kid here, when this was all part of the jungle.”

Patrick covered his mouth with his hand, the realization kicking in, his eyes pinching out tears that rolled onto his fingers. “I’m… I’m home, sir. Here, on Kauai. It was my home…”

Philo stopped the car, gripped Patrick’s shoulder, squeezed it. “Bring it here, son.” A congratulatory shake turned into a hug, Philo speaking into Patrick’s shoulder. “So very happy for you, Patrick. Wonderful, bud. Now, the question is—”

They swiped away their tears, composed themselves. Philo finished his thought. “Do you remember your address?”

Patrick slowly shook his head, his answer no. “But I could walk to these hills, sir, when I wanted. It wasn’t far. I came from that direction.” He pointed right. “Go this way, sir. I want to see the streets. The stores. Maybe there’s something about the stores, Philo sir.”

A few intersections later, they had another winner.

“See that car, Philo sir? That black Lexus?” Patrick’s eyes were laser-focused on an older Lexus sedan, a luxury model idling out front of a dry cleaners. Philo guessed it to be anywhere from a 2005 to a 2010.

“I remember one just like that while it drove the streets, me sitting in the back seat with a Nintendo Game Boy, playing video games.”

“Great. Anything else? Any of these stores look familiar?” Philo asked.

“I thought maybe this dry cleaners store was, but no, not this one. Keep driving, sir. Up ahead maybe.”

They stopped at a traffic light. Behind them in the rearview, midway up the street, a Honda Pilot SUV slowed and then stopped, double-parked with its flashers on. In a scene right out of Philly or the Bronx or Detroit, or any other inner-city area where drugs and prostitutes and money might all cross paths on the same street, the driver got out, leaned against his door, folded his arms, and waited. His Matrix Neo sunglasses absorbed the surroundings, his meaty head swiveling slowly atop his thug body. Moments later a short, chunky guy exited a mom-and-pop grocery across the street from the Honda, in orange shorts, sandals, and a white shirt unbuttoned far enough to show a lot of chest hair, and also in sunglasses. To Philo, a player. His hanging shoulder valise gobbled up the long brown envelope he tucked into it as he waited for traffic to clear.

Patrick was focused on the intersection ahead of them; Philo didn’t call his attention to the deal going down behind them. Not so much a deal, more like a shakedown. The chest-hair guy climbed into the back seat of the Honda. The flashers went off, the car put on its turn signal to enter traffic, then did a U-turn, no muss, no fuss, and headed back down the steamy Hawaiian asphalt.

Gang activity, or maybe mob-related. Gender of the players, both male. The ethnicity Philo couldn’t be certain about because of their sunglasses. Whatever. It didn’t involve him.

“Did you see that, Philo sir?”

“Huh?”

“What happened back there, behind us. The man in the orange shorts. Did you see him, sir?”

Patrick’s peripheral observation skills were sharp, had always been. Something at odds with his traumatic head injury, but another reason Philo listened to him and his ramblings at their cleanups, crime scenes included.

“I did, Patrick. What do you make of it?”

“A protection payoff. Someone—a man—makes stops along the way, every few blocks. Store owners paying someone to keep them safe, sir, like back when I was ten maybe.”

“Sorry, Patrick, you slipped yourself in there. Like when you were ten what?”

“Ten years old, playing Nintendo. In the car. He’d toss envelopes into the back seat.”

“Who? Your dad?”

“Dunno. Yeah. Maybe. He was driving. He’d toss them onto the floor. No, into a blue pull-string laundry bag opened on the floor, behind the driver’s seat. I’d pick up the ones that missed and put them in the bag. They were filled with cash.”

Their red light turned green. They were on the move again. Philo was mesmerized.

Patrick, son of a mobster?

“How old were you again?”

“Ten. No, nine. No, younger. I dunno. A kid. Lots of different ages, sir. I went with him more than once. The bag had lots of envelopes in it. Then, um…”

Patrick squinted, was trying to squeeze out more of the memory, and it was hurting him. “Then he, um, stopped taking me on his rides, just like that. Yeah. I was around ten when he stopped.”

Patrick’s dad: in organized crime parlance, he was a bagman.

“And we moved. To a nicer house. A really nice house. With a pool. On a different island, sir.”

“Can you see your dad now in your head, Patrick, what he looked like? Your mom?”

Patrick went silent, swallowing hard while tears formed. “I… no, I