Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 03 - Snow Cone

SNOW CONE

Daniel Ganninger

Snow Cone

Case File #3 of Icarus Investigation

Copyright © 2014 by Daniel Ganninger

Kindle Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Case Files of Icarus Investigations

Case File #1 - Flapjack

Case File #2 - Peeking Duck

Case File #3 - Snow Cone

To my lovely little Kate

-
Chapter 1-

I propped my elbows on the chest-high receptionist desk to take the strain off my low back.  The suit was heavy, and the fake gut attached across my stomach only pulled me farther into a flexed position.

The receptionist was unaware of my discomfort and droned on about how her boss didn’t appreciate her.  I nodded my head when I thought I should, just to keep up the charade that her statements held me any interest.  The listening device in my ear, hidden behind a tuft of matted, fake, brown hair, crackled as I
heard Galveston rifling through a file cabinet. 

“You know what I mean?” asked Lauren, the receptionist.

“Uh, yeah.  Bosses can be real jerks sometimes,” I replied, unaware of what she had said.  I was too busy being distracted by my pain.

“No,” she replied
slowly.  “My boyfriend?  Can you believe he would say something like that?”

“Oh, yeah.  Boyfriends can be real jerks sometimes,” I said
flatly.

Lauren didn’t miss a beat and continued on about her relationship troubles as my suit’s midsection began to slide down my body.  I wrenched it back up into position and
heard the sound of a file cabinet close through my earpiece.

“I got it,”
Galveston whispered.  “It’s all here.”

“Great,” I replied, again forgetting that Lauren was sitting before me.  This time she flashed me a
look of confusion.

“Wrap it up there.  I don’t think I can
hear any more about this girl’s troubles,” Galveston announced.

“Well, Lauren, it was a pleasure to meet you.”  I stuck out my hand as
Galveston came out of a door behind her with a tool belt over his shoulder.

“You, too,” she said and turned to face
Galveston.  “Did you get it fixed?”

“Right as rain,” he proclaimed in a southern drawl.  “You ain’t be
havin’ no more problems with your air now.”  I wanted to roll my eyes, but it wouldn’t help make him stop.

“Oh, good.  I was beginning to worry I would never be able to cool down,” Lauren said as she moved the hair from her neck.

I gave her a friendly wave, and Galveston moved with me toward the door.  It had all been so easy—too easy.  We walked in, accessed the office where the files were, and now we could leave—no harm, no foul.

As I reached for the door, it swung open, and an enormous man appeared.  He was at least six foot six, with a thick neck and even thicker head.

“Stan?” Lauren said with surprise, “I thought you had gone.”

Galveston
and I looked at each other.  We had known a Stan in our previous lives, and we didn’t care for that name.  This was not going to go well.

“I forgot something.  Who are you two?” he said
gruffly, noticing two rather pudgy men standing in front of him.

Before we could make up a response, Lauren interjected.  “They’re from the air conditioning company.  You called them, remember?”

Stan looked us up and down.  “I didn’t call anybody.  Who are you guys?”  He was beginning to bow up, making himself even larger in stature.

“Your air was out.  Nobody wants to sweat in this heat, right?” 
Galveston said, trying to convince Stan we were supposed to be there.

“There isn’t anything wrong with our air,” he growled.

“Sure there was, but we got it fixed,” Galveston said quickly and began to march around the man.

Stan put out his hand to stop
Galveston, and unfortunately, placed it right on his chest.  Stan felt the wad of fake latex and cloth that made us appear larger than we were. 

“What the hell?” Stan asked as he realized we were not chubby maintenance men.

Galveston knew the jig was up, and without warning me, he reeled the tool belt back and struck Stan across his chest.  The blow barely moved the man, but it allowed us a moment of surprise and enough time to escape past him out the door and into the hall. 

The fat suits were not
track suits and seriously slowed our progress.  My suit had already receded to my hips, causing me to waddle like a drunken duck.  I ripped off the Velcro fasteners and hopped on one foot down the hall until I was able to free it from my body.  Galveston wasn’t so lucky.  He was right behind me, running as fast as the suit would allow.  It jiggled up and down, and if we hadn’t been in fear of our lives, I would have been rolling on the ground in laughter.  Galveston couldn’t drop his suit since he had three pounds of files hidden in the fake stomach.

Stan was closing in fast, but we were able to make it to a fire door and down the stairs.  We chose to exit onto the next floor when we
heard Stan enter the stairwell behind us.

Galveston
was still struggling with the suit and held his hands against his gut to keep everything in place.  We located the elevator, and after a few tense moments the doors opened.  We filed in just as Stan came out the fire door. 

“Oh, man. 
Come on doors, close. Will ya?”  I said excitedly, repeatedly punching the number to the bottom floor as if that would cause them to close faster. 

Stan came barreling toward us like a raging bull as the elevator door
finally began to close.  I was almost expecting them to be ripped open before we began to move.  I put my hands on my knees to catch my breath from all the excitement.

“Whose idea was it for these fat suits?” 
Galveston asked without the least bit of concern over the giant man stalking us.

“It was your idea.  You thought it was clever,” I retorted. 

“Oh, yeah, that’s right.  What a dumb idea.”

Each floor ticked by
slowly until the lobby button lit up.

“As soon as that door opens, run like hell. 
Hopefully we can beat him out the front door,” Galveston instructed, now speaking with a little more concern.

I nodded in agreement.  Stan was large, but he seemed in good shape for his size.  I just hoped he wasn’t waiting for us.

The door to the elevator slid open, and I could see the exit from the building to the parking lot.  As soon as we stepped out, the fire door from across the lobby flew open and a very upset Stan stood holding it.  He was breathing hard but fired up with what I was sure was an excess of testosterone.

Stan saw us
immediately, and I ran as hard as I could to the exit.  The other people walking about the lobby stopped and stared.  Galveston was falling behind but had no intention in losing the contents against his stomach.

I
raced to our car with the keys in my hand, nervously opened the door, and started the engine.  I backed out quickly and popped the passenger side door.  I looked through the rearview mirror and saw Galveston running as Stan closed in on him.  The sight looked like a bear chasing down a frightened turtle.

Galveston
got to the door and managed to slide himself in.  “Go, go!” he yelled.

I jammed the accelerator to the floor making the tires squeal just as
Galveston yanked his door shut.

Stan arrived at the car door just as I punched it, and he banged on the roof in a futile
attempt to get us to stop.  We bounced over a speed bump before turning onto the main street outside the six story office tower.

“Holy crap, that was close.  I could
hear that guy running me down,” Galveston said, gasping for air.

“That was crazy!” I howled over the roar of the engine.

We gave each other a high-five and raced forward until we were stopped by a red light.  I looked over at Galveston, and he pulled out a stack of file folders from underneath his fake suit.

“I hope it was worth it,” he said, patting the manila folders.

“Me too.  I don’t ever want to wear a contraption like that again.”

I waited
patiently for the light to change but noticed a car weaving around the stopped cars behind us.

“
Uh, I don’t think we’re done here. Look!”  I yelled and pointed to the passenger side mirror.

Galveston
bent forward to get a view and saw a small sports car speeding toward us with an unusually large man crammed inside.

“I think you better just run this light,” he said rather
calmly.

“I can’t do that.  It’s a red light,” I replied.

“We just burglarized an office.  I think running a red light pales in comparison.  Now step on it.”

I saw his point and decided running the light was the best course of action; Stan had no intention of slowing
down.  I gunned the car again, narrowly missing the crossing stream of traffic.  Stan followed and blew through the light after us.

“I can’t outrun him,” I told
Galveston. 

“Well, we better think of something.  I can’t take down a guy that size, even with my amazing strength,”
Galveston replied.

“Get your fat suit off,” I instructed as I weaved our car through the ever increasing traffic.

“I don’t think that is politically correct to call it that,” Galveston joked at yet another inappropriate time.

“Okay, how about the
laterally challenged suit?  Get that thing off.”  

Galveston
nodded and began to squeeze himself from the mass of fabric and latex rubber.  “What do you suggest we do now?  This guy doesn’t look like he’s going to give up.”

“
Look around in the glovebox and in the trunk, see if there’s anything you can pour on or in it.  I’m going to stop in a parking lot.  When he gets out of his car we’ll throw it on his windshield,” I commanded.

“
But I still have a deposit on this thing.”

“You already lost one deposit, just do what I say,” I said, responding like a parent to a child.

Galveston opened up the glovebox and searched inside.  He pulled out a bunch of ketchup and mustard packets that we had procured during our long car trip.  “This is something,” he announced.  He unbuckled himself from the seat and crawled to the back of the car.

“Check the trunk,” I yelled.

Galveston pulled down the back seat that gave him access to the trunk.  I could see half of his body disappear as he searched for anything of use.  “Perfect,” he said, his voice muffled by the trunk’s enclosure.  “You are certainly ready for any road incident.”

“I like to be prepared,” I replied.

Galveston returned to the front seat and laid out his finds.  He put the fat suit over his lap and began to smother it with the liquids he had found.  First he squeezed the mustard and ketchup over the inside of the garment, followed by a quart of motor oil and some leftover soda from a can.  Since the stomach part was rounded, it looked like a giant bowl of some disgusting, primordial type of stew.  The suit was so thick and had so much rubber that it held the contents nicely, and the liquid had not yet begun to soak through.

“Up ahead,” I announced, seeing a large,
mostly deserted parking lot of a cheap motel.  “Wait until he gets a foot out that door and dump it right on the windshield.  If this doesn’t slow him down, nothing will.”

I maneuvered our car toward the parking lot, and
Galveston popped his door.  Stan was directly behind us now, mimicking every move of our car with his.  I slammed the brakes, and before I was even at a full stop, Galveston had one foot out the door.  He juggled the suit like a waiter carrying an oversized soup bowl.  Stan stopped right next to us with his sports car at a slight angle. 

Galveston
waited until Stan’s door began to open before moving.  As soon as he saw it crack, Galveston jumped from our car and turned to face Stan’s vehicle.               

Stan had no time to react and was still trying to free his large body from the tiny car. 
Galveston wasted no time and heaved the contents, and the suit, at the windshield.  It splattered in a glorious mess of motor oil, ketchup, mustard, and flat soda.  The windshield was covered in the liquids, and the fat suit looked like a giant suction cup that obscured Stan’s view. 

Galveston
pulled himself back into our car and slammed the door.  I pushed the accelerator to the floor and raced from the parking lot.  I peered in my rearview mirror and saw Stan trying desperately to free the suit from his windshield and hood, only to discover the liquid gifts underneath.  The motor oil was dripping off onto the ground, and the mix of mustard and ketchup left a lovely hue of red and yellow.  Stan tried to remove the liquid with his windshield wipers, but this only smeared the items further.  The huge man wasn’t about to give up, however, and attempted to drive from the parking lot after us.  He wound up driving off a curb, and his tiny car bottomed out over the concrete sidewalk.

I moved back onto the main road and sped away, leaving Stan in utter bewilderment at what had transpired.

“That was lovely,” Galveston said.  “It will take him forever to get that off.”

“How are the files?” I asked.