Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: An Addison Holmes Mystery (Addison Holmes Mysteries Book 5) (5 page)

He blew out a sigh and skidded out on the loose rocks in the street. Maybe
street
was being a little too generous. The road wasn’t paved and it was half overgrown with weeds. A semi-truck graveyard sat to the left, and a bunch of overgrown trees and weeds taller than the trailer houses grew on the other side.

A couple of Hispanic guys leaned against one of the dead semis, the trailer colorful with graffiti, and stared us down as we passed by. The sky had turned gray and the wind had started to blow. The drizzle was coming a little harder and faster.

“That guy either has a hell of a boner or his gun is bigger than mine,” Scarlet whispered. “He better watch out or he’ll shoot his pecker right off. Happened to a good friend of mine. Never could pee standing up again. Kept hitting himself right between the eyes.”

“Why are you whispering?” I asked.

“It seemed appropriate. Where are we going?”

“A place called Ugly Mo’s. He’s a car dealer. Kind of.”

Jayesh
hmmphed
and drove all the way to the end of the street. It was a dead end. Only one way in and one way out. A couple of metal buildings with peeling paint sat in front of us, and in the parking lot to our right were several rows of cars in various stages of disrepair. It wasn’t looking too promising. I was starting to think Jimmy Royal may have set me up big time.

“This is the end of the road, lady,” Jayesh said. “Twenty-eight-fifty.”

“Hey, at the corner back there it was only eighteen dollars,” I said, narrowing my eyes.

“This street’s an expensive fare.” I handed him thirty bucks and opened the car door.

“What about my tip?” he asked.

“I was going to give you thirty back at the corner. You could’ve pocketed it but you decided to be a jerk. Now your boss gets the money.”

He called me a bitch and put the cab in reverse, speeding back down the road to safety.

“I have a mind to shoot out his tires,” Scarlet said. “There’s so many laws nowadays. I liked it back when it was an eye for an eye. People these days take offense to every damned thing.”

“Especially having their tires shot out,” I said. “Come on. My hair isn’t going to last with this weather. Let’s go find Ugly Mo.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you already look like Troy Polamalu. I’ll take you to my salon. You need someone who can tame that hair. If we get out of here alive we should stop by and see if they can squeeze you in.”

“I’ve been thinking of making a drastic change.”

“That’s your hormones talking. You’re not ready to have a baby, so you’re needing to change something about yourself. Sometimes I’d get those hormonal urges to have kids. That’s when I’d come visit your dad and his brothers. They were the best birth control on the market. Horrible children,” she said, shuddering. “And then I’d go buy myself a new pair of shoes or a handbag.”

I could kind of understand where Scarlet was coming from with the whole kid thing. I knew I wanted to have kids someday. But I’d spent a good portion of my life in a classroom full of semi-adults that were given a license to operate a car, but didn’t know how to balance a checkbook and wrote complete sentences with emojis. It was kind of depressing. And I really liked buying shoes and handbags too.

“Someone has some real artistic talent,” Scarlet said. “Wonder if they’d do a wall in my bathroom.”

I was assuming Scarlet was referring to the graffiti that covered a good portion of the metal building. There were a lot of creative curse words and a portrait of a scantily clad woman with breasts that defied gravity. Ugly Mo’s was written in big block letters in lime green.

“What would you get them to draw on your wall?” I asked curiously.

“That Jason Momoa fella and me and Tom Hardy on one of those heart-shaped beds. I’ve always been attracted to men that look like they won’t break.”

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m dead and caught in some kind of horrific purgatory,” I said, wondering why I’d asked the question in the first place.

“What’s that, dear?”

“Nothing. I don’t see anyone. Let’s go inside and get out of the rain.”

The only door in sight was one of those big garage doors like at a mechanic’s shop. There was one fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling, and it smelled like motor oil with a hint of dead animal.

A piece of metal scraped across concrete from somewhere in the darkness of the building. I froze and immediately felt chills crawl across my skin. I glanced at Scarlet to make sure she was okay, and then did a double take. She’d unzipped her jogging suit and was hiding her .44 inside it like an old school gangster, her hand wrapped around the butt of the gun.

“Put that away,” I hissed. “You’ve already been in one shootout today. This is a non-hostile mission. I just want to buy a car, for cripe’s sake.”

“I’ve never seen a car lot like this one. What kind of cars do they sell here? Maybe I need a new car.”

“Your license got revoked ten years ago,” I said. “You can’t buy a car.”

“I can do whatever I want to. What if I just want to buy a car and look at it? Who’s going to stop me? The government. Those bastards don’t know what it means to serve their country. See how many of them could walk around with a musket ball in their hip. Bunch of sissies with manicures.”

“A woman after my own heart,” someone said from the shadows. His voice was deep and smooth as whiskey. “That’s why Ugly Mo bypasses the government at all costs.”

When he came out of the shadows it took everything I had not to flinch. Scarlet wasn’t so subtle.

“Good Lord, you’re
ugly
,” she said. “I’ve never seen somebody so ugly. Would you look at that, Addison? Are you ugly natural, or did you have some kind of accident?” she asked him. “That’s how superheroes are born, you know. Maybe you fell into a meat grinder or some radiation.”

I grabbed Scarlet and pulled her close, clamping my hand over her mouth. About twenty years ago Scarlet had reached the age where she’d decided she could say whatever she wanted to and ignore all social niceties. She called it an old lady pass. I was pretty sure she was the only one who enjoyed that particular freedom.

“I apologize for my Aunt Scarlet. She has an old lady pass, so she thinks she doesn’t have to be polite anymore.”

Ugly Mo stared at us out of dead black eyes. He was blacker than coal and bald as a billiard, his face horribly disfigured. One of his eyes bugged out and never seemed to focus on anything. His face was scarred and part of his nose was missing. He wore a three-piece suit the color of limes and a bright red tie. And he walked with a cane, though I was willing to bet money it wasn’t
just
a cane.

Scarlet bit the inside of my hand and I jerked it away, rubbing it on my leggings. Mo kept staring at Scarlet for several seconds, but she didn’t bat an eyelash. And then he dropped his head back and laughed. A big booming sound that echoed in the cavernous space.

“I’ve always been ugly,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. “House fire when I was seventeen didn’t help matters any. Never kept me from catching the pussy though. Know what I’m saying?”

“I hear ya,” Scarlet said, nodding and putting away her gun. “It’s all in the technique. Young people these days don’t understand the mechanics.”

Ugly Mo and Scarlet did a knuckle bump, and I was starting to wonder if I was in an episode of
The Twilight Zone
.

“Whew, lady,” Mo said, looking Scarlet’s face over. “You been in a tussle. You need Mo to put a cap in somebody’s ass for mistreating a lady?”

“Already taken care of,” Scarlet said. “Shot his ear right off.”

“You’re one tough bitch. They don’t make bitches like you no more.”

“Oh, go on with yourself,” Scarlet said, blushing like a schoolgirl.

“You must be Addison Holmes,” Mo said, turning to me. “Jimmy Royal said you’re in need of my van,” Mo said. “It’s right back here. Just finished up the detailing on it yesterday.”

I looked around at the junkyard of cars, not seeing anything that remotely resembled a van and said, “Umm.” I was going to kill Jimmy Royal.

“I got just what you need.” Mo stamped his cane against the cement for emphasis. “You’ll be the most badass P.I. in Savannah. It’s a genuine Mercedes Benz motorhome, barely used. It’s got a fresh coat of paint and a couple upgrades on the interior. And due to the fact that I need room for more inventory on the floor, I’m going to cut you a special deal.”

He headed toward the back of the warehouse and Scarlet and I followed, passing old junkers mingled with a couple of brand new Honda Accords that I was almost positive weren’t there by legal means. There was still a car seat in the back of one of them.

Mo flicked on another set of lights, illuminating the back half of the warehouse, and I almost choked on my tongue. It looked like a new car showroom, everything polished to a shine.

“Holy crap,” Scarlet said. “This here’s the kind of car I always thought would complement my personality.”

I looked at the bright yellow Ferrari with raised eyebrows. I’d always kind of seen Scarlet in a tank.

“That’s a mighty fine car there, Miss Scarlet. It would suit you real nice. But that one’s already sold. Most of these cars are being shipped out tonight. We do a real fast turnaround here at Ugly Mo’s.”

“I see that,” Scarlet said thoughtfully. “Maybe I need to think about investing in the car business.”

“Big Mo would be happy to have you as an investor.”

“Is that the van?” I asked, pointing to the black Mercedes that was parked just inside the garage doors that led to the back side of the lot.

“That’s not a van,” Mo corrected. “That’s an
experience
. It has all the comforts of home on four tires.”

Considering I didn’t have a home at the moment, it was sounding better and better by the second. The rain was really coming down now, droplets pelting against the tin roof like a hail of bullets. I could feel the electrical currents building. The hair on my arms was standing straight up.

“Have you ever thought about having short hair?” Mo said. “Seems like a lot less maintenance. My old lady got short hair and that way she can wear whatever wig she wants to on top. Seems like a lot more opportunity for variety.”

“I’m going to take her to the salon after we’re done here,” Scarlet piped in before I could answer. “My stylist is a real genius. Addison’s got hair just like mine when I was younger. If you don’t maintain it and keep it in good condition it starts to take on a mind of its own.” Then she switched topics. “You can do some damn fine investigating in that little thing. We’ll be a force to be reckoned with. And it’s black, so no one will ever suspect us of spying on them.”

“
We
?” I asked.

But Scarlet ignored me. “How much does a fine piece of machinery like this cost?”

Ugly Mo rattled off a number that would have made my testicles run and hide for cover if I’d had any.

I sputtered before asking, “Jimmy Royal was able to afford something like that?”

“Oh, no. Jimmy Royal got the economy edition. He’s got all that child support to pay. This is the top of the line.”

“Well, I can’t afford that. Do you have another economy edition?”

“Nope, this is it, but maybe we can work out a trade,” Ugly Mo said.

“That’s how business was done back in the day,” Scarlet said. “The barter system. When I worked for the OSS I’d find my mark, seduce him into telling me everything he knew, and then take all his money before the authorities could come take him off to be tortured for more information.”

“That’s not that barter system at all, Aunt Scarlet,” I said, horrified.

“Oh. Then I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’ll let the two of you work out the details.”

“What if I knock it down to half-price?” he asked. “Would that be more doable?”

“Sure,” I said. “I could do that. What’s the catch?”

“I’ve got a little bit of an issue with my old lady. I’ve been suspicious of her activities lately. Seems my competitor has known of a few of my dealings and intercepted a shipment or two, and Jasmine has been acting real secretive. And she’s been overdoing it on the sex too. We been together thirteen years. I ain’t never had so many blowjobs in my life, and you know that’s not something a woman just volunteers unless something’s going on. I figure a private investigator could clear things up real quick.”

I bit my lip. I really wanted that van. It would cover my immediate housing and transportation needs. But there was one problem. “It’s against agency policy to take side jobs,” I told Mo. “Everything has to go through the agency.”

“Oh, bollocks to that,” Scarlet said. “I’ll take the job. And then you can help me with it and you don’t have to worry about all those dumb rules.” She turned to Mo. “Never in my life have I met someone so caught up with the rules. Her sister’s not like that at all. Would talk you out of your life savings without batting an eyelash. And she’s got some of that medicinal marijuana too.”

“Love that stuff,” Mo said. “Helps my arthritis. Used to be a clinic right here in town, but the cops swooped in and shut it down. If I ever find the bastard responsible for taking away such a service to the community I’m going to hunt him down like a dog.”

Heat flushed through my entire body and I had that clammy feeling you get just before you’re about to throw up everywhere. I knew the clinic Mo was talking about. I’d busted a senior citizen who’d been growing at the assisted living facility he lived at, and then selling to the clinic in town. So I guess I was the one responsible for shutting down Savannah’s largest-growing pot industry.

“What’s this Jasmine look like?” Scarlet asked. “You got the deets on her?”

I raised my brows at the slang, while I ignored the impending feeling of doom. We needed to leave. I was getting antsy.

“Her picture is painted on the front of the building, but I can probably send you more details through email. You do this favor for me and you’ll always be in Ugly Mo’s favor.”

“You’ve got a deal,” Scarlet said, knuckle bumping him again.

I wasn’t really sure what had just happened or how things had spiraled out of control so quickly. I’d just wanted a van. And now I was getting a van with a whole lot of strings attached and I’d somehow become fifty-fifty partners with Scarlet in a business I hadn’t known we’d started.