Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 03 - Snow Cone Read online

  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 accelera
tor 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.

  “A little oily, but otherwise in fine shape. Let’s get them to our client.”

  -Chapter 2-

  We weren’t racing around the streets in sunny Southern California; we were in Nashville, Tennessee. Work in California for Icarus Investigation had become increasingly difficult. We had become too popular for our own good. Even though we didn’t advertise, our phone had been ringing off the hook. An article in the L.A. Times informed the world that we had been the men that had found a missing hijacked ship—the Trusian. The press didn’t know all the details about our conquest, only that we discovered the ship. The rest of the story was safely stored away. Unfortunately, someone had leaked a portion of the information about the ship’s disappearance, and we could no longer safely do our job in that part of the nation.

  We had been moving slowly across the country in search of new opportunities, and Galveston managed to locate some new work in Utah, Missouri, and now, Tennessee. Our office in San Diego was still our home location, but for now we had to abandon it. We employed a new private eye named Dave Dyrak to run it. He was mainly investigating divorces and love spats and agreed to give us a cut of his profits for using our name.

  We had been in Nashville for three weeks, and we were set to return to San Diego after this latest case. I had grown fond of Nashville during our time in the area. It was a slow moving city, much slower than the bustle of San Diego, and the price of doing business here was much lower. The country music scene and the dreams of so many aspiring musicians were prevalent everywhere, as was their quest to strike it rich and become a star.

  I sorely missed Jane, the love of my life, and I was eager to see her. Galveston, on the other hand, was having a blast. He didn’t have anyone to go home to and loved bouncing from hotel to hotel. He reveled in our new investigations.

  Things were much different now than when we started the detective agency a few years ago in Galveston’s apartment. The boring jobs that we left together were but a distant memory. We didn’t know what we were doing then, and I wasn’t sure if we knew what we were doing now. I still woke up on some mornings wondering how Galveston convinced me to join him in this business. But then I only had to think about Jane, and if we hadn’t started the business, she wou
ldn’t have been our first employee. It was a cruel twist of fate. I had to put up with Galveston to be with Jane.

  I pushed the thoughts of Jane to the back of my mind as I drove the car through the growing Nashville rush hour traffic. We were on our way to meet our contact and give him the files we had been hired to obtain.

  I pulled up to a small building near Music Row in downtown Nashville. We were meeting an agent in the country music scene at his business—Nashville Artists International.

  Galveston and I hurried from the parking lot and found the office of Bill McKay. Bill had hired us three weeks before when Galveston happened to talk to him at a hotel in Branson, Missouri. Bill was there scouting new talent, and after a few cocktails, told Galveston how a new associate of his absconded with all his clients. He was desperately trying to find new country bands, singers, or anyone that would agree to join his firm. Bill was an old school talent agent. He didn’t use a computer and kept all of his client lists in file folders. He only used a lawyer when his talent was able to secure a contract from a record company.

  Stan had been the associate that stole the client list, a list Bill had spent twenty years accumulating. He had spent the last month convincing Bill’s clients to go with him in their search for fame.

  We opened the door to Nashville Artists International and saw that the office was a return to the 1970’s. It had old, steel file cabinets covering a wall, yellow shag carpet, and brown wood paneling.

  “Oh, my God,” I said to Galveston.

  “Wow, this is an interesting décor,” Galveston replied as we stared at the furnishings.

  Bill heard us enter and came out of a back room. “Well, howdy there, fellas,” he responded politely. “Do you have good news for me?”

  “We do, Bill,” Galveston said as he maneuvered around a suede armchair. “We got all your files back.” He handed Bill the stack of folders.