Joe Detective: Oddball (Book Seven)

By JH Gordon

Heroin on the streets is illegal, worth a lot of money, and deadly. Heroin in a hospice allows people to die with dignity. When 31 Kilos of the stuff disappear from the evidence room, the police commissioner becomes a wanted man. But he only took 1 Kilo. What about the other 30 Kilos? No one wants it to hit the streets

• Language: English
• Publisher: JH Gordon
• Release date: Mar 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476472447

JH Gordon

Who and what am I? I'm an American expat living in South America working on my next book. In addition to Fireclosure, "Joe Detective" is a seven book noir detective series with number eight coming soon. I ventured south for a number of good reasons not the least of which is a type of isolation that frees me from California distractions. South America renews me. Ancient culture struggling with the new is interesting since all the "new" is something out of 1950's America. My background ranges from the detective business to the business of business having been an entrepreneur most of my life in diverse businesses and lifestyles. Rock m'Roll to commerce to consulting to seminars. From real estate investment to a construction outfit. I've done too many things to list and it's hard to remember some. As such, I've seen the duality of morality in the way society wrestles with being civilized and comes up wanting. It may be that somehow, by writing things about criminality and simmering violence, I prevent myself from becoming one of my characters. (Leaving the evidence in writing as it were.) My love of the underdog and the realist comes out in my stories. I'm finally doing what I love best. I'm having new adventures every day and I get to be a story teller. I write for people who know a camp fire and their imaginations are better than 70 millimeter film even with Sound Around. I can only hope they forgive my errors in spelling and my sometimes stumbling expression. I think they do. In person I display the usual human frailties. I'm neither good nor completely bad. I value my liberty more than anything else, and a small eclectic group of friends. I love life and stress on it as little as possible. I'm of an age where I'm conscious of time running out. But I look forward to what comes next. As Joe Detective said, "Death is like a traffic accident, you'd love to stay and watch, but you're out of popcorn." I always make too much popcorn and I think that's what life is about. Stories I do fairly well, I'm told. But when it comes to writing a personal description I can only say my life is a decades old run-on sentence and you'd have to have been there to understand. Lucky for me, I've outlived the statute of limitations many times and more than a few of mine enemies. Thanks to my valuable friends... JH Gordon

Book preview

Joe Detective:

ODDBALL

(Book Seven)

by

Joel H. Gordon

Copyright 2010 by Joel H. Gordon

Smashwords Edition

As of this printing, there are seven Joe Detective books in the series.

Read more about them at the end of this book.

Contact Joel H. Gordon at mailto:[e-mail]

Visit our website at http://www.joedetective.net

Smashwords License Statement

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Joe Detective:

ODDBALL

\

(Book Seven)

by

Joel H. Gordon

CHAPTER PROLOG

Police Commissioner Edwina Pena stood with one hand on her hip and the other on her ceremonial nightstick. Joe knew what was coming. Big hips festooned with pearl handled pistol, pretention, and pepper-spray meant just one thing. And her fancifully decorated Kevlar SWAT vest meant she wasn’t afraid of any protest Joe could offer. Her hefty body tensed and her eyes narrowed to match her sneer.

When the anticipated blow from the nightstick was on its way, Joe had already connected fist to nose and Edwina Pena found her uniform for all its striking piping and brass, overdressed for swimming a dozen miles at sea. Joe stood on the stern looking down at her.

If that felt as bad for you as it felt good for me … wait, I didn’t even have the courtesy to ask if you can swim! One can only hope not… Joe went below to pour a scotch.

When he returned from the salon Edwina’s gold piping covered Kevlar was gone. Her gun-belt was missing too as her big butt rolled like a hippopotamus in the struggle to remove her boots. The 50’ catamaran lifesaver was drifting. She’d have to swim for it. But she’d have to get permission to come aboard.

Joe was thinking the unthinkable. You know what I’d get for punching a cop in the nose? Nothin’ if your bacon butt floats up on a beach in San Diego.

They were in international waters west of San Francisco; Joe figured San Diego would take her less than a month.

As Commissioner Edwina struggled, Joe kept the conversation light.

My dad said never hit a woman, and I guess I’m feeling a little guilty. But mom told me never to hit a woman unless the bitch deserves it. I think this falls into that category. And Dad never argued with mom.

Throw me a line, you son of a bitch!

There you go insulting my mother again… Well Commissioner Lard-Ass, it’s my line and my boat, and your good manners that stand between you and eternity. I suggest you take a more conciliatory tone. He leaned back n the soft helmsman’s chair looking relaxed.

Please throw me a line.

Are you naked yet?

What? The word garbled as she choked on sea water.’

"What? Joe repeated with a small smile.

What? You want me to undress completely? She coughed and spit again.

Yes I do. And prepare for a fate worse than death… Joe was delighted with the delusion, but cringed at the thought.

I’ll never let you lay a hand on me, she yelled.

Suit yourself. You look plenty buoyant; I figure 3 to 5 minutes before that wool uniform drags you down. Think it over. But I suggest you get naked before your brain goes numb.

The Pacific Ocean off San Francisco is known to be cold. On a chilly day 12+ nautical miles off shore, a human in the water can last most of an hour before reason leaves them utterly and they make a drastic career move into the bait business.

Joe admitted he was thinking the unthinkable again. It bothered him so much he decided to go below and make some bad coffee. His guest needed time to think.

CHAPTER ONE

Joe Tiddles had tried to retire at least 7 times a year for the last 6 years. He’d damn near died at least a dozen times from bullets, knives, hand grenades, heart attacks, and leaping out of exploding stuff that he only blew up as a last resort. Joe was tired body and soul. He’d learned that no good deed goes unpunished or without somebody trying to kill you.

Life had been brutal and sweet for Joe Tiddles. Or maybe it was brutally sweet. All Joe knew for sure was there wasn’t much left. He’d come to realize death was probably the only way he would retire if he stayed around San Francisco. Hope of escape sprung infernal...

Some time prior to this romantic sea voyage with interim Police Commissioner Pena, the prophetic and fateful words I need your help were uttered by the former Police Commissioner, Sarge Major.

The words were good reason for fight or flight to kick in. They were oddly fascinating as the gaze of a snake.

The detective business had been very good to him really. Slightly bent opportunities to amass a disreputable fortune had presented themselves beyond his desire to count.

Certainly, the corrupted cash should have been turned over to undeserving governmental authorities. After all, it had been denuded from truly criminal enterprises. The thought entered Joe’s mind only once and the word preposterous took its place. Besides, he liked the three shades of green.

His fortune was calculated in suitcases full of the stuff and Joe’s only moral dilemma was properly re-circulating it without drawing undue attention. He didn’t need more cases; not investigative nor cases full of cash. The latter was presenting a storage problem. And investigation cases could shorten life’s odds generally. Joe was once again officially retired.

That certainly didn’t stop troubled people with problems from buttonholing him and tying the proverbial can of distressed worms to whatever prehensile tail he had left. Joe was an easy mark.

W. C. Fields said, Never give a sucker an even break. It was the only thing W.C. ever said that Joe didn’t appreciate. Joe grudgingly admitted he was an all-day sucker despite all valiant effort to shake the sucker-Jones. So far, so bad, and so what... He was a self-made mess. Life goes on till it doesn’t.

He didn’t consider himself a rugged individualist. He wasn’t very rugged or anti-anything much. Not political or religious, he was didactic in his mental conversations and rejected out of hand any authoritarian tack on faith alone. It had to make a modicum of sense. Law, religion, or philosophy shouldn’t have holes in them. Life may be about good conscience, but it never hurts to have suitcases full of cash.

Joe was content to leave law, religion, and politics to others who cared. He was thus considered to be an oddball by some, and suspected of it by others. He took some pleasure in the label. But he figured he wasn’t an oddball at all. He pictured his life as a gallery of finger paintings and the artist; a cosmic child; a child badly in need of a basting-syringe full of Ritalin.

CHAPTER TWO

The case became a case when San Francisco Police Commissioner Sergeant Major called on Joe huffing breathlessly and in utterly deep shit.

Before Sarge showed up, there’d been amusing rumor circulating in a high speed stage-whisper through the community that the Police Commissioner had gotten caught moving certain controlled substances into uncontrolled capitalism instead of an incinerator.

The allegation didn’t surprise Joe. Sarge couldn’t resist the un-resistible. He’d known Sarge a long time and figured it only a matter thereof. Joe believed the more a cop wanted to be a cop, the more likely it was they were subconsciously resisting their own criminal impulses and proclivities. The impulses are too great for the majority, and those who resist for an entire career are as frequent and fine as frog’s hair. Honesty in elected or appointed public servants, gospel ministers, and other multi-level marketeers was non-existent. Joe believed there’s no such thing as an honest man if he’s honest with himself. He’d given up on someday being pleasantly surprised.

Joe was installing a new water-maker aboard Parenthetical, his 50-foot catamaran and current home.

In the middle of a second electric jolt when Sarge suddenly appeared on the pier.

He looked half-ready to jump. That would have gained him silty mud to his knees and none-too-clean salt water to his Adam’s apple; good for a laugh perhaps, but it was not to be.

The fatal words; Please Joe, ya gotta help me, were uttered.

The word shit echoed in his mind. If he’d just had the water maker installed professionally… yesterday… Sarge would have been looking at empty water. He might have jumped in.

Come on aboard, Joe said reluctantly.

Sarge’s wrinkled brow and bald spot showed as he cast his eyes on his shoes.

Joe, I have to tell you something I’m not proud of,

People usually do even though I tell em’ not to. Are you sure you can’t just hold it in?

This is serious, Joe.

Bubbles in a bathtub can be serious. So what’s on your mind?

There’s been a miscalculation somewhere. Or maybe there’s a transposition. But there’s a whole lot of dope missing from my evidence room.

"From your evidence room..."

And there’s been some finger pointing, and some log entries, and somebody maybe trying to frame me.

For… something you haven’t done.

Yeah, you know me, I don’t like dope or dope dealers.

The feeling could be mutual. So what’s this ugly rumor and what’ve they got on you?

"That’s the point. It’s…