A Dirty Way to Die: A Manny Shepherd, P.I. Mystery

By J. Douglas Knauer

 

 

You think you've got problems?

Doc Goold calls it cognizant premonition triggered by causal hypersensitivity, but Man

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jukebox Inc.
• Release date: Sep 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087909158

Book preview

A Dirty Way to Die

A Dirty Way to Die

A Dirty Way to Die

A Manny Shepherd, P.I. Mystery

J. Douglas Knauer

Jared Rackler, Cover Design

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Jukebox Inc.

A DIRTY WAY TO DIE

A Manny Shepherd, P.I. Mystery

All rights Reserved.

©Judith Ann Knauer Living Trust, 2021

U.S. Copyright as Murder in the Mud

Cover Design by Jared Rackler

VERSION TWO

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or specific locales as portrayed in this work of fiction are coincidental and unintentional.

This is dedicated… to the ones I love…

and all those with a wry sense of humor.

What others are saying about…

A Dirty Way To Die, J. Douglas Knauer

Manny Shepherd is a breath of fresh air for the PI scene. A Dirty Way to Die rocks, and J. Douglas Knauer writes with just the right combination of grit and savoir-faire to give the book both style and realism.

---Michael A. Black, author of Hostile Takeovers

Pulse-pounding action, a flawed hero with a code of ethics, and the inside story on women mud wrestlers combine for an exciting adventure in J. Douglas Knauer's A DIRTY WAY TO DIE.

---Luisa Buehler, author of The InnKeeper: An Unregistered Death

 Sexy and lusty mud-wrestlers and murder. Manny has his hands full. Looking for some entertainment?

You’ll find it (in A Dirty Way To Die). ---Frank J. Scully, author of Resurrection Garden

Author’s Warning!

 Yeah, writers normally don’t open with this, but there’s a long story here that began with New York top Editor Tom Colgan. He really liked Murder In The Mud (title pitched) as indicated when he called me from his NY office. He was giving it a second reading! Holy Cow! A couple weeks later he called again, this time starting the conversation with an apology. He could not sell the premise to his marketing department. Of course I felt deflated.

Editor Nancy Chirich also gave it two readings before rejection. Another editor turned it down because I wrote too much like Ross McDonald. Up til then I had not read Ross McDonald. Of course, when I finally did, I loved his writing style! Yet another editor told me the protagonist, who I then called Rick Steel sounded too much like a dime-novel detective. So, Rick became Manny Shepherd and I kept submitting. The next editor said I had too many M characters, that it was confusing. Well, Manny’s sidekick was Marty Mallinotti. Now he’s Steve, even though I still think of him as Marty.

But all that aside, if Tom Colgan’s marketing group didn’t like the premise of oil-bodied, half-naked female mud wrestlers back in the late 1980’s, what the hell do you think they’d feel these days of female empowerment?

I am purely and deservedly a female chauvinist along with being a professional writer. When I interview people, I listen, watch and learn. Every human is different, has a story, and is to be respected…at least by me. I interviewed the manager (male) and female members of the Chicago Knockers who were performing at a local fair…SRO, regardless of wives’ objections. I spent from 5 p.m. to midnight with the troupe and felt I knew them all well enough to write my unique romance novel with them as main characters. On my own, I thought, "No NY editor will want a romance about mud wrestlers." So I began killing them off.

As reported, my writing was and is considered strong, even creating Impressively colorful characters (Kirkus Reviews) in my mystery and thriller novels. But, be warned…

If you are a prude or don’t believe there could be a novel about professional mud wrestlers that is purely murder mystery fiction entertainment with a touch of humor, then you’d better skip this one.

Manny and Steve are two Vietnam Navy vets I met at the piano bar at a romance writers’ conference near Chicago where I was a panelist. Those were not their real names, of course, but the two drew me in with their humorous stories and obvious close friendship built when two teenagers found themselves fighting someone else’s war. Other Vietnam insight came from letters received between 1967 and 1969 from retired 101st Airborne paratrooper Sgt. James D. Arnold Jr., whose friendship will always be treasured; and from two former Navy Riverines or River Rats as they preferred to be called, who along with Arnold carried the infamous war's agonies to the grave.

Then there's the small-town pharmacist whose help proved invaluable. Thank you, Lynn Swinford.

I apologize to Iowans for changing the month in which the Iowa State Fair is held. It’s called fiction for good reason.

1

A Dirty Way to Die

1

Manny Shepherd mentally followed the trickle of sweat under his jeans from the small of his back down to his crack, bypassing the scar where the bullet fragment lodged like a coward in an unreachable niche between his spinal cord and vertebrae. He pulled a handkerchief from a back pocket and wiped it across his forehead. This sweat he could stem without drawing a public indecency charge.

In combination, the inaccessible metal fragment and Illinois' summer humidity forced Manny to favor his left side when he walked. The limp used to embarrass him, but he wasn't nineteen anymore. Very few knew how he got the wound in Nam. Just as well. The war ended eleven years ago and Manny now thirty-one, knew all the butt jokes by heart. He wondered how many guys would still think their jokes funny if he shot them in the ass.

Pain exploded down his leg and echoed back behind his eyelids. In the same instant fear slumped into his gut that had nothing to do with his pain. The sinking feeling took over. Manny sucked in a deep breath and wished to be almost anywhere else but here.

Peoria's Heart of Illinois Fair held sour memories.

He stood still and took another tension releasing breath. Right now it wasn't memories bothering him. The sinking sensation in his gut was never wrong and only meant one thing: close by bad shit lay waiting.

Manny checked his surroundings as he approached the fair's main entrance. A colorful assortment of humanity roved the grounds up ahead.

A young man, his mind secured by headphones nearly buried in his red Afro, snatched Manny's two bucks admittance at the entrance booth. The baseball-mitt-sized fist reappeared through the hole in the wire window and stamped a red hexagon on the back of Manny's hand. Manny stared at it for several seconds.

Sonuvabitch, he said under his breath and almost turned around and walked back to his Chevy van. However, if he didn't find his friend Steve Mallinotti and sit with him during the big show tonight, Steve might never speak to him again. He weighed his options and decided yeah, pissing off Steve would be bad.

Manny strolled onto the fair grounds and checked his wallet again before he put it away. His Firearm Owner's Identification card, or FOID, was in there all right alongside his Illinois Private Investigator license.

The Walther PPK he sometimes wore under his left arm wasn't on him. He’d locked the gun in a dresser drawer after practice at the range earlier today. While back in the apartment, he thought he wouldn't need the gun out here at the fairgrounds. Now he wasn't so sure.

He blew a breath out puffed cheeks and stepped into the mindless mass of fair goers. Four teenage boys passed him on his right and swaggered ahead of him in jeans, baseball caps and attitude.

Manny reached inside his jeans pocket, extracted a tiny plastic bottle and shook the last two Tylenol into his palm. He popped them into his mouth and tried to summon enough saliva to swallow them. The capsules refused to budge from between one cheek and his gum.

Dammit, Manny mumbled around the pills.

He strolled deeper into the bowels of Exposition Gardens. Just ahead a concession stand’s flashing lights tried to announce 'Fresh squeezed lemonade'. Five bulbs remained black. Being burned out seemed to carry over to the thirty-something bleached blonde manning the stand.

She flashed him a big smile and leaned twin rose tattooed forearms onto the counter so he couldn't miss her huge half-exposed breasts. She chewed gum with her red lips parted and appeared to take pleasure listening to the gum crackle.

Hi, honey. Her voice said ‘this is what it’s like to be inside a chain-smoker.’ You here to see the girls?

A small lemonade.

Sure you are. Her shrewd smile never faded as she reached behind her and grabbed one of a dozen Styrofoam cups already filled with 'fre-h sq-e-zed lemnad-', which is what the working bulbs declared. She took a small silver scoop and shoveled ice chips on top of what Manny predicted would be a watery too-sweet drink.

There you go, honey. A buck seventy-five. Hope you got your ticket cause the show sold out. She nodded her head toward the grandstand area. Her long, coarse hair didn't budge.

I used to be one a them. She nodded toward a nearby poster announcing tonight’s event. Mud wrestle. Down in Louisiana. Topless. She winked one mascara-laden eye.

Lemonade and Tylenol caps blew out Manny's mouth and spattered his shirt, the nice pinstriped blue one Lisa bought for him. The words mud wrestle and Louisiana in combination caused one kind or another involuntary reaction in Manny since his last summer before he enlisted.

He glanced down at the capsules, his headache and leg pain relief-lying in fairground filth. Here the five-second rule didn’t apply.

No shit? Louisiana? He coughed. Sorry. Went down the wrong way.

He threw a long hard look toward her as she stood laughing in her deep cigarette smoker’s cackle. She smacked the counter with one flat palm and fingers cloaked in multiple made-in-Japan rings.

Manny gulped the remaining drops of lemonade and shook ice chips into his mouth to crunch on. He strode away quickly and tossed both the empty cup and Tylenol bottle into a nearby trash barrel haunted with flies.

Two topless mud wrestler beauties ended his virginity in Louisiana and gave him an itch requiring medication. This way back when age eighteen carried its own rules in his hip pocket and made it okay to get drunk as a skunk with his shrimp boat mates. He thought if he ever ran into those women again he would recognize their faces. As he hurried away from the lemonade stand he realized after all this time he wasn't that sure, which meant the rose-tattooed blond may know him better than she should.

He zigzagged among the food concessions, chased by a greasy sweet breeze. The fair made for a great place to get sick. Walnut taffy, deep-fried corn dogs, cotton candy with an icy beer chaser. The aroma really boosted the acid already jetting up his gullet because of his bad-shit premonition.

Manny glanced skyward. The giant Ferris wheel loomed overhead. The garish wheel looked like the same one from his life-changing moment in 1970.

Eighteen years ago he swore he'd never come back. Life between then and now played down the teen trauma. From then, part of Manny’s life history dumped on him with an impact too enormous for most men to bear. He told himself he was normal. Sometimes he told himself lies.

Open livestock barns stood between him and the grandstand special feature attraction. He held his breath and hurried through the ripe sour manure cloud to get upwind of the hogs. Cows and horses could put out a tolerable odor, but damn, pig crap held a Master’s degree in mean stink.

His jaw started to ache. Manny caught himself grinding his teeth as he made his way toward the grandstands. His attention to everything around him became more acute when he felt this bad-shit warning.

Carnies returned his hard suspicious look without breaking a beat in their calls for pushovers to come try their jerry-rigged games. Yells and whistles ripped through the dusk.

Sometimes, if he let it, loud racket like this could swallow Manny whole. Now and then dark memories would flood in and he'd be hard-put to distinguish between the noise of a good time and the combination of men screaming through erratic gunfire and hammering rain. Doc Goold handed him Xanax to take as needed for the panic attacks. He preferred to fight through them.

Dammit, Steve. This recollection of bad shit and even the reason he now stood in Exposition Gardens fairground had one person to blame: Steve Mallinotti.

Manny wound his way around groups of teens and resolved not to step on the little kids who screamed just to see who could be loudest as they raced for rides on the gunnysack slide and the bumper cars. His headache mushroomed, no thanks to whirring motors whose gears groaned for grease.

An excited edginess stirred the crowd tonight. It didn't take a genius to figure out where the Special Features ticket booth sat. The tiny building looked like the last flower of summer being swarmed by a squadron of bees.

A zillion colorful flyers clung possessively by tacks, nails or twine to every previously naked light pole, tent flap, and fence post on the fairgrounds property. In bold print they declared tonight's main attraction as a must-see bevy of beautiful, professional mud wrestlers straight from the home of the National League Cardinals and the Arch to the West.

The St. Louis Slingers!

Manny arrived at the impressive closed gate in the tall chain link fence dividing the grandstand from the horny crowd that paid extra to sit on metal chairs in the horse track so they would be closer to tonight's entertainment. He handed his admission ticket to the track to a bald guy with a grey goatee.

Manny scrutinized the crowd in the grandstand while the guy's shaky hands held Manny's ticket and tried to tear off the stub while barely able to reach over multiple layers of stomach contained by red suspenders. Finally he got it torn in two and gave Manny back his half to prove he'd paid for the seat. Actually, Steve had paid for it.

Despite the underlying humor of this whole situation, Manny's uneasy fear wasn't waning. If anything, its weight felt heavier.

2

To Manny's left, rows of folding chairs sat up close to a portable stage on the dirt horse track in front of the grandstand. White letters stenciled on the back of the wooden slat seats indicated they belonged to the local American Legion Post. Steve had dished out sixteen bucks extra apiece to get these luxury upfront seats.

He spotted Steve's slicked-down black-haired head and walked toward it. He slumped onto the chair to the left of his friend. The chair greeted him with an insecure squeak and a loose screw.

Hey.

Hey. What’chu got on your shirt?

Long story. Steve had spotted the lemonade splatter and Manny didn't want to explain.

Yeah? Well, you shoulda been here earlier, Man. Steve shot him a hard look.

Yeah? What'd I miss?

Three of 'em came out and mixed the mud! Steve made it sound like the climax rather than the foreplay.

Damn. Classiest part of the show and I missed it?

Like I told you, Man, Steve spoke slowly like he was explaining to a preschooler. It's like a show from Vegas. There are eight of 'em and each one is stacked like a brick shithouse. Would I lie to you?

How about 'extremely exaggerate'?

Steve frowned and inspected Manny's face before he lowered his voice. You don't trust yourself with these women, do you?

Right. You know they won't be able to keep their hands off me.

Admit it, you're chicken. At least I ain't afraid of a date with a gorgeous broad when one smacks me upside the head.

Which? The date or the broad?

Very funny.

That's me. Funny man.

Steve threw him a serious look. What's wrong?

I just walked onto the grounds and got the bad feeling.

That premonition bullshit Doc Goold says you have?

Yeah.

It ain't gonna lead to Shepherd's Luck, is it?

Manny had brought it up himself, but now he wanted to change the subject. I ever tell you I hate this fair?

Not yet.

Shelly Cunningham gave me back my class ring right by the Ferris wheel July 7, 1970. He could still picture the ugly punk high school linebacker with his arm across Shelly's bare shoulders.

Well, at least she gave you back the ring.

So you think there’s a positive side to her crushing me? Anyhow, two days later I enlisted. Thanks to Shelly, I met your sorry ass on a Navy helicopter on its way to 'Nam.

Steve shifted on his chair and turned his squinty charcoal eyes on Manny. You worried Lisa'll find out you're here to watch women mud wrestle? Is she what's behind your attitude? Maybe your worry about her is all your premonition is about. Ain't she and the kids in Montana or someplace?

Manny didn't answer, but he remained confident in tonight's cognizant premonition triggered by causal hypersensitivity, as Doctor Goold called it.

Steve tried to reassure him. Lisa won't care if you have a beer with one of the girls after the show. I know her. I find a phone and call, she'll laugh her ass off at your predicament.

I ain't in any predicament, least I'm not getting into one.

You just gotta trust me, Man.

Trust you? Manny turned in his chair and stared into Steve's charcoal eyes. Hey, I've been there, remember? Done it and got the shirt. Manny smiled. In fact, I got a lotta shirts. If I live to be a hundred, I'll never wear all them goddamn shirts.

You kiddin' me? You still ain't got ridda them shirts? Ain't there a mission or something'll take 'em off your hands? Geez, I can't believe you sometimes. Look, Steve said and raised his eyes to square with Manny's. Just do me this favor. Meet Rita. If you don't want nothin' to do with the other girls, that's okay.

Good. Manny made his own decisions, but he still felt relief Steve didn’t expect to hand him a blind date.

Anyway, you already told me you and Rita Hayworth have a dinner-for-two date after I meet her. I plan to head home afterwards.

"That's something you gotta remember, Man.When I introduce you, it ain't Hayworth, it's Hayward."

So, it's not like the movie star? Manny easily pictured the red-hot redhead Rita Hayworth.

"It's Hayward, with a dee," Steve explained, his pock-tracked complexion turning a swarthy red.

Manny saw the shit-eating grin and knew Steve’s next words before they came out of his mouth.

And her name ain't all she's got with a dee. Two of ‘em. Steve shimmied in a fake shiver, licked his thin lips and turned his eyes to his Rolex. Rita and the ladies will get off the bus any time now. Like I said earlier at the shooting range, they put on a classy show.

Yeah, barely dressed women stepping off a bus in the middle of a fairground so they can throw each other around in the mud just oozes class. An urgent thought hit Manny. He leaned into Steve, kept it low.

Hey. You didn't happen to bring a piece, did you?

3

Earlier, Steve had target practiced with a Taurus 9mm, only one of a dozen handguns the man owned. Manny had taken aim with his own Walther during their monthly joint attempt to prove they could get over paranoid sensitivity to sudden, loud noises they'd both carried since 'Nam.

What'd you say? Steve yelled.

Never mind. You ain't dressed for carrying a piece. Their conversation had drawn attention where they sat at the Heart of Illinois Fair.

Manny cleared the tension from his throat. What kinda place you taking Rita to eat with you wearin’ that getup?

Steve wore black from shirt to jeans to boots. His short-sleeved T-shirt showed off his left bicep with the tattooed snake wrapped around an anchor.

You tryin' to insult me? It'll be late, it'll be dark, and my money's still green. Besides, she likes me in tight black shirts and motorcycle boots. Come time for dessert, she'll get down on her knees and grab me right here at my belly…

I don't want to hear this.

Steve snickered. Good, 'cause I get horny jus' tellin' it.

You're disgusting…oh, no, excuse me, ma'am. No. Not you. You're not disgusting. Did I step on your foot? Manny squirmed on the chair and the loose screw poked him in the ass.

He looked down at the white-headed old gal with apple-dumpling cheeks and hips pouring off the sides of the chair where she'd just perched to his left. They'd packed everybody in tight as canned smoked oysters in order to wrest one more sixteen-dollar ticket out of curious country folks who had never been exposed to real live women mud wrestlers. He squirmed again, having no desire for butt-cheek contact with anyone at any time during the show.

That's okay, honey. I didn't feel a thing, the woman said, looking up. She grinned. Ain't this exciting? I mean, I watch the TV wrestling shows, and I loved roller derby when it was on the local channel. I mean, I told my neighbor, here, Ginny, she pointed to the woman on the other side of her, we'd be expanding our horizons to go and watch women wrestle. I mean, see if they get as rough as the men…and in the mud yet. She poked Manny with her elbow and offered him an even bigger grin, deeply dimpling both her puffy cheeks.

Not only have we got this show, but after the mud wrestlers, there's gonna be fireworks, even though it ain't the Fourth of July till tomorrow! Ain't this just so exciting? Her large eyes took on a mischievous glint as she glanced from side to side, then leaned close. An ample right breast rested on Manny's left forearm.

Say, honey, did you see where that ambulance headed a minute ago with its lights a flashin’? I mean, I got me a CB in my Ford, but I don't want to leave and go turn it on and miss something out here. I wish you'd go find out for me. Hoping he wouldn't mind missing 'something out here', she smiled and painted into it a motherly promise of homemade chocolate chip cookies.

Manny scrunched his thick eyebrows together in a severe frown and turned his head each way, urgently surveying their surroundings. His wary stare told her any second some serial killer could run past. Then he gave her the look. He used this particular stare on perps back when they paid him to be a cop. Unlike in Chicago, the look might play here in Peoria.

Well, I'd like to ma'am. He used deep, hushed tones, getting into the act now. But I'm an undercover cop. I've got orders to stay right here in case there's any trouble.

Oh…my…gosh. Her wide-eyed look danced over Manny's entire body. A high blush took the ride from her rouged cheeks down her throat. Never mind then. She twisted away, taking her boob from his bicep so she could face her friend Ginny. Fingers over her lips, the woman could not keep secrets from leaking between them, especially about the undercover cop sitting right beside her this very second. I mean…

Manny enjoyed light moments when he could pretend…and nobody got hurt by it. In Vietnam he became skilled at being someone outside his real self. Method acting unlike anything you could learn at the New York Film Academy with real guns and bullets and blood and snakes.

He could pretend dozens of snakes and rats watching him take a leak meant no harm; pretend the warm beer quenched his thirst and know to stop just short of finishing a bottle because of the mysterious goop laying on the bottom; pretend exchanging MREs for beer and marijuana from little kids in well-stocked sampans wasn’t wrong. Normal in Vietnam had a way of twisting your brain.

Manny slouched back in his chair and into a different mental slump because Lisa left town for the week. Maybe he should pretend being here with Steve held the promise of a good time.

Beside him, Steve sat bolt upright, anticipation in his eyes, staring at the empty stage. His grin appeared toothless under his mustache. His muscular arms lay folded across his hard chest and black shirt. Steve lifted weights and ran regularly saying he had to stay in shape for business reasons. Even wrote his gym expenses off his taxes.

Manny didn't get too nosy about Steve's Chicago-based import/export business. He knew Steve retained personal and business relationships with some pretty shady characters. Steve treated money like he owned the mint. Lisa told Steve once if he carried out his business in Tazewell County instead of Cook she might find cause to obtain a search warrant. Steve laughed his ass off. Later he took Manny aside. Was Lisa serious?

Manny told him, If I was you I wouldn't test her.

Lisa had perched inside Manny's brain earlier this evening when he got dressed for this soiree with Steve and the mud