Free Down Solo by Earl Javorsky

luck, Pop, wherever you are.
    I left Tanya snoring on the sofa, her mouth open and one eyelid fluttering. Not her best look, but convenient for me. I took her keys and cell phone and recovered the reports from under the rug. If I had been smart, I would have grabbed some cash since I’ve got none, but I’m coming up to the Venice Boulevard off-ramp and there’s no turning back. There’s no return call from Mindy, but she never gets up this early.
    It’s 6:45 in the morning and the beginning of another muggy August day. Traffic is still light. I head east on Venice and turn up my street, same as I did when I rode my bike with the attaché case. I can picture the Mustang creeping up behind me. The guy in the passenger seat looks familiar. My mind stops there.
    My house.
    I pull into the driveway and look at the charred foundation, like a rotten stump of a tooth in an otherwise healthy smile of nice little white houses. There’s a pile of bricks surrounding the base of what was once my chimney.
    I grab Tanya’s phone and text Mindy: Where are you? Call me ASAP
    The front door of the house next to mine opens and my neighbor comes out. He’s a black ex-Marine, built like a heavyweight boxer, and has a kid that looks just like him. He crosses his lawn and comes up to me.
    “Nice car.”
    “Yeah, new girlfriend. Have you seen Mindy?”
    “Not since before the fire.”
    “The fire. What fire?” We’re both staring at the slag heap that was once my home. Crows perch on the chimney stump, claiming the property as their own.
    Calvin shakes his head and whistles. “You’ve always got some goofy shit goin’ on, but this is a real jackpot.” Funny, I always thought I was the nice, quiet neighbor.
    Cal hasn’t liked me ever since he found his wife prancing around my living room buck naked on a hot Friday afternoon. She had appeared at my door dressed in a raincoat with nothing on underneath and barged in demanding, “Fuck me, Charlie, I know you’ve always wanted to. My husband stinks of beer and cigars.” She told Cal that I had stuck my head over the backyard fence and interrupted her nude sunbathing to invite her to my house for a drink.
    “Thanks, Cal, I appreciate the sympathy. Now, what the hell happened here?”
    “Night before last, around midnight, my dog starts barking. Wakes me up.” Calvin’s got a noisy Rottweiler that I would gladly shoot if they made a big enough gun.
    “Yeah, did you put on your cammies and crawl outside with a knife in your teeth?”
    Calvin grins down at me like I’m a chump about to get pounded behind the bleachers. “Cop said you were in the county jail.”
    “Cop, what cop? Why the fuck would he tell you that?”
    “Man was in the Corps. Share intel. Semper Fi ’n all that shit.”
    “Jesus, Cal, just tell me what happened.”
    “So I look out my window and see a car pulled up in front of your house. Driver stays in the car. Small guy gets out. Funny lookin’, even in the dark. He goes to your front door, then goes around to the side of the house. Had a bag full of some kinda shit with him.”
    “Yeah, what kind of car?”
    “Silver Mustang. Ten minutes later he comes out with Mindy and they drive off.”
    “What do you mean, ‘comes out with Mindy’? Was he forcing her?”
    “She was walking in front of him. I told the cops it looked like he might have had a gun.”
    “Why, did you see one?” The guy’s irritating me and enjoying himself. I want to slam open my car door on him and jump out and annihilate him on the charred remains of my lawn, but I stay cool. After all, he’s sharing intel. And I need to save my rage for its proper target.
    “No,” he says. “But ten minutes later your house looked like the fuckin’ Reichstag.” He reaches in his pocket, pulls out a business card, and hands it to me through the window. “Cop says you know him and to give you this.” He lights a cigar and walks away.
    I look at the card: it says “Sergeant Dave Putnam,