Free Beluga by Rick Gavin

“She did this?”
    Izzy nodded. Izzy told me, “Eeahh.”
    â€œWho’d she have with her?”
    Izzy shook his head.
    â€œJust her,” Kendell told us. “She chatted Izzy up at the grocery store. Asked him for a ride. Checkout girl remembered her, said that was pretty close.”
    â€œStill don’t see what this got to do with Larry,” Desmond said.
    Kendell was ready now. “That’s all she wanted from Izzy. Wanted to know where Larry was.”
    â€œIzzy wouldn’t tell her?” I asked Kendell, eyeing Izzy’s battered body up and down. “Or Izzy didn’t know?”
    â€œTold her what he could. Must have sent her over where Shawnica used to live.”
    â€œPlace in Sunflower?” Desmond asked.
    Kendell nodded. Shawnica had moved out six months back. Fight with the landlord. Fight with the neighbors. She was a bad one for quarrels and hard feelings.
    â€œWhat happened over there?” I asked Kendell.
    He consulted his pad. “Mrs. Ruth Marie Messick. She’s in the ICU in Ruleville.”
    â€œSame shit?”
    â€œSame shit,” he told me.
    Me and Desmond eyed each other. Kendell saw us do it. He just stood by and waited. Kendell was awfully gifted at that sort of thing.
    â€œThink Ruth Marie Messick knows where Shawnica went?” I asked Desmond.
    â€œDoubt it.”
    â€œFifty-three-year-old white woman,” Kendell said. “Not even conscious yet.”
    â€œWhat the hell’s that girl want with Larry?” Desmond asked like he couldn’t imagine the answer.
    â€œThat’s kind of what I was hoping to know,” Kendell told us both.
    He stood there waiting, giving us time to break. I don’t know why we didn’t.
    â€œThis girl have a car?” I asked Kendell.
    â€œDoes now. Ruth Messick’s Dodge.”
    â€œWe’d better find Larry,” Desmond said. “No telling what he’s up to.”
    Desmond sold it a little too hard. Kendell told us both, “Yeah, right.”
    The nurse in the sky blue sweater came back and jabbed her thumb toward the hallway.
    Back in the lot, Kendell said to us both, “I don’t care much about Larry. He gets what he gets. It’s plain to me he’s mightily pissed somebody off. But this kicking the shit out of folks between here and him, that’s going to stop one way or another.”
    What could we do but nod and mumble?
    â€œBring him in,” Kendell told us. “You hear me?”
    We did. We nodded.
    Me and Desmond were leaning against the Ranchero tailgate as Kendell drove away.
    â€œDon’t say it,” Desmond told me.
    â€œWe need a shiftless ex-con in-law policy. Don’t you think?”
    Desmond grunted.
    â€œWe probably ought to start with Shawnica.”
    â€œAnd tell her what?” Desmond asked me.
    â€œNinja schoolgirl assassin on the loose. It’s something she ought to know.”
    â€œI’d almost like to see those two go at it.”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “Almost.”
    *   *   *
    The clinic where Shawnica worked was just south of Indianola. If I’d had a dog, I wouldn’t have taken him into the place on a bet. A fellow who thought Shawnica was a good choice for reception wasn’t likely to know the first thing about veterinary medicine.
    I parked in the shade and stayed in the car, sent Desmond in alone. He was gone for a good ten minutes before they both came out together. Shawnica was wearing a lab coat covered in, I guess, cat hair, and she was in something far more incendiary than her usual rage, which made it an apocalyptic, end-times sort of thing.
    â€œWhat’s this SHIT ?” she was yelling at me as she stalked toward my car.
    I climbed out. There wasn’t a thing to do but stand before her and take it. You had to hand it to Shawnica. She knew how to pitch a fit.
    She waved her arms and sniped at me in that sassy voice