The Investigators, Inc. The Dead Lawyer Case. Chapter 7. Listening.

While looking through the lawyers paperwork, Carver was reading something that looked like a book when he smiled. “What did you find Carver?” asked Ralph. Meow!=Someone listen, in ceiling wall. And he pointed his tail straight up. I raised my hand to stop everyone from talking and looked up at a tiny hole beside the light. The rest looked up too. I motioned for everyone to come out into the hall. “I forgot to put on the scrambler, someone upstairs is listening,” I said, “find out who it is, who they work for and hopefully they have not told anyone yet, they heard too much already.”

I told them to take Crystal, she could get them into the room easier. She went and knocked on the door and said she was there to change the towels. Oddly enough the guy began to open the door without question and Ralph kicked the door all the way open and he, Frank and Carver went in to talk. Crystal left and came back to me. “Who!” said Carver firmly. “A guy named Spider,” he said nervously, “he hired us to listen in. We record everything, then we were to give it to Spider later.”

“Where can we find this guy?” asked Ralph. “In a pool hall, not far from here actually. He is a young guy, always wears a black shirt with a white spider on it,” the second guy said, also very nervously. As they left the room, they took the recording with them. They came back with a nice mini digital recorder. “Hmm, that is nice,” I said, “I should get one of these.” “It is that Spider again,” said Ralph, “he wants you for some reason.”

“Yeah, he could be trouble for us,” I said, “we need to put a stop to him.” We decide to head over there right away. I also brought Macey along with us, plus the cats. The entrance was in the back, but no security for it. We went downstairs and sure enough, there was a guy with the spider shirt. “That is the guy in the boat,” said Ralph, “and that is the guy that threw the rock at Kristina on that little island.”

“That is why he is after me,” I said, “but he never saw me, so how?” “He did some digging Lieutenant,” said Carver, “not good.” Carver was right, of course, if Spider told Carnival what he found out, then Carnival will likely lay a trap for us. I sent the cats to take up positions. “Let me have the rock thrower,” said Macey. “All yours girl,” I said. The others understood. We all walked in and the room went silent as they all watched us.

“You are stupid coming in here man,” said Spider, “you will never get out.” I then gave him a hard back handed slap which knocked him down against the pool table. “You are the stupid one, Spider BOY,” I said, emphasizing the boy part, “you will learn not to cross me ever again.” “Okay guys,” he said, “time to teach these old men a lesson.” They all started to crowd in. I whistled and John came in with the rest of the girls. “Come on boys,” I said, “start teaching. You, rock thrower, see what you can do one on one.”

Macey stepped toward him. “She is just a kid,” he said shaking his head. Then she kicked him in the stomach. “Okay girl,” he said, “now we fight.” He straightened himself and looked at Macey. She just smiled and gave him 3 quick kicks, then one hard kick to the head and he was lying on the floor, motionless. Then the fight began, there was 20 of them and 11 of us, 13 with the cats.

So we outnumbered them a bit. I threw Spider behind me where Carver was waiting with his knife. The cats were using their slingshots and scratching backs. When we left they were all on the floor, most just knocked out, but some were dead. We headed back to the hotel. Once back Carver showed me the book he was reading, I could not make any sense of it. Ralph explained it to me.

It was Carnival’s protection racket. Names, businesses, money received, money owed. Plus another one with illegal gambling sites. “There is enough here to put Carnival in prison for quite a while,” said Frank. Then we found the information that Joseph had about me, along with pictures. We will have to dispose of that quickly. Then notes he had about other business dealings for Carnival, receipts, bank deposits, all sorts of great stuff. Then the other girls called, they had found something interesting…

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.