Ups and Downs Read online

  Ups and Downs

  Detective Jimmy Delaney Collection #3

  By William Mangieri

  Copyright 2022 by William Mangieri

  Smashwords Edition

  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 recipient. 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.

  Stories contained in this collection are copyrighted by the author:

  Hacked Off: Copyright 2021

  Possession: Copyright 2021

  Too Much of a Good Thing: Copyright 2021

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  Table of Contents

  Hacked Off

  Possession

  Too Much of a Good Thing

  Origins

  About the Author

  Bibliography

  Connect with the Author

  Hacked Off

  Jimmy Delaney locked up his office. He stood back and admired the frosted glass in the top half of the door, etched with D.I.C., and DELANEY INVESTIGATION COMPANY in an arc above it. There were still scorch marks visible from when Sharon Lewis had tried to burn it and the rest of the Prestige down. Jimmy had really liked that old building – it was a shame it hadn’t worked out.

  Some shouting downstairs drew his attention. He looked over the edge of his walk-up balcony to the interior of Kaczmarek’s below. Looked like it was already another noisy Friday night in the bar.

  That was bound to make Pete happy. Jimmy could see the big, muscular Pole With his ever present smile. He worked behind the bar, keeping the liquor flowing that he’d been clean and sober of for almost ten years. Jimmy didn’t know how Pete managed it – he didn’t think that he could spend so much time around his own addictions and keep his resolve.

  Seeing all the people gathered below, men and women connecting with each other in the raucous crowd got him thinking how much trouble he’d be in if Diana were to show up here. Yeah she was trouble, or at least she had been, before she “reformed.” Jimmy still had difficulty believing it. Of course, it can be hard to trust a woman who’s tried to kill you, no matter what the circumstances. There were times though, when she seemed painfully sincere, when she could have taken advantage of him and didn’t. If only he could…

  But no, he didn’t need any more trouble in his life. Maybe if he spent more time around Pete, some of that rock-solid resolve would rub off on him. He walked down to the barroom floor and saw a pair of patrons vacate their stools at the bar. Pete had a beer there for Jimmy before he sat down.

  Jimmy took a sip while the foam was still settling.

  “Can you believe it?” Pete said, looking up at the TV over the bar.

  The news broadcast showed Jeb Mathews, Barnstow’s own District Attorney, in a series of clips that must have come from the arresting officers’ AugMonitors. There was Mathews, answering the door to a room at the Hyatt. There was a curvy Indian lady inside the room, the left side of her face all red and puffy, like she might have been slapped around. Jimmy knew her; Shanaya was a member of the Sisters of Solace, one of Barnstow’s biggest prostitution guilds. There was a shot of a pile of pills, and of Mathews being frog-marched out to a waiting patrol car.

  “Serves him right,” Jimmy said.

  He had his own axe to grind with the prosecutor. Mathews had refused to put Jimmy on the stand in Dr. Yon’s trial because he viewed Jimmy as an unreliable witness, for having chosen to get the illegal AugMentor in the first place. It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault that Yon had used the device to program him to kill Eddie, and it didn’t make Jimmy’s testimony any less valuable. Not only had Mathews cast doubts on Jimmy’s integrity, he had also gotten him removed from Barnstow’s police force.

  “I just can’t believe he would do that with Shanaya,” Pete said.

  “I’m not surprised – he always came across as an abusive pig to me,” Jimmy said.

  “No, I don’t mean that. I just never would have figured on him hanging with anyone of Shanaya’s profession,” Pete said.

  “Just because he railed against prostitution when he ran for mayor?” Jimmy asked.

  “Now that was a losing proposition, wasn’t it?” one of the patrons at the bar quipped, and drew a round of guffaws from his fellows for the pun.

  As the election had shown, most people were fine with prostitution being legal in Barnstow. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t a cost to being openly involved in either side of the trade – especially for some professions.

  “Politics is full of hypocrites. You’re too trusting, Pete,” Jimmy said.

  “You can’t go through life thinking the worst of everyone you see,” Pete said.

  “Maybe it’s just my line of work, but trusting too much can make that trip through life a bit shorter,” Jimmy said.

  “You have a lot of nerve, talking about hypocrites without including yourself.”

  Jimmy had a pretty good idea of who had shouted before he turned in the direction of the voice. Will Santini was in his mid thirties, a beat cop who sometimes came by Kaczmarek’s after his shift. The largest number of people who called Jimmy a hypocrite were the guys and gals of Barnstow’s Finest. Will stood maybe ten feet away from Jimmy, glaring at him.

  “This is all your fault!” Santini pointed at the right side of his head, where a bright blue light showed that his AugMonitor was active.

  It wasn’t unusual for Jimmy’s former co-workers to blame him for being forced to have AugMonitor implants. If he hadn’t gotten an AugMentor from Dr. Yon to help keep his job, Administration wouldn’t have realized how useful it was to actually see what happened through their officers’ own eyes. Jimmy still had some friends on the force, but the vast majority probably wished that Dr. Yon had succeeded in killing Jimmy when he’d had the chance.

  Jimmy had gotten the drop on Yon and Diana, but they had spoken that annoying string of Chinese gibberish that his AugMentor recognized as a command to knock him out. Yon would have finished Jimmy if Al and Josh hadn’t rescued him from the operating table.

  It was unusual for officers to leave their AugMonitor active when they went off shift. The device would normally shut down when they were off the clock, although they could choose to reactivate it when circumstances warranted it. Maybe he’d turned it on to make a point.

  “Look, Will, your beef should be with the Union for going along with it. I think it stinks that they forced it on you,” he said, pointing at the light.

  Santini backed away and drew a Beretta on Jimmy. This was also unusual. The force didn’t usually carry gunpowder weapons anymore – they had shifted to the aptly named Disablers with their high-capacitor rounds, the very weapon that had driven Jimmy to cheat with the AugMentor in the first place. Disablers were designed to immobilize body parts humanely. They still hurt like a son of a gun, but weren’t as deadly as Will’s personal piece.

  Someone yelled “He has a gun!”

  A couple of women screamed. Tables were knocked over and glassware and plates crashed to the floor as people scattered and ducked for cover.

  “Drop your weapon, Delaney!” Santini shouted.

  “Are you nuts?” Jimmy asked, and extended his empty hands toward Will, palms up.

  “I don’t want to have to kill you, Delaney. Drop it!” Sant
ini shouted again.

  Jimmy became aware of another patrol officer with a blonde burr haircut standing off to the side. Corporal Teresa Washburn was still in uniform and on duty. She had her standard issue Disabler drawn.

  “Will, you know better than to pull a non-sanctioned weapon in public - this isn’t some wild west saloon. Both of you set your weapons down. Now!” she shouted.

  “I don’t have a weapon!” Jimmy yelled.

  He threw his hands up as he dove to the left to get behind one of the upended tables. He heard gunfire, and a bullet splintered the bar right where he’d been standing.

  “No, Will!” Teresa shouted.

  There was the distinctive buzz of a Disabler being discharged twice, immediately before another handful of shots went off from Santini’s Beretta. One went through the table just over Jimmy’s head, and he cursed himself for expecting the flimsy wood to be enough protection, but that was the only bullet that came close to him as he heard glass shattering behind him. The sound from the TV stopped with a pop and a fizzle, and then all was still, except for something banging on the floor.

  Jimmy peaked around the table and saw Santini laying on his back, his right arm still spasming from the Disabler, his finger still pulling the trigger on the now empty Beretta. Washburn should have known better than to put a high-capacitance slug in Santini’s shooting arm.

  Jimmy stood up, intending to point that out to her. Three quick buzzes put an end to that; it’s hard to carry on a coherent conversation with three Disabler slugs making your body go haywire. He thought how nice it would be if he could move his head an inch or so to avoid the table edge before he struck it and blacked out.

  *****

  “I don’t know what got into them,” Jimmy said.

  He sat at the bar with Detective Wayne Moon. The blue AugMonitor light shown over his right ear, highlighting the white hair that was just starting to dominate the stocky Korean’s temples.

  “You do know you rub some people the wrong way, don’t you?” Wayne asked.

  Kaczmarek’s was a mess – wood chips and broken glass scattered about. Normally Jimmy would have faced the mirror behind the bar to watch what was going on, but a section of it had been shot out. The patrons had already been interviewed and cleared out. Detective Allison March – Jimmy’s former and Wayne’s current partner - was walking about taking notes and pictures with her blotter tab.

  “Yeah, but this was different. Santini acted like he was hallucinating. You are going to check for that, aren’t you?” Jimmy asked.

  “You know the routine. An officer involved shooting means a full battery of tests, even if the witnesses weren’t backing you up,” Wayne said.

  That was one lucky thing at least. Pete and a few of the patrons interviewed had stated that they never saw a gun in Jimmy’s hand. That and Washburn being unable to find a weapon while Jimmy was totally incapable of resisting her frisk had Jimmy pretty much in the clear.

  “You might say you were lucky Washburn was there to disable you,” Wayne said.

  Jimmy gingerly rubbed the knot that had risen on his forehead from when he struck the table edge.

  “Luck is such a subjective term,” Jimmy said.

  “You want some medical attention for that?”

  Detective Allison March had finished taking pictures of the scene and stood next to Wayne as she eyed Jimmy’s forehead. He felt a flutter of hope for a moment at her slight show of concern – more kindness than she’d shown him since their ill-fated date at the Hyatt. He liked her so much better the way she had looked then, with her Auburn hair down, instead of tied back and severe as it was now. Of course, that green dress of hers had really made her look…

  Better stop thinking that way Jimmy – it’s going nowhere.

  “No, I’m fine, Al. But thanks for asking,” he said.

  “Just doing my job,” she said.

  “Is it okay for me to clean up now?” Pete asked.

  “Sure – we have everything we need,” Al said.

  “Sorry about all the damage, Pete,” Jimmy said.

  “It’s not your fault people went crazy.”

  “Maybe not, but it still wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t here. I’ll be able to settle up with you once the reward comes through on the Bulls’ knockoffs,” Jimmy said.

  “There’s not going to be any reward, Jimmy,” Wayne said.

  “It’s okay, Jimmy – I have insurance to take care of the damage,” Pete said.

  The big Pole walked off down the hall that led to the bar’s supply closet, but Jimmy’s focus was on Wayne.

  “What do you mean, there’s not going to be a reward?” he asked.

  “The department followed the truck you tagged, and they were totally legit,” Al said. “Captain Sanchez is thinking about billing you for the misused resources.”

  “You’re joking!” Jimmy said.

  “Not at all, Partner,” she said.

  Jimmy wished Allison would stop calling him that. It was years since they had actually been partners, and although there had been a time when she had still used the term affectionately, she had been infusing it with more and more sarcasm lately, especially since the misunderstanding about those stupid little blue pills. He wanted to go back to when she wasn’t so catty, but he supposed that was asking too much.

  “Do you know how much time I put into catching those people? And I took a beating. That was good intel I gave you on that truck.”

  Pete came back from the supply closet with a broom and started sweeping up.

  “Not for us, it wasn’t,” Al said. “It was embarrassing, pulling the Compassionate Church Ladies over and searching their truck.”

  “I’m glad it was my day off,” Wayne said.

  “That’s not who I saw in that truck,” Jimmy said.

  “Well, it’s probably just age messing with your eyes. Not like it isn’t causing you other problems,” Al said.

  Not the pills again, Jimmy thought.

  “I should warn you that the Captain thinks they might sue. That will probably increase your bill,” Wayne said.

  Since their AugMonitors were active, Jimmy decided to go straight to the source. He took Wayne by the shoulders and looked right into his eyes, where he knew the AugMonitor would pick him up for Captain Sanchez to see.

  “Maria, you know what kind of a detective I am – or was. If I say that was the truck that was carrying the knockoffs, then that was the truck,” Jimmy said.

  Wayne pushed him away in annoyance.

  “Jimmy, I wish you’d stop doing that – you treat me like I’m not even a real person,” Wayne said.

  “I think we’re done here,” Al said. “Let’s head back, partner.”

  That one she meant for Wayne – Jimmy could tell, because there was no bite to it. He wistfully watched her leave the bar. Pete stood beside him and put his arm around Jimmy’s shoulder.

  “I meant it, Jimmy – I’m good. You don’t need to worry about what you owe me,” Pete said.

  “Thanks for that, Pete, but it’s not fair that they’re not paying me,” Jimmy said. “I’ll straighten them out.”

  “Yeah, I know you will. Just don’t make it about me – I’ll be fine.”

  Pete returned to cleaning up. Jimmy went back to the supply closet for another broom and helped some, sweeping broken glass and debris into a pile, setting tables upright. Once they had the bulk of the mess thrown out he sat on a barstool while Pete went behind the bar and started checking bottles for damage as he set them back in place. He paused as he held a bottle of Glenlivet single malt and admired how the bar lights shone through the green glass.

  “How do you spend all day around the stuff? Don’t you just want it a little?” he asked.

  “A little? There’s nothing little about it,” Pete sighed as he set the bottle on the shelf.

  “Then how do you resist?”

  Pete picked up a bar towel and started gently wiping the bits of glass and other debris off the
well-polished mahogany between them.

  “Whenever the liquor tries to tempt me, I remember what I was, and how it kept me from being what I wanted to be. What I hope I am today.”

  “You’re a better man than I am, my friend,” Jimmy said.

  Jimmy heard the door open. Pete looked that way, smiled, and then returned his attention to the bottles.

  “We all have our own demons,” he said.

  “Jimmy, are you alright?”

  The voice was low and sultry, and raised the hairs on the back of Jimmy’s neck. Even if she hadn’t said a word, her musky perfume would have had the same effect.

  “Speak of the Devil,” he said, not bothering – or daring – to look at her.

  Diana slid onto the stool next to him. He looked at the wood wall in front of him where the mirror was missing, glad her image wasn’t there to torment him.

  “I heard there was some trouble here tonight,” she said. “Oh, that’s a nasty lump coming up there.”

  “I’m alright,” Jimmy said.

  “I’d expect you to say that,” she said. “Pete, could I have a bar towel and some ice?”

  “Sure thing, Ms. Devereaux,” Pete said.

  Like most of Barnstow, Pete referred to Diana by the name she had used since she started working for the late Raymond Lewis. Misty Devereaux was the administrator of Lewis’s Working Sisters Foundation, which supported women who had been persuaded to leave prostitution behind – Mr. Lewis’ way of atoning for the money he’d made on the backs of those making their living on their backs. The oldest profession might be legal in Barnstow, but legal and right were often in conflict.

  Pete used a clean towel to scoop up some ice from the bin and handed it to her.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Jimmy said.

  “I know I don’t, but you need to let me do this for you,” she said. “Look at me.”

  He turned on his stool to face her. She wore a snazzy blue overcoat that still glistened from the autumn drizzle; it did nothing to conceal her killer legs. She’d abandoned the straight black hair she’d adopted when she first started working for Raymond Lewis. Her face was framed again by her natural blonde waves, and it disturbed him how much he liked the change. Her moist red lips pursed as her bright blue eyes bored into his.