Last Panda Standing Read online

  Diaz and Lucinni stomped out.

  “Nobody messes with my partner,” O’Malley shouted after them, a grin on his face.

  At first Zengo thought O’Malley was sticking up for him, but then he remembered—Cooper was his partner now. They slid into the booth opposite Zengo.

  “Nice to see you,” said Zengo, looking only at O’Malley. Even though he knew he was being immature, he could not hide the fact that he wished his old partner had come on his own.

  “Nice to see you, too,” said Cooper, equally pointedly.

  There was obviously no sense in acting like Cooper wasn’t there. Zengo decided to take another approach. He nodded at her and said, “You’re welcome.”

  “For what?” said Cooper.

  “For the tip about Nutter’s Nuts,” said Zengo. “And Cooper, congratulations on your first arrest with the Platypus Police Squad. You’ve got to admit you would never have run into this angle sitting behind a desk and following ‘procedures,’” said Zengo, making air quotes on the last word.

  Cooper rolled her eyes and folded her arms tightly. She turned away from Zengo and started tapping her foot angrily.

  Zengo smirked. He couldn’t help it. He was glad he had gotten under her skin.

  “Come on, you guys!” said O’Malley. “If we expect to solve this case, we need to work together as a team.”

  Cooper rolled her eyes again. But then she looked Zengo square in the face. “Look. Your tip put a crack in this case, but it didn’t split it wide-open. And now the Nutter family knows we’re snooping around their business.”

  “We need to know if you’ve seen anything unusual within Pandini’s operation,” said O’Malley. “Whose tail is Pandini stepping on?”

  Before Zengo could answer, Big Brenda, the well-known waitress at the joint, interrupted their conversation. “What can I get for yah?” she asked.

  O’Malley ordered for the table. “Three root beer floats and a jumbo basket of onion rings.”

  “You’ve got it, sweetie,” she said, jotting the order down on her notepad.

  “Thanks, Brenda.”

  She was barely out of earshot when Zengo said, “You just can’t help but be in charge, can you?”

  “Did I order anything you didn’t like?” asked O’Malley.

  “No,” admitted Zengo.

  “Then quit your complaining!” barked O’Malley. “And let us know what you’ve got.”

  “Pandini is surrounded by a passionate support base. Anyone he has ever helped is doing everything they can to help get him elected. This thing runs deeper than politics. I’m not convinced we’re just looking for an enemy of his here.”

  “Interesting,” said O’Malley. “Could someone close to Pandini be behind the attacks?”

  “When it comes to Pandini, everyone’s a suspect,” said Cooper. “He doesn’t surround himself with the most trustworthy people.”

  “Hold on now—” said Zengo.

  “Think about what’s gone on in KC in the past few years. The fish caper—one of Pandini’s crew was behind it. And the whole fiasco at the Disaster Dome? The takedown of the former mayor?”

  “You can’t pin that on Pandini,” said Zengo.

  “Not directly,” said Cooper. “But he’s always only one step away from the people being charged. There’s no smoke without fire.”

  “Is there anybody in that crowd who strikes you as off base?” asked O’Malley.

  In fact, there was someone Zengo had been considering. “There is, actually. The campaign manager—Irving Myers. That guy has been a nervous wreck about Pandini’s poll numbers.”

  “You think he might be staging these attacks to help Pandini get more support from voters?” said O’Malley.

  “I’ve begun to wonder,” said Zengo.

  “It’s a solid theory,” said Cooper. “But where’s the connection with Nutter’s Nuts?”

  She had him there. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just a hunch right now.”

  “That’s some hunch,” said Derek Dougherty. The chameleon was sitting in the next booth over, with his back to O’Malley and Cooper. The reporter had been eavesdropping on their entire conversation.

  O’Malley turned and glared at him. “You have a lot of nerve,” he sneered.

  “That’s what makes me so good at my job,” said Derek, smiling and puffing up his chest. “Couldn’t help but overhear you mentioning Pandini’s crew. . . . Perhaps you’ll be interested in my new book.” Derek handed O’Malley a thick hardcover. “It’s fresh from the printers. It’ll be available tomorrow, wherever books are sold.”

  Zengo read the title out loud. “A City Under Siege: A History of the Scourge of Frank Pandini Sr.”

  “Lots of great archival photos in that from the Krier,” said Derek, flipping to a page with a photo of a much younger O’Malley.

  “Wow! You used to have hair!” said Cooper.

  “And a perm?” scoffed Zengo.

  “Hey! It was the times,” said O’Malley. He deflected the attention back at Dougherty. “Capitalizing on the city’s pain. Sounds just like you, Derek,” said O’Malley.

  Derek plucked the book out of O’Malley’s hands. “There’s an entire chapter about your grandfather, Detective Zengo.”

  Dougherty opened the book to the chapter on Lieutenant Dailey and plopped the book in front of Zengo. The detective flipped the book shut and shoved it across the table. No matter what was there, it would not dignify his grandfather’s sacrifice or memory. Derek Dougherty was nothing more than a nosy hack. He had no right to tell Lieutenant Dailey’s story. “My grandfather would be disgusted by your book, Dougherty,” said Zengo.

  “I don’t know, Detective,” said Dougherty. “I think he’d be more concerned about Platypus Police Squad being in Pandini Jr.’s pocket.”

  “Pandini is not his dad,” Zengo shot back.

  “My, my, my. Are you the same detective who once accused the candidate of running the illegal fish trade in the city?”

  “I was wrong,” said Zengo. “And you publishing this book while Pandini Jr. is really trying to do good in this city—stop trying to take him down just to sell books and newspapers.”

  “Well, we’ll see how Pandini does tonight at the debate,” said Derek. “My money is on McGovern. Pandini is a slick businessman who has done a great deal for this city—but you can’t buy your way into City Hall. Hate to see such a public-spirited guy go down—but it would make for a good story.” Dougherty jumped down from his booth and tipped his hat to the detectives. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must get ready for my award-winning coverage of tonight’s festivities. Detective Zengo, you go ahead and keep that book. Want me to sign it for you?”

  Zengo made like he was going to swing a punch at Derek just to see him flinch. Derek predictably did so and then scurried off.

  Big Brenda came by with their order balanced on a tray.

  “Scumbag,” huffed O’Malley.

  Big Brenda put her hand on her hips. “There’s a problem?”

  “No, no! Not you . . .” O’Malley knew better than to have a problem with Big Brenda.

  “I thought not,” she said while plunking down a root beer float in front of each detective.

  Cooper leafed through the pages of the book Derek had left behind. “Fascinating to see photos of what Kalamazoo City looked like back in the day. It’s really been built up over the years.”

  “You like that book so much, you can keep it,” said Zengo as he stood up and threw on his jacket.

  “Where are you going?” asked O’Malley.

  “I have to get to the debate,” Zengo said, turning to leave.

  “I thought that would have been postponed,” said O’Malley.

  “Nope,” said Zengo. “I suggested it. But Pandini insists on going forward. I’m worried that since we haven’t been able to nab anyone, he’s more at risk tonight than ever.”

  As Zengo left Mulligan’s he caught sight of the televisions mounted ab
ove the bar. Each was tuned to a different news program, all of them predicting a defeat for Pandini tonight. He’d be ahead if anyone was willing to give him a fair shot, thought Zengo.

  KALAMAZOO CITY UNIVERSITY, MAIN AUDITORIUM, 5:30 P.M.

  When Zengo arrived backstage at Pandini’s dressing room in the auditorium, the candidate was in the middle of having his makeup applied. Myers was with him, still very agitated. “Where have you been, Zengo?” asked Myers.

  The detective didn’t feel the need to answer. After all, Myers had basically tossed him out of Pandini’s office not too long ago.

  There was a knock at the dressing-room door. Zengo opened it and was surprised to see Patrick McGovern. “May I help you?” said Zengo.

  Pandini called, “Pat? Is that you?”

  “I just came by to say that I wish you well today, Frank,” said McGovern.

  “You too,” said Pandini.

  Zengo thought he heard a slight edge of hurt in Pandini’s tone. McGovern’s ads must really sting.

  “I just wanted to say it again,” McGovern began, “this is just politics. You know we haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I would never say anything about you that I wouldn’t say straight to your face.”

  Pandini nodded. “I feel the same way.”

  “So let’s go out there and show the voters that they have two good choices in this election.”

  “Sure,” said Pandini. Then, regaining his usual cheer, he added, “As long as they know that one of these good choices is just a little better than the other!”

  He gave a hearty chortle, and McGovern joined in, though a little less heartily.

  Irving Myers’s phone beeped just then and he excused himself. What was so important that he had to go take the call in private? Zengo figured Pandini was safe here with McGovern. He waited a moment and followed Myers out of the dressing room.

  Irving had gone to a shadowy hallway at a far end of the building. Zengo was able to follow him without being detected. He hid himself behind a door and peeked out. Myers was meeting with someone. Before his eyes adjusted to the light, Zengo was not sure who it was.

  A moment later, though, he saw. Myers was talking to a squirrel.

  The whole time they were talking, Myers was looking all around, as though to make sure they weren’t being observed. Before he could be spotted, Zengo ducked behind the corner and headed back to the prep room. His hunch was turning into a real suspicion. And if Myers was behind these attacks, this certainly meant something was going to go down tonight.

  THE STREETS OF KALAMAZOO CITY, 5:40 P.M.

  “What was it like here, back in the day?” asked Cooper as she flipped through Derek Dougherty’s book.

  O’Malley was behind the wheel. He gazed out the window. “For one thing, you didn’t see as many people walking around at night. Kalamazoo City wasn’t a safe place.”

  “I wouldn’t say it’s a totally safe place at night now,” said Cooper.

  “Back then, you wouldn’t dare step out after sundown. Not with Frank Pandini Sr. running this town.”

  “And you worked under Lieutenant Dailey?”

  “He was one of the best,” said O’Malley. “Heart of gold, spine of steel, that one had.”

  “Says here you were part of the final raid that took Pandini Sr. down,” said Cooper. She had the book opened to a page that reprinted the cover of the Kalamazoo City Krier from the big arrest.

  “Yeah—that was one of the scariest nights of my life,” said O’Malley. “We had been running surveillance on Pandini’s operations for over a year at that point. If we had dropped the ball that night, we’d have been done for. Pandini Sr. had his paws in everything that went down in the KC underworld, but there was nothing we could pin on him.

  “Then we received intel that Pandini was about to receive a big shipment of contraband—illegal fish, stolen motorbikes, banned nuts. . . . It would have been the biggest influx of contraband in Kalamazoo history. If it made it into the streets, it would have put every honest merchant out of business and destroyed the economy of the city, while making Pandini even richer.

  “It was raining that night, and the fog really hampered the operation. Dailey had brought me up from the academy—he was like a father to me. He chose me to be his right-hand man for the investigation, and I was at his side that night. That didn’t go over too well with some of the cops who had hit the beat longer than I had.”

  “Like Plazinski?” Cooper asked.

  “Yeah, how’d you know? Is that in the book?” O’Malley asked.

  Cooper shrugged. “I’m sure Plazinski is in this book somewhere, but that just explains why he bosses you around the way he does.”

  “Huh,” said O’Malley as he drove along. “Well, anyhow, yes, Plazinski was there that night. Dailey had us all planted throughout the docks. We each had our station, ready to pounce. And we had reason to believe that Pandini would be there himself that night. He was a smart man. Ordinarily he let his goons handle these sorts of deals so he could keep his paws clean. But the shipment that night was too big to trust to one of his cronies.

  “Just after midnight, a large cruise ship pulled up to the dock that was closest to Dailey and me. It wasn’t strange to have boats coming and going at that hour, but typically they were smaller fishing vessels. A cruise boat filled with tourists wouldn’t pull up to shore in the nighttime unless there were problems aboard.

  “For about an hour, there was no movement. Then we saw a set of headlights through the foggy night sky. Then a second set, then a third, and then a fourth. Evidently Pandini’s team was bigger than we had expected. When all the cars got to the end of the dock, the doors started opening. Soon the dock was full of thugs. And right in the middle, there he was—Frank Pandini Sr.”

  “So then what happened?”

  “We had to get proof that they were up to something illegal and not just out for a midnight stroll. Soon enough, cargo started unloading from the ship. And that’s when Dailey stuck his neck out. He had to get a look in those containers before we made the collar, find out exactly what we were dealing with.”

  “So how did he do it?”

  “He managed to climb up to the top of one of the cargo containers. Then, silently, he slipped into the access hatch, grabbed some of the cargo, and made it back to where the rest of us were hiding. He had enough evidence in his arms to land Pandini in the slammer. Now we just had to surprise them and round them up.

  “On Dailey’s cue, we all charged with boomerangs in hand. But that didn’t faze Pandini and his crew. They didn’t even seem surprised to see us. They threw open their car doors, used them as shields. Then they pulled out their own boomerangs. Of course none of those were street legal—no permits at all.

  “Per Dailey’s instructions, we were to take Pandini alive. We wanted to make an example of him, show any would-be criminals that crime doesn’t pay, not in Kalamazoo City. So we were concentrating our efforts on finding a way to sneak up on them from the rear. That was our mistake,” he said, his voice a little shaky.

  “What do you mean?” said Cooper.

  “We didn’t have enough men to properly flank Pandini’s forces,” said O’Malley. “I was supposed to cover Lieutenant Dailey, but there were too many of them to handle. . . .” He stopped talking and sighed.

  “So that’s how Dailey went down?” said Cooper. “What happened next?”

  “Pandini’s limousine took off at a million miles an hour,” said O’Malley.

  “I left it to one of the other cops to get Dailey to the hospital. And after what had happened, I was not going to let that creep get away.

  “I jumped behind the wheel of the squad car. I never drove so fast in my life. Pandini’s driver was a maniac—careening up on sidewalks, taking hairpin turns into the wrong direction on one-way streets. Finally, I had a clear enough shot. I pulled back and tossed my boomerang, taking out two of their tires. Pandini’s car spun out of control and crashed into an abandoned warehouse.


  “I rushed to the car. Everyone in it was alive. By then more backup had arrived. We rushed to pull everyone from the wreckage and carried them to safety before their car caught fire.”

  “And Pandini was put away for life?”

  “Yup, he spent the rest of his life behind bars.”

  “And what about Dailey?” asked Cooper.

  “He was wounded badly,” said O’Malley, shaking his head. “But Dailey, he was determined. He made a full recovery, got back to work . . . only to meet his demise at the hands of one of the few hired thugs Pandini had left after the excitement of the trial quieted down. Even behind bars, Pandini’s reach was long.”

  “At least Dailey died knowing Pandini had been put away for life,” said Cooper. “And KC has been one of the safest cities in the country ever since. Pandini might have gotten away if not for you. What a story.”

  O’Malley was a little embarrassed, but proud at the same time. “Even though we only worked together for a short time, we were a good team. A great team,” he said. “If it had been longer, who knows what else we might have been able to do?”

  Cooper examined photos from the crime scene that were republished in Dougherty’s book. “O’Malley, what became of the captain of the cruise ship, the one who was working with Pandini Sr.?”

  “He was thrown in jail with the lot of them.”

  “And his family?”

  “No idea,” said O’Malley.

  “This boat, it’s called the Miss Alice McG,” said Cooper.

  “So, what does that have to do with anything?” asked O’Malley.

  “In Patrick McGovern’s ads and stump speeches, he talks about being raised by his single mother—Alice.”

  “Are you suggesting that Patrick McGovern’s father was the captain of that boat shipping the illegal goods?”

  “If he was, we might be looking at a conspiracy here!” said Cooper.

  “We need to get over to the mayoral debate—STAT!” O’Malley jerked the steering wheel and spun the car around. “Hold on, Cooper.” And with that, the detectives sped off into the night.