| Who Cares?
Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Shitwork Central
Posts: 7,094
| Black Felt
Say what you will but actually read it.
Robert Rivers, a self-made billionaire attorney and maybe the world’s last white knight, was forever making a buck off my ass. I did his heavy lifting. My Paul Drake on steroids to his Perry Mason oozing money, if you will. I was in tune with him. We'd split the melon 50-50. I could pay my rent with some left over for fun. However, once in a blue moon, such as now, I'd raise an objection.
"Ruth Kendall I've known for twenty-five years" Mr. Rivers was saying. "If she's worried about her daughter, it's serious."
I leaned forward, palms scraping my crewcut. "This wild child is how old?"
"Gloria is an immature twenty," said Mr. Rivers. He proffered me a hand-rolled Cuban cigar. I declined. Snagging one for himself, he replaced the aromatic box.
"Look it. This is spring break. This gal is rich, she’s boy crazy, and she's bored. What's the mystery about her?"
Mr. Rivers blinked as if I’d just ate down his lunch. "Gloria Kendall went off on a spring fling, a sex fix? Is that your speculation?"
"Exactly," I said. "Remember, sex, drugs, and rock-'n-roll?"
Mr. Rivers rolled the cricks out of his bullish neck. I felt air was leaking from my zeppelin. "Ruth is borderline hysterical," he said. "I promised her I'd look into it. If you're indisposed at the moment, I can always tap Maslock."
"Maslock? Bah. His P.I. license is suspended."
"Maslock's P.I. license was suspended," Mr. Rivers corrected me.
"Who did you bribe?" I wondered. "And how much?"
Lips pursed, Mr. Rivers pressed the handset tight to his ear, his ringed fingers stabbed the phone buttons.
"Fine, have things your way," I relented. He racked the handset. "I'll check out Gloria Kendall's whereabouts."
"You, my dear sir," Mr. Rivers told me, "are a prince among men."
"Oh, go boil your balls," I said shoving out of his office.
I drove faster through a humid night trying to picture my life without Mr. Rivers throwing me his grubby laundry. Much less interesting, much less hectic. A shudder jolted through me. And much less dangerous.
*
"Your report staggers me." Mrs. Kendall's words rolled out soft yet firm in her Tidewater dialect. "There must be some mistake."
Mistake. By damn, it was always some mistake. What mother wants to believe her only daughter ran away from Bryn Mawr to dance nude at The Romper Room in Austin, Texas? I shifted my weight to my other foot. Despite three other armchairs, my client hadn't invited me to rest my bones. I didn't kick. Once the lady paid me, I was gone.
With a headshake of silver-white hair snugged in a bun, Mrs. Kendall said, "This is a fraud, I'm afraid." She thrust the entertainment rag back at me. I didn't budge a muscle.
"Afraid not. It's an actual photo," I said.
Gloria Kendall, stage name "Mitzi," was shown tricked out in a batwing cape cut from black felt, a black G-string, a centerfold simper, and nothing else. I didn't say aloud my thought that in Austin's upscale gentlemen's clubs, Mitzi was a superstar. Artsy skin flicks, I supposed, were the next rung on her new career ladder.
"This Mitzi is my Gloria, huh? Why are you all-fired certain?" Mrs. Kendall was the apex of aristocratic cool, carved there in her charcoal slacks, daisy-print blouse, and prim loafers.
That steamed me. "Because I went to The Romper Room. Because I ponied up the $15 cover charge. Because I saw Gloria naked as three snakes."
Lips wired tight, Mrs. Kendall drew out her checkbook, scribbled a couple lines. "I'll compensate you up until yesterday. What's more, Bob Rivers will hear from me. He claims now I owe him a big favor by his recommending you. Bushwah."
I grinned. Tart Mrs. Kendall would ruffle Mr. Rivers's toupee. After she ripped out the check, I accepted it offering an observation. "Mr. Rivers didn't tell your daughter to strip to her God-granted assets inside a honky-tonk."
Mrs. Kendall flat hand arced upward. She did have the chutzpah to slap me. I'd already anticipated it and she missed me. Women smacking men was as ugly as vice versa. It hurt both ways, too. Shaking, her eyes hardened. "You know the way out, Johnson. Go!"
Sunshine again on my shoulder, I admired her red, white, and blue Porsches washed, waxed, and waiting out front. Mister Moto, my foreign car, grazing on tin cans behind them bleated at me. Some day sooner than later, I was going to sock away enough for a down payment. For now, this crate carted my sorry ass tolerably well. I passed the lily pond and pitied the orange carp suffocating in it. The chauffeur affixed his pale eyes on me except I wasn't a thief like he was.
I backed around, toppled a gazing globe, then wheeled out to the blacktop. Mrs. Kendall's Colonial mansion stood 0.2 miles outside Middleburg, Virginia, population 5239. Per capita income: well into the millions. It was a "fancy-ass town where rich bitches forked their stallions." That last characterization was Mr. Rivers's in private conversation, not mine. The man should’ve known -- he schmoozed those blue bloods like he owned them all. I hammered a hard right onto the highway and headed south.
My window was cranked down. It was a ravishing mid-May afternoon, too early for my allergies. Honeysuckle on fencerows intoxicated me. Insects tweedled in the tall grass. I ballooned my lungs with air, counted to three in Spanish, and exhaled. Being back home was great. I was feeling fat and lazy. Tracking down Gloria/Mitzi had been slick and easy.
Stretching from three days riding the Greyhound (my flying phobia was back after 9/11), I'd shambled out of the Austin bus terminal. Twilight was dripping blood into the dark red west. The hot wind was in my face. Traffic was congested. At a snack kiosk, I browsed for reading material -- maybe Lehane or Peleconos's latest crime potboiler. A freebie entertainment rag was on a front rack. I strode away with the rag wrapped around both bought paperbacks.
Austin was a boomtown. Lots of congenial drawls and loose-hipped co-eds. In my navy blue suit and black Rockports, I played the quintessential dude. A blue-topped taxi whisked me to a Holiday Inn (where else?). The hack, a thin-lipped swarthy type, wasn't a bit gregarious. I tipped him, won a cynical scowl, and toted my bag into the lobby. After some technical difficulty with my credit card, I at last relaxed in a nonsmoker matchbox of a room.
My mood was for rock 'em, sock 'em prose. First though, I riffled through the entertainment rag. The Austin nightlife was thriving. Hot oil rubdowns, sensually twisted dungeons, and herbal aphrodisiacs were popular. Penalties for sins were easily erased. Cool. A clinic in Dallas tested for HIV, anthrax, crabs, STD, herpes, hepatitis C, and illicit drugs all in one hour. Walk-ins were welcome. Taboo Tattoos, advertising autoclave sterilization and single use needles, was approved by the "Board of Health." Hmm. The girlie ads were irresistible -- why, there was Bubbles, Nicole, Amber, Candy & Amy, Claudet, and last but not least, Mitzi.
Mitzi. Clad (sort of) in a tiger-striped chemise, she tensed on all fours growling into the lens. Her credo: "I Can Be Sweet or Sassy. Pick Your Fancy." She was a dead ringer for the head-and-shoulders portrait Mrs. Kendall had provided me. Yes. Gloria Kendall, a college junior from Middleburg, was a.k.a. Mitzi, an exotic dancer in Austin. Later that night, I investigated further.
At a candlelit table after the slinky floor shows, I tipped Mitzi to come chat with me. She sashayed up wearing a kimono, a fire-breathing griffin stitched across its shoulders. I made big on small talk, probing for personal information.
"Might you need a crane license, Mr. Mudd?" she asked me. Mudd the Crane Operator was my cover.
"No more than you need a stripper license," I replied.
Her smile curdled. "Buy me a silver fizz before my ape for a boss breaks a vine."
I did and changed topics. "I’m a Cleveland native. You a foreigner, too?"
Her laugh could glaze frost on a jack-o-lantern. "My sob story would cut your heart in two."
"Try me."
Staring off for a while, Mitzi at last said, "I owe some bad men a bushel of money. They don't forgive debts either. I'm not sure how I get myself in these jams. But I’m shaping up a plan."
"I hope it’s a clever plan."
Nodding, she gave me a wise smile. "My boss is thumping his chest. I’d better scoot. Swell meeting you, Mr. Mudd."
Afterward, safe inside my Holiday Inn cloister, I contacted Mrs. Kendall and explained that I'd treed her wayward daughter. I didn't mention where or how over the telephone.
Mrs. Kendall's inflection perked. "Excellent work! Make no contact," she ordered. "I merely wanted assurances Gloria was safe."
"Those are odd instructions," I said.
Mrs. Kendall explained: "Feelings between us have been strained of late. I don't wish to further exacerbate them."
"What now?"
"Return here," said Mrs. Kendall. "I'll hear your final report, then pay the balance of your fee."
I had liked the sound of that and returned home on the Greyhound.
Presently, after leaving Mrs. Kendall in Middleburg, it took me two hours to arrive home. As soon as I stepped in the door, the telephone began squawking. I underhanded the car keys to land on the DVD player. The answering machine shagged the call. Sifting through three days of mail, I half-listened.
"Johnson, you home? Damn it, man. Pick up!" It was Mr. Rivers. "Dire news."
Hot diggity. A double whammy of delight -- Mr. Rivers and dire news. Ear tight to the receiver, I made my presence known.
Mr. Rivers breathed in hoarse gulps. "Mrs. Kendall was found in her living room. Earlier this afternoon. A .25 in the head."
My pissy mood dissolved to one of amazement. "Murder?" I asked.
Mr. Rivers went on. "The chauffeur observed you exiting the house."
"I was headed out for home. The lady had written me a check." Heart in my guts, I recalled the chauffeur's hawk-like stare. As an afterthought, I asked, "What was the beef Mrs. Kendall had with her daughter?"
"They didn't see eye to eye on a few trivial matters." Mr. Rivers's response was vague, distant.
"Define a few trivial things," I said.
"Gloria had run up astronomical gambling debts," said Mr. Rivers. "Her mother opposed settling them. They bickered. Gloria severed ties."
"And you clue me in now?"
"Never mind, Johnson. The cops will take your statement, probably more."
"Sure. I'm their prime murder suspect."
"Scat. Make yourself scarce," Mr. Rivers said. "We'll say you're out of town on business for me."
"That'll buy me, what twenty-four hours?"
"You've got 23 hours and 59 minutes then to clear yourself. I can only do so much. Good luck."
Christ, good luck! I stuffed some clean clothes and toiletries in an overnight bag. Hurrying, I slid away the nightstand, stooped to unlock the wall safe. I drew out a 9 mil. A .25 and .32 were available but I craved stopping power. A raw rage cooked my intestines. Any knave with half a brain could tell I was being framed for homicide. Who and why were the questions. There wasn’t time to think.
I screeched onto the pavement. The authorities were on the lookout for my foreign car. Three miles down my road, I shambled into the rutty lane to an abandoned farmhouse listing dangerously left. Around back, I unlocked a board-and-batten garage, maneuvered out the 1998 Toyota, and nudged my foreign car inside. The swap took five minutes, no more. Being in Mr. Rivers's employ gave me certain advantages.
The evening sun was a red wafer collapsing into the Blue Ridge Mountains. Scraggly shadows dragged across the roadway. I goosed the accelerator, downshifted on banked curves. Funny, but all those miles hauling ass, I didn't have an inkling about what I'd pull off in Middleburg.
I was being played for a shithead. From the rearview mirror, I saw my lips flange, heard my teeth clack together. I was seething inside, couldn't reason things through. Locking the Toyota's tires, I braked short to bump onto a logging road. Following a dogleg bend, the road widened into a cut clearing. I hopped out, unlimbered the 9 mil, and drew down on cattail stalks fronting a sawdust pile.
Bap-bap-bap-bap-bap-bap!
Pumping a half-dozen rounds to clip off fuzzy cattail tops calmed me better than pills or booze. I could focus. Chewing roadway, I went through it all again, this time applying cold logic. Who wanted Mrs. Kendall dead, and why? The hyper-vigilant chauffeur? Nothing more to gain. Her being a widow, I could scratch the husband. A zealous lover perhaps. That didn't compute. There were sneakier, less risky means to swindle her fortune. I replayed conversations with my late client hoping to dredge something helpful. I charged it from other angles. Not until I hit Middleburg's town limits did I mutter: "Duh. Sometimes I can be thick as a brick." Gloria Kendall, of course, had smoked her mother. Motive: her creditors were persistent and she needed scads of money fast.
There was more. Gloria knew who I really was. I recalled seeing the security cameras embedded in the ceiling at The Romper Room. They digitally recorded my face which when scanned through the right database identified me. The enterprising Gloria had fitted me as the last piece in her grand plan to save her bacon. She flew into Middleburg while I was bussing back from Austin, Texas. Proving all this, I realized, was slim to impossible. Given her vast resources, Gloria could hire the sharpest lawyers. I had Rivers. Okay, call it a draw. Still I was looking at serious jail time.
Middleburg was illumed by streetlamps shaped as hurricane lanterns. No doubt Mrs. Kendall's mansion would be secured. It was. I drove by it twice. All downstairs and portico lights blazed. A cruiser was parked out front behind the patriotic Porsches; the uniform was sneaking a smoke. Yellow tape sealed off the hot zone. I spotted no CS mobile unit -- the lab weenies had finished their processing. They'd already matched my fingerprints on the entertainment rag. That and the Argus-eyed chauffeur would be enough to sink me.
I trolled Middleburg's streets for hours thinking. Back and forth, up and down. Like a caged tadpole. Tension kinked my shoulder muscles. Bending down to reach up, I clipped the 9 mil under the dashboard. If arrested, I didn't want to have to explain away why I was mated to a handgun. Sheet lightning flared behind the municipal water tower. The night churned to a coppery taste; rain lurked in the offing; a breeze rattled the lantern streetlights. I pulled alongside a pay phone, Mr. Rivers's number in hand, then nixed the idea and moved on.
Where would Gloria go until things calmed? The burlesque was a game she got off on. My hunch then was she'd gravitate to The Think Pink over on U.S. Route One. A guilty face could blend into its rabble. I had to laugh from the gut while U-turning to rumble in that direction. What a long shot. I was getting desperate. At the outset, the rain was a drizzle and in no time a downpour.
I stuck to the two-lane highways and secondary roads. At least twice through rain-streaked windows, I spotted the cherry-red swirls of police lights. Maybe they hadn't been on to me, but I double-backed to elude any tail job.
It'd been some time since I'd last visited The Think Pink. That had been while investigating a philandering cardiologist, his wife over in McLean my client. Last I’d heard, the cardiologist was still hemorrhaging from their divorce. The dashboard clock marked my arrival at quarter to midnight. Topless hostesses would stop serving alcohol in fifteen minutes. In the unpaved parking lot, I docked beside a van painted with a Conquistador scene.
Inside, a welter of smoke, hubbub, and body stink slapped me dizzy. The flood of memories wasn't all unpleasant. The Think Pink's wildest feature had been go-go cages suspended six feet off the floor. They still hung there. The cockatoos inside were nude, malnourished, and semi-stoned. A bar band, ZZ Top in trusses, cranked out passable rockabilly music. Fans stacked below the stage moved in herky-jerky modern dance styles.
"What's your poison, pappy?" a hostess quizzed me at the break.
"You seen this girl, maybe works here?" Gloria’s portrait was the same I'd packed off to Austin.
"Right on. Mitzi. In the billiards room."
The hostess snatched my ten-dollar bill, wiggled to the next table. Band members climbed on stage, tuned their instruments to clean out feedback. A knobby elbow piked me in the short ribs. I kept advancing. In the billiards room, a tournament was in progress. A black man and a white man were cracking pool balls with crisp expert precision. They took turns running the table where most crazed eyes were glued. Half-drunken spectators cheered.
I took a second to scan the downcast faces. Gloria was costumed in the same skimpy black felt cape she’d sported in Austin. Balancing a tray with a couple of long necks, she bobbed among customers, dropping off orders and collecting her tips. Customers laughed with her, touched her. I faded behind an amplifier but a bit late -- she'd felt my stare. Her jaw dropping was priceless. After all, I was supposed to rot in a prison cell tagged with the murder of her mother. She tried to act nonchalant, flirted with a construction worker. But I knew she'd made me. I jostled through the audience; my eyes fastened on the door through which she'd ducked.
I strode down a short hallway to the restrooms and public telephones. An old, toothless drunk sat at one crying into the receiver. I invaded a kitchen. Flats of cheap beer in bottles were stacked beside an ice machine. The noise in here lessened. A squatty Filipino fry-cook, gnawing on a broom straw, was hustling hamburgers on a gas grill. I stood on tiptoes to peer over the walk-in refrigerator. There was an emergency exit. Kicking it would activate an alarm. Gloria hadn't fled that way.
Something fell inside the walk-in.
"Somebody in there?" I called over to the cook.
A rickety shoulder shrugged. Right. He only cooked the burgers and emptied the grease trap.
Grasping the refrigerator handle, I yanked its metal door outward. The 9 mil poked in first. Gloria, a minute away from frostbite, crouched amid boxes of beef patties shivering.
"Mister, I ain't going to death row," she chattered, hugging her frail nudity for warmth. The black felt cape stretched out stiff like a horsefly's wing.
I threw her my raincoat. "Well, I'm sure as hell not. Now come on out." |
