by Reginal Hill
"Miss Jones?" said Joe.
"Sort of," said the woman.
She too was wearing a baggy tracksuit, but with the hood up. Now with a little shake of the head she tossed it back to reveal a face he just had time to start to recognize before Whitey made his move. From a standing start he got up to maximum knots in a couple of strides, then leapt up at the woman's long throat.
"Whitey!" yelled Joe in alarm.
But it was too late. The cat hit the woman in the chest, caught his claws in the tracksuit top, relaxed into her cradling arms and lay there, looking up, four paws in the air, purring like a chocolate-box kitten.
It was quite revolting, like Boris Karloff playing Little Lord Fauntleroy.
"Now aren't you a beauty then?" she said, nuzzling her nose against his head.
And Joe said, "He thinks so. And aren't you Zak Oto, the runner?"
That's right," she said. "Are you coming up or do you interview all your clients on the stairs?"
In the office, seated on the chair which didn't fall to pieces if you leaned back too hard, Zak Oto said, "Sorry about the
Miss Jones thing on the answer phone but I couldn't be certain who'd hear the message. Thing is, Mr. Sixsmith, I'm being threatened and I need someone to take care of it."
She flashed him the multi-megawatt smile which made her as big a hit on billboards and screen as her legs did on the track. She was already the Bloo-Joo girl and word had it that Nymphette were after her to front up their new range of popular sports clothing. Even dressed in a baggy tracksuit she looked a million dollars, which was probably a lot less than she was going to be worth.
Joe was making a production number of looking round his office.
"Something up, Mr. Sixsmith?" she asked.
"Just checking there's no one here but me and my cat. Which of us did you see for the job, Miss Oto?"
She gave him the smile again, perfect white teeth gleaming in a face so black she made Joe feel like a crypto Caucasian.
"Hey, you do jokes too like a real PI."
"I am a real PI," said Joe. "What I'm not is a minder. I'm ten pounds over my recommended weight which I can't punch anyway, and though I'm growing through my hair, I'm short for my size. You'd be better off with Whitey here. Compared with me he's a fighting machine."
The fighting machine snuggled up against the athlete's bosom and purred complacently. Joe didn't blame him. In the same position he guessed he'd be feeling pretty complacent too.
She said, "Perhaps if you just listen to me a moment, Mr. Sixsmith?"
"OK," said Joe. "Long as you understand, you may be tipped for a world record next season, but if some guy came after us both with a meat cleaver and bad attitude, you'd be looking at my heels."
Now she laughed out loud. It was a real pleasure making her laugh. It came out dark and creamy like draught Guinness and set up a turbulence beneath the tracksuit upon which Whitey bobbed with undisguised sensuality.
"Must try that some day," she said. "But seriously, Mr.
Sixsmith, I'm not here looking for a minder. I've got all the minder I need. You probably saw him downstairs."
"No neck and ears like Chinese mushrooms?"
"That's him. He really is called Jones. Starbright Jones."
"Starbright? You're joking?"
"You think that's funny, you'd better keep it to yourself," she said. "He's Welsh and doesn't care to be laughed at."
"Sorry," said Joe, who knew all about racial sensibilities. "So if you've got Mr. Jones, what are you doing here?"
"Trying to tell you what I'm doing here," she said with an irritation which didn't make her any the less attractive. "Starbright's fine for fighting off trouble if and when it happens. What I really want is someone who'll take care of the ifs and the whens. Someone who'll stop it happening."
She paused. Joe nodded encouragingly though he didn't much care if she went on talking or not. Miss Poetry in Motion the papers called her, but even in repose a man could spend his time less poetically than just staring at her. From her earliest appearances on the track she'd been the pride of Luton, a pride not din ted when last autumn, after equalling the British 800 metres record, instead of starting an art foundation course at South Beds Institute, she had accepted a sports scholarship in the Fine Arts Faculty of Vane University, Virginia. Word from over the water was that her American coach wanted her to move up to the mile and 1500 metres, and was forecasting she would be rewriting the record books in the next couple of seasons. Locals would have the chance to make their own assessment on New Year's Day at the grand opening of the new Luton Pleasure Dome. With its art gallery, theatre, olympic-size swimming pool, go-kart track, climbing wall, cinema, skating rink and sports hall, the Plezz, as it was known, had carved a huge chunk out of both the green belt and the council's budget. But with the town's own golden girl not only performing the official opening, but also running in an invitation 1000 metres on the indoor track it would take a very bold environmental or economic protester to attempt disruption.
Joe realized the girl hadn't just paused, she was waiting for him to ask an intelligent PI-type question.
He said, "Miss Oto ..."
"Call me Zak," she said. "And I'll call you Joe. OK?"
Zak. Funny name, but he didn't need to ask where it came from. The papers had told him her real name was Joan, but when she started running almost as soon as she started walking, her athletics-mad father had started referring to her proudly as 'my Zatopek' which her childish tongue had rendered as Zak.
"OK. Zak, this being threatened you mentioned, is this just a general feeling you have or something specific?"
She said. "You worried I may just be another neurotic woman, Joe?"
"Just encouraging you to tell me what you're doing here, Zak," he said.
"I'm trying. OK, you know I'm running at the Plezz New Year's Day?"
"Does Rudolf know it's Christmas?" said Joe.
She didn't smile but went on, "Boxing Day, I got a call. It was sort of a husky voice, maybe a woman trying to sound like a man, or could've been a man trying to sound like a woman
"What did it say?" urged Joe.
"It said, wasn't Christmas a wonderful time with everyone trying to help everybody else out, and this was why she was ringing let's call it her, OK? because some friends of hers wanted to do me a great big favour, and they'd expect nothing in return except a very little favour from me. Well, by now I was beginning to think I'd got myself a weirdo. They come crawling out once your name gets in the papers, you know."
"So why'd you keep on talking?" asked Joe.
"I got curious, I guess. Besides she didn't sound threatening. Just the opposite, nice and concerned. She said she'd heard about the Nymphette deal you know about that?"
"I saw something in the papers," said Joe. "Tell me."
"It's just something my agent's setting up. Nymphette do perfume and cosmetics, but now they're branching out into a range of casual and sportswear and they want me to be front girl for them. Wear the scent and model the clothes."
"I look forward to the commercial," said Joe gallantly. "So what did your caller have to say about this?"
"Just that she hoped nothing would happen to stop me clinching the deal. Like I say, she sounded really nice. Even when she told me the little favour her friends wanted, it came over so reasonable sounding, I had to ask her to say it twice."
"So what was it?" asked Joe.
"She said her friends would be very grateful if I didn't win the race on New Year's Day."
"Shoot," said Joe. "Some little favour! So what was the big favour she was going to do in return?"
"She said that her friends would let me have the rest of my career and my family the rest of their lives," said Zak Oto.
Joe shook his head sadly. It would have been nice to work for and with Zak, but he knew a no-no when he saw one.
He said, "Listen, I'm sorry, but this is one for the cops. It's probably nothing, just some nutter, but go to t
he police anyway, just to be safe. Get them poking around and if there is anything serious behind all this, the people concerned will soon get the message the Law's after them
"She said not to tell anybody."
"She would, wouldn't she? But you're telling me, so that shows you've got enough sense not to be intimidated. Naturally I'm flattered I'm the first but all the same
"You're not the first," she said. "I told Jim Hardiman. Used to be my coach. Now he's the sports director at the Plezz."
"And what did he say?"
"He said to forget it. A nutter. I should train hard and not talk to strangers and let Starbright take care of anyone who got persistent."
"Sounds good advice. Why aren't you taking it?"
"Yesterday morning I got these notes."
She handed him two postcards. They both had reproductions of cat paintings on them, one of two kittens watching a snail, the other of a whole family of cats playing with an empty birdcage. He turned them over. No stamps, though one did have a sort of damp mark in the stamp square as if someone had stuck something there. They both had messages printed in red ballpoint.
REMEMBER, YOU'VE GOT FANS EVERYWHERE
and
WHEN WE SAY EVERYWHERE THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT WE MEAN
"These don't change things much," said Joe, all professional reassurance.
"Yes, they do," said Zak. The first one I found in my locker at the Plezz. Which was locked. The second I found on my pillow when I woke up yesterday morning. I think these people are telling me they can go anywhere, do anything. Like cats."
"You don't seem so scared of cats," said Joe, looking enviously at Whitey.
"No, but if he was three times as big as me I'd be scared," said Zak.
"Fair enough," said Joe. "So why exactly have you come to me?"
"Because it's the twenty-ninth, which leaves three days till the race. Seems to me my best chance is for someone to find out what's going on in those three days."
"You're probably right. But the people with the best chance of doing that are the cops."
"Definitely no," she said with an authority belying her years. They work for the Law. I want someone working for me."
This seemed an odd way of putting it but Joe didn't beat his brain trying to figure out what she meant.
He said, "Suppose, as is likely, I can't find anything out in three days?"
Then I find out about it myself on the track," she said slowly.
That's crazy! If you're that worried, why not pull a muscle, catch a cold or something?"
The voice told me, don't think of scratching. I've got to run and lose or else all favours are off. Joe, it's not just me that's been threatened. I can hire muscle like Starbright to give me some degree of protection. But someone who can get close enough to leave these notes the way they did isn't going to have any problem targeting my family."
Turning up with me in tow could tip these people you've been talking."
"Hell, you not that famous, are you?" she smiled. "I'll say you're some old friend's old uncle who's lost his job and I felt so sorry for you, I've taken you on as temporary bagman."
That why you chose me, I'd fit the part so well?" said Joe unresentingly.
"No. Positive recommendation," she said, standing up and putting Whitey on the desk despite his plaintive protest. Tell me, Joe, that pic up there, who's it by?"
Surprised, because the only picture in his office was the photo of a recovery truck on the free calendar advertising Ram Ray's garage, Joe followed her gaze. She was looking at Whitey's tray still perched on the curtain rail above the window.
"Sorry, I just stuck it up there to dry ..." he began apologizing.
"You mean you did it yourself? Joe, that's really great. Do you exhibit?"
"No! Look, it was just sort of an accident
"Joe, don't put yourself down. We've had a couple of seminars on the Creative Accident this semester and what comes out of it is that all art is a form of accident, or maybe none of it is, which comes to much the same thing. Will you sell it to me?"
"No!"
It came out a bit explosively and the girl (Joe knew better than to call girls girls these days, but they couldn't put him in jail for thinking it!) looked so tearfully taken aback that Joe's soft heart ruled his soft head and he heard himself saying, "What I mean is, you want it, you take it. Gift from me. And Whitey."
Give credit where it's due was a Mirabelle motto.
"Well, thank you, Joe," she said, clearly overwhelmed. "And thank you too, Whitey."
She picked up the cat from the desk and gave him a big hug.
Story of my life, thought Joe. I do the deals, he gets the profit.
"Joe," she said. "I've got to run. Literally. You will take my case, won't you?"
"I'll take a look at it," he said. "But listen, you haven't heard my rates
"Charge me top dollar, Joe," she said, smiling. "I'm going to be a millionaire, haven't you read the papers? I'll be at the Plezz most of the morning. Come and see me there about twelve thirty. OK?"
And she was gone, clutching her tray like a championship trophy.
Joe looked down at the cat postcards she'd left on the desk.
"Well, I guess I'm hired, Whitey," he said. "And I don't know whether to be glad or not. This one could be a real problem."
And the cat looked at him with an expression which said, the only real problem you've got is you've just given away my toilet tray, and what the shoot do you intend doing about that?
Five.
Despite the fact that it was still only nine o'clock, breakfast felt a long way away.
Joe popped round the corner to Mr. Palamides's hardware shop where he bought a new litter tray in puce plastic. He foresaw trouble with the colour but it was all Mr. P had.
"OK, it does shout at you," he said to Whitey. "But have you seen the new gents at the Glit?"
The cat refused to be comforted so Joe left him sulking in the bottom drawer of his desk and went off in search of food.
A bacon sarnie and a mug of tea at MacFrys produced an association-of-ideas time slip reminding him of his conclusion, tested at breakfast, that Sandra lies was Number One Suspect for the Potter killing.
It didn't feel quite such an odds-on certainty now, but he didn't doubt that Willie Woodbine on his return home would want to know if she'd been thoroughly checked out, and if Chivers wasn't bright enough to do it, Joe had no inhibitions about doing himself a bit of good and the sergeant a bit of harm by demonstrating he at least had been on the ball.
The precise nature of this demonstration he had yet to work out. One thing was certain. Anything that came close to confrontation in a secluded spot was definitely out. Citizen's arrest sounded easy when you said it fast, but it wasn't a concept most Lutonians took kindly to, and he'd already had experience of getting on the wrong side of Ms lies.
He doubted she'd be at work today. The chambers on Old-maid Row would be crawling with cops and in any case, hadn't she told Chivers she'd just called in to collect some case notes to study at home over the rest of the holiday?
Probably a way of making some poor sod pay for her time even when she was lying around watching old movies on the box.
He drove to the post office, checked the telephone directory. There were three S. lies, but one was a greengrocer and another lived on the Hermsprong Estate where rats hardly dared to go, let alone lawyers. The third address looked promising. 7 Coach Mews. This was all that remained to mark the site of one of Luton's great coaching inns which had gone into rapid decline with the coming of the railway. The coming of the motor car had taken much longer to displace the horse totally in the town's conservative affection and the stable complex had survived the demolition of the old inn by a good fifty years. Finally it too had become ruinous till a smart seventies developer had bought up the site, kept the old cobbled yard and as much of the facade as wasn't on the point of collapse, and constructed eight town houses which had tripled in price by the h
eight of the eighties boom. They had suffered the universal dip since then but were still only within reach of the town's fattest cats, like accountants, pornographers, and lawyers.
He drove round there and smiled smugly when he saw the BMW parked in the cobbled yard. So far so good. But where next?
He recalled a story he'd heard read on the radio where some guy had gone around telling people in high places he knew their secret, then watched their reaction. It had been a pretty funny story, but maybe it had a serious side.
He guessed she was in the house, what with the car outside and the curtains still drawn. There was a phone box a little way down the street. He went into it and dialled the lies number.
It rang a few times then an answer machine clicked in.
He put on the approximation of an Irish accent he used when singing "Danny Boy' and said, "We know it was you that did it. See you soon."
Then he returned to the car which he'd parked with a good view of the entrance to the mews. He was well out of the sight line of anyone in Number 7 but if she did emerge in the BMW, looking guilty, it was going to be a delicate task following her in this mobile wallpaper ad. Half an hour later he was starting to feel that this wasn't a problem he was going to have to face. He went back to the phone box and rang again. Still the answer machine. He pressed the rest and re dialled repeating the process several times. Surely even a lawyer couldn't be sleeping this soundly? He strolled to the mews entrance and glanced up at Number 7. The curtains were still drawn.
This is stupid, he thought. I mean, no one's paying me to do this. Head back to the office, Sixsmith, and have a kip till it's time to go see the lovely Zak down the Plezz and start earning some real money.
But even as his sensible mind hesitated, his traitor feet were carrying him to the door of Number 7 and his foolish finger was prodding the bell.
Nothing happened. He rang again, leaning his ear to the wood to check the bell was actually ringing. It was. And the door moved slightly under pressure from his ear.
He pushed it with his hand and it swung slowly open.
There was a noise to his right. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that an elderly gent of military when had emerged from Number 6 and was regarding him with a curiosity this side of suspicion, but only just. Fixing his gaze firmly on the doorway, Joe let his mouth spread in a big smile and cried, "Well, hello there! Nice to see you again," and stepped inside.
