by Shan, Darren
The Red Throat used to be called the Nag’s Ass. It had been a real dive until a decade ago. I’d come here a couple of times during my early tenure with the Troops, hunting scum. The neighborhood had improved since then and the Nag’s Ass had come up in the world. The name wasn’t the only change—it had undergone a complete renovation, an extra floor had been added, the front had been adorned with blushing red bricks, stained-glass windows of various designs dotted the walls. I wouldn’t have recognized the place if I’d been passing.
Bouncers guarded the door, even though it was early in the day and there was no obvious call for them. They stared neutrally at me as I passed, eyes sloppily scanning my body for revealing bulges. Real amateurs. They wouldn’t be joining the Troops any time soon.
The red walls inside were draped with pink banners and sensuous photos of James Dean, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and hordes more pinup boys. Low, throbbing music spilled from the many speakers. A “wet jockstrap” DVD played on the TV sets.
I wandered to the bar and waited patiently while the barkeep—female in appearance, though I had my doubts—polished glasses. I was casing the joint (I had the detective lingo down pat!) when the barman—his voice ruined the illusion—cut in. “Hi. New in town?”
“What makes you ask?”
“Don’t recall seeing you before.”
“You’ve got a memory for faces?”
“No. We’re packed wall-to-wall most nights and I don’t even notice the regulars in the crush. But days are quieter. The usual crowd. You get to know them.” He went on polishing.
“Do you know a guy called Nick Hornyak?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He grew wary. The hand polishing the glass slowed. He was getting ready to call a bouncer.
“A friend of mine told me to look him up,” I lied, upping my voice an octave. “Said he might show me around the city and set me up with a place to stay.”
The barman resumed polishing, doubts vanishing with the smudges on the glass. “He’s shooting pool.” He nodded toward one of the tables in an alcove to the left. “Alone. Likes to work on his technique.” Eyes twinkling, he took my order—lemon juice—and put one of the spotless glasses to use.
I walked over slowly, studying Nic’s brother. He looked younger than his years, tall, handsome, expensive silk shirt, a gold St. Christopher medallion dangling from his neck, long hair gelled back. He’d have to watch that hair—dangerously thin. By the time he was thirty-five he’d be sticking chunks back on with glue. I knew about hair. Used to date a hairdresser.
He strolled around to my side of the table and I saw he was wearing a miniskirt. He flicked me the eye, grinned, bent to make his shot. I traced the hem of his blue tights up his long, shapely legs. From this angle he would have excited any guy who didn’t know better. He even had the roll of the hips pegged.
He sank a ball, turned, leaned against the table and smiled. “I love playing with balls and forcing my way down dark, tight holes. How about you?” I’d watched a lot of noir flicks in my time, but I’d never seen Bogey come out with an innuendo as blatant as that!
“I’m more into chess,” I replied drily. When he pouted, I added, “But I like your dress.”
“Silly, isn’t it?” he simpered, lighting a cigarette. He offered one but I shook my head. “I only wear it when I’m hanging around. I would have made more of an effort if I’d been expecting company.”
“My name’s Al Jeery,” I said. “You may have heard of me?”
“Should I have?”
“I was a friend of your sister’s.”
His guard came up instantly. “She had a lot of friends. They’ve been coming in droves to share their condolences. You’d be amazed how many are reporters.”
“I’m not a reporter, Mr. Hornyak. I’d been seeing Nic for a month before she died. We were close.”
“Lots of people were close to Nicola. How do I know you’re telling the truth? I had one esteemed member of the press pretend to be a long-lost cousin last night.”
“I met her at AA. We were—”
“AA? What was Nic doing there, for God’s sake?”
I frowned. “You didn’t know she was attending?”
“My sister and I rarely discussed matters other than those of a sexual nature.”
“But she told me she was there because of you. That you threatened to cancel her allowance if she didn’t sort herself out.”
“I made no demands of Nicola. She took what she liked. I never said boo.” I was confused. He noted it and smiled. “Nicola was a complicated woman. I knew her twenty-six years and she still had the capacity to startle me. Don’t let it worry you—she often spun lies and fairy tales.” An eyelid raised slyly on “fairy.”
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“I want to know why she was killed and who did it. The police are writing her off as a statistic. I think she deserves better. I think she deserves the truth.”
“A crusader.” He whistled. “Are you a detective, Al?”
“No. But I’ve got time. Resources are available to me. I’d like to talk with you about her and ask some questions. You don’t mind?”
He thought it over, then shrugged. “It’s a slow afternoon. How can I help?”
I opened my notebook, hoping I looked as if I knew what I was doing. “Let’s begin with the basics. Did you see Nic the day of her death?”
“No.”
“When did you last see her?”
He scratched his chin. “About two weeks before. We ran into each other in a club. We exchanged some comments about the atmosphere, the fashion, the music. Parted after a couple of minutes and went our separate ways.”
“You didn’t see her again?”
“No.”
“Did you talk with her on the phone?”
“No. I didn’t e-mail or text her either, write a letter or waft smoke signals her way. As I said, we weren’t close. We’d gang up occasionally for a night on the town, but only three, maybe four times a year.” He stubbed out his barely smoked cigarette, turned and shot pool again. “I don’t have much time for women, and Nic didn’t have much time for my kind of man.”
“Who was she with when you last saw her?” I asked.
“Some black guy with a bald head. He was sitting by himself at a table, looking standoffish.”
“Notice anything about him? Any distinguishing features?”
“I think he was tall. Thin. Black as sin.” Nick smiled. “That was quite poetical, wasn’t it?”
“You should publish. Anything else?”
“I really didn’t get a good look.”
I made a note of the bald, thin, black man and moved on.
“Did anyone have the knives out for Nic?”
“If they did, and I knew, I’d have told the police and they’d have questioned the guilty party.”
“People don’t always tell the cops everything.”
“But I did. I like the police. We get lots of officers here. I’ve always found them most obliging.”
“You really don’t know anything about her death?”
“No. There’s nothing I can tell you that I didn’t…” He paused.
“Yes?” I prompted him.
“She was wearing a brooch when she was killed.”
“With a symbol of the sun. I know.”
“The police asked me if I knew about it. I didn’t. But a few of her friends who called me since the news broke told me it had been a present from some mystic guy she used to see.”
Her file had mentioned an interest in the occult. I flipped my notebook over and scanned down some of the peripheral names I’d scribbled in the back. “It wasn’t Rudi Ziegler, was it?”
“The very one. Nic was into contacting the dead, fortune-telling, crackpot stuff like that.”
“And Ziegler gave her the brooch?”
“According to those in the know. I was going to contact the police about it. Do you think I should?”
“I doubt
it’ll matter. They’ll find out from the same sources as you.” I made a big ring around Ziegler’s name and stared at it. “Do you know Rudi Ziegler?”
“Heavens no! I wouldn’t be seen dead in the company of witch doctors.”
“You know nothing about him?”
“Only what I heard from Nic’s friends. As far as I can make out, he’s a hole-in-the-wall Houdini—mirrors, hidden speakers and flashes of light.”
“Anything else you can tell me?”
He thought for a minute. “Nothing springs to mind.”
“You don’t seem too cut up about her death,” I commented.
He sniffed. “What can I do about it? She’s dead. I’m not into grief trips. It’s a harsh world. Nic knew that. She ran into the wrong guy at the wrong time. Could happen to any of us. Those are the risks we take.”
“What if it wasn’t random? She may have been targeted. What if you’re next on the list? A distant relative looking to get his hands on the Hornyak estate or someone your father destroyed in business years ago?”
“No.” He sank the eight ball, lit another cigarette, racked the balls up and started a new frame. “Nic got unlucky. The perils of fucking anything that moves.”
“You’re the soul of compassion,” I said bitterly.
“Screw compassion. Death’s nothing new to me. I’ve watched friends die slowly from AIDS. Seen guys stabbed outside clubs, purely because of where they stick their dicks. You live with the losses or go nuts. Besides, I wouldn’t have wished death on Nic, but it could have happened to nicer people, know what I mean?”
“Not really.”
He fixed his gaze on me. “Nic was my sister and I loved her. But she was no angel. You knew her a month. From what you say, you only saw the best of her.”
“You reckon?”
“That bald guy in the club I was telling you about—that was two weeks ago. Were you still close with Nicola then, Al?”
I stiffened, preparing a retort, then realized he wasn’t insulting me, merely opening my eyes to the truth. I relaxed and nodded slowly.
“You weren’t the first she did the dirty on. You don’t even make the first few dozen. If you think she was an unsullied innocent and it’s your duty to avenge her, you’re a fool. My advice—let it lie. She wasn’t worth such devotion.”
His cruel honesty unsettled me and I realized, as I had when studying her file, how little I’d known about her.
“I’ll leave you to your game,” I said.
“So soon? Stay awhile. Go a few frames with me. You never know where it might lead. I’ve a wardrobe full of Nic’s old clothes and I can fit into most of them.”
“Tempting,” I grinned, “but no thanks.”
“Your loss,” he pouted, then winked. “Bye, Al. Call again someday. Catch me in something hot.”
I smiled, shook my head and left.
I felt reasonably good as I cycled back to Party Central. I’d made a start, and while I hadn’t cracked the case, I hadn’t collapsed at the first hurdle. I was pleased with the way the questioning had gone. I’d handled myself professionally. And I’d stumbled onto a possible clue in the process—Rudi Ziegler. Maybe I was cut out for this detective business after all.
I jotted down a few thoughts after my meeting with Nick. Apart from the Ziegler connection, there was the AA discrepancy to ponder. Why did Nic lie to me? Most probably she just didn’t want to admit she had a problem. A lot of people at AA meetings started out “without a problem” and were only there “at the insistence of…” (fill in the blank).
I made a note all the same—I’d need a new notebook soon if this kept up—then put it to one side and called Priscilla Perdue. No answer at home or on her cell phone, so I tried the beauty salon where she was an assistant manager. I had to brave the suspicion of a cautious secretary but finally I was put through.
“Priscilla. Sorry about the delay—journalists have been on my tail all day. How may I help?” She had a cute, squeaky voice.
“My name’s Al Jeery, Miss Perdue. I was a friend of Nic Hornyak’s. I was—”
“Al Jeery,” she interrupted, and I heard her tapping the back of her teeth with her tongue. “You were Nic’s little brown soldier.”
“Excuse me?”
She giggled. “Please don’t be offended. That’s how Nic described you. She said she was dating a big, brown, bulky soldier, with thick stubble for hair and the physique of an action doll. I was jealous.”
I didn’t know what to think about that, so I cleared my throat and said, “Miss Perdue, I’d like to discuss Nic with you. I’m running a private investigation into her—”
“Do you mind if we do this some other time?” she interrupted. “I’d rather talk about Nic outside of working hours. Doesn’t do to cry in front of the customers.”
“Of course. I’ll call after the funeral and—”
“You needn’t wait that long. I’ve been surrounded by well-wishers since news of the murder broke, but they’re all old friends and have nothing new to say. Are you free tonight?”
“Sure.”
“You have my address?” I had. “Pick me up, ten o’clock?”
“I don’t have a car,” I told her.
“That’s all right. We can use mine.”
I spent the intervening hours reading about Priscilla, preparing for our meeting. She came from a well-off family. Twenty-seven. Married for a couple of years when she was nineteen. Husband owned a chain of clothes boutiques. He was shot dead during a robbery. She got involved with his attorney, who ran off with most of her money, never to be seen again. No serious relationships since, but many short-term affairs.
The photos were few and poor, the most recent from the days of her marriage. I reported the lack of up-to-date material when handing the file back to the secretary on the seventeenth floor, from where it had come, as we were always meant to when encountering substandard data. My comments would be passed on and, within days, a team of operatives would be scanning newspapers and records, gathering photos, business transcripts, gossip tidbits, etc., updating and fleshing out her profile.
I went home to change. I hadn’t asked where we’d be going, so I didn’t know whether to dress formally. I played it safe and dressed smart-casual, tucking a tie into my pocket in case it was required.
She lived in an apartment block that put mine to shame. Couldn’t be doing too badly if she was able to maintain payments on a pad in a place like this.
I was about to buzz for her when she appeared, clad in blue, keys in her left hand. She was on the short side but otherwise as close to perfect as I’d seen in a long while. A model’s curves, wide blue eyes, round red lips, delicate cheekbones, and long blond hair that would have been any stylist’s delight.
“Al Jeery, I presume,” she said, eyes flicking over me.
“Miss Perdue.”
“Call me Priscilla. And I’ll call you Al.” She jangled the keys and smiled. “Race you to the car.” She sprinted past me, a strong stride. I had no option but to run to keep up.
She was slightly out of breath when we reached her car, an old BMW. I wasn’t.
“You’re in good shape,” she complimented me.
“For my age,” I modestly agreed.
We got in. She noticed my critical eye—the car was in poor shape.
“It’s a car like this or a cheaper apartment,” she explained.
“I thought you managed the salon.” Flattering her.
“Assistant manager. I do most of the work but my boss claims the profits. I make enough to keep me in style if I spend wisely. Unfortunately I’ve never had a head for money. It comes, it goes, and hardly any seems to be left over at the close of the weekend.”
She drove carefully, eyes glued to the road, not talking.
When she pulled up and I saw where we were—the Kool Kats Klub—I stiffened and a lot of the joy seeped out of the evening. Priscilla noted this and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
I subjected
her to a level gaze. “Nice choice of venue,” I said sarcastically.
“The Kool Kats?” she laughed. “I come here all the time. What do you have against…?” She slapped her forehead and groaned. “How much dumber can I get? I’m sorry, Al. I didn’t think. We’ll leave.”
“No.” I forced a smile. She was testing me—she knew exactly what she was doing when she picked this place. “I’m fine.”
The Kool Kats Klub was better known as the Ku Klux Klub, the name it had originally opened under, until the clamoring of irate citizens forced the change. It was a nest for the racist rich. I’d been inside once with the Troops to apprehend a pedophile. The sympathy of the clientele, as I dragged the son of a bitch out, was firmly on the abuser’s side, even though they knew him for what he was.
It hadn’t changed much. All the walls painted white. White customers, white staff, even a couple of pure white cats that roamed the halls imperiously.
The receptionist’s nostrils flared when he spotted my black face bobbing into the lobby, and when he smiled it looked as if he were passing a kidney stone. “May I help you, sir?” he asked icily, hands fidgeting at the buttons of his waistcoat.
“I’m collecting for disabled Negro war veterans,” I said, just for his reaction. If his jaw had been detachable it would have dropped to the floor, sprouted legs and scuttled away in shock.
“Ignore him, Martin,” Priscilla said, taking my arm and giggling. “Mr. Jeery is my guest for the night. I trust he will be treated with respect.”
The receptionist focused on Priscilla and smiled shakily. “Miss Perdue. Of course. Any guest of yours is a guest of ours.” His eyes flared beadily over me. “Would you care to be seated anywhere in particular?”
“My usual table.”
He coughed, nodded sharply and led us to Priscilla’s “usual table,” which was situated in the center of the dining room.
“Miss Perdue,” the receptionist said once he’d seated us. He faced me and blanched. “Sir,” he added with a curt nod and hurried away.
“Thanks, Martin.” I tossed the smallest coin I could find after him. The clink as it hit the marble floor was the loudest sound in the restaurant.
