RED HUNT: A captivating detective mystery (Hard Boiled Thrillers, Noir and Hard-Boiled Mysteries) (Thomas Blume Book 3)

by PT Reade

  I didn’t get a word out before he started begging.

  “Come on now, man,” Ruffles squealed. “Don’t be like this. I’m innocent.” He sported some nasty looking scratches and a large purple bruise running down one side of his head.

  “I never said you were guilty of anything,”

  “Then who the hell are you? What do you want? You a cop?”

  “No. Why do people keep asking that?” I considered the man’s attitude, broken and pleading, and decided to add a little flair. “Not a cop, but I am looking for information. And because I’m not a cop, I don’t have a rulebook to follow to get information from people.” I braved his ripe body odor, leaned closer, and added, “Understand?”

  He shuddered, and I could hear his teeth chattering. I could also smell rum on his breath, and I wondered if, deep down, I was really any better than the people that stayed here in this hell. The fact I had a home to lay my head put me only a couple of steps up the ladder.

  “Okay, man,” he said. “What is it?”

  I showed him the picture of Christina. Without taking it, he glanced at the photo and a look of horror came over his face.

  “She look familiar to you?” I asked.

  “She… She does,” he said. “I talked to her a week or so ago. Wish I’d never seen the bitch.”

  “Why?”

  “She was wandering down the streets, you know? And I asked if she needed help. She said no. But—well, let’s be honest—she’s hot. So I watched her for a while, you know? Followed her. I watched her get into an old Beemer, on one of these side streets. I think she made a phone call from a cell. She didn’t stay in the car for long. I watched her get out of it, like, and head down the street again.”

  “Where did she go?”

  Ruffles shrugged. “Hell if I know. That chick is pretty dumb. Walking around here looking like that. I bet she was raped and left for dead by now, huh? That why you looking for her?”

  Ignoring this last part, I scowled and pressed him further. “That brief run-in doesn’t seem like any reason for you to say that you wish you’d never met her. What else happened?”

  He chewed on his bottom lip for a while, considering. “You swear you’re not a cop?”

  I slapped him across the face, and he whimpered. “Would a cop do that?” I asked.

  “Not a good one,” he whined. “Arsehole.”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “Information costs money,” he said, staring me in the eye.

  Despite the slap and his whimpering, the kid showed some balls. I had to give him credit for that. I reached into my pocket and took out a note and some change. “There’s more if you tell me what I need to know. Now talk. What happened after you saw the woman?”

  Ruffles eyed the cash, shrugged, and took it. As he crammed it into his pockets, he started talking again.

  “After she was gone, I walked to her car. It wasn’t even locked, man, keys were inside. I don’t need a car, understand…but it was an okay ride. I figured I could maybe sell it or something. So I took it and then went to pick up my girl, Audrey, from the shelter.” His voice broke here and started to sound like it had the moment after I slapped him. “Well, she’d been my girlfriend before the problems, you know. We’d run a few shops, lifting gear and selling it. Then I got in trouble with the law. Lost everything. Ended up here.” He started sobbing.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “Audrey was pretty sure she could get a monkey or so for it. She knew someone in a chop shop. So we made plans to sell it, get a hotel room, take a shower, and have a really nice meal, you know? Then go out and score somewhere. But we didn’t get the chance…”

  “A monkey?” I asked.

  “Five ton, you know. Five hundred quid.”

  The God-awful Cockney rhyming slang so many Londoners used made about as much sense to me as quantum physics, but the rest of the situation was becoming clearer. As I put the scene together in my head, Ruffles explained the turn of events.

  “Out of nowhere, these fucking cops show up. I figured they knew the car had been lifted, so we hauled arse. Aud’ and me were in that chase for about twenty minutes, and then she just lost control. Hit a pole or something, and the car flipped. I knew right away that Audrey…that she was dead. Her neck broke, head …just turned all the way around.”

  He started crying, and I held my hand up. There was no sense in me making him go through it all again. “That’s enough,” I said. “You kicked out the side window, right?”

  He nodded. “I thought about getting her out, but I couldn’t. If I waited too long, the cops would have caught up to me. I can’t go to prison, man.”

  I nodded, recalling walking by the scene of the accident. Knowing that I had been just a few cars behind this unfortunate character moments before Audrey crashed Christina Bishop’s car was eerie. I remembered the commotion in the crowd and realized that this was the guy I had spotted escaping. I’d thought nothing of it at the time.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, buddy,” I said. “I truly am. I know it’s a small consolation, but what you’ve just told me has answered some big questions.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, looking up at me with tear-filled eyes.

  “Yeah. Here,” I said, reaching into my pocket. “The rest of the cash.”

  Ruffles scooped it from my hand slowly. “There’s…well, there’s something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Some stuff from the glove box. I sort of went through it before I picked up Audrey. I swiped everything into a bag. I still have it.”

  “Can I see it?”

  He sniffed and wiped his nose on a sleeve. “I guess. Follow me.”

  I was hoping that he would simply walk back through the French Brothers building but no…he went back for the hole in the wall. Frowning, but having no choice, I followed.

  TWELVE

  The Riverside Ritz.

  While Ruffles led me down an alleyway, I thought about how crafty Christina Bishop had been. Unless she was incredibly stupid—which I was certain she was not—she had intentionally left the car in a location where it would quickly be stolen. It was the same vehicle that was on her DVLA record as being the first one she’d purchased after passing her test. She must have known that the make and description of her car were all over the police channels.

  And what’s the best way to get the cops off of your tail over such a thing? Create a diversion and send them on a wild goose chase. Hell…maybe even get very lucky and make them think you’re dead.

  Ruffles brought me to what I assumed was his own little shelter. It was down a slight embankment off of an alley. A muddy and poorly tended riverbank of the Thames lay about fifty yards away. This particular shelter consisted of plastic sheeting, steel poles, and a large sheet of tin. The tin was cleverly hung by a rope that had been tied to two adjacent trees. The whole setup was tucked against an old concrete embankment. Impressive ingenuity.

  When Ruffles stepped under the plastic sheet ceiling, I remained outside and I watched as he lifted a large rock near the back of the shelter and reached into a hole in the ground. He shifted some things around and pulled out a plastic shopping bag. He handed it to me almost like he was glad to be rid of it.

  “I’ve barely even looked through it,” he sighed. “I held on to it because I thought it might be a nice way to remember my last moments with Audrey. But to hell with that. You can keep it.”

  “Thanks,” I said. And slipped him another five-pound note for his troubles. He needed the money more than I did.

  I searched through the bag as Ruffles took a seat in his shelter and looked out mournfully to the mist-covered river. There were two stray pieces of gum, a few fast food napkins, tissues, some receipts, an empty lipstick tube and, near the bottom, something that made me pause for a moment.

  Christina had been pretty careless.

  I took a scrap of paper out of the bag and looked at it. It was the duplicate copy of a form — a te
mporary lease for an apartment, to be exact. Had Christina really gone to such great lengths to have her car stolen only to forget that such a damning piece of evidence was in her glove box?

  Stress makes us do stupid things.

  I read the address on the form. The lease was under the name of “Tina Priest.”

  The play on words wasn’t lost on me.

  I folded it up and put it in my pocket. When I did, I felt the familiar shape of the flask there. The whisper of smoky warmth called to me so I plucked the flask out, took a long pull from it. I paused, looking at the sorry shape under the shelter and then offered it to Ruffles.

  “Consider it a bonus,” I said.

  He smiled wanly and took it, then immediately uncapped the top and drew a long, hard gulp. He offered it back to me, but I shook my head. “Keep it.”

  I was pretty sure the guy would drink himself into oblivion that night over the loss of his woman.

  I knew because I had done the same.

  THIRTEEN

  People often told me to go to hell. It felt as though I’d arrived early.

  Since arriving in London, I’d spent a lot of time noticing the ways that New York and London were different, but I hardly ever took the time to really notice their similarities. I pondered one similarity now, as evening fell and acid streetlights bathed the area in sickly hues. I pulled my car up to the address on Christina’s lease form—or, rather, Tina Priest’s lease form.

  The name on the side of the grey-brown high-rise building was Mandalay House. It was located less than a mile from the warehouses where I’d found Ruffles. I guessed at the condition of the place based on appearances. It was an ugly concrete monolith that made my small, unkempt apartment look like Buckingham Palace. The building wasn’t much of an upgrade from the little shelters I’d seen thrown together in the French brothers building.

  Low rent “flats” for the broke and the desperate

  Before stepping out of the car, I reached under my seat and removed my Beretta pistol and its holster. It had taken me weeks to secure the illicit firearm. I only brought it on cases where I felt it was absolutely necessary. The English authorities are notoriously anti-gun, and I didn’t want to risk jail time, but in this case …

  I tucked it down inside the waist of my pants and covered it with my leather jacket, hoping I wouldn’t have to use it. I walked away from the car and was struck by a smell of garbage and an overwhelming sense of despair. The people in this part of the city had given up on hope, and I could feel it like thick smog on the air.

  Drunken laughter sounded from further down the street as along with the clinking of glass bottles. A booming bass riff rattled the windows high above me, and I was rather saddened to realize that I knew the tune, “Teardrop” by Massive Attack. An exquisitely melancholy number by the British band, and a favorite of Sarah’s from many years ago. It seemed strangely fitting given the surroundings.

  I moved through the weed growth that might once have been a communal garden and pushed open a front door that was adorned with graffiti.

  The entrance opened into a large lobby that looked like some forgotten corner of an old asylum. The floors were in terrible need of a sweeping and most of the light fixtures overhead were blown or flickering. The place practically screamed “drug den” and had a peculiar smell that was a combination of stale beer and the inside of a fridge that hadn’t been cleaned in months.

  Two men were speaking in the corner as I entered and eyed me skeptically. Another was sitting forlornly against the wall, looking at the ceiling and contemplating only God knows what. A man and a woman were necking in another corner, the man with a hand up the woman’s shirt. None of these people interested me, though. My attention was solely on the two guys dressed in almost identical fashion: soccer jerseys, baseball caps, and tattoos down their arms they’d likely regret ten years from now.

  These two, I had come to know, were called “Chavs,” a uniquely English breed of urban thugs. They wore cheap sportswear, cheaper jewelry, and usually had a general disregard for basic human decency. There were far too many of them in the seedier parts of the city, and these two looked as though they had stepped right out of a low budget rap video.

  They sized me up as if I had come into the room and spat in their faces. I’d heard that Chavs liked to start shit just for the sake of it, and I figured I might be about to find out.

  Maybe it was time for my luck to run out on this case.

  The apartment I needed was on the eighth floor. I looked to the stairwell beside the thugs. The thought of climbing those stairs in this darkened building at this hour seemed like a dumb move, even with my weapon. I didn’t think even the most hardened cop could have made the climb without a case of sweaty palms.

  I looked away from the stairs and to the elevator. The man and woman stood next to the Chavs, the man now pressing the woman against the wall and nuzzling into her neck, his hands still at work. With a grimace, I walked to the elevator and pushed the up button. I drew my hand back quickly when I felt something sticky on the button. I wiped my finger on my pants and stepped into the carriage. Inside I punched the button I needed. Several empty beer cans littered the floor, and the little box reeked of sweat and piss.

  The doors creaked as they slid closed, and I wondered if it really was going to be this easy. Was Christina Bishop really eight floors over my head? Was I finally going to find the woman at the center of all this?

  I almost smiled. Almost.

  Before I was able to break into a grin, an arm shot between the closing doors. The entrance slid back open, and the two Chavs stepped in. Neither made an attempt to hide their unfounded contempt for me.

  Great, I thought. Here we go.

  With the reassuring weight of my gun against my back, I did my best to stay away from the corner as the elevator doors slid closed once more.

  Both men grinned at me.

  They took position on either side, bookending me so that I had nowhere to go if—let’s face it…when—they decided to jump me. I thought about drawing my gun immediately, but I was sure I’d have to actually use it to fend these two off. And that was the last thing I wanted—loud noises in the building of a woman in hiding. Christina would probably rabbit at the first sound of a gunshot.

  Paranoia gives people wings. I’d have to keep this quiet.

  “You lost, geez?” The thug on my right finally asked.

  “People keep asking me that today. Do I look lost?” I really didn’t mean for it to sound like a wisecrack, but my New York tongue made it seem that way, so I rolled with it.

  “You do,” the other one said. “You also look like a dipshit for being dressed like that and being in ‘ere. You got a booty-call in the building or somethin’?”

  “Something like that,” I replied, dryly.

  “Sure,” the one on my right said.

  “That accent you got is thick,” the one on my right added. I glanced at him and studied the weird tribal tattoo that snaked up his shoulder and rounded around his neck. “New York, right?”

  “It is,” I said. “Good guess.”

  “Fuckin’ Americans,” his companion said. He had a pierced upper lip that made his s sounds seem like the hiss of a snake.

  “Yeah, we suck. It all went downhill with George Bush.”

  “There’s a fine for American’s using this building.”

  “Is it riding in this piss-soaked elevator with you two degenerates?” I asked. “If it is, I’d pay a hundred bucks just to never see your ugly faces again. You stink like ball sweat and cheap liquor.”

  The two punks froze, looking shocked. Clearly, they had not expected the outsider to talk game to them. But that was what I had hoped for, making them angry, and goading them into acting without thinking.

  They followed along like a pair of well-trained dogs.

  Tribal spat something unintelligible, balled a fist, and swung wildly at me. But the tight space meant I didn’t have to move far. His punch cracked
against the metal of the door, and he howled in pain. I used his shock to my advantage and with my open thumb and index finger struck a hard jab to his throat. He gagged and fell back against the wall, clutching his neck.

  I spun to face his buddy. Light flashed on a knife blade. I stepped inside his thrust. The blade whistled past my belly. I threw a punch into his sternum, caught his wrist, and twisted. He screamed. I continued the twist until his shoulder popped. The knife clattered to the floor. He screamed again, this time louder.

  The sickening squelch of his joint cracking filled the elevator with a pop. He opened his mouth to yell once more, and I closed it with my fist. He fell to the floor beside the knife as the elevator came to a stop.

  The elevator made a weak ding, and the doors slid open. I stepped out and looked back inside. “Fuckin’ Americans,” I said.

  FOURTEEN

  High-rise, low rent.

  The receipt I had taken from Ruffles told me Christina had rented apartment 808. I walked up to it and pressed my ear to the door. I could hear a TV running inside, a murmur of voices, and a laugh track. I knocked.

  Right away, the television went quiet, but no one answered. The room inside fell silent.

  I’d come this far, fortunate enough to find a trail of clues to lead me to her doorstep. Even if whoever was inside was not Christina, it would likely be someone that could help me find her. Might as well go for broke.

  “Christina,” I said, not too loud but with enough volume to be heard through the door. “I’m here to help. I know what’s going on. And if you can work with me, I promise you that I‘ll do my best to figure this out. I’m a P.I.—a private detective. I’m not with the police. Please open the door. Let’s just talk, ok?”

  I waited a beat, but there was still no response. I gave the person inside thirty seconds to respond. I looked back towards the elevator to see if my two new friends had decided to be brave, but there was no sign of them.