The World's Finest Mystery...

by Ed Gorman

  She'd been on her way home from the post office where she'd collected her monthly social security. Just fifty meters from her house she'd had one of her epileptic fits. She had severe muscle spasms and fell on the sidewalk against the front of her house. All the passersby walked around her and even when three young hoods took the opportunity to grab her handbag, no one intervened. Except Pier. He had seen what happened, collared one of the thieves and shook him. The other two had gone for Pier with knives. With a few well-aimed upper cuts, he knocked them off their feet. He had taken the stolen handbag from them and concerned himself with Rosa. The fit was over but now she had the blinding headache and confused feeling that always followed an attack. Pier had taken her in his arms and carried her up to her apartment on the third floor. He had stayed with her until she was able to take care of herself again. A few days later a pressure group had filed charges against Pier because he was an ex-boxer and had handled the young thieves too roughly. He was penalized and had had to pay their medical expenses. Ever since then, Rosa and Pier had kept each other going. She made sure he didn't get involved in any other incidents because Pier clearly didn't know his own strength. And he took care of her when she had one of her attacks.

  She reached the Kastanjelaan and to her relief, saw his bicycle parked against the gate. She didn't hesitate for a moment. She put her thumb on the bell and kept it there.

  * * *

  There was no language barrier between Fanny and Rosa and Fanny was at her best. "He's upstairs," she answered sweetly to Rosa's inquiry after Pier. "Follow me."

  Upstairs, Rosa saw what was going on with one glance. Tears came to her eyes when she saw what they had done to Pier. He was lying in the chair barely conscious. One eye was beaten shut and blood was running from his nose and mouth. She walked toward him and tried to help him up. Then she saw that his hands were tied behind his back. "Monsters," she screamed. "Untie him at once!"

  "You hand over Slepak's wallet, now!" Fanny barked at her. "Or would you prefer us to cut your pimp to ribbons?"

  Rosa was standing in front of Pier to protect him. "I don't have any Slepak's wallet," she said. "Only a Goldwasser's."

  Kosta's patience had run out. He took the razor from Stako's hand and pushed Rosa aside. He'd show her they weren't playing games. But before he had a chance to use it, Rosa attacked him. She scratched him with her nails and bloody stripes appeared on both sides of Kosta's nasty face. His reaction was brutal. With his free hand he punched her in the face so hard she fell over backward and stayed down, dazed.

  * * *

  Pier was back in his corner in the ring. He knew he'd lost the bout, but that was all right. Rosa didn't want him to fight back. It would only make things worse, she always said.

  The sound of Rosa being hit in the face registered in his numbed brain like the sound of the gong announcing the final round in a title fight. He sprang up. Mustering every ounce of strength his aging body still possessed, he launched his attack. Hands bound behind his back but head forward, he rammed Kosta in the stomach. Kosta never knew what hit him. He was out cold before he hit the floor.

  Pier turned to face Stako. He was once again the mighty young street fighter from the Seefhoek district. Stako panicked. Russian bullies aren't used to their victims fighting back. He aimed his gun and pulled the trigger but had forgotten to take the safety off. Before he could correct the mistake, Pier was on top of him. With a head butt he broke Stako's nose, and a merciless knee in the groin finished him off.

  Pier now turned his attention to Fanny, who backed away in fear. There was no stopping him now. In the Seefhoek you never gave an enemy a second chance. But before he could attack her, Rosa said: "That's enough, Pier. We're going home. We still have our paper round to finish."

  Pier relaxed immediately. He smiled.

  "Yes, Rosa." he said.

  * * *

  Pier was putting food onto their plates. The menu was mashed potatoes and cabbage with fried sausage. Rosa sat at the kitchen table, with a pile of banknotes in front of her, which she was counting and then dividing into equal piles. A note was on each pile with the address of the charity it was going to and a simple signature: "Rosa and Pier," no further explanation.

  Pier was not completely happy with it though. "Are you sure there'll be no trouble over this?" he asked.

  "Very sure." Rosa answered. "Goldwasser was scared to death we were going to involve the police. I think that may have had something to do with that other name of his, Slepak. If you ask me, Goldwasser wasn't completely innocent either."

  "But didn't you blackmail him a little to get him to give us the money that was lying there as a reward?"

  "Maybe," Rosa said. "But I had a noble cause."

  Pier put the plates on the table.

  They started eating and stared at the piles of brand-new bills.

  "A lot of money," Pier said after a while.

  "Yes," Rosa said. "Two hundred thousand euros."

  Pier put a piece of sausage in his mouth and chewed. He thought for a while. Then he said: "I wanted to ask you something, Rosa but you mustn't get angry."

  She shook her finger at him. "If you're thinking of keeping part of the money, the answer is no."

  He looked indignant. "Of course not."

  "That's all right, then," she said satisfied. "What did you want to ask me?"

  He cut off a piece of sausage. "I was just wondering what happened to all this European money, francs, marks, and guilders we used to have?"

  Gary Phillips

  The Sleeping Detective

  GARY PHILLIPS grew up in South Central Los Angeles, and much of his fine, brave work reflects that fact. With such novels as Bad Night Is Falling and Jook, Phillips takes his readers to places they probably haven't been before. For all the rough turf, however, there's a gentle, even melancholy aspect to his work and a strong, redemptive sense of humor. He is one of those enviable writers who grows stronger with each book. "The Sleeping Detective," published in The Shamus Game, features his series detective Ivan Monk doing what he does best.

  The Sleeping Detective

  Gary Phillips

  Monk wasn't quite himself. His arms swung loose at his sides as the heels of his brown wing tips echoed in the long hallway. The corridor stretched underneath Los Angeles International Airport. It was the last old part of the sprawling facility, constructed in 1961 and still connecting the TWA terminal with the outside. Wait, he asked himself, what year is this anyway?

  His heels clacked a rhythmic pattern as Monk— no, it was McGill, yeah, his name was McGill, and it was 1967— strode confidently along the tiled passageway. The walls were also covered in tile, done in multicolored linear designs.

  McGill cared nothing of style or theories of architecture. He cared nothing that he'd been double-crossed and left for dead in a windblown shack in the Tehatchapis. He projected little about what willful fate had spared him the grave after being shot twice, point-blank. No, the only thing McGill cared about was getting back the $67,000 owed to him. And if he had to do it over the bodies of his best friend Veese and his wife, Jill, so be it.

  McGill's tie herked and jerked as his tall, fluid frame pounded toward the end of the corridor. His face was as empty of emotion as the hallway was devoid of other passengers. His close-cropped, prematurely gray hair complemented his crisp Brooks Brothers suit. The muscles in his legs flawlessly propelled him toward the end of the passageway, and closer to his goal.

  S'funny, but he didn't ache from the wounds, the holes his dear darling lovingly put in him. This while her boyfriend, Veese, the guy he'd saved once on a job gone wrong, looked on, licking his lips. If McGill was the chatty sort, and he wasn't, he'd be vague on the details of how he got out of that below-freezing cabin at night and got himself healed up.

  Suddenly he was no longer in the airport. The echo of his shoes blended in with the sounds of midday traffic. The sun was bright and glinted off the windshield of the new Biscayne he'd stolen as he par
ked on the rise. He removed the hand shading his eyes. Up there past that wall and shrubs was the door to their love nest. If he could still remember how to smile, he would have.

  Now he was moving across the threshold, the .357 Magnum in his right hand. His left hand was in Jill's face, pushing her back and out of his way. She'd been so shocked upon seeing him, all she could do was whisper his name over and over. Not that it mattered to him if she called out Veese's name. He wanted him to step into the cross hairs.

  Everything— his motion, her falling, the door banging back— happened in slow motion, defying logic and the laws of gravity. He kicked in the door to the bedroom, aiming and firing in the same heartbeat that thudded in his throat. The recoil of the pistol made his arm twitch. It wasn't his .45, and absently he wondered why he'd traded that for this bruiser. He emptied the gun's six bullets into the unmade, and unattended, bed. He whirled as real time jumped back on track.

  "A ghost, an avenging specter." Jill had a hand to her forehead as if she were fevered. "McGill, I—" She couldn't finish, didn't dare to offer an excuse.

  He stood there, spent, close on her, and despite himself that familiar feeling flooded over him, if only momentarily. He pointed the gun barrel at the bed. "Where?"

  "Gone."

  "How long?"

  "Months. He stops by every so often. Sends money by courier each month."

  "When?"

  "Today, later."

  He glanced back at the bed. Behind the headboard was a floor-to-ceiling mirror so Veese could watch himself as they made love. On the nightstand was a box. It was open, and on its side read CONTINENTAL DONUTS.

  He turned back to her as they sat on the couch. For some reason his eyes were closed and he couldn't get the lids to lift.…

  "Ivan," she said, kissing his ear. "Ivan, when did you get in, baby?"

  He yawned, his arms encircling the pillow. "Ummm," he drooled, "after five." He lay half awake, the details of the dream fleeing his conscious mind.

  Jill Kodama got off the bed, rubbing the back of his head. "I didn't hear you get in. You must have driven straight from New Mexico after I talked to you yesterday."

  "Wanted to get home, sleep."

  She leaned over and kissed his cheek. She smelled like flowers. "Aren't you a bit perfumed up for a judge?"

  "You want me to smell like cigars and Old Spice like you do?" She slapped his butt under the blanket. "I'll call you later, see if you want to come downtown for dinner. Let's try Ciudad. The Veese case I'm trying is about wrapped up."

  "Is he guilty?"

  "That's for a jury to decide, citizen Monk."

  He opened an eye, a kraken awakening from the depths. "Is he guilty?"

  She was at the door to their bedroom. "I'd say he has blood on his hands. Call you." She left, and he tried to get back to sleep. After some effort, as his body wound down again, the phone rang, and rang, and rang.

  "Boss, somebody's been puttin' the nab on our doughnuts."

  It was Elrod, the manager of Continental Donuts, the small business he owned in the Crenshaw District. Elrod's bass was an indication of the size of a man who'd give Jesse Ventura palpitations.

  "You mean, some cat broke in and took our doughnuts but not cash?" he breathed into the handset. Why wouldn't they let him sleep?

  "No," the manager boomed, irritated. "For the last week, glazes, fancy twists, maple and chocolate crullers and jelly-filled have been gettin' filched while the shop's been open. Sixty-seven, I counted. Sixty-seven doughnuts have been taken."

  Monk was going to question just how the big man could be so exact in his count, but he didn't want to encourage a long discussion. He coughed, clearing his throat and rolling onto his back. "You have suspects?" He scratched himself.

  "Well," Elrod rumbled on the other end, "I hate to say it, but it has to be one of the staff. The inventory has been gettin' filched off the racks as the goods cool in the back."

  "You mean the new guy, Moises, right?"

  "Aw, see, I don't want to say that for sure." Elrod, like Monk, had been born and raised in the 'hood. Unlike Monk, he was also an ex-con, and was sensitive to the notion he should disparage someone trying to be responsible.

  The new guy was a young man from the area where the shop was located. For the last two months since he'd begun, there had been no suggestion of problems with him. If anything, Monk had noticed the young man had looked more harried and thinner the last week or so as he'd been diligently working with Elrod in learning how to perfect his doughnut making.

  "It ain't mutant rats, is it?"

  Elrod didn't deign to answer such a ridiculous remark.

  "Okay, how about you see if you can correlate the times you've noticed doughnuts missing with Moises' shifts. If the times are the same, then I'll have a talk with him. You haven't said anything to him yet, have you?"

  "No, you're the private detective. I was kinda figuring you'd want to take over this investigation."

  "Carry on, my swarthy cohort."

  "I'll let you know."

  Monk hung up and lay on his stomach. Of course, now the missing doughnuts intrigued him, and he had to concentrate to stop himself from thinking about them. He put on the radio, the volume low. If nothing else, he'd get filled in on a few current events, and hopefully the drone of voices would be an electronic lullaby to put him back to slumber land.

  He switched from FM and National Public Radio to AM and KNX, the all-news station. He settled under the covers once more, tamping down deep whatever angst he might be developing about missing doughnuts. There was a report about a tie-up on the 101 in both directions. Monk smiled inwardly, feeling superior that he didn't have to be out there with those poor bastards today.

  Tom Hatten, the entertainment reporter, came on after a commercial. "I'm saddened to report today the passing of Jack Denning, one-time fifties and sixties leading man of such neoclassic tough-guy films as Prison Cell 99 and Desperation Alley. Younger listeners attuned to TV Land reruns will no doubt remember Mr. Denning in later years as the mysterious reclusive millionaire Raxton Gault in the cult seventies TV show The Midas Memorandum."

  Monk began to drift off, an image of Denning in snap brim hat and trench coat punching out some crook slipping past his eyelids. Hatten went on, his voice seeming to come to him as if though thick glass. "And, of course, the older crowd out there, like yours truly, have fond memories of Jack Denning as half of that sleuthing man-and-wife team the Easterlys, a late fifties, early sixties TV show that…"

  Alex Easterly was walking Sergei, the silver-tan Afghan hound, through the park. The grass in the park was awfully green, more like carpet than real blades, it occurred to him. There were places where the grass bulged, and it was as if it wasn't somehow lying flat upon the earth. And the park bench where the man waited for him, what of those bushes behind him? Wasn't that glint a jiggling wire leading from the greenery, shaking the limbs as if there was a slight wind?

  "Mr. Easterly?" The man looked off, past Easterly's shoulder. He stood and they shook hands.

  "Yes, he said, sitting next to him. Sergei rested on his haunches, his head regally erect. What kind of dog didn't pant? "You said over the phone there was a matter you could only talk to me in person about, Mr. Jones. Or should I say, Mr. Masters." He took out a cigarette case inlaid with whitish jade tinged with green. When the hell had he started smoking those? "Care for one?" he said, snapping the case open as if he'd done it a thousand times before.

  Nolan Masters declined, showing the flat of his hand. "I guess you're as sharp as they say you are."

  "You're not exactly unknown, Mr. Masters." He lit the cigarette and placed it in his mouth. In doing so, his fingers brushed against his chin— where was his goatee? But damned if that cigarette wasn't smooth as he didn't know what. "I peruse a number of publications, Mr. Masters, including Business Today."

  "Yes, well," the other man began, uncrossing his legs. "It's my business that I need help with, unfortunately. Someone ha
s been stealing some of our, well, let's call them plans, shall we? This is hush-hush stuff we've been keeping under wraps until the right moment to introduce them on the market, you see."

  He was about to reply but turned his head at a sound. Was that someone watching them over there, beyond the ring of light from the street lamp next to the bench? "You know I'm retired now, Mr. Masters?" The damned dog hadn't looked their way once. He just stared off in the direction he heard the sound coming from. "Any of this have to do with the space race, Mr. Masters?"

  Flustered, he blurted, "How— why did you ask that? My company makes tubes and transistors for radios and TVs."