Cobra Clutch

by Devlin, A. J. ;

  A wailing saxophone gently faded away as the jazz song on the television ended. The room was suddenly silent, save for the sound of the ice cubes in Stormy’s drink clinking loudly against glass. Her hand was shaking. Stormy broke eye contact and cleared her throat. She downed the rest of her scotch, dribbling a little on her chin. Either my words had touched a nerve or Stormy Daze had suddenly developed a case of the jitters.

  “I, uh, had no idea you and Johnny had that kind of a bond. He never really talked much about his time in the WWE.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  She topped up her drink and took a quick swig before fumbling with the cap as she screwed it back onto the bottle. This gal was rattled, all right. Now I just had to find out why.

  “To be perfectly honest with you Stormy, I’m not really sure what to do next,” I said, lying between my teeth. I sighed dramatically and did my best to channel my inner Columbo.

  “As much as I’d love to get my hands on the bastard who killed Johnny, I don’t really know how to go about it. I mean, I have a couple of questions I’d like to ask you about XCCW, but that’s about it. It’s not like I’m a seasoned investigator.”

  “Are you working with the cops?” she asked.

  “No. They don’t exactly take me seriously.”

  Stormy was quiet for a moment. I glanced at her hand. Not as twitchy. “Fuck ’em,” she said.

  “I guess.”

  “I mean it. All that matters is that you’re trying to honour your friend.”

  “What was it you said before? Losers do their best but winners nail the prom queen?”

  “That’s just a line from some Nicolas Cage movie. Plus, I was being a bitch. If Johnny knew what you were trying to do he would be grateful.”

  “You think?”

  “Definitely.”

  I gave her a sheepish grin and raised my glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

  She smiled softly and we slurped our scotch in unison. Nothing like coaching a chump through a bout of insecurity to ease one’s own nerves. That Peter Falk sure knew his stuff. Now that I had established a sense of comfort between us I decided to do a little probing.

  “You know, Johnny never mentioned you when we met,” I said. “But I can tell that the two of you must have been a great couple.”

  “We were,” she replied quickly.

  “How long were you guys together?”

  “A year and a half.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to lose him this way.”

  “If I had known how much I would miss him, I don’t think I would have ended things between us.”

  “I thought you two were still an item,” I said, even though I knew differently. “That was the impression I got from the people at xccw, anyway.”

  “No, we broke up a few weeks ago.”

  “Must be tough.” Her eyes glazed over as she became lost in her thoughts. “Stormy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I said that must be tough. Breaking up like that so soon before his death.”

  “Yeah, well, we didn’t really have a choice. Our lives were headed in different directions.”

  “Tell me about it. My girlfriend and I recently called it quits for the same reason.”

  “Really?” she purred, before sliding a little closer to me on the couch.

  Yikes. I did not see that coming. I had to douse the spark quickly, as I could already see a twinkle forming in her eye. “Yeah. But I’m in the same boat as you, you know? Not ready to move on yet. That’s why I still have a lot of her things kicking around my pad, like you do with Johnny’s stuff here.”

  A befuddled expression crept across her face. “What are you talking about? What stuff?”

  “Little things. Like those fantasy novels on your shelf over there. Johnny used to read them all the time on the road. And I see you still have his toothbrush by the sink.”

  I motioned toward the open door to the bathroom behind her. Stormy looked over her shoulder at the matching pink and blue Oral-B brushes side by side on the counter.

  “Oh, yeah. I guess I do.”

  She was lying. Johnny may have loved his fantasy novels but he needed a toothbrush about as much as Declan did a tutorial on pouring a pint. Johnny had worn a set of false teeth since before I knew him. He had knocked out most of his original teeth at seventeen when he attempted a flying elbow drop off of the roof of his parents’ house during a backyard-wrestling match.

  “Would you excuse me for a moment?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  Stormy slipped into the bathroom and I heard the click as she locked the door behind her. Maybe she was in there covering up more evidence of her new boy toy’s sleepovers. I didn’t really care, especially since an interesting opportunity had just presented itself.

  I quietly placed my drink on the coffee table and grabbed the Android mobile phone that Stormy had left sitting on the arm of her sofa. I tapped the screen. No password lock. I quickly selected SMS messaging and perused her recent texts. There wasn’t much aside from a couple of condolences over Johnny’s death and several nasty messages from Bert Grasby threatening repercussions if her grief caused her to miss the upcoming pay-per-view. I switched over to the call log and scrolled down until I came across three missed calls from earlier that morning, all made between 11 AM and 11:15 AM. But it wasn’t the number of missed calls that caught my eye. It was the name of the caller that had been previously entered into the phone — Melvin Van Lowe. Melvin was one of my old man’s chief business rivals. Except he didn’t provide competition in the pub business. Melvin Van Lowe was a private investigator.

  I heard a flush and had the phone back on the sofa arm before the toilet had finished gurgling. By the time Stormy took her seat again my nose was touching an ice cube as I drained my glass of the last of its scotch whisky goodness.

  “Sorry,” she said as she honked into a tissue and dabbed phantom tears from her eyes. “I’m a bit tipsy.”

  “That’s the beauty of a good scotch.”

  Stormy chuckled and leaned forward, showcasing tremendous cleavage. I couldn’t help but notice and was certain her top had covered more of her chest before she entered the bathroom. “I’ve never lost anyone close before,” she said softly. “It kind of hits you in waves, you know?”

  “I know,” I replied earnestly. We sipped scotch in silence. After a while, I spoke. “Do you mind if I ask you just a few more questions?”

  She nodded and I quickly launched into a series of standard investigative queries. According to Stormy she had been at a spin class at the time of Johnny’s murder. Suspect or not, I knew that confirming Stormy’s alibi would be at the top of Rya’s to-do list so I moved on. Interestingly, when I brought up Bert Grasby’s name Stormy immediately dismissed him as a potential suspect. She claimed that although her boss was definitely a shady bastard, he was a big enough mover and shaker that trying to hustle Johnny out of ten grand would simply not be worth his while. With none of my other questions generating anything other than the expected responses, I thanked Stormy for her time and showed myself to the door.

  “Will you keep me posted on what you find out?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Thank you.”

  Stormy leaned in to hug me. I patted her softly on the back with one hand while my other reached for the doorknob. She stopped short as she pulled out of the embrace, bringing her face inches from mine. Her lips were glossy and glistened with a hue of purple, while the scent of lilacs wafted up and into my nostrils. I realized that the lowering of her halter top wasn’t the only glamour adjustment that had been made while she was in the bathroom. Stormy pursed her lips and began to cock her head, leaning forward ever so slightly.

  “Stormy,” I said softly.

  “Yes,�
� she cooed.

  “You’re no prom queen.”

  She gawked at me, momentarily confused. By the time she processed my comment I was halfway down the hall. The door slammed loudly behind me.

  ELEVEN

  Crisp autumn air bit at my cheeks as I made my way down a street that ran between historic Gastown and the drug-addled Downtown Eastside. The trees lining the sidewalk were bleeding fiery reds and deep pumpkin oranges, and the street gutters were littered with an endless amount of plum and maple leaves. The fall foliage blended nicely with the bright orange, square building on the corner of Main and Powell, which not only housed one of Vancouver’s premier gentlemen’s clubs but also happened to be only a few blocks from The Emerald Shillelagh. I walked past the No. 5 Orange strip club and peered through the large front window of the smaller building next door.

  As far as Vancouver private investigators go, Melvin Van Lowe was definitely the ying to my old man’s yang. Whereas my pop was a retired VPD detective with a small office above a quaint Irish pub, Van Lowe was a disbarred former criminal defense attorney who operated out of a sizable studio adjacent to striptease central. Van Lowe had taken over the workspace from a gothic punk art gallery that had gone under a few years back. Since he never bothered to paint over the murals of bosomy vampires wielding broadswords, and because he had a rep as a sleazy PI who specialized in even sleazier cases, it was safe to say the majority of Melvin’s clientele were the type of sketchy characters my father had no interest in working for anyway.

  Melvin’s entire office was illuminated by a neon glow emanating from cheap stick-on stars that were scattered across the walls above the bloodthirsty woman warriors. The lights were off and Van Lowe ’Vestigations (seriously, that’s the actual name of his agency) had closed up shop for the night. Of course, anyone familiar with Melvin could tell you that if he wasn’t in his office he could be found nearby racking up the lap dances.

  I had worked the door at the No. 5 Orange in the past, so I wasn’t surprised when I recognized the pair of bodybuilder bouncers who were safeguarding the front entrance. After catching up quickly and sharing a few laughs the guys wished me well and let me slip inside without having to pay the cover.

  My vision darkened as my eyes adjusted to the minimal lighting. Pulsing techno music cross-faded with sirens wailing as a busty stripper in a latex firefighter costume climbed down a ladder from the ceiling and onto a catwalk. It only took me a moment to spot Van Lowe’s distinctive weasel-face in “gyno row,” the seats located directly in front of the main stage.

  “Evening, Melvin,” I said as I pulled up a stool next to him. “You celebrating the closing of a big case or just the fact you’re all alone on yet another Friday night?”

  “Alone my ass,” he snapped. “I just haven’t decided which one of these sluts I’m taking home with me yet.” Having overheard Melvin, the busty firefighter sneered at us as she wrapped a leg around a pole. Seeing her reaction, Melvin whipped a thick wad of bills out of his pocket. “Like you wouldn’t let me lay some pipe for all this, Sugar.” Melvin snort-laughed while I avoided the stripper’s scornful glare. The music switched to Foreigner’s “Hot Blooded” and the stripper turned her back and started peeling.

  “I don’t think you’re getting any private dances from her,” I said.

  “What are you doing here, Ounstead? Shouldn’t you be working the door with the other beef monkeys?”

  “Not tonight. I’m on a case.”

  “Wow, old Frank’s giving you your very own assignments now? What do you get if you do a good job? An ice cream?” Melvin snickered, his long nose scrunching up into a snout, which made him look even more weasel-like. Even worse, his snide remark started to give me a hankering for a banana milkshake.

  “Why did you call Stormy Daze this morning?” I asked.

  Melvin flinched, his long, ladylike eyelashes fluttering. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he spat.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Look, give me a break, will you? Do you know where I’ve been for the last eight hours? Hiding in the goddamn bushes with a telephoto lens waiting for some chubby-chasing prick to show up and pork the fattest, horniest housewife I’ve ever seen. It was fucking disgusting. My knees ache, my skin itches, and I can’t get the image of that sea donkey’s O-face out of mind. All I want to do is get drunk and see some snatch, so how about you fuck off already and let me enjoy my night.”

  Melvin slurped his Jack and Coke. I leaned in close.

  “You’re going to tell me what I want to know,” I said firmly.

  “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. And even if I did know something, haven’t you ever heard of a little thing called investigator–client confidentiality?”

  “Melvin, you’d rat out your own mama for fifty bucks if you had the chance. You called Stormy Daze three times this morning. I want to know why. Is she a client?”

  “Blow me, Ounstead.”

  I gritted my teeth. I had had enough. Between Grasby’s attitude and Stormy’s lies I was fresh out of patience. My friend was dead and I wanted some answers. I grabbed Melvin’s cheap necktie and yanked.

  Wham!

  His face rebounded off the stage-side ledge like a bouncy ball. The busty firefighter, now topless, momentarily halted her routine and stared.

  “Just teaching him some manners,” I said.

  The stripper beamed and resumed her act with a renewed vigour. Melvin whimpered and clutched his nose. “What the — you fucking fuck!”

  “Start talking.”

  “My nose!” Melvin checked his hands and saw blood. “I’m bleeding!” he squealed. Melvin looked around the strip club for help. Nobody seemed to care. Most probably didn’t even see me do it.

  “I’m losing patience, Melvin.”

  “I’m losing blood, asshole!”

  Wham!

  I jerked on Melvin’s tie again, this time causing his forehead to hit the ledge. He howled like a werewolf that had just been shot in the nards with a silver bullet. Taking notice of the commotion, one of the bouncers I knew from the door approached. I put up my hand, indicating I had things under control. Seeing that the guy I was roughing up was Melvin, the bouncer smirked and nodded his approval. Something told me Melvin wasn’t exactly considered a high-value customer.

  Melvin machine-gun rubbed his forehead and glared at me with wounded eyes. “Are you fucking crazy? You can’t do this to me. I’m — I’m gonna tell your Dad!”

  I slid the knot of his tie upward, constricting his throat. Then I slowly wrapped the extra necktie slack around my hand. “I can do this all night,” I said calmly.

  “Okay, okay!” he pleaded. “Just quit with the roid rage for fuck’s sake.”

  “Let’s hear it,” I said, loosening my grip.

  Melvin took a hit of Jack and Coke and composed himself. “All right, so, this Stormy chick, she called me up a few weeks ago and hired me for a surveillance job.”

  “You got her case file next door?”

  “Of course.”

  “Take me to it.”

  “You don’t need the actual file, dumbass. It’s right here,” he said, tapping his index finger on the side of his temple.

  “I want to see the file, Melvin.”

  Melvin sighed and threw his hands up in the air in defeat. “Okay, fine, we’ll go to the office. But can we at least wait until she finishes her dance?” Melvin motioned toward the busty firefighter, who was now buck-naked on stage and grinding against an inflatable fire axe.

  “No.” I palmed the back of Melvin’s pencil-thin neck and pulled him to his feet.

  “Come on, man!” he begged. “She puts fire-retardant pasties on her nipples then lights her tits on fire. It’s fucking awesome.”

  I glanced at the stripper, then back at Melvin. “Fla
ming nipples, eh?” Melvin’s face broke into a huge shit-eating grin. We stayed for the rest of the dance. It was the best decision I had made all day.

  TWELVE

  Melvin retrieved a large manila folder out of a filing cabinet and tossed it onto my lap. “That’s why I called Stormy Daze this morning,” he said, before stuffing more tissue up his nose to stop the bleeding.

  Inside the file were two-dozen eight-by-ten black and white photographs of Johnny Mamba. The first few pictures documented him dining with a cute, willowy, red-haired woman on an outdoor restaurant patio. As I kept thumbing through the photographs, a more detailed story emerged: Johnny and the woman walking to a SUV, kissing in the parking lot, driving away in what I assumed to be the woman’s Acura MDX. I stopped flipping through the pictures when I got to the last batch that included grainy, long-distance snapshots of Johnny and the red-haired woman in bed together.

  “Check out the pic second to last,” crowed Melvin. “Total full frontal, man. Look at that bush. It’s like a fucking fur trapper’s hat.”

  A big smile spread across Melvin’s weaselly face, causing the tufts of tissue to protrude from his nostrils like tiny tusks. I sighed and flipped quickly past the aforementioned photo. Spending this much time with Melvin made me feel like I was in a Porky’s movie.

  “How long ago did you take these photos?” I asked.

  “A few weeks.”

  “And when did she hire you?”

  “Couple days before that.”

  I nodded slowly. The timing fit exactly with Stormy and Johnny’s break up. “Did Stormy say why she wanted you to follow Johnny?”

  “She had a feeling he was out parking the pink Cadillac around town.”

  “Say again?”

  “You know, leading the llama to the lift shaft.”

  “What?”