A few nights later, she was at a gay dance club called Inspiration when her brother posted a message on her Facebook wall.
My sister and I used to be as close as two human beings could ever be. We slept in the same bed, caressed every inch of each other’s bodies. I was inside of her, she was inside of me. I can’t live without that anymore.
Ten minutes later it was deleted.
A few minutes later, Rebecca called my cell phone.
Snake? I’m at Inspiration. I think someone’s following me.
Do you recognize him?
It looks like Derek.
I thought he said he was going out of town.
He’s coming back next week. We had a huge argument after you left.
I checked the GPS position on his cell phone. He’s at the club.
I don’t like the sound of this. I’m coming over. What’s he driving?
Red Porsche. You can’t miss it.
I arrived at the club five minutes later and immediately noticed the red Porsche parked out front, Derek sitting in the chauffeur’s seat, hands in his pockets. I went inside to find Rebecca. They didn’t want to let me in, but I told her I was Rebecca Faulkner’s bodyguard. There was a big sign that said No Weapons Allowed, but they didn’t bother patting me down.
I spotted Rebecca immediately, at the center of the illuminated dance floor, and she sent her nightly boyfriend away to purchase another round. We started dancing, trying to look inconspicuous, me shouting information into her ear over the deafening beat of the music pounding away at my chest like a fist.
He’s here. I saw him outside. I think he might have a gun.
Don’t hurt him.
Let’s go.
I walked out of the club with Rebecca; Derek standing on the sidewalk in front of the red Porsche. I heard her say What’s up, Derek?, just as he pulled out a gun. Instinctively, I fired, and shot Derek in the head, just as his bullet hit me in the shoulder. People were screaming; the security people tackled me to the ground. I surrendered to the authorities and they took me to the hospital, more for the injuries I suffered in the fall than the bullet in my arm.
When we got to the hospital, Rebecca was already waiting there with Stelmancyk, who told me I was in the clear legally, a clear case of self-defense. Rebecca went into the room with me as the doctor patched me up, and when the doctor finished, she kissed me on the cheek.
Thank you, she said. You saved my life.
She shut the door to give us some privacy, and then made a phone call, telling some boy she simply couldn’t see him anymore, while he pleaded with her to let him, just one more time. Even though I couldn’t hear his end of the conversation, I could fill it all in. I’d already written the same dialogue.
Rebecca hung up the phone and turned her attention to me.
How you feeling, sweetie?
I talked fast. I knew I wouldn’t have her long.
I’m catching up on my reading. Your brother’s Twitter account. Do you want to hear the last tweet he sent out, an hour before he was killed?
What difference does it make now?
No difference at all. Here, I’ll read it to you. R. is driving me crazy wont let me put my peepee inside her warm place anymore. Lets every man in town do it. even that repulsive snake.
She smiled, and tried to make a joke.
My brother wasn’t the most amazing prose stylist.
And now the final tweet: Ive got a gun. One of us must die tonight. her or me.
That’s just further proof that he was guilty. As if there was any doubt.
And suddenly I realized how perfectly everything fit together. Rebecca had gotten everything she wanted, and both of us were free and clear. I was beginning to see how smart she was, and the lengths she usually went to hide it. I wondered what she might have accomplished, if she hadn’t been stunted by money.
You drove him crazy. Why’d you do it? For the money?
She smiled. That’s as close as I’d ever get to a confession.
I didn’t do anything to him. It’s a simple case of evolutionary biology.
And I was the hunter, killing the weakest member of the herd. You were taking an awful chance, weren’t you? He could’ve killed you.
I knew you’d figure out who it was, Snake, and figure out a way to stop him. I had faith in you. Probably more than you have in yourself.
And with that, I lost her. She picked up the phone and started talking at a different boy, making a date to meet him at 2 AM. I checked my phone; it was 1:30 now.
When she hung up, she kissed me again on the cheek and thanked me, breasts pillowing up along my side.
So you see I am at least somewhat irresistible. To a certain kind of man, anyway.
I never doubted it.
Snake, have you ever loved a girl so much that it made you act completely insane?
Yeah, once.
You should go see her then. Tell her how you feel.
When I got back to the office a few days later, the check from Rebecca was waiting. Willie said the prettiest girl he’d ever seen had delivered it. I felt a quick burp of jealousy.
She was disappointed that she missed you. Asked me how you were.
The check was for the full amount, including the bill I’d never gotten around to sending. I rushed to the bank before she could change her mind. With that kind of money I could buy myself a new set of teeth.
I just left it in the bank for now and waited for a brand new emergency.
A couple of weeks later, someone mailed me a small package in a plain brown wrapper, a bunch of documents on a thumb drive, not the vintage porn I’d been hoping for.
There was a handwritten note on pink note paper, emblazoned with a kiss:
Here are the documents I told you about. I’m sorry I treated you so bad. My lawyer’s getting me a plea deal to keep me out of jail, 800 hours servicing the community. Maybe I can take you for a drive when I get home. Ha ha ha. XO R.
I took the thumb drive to the public library in case it was infected with viruses or spyware, then spent the next few days devouring them, fascinated and disturbed by the level of depravity my country now wallowed in: prisoners kidnapped blindfolded and taken to third world countries to be tortured, waterboarded, subjected to electric shocks, forced to lie naked on cold cell floors, subjected to ear-splitting noises, kept in the dark for weeks. I didn’t know if it would do any good to reveal this information to the public, but I felt an obligation to try. I waited another week for the check to clear, then took the documents to an investigative reporter for one of the local TV stations.
How’d you get these, Snake?
Let’s just say a whistleblower sent them to me.
Most whistleblowers are vengeful little idiots throwing a tantrum to get attention.
Are you shitting me, Bobby? The documents show that for years Faulkner’s company has been involved in the torture of civilians all over the Middle East, some of whom were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fascinating. And what the fuck do you want me to do with them? No pictures.
The other local TV stations also passed. The local newspaper was interested, but their parent company is owned by a company that does business with Rebecca’s father’s firm. Eventually I handed them over to a buddy of mine who runs an alternative weekly newspaper, the kind you put in a cloth bag along with your bean sprouts and tofu. He’s a real fucking idealist; his office is even grubbier than mine.
The story made a huge splash. The paper got ten letters the first week.
Hopefully Rebecca’s happy. Hopefully her father’s pissed.
On Christmas night, after mangling the traditional holiday pizza, I wandered over to a bar on the opposite side of town, far from my troubles. Christmas in California is so bizarre; I wish I had the money to go back home. I wonder if anybody there would recognize me now.
I walked up to the bar to order my drink. The girl looked familiar. She recognized me immediately, smiled at
me warily. The last time I saw her I was screaming.
I’m sorry, Jenny. I swear I didn’t remember you worked here.
It’s a public place. How you doin’ champ? Bourbon and Coke?
Just Coke now.
I’m glad.
I felt a surge of pride. I wanted to demonstrate to her how well I was doing.
Out celebrating, end of a big case. Rich family, the girls’ own brother was trying to kill her.
For money?
For love.
That was my second guess. Congratulations.
It’s a job.
Most of us don’t get to do what we love.
I sat back on the barstool to get a good look at her. Damn, she’s still beautiful, but the mid-priced mall bauble on her finger told me all I needed to know.
How are you? Married now, I see. Show me the ring.
She extended her hand warily, not close enough for me to touch it.
Couldn’t wait forever. You seein’ anyone?
I took a sip, shook my head no, and placed my glass on the bar for a refill. She poured it straight from the can.
We own this place now.
She pointed toward the big, handsome guy talking to a customer at the bar. He looked over at her, curious, without losing track of his conversation.
I just stood there, tongue tied, crestfallen.
Great seein’ you, champ. It’s been two years at least.
More like five.
Have a great night okay? Don’t drink too much of that soda.
Yeah.
After that bit of uncharacteristic excitement, things have settled into the usual crawl. Rebecca still calls me at all hours, telling me she’s lonely wandering around her mansion with no one but the servants to talk to. Her phone still informs me that she’s making the full circuit of the nightclubs in town, and occasionally I see her picture in the Nightlife column in the local newspaper, draped on the shoulder of some budding young conglomerate. They probably exchange prospectuses along with their bodily fluids.
Sometimes she tells me I’m like the father she never had, the one without any money. She offers to pay me to get together for coffee, a lot more than I’d ever make on a case, if there were any cases, but I keep putting her off. Fuck it, I’m nobody’s conversational gigolo. But when rent time comes closer, who knows?
*****
Michael Koenig is a writer, editor, and designer who lives in Oakland, California. His short stories and poetry have appeared in numerous literary publications, including recent editions of Hardboiled and Literary Orphans, as well as past issues of The Paterson Literary Review, Harpur Palate and The MacGuffin. His story, “The Man Who Never Sleeps,” was featured in the Soft Skull Press anthology Awake! A Reader for the Sleepless, alongside work by Joyce Carol Oates, Aimee Bender and Margaret Atwood.
Burned Down to the Heart
by
Gareth Spark
The talented Gareth Spark submitted this story that shows the PI story can be set anywhere in the world as well as the good ol’USA…
I looked over from the balcony outside her room, across the sunburned steel of the bad part of town, over into the distance. The lights of a plane taking off from Reus glinted against the murky oil of the sky and I watched until it disappeared. I wanted her to think I was troubled, that I had the kind of conscience that troubled easily. Eventually I said, 'OK, I'll do it.' I turned and looked back through the patio doors into the apartment. She'd set her make-up out across the coffee table before a large mirror retrieved from the bathroom wall and was on her knees, applying blue eye shadow with delicate movements. A pair of ceramic hair straighteners lay on a kitchen plate to her right and their hot, baked scent filled the room. 'I knew you would,' she said, without looking, 'told the old man you would. God, I was lucky when I came into that bar.'
'You're sure this bloke's in town?'
'Dad thinks he is.'
'If he is, I'll find him.'
A breeze blew suddenly and the wooden shutters clattered against the window. She glanced across and said, 'You don't look happy about it, told you he'll pay, easy money.'
'No such thing.' I leaned against the doorframe. 'He's awful keen to find an old friend.'
'Dad's a friendly bloke,' she said.
'What does he do again?'
'Insurance, but that's nothing to do with it; Rick's wife died, and Dad thinks he should know.'
'Will he care?'
She shrugged. 'Would you?'
I walked over to the sofa and sat. A carton of red wine was open on the table and I poured a good measure into a plastic beaker and drank. I wasn't due back at the bar until the morning, I could do this thing for her. 'You know,' I said, I wouldn't do this just for anyone; I left this kind of shit behind a long time back.'
'Then why do it?'
I stared at her. 'Those green eyes,' I said, 'that red hair.'
'You really are a silver tongued devil, aren't you?'
I drank some more. The breeze blew again. 'That's what they say.'
The Avenida was crammed with people: half-naked girls handing out cards that offered cut-price drinks in the clubs behind; tourists, pale as fish bellies, trailing vomit and ill will as they drank as much as possible; the cops, keeping themselves quiet. Then the bad lads, lurking where you almost can't see them, sharp-toothed fish in still pools of the night, knives holstered against their forearms and eyes dead as glass. I knew them all. I'd had all the dread and exhilaration the town offered, taken the waters and the powders, bled on the street corners but that was in another life.
I walked quickly, smoking again, sweating out the wine. Rick Saltmarsh, 40 years old, English; I'd had less to go on in the past. I wore a blue shirt filthy at the elbows and jeans that hadn't seen an iron in days; an old, battered suitcase of a man, lost among the bright young things partying on the strip. I stumbled through a handful of women who wore hen party shirts and thought about the girl; she was dangerous, I was sure of that, but something about her reminded me of the woman, the one nobody burned out of my heart, the one nobody ever could, and I supposed that's why I was back on the streets.
The night flamed orange above the pines and streetlamps lining the Avenida. At the far end, close to the sea, was the fountain throwing jets of water, lit white beneath so it seemed for a moment to be dazzling crystal, a vast snowflake fallen from a heaven far removed from the streets. I headed to see Tommy Ling. He owned a shop that sold goods for tourists: beachwear hanging from plastic hangers banged against inflated rafts and body boards and beach balls hanging above the door like big plastic onions in string bags. It was a front of course, hiding some savage things, but he knew everything that happened in that damn town.
It was cool inside, and empty except for a young man trying on different sunglasses and admiring the results in a small mirror set high on the display stand. A small Chinese man stood behind the counter and he greeted me in English with a smile that revealed all the gaps between his teeth. The hair was patchy and combed over his forehead. I decided to address him in Spanish, just for the hell of it. ‘Tiene tabac?’
The man motioned with his hand to a machine in the corner beside a radio quietly playing generic European dance music. I dug around in his pocket for a few coins and halted beside a stand displaying small plastic toys. 'Tommy here?'
He reached under the counter and pressed a hidden button. A moment later, the door to the back opened and Ling swept into the store. He wore a baseball cap and a T-shirt with some kind of cartoon on it, 'Danny Madria,' he said, ' I am honoured.'
'Don't be,' I said, 'you remember the thing I did for you last month?'
His face fell. 'Of course I do amigo mio.'
'I need to find somebody.'
'Thought you waited tables these days?'
'Rick Saltmarsh, English guy...'
He waved for me to stop. 'You don't even have to look far, I know this man, he beat on one of my girls last week, had to pay triple for the damaged goods, oh
don't look at me like that. He has money, rents an apartment on the Carrer Baix; skinny person, wears glasses.'
'Sounds like a true gentlemen.'
'Are we square?'
I looked over at him and said, 'For now.'
It took me an hour to find the apartment, and ten minutes and 20 Euros to find out where Rick was spending the evening. He was in Eden, a place that couldn't ever live up to the promise of its name. The front of the club resembled the side of a vast aquarium, set back against a rock wall leading up towards Cap Salou, the outcrop peninsula jutting into the sea, separating the beaches of the gold coast from the more rugged shore leading past Tarragona. Its dark wet windows were lit neon blue and the pavement outside thumped with music, as though the headland itself exuded some threatening heartbeat, a sleeping giant, ready at any moment to stand and fall into the sea. I watched the people inside, vague shapes, dancing, darting through shafts of darkness as the light changed.
The Shamus Sampler II Page 11
