“Mission,” I said again. And why not? Conversationally I was on a roll.
“Yes. Well, anyway, then I decided to hire a private detective, because talking to one—talking to you—would be secret, sort of. Like talking to a doctor or a priest.”
“A privileged communication,” I said.
“Yes, like that.” Patty nodded and looked hopeful for the first time.
In my line of work the tired old secret agent line pops up once or twice a year. I have never decided which group is the saddest: the husbands who invent that drivel or the wives who believe it. It’s probably a dead heat.
But there was obvious anguish in Patty Akister’s eyes, and it wasn’t her fault she loved this jerk Sherm, so all I said was: “Which intelligence agency employs your husband?”
“I don’t know,” Patty said. “Sherm isn’t allowed to tell me.”
“Did he say where he was going on his, ah, mission?”
Patty shook her head and twisted the hell out of her handkerchief again.
Some of the phoney secret agents use the routine that way. Sorry, baby. Hush-hush, need to know, top secret. Of course, if it was up to me … But then again, some of them come up with dandy details. Three years ago I tracked down a carpet salesman who had told his wife he’d be gone to Mars for a week on a spy flight for NASA. I found him in a Fort Worth motel bathtub with a lady cabdriver. Maybe his rockets had a dead battery that morning.
I said to Patty, “How long is Sherm usually gone?”
“When he’s on a mission, only a day or two. Usually he’s back by Saturday. Late Saturday, sometimes. But he’s always back by Sunday evening. Always.”
“Have all his missions been on weekends?”
Patty nodded. Her curls bounced. “Yes. Only about once a month, though. Not every weekend. Well, he did have two missions one month, but that was unusual.”
I said, “When did he leave on this mission? Saturday morning?”
“Friday night, right after supper. And now it’s Tuesday, and I haven’t heard from him and …” She bit her lower lip and blinked rapidly. She didn’t cry, but it looked like she came pretty close.
After a few minutes I said, “Are the weekend missions the only times Sherm is away?”
“Oh, no! Thursday nights, too. Thursdays Sherm meets his informants and passes on reports and things.” Patty grimaced. “I really don’t know if … Honestly I shouldn’t be talking about Sherm’s work like this. I promised. But …”
I was good. I shut up—a rare talent Hilda Gardner says I should display more often—and I let Patty work it out for herself. Finally she squared her shoulders and said, “No, this is the right thing to do. Sherm might need help. What else do you need to know?”
“How often and how much is Sherm paid for his, uh, intelligence activities?”
The secret agent line has been used to explain away everything from drug profits to diminished libido. Money was usually the tip-off.
Patty Akister looked at me aghast. “Pay? Sherm is a volunteer! He wouldn’t take money to serve his country!” She actually said it that way. Serve his country. Poor Patty.
“Ah,” I said, “I understand now.”
Sherm had a girlfriend. If it had been only the Thursday nights, I’d have said he enjoyed a regular night out with the guys. Bowling, boozing, whatever. If he’d been bringing home money, I’d have added gas station holdups, or something similar, to the list.
But if he wasn’t making money at it and he spent occasional weekends away, that meant a girlfriend. Betcha, I said to myself. No bet, I scoffed. I don’t take sucker bets, especially from a sharp cookie like me.
Patty said in a timid voice, “Mr Rafferty, can you find Sherm and help him?”
“I can find him,” I said. “I need a photo, details about his day job, his exact cover story, things like that. And five hundred dollars.”
Patty sighed and said, “Thank you,” in a soft little voice.
“The five hundred will pay for two days work. If it looks like it will take longer than that—which I doubt—we’ll talk about it. Okay?”
Patty Akister beamed. “That’s fine,” she said. “You have no idea how much better I feel already.” She had a broad cheery face that could deliver a world-class smile, and she gave this one all she had.
I smiled back at her and meant it. I liked Patty Akister. I was a little embarrassed for her; that secret agent line was so old and so corny. And I felt sorry for her, too. Patty had a bigger problem than she thought. And paying five hundred dollars to a man like me wouldn’t solve it.
Patty Akister reminded me of someone—another woman—a long time ago.
Anyway, what with all that bonhomie and compassion floating around my office, we didn’t follow up on the fact that Patty had said “help” Sherm and I had said “find” Sherm.
I was pretty sure Sherm wouldn’t think being found was particularly helpful.
Tough. Sherm should have thought of that before he started running the secret agent scam on my new friend Patty.
Chapter 2 - Fatal Sisters
“This is a switch,” Hilda Gardner said. “Usually you complain about people who believe outrageous lies. You call them dumb.”
“Me?” I said. “Mr Warmth and Compassion?”
“You,” she said. “I recall such warm, compassionate phrases as ‘bovine acceptance’ and ‘brains like last week’s guacamole.’ Well, I hate to tell you, big guy, but this Akister woman sounds a trifle dumb to me.”
Hilda carefully separated one slice from the pepperoni-and-double-cheese pizza, then maneuvered that slice from the Pizza Hut box to a Limoges plate on her desk blotter. She stuck the tip of her tongue out during the cumbersome transfer. Simultaneously she melted my heart for the eight-thousandth time.
“Wrong,” I said. “This isn’t like last year, when I was doing security for that nutty channeler. Damn, I wonder why I did that. I must have had a severe pride deficiency that week.”
“You were two months behind on your rent,” Hilda said, “and too macho to take the loan I offered you.”
“Ah. I do recall a certain desperation,” I said. “Anyway, babe, do you remember that guy? Nineteen-year-old kid with a funny voice, claimed he turned into a Phoenician navigator or whatever it was. So there he was, supposed to be two thousand years old, zits and all, and this dork told an auditorium full of people they should go long on CDs because interest rates were going to fall. And some of them believed it! Now that’s dumb. That’s major-league dumb.” I fiddled with the pizza slice on the antique plate on my side of Hilda’s desk and tried to look aggrieved. “Compared to that, Patty Akister is only, oh, wishful-thinking dumb. And nice dumb to boot. That’s the difference.”
Beside the Limoges plates we each had a crystal champagne flute. Hilda drank chablis out of hers; I had beer. No doubt about it, lunch at Gardner’s Antiques was a class act. Pizza and beer from Limoges and crystal.
Guess who brought the food and who provided the table settings.
Hilda grinned at me. “The only difference is proximity. The people who paid to listen to that phoney were a group. Groups are remote; faceless. It was easy to be contemptuous of them. But you know this Akister woman as an individual. She’s a real person to you. Then, too, it sounds like she’s become another of your fallen sparrows.”
“She’s a client, that’s all. Woman wants her husband found; I find people. Just another job.”
Hilda reached across the desk and patted my hand. Her dark, dark eyes were large; it was one of those times when I could almost see colors in them but not quite work out what those colors were.
Hilda said, “No, it’s not just a job. And that’s fine. You don’t have to be one-hundred-percent rational for me to love you.”
“Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about a nooner?”
“You nut. I have an appointment in twenty minutes. Tell me about Patty and Sherm. How long have they been married?”
“Only s
ix or seven months,” I said. “First time for each of them, Patty says.”
“Despite her age, is she as naïve about men as she sounds?” Hilda said.
“Yeah, I think so. She comes across as, oh, maybe a small-town girl who came to the big city and got lost in a routine job for a long time. She was in training for an eventual shot at the Old Maid of the Year title, then bang! Heeerrrres … Shermie!”
Hilda snorted. “Some husband he is. Married six lousy months and he has a girlfriend on the side.”
“Yeah, that sucks, all right.”
Hilda said, “He’s not one of those animals who cons lonely spinsters, is he?”
“No. Patty doesn’t have the assets to attract one of those leeches. No property. No fat bank account or insurance policy. l asked her. With all my usual tact and delicacy, of course.”
“Delicacy?” Hilda said. “From a man who thinks haute cuisine is toasting the bread for a BLT?”
“Watch how easily I ignore that. Sherm sounds like an average guy. Nine-to-five job, three-year-old Chevy, mortgage, all that. He sells furniture at some discount place.”
“So he’s not greedy,” Hilda said. “He’s still a jerk. Men!”
“He probably makes sweeping generalizations, too, the blackguard.”
“Good point.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Are you sure he’s up to something? Could there be another explanation?”
“Say, did I forget to tell you? The CIA approved my application to spy school. I’ll be gone all weekend, doing basic training at this secret camp we have in Palm Springs. Don’t tell anybody, okay?”
Hilda sighed. “You win.” She looked at the rest of her pizza slice, sighed again, and put it back onto her plate. She held her glass—was it now a chablis flute?—in both hands and pushed her big desk chair back until she could prop her feet on the opened lower drawer.
“Got a nice flash of thigh that time, babe. Let me know before you go for a higher drawer.”
“Horny savage,” she said. “So what are you going to do for Patty Akister?”
“I’m going to find Sherm.”
Hilda shook her head. “No. After that. Are you going to tell Patty where he was or not?”
I poured more beer in my glass. “I haven’t worked that part out yet. It will probably come down to whatever damages her the least.”
Hilda shook her head again. “Sad.”
“But true. Hey, Hil, I like these flutes. They’re a little bit small, but they keep the beer cold.”
“A glass doesn’t know what’s in it,” Hilda said. “Champagne or beer, the problem is the same: don’t draw the cold out of the liquid, and don’t let the bubbles get away.” She held her flute up to the light and admired it. “These aren’t true antiques, but they are pretty, aren’t they?”
“Terrific. Are they expensive?” I took another sip. Nice glass. Just my speed.
Hilda smiled. “They’re from a set of eight I have priced at $425.”
I put the champagne flute down carefully. “No problem running them through the dishwasher, I suppose?”
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THE RAFFERTY P.I. SERIES
RAFFERTY’S RULES
Download here from your favorite ebook retailer.
15 years ago, Rafferty saved Vivian from a junkie who tried to blow her head off. So when he’s hired by Vivian’s parents to hunt down her kidnappers, it’s personal. Rafferty saved Vivian once. Can he do it again?
LAST SEEN ALIVE
Download here from your favorite ebook retailer.
Rafferty’s vacation goes to hell as he works his way through a small Texas town breaking the rules as fast as they can make them, searching for the vicious killer who butchered Cindy Lawson.
POOR DEAD CRICKET
Download here from your favorite ebook retailer.
He’s been around the block; this isn’t the first case he’s had involving a dead woman. But this time Cricket Dawes is dead, and no-one cares—except Rafferty. And that’s a bad scenario for everyone else.
WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME
Download here from your favorite ebook retailer.
A double caseload means multiple mayhem for Rafferty. A trigger-happy octogenarian collides with a larger-than-life bounty hunter. One will win him an unexpected friend. The other could buy him a bullet.
CANNON’S MOUTH
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Rafferty’s mistaken for a hitman. Before he knows it, the mark is dead and he’s left holding the bag. Full of cash. Now the real hitman wants his money and he’s prepared to burn down Rafferty’s world to get it.
FATAL SISTERS
(Shamus Award Winner)
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Finding Sherm isn’t that hard, but telling his naïve wife that he was killed in a mob-connected whorehouse is. And with the witnesses now being murdered one by one, Rafferty must face the truth: sometimes it’s a simple matter of kill or be killed.
FALSE GODS
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Rafferty should wrap up this runaway case easily, but by the time he can find Kimberly in a remote desert compound, they’re trapped in the middle of a deadly game. Can Rafferty get Kimberly out before all hell breaks loose?
Praise for W. Glenn Duncan’s Rafferty P.I.
“At first sniff, it may smell a like Spenser with a cowboy hat, but take a good whiff: W. Glenn Duncan's Dallas, Texas private eye Rafferty was actually a blast of fresh air in what was becoming a glut of sensitive, soul-searching, overly politically-correct cookie cutter P.I.s … of course, it helps that Dallas ain't Boston.” | Kevin Burton Smith
“The thing about Rafferty is the fun with the noir aspect. Only a deft hand at word magic could accomplish the mix so smoothly.” | 5 star Amazon review.
“Duncan truly captured the essence of the definitive smart-ass P.I. in his character Rafferty. Take part Sam Spade with a little Mike Hammer, mix in some Spenser and you have an awesome character.” | Cliff Fausset
“I love this series. Rafferty returns with his regular cast of characters: his beloved, sexy and intelligent Hilda Gardner; rumpled and overworked Lt. Durkee and his sidekick Ricco; feisty and fun Mimi with her arsenal; and Mimi’s beloved, the down-to-earth Cowboy with his charming Texas drawl.” | Alice - 5 Star Amazon review
“I have all of the Rafferty titles in my collection. I've gotten rid of a lot of stuff over the years, but the Rafferty books are a mainstay. I think they're terrific!” | Paul Bishop
“Rafferty tends to play dirty, boasting at one point that he ‘hasn't fought fair in twenty years.’ No brainiac, his chief MO seems to be to stir things up, and then see what happens. And he tends to be pretty stubborn, as well. ‘I often ignore what people tell me to do,’ he says. Li
ke, no kidding. And that's part of the fun.” | ThrillingDetective.com
“I don't know much about W. Glenn Duncan except that he wrote a dandy private eye series set in Dallas, Texas … and I think of them as throwbacks to the kind of P.I. books … in the '50s, except influenced as much by Robert B. Parker as by Spillane.” | Bill Crider
“If you love hardboiled P.I. mysteries, don’t hesitate to dig in to this series! I absolutely love the Rafferty PI novels! Fast-paced, exciting, and with twists that keep you guessing, the humorous, sarcastic, and likeable Rafferty is a character with the depth to carry the series and make fans of his readers. I love the relationship he and Hilda have ... it just adds even more depth to the books. I eagerly await the next book in this series ... that’s the hard part: the waiting.” | Suzanne - 5 Star Amazon review
“I love that Rafferty is straightforward about who he is and what he's good at. The dialogue is witty when warranted and the action moves well. As a woman, I also like his girlfriend, who isn't whiny about his work or odd hours, and that he talks to her about his work. So often in this genre, the girlfriend/wife are just for sex or to give the hero a soft side.” | Minnie - 5 Star Amazon review
Cannon's Mouth_A Rafferty P.I. Mystery Page 19
