A drink, another drink.
The hot itch, insistent, but Jack has deserted me again. I can hear him laughing down in the subway. That thrumming is Jack laughing. Bastard.
My life long buddy, buddy—Jack Daniels is gone. And I never knew his middle name. Do you know it, pair of shoes hurrying by? Jack went to ride the subway.
Each pocket—empty. Keys and a few nickels.
Not enough for a drink.
A nap before I climb back up the stairs.
More shoes passing. Hello shoes.
Look at that ritzy pair of red ones, heels like ladders. Look with one eye closed. Still ritzy.
They’re turning and coming closer. Come ahead, red shoes. I can see you. Tell me where you’ve been. Give me the travelogue of your day. Slip out of those feet and take me far away from this filth.
“Help me lift him into the back seat,” comes a woman’s voice that hovers somewhere above the red shoes.
The seat is softer than my doorway. Yes, I can sleep here. I know that voice but the words aren’t clear. The sun is too bright to open my eyes. Can someone turn off the damned light?
Rescue me red, red shoes.
“Sleep, Mike, sleep. Haley’s got you now.”
Chapter 25 – Drying Out
The straps tighten across my arms and ankles. I raise my head but a strap falls across my forehead and pins me tight against the mattress, which begins to itch and rub and shift under me. White forms float in the room. They wear masks, I think. Or do they? The thermostat must be broke because it’s suddenly scorching under these lights. Now, hey! It’s dark and freezing. What gives? The forms float around me, take off their masks. Kimbra holds my shoulder down hard. Haley holds the other. Julia sits on my right leg, Molly on my right. They all have hairy bodies, like bears or wolves. Spiders crawl out of Haley’s mouth and race down around her breasts, around and around. They jump on me and walk around, their feet are needles pricking me but I can’t cry out. Kimbra shows her teeth; they are the teeth of a wolf. She drags them down my chest and up again, hot, searing, like the yearning for booze. Another form stands at my feet. A doctor. He has a big nametag plastered over his chest. It says DOCTOR RICK ANTHONY. He sticks a prod in my groin and laughs and says my temperature is just fine for a souse. Dad, where are you? Where’s your voice? I need help! I try to swear but all that comes out is some sort of stupid nursery rhyme that they all sing along with. Do I want a kiss, Kimbra asks, unzipping the fake bear suit and stepping out, naked and covered with goosebumps, big ones, the size of goose eggs. And scars—ugly red scars. No, later, I say, but how about a drink? A drink, laughs Haley, pushing her breasts over my nose so I can’t breathe. Poor Mike, you should have hired me, yells Molly, in the rough bass voice of the Russian who ran away.
More darkness. Total, awful darkness.
I’m falling and flail out with my arms. I snag a rough, clammy, threaded surface and hang on tight, scrambling to climb back up. I’m clinging to a rolled up carpet, leaning out over an abyss. A hand sticks out of the inside of the carpet and grabs my chest in a vise-like grip. I can’t breathe but keep fighting to climb up. When I pull my chin over the top of the roll, the head of Joe Ambler thrusts out of the carpet and erupts with a maniacal cackle. I scream and let go, falling down, down into the abyss, the hot air rising from its depths burning my skin. My feet scrape against the sides and gravel blasts against me, ripping off my clothes. A searing light pours down blinding me. Uncle’s face is at the top; he calls me a murderer. Then I shout I didn’t do it, I didn’t pull the trigger. I break out in a cold sweat.
Sweat rolls into my eyes. It stings. I can’t see anything. Echoes bounce down a hallway that opens at the bottom of the shaft. I crawl toward a red flashing light that says “THIS WAY OUT,” but it evaporates before I reach it. Metallic probes are coming out of my mouth leaving a taste of pickles.
The thrumming of the subway churns inside me again. My legs and arms and head and body are vibrating, shaking, falling apart. Help me someone, help me, I yell, but the forms put their masks back on and melt into the walls. I hear a distant angry scream that moves closer and closer until I realize it’s me. Me screaming.
I stop and open my eyes. It’s still dark but there are windows, lights that weren’t there before. Steps coming closer. A woman bends over me and lifts my head to drink from a glass. My old friend Jack? No, something nasty, wet, formless that makes me want to retch. Water!
“I think you’re through the worst,” says the woman I don’t know.
“It doesn’t feel like it,” I say. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“I’m a nurse, mister Angel, so just relax. You’ve been drying out the past few days.”
“How many days?”
“Four.”
I can’t argue with her. She’s poisoned me. My eyes cannot stay open.
Chapter 26 – Mike Decides His Path
Haley came to take me home the day I was released. She wore one of those pillbox hats with a pink suit. She smelled wonderful. I was glad to see she wasn’t wearing a bearskin with spiders leaping from her mouth. I didn’t mention any of that. I was sure she didn’t remember.
“I’m taking you to The Tavern Restaurant for a good steak. And a piece of that famous coconut cream pie. Sorry, Mike, iced tea only. But the good news is no more hospital food.”
“A steak is perfect. I guess I’ve put you to some trouble and expense.”
“No trouble, Mike. I’ve missed you since Ed…. I’ve missed you is all. I wanted to show my appreciation for all you’ve done. The judge gave you a raw deal. And, now that you’re through with being a PI, I think I can offer you something a bit more interesting.”
“I guess I owe you a listen.”
I did listen, on into the night. She needed someone to run her business interests now that Ed was gone, but more than that she wanted to set me up in a first class agency when my license cleared suspension—a staff in a fancy high rise and all the clients I could handle. In a couple of years. She sold it with her heart, and I would have been a heel to brush her off. Still, the idea made me nervous. When a guy depends on himself, he can set his sights as high or as low as he wants and no one can holler. When hearts start leaning on him, expecting this or that, then he no longer runs his own show. Haley was still looking for her father. Ed wasn’t him and I sure wasn’t.
Her chauffeur drove us over to Manhattan and we took in a play. A funny little tale about a man too blind to see and correct the faults in his own children, but who always saw the shortcomings in every woman he met. At least this sap could figure out women, which is more than I’ve ever been able to do. Haley laughed so much it made everything funnier. Driving back to Newark in the dim back seat she took my hand.
“Tonight was good for me. I haven’t laughed in so very long. You’re good for me. Please give me a chance to be close to you. Haven’t you been through enough? If you still want to be an investigator, I can try to help get your license restored. My attorney says it can be done with money to the right people, though it’d take a year.”
“I’m listening.”
“But in the meantime, let me set you up managing some of my properties. At six figures plus benefits. We’ll keep it just friends.”
Maybe the binge had changed me. I didn’t know it then but it had. I’d been thinking since I returned to the real world that something needed fixing in my life. Here was a stunning woman I used to want who needed me and was laying a golden offer at my loafers. She was part of the benefits, maybe the biggest part. Though there wasn’t anything conniving in her offer, not like there might have been before. I could see she was changed by Ed’s murder. I wished there was a place between having Haley depend on me and being independent, but when rocks are in my shoes there’s no ignoring that there isn’t. Friendship? I didn’t know.
“Forgive me for sounding ungrateful. It’s just that it’s pretty soon for you, and I’m not that far from the gutter you scraped me up from. Let’s giv
e it some time. I’m not saying no, just that I don’t know right now.”
Haley took my hands in both of hers. She leaned over and kissed me, on the cheek, just like a sister might. She pulled back with sadness in her eyes. “You’re a good man, Mike. And, you’re right. It is soon. But I want you to know one thing—under these oversized breasts is something that beats strong for you. I want you to know it. I want you to know it’s not only heat, but sweet caring, too. I want the best for you. Perhaps that’s not investigations. Perhaps, too, that’s not me, but some woman—what’s life without someone to share it with?”
I stared into Haley’s eyes and thought about what life was, with or without someone to share it. I had no answers, except cynical ones, answers that seemed obscene to offer. Pain in Haley’s eyes stared back, then faded to a distant, lost place in her mind.
The limo pulled up in front of my apartment.
Haley pressed my other hand to hers. She smiled bravely. Her eyes were liquid and her voice trembled. “You don’t have to love me. You don’t have to promise anything. I made a mistake way back in college when I let you go. I know that now. I was young, is all. I was stupid. I had the wrong ambitions, the wrong values. But I’ve paid and I’m starting over. If you think about it and want to share my new start, just come by. I won’t be going anywhere permanent.”
This was why I’d avoided Haley after Ed was killed. I was a sucker for a woman in real pain. Not a cynic after all, but some sort of warped, old-fashioned romantic.
I kissed a tear that ran down her cheek, and held her while a few more tears got out. She knew it was too late for us, but couldn’t help reaching out. I couldn’t help the knife in my heart either, yet I knew Haley and I had no romantic future. I knew then where I needed to go for redemption, who I had to see.
“And you’re a peach. There’s no thanking you enough, Haley. A guy needs a good friend like you. I need a few days to figure out what comes next for me.”
The card with Molly Bennett’s Chicago address was tucked in the corner of my dresser mirror. Her handwriting was clear and curved, just like Molly. I put on a pot of coffee and stuck my head out the window to the fire escape, calling my cat, Sophie. It had been a week since I’d been home, and I wouldn’t have blamed the feline for finding another easy shack-up. When the place filled with coffee aromas, I heard scratching at the window and opened it to Sophie, who ran her motor in high gear and milled around my feet.
“You’re just like all the other dames,” I said to her, “you purr when you want something and take off when a guy expects you to wait.”
I laid out Feast-In-A-Can for Sophie and rested on the fire escape watching the lights wink from Manhattan. In the morning I’d clean out the office and give the landlord notice. I was done as a private dick in Jersey, and the judge made it clear that he’d use his influence to see that New York would never license me. I’d grown up in the Fourth Ward and knew the turf well. It was all that I knew, but now I needed go west. I couldn’t take Haley up on her offer. Staying would be taking Haley’s charity just to fill her loneliness, which didn’t fit my nagging little pest called self-respect. Besides, there was really no reason for me to stick around now, with Dad gone and Rick soon to retire. I could have taken a vacation, but I make a rotten tourist.
I thought about sniffing around Bermuda to pick up Kimbra’s trail, even though by now it might be pretty cold. Then there was Molly’s invitation to visit Chicago. Plus, the Russian had mentioned the leader and Mattoon just before the shooting started. If the leader was Russian there might be a connection to the Purples, and a chance to pull up the taproot in the outfit that ran the Cubans, Warden Carty and the other rats in Jersey. A real longshot.
I got out a map and located Mattoon, a couple hours drive south of the Windy City. I could take in a Cubs game on the same trip, and then head south. I knew just the lady to escort me to the big leagues.
Chapter 27 – Molly Takes Over
Even before I hit Chicago I thought about setting up shop there. I had an old army buddy who was a high-powered attorney on Michigan Avenue, Jimmy Gooden, and when I called him from Newark he promised to help me expedite the license. Since I’d saved his skin in Korea, I guess I didn’t have to be bashful about asking for a boost from Jimmy.
I still felt guilty about Haley, but knew a piece was missing for us, something either she lacked or I didn’t appreciate that meant it couldn’t last. I couldn’t very well throw my shoes under a gal’s bed for friendship, or worse, sympathy. And there was always that voice of hers. Still I felt like I was abandoning her in her hour of need.
The Cubs lost a double header to the Cardinals, but Molly cheered for those hopeful losers like she loved them anyway and laughed when mustard from a hot dog squirted down my shirt. Her eyes were hopeful even in the bottom of the ninth with two men out and down three runs. Molly was that kind of doll. When a guy’s around that sort of woman there’s nothing he can’t do, no star too high to grab. Even when you fail, strikeout like Ernie Banks did, Molly will smile and tell you from her heart that she’s blessed to have you, that you can do anything. You can’t avoid that brand of sincere faith. After all, Ernie batted .304 and hit 45 homers the year before, she said, so his strikeout was a fluke. In Molly’s eyes, my strikeouts were flukes, too. Molly looked up to me—something Haley never would do. Maybe that was the difference that counted.
I kept in touch with Molly on the phone and we shared dinner a couple times a week. So when I got the private investigator’s slip, Molly helped me furnish the place and set up shop, not far from Wrigley. She had pretty good taste except for one god-awful ugly desk that was big enough for three private eyes; said she’d bought it at a yard sale for ten bucks and it was too good to pass up. It took three palookas to move it in and I felt silly sitting behind it.
“You need one more thing to complete the office,” she said, grinning like she loved keeping secrets from me.
“I need customers, for one.”
“Besides that—they’ll come. Don’t worry. This attorney friend of yours, Gooden, he’s named right—he’s a good-un. I know of him—he’ll send some clients your way.”
I ignored the pun and looked around. The joint was more spacious than my old Newark digs but I didn’t see anything lacking. “I give—what else does it need?”
“Me. You need me. I’m a great secretary, remember? I saw your office in Newark, don’t forget—you won’t ever succeed that way. And you don’t know Midwest ways. This ain’t Joizey.”
I wanted to kiss her. I’d been wanting to for a long time. “I’m sure you’re a great paper bug, cupcake, but I’m not exactly flush. It took most of what I have to set this spot up. Unless you want me to borrow dough from an old flame, I can’t pay a secretary now.”
“Sure. Borrow it. I’m not the jealous type.
I must have looked startled, because she got a serious look on her face and said, “I’m kidding—don’t pay me until you get a few clients. I have savings and Sis won’t take rent from me. Now, the phones go in tomorrow, I’ve already placed an ad in the yellow pages and an announcement in the Times. I’ll make a flyer up to distribute to law offices that specialize in insurance fraud, and then I’ll screen the calls that come in.”
There wasn’t any reason to say no. Except that I wasn’t sure a love interest working for me was a good thing. I wasn’t ready to say so, maybe because it confessed some sort of provincial commitment of the heart. Panic time. Molly felt my affection growing for her. A woman with a good heart senses those things, even when a mug is tongue-tied. Molly must have also sensed my dilemma when I hesitated.
“Mike, don’t worry about me cramping your style. I won’t crowd you or latch on to you unless you ask to be latched. You’re a great guy with great eyes, even if they wander too much, but if you’re my boss then I can respect that, if you can.” She winked. “During office hours, anyway.”
I wondered if I could respect that. I knew myself too well.
&
nbsp; I nodded. “Respect—a complicated word. Okay, I’ll discuss it over a drink. Let’s close it and head to Sam’s down the block.”
“I’ll have a whiskey sour. Maybe it’ll give me the same expression you’re wearing. And one thing before I become your employee.”
“What’s that?”
“Kiss me. I know you want to. I knew back in Jersey you wanted to. Make it a good one, though, okay?”
***
Sam’s bar around the corner was a dark, empty place at noon. But then it’s dark and empty just about any time. Sam likes it that way. He probably has the first buck he made and isn’t worried about more.
Sam looked up when we entered and thumbed to the end of the bar. A couple of young Italian studs were pontificating loudly over everything from their sexual prowess to whether Kennedy was ruled by the Pope. I’d hate to have their budget for hair grease.
Sam took our order and escorted Molly to a booth at the opposite end of the bar from the loudmouths. I followed glancing over my shoulder at the pair.
“Maybe it’s national jerk day,” Molly said, stirring her whiskey sour and nodding toward the motormouths who banged on the bar for more. I faked a right cross to her jaw.
“And what makes you think I’m not a jerk? I’ve been known to argue in bars. A few high society matrons might vouch for my jerkability.”
“That kiss convinced me you’re not a jerk. But, oh, Mike, that reminds me—Haley called. We had a nice talk.”
“I can imagine. How’s she doing? Anything important?”
“No, she just wanted to keep in touch. Still lugging the torch I’d say. How do you do it, Mike, keep all those plates spinning?”
“That plate spun out back in college, doll. She’s a new widow and her dead husband hired me right before he was murdered in Bermuda. I suppose it’s natural for her to lean on me some.”
Dark Quarry: A Mike Angel Private Eye Mystery Page 14
