by Scott Cook
I said goodbye, I love you and headed out. Whether I liked it or not, I was bound for a gentlemen’s entertainment facility specializing in the art of tantalization through the display of feminine flesh… a strip joint, in other words.
4
Venus was a notoriously popular gentlemen’s club on a rather infamous section of Orange Blossom Trail. While it was true I didn’t fancy myself a prime example of blue-blooded or waspish behavioral norms… I did find it difficult to assign the term gentlemanly to activities that included shoving small bills into young women’s underpants or slurping vodka-laced Jell O from betwixt their breasts.
Perhaps I was getting cynical.
Regardless of whether or not Emily Post would approve, therefore, I pulled my red Jeep Rubicon into the parking lot and went in the same way the suckers did… through the front door. A palpable fist of cigarette smoke, pulsating hip-hop beats, along with the cheers and jeers of a hundred or so men, blasted me squarely in the face as I pushed open the inner door. I had to pause for a quick second in order to brace myself for the onslaught. There was an undertone of something else in there, too. Was it shame? Or perhaps only a lingering scent of draft beer.
A tall and willowy redhead with hair whose ends brushed the waistband of her Daisy Duke short shorts caught sight of me and came out from around the right-hand bar. Her four-inch heels made her as tall as I was. Her knotted polo shirt exposed a flat belly adorned with a gold belly button ring and accentuated a healthy set of perky breasts. Her pretty face smiled at me in recognition.
“I knew you couldn’t stay away,” Crystal said by way of greeting.
I remembered her as well from the last time I was in the joint near the end of the previous summer. I smiled my high-wattage smile and said: “You remember. How flattering.”
Crystal came and stood very close to me, “Not many like you come in here, sweetie.”
“Like me?”
She leaned in and squeezed my right bicep. Crystal made a noise that was something between a purr and a yummy sound, “Wow… oh, I could take good care of you, sweetie.”
When she’d leaned in, I caught a whiff of a familiar scent. Lady in Waiting was a high-class perfume that went for about two hundred bucks an ounce, “Well…”
“You still got that girlfriend?”
I nodded.
“Too bad… cuz’ I’m looking for something special.”
“Special?” I asked.
Crystal smiled and made two fists, one on top of the other, “I want something I can do this with and still have a nice plumb on top.”
I smiled charmingly, angled my head modestly and said: “Not a problem… unless you get me excited.”
She laughed, leaned in quickly and planted a kiss on my cheek, “You’re cute… you want to see Pauli?”
“Sadly, yes.”
She giggled, “Yeah, he said you’d be in. Well, follow me, handsome.”
I did. Her walk was sinewy and graceful and held a great deal of promise. Being a trained and well-seasoned detective, I found that such attention to detail often proved invaluable in the discovery and subsequent thwarting of wrong-doers.
I was shown into Franco’s office, and as I passed through the door, Crystal slid a hand gently over my backside before the sound of her heels clacking on the linoleum was swallowed by the club sounds at the end of the hall. I closed the door and sat in one of the many chairs arranged in front of Paul’s desk. Franco was carrying on a conversation on his phone and nodded at me.
“No, pal!” Franco seemed to be arguing with a supplier. “If you can’t deliver on time, then I find somebody else. Hah? No, I don’t want fuckin’ Solo cups, you asshole! I run a class joint here! People come here cuz they want the royal treatment. They want good lookin’ broads, they want quality beers and fine liquors. They want that shit served to them in fuckin’ glass, huh? Now you was supposed to deliver two fuckin’ days ago. I want that shipment today, understand? Today! What…? What am I gonna do about it? Aside from the fact that I’ll cancel our contract, you and me are gonna have a personal problem, that’s what the fuck I’m gonna do, asshole. I advise yiz’ not to dick around wit me. It’s tree now. I’ll expect the truck before six and an appropriate discount for my pain and sufferin’… or I won’t be the only one, capisce? Tuh-day!”
Paul slammed his phone down and lit a cigarette, “Fuckin’ guys think they can push me around… well, welcome back, Jarvis.”
“Rough day?” I asked.
Paul shrugged and smiled around his butt, “Nah, usual bullshit. Always somebody wants to get over. You just gotta know how to deal wit‘em.”
I chuckled, “Threats and intimidation.”
He scoffed, “Hey, that little twerp is lucky it weren’t Marie on the phone. You might take her for a nice little girl, but she’d have threatened to slice the prick’s johnson off. Sides… don’t you use threats and intimidation in your line?”
“Only when absolutely required,” I said and grinned.
The office door opened, and Crystal reappeared with two drinks. A mixed something for Paul and a draft beer for me, “Land Shark with a lime, honey. Just the way you like it.”
“Your kindness is nearly as great as your beauty,” I said.
She smiled, winked and turned back to the door, “You have no idea.”
“Christ,” I observed after she’d vanished once more.
Paul laughed, “She likes you.”
“Surprised she remembered after what… nine months?”
Paul chuckled, “Oh, Crystal ain’t your normal girl. Not like a lot of the broads come to work here. She’s sharp, that one. Meets you one time and never forgets your name, your favorite drink, what you like to eat and what girl you like to take into the VIP suites. Why I made her my food and beverage manager.”
I was impressed. Not just by Crystal’s apparent intelligence but that a guy like Paul would recognize and reward it, “Beauty and brains. A dangerous combination. So… why hath thou invited me?”
Paul sipped his drink, “Well, like I said at the club earlier… I got a request for a hit.”
“Uh-huh.”
“About a week ago,” Paul went on. “Guy calls and says that he’s got a problem. Says that there’s a broad who’s in his way and needs her removed.”
“I don’t suppose the guy gave a name?” I asked.
Paul snorted, “Hers, yeah. His, no. Says her name is Veronica Bradford.”
He pronounced it Bradfid.
I nodded, “I know the name.”
Paul chuckled, “Course you do. You pulled her off that boat over in Saint Pete last weekend. I knew it was you done that the second I seen the story on the news. Fuckin’ Magnum, PI ovuh heyuh.”
I waited.
“To intercept your next question,” Paul went on. “No, I didn’t accept the contract.”
That surprised me, “Why?”
He chuckled derisively, “What…? Whack out some broad I don’t even know just cuz some asshole on the phone wants it done? I might be a hood, Jarvis, but I ain't that kind of hood. I got a heart… I got rules, too.”
I looked dubious.
“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking,” Paul went on. “I ain’t sayin’ I wouldn’t or haven’t done somebody… but in the line of business. Killins’ are messy business. There’s a process, a way of doin’ things. For example, you lend a guy some dough and he don’t pay his vig. Okay, you send a guy around to talk to him. First time, it’s a warnin’. Second time maybe he gets a thumb broke. Third time, maybe he’s hurt enough to have to be checked into the hospital. It happens again… you might have to take it the next level, y’know? Or maybe a guy tries to get cute and hit one of your guys. Then we take him out. But I don’t do hired hits. Numbers, broads, little low-end dope, discounted merchandise… that’s my gig. Mr. Santino, he don’t like hard drugs, and he don’t like indiscriminate killing. We don’t hit nobody wittout we got a damned good reason.”
That made more sense, “So wh
at’d you tell this clown?”
“Told him to take a long walk off a short pier,” Paul said.
I grinned, “What was his response?”
Paul chuffed, “Told me to go fuck myself and that I was a lousy guinea piece of shit. Can you imagine?”
“No, I can’t.”
Paul laughed, “Yeah, huh? Guy sounded kind of… like a cowboy, you know what I mean? Not exactly southern, but maybe Texas or somethin’.”
“Anything else?” I asked.
Paul shrugged, “Nope. His phone number was blocked.”
I pondered that for a moment, “Guess he found somebody else. Any ideas on that score?”
“Nada,” Paul admitted. “You workin’ for that Bradford broad now?”
I nodded, “Yes. She’s got some ideas on who’s behind it. I don’t think they’re going to give up, not after a stunt like they pulled on Sunday.”
“So you gonna keep her under lock and key?” Paul asked.
I chuffed now, “Might have to. Problem is that if I’m standing guard… then who’s out investigating?”
Paul nodded, “You got people.”
I shook my head, “Not full time. Anyway, if you hear anything through the grapevine, let me know, huh? I’m sure useful information is something she’ll purchase. I figure if any of her suspects hired this done, then they probably had to hire Florida talent.”
“Sure, that’s why he called me,” Paul said. “But this is a big state and there are a lot of options.”
I snorted, “Yeah… lot of small-time thugs and shit. But to pull off something like this… I don’t know, but what has come so far seems too well-planned for the usual gang bangers or whatever.”
“And the bigger guys get taken down sooner or later,” Paul observed as he lit another smoke. “Like Big Daddy Walker. Musta pissed you off, huh?”
I shrugged, “I was there when he got it, but I didn’t punch his ticket myself.”
Paul chuckled, “No, was some slant broad. Still… town’s better wittout him.”
I cocked an eyebrow at that, “More room for you to operate?”
Paul waved that off with his cigarette hand, “I told yiz’… I don’t do hard dope. Just some smoke, some X that kinda shit. No coke and no horse. Gregorio wouldn’t put up with it.”
As I drove up OBT toward downtown, I wondered about what Paul had said. I knew that Gregorio Santino, head of the New York crime family to which Paul was attached, was not a fan of drugs. It was one of the reasons that a rival family teamed up with members of his own two years earlier to try and eliminate him from the equation and take over.
Yet neither did either he or Paul take any definitive action to eliminate drugs in the Orlando area. Derrick “Big Daddy” Walker had been something of a coke kingpin in town until his death a few months earlier. Sure, there would always be dope peddlers, especially small fry. And perhaps it was better that they be tied into an organization that could be monitored. Already there were rumors of Walker’s replacement. Nature abhorred a vacuum and there were a lot more drugs in Orlando than most people realized. As I’d mentioned before, it was a great place to send them through, simply because nobody saw the town that way.
My Bluetooth warbled and I accepted a call from Alex Muñoz, a long-time friend who was a detective with Saint Pete.
“Hola, Chico,” I said. “How goes the investigation?”
Alex harrumphed, “Slowly but unsurely.”
“Find anything on that boat?” I asked.
“We’re having it hauled out tomorrow,” Alex reported. “It’s in twenty-two feet of water and kind of a nav hazard right there in front of the north basin entrance. Got a barge and a crane and some divers. Probably do a check dive and inspection first, then haul up the pieces. Want in?”
“Yeah.”
“Figured. Also figured you’re working for Mrs. Bradford now?”
I confirmed that.
“Okay… then I’ve got a bit of news you’ll want to hear,” Alex teased.
“Are you gonna share it, or just tweak my nipples for a while?” I jibed.
He laughed, “I found Ted Whittaker. He’s currently in a hospital bed at Palms at Pasadena.”
“No shit…” I muttered. “You got a man on him?”
“Naturally. You coming tonight or tomorrow?”
“That knock you here on your office door is me, pal,” I said. “Thanks, Alex. Dinner on me. Gotta run now, though… I’m being followed.”
“Dun-dun-dunnnn…”
“Exactly.”
I’d picked up the tail not far from Venus. A black sedan that might have been a Mercedes or BMW slid in behind me. They were okay at it. The driver had allowed a silver Kia in between us. Just to be certain, I turned right onto Michigan Ave. and headed over to Orange. The Kia had continued straight and now the sedan was behind me.
Always a black car. As if somehow black was the official color of surveillance and that it didn’t actually stand out like a sore thumb in broad daylight. I couldn’t see the driver’s face due to the position of the sun and the tint of the car’s windshield, but I could see that there were at least two people in it.
I began to worry. Not for myself, of course. It would take more than two dudes in a black sedan to frighten your hero… but if I were being tailed, that meant that somebody had a reason, and it took no great leap of logic to determine that the reason was Veronica. Somebody was already playing the game once again. I’d need to up mine quickly or get left behind.
First thing’s first. I drove downtown and parked under the I-4 lot along Hughey Street and walked across it to the Richardson building. I’d lost the sedan somewhere on Orange. They’d been caught by a red light at Anderson, and I’d managed to slip them.
I stood near the corner entrance to my building and waited. It didn’t take long before I saw the car again. It appeared at the corner of Robinson and Hughey and pulled into the lot. I nodded to myself and went to the fourth floor and into my office to wait.
I entered my inner sanctum, patted Ferny the Fern on her… head…? And sat behind my desk. I hadn’t been wearing my gun to go visit Paul, which was a sign of just how far our relationship had come. I pulled open the deep drawer of my desk and removed my backup colt 1911 .45 semi-automatic.
I ejected the magazine, worked the action and then re-seated the magazine. I jacked a round into the chamber, readying the gun for action and set it on a special set of hooks I’d installed on the inside wall of the drawer side of the desk.
I proceeded to wait.
Not more than three minutes passed before two men walked into my outer office, looked around and stepped into the inner office. They were one of the oddest pairs I’d ever seen.
Both men wore business-casual clothing. Khaki slacks, Cordovan loafers and golf shirts, one blue and one white. The similarities ended there, however.
The blue-shirted guy was about my height and lanky. He moved well, though, like a man who’d trained as a fighter or martial artist. His wavy brown hair was receding slightly, and his dark brown eyes and carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard gave him something of a menacing air. The other guy was built like a fireplug. Short, thick and barrel-chested. He had oddly long arms for his five-foot-six of height, and they stuck out a little from his body due to the thickness of his upper arms. He had long blonde hair tied into a ponytail that matched a substantial handlebar mustache. His eyes were too close together and too small for his broad face. He had the look of inscrutability… or stupidity… I wasn’t sure yet.
“Good afternoon, gents,” I said personably. “How may I help you?”
“You Jarvis?” the tall guy said in a deep and slightly rasping voice.
“I Jarvis.”
“We wanna talk to you,” The short guy added in a way that made me think of Elwood Blues. Must be from Chicago.
“I’m Lawrence P. Otter,” the tall man introduced. “And this here is Big Top.”
I managed not to laugh, but only just. I look
ed at the smaller man. “Aren’t you a little small to be called Big Top?”
Big Top’s eyes narrowed. With his large face and small brown bulbs, his expression reminded me of one a pig might give you should you be so importunate as to offer him a plate of bacon, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Stupid rather than inscrutable, I decided. I waited for Otter to continue. He looked at me, then at Big Top and then back at me. Perhaps he thought there would be more.
“Anyways,” Otter continued. “We come to hire you if you’re available.”
“You available, Jarvis?” Big Top asked in a way that might have been intimidating… had I been somebody else. Fortunately, I was me and consequently remained calm.
“Depends on the job,” I replied neutrally.
“We got a hotel. Over on South Beach,” Otter said.
“You know where South Beach is, Jarvis?” Big Top asked in that same tone.
I stared at him, “Tell me you’re not the public relations director.”
Big Top frowned at that and puffed his chest out, “What’s that mean?”
Definitely stupid.
“He means take it easy, Big Top,” Lawrence said in a reasonable facsimile of friendliness. “Let’s sit down and chat.”
“Please do,” I said, waving them into chairs. “So, what’s your problem in Miami?”
“Street gang been hanging around bothering guests,” Otter said. “Trying to push dope on the property, sending whores to hang out in the bar, that kinda shit.”
“So call the cops,” I suggested. “Why come to me?”
“Cops ain’t gonna do shit,” Big Top said.
“Uh-huh,” I replied. “So you come all the way up to Orlando to hire a private detective? Got no local talent in Miami? What about what’s his name… and that other guy.”
“We heard you was good,” Otter said with a smile as genuine as cubic zirconium.
“You heard right,” I said modestly. “But what’s in it for me to tangle with a big scary gang all by my lonesome?”
“What’re you scared?” Big Top sneered.
“Not if you’re with me,” I said. “Speaking of which…”
