Jack Daniels Stories

by J. A. Konrath

  “Cute kid,” I said.

  The kid looked like a large pink watermelon with buck teeth and bug eyes. If I hadn't already known it was a girl, I couldn't have guessed from the picture. What was that medical name for children with a overdeveloped heads? Balloonheadism? Bigheaditis? Melonoma? Freak?

  “She takes after her mother.”

  Yeeech. My fertile mind produced an image of a naked Mrs. Potatohead, unhooking her bra. I shook away the thought and handed the picture back to the proud Papa.

  “Where is Mom, by the way?”

  Mr. Morribund leaned close enough for me to smell his lunch—tunafish on rye with a side order of whiskey. He was a thin guy with big eyes who wore an off-the-rack suit with a gold Save The Dolphins tie tack.

  “Emily doesn't know I'm here, Mr. McGlade. She's at home with little Rosemary. Since we received the news she's been... upset.”

  “I sympathize. Getting into the right pre-school can mean the difference between summa cum laude at Harvard and offering mouth sex in back alley Dumspters for crack money. I should know. I've seen it.”

  “You've seen mouth sex in back alley Dumpsters?”

  I nodded my head in what I hoped what looked like a sad way. “It isn't pretty, Mr. Morribund. Not to look at, or to smell. But I don't understand how you expect me to get little Rotisserie—”

  “It's Rosemary.”

  “—little Rosemary into this school if they already turned down your application. Are you looking for strong-arm work?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  I frowned. I liked strong-arm work. It was one of the perks of being a private eye. That and breaking and entering.

  “What then? Breaking and entering? Some stealing, maybe?”

  I liked stealing.

  Morribund swallowed, his Adam's apple wiggling in his thin neck. If he were any skinnier he wouldn't have a profile.

  “The Salieri Academy is the premier pre-school in the nation, Mr. McGlade. They have a waiting list of thousands, and to even have a chance at attending you have to fill out the application five years before your child is conceived.”

  “That's a long time to wait for nookie.” But then, if I were married to Mrs. Potatohead, I wouldn't mind the wait.

  “It's the reason we took so long to have Rosemary. We paid the application fee, and were all but assured entrance. But three days after Rosemary was born, our application was denied.”

  “Did they give a reason?” Other than the fact that your kid looks like an albino warthog who has been snacking on an air compressor?

  “No. The application says they reserve the right to deny admittance at their discretion, and still keep the fee.”

  “How much was the fee?”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  Ouch. You could rent a lot of naughty videos for that kind of money. And you'd need to, because those things get boring after the third or fourth viewing.

  “So what's the deal? You want me to shake the guy down for the money.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing of the sort. I'm not a violent man.”

  “Spell it out, Mr. Morribund. What exactly do you want me to do? Burn down the school?”

  I liked arson.

  “Goodness, no. The Salieri School is run by a man named Michael Sousse.”

  “And you want me to kidnap his pet dog and take pictures of me throwing it off a tall building, using my zoom lens to capture its final barks of terror as it takes the express lane to Pancakeville? Because that's where I draw the line, Mr. Morribund. I may be a thug, a thief, and an arsonist, but I won't harm any innocent animals unless there's a bonus involved.”

  Morribund raised an eyebrow. “You'd do that to a dog? The Internet said you love animals.”

  “I do love animals. Grilled, fried, and broiled. Or stuffed with cheese. I'd eat any animal if it had enough cheese on top. It wouldn't even have to be dead first.”

  “Oh.”

  Morribund made a face, and I could tell he was thinking through things. I glanced again at his Save the Dolphins tie tack and realized I might have been a little hasty with my meat-lovers rant.

  “I had a dog once,” I said.

  “Really?”

  “Never tried to eat him. Not once.”

  I mimed crossing my heart. Morribund stared at me. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, softer.

  “Headmaster Sousse, he's a terrible man. A hunter. Gets his jollies shooting poor little innocent animals. His office is strewn with so-called hunting trophies. It's disgusting.”

  “Sounds awful,” I said, stifling a yawn.

  “Mr. McGlade,” he leaned in closer, giving me more tuna and bourbon. “I want you to find out something about Sousse. Something that I could use to convince him to accept our application.”

  I scratched my unshaven chin. Or maybe it was my unshaved chin. I get those words confused.

  “I understand. You want me to dig up some dirt. Something you can use to blackmail Sousse and get Rheumatism—”

  “Rosemary.”

  “—into his school. Well, you're in luck, Mr. Morribund, because I'm very good at this kind of thing. And even if I don't find anything incriminating in his past, I can make stuff up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can take pictures of him in the shower, and then Photoshop in the Vienna Boy's Choir washing his back. Or I can make it look like he's pooping on the floor of the White House. Or being intimate with a camel. Or eating a nun. Or...”

  “I don't want the sordid details, Mr. McGlade. I simply want some kind of leverage. How much will something like that cost?”

  I leaned back in my chair and put my hands behind my head, showing off my shoulder holster beneath my jacket. I always let them see the gun before I discussed my fees. It dissuaded haggling.

  “I get four hundred a day. Three days minimum, in advance. Plus expenses. I may need to bring in a computer expert to do the Photoshop stuff. He's really good.”

  I took a pic out of my desk drawer and tossed it to him. Morribund flinched. I smiled at his reaction.

  “Looks real, doesn't it?”

  “This is fake?”

  “Not a single baby harp seal was harmed.”

  “Really?”

  “Well actually, they were all clubbed to death and skinned. But the laughing guy in the parka wasn't really there. We Photoshopped him into the scene. That's the beauty and magic of jpeg manipulation. Look at this one.” I threw another photo onto his lap. “Check out that bloody discharge. And those pustules. Don't they look real? It's like they're going to burst all over your hands.”

  Morribund frowned. “I've seen enough.”

  “Want to see one with my head on Brad Pitt's body with Ron Jeremy's junk?”

  “I really don't.”

  “How about one of a raccoon driving a motorcycle? He's wearing sunglasses and flipping the bird.”

  Morribund stood up.

  “I'm sure you'll come up with something satisfactory. When can you get started?”

  I fished an appointment book out of my top drawer. It was from 1996, and only contained doodles of naked butts. I pretended to scrutinize it.

  “You're in luck,” I said, pulling out a pen. I drew another butt. A big one, that took up the entire third week of September. “I can start as soon as your check clears.”

  “I don't trust checks.”

  “Credit card?”

  “I dislike the high interest rates. How about cash?”

  “Cash works for me.”

  After he handed it over I got his phone number, he found his own way to the door, and I did the Money Dance around my office, making happy noises and shaking my booty.

  Things had been slow around the agency lately, due to my lack of renewing my Yellow Pages ad. I didn't get many referrals, because I charged too much and wasn't good at my job. Luckily, Morribund had found me through my Internet site. The same computer geek who did my Photoshop work was also the webmaster of my ho
mepage. Google “Chicago cheating spouse sex pictures” and I was the fourth listing. If you Google “naked rhino make-over” I was number two. I still didn't understand the whole keyword thing. That's probably why Morribund thought I was an animal lover.

  A quick check of my watch told me I wasn't wearing one, so I looked at the display on my cell phone. Almost two in the afternoon. Time to get started.

  I booted up the computer to search for the Salieri School and Christopher Sousse. But instead, I wound up on YouTube, and watched videos of a monkey in a funny hat, a fat woman falling down the stairs, and a Charlie Brown cartoon that someone dubbed over with the voice track to Goodfellas.

  After wasting almost an hour, I went to MySpace and read all of my messages from all of my friends, all of whom seemed to work in the paid escort industry.

  After that, I checked my eBay bids, my Hotmail account, and added a new entry to my blog about the high cost of parking in the city.

  After that, porn.

  Finally, I located the Salieri School's website, found their phone number, and dialed.

  “Salieri Academy for Exceptionally Gifted Four-Year-Olds, where children are our future and should be heavily invested in, this is Miss Janice, may I help you?”

  Miss Janice had a voice like a hot oil massage, deep and sensual and full of petroleum.

  “My name is McGlade. Harrison Harold McGlade. I'd like to enroll my son Stimey into your school.”

  “I'm sorry sir, there's a minimum five year waiting period to get accepted into the Salieri academy. How old is your son now?”

  “He's seven.”

  “We only accept four-year-olds.”

  “He's got the mind of a four-year-old. Retard. Mom dropped him down an escalator, he fell for forty minutes. Very sad. All someone had to do was hit the off switch.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “Why? You a retard too?”

  “Mr. McGlade...”

  “I'm willing to pay money, Miss Janice. Big money. I'll triple your enrollment fee.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Okay, I'll double it.”

  “I don't think that...”

  “Look, honey, is Mikey there? He assured me I'd be treated better than this.”

  “You know Mr. Sousse?”

  “Yeah. We played water polo together in college. I saved his horse from drowning.”

  “Perhaps I should put you through to him.”

  “Don't bother. I'll be there in an hour with a suitcase full of cash. I won't bring Stimey, because he's with his tutor tonight, learning how to chew. Keep the light on for me.”

  I hung up, feeling smug. I hadn't shared this with Morribung, but this case really hit home for me. Years ago, when I was a toddler, I'd been forced to drop out of pre-school because I kept biting and hitting the other children. The unfairness of it, being discriminated against because I was a bully, still haunted me to this day.

  I hit the computer again and prowled the Internet for dirt on Sousse. Nothing jumped out at me, other than a minor news article a few weeks back about one of his teachers being dismissed for reasons unknown. According to the story, Sousse was deeply embarrassed by the incident and refused to comment.

  Then I surfed for Morribund and his wife and kid, and found zilch.

  Then I surfed for naked pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones until it was time for me to keep my appointment.

  But first, I needed to gear up.

  I wound my spy tie around my neck, careful with the wires. Concealed in the tie clip was a digital camera, a unidirectional microphone, and a 20 gigabyte mp3 player loaded with bootleg Tori Amos concerts. It weighed about two pounds, and hurt my back to wear. But it would be my best chance at clandestinely snapping a few photos of Mr. Sousse during our meeting—photos I could later retouch so it looked like he was molesting a pile of dirty laundry.

  People would pay a lot of money to keep their dirty laundry out of the news.

  Forty minutes later I was pulling into a handicapped parking spot in front of the Salieri Academy on Irving Park Road. Last year, I'd bought a handicapped parking sticker from a one-legged man in line at the DMV. It only cost me ten dollars. He had demanded five hundred, but I simply grabbed the sticker and strolled away at a leisurely pace. Guy shouldn't be driving with only one leg anyway.

  The Academy was a large, ivy-covered brick building, four stories high, in the middle of a residential area. As I was reaching for the front door it began to open. A woman exited, holding the hand of a small boy. She was smartly dressed in skirt and blazer, high heels, long brown hair, maybe in her mid-thirties. The boy looked like a honey-baked ham stuffed into a school uniform, right down to the bright pink face and greasy complexion. When God was dishing out the ugly, this kid got seconds.

  I played it smooth. “Wouldn't let you in, huh?”

  “Excuse me?”

  I pointed my chin at the child.

  “Wilbur, here. All he's missing is the curly tail. The Academy won't take fatties, right?”

  The boy squinted up at me.

  “Mother, is this stupid man insinuating that I have piggish attributes?”

  I made a face. “Who are you calling stupid? And what does insinuating mean?”

  “Just ignore him, Jasper. We can't be bothered by plebeians.”

  “Hey lady, I'm 100% American.”

  “You're 100% ignoramus.”

  “What do dinosaurs have to do with this?”

  She ushered the little porker past me—no doubt off to build a house of straw—and I slipped through the doorway and into the lobby. There were busts of dead white guys on marble pedestals all around the room, and the artwork adorning the walls was so ugly it had to be expensive. I crossed the carpeted floor to the welcoming desk, set on a riser so the secretary looked down on everyone. This particular secretary was smoking hot, with big sensuous lips and a top drawer pulled all the way out. Also, large breasts.

  “May I help you, Sir?”

  Her voice was sultry, but her smile hinted that help was the last thing she wanted to give me. I got that look a lot, from people who thought they were superior somehow due to their looks, education, wealth, or upbringing. It never failed to unimpress me.

  “I called earlier, Miss Janice. I'm here to see Mikey.”

  Her smile dropped a fraction. “I informed Mr. Sousse that you were coming, and he regrets to inform you that—”

  “Cork up that gas leak, sweetheart. I'm really a private detective. I'd like a chance to talk with Mr. Sousse about some embarrassing facts I've uncovered about one of your teachers here,” I said, referring to that incident I'd Googled. “Of course, if he doesn't want to talk with me, he can hear about it on the ten o'clock news. But I doubt it will do much for enrollment, especially after that last unfortunate episode.”

  Miss Janice played it coy. “Whom on our staff are you referring to?”

  “Are you Mr. Sousse? I can avert my eyes if you want to lift your skirt and check.”

  She blushed, then picked up the phone. I gave her a placating smile similar to the one she greeted me with.

  “Do you have ID?” she asked, still holding the receiver.

  I flashed my PI license. She did some whispering, then hung up.

  “Mr. Sousse will see you now.”

  “How lucky for me.”

  She stared. I stared back.

  “You gonna tell me where his office is, or should I just wander around, yelling his name?”

  She frowned. “Room 315. The elevator is down the hall, on the left.”

  I hated to leave with an attractive woman annoyed with me, so I decided to disarm her with wit.

  “You know, my father was an elevator operator. His career had a lot of ups and downs.”

  Miss Janice kept frowning.

  “He hated how people used to push his buttons,” I said.

  No response at all.

  “Then, one day, he got the shaft.”

  She crossed her arms. “
That's not funny.”

  “You're telling me. He fell six floors to his death.”

  Her frown deepened.

  “Tell me, do they have heat on your planet?” I asked.

  “Mr. Sousse is expecting you.”

  I nodded, my work here done. Then it was into the elevator and up to the third floor.

  Sousse's office was decorated in 1960's Norman Bates, with low lighting that threw shadows on the stuffed owls and bear heads and antlers hanging on the walls. Sousse, a stern-looking man with glasses and a bald head, sat behind a desk the size of a small car shaped like a desk, and he was sneering at me when I entered.

  “Miss Janice said you're a private investigator.” His nostrils flared. “I don't care for that profession.”

  “Don't take it literally. I'm not here to investigate your privates. I just need to ask you a few questions.”

  A stuffed duck—of all things—was propped on his desktop, making it impossible for me to get a clear shot of his face with my cleverly concealed camera tie. I moved a few steps to the left.

  “Which of my staff are you inquiring about?”

  “That's confidential.”

  “If you can't tell me who we're discussing, why is it you wanted to see me?”

  “That's confidential too.”

  I shifted right, touched the tie bar, heard the shutter click. But the lighting was pretty low.

  “I don't understand how I'm supposed to—”

  “Does this office have better lights?” I interrupted. “I'm having trouble seeing you. I'm getting older, and got cadillacs in my eyes.”

  “Cadillacs?”

  I squinted. “Who said that?”

  “Do you mean cataracts?”

  “I don't like your tone,” I said, intentionally pointing at a moose head.

  Sousse sighed, all drama queen, and switched on the overhead track lighting.

  Click click went my little camera.

  “Did you hear something?” he asked.

  I snapped a few more pics, getting him with his mouth open. My tech geek should be able to Photoshop that into something particularly rude.

  “Does your tie have a camera in it?” he asked.

  I reflexively covered up the tie and hit the button for the mp3 player. Tori Amos began to sing about her mother being a cornflake girl in that whiney, petulant way that made her a superstar. I fussed with the controls, and only succeeded in turning up the volume.