Ray Tate and Djuna Brown Mysteries 3-Book Bundle

by Lee Lamothe

  Jerry Kelly in love. Marko felt humour at the concept, but underneath it a flash of jealousy. Jerry briefly wearing those moon eyes of embarrassment. Where did Jerry get to that he’d hook up with something of quality? Marko pictured Jerry and the faceless beauty having dinner with him. He wondered who he could bring. Not one of the local hookers. Jerry would know them all. Not Julia Gurr. That was swirling the bowl, fast. Maybe bring in some Chicago item who could act straight. It would have to be somebody outstanding.

  The black chick was perfectly balanced on her stool, an Old Fashioned glass in front of her, both elbows on the rail, her unadorned hands flat against her cheekbones, reading a notebook. She looked funky, cool in an exotic way. Marko finished his drink and ordered another one. The black chick remembered her drink, reached out a slim wrist and took a sip, and saw Marko watching her in the mirror. She gave away absolutely nothing. She took a pen from her purse and made a quick note.

  He came down the rail with his fresh drink. “Hey, sitting alone in this mad crowd, what are you? A poet?”

  Djuna Brown looked up and made a show of examining the shoulders of his white shirt; she made a small smile. “Look, if I ask you how come you look like the death of a thousand cuts, does that mean we’re gonna have, like, a relationship? Kids? Picket fence?”

  “No. Well, just until I finish this drink. How’s that?”

  She evaluated this, made her small smile beautiful, and closed the notebook. “Okay. The blood on the shirt. Tell.”

  He slipped onto the stool beside her. “The cottage. I took a couple of days off to close up my place in the country, and my dog took off in the woods. I had to chase it down. The bushes got me, not the dog.”

  She put her elbow on the bar, her fist against her cheek, and gazed up at him, unblinking. “You had the dog a long time?”

  “Ah … Yeah, ten years or so.”

  “You must really love it, keep it all this time.”

  “I do. My companion where there are none other.”

  “What kind of dog?”

  “Ah … Mutt. You know, Heinz fifty-seven, something from everything.”

  “What colour? How big?”

  “Ah … lots of colours in there. Different breeds.” He put his hand out to knee height. “It’s this tall.” She was beautiful. He wanted to do anything except stop talking about an imaginary dog. He didn’t even like dogs.

  “Shoulder or head, the height?” Her eyes were piercing, but playful. “Long hair, short hair?”

  “Jeez, that’s a lot of questions.” She was making him work for it and he found he was having a good time. “What kind of conversation is this gonna be? You going to start whipping me, I don’t give the right answers?”

  She drained her glass and Marko flagged the bartender and pointed at her glass. “My tab.”

  “No,” she said firmly, “my tab. You want, I’ll buy you a drink but my drinks go on my tab.” She pointed at their empty glasses and pointed at herself. “What’s its name, your dog?”

  “Ah, the dog again.” Marko thought fast. “It’s named Marie. Named after Sweet Marie, the chocolate bar.”

  “You weren’t ready with this, were you?” She tilted her head to look at him closely. “You just moved on me and went free-form jazz, no planning, no setup. Winging it, hope it comes out sounding right. But look: nobody that’s got a beloved pet for ten years calls it ‘it,’ unless it’s a salamander or a fish or something. ‘She’ or ‘he,’ that’s where you want to go. You go home alone a lot, I’ll bet.”

  Marko hung his head, looking like he wished he was chasing his imaginary dog through rough scrub. “Yeah, mostly. I guess. It was a wild shot, that’s all. My pal bailed on me there, and I thought the dumbest thing in the world is a bleeding guy wearing a tent drinking alone in a crowded bar. So I came down here and find myself hitting on a cop or something.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Nice. Honest.” She put out her hand. “Djuna Brown.”

  “Mark.”

  “How’d you know I’m a cop? I don’t think I ever arrested you. Maybe, though, but I think I’d remember arresting a guy wearing a tent.”

  He looked to see if she was kidding. “C’mon, right? You’re no cop.”

  “I’d flash you my badge, Mark, but I don’t know you well enough.”

  “Really? Really a cop? Fuck — I mean, get outta here. What do you do, really?”

  Djuna Brown gazed at him. She felt calm and in control. She’d had no plan and recognized the possible traps in her own free-form jazz, hadn’t expected him to come down the rail and hit on her. The truth was the best free-form jazz. Not all of it, but enough. That he was tanned told her he’d probably been out in the country; the scratches too might indicate some forested activities. She was closer than she’d ever been to him on surveillance and saw he was fleshier than in his photographs, had lines popping out around his eyes and down from the wings of his nose. His eyes had some life in them, something that was lost in the grain of long-lens photograph. He looked friendly, though, but exhausted, stressed, ready to receive bad news. Once, she could see, he’d been a good-looking guy.

  Markowitz wondered if she was on him, on him and Jerry. He tried to remember when she came into the place, but couldn’t. If she was on him, why would she say she was a cop? She didn’t approach him; in fact, was completely indifferent to his very existence. Could be that she was just a cop having a drink after work, cleaning up her notebook, not bothering guys out trying to make themselves a living? He thought this could be good. Hook up with Jerry and his anonymous beauty, bring a black chick along as his date. A black cop chick. Djuna Brown, this is Jerry Fucking Kelly; Jerry, ask her what she does for a living, go on, ask.

  “Officer Djuna, I call you? Or Officer Brown?”

  “Detective,” she said. “Fraud squad. What do you do, Mark? You a bandit on Market Street? I hope not. I haven’t handcuffed any mutts today, don’t want to start now.”

  “No, no. I’m in export and import. Commodities, boring shit. Marine insurance, docking fees. Crap. A cop, eh?” He looked around and leaned in. “No shit, for real?”

  She held up her hand. “If you say what I wrote in my notebook when I saw you clock on me, I’m outta here. I mean it. Walking around wearing a bloodstained tent makes you maybe a little interesting but don’t go pedestrian on me now. Don’t be predictable.”

  “What did you write?” He waited but she didn’t answer, just hooked an eyebrow at him. “Okay. No business. You married?” He stopped. “Shit, that’s it, right? What you got written in the book?”

  “Nope, not even close. I’ll tell you if you get there.”

  “I’ll be careful, promise.”

  “And, hey I don’t want to be a control freak here, but I don’t want to talk business, yours or mine. Maybe you crushed some little guy in the market today, maybe you made a million or lost a million. If so: good for you; or: gee, too bad. Whatever you need. Let’s move on.”

  When the hooker swing shift started to come in Marko suggested they go elsewhere. He didn’t want her to know they all knew him. Most of them were cool and would ignore him, but one of the inexperienced new ones might put the hat on him.

  Djuna Brown said she had to make a call to her roommate on the way out, did, and they went out to the curb.

  “You got a preference? Kinda place you like?” His words were a little slurry. His jaw told him he’d been rattling away, a mile a minute. He tried to remember if he’d given anything away.

  She shook her head. “Any public place is okay.”

  “Well, I got a place, big place, nice. Here in Stonetown. Great view. We could go there, talk a little, have a couple more.”

  “Public, Mark. I like you, you seem like a good guy. But in my job I’ve seen things go sideways very quickly for people, went to places with good guys they didn’t know, where there were no other people around, and found out the good guys were bad guys.”

  He flagged a cab and held the taxi door open
for her and she slipped into the back seat.

  He got in and directed the driver to a jazz bar on the far edge of Stonetown. “Nice little place up there,” he said. “Should be lots of people around. That okay?”

  “Yep.” She kept her purse against her hip, opposite him. “I should tell you, before this night gets expensive, you got no shot. Absolutely none. When I was sixteen and a lot wilder and drunker than I am now, nobody got a hit on the first at-bat. If that’s a problem, have the driver drop you back in the swarm of skanks at the rail. I’ll keep the cab.”

  He looked at her, liking her in spite of the fact she was a cop. He felt boyish in the face of her directness and couldn’t remember thinking about Julia Gurr for the past couple of hours. “Cool, that’s cool. But what if things go okay? What about the second at-bat? Any shot there?”

  She gave him a feline smile. “Swwwwwwing, batt-ah.”

  She had Marko drop her three blocks from the apartment, before dawn. She took his cellular phone number but wouldn’t give him hers. Unsteadily, she balanced herself and watched until the taxi disappeared, his face in the rear window for a last longing look. She’d worked him, put the magic mojo on him, and she saw it take. She’d walked into his heart and checked out the display. He was kind of old, although he was comfortable and fun and interesting to be with, and that roguish boyish streak made a few appearances. She could see where when he was younger he probably did all right with the chicks.

  Somewhere in the night she told him: “Well, you’re not a cop and that’s a big plus. I’m so sick of cops, I’m sick of shop talk and gossip. So how about we talk about you. If I like what you reveal, that inner guy in there, and, well, who knows?”

  “Sensitive. Sensitive, but strong.”

  “That’a boy.” She put her hand on his.

  Throughout the night he’d been funny and sad. A funny story about his airplane running out of fuel; later, a sad-eyed story of a lifelong love, lost to a treacherous best friend.

  “I know the question,” he’d said, suddenly, “the question in your book. It’s about your gun. Guys, I bet, always ask: Hey you got a gun on you? Can I see it?”

  “Bingo.” She dug out the notebook and he read her scrawl. “See gun?”

  When they’d staggered out of the afterhours club in Chinatown, she’d acted more drunk than she was. He made a sloppy move and she deflected it nicely, firm but leaving him with hope.

  “Look, I have to be at work in about three hours and read a spreadsheet created by a guy who thinks I’m stupider than he is. If your ego’s not too badly dinged, let’s stick to the original plan. Gratelli’s at the bar, tonight, right? No one shows up, no harm, no foul.”

  “No, no. Not tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow night, maybe, if I don’t get stuff done tonight. I got this job, out of town business stuff, I got to do today, tomorrow latest, and it’ll probably go into the night. Worst case, we hook up day after that.”

  “You sure? Not tonight?” She put her hand on his leg, smiling, teasing. “I got no shot, Mark? None at all? You can’t put this thing you got off for a couple of days?”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he’d moaned. “I can’t. Believe me, if I could I would, but this isn’t just about me. This is other folks. I don’t close this deal in the next few days, some people are going to lose a lot. I’m going to lose a lot.”

  “Okay, I’m just horsing you around. You’re a busy guy, I know that. I like that. People who work hard play hard.”

  She gave him the softest peck imaginable on his cheek.

  Chapter 26

  Zoe Preston awoke when the Saab slowed, then made a hard left turn onto a rough road. She sat up, untangling from Jerry Kelly’s suit coat. They were driving through solid walls of trees and low brush. Shoulders of rock poking out of the earth told her they were a long way from the city, way north.

  “Where are we?” She saw a white cube truck jouncing along ahead, where the road curved. Ahead of it, another vehicle put up a lot of road dust. “What’s this place?”

  “G-g-g-god’s country, Zo’,” Jerry Kelly said, his words coming quickly with barely any independence separating them. His voice was scratched. He cranked down the window and sucked in a lungful of chilly morning air. “Now, look, I have to ask you to do something, okay? I need you to put the coat over your head. This place is pretty secret and the folks up here are … Well, they’re careful. That’s what makes it safe. They’re going to look after you until your dad gets things straightened out, but they can’t have anyone knowing where this place is. Can you do that for me?”

  She looked at him. There was a crust of white crumbly powder in the corners of his lips; his eyes were bloodshot and riotous. His features looked the same as they had the last time she’d seen him in full light, at the airport, but now his brow overshadowed his eye sockets, he was grinning a hard and painful-looking clown smile. His tongue made darting flicks to moisten his lips. She thought of the desert. “But I don’t know where we are, anyway.”

  “I know, I know. But it’ll make them feel better. They can get … funny. C’mon, just for a few minutes, okay?”

  She draped the jacket over her head, leaning forward so her forehead was on the dash. He snuck glances at her where her breasts curved down freely under the T-shirt, thinking about games he could play if not for his truest of loves. But it would take time, she’d have to be tenderized to his liking and that would involve a lot of alligator games of plunder he didn’t have time to engage in. Plus he was saving himself for his truest love. He became aroused at the thought of Julia Gurr, of her Spicetown terror and cringing, of her pissing on Marko’s rug, her lip-chewing terror and apprehension.

  He kept an eye on the cube truck ahead and the crash car ahead of that. At the sign that read Paradise someone had added Not for All in blood or red paint. The log house came into view. No smoke arose from its chimney, no signs of Aurora or Chyna Lily. The cube and the crash car pulled in beside the porch. Jerry Kelly swept the Saab into an arc, and backed it in.

  “Okay, Zo’, we’re here. Time to rise; time to shine.” He slipped the jacket off her head and shrugged into it in jerky motions. She sat up and looked around. Her hair was tangled and her face smudged by sleep. He felt a roaring inside himself but called up discipline. He helped her from the car and told her to stretch a little.

  In the front window of the log house he thought he saw Aurora’s pale face appear, then vanish. The two guys from the cube truck and the driver of the crash car gathered by the porch. They were tough, young hired guys, two with Fu Manchu moustaches and all had tight ponytails. Inside their windbreakers they were tense and inflated by steroids and they seemed to be looking around for something to damage. Jerry Kelly sent two of them in the crash car down to the lake to retrieve the van.

  “Then we’ll load up, get the fuck of here, fucking place is a toxic wasteland.” The morning sun hurt his eyes, his hair. He’d had enough. He took the Walmart bag from the backseat of the Saab. “The boxes are down in that shed. When the other guys get back, get the cube as close as you can and get them loaded. Spillover goes in the van.”

  He went up onto the porch and tried the door. Locked. He peeked in the window. Aurora stood at the far wall inside, hugging herself, her back against the fireplace bricks, staring wide-eyed at the door. Chyna Lily, in a purple muumuu, was sprawled on her back on a ratty chesterfield. Jerry Kelly thought she might be dead from snake fear.

  Zoe came up onto the porch. “What’s happening? Is everything all right?”

  He looked away from the window at her open face, then glanced back in at Aurora. He could use a joint right now, a mellow ride to take the edge off the little white pills. He tried to remember how many he’d taken. The muscles in his jaws were walnuts. Humor was absent in this jagged state. Time to rip open the cellar door, show the little angel what was scurrying in the dark down there. “Fine, Zoe. Everything is hunky dory. Peachy keen and just fucking rosy. Now, how about you shut the fuck up for a minute whil
e I get things in gear.” He took her face into his hand and squeezed until her lips pouted. “Sit on your ass and wait, okay? You’re not dealing with beaners now, hoping for some gringa pussy.” He pushed her face away; she lost balance and fell against the porch rail.

  Through the window he beckoned to Aurora to come closer. He pointed to the door and mimed turning a key. She shook her head and backed further away. He looked around for something to break the window in with, then took Zoe Preston by her hair. He stood her in front of the window, facing in, his fist knotted in the blond hair at the back of her head, and he shoved very quickly and her forehead shattered the glass. “Knock, knock.”

  Chyna Lily was catatonic. She didn’t get up during Jerry Kelly’s visit. She didn’t respond at all to him, to his enticements, his sweet talk, his threats or the slaps. He whispered words to her: snakes, serpents, woooo. He hissed and his fingers travelled over her body, following intricate patterns a snake might make. She remained frozen.

  Feeling pretty good about that, he turned to Aurora, his arm around Zoe’s shoulders. He was smoking a joint to mellow down his nocturnal diet of little white pills. Blood ran from a gash in Zoe’s forehead. Jerry Kelly wasn’t concerned. He’d inflicted enough head wounds to know they looked worse than they actually were. She looked dazed by the casualness of his violence, unaware of the stream of slow blood running down her cheek and past the edge of her mouth. Jerry Kelly thought she finally was starting to look tasty.

  “Roar, my pal Zo’ here is going to stay for a few days. Look after her, okay? She’s precious to me, close to my heart, she’s a pal of a pal. Can you do that? Don’t go licking on her too much or anything, okay? No sandwiches, no amusements with electrical tools. Good clean fun is okay. But nothing weird, guys.”

  He took a digital camera from the Walmart bag. The clerk had made it ready to go. Jerry Kelly told Zoe to lift her face and to leave the blood alone. She dropped her head further.