by Andres Kabel
From the narrow balcony Peter pointed out the features of the soaring night skyline. Mick’s vigorous physicality made the place feel constricted, and Peter felt nervous as he waited for the big man’s reaction.
“Nice,” Mick said with a blank face.
Peter changed into a suit and waited for Mick to emerge after a shower before announcing, “I’ve landed my second assignment.”
The legal requirement for a Private Investigator’s license was to work for an existing private eye for a year. So he’d registered Mick Tusk, trading under the name of Tusk & Gentle, and persuaded Mick to pretend to train him. A transparent façade, but somehow—perhaps Vinci helped, perhaps even his father—he was getting away with it. But soliciting work… that needed caution.
“Don’t tell me,” Mick said. His scrubbed face shone with health, and in his new, stern black suit, he could have been a corporate banker. “The genius behind the Human Genome Project has lost his memory.”
“Get stuffed, you thug. No, it’s a missing person.”
They discussed the case as they headed out. It was a cold Monday evening in July, and the Draconi’s waiters were taking advantage of the downtime before the dinner rush, some smoking out front, watching the Melbourne sky, others bantering with Hector.
At the bar, Peter studied his ex-partner. The hiss of the coffee machine rose and ebbed. Peter could see that Mick was apprehensive. Perhaps, he reflected, he was the only person in the world, Dana excepted, who could spot the signs. The blue eyes, not hidden because Harvey Jopling had banned sunglasses, blinked too often, and Peter watched with amusement the thick fingers struggling to remain still. And why not be tense? Tonight was a big night: Mick’s induction into the Skulk Club.
If only Mick knew the machinations involved in getting an ex-policeman into the Club. Harvey and Peter had organised a special meeting of the Committee and a ring-around of all the members. Some had been openly derisive. Peter had been especially startled when one member protested on the grounds that it would take the number of members to thirteen, provoking bad luck.
“Are you sure you want to join?” Peter had asked Mick over the phone at the bleakest of moments. “You once described them as poncy, frivolous, overpaid yuppies.”
“That was before I saw their altruistic sides,” came the reply. “No, seriously, I liked them. And bugger it, I can’t go on regretting lost copper mateship forever.”
The convenient fiction that Mick would form half of city-based Tusk & Gentle certainly helped, for the Skulk Club was nothing if not a city club. But in the end, only Peter’s personal pleas had won the day.
Peter inhaled the aroma from his black coffee. Yes, life felt fine. For good luck, he checked out his trophies, using the once-broken little finger to explore his jaw, to trace the scar on his arm, and to find the tiny white scar under his right eye.
“Something’s been puzzling me,” Mick said. “That day, when you nearly got killed. Why confront Straw alone?”
Peter suspected guilt underpinned the question. If Mick had deferred the partnership break-up, he would have been beside Peter at The Island.
What could he say?
He could say that for once he shelved his logical instincts and simply did what only he could do, explained that bravery isn’t an attribute, bravery comes from acting bravely. Indeed, that was a notion he’d played with since the event.
“I don’t know, big guy,” he chose to say.
He felt Mick’s eyes probe his face. Harvey signaled across the restaurant: time for the show to roll. Hector beamed by the door.
But Mick would surely laugh at the more prosaic truth. As the jostling and hand slapping and cursing and hugging commenced, as Draconi’s sprang to life with a verve that tapped directly into the vitality of his great city, as Mick blushed, as cries of “Order! Order!” filled the blessed room, Peter fingered his forelock and looked back at that epochal morning.
Peter longed to explain to Mick that he’d traveled to that dark and doom-filled mansion in a kind of stupor. At long last the data was complete, the analysis watertight. And the conclusion, one that nobody would have believed had he suggested it, possessed a logic that sent him forward as if bewitched. He just had to find out. That he might be in danger… it simply never occurred to him.
He grinned. All eyes were focused on his behemoth mate. If only, if only… Peter couldn’t avoid bitterness at Dana’s vendetta against him. If only Tusk & Gentle was really Mick Tusk and Peter Gentle. An offbeat memory came to him as he began to clap. He recalled Mick catching him while they examined their first piece of data, Kantor Keppel’s bludgeoned body. Thanks, Mick, he thought, thanks for being there.
Peter’s voice squeaked when it joined the chant.
“Skulk! Skulk! Skulk!”
MEET THE AUTHOR
Hi,
Andres Kabel here, hoping you enjoyed Deadly Investment. I live in the wonderful Australian city of Melbourne, the metropolis in which Peter Gentle cogitates and Mick Tusk roams. By all means check out my website bio, but, really, all you need know is that writing this book has been a joy and a privilege, and that I’ll scribe more volumes in the series (subject of course to the whims and fates of G & T!).
Now that you’re done with my book, consider assisting me, would you please?
Firstly, jump onto your ebook retailer’s website and leave a review. A rating and a few words are all that I need, though of course you can let loose with a torrent of elegant analysis. Do this even if Deadly Investment disappointed. Reviews - whether laudatory, indifferent, or caustic - are the lifeblood of the self-published author.
Secondly, stay in touch by leaving your email address for my occasional newsletter. I’ll try my utmost not to burden or bore you, and I’ll certainly never divulge your address.
There’s more to me than Melbourne crime fiction. I write history! I blog! Come see:
AndresKabel.com
Big Decade - my blog of a decade of aspirational obsessing.
Nuclear Power History - my blog of offcut snippets from my forthcoming book.
Facebook (also on Facebook – Big Decade and Nuclear Power History).
Lastly, don’t hesitate to drop me a line on [email protected]
MY THANKS
Let’s commence with the beginning and end: Pam, my love, you’ve always walked hand in hand with me through every folly I’ve ventured into. This book is one such and I’ve treasured your support and feedback and honest advice.
Our children and their partners have always leapt to my aid when requested and often even when not. So all my heart’s gratitude to Ashley, Daniel, Donna, Katie, Meg, and Pete (alphabetical order, right?).
Sven, no brother could have been as tender and stalwart in support as you. I only wish our brother Martin was still here to thank.
Let me beam gratitude to Frank Kennedy, whom I met at a Maui conference nearly two decades ago. Never a truer writing friend has a writer had. He’s now ahead of me (two books out) but I shall catch up!
Nowadays we call them beta readers, friends who sacrifice time to read raw writing and offer feedback that results in the final words. You might not recognize that term, friends true and intelligent, but I owe appreciation to: Doug Boynton, Ann Buchan, Jo Ann Daugherty, Ashley Kabel, Pam Kabel, Jill Kahans, Neil Lahy, Kevin Lewis, Caroline Petit, Andrew Sprague. Special thanks to Margaret Bennett who exhaustively dug into my words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs - blessed was I.
Stephen Minns let me wander aimlessly around a bustling legal firm’s offices. Bernard Lewis at the Victorian Coroner’s Office enthused about the philosophy and work of that organization. Roberta Ivers at Random House gave me excellent advice on an early draft.
I experienced the greatest of pleasures in submitting Deadly Investment, chapter by chapter, to the rigors of the Inner City Writers. Because of this book’s history, I took on board fewer of your suggestions than I will with future Gentle/Tusk tales but your contributions were massive anywa
y. Let me thank any ICWer who critiqued this novel but I must name some of the longer-serving writing talents: Siobhan Argent, Eddie Brauer, Jack Cassidy, Alisdair Daws, Marina Dobbyn, Neil Huybregts, Rachel Martin, Jock Read, and Fiona Skepper.
One of the unexpected frissons of jumping into the new age of publishing has been working with consummate, revolutionary professionals. Take a bow: copyeditor Dana Lee, proofreader Dj Hendrickson, cover designer Dane Low of Ebook Launch, and formatters Jason and Marina Anderson of Polgarus Studio. All you self pub’ers out there, snap up their services!
DEADLY INVESTMENT
Copyright © 2018 by Andres Kabel
Published in U.S.A. and U.K. by the author
https://andreskabel.com
All rights reserved. Neither this book nor any portion thereof may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except for the brief use of quotations by reviewers. All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
ISBN 978-0-6483068-0-1
