Third Strike: A Charlie Fox Mystery

by Zoe Sharp

  “No problem, love,” he said.

  I smiled back. “You don’t sound like you’re from the Bronx.”

  He laughed. “Just a bit further east, love,” he said. His accent was Birmingham, West Midlands, rather than Birmingham, Alabama. “Us Brits should stick together, i’nt that right?”

  I gave him the whisky, still in its embossed tube, with a hastily scrawled card stuck into the top, a twenty-dollar bill, and the delivery address. He took off into traffic and I jogged back to the hotel, loitering at a store window on the other side of the street. It took the cab a few minutes to circle back and I admit all kinds of thoughts passed through my mind about whether I’d just been conned.

  A few moments later, I watched the reflection in the glass as the cabdriver pulled up sharply by the curb. The hotel doorman reached automatically for the rear door handle until he saw the backseat was empty. By that time the driver was out, clutching my gift. A few explanatory words were exchanged. The doorman took the whisky, nodding, pursing his lips as he eyed the exclusive label.

  The driver regained his seat just as a couple came out of the hotel, dragging luggage. I smiled. At least he’d picked up a genuine fare for his trouble.

  I hurried across towards the entrance and walked inside without any hesitation. Look like you belong and most people don’t question it. The lobby was dimly lit by comparison, all cracked tile floors and air-con chill. I went slowly across towards the elevators, digging in my rucksack, distracted, as though I was looking for my room key.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the doorman hand the whisky to the concierge, who glanced at the card, tapped on his computer keyboard, then picked up the phone. From the way he peered at the box as he spoke, the brand was the deciding factor and I knew then that the Dalmore was worth the outrageous price I’d just paid for it. Despite the recent revelations, experience still told me that my father was a moderate drinker who went only for the good stuff when he did.

  The concierge put the phone down and curtly flicked his fingers to a teenage bellhop, who took possession of my Trojan horse. I picked up my pace, timing it so the bellhop and I both arrived at a set of opening elevator doors together.

  The elevator had mirrored walls. As I stepped in I made sure I moved to the side away from the control panel, forcing the bellhop to select his floor first. He pressed the button for twelve and glanced at me inquiringly.

  “Oh,” I said, feigning surprise, smiling. “Me, too.”

  According to the brass plaque on the control panel, the elevator was made by a company called Schindler, as they often were. Even after all this time the name still tickled me, but I’d soon learned that my amusement was not shared by anyone who didn’t refer to an elevator as a lift.

  We clanked upwards in silence, avoiding eye contact. The bellhop had dark hair and sallow skin and a pierced ear with the stud removed for work, I guessed. He fiddled with the whisky tube, smoothing out a crumpled area of the cardboard, like any damage might affect his tip.

  At the twelfth floor I was hoping I could tag along unobtrusively, but he insisted that I get off the elevator first. Damn these kids with manners.

  I took a couple of steps, then turned with a smile.

  “Excuse me,” I said, apologetic, playing up my British accent when I’d spent the last half a year toning it down. “I wonder, do you know anything about the times of the city tour buses that leave from the stop over the road?”

  He was helpful, if not exactly chatty. I managed to fall into step alongside him and keep up the stream of brainless questions as we moved along the creaking corridor. The overhead lighting was just bright enough to make out the dusty pattern on the ancient custom-made carpet.

  At last, just when I’m sure he thought I was trying to pick him up, the bellhop paused outside a room, giving me an apologetic shrug to indicate this was the end of his line.

  I flicked my eyes over the number as I thanked him for his trouble and kept walking, making sure that when the door opened I was out of sight. There came the murmur of a familiar voice, then the sound of the door closing again. I gave it another ten seconds or so before I stuck my head back round the corner, just in time to see the bellhop disappearing. A moment later, I was knocking on the door to my father’s room.

  I was hoping that he wouldn’t check the Judas glass again before he answered the door a second time, but I saw by the change in light behind it that he did. There was a long pause and I knocked again, hammered with my fist, staring straight at the little glass eye.

  “You can have me thrown out if you want,” I said, loud enough to be heard inside, “but you know I won’t go quietly.”

  In my imagination, I heard an exasperated sigh. The locks were disengaged and the door opened to reveal my father standing square in the gap.

  “Charlotte,” he greeted me without warmth or enthusiasm. I tried briefly to remember if he’d ever smiled at me, his only child, for no better reason than because that’s who I was. Maybe my memory didn’t stretch back that far.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” I asked, matching my tone to his. “Or are you … otherwise engaged?”

  He stilled at the deliberate insult in my voice but didn’t rise to it.

  “Come in,” he said calmly, stepping back with an imperious jerk of his head.

  Once inside I discovered that the room was more of a suite. Not that it was surprisingly generous with its floor space, just divided up more. The narrow two-pace hallway had a bathroom off to the left, then opened up into a small sitting area, hung with dull prints, where a stunted sofa vied for supremacy with a spindly looking desk.

  Another door led from there into what I assumed was the bedroom, but it was firmly closed to my inquisitive eyes. The room décor, like the rest of the place, had once been quality but was now in dire need of a refurb.

  I turned back just in time to see my father’s eyes slide to the bottle of whisky sitting on the low table in front of the sofa, then back to me. “Your doing, I assume?”

  I shrugged. “What good is knowing someone’s weakness, if you don’t exploit it?”

  I hadn’t intended to taunt him, but now I was here my anger rose up and roared in my ears.

  “Ah, is that why you’re here?” he asked. “To exploit my weakness?”

  “Actually, no. I saw the news this morning,” I said, and when he did no more than lift an eyebrow slightly, I added, “I was hoping for some kind of an explanation.”

  He was still wearing the suit I’d seen him in on the TV, the knot of his tie sitting up perfectly into the vee of the starched collar. God forbid he should ever loosen it in the presence of anyone except his wife of thirty-something years. And probably not even then.

  “Ah,” he said, the barest of smiles crossing his lips. He strolled over to the low table and picked up the Dalmore, studied the box with a vaguely disdainful air and put it down again. “And you think a bottle of cheap single malt buys you the right to one, hm?”

  The “cheap” jibe surprised me. “For myself, no,” I said coolly. “For my mother, I think it probably wasn’t worth the price.”

  I didn’t need to imagine his sigh this time. He made a show of pushing back a rigid shirt cuff to check the antique gold watch beneath it.

  “Was there something specific you wanted to say?” he asked, sounding bored now. “I do have an appointment.”

  “Who with? Another reporter? The police?” I nodded to the bottle. “Or perhaps you just can’t wait to open that?”

  For the first time, I saw a flash of anger, quickly veiled, followed by something else. Something darker. Pain? He took a breath and was calm again.

  “You’ve clearly made up your own mind without any input from me,” he said. “But then, you always were a spoilt and willful child. Hardly surprising that you’ve made such a mess of your life.”

  The gasp rose like a bubble. I only just managed to smother it before it could break the surface.

  “‘A mess’?�
� I repeated, the outrage setting up harmonic vibrations that rattled at the heart of me. “I’ve made a mess of my life? Oh, that’s rich.”

  He made an annoyed gesture with those long surgeon’s fingers of his, staring at me over the thin frames of his glasses. “Please don’t go blaming anyone else for your mistakes, Charlotte. We both know you’re over here solely because the people who have laughably employed you wanted the services of your semi-Neanderthal boyfriend enough to offer you some sinecure. And because he was too sentimental to leave you behind.”

  “They offered me a job alongside him,” I managed. I was disappointed to note that gritting my teeth did nothing, it seemed, to prevent the slight tremor that had crept into my voice. “On my own merits.”

  “Ah, yes of course.” He glanced upwards for a moment, as if seeking heavenly intervention. When he looked back at me, his face was mocking. “Face it, my dear, you’re little better than a cripple. A liability to those around you. You’ve already proved you can’t be trusted to do a job without injuring yourself and others. What possible use could they have for you?”

  “For your information, I’ve just been passed fit,” I said, ignoring the fibrous tension burning up through the long muscles of my left thigh that made a lie of my words. I tried not to think of my abandoned fitness test, of what Nick was likely to put in his report. “I’ll be back on—”

  “Credit me with some experience in these matters, Charlotte, if nothing else,” he interrupted, glacial now. “You may not approve of my ethics, but my surgical abilities are quite beyond question, and I’ve seen your records. You may be walking without that limp any longer, but your health will never be exactly what one might describe as robust again. A little light office work is about all you’re fit for. You know as well as I do that they’ll never quite trust you again.”

  The shock wave of his words pummeled into me, sent me reeling back before I could brace myself. It took everything I had not to let him see me stagger.

  “Oh, that’s right,” I said, soft in my bitterness. “Your daughter—the disgrace. All your self-righteous lectures about the shame I’ve brought on you, on Mother, and for what? For being a victim. And then when I stop being a victim, still you damn me.”

  I paused. He said nothing and his silence only spurred me on. “You’ve never liked Sean—you’ve made that pretty bloody clear. But he’s stood by me better than my own parents have ever done. And now I find you’re nothing but a drunken butcher. How does that square with your sense of bloody superiority?”

  “That’s. Enough.” It was almost a whisper. His face was bone white, his gaze everywhere but on me. When he put a hand up to his eyes I saw that it shook a little, and I was fiercely glad. But when he spoke again, his voice was neutral, almost dismissive. “I think you’d better leave, Charlotte. Throwing insults at each other is time-consuming and hardly productive, wouldn’t you say?”

  I whirled back towards the door and found I’d barely made it three strides into the room. I grabbed the handle and twisted, but found I couldn’t leave it there.

  “‘Surgical abilities beyond question.’ Is that right?” I threw at him. “Well, at least whenever I’ve had cause to stick a knife into somebody I’ve always been stone-cold sober.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “You finally made it in, huh?” Bill Rendelson said. There was a row of clocks hanging on the glossy marble wall above the reception desk where he held court, and he pointedly twisted in his chair so he could check the one set to New York time. “The boss wants to see you—like, yesterday.”

  I’d barely stepped out of the elevator before Bill had delivered his ominous message. He heaved his blocky frame upright and stalked across the lobby to knock on the door to Parker Armstrong’s office.

  Bill could have buzzed through to let Parker know I was here, but he liked to rub it in. He’d been with the agency since the beginning, so the story went, and three years previously he’d lost his right arm at the shoulder in a parcel-bomb attack on the South African businessman he was protecting. His principal had survived unscathed, but Bill’s active service career was over.

  When Sean and I had first started working for Parker, I’d assumed from his abrupt manner that Bill had taken against us for some reason, but it was soon clear that he didn’t like anyone very much. I often wondered if Parker’s keeping Bill on—in a job so close to the heart of things but without actually being able to get out there anymore—was an act of kindness or cruelty. Sometimes I thought perhaps Bill had his doubts about that, too.

  Now, he pushed open the door in response to his boss’s summons, and jerked his head to me. I stiffened my spine and walked straight in without a pause, nodding to him as I went. He gave a kind of half sigh, half grunt by way of acknowledgment, and yanked the door shut behind me as though to prevent my premature escape.

  Parker Armstrong’s office was understated and discreet, like the man. Modern, pale wood furniture and abstract original canvases. Not for him the usual gaudy rake of signed photos showing chummy handshakes with the rich and famous.

  The office occupied a corner of the building and was high enough not to be easily overlooked—no mean feat in any city. Parker’s desk sat across the diagonal, so his chair was protected by the vee of the wall, his back to the windows, to allow potential clients to be slightly intimidated by the view.

  He was on the phone when I walked in, and I expected to have to wait while he finished the call, but he wound up the conversation almost right away, stood and came round the desk to meet me.

  Parker was a slim man, tall and serious. His hair had once been dark until hit by an early frost, and that made him difficult to put an age to. His face was handsome without being arresting, the kind that the eye would glance over, rather than rest on. Perfect for the line of work he’d chosen. And yet, if you looked closely enough, you saw something more in Parker, a depth, a strength, a watchfulness.

  He was wearing a dark single-breasted suit with the jacket unbuttoned, and a narrow tie. I was glad I’d taken the time to put my business face on and change out of my scruffs. Wool trousers and a silk shirt in the obligatory New York black, the collar high enough to hide my more obvious scars.

  “Charlie,” Parker said, steering me towards one of the leather armchairs near the desk. “Take a seat. You want coffee?”

  A gentle accent, not immediately placeable, the U.S. equivalent of classless. I’d heard him add twang or blur to it, depending on the company he was keeping. A natural chameleon. There was a lot about him that reminded me of an older Sean. Perhaps that was why Parker had offered him a partnership in the first place.

  I shook my head and he moved across to the filter machine he had permanently on the go in the corner. “You sure? It’s Jamaican Blue Mountain—just in.”

  His taste in expensive coffee was practically his only vice—or the only one I’d found out about, at any rate. He had fresh-roasted beans delivered by the pound from McNulty’s aromatic old-fashioned store in Greenwich Village.

  “So,” I said, wanting to take the offensive rather than wait for him to do so, “you’ve spoken to Nick.”

  Lifting the coffee cup to his lips only partially obscured the quick grimace, his mouth twisting up at the corner.

  “Yeah.” He arched an eyebrow. “He’s not a happy guy.”

  “He should have kept his hands to himself,” I shot back.

  “Maybe so,” he allowed, “but you coulda been a little more, ah, diplomatic in giving him the brush-off.”

  I shrugged to cover the fact I’d already realized that. “Maybe.”

  Parker sighed and put the cup down, regaining his seat like a judge about to pass sentence.

  “Close protection is all about attitude, Charlie,” he said, sounding tired now. “Mind-set. You gotta see the big picture, weigh all the options. React to a high-threat situation—not just fast but smart, too.”

  Here it comes … .

  There was a hollow panic rising under my rib cage
. I swallowed it down along with my pride, and admitted, “I do recognize that what I did this morning probably didn’t exactly qualify as smart.”

  For a moment Parker regarded me with eyes that seemed kindly, but missed nothing and forgave less.

  “No,” he said. “It wasn’t.”

  I waited, heart rate beginning to pick up, for the blade to fall.

  Then he smiled.

  “But I’ll bet it was damned funny,” he said.

  My shoulders dropped a fraction.

  “Well … yes,” I said faintly. “Yes, I suppose it was.”

  The smile broadened so that his whole face joined in, and slipped into a chuckle that he attempted to dilute with another mouthful of coffee.

  “Nick’s a nice guy, but he’s a wanna-be,” Parker said. “Always dropping hints about how he’d be a good guy for me to have on the team. I guess now he’s seen what a real pro can do, he’ll shut the hell up about it and I’ll finally get some peace.”

  I sat there, blankly, wondering if I’d really just done what I thought I’d done. Got away with it.

  “What about my assessment?” I said, still looking for the catch. “I didn’t finish it and—”

  “Charlie,” Parker cut in, shaking his head. “Way I heard it, you just threw a guy nearly twice your size and weight halfway across a room. I think it’s safe to say you’re fit enough to get back to work, don’t you?”

  I still hadn’t come up with a suitable reply when there was a perfunctory knock on the door. It opened without waiting for permission and I knew without turning around who’d just walked in.

  Parker looked over my shoulder at the new visitor and his face lit up again.

  “Hey, Sean,” he said. “Come on in. I was just telling Charlie she’s all out of excuses.”

  “Mm,” Sean said, “I would have thought she is.”

  I turned then, alerted by the coolness in his tone, and found Sean watching me closely. I knew him, on every kind of level, better than I’d known anyone, but at times like these I didn’t know him at all. He was impossible to second-guess. I felt that near-black gaze like liquid on my skin.