by E. Z. Rinsky
Greta doesn’t seem to have heard the question. I suddenly remember poor Sadie, sitting alone in her room all this time. She probably doesn’t even mind. I got her a bunch of good stuff from the library last week. But she’ll probably guilt the hell out of me once Greta leaves.
“So . . .” I finally say, leaning in closer. I can smell her expensive perfume and minty breath.
Greta purses her lips, like she’s swishing her next words around in her cheek; tasting them before releasing them.
“I told all this to the detectives on the case. They didn’t care. They found the killer, that’s all that mattered to them. Why should they care about some cassette tape?”
I shake my head slowly, mulling over the implications of what Greta is telling me. “But . . .” I swallow a laugh of disbelief. “I mean, surely you have to agree the most likely scenario is that it simply doesn’t—”
“It exists, Lamb,” she spits. Then she suddenly starts rubbing viciously at her upper cheeks, rubbing until I understand that she’s scraping away a thick layer of makeup to reveal dark blue circles hanging beneath her eyes. “It’s all I can think about. It’s out there somewhere. Savannah’s last words. And I can’t make peace with this until I have it back. The thought of some sicko out there listening to her . . . I haven’t really slept for five years.”
Another long, empty pause. Another siren screams down East Broadway.
“Isn’t it possible you misheard?”
“No,” she growls, and the sudden shift in her voice makes me jump slightly out of my seat, then try to compose myself. She’s growing heated, her face starting to glow pink. “And either he still has it, or he stashed it somewhere before he was arrested. It’s mine, Lamb, you understand? He has my sister’s voice. Her dying words. Nobody should have that but me.”
I’m not quite sure I do understand.
“Okay. So suppose I agree to try to find this—”
“You’ll start by talking to Silas. He’s housed in the Berkley Clinic—a mental institution a hundred miles north of the cabin where my sister was murdered. I’ll give you ten thousand up front. And three hundred thousand when the tape is in my hands. Cash. And I’ll be able to tell if it’s the real thing, because it will be Savannah’s voice.”
A three-hundred-thousand-dollar bounty for something other than a briefcase filled with five hundred thousand in cash is nearly unheard of. This is it. The holy grail of snooping. This is the stuff PIs dream of. But I summon my best poker face, act unimpressed by her offer.
“I’m guessing Silas isn’t going to be thrilled with the prospect of cooperating.”
“That’s where your unprofessionalism comes in,” she says.
“There are guards, no? Loony bins are basically prisons.”
“For three hundred thousand dollars, I suspect you could get creative.”
This is a lot to process. While my gears are still turning, she sits back in her chair and conveys something with the slightest upturn of her lip that may be flirtatious but reads more likely as disgust. Her smudged makeup does nothing to mar her beauty. On the contrary, the imperfection gives her the slightest air of vulnerability. She glowers at me and lowers her voice.
“And once I have the tape,” she says, “you will have me. However you want.”
Her face is completely deadpan. Betrays no hint that this is something she would enjoy in any way. It’s just another part of the generous compensation she’s offering. My poker face is wilting, my heart screaming, pushing blood to every corner of my body. Controlling myself is taking every inch of concentration. Both legs are shaking. She frightens me.
“Ten thousand up front, but another five for expenses,” I practically squeak. “And make it three fifty. Only half of that is for me. I’m going to need help.”
She weighs this for a moment. “Who?”
My mouth is dry. I can’t tell if this thing seizing me is lust or terror. Either way, I suddenly want her out of my apartment, away from Sadie. I clear my throat.
“I had help on the Orange case, never could have done it alone. Courtney Lavagnino is the best tracker I’ve ever worked with. Honestly, he’s a genius.”
“Courtney?” She spits his name out like it’s bitter. I catch a glimmer of fiery orange in her eyes. “That’s a man?”
“He was the brains behind finding the forgers,” I gush, eager to change the topic. “He’s brilliant. Speaks like seven languages. He once found a ninety-year-old Nazi hiding out in New Zealand, based only on a water-damaged black-and-white photo of him from the war. He worked briefly for the DEA, gathering evidence against drug moguls, but quit because he needed to work at his own speed. He was hired by a hot sauce manufacturer to find a pepper seed—a single fucking seed—rumored to grow into the hottest pepper known to man. He found it. If you’re serious about getting this tape back, you’ll pay for both of us.”
She runs a gloved hand through her hair. I want to say she’s calming herself down, but really she never actually flipped out. Did she ever even raise her voice? She’s able to project this terror just with her eyes.
“Then give me his information. It sounds like he’s the one I need, not you.”
I shake my head. “If you want to find a truffle, you can’t just hire the pig.”
She raises an eyebrow. I clarify: “For Courtney, it’s all an intellectual exercise. He’s a pure tracker—not always a man of action. If you want someone to locate the tape, hire Courtney. If you want someone to get the tape, you need both of us.”
Greta mulls this over. I sense the additional fifty grand is inconsequential to her if it means a higher chance of her holding the tape in her hands.
“Where was the seed?” she asks.
“In the safe-deposit box of a South American dictator. Courtney wouldn’t tell me which one. He was apparently a connoisseur and collector of peppers, bought it on the black market for millions. As I said—he found it. I believe he was working with someone like myself, who figured out how to actually steal the thing.”
If I’m underselling Courtney’s competence in the field a bit, it’s more than offset by failing to mention his occasional interpersonal gaffes. He almost derailed our search for the forgers by growing impatient with what turned out to be a key witness, pointing out inconsistencies in that poor, confused girl’s story with the callous logic of a poacher doing his taxes. Nearly broke her, and it took me hours of comfort and coaxing to finally extract what we needed out of her.
Greta reaches into her purse and removes a large wad of hundreds. Counts them out and plops them on the table.
“Well this time, locating it is not sufficient. I want you to hand it to me. Here is ten thousand up front, plus five for expenses. After three days call me on this number”—she scribbles it down on a page in the police report— “and report your progress.”
“Don’t you want to sign—”
“No contracts. Just get me the tape. Call me sooner if you discover anything important.”
I can hardly stand up to let her out. My legs are trembling, and the tips of my fingers are numb. By the time I manage to pull myself up, she’s already out the door, the click of her black boots receding down the staircase. I stare at the pile of money on the table and try to remember if I ever actually agreed to this.
About the Author
E.Z. RINSKY has worked as a statistics professor, copywriter and—for one misguided year—a street musician. He is the author of Palindrome, and currently lives in Tel Aviv. More at ezrinsky.com.
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Palindrome
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Palindrome copyright
© 2016 by Ephraim Rinsky.
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Digital Edition JULY 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-249546-4
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-249545-7
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