He looked around and saw they were at the end of a long, crushed gravel drive, standing outside a spacious ranch-style house with handsomely manicured lawns and artfully concealed exterior lights. No doubt there was a nice big and a hot tub out back. Palmer followed Renfield up the front walk. Before they reached the porch, one of the shadows detached itself from the shrubbery and blocked their path.
The shadow was a big son of a bitch armed with an automatic weapon that looked like a child’s toy in his massive hands. He towered over Renfield and Palmer, his shoulders wide enough to block out the sky. Palmer guessed him to be close to seven feet tall, if not an inch or two over. And the bastard was ugly, too. The giant’s long, horse-like face was made even more unattractive by a complete lack of facial hair, including eyebrows and eyelashes. The guard said something to Renfield in a register so low it was close to sub-vocal.
“It’s all right, Kief. He’s been cleared.”
The guard didn’t take his eyes off Palmer as he made a strangely delicate motion with his free hand that was either sign language or his pantomiming breaking a twig.
Renfield shook his head. “No, that won’t be necessary. Like I said, it’s been arranged. Now, get on with your job. We must not keep the Doctor waiting.”
The guard nodded and returned to his post, but Palmer could feel the giant’s eyes on his back as they entered the house.
The living room was right out of prime-time soap, with a high ceiling, tastefully arranged Danish furniture and a handful of modern paintings scattered along the walls. It was obvious no one spent any time truly living there.
“This way.” Renfield led Palmer down a narrow hallway to the back of the house.
He stopped outside a door at the end of the corridor and rapped lightly.
“Bring him in.”
The room behind the door was lined with books and smelled of old leather and moldering paper. Seated behind an antique roll-top desk was a handsome middle-aged man, his dark hair touched with silver at the temples. Despite the dim wattage cast by the Tiffany lamp atop the desk, he wore a pair of green-tinted aviator shades.
“Ah, Mr. Palmer! Pleased to make your acquaintance at last!” The older man rose from his chair and extended his hand to the detective. He was dressed in crisp, white cotton pants, a white cotton shirt, loosened at the collar with the sleeves rolled up past the elbows, and a pair of old-fashioned red leather suspenders. Palmer winced at the strength behind the cool, dry grip.
“I have been told I have you to thank for arranging my freedom, Mister...?”
“It’s Doctor; Dr. Pangloss. Pleased to be of some service,” the older man grinned, revealing pristine bridgework that made Palmer’s nicotine-stained teeth look like a demilitarized zone. He motioned for his guest to take a seat, and then nodded to Renfield, who was still standing at the door. “That will be all for now. Have the cook prepare a tray for Mr. Palmer.”
Renfield nodded and retreated, leaving them alone.
“You must forgive me for not dining with you.” Pangloss smiled. “I’ve already eaten. May I offer you a drink?” He pulled a bottle of bourbon, its seal intact, from one of the desk’s pigeonholes. Palmer recognized it as his favorite brand, when he could afford it. “Oh, and help yourself to the cigarettes,” Pangloss added, nodding to a Chinese lacquer box resting on the table next to Palmer’s chair. The cigarette case was, like practically everything else in the room, an antique. Inside was his brand.
Palmer lit his smoke with a Fabergé cigarette lighter, pausing to admire how the light from the Tiffany lamp played across its enameled case. “Look, Dr. Pangloss… it’s not that I’m ungrateful for what you’ve done, but what the hell is going on? What’s so important about me that you would go so far as to spring me from jail?”
Pangloss flashed his teeth as he handed the detective a highball glass, but it was impossible to tell if the smile extended to his eyes. “I respect your forthrightness, Mr. Palmer. I really do. I appreciate men willing to speak their minds. The fact of the matter is, I am in dire need of your services.”
“That’s flattering, Doc, but there are hundreds of perfectly good private investigators in this country. Some I’ll even admit are better than me. I’m hardly Sam Spade, especially in light of what you know I’ve recently been through.”
“You underestimate yourself, Mr. Palmer. Or may I call you Bill?”
“I’d rather you call me Palmer. Same as everyone else does.”
“Very well, Palmer. You have tracked down missing people before, have you not?”
“Yeah, sure. I’ve traced a couple of skips and runaways. Most PIs have, sometime or another—it’s part of the job. Why?”
“Because there is someone I want you to find for me. A girl. It’s very important that she be located. I’m willing to pay you top dollar.”
Palmer sipped at the bourbon. It had been a long time since he’d been able to afford liquor this good. “Keep on talking, Doc. I’m listening.”
“It won’t be easy, I’m afraid. She doesn’t want to be found and has been highly successful at avoiding my previous field operatives. She recognizes them on sight and does her best to... avoid them.” Pangloss’s handsome face grew dark. “She’s a wild child, Palmer. She’s crafty, shrewd, fiercely independent, and more than a little crazy. She is also very dangerous. I’ll tell you that right now, just to make sure you know what you’re dealing with.”
“This ‘wild child’ you want me to find—what is her relationship to you, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“She’s my granddaughter.”
Palmer knew that was bullshit the moment he heard it. Pangloss didn’t look old enough to have a grandchild capable of helling around. Then again, maybe he was older than he older. You never can tell, what with plastic surgery nowadays. And while Pangloss hadn’t exactly told the truth, Palmer had the feeling he wasn’t lying, either.
“I’ll pay you a thousand dollars a day, plus expenses. I trust that is satisfactory?”
Palmer nearly choked on the bourbon in his hurry to reply. “It’ll do.”
“There will also be a twenty-thousand-dollar bonus should you find her and successfully deliver this letter to her.” Pangloss pulled a legal-sized envelope from one of the desk’s pigeonholes. It was expensive cream stationery, stiff and heavy, and bore an old-fashioned wax seal on the back depicting a dragon looped around itself, eating its own tail.
“Can I ask a question? A purely hypothetical one, that is.”
“Go ahead.”
“What would you do if I decided not to take the case?”
“That assumes you have a choice in the matter, Mr. Palmer,” Pangloss replied. “I prefer keeping the fiction of free will intact, don’t you? I find my employees work much better when they believe they have some say in what they can and cannot do.”
Palmer stared at his benefactor’s pleasantly smiling face, the expensive liquor suddenly bitter in his mouth. For the first time Palmer noticed how long the other man’s fingernails were.
“I have confidence in you, Palmer. I’m sure you’ll be a great asset to our team. Now that you’re here, why don’t you make yourself at home? I’ve had the guest room especially prepared for your arrival, and I’ll see to it that cook gets your dinner to you. If there’s anything you need, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“There’s just one thing: what’s the name of this girl you’re looking for?”
“Her name is Sonja. Sonja Blue,” Pangloss replied as he opened the door to his study, revealing Renfield standing on the threshold. “Have a good evening, Mr. Palmer. And pleasant dreams.”
Chapter Two
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
Palmer stared blankly at the bellhop for a double heartbeat before answering. “No, I don’t think so.” He stuffed a couple of dollars into an outstretched white glove. The bellboy grimaced as if he’d just hacked a gob into his hand. Well, he wasn’t going to let some college student’s wounded sense
of self-worth sour the pleasure of having his very own suite at the Ritz-Carlton. Palmer shrugged out of his jacket and plopped down on the couch in the sitting room. He rang up room service, courtesy of the good Dr. Pangloss. He wasn’t sure what his employer was a doctor of, but it sure paid well.
While he waited on his food to arrive, Palmer thumbed through notes scribbled during his time as Pangloss’s ‘houseguest.’ Is Sonja Blue really Pangloss’s grand-d? Is S.B. into illicit drugs? prostitution? Is Pangloss? What the hell am I doing here?
So far he’d failed to turn up answers to any of those questions, although putting a jet flight between himself and his mysterious benefactor made the last question seem far less pressing than when he first wrote it down.
He glanced at the stiff, cream-colored envelope jutting out of the breast pocket of his jacket. No doubt the letter would give him some answers, but that wasn’t how the game was played when he was on the field. Still, for a man supposedly desperate to locate his grandchild, Pangloss had been stingy with information about the girl. After some questioning, Palmer had finally learned that she might be traced through a boyfriend, if that was the proper word to use, of the name Geoffrey Chastain, but better known as Chaz. From what little Palmer had pieced together, Chaz was an expatriate Brit with a taste for hard drugs and unsavory sex partners. In short, your basic lowlife hustler.
Palmer scrounged a pencil from his hip pocket and added to his notes: Is Chaz S.B.’s lover? Connection/pimp?
He looked at the photograph of the elusive Chaz that Pangloss had given him before leaving. Odd that Pangloss should have a picture of the crappy boyfriend but not a single snapshot of his own granddaughter.
The picture looked like a passport photo, or maybe a mug shot. The man glowering at him from the other side of the camera was in his early thirties, his hair combed in a rebellious rooster tail. There was still a hint of masculine beauty in the shape of his cheekbones and the tilt of his eyes, but what attractiveness Geoffrey Chastain had once possessed had long been eaten away by his addictions. The drug hunger was obvious, even in a photo. Still, it was easy to see how a young, impressionable girl might fall under the spell of such a sleaze ball.
There was a knock on the door, and a neatly attired waiter rolled in a room service cart containing his steak. Extra rare. Palmer always prepared himself for a night on the prowl by eating his fill of red meat. It put him in the proper mood for the hunt.
“You know this guy?”
It was roughly the four hundredth time Palmer had asked the question that night. His feet were tired and his bladder ached from too many beers.
The man with the anarchy symbol chalked across the back of his black raincoat glanced first at Palmer then the snapshot. He took a swig from his beer and shook his head.
“Sorry. Can’t help ya.”
“How about you? You know this guy?”
The slightly built youth seated on the opposite side of the anarchist craned his head over his companion’s shoulder in order to look at the photo of Chaz.
“He don’t know him, either,” snapped the anarchist in the raincoat. “He don’t know nobody I don’t know, do ya?” he told the twink seated next to him.
The youth cringed, smiling nervously at this friend. “Course not, Nick. I don’t know nobody.”
“Fuckin’ A you don’t.”
Palmer cursed under his breath and headed for the men’s room. This wasn’t the first time he’d run into such aggressive ignorance. He’d come close to getting somewhere at least twice, only to have the parties in question clam up on him. As he relieved himself at the urinal, he heard the rest room door open and close behind him.
“Hey, mister?” Palmer recognized the voice as belonging to Nick the Anarchist’s companion.
“What is it, kid?”
“I know that guy. The one in the picture.”
“Yeah? Then what’s his name?”
“Chaz. He’s from England.”
Bingo, Palmer smiled to himself. “So how come your friend out there didn’t want you talking to me?”
“Nick’s just jealous, that’s all,” the boy giggled. “He and Chaz crossed swords a couple of times, so to speak.”
Palmer shook off and made himself presentable before turning around. The kid couldn’t be more than seventeen, his strawberry blonde hair worn in a Bieber cut that made him look even younger. “What’s your name, kid?”
“Terry.”
“Look, Terry, do you know where I could possibly find this Chaz? I’ll make it worth your while...” He produced a twenty from his pocket, holding it up so the boy could see it.
It was obvious the boy was interested, but his eyes flickered away whenever Palmer tried to look him in the face. “Is this Chaz a friend of yours? Are you afraid you’ll get him in trouble by talking to me?”
Terry snorted in amusement. “Chaz? A friend? That creeper? Nah, no one’s seen him in almost a year. Not since what happened to the Blue Monkeys.”
“The Blue Monkeys?”
“Yeah. This gang Chaz used to hang with. Bunch of real hard-asses. Used to dye their hair blue. He was friends with ‘em...but they only hung with him for the drugs he always had on him.”
“Where can I find these Blue Monkeys?” Palmer asked as he handed Terry the folded twenty dollar bill.
“You can’t,” he replied as he quickly pocketed the money.
“What do you mean?”
“They’re dead.”
“Dead?”
“Well, not all of them. But enough were killed off that it deep-sixed the gang.”
“What happened?”
“No one’s real sure. It got hushed up pretty quick. But there was this gang war, or something, in the back of some bar. Those that weren’t killed got crippled up bad. You could ask Jimmy.”
“Who’s Jimmy?”
“That was the kid Chaz was fooling around with. He was the only one that didn’t get killed.”
“Where can I find him?”
Terry grinned and stuck out his hand, like a kid asking his father for the keys to the car. “That’s worth more’n a twenty, dude.”
“Mrs. Eichorn?”
The woman peering at him from the other side of the burglar chain scowled at him, as if deciding whether she made a mistake opening the door. “Whatcha want? You from th’ Welfare Department? If so, it’s too late for a wellness check!”
It had taken him a couple of hours to find the right house, as Terry’s instructions had been off by a few blocks. It was long past Palmer’s supper time and his scar was giving him trouble. He’d been forced to climb five narrow, badly lit flights of stairs, the smell of human piss and old garbage pungent enough to make his gorge rise.
“Mrs. Eichorn, do I look like a fuckin’ caseworker?” he snapped, unable to hide his temper.
Apparently there was no such thing as a rhetorical question as far as Mrs. Eichorn was concerned. She quietly took in Palmer’s close-shaved temples and narrow goatee, lingering on his wavy, gray-shot hair, which was combed straight up from his head, a holdover from his days, decades gone, spent in the mosh pits, before finally shaking her head ‘no’.
“I’d like to talk to Jimmy, Mrs. Eichorn. Is he in?”
Mrs. Eichorn blinked in surprise. “Yeah, he’s here. He’s always here. Whatcha want with my Jimmy?”
Palmer slid a crisp twenty through the crack in the door. “I just want to talk to him, ma’am.”
Jimmy’s mother hesitated then closed the door, taking the twenty with her. A second later the door reopened, allowing Palmer a better view of both her and the apartment. Mrs. Eichorn was an unsmiling woman with pale, washed-out hair, pasty skin, and eyes so light a shade of blue they seemed to lack any color at all. Palmer was reminded of a photograph left to bleach in the sun. Deep lines creased the corners of her mouth, which was painted with a purplish-red lipstick. She wore a much-washed waitress’s uniform with the name “Alice” stitched across the bosom in red thread. The few items
of furniture in the living room looked as worn and poorly used as their owner.
“Whatcha want with my Jimmy?” She asked as she pulled a filtered cigarette from her apron pocket. Palmer wrinkled his nose in distaste. Funny how other people’s smoking got on his nerves. “You better hurry it up, whatever it is. I gotta leave for work in a few minutes.”
“Mrs. Eichorn, was your son a member of a gang called the Blue Monkeys?”
The look she gave him was hard enough to cut glass. “You a cop? None of that was his fault, y’ know.”
“No, ma’am, I’m a private investigator. Al I know is that there was a gang war-”
Mrs. Eichorn snorted smoke from her nostrils. “Massacre is a better word for it.” She gave him another look, this one not quite as hard as the last. “You’re not from around here, are ya? Shoulda figured when you asked if Jimmy was in.” The creases at the corners of her mouth deepened.
“Can I talk to him?”
“You can try.”
She led him down a narrow, unlit hall and opened a door with a Metallica poster tacked on it. It was dark in the small room, although enough illumination spilled through the window facing the street to allow Palmer a quick glimpse of the narrow bed in the corner and heavy metal posters plastered on the cracked and peeling walls. Jimmy Eichorn sat in a wheelchair, staring at the world beyond his windowsill.
“I left the room the way he had it.” Mrs. Eichorn’s voice dropped into a lower, softer register, as if she was in church. “I think it makes him happy.” She went and stood beside her son’s wheelchair, one hand absently stroking the back of his head. “The blue’s almost grown out. I hated it when he dyed it that crazy color. He always had such pretty hair, don’t you think so?”
To Palmer’s eyes, Jimmy’s hair was the same mousy non-color as his mother’s. The boy slumped in the wheelchair looked to be eighteen years old, although his slack features made him seem even younger. He was dressed in a pair of pajamas, a blanket draped over his lap. Jimmy ignored the adults standing to either side of him, his attention fixed on the street below.
In the Blood (Sonja Blue) Page 2
