My digits burrowed into the peeling wood. Gritted my teeth and yanked myself up a couple inches higher. These crappy window ledges were built when Woodrow Wilson was still the head grifter, and you could say they weren't holdin' up too well. Just like when ya run into your high school girlfriend and she looks like cookie dough had been her oxygen for the last ten years.
The ledge paint flaked away and sprayed on my new sport coat, which I had purchased with my last fifty scoots from the Dahlsberg case. They still owed me, but so what. Half the deadbeats in town did. No one wanted to pay up full to the dick that was telling them their loving hubby was banging a two-dollar Russian broad next to her parrot collection down on McAllister street.
Yah. Me. Window Peeper. Body guard. Dame-stalker. Insurance dummy. Occasional P.I. Hey it's a gig.
I pulled myself up again with a tighter grip. Good thing I'd been runner up in pullups in bootcamp. Ida been first but that runt Billy Connor only weighed 107 lbs soaking wet and made a living gettin' thrown into bowling pins after the war.
My nose just poked over the ledge.
What sounded like two pigs fighting over a sausage biscuit ended up being my clients wife, bent over the Murphy bed, and one of her stockings peeled off. Behind her, some sweaty meathead with a gut out to here was slipping her the knobville heavy and she wasn't saying no. Mug didn't even have the class to take his straw boater off. Her big white asscheeks were wobbling like my cheap jello dinner. Note to self: try another flavor besides vanilla.
With my other hand I reached down and scooped the trusty Kodak Bantam from my pocket, and set it on the ledge. I dunno who made these, the gooks, the japs the chinks or what but it worked like snazzy. Lightwieght too. I had a little cable I could set it off from a foot away, helpful when in situations like this.
Cable in hand I glanced up again.
The mug had Mrs. Client down on her knees, his paws gripping her platinum blonde hairdo and was plowing the pork into her gaping lipstick hole. Her manicured nails grabbed his flabby ass.
The Kodak was clicking away. I didn't even have to watch. I eyeballed the garden behind me to make sure no one was casing me.
"Yeah Mabel, dis is for yer pussy of a husband...YEEEAAAAAUUUHHHHHHHH!"
The gurgling noises sounded like a listerine OD.
When the pigsty got quiet I grabbed the all seeing eye and beat it back to my car. Last thing I heard was
"Jesus ya squinch, ya got tooth marks on it"
--------
The windows were open. The pictures sat scattered out on my desk. I didn't look at 'em much. Pics were for the squares anyway. I'd seen too many of them.
My client was due in about an hour. I knew the deal. He'd get angry, start boo-hooing, I'd throw him a towel or a shot of some cheap hooch that I keep for the song and dance. Then I collect the ducats. The rubes were at least consistent.
I peeped over at the other empty desk. My partner had bailed months ago, leaving me bag boy for the full rent. He wasn't much of a partner, but he had this little trick of bein' able to get the power pulled on a city block for five minutes. Came in handy when we were makin' exits. I think he must have been bangin' this fat supe at the power company.
But when he left I had this shitburger little office to myself, and the wops over on Broadway wanted about ninety scoots a month too much. And I still owed Marty the butcher downstairs for about two months worth of grub. Yeah, Leantown was here baby, and I was the Mayor.
I picked up my Frankie Frisch autographed baseball that I "found" when rousting those little punks outta my neighbors basement. I stood up, rolled up my sleeves, did my best Hal Newhouser and burned that horsehide againt the wall as hard I as I could. The picture of my Aunt Josie crashed down on the floor and busto into a dozen pieces. Damn, I liked Josie too. So did all her drunk friends.
"You are not very good at throwing."
I whirled around. A dame in the doorway. Creepers, a dish what makes a meal. A small yellow girl, maybe 20, face like a picture. Had on a zillion dollar get up from Macy's. Tight pink low cut sweater. Long black hair, perfect. Curves like the seaside course at Monte Carlo. Black eyes that made you want to get on the floor and do the Curly 360.
"Well you ain't so good at knocking." I managed to reply, but the only thing that was really knocking was my winkie up against the seams of my trousers.
She glanced around my office like she was eyeballing a cockroach collection. Damn I shoulda taken those back issues of Wink off my desk.
"I'm in the process of rennovatin," I blurted.
"No doubt, Mr..." she glanced at the sign on my open door. "Johnson".
"Call me Jake, toots."
She sauntered in right past me and took a seat. I woulda pulled the chair out for her except I couldn't keep my eyes off the two caged beachballs in her sweater that were fighting to see daylight.
I sat down behind the desk.
"You got a name, doll?" I was thinking whatever she said, her name was still gonna be 100 lbs of trouble.
"Chloe. Chloe Tzang."
"Tzang huh, that French?"
"Let's hope you are better at your job than making smartass remarks, Mr. Johnson. Here."
She pulled a package from her purse and scooted it across the table.
"Whats this?"
"What does it look like?"
It looked like about 20 feet to get to the shitter where I was going to spank one out after she was gone, that's what it looked like.
"I ain't no delivery boy."
"I know. You're a dick."
"You hope." I replied and gave her my best molar-to-molar grin. Her expression closed me down faster than kike banks on a Sunday.
"So I hope, Mr. Johnson, you will take three hundred dollars to deliver it."
There it was. She knew. For 300 hundred scoots I might have chewed off a toe or bumped over that striphouse down on Mason or even jumped off the Golden Gate and taken my chances with the water.
She stood up and dropped a piece of paper on my desk. It floated down like it never wanted to leave her perfumed digits.
"There's the address."
"Wait. Why me, Why not some...."
"....Asian...?" she replied, her eyebrow arched.
"Yeah, yeah some uh...asian operator from Chinatown?"
"Sometimes you just need a real white dick," she cooed. Was that the crack of a smile on her perfect face? Or was it just my forehead sweat spilling through my eyebrow dam and flooding the plains of my wide-open peepers.
And she was gone. The perfume in the air was plenty enough to finish the job.
----------------------
It was little after 10 pm when Rondo and I got to Larkin St. Rondo was a grunt I used when the going got a little tough. 'Bout 6' 3" and not exactly Tesla. But since he never said a word I didn't really care since for 5 scoots he'd put his cigar out in a pitbull's eyeball.
I slammed my rundown jalopy into a tight space on Larkin. I was a little worried the bum trapped under my right front was gonna give me trouble, it was low on tread and I couldn't deal for a new tire right this second.
The address was deep in Chinatown. I'd packed my.38 police issue and so did Rondo but I knew it wasn't going to be holding the fort against some Commie Red Party Issue AK-47's.
The porch was dark. Windows blacked out. No tourist shop full of cheap buddhas to sell the white-eye here. I gripped the package and knocked. The door slid open.
I though about turning back, right then. I did. But 300 scooters and a chance to eyeball Chloe's mams somewhere down the road made me push through the door.
A lantern on a wall. And a hallway. A few steps later, another door, with a bunch of Chinese inscriptions on it. Couldn't make head nor tails of it, but it struck me that they didn't spell out to "Drop in there's a beer waitin'"
I glanced at Rondo, and he shrugged. I pushed through.
"Hey you need a package?" I grunted into darkness.
A voice came from the ceiling.
"Thank you for coming Mr. Johnson."
Jesus they knew me. A cold setup. This could be it, the big casino. I promised to to swear off Wink's forever and get down to Dunn's bar and pay my full lifetime tab if I could just skate - then a spot light flared in the middle of the room.
It was Chloe.
She was on her knees on the floor. She had some kind of leather push-up bra on, and her golden pillow tits seemed to push a foot away from ther body.
Hands clasped behing her. Her hair was done up in some kinda movie star style. A scarf with a big lock hung in front of her crotch.
