The Angel and Me
The stifling heat had finally broken, and a storm was descending on New York City. I shook the water from my hat, dropped it on the table, and looked around. It was the usual, sad, 3 a.m. Friday fraternity. "Hey, Joe! Daniels with a twist of lemon." I reserved bourbon for the bad weeks. Three paternity investigations, a pyramid scam, and a suicide -- it had been a very bad week. The eel juice spread across the back of my throat and fizzed.
Three more slugs and I became philosophical. So what if I had no idea, no leads, no suspects, and no money? This was normal in this crazy, fucked-up city. There was always next week.
"You're a dying breed, T.T." Joe lent across the bar, a cigarette pirouetting in the corner of his mouth, and stubbed a finger at the evening paper. "That makes six in six weeks!"
I pulled the Post from the bar, and read the headlines. "P.I. drinks his last case."
Joe was laughing and shaking his head, "That bastard was lucky, at least he drowned in a whiskey vat!" And I thought luck was winning tickets to the World Series.
"Mr. Tarakan?" I spun around. Only Cops and the IRS called me by my surname.
"Mr. Tarakan, I was told I would find you here, especially at this time." If angels were leggy ash blondes who wore leather and spoke with heavy Russian accents, I was in heaven. I offered her the barstool next to me. She sauntered over, flashing a dark stocking welt. Large, wet eyes looked me over. I lived by two golden rules: first, never get involved with a client, and second, rules are there to be broken. She definitely came under the latter.
"We need to talk, it's my husband." It always was. "He's disappeared." She paused and drew a black lace handkerchief from her pocket. "I need you to find him." Her baby blues flooded, and I dived in, headlong. Dabbing gently, and careful not to disturb the rich black mascara, she fluttered her long eyelashes at me. My blood rushed south.
"Care for a drink?" I asked. They always liked to drink and tell.
"Thanks. Bacardi and coke, large." I smiled. She was class - a walking billboard for 50's retro haute couture - sophisticated, and from the money side of town. I gave Joe the order. Two barflies started taking an interest in the angel next to me, so we moved to a corner of the bar. She slid gracefully from the stool and I stole another look at paradise.
She spoke about her husband, but I wasn't listening. Clients were usually tediously boring, either corporate reps or middle aged losers living beyond their means. This client however, was a mid-twenties bombshell with high cheekbones, and legs that finished somewhere north of Jersey. She paused for a second, and I took control.
"Two hundred a day, plus expenses." She didn't flinch. "Cash, up front." A smile broke across her face.
"Mr. Tarakan, you come highly recommended." She oozed insincerity.
"Let's speak again in a week." She drained her glass and from within her coat produced an envelope.
"Five thousand dollars cash, as a down payment, and this is a packet found in my husband's car the night he disappeared."
I was still opening the envelope as she liberated her leather coat and spun on a stiletto, sashaying out the bar. French heels with thin black seams on flesh coloured nylons - I was hooked.
The sun was crawling across the sky when I got to my apartment. I poured a tonic and sat down with the envelope. I needed to think. I felt for reassurance and found it in my pocket. I smiled as I took out the silver snuffbox - a gift from an appreciative client - its contents helped me focus. I popped the lid. One hundred grams of these tiny creatures contained 7 milligrams of iron. Compared to beefsteak these were dynamite. To the reassuring crack of a husk, I settled down with my Pastel Babies, and opened the envelope. Inside was a wad of black and white photographs of an old man somewhere between ninety and death getting in and out of a black Mercedes. A further handful of photographs showed him with a fat man in a garden. Hidden among the pictures were a post card of a strange painting, and four film rental stubs. I looked again at the photographs. I had a nagging feeling I knew the fat man. Tiredness overcame me, and I slept, dreaming of my angel.
The next morning I followed up on the fat man - he looked like a gumshoe from the East side found plugged with lead in his apartment some weeks ago. I called Lieutenant Stalker, my ex-partner.
We exchanged pleasantries and I popped the question. "I need information about the gumshoe from the East side." Stalker went quiet.
"Which one?"
"How many have you got?"
"How many do you want?"
"The fat one"
"Ate too much."
"Natural death then?"
"Nope. " It was like pulling teeth. Stalker was clamming, and I knew why.
"Feds interested?"
"Yep."
"O' Malley's, at three."
"No problem."
The Feds only got interested for a reason. My hunch was the fat man had found something, and my angle's husband was important.
The heat was rising as I walked into O'Malley's on fifty third. Stalker had his back to the exit sitting crouched at table thirty-three. A man of annoying ritual, he had sat at table thirty-three for the five years I had partnered him. I sat opposite and he nodded, nervously checking out the three mid afternoon diners.
The waitress threw menus on the table and waited, chewing her gum like a cow ruminates cud.
"Black coffee, eggs easy over, hash browns and two blueberry waffles?" I looked at Stalker, waiting on his reply.
"You remembered!" Each day for five yearÕs he had eaten O'Malley's artery choking shit. It wasn't rocket science to assume nothing had changed.
"Why the nervousness?" I looked at the sweaty, overweight, fidgeting mess opposite me.
"The Feds are all over the fat man case."
"Why you so bothered?" His scanning of the room was beginning to irritate.
"He was working on a case for a New York Congressman. The Congressman disappeared, and we may have....well, killed him?"
I felt for reassurance. I popped the lid and sat back. "So, New York's finest killed a Congressman!" Stalker saw me smirk and frowned.
"He was in the wrong place, at the wrong time." He looked up, his mouth awash with shit, "It's complicated." I raised an eyebrow.
"Know anything about his wife?" I enquired.
"Why you ask?" Stalker went defensive. I pushed a reassuring clip of George Washington's across the table.
"Can't find her. They divorced months ago, she lives elsewhere." My angel never mentioned a divorce.
"There's more if you get me her details." I looked at Stalker, who nodded, forcing another mouthful down with a swig of coffee. And what do they say comes from the mouths of babes and fools?
On the way to the office my cell rang, the blonde's silky voice washed over me. "Mr Tarakan, we should meet. Metropolitan Museum at three?"
I looked at the pile of final demands on my desk, "no problem."
I arrived at the Museum early. The unusually wet summer weather had gone, leaving New York City hot, the kind of stifling heat that wraps itself around your throat and slowly chokes you.
I sat some distance from the entrance with a broadsheet and waited. At three precisely, the doors opened and in strolled my Vargas girl, wearing the shortest of flared skirts, and moving with the fluidity of unfurling silk. Deep within my chest, the slow rhythmic tapping of her high spiky heels reverberated, rippling to my crotch. I stood up admiring the gentle, tapering curve of her thighs. She turned, and undulated toward me.
"Mr Tarakan, good to see you," she offered a leather glove. As I took it, her musky perfume flooded over me - I was putty in her hands.
"Shall we walk?" I nodded. She eased off her gloves and paused. Standing close, she unbuttoned her jacket.
She looked into my eyes, "I do so like the Met. It was my husband's favourite too." The raw silk slid provocatively from her shoulders, revealing a translucent chemise. "It is so damned hot!" Her upper body shook, and inches from my face, her fleshy breasts rippled and bounced in agreement. Like the plastic dog that sits on the back shelf of a car, I bounced along with them.
"This is my favourite gallery." Feigning interest, I pulled my eyes from her chest and looked around. 17th Century tit and ass covered the walls. I was about to make a witty comment when she moved to the far wall, and stood with her back to me looking at a painting. I walked slowly, admiring the voluptuous hourglass. The last time we met my angel wore leather. Today, it was raw silk, light pink and creamy. Similar French heels, but now the pencil lines were dark gray on white.
"My husband was impotent Mr. Tarakan, for all the tea in China, he could not raise a smile." I casually moved the paper downward - I was starting to grin. She caught my eyes on her cleavage, and gave a knowing cough.
"Mr. Tarakan, what about my husband?"
"The man in the photographs with your husband, he died a week ago, murdered." She was un-phased by my comment.
"My husband was a voyeur Mr Tarakan, this may help." She produced from her Gucci clutch bag a DVD.
"He liked his DVDÕs. You have another week Mr Tarakan." I watched her leave. It didnÕt need a scientist and a brace of dogs to explain the effect she had on me. She was ringing my bell big time.
The DVD looked promising. I kicked off my loafers, unhooked my Glock, laid it on the table and turned on the DVD. The same man in the photographs was walking in an ornamental garden. He moved behind a hedge and the camera followed. In the distance, a woman walked toward the camera. It was the ash blonde. Then the screen jumped and we were back to the old man in the garden. I reversed the DVD and slowed it where it jumped. There was something odd about the segue - I called my Geek.
Every P.I. in the 21st Century employed a techno Geek. Mine wasn't a spotty college whiz kid you threw a few bucks at to perform miracles. No, mine was a 45-year-old Russian called Dmitri Premagenev, or 'Prema' for short. A bald, bear of a man -- a bit-part actor, a gypsy troubadour, part insane, part genius. He had worked at a Space Facility in Kazakhstan, then for the KGB hacking into US industrial companies, before being retired to a gulag for 'behavior incompatible with a Soviet Citizen.' He had learnt his English in Russia watching smuggled John Wayne movies. Capitalism had taken its toll; he spoke like John Wayne, with a heavy Russian accent, and modeled his life on the 'Duke'. After the collapse of the Soviet Union he fled to America.
Prema was his usual obtund self. I agreed to leave the package with him. He wanted time to work on it, and I needed sleep.
