Author's Note:
This is a quick little case meant to be read between "The Nightlife Case" and "Case of the Curse" in the Marly Jackson series.
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I came back to Chicago from L.A. a broken woman. I'd left, Marly Jackson, P.I., a woman out to right past wrongs and make a decent buck, and returned home a murder suspect with more skeletons in my closet and big time favors owed to the one man I had to resist.
Michael Finnegan had saved my life, but it didn't make up for the countless times he'd put it in danger. I loved him, hated him, wanted him, and he was nothing but bad medicine.
The other thorn in my side was Arthur Bowers. The two men had some things in common; they'd been crooked cops, my partners in the CPD, and they both had a habit of fucking me over. Finn loved me, and was licking his wounds out in L.A. where he'd relocated his company. The last I'd seen Bowers he'd been laying prone on the floor in a pool of blood, not moving. I was free of him at least.
I woke on my couch not having pulled it out and stretched my neck, as I'd done the last two weeks. My answering machine was blinking but I ignored it in favor of doing the necessary, showering, and putting on coffee.
Only when I had my cuppa joe and a cigarette lit did I listen to it. With my career in shambles I was expecting a reporter but the voice I got instead chilled my bowels.
"Miss Jackson it's Petrov. Call me."
I cradled my head and swore. Three years earlier Finn had still been a fence transitioning into pornographer, and he'd been helping steal a very rare, very expensive violin that Petrov owned. It had been a case that expanded my moral and sexual boundaries, and the double-cross I'd had to pull on Finn to keep us both alive had weirdly only brought us closer.
Petrov was more than the star violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; he ranked high in the Russian Mob.
I knew better than to keep him waiting so I picked up the phone and dialed the number he'd left.
"Miss Jackson," he said in his light accent.
"Mr. Petrov."
"Let's dispense with formalities."
"All right, Viktor."
"You owe me a favor and I have a small one. I have a family matter I want solved out-of-house and kept quiet."
"I'm glad you thought of me." I tried to sound sincere.
"I didn't until a piece of information that concerns you crossed my desk. That is your fee; the information, and Marly, it's worth it."
"When and where should I meet you?"
"Come to my house in one hour," he coolly demanded and hung up.
I held the receiver in my hand and stared at it, other hand dangling my long-ash-bearing cigarette over a cheap stolen ashtray.
The only question was how did I dress: with the .357 or a couple of .45s?
***
Petrov lived near the South Loop, not far from my district back on the force. Metaphorically he lived miles and miles away. His house was old, fieldstone, it predated the Great Fire and had more bathrooms than city hall.
The last time I'd been there I'd threatened to kill his son. It was all a complicated story I liked to think of as "The Violin Case" and I tried not to recall too often.
Normally a maid answered but this time it was Petrov. He was a short, slim, his face harsh angles. His blonde hair was a bit longer, slicked back.
I'd come once in disguise and once as myself, probably in the same ill-fitting suit. My hair was standard long and disheveled, the only change was I preferred to wear contact lenses these days.
He wore a black turtle neck and slacks, and his watch gleamed in the sunlight, titanium and with an expensive label.
"Come in quickly."
I stepped in and he looked me up and down from the tips of my dusty Doc Martens to my wind-ruffled hair. "You armed?"
"Got a three-fifty-seven in a side holster."
"Good." He shut the door and turned, walking deeper into the house. "If I remember you're a fast draw."
I followed him into the hall. "So what's this info?"
He paused with his hand on the knob of a closed door of the living room. "We'll discuss that later."
I followed him in and there were two men in chairs, bounds and gagged. I noticed that first, the expensive antique furniture and the real Rembrandt second, and his son third.
His son had grown. Taller than dad now he no longer looked like a little skater punk; he was a full fledged foot soldier in a suit, his long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, only part of his intricate neck tattoo visible. The difference between 16 and 19 was remarkable.
He had a lump on one arm that suggested a bandage under the suit and he was fidgeting. My guess was a recent wound.
"You remember my son Alexi. Alexi, you remember Miss Jackson."
"I do." His voice was deeper and he said it in quite a disturbing manner, like he was envisioning me tied to a chair. For torture or funsies it was hard to say, those hard eyes were well-trained.
"Alexi, tell Miss Jackson what happened. Have a seat, Marly, I will pour drinks."
I sat on a stiff couch as the elder Petrov crossed to the bar and pulled out a decanter filled with clear liquid. My guess was vodka.
"I was running an errand for my father. Running some money to his mistress when I was jumped. My attacker had a knife, cut my arm, and took the money."
"How much?" I interrupted.
"One million," Viktor said and passed me a glass, sitting next to me with his.
Alexi nodded. "These two men were the only ones who knew about it, and one of them did it. Their alibis are women, nothing else."
I knocked back my vodka, and damn, I should have sipped, it was that good. "I don't do torture."
Alexi smiled again, that smile that seemed to invade barriers but not make intent clear. With another ten years under his belt he'd make a hell of a man, but now his youth was...disconcerting. "That's not what I remember. I seem you remember you're quite good...at torture."
