“We have,” he said. Then, wringing his hands a little, he added, “I just don’t want anything to happen to you, that’s all.”
It was my turn to smile now. “Nothing’s going to happen, Guillermo. It’ll be fine.”
He nodded, a bit less enthusiastically than I would have liked, but it was still a nod, and so I took it.
Then, looking like he’d just remembered that there was a pie in the oven, he said, “There is this other thing, though!” And he waved a hand toward the guitar and amplifier.
“I was going to ask about those,” I said, getting up from the chair to examine the guitar.
It was an old acoustic, but—like everything else Guillermo got his hands on—it had been modified. The old man had drilled into the side and mounted a socket for a cord to plug into, and there were mismatched dials near the bridge, one for volume and the other for tone. The rest of the bridge looked normal and I saw no pick-ups, but when I lifted the guitar and bent my head down near the f-holes, I saw a glint of metal inside.
“What’s in there?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It’s something I put together to catch the sound. It works okay.”
“It works okay,” I echoed, suspecting the modified guitar to sound better than anything I’d ever played, thanks to Guillermo’s virtuoso abilities with a soldering iron when paired with his limitless technological imagination and creativity. “What are we doing with it?”
He came around the table and took the instrument from me, motioning for me to have a seat again. “I’ve been thinking, lobo. You told me about the times when you’ve been playing and your mind goes…” He made a gesture with one hand, the other still holding the guitar by the neck. The gesture was meant to indicate the air, the atmosphere, and all the worlds we both knew were out there, existing seemingly side by side with this one.
“Yes,” I said, knowing very well that he was trying to describe the several incidents where I’d been playing the guitar, deeply involved in the music, and had somehow slipped free of this world, catching glimpses of others through the eyes of different Jed Straits. Sometimes these visions had been helpful. Sometimes they’d been disturbing. Once I’d figured out they didn’t mean I was crazy, I’d come to accept them. Since I occasionally saw things I’d have preferred not to know about, I didn’t really enjoy the process, but I at least wasn’t scared of it anymore.
“I have this idea,” Guillermo went on. “There’s something that happens, maybe with the vibrations of the strings. Maybe it’s something else. But it’s definitely the music. The tones. The sound waves. It knocks you loose. Just a little.”
“That seems to be what happens,” I said, waiting for him to get to his big idea.
“What if you could control it?” he asked.
I scoffed. “The only way I want to control it is to keep it from happening anymore. I’d rather keep my feet—and my mind—in this world, Guillermo. You know that. Just one world for me from now on. Or at least once we get everything with Elsa settled.”
His smile looked a little sad again, but he soldiered forth. “But, lobo, you say sometimes these things you see when you’re playing…they help you with your cases. Give you an advantage. Things you couldn’t know in just this world, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, feeling like I was about to be talked into buying a used car that I didn’t need.
“If you could control it, make it happen when you want—or when you need it—then…” He smiled broadly now, as though the conclusion was self-evident.
I let the unfinished sentence hang in the air for a few seconds before I took a stab at it. “Then I could get glimpses of other worlds without your machine? See things that might give me more of an advantage in this world? Is that what you’re getting at?”
“That’s right,” he said, nodding happily.
I let out a long exhale. “I don’t know, Guillermo.” There was disappointment in his eyes, but I wasn’t going to let that persuade me. “I’m as curious as you are to know why it happens, and how. But as for harnessing it…that’s a power I don’t think I want.”
“You don’t want to even try?” he asked, extending the old guitar toward me.
He was a devil then, offering me temptation. And I was a sinner with very little resistance when it came to six strings and an array of steel frets.
With a sigh, I took the guitar from him. “What do you need me to do?”
“You just play,” he said. “But not yet.”
He bent and plugged the guitar into the little amplifier, which I saw had also been modified. Cords came out of it that shouldn’t have been there, the other ends of which fed into a little metal box on the tabletop with gauges and dials across the top. From this came still more wires that had little suction cups on their ends, and these Guillermo stuck to my forehead.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said, but he ignored me, looking instead at the gauges.
“Say something else,” he said.
“Guillermo Garcia is a madman.”
He wrote down some numbers on a tablet. “That’s good. Now play, just strumming.”
Shaking my head, I played a few chords, surprised at the sweet tone the old guitar gained from being run through Guillermo’s bizarre sound system.
Again, he said, “That’s good. That’s good. I think we’re ready.”
“For what?”
“For you to play, lobo. Really play. Like you did before when you went away.”
“You want me to reproduce that here in your…lab?”
For all intents and purposes, it wasn’t a kitchen anymore.
“Si, si,” he said. Then he made a prodding motion with his hands, like he was trying to coax a fearful kid to cross the street alone for the first time.
I rolled my eyes, wondering how I’d gotten talked into this. Then I launched into “The Blacktop Blues,” the song I’d been playing the first time a vision of other worlds opened in my mind. Grooves had been worn into the old guitar’s neck from countless hours of bent notes being played on it by who knows what deft fingers. I did my best to make the ghosts of those lost notes proud, throwing myself as far into the song as I was capable. Even though my audience was one old man—along with a mechanical dog and a sometimes-aloof assistant in the next room—I gave the song everything I had, throwing in the vocals and pushing the lyrics out hard to be heard above the raging of the amp.
And, despite my efforts, nothing happened.
I stayed seated there at the kitchen table in body and mind: no visions, no nightmares, no revelations.
And, as I saw when the last chord had finished ringing out, no data on Guillermo’s scope. He looked at the screen with disappointment and then back at me, quick to jumpstart his smile, probably so I wouldn’t feel like I’d let him down.
“Nothing?” he asked.
“Nada,” I answered.
He shrugged. “We try again then, maybe tomorrow.”
“If everything goes well tonight,” I answered and right away wished I hadn’t.
That pained look was back in his eyes.
“And it will,” I added as quickly as I could. “You’ve got Osvaldo in there making it perfect, right?”
“Si,” he said. It looked like he had to think about this for a moment, and then the troubled look faded. I would have been happier if it had gone away altogether, but it stuck around just at the edges.
“All right then,” I said, trying to put things in a better light. “You and Osvaldo keep going, and I’ll be back this evening. Deal?”
“It’s a deal,” he said.
We shook hands and I leaned the guitar against the kitchen counter.
“When this is all over,” I said, “you’re going to have to show me how you wired that old thing up. That’s the one invention of yours that I’m really impressed with.”
He laughed at this, knowing I was pulling his thumb. Then we left the kitchen, slapping each other’s backs.
Chapter Three
My next stop was the office.
Work had been so slow lately that it wouldn’t have surprised me to walk in and find Peggy with her head in a crossword puzzle or a novel. I wouldn’t have minded, not even if I’d caught her napping. Somehow, though, even when Jed Strait Private Investigations was at its least busy, my loyal secretary always seemed capable of finding something that needed typing. She was clacking away at the keys as I walked through the door, glancing up long enough to see that it was only me and not some new client miraculously come in off the street without a referral. Once she knew the intruder was no one to get excited about, she offered me a quick nod and then went back to concentrating on her flying fingers for a few more seconds. When she was done, she pulled the arm on the carriage and sent it zipping back to its home position, ready for her next assault on the keys.
“Good afternoon,” I said.
“It seems like it,” she answered, leaning back and giving her arms a stretch over her head.
“Any calls or anything?” I asked.
“Just an exterminator looking to see if we have rats that need trapping.”
I smiled. “What’d you tell him?”
“That I’d keep his number. That clearing out vermin is my boss’s specialty but that sometimes he needs a little extra help when the beasties get too big.”
“Perfect.”
“How about you? Hit the motherlode?”
“Doubtful,” I answered. “Hope springs eternal, though.”
I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the list of names Imelda Bettencourt had given me. Dropping it onto the desk, I tapped the top name and said, “I need addresses and phone numbers on as many of these as you can conjure. Think that’s possible?”
She looked at the list.
“Sounds like detective work to me,” she said, sliding the sheet a few inches back toward me. “Not secretary work.”
“True,” I replied. “But this detective’s got a few other things eating up his time right now.” I slid the list toward her again, the piece of paper traveling back and forth like a doomed soldier in no man’s land. “What do you say you do a little bit of the Carmelita work, and I’ll make sure you see a little bonus when my ship comes in?”
She took the paper. “And what ship would that be? The S.S. Imelda?”
I shrugged. “We’ll see. It’s either going to be a luxury liner or a leaky tug. One way or another, though, something’s bound to happen eventually.”
“And if we go down with the ship? What kind of bonus are we talking then?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get the best life preserver.”
“Mmm,” she said, perusing the list. “Maybe the only life preserver. What’s the case?”
I gave her the short version and then tapped the list again. “I’m hoping to start canvassing some of these tomorrow.”
“All right. I’ll get on it.”
I went into my office where I slipped the photo of Katrina Mulligan into my top desk drawer. Where I was going tonight, I wouldn’t need any extra baggage to slow me down, not even a pretty face on a glossy piece of paper.
Back in the lobby, I let Peggy know I’d be checking in with her later. Then I thanked her for stepping into Carmelita’s shoes as much as she had.
“I do what I can,” she said.
“I know you do, Peggy. This place couldn’t run without you.”
Then I tipped my hat and headed for the door.
It was a short drive to my bank, but it was a Monday afternoon, which meant that all the banking that had needed doing over the weekend was in the process of being completed now. I felt frustrated when I saw the line of patrons, especially since I wasn’t doing a transaction as much as a trade, but there was nothing for it. Joining the queue, I told myself this was an opportunity to ruminate on what had come before me and the best plan of attack for what was yet to come.
When I finally reached the teller, I laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter and said, “I’d like a roll of silver dollars, please. Preferably new ones.”
The teller, a matronly type with horn-rimmed glasses, raised an eyebrow above her glasses frames and said, “I can’t guarantee that every coin in the roll will be new.”
I nodded. “I understand. Can you just root around among the rolls you’ve got for a minute, though? Find me the one that looks the freshest?”
“Are you a coin collector?” she asked, sliding my ten over to her side of the counter in a move that reminded me of Peggy sliding the list of Katrina Mulligan’s associates across her desk.
“No,” I said, “but my little nephew is. They’re a gift, you see? Might be the last one I ever get him, poor little fella.”
She hmphed loud enough to catch the attention of the teller at the next window and then slid off her stool to go fetch my coins. I knew I’d laid it on too thick, but I didn’t really care. When she came back, she had three rolls of silver dollars, stubby cylinders wrapped in paper with the bank’s name printed on the sides. “Take your pick,” she said.
I surveyed each one, able to see only the coins on the ends, each of which clearly showed the 1949 date under an image of a winged woman holding a sword. The end coins all looked the same to me, but one of the paper wrappers looked a little more pristine than the others, so I selected it and passed the other two back.
“Thank you for helping me out,” I said.
“You’re welcome, sir.”
Tapping the face of the coin in the roll I’d selected, I said, “Do you know what they call her?”
Again, she raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think your nephew will know?”
“I’m sure he will. But I’d like to impress the little tyke.”
She smiled in spite of herself and said, “I think the official name is ‘winged victory,’ but I like to think of her as ‘a woman scorned.’ Do you think that’s fitting?”
I looked at the coin again, the sword held high like the winged woman was about to bring it down and wreak vengeance. “A fella’d have to be some kind of fool to scorn a woman with a sword like that, wouldn’t he?”
“He would,” the teller agreed. “And yet…”
She didn’t have to finish the thought. Some men were fools. Whether she thought that of me was not something I was interested in finding out. It had been a while since I’d counted myself among the population of fools, but as I tipped my hat to the teller and pocketed the coins, I wondered if the same could be said about Peter Mulligan.
* * * * * * *
The drive to Hollywood took almost half an hour. If the day had gone smoother, I might have been able to catch Sherise at her apartment, but as it was, I had to settle for meeting her at the club. I parked in the alley as I always did and knocked on the back door of Darkness.
The door opened almost right away. Sherise stood there in a red blouse and blue jeans, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her face was made up but not to the extent it would be later in the evening, I knew, when the farmgirl blouse and jeans would be replaced by a slinky dress that wasn’t designed to stay on.
She put her arms around my neck and stood on her toes for a kiss, which I delivered without needing any more convincing.
When she released her lock on my neck and stepped back from the doorway, I said, “Were you standing here waiting for me to knock?”
“No,” she said with a smile. “I just finished inventorying the storeroom when I heard your car pull up.”
I nodded. “So…you were standing here.”
“Not intentionally.” She gave my arm a light, good-natured smack and then turned around. “Come on. There’s something I want you to see.”
I followed, closing the door behind me. On a normal visit to Darkness—when I wasn’t there to entertain the crowd in between dancers—we would spend our time in Sherise’s office, sometimes sharing a meal across her neat little desk, sometimes just talking, sometimes doing more than talking. So, I was a little surprised when, rather than lead me to her o
ffice door, she kept going down the hallway, passing through the doorway at the end and into the small performance space. At night, the house lights would be all the way down, the only brightness in the place coming from the beams shining down on the stage. With its black walls and other dark accents, the place was like a cave, perfect for its patrons to feel like they were lost in the night and able to peer into the light at the dancers. Now, the main room was lit up like it had been when I’d first stumbled into the place while tracking a killer.
Nicolai, the bartender, was already on duty, stocking his shelves and polishing his glasses. He looked up when he saw us come through the doorway. “Hey, Jed,” he said, his normal greeting.
“Nicolai,” I answered with a nod.
Our conversations usually didn’t go much beyond that.
“Come over here,” Sherise said. “Sit down.”
She pulled a chair out for me, one of the ones the patrons would sit on while watching the show.
This, too, was different, not the normal Sherise-type behavior I was used to. She was excited, barely able to contain herself, and again I had to wonder if she really hadn’t been hovering around the club’s back door, looking for any excuse to listen for my car in the alley.
“What is this?” I asked as I sat. All I got in return was a mischievous smile.
“Just wait,” she said and then turned away to go behind the bar.
“Again?” Nicolai said when she knelt down, dropping from my line of sight.
“Yes, again,” she answered, mock irritated. “You’re paid by the hour, not by the song.”
This made me even more curious, but before I could say anything, I heard the click and hiss of a needle being dropped onto a record, the sound coming from the speakers mounted high on the black walls of the burlesque club.
As soon as the music started, I knew what it was. The intro lick from a Harmon guitar spilled from the speakers just as Sherise stood up again behind the bar, her eyes locked on mine, her smile about to break her face.
The Jetpack Boogie: A Dieselpunk Adventure (The Crossover Case Files Book 4) Page 3