“Photographic memory,” Barney said. “Perry should be more careful. All I had to do was wait until he went onstage, and I walked right into his room. If someone saw me, I could just say that I needed to borrow makeup or something.”
“But no one saw you. And with Trish’s financial problems, it was easy to let her take the heat.”
“Wait,” Barney held up a hand. “I felt bad that you thought she took the card, so I put it back.”
“You put a fake card back,” I pointed out.
Barney sighed. “Well, sure. The original was worth so much. I couldn’t pass up that kind of money.”
“And Perry made it so easy for you. You pop in there, steal the card, sell it, and no one’s the wiser.”
“I took the card to piss Perry off,” Barney said. “I never even knew it was worth anything until after I stole it. When Perry said it was worth thousands, I decided to sell it.”
“Yeah, I’m buying that,” I said.
“You can think what you want,” Barney snapped. “I was just trying to get back at him.”
“For what?”
“Perry took my girl,” Barney said, his lower lip quivering.
“That’s it?” I cocked my head at him in disbelief.
“It’s true,” Barney whined. “I had the most beautiful woman in the world. I was going to ask her to marry me, and then she fell for Perry. Just because he looks like Elvis.”
“That’s it!” Jack snapped his fingers. “You look like that guy, um...”
“Bobby Darin,” Barney said.
“No.” Jack pursed his lips.
“Don Adams from Get Smart,” I said.
“Yes!” Jack pointed at Barney. “You could be his double.”
“I’m Bobby Darin,” Barney growled. He took a couple of steps back, held up his arms, and started crooning ‘Mack the Knife’. “See?” he said when he’d finished.
Jack clapped lightly, courtesy applause. “Yeah, you sound like Bobby Darin, but you don’t look like him.”
“I’m leaving now.” Barney stared to me. “What are you going to tell Perry?”
“I’ll tell him what you did,” I said. “The two of you can decide how to handle it. I’ve got just one more question. Where’d you get the fake card?”
“On EBay,” Barney said. “It was so good it cost me a couple thousand. It was a real card that was touched up so it would look better, that’s why it was so expensive. I figured Perry would never know the difference.”
“You’d get Trish out of trouble, and still make a tidy profit when you sold the original card.”
Barney nodded.
“Now you’re just out a couple grand,” Jack said.
“Poetic justice,” I agreed.
“Yeah, you got the card back, so leave me be.” Barney edged toward the front door. “I’ll take care of things with Perry.”
“Hey Barney,” I called after him.
“What?” he stopped.
“How far does Perry take his Elvis impersonation?” I said.
“When he’s onstage, he’s the king himself. Why?”
“Elvis knew karate.” I grinned. “Better watch your back.”
Barney paled. Without another word, he jostled past Cal and out the door.
“What a character,” Jack shook his head.
I tossed the plastic box to Cal. “Let’s return that to Perry.”
“I can’t believe that little turd stole it.” Perry gazed at his baseball card. Cal and I were in his dressing room, and had just told him what had transpired.
I sat down on a tiny couch across from his dressing table. “He says he did it because you stole his girl.”
“Melinda?” Perry snorted. “She said he was clingy and needy, and she finally got tired of it.”
“Go figure,” Cal muttered.
“You might want to keep better tabs on that card,” I said. “You made it way too easy for Barney to get it.”
Perry nodded. “Yeah, that was dumb of me.”
The dressing room door opened a crack. “Can I come in, honey?” a sultry voice asked.
“Sure, darlin’.” Perry got up as a woman with huge breasts sauntered into the room. I admit, Cal and I stared. Store-bought, was all I could think.
“Fellas, this is Melinda,” Perry introduced her.
“You dated Barney?” Cal blurted.
Melinda ran her hand through Perry’s hair. “I just love entertainers,” she said through puckered lips.
Old, dead entertainers, I thought.
“Uh huh,” Cal said. He glanced at me. I shrugged.
“We better be going,” I said. Cal and I stood up. “Put that card in a safe place.”
“I’ll do that.” Perry reached out and handed me a check. “You earned this.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much,” I said.
It slipped out, I swear.
THE END
Turn the page to keep reading the second Reed Ferguson short story, A Gun For Hire.
A Gun For Hire
A Reed Ferguson Mystery Series Short Story
Chapter One
People who know me know that I’m a sucker for a damsel in distress. Let a woman bat her eyelashes and ask for help, and I’ll come running. But on a hot August night when I came home to find two women sitting on the couch in my living room, both in tears, it was a recipe for disaster.
“Hey hon,” my wife Willie said as she sniffled and wiped tears from her eyes. She’s lithe, built like a marathon runner, and has a habit of tucking her shoulder-length blond hair behind her ears. She did so now, and normally I would’ve wanted to go right over and kiss her, but given the mood in the room, I hesitated.
“Sorry, Reed.” This from Willie’s best friend, Darcy Cranston, a corporate lawyer who lives across the street in an old Victorian house that has been converted into apartments.
Darcy is a shapely African-American woman with dark eyes that were now filled with tears. For her to be crying was itself unusual, as she was usually bubbly and fun-loving, but for her to have Willie crying as well … I shuddered to think what this was about.
“What’s going on?” I cringed as the words came out of my mouth. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to be helpful and supportive, but I didn’t want to join the tear-fest.
“I think Jerrod is cheating on me!” Darcy blurted out.
Darcy had been dating Jerrod Rhodman for a little over six months, and they were starting to get serious. I’d met Jerrod at my wedding. Darcy had been Willie’s maid of honor, and she brought Jerrod as her date. I didn’t know him very well, but he seemed like a nice guy. At least until now.
Willie’s green eyes widened as she implored me to do something. What, I didn’t know. I’m a private investigator, not a therapist.
“Why do you think he’s cheating on you?” I asked, and hoped neither one saw me glance over my shoulder at the door.
Willie and Darcy had been at a girl’s night out, and I’d just come home from B 52s, my favorite hangout, with Ace and Deuce Smith. They are our loyal friends, and they love helping me in my investigations, but they are a few cards short of a deck. Because of that, I’d affectionately dubbed them the “Goofball Brothers.” At B 52s, we’d played pool, enjoyed a few beers, and then walked home. Now it was late, and I wanted to go to bed. Although, at the moment, I was debating running back out the door. Ace and Deuce lived in the downstairs condo, and I could bunk with them tonight, until Darcy’s boyfriend crisis was over.
“I read some of his texts,” Darcy began. She dried her eyes and then held up a hand. “And before you think I’m a snoop, I’m not. A little over a week ago, I heard Jerrod on the phone. I’d gone to his place for the night, and when I let myself in, he was in the bedroom. He didn’t hear me come in, and he said, ‘I’m sorry for what I did to you.’ And then something about ‘you can’t come over tonight,’ and that they could get caught.”
“Sorry for what?”
She shrugged.
&nb
sp; “Did you confront him?” I asked.
Darcy nodded. “He said it was no big deal, just an argument with a friend of his. When I asked what he meant about getting caught, he said I misunderstood him. I let it go, but he was so tense for the rest of the night, I knew something was wrong. The next few days, he kept getting phone calls and he would say he needed to take the call in private, so he’d leave the room, or if we were out somewhere, he’d walk away. That’s not like him. And he was constantly texting someone. Then the other night, we were supposed to go out, but he called at the last minute and said he couldn’t go. There was something in his voice that bothered me, so I…” She hesitated. “I went over to his place and spied on him.”
Willie patted her hand. “Don’t be embarrassed. Sometimes love makes us do strange things.”
I cocked an eyebrow at Willie, but she didn’t notice.
“And then I saw a woman go into his place,” Darcy’s voice cracked. “She’s tall and thin, like Jerrod, and through the window, I saw him hug her.”
“And?” I waited for more. Like a passionate kiss or something.
Darcy sensed what I was getting at. “You had to see them,” she said defensively. “It wasn’t just a hug, it was a hug.”
“Okay, I believe you,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure. After all, she was predisposed to think Jerrod was cheating on her, so something innocent might not seem that way to her. “Did you tell Jerrod you saw him?”
“She did,” Willie said. “Earlier tonight.”
“And it went badly,” I concluded.
“He denied the whole thing, and then blew up at me,” Darcy said. “I couldn’t believe it. He’s never acted like that before. He said how dare I watch his house, and why didn’t I trust him, and that I was making the whole thing up.” She snorted. “Like I would do something like that.”
“He’s hiding something,” Willie said.
I nodded. “It sure sounds like it.” Then I added, “I’m sorry, Darcy. You don’t deserve this.”
“Thank you,” she said, and then, “I need your help.” Big tears welled up in her eyes again.
My eyes darted between the two of them. I got the pleading look from Willie again, but this time more forcefully.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“Go shoot him,” Darcy said.
I raised my eyebrows. “Um, I don’t think so,” I murmured.
She let out a laugh, a good sign. “I’m just kidding. Would you talk to Jerrod? Maybe he’ll tell you something he doesn’t want to tell me.”
I frowned. “I don’t really know him.”
“But he said he likes you,” Darcy said.
Willie looked at me. “It’ll be all right. You know how to finesse a conversation.”
“Please,” Darcy begged.
“Okay, I guess I can do that,” I said. “I’ll drop by his place tomorrow after work.”
They both gushed their thanks. I nodded and excused myself, and went to the bedroom, thinking What could go wrong with this?
Plenty, as it turned out.
Chapter Two
The next afternoon I was in a neighborhood near Interstate 25 and Orchard Avenue, in the Denver Tech Center, south of downtown Denver. The Tech Center is a hub for technical jobs, and there are also a variety of apartments and townhomes in the area. Jerrod Rhodman had an end-unit in a newer townhome complex on Willow Drive, near the light-rail line.
I glanced at my watch before I got out of my 4-Runner. Darcy had called me earlier in the day to tell me that she’d spoken with Jerrod, and that he would be stopping at the gym after work and then heading home.
My phone rang as I was walking up the stairs to his townhome.
“Oh, it’s not always easy to know what to do,” Humphrey Bogart’s voice said. It’s my latest ringtone, a sound bite from The Maltese Falcon. I’m a film noir buff; I love the old movies with their dark heroes, femme fatales, and twisted endings, and I love Bogie in particular. He’s my inspiration, and I wish I could be as cool as he was.
I checked the number. Darcy.
“What’s up?” I asked as I paused by the door.
“Did you talk to him?” she asked breathlessly.
“I just got here.”
I’d never seen – or in this case heard – her so agitated.
“Oh, right,” she said. “I hope he’ll talk to you. And if he doesn’t, you tell him I hired you to shoot his ass if he’s cheating.”
“Uh huh,” I said. Since when had I become a gun for hire? “I’ll call you later.”
I was reminded of an early film noir, This Gun for Hire, with Alan Ladd and the sexy Veronica Lake. Ladd plays Philip Raven, a psychotic contract killer who eludes the police while tracking down spies who are trying to double-cross him. Only I’m not mentally unhinged, as Raven was, and I don’t want to kill anyone.
“Okay, thanks,” she said.
I ended the call, shook my head, and took a deep breath. Then I rapped on Jerrod’s door and waited. A moment later, a tall, African-American man opened the door. His strikingly blue eyes were puzzled.
“Yes?”
“Jerrod?” I said. “I’m Reed Ferguson. My wife Willie –”
At that point, he interrupted me. “Yeah, I know you. Darcy was Willie’s maid of honor at your wedding.”
He reached out a hand, and I shook it.
“How are you?” he asked. “How’s married life?”
“I’m fine, and it’s fine, but your girlfriend Darcy’s not.”
I threw that out bluntly to see what his reaction would be.
“Aw, man.” He frowned and glanced up and down the street. “What did she tell you?” He knew something was not right with her.
“That she thinks you’re cheating on her.”
He gnawed his lower lip. “And she sent you to find out what’s going on?”
“I’m not thrilled about it,” I said with a wan smile.
“And I suppose if I don’t talk to you, I’ll hear about it from Darcy.”
I shrugged. “What can it hurt to talk to me?”
He looked past me again and pulled the door wider. “You want to come in for a beer?”
“Sure.”
I followed him down a short hall that opened into a spacious kitchen. It was all done in modern tones, with white walls, maple cabinets, and granite countertops. Beyond the kitchen was a dining area, with a sleek, round table and four metal chairs, that looked out through floor-to-ceiling windows onto a covered deck. Some of the Tech Center high-rises loomed in the distance.
“Is a Blue Moon okay?” he asked as he went to a stainless steel refrigerator.
“That’s fine.” I preferred Fat Tire, but I wasn’t going to be choosy. This visit was about information, not beer.
Jerrod grabbed two bottles and gestured for me to sit down at the table. He handed me a beer. I took a swig, and he downed about half his bottle. Then he set it down with a clunk on the glass tabletop.
“I told her nothing’s going on.” He ran a hand over his nearly bald pate. “But man, is she suspicious, just because she heard me talking on the phone to a friend of mine. Did you know she even spied on me the other night?”
“She told me that.”
“And then last night we had a fight about it.”
I nodded and swiveled my beer bottle in my hand. “She said she’d never seen you get so angry.”
“How would you feel if your wife didn’t trust you?” he snapped. Then he leaned back and sighed. “I just don’t know why she doesn’t believe me.”
“Tell me about the conversation she overheard.”
“It wasn’t any big deal.”
I waited. He drank more beer and then looked at me.
“I was talking to a friend of mine. A guy friend,” he tacked on quickly. “I said he couldn’t come here now because I was expecting Darcy. And we talked about business, that’s all.”
“Darcy said you were arguing with this person.”
He took another gulp of his beer. “It wasn’t an argument. I don’t know where she got that.”
“You said something about getting caught.”
“It was just work stuff,” he snapped again, then sucked a breath through his teeth. “I’ve got a little problem with my job, okay?” he said defensively. “I’m an investment broker, and I’ve got a few things going south right now. It’s stressing me out, but it’s no big deal. And it’s none of Darcy’s business.”
Dang! He’s lying right to my face, I thought. His answers were too smooth, too rehearsed. And too hostile. Like he’d been thinking about how to cover for himself. On the one hand, I couldn’t blame him for trying to deceive me. After all, we hardly knew each other. But for anyone to have Darcy in tears made me mad.
“What were you sorry for?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing. It was in the past.”
I thought for a second. “And the texts? You’ve been getting a lot more lately, ones you have to take in private.”
“It was business.” He was suddenly more cautious. “What Darcy didn’t tell you is she hates it when I talk about my work around her. I’ve got a big deal going on, and I was being peppered with calls, so I’d have to step away or she’d get on my case for that.”
I arched an eyebrow. “So it’s a big deal that’s going badly?”
“Yeah, right. You know how it goes.”
“Sure, I know.” I sipped my beer as well, keeping it casual. “And who was the woman she saw you with the other night?”
He glanced out to the deck and thought long and hard about that. Then he set his beer down and leaned in close to me, his jaw tight. “Let me level with you. There wasn’t any other woman.”
I stared at him, and he winked at me. Was he suddenly admitting his guilt, guy to guy?
“It’s no big deal, okay? Besides, Darcy doesn’t need to concern herself with things in my past,” he repeated, this time with more force.
“This woman is your ex?”
Reed Ferguson Short Stories Page 3