In It for the Money

by David Burnsworth

  Thursday, seven a.m.

  Blu opened his eyes. The room came into focus, and then he noticed a weight on his chest—Billie sleeping soundly, her arms around him. It had been a long time coming, for a lot of things. He didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  The night before had turned out better than he’d hoped, and not just because it was Billie in his bed instead of some regret.

  After everyone doused themselves in mosquito repellant, Crome and Patricia had teamed up against Harmony and Tess in a game of horseshoes lasting well past midnight. Fire from the fire pit and an exceptionally bright moon were their only light sources, but it was enough for Blu and Billie to be able to watch and cheer.

  And before Patricia, Harmony, and Tess departed, all three in the two-seat Mercedes, the news women had succeeded in getting just about every detail from the job out of him and Crome, not that Blu really cared. At this point, he and Crome needed all the help they could get.

  Crome had ridden away as well to only God knew where. It wasn’t Blu’s place to ask, and Crome stayed on a job once he’d committed to it, so he’d be back with something.

  The cell phone Cynthia Rhodes had given him buzzed on the dresser, waking Billie and ending his internal dialogue.

  She opened her eyes, saw him, smiled, shut her eyes, and stretched.

  The phone buzzed again.

  “You gonna get that?” she asked.

  He didn’t want to. He really didn’t want to.

  Yet it continued to buzz and skitter across the top of the piece of mahogany furniture his mother had picked out a long time ago.

  Billie raised up, flipped the covers off them, and sauntered naked to the bathroom, stopping only to toss his phone to him.

  Blu caught it and, after Billie’s perfect behind turned the corner, looked at the display—Cynthia Rhodes.

  He answered, “Yes?”

  “Mr. Carraway?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry to be calling so early.”

  He looked at the clock—seven a.m.

  She continued, “It’s just…it’s just…”

  Blu sat up in bed. “What is it, Cynthia?”

  “Mr. Carraway?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s dead.”

  He heard her gasp, take several panicked breaths.

  He said, “Ms. Rhodes! You’re hyperventilating. Get a paper bag and breathe into it.”

  The next sound he heard was the phone dropping and footsteps running. All he could think of was he hoped she didn’t croak right here and now with him on the phone. And then he realized maybe his priorities weren’t in order.

  A scraping sound on the other end of the line and then Cynthia Rhodes said, “Okay. I’m okay now.” A pause, then, “Thank you, Mr. Carraway.”

  “Would you like me to come out there?” he asked.

  A sigh, then, “Yes.”

  She ended the call.

  What the hell? His only guess was the wayward son got capped. Not exactly a loss to society, but he understood how having to bury your child was a parent’s worst nightmare. It made him think about Hope.

  Billie came out of the bathroom donning a robe.

  She crawled onto the bed to him. “Gotta go?”

  He kissed her. “Yes.”

  She rested her head on his chest again.

  And for the first time, he regretted having to go deal with a client.

  Thursday, nine a.m.

  Blu sat in the receiving room in Cynthia Rhodes’ South Battery mansion. Every one of the homes here was breathtaking—pieces of history to be treasured. He truly believed that.

  Rebecca Morn, dressed in her familiar business casual attire, had answered the door and let him in, just like before. Cynthia Rhodes walked into the room and sat next to him on the couch. Rebecca followed and sat a tray holding a carafe and two mugs on the magazine table in front of them. She poured coffee from the carafe into the mugs and left the room with a nod to Blu.

  Cynthia wore shorts and a silk shirt, revealing more skin in need of sunlight. She said, “Mr. Carraway, thank you so much for coming. I am just beside myself.” She put a hand to her mouth and sobbed.

  Consoling crying women was not Blu’s forte. He much preferred squeezing informants, hunting missing persons, and fighting. Where was her assistant? Or Trigger Rick? Because he didn’t know what to do, he did nothing.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “You mentioned on the phone someone was dead?” he asked.

  She nodded without looking at him. “My son.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ll show you.” She stood, left the room, and returned with a smartphone. Scrolling on the screen, she found what she was looking for and showed him.

  The picture displayed on the screen was of a young man in his twenties who could be her son, but who could also be any number of other twenty-year-olds with purple-tinted hair. Blood or something red seemed to trickle out of his mouth. Blu wasn’t convinced. He said, “Who sent this to you?”

  “It came from my son’s email account.”

  “He sent a dead picture of himself to you from his account?” he asked.

  “Well, someone did.” She put her hands to her face and cried.

  “Have you called the police?”

  “No. I called you.”

  “Ms. Rhodes,” he said. “The first thing we need to do is inform the police. If this is real, they have a murder on their hands.”

  She completely broke down in front of him, sobbing uncontrollably.

  “Ms. Rhodes,” he said.

  She shook.

  He put a hand on her shoulder. “Cynthia?”

  After a few sniffles, she said, “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to mislead you. This could very well be real. But if it isn’t, I’ll find your son.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The first thing Blu did after leaving Cynthia Rhodes, after he realized he’d been on the job for a week already, was to forward the message with the alleged dead picture of Jeremy Rhodes to Harmony and Tess. Neither he nor Crome were tech savvy enough to trace an email if that were even possible. But those two might. Or they might know how to get it done. And on Patricia’s dime, no less.

  Next he called the burner he’d given to his business partner. Crome answered on the second ring, sounding not very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. “What the hell?”

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “Really? It’s like what, nine? Can’t a man get some decent sleep around here?”

  Blu said, “No one told you to stay up half the night trying to out drink two twenty-five-year-olds while playing horseshoes.”

  “I hadn’t even gotten started when you and your girlfriend decided you needed some quality time.”

  Blu said, “Hey, I’ll take quality time with Billie any chance I can.”

  He heard Crome chuckle on the other end of the connection. “I don’t blame you there. What’s up?”

  Blu told Crome about the email Cynthia Rhodes had received.

  Crome asked, “You think it’s a joke?”

  “Yes. Not sure what’s going on.”

  “Could the kid have sent the message?”

  “I think he did. It came from his account.”

  “That would be a real sick thing to do, ya know? I mean, send something like that to your own mother? Real sick, man.”

  Blu said, “I already talked with Cynthia. She showed me the picture.”

  “We got someone to help with the computer side of this?”

  “Harmony and Tess.”

  Crome said, “Cashing in your favors already, huh?”

  “How far out are you?”

  “From your house?” Crome asked. “’Bout forty minute
s. I mean, ya live at least that far from just about everywhere, ya know?”

  “I like it that way.”

  “Well, some of us prefer to be where the action is. Not on some remote island.”

  “See you when you get here.”

  “Hey, Blu,” Crome said.

  “Yeah?”

  There was a slight hesitation, then, “Lemme call the girls.”

  Blu laughed. He and his partner were old enough to be their fathers, chronologically speaking, if not from a maturity standpoint. He said, “Didn’t get enough of them last night, huh?”

  “Who’re you kidding?”

  They ended the call.

  Blu thought about where Crome could have been, what he could have been doing, and with whom. And then he decided none of it was any of his business.

  What he wanted to do, right away, was call the police in on this. He respected Detective Powers and police in general and the work they did, but they normally had to follow too many rules. All he and Crome had to do was stay out of jail.

  Thursday, ten a.m.

  Before Crome arrived, Blu received a call from Harmony.

  He said, “Mornin’.”

  “Your friend is real funny.” She didn’t sound happy.

  A laundry list of Crome’s bad character traits ran through Blu’s mind: impulsive, abrasive, gregarious, addictive, dangerous. He stopped there but the list could go on. It also mimicked a list of his own qualities. He said, “What’d he do now?”

  “He said you’d like to contract me and Tess to do some snooping for you.”

  Of course, genius also came to mind when talking about Crome. If the women signed a contract to agree to work with them, it would be under the umbrella of confidentiality and thus not subject to the freedom of the press. He said, “You up for it?”

  “You’re funny too. You know that?” She also sounded a little hungover.

  Sometimes it was acceptable to take advantage of the situation, and this was one of those times. He said, “You want the story. I need some help.”

  “If I work for you, I can’t report on any of it.”

  “You’re a smart cookie,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”

  There was a moment of silence, followed by a sigh. She said, “You know, this job doesn’t pay nearly what it used to.”

  “I’ll pay fifty an hour to each of you.”

  It sounded like she exhaled. “Let me see what Patricia says.”

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t I call her?”

  “You’d do that?”

  “Maybe we can strike a deal that works for all of us.”

  She laughed. “You’ve never negotiated with Patricia, have you?”

  “No.” There was always a first for everything.

  “Good luck. I can use the extra money. Student loans, you know. Same with Tess.”

  He felt a twinge of guilt for taking Tess’ twenty dollars the night before but got over it.

  The call ended and he dialed Patricia and explained what he wanted.

  She said, “You’re serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “But they’d do it for free for me.”

  He said, “Let them do some moonlighting. What could it hurt?”

  “For one, my business.”

  According to a local opinion rag, Patricia was worth in the neighborhood of thirty million bucks. Blu thought about what Harmony said about Patricia’s negotiation skills.

  “You let them sign a confidentiality agreement with me for this job. I’ll give you the exclusive.”

  “Nobody’s signing anything,” she said.

  “Then I guess we’re going on the honor system,” he said. “Besides, you know what’s at stake.”

  “You mean break the agreement and you’ll clam up, don’t you? I think we’re a little more grown-up than that.”

  “No one’s ever accused me of being one, at least not lately.”

  “So I’m supposed to go under the assumption you could cut me out at any time?”

  “Naw,” he said. “Think of it more like détente. Neither of us would win.”

  She said, “I see.”

  In his mind, he pictured her with a smile on her face as she said it. And he knew she still had the upper hand.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The rumble from Crome’s Harley stirred up the horses. Blu watched as he idled to a stop on the crushed-shell drive.

  Dink and Doofus were, of course, the first on the scene.

  Following behind him, Harmony drove while Tess rode shotgun in a red Jeep Wrangler.

  The women got out of the Jeep and approached the horses with a bag of something.

  Blu said, “What’ve y’all got there?”

  Tess smiled. “Turnips. We did some research on what horses can eat and thought we’d try something else.”

  Those two horses were the biggest spoiled babies around.

  With Dink and Doofus preoccupied with the women, Crome skated around them and stepped onto the porch. He said, “You know that’s how the Mongols got through the Great Wall, dontcha? Bribing the guards?”

  Blu vaped. “Better them than me. I was just thinking I need a garden. Otherwise those two freeloaders could put me in the poorhouse.”

  Crome put a hand on his shoulder. “I thought you already were in the poorhouse.”

  “If Cynthia Rhodes hadn’t shown up, I would’ve had to take some drastic steps.” Like sell the boat, his father’s watch, and anything else not tied down. Letting his phones lapse was just dumb, and he now realized he’d just been too preoccupied with his money situation to handle it.

  Three other horses, none of them Murder, approached the women from three different directions. Normally they stayed at the opposite end of the island from where Blu or any other humans happened to be.

  Blu stood on alert. If the horses wanted to, they could trample the women to death. He wasn’t sure of their intention.

  They snorted and gently nudged their way in between Dink and Doofus to receive their turnips. In exchange for the root veggies, they accepted pats and nose strokes from Harmony and Tess.

  Crome said, “Well, I’ll be.”

  Blu said, “If you or I walked down there right now, they’d scatter.”

  “Or kick us outta the way.”

  When the bag emptied, the women finished with the horses who clomped away seemingly satisfied with the new type of treat.

  Murder, the all black leader of the herd, walked out from the shade of trees at the edge of the marsh.

  Blu watched him closely.

  The natural born leader reared up on his hind legs and gave a screech.

  At the sound of his call, the five horses close by retreated and galloped toward Murder. Apparently break time was over and now it was back to the salt mines, or whatever the horses did all day long.

  Crome said, “We should put Murder on the payroll.”

  “He already is.”

  The truth was Murder had already shown his worth. A group of men set on doing harm to Patricia’s nephew, Brack Pelton, and Blu had tried to sneak onto the island. The horses, led by Murder, alerted Blu to the trespassers, eliminating any surprise attempt.

  It could have been they just didn’t appreciate sharing their already limited space with more humans, but Blu liked to think more than a small part of them wanted to protect him and their home. Whatever their reasoning, Blu had made peace with the black stallion and his quirks.

  Harmony and Tess walked toward the men like two mythological sirens. Of course, these two would be dangerous no matter what they did. Apparently modern day Wonder Women wore professional garb fit for TV news correspondents.

  Crome said, “So glad you’re here.”

  Tess, the shorter of the
two, glared at them through her glasses. “It’s fifty an hour. Each. We tell you how much time we put in.”

  Blu said, “That’s right.”

  “Good,” Harmony said. “I still have to film two segments today, so can we speed things up?”

  “Sure,” Blu said. He handed them copies of Jeremy’s email.

  Harmony said, “We got your message. The guy’s dead?”

  “I’m thinking no,” Blu said. “That’s for you two to help find out.”

  Tess asked, “Couldn’t we have done this over the phone or something?” Her blonde hair blew in the lowcountry wind.

  Blu said, “Probably, but then we wouldn’t be graced with your presence.”

  Both women put hands on hips.

  Tess said, “What’s that supposed to mean? Patricia told us to kick you in the genitals if you tried to get us to sign anything or perv out on us.”

  Crome, in the middle of another drag from his vaporizer, got choked up.

  Blu said, “Of course she did. What I mean is I thought we needed to have a quick discussion, in person, about what your roles would be in this.”

  “Okay,” Harmony said.

  Blu held up an index finger. “First, you are not to approach anyone about anything regarding this job without Mr. Crome or myself accompanying you.”

  Tess said, “That’s not how we operate.”

  “Humor me,” Blu said.

  “I’m afraid that’s not good enough,” Harmony said.

  “Okay,” Blu said. “How about if I explain it this way? Some dangerous people with guns could be behind this. I don’t want either of you to have your pretty little derrières shot off.”

  Harmony said, “You’re half right. They’re pretty, but by design they’re not little.”

  Combined, these women weighed not much more than he or Crome.

  “Okay,” was all Blu could muster because if he’d said anything else, it would have come out as a poor choice of words.

  Crome said, “Number two, when in doubt, review number one.”

  “We get it,” Tess said.

  “Just wanted to make sure,” Blu said.

  Thursday, eleven a.m.