“Hold, please.” Irish flute music, then, “Holy shit, how you doin’, Jules?”
“I like the flute.”
“Tin whistle.”
“Sorry to do this to you, but can you put someone on standby in my lobby ASAP? Until about six tonight?”
“How complicated is this?”
“I just need someone to tell me who’s heading up the stairs for a visit. It should be one person. If it’s more than one, I’ll need backup. And if someone is waiting for me on the landing before I return, I want to know. Charge me extra for standby status. And if nobody shows, charge me double.”
“Got my three best dogs sniffin’ out jumpers right now, so me and Sheila will do this one for brother Jules!”
“You’re awesome. It’s much safer when Sheila is around. Call me when you get here.”
Twenty minutes later I heard the lobby door slam shut and then tentative footsteps climbing the stairs. The caller must have gotten here before Johnny. I missed the stairway’s cranky old character, how it groaned with age before the landlord gagged it with a carpet runner.
A cute strawberry-blond teenager appeared in the doorway. “You’re in the right place,” I said. She handed me two envelopes. “Thanks,” I said. She sort of smiled and headed back down the stairs. I looked out the window to see Johnny and Sheila watching the girl jump into a waiting car. My phone rang.
“There’s a redhead—”
“I know, forget her. Make yourselves comfortable.” The lobby had a couple of love seats.
An envelope with my name contained a thousand bucks. I opened the other and saw a tight quarter-inch stack of C-notes covered in tissue. Maybe five grand. About ten minutes later, another phone call.
“In front of the Oriental Theatre,” the male voice said.
“Who are you?”
“Errand boy. Who’d they send with the money?”
“Are you the one they don’t trust?”
The voice snorted. “The dumb bitch thinks I need a bodyguard to deliver the money.”
“Who is the dumb bitch?”
“Doesn’t matter. You meet me at the Oriental. We give them the envelope, they give us the package. Then we bring it—”
“To my office.”
“Yeah, fine.”
“What’s the package?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll be there at five,” I said. “What’s your name, Errand Boy, and how will I know it’s you?”
“Just be there at five. I’ll figure out who you are.”
—
The Oriental Theatre was a restored Art Deco remnant of the 1920s movie palace era when the word “oriental” was characterized in film by white guys portraying Chinese guys like Detective Charlie Chan. On this night, traditional Celtic step dancing awaited the crowd milling about in the lobby. A warm air mass had parked over cold Lake Michigan, bringing cloud cover and premature dusk to a March evening. Even the streetlight sensors thought it was too dark. Under the marquee, smokers puffed in the chilly spring air.
It was ten to five. I pictured Johnny and Sheila sitting in the lobby of my office building. The crowd now included families glowing with anticipation of the show. Stepping out of the multitude, I stood on the curb near some taxis, touched the envelope of cash in my breast pocket, then returned my hand to the gun in the pocket of my overcoat.
From behind me a voice shouted, “Mr. Landau.” I turned to see a skinny man approaching. He didn’t appear older than nineteen. His hair was cut high and tight and slicked back in a Prohibition-era gangster style. He stopped about two feet from me. A smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose combined with his haircut to create a macabre impression of premature aging.
“I’m him,” I said, “and who are you?”
“I’m the voice on the phone,” he said staring at me with a quizzical expression and annoying smirk. I knew he was a punk.
“Why are you here? I mean, what’s your role in this transaction, supervisor?”
“The dumb bitch thought maybe you’d be more at ease if I was here too, since we spoke on the phone.”
“Yeah. I feel so much better now that you’re here. Where’s the person with the package?”
“Too many people. There’s an alley—”
“Fuck you and your alley!” I reached into my coat to grab the envelope. The punk stepped up, poked me in the ribs with a snub-nosed revolver, then hid the gun behind his open jacket.
“It’s a well-lit alley,” he said.
The freckled face–oily hair combo created just enough creepiness for me to go along with the plot twist.
“Just so you know,” I said. “I legally carry a Glock 9 and can legally shoot someone threatening my life—in a well-lit alley.”
“Walk straight to the corner. Turn right, then right again into the alley behind the theater.”
I led the way, turned on Dearborn, then turned into the alley supposedly haunted by victims of the 1903 fire that killed hundreds. It was indeed well lit but did not resemble a conduit with any commerce-related value other than providing a back door to various establishments. I had a clear view in both directions and checked behind every ten seconds or so to see the kid trailing me by a few feet. In front of me, the alley ended as a kind of cul-de-sac that probably used to be an active loading dock until it was bricked up. When I came within about five feet of a short, dark stairwell on my right, the punk told me to stop and turn around. I did as told. “Fuck you, Margot!” he shouted, his face joyfully deranged. Later, I recalled a scuffing sound, like the heel of a hard-soled dress shoe on concrete, and then my world began spiraling down.
Chapter 9
No voices of lost loved ones telling me it was not my time, but the tunnel was there, long and dark with a light at the end. Not a particularly magnificent illumination of radiant bliss, but light nevertheless. At some point, I became aware that my eyes were open, the ground was cold, and the light was of the 250-watt variety the city had installed a few years earlier—to help reduce crime in alleys.
I dragged myself to the wall and looked around. All alone with a throbbing head in a deserted, well-lit alley. At least the pain from my breakup with Tamar had been usurped. On the back of my head, a small lump, but no blood. Must’ve been hit with a flat surface. I slipped my hand into the breast pocket of my coat where the envelope with five grand no longer resided. Then to my coat pocket where my Glock remained. The punk had showed up about five. My watch said eight or nine after. A couple of minutes chatting, another five minutes to walk around the corner and down the alley. The blow had stunned me, but I didn’t think it knocked me completely out. Either way, the trauma lasted less than a minute—in a well-lit alley.
Slowly, I maneuvered into a squat and lifted myself up, scraping against the wall. I get a phone call and two hours later I’m mugged in an alley. That’s a lot of trouble just to steal five grand, even assuming the package had been worth a whole lot more. It made as much sense as someone paying me a grand to get whacked on the head.
From the alley entrance a figure entered my peripheral vision. A throbbing head and nausea overruled any impulse resembling curiosity or fear. I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. Since I’d just been violently divested of five grand in a well-lit alley, what did I care if someone came back to finish me off? At least the throbbing would stop and I wouldn’t have to worry about barfing in public.
“Mortal or spirit?” a female voice said.
I opened my eyes to a pretty brown face. She stood about three feet from me with her hands buried in the pockets of a khaki double-breasted raincoat. A headband held her long curly hair off her forehead, and a close-fitting belt outlined a figure as appealing as her face.
“Well?” she said, her eyes widening as if I tried her patience.
“You ask me that as if it wasn’t a stupid question.”
She cocked her head just a bit to the side and thought a moment. “If one knew one was hanging out in a haunted alley, one would know
how logical the question was.”
“And you expect that ghosts simply answer these types of questions?”
“Some do.”
“And those who don’t, what do they do?”
“Usually they vanish. It’s how they run away.”
Silence. Then I said, “Tell me something. How do I know if you are real?”
I felt her hand close around my wrist and release. “That’s how you know.”
I stopped rubbing my forehead and looked at her. “What’s your name?”
“Amy.”
“Amy, did it occur to you that I just had an unpleasant experience?”
“Judging by your posture and knowing you are mortal, that would make sense. Are you okay?”
“Besides the throbbing in my head and a bit of nausea, I’m okay. So you just happened to be walking by?”
“Sort of. I investigate paranormal hot spots. It’s rare that I see someone hanging out in an alley on a damp night like this—especially this alley. What were you doing here—may I ask?”
This chance encounter in a well-lit alley had reached a crossroads. Would my answer effectively dismiss this nice lady from my life or would I pursue a conversation, if only to avoid a lonely evening aching over Tamar and trying to formulate possible consequences of the previous three hours?
“Walk with me,” I said and Amy followed, keeping a three-foot space between us. I tried to subtly close the distance but she maintained the cushion. “I’m a private investigator. I’d been hired to accompany a kid and exchange cash for a package.”
“You’re really a private eye?”
She had a childlike excitement in her voice. I gave her one of my cards and showed her my license.
“Wow! What synchronicity! I was hoping I would meet a real private eye one day. Someone who would let me use my psychic abilities to help solve a case.”
“Don’t assume I’m that someone.”
“I hope you don’t mind me saying that I’m surprised an experienced investigator would walk into an alley with an envelope full of cash.”
“Initially, we met in front of the theater. That’s where I was told the transaction would take place. My contact decided to march me back here at the point of a gun. A lot of trouble for five grand.”
“You counted the money?”
I hesitated. “It looked like five grand. How do ghosts feel about 250-watt bulbs?”
“It’s mortals who are afraid of the dark. Maybe there was a lot more in that envelope than five thousand.”
I didn’t give her thought much credence, but it was possible. The cool night air had eased the pain. It occurred to me that whoever thumped my head took care to inflict only minimal damage. A plank of pine squarely hitting the top of my skull came to mind.
“What does it mean to investigate the paranormal?”
“It’s a personal investigation. I experience the energy of spirits and see what information I can glean.”
“They speak to you?”
“You could say that.”
“So are all paranormal investigators as good looking as you?” Before I could gauge a response my phone rang. “Landau,” I said.
“Jules? Me and Sheila are in the lobby. Nobody has showed up yet. But I just got an SOS and the jerk can afford to pay for SOS service. Do you still need us to hang around?”
It took a moment, but Johnny Bail Bonds’s voice transported me back to when I’d called him around three-thirty.
“Johnny! No, no, go ahead. Take off.”
“You sure? You sound weird. Are you okay? You want us to call the cops?”
I assured him everything was fine and gave an abbreviated version of the events. It took a while for Johnny to relax and stop insisting I say a code word—like “peanuts”—if someone had a gun pointed at my head. Not until he finally believed the genuine irritation in my voice did he let me go. I put the phone back on my belt and noticed I had drifted from the middle of the sidewalk to the front of a shuttered jewelry store window. Amy was nowhere to be seen. Heartache, by way of Tamar, returned.
Chapter 10
Punim landed with a thud somewhere among the shadows on the hardwood floor. Sitting on the couch, I stared at the streetlamp partially illuminating my apartment through the warped glass of the old wooden sash windows. Punim’s toenails tapped lightly across the floor before she appeared as a black silhouette on the windowsill.
“I want to report a mugging,” I said over the phone to Kalijero.
“Someone snatched your purse, Landau?”
I gave him a quick rundown of the evening’s adventure but skipped the part with Amy.
“A girl calls up and asks you to deliver an envelope of cash? Then you get mugged by a punk who knows the rich broad you met before?”
“He cursed her name, as a signal for someone to crack me on the head.”
“And you were supposed to deliver the cash for a package of who the hell knows what?”
“Something worth at least five grand.”
“Did you count the money?”
“It looked and felt like five grand.”
“Never take a job unless you know every goddamn knowable fact. And if they don’t want to tell you, walk away. That’s Investigator 101.”
“There was a novice quality about the whole thing—”
“Novices get you killed. You want to be treated like a professional, Landau? Start acting like one and quit taking stupid risks. Amateurs panic, yeah? Be happy you’re only out a grand with a bash on the head.”
“I still got my money.”
“Sometimes jobs are meant to look amateurish.”
“If the job had something to do with the missing girl, I’m thinking it was Margot’s money.”
“So, you think rich wife had something stolen and instead of calling the cops, she hatched her own plot, and at the last minute included you?”
“The punk. He was like nineteen. He said the dumb bitch worried about him.”
“Assuming that’s Margot, she made you the punk’s bodyguard.”
“So instead of swapping the package, punk steals the five grand?”
“A one-inch stack of hundreds, Landau. How much money is that? Take a guess.”
“One inch is at least twenty grand. There was a quarter inch at most in that envelope.”
“Well, then, maybe you’re right. It was an amateur trying out his wings.”
I flashed back to the punk’s face just before I went down. There was a premeditation about the way he told me to stop and turn around.
“Trying out his wings by double-crossing Margot.”
“Whatever they stole must’ve been worth a lot more than what you brought. Go visit the rich broad again and get some answers.” Kalijero hung up.
It figured that Kalijero would leave me with Go visit the rich broad—as if sitting alone in my shadowed apartment didn’t evoke enough noir corn. Had a bottle of scotch been at my side instead of a can of ginger ale, the cliché would have been complete.
—
It was already nine A.M. when I got out of bed and checked the towel on my pillow. No blood. In the shower, I wondered if Amy had been a ghost. Then I remembered my comment about how attractive she was and felt like a jackass. Two bagels and sixteen ounces of cold pomegranate yerba mate later, I drove to my office. Visiting my office at least once a day was important, an “intuitive career consultant” told me. Something to do with the universe responding to my intention. Having the newspaper delivered to my office helped with my intention to go there.
There was still a morning chill in the air, but the sun was out. Miraculously, I found a parking place in front of my building and walked up the three flights to see Amy sitting in one of the club chairs, reading my newspaper. At her feet lay a three-foot-long two-by-four. I didn’t have a secretary and I thought having the chair on the landing created a de facto reception area—to help with my intention of attracting clients.
“You appear and disappear just like
a ghost,” I said.
Amy folded the paper and handed it to me. She wore a brown leather jacket with quilted shoulders and snug-fitting blue jeans. “I’m sorry I walked away but you seemed quite absorbed in your phone conversation—and then something came to mind.”
I unlocked the door and held it open. She left the wood on the landing, then passed me, trailing a faint smell of lavender. “How long have you been waiting?”
“I don’t know. Forty minutes or so. I was going to leave when I finished the paper.”
“I assume you would’ve slipped a buck under the door. I charge the newsstand price, you know.”
She smiled and sat in the matching club chair in front of my desk. Her smile didn’t fade as smiles usually did. I no longer felt like a jackass and even entertained the thought that I had a chance. She said, “Have you figured out who sent the package and what it was worth?”
I looked at my watch. “You mean between five o’clock yesterday and right now? Well, I got a hunch on the first part. And I think you’re dying to tell me about the second part.”
“After I walked away yesterday, I got this feeling I should go back to the alley. So that’s what I did. And when I got there, I saw this guy looking around like he’d lost something.”
“Mortal or spirit?”
“I didn’t want to startle him so I approached slowly. As I got closer, I could tell he was really angry. He kept calling someone under his breath a ‘stupid motherfucker’ and a whole lot of other nasty words. When I finally asked him what he was looking for, he just stared at me. Then he said, ‘Screw it,’ and walked away.”
“A pissed-off ghost.”
“So I started looking around. First I found that piece of wood, probably used to bonk you on the head, and then I found this.”
From her pocket she pulled out a cork and put it on the desk. I picked it up, tried to make sense of a faded image and ornate lettering. “The package was a bottle of wine?” I said.
“I think so. But not just any wine. It had to be special.”
“Do you know much about wine?”
“I know bottles can go for thousands of dollars.”
“But the cork was probably a memento. There’s a hole in the bottom that might have held a key ring.”
Gold Coast Blues Page 5