Second Guessing

by K. J. Emrick

  I’m still not sure how that works. He disappears into that rug, and I have no idea how he fits in there. For me that’s just as unexplainable as a cellphone is to Harry.

  “So I got a call?” I ask him, trying to move this conversation along.

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “What made you think it was important enough to come in here… wait. Did you answer my phone?”

  “No, certainly not. I would never.” He looks mortified that I would even suggest such a thing. “Your calls are private.”

  “As private as my bedroom?”

  “Hmm. I see your point. Er, well, I have made sure to keep my hand over my eyes, but I suppose since I’m already here I could remove my hand, if you wish?”

  “No!” I bark out immediately. I yank the sheet around me so hard it pulls away from the end of the mattress. “Nice try, mister. No wishing except when we’re working cases together, and no removing your hand from your eyes when you’re in my bedroom, got me? If you didn’t answer my phone, then how do you know this call is important enough for you to be standing here?”

  “I recognize the name of the person calling, my lady.”

  “Hold on…” I sit up straighter, wrapping the sheet around me, under my armpits, tying it at the side like a loose sort of bathrobe. “You know everybody in my contact list. There’s not a single one of them that would make you come running in here.”

  He nods his head in agreement. “While that is true, this name is not in your contact list.”

  “But it’s a name you recognized?”

  “Yes.”

  “How? You don’t exactly get out much.”

  “No, but I do know certain people in this city. Around the world, in fact. People of all sorts. Once I saw who this was I wanted you to be aware of the call as soon as possible.”

  “Which is why you’re standing in my bedroom?”

  “Precisely.”

  I get up out of bed, pulling the sheet after me, tying it at my waist, too. Looking down at myself to make sure all of the important parts are covered, I have to admire the results. This might actually make a passable off-the-shoulder dress, with just a few alterations. I’ll have to remember that the next time I need something new in a pinch. I’m pretty good with a needle and thread, when I have to be. I should be, after all, the Marines taught me how to sew.

  “All right, Harry. I’m obviously not going to get any sleep tonight, so let’s get the whole story. Who is it that calling me?”

  “A man by the name of Li Qiang Chen.”

  I stop, and I stare at him. “Chen? You mean Arnie Chen?”

  Behind his raised hand, Harry rolls his head from side to side. “That is one of the many aliases he uses.”

  “Arnie Chen, the owner of the Rising Sun Palace?”

  “One of his many businesses is a restaurant, yes. You sound like you know of him.”

  “Well, yeah. Sort of. I just met him a few days ago.”

  Surprised to hear that bit of information, his hand drops away from his face. In his eyes I can see stark disbelief.

  Then he realizes I’m still standing here in just my low-cut panties and a sheet, and he presses his hand over his eyes again.

  I suppress a smile, even though he can’t see it.

  “Sorry my lady, I am sorry. I did not mean to… but did you just say that you met Li Qiang Chen? You spoke with him?”

  “Well, sure. I spoke to him. It was part of the whole missing bracelet case, remember? I found it at his restaurant.”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I don’t tell you everything, Harry. I mean, I told you I found the bracelet after climbing through a dumpster, and it was in a guy’s pocket, and I got it back. I told you the guy’s boss was real mad. Remember?”

  “Of course, but you did not mention the boss was Li Qiang Chen.”

  “Well the rest of it didn’t really seem important.”

  Harry sucks in a breath, shaking his head—and his hand—over and over. “This is not good. Chen is not someone you want to be associated with.”

  “I’m not ‘associated’ with him, Harry. And besides, I already picked up on the kind of man he was. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s part of the organized crime scene in Detroit. Maybe a low-level thug. Maybe associated with the Chaldean mafia, and that case that Chris can’t let me anywhere near. I don’t know. I do know he’s scary. Like, cement shoes in the river scary.”

  “That would be correct, my lady.”

  “What part of it?”

  “Er… all of it, actually.”

  Looks like my genie is more familiar with Mister Chen than I am. That brings up a question, now doesn’t it? “Harry, how do you know this guy?”

  His jaw clenches as he grinds his teeth. “My previous master knew him.”

  “Your previous master? The guy was homeless, you said. How did he cross paths with a modern-day gangster type?”

  “That is a bit of a story, and one we may not have time for now. Suffice to say, Li Qiang Chen is someone best avoided.”

  “Well, he called me, so obviously he’s already found my phone number. Come to think of it, he said he already knew my name, too.” I shrug, because as suspicious as all this might sound, it doesn’t exactly sound dangerous. “He was polite enough when I met him, I guess, in a creepy sort of way. He gave me two tickets for a free meal. I suppose I should at least call him back, since you think it’s that important.”

  “My coming to you with this was more in the way of a warning,” he tells me. “From what I remember of him, everything he touches turns rotten.”

  “Okay, I take your meaning. But still, he called me. I’d like to know why. Information is the best weapon a girl can have.”

  Other than a .38, like the one I’ve got waiting for me in my closet.

  Still, I’m curious, and it’s not like I’m getting any sleep tonight anyway. The clock next to the lamp told me it was already past three in the morning. Oh well. It wouldn’t be the first all-nighter I’d pulled in my life. A few cups of coffee and maybe a bottle of Mountain Dew, and I’d be good to go. And a donut. I was really, really craving a donut right now.

  Why was Chen calling me so late? Why was he calling me at all, for that matter? It’s not like he and I moved in the same circles. I doubted he wanted to invite me to the restaurant for a meal. Not at this hour. Lots of questions, and no answers. I was just going to have to call him back if I wanted to know anything. Which I couldn’t do, until a certain seven-foot-tall genie got out of my way.

  “Harry?”

  “Yes, my lady?”

  “You can open your eyes now.”

  He did, one finger at a time, and I saw him taking a good, long look at the sheet draped over my body. My leg kept slipping out of the edge of the sheet, showing off my bare hip and one ass cheek in my black panties. He didn’t look away this time. It was hard to tell with him sometimes because of the different culture of his background, not to mention the whole genie thing… but I’d say he liked what he saw.

  And I have to say, I didn’t mind that. A girl likes to know she can turn men’s eyes, even if it’s just the eyes of a friend.

  I make a little shooing motion with my hand and he steps out into the hallway to let me pass. Harry’s already turned on a few lights out here, enough for me to see that my cell is right where I left it on the little shelf by the stove. It hasn’t been moved. Looks like Harry was telling the truth when he said he only looked at the caller ID.

  When I pick it up and open the lock screen, there’s the missed call notification. No number, just a name. Arnie Chen.

  That’s odd. I certainly don’t have him in my contact’s list, but my phone is displaying his name plain as day.

  “Okay, Mister Chen. Let’s see what you want.”

  Sitting down at the kitchen table and adjusting the sheet around my lap, I put my phone on the table, and tap the icon to return the call. Then I put it on speaker as the electronic
ringing breaks the silence in the kitchen.

  I only had to wait for two rings. It was almost like Mister Chen had been expecting me to call back.

  “Nǐ hǎo.”

  “Good morning, Mister Chen. I’m sorry, but I don’t actually speak Chinese.”

  “There are five main dialectical groups of Chinese, Miss Stone, encompassing over two hundred individual dialects.” He sounds like a college professor I knew once. Patient and kind. There’s still no hint of an accent as he switches back from Mandarin, which I’m guessing is his native tongue. “Most Chinese dialects are complicated but perhaps before our association is over, I will be able to teach you a few simple phrases. Nǐ hǎo means ‘hi,’ or ‘how are you?’”

  “I see. Well, that would be real swell and all, Mister Chen, but it’s really late and a girl needs her beauty sleep. Did you want something?”

  “Ah, but you weren’t asleep, Miss Stone.”

  I look up at Harry, standing at the edge of the table and leaning his hands on the back of a chair. His expression is saying the same thing I’m thinking.

  That was creepy.

  “Uh, how do you know I wasn’t sleeping, Mister Chen?”

  He chuckles softly, clearly amused. “Let’s just say this. Genius recognizes genius. I can’t sleep when I’m anxious, either. We are very alike you and I.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” I tell him.

  Harry gives me a thumb’s up. Obviously he agrees with me.

  From the other end of the call, Arnie sighs. “Don’t be so hasty to judge me, Miss Stone. Or yourself, either. Now. I have a matter which requires your special talents. Would you agree to meet me at my restaurant?”

  “I guess that all depends. When did you want to see me?”

  “Now.”

  “Now? Are you serious?”

  “Yes, actually, I am. You impressed me in your diligence to find a simple bracelet for your client. You exposed a traitor working right in my midst. All of this you did while wearing the garbage from my dumpster. You made quite the impression.”

  “That man wasn’t a traitor,” I remind him. “He was a thief.”

  “Anyone who steals from my patrons while claiming to work for me, is a traitor. A traitor to me.”

  I can hear the intensity in his voice. He means every word, and he means it exactly as he said it.

  “You seem to be able to take care of your own business, Mister Chen. I can’t imagine why you’d want to see me.” I’m just glad I didn’t steal from the guy.

  “I would like to talk to you,” he says, “about engaging your services.”

  There are those big words he likes so much. “So… you’re looking to hire me?”

  “Precisely.”

  Now, in my career as a private investigator I actually have gotten job offers in the middle of the night before. Several times, actually. Just never from someone as well educated or well off as Arnie Chen. Usually, I’m dealing with drunks calling from a bar or people who just found out their lives are falling apart when they came home in the middle of the night and found their husband in bed with a stranger. This is… well, it’s kind of a nice change of pace.

  “Miss Stone?” I hear him say. “This is rather a time-sensitive matter. I’m afraid I’ll need your answer in the next thirty seconds.”

  Harry starts frantically waving his hands back and forth, trying to get my attention, mouthing the word ‘No’ very clearly. He definitely doesn’t want me having anything to do with Arnie Chen. Well, then maybe he shouldn’t have woken me up in the first place.

  “Twenty seconds, Miss Stone.”

  I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place. I need work, and here’s a client with lots of money who almost literally fell into my lap.

  A guy, I remind myself, who’s probably part of the organized crime scene here in Detroit…

  “Fifteen seconds.”

  Harry is still waving his hands at me, his eyes growing progressively wider.

  “Ten seconds.”

  Take a deep breath, I tell myself. What’s the worst that can happen?

  Another voice in the back of my head responds, famous last words.

  “Five seconds, Miss Stone.”

  I give Harry my very best I’m-a-big-girl stare, and then I give Mister Chen my answer. “I’ll be over in twenty minutes. Just you and me, I take it?”

  The hesitation from his end of the conversation lets me know that I’ve surprised him. Maybe he was expecting me to rush at his offer instead of making him wait, considering how he last saw me climbing out of his dumpster. Maybe he’s not used to people he hires asking him questions. Well. I’m not going to just run out in the middle of the night and meet a guy I hardly know without a little more information, first.

  “I will be the only one here,” he tells me. “However, if you are concerned, you are free to bring someone of your own choosing, as well. However this is not a party, Miss Stone. You may bring one person to ease your mind, and no one else.”

  Harry’s hand slaps down on the table, hard enough to make my phone jump. Me too.

  I look back up at him, and I see the look on his face. His jaw is set. His cheeks are flushed behind that sun-browned skin. There’s a laundry list of emotions in those eyes. He’s coming with me, and I’m not going to argue him out of it.

  “Miss Stone?”

  “Er, yeah. I’ll be there, Mister Chen. I don’t suppose you want to tell me what this is about before I come over?”

  “Hmm. No. Not over the phone.”

  Then the call disconnects with a little beep, and my screen displays the length of the call before going dark. Zero seconds.

  That’s strange. I mean, not any stranger than his name showing up on my display when I don’t have it programmed into my contact’s list. Maybe my phone is malfunctioning…

  “You take too many risks.”

  Harry’s words are a gentle rebuke. I shrug, and then readjust the sheet from showing off the side of my boob when it slips a little. “I take just the right amount of risks,” is what I tell him. “I mean, I took you in as a roommate, didn’t I?”

  “I,” he argues, “am a charming and very useful and, might I add, somewhat attractive genie who has proven to be both your humble servant and your friend.”

  “Somewhat attractive?” I tease him. I mean, has he looked in a mirror in the last century?

  “Yes. Well. I’m not in the habit of complimenting myself, but you know what I mean. I only want what is best for you. Li Qiang Chen is…”

  He trails off, the contempt in his voice finishing the thought for him even if I can’t hear it with my future-sense.

  I get up from the table, holding the sheet where it can do the most good, and start for the bedroom. I told Chen twenty minutes and that’s pushing it, even if the traffic in Detroit is slightly less nerve-wracking at three in the morning. I needed to get ready.

  “Should we…” Harry’s having real trouble finishing his sentences this morning. I’ve noticed that he does that when he gets upset. “Should we, perhaps, call Christian Caine and ask him to come along with us?”

  I’m almost to the short hallway that leads down to my bedroom when he says that. I stop and look back at him, my face screwed up with a disparaging smirk. “Uh, no. Are you kidding me? Christian’s a cop. Sometimes I think he was born a cop. If what we’re getting ourselves into here turns out to be maybe not so legal, then he’ll have no choice but to start making arrests and Chen won’t want to pay me for whatever he’s doing and then the next guy who was going to hire me says—” I dropped my voice and did my best impersonation of a Brooklyn gangster voice. “Well, I was going to hire yous, but now that I knows yous is friends with this here cop, I will be taking my business elsewheres.”

  Harry stares back at me blankly.

  “What?” I ask him. “That’s what gangsters sound like.”

  “Perhaps in the movies, but in my experience real gangsters sound just like everyone else.”

&nbs
p; That’s very true. It’s why it’s so hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. If every bad guy in the world talked like Christopher Walken or Alan Rickman, then life would be a whole lot easier.

  “Listen, Harry, we’re just going to go there, I’ll talk to Chen, I’ll find out what he wants to hire me for, and if it isn’t something I’m interested in taking on—”

  “Because it’s immoral and potentially illegal?”

  “—then I’ll tell him no thanks, and walk away,” I tell him, ignoring his little commentary. “Simple. Now, I’m going to get dressed because I see how distracting this sheet is for you and I think I’ll need us both to be focused when we meet Mister Chen. You stay here, okay? No genies in my bedroom is still a rule, and I don’t care if the Pope calls me this time.”

  “I understand, my lady.”

  I can feel his eyes following me as I turn away again. I’m glad I have a friend like him. No matter how crazy it is that one of my best friends is an almost all-powerful being with magical abilities, I like Harry. He’s a good guy.

  At the door to my bedroom I look back to find him heading from the table, to his rug. “Hey Harry? You’re more than somewhat attractive. Just wanted you to know that.”

  I close the door before he can do more than smile. I don’t tell the guy often enough how much he means to me. What’s a few compliments between friends?

  It doesn’t take me long to get dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved, blousy top. Not exactly business attire but I have a feeling I’m going to want to be comfortable for this particular meeting.

  Besides. The blouse is there to cover up the concealed holster on my belt.

  From my closet I take out the .38 pistol, giving it a loving stroke of my hand over the smooth metal of the barrel and the textured handle. I got this gun not long after I left my military service with the Marines. It molds to my hand, and it’s got the sweetest little kick when you squeeze it just right.

  Kind of like me.