THE CAR SHE DROVE TO work was a brand-new Mercedes S-series with cream guts. It belonged to a judge friend who had asked Dotty to sell it for her while she served a five-year sentence for taking bribes to alter criminal trial outcomes. Dotty hadn’t made time to sell it. The morning was the color of granite which matched the color of the overcast clouds, and the sun may not have been up. As she zipped around cars and pedestrians barely missing both, she thought about the explosion at Frankie’s apartment. Although the building had had leaks in the past, she kept wondering what Lynch did for the bishop and what had he did during that lonely trip back up to the apartment without Dotty. Coincidence, that’s all a dick hopes for to close a file, her mentor, old Donna Goldberg had said once. When you record a man walking out of a house carrying a gasoline can and then the house goes up in flames, that check is as good as yours. Except in that case, the man with the can was a state representative and his wife was inside; which had been an accident. It had taken ten-thousand-dollars to stop the state rep from pressing charges for Dotty trespassing and leaking the footage to the local media. Regardless, it was sound advice.
Continuing her deep thoughts about the eruption, Dotty parked in a loading zone in front of the building on Broad Street and spent some time deciding which placard she wanted to prominently display in her window to avoid a ticket and tow. She selected VISITING CLERGY and said, “How appropriate,” before she went into the building.
The gold letters on the wood doors to the floor where she worked read Goldberg Discreet Inquirers. The receptionist desk was shaped like a horseshoe and behind it was a male secretary who was really a guard in position to stop any crazies from coming in killing the investigator that exposed them. The glass coffee table was topped with spy and mystery magazines and paintings of fictional detectives covered the walls. It was an impressive sight which Dotty barely appreciated. She liked the old drab style before the makeover with PRESTIGE DETECTIVE AGENCY painted on the door.
The receptionist was in a tight suit and his muscles were about to pop the threads.
“Morning Jack,” Dotty said. “You ought to lay off the steroids and performance enhancement drugs. I can imagine how small your phallus has gotten.”
He didn’t look up from the Philadelphia Daily News. “Mr. Goldberg wants you in his office.”
“What he want this time around, my luscious body?”
“Just your heart. He asked me to send in the dickhead as soon as she shows up.”
“You’re kidding right? How’d you assume he meant me?”
“This agency is like a pair of trousers. Only one dickhead can fit in them at a time.” He turned the page.
She smiled and leaned into him, whispering, “The Roosevelt Inn rents by the hour. How ‘bout it?”
He finally looked up from the newspaper, frowned and gave her a look to kill. “How ‘bout a sexual harassment charge? A #MeToo moment.”
“Gym rats. Never a direct answer.” She shrugged and went through the door behind the desk.
She meandered down the short hallway fixing her clothes along the way. A cheap, barely pressed, business suit didn’t do much for her personality but it was the attire for the office. She checked her hair in a wall mirror, which was out of the ponytail and a strategic mess before she knocked on the bosses door. Dotty was wearing her lucky ascot, an expensive Versace number, which was left in the glove box of her judge friend’s car. She was serving time, so had no need for it.
“Come in, Dotty.”
The office was huge and decorated with a masculine tone, black carpet, white walls and a glass desk. A few awards were on the walls and windows on the south and west sides looked out on Arch and Broad Streets. On his desk was a framed photo of his dead wife who had started the agency with desires to be a dominant female private eye.
“Rumor has it that you wanted to see me, Mr. Goldberg?”
“I did at nine, but as usual you’re late.”
“There was a fire, well, an explosion in my apartment building. I could’ve died.” She clutched her heart.
“I had thought maybe your brother was sick again. Do you have a brother, Dotty?”
“He’s on death row in a state prison. Him and my dad had a flare up, a carving knife got involved. Last Thanksgiving dinner my family ever shared.”
The agency’s owner was sitting at his desk staring out of the window at the statute of Ben Franklin on the top of City Hall. The boss was the same height as Dotty but in great shape for early sixties. He wore contacts most times and cheap suits paired with clip-on ties. He finally looked at Dotty and frowned.
“Tell me about this morning, ma’am?”
“The fire? What about it?”
“Before the fire.”
Dotty wanted to run. She reached into her pocket for a toothpick and couldn’t find one. She wondered how many people watched her ushering a dead nun to a car.
“This morning, you mean?” she asked.
“You’re playing games. This morning, last night, you know what the hell I mean. When people with jobs to report to in the a.m. are sleeping. Just what do you think you were doing?”
“You’ve talked to Bishop Sinclair?”
“Who? You thought it best to jeopardize your job by calling me just after midnight asking about who I sleep with?”
“Who me?” Shock spread across her face.
Luscious Goldberg spun in his chair and stood up. He got close to Dotty, and clear gray eyes stared deeply at her. “Let me help jog your vodka-fogged memory since amnesia is your defense. Let’s play dumb-dumb games. I don’t appreciate you waking me up asking if I sleep with a blow-up doll.”
“Who did that?” She resisted the urge to laugh.
“You claimed to have a bet with a guy at the bar.”
“Oh my. Did I tell you the name of the bar?”
“That’s beside the point. What you do on your time is your business, thank the Lord, but when you involve me in your off the wall antics, I will put my foot so far up your ass, you’ll cough up shoe polish.”
“I was white girl wasted.”
“I wouldn’t know you sober. That’s part of the problem. No more drinking on my clock. That’s a new rule, you got that?”
“Oh, come on. I meet clients at bars. They’re depressed. We drink. It wouldn’t be polite for me not to drink with them.”
“Dotty, there’s always a pint of gin in your desk trash can and a fifth of vodka in your car’s armrest and I bet you have a flask in your left pocket right now. You’re a walking speakeasy. If a client invites you to drink, give them their money back. I hope that’s loud and clear.
“Goldberg does inquirers,” he added. “That means employee thefts, criminal background checks, look for missing teens. No divorces. No peeking in peepholes. And we do not photograph or blackmail adulterers.”
“Yes, sir.”
“When my wife died, her will demanded that I keep you on staff and I don’t know what she liked about you. There’s nothing to like. But I am prepared to have my lawyers help me break my wife’s will to toss you into the streets on your big ass. Last night’s little call almost had me there. You got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You say, ‘Yes sir,’ but I bet you’re really thinking, ‘to hell with you asshole,’ aren’t you?”
“No sir.”
“Then, you’re dumber than I surmised. That’s why you’re assigned to the file room.” He leaned closer. “I’m really a problem for you, Dotty. A bad nightmare. Every day I will have you in my office to piss you off forcing you to quit. Or. Please make it easy to fire you and deal with the courts to keep you out.”
“Yes, sir. Sir?”
“Oh my God. What?”
Dotty stood up. “So, did I win the bet? Blow-up dolls or not?”
“Get the hell outta my office.”
She got the hell out and found a toothpick.
5
En route to the file room, she bumped into Naim Butler. The Un
iversity of Pennsylvania Law School intern was rushing and dropped a file he was reading as he walked.
“If your head was up you would’ve seen me,” Dotty said. “You sign that file out? I doubt it because I’m here.”
“I will when I get back.” He was gathering papers from the floor. “I think I figured out who’s been stealing at the Century 21 department store.”
“You’re still working on thefts at a store with security?”
“Well, management believes security is in on the thefts.” Naim raised thick, bushy eyebrows eminently crafted for raising. He was in his late twenties, athletic, with jet black hair and bright brown eyes. “How’d you even know I was looking into the matter?”
“I am in charge of files. I read them. You’re wasting your time with the women. Scott Dempsey’s your guy.”
“So that you know, you’re not supposed to be poking your nose in the files. They’re confidential.”
“What am I supposed to do in that room? Look at porn on my cell phone? I read your file, too. You ought to take that girl seriously.”
He blushed. “That isn’t your business. Hold up, Queta’s not in my personnel record.”
“If all your dates were in human resources’ database, you’d be fired. Does Luscious teach you anything?” She smirked. “The office has ears though. I hear everything.”
Naim shifted gears. His home life wasn’t for the office. “So why Scott Dempsey? He’s the assistant head of security, why would he steal and risk his job? We’ve nailed Anita Brockingham ripping off the store five years ago, and she now works for them again.”
“Newsflash, we didn’t catch a soul. I caught the thieving bitch. It was just before Donna kicked the bucket and left Father Brass Balls to harass me. If you read the files and stop looking for red herrings, you’ll learn Dempsey has a side job. Maybe he steals and resells the items on E-bay or in the Amazon store. He could be vying for the head of security job. In order for that to happen the head has to go.”
“But how will I find out if he’s selling the goods, Dotty? I can’t get subpoenas, that you know.”
“What the fuck? You’re an investigator. Investigate. Tail him. Take photographs. Hack into his laptop from a remote location. I bet he has a broad he’s cheating on the wife with that wears a pink Chanel suit with a new tit job, both of which he paid for. It won’t be Caitlyn Jenner.”
“That has nothing to do with the theft. Mr. Goldberg says...”
“Who’s case is it? Yours or his?”
“Mine, but...”
Dotty put her arm around his shoulders. “Listen, buff guy,”—she squeezed his shoulders— “clients pay for answers and I assure you he’s spending the money on some broad. They all do. Find the girl, get the evidence, and get paid. Clients come back. Goosey Lucy’s ecstatic. Your recommendation letter is marvelous. Having integrity is for pussies.”
“I guess I can spy on him for a day or two. I have a new car, a Charger.”
“That’s all the equipment you need to track a person. Trust me, a woman has him risking his job. He’ll confess to the thefts to avoid a nasty divorce.”
“I hope this works.”
“Guts. It’s what got me where I am.”
“A file clerk.”
“Asshole.”
“Thanks, though Dotty. I don’t know why Mr. Goldberg wants you run over by an ambulance.”
“Screw him. He sleeps with blow-up dolls.” Dotty went on her merry way to the file room, severely proud of herself. It was like training dolphins at Sea World.
The file room was windowless, a former closet. It was filled with file cabinets, but Luscious had all the files recorded in a computer database. Dotty was sure Donna Goldberg didn’t approve of it, or the fact that Prestige Detective Agency had been using a pen name since her death. Her desk was a legendary Prestige piece with a chair that screamed in pain whenever she sat in it or swiveled in it. On top was the only black rotary phone left in America. First thing, she checked the wastebasket and found that her pint of Southern Comfort whiskey had been impounded. She took a swig of Wild Irish Rose bum wine from her pocket flask. She mixed her drink colors religiously, not doing so was for punks. Dotty was the youngest of two children from the union of a school janitor and school secretary in rural West Chester, Pennsylvania. The secretary skipped town and took all of the savings and a younger man with her. Dotty’s father hated his children afterward and beat them with the Bible as often as he could.
Daily.
Whatever she and her brother did wrong, it was fixed with advice that always began with, ‘The Bible says...’ Dotty couldn’t do anything right, and as soon as she turned seventeen she moved out of her father’s house, taking her a nice memento: her father’s prosthetic leg. He had lost the original one in a work-related accident. In Dotty’s mind, he couldn’t chase after her with Bible in hand without a leg to stand on. He had her arrested and the judge forced them to therapy. Dotty went to one session alone because her father refused to participate. She too was banned after she left with the psychiatrist’s Smith-Corona electric typewriter on her way out. For this, she was arrested a second time in a month, and all hope was lost.
Dotty, however didn’t imagine a fierce crime spree in her future as she wanted no parts of jail. Going to jail was a lovely deterrent for the wild teen. Her intimate knowledge of how criminals worked though gave her the foresight to become a private detective, since no police agency would hire her for her past thefts. She looked through the Yellow Pages for a detective agency that handled divorces. Her parents had been through one, and she knew how to spot the signs of a divorce lurking. Using her brand-new typewriter, she forged letters from three detective agencies in Miami for one reason only, they were really busy and she doubted they’d be available to confirm her employment especially since she left phony telephone numbers. Donna had hired her on the spot. When a cop Dotty was investigating for his wife, figured out that she was eighteen and a high school dropout, Donna Goldberg didn’t fire her. She gave her a raise. Besides, the cop’s wife paid a handsome boon for the goods to settle her divorce in her favor.
Over Thanksgiving dinner, Dotty’s father wasn’t impressed with her new job. Although he had forgiven her for stealing the leg, he called her names and guessed that she’d fail, pissing off her big brother, Donald. Donald was carving the turkey when an argument kicked up and he started carving the old man instead, killing him and lowering Black and Decker cordless electric knife stocks. He was found guilty by reason of insanity and currently at Norristown State Hospital for the criminally insane. Dotty told people he was on death row because it sounded more dangerous and he’d likely die there. With dad dead and her brother in jail, Dotty set to move back into the family home, but her mother reappeared and wanted to claim the house for her and lover boy. Dotty told her to shove the house up her ass and left after she flushed her mother’s dentures down the toilet. To Dotty there was nothing more exciting than divorce.
When the flask was dry, she stopped reminiscing, got off her ass and started filing. There was a short stack of folders on her desk and she peeked in them before placing them in file cabinets. She knew Luscious had all of the good files with the things that were of interest to her locked in his office. Until noon, she went out of her mind in the lonely room, drawing faces on pictures of Luscious in the desktop advertising calendar given to clients. Then, she went to lunch.
Her favorite bar was Moriarty’s Restaurant and Irish Pub on 11th and Walnut Streets. The bar was where she was headed. Despite the rain drizzling down, she didn’t mind the walk. Harry’s Bar was closer and inside of the Marriott Residence Inn Hotel, but she owed, Tommy, the bartender there. Moriarty’s had great food and a cheap lunch bar menu for the downtown suits that like to get loose on their lunch breaks like Dotty.
“Hey, Dotty, how you doin’? The usual?” Bebo, the one-eyed bandit, black, bartender who owned the place asked. He only worked the lunch crowd with his pit-bull, Puffy. It was at t
his time, he met the investors of his business. The restaurant and the low-key numbers racket he had going on with the South Philadelphia Irishman named, Two Roses Rob, supposedly half Italian and named for the two roses that he left at his three alleged murder scenes.
“Make it a double.” Dotty climbed into a stool. The pit-bull popped his head up from the hardwood floor behind the bar, spied Dotty, yawned, and went back to sleep.
Dotty fanned away the stench from Puffy’s yawn as Bebo dropped a shot of Seagram’s gin and a glass of Corona in front of her. “You need to put mints in the dog’s food.”
“I gotta stop letting him drink milk.”
Dotty demolished the shot and chased it with a gulp of beer. “Hit me, Bebo.”
“I can’t believe you’re here after last night. I was sure you were going to crash that Mercedes.” He refilled the shot glass with a little extra.
“Was I here?”
“You don’t remember. You danced on the bar. Security had to force you to get down. You then gave a lap dance to Two Roses Rob. That had to be scary.”
Dotty looked over her shoulder at Two Roses Rob who was doing a Sudoku puzzle. “Did I make a bet with him.”
“What bet?”
She turned back. “You see me make a call?”
“I don’t know how you could.”
“Did I leave around midnight?”
“Dotty, you came after midnight.”
“Do you know where I was before?”
Bebo shook his head. “You’re the detective asking me all of the questions.”
“This is crazy.”
“Must be some shit to lose the whole night.”
“I lost all of this year.” She knocked back the drink and chased it. “Hit me, again.”
“You missed Obama’s first inauguration, too, I bet.”
Dotty watched him pour. “How’d you lose your eye, anyway?”
“Dick was hard and I looked down too quick,” he said as the bar’s phone rang. He answered it. With a hand over the mouthpiece: “You here to meet a date named, Rodriguez?”
The Drunk Detective Page 3