by RA Chandler
“You willing to say this on film?”
"Why not, it doesn't matter that much anymore, not now. But I want some time to try and make it Mexico; you can do that for me can't you?"
“What about this place? Tapper's apartments."
“Give it to the girl, I’ll sign it over, just give me a day to get out of the US."
I wasn’t going to shoot him, and he'd killed a rapist and scum. It was his brother that killed women not him. I didn't see how Lucy was going to run an establishment like this, but l knew someone who probably could.
"Full confession with details, recorded on your phone.”
He nodded.
As the early birds chirped the morning chorus he set his phone up and sat back.
He started to talk and went on like one of those terrorist in an Al-Qaeda video. He went on in detail for an hour with days, date, times and place.
11
Sebastian and I waited three hours before we left the hotel on the mountainside. The sun was up by then and the drive down the hill was less imposing than the one up it. We got lunch; it was nice and not as greasy as it looked. The deputy sheriff made a show of greeting us at the café and asked us if we’d been doing surveying long. I had to kick Sebastian under the table to change his blank expression.
I called McKinley or more to the point I called his office and had an argument with his receptionist. It was when I mentioned murder that McKinley suddenly became free from his locked door meeting.
"This is McKinley,” a lazy voice said.
”I’m Garvey Fields, do I need to explain myself."
“I know who you are son; the thing in Seagate has been resolved without incident and only a small obituary."
“Okay well I'm about to leave, the two men that killed Marley One were Quinn the night manager at the Mayflower and his brother, used to be a fighter. Anyway the brother, Tapper, is dead, shot by his brother. He recorded a confession before he left; it’s on the reception desk."
“My boy you work fast, why did they do it?"
“Sibling love, they had a sister that Marley One did real bad,” I said.
“What about Quinn, is he on the run because I don’t want some douche reporter or county attorney looking to get promoted link him to me and my business."
“I have a feeling I know where he’s gone; it's not far from here."
"I’ll guess you want paying or your jobs back then, you deserve a bonus."
“I want to make a deal."
"What you think you have something over me boy?"
“The girl..."
“You want a girl?”
"No Lucy."
“You want her contract?"
“I want you to let her go."
“She's going to be a star."
No she’s not. You’re going to string her along whilst she balls your clients and slips away from her own soul."
“What's the trade?"
“Hotel out here just became vacant possession."
"Okay, I'm listening," McKinley said.
We ate our breakfast slowly because we weren’t in a hurry anymore, all urgency had gone. The deputy sheriff came again looking feverish.
“You okay joe,” asked the waitress as he sat down at the booth behind us.
“No Beatrice, we’ve just had an accident at the ravine.”
The deputy had his coffee and we drove on down the ravine. We drove a mile before we saw the fire engine and the mountain rescue team abseiling down the side of an old quarry where the barrier had bent enough to create gap like a yawing puppy.
A few hundred feet down was red mustang still on fire, crumpled and not so red anymore.
We drove until we reached Brooklyn.
If you enjoyed this book please read the preview that follows of The Trouble Business
THE
TROUBLE BUSINESS
R.A CHANDLER
1
From time to time I did work for other detective agencies, my reasons were varied, but it was usually money. I wasn’t bored when I got the phone call from Secrets Detective Agency, a firm that specialized in marital related investigations. The boss, Cortina Young, had worked with me before and understood my fees. I didn’t work for a day rate just a set fee depending on how long I expected the job to take. Half at the beginning and half on completion, if I was unsuccessful I’d returned the initial fee minus expenses. I didn’t bring nasty surprises, didn’t go to strip clubs or the associated services and I didn’t have a drinking or drug problem. I provided receipts without being asked and full detailed reports related to the job. Besides that she had a receptionist, who acted as a honey pot that I wanted to conquer like a mountaineer climbing Everest. She did the mean face thing that simply made her more alluring, more desirable.
Cortina’s office was in Manhattan at 33 Thomas Street, not too far from the African burial ground monument. Some didn’t like 33 Thomas Street, but I thought of it as a brutalism masterpiece. There was something honest about it, it was built for a purpose and it was its future masters that had changed this. It had no windows and appeared to be a façade of flat concrete slabs reaching into the sky. John Carl Warnecke had designed it to house telephone switching equipment and it resulted in a building with the highest ceilings in New York. Of course, with the added bonus of being able to survive nuclear fallout for up to two weeks after a blast. It was ironic that a detective agency that specialized in catching or enticing people into cheating would hole up in one of the most secure buildings in the country outside of the Pentagon and the Whitehouse.
I was designing a small house and mused over the idea that when away I could have concrete slabs rise up out of the ground. I’d moved away from the idea because it was impractical and I once read that there is a law of attraction when one tries to guard against something. To guard too much is to suggest you have something worth being deprived of.
I walked up the steps and through what appeared to be the only glass in the building, its front doors. The lobby was as minimalist as the building was brutalist, nice parquet flooring, simple wall art and a big yacht of a front desk with reception staff that could have passed for FBI agents. After a brief unsmiling interview I was given a visitors pass, that I suspected had a tracking device in it and directed to a lift without buttons. I was taken to the fifth floor and a computerized voice told me to get out in a polite but firm tone. I was met at the lift by a Lauren London looking woman who was light skinned but not what my late grandmother would call red or yellow boned but more cinnamon. She had a clipboard and serious expression to go with her black hair extensions, black skirt suite and a white blouse at war with its occupants.
Just because she was doing a mean face I decided to step forward to see if she would hold her ground. She did but more out of surprise than any test of will, I would call her look startled, but beautiful women shouldn’t frown unless they can follow through with the premises that they are fearless. I took another step forward so that we were touching as much one can fully dressed. It wasn’t professional, appropriate or respecting of her personal space, but all she had to do was step back, push me away, cuss me out or show me a sign of some kind that she wasn’t a willing participant.
“Georgia?” a husky voice called from inside.
“Yes Cortina?” she said stepping back, cocking her head to one side, doing something with her mouth as though she was thinking something over.
“Confident ain’t ya?” she said in her Staten Island drawl.
“I’ve been here maybe five times and that’s the most you’ve ever said to me.”
“Never had a reason to talk, know what I mean?”
“Georgia,” Cortina’s voice sounded again.
“I’m coming,” she responded still like at me now smiling. She turned and I followed her into a room with very high ceilings and kitted out like John Hamm’s office in Mad Men.
“Cortina Young was Victoria Silvstedt in every way to look, but when she opened her mouth she sound like s
he came from New Jersey. She was tall without her heels on, in her mid-forties, blonde and heavy chested without an ounce of body fat. She was nice to look at if that was your thing, but had the brain of a rocket scientist.
2
The story goes that she was a housewife who’d given up promising career in engineering to get married and have a couple of kids. The husband was a college lecturer in chemistry who earned enough to support the family comfortably. Every now and again he taught the more enterprising students how to make a special white powder and took a little kick back; she knew about it but didn’t mind as long as he didn’t bring it home. Then one day she contacted me and asked if I would work pro bono and she’d pay me out of a divorce settlement. Of course she suspected he was cheating and she was right, it had been the ultimate betrayal. She sent the kids to her mothers, took some of the family savings, had surgery and upgraded her wardrobe one rung below slut attire.
Now most wives in her position might have showed their husbands what they were missing and divorced their ass. Not Cortina, she wanted to prove that she’d been a housewife because she wanted to and not because that was all she could be. So she offered some local dealers better product, paid them to have sex with his mistress who was keen on the financial rewards offered by Cortina. He was tied up and forced to watch a gang of men team up on his slut side piece. Then served him with papers after she walked into the warehouse where he sat on a chair sniveling.
After that she quit the drug game and started an agency with some of her profits. Her kids were in college; she reportedly had twenty million in the bank and specialized in what she called affirmative recalibration. This meant she set her clients up with surgery at a cosmetic company she had a 75% stake in. The idea, apart from making money, was that her clients could show their philandering husbands what they were missing before they missed it. I’d also know a few husbands use her services to have a wife catch them cheating so they could activate a prenup.
“Garvey,” she said standing, hugging me and kissing me on both cheeks. I was as attracted to this woman as I was scared of her brain. She was wearing a tailored white dress suit and kitten heels. My Lauren London fantasy went to her station and started doing something on a computer and I followed Cortina to her office.
I’d be getting Georgia’s phone number before I left.
3
I need a man,” she said. She was sitting behind a black glass desk with an LCD display, it was a new installation. I was thinking maybe it was a Microsoft Table computer. Although most of the desk was a glass computer like the control desk in Oblivion, there was a wooden element and it was perfectly organized. It was a desk set that comprised of a nice black leather stationery and letter rack, a black leather business card holder, a black leather paper tray, a very chic leather desk blotter pad and a leather pencil and pen pot. Everything was black and leather and all sent over from England by Aspinal’s. That was another one of her vices apart from treating her body literally like a palace was to indulge herself in the finer things. Usually made out of leather.
“You don’t need a man, not unless you’re bored and I wouldn’t be the right man for you, white girls scare the shit out of me.”
“I need a man for a job,” she said as she stretched her arms out and examined her manicured nails.
“Okay,”
“You know before that bastard husband of mine cheated on me I’d never had my nails done; now I can barely last a week. I need a good looking man who is straight. The boys I tend to hire are usually gay; there good for outing husbands who like to step out for some sausage know what I mean?”
“I need a man,” she said again. “He needs to ooze machismo, good looking enough to make a woman with a bit of class who would want him on sight, but tough enough to throw down and trade blows with a Mac truck. I need a man comfortable in his own skin with the oratory skills of Obama, only better.”
“Easy,” I said. “You want Trey Songz, Denzel Washington and Taye Diggs. How could any woman resist that combination?”
“I think you might fit the bill, although to be fair you’re more Idris Elba” Cortina said.
“I’m a detective not the fucking Dark Knight,” I said. I often got annoyed when people tried to get me to do things that I felt disrespected my talents. Picking up women was a seedy short term enterprise, and seeing as I seemed to fall in love with every woman I slept with I didn’t think it good for my mental health.
“There’s some of that involved too, besides I know you clean up nice and you’re hung like a Shire horse. Its $1000 a day plus expenses, that includes a business class flight. I’m a broker in this deal; it’s outside the remit of my usual assignments. You know me; I’m into smooth jobs with limited outcomes and even more limited comeback on me and my staff. You know were offering a confrontation service where we send security with the spouse as she presents evidence to the soon to be ex-husband. It’s our way of avoiding domestic abuse.
“For those that can afford it,” I said. I liked her, as well as I knew her, but that didn’t make me want to trust her. She offered a service, but it wasn’t for all women, just those who were already privileged. Her services were a luxury item like a Luis Vuitton bag or Maybach she always had waiting to chauffer her off to clients who wanted a more personal service.
“We all have our niche, Georgia come in here please.”
Georgia came into the office clipboard ready and pen poised.
“Georgia what do you think of Garvey?”
“Six-three, two hundred fifty pounds, body fat around ten percent, appears to be named after a great pan-African rouser of people and agriculture.”
“Do you find him attractive?”
She looked at her employer, then at me and back to her employer,” I don’t understand,” she said finally.
She looked at me again and I offered a smile like someone would receive a stiff drink before diving off a bridge with a bungee rope attached to their ankles.
Her high cheekbones went a little red, “would you like me to right a report mam, if I were to take a picture I could…”
“I’d like you to answer the question,” Cortina pushed.
“I don’t have enough information.”
“You may go now…” Cortina said finally dismissing her.
Georgia bit her lip, looked at me like I had wounded her and sashayed her round ass out of the office. I enjoyed watching her leave.
“Good, at least I know you can be as effective as you want to be.”
“How?” I said.
“She is one of the most confident, self-opinionated young ladies that I have ever paid to work for me. And you had her so she wouldn’t answer my question, she hates writing reports.”
“Okay, apart from making me want to get at your secretary, why am I here or are you going to do some complicated Pilates for me?”
“Don’t be a pig.”
“Then get to the point.”
“I need you to dirty the name of a girl with ‘fuck me now’ eyes; she works for a couple of gangland brothers…”
“New York?”
“Yeah, they sent her after some kind of hedge fund agent’s son; she’s got her hooks in deep.”
“What do I need to do to her; I ain’t a prostitute, just to be clear.”
“It’s a little bit mean, you need to dig up dirt on her, you know police records, videos on porn sites and then throw it in her face. If she hasn’t got a corruptible past I guess it’s up to you. I’m sure every now and again you play things by ear.”
“Who are the gangsters and banker?”
“Percales Twins.”
I thought about getting up and leaving, that was why she’d taken her time explaining things; the twins had a reputation long and loud enough to warn most men off. The thought passed, I wanted to build by little Japanese interpretation house, for that I needed money to pay for the groundwork, kit and general contractors.
“Of course there may be some trouble involved,” C
ortina said. “I’ve never heard of the twins having people knocked off in public, they may converse with you and if you displease them they may ace you. That said I would try and stay low key.”
“Babe, I’m in the trouble business,” I said. I usually got $550 per day for this kind of job, which is why I didn’t usually do them “At least I know why it’s $1000 a day to do the job, I’ll do it for $1750 and take no longer than five days.”
“Garvey, you’re eating into my margin,” she whined.
“Please, this job is chump change to you and you’re probably already making ten times as much on this job as me. If you want cheaper you’ll find it, but if you want as good as me you’ll pay at least $200 an hour.”
I stood, “it was nice seeing you gain and you look great.”
I’d learnt that life could be gone in a moment and it didn’t really have a tangible value, so you used it in a way that made sense. Working for less than I’d asked for didn’t make any sense. Messing with the twins was an easy way to get killed; they had associates all over the place, short fuses and a moral code that only worked in one direction. They had a mansion out in East Hampton and liked to deal with all things in a classy way, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t enforce street law and pop a cap in your ass to restore or maintain their stately social order. If I went in and spent too long in the lion’s den they would notice me, ask questions about me and act upon any perceived threat they concluded on. I was a threat, always; they’d know it and I’d get one chance to back off and I’d be lucky if they asked nicely the first time.
“Sit down, it’s done,” she said smiling at me with a set pearlescent teeth gleaming like a telecommunication sent deep into space. “Girl had to try, I like haggling, but next time start higher than you expect to get.”
“Who’s the target?” I said sitting back down, she had nice couches so I didn’t mind so much.