Upside Down

by John Ramsey Miller

  “Millie excited about the trip to New Orleans?”

  “Ask her yourself,” Hank said, rising from his chair.

  As Hank's wife and Sean crossed the room together, Winter was aware of men's heads turning, their eyes following Sean. With her height, shoulder-length raven hair, almond-shaped golden eyes, slim build, and elegant features, she looked like a model. He stood and pulled a chair back from the table for her. Hank went to do the same, but Millie waved him off and seated herself. “It's much too late to make anybody believe you're a gentleman, Hank Trammel.”

  Millie Trammel was five-one, weighed maybe ninety pounds, and wore her hair in a salt-and-pepper pageboy.

  “Winter, I was just telling Sean you'll have to bring Rush and come out and have dinner with us when we get back. Next Saturday.”

  “So tell us about the trip,” Winter asked Millie.

  “It sounds exciting,” Sean offered. “New Orleans is wonderful this time of year.”

  “We're leaving from Greensboro, which saved us a fortune, and getting in around three this afternoon. A friend of Hank's, Nicky Green—”

  “You've heard me talk about Nicky,” Hank interrupted. “Nicky's the one put the skunk in—”

  “Please,” his wife interrupted, “not that story again. He's only going to be there for one night.”

  “Millie only acts like she doesn't like Nicky. He's a laugh a minute.”

  “I can like Nicky for one night every few years. Actually he means well. He's just a little odd.”

  “Eccentric,” Hank said. “He's a private eye. Works mostly for oil companies, that sort of thing. They kinda like his eccentricities, and he does good work. Travels all over the world.”

  “I recall you talking about him,” Winter said.

  “And you need to meet him one of these days real soon. His father was my commanding officer in Nam—boy grew up on Army bases. Nicky's forty, I think. Was a Western nut from childhood. Always wanted to live in the Wild West, and he used to get me to tell him all about what it was like growing up on the ranch. He did a four-year stint with the Army, but he didn't fit. Now he lives outside Houston, in Big Spring.”

  “He's an urban cowboy who's never ridden a horse in his life,” Millie declared. “He has the accent and he dresses like he just stepped off the stage at the Grand Ole Opry.”

  “He drives a '65 Caddy convertible and he rides a Harley some. He's allergic to horses,” Hank said defensively.

  “He's bald, right?” Winter asked.

  “From childhood,” Millie said. “There's a name for it.”

  “Profeema, or propizza, or something,” Hank offered.

  “Alopecia,” Sean said.

  “No brows, not even any eyelashes,” Millie continued. “It takes some getting used to. He looks surprised all the time. Always has a toothpick in his mouth, like he's just had a steak dinner. Awful.”

  “Well, it keeps him from smoking,” Hank said. “How many people would put a skunk in the window of a motel room to flush out a cheating wife and her paramour?” He laughed as he thought about it. “Pair of 'em come out the door naked as baby mice and stinking to high heaven of skunk pee. Has it on video. I've seen it.”

  “So after a fun-filled night spent with Nicky reliving his experiences once again, we'll be spending the rest of the time with Kimberly and Faith Ann.”

  “Rush is very fond of Faith Ann,” Sean said.

  “If he told us to ask you to tell her hello for him once, he said it a hundred times,” Winter told the Trammels.

  “And Faith Ann's real fond of him,” Millie said, chuckling. “That girl doesn't make friends easily. She's so independent and smart, it puts off most children her age. Kimberly was the same way. Knows what she wants. She wanted a child, but she didn't want a husband to complicate her life. She wanted to be able to pick up and go wherever her work led her.”

  “The Kimberly Porter Electric Chair Crusade and Traveling Sideshow,” Hank said, drawing a frown from his wife.

  “They've lived in interesting cities, like Houston, Dallas, Nashville, and New Orleans. It hasn't hurt Faith Ann one little bit,” Millie said.

  “Faith Ann has a built-in bullshit meter that would turn a seasoned Texas Ranger green with envy,” Hank added.

  “Hank Trammel!” Millie chided.

  “Rush can't wait for her to come back up this summer. They instant message daily, e-mail constantly. He's been planning things for them to do,” Sean said.

  “We won't be here this summer,” Winter reminded his wife.

  “Rush and I have discussed that. Hank and Millie can bring her to Washington and stay with us. I'm sure she'd like to see the Smithsonian, the Air and Space Museum, the White House. It'll be fun.”

  “We would love to do that,” Millie said. “That child's too energetic for me alone.”

  “Let's plan on it, then,” Sean said. “How's Kimberly's practice doing?”

  “She's struggling a bit, I think,” Millie said.

  “Kimberly Quixote,” Hank said. “Always looking for a windmill to tilt at. And dragging Faith Ann along to hold the spear.”

  “Lance,” Millie corrected. “I'm not always sure how I feel about things like capital punishment. But Kimberly has always known exactly how she feels about everything. She's an immovable object when it comes to her convictions. She isn't always hitting you over the head with her opinions, like some people.”

  “Her legal cases barely cover her living expenses. Soon as she starts getting herself a reputation—and she does win more than she loses—she moves somewhere else and starts over on sexual harassment or age discrimination or some danged liberal cause.”

  “I think it's good for Faith Ann to understand that believing strongly in something like justice is far more rewarding than making money practicing more profitable kinds of law,” Millie countered. “And Faith Ann has never wanted for anything.”

  Hank told Winter, “All the Porter women since Texas belonged to Mexico have been cute as puppies, smart as whips, and as thickheaded and set in purpose as a mule lashed to a grist wheel.”

  Winter noticed Sean was being quiet, smiling but seemingly caught up in her own thoughts.

  The waitress came to the table to take their orders. Hank contemplated the girl and leaned back slightly. “I knew this waitress once who reminds me of you. She wore a perfect three-carat diamond stud in her nose that an oilman gave her for a tip. Oh, it would catch the sun and would light up like a prairie fire. And this was before having things stuck through the side of your nose was at all common.”

  “That so?” the girl said flatly.

  “Hank?” Millie's voice carried a note of warning.

  “Well, one day at a chili cook-off at the state fair she went to sneeze, pinched her nostrils shut, and that diamond stud shot across the field like a bullet. Bunch of us got down on our hands and knees spent all afternoon searching through the grass for that rock.”

  “Hank, that's a terrible story,” Millie groaned, shaking her head.

  “But it has a happy ending.”

  “You found the diamond?” the waitress wondered.

  “Heck no. She got the insurance she kept up on it and bought herself a pickup truck and a padded steel barrel and became a rodeo clown. But best of all, that hole in the side of her nose grew back in so you'd never guess it was ever there,” Hank said, winking at her.

  “I think we best order now,” Millie said.

  “Yep, the noon rush will be starting up any minute,” Hank said.

  “I meant while we still have appetites,” Millie said, frowning.

  4

  Paulus Styer sat alone at a table twenty feet from where the two men and their wives were eating lunch. His gray ponytail hung over the collar of his button-down shirt. He tapped his fingers softly on the table and stared down at a folded newspaper beside his bowl of chili. Although he appeared to be reading and listening to music through earphones leading to a Walkman resting on the table before h
im, the small tape machine was actually an extremely sensitive, narrow-field listening device picking up everything the two couples said. After they finished eating, he followed them out, passing by them as they were saying their good-byes on the sidewalk.

  Styer was a lifelong competitor whose professional life consisted of one chess match after another, and like any grand master worth his salt he was always plotting his assault on the next king he was sent after. He had been at this match, doing his own last-minute daily field study, for a solid week. That week had come only after studying his opponent's dossier, which had been gathered from every source imaginable by the best researchers and analysts in the world. He had spent two weeks prior to arriving in the United States studying those files, committing them to memory. The research phase was necessary to complete an assignment and assure his success. His style of working an assignment was time-consuming, but his success ratio ensured that he had free rein to be as self-indulgent as he liked. What was Trammel's word for this Nicky Green fellow? Eccentric. Oh yes, Paulus Styer was eccentric. Why work if it wasn't fun? What was the point of walking up to someone and putting a pill in the back of their head—running an awl through their medulla? An ex-marine could do that sort of thing for ten thousand dollars a hit. When you were paying for perfection, you wanted a guaranteed elimination, and cost was a secondary consideration. Paulus Styer, lovingly referred to as Cold Wind, was your man.

  A block away, he climbed into his rented car and opened his laptop. Seconds later he was on the Internet, via cellular modem, accessing his e-mail account.

  There was an English text message waiting.

  Please furnish ETA on next delivery.

  He hit Reply and clicked inside the message box:

  Going to New Orleans. Advise client that the job will be completed in the next few days. Require immediate file on Nicky Green / a private investigator from in or near to Houston, Texas. I require two unconnected heavy-lifting assistants and an assorted #9000 tool kit plus vehicle on arrival. Flying this afternoon / Direct flight arrives in New Orleans around 4:00 this day from Greensboro, NC.

  He closed the computer. Terrorists had made it virtually impossible for a legitimate, hardworking professional to travel with the tools of his trade. Having to have his weaponry delivered to the job sites was a maddening inconvenience.

  He had spent several weeks in New Orleans four years earlier after an assignment which left him with wounds to mend. He chose New Orleans in order to listen to some Dixieland and to tour the places of interest he had read about. He had enjoyed himself and was glad he was returning there to work. The city would be a perfect environment for a hunt. He was tempted to charter a flight and beat them to New Orleans, but he decided it would be best to stay close to the Trammels and begin setting up the board.

  A cold wind blows in the City of the Dead.

  5

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  Arturo Estrada was on cloud nine as he strolled into the River Club, where the cleaning crew was hard at work getting the place ready for the Friday-night crowd. His client, Jerry Bennett, was a short man who resorted to a girdle to hold back his expansive gut because he was too lazy to do the exercise that remaining trim required. Bennett sat at a table near the main bar, doing business with a woman who appeared to be a sales representative. There was an open sample case beside her leg, and several open bottles of wine stood on the table, along with stemware for sampling. Bennett saw Arturo, but he ignored him the way he might any other employee.

  Arturo strolled straight back to the office in the rear. Jerry Bennett wasn't technically his boss, but he paid Arturo a seventy-five-thousand-dollar yearly retainer in cash that included odd jobs like making more difficult collections, plus a generous bonus for jobs like the one Arturo had performed that morning. In a good year, Arturo made a hundred and fifty thousand dollars from his one client. For difficult assignments, Arturo picked a partner and Mr. Bennett paid the tab. It had been a good relationship for five years, mostly because Arturo had always achieved positive results and Bennett had never once tried to stiff him.

  After Arturo had spent ten minutes cooling his heels in the expansive office, Jerry Bennett strolled in. Although his face was the hue of burnished copper, the white skin on his neck and the backs of his hands gave away the fact that his tan was pancake. The collection of fur-thick black hair of his toupee didn't match the mixture of gray and brown chest hair framed in the V of his perfectly starched white shirt. Arturo supposed that nobody had ever mentioned he looked like a silly old woman who made an effort to retain a youthful appearance but only managed to fool herself.

  “Mr. Estrada, I have to go right back out there. I'm considering changing the house Merlot. And, with a nice enough order, I might just get a slice of that little wine representative. A vixen, a vixen for sure.”

  Arturo wasn't sure what a vixen was, but he assumed it had to do with sexual acts. “Good-looking sales rep. And she can give you an alibi for this morning, Mr. Bennett. Not that you need one . . . now.”

  Bennett's gray eyes blazed with excitement. “You found Amber! You did, didn't you? And you got them back?”

  In answer, Arturo reached a gloved hand inside his coat, slipped the curved envelope out, and placed it on the desk. Bennett opened the flap and slid the photographs out just far enough to see the top one. Then he counted the corners to make sure they were all there.

  “I caught up to her at some lady lawyer's office. The lawyer didn't make copies.”

  “You're sure?”

  “Absolutely. I came in before she made any. I looked around. I don't know what Amber told her, but I know she was there only a couple minutes alone with her. It is possible the lawyer called somebody, but it won't matter, since you have everything back.”

  “Why did she take it to a lawyer?”

  “I found out from one of the girls at the Moonbeam that Amber might be staying with a friend of hers named Erica Spicer. Erica was real helpful. She told me Amber was going to sell those to some lady attorney who's representing the man who's going to die for whacking the judge.”

  Bennett searched his mind for a name. “Kathy Porter?”

  “It was Porter. I guess—”

  “Kimberly,” Bennett interrupted. “Kimberly Porter?”

  Arturo nodded. “I guess since the blackmail thing didn't pan out, the lawyer was Amber's last shot at cashing in.”

  Bennett nodded slowly. “Yeah, that was the only move left. Myself, I'd have gone to the FBI with it, but that Porter bitch would have waved those papers in front of television reporters and then handed them to the FBI.”

  “She told me what building Amber was going to—”

  “Who told you?”

  “Erica, Amber's pal. I almost caught up to Amber before she went in. I had to wait until the janitor left the lobby. He never saw me and there's no security cameras there.”

  Bennett narrowed his eyes. “What about her pal Erica?”

  “She had a little kitchen accident involving a toaster oven and some spilled milk.”

  “Good work, Arturo. As always. You're the best, kid. With the one notable, close-to-home exception.”

  Marta. Arturo's heart dropped. “None of my business, sir, but I'd destroy those,” he said, gesturing at the envelope. “Souvenirs like those could prove very expensive.”

  Bennett raised an eyebrow. Then he unlocked and opened a desk drawer and removed a thick envelope, which he handed to Arturo. “I added what I owe Marta.”

  “The police have probably found them by now,” Arturo said. “The lawyer mentioned she had some volunteers or other coming in.”

  “Yeah,” Bennett said thoughtfully. “Executions bring bleeding-heart pricks out of the woodwork. You earned your bonus. Take a few days and kick back. Bring a date to the club and dance. Invite Marta Ruiz. Class up the place.”

  “She doesn't like noisy rooms.” He started to leave but turned at the door. “Marta didn't find Amber,” Arturo said. “I did
. I guess her fee was a waste after all.”

  “Well, Marta didn't find Amber, but she did handle some unpleasantness this morning. I wish I could afford to employ her full-time. It's nice to know she's around for the big jobs.”

  Arturo felt the burn of jealousy. It was a bitch the way everybody overestimated Marta's ability. She was good, but not as good as her reputation. The thing he did was man's work. People weren't afraid of Marta, she had no presence. It wasn't her who got Amber's evidence.

  Arturo left the office knowing that Bennett was a seriously bent gear, and he was far too attached to his filthy old pictures to ever destroy them. Not that Arturo gave a damn. What Bennett did or didn't do about those had nothing to do with him.

  6

  Faith Ann Porter sat cradling her backpack to her chest as the streetcar made its way up St. Charles Avenue. Faith Ann and Kimberly had lived in New Orleans for a little more than a year. She stared down at the damp knees of her jeans and thought about her mother, whose blood was staining her clothes and skin. How many times the two of them had ridden those few miles together during the past months. Sometimes they rode the streetcar for the sheer pleasure of the experience, sometimes because the five-year-old Dodge Neon had some problem. Faith Ann knew the transportation routes, because weeks before she had moved here she'd gathered as much information on New Orleans as she could so she wouldn't be a stranger. Research, her mother always told her, was crucial preparation.

  Faith Ann felt an involuntary tear rolling down her cheek. She swiped it away with the back of her hand. She didn't have time to feel sad. She looked out the window to see where she was. Just one more stop. Faith Ann wondered if she should go to school, act like nothing had happened, and wait for the principal to send for her. She imagined herself walking into the office, where two cops would be standing there to inform her that some crackhead had murdered her mother along with some big-breasted client named Amber Lee.