A Killer's Kiss

by William Lashner

  Barnabas.

  My stomach turned again until it twisted into a knot.

  “They came tonight,” said Derek. “The police. A swarm of them, like bees, and burned it to the ground.”

  “The police burned it down?”

  “That’s the way it played.”

  “Barnabas was running an illegal juke joint,” I said. “The police were trying to close it down. I’m sorry to see this—Barnabas’s goat is terrific—but what does that have to do with me?”

  “It not about the club,” said Antoine. “They wasn’t there about the club.”

  “Then what were they after?”

  “Jamison,” said Antoine.

  “They were asking everyone about him,” said Derek. “Who he was. Who he worked for. Where he could be found. They didn’t look so friendly, bo. They didn’t look like they was going to pin some medal on his chest.”

  “Did they find him?” I said.

  “Nah, mon,” said Antoine. “And when it come clear that they not, that no one be giving that bwoy up, they cleared the place, and that’s when the fire it started.”

  “Is everyone okay?” I said.

  “Everyone got out,” said Derek. “But Barnabas lost the club. And he couldn’t stop asking about the man in the suit who came in just one day before the police.”

  “I get the idea,” I said, and I did. “It doesn’t make any sense. Where’s Jamison now?”

  “Gone,” said Antoine. “And whatever it was he told you that night, that’s gone, too. You going to forget it happened.”

  “Jamison is the alibi for a woman who is facing life in prison,” I said.

  “He not catching on so quick,” said Antoine to Derek. “Didn’t you tell me he was clever, bwoy?”

  “I must have been overestimating him,” said Derek.

  “That don’t seem so hard,” said Antoine.

  Antoine turned around in the front seat and stared right at me with those dark glasses of his. “Now, here’s the story as it concerns you, Mr. Victor Carl. The folks that Jamison was selling for, they are not happy that Jamison is on the run. He was a good bwoy for them. And they are not happy that Barnabas’s place it burned down, because they liked his curry. And they are not happy that them police are storming their corners and asking questions. And for this they blame me, and they blame Derek, and most of all they blame you.”

  “It’s the second part of that what’s really troubling, if you ask me,” said Derek.

  “So this is not just suggestion that you leave this alone,” said Antoine.

  “It’s a threat,” I said.

  He leaned toward me, slapped a big mitt on my ear, grabbed my face, and pulled it close to his. “There you go, mon,” he said. “There you go.”

  I grabbed onto his wrist, like grabbing onto a metal fence post. “I get it,” I said. “I get it, I get it.”

  He gave me another quick slap and then turned around to face front again. “So now you know. You want us take you to them who are not happy? You need them to deliver the request in face-a-face?”

  “No,” I said.

  “That was the first smart thing came out from your lips all night,” said Derek.

  “And you also should be knowing, Victor Carl,” said Antoine, “that the bwoy assigned to enforce all this is me. So I want to be able a report back that the message it was sent and that Jamison is no longer mess up in that thing.”

  “Okay,” I said meekly.

  “You leave this alone, Mr. Victor Carl, or someone going a get a licking, that’s for sure.”

  “Just so long as it ain’t me,” said Derek, “then you can do what you want.”

  “Understood?”

  “Understood,” I squeaked.

  “Good,” said Antoine. “Now we all be buddies again. Pull over there, D.”

  “Here?”

  “Fine. I be back in a minute. No slip-ups, right?”

  “No, sir,” I said.

  Antoine nodded as he opened the door, left the car, headed into an alley, and disappeared.

  “You’re one dumb son of a bitch,” said Derek. “You just lucky I was here to save your ass.”

  “Funny, I don’t feel lucky.”

  “This isn’t the way they wanted to handle it, but I convinced them you were some big-shot lawyer with City Hall connections and that killing you would bring down serious heat.”

  “You lied for me, Derek? That’s almost sweet.”

  “Yeah, it is, isn’t it? Especially since you still haven’t paid me for the other night.”

  “Show up tomorrow and I’ll write you a check.”

  “No check, bo. Cash.”

  “Fine. Is Jamison going to be okay?”

  “Thanks to you, he’s on the run. But he has family in the South, and he’s on his way to visit as we speak. He’ll be gone a long while.”

  “I suppose that’s good,” I said. “For Jamison.”

  “And for you, too.”

  “But not for my old girlfriend.”

  “See, that’s the beauty of old girlfriends,” said Derek. “No matter how much they mean to you, everyone else just don’t give a damn.”

  “The cops who stormed the club,” I said. “Do you have any idea who they were? Were they narcotics agents, L&I people?”

  “Was a mess of cops swarming the place,” said Derek. “But the leader and the one asking the questions was a little guy in a flash suit.”

  “I get the idea,” I said.

  “He was handing out his card like he was looking for a date. Asking anyone who found Jamison to give him a call. He was real determined like.”

  “I bet he was,” I said.

  It didn’t make any sense, I couldn’t yet see the reasoning behind it, but what had happened was pretty clear. Sims hadn’t just come for Jamison, he had come for me, too, throwing me headfirst into deep, shark-infested waters. I couldn’t tell if I was more angry or more scared, but I was sure more something.

  “You know, Derek,” I said, “I should be happier than I am right now, seeing as how I’ve just been totally screwed.”

  23

  When I stepped into my office a few hours later, my mind thick with the syrup of sleep deprivation, it took me a moment to take in the scene.

  “Oh, it was quite a night, yes it was,” said Derek as he leaned on my secretary’s desk. “You should come join Derek some evening. He’ll show you a time. You don’t know what you’re missing by not partying with Derek.”

  “I have a pretty good idea,” said Ellie without looking up from the papers on her desk. “And Ellie doesn’t date anyone who refers to himself in the third person.”

  “There won’t be no third person,” said Derek. “Only me.”

  “Hello, Derek,” I said. “A little early, isn’t it?”

  He swiveled his head and smiled. “Never too early for collections, bo,” he said before turning back to Ellie. “So what you say?”

  “I already said it,” said Ellie. “You have a few messages, Mr. Carl. And a visitor who decided to wait instead of coming back, which indicates to Ellie that there is not much going on in his life.”

  “Derek’s got patience, is what he’s got,” said Derek.

  “Leave her alone,” I said as I stepped up to the desk to grab my messages. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Derek, but I’m going to have to go to an ATM to get your payment.”

  “Okay,” he said, backing off. “Can’t blame a man for trying. But, bo, you got any new magazines or what? I already read these dogs. And you could use something with a little spice. Maxim, maybe. I hear all the best law firms, they subscribe to Maxim.”

  “You read it just for the articles, I suppose.”

  “They got articles? By the way, if you want, I’m available for lunch.”

  “That’s an upset,” said Ellie.

  “Derek likes them sassy,” said Derek.

  “Ellie, can you get me Detective McDeiss on the phone without telling the secretary who w
ants to talk to him?”

  “Of course.”

  “If she needs a name, tell him it’s Prentice from the mortuary. And if Derek keeps hitting on you, you have my permission to staple his hand to your desk.”

  “That’s cold, bo,” said Derek. “After what I done for you last night.”

  “Next time you visit my apartment, Derek, knock,” I said as I passed Ellie and slipped into my office.

  I went through the messages quickly, the usual crap, clients calling to complain about their cases, prosecutors calling to complain about my filings, copier salesmen trying to sell me copiers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there was a message that pushed a shiver down my spine: “Mr. Trocek called, said he had a funny story for you.” Believe me when I tell you that was one funny story I did not want to hear.

  “Detective McDeiss on line two, Mr. Carl,” said Ellie, standing now in my office door.

  “Thank you,” I said. “And if Mr. Trocek calls again, tell him I’m out of town.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “Thanksgiving,” I said as I picked up the phone and pressed the blinking button.

  “Did you hear about the fire?” I said to McDeiss.

  “The one at Barnabas’s place?” he said.

  “You know Barnabas?”

  “Best goat north of Kingston. I suspected that his place was what you were talking about when you brought up the alibi. Then, when I heard about the fire last night, I figured the alibi and the fire might be linked.”

  “Linked absolutely,” I said. “It was Sims who burned the place down while he was looking for the alibi witness.”

  “You sure?”

  “I got word firsthand. Not that Sims has much of a chance to find him anymore.”

  “The witness ran?”

  “He’s as good as gone.”

  “How’d Sims know where to look for him?”

  “I might have told him enough for him to figure out,” I said. “He wanted me to put pressure on Julia, I wanted him to back off, so I followed your advice and gave him what I had. It didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped. But I should have known better than to give Sims anything. As the old saying goes, the stupid fish should just keep his damn mouth shut. Do you have any idea what Sims is after?”

  “A killer?” said McDeiss.

  “Yeah, sure, and all we need is love. He’s got something else on his mind that he’s not spilling yet. But either way, what he did last night was strange. Why would he make so much noise looking for a witness that he ended up chasing him off?”

  “Maybe he wanted to chase him.”

  “Why?”

  “To get rid of a lie that was threatening to gum up his case.”

  “A lie?”

  “The alibi wasn’t any good, Victor. It wouldn’t have held up. You said she was in North Philly buying drugs. But the toxicology reports blow that out of the water. The victim was clean, no drugs in the system, no sign of needle marks. And your old girlfriend was clean, too.”

  “Oh.”

  “If she was buying drugs, who were they for?”

  “Damn good question,” I said.

  24

  “So how much do I owe you?” I said to Derek as we walked together down the steps toward the front door of my building.

  “More than you know,” he said. “I did a lot of talking to save your neck. Told everyone we can’t be getting rid of lawyers who actually know how to win. Even told them that you’d do your thing on their behalf.”

  “No thanks.”

  “They come knocking, you best hitch up your pants and get to working. You don’t know how close both of us came last night.”

  “I think I do, but I’m asking how much money I owe you for your detective work.”

  “Is that what I was doing, taking you down to Barnabas’s place?”

  “Sure. Every lawyer needs a PI, and for that night at least, you were mine. We agreed on twenty an hour, I believe.”

  “We did, for truth, yes, but that was before I learned that I would be working as an official private detective. Got to raise my rates for that, don’t you think?”

  “You have a license?”

  “What do you mean, license?”

  “Then no.” I pushed open the door on the ground floor and headed south, toward my bank on Walnut Street. Derek followed on my flank.

  “Dangerous work, detecting,” he said. “No telling what kind of trouble you can find yourself in. People always putting guns in your face.”

  “Anyone put a gun in your face?” I said.

  “Not yet, but the way you making enemies by the fistful, it bound to happen if we continue working together.”

  “Not much chance of that.”

  “I figure what you get per hour should be the starting point. How much you get?”

  “What I get, as a trained and experienced criminal defense attorney, trained and experienced enough to keep your butt out of jail, isn’t relevant. I have to maintain an office, I have to pay Ellie, I have a lot of expenses just staying licensed.”

  “And I got to keep my wardrobe up.”

  “Twenty an hour is what we agreed on.”

  “Fifty.”

  “Should we turn around and go back?”

  “Twenty-five, then.”

  “Because you were actually pretty helpful, and because you stuck your neck out for me, and because your doing that put your neck on the line, I’ll go up to twenty-five. But that’s it.”

  “All right, now we’re getting somewhere. Let’s see, we got three and a half hours the one night and then two more last night.”

  “I didn’t hire you for last night.”

  “All part of it. And I don’t do partial hours. You get a piece, you pay for it all, like a plumber. I did a lot of stuff you didn’t see.”

  “And I’m glad of that. All right. Twenty-five times six is one-fifty.”

  “Plus expenses.”

  “I paid for the drinks and the goat.”

  “Bo.”

  “How much?”

  “Another forty.”

  “What for?”

  “Incidentals.”

  “You got receipts?”

  “Do I look like the kind of man that’s always asking for receipts? Got to keep up a reputation, you want to do effective detection. You should know that.”

  “Okay, forty for expenses, just so long as you agree to one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t say another word, please. Just keep your mouth shut. Now, there’s the ATM right across the street. Stay here. I’ll go over and get the cash.”

  “Maybe I’ll come along.”

  “Maybe you won’t. I don’t need you looking over my shoulder and stealing my code.”

  “You don’t trust me. That hurts.”

  “And then, before you get the cash, we’re going to fill out some tax forms.”

  “Come again?”

  “A Form 1099.”

  “What say?”

  “Derek, it’s called a job. You get money for work, I file documents, I get a deduction, you pay taxes. Those are the rules.”

  “That wasn’t part of our deal.”

  “Wait here,” I said.

  “I’m not paying no taxes,” he called out after me.

  “Say it a little louder, maybe the government cameras didn’t catch it the first time.”

  I left him scanning the light posts for spy equipment as I crossed the street and headed to the ATM on the side of my bank.

  Usually there wasn’t enough money in my account to withdraw all I pleased, but lately, because of a questionable retainer I had been accepting as part of a case that most likely would never require my services, my account was flush. It was how I had redone my office, paid my secretary, bought my new pleather couch and flat-screen television, how I had paid the cable bill. I wasn’t wealthy by any means, and my lack of wealth still rankled like a thorn in the eye, but for a few more months at least I could pass fo
r a modicum of success, and a modicum was about as high as I could ever hope for anymore. No longer was I worried that the little insufficient funds message would pop up on the screen. Now I put in my card and tapped in my PIN and asked for a few hundred dollars and heard the sweet grinding of the gears as the crisp twenties were dealt out one after another after another.

  It was almost pleasant, until I felt something sharp, like the point of a pen, press into my ribs.

  I froze. Something moved behind me. A hot breath washed over my right ear.

  “Take the dollars,” said a soft, accented voice with a pronounced lisp, “and put them in your pocket.”

  “My pocket?”

  “Your pocket.”

  “Shouldn’t it be your pocket?”

  “Shut up and do as I say.”

  I did as he said.

  “Now turn this way, and together we walk down the street.”

  I turned, and as I did, I caught sight of him, and whatever fear had lodged in my ribs from the feel of that pen point blossomed like a beastly rose when I recognized Sandro, Gregor Trocek’s Cadizian thug.

  His left hand was in the pocket of his leather jacket now, with something very much like the shape of a knifepoint pushing out the leather. He jabbed me in the ribs again and indicated that I should walk west.

  I walked west.

  He followed close behind. I tried very hard not to collapse into a heap as I walked, but even so, my legs felt strangely rubbery, like the bones were melting. I thought of the fingers on ice in upstate New York, and I wobbled.

  “Keep going,” said Sandro. “It’s over there.”

  And there it was, the predatory gray Jaguar, parked aslant, headfirst in front of a hydrant. As we got closer, the rear door opened, and Sandro pushed me roughly toward it. I ducked my head so as not to slam it into the roof, and there, inside the car, now face-to-face with me, was Gregor Trocek, smiling warmly.

  “What’s wrong, Victor?” he said. “Why you avoiding me? You don’t want hear my funny story?”

  25

  Sandro drove. He drove slowly, through the narrow streets of Philadelphia, turning here, turning there, going no place in particular, which just then was about the worst place I could imagine.