by Sean Dexter
Graham Smith is not only a terrific writer but also a good reviewer. His Harry Charters is a British Mike Hammer and should appeal to fans of British authors like Stephen Leather and Matt Hilton. Two-fisted stuff!
Noon
My life had recently taken a slight turn for the better. A rube called Spratsky had given me a great payday which had let me pay off all my debts. I even advance paid the rent on my flat and office for the first time since I’d laid down the deposit. The advance payment was more precautionary than altruistic, as I knew I’d end up drinking every cent otherwise. This would keep me off the streets for a few more months while I sank my bodyweight in bourbon.
I was heading towards Jimmy’s, my usual haunt. It’d be open soon and I planned to spend the day ambushing Jack Daniels. Once I’d ambushed him I was going to surround him until his fiery tang leeched through my stomach and into my nervous system. When his retaliation captured me from within, I could relax as he chased the ghosts of my past out of my head and halfway down the street.
A voice rang out of the shadows cast by the noonday son. ‘Hey, Harry wait up a minute.’
I turned to look who’d called my name. The voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Then I saw him across the street standing on the sidewalk. My old army Sergeant. The man who’s teachings had kept me alive when I toured Europe with a pack on my back and a rifle in my hands. Uncle Sam had sent me and brought me back, but it was Sergeant Thomas Hamilton who’d made sure I walked off the ship at New York on my own two feet, instead of being carried on a gurney or in a cheap pine box. Sure I’d had basic training but that’s what it was, basic.
Sergeant Hamilton never once saved my life, but without him at my side I would have died a hundred times over. I owed him my life and I knew it.
My right arm rose into an automatic salute and then dropped when I saw his face. Ten years had passed since we were demobbed, but he’d aged more than forty. His once cheerful and ruddy face was now grey and drawn. This was a man who’d told me jokes to keep me calm as the bullets flew. I couldn’t believe how he now looked.
I felt a wave of shame wash over me. Here I was bleary eyed, still stinking of last night’s bourbon and unshaven. I owed him too much to let him see what I’d become.
I knew I had to face him though. He wasn’t the kind of man you could avoid. If he wanted to talk to you he’d follow you until his shoes wore through, and then he’d get new shoes and keep on coming.
He crossed the street and we exchanged smiles and handshakes. I asked him why he was in town. The last I’d heard he was living nearly seven hundred miles away.
‘I came to see you Harry. I need your help.’
‘Just tell me what you need Sarge. I’ll help you however I can.’ The words came out before I could give the matter any thought. I could have thought for a year about whether I’d help him and every time I asked myself the question, the answer would always be yes. Strange how I could help him at the drop of a hat, and yet since little Janie died seven years ago, I hadn’t once been able to help myself.
‘I don’t need money, I need a private investigator.’ He looked around, checking the bodies bustling past us.
I guessed he wanted to talk somewhere more private than the sidewalk. I didn’t exactly want to take him to Jimmy’s. It was a drinker’s den, not the kinda place where you go to talk, socialise or interact with other human beings. It was the kinda place where you went to seek oblivion. To escape demons and monsters of the mind.
‘I need a drink Harry. Let’s go to the nearest bar and I’ll tell you what I need you to do.’
‘Okay Sarge, the nearest bar is a bit downtrodden though.’
He appraised me and our eyes locked for the first time. His were nearly as bloodshot as mine. ‘It’ll do. And call me Tom will you. I haven’t been a sergeant for years now.’
We went into Jimmy’s where he bought two Falstaff’s and a coupla shots then led me over to a quiet corner. ‘Here’s the deal Harry. My son Chet has gone missing and I want you to find him. I’ll pay you fifty bucks a day and cover any expenses you have.’
My answer caused his head to snap up from the beer glass he’d been staring into. ‘What do you mean no deal?’ I’d thought his expression had been hangdog before, but my words seemed to disable all his facial muscles. I honesty thought his skin was going to slough off his face and land in the glass.
Keeping my voice even, as I could have wept for the man’s obvious pain ‘I mean, that I’ll look for him but I’m not gonna take a cent from you.’
A doctor must have snuck in to repair his face while I was slugging at my beer, because by the time my glass hit the stained table he was looking better than he had done since he’d first hailed me.
‘Thank you Harry. Thank you so much.’
We spent the next hour talking about his son’s disappearance. Chet had been attending the college here in Mariscoper and rooming on the campus.
One day, a month ago, he’d been between lectures and had gone to buy some text books. He never came back from that little excursion.
Knowing his father the way I did, I made the fairly safe assumption that the kid was streetwise and knew how to avoid trouble and deal with it when it couldn’t be evaded.
I learnt the names of a few of Chet’s friends and Sarge – he’ll always be Sarge to me, regardless of what name I call him by – gave me the name of the book store which had been his destination. I also quizzed Sarge on what the police had learned from their investigations. I wasn’t exactly shocked to hear they had written off Chet’s disappearance entirely, claiming that he’d probably took off with some friends or a girl. There had been a perfunctory talk with neighbours and classmates but they hadn’t followed up on anything the way they should have.
I wanted another drink and a little peace to think but looking at Sarge and knowing what a beautiful seductress temptation could be, I denied myself with a rare show of willpower.
I asked Sarge where he was staying and he told me of a midtown hotel whose daily prices would keep me intoxicated for a week. ‘That’s on our way. You can jump off the bus there.’
‘No way Harry. I’m coming with you. And call me Tom will ya?’
‘No Tom, you’re not coming with me. For two very good reasons. Number one, I’m gonna be asking people some awkward questions you may not want to hear the answers to. While I know you’ll be able to handle it, the people answering the questions won’t and will not give the full truth to save you any pain.
‘And what’s number two?’
‘Sometimes I have to get heavy with people to get the truth and I don’t want you seeing that side of me.’
‘For Chrissakes Harry, we fought a war together. You think I haven’t seen your ugly side?’
‘This ain’t war Sarge. This is civvy street and I still play by the rules we had in Europe. Anyway, point number one means you stay at the hotel until you hear from me later today.’
We set off from Jimmy’s before either of us was weak enough to suggest another drink. Before a bus arrived Sarge had hailed a cab and from a straining billfold presented the driver with a portrait of a former president, telling the grateful driver there were two more waiting for him if he took me wherever I wanted to go. I could have hired a cab myself but it was an extravagance I wasn’t used to.
I dropped him at his hotel and told my driver to take me to the college campus. As he negotiated his way through the traffic, I smoked one cigarette after another until a course of action presented itself to me.
It was around three o’clock by now so I checked the halls of residence to see if any of his roommates were present. The place was deserted and smelled of the usual aromas of teenage boys, sweat, Bryllcream and ambition which all competed to overthrow the mighty scent of testosterone.
With nobody around to question I went to the college’s reception desk to see what could be learned. A hatchet faced old dame sniffily told me that she could not disclose any information
on Chet Hamilton as his records had been taken by the police.
I tried charm, her civic responsibility and a coupla greenbacks but she was unrelenting in her stance. And when she’d pushed the money I’d offered her back at me her nose wrinkled in disgust when she got a whiff of Mr. Daniels from my breath.
‘I’m afraid I cannot help you sir. Perhaps you’ll be so kind as to see yourself out.’ I’ve been thrown out of a lot of places for one helluva lot worse but never before had I been dismissed so mightily when trying to do my job. To save my teeth from cracking as I bit down on my smile, I left as suggested and made mental note to spend at least one day making her life hell in return for her condescending treatment of me.
Locating Kenneth the cab driver where he’d parked up, I got him to take me to McKay’s bookstore which had been Chet’s last known destination. It was a Mom and Pop store, although Nana and Gramps might be a more apt term these days. Nana was at the back of the store stacking books, while chewing constantly on a pair of false teeth while Gramps was serving some kids. Waiting until the kids left I showed Gramps the photo of Chet that Sarge had given me earlier and asked if he remembered serving him.
The old man had no recollection of Chet but nonetheless he called his wife over so I could repeat my query with her.
‘Is this the boy the cops asked about?’ her voice was raised in the way that people who are almost deaf raise their voice to levels they can hear
I spoke slowly and clearly ‘Yes his name is Chet Hamilton. Do you remember him coming into the shop and buying books on accounting?’ Sarge had told me about Chet’s course.
‘I don’t remember him coming in but I do remember the cops. One of them looked like a young Harpo Marx.’ I thanked the lady and went out to join Kenneth by the sidewalk.
I knew the cop who looked like Harpo, and I knew that like his namesake he’d have nothing to say to me. He and I had crossed swords over a case last year when he’d done his usual inefficient job. I’d ended up solving the case and making him look like the fool he was.
Deciding where to kill a coupla hours was easy for me but again willpower exerted its unfamiliar grip, and I ended up drinking stewed coffee in a little cafeteria attached to one of the places near the bookstore.
Returning to the campus Kenneth dropped me off and went to park while I made my way back to Chet’s dorm. The coffee was buzzing me in a way I wasn’t comfortable with. I would have to rein myself in if one of his roommates got cheeky.
This time when I knocked on the door it was answered by a kid of about eighteen. ‘Yes what can I do for you?’
‘I need to talk to you about Chet Hamilton.’ He gave a quick look of incomprehension before understanding flickered in his eyes.
‘You mean Perfume?’
‘Perfume?’
‘That’s what everybody calls Chet.’
‘Enlighten me. Why do they call him perfume?’
‘Because of the way he’s always all over the girls.’
Lord help me from teen humour. I managed not to hit him there and then, but boy was it close. He could sense the violence within me and shrank back closing the door. Well he woulda closed the door but for a size nine scuffed brogue which prevented him finishing the act of exclusion. Looking down he traced the shoe upwards until he was looking straight into my face.
‘I need you to tell me what Chet was at during the days before he went missing.’
‘H…he …he was at classes like normal and then he was raving about some new girl he had met.’
‘When had he met her?’
‘The day before he went away.’
‘Went away! Is that what you think happened? He went away?’ My voice was rising as I grew angrier with his dumb half considered answers
‘I …I…I don’t know what happened except that he wasn’t going to go to the bookstore like he told the others. He was going to meet this new girl instead.’
I pressed him some more and then left before I shortened his nose.
Chet had lied to the others about where he was going because they’d ribbed him about this mystery girl he was supposed to have met. Her name was Rosie Johnson and he had been due to meet her in a hip joint on the south side of town. The stutterbug had given me a second hand description of Rosie, but when you took out teen hormones and exaggeration, then applied the sense and logic which only experience brings then she could have been any young broad.
Night
Nevertheless, I had Kenneth drop me outside the joint. Walking in and looking round I could see that this place was a world away from Jimmy’s. The floor had no sawdust soaking up body fluids, the tables were wiped clean and conversation flowed easily from every corner. Hell there was even an extractor fan drawing the cigarette smoke out. I ordered a drink from the broad behind the bar while checking the place out. Turning to hand over some money, I clocked her face for he first time and nearly lost the power of speech.
This was the prettiest broad I’d ever had the good fortune to encounter. Her voice held the husky tones which a dame can only get singing in smoky gin joints. She coulda told me that the world would end tomorrow and it woulda sounded like poetry. Her figure was the finest hourglass ever created and it was bang on time.
I asked her about Chet, showed her the picture and gauged her reaction. There was no guile or evasion in her answer. Instead there was an open honesty about her which would have convinced any jury in any courtroom. Mind you if the jury had all been men, one picture of her would have sold them all whatever line she was selling.
‘He was in here a few weeks ago. I think he was sweet on one of our waitresses.’
‘Can you remember which one?’
‘It was Rosie I think. Either her or Kathleen Barber.’
‘Are either of them here now? I’d like to talk to them.’ Seeing her suspicious look, I showed her my PI license, making sure to keep my thumb over the expiry date. ‘It’s about a case of mine. I just want to ask them a few questions. Five minutes at most. I’ll even make a generous donation to your tip jar to cover any lost business.’
Without waiting for an answer I left a dead president on the counter, picked up my drink and walked across to the one vacant table.
It was strange for me to be drinking bourbon from an un-cracked glass in a clean and well lit establishment. I wonder if I was still on the rise. I thought I’d peaked with the Spratsky job, but maybe that was just the start of things to come.
A pretty young brunette came over and introduced herself as Kathleen. I showed her the picture of Chet and watched her reaction. Her almond shaped eyes went wide before recoiling back guiltily as if they knew what they’d just told me. Her face had lost its natural colour leaving odd coloured patches, which on closer inspection proved to be the places where she’d applied makeup.
‘It’s Perfume. I think you better ask Rosie about him. She was the one who walked out with him. All I did was cover her shift here.’ She turned and pointed to a vision of wholesome loveliness waiting table across the room.
It was a younger, more innocent version of the broad tending bar. They must be mother and daughter. No wonder Chet had bragged about Rosie, not only was she beautiful now, but if the mother was anything to go by she was gonna get better with age.
Rosie dutifully made her way across to us and seeing Kathleen’s ashen face asked what was wrong. When I told her that I was searching for Chet Hamilton she burst straight into tears.
I coaxed and cajoled her for the next hour and finally got the truth from her. It wasn’t that she was devious or lying, It was more to do with the fact that she kept crying, which brought her mother into the equation as she wanted me to leave Rosie alone and find somewhere else to drink.
It was Rosie herself who between sobs explained to her mother that she had to tell me of what happened between her and Chet.
She had borrowed a friend’s car and they had driven to a local makeout area. While fooling around they had been disturbed by a bunch of local guys who
had dragged Chet off and left her alone with the car. She’d heard the punks telling him to stick to college girls and leave the locals girls for the locals.
She’d recognised one or two of the guys but didn’t know them all.
‘Why didn’t you tell me about this Rosie?’
‘I’m sorry Mom. I thought he’d be back one day if he cared.’
By now it was nearly impossible to get any coherent words from Rosie but I pressed on regardless. ‘Can you tell me the names of the ones you did know?’
It took her five whole minutes to control her sobbing enough to speak and when she did I could see recognitions of the names dancing in the mothers eyes.
Leaving Kathleen with Rosie I drew the broad to one side and asked where I might find the losers whose names we’d just heard. They are regulars in here and are over in the corner booth right now. Slowly I lifted my head and look around the bar in a complete sweep. There were six jock bozos all lined up like inverted skittles. Their eyes watched us with the arrogance of the terminally ignorant.
I went into the telephone booth at the end of the bar and called Sarge’s hotel and got a hold of him. He was anxious to know my news, but all I told him was that I needed him to come down here pronto.
I am a mean fighter and having boxed in the army can defend myself pretty well, but six at once was a tall order for me. I’d take two on without a second thought, three with a reckless smile and four with caution. Any more than that and I was in trouble. All I had to do was wait on Sarge arriving and the odds would swing back in my favour.
Lady Luck however had different ideas. Sometimes she’d smile and sometimes she’d snarl. Tonight she was scowling with a ferocious glint in her eye.
I turned round to see half a dozen meatheads forming a semi circle around me.
They all had at least four inches and thirty pounds on me not to mention the twenty odd years I conceded to them.
‘We don’t like strangers coming in here and making Rosie cry,’ said the biggest who was standing right in front of me. When I didn’t answer he continued. His voice was slow with exact pronunciation, as if each word was carefully formed before being uttered. ‘We think you should leave.’