by Kevin Brooks
Johnny Delgado:
Private Detective
by
Kevin Brooks
This one’s for you, Mum
First American edition published in 2012 by Stoke Books,
an imprint of Barrington Stoke Ltd
18 Walker Street, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, EH3 7LP
www.stokebooks.com
Copyright © 2006 Kevin Brooks
All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — Without the prior written permission of Barrington Stoke Ltd, except for inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.
A catalog record for this book is available from
the US Library of Congress
Distributed in the United States and Canada by Lerner Publisher
Services, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
241 First Avenue North, Minneapolis, MN 55401
www.lernerbooks.com
ISBN 978-1-78112-115-3
Chapter 1
The Most Beautiful Girls in the World
It all began with a little problem. It was Friday evening, about six o’clock, and I was sitting by the desk in my bedroom. My bedroom’s small, and the apartment’s small too. It’s on the 17th floor of a project development. Rain was drizzling on the window, and the air inside felt hot and steamy.
But that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was this. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World was sitting on my bed, and The Second Most Beautiful Girl in the World was sitting next to her. And they were both wearing very tight clothes.
That was the problem.
Their names were Carly (Most Beautiful) and Beth (Second Most Beautiful). They’d been sitting on my bed for the last 20 minutes or so. They were telling me about a kid called Lee Kirk. I think that’s what they’d been telling me about. It was hard to concentrate with The Two Most Beautiful Girls in the World sitting on my bed.
“So,” Carly said to me, “what do you think?”
“Uh?” I said back.
“What do you think?” she said. “Do you want the job or not?”
“What job?”
She shook her head. “We just told you. What’s the matter with you? We told you all about it five minutes ago.”
That’s how she talked — sneering all the time, as if everything she talked about was stupid. And when she sneered, her lip curled up at the corner. Somehow that made her seem even more beautiful.
“What are you looking at?” she sneered at me.
“Nothing,” I said, “I’m sorry. I was just—”
“What?” said Beth. “You was just what?”
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I just sat there and stared back at my desk. The thing is, I knew they weren’t really The Most Beautiful Girls in the World, but girls didn’t come into my bedroom that often ... if you know what I mean. It made me feel weird and confused.
Carly was about 17, I’d guess. She was tall and slim, with glossy brown hair and stunning blue eyes. She had that look about her ... you know, the kind of look that makes you feel wobbly and stupid. Beth was younger, about the same age as me — around 15. She was short and blonde, with big full lips and curves everywhere. They both had lots of make-up on, and they were both chewing gum, loudly. And, like I said, they were both sitting on my bed in very tight T-shirts and jeans.
“Listen,” said Carly with a sigh, “all I want you to do is find out if Lee’s seeing this girl.”
“What girl?” I said.
“The girl I just told you about.”
“Oh, yeah ... right. And Lee’s your boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” Carly said, “he’s my boyfriend.”
“Lee Kirk.”
“Yeah, Lee Kirk. I want you to follow him tomorrow night and see where he goes.” Carly took a photo out of her pocket and passed it to me. “That’s him,” she said, “in the photo. And I’ve put his address on the back. He lives in the West Tower. 14th floor.”
The photo was of a hard-looking face with small dark eyes and dirty blond hair. I’d seen him around. I knew who he was.
“I’ll be with him till seven,” Carly told me, “and then he’s supposed to be going out with his friends.”
“But you think he’s seeing this girl?”
“Yeah — she’s an ugly little bitch called Tanya Nicols. She lives in the West Tower, too. On the second floor. I want you to wait for Lee on the 14th, then follow him down and see where he goes. If he goes into her apartment, wait around and see how long he stays. If they go out, follow them.” She sniffed, snapped her chewing gum, then wiped her nose with the back of her hand. She gave me a look. “Do you think you can handle that?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I think so.”
“Good.” She put her hand into her jeans pocket again. This time she pulled out a handful of cash. “How much d’you charge?”
Another problem. For some time now, I’d been putting the word out that people could hire me as a private detective. Yeah, I know it sounds weird. I’ll tell you more about why and all that later on. Right now I want to tell you about this next problem. The problem was this. So far, no one had hired me. So I hadn’t really thought about how much money to charge people for what I did. But I didn’t want Carly and Beth to know that, did I? I had to think pretty quickly. How much should I charge?
“Well,” I said, “it depends …”
“On what?” said Carly.
“I don’t know. How long do you think it’ll take?”
Carly shook her head and looked over at Beth. They both smirked at each other, like they knew I was just making it up.
“What’s the most it’s going to cost?” said Carly.
“I don’t know …”
“Say it takes you five hours.”
“Five hours?” I asked.
“Yeah — seven till twelve. You follow Lee for five hours. How much d’you think that’ll cost?”
I had to stop hesitating. So I just picked a figure out of thin air. “Fifty bucks?” I said. Carly nodded. She counted out some bills and passed them to Beth.
Beth got up and came over to me. I couldn’t help watching the way that she walked — wiggling hips, wiggling curves, wiggling everything. She wiggled right up to me and dropped the money on the desk beside me. Then she put her hands on her hips and just stood there staring at me. Big full lips, lots of curves.
“Where’s the bathroom?” she said, and she looked at Carly.
“Uh?”
“The bathroom. Where is it?”
My face went red. “Uh ... just down the hall,” I told her. “On the left.”
She grinned at me, then turned around and wiggled her way across the room and out the door.
I looked over at Carly.
She was grinning at me.
I smiled at her.
Her grin vanished.
“What you looking at?” she said.
I shook my head. “Nothing.”
Chapter 2
Stupid
After Carly and Beth had left, I stayed in my bedroom for a while and thought about what I’d just done. What had I done? Well, I’d gotten myself a job, my first paying job. I’d just earned myself $50 for a few hours’ work on a Saturday night. That’s what I’d done. But did I feel good? No, I didn’t. I didn’t feel good at all. Because, basically, what I’d just done was plain stupid.
I hadn’t thought things through.
I’d been too busy thinking about other things — tight clothes, curves, trying to look cool.
; And, worst of all, I’d broken my rules.
You see, when I first decided to become a private detective, I set myself three simple rules.
Rule One. Never get involved with relationship problems.
Rule Two. Never get involved with the local gangs.
Rule Three. Never get involved with the police.
They weren’t difficult rules, and they made good sense. Relationship problems are tricky. The gangs are dangerous. And the police ... well, if you get involved with the police around here, you’re just asking for trouble.
So, if I stuck to the rules, I had no worries. No danger, no trouble.
Nice and simple.
Right?
Yeah, right. So what do I do when I get my very first job? What do I do? I break at least two of the rules, that’s what I do.
Stupid stupid stupid.
I’d just said I’d follow someone who was most likely cheating on his girlfriend.
Stupid.
This someone was a kid called Lee Kirk. And Lee Kirk was a big name in one of the local gangs.
Stupid.
And if he saw me following him, there was a good chance he’d beat the crap out of me. Then the police would start asking questions.
Stupid.
Yeah, so I felt pretty stupid. But that was nothing to how bad I was going to feel later on, when I found out what was really happening.
I was still in my bedroom when Mom came home. It was about seven o’clock. I wasn’t doing anything special — just standing at the window, looking out at the rain. Right across from our building I could see the other two apartment complexes on the block — the East Tower and the West Tower. Gray concrete, gray glass, gray everything. I scanned the rows of windows. Was there anything happening in the other two buildings? All I could see were the dull reflections of the clouded sky in the glass.
I looked down.
Seventeen floors below, the ground was cold and empty in the rain. There wasn’t much to see. A couple of cars parked at the back of the lock-up garages. Some kids from the East Tower slouching along Newton Lane. A skinny Alsatian dog skulking around the benches.
Mg door opened, and I turned around.
“Hey, you,” said Mom. “How’s it going?”
“OK.”
She smiled. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. How was work?”
She shrugged. “Boring.”
Mom has two jobs. She works part-time at the local library, which she likes, and she works part-time at the check-out at Walmart, which she hates. Today was a Walmart day.
She took her hands out of her pockets, crossed her arms, and leaned against the doorway. Her bracelets jangled on her wrists.
“What are you doing tonight?” I asked her.
“Not much. How about you?”
A train juddered along the tracks near the apartment building. The bedroom window rattled in its frame.
“I’ve got homework,” I said.
Mom nodded. “I just saw Della’s mom in the elevator. She said you hadn’t been around for a while.”
“Right.”
Mom smiled. “Della could do with some company.”
This was Della Hood she was talking about. Della lived on the same floor as us. She was a year younger than me. She had something wrong with her heart.
“She likes you,” Mom said.
I shrugged. I felt a bit embarrassed.
Morn smiled again. “Well, it’s up to you. Homework or a pretty girl? I know which one I’d choose.”
“Yeah, well,” I muttered, “I’ll think about it.”
“Have you had anything to eat yet?”
“No.”
“Let me get changed,” she said, “then I’ll make us something — OK?”
I smiled at her.
She nodded, looked at me for a moment, then left.
She’s half-Mexican, my mom. She was born in a little farming village in the north of Mexico. She came to the United States when she was a baby with her mom. Just the two of them together. My mom never knew who her father was.
But I know who my father was. His name was David Cherry. He was a policeman. A detective. He met my mom about 16 gears ago when she was working as a dancer in a nightclub. He was already married. But he fell in love with my mom. They had an affair. And then along came me.
The affair didn’t last long. And Dad never left his wife, but he always kept in touch with us. He was great — kind and cool, really funny, but sort of sad, too. I liked him a lot.
Five years ago he was killed in a drug raid.
No one was ever charged or arrested for his murder. The killer was never found.
Maybe that’s why I want to be a private detective. Maybe I want to be like my dad. Or maybe I want to find out who killed him. Maybe I just thought it was better than doing a paper route.
Who knows?
I really miss my dad.
Chapter 3
Marcus and Della
After Mom and I had had something to eat, I went to see Della. I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to see her. But I didn’t want to spend all night staring at history books either. I said goodbye to Mom and walked along to Della’s apartment. I was feeling a bit nervous. Della always made me feel like that. I knew that she liked me, and — to be honest — I really liked her. But what was a little difficult was that I didn’t really know how I liked her. Was she a friend? A good friend? Or did I like her a bit more than just as a friend?
I didn’t know.
I got to her door and rang the bell. As I waited, I started to see her face in my mind. She had curly blond hair, sparkling blue eyes, and braces on her teeth. In my head I could see that funny little smile — and when I heard the sound of footsteps coming towards the door, my heart started thumping. But when the door opened, it wasn’t Delia that I saw, but her older brother, Marcus.
“Hey, Delgado,” he said with a big grin. “What’s happening?”
“Oh, right ... hi, Marcus. I was looking for Della.”
“She’s out,” he said. “Gone to see the ticker man.”
I didn’t know what he meant, so I just went on looking at him. He didn’t have a shirt on, just big baggy cargo pants and a string of gold chains around his neck. A tufty little beard sprouted from his chin.
“Della’s heart,” Marcus said, and he gave his chest a slap. “Giving her some trouble today.”
“Oh,” I said.
I got it now. Delia had gone to see her doctor, something to do with her heart.
“Hey, it’s cool,” Marcus grinned. “She’ll be back.”
“Right.”
“You wanna wait?”
“OK.”
And that’s how I ended up talking to Marcus about Lee Kirk.
Marcus Hood knows everything there is to know about the projects. He knows all the names and faces, all the gangs, all the goings-on. He knows who’s coming up, and who’s going down, and who’s getting out. He knows who’s robbing who, and who’s selling what, and who’s going to get it. He knows what’s going down before it goes down, and he knows what that means. He knows everything, basically.
But the funny thing is — no one seems to know anything about him. Even though he knows everyone, he doesn’t seem to have any friends. He knows everyone’s phone number, but no one knows his. He doesn’t work, but he’s always got plenty of money. And that usually means drugs. But Marcus doesn’t do drugs, and he certainly doesn’t sell drugs, but he knows all the gangs and the dealers.
It’s kind of odd.
There are rumors, of course. Whispers. I’ve heard the word rat once or twice when people have been talking about Marcus, but no one’s ever had any proof. And no one’s got the guts to find out. It’s not worth it. Marcus isn’t that hard himself, but he knows a lot of heavy people. And he’s owed a lot of favors. So everyone leaves him alone.
Personally, it’s never bothered me what Marcus does. As long as he’s OK with me, why should I care what he does?
<
br /> And he was OK with me.
That evening, he showed me into the front room, sat me down, and asked if I wanted a soda. It might not sound like much, but I didn’t expect him to do that for me, and it made me feel pretty good.