An Ill Wind Blows

by Charlie Cottrell

  “No, I mean ‘expensives.’ My services don’t come cheap, and I’ve got a hell of a lot of overhead and related costs on cases like this.”

  “From the smell of the place, I’d say one of the key costs is cheap booze,” the man said with a wrinkled nose.

  I bridled slightly. “Hey, an up-and-coming business enterprise such as this runs on cheap booze,” I retorted. “Now, sir, do you have any idea where your wife might be, or with whom she might be having her affair?” Sure, the super-proper grammar wasn’t in keeping with hard-boiled detective tradition, but I felt like I needed to prove myself to this guy for some reason.

  The man pulled up another vid window and tapped a few buttons in it, firing off a GPS coordinate to me. My own personal computer pinged as it received the data. “I think she is meeting her lover at the Hotel d’Palm on Branca Avenue. As for whom she might be seeing…well, if I knew that, I wouldn’t need you, Detective.” He stood up and adjusted the cuffs of his shirt and coat, a practiced gesture that he did with the rote thoughtlessness of years of habit, even though it wasn’t like they were even the tiniest bit out of place. He started toward the door.

  “Wait a second,” I said, stumbling my way around the desk, my mouth working on autopilot. “My policy is to take an advance on the first three days’ work.” Sure, I had the financial holdings of the Organization available to me, but I was loathe to dip into that money. It was blood money, earned with crime and violence, and I preferred to earn my cash the old fashioned way: by committing the crimes and violence myself.

  The man stopped in the doorway and turned back toward me. He pulled up a new vid window and began typing in it, something that was almost – but not quite – a smile playing across his compressed lips. “Detective Hazzard, I must say, I find your insistence on good business practices to be a breath of…” He paused, well-aware of the thick fug in my office. “…well, fresh air, I suppose, for lack of a better word,” he finished, hitting a last button on the vid window and collapsing it as he reached the end of his sentence, the action offering a nifty punctuation to his words. Everything about this guy was neat and precise, and it made me feel even shabbier than usual. My personal machine pinged again, and I pulled up a vid window to check the funds transfer.

  I found the transfer notice and frowned. “Um, there must be some mistake,” I said, my eyebrows jumping up and down like they were doing CrossFit.

  “I assure you, there is not,” he replied.

  “But there’s at least an extra zero in this payment, and it says here that you’re Rupert Montgomery,” I persisted. My eyebrows jammed in the upright and surprised position. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand out, and the room began to swim, and not because of the alcohol for once.

  “That is correct, Detective Hazzard,” he replied as he turned and exited the office. “I expect results within the next twenty-four hours,” he called back over his shoulder. I slumped back into my chair and groped for my protector and constant companion, a bottle of cheap whiskey, then took a long pull straight from the bottle. I was working a case for the biggest name in Arcadia politics.

  III.

  Now, with everything I’d been through in the past couple of years, you’d think working for anyone, even a bigwig like Rupert Montgomery, wouldn’t cause me to bat an eye, let alone leave me twitching and shaking like an addict in need of a fix. And to tell you the truth, I’m not usually the sort to be intimidated by a politician. Politicians are just a different kind of criminal, after all. Better dressed, usually, and a much higher-caliber when it comes to lying and the sort of crimes they commit, but politicians aren’t saints, and they aren’t in office to benefit the people. Well, not all the people, anyway. Their financiers and high-dollar backers, of course, got all sorts of benefit, but the average Joe or Jane out on the street got exactly the same thing every time: nothing.

  But Rupert Montgomery…he was a different story. The guy came across as a living, breathing saint, a man of unimpeachable character and moral rectitude. He had his own charities, plural, and at least one wing of Memorial Hospital had his name on it. There were actual statues of the guy Downtown, and they usually only give those out to people after they’ve died. The point is, this guy was Somebody with a capital Some; he had more money than God and would’ve polled better if you asked around town.

  So, the idea of that guy having a cheating spouse? Kinda surprising to most people. Or maybe not, if you’re like me. People are greedy and stupid, generally speaking, and all of their actions come down to one of those two motives. Call me cynical if you want, but I’ve seen how awful “good” people are to each other behind closed doors.

  Ever since the beatings I’d taken tracking Dresden Crowder, I’d been training up my tech expert, Maya Janovich, to work in the field with me. She was taking to it well, figuring out how to investigate, ask the right questions, chase down leads, and – most importantly – not get shot. This would be a good case for her, since the likelihood of being shot at or exploded was pretty small.

  Which isn’t to say we were going into this job naked and unarmed. For protection, we both had modified Tasers, set up to deliver a much more powerful shock to the system much faster and from a much greater distance than your usual stun gun. We also had various other tools and gadgets, the sort of things no private eye should leave home without: lockpicks, a decryption tool, and some good ol’ brass knuckles. I had my personal computer, with its specially-adapted user interface that was designed with the private investigator in mind – key commands linked to eye movements or coded words, a camera app that automatically uploaded copies of all pictures taken back to a server kept at the office, and various other useful things. Maya had a wristband loaded with her personal computer and a number of data ports and cable slots built into it, ideal for the hacker on the go. Properly armed, we were ready to check out the hotel.

  I drove us down to the Hotel d’Palm on Branca Avenue that evening, explaining the basics of the case as we went. The hotel was one of those spots in Arcadia that’s a little too shabby to be chic and too chic to be a complete dump. It was right on the border between Old Town – that warren of twisted, narrow streets, an almost-medieval amalgamation of smaller communities that grew together into a city over the course of decades – and Downtown, where the rich and powerful hung their hats and made their lives. The location would’ve been pretty plum back when Old Town was a nice, clean place to live, a place with swept streets, no graffiti, and only the occasional stabbing. After the financial meltdown a generation or so back all but killed Arcadia’s economy, the richer, less-felonious folks moved further north, into what is now erroneously named Downtown, and Old Town became…well, Old Town, and the Hotel d’Palm became the slightly-upscale joint in the quickly-becoming-downscale neighborhood.

  It was still a nice hotel, one you wouldn’t be ashamed to stay in, but it was clearly wearing the nostalgic glamour of ages past. The stone façade of the building had a worn, old look about it; water stains had formed under the metal sign announcing the joint’s name, and the awning over the entrance was a little threadbare in places. The place had been done up like an Art Deco monolith, all spires and weird angles, with gargoyles and pigeons vying for position on the parapets that lined the rooftop. The outside had an almost dour seriousness to it, all concrete grays and metallic blues and the flash of sunlight on glass. I’d had Maya spend most of the day doing research on Montgomery and his wife, trying to make sure we had some idea what we were getting ourselves into. These cases were usually pretty straightforward: follow the suspected spouse, get photos catching them in the act, and beat feet back to the office to send off the photos and wait for the paycheck to come in. Easy as falling off a curb.

  But easy and safe were often two different things in this line of work. Just because we knew who to look for didn’t mean we knew everything we needed to know. Wealthy folks often employed bodyguards – or security specialists, as they preferred to term it – and bodyguards wer
en’t known for asking questions when someone started snooping around and taking pictures. I was working a streak of at least a couple of months without getting shot, and wanted to see how long I could extend it. Going in armed with knowledge was almost as good as going in armed with a gun.

  Inside, everything was the brightest pink imaginable. The upholstery on all the chairs was pink-dyed leather, the walls were painted pink, the light fixtures were pink-tinted glass, the bellhops and hosts all wore pink uniforms. The place assaulted the eyes with its cheerful pinkness and brought to mind the inside of a large mammal, if large mammals were uniformly pink inside. I’m not really sure who came up with the design of the place, or who thought “pink” would make a good decorative motif for a hotel, but it was certainly compelling, in its own way. The place definitely left an impression.

  “My eyes hurt,” Maya said, squinting against the aggressive pinkness of it all.

  “Your eyes will adjust,” I replied.

  “I’m not sure whether or not that’s a good thing,” she muttered as we made our way to the hotel bar.

  The bar was unlike any I’d ever been in: there were no cigarette burns on the tables, the floor looked like it’d been swept at least once since the place was opened, and no one was throwing bottles at anyone else. Thankfully, it didn’t follow the pink theme of the rest of the hotel, which wasn’t to say it was any less disturbingly opulent. The room was dimly-lit, as all bars should be, and instead of pink leather we had to contend with clashing animal prints and the heads of large, surprised-looking beasts hanging on the walls. The spots on the wall not occupied by the heads of half the endangered species of Africa were taken up by discrete photos of the heads of wealthy people with small plaques with legends like, “Elbert Rothson III, South Africa, 1914.” I recognized some of the names: there was an ancestor of Montgomery’s, and well-known Arcadia families like Pratchett, Northam, Wodehouse, Eakin, and Roberts. There must’ve been a time when everyone who was anyone had come here.

  While Maya goggled at the animal heads on the wall, I sidled up to the bar and caught the bartender’s reluctant eye. He came over hesitantly, as though my mere presence was a cause for great concern. I didn’t care. “I need a Scotch. Whatever the best one in the place is. Make it a double, and put it on the Montgomery tab.” I didn’t have any evidence that Montgomery came here ever, except for catching sight of a picture of him next to the surprised face of some massive antelope-looking animal on the wall. The bartender arched an eyebrow at me as though he doubted I could even possibly exist in the same universe as Rupert Montgomery, let alone get a drink on his tab. I sighed. “Look, buddy, I’m currently in his employ, and if I’m not happy, he’s not happy, right? You don’t want that, I’d imagine.” The bartender shook his head, still unconvinced. I pressed on. “Think of it this way. Even if I’m lying, do you think a guy like Montgomery would notice an extra Scotch on his tab?” The bartender didn’t respond, but he turned to the assortment of liquor bottles behind the counter and selected a well-aged Scotch. He poured and slid a glass in front of me, then wandered off down the bar, keeping an eye on me as he went to serve other customers.

  Maya came to stand next to me as I took a sip of my Scotch. It only burned a little as the liquid slid down my throat, warming everything as it went along.

  “What, uh, what do we do now?” she asked, leaning against the bar. It was a nice bar, smoothed and polished over the years by the hands and elbows of the rich and powerful, washed by the suds of thousands of mugs and tumblers, wiped down with a once-white rag by interchangeable bartenders built like brick houses and with names like Rick, Harold, or Curtis. Big men who gave you the sense they were the only solid object in existence.

  “Now,” I said, taking another sip of the fantastic Scotch, “we wait to see if our mark shows up.”

  “Should I go, like, hide somewhere?” Maya asked.

  “Nah. That’s where everyone makes their mistake. They think they need to be sneaky and skulk around. Act nonchalant.”

  “And that’s…wrong?” Maya asked, confused.

  “Of course, it is,” I replied, taking another sip of Scotch. Damn, it was good stuff. “See, the fastest way to get caught is to try to be sneaky. It makes folks suspicious when they see you trying to be not suspicious.”

  “So, um, what should we do?”

  “Act like we belong here. Just be yourself. Pretend like you own the joint, and most people won’t ever question your right to be where you are or do what you’re doing.”

  “Oh,” Maya said, thoughtfully. She punched a button on the computer on her wrist and brought up a vid window. “I’m gonna do a scan to see if any of her electronics are in the area.”

  “Good idea,” I said, thumbing the button on my own personal machine and opening a vid window. I minimized it so it sat just over my right eye and said, “Scan biometrics and facial recognition database for Mrs. Eileen Montgomery.” The machine pinged gently at me as it began running scans of everyone else in the bar. It was a Tuesday, and the place was pretty empty except for the bartender, a few customers further down the bar, Maya, and myself, but it was easier to do it this way than to have to keep an eye on the doorway to check out every single person who walked in. Discretion was an important element to cases like this one. My job wasn’t to make a big scene and shout accusations at the woman, my job was to just take a couple of pictures confirming the affair and get out of there so I could collect my paycheck. If Maya picked up a couple of pointers on the art of hard-boiled detecting in the process, so much the better.

  “I’m getting a hit on my search,” Maya said from next to me. I looked over at the small vid window she’d opened; the search program was running with a small inset map. In one corner of the map was a bright red blip that was moving closer and closer to the middle as I watched.

  “She’s, um, coming in here, apparently,” Maya said. “What should we do?”

  “Stay calm and relax. I’ll take it from here.” I leaned back against the bar and let my gaze slowly pan across the room, working my way back toward the entrance. As my eyes settled on the entryway, a woman happened to step in and stop, taking in the scene herself. The vid window over my left eye outlined her in pale yellow and my computer beeped quietly at me. A small text box popped up in the vid window identifying her as Mrs. Montgomery with an 88% likelihood. She was wearing a headscarf, dark sunglasses, and enough lipstick to make her already-pouty lips look positively swollen. Her dress was simple if exquisitely tailored, and very flattering to her form. The woman was someone who knew how to make the most of her ample physical assets. Even without the biometric data, I would’ve been positive it was Mrs. Montgomery. She was doing her best to look nonchalant, and failing miserably. I blinked my left eye slowly, which caused the vid window to take a photo of the woman.

  There’s a certain art to looking inconspicuous, and most people never figure it out. I’d been trying to explain it to Maya, but honestly the concept isn’t that complex. No, it’s quite simple, really, but I’m kinda glad most folks are too dense and caught up in their own mess to stop and think about it for a minute. Otherwise, I’d be out of a job: see, it’s easy to spot someone trying to look nonchalant. The trick is to not worry about it. Don’t try to hide who you are, don’t try to affect a casual walk, and dear God, above all else, don’t whistle. You can spot the nonchalant whistler from a hundred paces, easy. No, you should just behave normally, or better yet, act like you own the place. Move boldly, act like you have every right to be where you are, and most people won’t even think twice. But the minute you try to hide, the minute you try to blend in with your surroundings, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Trust me, the old saying is true: the best place to hide really is in plain sight, as long as you’re not really trying to hide.

  Mrs. Montgomery didn’t know any of that. She was trying mighty hard to fade into the shadows, and I saw her for who and what she was immediately.

  “Um, Eddie?” Maya said from behi
nd me.

  “Kinda busy, Maya. That’s our girl there in the doorway. Keep an eye out for whoever she’s meeting.”

  “I, uh, think she brought someone with her,” Maya said with a heavy dose of dread in her voice.

  I turned away from Mrs. Montgomery and faced my apprentice. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  A heavy hand landed on my shoulder. My eyes darted to the side and caught sight of a guy who could only have been described as Mrs. Montgomery’s bodyguard. He was a big guy in a nice suit, which did nothing to hide the fact that he was essentially a shaved gorilla stuffed into Armani. He grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and hauled me up to eye level. “Whatcha doin’ watchin’ Mrs. Montgomery?” he rumbled through clenched teeth.

  “Er…” was all I could manage.

  “Eddie, what should I do?” Maya squeaked from behind me.

  “Glargle,” was all I could manage in reply.

  “We’s don’t take kindly to peepin’ toms,” he continued, his threat to common grammar at least as serious as his threat to me.

  “I can certainly see why that would be the case,” I choked out, my feet dangling a good foot and a half off the floor. I was pretty certain the guy had some sort of gen-mod that gave him the ridiculous strength. Maybe his DNA had been spliced with an actual gorilla. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had slipped back down the evolutionary ladder a couple of rungs in exchange for being able to push someone’s teeth through the back of their head.

  “In fact,” he expounded, “we’s tends t’make peepin’ toms…disappear. Hur hur hur.” His attempt at a dramatic pause not only hurt my sense of narrative convention, the added “hur hur hur” of laughter at the end really just completely ruined any effect the pause would have had. It was as if this man were reading from a cliché cue card.

  No, that couldn’t have been entirely true. I’m fairly certain he wasn’t capable of reading.