On the Street Where You Die (Stanley Bentworth mysteries Book 1) (3 page)

I ordered another drink.

Chapter 3
 

I must have spent the night in my car. That’s where I woke up. My head pounded like the bass drum in a street band. Thump, thump. My stomach churned like a cement mixer.

I got out of the car, went into my office building, and climbed the stairs to the third floor. There seemed to be more stairs today than usual.

I’ve got to talk to the landlord about that elevator. It hasn’t worked since before Nixon resigned. But then he’ll talk to me about the rent. Which hasn’t been paid since...well, you get the idea.

I went in the door marked, “Bentworth Detective Agency, LLC.” I had lettered that sign myself. It showed. The door opened into Willa’s office, which served as a waiting room and reception lobby. My office was behind hers with a closed door that separated us. The two offices could have used some paint, and the few pieces of furniture were more suited for the land fill, but clients didn’t seem to mind. Like Buford, they had problems to be solved, and most of them cared more about results than about how my office looked.

Willa was already there, settled at her desk, looking in a hand mirror, and adjusting her makeup, a wasted effort. She was in her fifties with graying hair, square-rimmed reading glasses, and was as skinny as a fourteen-ounce pool cue. Today she was wearing a drab one-piece suit and Eleanor Roosevelt shoes.

Willa had come to work the previous year and was the most efficient office manager I’d ever had. For the first time in my long and illustrious career as a P.I., my files were in order, my schedule organized, my books balanced, and my bank account reconciled. Overdrawn but reconciled.

Rodney was waiting for me in my office, sitting in my chair reading a comic book with his feet up on my desk. I stood in the doorway, bleary-eyed and head throbbing, and looked at him.

“What’s up Uncle Stanley?” Rodney was too cheerful for this kind of morning. Hell, Ebenezer Scrooge before the ghosts would have been too cheerful. My mouth felt like I’d been licking the bottom of a bird cage, the ringing in my ears would have rivaled the Anvil Chorus, and my asshole felt like Johnny Cash’s burning ring of fire. I didn’t dare fart. They’d have had to pick me up somewhere near
Cleveland
.

If you need any more hangover metaphors, come back tomorrow.

I made my usual morning-after resolution to quit drinking. This time I meant it. Like all the other times.

Rodney made no move to vacate my desk. He was tall and gangly with spiked orange hair. He was dressed in the usual baggy shorts, the top of which was down around the lower part of his ass with the crotch at his knees.

“Rodney, what holds those pants up?”

He put the comic book on the table and turned the swivel chair to face me.

“Will power,” he said.

“Get up,” I said.

He stood up and walked past me. I sat down.

“Your Jockey shorts are showing,” I said.

“That’s the style.” He turned to face me.

“I hope you change them every day.”

“Yellow in front, brown in back.”

His T-shirt said, “If God hadn’t meant for man to eat pussy, He wouldn’t have made it look like a taco.” The back of the shirt had a picture of a vertical taco.

“Damn, Rodney. That shirt can get you arrested. Does your mother know about it?”

“She bought it.”

My sister.
What a piece of work.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“You called last night.
Said we have a job.”

“I did? Oh, yeah, I did.” I didn’t remember the call, but we did have work. “Got your laptop?”

“Yeah, in my backpack.”

“If I give you an e-mail address, can you find out whose it is and where they are?”

His backpack hung from a hook on the coat rack. He got it, pulled the other chair over, unpacked the laptop, and set it up on the desk.

“Usually,” he said. “It can take some time depending on whether it’s through a website service or a dedicated mail server. One way or other I have to hack into the server with its IP address, crack the password file,
get
root privileges—”

“I don’t need details, Rodney.” If I’d let him, he’d give me the history of hacking all the way back to Babbage.

I wrote the blackmailer’s e-mail address on a slip of paper and gave it to him. “How long will it take?”

“Better part of the day,” he said.

That meant about an hour. Rodney always overestimated.

“I might not find out where the guy is located,” he said. “He can log on from anywhere. But I can probably get his name and sometimes his home address.”

“That’ll be enough. When you’re done with that, I’ll have another job for you. Use my desk. I’ll be gone for a while.
Breakfast.”

Just saying the word turned my stomach. But often food was the only way out of a hangover.

“Can I smoke in here?”

“Smoke what?”

“Shit.”

“No.”

“You drink in here.”

“Booze is legal, Rodney, and won’t cost me my P.I. ticket, and it doesn’t get into the draperies.”

“What draperies?”

“I keep meaning to get draperies. Anyway, keep the shit in your backpack.”

I got the thousand bucks out of the safe, left Rodney to his hacking, and went into the outer office.

“Most secretaries would have brought coffee to the boss by now,” I said to Willa.

“Most secretaries get paid with some degree of regularity.”

I handed her Buford’s stack of hundred-dollar bills.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“
What’s it look
like?”

“I don’t know,” she said, counting the money. “It’s been so long.”

Everybody’s a smartass today.

I shrugged. “Pay some bills with it.”

“Can I start with my back pay?”

“If you must.”

“I must.”

“Will it cover what I owe you?”

“No. But I won’t take it all.”

I sat on the edge of her desk. “Start a file, Willa.
New client.
Name of Buford Overbee.”

“You’re kidding,” she said. She was making notes.

“You’ve heard of him?”

“Who hasn’t?”

“Me. Wait’ll you see him.”

“Nobody’s ever seen him.
Address?”

“Don’t have one. Here’s his phone number and e-mail.” I gave her the card.

She wrote down the contact information and turned the card over. “Whose e-mail is this on the back?”

“It’s relevant to the case.”

“Relevant e-mail address,” she said and made more notes. She gave the card back to me.

“Don’t send any e-mail to that address. Its owner doesn’t know we have it.
Doesn’t even know about us.”

“Whatever. I suppose you’ll explain later.”

“If I have to.
I’m out of here.
Got to get some breakfast.
Hope I can hold it down.”

“Get some breath mints too, Stan. Whatever you were celebrating last night is still with us. You’ve got a breath on you would wither crab grass across the Interstate.”

Only a true friend would tell you that.

She opened a drawer and began rummaging in it. “Now where did I put that Lysol spray?”

“Don’t worry. It won’t get into the draperies.”

“What dr— Oh, get the hell out of here.”

I went across the street to Ray’s diner, my usual eating place. It was in a brick building, now mostly unoccupied. Ray grilled the best burger on either side of the tracks, and his loyal clientele kept him in business.

Bunny was on duty. I was always glad to see Bunny. She had been my on-again, off-again girlfriend for about seven years. Even when we were off-again, like now, we stayed friends. Not many women in my life had been able to do that. My breakups had always been noisy and unpleasant. Not with Bunny, though. We’d just agree that time had come to move on, usually at her initiative. Then after some time off, we’d try again. This was one of those times when we weren’t trying.

One of those off-again periods had given me a low time in my life. I tried marriage.
A failed experiment.
I was not cut out for wedlock. Neither was my wife. It came to an end when she ran off with my best friend. I sure do miss him.

When the divorce was final, I got back with Bunny, which lasted less than a year, ending when she met the man of her dreams, which was how it usually ended. That was six months ago. As usual, we remained
friends,
a necessity because of Ray’s cooking.

I figured Bunny would go easy on a guy in a divorce, a hell of a criterion for choosing a girlfriend, but with experience
comes
wisdom. And caution.

Bunny had been the perfect girlfriend. She didn’t spend our times together saying what an asshole her ex-husband was. Or what she’d do when she won the lottery. Or snore.

I took a seat in a booth and looked out the window at the run-down building that housed my office across the street. The building hadn’t aged well.

Then I looked at Bunny. She had aged well. She still looked good for an old broad. Sexy women who take care of themselves stay sexy as time passes. Bunny had taken care of herself. A little wider in the middle and at the hips and a few lines on her face, but it was only a matter of perspective. I’d been without female companionship since we broke up. A couple more months of that and Grandma Walton would have looked good.

She leaned against the booth and crossed one ankle over the other. Her skirt was just above the knees. Her knees had aged well.

“Hi, Stan.
You look like shit.”

“Good to see you too.”

“Maybe if you’d shave.
Or change your shirt.”

“Or blow my brains out.”

“What happened?
The usual?”

“Yep.
Hangover.
Chronic.”

She poured me a cup of coffee and scribbled on her order pad without asking what I wanted. Bunny knew I’d eat whatever she brought.
Like being married but without the baggage.
Ham or bacon and eggs, usually.
Eggs cooked however it fancied her. Eggs didn’t sound so good this morning. I figured I might be able to get down a feather soufflé if I took it slow.

Bunny put the order through the window to Ray in the kitchen, came back, sat across from me, and handed me a mint.
Subtle, but effective.

“So, what’s new?” she asked.

“Same ol’, same ol’,” I said.

“What were you celebrating?”

“Got a new client.”

“So, did you have to drink up the whole fee in one
night.
”

“He helped. I don’t drink alone.
Unless there’s nobody around.”

“Another husband with a cheating wife?”

“No, a financier.”
I lowered my voice. I could trust Bunny. Well, to a point. “Guy named Overbee.”

“I’ve heard of him,” she said. “He’s been in some kind of deep shit for hustling hedge funds.”

Was I the only person who never heard of my client?

“What’s a hedge fund?” I asked.

“Beats me,” she said. “But apparently they can get you in deep shit. The TV news people are all over each other trying to get him on camera. Nobody knows what he looks like.”

“I do.”

“So?
What’s he look
like?”

“Big guy.
Good looking in a rough kind of way. You’d like him. Reminds me of that jerk you dumped me for last time.
B-B-B-Barry, the body builder.
He still around?”

“No. It didn’t last. Barry was too much into himself. Muscle shirts and never met a mirror he didn’t love. If we weren’t talking about Barry, he’d change the subject. And I couldn’t stand the stutter.”