Gumshoe Gorilla (36 page)

Some days I think it's a real shame that I'm not in the blackmail business. In the last few hours I'd collected enough material to put the squeeze on a lawyer, two real estate agents, and an orthodontist who liked to be called "the love machine." What I did not have yet was a single peep out of Linda. If she was in there somewhere, she wasn't being chatty.

Her car, the black concordance, was parked in the space between rooms 114 and 115. So the odds were good that she was in one of those two rooms, or maybe somewhere near them on the second floor. Under normal circumstances, I would have just bribed the night clerk to tell me which one. But with Linda I had to be careful. I'd bet a hundred bucks that she'd left a hefty tip with the clerk and instructions to call her if anyone came nosing around.

So all I could do now was wait. I'd tucked my car into an unlit corner of the parking lot, next to the dumpster. The smell was horrible, but I've done stakeouts in worse places. --Ask me about the case that Jen and I worked at a McDonalds once.-- Anyway, sooner or later, either Linda would come out of that building, or Charles Rockland would go in.

A paranoid thought occurred to me: What if Linda wasn't in her room, because she was out here running surveillance on me? I got out of the car and took a quick look around, just to be sure. There was no one lurking in the shadows behind my car. This time, anyway. I got back in.

I was letting the night get to me. Well, the night and the fact that I know how Linda operates. She is not someone that you want to cross, if you can help it. Luckily, I had a couple of advantages on her, this time around:

#1: I knew where she was (well, more or less). And...

#2: She thought that she knew where I was.

Before I left the office, I ran a sweep of my car, and found the tracker that she'd hidden under my rear bumper. It was a nice one too, more expensive than the model I use. It seemed like a waste to break such a pretty thing, so I took it down to the corner pizzeria and slipped it onto one of their delivery cars. Let Linda spend the whole night following that guy around.

A van drove up, and a bald, heavy set man in a black T-shirt got out. He walked up to room 220 and pounded on the door. I flipped on the rifle mic in time to hear him say,

"Your hour's up".

The guys hosting the bachelor party let him inside, and I lost the rest of their conversation to the loud music and shouting. The door opened again five minutes later, and the bald guy walked out holding an armful of veils and some bits of costume. He was followed by two women in trench coats. Neither of them was Linda.

I turned the mic off, and resumed my wait. After a few minutes my eyelids started getting heavy, and I had to play little games with myself to stay awake. Counting the number of cars in the parking lot. Making a list of my ten favorite movies. Trying to remember the plots of cartoons I'd seen when I was a kid.

After a while I looked up and watched the moon playing hide and seek with the clouds. My tired brain conjured up weird images from their shapes. A cat jumping on a trampoline. A snake devouring its tail. A teddy bear holding a gun. The bear turned to look at me, and seemed surprised. It raised its weapon...

A sudden noise snapped me out of the waking dream. A fluttering of wings nearby. I turned and saw that something had landed on my rear view mirror. A mockingbird. I thought they only came out during the day? Guess I wasn't the only one with a case of insomnia. It looked at me.

"Well, you're a tame little fellow." I said.

It cocked its head to the side and started talking.

And fools will seek to tame,

The sweet poison that is fame,

With a hunger that will blind them to its sting.

The bird closed its beak, and hopped from one foot to the other.

"Uh... that's quite a mouthful," I said.

It bobbed its head and opened its beak again.

But I will hide my face

From their frantic ratings race

And the empty love of strangers that it brings.

It finished, and then stood there. It looked at me, as if waiting for me to say something. I shrugged. I wasn't sure how to make small talk with a bird. Well, at least it wasn't repeating "nevermore" over and over again.

I turned to check on the kitten, but discovered that my partner had climbed into the car while I wasn't looking. He was sitting with the little runt in his lap, cradling it in one of his big prehensile feet.

"Do you mind?" I said, pointing to his feet. "Who knows what you've stepped in? Would it kill you to wear shoes?"

He put one of his big clod hoppers up on the dashboard.

"You think Nike makes 'em in my size?"

"Well at least wash 'em before you handle the cat."

I popped open the glove compartment and got out some fresh-wipes. Monk rolled his eyes but tore open a package and cleaned his feet with one.

"When did you get here, anyway?" I asked. "I didn't hear you get in."

"Me? I never left. You just stopped ignoring me."

He finished cleaning his feet and tossed the wipe into the back seat. He picked the kitten up in one of his big fuzzy hands and sniffed it. He wrinkled his nose.

"You might want to think about giving this thing a bath."

"I would," I said, "but the fur sticks to my tongue."

I knew that something wasn't right about this situation, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Well, I'd think of it later. Right now I had a few questions for my partner.

"By the way, Monk, what am I doing here?"

"Why am I here?" Monk repeated. "You want the long answer to that, or the
really
long answer to that?"

"Don't get metaphysical with me. I mean the case. Why did you send Skye to me, that whole stunt with you giving her my business card?"

Monk shrugged.

"Maybe you needed the work."

"Thanks, but a Google ad would have been more helpful. What's the real reason?"

"She's a damsel in distress. That's not reason enough?"

I shook my head.

"Read the news sometime. Whole lotta damsels out there in need of rescuing. Why send this particular one my way?"

Monk took off his fedora and scratched his head. He found a small bug and ate it.

"You sure you wanna be asking these kinds of questions?" he said.

"Probably not," I admitted, "but I'm asking anyway."

"Suit yourself."

He opened another packet of fresh-wipes and started cleaning the kitten.

"The whole thing started about a week ago," he said. "When this fox came strolling into my office. Beautiful brown pelt, big dark eyes, and hindquarters that went on and on and... well, I knew right away that she was trouble with a capital T. She spun me some song and dance about needing a job taken care of in the sleeper world. She gave me Skye's name, said that the lady would be needing a private dick real soon, and I should make sure that you were the dick. But the fox wouldn't get real specific about her own interest in the case. So I told her that I'd think about it."

"So you've got me chasing Skye's boyfriend because a talking fox walked into your office?"

"Nah. I don't go running after every Lassie with a nice tail. But the next day, this turtle comes in."

"A turtle?"

"Yeah. Some young punk. Real tough guy. Forearms like jackhammers. Anyway, this gentleman claims that he's working for one of the deeper powers. And his boss would be real appreciative if we could look into a little case that will be coming to the attention of a certain Skye Phillips. Guy said his boss is the kind of non-anthropomorphised entity that you don't say 'no' to. I asked him why his boss was so interested in the case, but the turtle said that smart guys don't ask questions like that. Suggested that I do the same, if I didn't want to wind up as a rug."

"And that's when you contacted Skye?"

"Hell no. You think I let myself get pushed around by every punk with an armored carapace? Nah. But things were getting interesting. So the next day I wasn't surprised when
she
walked in."

"Who?"

"5'1", scales, and a caboose that literally rattled when she slithered in the doorway. Nice smile, too. If you like fangs."

"Sounds like a certain dead Cherokee drag queen I know. What did the rattlesnake have to say?"

"I'm not sure. She had a horrible lisp. Something about 'Ssssssskye'sss casssssse', but that was all I could understand."

"And she's the reason you dragged me into this crazy situation?"

"Nah. But by this point I just wanted to find out why so many people were yanking my chain about it. Figured that getting you on the case was a good start."

"Thanks. Now I don't suppose you can tell me why..."

I was interrupted by a frantic chirping to my left. I turned, and saw that the mockingbird had fallen off my mirror. It was lying on the pavement with a broken wing, squeaking in terror.

I opened the door and leaned down to help it. But as I did there was a horrible roar, and a monstrous mouth rose up from the asphalt, like a shark surfacing from the depths, and swallowed it. I could hear the grinding of its teeth.

I tapped on the window again, and Drew woke up with a start. He looked around, all frantic, as if he was being busted for loitering or something. Then he saw me, and relaxed. He rolled down the window.

"Good evening Sleeping Beauty," I said. "Not working too hard, I hope."

Drew looked at his watch.

"Sorry. I just..."

"Ah forget about it," I said, filing away the incident for use the next time Drew caught me screwing up. "I know how these long stakeouts are. I take it from the position of your eyelids that nothing interesting has happened?"

"No. It's been pretty dead."

He unlocked the door and moved his kitten and the milk container off the passenger seat. I got in.