The Waiting Game (Garvey Fields) (15 page)

“Nice try,” he said and fired.

Only he didn’t, Sebastian was right.

“Quinn moistened his dry lips before he spoke, “yeah it was me. I saw him driving up; I'm tired of death so I took the bullets out of your gun."

Then he paused and looked at me Dueller, “I love you Tapper."

He pulled the trigger but it didn’t fire. I had a ring on my finger that had some sort of technology Sebastian added to my gun that inhibited it from firing unless it was in my hand. Tapper ran for his brother like a line-backer.

Quinn pulled a gun out from the back of his trousers and I saw the gun jump three times as he felled his brother.

Tappy smiled and winced, his hand flat on his stomach covered by a bubbling brook of red water.

“Fair enough, fair enough," he said slowly.

His legs gave way then and as plummeted I took two big steps to his brother and hit him hard behind the back of the ear. His flimsy frame span across the room and crashed into the reception desk. It was an ugly landing, but he still had the gun. He lifted it at me and smiled.

“No one will know,” he said manically.

“But I will motherfucker," shouted Sebastian with a big ass rifle with a red laser sight shining on Quinn's forehead.

"Sebastian?" he asked.

“Who else did you think it was motherfucker? Zorro?"

Tapper was still falling, trying to slowly claw at something to hold him up, the couches weren't close enough. He fell onto his stomach and like a new born trying to get up his legs flailed and his arms stuck to his side stiff, refusing to work. Then he fell asleep but made no sound, blood gradually seeped from underneath him. But he wasn't snoring, or breathing.

It's started to brighten up in the room like those cartoons when a spell is broken and the evil beast is defeated.

You saved my life,” l said. “Then you tried to take it, you are seriously conflicted man. How about you get some paper and write down all the crazy shit you did and sign it? Help me earn my pay."

"Is he dead?” Quinn asked.

“Of course he's dead, and we got that shot on film," I said Sebastian.

“You know I was the one that shit Marley One, l wanted him to fall when he was on his way up. But Tappy liked this kind of thing, said we should do it all nice .”

 “Good for him.”

“I bet your clever research never told you that my brother owned the apartment block. He had that henry guy manage it for him. He didn't even have a fucking G.E.D and he was letting out places he'd bought on his little earnings. He wasn't even good at boxing, just tough."

“You willing to say this on film?”

"Why not, it doesn't matter that much anymore, not now. But I want some time to try and make it Mexico; you can do that for me can't you?"

“What about this place? Tapper's apartments."

“Give it to the girl, I’ll sign it over, just give me a day to get out of the US."

I wasn’t going to shoot him, and he'd killed a rapist and scum. It was his brother that killed women not him. I didn't see how Lucy was going to run an establishment like this, but l knew someone who probably could.

"Full confession with details, recorded on your phone.”

He nodded.

As the early birds chirped the morning chorus he set his phone up and sat back.

He started to talk and went on like one of those terrorist in an Al-Qaeda video. He went on in detail for an hour with days, date, times and place.

11

S
ebastian and I waited three hours before we left the hotel on the mountainside. The sun was up by then and the drive down the hill was less imposing than the one up it. We got lunch; it was nice and not as greasy as it looked. The deputy sheriff made a show of greeting us at the café and asked us if we’d been doing surveying long. I had to kick Sebastian under the table to change his blank expression.

I called McKinley or more to the point I called his office and had an argument with his receptionist. It was when I mentioned murder that McKinley suddenly became free from his locked door meeting.

"This is McKinley,” a lazy voice said.

”I’m Garvey Fields, do I need to explain myself."

“I know who you are son; the thing in Seagate has been resolved without incident and only a small obituary."

“Okay well I'm about to leave, the two men that killed Marley One were Quinn the night manager at the Mayflower and his brother, used to be a fighter. Anyway the brother, Tapper, is dead, shot by his brother. He recorded a confession before he left; it’s on the reception desk."

“My boy you work fast, why did they do it?"

“Sibling love, they had a sister that Marley One did real bad,” I said.

“What about Quinn, is he on the run because I don’t want some douche reporter or county attorney looking to get promoted link him to me and my business."

“I have a feeling I know where he’s gone; it's not far from here."

"I’ll guess you want paying or your jobs back then, you deserve a bonus."

“I want to make a deal."

"What you think you have something over me boy?"

“The girl..."

“You want a girl?”

"No Lucy."

“You want her contract?"

“I want you to let her go."

“She's going to be a star."

No she’s not. You’re going to string her along whilst she balls your clients and slips away from her own soul."

“What's the trade?"

“Hotel out here just became vacant possession."

"Okay, I'm listening," McKinley said.

We ate our breakfast slowly because we weren’t in a hurry anymore, all urgency had gone. The deputy sheriff came again looking feverish.

“You okay joe,” asked the waitress as he sat down at the booth behind us.

“No Beatrice, we’ve just had an accident at the ravine.”

The deputy had his coffee and we drove on down the ravine. We drove a mile before we saw the fire engine and the mountain rescue team abseiling down the side of an old quarry where the barrier had bent enough to create gap like a yawing puppy.

A few hundred feet down was red mustang still on fire, crumpled and not so red anymore.

We drove until we reached Brooklyn.

If you enjoyed this book please read the preview that follows of
The Trouble Business

THE

TROUBLE BUSINESS

R.A CHANDLER

1

F
rom time to time I did work for other detective agencies, my reasons were varied, but it was usually money. I wasn’t bored when I got the phone call from Secrets Detective Agency, a firm that specialized in marital related investigations. The boss, Cortina Young, had worked with me before and understood my fees. I didn’t work for a day rate just a set fee depending on how long I expected the job to take. Half at the beginning and half on completion, if I was unsuccessful I’d returned the initial fee minus expenses. I didn’t bring nasty surprises, didn’t go to strip clubs or the associated services and I didn’t have a drinking or drug problem.  I provided receipts without being asked and full detailed reports related to the job. Besides that she had a receptionist, who acted as a honey pot that I wanted to conquer like a mountaineer climbing Everest. She did the mean face thing that simply made her more alluring, more desirable.

Cortina’s office was in Manhattan at 33 Thomas Street, not too far from the African burial ground monument. Some didn’t like 33 Thomas Street, but I thought of it as a brutalism masterpiece. There was something honest about it, it was built for a purpose and it was its future masters that had changed this. It had no windows and appeared to be a façade of flat concrete slabs reaching into the sky. John Carl Warnecke had designed it to house telephone switching equipment and it resulted in a building with the highest ceilings in New York. Of course, with the added bonus of being able to survive nuclear fallout for up to two weeks after a blast. It was ironic that a detective agency that specialized in catching or enticing people into cheating would hole up in one of the most secure buildings in the country outside of the Pentagon and the Whitehouse.

I was designing a small house and mused over the idea that when away I could have concrete slabs rise up out of the ground. I’d moved away from the idea because it was impractical and I once read that there is a law of attraction when one tries to guard against something. To guard too much is to suggest you have something worth being deprived of.

I walked up the steps and through what appeared to be the only glass in the building, its front doors. The lobby was as minimalist as the building was brutalist, nice parquet flooring, simple wall art and a big yacht of a front desk with reception staff that could have passed for FBI agents. After a brief unsmiling interview I was given a visitors pass, that I suspected had a tracking device in it and directed to a lift without buttons. I was taken to the fifth floor and a computerized voice told me to get out in a polite but firm tone. I was met at the lift by a Lauren London looking woman who was light skinned but not what my late grandmother would call red or yellow boned but more cinnamon. She had a clipboard and serious expression to go with her black hair extensions, black skirt suite and a white blouse at war with its occupants.

Just because she was doing a mean face I decided to step forward to see if she would hold her ground. She did but more out of surprise than any test of will, I would call her look startled, but beautiful women shouldn’t frown unless they can follow through with the premises that they are fearless. I took another step forward so that we were touching as much one can fully dressed. It wasn’t professional, appropriate or respecting of her personal space, but all she had to do was step back, push me away, cuss me out or show me a sign of some kind that she wasn’t a willing participant.

“Georgia?” a husky voice called from inside.

“Yes Cortina?” she said stepping back, cocking her head to one side, doing something with her mouth as though she was thinking something over.

“Confident ain’t ya?” she said in her Staten Island drawl.

“I’ve been here maybe five times and that’s the most you’ve ever said to me.”

“Never had a reason to talk, know what I mean?”

“Georgia,” Cortina’s voice sounded again.

“I’m coming,” she responded still like at me now smiling. She turned and I followed her into a room with very high ceilings and kitted out like John Hamm’s office in
Mad Men
.

“Cortina Young was Victoria Silvstedt in every way to look, but when she opened her mouth she sound like she came from New Jersey. She was tall without her heels on, in her mid-forties, blonde and heavy chested without an ounce of body fat. She was nice to look at if that was your thing, but had the brain of a rocket scientist.

2

T
he story goes that she was a housewife who’d given up promising career in engineering to get married and have a couple of kids. The husband was a college lecturer in chemistry who earned enough to support the family comfortably. Every now and again he taught the more enterprising students how to make a special white powder and took a little kick back; she knew about it but didn’t mind as long as he didn’t bring it home. Then one day she contacted me and asked if I would work pro bono and she’d pay me out of a divorce settlement. Of course she suspected he was cheating and she was right, it had been the ultimate betrayal. She sent the kids to her mothers, took some of the family savings, had surgery and upgraded her wardrobe one rung below slut attire.

Now most wives in her position might have showed their husbands what they were missing and divorced their ass. Not Cortina, she wanted to prove that she’d been a housewife because she wanted to and not because that was all she could be. So she offered some local dealers better product, paid them to have sex with his mistress who was keen on the financial rewards offered by Cortina. He was tied up and forced to watch a gang of men team up on his slut side piece. Then served him with papers after she walked into the warehouse where he sat on a chair sniveling.

After that she quit the drug game and started an agency with some of her profits. Her kids were in college; she reportedly had twenty million in the bank and specialized in what she called affirmative recalibration. This meant she set her clients up with surgery at a cosmetic company she had a 75% stake in. The idea, apart from making money, was that her clients could show their philandering husbands what they were missing before they missed it. I’d also know a few husbands use her services to have a wife catch them cheating so they could activate a prenup.

“Garvey,” she said standing, hugging me and kissing me on both cheeks. I was as attracted to this woman as I was scared of her brain. She was wearing a tailored white dress suit and kitten heels. My Lauren London fantasy went to her station and started doing something on a computer and I followed Cortina to her office.