Seattle Noir

TILL DEATH DO US…BY CURT COLBERT

Belltown

I hate domestic cases. As long as I’ve been a private eye, they’ve been as unpredictable as counting on a sunny day here in Seattle. Harry Truman upsetting Dewey in last year’s election was no big surprise at all compared to domestic cases. They can ruin your day faster than losing a bundle on the wrong nag or saying “I do” to the wrong dame.

So why did I do it? Take the Dorothy Demar/Harold Sikes case, I mean. I’ve been asking my bottle of Cutty Sark that question ever since it was full and I still don’t have a good answer. It has been getting a little easier to ask the question, though. Decent Scotch doesn’t do a thing to solve the eternal mystery of sin and sordidness, but it does make it slightly easier to swallow.

Dorothy Demar entered my office without knocking while my girl Friday, Miss Jenkins, was out having her usual at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. At least Miss Jenkins could afford to go out to lunch. Me, I was dining on yesterday’s liverwurst slapped between two hunks of last week’s bread. I had some slight money troubles. It was payday and I’d sucked my bank account dry forking over my girl Friday’s salary. Worse, I’d blown the last C-note I had in reserve for the down payment on the fancy-schmancy two-way radios that I’d had my sights set on for the better part of a year. Cops had them, why not me? Yeah, well, now I had my two-way radios, but my name was going to be mud at Queen City Electronics without the dough for the balance of the account, which, coincidentally, just happened to be due today. Nothing I hated worse than a welcher-and that was going to be me, I was thinking, when Dorothy Demar sashayed in.

“Jake Rossiter?”

Husky voice for a female. More like a command than a question.

“Who’s asking?”

I glanced up from my desk, startled that the owner of the whiskey voice turned out to be such a hot number.

“Dorothy.”

The way she peeled off her long white gloves reminded me of a woman slowly taking off her nylon stockings. This dame just dripped with sultry allure. Got me excited-got me nervous-didn’t know which emotion to act on.

So, there I sat-and there she stood-tall, slim, busty, early thirties at most, with a blond Veronica Lake hairdo over high cheekbones, perfect skin, and a button nose, her powder-blue, two-piece silk ensemble so snug that I had to catch my breath.

“Dorothy Demar,” she said, adding a last name, her eyes a deeper blue than the last swimming pool I dove into.

I noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I drew on all my years as a professional to compose myself.

“Glad to meet you. Have a seat. What can I do for you?”

“I want to hire you.” Curvier than ten miles of bad road, she slid into the green wingback chair across from me.

“I figured you weren’t collecting for the Milk Fund.” I pushed the liverwurst out of my way and replaced it with my stenographic notepad. “I might be able to squeeze in a new client. Shoot,” I told her, uncapping my fountain pen. “What’s the scoop?”

“I need you to keep an eye on me.”

“From what I’ve seen so far, that won’t be difficult.”

She smiled for the first time, her pearly whites glistening between her full red lips.

“Just for the record, though,” I continued, “why do you need me to keep an eye on you?”

“I think I’m in danger, Mr. Rossiter,” she said, a little quaver in her otherwise strong voice.

“Why’s that?”

“Does it matter?” she snapped. “I want to hire you! Isn’t that enough?”

I studied her for a moment, a bit put off by her sudden fire. “Not quite.”

“I think I’m in danger,” she repeated.

“Look, let’s try this again,” I told her, taking out a Philip Morris and lighting up. “Maybe you’re new to this sort of thing, but I’m not really big on mysteries. I like my cases nice and straightforward. And my answers plain.”

Dorothy jumped to her feet. “Maybe I’ve come to the wrong man.”

I stayed seated. “Maybe you have,” I said, thinking about how fast lust can go wrong.

She reached into the small ivory clutch that she carried, and laid four fat C-notes face up on my desk. Ben Franklin never looked more handsome. “Is that enough to make you the right man?”

“Well, now…” I pulled the bills toward me. “I could maybe handle a certain amount of suspense for this kind of dough.”

“Thought so.” Looking smug, she sat back down and took a gold-filigreed cigarette case out of her clutch. Tamping one of her smokes against it, she said, “Now maybe you’ll start doing like you’re told.”

“Could be.” I offered her a light. “But you haven’t told me anything yet. No, strike that, you’ve spilled loads just by the way you’ve been acting. Let’s see… you’re rich; undoubtedly spoiled rotten as a child; used to getting your own way and you tend to throw tantrums when you don’t. How am I doing so far?”

“Good as a gypsy.” She took a deep drag off her cigarette and gave me a wry look. “I can tell a few things about you too. Let’s see… you’re not rich, otherwise you wouldn’t have this crummy office in the Regrade; you probably had to do for yourself as a child; you’re used to making your own way in this world and you tend to be cynical and sarcastic when things don’t go like you think they should. How am I doing so far?”

“Good as a gypsy.”

“There’s one other thing.”

“What’s that, pray tell?”

“You seem to be one of those people who act just the way they look, Mr. Rossiter. Smart but tough. Exactly the type of man I need to help me.”

This dame was smart herself. And definitely drop-dead gorgeous. Volatile, potentially explosive mix. Whether it was the edgy thrill she gave me, or the fact that her moola would more than cover my two-way car radio debt, I don’t know. All I can say for sure is that I could feel my better judgment flying away as fast as a pheasant that you’d missed with both barrels.

“Okay. You’re rich, I’m not. That about covers all the bases except one: I still need to know why you feel threatened and want me to watch over you.” I pushed the money back toward her. “No answer, I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your case, even though I might kick myself later.”

“You have integrity. I don’t need integrity. But it will have to do, I suppose.” She slid the C-notes back at me. “I strongly suspect that my husband is planning to kill me.”

“That so? I didn’t know you were married.”

“We live apart,” she said, a definite sense of finality in her tone. “I have my own place; Harold has his.”

“Harold, huh?” I wrote his name down. “Tell me about Harold, Mrs. Demar. What makes you think he’s got it in for you?”

“It’s Mrs. Sikes, actually,” she corrected. “Demar is my maiden name.”

“Sounds better than Sikes; I don’t blame you.” I fixed Harold’s name in my notes. “So, once again, why would Harold have homicide on his mind?”

“He thinks I’m two-timing him.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

Her candor brought me up short. For want of anything better to say, I replied, “That’s refreshing.”

“Harold thinks he owns me. He doesn’t. That’s why I need you.”

I leaned back in my chair and blew a smoke ring. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

“Keep an eye on me, like I said.”

“That could get expensive.”

“I have my own money. I was rich before I married Harold, and I’m still rich.”

“Have you tried marriage counseling? It’s bound to be cheaper.”

She laughed. Only the second time I’d seen her crack a smile. It vanished as soon as she began talking. “You have a sense of humor too. Keep it. Do you want the job? Yes or no?”

“When would you want me to start?”

“Now.”

“How close do you want to be followed? I can tail you from a distance or so close we might have to get engaged.”

Another smile-very small, very brief. “While the latter method might prove interesting, Mr. Rossiter, just keeping an eye on me from a distance will be more than adequate for the time being.”

“In that case,” I said, picking up the phone, “I’ll have my right-hand man on the job before you leave the office.”

She stubbed out her butt in the ashtray. “You won’t be watching me personally?”

“I’m saving myself for you.” I grinned. “I want to be fresh as a daisy if you ever need the close tail work.”

“I see,” she told me, the hint of a flirt forming in her eyes. It disappeared the instant I got Heine on the horn.

“Heine. Got a gig for you.” I could hear the click and clack of pool balls caroming in the background. As usual, he was downtown, just a few minutes away, at Ben Paris’s pool hall. He haunted the joint trying to shark a few simoleons whenever I didn’t have him working a case.

“That so?” Heine asked. “Good. Where do ya want me and when?”

“Over here at the office. Now.”

“What’s up?”

“Dame I need you to keep tabs on. She’s with me as we speak. Make it a discreet tail, but don’t let her out of your sight. Her life may be in danger. Name’s Dorothy Demar. Just honk when you show up. She’s got better gams than Betty Grable. You’ll like the work.”

“Say no more, brother,” Heine answered quickly. “I already left.” The line went dead.

“Thank you,” Dorothy told me as I hung up the receiver.

“For what? The compliment or for taking the job?”

“Both. I’m very grateful.”

“Maybe you should save your gratitude until I’m sure I can keep you safe.”

“You will. I have no doubt.”

“You’re pretty certain about me, huh?”

“Everybody says you’re the best.”

“Can’t argue with that. Even so, I’d advise you to lay low for a while if you think your life’s in danger.”

“No, I won’t do that.” She stood up like she was preparing to leave. “I’m going to lead my life as usual. Neither your well-intentioned advice nor Harold’s ill-intentioned behavior are going to stop me.” She glanced at her diamond-studded wristwatch. “I hope your man hurries. I have a final fitting for my winter trousseau at Frederick’s, after which I have a date for dinner and a night out on the town.”

“Not with Harold, I presume.”

“Heavens no.”

“Your date’s a lucky man.”

“Yes, he is.”

Her eyes flirted with me again. This time, I let mine flirt back. Our orbs danced that way awhile, getting closer and closer. They say you can look right into another person’s soul through their eyes-I don’t know what she saw in mine, but what I was seeing was pretty much what I thought the moth saw instead of the flame.

Heine tooting his horn outside saved me from getting singed. He had a trick air horn on his hot rod ’47 Ford that sounded just like a wolf whistle.

“That’ll be Heine.” I walked over to the window, pulled it open, stuck my head out, and threw him the okay sign.

Dorothy came up behind me and put a light touch on my shoulder. “Am I going to be safe with him?”

I turned around-we were so close that her ample bosom brushed against my chest. “Maybe safer than with me,” I told her, taking a step back. “What kind of car are you driving?”

“The new Packard. Black. It’s out front.”

I yelled down at Heine a couple stories below. “Her ride’s the black Packard!” He couldn’t miss her expensive white side-walled sedan considering he’d parked right behind it. “She’ll be down in a minute, compadre. Stay loaded for bear and keep in touch. It’s worth a C-note.”

“I’ll stick to her like a fly on you know what!” he hollered at me.

Closing the window, I smiled as I noted the new radio antenna sported on Heine’s Ford. Twice as long as a normal aerial, it made his coupe look almost like an unmarked police cruiser. At least I’d be able to pay for it now.

Dorothy slipped on her long white gloves, took her clutch from the top of my desk, and headed for the door.

“Maybe we’ll see each other again,” she said over her shoulder.

“Up to you,” I told her, liking the way her curves curved when she walked.

She paused at the door. “Yes, it is.” Then she went out.

I watched out the window as she got into her ritzy Packard and drove off, south toward downtown, Heine’s Ford rumbling close behind. Then I pulled out my bottle of Cutty Sark and had a belt. I hate domestic cases-could’ve kicked myself for taking this one-except for the big moola and Dorothy Demar’s deep blue eyes. There was something about her that I didn’t trust. That’s why I had Heine tailing her instead of me. I figured I’d do some digging on her and see if there were any concrete reasons for my qualms. Besides, you never knew when another fat cat could walk through the door and offer a bundle for a simple job. Crazier things had happened.

A few minutes later, a man walked in just as I was about to start snooping on Dorothy. He doffed his gray Hamburg and said, “My name’s Harold Sikes. I want to hire you.”

I could’ve choked on my Scotch. Instead, I kept a poker face and studied him for a moment. Dressed to the nines in a double-breasted gray suit, with a pink boutonniere and a diamond stick-pinned tie, he looked to be in his mid-fifties, paunchy, balding, and thick-browed, with a heavy, jowly face bordering on ugly. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell what Dorothy Demar had ever seen in this joe.

“What’s your interest in hiring me, Mr. Sikes?”

“I need protection.” He strode over and took a seat across from me like he owned the place.

“Protection from what?”

“My wife. I think she’s planning to kill me.”

I almost choked on my whiskey again, so I set the glass down. “Really? How did you happen to pick my little detective agency?”

“Everybody says you’re the best.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

He took his billfold from his breast pocket, pulled out four C-notes, and pushed them across the desk at me. “Will that cover it, Mr. Rossiter?”

Ben Franklin looked just as handsome as before, but the déjà vu added a real fishy smell to him. I decided to play along anyway.

“What makes you think your wife wants to do you in?” I asked, leaving the bills where they lay.

“She’s jealous.”

“That so?”

“Hysterically so.”

“There a reason for that?”

“I’m a man of wealth. It draws beautiful women like a magnet. I have healthy appetites.”

“That’s laying it on the line.”

“Come, come, my good man. You must like attractive women.”

“Can’t deny it.”

“There you have it.” He gave me a curt nod, took out a leather cigar case, and withdrew a Corona that probably cost more than a whole carton of my fags. Snipping the end off the cigar, he carefully lit it with a gold Ronson lighter. “As this seems to be settled,” he continued, the pungent smoke curling up from his lips, “I shall consider you in my employ.”

“That depends.” I lit up a smoke for myself. “How do you feel about your wife, Mr. Sikes? Bear her any ill will?”

“Dorothy?” He looked flabbergasted. “Heavens no. Well, I suppose I should, her wanting to do me harm. But I love her very much. We’ve just never been able to make a go of it.”

“She after your money, maybe?”

“Hardly. She has plenty of her own.” Harold frowned. “See here, Mr. Rossiter, I’m a busy man. You’re welcome to a few questions, certainly. But you’ve had them. Will you help me-yes or no?”

I thought long and hard.

Harold put an extra C-note on my desk.

This was all some kind of setup, no question.

Another C-note landed in front of me.

Somebody was trying to pull the wool over my eyes.

Yet another Ben Franklin hit the pile.

Old Ben was simply irresistible. “Sure, Mr. Sikes,” I said, raking in the seven large bills. “You’ve just hired your own personal shamus.”

“Good.” He ground out his barely smoked cigar in my ashtray, which raised quite a stink. “But you must be discreet.”

“I suppose that means I should do my surveillance from a distance.”

“Quite. I deal with a number of very important people. It wouldn’t do to be seen in the company of a…”

“Low-life private dick?”

“Well…” He cleared his throat.

“That’s all right.” I gave him my best smile. “I’ve been called worse.”

He threw me a return smile, albeit very tight-lipped. “Then we understand each other.”

“Quite.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you mocking me, Mr. Rossiter?”

“No, I talk that way all the time. When do you want me to get started?”

“Immediately.” He looked at his wristwatch-big and gold, studded with diamonds. “I have an appointment with my tailor, then I have a date for-”

“Dinner and dancing,” I said. “And not with your wife.”

“Uh, yes…” He gave me a queer look. “How did you-”

“Just a wild guess,” I said. “Well, shall we get to it? Wouldn’t want to keep the lucky girl waiting.”

I grabbed my fedora while he put on his Hamburg. He carefully adjusted the hat to a jaunty angle, though it did nothing to improve his bushy-browed, beefy mug. As we went out, I left a quick note for Miss Jenkins to run down any info she could find on Harold Sikes and Dorothy Demar. Then I accompanied Harold to the elevator and down to the lobby.

His car was a new, black ’49 Packard just like his wife’s. While he got it started, I hopped into my Roadmaster, parked only a few cars back, turned it over, and dropped it into gear. After we pulled out into traffic, I settled into a medium-distance tail, never letting more than one car get between us. Then I called Heine on the two-way radio.

His gravely voice came loud through the static. “Hey, Jake, what’s shakin’?”

“Where are you?”

“Just pulling into the Frederick & Nelson parking garage.

Dame came straight here except for a quick stop for smokes at Pete’s Grocery by the office. Man, you were right about her gams. They’re swell! So’s the rest of her. Real treat following this broad. You got many more jobs like this, I might even take a cut in pay.”

“Don’t get too excited,” I said. “We just got thrown a major curveball.”

“What d’ya mean?”

I gave him the scoop about Harold Sikes hiring me for the same reason his wife did.

“Don’t monkey around, ain’t funny.”

“It’s the straight skinny.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. I’m on Harold’s tail right now.”

“Ain’t that the shits?” There was a long pause. “Somebody’s playin’ us for suckers!”

“I agree. Nothing we can do presently, though, except keep our eyes and ears open.”

“Hey, she’s pulling into a parking spot. Dame’s about to get out of her car.”

“Stay on her,” I said. “And stay in touch.”

“You got it. Over and out.”

I put my radio microphone back into its holder and continued following Harold Sikes through the moderate mid-afternoon traffic. So far, Dorothy Demar had done exactly what she’d told me: gone to Frederick & Nelson. We’d have to see about the rest. Likewise for Harold-I was real interested to see if he, too, would stick to the itinerary that he’d laid out for me.

He did. Made a beeline to his tailor, J. Berrymann & Sons, at 4th and Union. Swank joint. Had lots of polished brass and green marble fronting the plate-glass windows by the place’s entrance. I didn’t see any price tags on the display suits in the windows, so I figured it was one of those places where if you had to ask the price you couldn’t afford it. At least I had a decent view of Harold from where I was parked. I could see him pretty clearly past the window display as his tailor went to work on getting him fitted. So I stayed put, had a cigarette, and bided my time. Kept my eye out for danger, of course, but the only real danger turned out to be me smoking too much.

I was halfway through my fourth Philip Morris when Harold came out, got into his car, and promptly headed for the Rolf of Switzerland Beauty Parlor near 1st and Pike. I wondered what business he had at a beauty parlor, but my question was soon answered when he tooted his horn and two glitzy bimbos came out and met him at the curb. One had flaming red hair, was about half his age, and looked cheaper than the prize in a box of Cracker Jacks. The other chicken, also a redhead, wore a pop-your-eyes-out, bright blue evening dress that revealed the deepest cleavage this side of the Grand Canyon.

A perfect gentleman, Harold got out of the car and held the passenger door open for them. They scampered into the front seat, but not before each got a playful smack on the rump from the old boy. Then Harold slid behind the wheel and hit the road again, where he hooked up with Highway 99 and headed north.

Half an hour later, we ended up at our destination: an updated Prohibition-era roadhouse a few miles past the city limits called the Jungle Temple Inn.

I found parking fairly close to Harold’s car in the Jungle Temple’s big gravel parking lot. Instead of getting out and going inside, though, Harold and his chippies stayed put in the Packard for a while, the three of them busy kissing and horsing around as they nipped from a bottle of liquor that somebody had brought along.

While they had their playtime, I put in a radio call to Heine. I could hear the loud jazz music blowing out from the Temple as I waited for his reply. Place was a swinging hot spot. I knew it well, having done a little bootlegging for the original proprietor back when I was in my late teens. Now the booze was legal and the joint was even bigger and more popular than it had been during its speakeasy days. They featured jazz and swing that really got your feet moving. Had a huge dance floor, Class A hooch, good eats, and some of the best bands around. Even late on a Friday afternoon, the joint’s parking lot was filling up fast.

“Hey, Jake,” came Heine’s voice over the radio. “Where you at?”

“Jungle Temple.”

“The Temple, huh? Got some sweet memories of that place.”

“Anything out of order on your end?”

“Nah,” he said. “No kind of threats or anything, unless you count this Romeo that Dorothy’s with: he’s been all over her like hot fudge on a sundae.”

“Yeah? Where are you exactly? And tell me more about this Romeo.”

“He’s some swarthy joe she hooked up with at Vic’s Grill on Third Avenue. They had a couple drinks there, hardly touched their steaks, though-looked to me like they were hungrier for each other than the meal. Anyway, right now I’m tailing them past Chinatown up South Jackson Street. Nothin’ out this way except those Negro jazz clubs. Bet that’s where they’re planning to let their hair down. What about you, Jake? Anything exciting?”

“Not really. Except that Harold’s got two dames with him. They’ve been playing plenty of Post Office, but I haven’t seen a hint of anything sinister… Wait. Hold on a minute.” Harold and his redheads were getting out of the car. “Gotta go, Heine. My people are fixing to go into the club.”

“Likewise for mine, I think,” he told me. “Yup. They just parked outside the Rocking Horse. You know the place.” I could hear him opening his car door. “Talk to you later. Over and out.”

I signed off the radio and watched Harold, a girl on each arm, make his way across the parking lot. Then I piled out of the Roadmaster and followed them inside the Temple, both dames giggling and kicking up their heels the whole while.

The sound of their laughter was soon drowned out by the crazy combo that had the joint hopping. It was jammed to the rafters already, the parquet dance floor and most of the sixty or so tables ringing it almost full. Harold had no problem getting seated, though: slipped the floor manager a couple of bills and was promptly led to the one empty table front and center to the dance floor. Me, I was lucky to find a spot clear in back by the long saloon-style bar. But that was okay; it suited my purpose just fine. I was far enough away to be the epitome of discreetness, but still close enough to have an eye on business if somebody tried anything with Harold.

As if reading my mind, Harold turned my direction, looked straight at me, and smiled, like he approved of how I was keeping watch. Then he went back to nuzzling his chippies, both seated so close to him that they were almost in his lap.

I needed a drink if I was going to keep this up for long. No waiter in sight, I stepped to the bar to place my own order. That’s when the phone on the bar’s back counter began to ring. It kept ringing while the husky crew-cut bartender set up a round of drinks at the far end of the bar, then finally made his way down to me.

“Be with you in a second, bud. Gotta get this damned phone.” He jerked the receiver from its cradle. “Yeah? Who? Jake Rossiter? Look, I’m too busy to-”

“Hey, that’s for me; I’m Rossiter.” He handed me the phone. “This is Jake,” I said.

“Jake! Bad news.” It was Heine, all agitated. “Dorothy Demar’s been killed.”

“What?”

“Happened a couple minutes ago.” I could hear sirens in the background as he spoke. “Her and her Romeo both.”

“Damnation. Where and how?”

“Outside the Rocking Horse. They were about to go inside when all of a sudden this big DeSoto speeds right up over the sidewalk and squashes them against the wall. Hit so hard it almost cut them in half. Couldn’t do a thing about it. Car sped away by the time I got over to check on them.”

“I’ll be a sonofabitch.”

“Sure wasn’t any accident,” said Heine. “Dorothy Demar was telling the truth about her hubby. Had to be him behind this.”

“Yeah. And he made me his chump,” I said, now seeing the true reason why Harold hired me. “I’m his damned alibi, Heine. Get it? Harold will claim that I was watching him the whole time and he wasn’t anywhere near the Rocking Horse when his wife bought the farm.”

“That dirty bastard.” He was as angry as I was. “But what can ya do?”

“I’ll tell you what I can do.” I looked over at Harold with blood in my eye. “I’m going to take him out back and beat the truth out of him!”

“Don’t get yourself arrested.”

“If I land in jail for finally doing something right on this case, so be it.”

“Jake-”

I hung up on him. I was too pissed to listen to reason. All I could see at the moment was being too tough on Dorothy Demar when she had truly needed me. So I came out from behind the bar intent of rearranging Harold Sikes’s face.

A waiter was fixing to serve Harold and his party girls as I neared their table. But instead of setting up their drinks, he tossed the serving tray aside and exposed a silver pistol his right hand. It barked rapid-fire, putting three slugs into Harold’s chest before I could clear leather with my Colt.

Instant pandemonium. Harold was flat on his back, everybody screaming and ducking for cover around him. I got a bead on the shooter as he beat feet across the dance floor trying to escape. I yelled for him to stop. He turned and aimed at me. My.45 dropped him in his tracks.

I ran over to him, gun at the ready, to make sure he was no longer a threat. He wasn’t: I’d hit him square in the heart.

What the hell was going on?

I went to Harold next. Found him barely alive, his redheads cowering partway under the table, squealing and sobbing as Harold gasped and moaned. The blood spurting from his white shirt told me he wasn’t long for this world.

I knelt at his side. His glassy eyes stared into mine. “What… happened?” he asked.

“You tell me, pal. Your wife got murdered just minutes ago. If you know the score, you better cough it up before you meet your maker.”

He spat up a mouthful of blood. “I got her, then…” He managed a weak and bloody grin. “But this…” He grimaced in pain. “This… shouldn’t be happening to me… You’re supposed to be… my alibi…”

“Dorothy’s too, by the looks of it. Your wife was playing the same game you were, by God,” I said, finally getting the big picture. “She also hired me for protection today-had somebody ready to punch your ticket just like you did hers.”

“No…”

“Yeah. She set me up to be her alibi the same as you.”

“I don’t… believe it…”

“Believe it.”

“That devious… little bitch…” Then he shuddered and breathed his last.

I got to my feet. The two redheads were whimpering and blubbering even louder now that Harold was dead.

“Aww, shuttup!” I told them.

Then I waited for the cops. There being nothing else to do in the meantime, I went to the now empty bar and helped myself to a shot of Chivas Regal, the most expensive Scotch in the house. But like everything else, it tasted off.

I hate domestic cases. I hate feeling sorry for myself. I hate having no good reason to feel sorry for myself. I hate drinking half a bottle of Scotch and having it do absolutely nothing to make me feel any better.

It was all crap and bound to get crappier, especially when the newspapers inevitably picked up the story. I could see the headline now-Local Private Eye’s Clients Murdered Right Under His Nose. It would do my reputation a whole world of good.

The only thing that hadn’t gone south on this case was the big moola I’d gotten for taking it in the first place. I had the eleven C-notes fanned out on my desk like so many playing cards. But the longer I stared at them, the worse they looked. I’d never had so much dough look so bad. Like everything else, even the damned money was tainted. Yeah, I’d earned it, but I didn’t want any part of it. Yet there wasn’t any choice-I had to keep at least some of it, I was flat broke. I needed a couple hundred for the radios and a hundred for Heine. The rest, well, I’d just as soon eat beans for a month than hold onto it: all it would do is serve as a constant reminder of what a rank and amateur sucker I’d been.

I swilled a little more booze and wondered what I was going to do. I was giving serious consideration to donating the remaining eight-hundred bucks to charity when the realization struck me. A wonderful, happy realization that gave me such good cheer it put bells on my toes. It was so obvious.

I scooped up the dough and gladly put it into my wallet. Of course I’d keep it. This had been no ordinary domestic case. Far from it. In fact, it was a model of what a domestic case could and should be. It even had a happy ending.

After all, it was the first case I’d seen where each of the spouses trying to get out of a bad marriage got exactly what they wanted and deserved.

THE BEST VIEW IN TOWNBY PAUL S. PIPER

Leschi

There was not a more beautiful sight in Seattle. For the present at least, I owned it: Keri seated legs crossed on the metal heater as she stared out my window. A cigarette smoldered in her hand, its smoke drifting lazily to the ceiling. Her crystal-blond hair snatched the moon and starlight and magnified it. I had some Miles Davis-Bitches Brew, to be exact-on the Goodwill stereo, a little scratchy, but to my liquor-besotted ears it sounded good enough. It sounded fine. And this woman… Damn! She wasn’t the kind of woman who gave me a second look, but here she was sitting in my room.

Beyond her the night stretched back and away, dropping from the 30th Street ridge onto the glittering surface of Lake Washington. Diamonds, diamonds everywhere. And beyond that blinked the golden lights of Bellevue; and much further to the east were the Cascades, towering snow-capped peaks. Above them the sky was radiant with stars.

It made me dizzy staring at it all. I looked back at Keri and felt even more dizzy. Then the room began swaying, and that was a different kind of dizzy altogether. I grabbed the Cutty bottle off the table for balance.

“Wanna nother drink?” I slurred, giving her my sexiest smile.

She turned and gazed at me with the same distant look she gave to the stars. “You’ve had enough.”

“But this isn’t about me,” I said, feigning indignation.

She turned back to the window.

“Ish beautiful isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she muttered, taking another drag off her cigarette. I didn’t normally let people smoke in my apartment, a second-floor duplex on 30th atop the ridge just off Yesler, but I wasn’t going to damage my odds with her. This woman could spray the whole place with skunk juice for all I cared.

“What the hell is he doing?” Her voice had a sexy rasp to it. Like Dietrich, I thought, though I couldn’t remember if I’d actually ever heard Dietrich talk.

“Who?” I was sitting on a beat-up swivel chair in front of the doorless closet I used for an office. A couple of Paul Klee prints stared at my back, and my cat, Lady Chatterley, was curled on a pillow. Her tail twitched as she chased after dream mice.

I spun the chair around, coming to rest a bit off-kilter, but Keri was still in view. I swung the chair around again. This was fun.

Divorced thirteen months yesterday, I’d been on a downward spiral with life and love ever since. Thirty-eight and working as a dishwasher at the Lakeside Broiler. I used to say I was a writer. Now I didn’t even bother. I couldn’t even say I was much of a reader. I was rapidly becoming what I did nine to twelve hours a day: a dishwasher. And believe me, that’s not how I had pictured it when I stepped onto the graduation stage in Palo Alto to receive my Bachelor of Arts in history from Stanford.

I’d met Keri earlier that evening at a bar in Fremont. I’d traveled by bus to see my favorite all-women bluegrass band, The Coal Miner’s Daughters. The friend I was supposed to meet never showed, so I began a slow beer crawl toward the end of the night. I was already toasted, which loosened me up enough to dance alone, when Keri stepped in from out of the blue and took my hand, swinging me into a haphazard rendition of the lindy hop. We ended up back at my table where I immediately ordered more drinks and launched into a nonstop narration of my life, with a few detours into Charlemagne, Pépin the Short, Redburga, and the flaws in Einhard’s biography. It was the sort of rant that usually left me talking to an empty chair, but this time, when I came up for air, a gorgeous woman was listening attentively with the hint of a smile on her lips. I ordered more drinks but she declined. I waited for her rendition of her life but that never came either. My leading questions, “Where did you grow up?” “What do you do?” “Was your mother a model?” were met with curt, polite responses. So we listened to music, and danced sloppy jitterbugs.

The band finally shut it down around 1:45, and although I could still dance, after four or five additional drinks I could barely walk. When she offered to drive me home in her rusted gray Taurus, I figured we must have something in common.

“Hey, I own a shit car too,” I said. “A Honda Shivic.”

“It’s a loaner,” she said. “My Beamer’s in the shop.” She looked at me and smiled. “That’s a joke.”

As we drove, she searched the night radio realm for tunes, homing in on those lonely calls for love. This woman was playing my song.

“My parents grew up in this neighborhood somewhere,” she said as we climbed the hill toward 30th. The streetlights dropped circles of yellow light onto the street, and an occasional hooker walked her walk in them. Bobby Vinton, of all people, was singing “Mr. Lonely” when we pulled up in front of the eighty-seven steps that led to my flat.

“Who?” I said again, still spinning the chair. “Who, who?” I sounded like an owl.

“That old man.” She paused to take a drag on the cigarette. “He’s carrying buckets of dirt out of the house and pouring them into a wheelbarrow.”

I laughed. “The corner building?”

“That’s the one.”

“Ricard. He and Wanda the towering Swede own that place. Turned it into a coffee house.”

“So what’s with the dirt?”

“The place is tiny. He’s trying to expand it. He’s digging up the cellar. Going to put another room in. Maybe a pool table; home movie theater; bowling alley, I don’t know…” I started laughing, but it sounded more like soprano hiccups.

“At 1:38 in the morning?”

“Hey, they drink a lot of coffee. How should I know? Maybe he’s an insomniac. Maybe he pays himself more for working the night shift.”

She turned and stared at me. It was a hard stare, and in a momentary flash of sobriety I felt like a weak joke. Women, particularly gorgeous woman, had that effect on me.

“Come here.”

I got up obediently and caught the door jamb as I tipped too far. I righted myself and drew a bead on her. It wasn’t easy but I walked over.

“Look at him.”

Below, the streetlights illuminated the intersection in front of the shop. It was so bright that I could read the sign. OPEN HEART COFFEE & PASTRIES. They’d just put it up last week and the paint still gleamed. Ricard was pushing the wheelbarrow up the sidewalk to an abandoned concrete foundation, and when he got there, he turned the wheelbarrow into the weeds, pushed it to the edge, and dumped the contents. Then he wheeled it back to the front of the shop and went inside.

“Weird, huh?”

There were no cars, few lit windows. No one was around. The night belonged to itself, and we were all strangers. I had to admit it was an odd sight.

“What movie would this be out of?” Keri asked, sucking her cigarette and tipping her head back, exhaling hard toward the ceiling.

“It depends if we are in it or not. Hitchcock’s Rear Window. I’m Stewart in the wheelchair. You’re Grashe Kelly.”

“You’re Stewart? Not.”

“Whaddya mean not?” My near-perfect Stewart imitation.

“I mean we’re not in that movie.”

“Then I take the fithh. I refuthe to appear without you at my side.” I raised the near-empty bottle of Cutty to my lips.

She drummed her fingers on the heater. “He’s up to something.”

“You’re crazy. Are we going to bed?” I reached over and slopped my hand onto her shoulder but she shrugged it off with a casual flick.

“I’m going down there to find out.” She ground her cigarette into an ashtray I’d dug out of a forgotten cupboard full of my ex-girlfriend’s flotsam and jetsam. And they say history is dead.

I raised the bottle again and took a slug but there was nothing left in it. Just like my life.

A few minutes later I saw Keri striding purposefully across the intersection and walking into the yawning front door of the Open Heart coffee shop, following Ricard’s trail. This beautiful creature was beginning to piss me off, and I felt I better control her before she pissed off my neighbors. She could leave, but I was stuck here. I felt strongly enough about it that I got up and leveled one of my lamps on the way to the door.

I weaved my way across the street and paused by Ricard’s overturned wheelbarrow. I brushed it with my fingers, the kind of caress men give tools. Something solid about metal. It was a sturdy wheelbarrow, its red body worn to the metal in places by hard work. I felt like it would be a good companion, so I sat next to it on the curb. I could hear the crickets singing in the blackberries and a siren winding its way through Chinatown over on Jackson. I began talking to it but don’t ask me to remember what I said.

I have no idea how long it was before Keri shook me awake. It was a rough shake, and I stared at her glassily. Who was this goddess sent to save my soul?

I tried to ask her something but it came out something like, “Splefff.”

“Come here.” She jerked me to my feet, hooked her arm under mine, and then led me across the street and to my front steps. We made it up twenty-three, I was counting, and she bade me sit, although bade may be the wrong word.

“Sit!”

Sit I did. I could be a good dog if there was a bone waiting.

“That bastard,” she hissed, plopping herself next to me.

“Ricard?” I was beginning to remember things. Unfortunately, with the return of memory came a splitting headache.

“I found out what’s going on, and I don’t mind saying I’m really, really pissed.”

“Whaaa?” I wiped some stray drool off my chin. My goddess was beginning to sound downright scary.

Keri started talking, ranting actually.

“Remember I told you my parents grew up around here? Well, it started coming back to me. My grandparents owned that place.”

“What place?”

“The corner place. The place where that guy is digging. They had a business, kind of a pawn shop. I’ve seen pictures of it. I think it was called Thirtieth Avenue Resale. My dad told me once when we drove by it, and then he showed me pictures.”

“Wow. This is karmic. Or cosmic. We’re like past-life neighbors or something.”

She ignored me.

“They took in tons of jewelry from the Chinese and Japanese immigrants who came on hard times. Family heirlooms, a lot of it. My dad said much of it was jade. High-quality jade. Well, the interesting thing is,” she stabbed the air in front of her, “the interesting thing is that my grandparents stockpiled it all. Never sold it. And most of the immigrants couldn’t afford to buy it back. So they ended up with a shitload of really expensive jewelry.”

She turned and peered directly at me, an insane fervor in her eyes. “A shitload of jewelry is still in there somewhere. I know it!”

“Really?” I moved back a few inches. Her vibes were too intense.

“Yes, really,” she told me. “When my grandparents died the jewelry was supposed to go to my dad, but it never did. My parents couldn’t find it. They searched all my grandparents’ possessions, bank accounts, safety deposit boxes. They searched the store a number of times. I remember my dad saying that he thought they’d hidden it in the basement, but it never turned up. In the end they had to sell the store to pay some debts, and that was that.

“I’ll bet that old bastard Ricard found out about it,” she continued. “He’s looking for it. He knows! Maybe he even found it. That’s my jewelry!” She stood up quickly and shook her fist in the direction of the Open Heart. “That’s my jewelry, you bastard!”

“Shhhh! You’ll wake the landlord.”

“Screw the landlord.”

“Well,” I said, standing unsteadily, “I’d rather you saved that for me.”

“No chance, loser. I’m out of here.”

When I woke up-I think it was still morning-I went over to the Open Heart, Lady Chatterley sashaying behind me across the street, our shadows playing tag. Wanda and Ricard were cat friendly, but their cat Tufts was not, so Chatterley sat outside on a sunny bench, as if it were exactly what she wanted to do. Wanda was behind the counter smiling her Swedish mother’s smile. She’d adopted every hungry boy and girl in the neighborhood, and half of them sat crammed into little tables, their knees bumping the tops, pastries piling into their mouths.

“Morning, Wanda.” My voice sounded worse than it felt, but not by much.

“Albert. You look so pale.”

“Sun’s bad for you, Wanda. Gives you cancer. Could I have a pear Danish and a cup of coffee to go?”

“Sure.” She bent over and carefully extracted the pastry with wax paper. “Three dollars,” she said cheerfully, passing it to me.

I handed her three crumpled bills.

“Get some sun, Albert, and forget about cancer. Take some risks. You’ll have a better life. You worry too much.”

“I know.” I bit into my Danish. “Thanks.” I went outside and sat next to Chatterley and watched the neighborhood happen. As I ate, I wondered which was worse, pastries or worry. I guess you had to choose your poison.

Three weeks later the digging stopped. Since that night with Keri, I’d become more attuned to it. The wheelbarrow remained tipped against the white stucco wall next to the buckets on the sidewalk.

When I asked, Ricard had invited me down to see the progress. It wasn’t much: thirty square feet of dank, dark space propped with timbers and stinking of mold and wet clay.

When he lit the second lantern I saw an opening covered in ocher muslin. The corner of a rusted flour container stuck out. Ricard stepped in front of it and fiddled with the lantern, which fizzled out. He cursed.

“A cellar restaurant, perhaps. Some day. Like the old country.” Avoiding my eyes. “That’s it. Let’s go.”

I continued to do my thing, which was washing dishes and catching some local music. There was no more action in the girl department, and I was curiously waiting for construction on the basement to begin. Ricard had tapped local talent in Josh Bullford, who lived across the street and ran a small construction company. He’d built most of his own house, and worked fast and cheap. But it never happened.

Some salesman found Ricard laying at the bottom of the foundation with his head split open. The death was ruled accidental. Wanda collapsed into a nervous breakdown. A friend of Wanda’s tried to keep the place open, but the Open Heart closed down a few weeks later. Life went on, as it always does, even after the direst tragedies. As my uncle used to say, the bigger the rock, the more ripples, but the surface always smooths out eventually.

It was no surprise that when I ran into Keri again, at a pub in Pioneer Square, she was wearing better clothes, Issey Miyake to be precise. She was sexily wedged between two young dudes dripping with wealth. A leach. I wanted her to squirm, so I walked up, torn jeans and dirty Sonics T-shirt, and sat down.

“Ricard’s dead,” I said, stopping the conversation and the superficial laughter.

“Who?”

“You know who.” I pulled out a chair, flipped it, and sat down.

Keri picked up a fancy-looking purple drink and stirred it with a tiny red straw. I had to admit she looked terrific, but then so did cobras.

“How much do you remember from that night anyway?” she asked. I noticed the two men pulling back into their drinks.

“I remember enough.”

“I had nothing to do with that old man’s death, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I leaned forward. “You mean you just went home and forgot all about those piles and piles of jewels you were telling me about?”

“I didn’t forget about them. But what could I do? I checked into it with a lawyer and they legally belong to whoever owns the property. Besides, I read about his death in the paper. It was ruled an accident. What can you expect from an old man who’s dumping dirt all night?”

“What indeed? Sounds like you’ve got all the ends neatly tied up then.”

She sipped her purple drink.

“You are cold.”

“There’s a breeze in here.”

I’d given her what I wanted and she hadn’t flinched.

Three beers later, I watched her get into a black BMW with one of the two jerks, and with a puff of blue smoke from the exhaust pipe, Keri drove out of my life.

A few nights later, feet up on the heater, I gazed out in near awe at that gorgeous view. A full moon was cresting the Cascades and its light flooded the lake surface. I missed Chatter-ley already, but Cindy who lived next door was a sweetheart who would give her love and food. My landlord, John, had already advertised the apartment, and he’d taken my advice. Best view in town, the ad read. I took a sip of beer.

Ricard had been keeping the jewelry in containers of flour-over eighty pieces, dating back to the Ming and Han dynasties. Jade, gold chains, ornamental necklaces. I’d sold the lot north of the border in Richmond, BC for over $400,000, and I knew I’d gotten ripped off, but I didn’t have time to shop them around. It would have been a shame to sell it all, though, so I kept a few necklaces. Maybe I’d meet a woman in Rio.

The taxi honked outside. I headed out the door, descended the eighty-seven winding stairs through the cotoneaster, streetlights illuminating the intersection in front of the Open Heart. The Closed sign on the door gave the evening a sense of finality.

I handed the bag to the cabbie, who tossed it into the trunk. I started to get into the backseat and noticed her ice-blond hair, unlit cigarette, and cool smile. She was tucked against the far door like a shadow.

I was struck catatonic.

“I can’t imagine why you chose Rio,” Keri said, “Nice is much more charming. But there’s plenty of time to change our plans.” She patted the seat next to her. “Come, sit.”

THE WRONG END OF A GUNBY R. BARRI FLOWERS

South Lake Union

South Lake Union was the Seattle neighborhood I called home. Located just below its namesake, Lake Union, it was bounded by Interstate 5 on the east and Aurora Avenue on the west, and was in the midst of an economic redevelopment. So what else was new? There were still places in the neighborhood that allowed you to escape the gentrification.

I spent every night at such a place on Aloha Street called Rusty’s Bar and Grill. Dark and dreary, it was one of those retro dive bars that refused to apologize for turning its back on the present (and offered cheap cocktails).

The décor was fashionably outdated, with garage-sale tables and stools and framed photographs of city landmarks. A jukebox in the corner was playing B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone.” There was a worn-out pool table where on the night in question two men were playing to impress a chick who couldn’t decide which one she wanted to take home.

I sat by my lonesome, caught up in what might have been. Fresh off a bitter divorce and not looking for any company, I was content to finish off my mug of beer and call it a night.

That was before she walked in.

A cross between Halle Berry and Beyoncé, her complexion was like maple syrup over buttered waffles. Shiny raven Senegalese twists framed a heart-shaped face that featured full ruby lips. With plenty of curves in a tight red dress and three-inch heels, she really caught my attention.

She wore dark shades, but seemed to be scanning the place as though searching for a reason to stay.

When she sat at the table next to mine, I wondered if this was my lucky day.

I didn’t wait to find out.

“Buy the lady a drink?” I asked.

“Sure, why not?”

I smiled and slid over to her table. “What’s your pleasure?”

“Gin and tonic.”

I flagged down a barmaid and ordered two cocktails. “You’re new here,” I said to the gorgeous girl beside me.

“I’ve been around,” she said coyly.

“I think I’d remember if you had.”

“That’s sweet.”

I’ve never been known for my sweetness but wasn’t about to argue. “By the way, I’m Conrad.”

“Hi, Conrad.” She stuck out a small hand with long, polished nails. “Gabriella.”

I shook her hand and didn’t want to stop there.

“Anyone ever tell you that you look like Will Smith?” she asked.

“Not in this lifetime.” I saw myself as more like Denzel Washington. But who was I to bicker with this Halle/Beyoncé red-hot chick?

Gabriella smiled but left it at that.

The drinks came quickly. I stayed focused on the object of my interest.

“Why don’t you tell me something about yourself?” I suggested.

She removed her sunglasses. Her irises were the color of rich chocolate. “What do you want to know?” she asked.

Everything came to mind, but something told me that might take more time than she had. So I cut to the chase.

“How about how you ended up here with me?”

She laughed. “Don’t sell yourself short.”

“I never do.”

“Good.” She took a sip of her drink, her lips lingering on the rim of the glass for a moment. “I’m married.”

“Where’s your husband?”

“Does it matter?”

I wasn’t necessarily looking to step into another man’s shoes, but I’d done it before. “Not in my book.”

She looked relieved. Maybe a little nervous too. I couldn’t be certain.

“He’s home right now, probably wondering where I am,” she said.

“That’s too bad for him.”

“He’s not very nice when he’s angry.”

“So why make him angry?”

“Why not?” She batted her big brown eyes. “Sometimes a girl just wants to have fun.”

I flashed my best smile at her. “So does a guy.”

Gabriella licked the gin off her lips. “You probably have a wife and kids at home.”

“Not quite,” I said. “She’s an ex and has full custody of the kids. So I’m on my own.”

She gave me a dazzling smile. “Doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Oh…?”

“Maybe we can have fun together?”

“Maybe we can.”

The smile left her pretty face. “This isn’t really a good place to talk.”

Our conversation seemed to be working fine up to that point, as far as I was concerned. “You have a better place in mind?”

“Meet me tomorrow night.”

I wondered if I could wait that long. “When and where?”

“Denny Park at 7 o’clock-near the play area.”

“I’ll be there.”

Her smile returned. “See you then.”

Gabriella put on her shades, then got up and left.

I wanted to follow her, but decided to honor her wishes. So I went home by myself to the apartment I rented on North Yale Street. It was a studio-a big step down from the house my ex walked away with in the divorce settlement.

At least I had a roof over my head and a bed to climb into. I would’ve preferred to do so with Gabriella, but that would have to wait for another day. I hadn’t been looking for anybody, but now that I’d found her, I put my head on the pillow and counted down the minutes before I could see her again.

Denny Park was Seattle’s oldest park and a cornerstone of South Lake Union. Once a cemetery, it had undergone extensive renovations over the years and given people a place to hang out (and hope muggers looked the other way).

But I was less interested in its past than my near future with Gabriella.

I found her occupying a bench by the children’s play area. What I had in mind was strictly for adults.

Gabriella was dressed to kill in a low-cut fuchsia dress.

I sat next to her. Her flowery fragrance smelled like a slice of heaven.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said.

“I was too intrigued not to.”

“I’m not that interesting.”

“I beg to differ.” I moved over, close enough that we touched. “What’s your husband think you’re doing right now?”

She smiled. “He thinks I’m visiting my sister.”

I grinned. “I’m okay with that.”

“I’m just looking to have a good time.”

“Isn’t that why we’re here?”

She looked away. “My husband is a very jealous man.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Our eyes met. “I want you to know what you’re getting into.”

“Thanks for the warning, but I can take care of myself. And you too, if that’s what you want.”

“Eric’s much older than me and he’s been married twice before. I think he just sees me as a beautiful woman, somebody he can control and show off at parties.”

“Like a trophy wife?”

“Something like that.”

“What did you see in him? Is he rich?”

“He’s someone who makes my life easier.”

“At what price?”

She looked away. “I can’t answer that.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

She chewed her lower lip. “He cheats on me. Still sees his last wife and probably other women.”

“Why do you stay with him?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why do you think?”

“You tell me.”

“Isn’t that what all men do? Cheat?”

I thought of my ex who started fooling around with her boss before the divorce.

“Some women cheat too,” I said.

Gabriella put a hand on my knee. “Why shouldn’t we get our fair share?”

I put a hand on hers. “You’re right, why shouldn’t you?”

“Eric will be going out of town on business tomorrow.”

I liked where this was headed. “I’m listening.”

“If you come over around 8 tomorrow night, we’ll have the whole houseboat all to ourselves.”

“A houseboat, huh?” I’d never been inside one before. “Eight o’clock it is.”

She gave me the address. “I like you.”

“Works both ways.”

She kissed me hard on the mouth. “Till tomorrow…”

Gabriella got up and sashayed away. I went in the opposite direction.

Things were beginning to look up again in my life. I had this lady with the shimmering Senegalese twists to thank for that.

The next day I made my way to the Yale Street Landing marina, eager to hook up with Gabriella and see how many ways we could please each other.

Only a smattering of houseboats were moored there, but enough to tell me I had moved up quite a few notches in wealth. I was beginning to understand why Gabriella was in no hurry to pack her bags.

I’d barely stepped onto the floating walkway leading to the moorages when a dark-haired, well-dressed Latino man bumped into me from behind.

“Excuse me,” I said.

He gave no response, just hurried past me toward the houseboats.

I continued on my merry way, sure that I was headed for a night to remember.

Her houseboat was hard to miss. It had an end moorage and was the biggest and classiest of them all.

The wraparound lower deck afforded a full view of the city skyline. The surrounding water caught reflections that danced across the lake. This place must be worth a mint, I thought. Even so, the main attraction for me was obviously inside.

Gabriella opened the door before I could ring the bell. I gave her the once-over and liked what I saw. She was wearing a carnation-colored kimono that revealed a lot of cleavage. I wondered if she wore anything under it.

“You’re right on time,” she said.

“Did you think I wouldn’t be?”

“Not really.” Her cheeks flushed. “Come in.”

I walked into a wide, open living and dining area. It had cane furnishings, rich, paneled walls, multiple picture windows, and more than a touch of class.

Gabriella looked perfect in this setting. She was everything I ever dreamt about. With luck, this could turn into a regular gig.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked.

“Sure, why not.”

“I’ve got wine, whiskey, brandy, beer…”

“Wine.” I liked beer, but wine sounded more romantic.

She handed me a long-stemmed glass and filled it with a Cabernet Sauvignon.

“Does your husband go away on business often?”

“Often enough.”

I grinned. “Works for me.”

“I’m glad it does.”

I sat my glass down and pulled her close. I kissed her deep and long.

After a while, she pulled away. “Why don’t we go in the bedroom where it’s more comfortable?”

“Lead the way.”

She took my hand and we ended up in a spacious master suite on the main floor. It had a king-size four-poster bed and crisp red satin sheets ready to be wrinkled.

“I’m yours,” Gabriella cooed.

I didn’t want to give her a moment to change her mind, so I untied the belt on her kimono. Indeed, she wore nothing beneath it. Her voluptuous naked body just begged to be caressed.

She kissed me, ran her tongue through my lips, then laid down on the bed, her long, shapely legs making me forget any woman-trouble I’d had in the past. She curled a finger and beckoned me to join her.

I got undressed in a hurry, eager to get between those satin sheets.

But I didn’t hurry through our lovemaking. It had been a long time since I’d been with a woman, especially a woman like this-I spent what seemed like forever lost in her touch and her firm breasts, her smooth, velvet-soft bronze skin, her legs wrapped around me, her hands cupping my buttocks.

A loud noise in the hallway interrupted our passion.

“What the hell was that?”

Gabriella’s eyes went wide. “I think my husband’s back.”

My heart skipped a beat. “You said he was out of town.”

“He must have taken an early flight,” she said, jumping out of bed and grabbing her robe. “You have to get out of here!”

Hell… I doubted I could get dressed and past her husband without him seeing me.

I’d just put on my pants and loafers when a sixty-something white man burst into the bedroom. He was heavyset, paunchy, and wore a designer suit. His eyes narrowed to slits as he glared at Gabriella.

“You bitch!”

She cowered behind me like she expected me to go from lover to protector.

“Hey, why don’t we talk about this?” I told the guy.

He sucker-punched me on the chin, stunning me. My legs gave out, but I got up quickly. He was bigger than me, but I was half his age. He swung again. I ducked and hit him twice in his big belly.

He doubled over, gasping for air.

I thought it was over, but he suddenly charged me like a battering ram and got me in a headlock. We both tumbled to the floor.

He ended up on top in our struggle, then got his huge hands around my neck and started to choke me.

I couldn’t break his grip. Desperate, I balled my hands and slammed them against his temples as hard as I could.

He groaned and released his grip on my neck. I scrambled out from under him and got to my feet. But so did he…

Man, this dude was as strong as an ox and ready to go at it again.

Then a shot rang out.

The big man clutched his chest and fell flat on his face.

I turned and saw Gabriella holding a Glock in her hand.

“Damn, you killed him,” I said, attempting to catch my breath.

“Yeah.” She looked at me with eyes that had gone cold.

I tried to collect my thoughts as I moved toward her. “Look, you could say that you shot your husband in self-defense.”

A man appeared behind her in the bedroom doorway. “That won’t be necessary,” he told me.

It was the Latino man I had run into on the dock. Gabriella handed him the gun and he aimed it at me.

“What are you doing?” I asked, staring into the wrong end of the gun with nowhere to run. “Who are you?” I looked to Gabriella. “What the hell is this?”

“Shall I tell him or do you want to?” the man said to Gabriella.

As he put a protective arm around her shoulder, she smiled at me. “You followed me home, Conrad, and beat and raped me.” She said this in a stone-cold, matter-of-fact tone. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“What a bad man you are,” she continued. “But when my dear husband came home early, he tried to save me, and the two of you got into a fight. Then you shot him to death. That’s when Enrique, my husband’s lawyer, came over for a meeting. Thankfully, he got hold of the gun and shot you. You might have killed me too.” She looked at Enrique. “Hit me in the face,” she told him. “We’ve got to make it look good. Leave some marks; just don’t spoil my looks.”

Enrique made his free hand into a fist. “Don’t worry, baby, nothing can spoil your looks.” Then he punched her. Twice. Pretty hard-left a big welt on her cheek and bloodied her nose.

“Damn, Enrique,” said Gabriella, wiping at the blood with the palm of one hand.

“Why me?” I asked Gabriella.

“You were available.” She glanced at Enrique. “Shoot him, now,” she ordered. “Get it over with.”

“My pleasure.” He cracked a cocky grin. “So long, sucker. Hope she was worth it.”

“Just do it!” Gabriella yelled, giving Enrique an impatient shove. The unexpected jolt caused the gun to go off. Lucky for me, the bullet missed but I actually felt it whiz by my head.

I did the only thing I could in that moment of confusion: I barreled straight into Enrique, buried my right shoulder in his mid-section, and grabbed hold of his gun hand.

Gabriella screamed. As we struggled for the gun she stepped in to help her man. She hit me a good one, then scratched my face, but I held on.

That’s when the Glock went off again. A couple times. Bam bam!

Gabriella collapsed to the floor, blood gushing out of her like a fountain.

“Baby!” Enrique yelled. “Baby!”

He forgot all about me for a second. I wrenched the gun away from him.

The man fell to his knees beside her and cradled her head in his arms. “No, no, no,” he repeated when he realized she was probably dead. “No, no…”

“Get up, you bastard,” I said, my head swimming, my knees weak. The Glock was shaky in my hand, but still aimed square at his head.

I took a deep breath. It was over. I had him.

Then he surprised me.

He charged me just like I’d done to him.

Except it didn’t work for Enrique-I squeezed a shot off at the last moment. His head exploded like a melon hit with a sledgehammer.

Blood and brains all over me, I sat down on the bed and tried to gather my wits. I felt sick. Felt even sicker as I stared at the three lifeless bodies sprawled around me in the bedroom.

How long I sat there like that, I don’t know… All I know for sure is that I finally picked up the phone and called 911.

August 24, 2009

Editor

Noir & Intrigue Mystery Magazine

PO Box 473

New York, NY 10051

Dear Editor:

So, that’s my short story, “The Wrong End of a Gun.” I sure hope you’ll publish this. I worked very hard on it. It’s all true. And I also hope you won’t be put off by me being an inmate here at the Twin Rivers Correctional Facility.

I know it sounds clichéd, but I got the kind of justice that African Americans get all the time: lock us up and toss the key, never mind the evidence. I am innocent, I swear. I couldn’t afford a decent attorney. I’m doing fifteen-to-life. That’s the best my public defender could get.

I’ve tried the newspapers, TV, and radio-I even tried 48 Hours and 60 Minutes-but nobody would listen to me. That’s why I have written this like it’s a mystery story. I figured maybe it would be good enough to publish in your magazine. I sure do hope so. My appeal was turned down. You’re my last chance. I think a lot of people will understand this story and like it and buy your magazine. It could do you and me both a lot of good.

I have enclosed a SASE like it said to do in the Writer’s Market.

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,

Conrad Sinclair

Inmate #SN/IR-4569

Build. C

c/o Twin Rivers Correctional Facility

Monroe, WA 98057

PART IV.TO THE LIMITS
PAPER SONBY BRIAN THORNTON

Chinatown

The grizzled morgue attendant manhandled the makeshift plank table to the center of the hot, small, noisome viewing chamber. James Robbins Jewell took an involuntary step back as he watched. Not since attending the funeral of an uncle who had stepped off a curb on New York City’s Canal Street and directly into the path of a beer wagon had Jewell seen someone who had met a violent end. He had been twelve that summer.

Now twenty-four, he put a handkerchief to his nose and mouth, then willed his stomach not to betray him and add to the charnel house smell of Seattle’s Cherry Street morgue. Hardly a predicament in which I expected to find myself, he thought. Jewell had been an Immigrant Inspector with the Treasury Department for all of four months.

As if reading his mind, the attendant, a squat, copper-haired fellow with the map of Ulster stamped all over his brogue, said, “First time with a corpse, hey?”

Jewell shook his head. “No, but it’s been years.” He didn’t mention the fact that this was his first opportunity to do anything besides sit behind a desk and copy forms in the regional office since he’d been posted to Seattle three months earlier.

“And why, pray tell,” the attendant continued, “comes a Treasury man to claim this Chink?”

“Ask your cousins among the bulls about that one,” Jewell replied drily. It was 1889, and Washington Territory stood on the cusp of statehood. The Irish, among the first non-Anglo-Saxon immigrants to the region, had set about doing in Seattle what they had done in such large Eastern cities as Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston: filling the ranks of the local constabulary. Seattle’s tiny police force numbered right around twenty men; split almost evenly between Sons of Erin and Norwegian immigrants.

The attendant reached beneath his filthy apron and retrieved a pipe and tobacco pouch. “Wouldn’t touch a Chink, hey?”

Jewell shrugged. “Where did they find him, again?”

The little Irishman struck a match, touched it to his pipe, and puffed a couple of times while pulling back the sheet where it covered the corpse’s lower half. Squinting at the tag attached to one big toe, he read haltingly, “South shore… Mercer Island… half-mile west of Clark Beach.” Straightening up, the man said, “No wonder our city fellas wanted nothin’ to do wi’ this one. Mercer Island’s unincorporated county, not city turf.”

“The King County Sheriff disagrees. Says the currents running through south Lake Washington pass right by the city proper, and that’s most likely the place where the corpse originated. Says he’s too busy and hasn’t enough deputies to put on the case of-”

“A dead Chink,” the Irishman finished for him. “McGraw’s no Chink hater. Gave a fair account of himself a couple of years back, during the Queen business.” He said it as if he expected the younger man would be familiar with the reference. He wasn’t.

But Jewell nodded as if he was, thinking it must have something to do with the Chinese troubles with the local Knights of Labor back in ’86. “So, since this fellow is obviously a foreigner, the city and the county decided that this becomes a federal matter, and they contacted my office. My superior in turn fetched me and sent me down here to take possession of the poor unfortunate.” Steeling himself not to vomit, he motioned for the attendant to pull back the sailcloth tarpaulin covering the body.

The dead man had obviously spent a lot of time in the water. His eyes were gone, and his features so bloated that it was difficult to tell whether he was Chinese, Indian, even white. Jewell stepped closer to get a good look at the cold, quiet lump of mortality laid out on the plank slab like a feast on a trencher.

The Chinamen Jewell had seen before, both back home in New York and during the three months he had spent in Seattle, had all worn their hair in the same manner. They completely shaved the front, sides, and back of the skull, leaving only a circular topknot along the crown of the head: grown long and braided down the back.

The naked corpse before him sported a similarly shaven head. There was, however, no topknot to speak of. This man’s hair was far shorter, and lay in a loose halo about his head, as if to draw attention to the deep, jagged cut that ran from ear to ear along his throat. The only other injury that Jewell could find on the body was a missing right pinky finger. Bloating caused by the corpse’s watery sojourn made it impossible to discern how long its owner had gone without the finger. Old wound or new, Jewell had no idea.

Lake Washington had done equal damage to the corpse’s remaining fingers, expanding them to the size of sausages. These appendages sported long fingernails, blackened by what Jewell had come to recognize as prolonged opium use.

“Poor devil,” he muttered. “How do we even know he was Chinese? See?” he pointed at the corpse’s head. “No pigtail.”

“Likely cut off,” the Irishman said. “Big insult to the Chinks, cuttin’ their hair. Did ye mark how the rest of his hair is cut like a slant’s, though? And,” he said, pulling a canvas bag from one of the shelves that lined the walls of the gruesome little room, “he was wearin’ these when they found him.”

Jewell inspected the contents: heavily wrinkled black trousers and an equally bedraggled red tunic, both of Oriental design and obviously made of silk.

“No shoes, no hat, no other possessions?”

“He’d washed around in the lake for a while, captain.”

“These clothes are not much to advance upon. Aside from arranging for a burial up on Capitol Hill, I’m uncertain as to what other service I or my office can be of in this matter.”

“Lovely fabric, silk,” the little man said.

“I hardly think-” Jewell began.

“Strong,” the morgue attendant went on as if he hadn’t heard. “Holds a design or a dye better than most other fibers. Oh, I’ll allow that it shrivels right up and looks an ungodly mess if it’s gotten too wet, just as this Chink’s togs have. But look.” He held up the red silk of the dead man’s shirt for Jewell’s inspection. “It’s even got the poor soul’s laundry mark right here inside the collar.”

“A pauper’s grave over in Lake View is the only place this is headed.” H.M. Porter looked at his new gold watch, wound it, then returned it to the pocket of a vest so expansive, ten dead Chinamen might easily have hidden within it.

H.M. (short for “Hamilton Menander”) Porter, a Treasury Department agent of countless years’ service, and for exactly two more days head of the territory’s Immigrant Inspection Division, stretched his considerable bulk backward in the chair he’d had shipped west by Sears, Roebuck, and Co. the previous year.

“Dead Chinaman; in the water since the great fish swallowed Jonah. No one’s reported a Chinaman missing; ergo, no one cares.”

Jewell stood staring out the window of the single-room clapboard building that had housed the territory’s sole Immigration Inspection office since it had ended its previous incarnation as a dry goods store the previous winter. Like nearly every other Seattle street, Seventh Avenue was unpaved, rutted, and prone to turn into a morass when it rained.

But that spring of 1889 had been unseasonably warm, especially for Seattle. Many an old-timer had remarked upon the unlikely pleasant weather they’d been having. Now the first week of June, Seattle’s infamous late-spring rains showed no signs of reasserting themselves in their wonted seasonal patterns.

When Jewell had arrived in the city only a short three months before, the street on which their window faced had been home to the usual assortment of rivulets, puddles, and wagons stuck here and there in mud up to the axle. And “puddle” was too tame a word, a poor choice of descriptor for the standing rainwater that by turns eroded and covered the byways of Seattle’s primitive urban grid. Horses had been lost in them. Pigs had gone squealing in them. Drunks had been fished from them. Children had been known to drown in the intermittent quagmires that dominated Seattle’s streets.

Looking out upon the sunlit street from the musty confines of what was rapidly beginning to feel like a prison to him, Jewell balked at the thought of even three more days spent shuffling papers. He might as well just be locked up in the iron cell that occupied one corner of the building, the place where illegals were held while awaiting deportation. After Porter’s retirement things might be different, but at the moment, two days felt like an eternity.

“It’s a laundry mark, sir,” Jewell said. “How long might it possibly take to pursue it in the Chinese community?” He looked from the street over to where Porter sat waiting out the remaining hours until his retirement. “Besides, they’re Chinese. Just where would they have been able to go to report one of their number missing?”

Porter reached for his new watch again, looked longingly at it, as if willing the minutes to go by more quickly. “Immigrant Inspectors are not to involve themselves in local civil matters.”

“Perhaps you ought to have thought of that before you sent me down to collect the body, sir.”

Porter gave a sigh so violent that for a split second Jewell thought he might be having a seizure. Looking at his watch a third time, the older man said, “If only Clute were here. He’d know what to do.”

Clute. The man Jewell had been sent to replace. The fellow whose abrupt resignation had reportedly been greeted within the hallowed halls of the Treasury building back east in Washington City by a satisfied and protracted silence.

Clute, who had an answer for everything. Clute, whose efficiency and commitment to his profession had allowed Porter to commence his life as a pensioner a couple of years early in everything but name. Clute, who understood and respected the Celestials who Immigration Inspectors were supposed to be encouraging to return to their homes in China. Clute, who had left his letter of resignation on Porter’s desk and promptly vanished.

“But Mr. Clute isn’t here, Mr. Porter. I am. In scarce two days’ time you’re to be pensioned off. In the three months I’ve been here you’ve had me hard at it, mastering the intricacies of our particular bureaucracy. This is an opportunity for me to gain some experience working outside of our office, while I still have you as a source of advice. Your sagacity and good counsel will be sorely missed once you’ve returned home.” That last part was sheer flattery. Porter had done little over the past three months save arrive late, take long lunches, and leave early. “Why not make the most of this opportunity while I still have you here?”

At first Jewell thought he might have overplayed his hand. Porter sat there staring at his watch for a number of heartbeats. At length he asked, “Where’s the body, anyway?”

Jewell blinked once while Porter’s question registered. “They need a day to release it. Paperwork, I was told.”

“You’re hell-bent on following this up, aren’t you, lad?”

“In this man’s shoes I would want my mother to know what became of me.” When Porter said nothing, he continued, “It’s the Christian thing to do, sir.”

Porter gave a loud rumble that might have been a chuckle or it might have been a grunt. “The Chinese,” he said slowly, “seem to know very little of either Christianity or sentimentality. In China, life is a cheap commodity. This fellow’s family likely wrote him off the day he set out for Gum Shan”-he used the Cantonese name for America; it translated as “Gold Mountain” in English. After pursing his lips and squinting at Jewell for thirty seconds, Porter finally said, “If I forbid you to pursue this, you’ll just wait out my remaining days and then set about it on your own anyway, won’t you?” Rather than wait for a reply, Porter sighed and looked at his watch again. “You have one day, young man; all of today and till 12 noon on the morrow. I expect you here not one jot later. After all, there’s still the matter of the collection of that body.”

When Jewell began to thank him, the older man cut him short.

“I can spare you the rest of today and tomorrow morning, but nothing further. Do I make myself clear?”

Jewell savored the feel of the sun on his face as he headed downhill in the general direction of Chinatown. No clouds today; the sky bright blue. Off away to the west across the Sound the jagged snow-capped peaks of the Olympics showed themselves. Gulls reeled and swooped overhead, looking for their next meal.

Taking the Skid Road, Jewell wove his way in and out of the foot and wagon traffic to be expected on so glorious a June afternoon. Known alternately as “the Mill Road” and “Yesler’s Drive,” the Skid Road was the first (and, to that point, only) paved street in town.

Built at public expense at the direction of former mayor Henry Yesler in order to more easily get freshly cut logs downhill to his huge sawmill on Front Street, the Skid Road ran straight down Seattle’s steep western slope all the way from the timberline where it crested First Hill to the fill-dirt of the waterfront. Surprisingly, Yesler’s primitive plank pavement did its work, serving as the “skid” that gave the avenue its name, and keeping logs being sent down the hill from sticking fast in the ever-present Seattle mud.

Such a reliable thoroughfare quickly sprouted residences and businesses running along both its sides. The Skid Road already boasted saloons, general stores, two millinery shops, a carpenter, a tinker, a hostelry, a cobbler on the corner of Fifth, and, at the foot of the hill, the elaborate cornice work and hand-carved façade of the three-sided, three-story Occidental Hotel stood on the corner where James Street dead-ended into it right in front of Yesler’s massive mill.

This growth had made the Skid Road the anchor of Seattle’s burgeoning downtown, and had spilled over onto neighboring streets, such as the spot a block to the north where the significantly pious whitewashed bulk of Trinity Church rose. As far as Jewell knew, Chinese were not welcome within. Furthermore, not a single business lining Seattle’s busiest street was Chinese-owned.

The first Chinese to come to the area during the labor shortage of the late 1850s had been welcomed by Seattle’s white settlers. When businesses began to fail in response to the panic of 1873 and available jobs dried up, Chinese laborers, always willing to work hard for lower pay than white men, became less welcome. Anti-Chinese riots periodically broke out across the Northwest, culminating in the Knights of Labor successfully running nearly two hundred Chinese out of Seattle aboard a steamer bound for Victoria only three years earlier.

In the time since then, most of the Chinese still residing in Seattle had been pushed out to the south end, clinging to a few blocks between the businesses downtown and the Duwamish mud flats that ran east from Elliott Bay right up to the foot of the craggy, flat-topped escarpment that the locals called Beacon Hill. Washington Street bordered Chinatown on the north, and since the mud flats were just spitting distance south from it, Seattle’s Chinese population of between three and four hundred found itself crowded into the narrow space between.

While many of the neighborhood’s structures were single-story frame affairs like most of those occupying the slopes of other areas such as Capitol Hill, First Hill, Belltown, and Magnolia, Chinatown’s buildings doubled as both businesses and tenements, with living quarters in the back for both owner-operator and staff. The Chinese had been known to sleep ten men and more to a room. According to the records with which Porter had kept him so busy, no less than twenty-seven Chinese houses occupied the block of Washington Street that ran between Second and Third alone.

Because the Scott Act of 1882 had made it almost impossible for more Chinese to get to Gold Mountain, Seattle’s Chinese denizens tended to be American residents of long standing. Since the Scott Act further effectively barred all women of Chinese extraction from entering the country, the overwhelming majority of the neighborhood’s residents were male. Rare indeed was the sight of a woman of any race in Chinatown.

Jewell had once wondered aloud why these men, barred by state and local laws from working mining claims or owning mineral rights, bothered to stay in a country so different from their own, and so far from their homes.

“The Chinese can make more money in one month doing white men’s laundry and laying railroad ties in Gold Mountain than they can clear in a year at home,” Porter had told him. “That’s why they stay. They put in their time here and go back home to much fanfare from the family they’ve supported for the past ten or twenty years.”

These thoughts occupied Jewell during the fifteen-minute walk down the hill to where Yesler’s big frame house dominated the northwest corner of the intersection of the Skid Road and Third Avenue. From there he turned left and walked down Third to where it met Washington Street, and crossed over into Chinatown.

The mark that Jewell had copied down when the attendant had pointed it out to him that same morning vaguely resembled a square with a single slash running through it top to bottom, at a slight left-to-right angle. Seattle had five Chinese-operated laundries, all of them on the block at the heart of Chinatown.

It was the work of another twenty minutes to show this design to the owners of the first four out of the five of these establishments. Nothing but blank stares and muttered, “No Englee.”

Jewell had begun to wonder whether he had really just embarked on a fool’s errand when he entered the last Chinese laundry on the block; the southeastern most one, sitting as it did on the corner of Third and Jackson.

The unmistakable odors of lye and bleach assailed his nostrils as he opened the door. The place was small, hot, and clean, the boards along the top of the walls and the entire ceiling turned a dull gray by who knew how many thousands of gusts of bleach-riddled water vapor. Stacks of neatly folded clothes lined shelving that ran the length of the back wall. A large cast iron pot, water bubbling in it, sat in one corner surrounded by piles of multicolored clothing.

According to the clerk, a slightly built Chinese youth barely five feet tall, a man named Louie Chong owned the establishment. He had gone on a long journey to someplace called “Gwongdong.” The clerk professed no idea when Louie Chong could be expected back in town.

Jewell flashed his Treasury badge. “What’s your name?”

“Me?” the boy piped in a prepubescent voice. He couldn’t be older than fourteen.

“You.”

The boy pointed at his own chest. “Louie Gon.”

Chinese put the family name first, Jewell thought. This is a relative. A younger brother, a nephew, a cousin, or a-

“Son,” the boy said as if reading his mind. “Louie Gon.” He pointed at himself again. “Son…” he paused as if searching for the right word, “to Louie Chong.” Then again, more sure of himself, putting the words together: “Me Louie Gon. Me son Louie Chong.”

Having gotten that out of the way, Jewell held up his sketch of the laundry symbol he’d seen at the morgue that morning. “You know this mark?”

The boy leaned forward and squinted. His bone structure was finer than that of most Chinamen. His features were different too; not as flat as those of most Chinese, with a pointed chin. His hair, shorn at the sides and front, like that of most of the Chinese Jewell had seen, was glossy black and tightly wound into a long braid that ran down his back and out of sight. The youth’s clothes were an odd mix of East and West. He wore gray woolen trousers and a black silk, Oriental-cut shirt. No customary black cloth slippers on his feet, though. Heavy, square-toed brogans completed his wardrobe.

The youth straightened up with a jerk, recognition crossing his baby face. Mouth hanging open, head shaking in the negative, he backed away from the long wooden counter that separated them.

“What’s the matter?”

The boy shrugged. “No see that mark before.”

“Have you a mark ledger?”

Another head-shake. “Keep all marks here.” He tapped the side of his head. “Nothing written down. We busy. No time flip through big book.”

“I’ll need to satisfy myself as to that,” Jewell said, making his way to the end of the long counter.

The youth blocked his path. “We no have book!” he repeated, voice rising into a near squeak. “Louie Chong no like customer behind counter! Him beat Louie Gon for letting you back here!”

“And what do you think the Treasury Man will do if you don’t?” Appalled at the regrettable necessity of using strong-arm tactics with a member of the community he was trying to help, Jewell continued, “Now stand aside and allow me to have a look around, short-leg.”

The boy turned and fled. Before Jewell could react, he had flung open a cupboard on the room’s back wall, snatching up exactly the sort of long leather-bound book Jewell had just been asking about. Recovering from the shock of the youth’s unexpected move, Jewell sprang after him, catching the fellow by his braid just two steps shy of the backdoor.

The boy gave a squawk and began to flail his arms and legs about wildly, shouting in frantic, high-pitched Cantonese. Jewell hauled him round so he could look him in the face. “Listen to me.” Exasperation lent a further edge to his tone. “A man is dead. You savvy ‘dead’?”

The boy tried to bite him for an answer. They struggled further. Jewell got between the youth and the backdoor. No sooner had the two of them faced off than a gong sounded loudly somewhere within Jewell’s head, lights cascaded in a thousand glorious colors before his eyes, and then the world went black.

An hour later Jewell’s ears still rang, and a knot had begun to rise on the back of his head. By the time he’d regained his senses there in Louie Chong’s laundry, the little Chinaman and whoever had hit him on the head were gone.

So was the ledger over which they’d struggled.

Porter was unmoved when Jewell reported his lack of progress to him. “Told you it was a waste of time,” he said. Then he’d suggested Jewell go see Chin Gee Hee. “If he can’t help you locate those two, no one in Seattle can.”

Chin Gee Hee was the best labor wrangler in Seattle, and a leading member of the remaining Chinese community. A resident of the territory for over twenty years, Chin had come to Seattle a decade previously, bringing a wife over from China and starting a family upon their arrival.

On that terrible day when most of the Chinese in Seattle had been rounded up and forced down to the docks in preparation for deportation, Chin’s family had been among them. It was a testament to the amount of respect he commanded among Seattle’s old guard that he had been able to talk his way into both staying and keeping his family in town. No question, Chin Gee Hee had pull, and not just with City Hall, but within the Chinese community as well. Rumor had it that he was also the eyes and ears of the Chinese Consulate down in San Francisco.

If you were Chinese and you wanted to work, Chin was the man to see. If you were white and wanted to hire Chinese labor, Chin was also the man to see.

He ran his business out of a brand-new building on the southwest corner of Washington Street and Second Avenue. Jewell found him there, seated at a roll-top desk pressed into a cramped spot along the back wall of the single-room structure. It took some doing to arrange to speak to Chin, because the place was alive with Chinese; customers and tradesmen, Chin’s employees and white contractors seeking labor.

In his mid-forties and a bit above average height for a Chinaman, Chin had thinning hair, a ready smile, and was dressed in rough Western work clothes, complete with squaretoed, heavy-soled boots. No braid, no shaven head, no silk clothing. With a battered broad-brimmed hat perched on the back of his head, he looked the part of the prosperous Western businessman he was.

“Always happy to help honored Treasury Man,” he said with a disarming grin after reading the note of introduction that Porter had scribbled for Jewell. They shook hands, and Chin offered the younger man a seat.

Chin’s open face clouded when Jewell mentioned his quest for information regarding a laundry owner named Louie Chong. “Louie Chong not good man,” he said. “Hock tell me when I first come here, ‘Stay clear Louie Chong.’ Not easy to do. Louie Chong bad man, but good customer.”

Jewell asked how to spell the name, and as he wrote it down, asked who Hock was.

“Business partner, Chin Chun Hock. We come from same village in Gwongdong.”

Porter had mentioned nothing about a business partner. “Oh, I was under the impression that you owned this place,” Jewell waved his hand to take in the entire building, “outright.”

“I do. Hock old business partner. I once own twenty-five percent of his company, Wa Chong. He buy me out last year.”

“May I ask why?”

“Many reason. Final and most important on his part, he no want to stay in employment business after riot in ’86.”

“And you?”

“Opium,” Chin murmured. “Not write that down, not report that. Hock want to sell opium here. I want no part of that. We dissolve partnership; I start up Quong Tuck Company last year.”

“And Hock knows Louie Chong well?”

“Better than me. Louie Chong come from our village too, but he older, I do not know him there. Those two know each other long time, though. Why you ask?”

Jewell told him about the body found washed up on Mercer Island, the laundry mark on the man’s tunic, and his attempts to track the mark in Chinatown’s laundries. He showed Chin the sketch he’d made of it.

The man’s eyes widened. “Triad mark,” he whispered.

“What is a triad?”

Chin placed a hand on Jewell’s arm, looking around the shop, motioning for him to keep his voice down. “Criminals. Smuggle opium, girls, whatever you like. That mark the sign of the Red Dragon of Macau, very powerful triad.”

“Why would anyone use such a symbol as a laundry mark?”

“No Chinaman who see that going to mess up order on shirt.” Chin cracked a lopsided grin at his own wry joke. “Louie Chong work with them.”

“He’s a member?”

“No. He work with them, though. Louie Chong smuggle for them. Long time ago. No more. Now run laundry.”

“Did you hear that he has gone to Gwongdong?”

Chin shrugged. “Porter tell you I know everything happen in Chinatown, eh? I do not. No hear about any trip for Louie Chong. Who tell you that?”

“His son.”

“Son? Louie Chong have no son.”

Jewell blinked, then recovered and said, “The boy who works in his shop. Calls himself Louie Gon.”

“Ah. Louie Gon not son. Louie Gon mui tsai.”

“What is… ‘mooey jooey’?”

“Mui tsai.”

“Mooey jai?”

Chin shook his head, smiled again, and said, “Louie Gon paper son. Son on paper. Only Chinese merchant and their son can go back and forth between Gold Mountain and China, so many merchant sell paper to other people they not know, saying, This my son, represent me, and that get new Chinamen into Gold Mountain.”

Jewell frowned. “Well, he didn’t want me to see the ledger where his boss kept track of laundry marks. Is it possible that the boy’s killed him and gone into business for himself?”

Chin laughed. “Louie Gon? Oh, no. Louie special case. No kill anyone.”

“He put up a pretty good fight with me when I asked to see that ledger.”

Chin laughed again. “He get away from you?”

“Someone fetched me a pretty rough blow on the back of the head while we struggled. Dazed me for a bit. When I came to my senses, I was alone in the place. Mr. Porter suggested I see you about it.”

Chin removed his hat and absently stroked the thinning hair on top of his head.

“Is Louie Chong a habitual user of opium?”

Chin nodded.

“So was our dead man. Had the stained fingertips and nails to prove it.”

Chin considered that for a moment. Then he said, “All ten fingers stained?”

Jewell shook his head. “He was missing his right pinkie finger.”

Chin nodded decisively and said, “You go home now.”

“What? Surely you don’t mean that. I have-”

“I see to this problem. I fix for you.”

“What is your interest?”

“No more excuse for riot here,” he said. “Seattle good city. My neighbor good neighbor. No talk of triad or mui tsai, Chinese murders done in local newspaper. I handle it. You let me. I bring you solution.” Chin looked from Jewell to an ancient grandfather clock against the wall behind him. “After 5 now. You go home. I bring you everything tomorrow.”

And just like that, the interview was over.

A game of whist with the other boarders at his rooming house hadn’t helped the evening go by any more quickly for James Robbins Jewell. He’d passed a sleepless night in the unseasonable heat waiting for dawn and an answer to the question of whether or not Chin would keep his word.

The walk to the office the next morning was uneventful, as was the morning routine of unlocking the backdoor, then the front, drawing the blinds, and looking over his desk for any pressing correspondence or other sort of paperwork in need of his immediate attention. It was only when Jewell sat down and happened to glance in the direction of the cell that took up one corner of the large room that he realized he was not alone.

An unkempt, bearded white man, black-haired and dull-eyed, half-sat, half-slumped against the opposite wall. He looked neither right, nor left, and took no notice of Jewell, not even when he attempted to speak to him. He was dressed in a ragged Chinese silk tunic and corduroy workmen’s trousers, with Chinese slippers on his feet. His fingernails bore the telltale signs of frequent opium use.

“Who are you?” Jewell asked.

The man ignored him.

“Why are you in the cage?”

The man kept silent, his blank stare unchanging.

A double-folded and sealed note with the word Porter typewritten on it lay on the floor in front of the cell. As Jewell stooped to pick it up, he muttered, “If this is from Chin, why is it addressed to my boss, not to me?” It was 8:30. Over the next half hour Jewell considered breaking the seal at least once per minute.

“Ran afoul of a mui tsai, did you?” Porter said when he’d finished reading the note. It was five minutes past 9.

“According to Mr. Chin Gee Hee, I did.”

“You’ve done nice work on this, boy. Nice work, indeed. Perhaps I’ve misjudged you.”

“I fail to see how I’ve done anything of the kind. If this ‘mooey jai’ killed our Chinaman, then who is the fellow in the cage? Why does he resist any attempt at communication?”

“The fellow in the cage is the killer of our man, and that man is without doubt Louie Chong. The mui tsai played no part in this except that of victim, poor thing.”

“But then why did this ‘paper son’ of Louie Chong’s fight me so hard to keep me from that ledger?”

“Paper son?”

“Yes, the ‘mooey jai,’ that’s how Mr. Chin translated the name: called him a ‘paper son’ in English. Claimed it was a reference to some false identification scheme running rampant through China.”

“A mui tsai,” Porter said, “is not a son of any kind. The phrase mui tsai in Cantonese means ‘slave girl’.”

Jewell’s jaw dropped. It all suddenly made sense. The slight build, the odd cast of the boy’s features, the piping voice.

Porter went back to perusing Chin’s letter. “Chin’s old partner Chin Chun Hock runs an opium den in the basement of his establishment. The bulls know about it. As long as they get their cut, they turn a blind eye to it, shrug it off as being part of the degenerate Oriental culture. Time was when part and parcel of that den was a brothel stocked with Cantonese girls brought over here by the triads. Chin bought their freedom as part of his deal to leave Hock with the lion’s share of the profits from their partnership. But Louie Chong had pull with the triad, and he’d already bought one of the girls to keep for himself. He passed her off as a boy working in his laundry. You can imagine how else he used her. It was common knowledge among the Chinese. I told you that their notions of charity are not the same as ours.”

“So why did this fellow,” Jewell motioned with his head in the direction of the cell and its occupant, “kill Louie Chong and dump him in Lake Washington?”

“Who can say? Some sense of chivalry, perhaps?”

“I doubt that. Look at the poor wretch. He’s an opium fiend if ever there was one. And where is the girl?”

“She’s gone. Chin didn’t mention what’s become of her, but I have no doubt that she’s not to be found within the limits of King County this morning.”

Jewell sat thinking for a moment. Porter watched him intently. At length Jewell said, “I didn’t see any of it.”

Porter shifted his bulk in the Sears, Roebuck, and Co. chair. “You knew which questions to ask, just not which answers to listen for. But you’ve shown promise I didn’t think you had in you. On the other hand,” he said as he reached for his pocket watch and began to wind it, “Chin did tell you everything you needed to know in that single conversation. You’ve come a long way in three months, but if you’re going to be the Treasury Man in these parts, you’ve still got quite a ways to go before you’re ready.”

“Yes sir. Apparently I have much to learn,” Jewell said, chastened.

“Just remember this: it’s also possible to go too far, to be too good at your job. It’s a tricky, tricky balance. Don’t go far enough and you can’t understand them and you won’t get anything constructive done. Don’t get the work done and you risk losing your position. Go too far and you risk much more. There’s a lot more at work in Chinatown than meets the eye.”

“How do you mean?”

Porter motioned with a broad hand past Jewell’s shoulder in the direction of the cell and the wretch who occupied it, the man turned completely inward, focused on the wreckage of a last opium dream.

“That,” he said glumly, “was once Sebastian Clute.”

THE MAGNOLIA BLUFFBY SKYE MOODY

SHERLOCK’S OPERABY LOU KEMP

Waterfront

It was a quixotic message carved into the side of one of his cows that drew Sherlock Holmes from his farm in Sussex, England to Seattle. The cow tended to move during the carving, so I had removed its head. The carving read: Jacob Moriarity.

I’d rigged the cow to explode upon examination, but having faith in Mr. Holmes, I knew he’d not only survive, but would eventually dissect the cow to find a somewhat wet edition of the Seattle Daily News.

Of the several newsagents I had perused in America, the Seattle Daily News possessed the most colorful attention to lurid details.

Within the pages there appeared pictures of bewildered policemen and well-to-do couples dressed in morbidity and curiosity. The over-bright exposures of the corpses provided a nice touch. Given both the allusions to the supernatural and the country’s fascination with Ouija boards and charlatans, I thought the piece more than worthy.

Confederate Colonel Seeks Revenge!

Seattle police are urging the good citizens of the city to stay indoors after dark. A killer, with a more voracious appetite than this writer’s Aunt Cecile, has been dining, quite literally, on the citizens of Seattle. No one is saying so officially, but several witnesses report seeing a ghostly figure, dressed in full Confederate uniform, fleeing the alleyway behind John McMaster’s store on Oak. A partly devoured body was found there the next morning by Oliver Prindle in his disreputable milk wagon. On the evening of February 4, a similar occurrence was reported, nearly a mile away on 1st Street behind the livery stables. Again, the Confederate ghost was observed hiding like a dog in the shadows. The body found there wasn’t whole either; it was missing both legs! From what your trusty reporter has discovered, similar murders occurred earlier in the year. But we, The Public, were not informed of these heinous crimes by our city policemen.

What do you suppose Mr. Sherlock Holmes did after drying off the article and reading it? I imagine he clamped his teeth around his pipe stem, nearly biting it in two. Coarse language would have been on the tip of his tongue, but being the Victorian gentleman, I assume he refrained. The name Moriarity was enough to ruin his digestion for days. Not to mention the cow’s.

But to business. Within a day, he would have used his dunces at Scotland Yard to gather information on the Seattle killings. He would have heard of the useless efforts to catch the killer. How many policemen would enjoy chasing fanatical ghosts? One in ten? Three in fifty?

Certainly within the next two days he assembled various disguises, acquired a quantity of cocaine for the road, and headed off to the docks in Liverpool. Once there, he would have boarded a ship bound for New York. He doubtless inquired about recent departures for America, and then spent an inordinate amount of time in his cabin pouring over the manifests of other ships. He also would have brought along all his files on John Moriarity, his arch enemy. To be sure: in some dark and filthy corner of his mind he could admit to himself his crimes! He had pushed my brother over the Reichenbach Falls to his death (it was not suicide, Mr. Holmes!).

The celebrated sleuth would then have turned his attention to the other family members.

Would there be a photograph of me? Perhaps the American authorities in Boston (that hellhole) could find one. But the best likeness could be found in Moriarity’s effects, if Sherlock Holmes cared to investigate. He would hear of my early genius (a doctor by the age of twenty) and the jealous comments concerning my experiments. The mystery of my public disappearance should tantalize him like the scent of an unseen wisp of tobacco.

Finally, on a stormy day in March 1889, the afternoon train steamed into the station on Railroad Avenue, bearing confidence men, Bible-thumping preachers, prostitutes, and Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

I almost missed him. For years, I had been aware of his finesse at disguise and mimicry. Once, I’d seen him masquerade as a woman, albeit a rotund woman. And I’d of course heard of his famous frolic of impersonating a dance hall performer. Sometimes I wish I’d spent a more active role in tracking the man. But back to the story-I will try to avoid further digressions.

Propped against the wall just to the right of the ticket counter, I held the Daily News in front of my face. Like one of the casualties of the recent Indian wars of the West, I appeared to be missing a leg and the will to live. Occasionally I would groan to demonstrate my pain. A tin cup before me awaited donations.

Thin slits in the paper, between an advertisement for Murberger’s Hair Oil and an anatomically incorrect article on gout, allowed me to track Mr. Holmes as he meticulously made his way across the crowded boards toward the street. My, what an impressive disguise. I whistled an aria under my breath, ascending and descending in minor keys. Celebration, celebration! The cymbals clamored and the violins rejoiced. My prey passed by so close, I could have gripped his ankle. While the music whispered within me, I admired his disguise.

In a bushy white wig and matching Mark Twain eyebrows, Holmes shuffled along tapping a gold-tipped cane from side to side. He peered through thick spectacles as if examining the ground for ants.

Music, sweet music. There, he has bought a newspaper.

I crawled around the corner of the building. To the consternation of several prim citizens, I reversed my coat and put both legs into their respective pant legs, then hurried to the street. Following Mr. Sherlock Holmes to his new lodgings would be exquisite. I brought him here, after all.

As I strode by, Holmes tucked the newspaper under his arm. The headline blared: Prohibitionist Mary Jones Cartright Latest Cannibal Victim!

Holmes hailed a cab. I faded into the crowd and watched until his carriage rounded the next corner.

Would he read of last evening first? A most logical killing it was.

Insanity and music. How many times have I heard that refrain?

Music is a rainbow of color born of undeniable honesty. Have you ever bathed in a melody that caressed your senses until your skin tingled and you forgot to breathe? The music would release you, each tone fluttering, alive. The notes would bow, complimenting each other, joining in a blood tie of temporary harmony. In playful ecstasy or destructively lyrical, the notes have substance. Whenever the music demands, I obey.

It rained heavily that night, drenching me in anticipation. The raindrops fell like bullets in a fast staccato, drowning out the boulevard traffic. But in the alley behind the Orpheum Theatre, the music could still be heard.

Minor keys bled aloud, speaking of human misery. Each time the notes would tremble and wail, I felt their pain, always connecting, never holding.

The air held a winter chill that seemed alive in its own right. I leaned against the dirty wall and waited. Steam rose from the heating grates. Rats with hot eyes scurried for dry places while the blues wallowed in the darkness, asking me to stop the pain.

The woman entered the alley like a cat sniffing cream. Her steps hesitant, she drew closer. When she saw me, the caution vanished. Mary Jones Cartright, angel to the downtrodden, had spent years working with the whores and demented relics of the war. The music lamented with impatience. Soon, she stood before me smelling faintly of roses.

Without a word, I obeyed, thrusting the knife upwards, carefully avoiding the kidneys and liver. Drink had never passed her pristine lips.

Into the dark passages the music rushed, sinuously sliding and scheming, violating the walls of reason.

I heard a saxophone bleat from a saloon across the street.

Yes, I accept applause.

The next morning dawned blurry, like peering through a veil of snow that would never melt. I wallowed in the luxury of knowing that time had conspired to bring my emotions and desires to this day. If I knew my brother’s nemesis, he would be awake. Heavens! He might even be afoot already.

I arrived too late at the Tate Hotel. A tall man in a disreputable tweed coat and reeking of pipe tobacco had hailed a carriage not five minutes ago. Holmes had assumed his natural appearance, although the doorman did not know it as such.

“Which direction did he go?” I asked, with a coin visible between my fingers.

The doorman snatched it away, flipping it into the air. “You mean the hop-head old Limey? He told the cabbie to take him to the Orpheum.”

Ah. I dropped an extra coin between his shoes and disappeared.

From the other side of the brick wall, I could see the top of Orpheum’s sign. With peeling paint and broken windows, the theater looked as frayed as an elderly dance hall queen in the light of early morning. I lay still, able to hear quite clearly the conversation from the other side of the wall.

“…Certainly I did, Mr. Holmes. The chief heard from the mayor too. Bless his heart.”

Sounds of footsteps, then a match scratched the bricks and lit. The smell of sulfur is pleasant in the morning.

“Sergeant Gordon?” Holmes asked. The man must have nodded, because he continued, “In the envelope in your pocket, you’ll read of my credentials. You’ll also read why we are most likely not dealing with a cannibal.” His voice turned disdainful. “No matter how romantic the thought.”

“I’ve read them,” came Gordon’s grudging reply.

A cockroach crawled from an empty tin in the refuse at my feet. When it reached the ground, I plucked it like a blueberry. Did you know their legs tickle and wiggle all the way down?

Holmes’s voice sounded dry as he continued: “Moriarity is dead. But his brother is not. Jacob Moriarity is a highly trained scientist. He has lived in Seattle for years. Are you aware of that, sergeant?”

“Humph. I’ll take yer word for it. We’ve never collared him for anything.”

I could imagine Holmes’s shrug as he answered, “I doubt that he will give you a chance. He is… By the way, would you be so kind as to ask your men not to trample the area leading to the doorway there?”

“Why?”

“Footprints.”

I smiled and the music soared. Holmes was taking the bait perfectly.

Gordon grumbled, “Maybe so. I’m not so convinced that tells you anything.”

“Tell me about the victims. Specifically their backgrounds,” Holmes requested.

In the pause that followed, I could hear the traffic from the street, the squeaking wheels of the carts, and clop of horses’ hooves.

“What are you doing there, Mr. Holmes?” Gordon asked.

“Examining the body. The other victims?” Holmes prompted.

“Well,” Gordon hesitated, or perhaps he was just observing the great detective. Either way, it was a careful moment before he spoke. “There’s been two college boys. One local, strong as an ox. Captain of the track team-”

“If I remember correctly, his legs were missing?” Holmes interrupted.

“They were, and half his ass too.”

“Ah ha!” Holmes exclaimed quietly. I could barely hear him as he said, “Give me that bag, would you?”

“Here. What is it?”

“A clue,” Holmes replied, probably to Gordon’s consternation. Holmes added, “It’s half of a pay bill from Fisher’s Butcher Shop.” He grunted. “Where is that establishment located?”

“Southwest of here, over by the docks.”

“Interesting,” Holmes murmured.

Gordon retorted, “I am sure it is to you, Mr. Holmes.” After a moment, he added, “I’m more interested in where our fool photographer has got to.” I heard Gordon walk up the alley a few steps, then return in time to hear Holmes’s remark.

“No matter. The body speaks, as it were, from the grave.”

“Pardon me?”

“Observe,” Holmes said. “No, don’t block the light… There.”

“All I see is where an animal tore this woman’s guts out.”

“It was not an animal. Look under this flap,” Holmes instructed. “Do you see the precise cuts? The liver and kidneys were removed. Surgically.”

“Son of a bitch,” Sergeant Gordon murmured.

“Perhaps,” Holmes commented.

I felt a brief flash of rage. Then the music soared once more; a beautiful distraction to dispel the anger.

Holmes continued: “He used something to tear the flesh and other organs, camouflaging the ones he removed.”

“I can see that now,” Gordon replied. “Like what you dig with in the garden?”

“Possibly. Hand me that bag, would you?”

“Never saw anyone really use a magnifying glass,” Gordon said. “What do you see?”

“Particles of rust. Excellent observation, sir. This could have been done by a garden claw,” Holmes said. “Now, I’ll hold back the flesh. The tweezers are in my pocket… Ah. Thank you.”

Silence. Then I heard them get to their feet.

“Satisfactory,” Holmes announced. “I want to go over the ground here. Would you be so good as to ask your men to obtain dirt samples from along the alley and the other side of this wall? Have them beware of footprints. I would like to know if he entered the alley any other way than from the street.”

I had deliberately dropped the other half of the pay bill from Fisher’s where I hoped a bleary-eyed copper would find it.

Following clues like a bloodhound with blinders, Sherlock Holmes entered the docks later that day.

I followed him, driving a coal cart and blending in with the neighborhood roughs. By the time he approached old Wayland Billings, chief gossip and drunk of the neighborhood, I had urged my nag into a trot and arrived before him.

Shoveling coal down the shoot next to Billings’s shack, I bent my ear to their conversation. Doubtless, the owners of the residence next to Billings would feel fortunate at their unexpected windfall.

“Good afternoon, my dear sir,” Holmes addressed the disgusting form of Billings as if he were the mayor.

Billings grunted at him and scratched his privates.

A fine dusting of snow blurred the scene between us as Holmes removed a pint from his pocket. “No matter the afternoon, if we can warm it up, eh?” He offered the rye to Billings. Faster than he could blink, old Billings guzzled half of it. Then he cast a doubtful eye on the detective. I resumed shoveling coal as the sweat on my face froze in the air.

“What wassit you wanted?”

Holmes wheeled to point a long finger at Fisher’s Butcher Shop. “By chance, have you seen a man of short stature, who drags his left leg, enter that establishment? He would weigh approximately 130 pounds and be somewhat, ah… ill kept.”

I watched Holmes. He observed Billings like he would an insect in one of his experiments. When the rye had trickled down Billings’s neck and his Adam’s apple bobbed for the fourth time, Holmes said, “Well, sir?” Billings just returned the stare as the detective continued, “The man I seek most likely wears a blue watch cap and habitually eats fish and chips. Do you know of such a man?” Of course Billings did. He knew who gave him enough pennies for an evening’s happiness. But it appeared I had underestimated his loyalty.

“What do you want him for?” Billings drawled with a glint of avarice in his eye.

Holmes nodded. “A good question, he…”

Billings caught sight of me over Holmes’s shoulder. He didn’t flinch under my gaze, though I could see a tick begin to flutter under his left eye.

“Don’t know him!” Billings shouted. “Get out of my way.” He shuffled down the street, casting persecuted glances over his shoulder at Holmes. Perhaps he did so at both of us, since I stood just beyond the detective and behind the coal cart.

Holmes waited until Billings rounded the corner, sidestepping two policemen and an irritated horse, before following him.

“Ah. Come in, Mr. Holmes,” I called. The music flitted quietly with anticipation.

The basement door had creaked. Sitting as quiet as death, while the day turned to night, I knew each sound intimately. Moonlight filtered down from high windows like a mist, illuminating the room. Recently slaughtered cow carcasses hung in row after row, the ribboned fat glowing in the moonlight while the blood dripped crimson to the straw on the floor. The door opened another scant inch. I saw a shadow beyond it.

“Please, come in,” I said. I’d waited so long for this moment. Was it not fitting I should fork his queen while checkmating him? Yes. Logic dictates not just a move, but a reward.

A thin hand gripped the door and it swung open. With the light behind him, I could not see his features… Something seemed odd. He was of the expected height, yet… there was something amiss. He seemed to have an enormous development of the frontal lobes. Familiarity…

As he started down the stairs, the moonlight struck him fully. The music trembled in my ears.

I couldn’t believe it. I blinked again. In an instant, confusion turned to rage and the music roared.

“NO!” I shouted. The bastard. The ultimate bastard!

Holmes had assumed his final disguise, that of my dead brother Moriarity. From the dandified brocade vest, to the wire-rimmed spectacles, curled wig, and penciled brows, he was Moriarity. He affected his walk. He even swung his head from side to the side in the same reptilian fashion.

“Jacob?” Holmes asked. “Is that you?” The music intensified. He sounded like him. “Oh, brother dear? Come out where I can see you.”

I covered my ears. He can’t do this. The music grew angrier.

“Jacob?” Holmes repeated. He gained the basement floor. “Weren’t you expecting me?” He sounded reproachful.

Rage shook me. I lifted the revolver and drew a bead on Holmes’s back. But he turned, and even though he couldn’t see me, he smiled. It was my brother’s smile.

“I heard a click, perhaps from a revolver?” Holmes teased. “Would you shoot me, Jacob?”

The pain inside my head competed with the storm of music. It became a cacophony, screaming down without harmony, without pity. I tried to hold the gun, yet even with both hands, it wobbled.

Holmes stooped and came up with a lantern. He sat it on the butcher table. I heard the scratch of a match. The light hurt my eyes, and I backed further into the shadows. Holmes kicked at the bloodstained straw at his feet.

“My, this place is filthy. I’m surprised at you, Jacob. You are a scientist, not a carver of meat,” Holmes scolded.

I watched him investigate the tables, the drainage pipes, and then the trash bins. He seemed as unconcerned as a fawn that I would shoot him.

The music complained of cowardice.

“But you are a scientist, aren’t you, Jacob?” Holmes said. He’d reached a long ice box with many compartments that lined the back wall. I heard him wiggle the lock on one of the clamps. “Locked? My, my. Dear brother. What is inside?” Holmes inquired.

He waited a moment, and then began a stroll down the aisle near me. Circling closer.

“Body parts? Am I not correct?” Holmes queried. “Why, I wonder,” he mused as he fastidiously ducked under a carcass and sauntered toward me. The lantern in his hand swung with his walk. One second he was a faceless enemy in shadow. The next, he was Moriarity. Music, sweet music.

I raised the gun.

The music moaned. I wavered, and then lowered the gun. The pain deep in my head throbbed and with it the vision of my brother turned dim. Then the music returned with a plaintive vengeance, bleating furiously.

I could not think, so I retreated behind the butcher tables.

“There you are!” Like we were playing a childhood game, Holmes gave a triumphant shout and trotted forward.

I raised the pistol and fired. The shot went wide and plowed into the carcass beside his ear. The impact blew the haunch apart, splattering him in raw flesh.

“Stand back!” I shouted.

Holmes wiped gore from his face and said, “Why, dear brother?” He took another step forward.

Close up, I still couldn’t believe the likeness. From the color of his eyes, to the way he pursed his lips, he was John Moriarity.

The music quivered inside me. Could it be?

“John?” I whispered.

Holmes threw back his head and laughed.

The music exploded and I grabbed my forehead.

“Why did you murder those people?” he asked. Through my fingers, I could see Holmes as he inched closer. The revolver felt hot in my hand. “You took the best of what they had. Strong legs, artistic hands, healthy organs. Why?”

I couldn’t hear him above the music anymore. His lips moved. He was my brother.

“You’re building a man, aren’t you? A perfect man,” Holmes stated.

Involuntarily, I glanced at the ice box and then fixed a stare upon him. The music slowed. It quieted, waiting. Gentle notes calmed me. This was what I wanted, had planned for. Breathe and victory is mine. I could see clearly again.

“Yes,” I answered, pleased that my voice did not quiver. “A perfect man.”

“And you brought me here because…?” Laughter erupted from me. I could not stop it.

The release started in my gut and built up inside of me until tears streamed down my face. Through it I screamed at him, “You’re the genius! Your celebrated brain has brought you here! What do you think I want?”

Holmes frowned. I saw a flash of uncertainty cross his face. The music pulsed like a heartbeat within me. It was time.

Deliberately, I lifted the pistol and fired. The smoke blinded me. I fired again.

In his haste, Holmes dropped the lantern. The straw around us caught, then burst into flames.

“Damnation!” I screamed.

In an instant, the room was ablaze. From below, the flames licked the carcasses, scorching them until they looked like disembodied and grotesque ghosts. Smoke billowed everywhere. As the music skittered and fragmented, I turned toward the ice box, then back toward the stairs-then back again toward the ice box. I stumbled through the black smoke. Under my hands, the ice box sweated in the intense heat. Fumbling, fumbling, finally I had the first compartment unlocked, when I heard Holmes’s voice in my ear.

“Come along, Jacob. I can’t let you burn in your own hell,” he intoned.

As I struggled, he threw me over his shoulder and hastened for the stairs. When I looked back, the music solidified, taking form.

Holmes cried, “If you die, Jacob, it will be at the gallows!” He tightened his grip on my legs as he dashed through the conflagration, pausing only to vault over burning debris.

As he ran up the stairs, I looked again for my brother.

In the flames, I saw the music building, bleeding in colors up the walls. John Moriarity stood in the flames, wearing his secret smile.

He held a baton. Conducting, of course.

The mournful notes dripped like rain, hissing into the fire and lamenting my name.

FOOD FOR THOUGHTBY G.M. FORD

Pioneer Square

The address turned out to be one of those Oriental rug shops down in Pioneer Square, one of those joints that, depending upon which banner hung in the window at the time, had either lost its lease, gone bankrupt, suffered smoke and water damage, or was just now in the process of retiring from the business… for the past twenty-five years or so.

A broken bell sounded as I used my knee to separate the warped door from the frame. The door came loose, shaking in my hand like a palsy patient as I looked around the place. Awash with piles of brightly colored rugs, folded back, strewn this way and that, the space smelled of dust and desperation. Movement at the back of the room lifted my eyes.

He was a short little guy, bald as an egg and shaped like one, seated at an ancient desk, up to his elbows in paperwork; he glanced up, immediately made me as a noncustomer, and went back to his paper shuffling. I ambled along the central aisle.

“You Malloy?” he asked, without looking at me.

I said I was. He sat back in the chair. His hard little eyes ran over me like ants.

“You don’t look like a private eye.”

“It’s a cross to bear.”

He considered the matter for a long moment before heaving himself to his feet and retracing my steps back to the front door, where he flicked the lock, flipped the sign to read CLOSED, and pulled the shade to the bottom of the glass panel. He fished a mottled handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped his hands as he waddled back my way. I held my ground. He walked around me.

“I’ve got a problem,” he said.

“That’s what you said on the phone.”

He dabbed at his wet lips with the hankie. I looked away.

“My wife’s trying to poison me.”

I shrugged. “Eat out.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He repocketed the hankie.

“I need her to stop.”

“I don’t do muscle work.”

He laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You’ll see.”

“Probably not,” I said.

Somebody tried the front door, gave it a frustrated rattle, and stalked off.

He sensed I was losing interest and reached into his other pants pocket.

He waved a wad of cash, two full inches of greenbacks, bundled both ways by a red rubber band. “I’ve got $2,500 here for somebody can get her to stop.”

I tried to stay calm. Twenty-five hundred would solve a lot of my present problems… food and rent for instance. “Why me?” I asked.

“They say you’re a hard guy.”

“They who?”

“Fella I know.”

I thought it over. “How do you know she’s trying to poison you.”

“My doctor says so. He says she’s been trying to poison me little by little over the past few months.” He let his hands fall to his side with a slap. “Some kind of algicide he thinks.”

My eyes followed the wad as he dropped it on the desk. “Call the cops.”

“I can’t. She’s my wife.”

“Get a divorce.”

“I can’t.”

I made a rude noise with my lips. “Sure you can.” I waved a hand in the air. “Even if you needed cause… which you don’t anymore… I’m pretty sure poisoning would qualify as irreconcilable differences.”

He made a face. “I’m orthodox. My religion doesn’t allow for divorce.” He caught me ogling the money. “All you gotta do is get her to stop.” He made the Boys Scouts’ honor sign, which really made me nervous. “My friend says you can be very persuasive.”

“Not to mention this is a community property state.”

His face went bland and blank as a cabbage. “Not to mention,” he said.

“And all I’ve got to do is get her to stop.”

“That’s it.”

I held out my hand. We each cast a glance at the wad on the desk.

“Later,” he said. “After I’m-”

“Now,” I countered. “I don’t want to have to come back here.”

“And if you can’t pull it off?”

“Your buddy was right. I can be very persuasive.”

He hesitated, took stock of me again, and then picked up the money, bounced it twice in his palm, and dropped it onto the desktop. He of little faith.

“Come see me when you get it done,” he said, and went back to the paperwork.

The icy rain marched across the pavement like ranks of silver soldiers. I stood in the doorway of a used furniture joint directly across the street from the address he’d given me. I fondled my pocket imagining the wad of bills weighing heavy on my hip and smiled as wide as a guy who was two months behind on his rent could manage. It was a sandwich joint, half a dozen tables and a stand-up counter, big saltwater fish tank along the north wall. The Gnu Deli Delhi. Cute. Real cute.

I’d made a quick pass an hour ago. The place was jammed.

The sign on the door said they were only open for breakfast and lunch and closed at 3. I’d decided to wait it out. It was 3:10 and the place had cleared except for the pair of girls who’d been working the counter. The sight of the girls shrugging themselves into their raincoats sent me hustling across the rain-slick street. Halfway across, squinting through the hiss and mist of afternoon traffic, I saw her for the first time, coming out from what must have been an office somewhere behind the counter, big ring of keys in her right hand, holding the door open long enough for the girls to slip out and my toe to slip in.

She looked me over like a lunch menu. “You want that foot to go home with the other one, you’ll move it.”

We were nose to nose through the crack in the door, which made her over six feet tall. Big and brassy, showing a half acre of bony chest and a thick tangle of red hair held at bay by an enormous tortoise shell clip. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t work up a picture of them as a couple.

“I need to have a word with you.”

She leaned against the door. My shoe started to fold.

“Whatever you’re selling…”

“Your husband sent me.”

It was hard to describe the way her lips moved, somewhere between a smile and a sneer… a snile maybe. She eased off on the door. “Get out of here.”

“He’s been missing you,” I tried.

“You know what my husband’s missing?”

“What’s that?”

She smirked. “A stepladder and delusions of grandeur.”

“He says you’re trying to poison him.”

She eased off on the door. My shoe unfolded. “What if I am?”

Took me a second to recover my jaw. “You’re not even gonna deny it?”

“Why should I? The world would be a better place without that little worm.”

She turned and walked back into the restaurant, leaving me standing in the doorway as the steady rain beat itself to death on the awning. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

She skirted the counter and made her way back by the meat slicer. “I asked him for a get.” She switched the slicer on. “He laughed in my face.” She could tell I was confused. “A get’s an orthodox Jewish divorce.”

“So? Get going. Get lost. Get down the road. No need to kill the guy.”

“And give up everything? My business… my children… my standing in the community.” She waved the whole idea off. “Not a chance. I’d be an outcast, a pariah.” She shook her head slowly. I opened my mouth but she cut me off. “If I was trying to kill that maggot, he’d be long dead.”

She pulled what appeared to be a roast beef from the refrigerated display case and plopped it down onto the slicer. I watched as she made an adjustment and began to slice.

“He says you’ve been feeding him an algicide or something.”

She glanced up at the big fish tank and smiled. “I was just trying to get his attention.” She returned the meat to the case. “I figured a couple of days in the can might help him see his way clear.” She produced a block of cheese, separated several slices. “Besides…” she said, gesturing at the tank, “the fish don’t seem to mind that stuff at all.”

“So you figured…”

She took a bite from the sandwich and grinned again. “I figured what was good for pond scum was probably good for my husband.”

I took a deep breath. “All he wants you to do is stop.”

She lifted an enormous knife from the counter.

“Fat chance,” she said around a mouthful. She waved the blade as she spoke. “What he wants… Mr…”

“Malloy,” I said.

“What he wants, Mr. Malloy, is for me to come back and take care of him…” she sliced air with the scimitar, “clean the house… take care of the kids…”

I started to speak, but she cut me off again. “And what you want… Mr. Malloy, is that 2,500 bucks he offers every damn fool he can get to come out here and bother me.”

I felt the color rising in my cheeks. I started to protest.

“So what’s your story, Mr. Malloy? How did he talk you into this fool’s errand?”

I’d have objected but I was busy asking myself the same question.

“You behind on your alimony payments? You need to pay your lawyer?” Her voice began to rise. “Or did you just go to school on the short bus?”

My mouth moved but nothing came out.

She held up a restraining hand… went right to unctuous. “Here I am being rude,” she said. “Eating in front of guests. Can I make you a little something. A nice brisket sandwich or something? A little coleslaw maybe?”

My stomach did a series of back flips. “I’ll pass,” I replied.

Her face said that was what she figured. “You go back and tell that bottom feeder that either I get my get or he can spend the rest of his life sleeping on the couch with one eye open and eating take-out Chinese.”

She used the remains of the sandwich to point the way out. “Now take yourself back out of here. I’m going to close up.”

I opened my mouth again, but once more she beat me to the punch. “You tell him… you tell him… either I get my get or I’m going to spend the rest of my life making his existence as miserable as humanly possible.” She swallowed the remainder of the sandwich and then licked her fingers and showed her teeth. “Till death do us part.”

“Listen…” I stammered.

She picked up the knife and started back around the counter. I reached behind me and took hold of the door handle. “Easy now,” I whispered.

“Easy my ass,” she spat. She came forward, holding the knife low, making a sawing motion as she moved my way. Parts of me contracted like a dying star. I pulled open the door. She kept coming. I stepped outside and closed the door. Rain drummed the awning.

She locked the door with a smile. I’d seen that smile before. On the Discovery Channel. Shark Week. The neon OPEN sign went out.

He was still at the desk with the roll of bills at his elbow. He waited until I picked up the money to look at me. His facial features seemed to be having a meeting in the middle of his face. “You did it?” he asked.

The wad was warm in my hand. I shook my head, removed the rubber bands, and peeled off two hundred bucks.

“I’m taking two hundred for my per diem and for the aggravation.”

“Guess you weren’t as hard a guy as they said.”

“If I had to go against her every day, I’d be in the storm door and aluminum siding business.”

“So what is it I get for my two hundred bucks?” he asked.

I pocketed the bills. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” I said as I wrapped the rubber bands around the pile of money. “You’re not giving her a get…no matter what. Is that right?”

“You’re a quick study, you are.”

I cleared my throat. “And you plan on staying married to that woman and living in the same house with her.”

He nodded.

“Well then… I guess what you get for your two hundred bucks is a piece of advice.”

“Such as?”

“If… you know… sometime in the future… you think maybe she’s trying to slip you something… a little more of that algicide or something…”

“Yeah?”

I dropped the wad onto the desk. It bounced.

“Take the poison,” I said, and headed for the door.