Читать книгу A Case of You - Rick Blechta - Страница 7

Shannon O’Brien had tipped her chair back, the small notebook she was busily scribbling in resting on her crossed legs.

The man sitting on the other side of her desk, Andrew Curran, was of Irish descent, like her. Sizing him up, she guessed his height at six feet, age around thirty-five and thought he looked sturdy enough, though slender. He had a strong face, a shock of nearly black hair and a light complexion, like many whose ancestry was Irish. She decided he should lose the mustache and goatee. The left side of his face was swollen, and he had one hell of a shiner. No wonder the guy was so angry at the joker who’d slugged him.

The story he’d told of his mysterious girl singer had Shannon’s antennae twitching.After the ordeal she and her family had undergone at the hands of another “mysterious girl”, Shannon had little desire to travel down that path again, but the situation he described had piqued her interest.

She surmised there was a lot Curran hadn’t told her, but that could wait. She had the bare bones of his story but needed to ask a few questions before hustling him out the door. She had another appointment breathing down her back.

“Do you think the men who took your friend away might have been bounty hunters?”

Curran looked confused. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

“You told me they said they had a plane to catch.”

“Yeah...”

“Think back to what they said to you. Hear it in your head. Now, do you think they were American?”

He concentrated for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, now that you mention it. They didn’t have one of those really recognizable accents, but the big guy used the word ‘huh’. A Canadian would have used ‘eh’.”

Shannon smiled. “Now how about Olivia? Did she use ‘huh’?”

“Not that I remember. Her accent is very neutral. She never talked a lot and never about herself.” He shook his head.“Actually, I know almost nothing about her.”

“But could she be from the States?”

“Maybe. There were certainly things about living in Canada that she didn’t seem familiar with.”

Shannon nodded but decided to keep her questions about the girl for another time.

“Why do you think those men might be bounty hunters?” Curran asked.

“Do you know anything about this particular brand of slimeball?”

“Not really.”

“Well then, for a few reasons.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “One, bounty hunters are typically American. They have a system down there that allows this sort of thing. Two, you think the girl might also be from the States. Three, one of them said they had to catch a plane. That’s typical, too. If the value of the target warrants it, a private plane is always preferable to leaving the country by car or some sort of public transport. Last of all, there’s the way they behaved.” She raised one eyebrow to punctuate her point.

“Surely they can’t just walk out of Canada with her?”

“Of course they can. The Americans will be the ones to check their ID at the airport, and they certainly aren’t going to complain. Bounty hunting is legal in most places down there. As long as they had ID for her, they’re golden.”

Curran slumped. “Do you think you can find her?”

Shannon put her notebook on the desk and leaned forward. “Are you sure you want to find her? Bounty hunters only come after people who are on the run – and usually from bad things.”

“But you could be wrong. Maybe they aren’t bounty hunters. Maybe she hasn’t done anything illegal. Maybe they were kidnapping her.”

“You said she went with them willingly.”

“They could have threatened Olivia when they were talking to her in the club.”

“We’re only dealing with suppositions at this point, but your story gives ample reason to believe your girl was on the run, don’t you think?”

Curran sighed and nodded. “When she was out in public, she could be pretty jumpy, always looking behind her. Stuff like that.”

“Do you want me to see if I can find her? You may not like what I come up with.”

“I have to know. Even if Olivia was on the run from something or somebody, she may need my help.”

“Okay, then. I need to tell you from the outset that this could get very expensive. We may get lucky, and finding her might come easily, but that’s not usually the case. The United States is a very big country. Now you’ve only referred to this woman as Olivia. I assume she has a last name.”

He looked awkward. “She said she didn’t want to tell us. Ronald eventually pushed her on that, and she told him it was Saint. None of us thought it was actually her real name, though.”

Shannon closed her notebook with a sigh. “Do you have a photo of her?”

Curran picked up a manila envelope he’d had in his lap and took a large photo out, sliding it across the desk. “This is a promo shot we had taken.”

She studied it for quite some time. The make-up, lighting and soft focus helped to make a very striking photo of a very striking young woman. Her long brown hair glistened, framing a pale face which held an expression at once shy but also alluring. But there was something about her eyes that made Shannon fight down a shudder. “I’ll need to keep this.”

Curran nodded. “How much will your services cost?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t begin to say. We’ll start with the simple and inexpensive ways to search, of course.”

“And that might bring results?

“It often does, now that we have the Internet.”

“If we have to go farther, I could always mortgage my house, I suppose.”

“I sincerely hope it won’t come to that, Mr. Curran. Shall we say a retainer of a thousand dollars? That should be more than sufficient to get this started.”

Shannon ran her new client through all the fine print. They then signed an agreement with her secretary as witness.

After showing her new client out the door with a reassuring, “I’ll be in touch immediately if we find out anything,” she went into her office.

Leaning back in her chair, Shannon wondered what Curran’s reaction would have been if she’d asked if he and the girl were romantically entangled.

She spent the remaining time before the next appointment staring at the haunting photo of the girl. The eyes kept drawing her in. There was something dark there, well-hidden and possibly dangerous. Had Curran seen that?

The woman slouched in the same chair Curran had just vacated seemed outwardly to be perfectly calm and relaxed, but Shannon could have easily ticked off five telltale signs broadcasting how incredibly anxious she was.

She didn’t look at all as Shannon had expected from the initial phone call. The person on the phone had been all business, very mature sounding. What had entered her office looked more like a street urchin, the type you’d see on Queen Street West or one of those huge joints in the club district – the kind who often got into a lot of trouble.

Height 5’7", solidly built, she obviously worked hard to keep in shape. Her face wouldn’t turn too many male heads, but it wasn’t unpleasant, a good thing when you didn’t want to be too noticeable.What caused more than a few alarm bells to go off was the short purple hair that looked as if it had been hacked at with a dull knife. She had on new jeans, and under an unbuttoned flannel shirt was a T-shirt emblazoned with “You got a problem with that?”, not the sort of thing most would choose to wear to a job interview, even a business as casually run as O’Brien Investigates.

Taking her time going over all the documentation and the background check she’d done, Shannon let the prospective employee stew in her own juices. If she couldn’t control her nerves in a job interview, what good would she be out on the street?

After five minutes, she looked across the desk, nailing the woman right in the eyes. “When we did our background check, we ran across your name in regards to a death several years ago. Tell me about it.”

Now she looked really uneasy. “It involved the murder of a friend. The cops thought the murderer was some escaped wacko, and my friends and I thought it was someone else. We set out to find that person. I got involved more than the others and stirred up some sh – stuff. The real murderer came after me. There was a fight. I got lucky, and he wound up dead.”

“I was told you stabbed him in the throat.”

Her expression was pained. “I was trying to stab him anywhere. He’d already nailed me pretty good.”

“Where?”

“Here,” she answered, as she pulled her shirt and T-shirt off one shoulder. The ugly scar was very plain. “It went right through the joint into the wall behind me. There was another one in my leg.” Her expression changed. “Do you want to see that, too?”

Shannon kept a straight face at the woman’s impudence. “My sources tell me he was ex-military. How did you get so good at knife fighting?”

“It’s called trying to survive any way you can. Like I said, I got lucky.”

The PI nodded. “Okay. Well, everything seems to be in order as far as the documentation goes, Ms Goode. With your qualifications, though, it seems to me you’d be happier with a police service or maybe the Mounties. Why do you want to be a private investigator?”

Goode frowned and straightened up. “I don’t think I’d fit in with any police force.”

“That’s pretty forthright. Why?”

“I’ve never been able to fit in.” She tried a grin, but it didn’t quite make the grade. “I tend to be a bit of a loner.”

Shannon nodded. Despite the misanthropic characters populating detective novels, good cops had to be team players. If you couldn’t manage that, you generally didn’t stay a cop for long. The girl had enough sense to realize it.

“You’re going to be thirty-three next month. Do you think that might be a little late to start down this road?”

Jackie Goode managed a real smile this time. “How old are you?”

“I’m not just starting out.”

“Fair enough. Let’s just say it took me a while to find my focus. I think I can handle whatever is thrown at me – physically and mentally.You can see from the transcripts that the instructors thought I have what it takes.”

“How are you at dealing with boredom?”

“You’re going to tell me how boring this job is most of the time?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the way I look at it, there’s boredom and there’s boredom.”

“Explain.”

Goode slouched back in her chair again. “I can handle boredom if it’s just the calm before the storm. I don’t get discouraged easily. Real boredom is when there’s no purpose to what you’re doing.”

Shannon nodded. It was a good answer. At first, she was not going to hire this woman. Reading between the lines on the transcripts and the background check, it was easy to see that the people who’d trained her thought she was a pain in the butt. They praised only her skills and determination, not her personality. There was little about attitude and interpersonal skills. Those omissions were significant.

The more they talked, though, the more Shannon felt swayed. For one, Goode looked at her levelly at all times, her eyes never shifted away. She meant what she said, and there wasn’t any evasiveness in her answers. If she didn’t know something, she said so, with refreshing bluntness.

But Shannon also knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jackie Goode might be more trouble than she was worth.

Business had been good lately, too good. Shannon needed one or two more operatives, and she needed them fast. Having to let Warren go last week had been a huge blow. Good help was hard to find these days, and everyone she’d interviewed had knocked themselves out of the running pretty early, usually because they’d been cops who hadn’t been able to make the grade. It took only a little digging to come up with the straight goods, if it didn’t come out in the interview itself. Doing the background information on the job she’d just accepted might be a good place to start this woman off. Let her do the legwork by way of an extended audition.

Shannon leaned back in an imitation of the woman across from her.

It wasn’t lost on Goode, who grinned back at her, tension draining from her body. “Do I have the job?”

“Maybe. I’d like to try you out on something. See how you do. Then we’ll talk.”

After an extensive briefing about the Curran case, the woman was on her way to the door when Shannon called out, “And lose that hair, Goode. Way too noticeable. But I’m sure you knew that.”

***

Jackie Goode packed it in for the night around two a.m. She felt completely done in, but it was a good tiredness. On the streetcar ride back to her one-room apartment in Parkdale, she thought back on her eventful day.

The interview that morning had gone way better than the previous ones, perhaps because there’d been a woman behind the desk.

Considering what a straight arrow her (hopefully) new employer seemed to be, she’d shown no outward surprise at the way Jackie looked and acted – except for the crack about her hair as she’d left the office.

When Jackie had called about the job, she’d pictured the person at the other end of the phone as some tough old broad.What she’d found when she got ushered into the office looked more like a “soccer mom”.

It was easy to imagine Shannon O’Brien going home at night to a husband, two-and-a-half kids, dog and nice suburban house. But Jackie had done her own digging and knew that this woman had been through a messy divorce, an even messier murder investigation and was currently the girlfriend of a genuine rock and roll legend.

During the lengthy interview, O’Brien had been very undemonstrative, although it was easy to see that her interest had grown as Jackie spoke. In past ones, the shutters behind the eyes of prospective employers had come down pretty quickly and never once cracked open again.

Jackie was well aware that her frank – no, be honest – abrasive way of communicating often put people off, especially men, but she wasn’t going to change her stripes just to get a goddamn job. She’d always done things her way, and they should know that right from the beginning.

Today, she’d finally been given all she’d ever asked for: a chance.

What had she accomplished in the twelve hours since being given the assignment? No big breakthroughs, certainly, but she had a much better idea where she wanted to go next with this.

Her best friend, Kit Mason, a well-known guitarist and singer, had been the starting point once Jackie had finally got hold of her in Los Angeles.

“Jackie! How the hell are you?”

“I got a job, Kit, a real live PI job.”

“Wow! I always knew you’d make it eventually. I’m so proud of you.”

“Well, maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit. I don’t really have the job yet, but I’m on an extended tryout, shall we say.”

“It’s still good news. Thanks for letting me know.”

“Actually, I called for another reason. I need some info for this job.”

“Fire away.”

Turned out Kit not only knew who Andrew Curran was, she’d sat in with his band back when she’d been knocking around the bar scene.

“They kicked butt, a really high octane funk band with a great horn section. After all this time, I don’t quite remember what he looks like, but I do remember he was pretty damn hot. All the girls went after him. He’s also a terrific drummer. What’s he up to now?”

“He plays jazz.”

“You’re kidding! He was always Mr. Funky Drummer.”

“He has a steady gig with an outfit called The Ronald Felton Trio at a club near Bathurst and King.”

“The Sal?”

“I guess someone hip might call it that,” Jackie replied sarcastically.

“I’m not going to rise to your bait, Jackie,” Kit laughed. “So why do you want to know about Andy Curran?”

Very concisely, Jackie relayed what she’d been told about Curran’s problems. “I want a gut reaction from you on this, Kit,” Jackie said at the end. “Is Curran a bad guy or a good guy?”

Her friend didn’t hesitate. “Unless something has radically changed, Andy’s a good guy with a big white hat. He had that reputation around town – both on and off the bandstand. What do you think?”

“I haven’t made his acquaintance yet, but I’m going down to the club tonight to hang.”

“Tell him I said hi.”

“He’s not going to know I’m there. I plan on casing out the client thoroughly. This company’s giving me a chance, and I don’t aim to screw things up like I usually do.”

Jackie’s next stop was the public library, where she did an extensive Internet search on anything concerning Curran. There was a surprising amount, much of it going back to his days as a rocker. She even found a photo of his band jamming with a very young Kit Mason, who looked to be around twenty.

For the past eight years, as Curran concentrated more on his jazz career, the hits on the search engines dropped dramatically – no surprise there.

Jackie’s pulse quickened when she found references to Curran and this Olivia person. The first were ads and listings stating that Miss Olivia Saint had joined the Felton Trio and would be appearing Tuesdays through Thursdays at the Green Salamander.

Now, following the Olivia trail through the Internet, things began to pick up again. Buzz was slow on her at first, but built quickly as the buzz got around through word of mouth and blogs. She couldn’t find any interviews with the girl, no bio information to speak of, so the references usually included the word “mysterious” when describing this rapidly ascending star. The only quote Jackie found that came directly from the girl was,“I only want to sing, and only at the Salamander. My private life is just that, private.” The members of Curran’s trio were equally protective of their amazing vocalist.

Photos were as hard to come by as information, and most seemed to be shots by members of the club’s audience, which they’d then posted on their blogs.

In short, as far as Jackie was concerned, the whole set-up stank. Curran certainly knew more than he had told, and she aimed to get that out of him.

She spent several more hours at the library, carefully collating her extensive notes and references into a binder she’d bought.

The first thing I’ll do if I get this job, she thought as she shook the cramps from her writing hand, is spring for a good laptop.

After grabbing a slice of pizza at a place on Queen near Bathurst, Jackie wandered down to King and hung a left for the short walk to Portland. Spring seemed to be back again, and the evening still held a hint of the day’s warmth. She left her jean jacket stowed in the backpack slung over her shoulder. Time to get her bike out of storage.

Hanging around the entrance for a few minutes, she heard several people grumbling as they left to find other entertainment because this Olivia girl wasn’t going to be singing that night. No wonder Curran wanted to find his little vocalist.

It didn’t take much skill in making small talk to get one of the waitresses blabbing. Obviously pissed that business had fallen off so sharply the past two nights, the woman was quick to admit the club’s owner was thinking of booking another steady act. She had only nice things to say about Olivia, obviously as smitten as everyone else by her vocal skills.

“That kid could sing the leaves off the trees. I’m not ashamed to say I had to wipe tears from my eyes more than once when she sang ‘Angel Eyes’. God, she made me love that song!”

“Yeah, but what was she like, you know, personally?” Jackie asked. “I find that talented people most often are creeps.”

“Listen, honey,” the waitress bristled, “don’t you start bad mouthing my girl. She was the sweetest thing you’d ever want to meet. Never said boo to nobody. It used to make my blood boil to hear the way Mr Highand-Mighty Felton used to talk to her.”

“He didn’t like her?”

“It wasn’t that. It’s just that Olivia is more like a child than an adult. Everyone knows that, but only Felton took advantage of it. I thought Andy was going to clobber him a couple of times. Felton mouthing off to her even got Dom going once – and that takes a lot of doing.”

Careful not to make herself obvious, Jackie moved over to the bar for a beer. During the course of the next set, she spoke to the bartender and two regulars, alcoholics who’d made the Salamander their home away from home. All three came across as having the hots to some degree for the missing singer. All three were old enough to be her father, if not her grandfather. More importantly, all three had been at the club the night before when Olivia had been whisked away by the two men who’d roughed up Curran.

“The big guy looked like trouble the moment he walked in,” a drunk named Charlie offered.

“If I’d known what they were up to,” the bartender growled,“I would have had something to say about it.”

He was big enough to be able to back that up, assuming he knew how to handle himself.

Marvin, the other drunk, looked up at Jackie with eyes that seemed to be having trouble focussing. “I really miss our little girl. I wish she’d come back and sing for us again.”

He looked as if he might start crying. The bartender suggested to Marvin that he should think about getting home and offered him some coffee, which was refused.

Watching Marvin weave towards the door, Jackie casually asked,“So these two guys and Olivia, what did you see?”

The bartender’s eyes narrowed. “Why you so interested?”

She shrugged. “Everybody in here is talking about her, that’s all. I came down to hear her sing tonight, and she ain’t around. Got me curious, I guess.”

“They stopped Olivia as she came offstage after the first set. They talked awhile then went into the dressing room, I guess. Right after, they walked through the club and out. Curran, he’s the band’s drummer, followed them. He returned after another five minutes I’d say, and it was clear somebody had smacked him around. Ordered a couple of shots of scotch, and that isn’t usual for him.”

“How would you say the girl looked when she left?”

The bartender thought as he mixed two martinis. “Hard to say. Maybe scared. No, that isn’t right. She looked like someone who’d just got the bad news she’d been expecting.” As he pulled another pint of draft for Jackie, he looked closely at her.“Sure you ain’t a cop? You sure ask questions like one.”

Jackie held up her hands. “See? No notebook. Cops always write things down.”

“Maybe you got a good memory.”

Stories went like that the rest of the night. Everybody who’d heard the girl sing said the same thing: how great she was. Several commented that they expected she’d disappeared because she’d gotten a recording contract and was moving on. All were very protective of her. Olivia was everybody’s “little girl”, men and women alike.

As for Curran, reviews for him were positive. Those who knew him, liked him. Even Jackie, who knew little about jazz, could tell that he was a terrific drummer. Apparently he kept to himself, although he was friendly. Someone said they’d overheard Curran talking to the bass player about his wife, who’d apparently walked out on him not that long ago.

One woman, alone and obviously on the prowl, mentioned that she’d seen Curran and Olivia leave the club together every night. Maybe she had the hots for the good-looking drummer and felt the girl was queering the deal. That was confirmed when Jackie was leaving. The woman, talking to Curran, was standing a lot closer to him than she needed to.

Later, as she got off the streetcar at Queen and Dowling, Jackie’s mind drifted back to her last bit of conversation with the waitress.

“So you think Felton might have something to do with Olivia not being here tonight?”

“Let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me, honey. I don’t think he could stand the competition.”