Arbor Hill Page 4

  I texted, I’m Jack, how about a get together?

  I set the smartphone back down onto the desk, waited for a reply. It came a full shot of whiskey later.

  Love to.

  I breathed easy. I still had the stuff to attract a good looking young lady, even if said young lady turned out to be a pro. Made me feel warm and fuzzy.

  Where? I typed.

  How about my place?

  She was a brave one, I had to give her that. Stupid too.

  Great, I typed. Then I asked her for the address, even though I already knew it.

  After typing in the address, she asked me if I wouldn’t mind bringing her some beer and cigarettes.

  I’ll pay you back, she wrote, along with a yellow smiley face emoji.

  That kind of burned me up, but hey, it’s all in a day’s work for Keeper Marconi, master gumshoe. ‘Sides, I’d save the receipt and hand it in to McNamee for reimbursement.

  See you soon, I typed.

  XOX, she texted.

  I blushed.

  Returning the whiskey bottle to the drawer, I got up from the desk. Drinking glass in hand, I made my way out of the office and into the bathroom across the hall. I turned on the hot water spigot, rinsed the glass out. When it was clean enough for my standards, I pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and began to dry the glass. That’s when I caught my own reflection in the mirror.

  I guess I’m one of those guys who’s never all that comfortable looking at his own face. Mirrors are not your friend when age begins to catch up. But then, I’m not exactly the vain type either. You’re not going to catch me dying my hair or buying a tanning booth membership. But I do hit the weight room five days a week, and I have to be sick or traveling to go a day without running a couple of miles. Okay, let’s call it jogging, and a slow jog at that. But at least it’s exercise.

  It’s how I’ve always lived.

  Looking into my eyes, I don’t see myself. I see my old man. Amazing how genetics work, because it’s amazing how I’m turning into him. Seems like yesterday he’d bark out an order for me to get dressed in my gym shorts and sneakers. We were going on a three-mile run to get me back in shape for Pop Warner football practice which would start every August first. I can still remember sucking wind while trying to keep up with the old man, him insisting we jog a little, then sprint one hundred feet or the length of one telephone pole to the other.

  I don’t think I enjoyed those workouts, but the need to be physical on a daily basis has never left me. Thinking back on it now, it makes me sad to know that the old man was teaching me something I’d value for life, and yet, at the time, I didn’t think much of it.

  I miss the old man. He’s been gone more years than I can count, yet to this day, I still find myself picking up the phone to call him about something or another. Usually a problem I might need advice on. Women trouble, for instance.

  I wonder what he’d think about my heading over to Missy’s right now, even if I was doing it in the name of private detecting. My guess is he’d smile and say, “Watch your back, kid. She’s a black widow spider, that one. But a pretty black widow.” My dad, the plaque build-up in his widow maker artery caught him completely by surprise, and he was dead before he hit the floor. Or so the EMTs assured me. Quick and painless.

  I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

  “Thanks, Pops,” I said, and headed back out into the corridor and into my office.

  9

  Minutes later, I was back behind the wheel of the 4-Runner and heading north on Lark Street into the heart of Arbor Hill. Speaking of mirrors, I thought it prudent to comb my hair, as much as short strands of salt and pepper hair can be combed. I also ran a razor over my stubble and made sure my jacket didn’t have any mustard or ketchup stains on it. Like Dad used to say, it’s all about the presentation when it comes to getting a woman’s attention.

  But then, what the hell was I doing?

  This wasn’t a real date. It was me doing the job I was paid to do. Whether Missy liked me or not was beside the point. I had a good thing going with Val lately. The last thing I needed was to screw it all up just for the sake of a little quick fun. Like I reminded Blood, professionals don’t touch the merchandise. Keeper the pure.

  I knew of a bodega located on the corner of Lark and Clinton. I pulled up out front of it, went inside. There were several rows of groceries and general merchandise available. Most of it was coated in dust. The coolers were in back. I made my way to them, grabbed a six-pack of Bud, and brought it up to the counter. Setting it down, I asked the proprietor for a pack of Marlboro Reds.

  “Box?” asked the friendly looking old black man. “Or soft pack?”

  I recalled my smoking days. I preferred the box to the soft pack. It kept the cigarettes from crumbling when you stored them in the breast pocket on your shirt.

  “Box,” I said.

  The door opened abruptly. I turned to see two men walk in.

  Young men.

  Dreads and Oakland Raider.

  “Yo, yo!” barked Dreads. “Well, looky who’s here. Where’s your big black brother, Blood, yo?”

  “Hey, you two,” the old man groused. “I don’t want no trouble in my store.”

  I turned back to him, pulled a twenty out of my pocket, handed it to him. He rang me out, handed me my change, bagged the beer and cigs.

  “Hey little big man,” Oakland Raider said. “My bro’ talkin’ to you. You disrespect his shit, you don’t answer him. Look him in the eye, yo. Or you a nobody without your bodyguard?”

  I thanked the old man, pocketed the change.

  Going for the door, they both stood shoulder to shoulder blocking my path.

  “Goin’ somewhere, bitch?” Dreads said.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Listen, fellas,” I began. “Didn’t you have enough of me just a few hours ago? I mean, I were you, I’d call it a day on the big bad bully routine. Now, why don’t you be nice kids, and let me pass without incident.”

  They looked at one another and burst out laughing like it was the funniest thing they’d heard all day.

  “You owe us somethin’,” Oakland Raider said, “and we want it back. All of it. All two thousand, yo.”

  Two thousand . . . Guess I underestimated the cash stash . . . Missy must be one special thief to have relieved Blood of that kind of dough . . .

  “You mean, like your self-respect?” I said. “I seem to recall you pooping your pants last time we spoke. And I’m not speaking metaphorically.”

  I issued the best, brightest, Jack Marconi grin possible.

  Oakland Raider’s grin melted.

  So did Dreads.

  “He dissin’ the shit outta you, man,” he said.

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “Now that you put it that way, that’s precisely what I have been doing, now haven’t I?”

  I made out the subtle, but obvious, jerking of Oakland Raider’s right elbow. It told me he was gearing up for a roundhouse. Being the trained crime fighter that I am, however, I was already connecting my fist to his Adam’s apple in the form of a short, sharp but oh so effective jab.

  He dropped like a stone, both his hands clutching at his neck.

  “Can’t . . . breathe,” he coughed. “Can’t . . . breathe.”

  I smiled at Dreads.

  “You were saying?” I said.

  He swallowed hard, about-faced, opened the door, and ran out as fast as his legs and baggy jeans would allow.

  I turned to the old man.

  He was grinning, a baseball bat equalizer gripped in both his hands.

  “I’m old enough to remember when Arbor Hill was a nice place to raise a family,” he said, sadly. “We had the Polish on the north end, the Italians and the Irish in the south, and a mix of black, white, and Hispanic in the middle. All lives mattered, and everybody got along for the most part. It worked. But then came the subsidized housing boom in the late 1970s, and it all went to shit. It became a breeding ground for th
e drug dealers and absentee landlords. Now, it’s not even nice enough to raise the likes of those two hoodlums.”

  “Speaking of hoodlums,” I said, “you okay with him?”

  We both eyed Oakland Raider as he continued to gasp for air. At least he hadn’t soiled himself again.

  “We’ll be just fine,” the old man said, slapping his palm with the fat end of the bat.

  My guess is that Oakland Raider’s bad day just got a hell of a lot worse. Missy’s package in hand, I stepped over him and exited the store knowing I’d just accomplished yet another good deed in the Arbor Hill killing fields.

  I drove the 4-Runner to Clinton and pulled up right outside Missy’s apartment house. I ascended a wood plank staircase that had been hastily constructed in place of what must have been a stone staircase back when this brownstone five-story townhouse building would have been considered prime real estate. Maybe at the turn of the last century. Now, the building was so run down and dilapidated, it was probably only standing out of habit.

  I found Missy’s buzzer and pressed it. The intercom had been ripped out of the exterior wall, but the electronic door lock still worked, and when I heard the lock retract, I pushed the door open and stepped into a narrow vestibule which also housed a five-story interior staircase with an old wood bannister. The place might have made a beautiful home for an upper middle-class family a century or more ago, but now it smelled like an old dog that had been caught in the rain. I heard a door open above me and then a voice.

  “Hi, Jack,” the young woman barked from four stories up, as she leaned over the thick wood banister. I guessed it was the only original piece of architecture that remained inside the building. “Come on up.”

  “Thanks,” I said, my voice sounding funny and strange.

  I took the stairs rapidly, corkscrewing my way to the fourth floor. When I came to the landing, I found Missy waiting for me by the open door belonging to her apartment. She was smiling cheerfully like I was the first hint of humanity she’d come into contact with in ages.

  As I made my way closer to her, I could see that she was wearing a short black skirt that fit her hips and butt snugly, if not perfectly. For a top, she wore a black sweater, which also fit her breasts closely and the V-neck showed off more than just a hint of cleavage. For footwear, she wore black leather boots over black stockings. Her blonde hair was lush and parted neatly on the side. Before I was within five feet of her, her blue eyes locked onto mine and pulled me in like a tractor beam.

  No doubt about it, Missy had talent. And she knew it too.

  I admit, she made me a little nervous. Okay, more than a little. It was the way she looked at me, washed her eyes all over me. The way I couldn’t keep my eyes off her face and her body. I was in love with Val. At least, I thought I was in love with her, or in the process of falling back in love with her. But here I was being sucked in by this young blonde bombshell of a woman who had me convinced she was running a sex-for-profit scam.

  I went to hold out my hand, but then realized it was holding the bag of beer and cigarettes.

  “I see you stopped at the grocery for me,” she said, taking the bag from me. “How sweet of you. It’s hard for me to get out sometimes.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked, pretending to know nothing about her.

  “Didn’t I tell you in my texts?” she said. “I have a son. A little boy. He’s sleeping right now, so . . .” She brought an erect index finger to her lips as if to signal me to shush.

  “Come in,” she said. Then, “Hope you don’t mind the clutter.”

  Unlike the exterior and interior vestibule of the old building, her apartment wasn’t what I expected. It was nice with polished hardwood floors and fresh paint on the walls. The wide living area was square with a bay window partially shaded by wood shutters that opened and closed accordion style. There was a non-operable fireplace that now had a protective metal cover over the hearth, and set before it was a big wood coffee table that supported a bunch of glossy magazines like Harpers and Vanity Fair. A few novels were stacked on top of it also. A Harlan Coben, a Joel Fishman, and a Don Winslow. I loved Fishman’s books. The sectional couch was rich brown leather, and the wide flat screen television that hung above the fireplace mantle was probably worth more than my 4-Runner.

  Something struck me about the front door, however, now that it was closed. A new deadbolt had been installed on the door rather recently. There were holes in the door made from screws that belonged to locksets long abandoned. Also, the door frame had gouges in it like someone had attempted to pry the door open on several occasions. Given the condition of the neighborhood, it wasn’t hard to imagine why.

  “Take a seat,” she said, smiling.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m more of a stand-up guy.”

  “Touché,” she said, heading across the floor to the galley kitchen. It was separated from the living area by a counter and two wood stools. She put the six pack and cigs on the counter, pulled one of the beers out, cracked the tab. “Beverage?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “I’m having wine,” she said. “Beer gives me the burps.”

  “Why’d you have me buy it for you, Missy?”

  “You looked like a beer man to me,” she said. “And a weight lifter. You enjoy life. I can tell the type. Anyway, I didn’t have any beer in the house.”

  She got all that from a stupid Tinder profile picture? Holy Moses, I never even bothered to fill out the word section. I had to hand it to her, she was a profiling pro . . .

  She lit a cigarette and carried it and the two drinks back into the living room, set them down on the coffee table. As she exhaled the blue smoke slowly, almost sensually through her nostrils and lips, it rose up to the blades of the ceiling fan and disappeared. I thought about the second-hand smoke and her kid sleeping in one of the bedrooms on the opposite end of the apartment. Then, I recalled how much my mother and father smoked when I was a little kid, and I’m still here. But she was supposed to be pregnant. It was rare to find a woman, or an intelligent woman like Missy seemed to be, who smoked knowing she was pregnant.

  “Mind if I sit?” she said.

  “It’s your place,” I said. “Be my guest.”

  When she sat down, she did it slowly, seductively. Her skirt rose up her thighs revealing the lacy tops of her thigh-high stockings. Something that caused a start in my heart. What man isn’t a sucker for sexy lingerie, especially when it’s worn by a woman who oozed sex, like Missy?

  She patted the empty space on the couch beside her, and finally, I sat down. She set the same hand on my thigh.

  “So, tell me more about yourself, Jack,” she said, balancing her cigarette on the table-top ceramic ashtray. She picked up her wine. “How long have you been using Tinder?”

  “Not very long,” I said. “In fact, I only started this afternoon.”

  I took a sip of the beer. It was good and cold. It helped calm me down.

  She giggled.

  “Well, looks like you scored on your first time at bat,” she said, pinching my thigh. “Good to see you’re not married.”

  “How do you know I’m not married, Missy?”

  She glanced at my hands.

  “No ring,” she said.

  “That doesn’t always mean a man’s not betrothed,” I said.

  “It’s a pretty good sign.”

  “You date married men?” I asked, drinking some more beer.

  Her blue eyes went wide.

  “Lord no,” she said. “In fact, I hardly date at all. Like I said, I have a two-year-old boy, and I’m a single mom, so it’s hard for me to get out.”

  I watched her pick up the cigarette, smoke it a little more, but then put it out. She was lying to me. Lying to my face. But somehow, it didn’t bother me, as though her beauty and presence negated it somehow.

  “What do you do for work?” I asked, politely.

  “Right now?” she said, running her now free hand through her hair. “Right no
w, I’m mostly unemployed. I clean houses from time to time, up in North Albany where the rich folks live. I’ve been looking, but there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of prospects for a former dancer who barely got through high school.”

  “A dancer?” I said. “What kind?”

  In my head, I pictured her working the runway of a men’s strip club, but why rush to judgment? Maybe she’d been a Rockette in a former life.

  “I danced here and there. Some ballet, some jazz. I’ve done off-off Broadway and some clubs, of course.”

  Okay, the clubs thing was a dead giveaway. Maybe I wasn’t about to say anything about it, but Missy knew her way around a floor-to-ceiling dance poll.

  “No wonder you’re in such terrific shape, Missy,” I said. Keeper the suck up. Or was it Keeper the flirt?

  She set her wine glass down on the table.

  “Say, Jack, would you like to see something?” she asked.

  I was struck by her openness. I expected the small talk, and the awkward getting acquainted. It was a way for me to get a feel for her and the place so that I could better do my job when McNamee called me for an update, which he eventually would. But I never expected a floor show.

  “Sure,” I said, genuinely intrigued. “Why not?”

  She raised herself up from the couch, came around the coffee table. Using both her hands, she did something I didn’t expect. She pulled off her sweater, revealing a white tank top style undershirt. Under that, she wore a black lace push-up bra that made her bosom appear even more pronounced.

  Entering into a kind of crouch, she then spun herself around on the balls of her right foot, while her left foot dragged weightlessly behind. Her hair filled with air like a sail while her she held out her arms, her fingers dangling from her hands delicately. Her eyes were closed, and looking at her face, I could see that for just the briefest of moments, she’d become transfixed and transported to another world, far away from the hell that was Arbor Hill.