Danger Is My Business by RodG Charlie writing prompt entry |
"The last time I saw Charlie he was with Jimmy Stewart.""The actor?" "Yes." "Where?" "The Signal Watch . . . That's at the Palmer House." I knew where it was, but a guy like me doesn't step into the lobby of the poshest hotel in Chicago every day. Maybe at Christmas to see the massive lit-up tree and only if the dame on my arm was classy. This aristocrat I'd take there any day, but she was way out of my league, a stunning brunette with Ava Gardner's eyes, hair, and winsome attributes. I'd just seen that femme fatale in The Killers the day before. My office is small with a single window above a scarred wooden desk, two undusted filing cases, bare walls, and a floor that lacked carpet. The door has marbled glass and most of the letters of my name: Johnny Athens, P. I. She entered on a dog-day afternoon in August and sashayed toward me with shining teeth white as Victorian bone china. "You are Mr. Athens?" she asked. I stood, wishing I'd worn my Sunday suit, not the brown Maxwell Street special I wore six days out of seven. I owned an abundance of ties, but this yellow one had a prominent spot from the onion soup I'd slurped for lunch. "I am he!" Whatever I lack in wardrobe, I make up for with chutzpah. I threw her the grin my mother loves. "And you are?" "Mona Westlake." She paused expectantly, as if I should recognize the moniker, but I don't scan the tabloids in the A & P. Her smile turned upside down when I didn't respond. "The Westlakes are very prominent on the North Shore." "That's nice," I said, the sneer in my voice as obvious as her pretty tilted nose. "What brings you here?" "I'm desperate." Her eyes, like a banshee's claws, tore at my face. You must be! I gave the bare-boned, low-rent office I inhabited (and usually slept in) a surreptitious glance. It occupied maybe four hundred square feet of the second floor of a mostly-abandoned building kitty-corner from Phillie's Diner, the only landmark remaining in this decadent Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood. "Who sent you?" "Gabriel Delance. He's my mother's brother . . . my uncle and a captain in the--" "Chicago P. D., Howard Street Division." So, Gabe, you're a captain now, you old kiss-ass. I scowled, remembering my old boss's suggestion. Or was it a decree? I'd been a cop under his command a lot of years. Then one night my partner and I chased a B & E suspect down an alley. Two shots. A bullet snapped my thigh bone, another slammed into my partner's chest. He died in my arms. Weeks later I finally returned to the precinct, but had to use a cane to get around. Reluctantly, I accepted desk duty until the day old Gabe called me into his office. A lieutenant then, he said, "Johnny, take the disability. It's a nice sum, and you can run your own office, be your own boss." His smarmy smile was glued on. Here I sat, eight years later, in my pathetic little office listening to his niece. He'd never sent a client my direction before. Why now? I asked her. "He says you have a reputation, a good one, for tracking down missing spouses." "And yours is missing?" "Yes." "How long?" "Three days." Long enough. The cops lacked interest until someone went missing 24 hours. "Your uncle the first cop you called?" When she nodded those long dark tresses fluttered around shoulders soft as Swiss pillows. Suddenly, the closed room seemed steamy. I'd neglected to open the lone window, and I didn't own a fan. I dabbed at my forehead with a wad of handkerchief. "Tell me something about this man, your . . . uh . . . hubby, Mrs. Westlake. He in sales, travel a lot?" "No, he is in industrial real estate and seldom travels. Never without me." "So my landlord would call him if he wanted to dump this place?" I asked. "No, Charlie leases out the land his company already owns. He's a member of the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association and often works with Arthur Rubloff. You've heard of him, I'm sure." I had. Rubloff was a wheeler-dealer seeking to redevelop that stretch of land from the Wrigley Building north to the Water Tower and beyond. He'd even renamed it the Miracle Mile. That's when I asked when she'd seen him last. "Is Mr. Stewart leaving Hollywood and moving to Chicago?" "I don't know, but Charlie thinks he could be a notable investor." "How long were you with them at the Palmer House?" "Maybe twenty minutes. Jimmy's as sweet off camera as he's on. I wanted to stay, but I'd promised a girlfriend I'd meet her at Marshal Fields. They were having a pre-fall fur sale, and we both hoped to buy new mink coats." Needless to say, she wasn't clad in fur that day. She wore what looked like a sleek blue cocktail dress with a velvet strap that circled her slim neck. Ava wore something similar in the movie, but hers was midnight black. "When you strolled back, new mink in a fancy bag, was hubby gone?" She smiled prettily this time. Dimples appeared in both cheeks. "Yes, but the bag was stuffed with white ermine." "Did Jimmy like it? Or had he shuffled back to Hollywood?" "He had left the lobby, but he's still in the city making a film, Call Northside 777. I finally reached him Saturday by phone, and was told Charlie left the Palmer House shortly after I did. For a meeting." "With Rubloff?" "I don't think so. I called Charlie's office late Friday when he didn't come home and went there today. His secretary insists he had nothing scheduled later that day or the weekend and showed me his calendar." I dabbed at the sweat trickling under my collar, whereas Mona looked cool, despite her anxiety. "You think she could be lying?" I asked. "What do you mean?" "She young? Pretty?" Mona stared at my window like a prisoner watching the hangman tie the noose. I twisted the knife a little farther. "Could she have met him at another hotel? Maybe he's still there." Her jaw rose like the stern of a sinking ship, quivered, and sank. "I--I thought of that and . . . called the hotels he likes . . . the ones we have used on lost weekends here in the city and--and across the lake." "Nothing?" She shook her head. Sadly. "You do this before or after calling Uncle Gabe?" "Before." "Who checked the local hospitals, you or him?" "He did, I think." No, Mona, he's got lots of manpower, flunkies to do that for him. Like I did when I rode the desk. I raked a hand through my damp hair, then asked, "And no bodies found, John Does unidentified?" "No, thank God!" Mona Westlake had me perplexed. Fidelity was an issue, but how serious? Mention "body" and she shrieked. She still loved hubby who might very well be a philanderer. Or a bigamist. Did I dare open that can of worms? Something else itched at the back of my brain. I mentally scratched. The man's wealthy. Could he have been abducted? I must have altered expressions. P. I.'s do that when they try to think. "What?" she demanded. Nah. By now a kidnapper would have made demands. I stared at Mona a long moment before asking, "Charlie have enemies?" She gave me a curious look. "What kind of enemies?" "The kind who might want something Charlie couldn't or wouldn't give them." Her eyes widened. A hand clutched her throat. "Look, I know zilch about Charlie Westlake's brand of real estate, but were he to 'recreate' this neighborhood, he'd have a passel of enemies in no time: the gangs, the newly-arrived tired and poor from Europe, and, of course, Mob bosses, the inheritors of Capone's empire. Their greed and influence hasn't waned since Scarface died of syphilis. And let's not forget the big shots at City Hall who ask a king's ransom for the smallest license and break legs just like the wise guys if they don't get it." I watched Mona's face pass through several rapid phases until her eyes and mouth became a tragic mask. "He's not missing, is he, Mrs. Westlake? He's hiding." I stared hard until she nodded. "That why Gabe sent you here? Hubby needs a bodyguard?" "Yes, and--" The first shot shattered the window and splintered my desk. The second slammed her to the floor.
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