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Holding a Pair T. P. Keating |
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Truth be told, I'd seduced myself a million times over with daydreams of glittering success, until I'd given up gambling for good, changed my name and left my debts a thousand miles behind me. Trouble was, I insisted on paying something back to what passes for society, somehow, which was kinda how I ended up as a gumshoe, where glittering success means earning enough to pay the bills. But the house always won, and this one currently came with a landlord who never gave credit where credit's due. Which was tough, because tomorrow was rent day, and I'd been flicking my final dime in the air for an hour. Frankly, it was all my fleapit rooms were worth. Heads you win. Tails you lose. Over and over. Until it slipped from my fingers and rolled across the floorboards, to where a black stiletto stamped it to a halt. The visitor casually scooped it up and sent it spinning into my hands. “Bravo,” she said, with a voice that whispered refined, and a skin that looked like refined flour. Her tailored blue skirt and jacket weren't cheap pieces of work, either. A strand of her long, chestnut hair fell over her heavy-lidded, brown eyes, and a familiar daydream about beating the odds threatened to resurface. To escape it, I shoved a copy of my neatly typed fee sheet across the desk. I had plenty of copies left. “Sit down, read that, then tell me if bravo still fits the bill, Mrs?...” “Miss Geraldine Williams, Mr Joseph Burton, PI.” She parked herself opposite me. “Please, call me Joe.” “We'll see, after I've read your fee list.” I noted that she clasped her black-gloved hands while she read, and my fees couldn’t have made anyone that nervous, except me. “Okay, Joe it is.” From her voice, you'd never guess she was on edge. The dame was a class act, and my gambling heart always appreciated a well-constructed poker face. “Drink?” “Java.” “How do you like it?” “Strong and long.” “Sugar?” “One.” I fixed us two mugs of steaming hot Java and retook my seat. “So, Miss Williams, how can I help you?” “You'll understand best if I show you.” She stood up, slipped off her tailored jacket and placed it on the back of her chair. Next came her cream blouse. She turned around and sat on my desk. I could get used to that type of paperweight. “Look at my back.” As luck would have it, that's exactly where I was looking. I had the natural instincts that investigation required. “What do you see?” “A tiny tattoo.” “Look closer. What is it?” Well, it was her dollar. I leaned over the desk and examined the small of her back. Hard work, but someone had to do it. “It’s five cards. A poker hand.” She was holding a pair. “Make a note of the cards and their order, Joe, including the suits.” “Sure.” I jotted the hand down in a notebook, and she got dressed. “This is where it gets ugly. The tatt was given to me when I was unconscious.” “Why were you unconscious?” “The tattooist drugged me.” Stupid question. “It's the new combination to his wall safe, in case he forgot.” “What's his name?” “Chicago Pete. A real master of the art. Ever heard of him?” I smiled. “Did Chicago Pete forget the combination?” “Who can tell? The next morning, that’s this morning, they fished him out of the East River.” I fixed her with the steady stare, the one I reserved for probable cardsharps. “Gee, in the evening he drugs you, and in the morning he winds up dead in the river. What do you know about it?” “Very wet, separates Manhattan and Bronx from Queens and Brooklyn...” “Cute.” “You're kinda handsome too, if you like rawboned men who work in dingy apartments and claim they'll help you, for a semi-reasonable price.” I sipped my Java and wondered, as I often did, if laboring under the weight of my debts back west wouldn't be better than my current circumstances. She brushed that long chestnut strand from her sultry brown eyes again, and I decided on balance that I could struggle along with my new set up. “What's in his safe?” “Something for a rainy day. Jewels mostly. Gold coins too. Other stuff. I only saw inside once.” Yeah, that would keep the rain off swell. She leant forward and put a black-gloved hand on mine. “But I don't want the gold and jewels. Just the personal photos he stole from me. Joe, escort me to his apartment and let me take back what's mine. Please?” “What's the catch?” “Catch?” “You could've asked a friend or lover to look at your tattoo, or read it yourself with a few mirrors. Why me? Keep jawing or take a powder.” “Wow, rawboned, shady accommodation and prone to sarcasm too. What more could a girl want?” I kept right on drinking my Java. “Okay, here's the deal. Apart from being a PI, the deciding point is, I don't know you.” “That's it, you don't know me?” “Put it this way, I did know Chicago Pete, and he drugged me and tattooed me. My flat mate, Ruby, vanished last month and took my wages with her. Get the picture?” “Yeah, you're a hell-cat who drives people crazy. Fortunately, I won't know you that long. Say, aren't cops and newshawks all over Chicago Pete's apartment?” “Like the wall safe, it was a secret investment.” “In which case, when's the best time to pay the wall safe a visit?” She glanced at her watch. Mine said late, and not getting any earlier. “Now would be good.” “Let's go.” On a walk that turned out to be three blocks, on a freezing November night, I wondered if I'd already enjoyed her company long enough to become goofy, at any rate in part? Though not goofy enough to leave my .45 at the office. When the dice were loaded, which was every day, I liked to be loaded too, being an old-fashioned sort. “What do you do for a living, Geraldine?” “Whatever it is that hell-cats do. Cheating, lying and generally being bad.” “Hey, I didn't mean to...” “We're about to rummage through a dead man's wall safe, and you go around suggesting that I'm less than pure. What about you? No bad decisions, ever?” “We all make bad decisions.” “Before tonight, I mean?” I caught her gaze. “I lost more than my shirt in Vegas.” We dodged the traffic. Back on the sidewalk, the wind punched harder than a hood with my name on his fists. I had to hold my trilby in place. “I made a clean break when I came to New York.” “Clean as in, they can't trace you and make you pay?” We walked. “No reply? Not even for a hell-cat?” More traffic. “We're here.” Here was a brownstone in a dimly lit street. I followed her in and up the bare wooden stairs. We didn't encounter any residents. She held the key. She flicked the light switch. Inside, a riot of gaudy velvet hangings and spotlights made me think I was in a casino again. The rush of adrenaline soon disappeared. “Joe, over here.” She tugged the left side of a painting (a tiger's snarling head, done with oils and no skill), and it opened on a hinge. “The box.” Instead of numbers, the dials displayed playing cards. Only in Vegas. “Geraldine, I've got bad news for you. I left my notebook and the combination at the office.” “You boob.” She sighed, slung the blue tailored jacket and cream blouse over the painting, turned around and folded her arms. “Make it quick, Joe. I'm freezing. Or look for a fireplace. There’s most likely one in the kitchen.” “Most likely, eh? You seem rather at home here. Was Chicago Pete more than a friend?” “Why? Are you jealous?” I turned the dials. I pulled the handle. The metal door eased open. She hadn't lied. It held more ice than a deep-freezer, mixed up good with plenty of gold coins. And a brown manila envelope. Cool. I fetched the envelope out and handed it to my client. She lifted the flap and glanced at the contents. Whatever the photos held, she never let it show on her face. What a class act. “Well, now I can afford to pay you. Help yourself.” She nodded to the open safe. “Be honest, this is what you've been expecting me to say all along. Because I mentioned that Ruby had vamoosed with all my dough. But it didn't stop you taking my case.” “And you've always known what my reply would be. No way, toots.” “Tough luck. If you’re unable to help yourself, it won’t stop me.” She grabbed my lapels, yanked me to her and we kissed. “Now, if you don’t mind, my jacket and blouse…” “Yeah, I don’t mind.” I bundled them off the painting, threw them inside the safe and closed it, then drew her lips next to mine again. We kissed long and passionately. We never took a single jewel or gold coin out of the wall safe. Because, that night, we decided to move in to the apartment together. Truth be told, she'd seduced me more thoroughly than any of my daydreams ever did. Was it a glittering success? Well, it all depends on how long the odds were and how much I bet. But that’s the last thing a gambler would ever reveal. One issue was sure though, I wouldn’t even leave the bathroom door unlocked when Geraldine Williams was around.
The End
Copyright(c) 2007 by T. P. Keating
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