The Best American Mystery Stories 2006 Read online

  “Don’t worry,” Gert said. “He deserves whatever happens to him and they’ll never follow it back to me.”

  “Okay,” Leonid said.

  He touched her knuckle again.

  “Don’t.”

  He let his fingers trail up toward her wrist.

  “Please, Leo. I don’t want to wrestle with you.”

  Leonid’s breath was shallow and the erection was pressing against his pants. But he moved away.

  “I better be going,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Gert agreed. “Go home to your wife.”

  ~ * ~

  It didn’t take long to get past security at the Empire State Building. Leonid worked late at least three nights a week.

  He didn’t want to go home after Gert had turned him down.

  He never knew why he took Kartrina back in.

  He never knew why he did anything except if it had to do with the job.

  Leonid became a P.I. because he was too short to qualify for the NYPD when he was eligible. They changed the require­ments soon after that but by then he’d already been busted for unlawful entry.

  He didn’t care. The private sector was more lucrative and he could work his own hours.

  ~ * ~

  He found a Richard Mallory in the phone book that had the same address that Karmen Brown had typed out on her fiancé’s fact sheet. Leonid dialed the number. Someone an­swered on the third ring.

  “Hello?” a tremulous man’s voice asked.

  “BobbiAnne there?” Leonid asked in one of his dozen ac­cents.

  “What?”

  “BobbiAnne. She there?”

  “You have the wrong number.”

  “Oh. All right,” Leonid said and then he hung up.

  For a dozen minutes by the big clock on the wall Leonid thought about the voice of the man who might have been Richard Mallory. Leonid thought that he could tell the nature of anyone if he could talk to him just when he was roused out of a deep sleep.

  It was 2:34 a.m. And Richard, if that was Richard, sounded like a straightforward guy, a working stiff, somebody who didn’t cross the line over into the Life.

  This was important to Leonid. He didn’t want to get in­volved following some guy who might turn around and blow his head off.

  ~ * ~

  At half past three he called Gert.

  “Six-two-oh-nine,” the recording of her voice said after five rings. “I’m not available right now but if you leave a message I’ll be sure to call you back.”

  “Gertie, it’s Leon. I’m sorry about before. I miss you, honey. Maybe we can have dinner tomorrow night. You know-I’ll make it up to you.”

  He didn’t hang up for a few seconds more, hoping that Gert was listening and would decide to pick up.

  ~ * ~

  The buzzer woke him. The clock had it just past nine. The win­dow was filled with cloud-just a pillowy white gauze that didn’t give three inches’ visibility.

  The buzzer jangled his dull mind again. Another long ring. But this time Leonid wasn’t awake enough to have fear. He stumbled down the hall in the same suit he’d been wearing for over twenty-four hours.

  When he opened the front door the two thugs pushed in.

  One was black with a bald head and golden-rimmed glasses while the other was white with thick greasy hair.

  They each had five inches on Leonid.

  “The Wyants want forty-nine hundred,” the black man said. His mouth on the inside was the color of gingivitis. His eyes behind the lenses had a yellowy tint.

  “Forty-six,” Leonid corrected groggily.

  “That was yesterday, Leo. That interest is a motherfucker.” The black man closed the door and the white one moved to Leonid’s left.

  The white hooligan grinned and Leonid felt a hatred in his heart that was older than his communist father’s father.

  The white man had coarse chestnut hair that had been hacked rather than cut. His eyes were bisected between blue and brown and his lips were ragged, as if he had spent a por­tion of his earlier life soul-kissing a toothy leopard.

  “We wake you up?” the black collector asked, just now re­membering his manners.

  “Li’l bit,” Leonid said, stifling a yawn. “How you been, Bilko?”

  “Okay, Leon. I hope you got the money, ‘cause if you don’t they told us to bust you up.”

  The white man snickered in anticipation.

  Leonid reached into his breast pocket and came out with the thick brown envelope he’d received the night before.

  While counting out the forty-nine hundred-dollar bills Leonid had a familiar sensation: the feeling of never having as much money as he thought he did. After his debt and interest to the Wyants, this month’s rent and last on his apartment, after his wife’s household expenses and his own bills, he would be broke and still three months behind on his office rent.

  This made him even angrier. He’d need Karmen Brown’s money and more if he was going to keep his head above water. And that white fool just kept on grinning, his head like a wob­bling tenpin begging to fall down.

  Leonid handed the money to Bilko, who counted it slowly while the white goon licked his ragged lips.

  “I think you should tip us for havin’ to come all the way up here to collect, Leon,” the white man said.

  Bilko looked up and grinned. “Leon don’t tip the help, Norman. He’s got his pride.”

  “I knock that outta him right quick,” Norman said.

  “I’d like to see you try it, white boy,” Leonid dared. Then he looked at Bilko to see if he had to take on two at once.

  “It’s between you two,” the black capo said, holding up one empty hand and one filled with Leonid’s green.

  Norman was faster than he looked. He laid a beefy fist against Leonid’s jaw, knocking the middle-aged detective back two steps.

  “Whoa!” Bilko cried.

  Norman’s frayed lips curved into a smile. He stood there looking at Leonid, expecting him to fall down.

  That was the mistake all of Leonid’s sparring partners had made at Gordo’s gym. They thought the fat man couldn’t take a punch. Leonid came in low and hard, hitting the big white man three times at the belt line. The third punch bent Norman over enough to be a sucker for a one-two uppercut combina­tion. The only thing that kept Norman from falling was the wall. He hit it hard, putting his hands up reflexively to ward off the attack he knew was coming.

  Leonid got three good blows to Norman’s head before Bilko pushed him away.

  “That’s enough now, boy,” Bilko said. “That’s enough. I need him on his feet to get back out on the street.”

  “Take the asshole outta here then, Bilko! Take him outta here before I kill his ass!”

  Dutifully Bilko helped the half-conscious, bleeding white man away from the wall. He pointed him at the door and then turned to Leonid.

  “See you next month, Leon,” he said.

  “No,” Leonid replied, breathing hard from the exertion. “You won’t be seeing me again.”

  Bilko laughed as he led Norman toward the elevators.

  Leonid slammed the door behind them. He was still in a rage. After all his pay he was still broke and hard-pressed by fools like Bilko and Norman. Gert wouldn’t take his calls and he didn’t even have a bed that he could sleep in alone. He would have killed that ugly fool if it wasn’t for Bilko.

  Leonid Trotter McGill let out a roar and kicked a hole in the paneled veneer of his nonexistent receptionist’s cubicle wall. Then he picked up the phone, called Lenny’s Delicatessen on Thirty-fifth Street and ordered three jelly doughnuts and a large cup of coffee with cream.

  He called Gert again but she still wasn’t answering.

  ~ * ~

  It was a small office on the third floor above a two-story Japa­nese restaurant called Gai. There was no elevator so Leonid took the stairs. Just those twenty-eight steps winded him. If Norman had fought back at all, Leonid realized, he would be broken and broke.
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br />   The receptionist weighed less than ninety-eight pounds fully dressed and she was nowhere near fully dressed. All she had on was a black slip trying to pass as a dress and flat paper sandals. Her arms had no muscle. Everything about the girl was preadolescent except her eyes, which regarded the bulky P.I. with deep suspicion.

  “Richard Mallory,” Leonid said to the brunette.

  “And you are?”

  “Looking for Richard Mallory,” Leonid stated.

  “What business do you have with Mr. Mallory?”

  “No business of yours, honey. It’s man-talk.”

  The young woman’s four-ounce jaw hardened as she stared at Leonid.

  He didn’t mind. He didn’t like the girl; dressed so sexy and talking to him as if they were peers.

  She picked up a phone and whispered a few angry words then she walked away from her post into a doorway behind her chair, leaving Leonid to stand there at the waist-high barrier-desk. In the mirror on the wall Leonid could see through the window behind his back and out onto Madison Avenue. He could also see the swelling on the right side of his head where Norman had hit him.

  A few moments later the tall man with a sparse mustache strode out. He wore black trousers and a tan linen jacket and the same uncomfortable expression he had on the photograph in Leonid’s pocket.

  Leonid hated him too.

  “Yes?” Richard Mallory said to Leonid.

  “I’m looking for Richard Mallory,” Leonid said.

  “That’s me.”

  The P.I. took a deep breath through his nostrils. He knew that he had to calm down if he wanted to do his job right. He took another, deeper breath.

  “What happened to your jaw?” the handsome young man asked the amateur boxer.

  “Edema,” Leonid said easily. “Runs on my father’s side of the family.”

  Richard Mallory was stymied by this. Leonid thought that he probably didn’t know the definition of the word.

  “I want to talk business with you, Mr. Mallory. Something we can both make money on.”

  “I don’t see what you mean,” Mallory said with the bland­est of bland expressions on his face.

  Leonid produced a card from his breast pocket. It read:

  Van Der Zee Domestics and In-Home Service Aides

  Arnold DuBois, Agent

  “I don’t understand, Mr. DuBois,” Mallory said, using the French pronunciation of McGill’s alias.

  “Du boys” Leonid said. “I represent the Van Der Zee firm. We’re just establishing ourselves here in New York. We’re from Cleveland originally. What we want is to get our people in as domestics, care for the aged, dog walkers, and nannies in the upper-crust buildings. All of our people are highly presentable and professional. They’re bonded too.”

  “And you want me to help you get in?” Mallory asked, still a little leery.

  “We’ll pay fifteen hundred dollars for every exclusive pre­sentation you get us in for,” Leonid said. By now he had for­gotten his dislike of the receptionist and Mallory. He wasn’t even mad at Norman anymore.

  The mention of fifteen hundred per presentation (what­ever that meant) moved Dick Mallory to action.

  “Come with me, Mr. DuBois,” he said, pronouncing the name the way Leonid preferred.

  The real estate agent led the fake employment agent down a hall of cubicles inhabited by various other agents.

  Mallory took Leonid to a small conference room and closed the door behind them. There was a round pine table that had three matching chairs. Mallory gestured and they both sat down.

  “Now what is it exactly that you’re saying, Mr. DuBois?”

  “We have a young girl,” Leonid said. “A pretty thing. She sets up a small table in the entry hall of any building you say.

  She talks to the tenants about all the various types of in-home labor they might need. Somebody might want an assistant twice a week to help with filing and shopping. They might al­ready have an assistant but still need somebody to walk their pets when they’re away. Once somebody hires one of our peo­ple we’re confident that they will hire others as needs arise. All we want is your okay to install the young lady and we pay you fifteen hundred dollars.”

  “For every building I get you into?”

  “Cash.”

  “Cash?”

  Leonid nodded.

  The young man actually licked his lips.

  “If you can guarantee us a lobby in an upscale building, I can pay you as early as tonight,” Leonid said.

  “Does it have to be that soon?”

  “I’m an agent on commission for Van Der Zee Enterprises, Mr. Mallory. In order to make a profit I have to produce. I’m not the only one out here trying to make contacts. I mean, you can call me whenever you want, but if you can’t promise me a lobby by the end of today then I will have to go farther down my list of contacts.”

  “But-“

  “Listen,” Leonid said, cutting off any logic that Richard Mallory might have brought to bear. He reached into his pocket and brought out three one-hundred-dollar bills. These he placed on the table between them. “That’s one-fifth up front. Three hundred dollars against you finding me one lobby that I can send Arlene to tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow-”

  “That’s right, Richard. Van Der Zee Enterprises will give me control over the whole Manhattan operation if I’m the first one to bring in a lobby.”

  “So I get to keep the money?”

  “With twelve hundred more coming to you at eight this evening if you have the lobby set for me.”

  “Eight? Why eight?”

  “You think you’re the only guy I’m talking to, Richard? I have four other meetings set up this afternoon. Whoever gets to me when it’s all done, at eight o’clock, will get at least part of the prize. Maybe he’ll get the whole thing.”

  “But I have a date tonight-”

  “Just call me on the phone, Richard. Tell me where you are and I’ll bring you the money and the letter confirming to the super that Arlene can set up her table.”

  “What letter?”

  “I hope you don’t think I’m going to be handing you fifteen hundred dollars a week in cash without getting a letter for the super to show my boss,” Leonid said blandly. “Don’t worry, we won’t mention the money, just that Van Der Zee Enterprises can set up in the lobby offering our services.”

  “But what if somebody complains?”

  “You can always tell your bosses that you were thinking on your own, trying to offer a service. They won’t know about the money changing hands. At the very least we’ll be thrown out, but that’ll take a couple’a days, and Arlene is very good at handing out those brochures.”

  “That’s fifteen hundred in cash a week?”

  “Twice that if we can find another Arlene and you can hook us up like I been told.”

  “But I’m going to be out tonight,” Mallory complained.

  “So? Just call me. Give me the address. And I’ll drop by with the form. We’re talkin’ ten minutes for twelve hundred dollars.”

  Richard fingered the money. Then he tentatively picked it up.

  “I can just take this?”

  “Take it. And take the rest tonight and then that much again once a week for the next four or five months.” Leonid grinned.

  Richard folded the money and put it in his pocket.

  “What’s your phone number, Mr. DuBois?”

  ~ * ~

  Leonid called his wife and told her to have his brown suit ready and pressed by the time he got home.

  “Am I your maid now?” she asked.

  “I got the rent and the expenses here in my pocket,” Leonid growled. “All I’m asking from you is a little cooperation.”

  The private eye then called his cell phone service. When the voice on the line said to record a new message, Leonid said, “Hello. This is Arnold DuBois, employment agent for Van Der Zee Enterprises. At the tone leave me what you got.”

  ~ * ~


  When he got home he found the suit folded on the bed and Katrina gone. Alone in the house, he drew a bath and poured himself a glass of ice water. He wanted a cigarette but the doc­tors had told him his lungs could barely take New York air.

  He sat back in the old-fashioned tub, turning the hot water on and off with his toes. His jaw ached and he was almost broke again. But still he had a line on Richard Mallory and that made the detective happy.