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Chapter Text

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Prologue

ooOoo

'How do you feel?' It was a smooth slivery voice that matched her hair. It had a tiny tinkle in it, like bells in a doll's house. I thought that was silly as soon as I thought of it.

'Great,' I said. 'Somebody built a filling station on my jaw.'

'What did you expect, Mr Marlowe - orchids?'

'Just a plain pine box,' I said. 'Don't bother with bronze or silver handles. And don't scatter my ashes over the blue Pacific. I like the worms better. Did you know that worms are of both sexes and that any worm can love another worm?'

'You're a little light-headed,' she said, with a grave stare.

Garibaldi’s link chimed and he groaned. Just as he’d been getting to the good part, too. He closed the book, keeping one finger between the pages to mark his place.

‘Yeah, what?’

‘Chief!’ Zack’s voice, tense. ‘I’m sorry but we’ve got a situation down here and-’

‘Skip it, Zack. I’m not on duty for another hour – come back and bother me then.’

‘Yeah, I would, and I’m sorry, but this is getting out of hand.’ There were crashes somewhere in the background; Zack started to speak again, was cut off in a sharp yelp. ‘Chief!’

He sighed. ‘I’m still here.’

‘Listen, these Narns are good but they only really listen to you and-’

‘Okay, okay.’ He tilted his head back for a second, closed his eyes. ‘Where are you?’

Another crash.

‘The Zocalo.’

‘I’m on my way.’

Garibaldi swung his feet off the couch, stood up and dragged his uniform jacket on. Philip Marlowe never had these problems, he reflected. Marlowe answered to no-one but himself and his free time wasn’t spent busting up fights between civilians and Narns who could lay a punch like an anvil coming down on your head.

He shook himself. The only draw-back to Marlowe was that after a couple of hours in his company, Garibaldi started talking like him. Then again, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. He turned down the lights, let himself out and started towards the tubes that would take him to Red Sector.

ooOoo

John Sheridan entered MedLab, crossed immediately to where Franklin was bending over the figure on the gurney. He let out a low whistle. ‘That’s one hell of a bruise.’

Franklin glanced up. ‘It was one hell of a blow.’

‘What happened?’

The doctor sighed, closed over his scanner. ‘As far as I can make out he got called down to help in a situation at the Zocalo; one of the Narn security guards accidentally landed a blow on him and he went headfirst into a pillar.’

Sheridan winced in sympathy. 'Is he going to be okay?'

Franklin considered for a moment, looked from Garibaldi to Sheridan's concerned face and back again. 'He's taken a crack to the head and he hasn't regained consciousness yet; he should be okay. The man's got a skull like granite. I'm thinking of asking him to donate it to medical science when he's done with it.'

The captain smiled; he took a step forward, peered down at his friend's unconscious form. He frowned, tilted his head to get a better look. He had thought it was a trick of the light at first but Garibaldi almost looked like he was smiling. Sheridan straightened up, bent over again almost immediately. 'Did you hear that?'

Franklin looked at him vaguely. 'What?'

'He said something. It- It sounded like "coffee".'

ooOoo

1

ooOoo

I woke up and wished I hadn't. Sleeping in a chair isn't too good for you when you get to my age. I sat up, wondered about the orchestra playing the Anvil Chorus in my head and looked up at the lunatic who was grinning down at me.

'Morning.'

'Go to hell.' I massaged the back of my neck and bid farewell to Verdi. 'We got any coffee?'

'Susan's making it now. You know, it wouldn't kill you to go home at night; that way I wouldn't have to keep dragging your sorry ass up and out of that chair every morning.'

He let the shades up and I squinted into the light. Apart from anything else it showed up the few thousand dust motes dancing about that were usually hidden. My alarm clock walked himself back over to his desk, put his feet up on it and started to read the paper. Sport's section. Catching up on the World Series. John J. Sheridan: war hero, widower, all round good guy. And my partner.

Me, I used to be a cop - one of New York's finest. I was partnered up with a guy named Jeff Sinclair. Jeff was my best friend, the kind of guy who picked me up, carried me through, dried me out when I needed it, covered for me. And then... Well, one day, Jeff wasn't there anymore.

Exit Jeff Sinclair stage left, enter John Sheridan stage right.

It was just after the war, spring of '46 and we'd fished some poor schlub with a chest full of lead out of the river. Not much more than a kid. Goofy expression and nothing in his pockets except for his I.D. and a photo of some cute little number waiting for him back in Wisconsin or someplace. She'd be waiting a long time. It was one of those cases that doesn't really get solved. But I wanted to solve it and in the middle of all that came Johnny-boy. Just out of the army, with the haircut to prove it, and so many medals on his chest it was a wonder his ribs didn't collapse under the pressure. The kid was a friend of his, had been in his unit, and he wanted answers - and he didn't trust anyone except himself to get them for him. I hated him on sight until I got the picture that he was actually an okay guy. Long story short, we worked on it together and it was damn near the last thing we ever did. I closed the case but when you take down some City Councilmen it doesn't do much for your career. That was my last case. And then John comes up with this brilliant idea (he has a lot of those) - we go into business together as private eyes.

Crazy has never come between me and anything. Some guys go for crazy and I guess I'm one of them.

So, two years later there we were. Somewhere along the way we had acquired a secretary and offices that were probably decorated during the first Roosevelt Administration - Teddy, not Franklin D. - and never touched since. Sometimes we even ran at a profit. And sometimes I wondered how and why John ended up doing this. Gumshoeing around getting his nice blue pin-stripe all roughed up. Compared to me he was practically aristocracy - son of a diplomat, career military. He could have taken up a nice cushy number in some office on Madison and spent all his time polishing his shiny Purple Heart. But he was crazy enough to want to work for a living. He was also crazy enough to want to work with me for that self-same living and who was I to argue?

'Goddamn politicians.' John shook out the paper and gave it the kind of look that starts fires. 'You know what's worse than politicians?'

We'd played this scene a few times but it was a nice morning, there was nothing else going on, so I decided to humour him. 'Journalists?'

'Damn right.'

He was getting going. It was his way of letting off steam, I guess and I can't say that I exactly disagreed with him. I leaned back, closed my eyes and waited for Susan to come in with the coffee.

ooOoo

'How's he doing?'

Sheridan looked up as Ivanova joined him in MedLab. The captain didn't look so much worried as amused.

'Whatever he's dreaming about, he seems to be having a great time.'

She blinked. 'Okay. I'm not even going to ask.'

Sheridan grinned. 'Did you know he talks in his sleep? So far he's come up with "coffee", "Verdi" and "gumshoe." '

Susan laughed slightly. 'Verdi and gumshoe? I always knew he was a man of hidden depths. Delenn is looking for you, by the way.'

He straightened. 'Right. Thanks. I'll, uh-' He was already heading for the door. 'I'll stop back in later.'

ooOoo

The smell of fresh coffee came in a good five minutes before Susan did. Susan Ivanova - ramrod straight, as always, as though she'd just come in off the parade ground. She had a figure like something Gil Elvgren dreamed up, mind like a Philadelphia lawyer and mouth like a steel trap. Lots of people have tried to get something out of Susan and none have managed it. She kept us in shape, ran the office like a demon and thought that she could do our jobs better than we could. She was probably right at that, but I'd have taken a bullet in the brain before telling her so. Susan put down the coffee cups, one on each desk, picked up the paper John had dumped on the floor and folded it up until it looked like it hadn't been opened at all.

'There's someone here to see you.'

I shook my head. 'It's too early.'

She pursed her lips. 'I think you'll change your mind. And this lady isn't leaving.'

Lady? This I had to see. Dames only got the 'lady' moniker off Susan when it was someone she approved of. I looked over at John and he raised his eyebrows.

'Quick, angel, in with her.'

Susan looked me over and pursed her lips again until her mouth looked like a maraschino cherry someone had dropped into a glass of buttermilk. I straightened up and eyeballed her. We kept John around to make the good impression - he was the one with the clean shirt and the shined shoes each day. Except for when he was under pressure and he parted company with his razor. Susan's heels clipped their way out and a minute later our visiting lady clipped in. And boy, was she in the wrong part of town.

She was a little slip of a thing, big grey eyes and wrapped in furs that probably cost five year's worth of mine and John's salaries put together. She stood in the doorway for a minute and just looked at us. And we looked right back. Nice figure, trim ankles, a real looker.

John was on his feet – he was the gentleman in the outfit. 'Hi. Hello. John Sheridan.'

She dipped her head and gave this crooked little smile. 'Mr Sheridan.' She turned the grey peepers on me. 'And you must be Mr Garibaldi.'

'I must be.'

She dipped her head again, looked back at John and sashayed across the office bringing with her a cloud of perfume of the kind that probably makes Frenchmen dive into the Seine to prove their undying love.

I'd like to say for the record that I do okay with women. I've got no complaints. I know what I like, I like girls who know what they like and usually go for the ones who like me. Easy. Having said that, most women take one look at Johnny-boy, lick their lips and move in for the kill. He usually side-steps them. So, it came as a surprise to see him almost falling over himself to pull out a chair for her.

After all that time it looked like I had finally found out what his type was and apparently his type was small, dark and cool.

She murmured her thanks, they looked at each other and I thought it was about time to break up the petting party.

'Okay, we've introduced ourselves - think you'd like to go with convention and tell us your name?'

She paused for a moment, smoothed her skirt over her knees. 'My name is Della Ramir, and I need your help.'

Okay, apparently John's type was small, dark, cool and very, very rich.

No wonder that pretty little face of hers looked so familiar. Not that I paid much attention to the society pages, but you'd have to have read the papers with both eyes shut not to have noticed one or other of the Ramir girls staring back at you. Old man Ramir had been a tycoon: mills, mines, rigs, factories. I would say he had been into all the things that make America great except that he hadn't been into munitions. A tycoon with a conscience, who'd have thought? He died some years back and left his eldest daughter a not-so-small fortune that she would have inherited when she came of age, which made Miss Ramir one of the wealthiest women in America. I looked at John and he was wearing his Sphinx face so I knew he was thinking the same thing that I was. Namely: what would a lady like her want with two jokers on the wrong side of town?

I leant back in my chair. 'What is it? National Slumming Day?'

Her eyebrows arched at me. 'I beg your pardon?'

I held up my hands. 'No need to beg, I give this stuff away for free.'

'I'm sorry about him,' John laid one of his smiles on her, 'he was dragged up. Why don't you tell us what it is you need help with, Miss Ramir?'

I thought for a moment she might bolt but the sight of John's pearly whites had the desired effect and she settled a bit.

'To be brief, gentlemen, I-' She took a deep breath and maybe she wasn't as cool as I had first thought; she was clutching her tiny purse until her knuckles were white. 'I am being blackmailed.'

John was still doing his Sphinx impression but there was a twitch in his jaw that meant he was surprised. Like I said, there were two Ramir girls: Wonderful and Not-So-Wonderful. Wonderful got attention for philanthropic good works and looking good at the Governor's ball; Not-So-Wonderful was the girl who got attention for the wild parties and doing a striptease at the Governor's ball. Wonderful was supposed to be the one sitting in front of us but maybe she was just more discreet. I admit I felt disappointed. When she'd walked in there had been something about her - integrity, maybe - and I'd wanted to believe in her.

'So, what is it? Caught out pawning the family silver? Dope?'

Her lips thinned to hard line. 'Photographs.' She spat the word like a bullet out of a bean-shooter.

Right, that racket. I could feel my lips curling into a sneer. 'What do they call them? "Artistic" photographs? I suppose you posed for them to help out some sensitive soul with his art project.'

She took another breath.

'The photographs are of my sister.'

I felt like a heel.

John cleared his throat. 'If the pictures are of your sister ...'

'Maya.'

He nodded his head. 'Maya. If they're hers, why are you being blackmailed?'

'Because I'm the one with the money, Mr Sheridan. Maya will inherit a substantial amount when she comes of age; at the moment it's held in trust for her. Until then, she cannot touch it. Do I really have to go into all of that?'

That's the thing about rich people - when they've got so much money it's like it embarrasses them to talk about it. Me, I don't embarrass easy but if you gave me enough money, I'd give it a try. She kept twisting her fingers around; I saw it and I saw that John could see it and I knew he was going to go easy on her. Okay, so maybe she deserved easy.

'Okay,' he said. 'Look, I can understand you wanting to get this over with but maybe you should give us the long version.'

Miss Ramir looked from him to me and I arranged my features into something sympathetic.

She didn't say anything for a moment, just chewed on the inside of her lower lip. 'Anything I say to you- Isn't there something about client confidentiality? You can't repeat it to anyone else?'

'That only works if you are a client.'

'Oh.'

John tilted his head. 'Have you got a quarter?'

'Excuse me?'

'A quarter. Have you got one?'

She looked puzzled, forehead wrinkling. 'Well, I- Yes, I do; of course I do, but-'

He held out his hand. She stared at it, then opened that purse of hers, pulled out a quarter and gave to him. He tossed it, caught it and put it in his breast pocket.

'Consider that a retainer. It doesn't mean we'll take the case, but it does mean we won't repeat anything you tell us now.'

She had a pretty good set of pearly whites of her own and she gave John a good look at them. 'Oh, I see. Thank-you.'

Della Ramir had this bronze contralto of a voice and it had plenty of feminine in it; I noticed John was putting some extra masculine into his so I guess they balanced each other out.

‘I- I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about Maya,’ she said. ‘She isn’t a bad girl, she’s just... Our mother left when Maya was only four years old. Our father spoilt her as a result – he spoilt both of us; but no-one... No-one ever gave Maya any boundaries, any discipline. I have tried, but- Well, I’m her still only her sister, not her mother.’ She sighed. Normally I would have said Poor Little Rich Girl. Thing was, I actually felt sorry for her. ‘It was different for me: I’m older than she is; I was already at school when ... it happened. And then our father died and...’ She raised her shoulders and her furs slid down a little.

‘Do you know who the blackmailer is?’

‘Yes. His name is Morden, Richard Morden. He used to be our chauffeur but then he was fired.’

‘What for?’

She tilted her head and looked at me almost pityingly. ‘He was too friendly with my sister and our guardian objected.’

‘Guardian?’ I looked her over. ‘Just how old are you?’

She almost smiled at me then. I say almost – the full shebang was apparently saved up for my partner. But there was a definite curve around those lips.

‘Old enough.’ She crossed her legs. ‘Du- Mr Greybourne isn’t my guardian anymore but he is Maya’s.’

Of course. ‘Duke’ Greybourne. The late Mr Ramir’s business partner and oldest friend. You didn’t see him in the society pages so much as the financial pages – and I only reach those on the way to the sports pages if I’ve started from the front or the proper news – if you can call it that, John wouldn’t – if I’ve started from the back.

John had folded his arms. ‘So, what’s he like, this Morden?’

She thought about it. ‘Oily.’

He laughed. ‘Anything more than that?'

She went sort of stiff again. ‘He isn’t a very nice person.’ She paused and apparently decided that this subject needed some clarification. ‘I never really knew him very well.’

‘Just the back of a head that got you where you needed to go, huh?’

John glared at me; Miss Ramir gave me another one of her almost-smiles. ‘Something like that, I suppose. Maya got to know him a lot better, obviously. I had been away for a while and it was during that time that they...’

‘Became better acquainted?’ John offered. Like I said: he’s the gentleman and the one with the fancy turn of phrase.

‘Yes.’

‘When was he fired?’

‘Six months ago. Then three weeks ago he sent me a letter and ... and a photograph. It was horrible.’ She shivered, pulled the family of foxes she had draped around her back up her shoulders. ‘He said that he’d return the rest of the photographs and the negatives if I paid him ten thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money. Even for me, that’s a lot of money.’

‘But you paid it?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I did. But he didn’t return the photographs or the negatives; and then he got in touch again and said that he wanted more money.’

‘How much this time?’

‘Twenty thousand.’

‘What does your ex-guardian think about this?’

She shook her head. ‘He doesn’t know anything about it, I didn’t tell him. I didn’t tell Maya. She’d lose her head over it; I know she would. She’s getting married soon and the last thing we need is for her fiancé to find out. I-’

She stopped, looked between the two of us and for a minute I thought she was going to cry. But this lady was made of something stronger than that; once she’d stopped her hands from shaking she eyeballed John again and he took up the questions.

‘Does anyone else know?’

‘Only Leonard. He was my father’s secretary and he stayed on afterward to, oh, to help me out; he advises me on some business affairs, helps me with running things, all of that. He’s here today, downstairs; he drove me here.’

Good old Leonard, I thought.

‘Could he be involved in it?’ John asked. ‘Inside man?’

Now she was shocked. ‘Leonard? Of course not! How could you ask such a thing?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know him.’

‘Well I do,’ she said firmly. ‘Leonard is devoted to my family – he’d never do anything to harm any of us.’

John looked at her and apparently decided she was on the level. He glanced over at me and I tilted my head a somethingth of an inch.

‘Okay, Miss Ramir, what is it that you want us to do?’

Her grey eyes shone. ‘Does that mean that you’ll help me? You’ll take the case?’

‘Sure. What do you want us to do?’

‘Get the photographs back. Please. I’m not asking you to do anything wrong, I don’t know how you go about these things, but I have to get those photographs back, especially before the wedding.’

‘When is it?’

‘In three weeks time. She’s marrying Nero O'Neill.’

Nero O'Neill. Now, he was in munitions. Munitions and ships – he must have made a packet out of the last war and was probably betting on making another bundle out of the next one. There’s always a next one, don’t worry about that.

‘O'Neill, right.’ I scratched my chin. ‘Marriage made in the boardroom, huh?’

She did her stiff thing again, lifting her chin and going all haughty. On her it looked good. But she didn’t exactly deny it. ‘Marriage might be good for Maya – give her some responsibility.’

‘Like the responsibility of spending O'Neill’s money instead of yours?’

The grey flashers got turned on John but her voice did some throaty, throbby thing that it definitely didn’t do when she was talking to me. ‘Mr Sheridan, please.’

He folded his arms. ‘Do you have an address for Morden?’

The purse got opened again. ‘Yes, I have it here.’

She pulled out an envelope and handed it to him; John looked at, looked inside and handed it to me. It had the letter he’d sent her and the photograph, which was a real doozy and I speak as someone who knows about these things. If the Ramir fortune ever collapsed, Maya Ramir certainly wouldn’t starve.

The purse had stayed open. ‘There’s also your fee. I’m not really sure...’

She pulled out four C notes and laid them on the desk. For two working stiffs used to forty a day plus expenses it was a beautiful sight. If I’d had a camera I would have taken their picture and got it framed.

‘Is that enough?’

She looked anxious; I could have kissed her.

‘It’s plenty.’

Miss Ramir closed her purse. ‘Well, uh...’

‘Just one more thing...’ John looked at her, head on one side. ‘Why come to us? I mean, we’re not the most well-known operatives in the business; I’m sure that a lady in your position must have plenty of friends who could have steered you towards someone more up-market.’

‘Well, uh...’ Her eyes dropped to the floor and then she looked up at him again. ‘You were recommended.’

‘By whom?’

That’s another thing I love about Johnny-boy – he always gets his grammar right.

She thought about this for a moment. ‘Does it matter? You have your confidentiality about your clients – I have the same thing with my ... friends.’

His eyebrows raised and so did mine. I couldn’t think of a single client we’d had who could have boasted even having walked down the same street as Della Ramir, never mind anything else. But the interview was at an end: she uncrossed her legs and stood up.

John was on his feet again immediately and this time I joined him. When a dame’s paying you that much, the least you can do is show a little good manners.

‘We’ll be in touch.’

Another dip of her head. ‘Thank-you, Mr Sheridan. Mr Garibaldi.’

I nodded back and John escorted her to the door; then he followed her out of it and I’m guessing he escorted her across our vestibule. Maybe he was afraid she’d get lost out there.

I sat back, admired the lettuce and waited for him to come back; he did, finally, and by that time I wondered if he’d escorted her all the way down to her car and Loyal Leonard. He was wearing the goofiest expression I’d ever seen in my life; it was like watching Jimmy Stewart trapped inside Clark Gable’s body.

I jerked my head towards the closed door that the fragrant Miss Ramir had recently sailed through. ‘She’s beguiling, no?’

He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘She’s what now?’

‘Beguiling,’ I repeated; I was pretty sure it meant what I thought it did. ‘It’s a poetry word; I would have thought an educated stiff like you would know that.’

‘I do know that; I’m just surprised that you know that.’

‘Wise-ass.’

He grinned at me and I still congratulate myself on the fact that I managed not to throw something at his head.

The door opened again and Susan breezed in as though she owned the place. ‘Well?’

I scratched my ear emphatically. ‘Well what?’

‘Are we going to help that poor woman?’

‘Poor?’ I put my feet on the desk, one ankle crossed over the other. I needed to get my shoes shined. ‘Precious, that poor woman could buy and sell all three of us a thousand times over and still have enough loose change to buy up half the oil fields in Texas.’

She folded her arms. ‘Skip it. What are we going to do?’

‘We?’ John looked over at her from his desk. ‘We aren’t doing anything; you, on the other hand, are finishing off that filing.’

She screwed her face up at him.

‘You’ll stick like that one day,’ he told her.

Susan was still in the doorway and I figured that the best thing to do was treat her like she wasn’t there and carry on talking. Even if we’d succeeded in sending her out she would have had her ear pressed up against the key-hole anyway. Unless she had the place wired for sound – I wouldn’t have put it past her.

‘So.’ I put my hands behind my head and looked over at John. ‘What do you think? We go round to Morden’s shack?’

His thumb was rubbing back and forth along his forefinger – he only does that when he’s thinking. ‘No, I think we should find out a little more about this Mr Morden before we start making house calls.’

‘You think Lon might know something?’

The thumb had stopped. ‘He knows something about everybody else in New York, I don’t see why Morden should be an exception.’ He grinned at me. ‘Not to mention that this way we get to have a breakfast that’s edible for once.’

I took my feet off the desk, grabbed my hat. ‘Let’s go.’

Chapter Text

ooOoo

2

ooOoo

It was one of those clear, crisp days in New York and that's the way I prefer them. Winter can get cold enough that most of the time I expect to see the occasional Eskimo; and summer goes the other way - even the buildings sweat. But that morning was sweet and we walked up one big block and across a whole bunch of little blocks until we got to Lon's place - The Babylon Bar and Grill. It may not have been in the swellest part of town but Babylon was no hash house, it was the real deal.

Lon Mollari was an Italian immigrant and if you sat at the bar long enough you'd get the whole of his life story and it was different each time I heard it. I listened when I had nothing better to do and to brush up my almost non-existent Italian. We were greeted just inside the door by Adira, a sweet little thing and Lon's doxy. For reasons best known to herself she actually loved the old fakeloo artist and that's the only thing I could say against her. She tripped across the floor and we followed. All three of us – shaking Susan off hadn’t been an option and I guess the girl had to eat.

Babylon didn’t normally serve breakfast but an exception was made for us: there’d been some trouble when it had first opened, we’d sorted it out and from that was born a life-long two-year friendship. Lon was the bar-keep of the joint – possibly because he had an extensive knowledge of the effects of alcohol on the human body, mainly his own. He was a stocky guy with black hair that grew straight up like a brush. I had a theory that if he let it grow out you could have used him to clean chimneys. Adira parked us in a booth and took herself to the kitchen. One of the stories that circulated about Lon was that he had at least three different wives in three different cities back in the Old Country and he’d never got around to divorcing any of them.

He probably would have said that as a good Catholic, divorce was out of the question. That, naturally, ignoring the fact that as a good Catholic bigamy was also out of the question. That pretty much told you all you needed to know about Lon.

He was in partnership with a Greek who went by the name of Gerry Karopoulous. Lon had been in the Italian army, Gerry had been a partisan and they’d spent the war trying to kill each other all around the Greek mountains. My own belief was that after the war Lon and Gerry had come to the States so they could continue to think up inventive ways of killing each other in peace.

Lon was the eat, drink and be merry guy; Gerry was the sort of bird they call distinguished-looking and one of the stories about him was that he had once been a priest. They got along well enough but about once a month they’d have a fight you could hear all the way up on Fifth Avenue.

It was empty at that hour of the morning - had that desolate air that places have when they're normally full of people and aren't. Our booth was sheltered by potted palms and heavy curtains that could be pulled across if you wanted things a bit more intimate, which we didn't. Someone was working at polishing the dance-floor and I could smell the cleaning fluid from where we were sitting. The band was rehearsing – a sweet, old-fashioned number and they weren’t half bad; Susan beat the time out on the tabletop.

‘Mr Garibaldi!’ Lon had appeared, clapping his hands together and beaming down at us. ‘And my dear Captain Sheridan!’ He loved to call John that because Lon knew he hated it; John put up with it because he liked Lon and he was operating on the assumption that if he ignored it for long enough Lon would give it up. Lon never would and I could have told John that but the man was as bull-headed as ... well, a bull.

Lon’s eyes lit up when he got a load of Susan and he got hold of her hand sharpish and kissed it. ‘Signorina Ivanova. So charming... Sí bella...’ he murmured.

She smiled and laughed a little and let him. If I’d tried that she would have slugged me across the choppers. I don’t get dames.

‘You are here for breakfast, yes?’

‘Yeah – that okay?’

He grinned. ‘Of course, of course! Gerry. Gerry!’

The voice that came from the kitchen sounded the wrong side of irritable. ‘What?’

‘We have visitors – friends.’

Gerry appeared in the doorway and blocked out all the light from it. He saw us, came over and we gave a repeat performance – this time without the ‘Captain’ but still with the lips being laid on Susan.

'There is no need to bellow.' He scowled at Lon. 'I heard you.'

'Oh. So, you have not gone deaf yet? I am surprised - when you don't answer to the simplest call I begin to worry that age is catching up with you and I will have to resort to shouting down your ear to get your attention.'

They kept it up for a few minutes and I won't bore you with the details of it. If we’d gone out and come back in a week later they’d still be having pretty much the same conversation. Adira came back a bit after that and got us sorted out. Susan scrambled; John sunny-side-up; me over-easy. That was breakfast, by the way, not a comment on our personalities although if you believe that you are what you eat I guess our personal preferences might tell you something. There was also a bucket-load of orange juice for John, pulp included. He was fussy about that - maybe he was afraid of scurvy or something.

‘So, Lon,’ I wiped my mouth and he took a pew in the booth, ‘heard of a guy named Morden? Richard Morden?’

‘Morden, Morden...’ He rolled the name around a bit, stood back and took a good look at it. ‘No, I’m sorry. Adira!’ Lon leant sideways. ‘Have you heard of a man named Richard Morden, cara?’

She shrugged and shook her head.

Lon leant back, resigned and spread his hands. ‘No, never heard of him. Who is he, this Mr Morden?’

I dipped ham into my eggs. ‘Just someone we’re interested in.’

‘Ah, hush-hush, yes?’

‘Yeah, that’s it.’

Lon can be a great guy; he can also be a pain in the ass and it’s not always a good idea to let him know too much.

‘While we’re on it,’ John added, ‘anything you can tell us about Nero O’Neill?’

Lon’s eyes lit up. ‘Ah, that lucky devil!’ He laughed heartily and then coughed with a sound like a cat being sick. ‘He is wealthy man, yes? And he is going to marry that lovely lady, Maya Ramir. Of course, she was not the first choice.’

‘Oh?’ John drank his coffee, raised his eyebrows.

‘Oh, no.’ Lon leant both elbows on the table. ‘He was first supposed to be engaged to her sister ... oh, what is her name? Della! Della Ramir was the one he was supposed to marry.’

I glanced at John and his jaw was twitching.

‘What happened?’

I have to hand it to him – he managed to sound casual.

‘She refused – strong-willed, that one. And beautiful...’ He placed his hand over his heart. ‘The most beautiful of women- Not as beautiful as you, of course, my precious jewel.’

Adira had come over to refill the joe and she rolled her eyes at him; she walked away and he watched her and she probably knew that he was because she swayed her hips more.

John had finished his breakfast and he tossed the napkin onto the plate. ‘Lon, how do you know all this stuff?’

The hands spread again. ‘People talk and I listen.’

‘Right.’

There was a crash from the kitchen and raised voices. Lon winced and started to get up. ‘Excuse me. If you want something done you have to do it yourself. Never go into business with Greeks, eh? That is what I have learnt and I give you this advice.’

‘Do you think he ever listens to himself?’ Susan asked when he’d gone.

‘He’s probably the only one who does,’ John said. He stretched out his arms. ‘So, that was a bust. Now what?’

I scratched the back of my neck. ‘I’ve got a few friends still at the Precinct – I think I’ll give them a call, see if there’s any dirt on Morden.’

‘And what do I do?’ Susan asked.

We both said it. ‘Filing.’

ooOoo

I rang an old buddy of mine down at the station house, Lou Welch. What Lou didn't know about someone probably wasn't worth knowing. But by the time I'd talked to him, waited until he called me back and talked to him again, we knew as much about Morden as when we'd started, which was just swell. There was nothing for it but to go in blind.

We paid Lon, coaxed Susan to go and do the work we had actually hired her for and hopped a cab to the address our client had given us.

The place was a dive done up to look like it was actually somewhere, which it wasn't. A dive is a dive, no matter what the paint job's like. The only way in was through the front. There was probably a way in through the back but neither of us much felt like getting lifted for breaking and entering - if I wanted to be lifted for that, I'd make sure it was for a place that was worth it.

There was a blonde on what passed for the reception desk in that place that passed for a hotel - a hard-looking number who looked us over in the same way that the lions eyed the Christians. She chewed her gum in what I guess she thought was an alluring manner. It wasn't.

Even so, it always does to be friendly so I leaned on the counter and smiled. 'Hey, kitten.'

She giggled and batted her eyelashes at both of us; ‘kitten’ suited her – she had cat’s eyes all right and I got the feeling that she was the type that went prowling. 'Can I help you boys?'

‘You sure can. What’s your name, honey?’

‘Julie. Julie Musante.’

'Well, Julie Musante, we've just hit town and we're looking up an old friend. He gave us his address as here. It was this address, wasn't it, John?'

'Sure, this is the place,' he said gamely and showed off his dental work to her. 'Our old buddy Dick Morden - you know Dick?'

'Oh sure,' she said; and it meant that she either knew him very well, or that she wanted to. 'He's a great guy.' She chewed again and added twisting her hair around her finger to the repertoire.

I picked up the slack. 'Is he in his room?'

'Well, I didn't see him go out so I guess he must be. You want me to buzz him for you?'

'Nah, we want to give him a surprise - don't we?'

'That we do.' John was smiling but if you listened hard you could tell that part of his surprise might consist of bouncing our buddy Dick's head against the floor.

I leaned over the counter more. 'Besides, I wouldn't want you to risk breaking one of your nails going to all that trouble just for us. What's a pretty little thing like you doing working for a living, anyhow?'

'Oh, well now...' She lowered her head and tried to blush.

I felt John fidgeting behind me so I cut it short. 'Catch you later, kitten.'

'Do you have to do that?'

'Do what?'

We stomped up the stairs.

'Laying it on like that - going a bit heavy, don't you think?'

I twisted round and looked at him over my shoulder. 'Aw, c'mon. Dames like her expect it. Anyway, you catch more flies with sugar.'

'Keep going like that and you'll end up with rotten teeth.'

'Hey, not all of us save it up for the high-class pieces.'

'What's that supposed to mean?' His voice had an edge to it.

'You and Miss Ramir.'

'What do you mean, me and Miss Ramir?'

'I mean you putting the moves on her.'

John breathed down his nose. 'I did no such thing.'

'Oh yeah? Then what were you so sore about hearing she was meant to marry that O'Neill bird?'

'I did not get sore.'

I gave it a second. 'She's got great legs.'

He growled. 'Hey!'

I laughed, stopped on the stair and turned around. He was glaring at me and if I were a less courageous man (or, some might say, a smarter one) I would have kept my mouth shut. Instead, I said, 'Brother, you are in deep trouble.'

He leaned against the banister and tried to look casual. 'How do you figure?'

'Because when you start feeling possessive about the legs of a woman unconnected to you, you can either cut her loose or connect her to you PDQ and with a classy dame like Della Ramir there’s only one way of getting her connected. Like I said, deep trouble.'

He jerked his thumb. 'Get up the stairs.'

The corridor that housed Morden’s room was the top floor – I knew right then that he was going to be difficult. It was dingy – dark wallpaper that had once been decent and a few bare light-bulbs. The first one in was dark. We walked along until we reached Morden’s door. I could hear Hoagy Carmichael trickling through from inside. I knocked and there was nothing. Again, and I listened, hard. Still nothing. Not a bump, no footsteps, no sudden silence. None of the things that you usually hear when someone’s trying to pretend that they aren’t there.

‘Mr Morden?’

I glanced at John and his face had got that hard look he always when something was about to go south. I tried the door, carefully, making almost no noise and it wasn’t locked. There was that familiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. I reached for my piece. John didn’t usually carry one but he did when it was the type of case where that sort of thing might be necessary and he had decided that that case was one of them. Hoagy muffled the sound of the safety catches being released. I turned the handle again, kicked the door wide and we both poured in – me first, John covering me.

The room matched the corridor – dingy, badly lit and full of stale air. Hoagy gave way to Lady Day and we met Richard Morden. And he wasn’t going to be saying anything to anyone. Thick dark hair, lots of muscles and that slightly surprised expression that corpses sometimes wear when they hadn’t expected to be corpses. There was blood, lots of it, probably something to do with the ice-pick sticking out of his neck. It was on his fingers, smeared across the floor near one out-stretched hand like he’d been trying to write something.

We both stood there, staring down at him; and even though both of us had seen plenty of stiffs in our time, it never really gets any easier. I’d gone there already hating the guy – hell, I’d have hated him even if I wasn’t being paid for it. But now he was just some poor bastard lying on the rug in his undershirt.

We hadn’t closed the door behind us – it had bounced against the wall when we came in and swung half-shut again. It opened.

‘I thought if you boys were throwing a party I might-’

Julie from reception stood in the doorway and she got a good look at what was lying at our feet. She stopped, her mouth still open and then her face started to twitch. I could see the scream about to come out. John crossed the room, took her by the arm and pulled her out into the corridor; he turned her around so her back was to the room.

‘It’s okay. You hear me? It’s okay.’

She tried to turn around again but he kept hold of her.

‘But-but...’

‘Listen, honey, our friend in there has had an accident and we have to call the police. How about you and me go down to your desk and we’ll call them – think you can do that for me? Julie?’

She was still murmuring something when he led her away; I closed the door over. Calling the cops wasn’t my favourite idea but it couldn’t be helped. If the good-time-girl had stayed put where she was supposed to be...

John had bought me enough time to take a look around. I flicked the radio off and the silence poured in until my ears rang with it. There were red splashes on the sink. Someone had obviously cleaned themselves up before splitting; the soap had been stained pink and I felt my stomach roil. I’d worked plenty of homicides but no matter how many times you see it, and smell it, it’s still hard. I think people forget that murder is supposed be hard. The place had already been gone over – mattress slit, shelves emptied, wardrobe opened... A bit more mess wouldn’t hurt. I used a handkerchief to pick stuff up but whoever had got there before me had done a pretty good job. They must have found what they were looking for because there wasn’t much left. Specifically, there were no photographs.

There was one thing of interest – it had been kicked under the bed and I had a feeling that it hadn’t been there long. A cigarette-holder, pearl – the classy kind used by classy broads. Monogrammed. And I had a good idea who it belonged to.

ooOoo

There were days when Zack Allen wished he had never joined the security division of EarthForce and this was one of them. A nice quiet number making sure that ships docked and left in the right order and in good time - that sounded much more like it. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work some of the knots out of it.

Further ahead, coming towards him along the passage were the captain and Ambassador Delenn. They had become a familiar sight, wandering through the corridors together. Wherever one was, the other usually wasn’t far away. They walked close together, so absorbed in their conversation, in one another, that Zack thought it a wonder that they didn’t walk into a wall. He slowed, moved out of their path and Sheridan glanced up.

‘Zack.’

‘Hi.’ He grinned, nodded pleasantly at Delenn. ‘Hey, Captain, have you seen Garibaldi?’

‘Yeah, Susan was with him when I left. He’ll be fine.’

‘Oh, good.’ Zack thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘That’s great. You know, I- I feel sort of responsible.’

Delenn tilted her head. ‘I had understood that it was an accident.’

‘Yeah, it was. But, uh, well- Thing is, he wasn’t even on duty. He only came down because I asked him to and if I hadn’t-’

‘It’s not your fault, Zack.’ Sheridan smiled at him. ‘Michael is quite capable of getting his head his head broken without anyone’s help. Look, it goes with the territory – none of us are too good at sitting back and doing nothing when we think there’s something that we could or should be doing.’

Delenn glanced at him, her lips curving slightly; he caught the gaze and for a moment looked almost sheepish. The moment passed and Sheridan’s attention was returned to Zack.

‘I guess. I think I’ll stop by MedLab – see how he’s doing. Captain ... Ambassador.’

He moved past them and the pair continued their path.

'Mr Garibaldi has been unconscious for a long time, has he not?'

'Yeah, I guess he has.' He frowned, glanced at her. 'Look, Stephen says he'll be fine. And he's in good hands - if anything does go wrong he couldn't be in a better place.'

'Yes.' She sighed a little, looked up at him and smiled. 'Yes.'

ooOoo

We got hauled Downtown but compared to where we'd just come from it was a step up. There's a certain smell in station houses - years of dirt and paper and too many people getting dragged through who don't believe in washing. At first it makes you feel sick but I'd spent so much time in those places that it almost smelt like home.

Sergeant Zack Allen of Homicide was waiting for us, in a suit that didn't fit properly and an unlit gasper in the corner of his mouth. I'd known Zack when he was still a wet-behind-the-ears rookie and I like to think his turning into a decent cop was in some way down to me. His being a stand-up guy was all Zack.

Okay, maybe his folks had a hand in that part.

'What were you two jokers doing there?'

He didn't look happy.

'We were trying to sell him a vacuum cleaner.'

'Phooey.' Zack glared at me. ‘How well did you know Richard Morden?’

I folded my arms. ‘I didn’t. I’ve never met him.’

Zack turned to John. ‘How about you?’

John shrugged lightly. ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you, Sergeant; I’d never seen Richard Morden before today.’

‘Right. Of course you didn’t.’ He paused and chewed on the end of his cigarette; it waggled up and down like a conductor’s baton. ‘The receptionist told me that you were old friends of his.’

‘Yeah, that’s because we told her that so we could get in there.’

‘To see someone you didn’t know? Phooey.’

‘Knock if off, Zack; I can say “phooey” too. You know how this works – we went to see Morden because we were on a job.’

‘Who’s your client?’

John blew out a breath. ‘We’re not going to tell you that – you know we can’t.’

Zack gripped the gasper between his teeth so hard it looked like he was trying to eat it. He had perched on the edge of his desk; he rested on one hand and knocked over a pile of papers. He swore and I couldn’t help but snigger.

‘You might want to think about getting someone in here to clean up once in a while. Say, is that tuna sandwich I left at the back of the drawer still there? I think I can smell it.’

‘Can it, Mike. Were you hired to kill him?’

It had gone far enough; I stared at him. ‘What, you think we did this?’

‘You were found standing over his dead body.’

‘Jeez, I thought I’d taught you better than that-’

He grabbed the gasper and threw it on the floor. ‘Don’t start that!’

We eyeballed each other. ‘What do you think we did? Killed him last night then came back today so we could be found in his room admiring our handiwork?’

Zack leant forward, eyes like slits. ‘How do you know he was killed last night?’

‘I’ve got eyes, haven’t I? God knows I’ve seen enough corpses to recognise when one of ‘em’s in full rigor and if ever there was a corpse that was, Morden was it. We got there, he was dead. Someone had left the radio on, probably to muffle any sounds; the door wasn’t forced so he must have let the killer in himself - either that or they had a key. The door was unlocked, which was how we got in. The place had already been turned over. Jeez, Zack, I shouldn’t have to be telling you all of this.’

He looked at me for a bit, leaned back, opened a drawer and pulled out another gasper. ‘No, you don’t have to tell me that. But I’d still like to know what you two were doing there.’

I glanced at John. He rolled his eyes slightly. I held a hand out, turned it over palm up. ‘For a client we got this morning.’

Zack watched us both, doing that long hard stare that I’d taught him. I have to admit, it was pretty impressive and I got to admire my own technique second-hand. ‘If there’s a chance that your client is involved in a murder, you have to tell me otherwise it's obstruction of justice. And I shouldn’t have to tell you that.’

I grinned at him and he sneered back. ‘No, you don’t.’ I thought about that cigarette-holder nestling in my breast-pocket. ‘And no, there isn’t a chance that our client is involved.’

He stared at me and then stared at John who stared back in all innocence because there hadn’t been time for me to tell him about my discovery. Even if he had known, he still would have looked all innocence: no-one can pull the boy scout routine like John J. Sheridan. And routine it is – gentleman he may be, but he ain’t no boy scout.

Zack raised both his hands and waved them at us like we were two flies he was trying to swat. ‘Okay, okay. Go on, get out of here before I change my mind.’

I collected my hat and grinned at him again. ‘Sergeant Allen, always a pleasure.’

He rolled his eyes but then he smiled, sort of, and we left him picking up the files off the floor of his office. Like I said, Zack was a stand-up guy and I could see how having his old lieutenant brought in from a homicide would be a bit embarrassing – and he wouldn’t have been doing his job if he hadn’t put it to us. I would have thought less of him if he hadn’t.

I saw Lou Welch on the desk on the way out and tipped him a wink. He nodded slightly and we made it to the sidewalk and a bit down the street before we stopped.

‘Well, this just keeps getting better and better.’

‘Bet you wish you hadn’t come into work today, huh?’

John smiled. ‘What, and miss all this?’ He looked me over. ‘So, what was it?’

‘What was what?’

‘Whatever it was you found in Morden’s room.’

I stared at him and for a few minutes I couldn’t speak. And it wasn’t the first time that I wondered if John had some kind of hidden camera on me or had direct access to the contents of my head.

‘I really hate it when you do that.’

‘Do what?’

He was practically smirking. When you’re partners with someone, no matter who they are, you’re always going to irk each other at times and I guess I got to John about as much as he got to me. A fifty-fifty split. Until times like that when it felt more like a hundred percent his end and none from mine.

‘That thing where you know more about me than I do.’

He tilted his head and grinned at me. ‘Sorry to take the feather from your cap.’

‘Ah, forget it.’ I dug in my pocket and handed it over. ‘You’re going to like that about as much as I did.’

I watched him as he turned it over, stared at it, turned it over again; I started to get antsy.

‘Okay, okay, it’s not going to talk to you.’

'Where did you find it?'

'Under the bed.'

The look on his face was one of distaste - I don't know if it was because of the location or the fact that I'd gone scrabbling on the floor to find it.

'It could have been there a while.'

'It could at that - apart from the nice clear path it had rolled for itself through the dust.' I would have taken it back but he had slipped it into his pocket. Nuts. ‘You see the problem.’

‘Yeah.’ He blew out a breath and his jaw started twitching again. ‘Yeah, I see the problem.’

We walked to the end of the block and hailed a cab. We were heading uptown – way uptown, and that cosy little pad on Central Park that the family Ramir called home.

Chapter Text

ooOoo

3

ooOoo

Normal people have a place they lay their heads that they call home. People like Della Ramir have numerous of what they call ‘residences’ dotted around the globe. Apart from the townhouse in the city there was also, allegedly, a place in San Francisco, a lodge in Aspen and a villa somewhere on the Mediterranean. The house in New York was a modest little place overlooking the park that could quite comfortably have housed the Chinese army without too much effort.

We stood on the top step, John pressed the buzzer and looked me over with the same kind of disapproval that Susan used. I grinned at him and wiped the toe of each shoe on the cuffs of my trousers. He shook his head.

The door was opened and immediately blocked by a character in a tail-coat who looked a bit like a barrel on legs. Even though we were both taller than him, he still managed to tilt his head back and look down at us; he inspected us both and didn’t look too impressed with what he found.

'Can I help you?' he enquired portentously.

'We're-'

‘The tradesmen’s entrance is at the rear.’

'We're not actually-'

'If you go around the block to the back of the house, you will be attended.' He started to close the door again and I jammed it with my foot.

‘Great for the tradesmen,’ I said, ‘I’m sure their world lights up at the knowledge. We don’t happen to be tradesmen. We’re here to see Miss Ramir.’

Tail-coat looked us over again and his nostrils flared like he’d got a bad smell. ‘Indeed? Would that be Miss Della or Miss Maya?’

It nearly killed him to ask.

‘Miss Della.’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No, we don’t have an appointment.’ This place was tougher to get into than Fort Knox.

‘I see.’ He drew himself up to his full height, which wasn’t that much but he had that supercilious thing that they must teach in butler school down pat. Supercilious is a good word that I learnt recently and I like to give it another airing.

‘Are you expected?’

John was reaching breaking point but he hid it well – he managed a smile and even sounded polite when he said, ‘Could you just tell Miss Ramir that John Sheridan and Mike Garibaldi need to talk to her? She knows us and she will want to see us.’

Tail-coat’s eyes travelled over him from the crown of his hat to the toes of his shoes and then he sniffed. I leant across to John and muttered, ‘Maybe you should show him your Purple Heart.’

He glared at me. I braced myself for round two when a voice came from further inside.

‘Who is it, Drahl?’

‘It is two ... male persons, Miss.’

‘Two male persons?’ That was followed by a husky laugh. ‘Well, let’s get a look at them.’

The bird apparently called Drahl went even stiffer and stood to one side. We went through the door, across a vestibule, through another door and into a hall. Directly opposite me there was an elevator, charmingly flanked by a pair of potted-palms the size of Christmas trees. Then there were the arches, paintings, marble staircases and a fountain. I was standing inside a house that had a fountain in it the way most people have a welcome mat. But I have to admit that I was distracted from the plumbing arrangements by the girl who had arranged herself on the staircase. She stood over us, the light behind her so we got a look at her figure and it was a knock-out. I’d already seen enough of Maya Ramir’s flesh to recognise her in the flesh and there she was.

She was a real looker and she knew it. She sauntered down the stairs and as she got closer I got a good look at her face. She was young still - just a kid, really. Earthier than her sister; her attractiveness was more obvious but I have nothing against obvious. I like obvious. Maya was the type to give a guy plenty of sleepless nights, but Della was the type a guy would go through ten kinds of hell to get back to.

Maya had reached ground level and she walked over, head lowered so her hair fell across her eyes and she put plenty of sway into her hips. She stopped in front of John, eyed him up and down and looked like she was going to try sitting in his lap while he was still standing up.

‘You’re cute,’ she said.

He took hold of her shoulders, turned her around and pointed her at me. ‘He’s even cuter.’

‘I’m the cutest,’ I told her.

She put one finger in her mouth and sucked on it like it was a lollipop.

Behind us, Drahl cleared his throat; when he spoke his voice reverberated around the joint. ‘These ... people ... are here to see Miss Della.’

Maya tilted her head to one side, withdrew her finger from between her lips. ‘Della gets all the fun.’

I heard another sniff and got the impression that Drahl didn’t entirely approve of Miss Maya. Then again, he didn’t seem to approve of us either and I’m sure that all three of us would feel offended at being lumped together like that but probably for different reasons. Drahl turned back to us and his chest swelled up.

'If you will wait here I will inform Miss Della of your presence.'

I liked the 'if' in that sentence - it made it kind of sound as if we actually had a choice.

'Oh, there's no rush to find her, Drahl.' Maya spoke to him but oozed at us while she did it. 'I'll keep them company.'

She was wearing a little pair of shorts and ankle-strap shoes and looked more like she was about to audition for a part on Broadway than doing whatever it is that moneyed girls do in the afternoon. Although, given the size of the entry hall alone it was possible that they had the entire cast of Forty-Second Street hidden somewhere in the building.

'Maya!'

As it turned out, Drahl didn't have to send out a search party as Della Ramir was capable of finding us all on her own. Well, not quite on her own - she was accompanied by a skinny character who peered at us through a pair of cheaters of the rimless variety. They came down the same stairs that Maya had just slithered down and while there was a lot less of Della on display it provided the opportunity for comparison and she had a pretty good figure of her own - maybe a bit skinnier than I like myself but she had nothing to be ashamed of.

Maya went back to looking coy and Drahl puffed up his chest again.

'Miss Della; these ... gentlemen,' he was using that term loosely, 'informed me that they are acquaintances of yours and under those auspices I had allowed them entry-'

'Thank-you, Drahl.' She said it quickly but she smiled, which seemed to keep him happy. He still put his eyes on us like he was invoking some sort of gypsy/butler curse and if I'd woken up the next morning covered in boils I would have known who to blame.

Della crossed the floor, her skinny friend in tow and I guessed that this was Leonard. He looked like he'd be called Leonard. Close-up he looked like he was fresh out of college. He took his cheaters off, gave them a polish and put them back on - maybe so he could get a better look at us.

'Please, follow me; we can talk more privately...' Della guided us across the hall, down a corridor and into another room that probably got called the study or the library or something. I got the feeling that this was where Della spent a lot of her time: it was definitely a woman's room - I couldn't say exactly how I knew that but it had that feel. Maybe it was the flowers - sort of the way that Susan sometimes brings in a vase to 'brighten the place up'.

Leonard had followed us in and he closed the door behind us. I looked at him and then looked at her.

'It's all right - Leonard knows all about it.'

Leonard got that look that guys like him get when they've been taken into the confidence of a good-looking woman. Della Ramir was better looking than most so maybe Leonard had the right to look smugger than most.

'Mike Garibaldi.' I offered him my hand and he had quite a grip for a little guy. Or maybe it was because even though he was supposed to be introducing himself to me he was actually looking at Della and Della was looking at John.

Her eyes were following John around the room and he wasn't even bothering to pretend that he wasn't snooping. She didn't seem to mind.

'I hadn't expected to see you again so soon.'

He glanced up at her.

'We hadn't expected to be here so soon.' As John had struck up what he liked to call a 'rapport' with our client, I let him get on with it. He looked around again. 'Nice digs.'

She looked a bit amused, as she had probably worked out in about two seconds flat that Johnny-boy wasn't as hard-boiled as he was trying to make out. 'Yes; this is my favourite room in the house.'

See? I wasn't a detective for nothing.

John was picking up books, looking inside and reading the titles. I saw his eyebrows go up. 'History of the Civil War ... Aristotle in the original Greek.' He looked up at her again. 'Are all these yours?'

She leant against a desk, one ankle crossed over the other. They were weighing each other up. 'Is that really so surprising?'

'Let's say it's unexpected.'

'I see. Maybe you shouldn't rush to conclusions about people. Or had you just not expected me to be able to read at all?'

He tilted his head. 'Now who's rushing to conclusions?'

Her shoulders did a little almost-shrug and she conceded the point. 'It's a good idea to be widely read.'

'Is that what they taught you at Vassar?'

'No. And it was Bryn Mawr.'

He let out a low whistle. 'Ah, the down-market establishment.'

She tossed her locks over her shoulder. 'And then Harvard.'

'I see. Dad believed in education, huh?'

'Yes, he did. For everyone.'

She emphasised the last word, folded her arms and looked at him, hard. I guess maybe she was used to people talking down to her because she was a woman and resenting her for being an educated one.

'Good for dad.'

John was too smart to look down at or resent anyone unless they deserved it. They looked at each other for a while and then it went on for a bit longer than that and when I guess John had got around to having her in little more than her slip he finally said, 'Look, Miss Ramir-'

'Wait.' She held up her hands. 'Please, wait a moment.'

She walked over to a writing desk, pulled out a piece of paper, wrote on it, folded it, walked back and handed it to him. John took it, read it and looked back up at her.

'You might want this back before we're done.'

'I'll take my chances.'

He smiled. Not the full-beam, just this little quirk of his lips that I hadn't seen him do before. Trouble - I just knew it. I glanced sideways at Leonard and he was polishing his cheaters again.

And then it started.

'Where was Maya last night?'

She blinked at him. 'Maya? What- I-I don't understand.'

'It's a simple enough question - last night, where was your sister Maya?'

She breathed in deeply and her eyes turned a darker shade of grey. Even in her heels she was still a tiny thing but she stared up at John and I don't think that facing down an entire army would have made her blink. She had enough steel in her spine to build a warship out of. 'Maya was here. She was at home.'

'Are you sure about that?'

'Of course I'm sure.'

It sounded good but she answered too quickly.

'Really.'

He can be a hard man when he wants to be. Right then I knew that he didn't particularly want to be but it had to be done. It would have been easier if he'd let me do it but John wasn't the kind of guy who liked other people doing his dirty work for him.

Della had come over all still, her hands balled at her sides and her chin lifted. ‘Yes, really. I am not a liar, Mr Sheridan.’

‘You mean you wouldn’t lie even to protect your sister or her honour? Your family’s honour?’

‘Excuse me.’ Leonard had found his voice; he stepped forward and the light bounced off the glass in his cheaters so you couldn’t see his eyes. ‘As I understand it, you had been engaged to perform a service – that does not give you the right to start making distasteful allegations.’

John got his Sphinx face back on. ‘I haven’t been making any allegations, distasteful or otherwise. I just asked a question – maybe two questions, if you want to get technical about it.’

Della had a hand resting at the back of her neck. She looked up at him. ‘Were you able to get the photographs from Mr Morden?’

‘No. He doesn’t have them anymore. The only thing we found at his place was this.’ John pulled the cigarette-holder out of his pocket and held it up so that there was no way that she could miss the ‘M R’ in gold letters on the side. ‘This is Maya’s, isn’t it?’

She stared at it the way a deer stares at headlights. ‘I-’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes. You-you said that you found it at Mr Morden’s?’

‘Yes – and before you start on the line that it could have got there any time, I’ll save you the trouble. It couldn’t have – the only time that it could have got there was last night.’ He paused, looked at her. ‘Do you still want to tell me that Maya was at home last night?’

‘I wasn’t home.’

I had to admit – I’d been so busy watching the show that I hadn’t even noticed that there was another door into the joint and that Maya Ramir was standing in the doorway.

‘Maya, go back to your room.’

‘No.’

Maya walked across, heels tapping out their own rhythm, and she faced her sister. They didn’t look much alike but at that moment they both had the same look of proud defiance.

‘No. I wasn’t home, Della, you know that I wasn’t.’ She looked at her wrist-watch. ‘Can’t you get Leonard to get us some drinks? I’m thirsty.’

Della moistened her lips then looked over at Leonard and nodded. He didn’t look too happy but he went. I made a bet with myself that he’d put together the fastest drinks tray on record.

Maya looked between me and John. ‘So, you two are private detectives, huh? Funny – I’ve never met a detective before.’

‘First time for everything,’ I said – and it was about the nicest thing I could have said given that opening.

‘I suppose.’ She wrapped her arms around herself and chewed on her bottom lip.

Della flipped open a box of cigarettes and spent a while screwing one into a holder. She tried to light it twice until John took the lighter from her; from the look she gave him you'd have thought he'd just saved her from drowning. Some dames are just easily pleased, I guess. Leonard came back in with the tray - a pitcher of Martini with a whole bunch of glasses. I'm not big on Martinis myself but it would have been churlish to refuse. Once everybody had been watered I turned on Maya.

'Okay, precious,' I said, 'spill.'

Her peepers nearly popped out of her head and I don't think that anyone had ever talked to her like that before - maybe it would have done her some good if they had.

'I saw Richard - Mr Morden - last night.'

'That much we knew - did you arrange to meet him?'

She shook her head. 'No. I was just out with some friends. I saw him by chance, I hadn't seen him for a while, not since he was fired. I just stopped to say hello and...' She drank some of her drink and grimaced slightly. I can't say that I blamed her - I guess Leonard was working on a three-to-two ratio and it wasn't quite working but he wasn't exactly employed for his bar-keeping skills. 'He'd been drinking some and - and he told me about the photographs, about the money.' She looked at her sister. 'He told me that you'd given him ten thousand dollars to get them back. Why? Why did you do that?'

Della hadn't smoked her cigarette, she'd just held onto it and the smoke hung about her like a veil. She shrugged, barely raising her shoulders. 'What was I supposed to do?'

Maya did her lip chewing routine again. 'I'm sorry. I- I tried to get him to give them back to me.'

'Did you go with him back to his place?'

It was John who asked; she looked over at him and nodded and looked miserable.

'Yes. He said that if I went back with him he'd give me the pictures. But when we got there he just laughed at me. I told him that I'd pay him but he said that Della could give him more - a lot more. He needed the money and I didn't have enough.'

'And you got mad?'

'Yes, I got mad. What do you think? I may have been stupid but he had no right to do that.'

Della stubbed out the cigarette. 'Maya, why did you go back there? Why didn't you just leave it to me to deal with?'

'Because I wanted him to leave you alone!' Her peepers had filled with tears and they started down her cheeks; she was one of those girls that still looks good when she cries. 'You shouldn't have to keep paying for my mistakes. I'm sorry - I'm so sorry.' She put her glass down - it missed the table and crashed to the floor but no-one actually moved to get it. Della did move but only so she could put her arms around her sister.

I heard this little noise behind me and it was Leonard clearing his throat.

'If you have asked everything you came for-'

'No, we haven't.' I cut him off. 'Not by a long way. Okay, okay. I'm sorry to break up the waterworks but we need to get some things cleared up.'

The two girls pulled apart and mopped their faces. Dammit, they both looked good a bit teary and I felt like a louse but what else could I do?

Della looked at John and her lips were trembling a bit. 'Do we have to do this now?'

He looked like he'd sooner face down half of the Third Reich - actually, he probably had once upon a time. 'Yes, we do. I'm sorry, Della.'

It was the first time I'd ever heard him call a client by their first name and it was almost enough to distract me from what we were supposed to be doing. Della just raised her head higher and looked at him in a way I can only describe as soulful.

'What happened after you got mad with Morden?' he asked Maya.

'Nothing. I just left - there wasn't anything else that I could do.'

'How did your holder wind up under the bed?'

She stared at him like he was a crazy man. 'I don't know. It probably fell out of my purse. What does it matter?' She paused. 'And can I have it back now?' She held out her hand and John put it back in his pocket.

'That's not possible just now.'

And it was around that time that it started to register with them that something was the opposite of being right where this case was concerned. Della went all stiff again and when she spoke her voice had stopped shaking.

'What happened when you went to see Morden? What did he say?'

'He didn't say anything,' John told her. He had his eyes on Maya and so did I. 'He's dead.'

I'm pretty good at reading people and watching Maya Ramir I decided that five would get you ten that this was news to her. I'd never actually seen all of the colour drain out of someone's face but it did hers. Even her lips went white. I looked at Della and she was staring at John's breast-pocket where her sister's cigarette-holder was and she'd obviously already worked out what the danger was.

'I could also ask where you were last night,' I said to her quietly.

She looked at me - they all looked at me - and I heard Leonard catch his breath; he took a step forward.

'Mr Garibaldi, are you suggesting that Della might have something to do with this? That would be ridiculous. She came to you for help - why would she do that if there was any involvement on her part?'

'It would be one way of diverting suspicion,' I said. 'You're a smart lady - you must be able to see that it looks a bit too convenient that you should just happen to have come to see us the morning after your troublesome ex-chauffeur gets an ice-pick through the neck.'

She flinched visibly at that but she didn't look away from me. 'Yes, I do see that, Mr Garibaldi.' Her eyes went back to John, then to her sister; she sighed and wandered around the room for a minute, shaking out cushions and straightening somethings on her writing-desk, flicking the radiogram on and back off again just as it got warmed up. 'I understand what you must think and there is nothing that I can say. I had a meeting earlier in the evening-’

‘Who with?’

‘I’m on the board of trustees for St Vincent's. It was one of our regular meetings – do you require a list of who else was attending?’

I waved a hand. ‘I’ll let it pass.’

Her eyebrows rose slightly. ‘That’s good of you. I came home around ten-thirty and I did not go out again. There isn't anyone who can ... vouch ... for me. That is the phrase you use, is it not?'

It was John's turn to clear his throat. 'Yeah, that's the phrase.'

She smiled a little, took out another cigarette and put it in her holder. John was already on hand to light it for her. 'Thank-you. I didn't kill him. I didn't see him. I just wanted the photographs back and that's why I came to you. You, uh...' She cupped the back of her neck again. 'You could get into serious trouble, couldn't you? By withholding evidence from the police?'

He gave one of those grunts he does when he's trying to sound gruff. 'We could lose our licenses, if they really wanted to push it.'

'I see.' Her head bobbed down and back up again. 'Thank-you.'

He shrugged. 'Don't thank me, it was Mike who grabbed it.'

She turned and I held up my hands. 'Don't bother - I'm a shy soul and I embarrass easily.'

Della smiled again. Maya stirred the cocktail pitcher and poured herself another.

'Are you going to give it to the police?' She was staring at the glass.

I shrugged. ‘Only if it’s necessary. And as long as you’ve told us the truth, it shouldn’t be necessary.’

‘I have told you the truth.’ She was starting to go coy again.

‘Well, there you go. Don’t start putting your finger in your mouth again.’

She whipped her hands down to her sides and looked like she was going to pout. There was silence for a moment and I shuffled my feet; I was about to suggest that us two gumshoes mosey on back to our side of the city when John decided to go all daring on me.

‘I’m sorry that we haven’t been able to help you.’

Della tilted herself at him. ‘I believe that I should apologise to you – I’ve dragged you into a terrible mess.’

Five would get you twenty that that ‘you’ was not used as a plural.

He shrugged. ‘For us that more or less goes with the territory. Look, we’ll make some discreet enquiries, do some digging, see if there’s anything we can come up with.’

‘You’d do that?’

‘Sure – it’s what you hired us for.’

She sagged a bit. ‘Oh. Yes, of course.’

‘In the meantime...’ John looked at Maya who had taken possession of an armchair and was practising looking sultry. ‘You should try staying in more.’ He looked back at Della. ‘And you should get out more.’

Her cigarette almost made it to her lips. ‘Are you offering to take me?’

‘Are you volunteering to go?’

That might have gone on indefinitely but there was a minor commotion outside the door we’d come in by. It burst open and I could hear Drahl’s voice.

‘I told you that Miss Della has guests!’

‘I see that.’

The newcomer stood and glowered at us. A dark-haired bird with black eyes and hands flexed at his sides.

‘I am sorry, Miss Della – I did inform him, but he insisted-’

‘It’s all right, Drahl.’ She kept her voice level but her knuckles were white she was gripping the holder so hard. ‘Thank-you. Everything is all right.’

Drahl gave the latest guest the sort of look that kills and I warmed to him just for that. Maya uncurled herself from the chair but she looked tense.

‘Nero. What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you-’

‘I came to see you.’ He talked over Maya but he barely looked at her; he was looking at her sister and then he looked at me and John. ‘Who are these people, Della?’

She opened her mouth to answer but John was already in there. ‘I’m Bugs; he’s Daffy.’ He jerked his chin over at me. ‘Mind if I call you Porky?’

Della’s eyes widened and she stared at John with the sort of horrified fascination people get when they’re watching a car wreck. I’d seen a few people look at him like that.

Porky’s nostrils flared. ‘How-how dare you?’

‘Quite easily, Mr O’Neill – oh yes, I know who you are. I just don’t see what right you have to come busting in here asking a lot of questions and yelling at women.’

O’Neill got this tight, white look. He seemed like the type of guy who was used to throwing his weight around and getting what he wanted. He’d never have come up against a John Sheridan before and it felt like having ringside seats at Madison Square Gardens on fight night. All we needed were the hotdogs.

‘We have business with Miss Ramir.’

Nero O’Neill wasn’t to be outdone. ‘And what business is that?’

John tilted his head back a little – his eyes narrowed and he got this faint smile at the corners of his mouth. Any one of those were danger signs and all three together meant that you should head for the hills.

‘I don’t really see what business it is of yours.’

‘If it concerns Maya, it concerns me.’

Maya was curled up in her chair again chewing on her lip. Oh, it was a match made in heaven all right.

John considered this. ‘Maybe, maybe not. You’re her fiancé, I don’t know how many rights that gives you; if you were her husband that might be different but I guess that would be up to Miss Maya. As for Della... Well, you didn’t manage to get yourself engaged to her so I really don’t see how you can even think that anything she does is any of your concern. I suggest you turn right round, go out and cool your heels for a while.’

O’Neill’s hand had landed on some knick-knack on one of the tables – a statuette of a bull - and he’d gripped it so hard it was a wonder the thing was still in one piece. ‘I will not be spoken to like this!’

‘You better go somewhere else, then.’

There was a sound like a small eruption – O’Neill threw the thing he’d been manhandling right at John’s head and then rushed him, trying to swing a punch. John caught the statuette, side-stepped O’Neill and deflected the blow so that the big lug went sprawling across a sofa. He struggled to get up again but I pressed him back, hand heavy on his shoulder.

‘Stay down.’

‘You haven’t heard the last of this,’ he told me.

‘Can it.’

Della let out a breath, tapped some ash from the end of her cigarette. She glanced at the dingus in John's hands and frowned for a second like she was puzzled but she had better things to concentrate on. ‘Where did you learn those moves? Pamplona?’

He smiled at her. ‘Mexico City.’

‘I see.’ She took a puff, tilted her head back and watched him through the smoke. ‘I might have to start calling you Escamillo.’

‘You listen to too much opera.’

‘Or read too many books.’

Della didn’t do coy but she clearly did do sultry without having to practise it.

‘She does too much of both.’

It was a new voice – mellow and sort of refined. The type that delivers lectures on those highbrow programmes designed to improve the masses. It came from that same concealed door that Maya had used and the fact that two people in one day had managed to get the jump on me through it did not give me that warm and fuzzy feeling.

Della straightened up, putting out her cigarette. ‘Duke. I didn’t know that you were-’

‘Obviously.’

He smiled at her. I couldn't tell if it was because he thought he probably should or because he was actually fond of her. Della had straightened her shoulders and looked like she was back at school. Maya was still in her armchair but she was behaving herself for once. I glanced back at Leonard and he was, once again, giving his cheaters some cloth-on-glass action and from the looks he was shooting John I got the feeling that he wouldn't have objected if Nero O'Neill had succeeded in punching John's head in.

Duke Greybourne had the air of a man who owns places and as he was one of the wealthiest men in New York State he probably owned plenty of places at that.

'Maya, why don't you take Nero away somewhere? I'm sure you could do with some time together.' He advanced further into the room. 'You must be Mr Garibaldi and Mr Sheridan? If I could have a word with you gentlemen - if Della doesn't object, naturally.'

Naturally. I wondered just how much say she actually had in this set up and how much of this was play acting. Her eyes darted around the room.

'No. No, of course not.'

Duke smiled again. 'Thank-you. Gentlemen.'

He passed through the doorway without waiting to see if we would follow. John looked at me, I looked at him and shrugged slightly.

‘Here, catch.’ John tossed O’Neill the bull, shoved his hands in his pockets and went out whistling The Toreador Song.

Chapter Text

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ooOoo

4

ooOoo

Stephen Franklin put down the test results, pinched the bridge of his nose. There were never enough hours in the day, he thought glumly; and with the war coming ever nearer the days would seem even shorter.

He eased himself out of his chair, loosened the stiffness from his shoulders and walked across to where Michael Garibaldi still lay oblivious to the world. For a moment Franklin envied the other man that utter unawareness of reality. But it was envy tinged with mild concern. There was no medical reason that he could find as to why Garibaldi had not yet regained consciousness. His brain activity was normal but then head injuries were notoriously tricky ... and there had been that coma, almost two years ago now. An underlying weakness since that event, perhaps, that had remained undetected until now. If so, it was undetected still. He'd had them run the scans twice just to make sure, had examined them himself until his vision blurred.

Franklin examined his face. The captain had been right – Garibaldi did seem to be smiling. He shook his head.

‘What is going on in there?’

ooOoo

We followed ‘Duke’ Greybourne back to the main hall and Drahl immediately popped out. I wondered if maybe they kept him permanently in the hall closet so he was on hand at any given moment that someone might wander through. We filed into the elevator and did that staring-straight-ahead thing that people do when they're pretending that they're actually not in close proximity to other people against their will. We hit the top storey and the whole thing had been turned over into a series of plant rooms of varying sizes and varying degrees of heat. It was stifling in there, humid, and we were surrounded by hundreds of blooms. Orchids of every kind and they’re the kind of flowers that I’ve never really liked. Too fussy. I don’t trust a plant that needs that much attention.

‘It was a hobby of Della's father,’ Duke told us as he led us through. 'The rooms are maintained in his honour. And I do find them rather peaceful to escape to. They used to spend hours up here, the pair of them.'

'And where was Maya during those cosy moments?' I asked.

Duke waved a hand. 'Oh, around...'

I started to get the feeling that this was the story of Maya's life.

There was a sort of alcove thing off one of the plant rooms that had a few comfortable chairs, a telephone on the wall, a low table and a drinks tray. He motioned us both to sit down and we sat. He offered us each a drink and a stogie – John declined both but I took a stogie and stuck it in my pocket for later.

‘Not a bad set-up,’ I said, looking around. ‘I have to say, I’m impressed that you know our names.’

Duke smiled at us and spread his hands. ‘I would like to be able to claim some sort of omniscient prescience but it is far more simple.’ He’d got himself settled with a brandy, mixed with a healthy dose of H2O that I would have skipped myself, and a stogie. He puffed on it for a while until he got it going then sat back and flashed his gnashers at us. ‘Your career, Mr Garibaldi, was put in the spotlight some time ago, as I recall.’

‘Yeah, I recall it too.’

The Duke tilted his head. ‘Yes. It was an unfortunate outcome – it would seem that honesty must sometimes be its own reward.’

‘Yeah, well, I don’t go looking for rewards from anyone else.’

‘An admirably self-sufficient philosophy, if I may say so.’

I shrugged. ‘Say what you like, I can’t stop you.’

He turned his attention on John. ‘And Mr Sheridan- Forgive me, do you prefer “Captain”?’

John had his closed-off look back. I never really found out what it was that had taken him out of the army but from the little he’d said – most of it one night at Lon’s at three in the morning when we’d sunk the best part of a bottle of bourbon between us - I guessed it was something to do with conspiracy in the ranks that he hadn’t liked the smell of. Either get out or go down with it and he’d got out. Can’t say as I blame him.

‘Mister is fine.’

Another head tilt and another puff. ‘The last I heard of you was from your father, a very proud father I must say – how is the senator?’

‘He’s fine.’

‘Good.’

I looked at John out of the corner of my eyes; he hadn’t moved; we were due for one hell of a conversation.

‘Well. This is very pleasant.’

‘Glad you’re enjoying it,’ John said. ‘Next you’re going to tell us that you’re a man who likes talking to men who like to talk.’

Duke laughed, tapped ash into a tray. ‘And you, Mr Sheridan? Do you like to talk?’

‘I prefer to listen. But that depends on who’s talking and what it is they have to say.’

‘Indeed.’ He was silent for a moment and he watched us, weighing us up.

I use that word ‘us’ loosely: he gave the impression of being interested in us both but it was John he was concentrating on, I was just the plus-one. It didn’t bother me – it gave me time to do a little observation of my own.

‘Well, gentlemen, this is not the most auspicious of circumstances under which to meet and I do find that regrettable. However, there seems to be little to be done about it except to make the best of it that we can. And so here we are.’

If this was his usual oratorical style, it was small wonder that Duke Greybourne was such a success in the boardroom – all he had to do was open his yap and the shareholders would be too spellbound to notice that he’d just bought their company out from under them. They’d probably even thank him for it when he was done.

‘That’s just swell,’ I told him, ‘what do you want with us?’

The heat was getting to me. I could feel sweat starting to run down my back but I refused to squirm in front of him.

Duke considered the end of his stogie. ‘This situation with Maya, her photographs...’ He sighed. ‘She really does manage to get herself into the most appalling corners, poor girl. Of course, the man Morden didn’t deserve what happened to him but I cannot say that I am entirely sorry that he is dead. Ordinarily that would be the end of the matter but... They are gone, aren’t they? The photographs?’

‘What do you think we did? Picked ‘em up and decided to hang onto them so we could carry on where Morden left off?’ I loosened my tie; next to me John shifted and I could see him shooting me a warning look.

The idea amused our host. ‘No, I do not think that. I expressed it badly – I apologise. It was more an articulation of my thoughts than an accusation.’

I shifted again. I can talk with the best of them but there was something about the way that Duke Greybourne expressed himself that got to me. Sitting in that inferno of a plant room of Miss Ramir's I felt like I was back in short pants, hair watered down, preparing for my first communion. I glared at him to compensate.

‘I take it that one can assume that whomever deprived Mr Morden of his life also took the photographs?’

‘I guess one can.’

‘Would it be possible for you gentlemen to locate and retrieve the photographs before the police perform that function?’

John stirred. ‘We already have a client,’ he said softly.

Duke looked at him indulgently. ‘You do indeed – but we are on the same side. I want what is best for both my wards.’

John’s eyebrows almost met his hairline. ‘Both? I understood that you were no longer Della’s guardian.’

The stogie got waved around, smoke trailing through the air. ‘Of course. I still think of Della as my ward but she is not, as you have so correctly pointed out. Nevertheless, I would ask that you indulge me in wishing to spare her this burden.’

‘I think that’s up to Della,’ John said. Shoulders back, head high, he was the picture of a man who led other willing saps into battle. God help me but as there was no-one else around at that time, I was that sap. ‘She seems to have handled it all very well so far.’

‘Yes, she has.’ There was a change in Duke’s voice then – not quite so urbane and accommodating. There was more steel in it. ‘Della is an extremely capable person. But do not be under any illusions, Mr Sheridan – Della may give the impression of being a worldly young woman but she has been sheltered from the world for much of her life.’

‘I’m not that impressionable.’

They had their eyes on each other until Duke inclined his head an eighth of an inch.

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He settled again. 'I have a very simple proposition and it is this: I wish to retain your services to acquire the photographs and I will pay you two thousand dollars for your trouble. The stipulation being that you deliver the photographs and any other evidence connected with them to me.'

John's jaw tightened. 'You think that Maya might be involved in Morden's murder?'

Duke shifted, looked like someone had just stuck a pin in him. 'Murder... That is such an ugly word.'

'It's an even uglier sight,' I told him.

'No doubt. No, I do not think that Maya killed that man but I prefer if that supposition was not discussed by the police or any other authorities.' He paused. 'Two thousand dollars is a substantial amount of money.'

'Yes, it is and we could probably do with it but you've made one miscalculation, Mr Greybourne.' John's lip curled as he looked at him.

'And what would that be?'

'You're betting on us being prepared to do anything for the money including putting one over on our client. Miss Ramir has already paid us good money and she hasn't released us from our obligation to her. If that changes any time soon, that's another matter; maybe we can review the situation. At the moment the only person we answer to is her.'

Duke looked at him for a long time, his lips pushing out and in. 'You refuse, then?'

'If we can find the photographs, we will. Honestly. But for her, not for you.'

He actually laughed then and I hadn't expected it. I thought the old guy had gone screwy. 'A man of integrity - small wonder that your father is a proud man. Well, gentlemen. Allow me to wish you the best of luck. Unless you have anything to add, Mr Garibaldi?'

I scratched the back of my neck and hauled myself to my feet. 'Yeah - your dendrobium has an aphid.'

He laughed, blew out smoke and that was it; we'd been dismissed. We looked at him, looked at each other and got going. I've never been in the jungle but fighting our way through the foliage was pretty damn close.

'What the hell was that?' John asked when we'd reached the elevator.

'The fastest piece of work I've ever seen in my life,' I replied, gulping down the relatively cool air. 'I'm going to have to buy you a book on orchid maintenance.'

He gawked at me. 'Huh?'

'In case you hadn't noticed - which you obviously didn't - you just got sounded out as a prospective future former-ward-in-law. Congratulations.'

The elevator was fast-moving so there wasn't time for John to inflict any damage on me.

We spilled out into the hall and Drahl was on hand to restore to us our hats and coats. He actually looked pleased to see us; although, I suspect that that was probably because we were leaving and not because he longed for more minutes in our company. And that was his loss. We had reached that intermediate bit of house that would be called the vestibule in such establishments when John looked back. Della was standing on the staircase and if I’d been standing in between them at that moment I would have been reduced to a pile of ash. As it was my skin prickled, hair standing up on the back of my neck. I took hold of his elbow.

‘Come on, Don José.’

We got outside and I took in a great lungful of air – and coughed at the fumes it contained. I read an article a while back about how we were all going to be killed off by killer fog sometime soon due to pollution and whoever the bird was who wrote it might have been on to something. We started down the street.

‘You know I’m going to say it, don’t you?’

John stopped, turned to face me. ‘Say what?’

‘Senator? Senator David Sheridan, that David Sheridan – he’s your father?’

His head had tilted back, eyes narrowed.

‘Yeah.’

I blew out a breath. ‘I thought you said your dad was an ambassador.’

‘He was. After his last posting he was persuaded to run for the Senate.’

‘Why the hell didn’t you just tell me before?’

His lips wriggled and I didn’t know if he was going to laugh or blow his top. In the end he didn’t do either.

‘Because I know how you feel about politicians.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Look, my dad is a good guy, Mike. He works hard, tries to make a difference, do the right thing. Maybe that sounds corny – maybe it is – but he’s not some slimeball on the take.’

I held my hands. ‘Hey, I got no issue with the old man; I just don’t like you holding out on me. I’ve got used to you being on the level, it’s a bit of a surprise when you’re not.’ I looked him over. ‘Anything else you want to spill while we’re at it?’

‘I dance at The Dark Star Thursday nights for the extra scratch.’

‘I thought that was you I’d slipped a couple of singles that time.’

He grinned and we kept on walking. The sky was that indeterminate shade between steel and rose and the only thing it meant was that it would be cold that night. There was frost on the air; it already smelt raw. I pulled the collar of my coat up, buried my hands in the pockets.

‘Our pool of suspects just widened.’

John grunted.

‘How do you like Nero O’Neill for it? And ain’t he a pill?’

He laughed. ‘I hear you, brother. I don’t know – with the temper on him he might be capable of it, I guess. But is he stupid enough? That I’m not so sure about.’

I like to think that I can stand in a room of possibles and tell you who the murderer is. On this case, I wasn’t so sure.

‘Okay. So. Maya is out.’

‘Probably.’

‘So is Della.’

He hesitated. ‘Probably.’

I managed to hold back a snigger; you have to feel for a guy who’s going to those lengths to prove that he’s not dizzy about a dame.

‘Duke Greybourne?’

‘Can you see him wielding an ice-pick?’

I considered it. ‘Probably not. He’d just talk them to death. Loyal Leonard?’

‘He’d do pretty much anything for Della, I guess.’

‘You noticed that, huh?’

One corner of his mouth went up. ‘You’d have to be blind not to.’

‘And you’ll also have noticed that I haven’t asked you about that note she slipped you.’

John stared straight ahead, stood aside to let a classy piece with violet eyes and a wiggle in her walk cruise by. ‘She didn’t slip me anything; she handed it over in plain view. Who else have we got?’

‘Spoilsport.’ I snapped my fingers. ‘Hey, I got it! The butler did it.’

He looked at me. ‘How long have you been waiting to say that?’

‘Years.’ We’d reached the edge of the park. The trees were hazy in the distance, like dead fingers against the sky. 'So, what now? You heading back to that little ol' place we call home?'

'Tempting as that is, I think I'll call it a day. Tomorrow is going to be a long one.'

'Yeah. We could have done with that two Gs, you know.'

'I know, I know.' He put his hands in his pockets.

'Until you decided to go all ethical on me.'

John gave me a lopsided smile. 'Funny, the first thing I remember you telling me when we started this whole shindig was that you never do the dirty on your client.'

I shook my head. 'You should never pay attention to what I say - I'm very unreliable.'

'I'll try to keep that in mind. Well, see you tomorrow.'

'Hey, you're not on Easy Street yet.' I jerked my thumb. 'Your side of town is thattaway.'

'Thought I'd take a walk through the park - get some fresh air.'

'You know, too much of that stuff will kill you,' I called after him. He grinned at me and stepped off the sidewalk, walked across the road ignoring all the cabbies who had to either stop or run him down. That was pretty much how John got through life - knowing full well what was going on around him and then going his own way despite it.

I headed in the other direction, down the block and then across another one until I reached a drug store on the corner. I hopped in one of the booths and rang the office, Susan giving me her professional voice until she realised it was me.

'Where have you been?' It was less a concerned query, more of a demand.

'Working, precious, working.'

'The police were here. They wanted to know the name of our new client.'

'And what did you tell them?' I rested my elbow on the little shelf and gazed through the glass.

'That as far as I knew you'd been retained by a Mr and Mrs Smith.'

I sniggered. 'Mr and Mrs?'

'Well, we wouldn't want to give too much away now, would we?

'I guess we wouldn't.'

'So, what now?'

'Now nothing. You can knock off for the day.'

'Where's John?'

'He's getting the smell of money out of his nostrils. See you tomorrow, precious.'

'Night, Mike.'

I headed back to the street. I probably should have gone home. I know I should have. But knowing what I should do and actually doing it don't always go together. There was something bugging me, something I couldn't quite get a hold on, like one of those things you can almost remember but it's too far on the edge for you to get a good look at.

Well, that was how I felt.

I hung about on the corner for a bit, bought a paper off a newsie, read the headlines and binned it. It was never good news anyway. And then I hopped a cab.

'Where to, mister?'

'Downtown.'

The cabby looked at me over his shoulder. 'You sure 'bout that?'

'Downtown.'

He shrugged. 'Nothin' to me, bud, but no-ones I knows goes there of their own accords, you get me?'

'I get you. Downtown.' Third time's the charm; we peeled away from the kerb; I pulled my hat down over my eyes and folded my arms.

It was quiet at the precinct at that time, one shift handing over to another and the night life hadn't started being hauled in yet. With a bit of luck, Zack would still be there and as luck would have it he still was.

When I cornered him in what used to be my office, he looked at me warily. 'What do you want?'

'Oh, that's nice,' I told him. 'A guy can't drop in and say to another guy, "Hey, how's it hanging?" without the latter guy getting all sore at the former guy. You know, the time was when-'

He held up his hands. 'Okay, okay! Enough. I'm sorry.'

I grinned and put my feet up on the desk. 'Think nothing of it, buddy.'

'So, how's, uh, Susan?'

'She's fine. She's fine, her cat is fine, the nylons I bought her for Christmas are fine. See, Zack, here's the thing-'

He leant back, blew out a breath. 'I knew it. You only ever show up when you want something.'

'I need a favour.' I thought about this. 'Okay, maybe I don't need one exactly but I'm asking for one.'

Zack chewed the inside of his cheek, his lips working like they were having a fight. 'Okay, spill.'

'Can I take a look at the crime scene photos?'

He gave me this bug-eyed look. 'What? You-you mean the photos from today? Morden? Those photos?'

'No, the snaps from the garage at the SMC Cartage Company, nineteen-twenty-nine. Yes, the ones from today.'

'Phooey.'

'Zack...' I held out a hand, turned it palm-side up. 'Just a quick look, that's all. You know I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important.'

His eyes narrowed. 'How important? What are you looking for?'

I sighed and decided that the best way to play it was on the level. 'I don't know. It could be something or maybe not, I don't know. That's what I want to have a look at them for.'

He pulled a gasper out of his pocket and chewed on it.

'Come on. I'd do the same for you sometime.'

He choked. 'Mike, you don't have anything I can't get with a search warrant.'

I raised an eyebrow. 'Is that a yes?'

He kept me in suspense for a minute longer but I guess I couldn't really blame him for milking it a bit.

'Yeah, yeah, okay. I ought to get my head examined.'

He got me the envelope of snaps and handed them over with the warning of a five minute time limit. It wasn't much but it would have to do and he helped me out further by keeping an eye out for any passing flatfoots from upstairs who might want to know what an honest working stiff like me was doing in a place like that.

'Okay, that's it, wrap it up.'

I stacked the photos and put them back in the envelope. 'Thanks, I appreciate it.'

'Yeah, whatever. Find what you were looking for?'

I shrugged. 'Meh.'

He breathed heavily. 'Are you holding out on me?'

I gave him a look of breathless innocence. 'Would I do that?'

He rolled his eyes. 'Is the Pope Catholic? Never mind. Look, Chie- Mike. You can't keep treating this place like it's your own personal library, you know what I'm sayin'? And you can't keep putting me in this position; I'm up for promotion-'

'No fooling?'

'No fooling. But I'll be busted back down to uniform and writing traffic tickets in the Bowery if anyone finds out about this stuff.'

I felt like a louse but I suppressed that - it wouldn't do me any good.

'Promotion, huh? Someone quit?'

'Nah, Rowcliffe's been made up to inspector.'

I stared at him. 'Rowcliffe? An inspector? Ain't that a break for crime.'

Zack grinned. 'Yeah, he couldn't investigate his way out of a paper bag; but he'll be someone else's headache this way.'

'Good luck with that, Zack.' I gave him a friendly thump on the shoulder and we were all square again. Zack was good like that.

I walked a few blocks and realised I was hungry so I stopped off at a druggy's, eased myself onto the green vinyl stool and enjoyed that bittersweet smell of medicine and syrup you only find in those joints. I got myself set up with a corned beef on rye and a glass of milk and after the hunger pangs had cleared enough for me to think straight, I pulled out the photo I'd snagged from the pile while Zack had his back turned. I promised myself I'd make it up to him.

I stared at it and it was no prettier in black-and-white than it had been in glorious Technicolor. The kid manning the soda-jerk retrieved my plate, refilled my milk, wiped down the counter and caught sight of the photo. He went white, his spots looking like he'd been playing with his mother's lipstick and missed. I eyeballed him; he gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing over his bow-tie and vamoosed back down the counter to where two pieces in tight sweaters were giggling over their sodas.

I stared at the snap, ignoring Morden's slack, surprised face and looking at the one hand outstretched on the cheap rug. There was a mess of blood all over the place, but those marks by his fingers definitely didn't fit the rest of the pattern. Not spatter, splatter or any other of the terms the technical birds use. He'd tried to write something: a name, perhaps. I stared some more. No. Not a name, but a something. A picture was starting to form in the back of my mind and I didn't like it.

I headed for the back of the store, got myself in one of the wooden booths, the light coming on when I closed the door. I looked up the number in the directory, dialled and waited.

'The Ramir residence.'

'Hey, if it isn't my old buddy Drahl. It's Mike Garibaldi.'

There was a loud sniff.

'Indeed.'

'Yes, indeedy.' I must have been getting light-headed. 'Is Maya there? I need to talk to her.'

'I am not sure if Miss Maya is at home. Sir.' I think he tagged that on because he couldn't help himself. Too much butler training.

'Well, why don't you go and ask her if she is and then tell her I'm on the blower.'

There was a pause, a sigh and then, 'Very well, sir.'

I started drumming out the opening bars of the overture from Aïda and had almost got to the end of the second act by the time the phone crackled again and a breathy voice came down the line at me.

'Why, Mr Garibaldi, this is such a surprise.'

'Yeah, I thought you'd be pleased. Look, Maya, I need to ask you something.'

'Of course; but wouldn't it be easier if you came to the house? I never like doing business over the phone.'

'Face to face with you, angel, a guy wouldn't get any business done at all.'

She laughed, still breathily.

'Listen, where was it you saw Morden the other night?'

She didn't say anything but I heard the laughter go out of her voice just the same.

'Just out somewhere.'

'Where?' I insisted; it was important, I knew it had to be.

'Just somewhere. A club.'

'Which club? It's a simple enough question, dammit!'

'Don't shout at me! I don't like it when people shout at me.'

I gritted my teeth. 'Okay, I'm sorry. It's important, Maya. Which club was it?'

'I don't- We went to a lot of... It was The Black Omega.'

I rang off and sat there. The Black Omega. I'd known it, I just hadn't wanted to know it. Morden hadn't been trying to write a word, he'd tried to write the symbol for the omega. There was a sharp rap on the glass and I jumped. One of the sweater-girls was standing outside.

'Hey, mister, you done?'

I let myself out, let her in and went back to the counter.

'Anything else, mister?'

Spots sounded like someone had strangled him and he stared at me like he thought I was going to turn into the Big Bad Wolf and eat him. I couldn't have eaten anything then; I felt sick.

'Nah; thanks, sonny.' I parted with some jack, pulled on my hat and went for the door.

The Black Omega. I'd always known that one day I'd end up back there. I remembered the first time I'd been there and the first time I'd seen Talia Winters: a real lady - like Della - all Veronica Lake hair and a voice like smoked honey. She'd been classy and too good for me and far too good to be singing in a clip-joint like that. She'd liked gardenias and I always made sure that there were some on her grave.

I'd always known I'd get back there someday. And I'd always known that one day, sooner of later, I'd make him pay for what happened to Talia. Al Bester: the racketeer's racketeer; the untouchable in that stinking city.

It had turned cold, air biting at my face. I turned the collar of my coat up, stopped a cab. I should have gone home.

'Where to, bud?'

'You know a club called The Black Omega?'

'I sure do.'

'Step on it.'

Chapter Text

ooOoo

5

ooOoo

I paid the ten bucks it cost to get into the joint, checked my hat and coat with the cute little number at the desk and wandered into the club. It had been given a lick of paint since the last time I’d been there. Lots of gilt, lots of potted-palms, lots of expensive dames wearing a lot of ice. In the members’ enclosure upstairs some of our so-called fine, upstanding citizens would be loosing their shirts on the spin of a wheel and be grateful for the privilege. Like I said, the place was a clip-joint: the drinks were watered down, the patrons got fleeced and behind the perfumed air you could get that unmistakable whiff of corruption.

Al Bester had made his first fortune back in the Twenties, had been the main man behind a few speakeasies and God knows what else besides. The stories were he ran girls, booze, guns... You get the picture. He had a few cops, at least two judges and possibly a congressman in his pocket but good luck proving any of it. There’s a reason guys like him survive. And then there had been Talia Winters.

She’d had a dream about one day singing at Radio City and I bet she would have made it. Working at the Omega was just her paying her dues – the one thing I had to say for it was that they got plenty of big names in the clientele; chances were she would have caught her big break. The first night I heard her sing, the first time I saw her, she had this clinging gold number on, gold like her hair, like her skin, and I didn’t know how anything could be that beautiful. She’d been a good kid – didn’t give anyone any trouble and didn’t go looking for any. It was still back in the day when I was on the job and we were trying to get a line on Bester. No-one saw anything, no-one heard anything, no-one was willing to talk.

But I talked to Talia and that incredible thing happened: she was willing to talk to me. She wasn’t part of any of it but she kept her ears open and I guess because she was the quiet type people would talk in front of her, like if she wasn’t talking she also couldn’t hear. Or maybe because they never expected someone built the way she was to have a brain in her head.

Even more incredible was that a woman like her would look twice at a slob like me.

I was crazy about her; crazy the way a guy gets only once in his life. We talked about going to Acapulco; we made it to Cape Cod and it rained everyday but the last one.

I was on duty the night the call came in and all the while I headed across town I was sure it had to be a mistake. I still remember walking up those stairs, the same ones I had been up so many times before and there had never seemed so many of them. I could have found my way blindfolded. And the air still smelt like gardenias: her perfume and the flowers I’d bought her. The vase was broken, I remember, the rug soaked and some flatfoot had ground the blooms into the carpet. And Talia was lying across the bed.

Booze and pills, they said. Partying with a john that had got out of hand. Accidental overdose, just another dead doxy, case closed.

It didn’t matter that she wasn’t like that.

It didn’t matter that she rarely drank, that she never touched pills – not even for a headache – or that she wasn’t a pro skirt. It didn’t matter about the bruises on her face where they’d forced the stuff down her. Bester had set his boys on her and then his other boys had covered it up.

Al Bester. He’d gone to the funeral, stood there grinning at me. And I’d know; and he’d known that I’d known.

And there I was again and it was all I could do to stop myself tearing the damn place apart. Instead I sat at the bar and got myself a highball.

‘Is Mr Bester in?’ I asked the bartender.

‘Not yet, maybe later.’

I parted with some jack: enough for the drink and more than enough for him.

‘When he does come in, tell him Mike Garibaldi wants to see him.’

The bird looked at me, shrugged and put the lettuce in his pocket. He went back to polishing the glasses and I got friendly with my highball. We were just getting real intimate when someone jostled me from behind. I swivelled on the stool.

‘Hey, watch it, Mac.’

‘Sorry, I- Mike?’

I stared at him, held out a hand. ‘What’s up, Doc?’

Steve 'Doc' Franklin pumped my hand, grinned. Steve was a music man, blew the sweetest horn north of the Mason-Dixie; we called him ‘Doc’ because although he’d never been to college, he’d got a PhD in musicology from Duke Ellington.

‘How’s it hanging?’

He released my hand. ‘Solid, man, solid. How’s tricks with you?’

‘Oh, not so bad.’ I squinted around. ‘What’s a nice boy like you doing in a gin-mill like this?’

He shrugged, looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, you know how it is – you gotta go where the work is. Are, uh, are you sure you should be here?’

I finished my highball. ‘Any reason why I shouldn’t be?’

Steve perched on the stool. ‘I can think of one or two. Does John know you’re here?’

‘We’re not joined at the hip. I gave him the night off – he’s in a box under the bed.’ I signalled the barkeeper. ‘Can I get you one?’

He raised his eyebrows, lips twisting. ‘We don’t drink out front here.’

Of course. When he said ‘we’ he didn’t mean the whole band, just a few of them. Steve was good enough to entertain the patrons but he certainly couldn’t be seen drinking in the middle of them, just like he was good enough to play at the fancy hotels so as long as he didn’t expect to be a guest there. Welcome to New York State, land of the free. Some people are always more free than others.

The bartender made his way over and I waved a hand. ‘Forget it – the last one left a nasty taste.’

Steve smiled a little. ‘Is that you making a stand?’

‘A man has to start somewhere.’ I leant on the bar. ‘Listen, Doc, do you know a guy called Morden? Richard Morden?’

He thought about it. ‘Can’t say that I do. Why?’

‘He got himself killed last night – ice-pick through the neck.’

Steve let out a low whistle. ‘That’s gotta hurt.’

‘Yeah, well, now he’s feeling no pain. He was probably about thirty-five, thick dark hair, athletic looking.’ What was it Della had said? ‘Kinda oily. He was in here last night.’

Steve shook his head. ‘Sorry. But you know, when you’re blowing that horn you don’t really pay much attention to what’s going on on the floor.’

I sighed. ‘Yeah, I guess.’ I glanced up and to the rear of the place, where I knew the offices were. ‘Is Bester in most nights?’

He looked at me, moistened his lips. ‘Look, Mike, go home. It won’t do any good.’

‘It’s a job, it’s not personal.’

‘Of course it isn’t.’

‘Well, is he?’

He sat there looking at me like he wished he was anywhere else on the planet – probably wished I was anywhere else on the planet.

‘Yeah. Yeah, he’s in most nights. Him and a couple of goons carrying pieces. You want to be careful.’

I grinned. ‘Hey, it’s me.’

It wasn’t the news he wanted to hear. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ He glanced over at the bandstand, eased himself off the stool. 'I've got to go.'

'Earning an honest living, huh?'

'I try.' He looked me over. 'You be careful, okay?'

'Sure.'

He made his way across the floor, had a word with the bandleader and took his place. They struck up a melody and the bird in the white coat in charge did his shtick, introducing the members of the band. Most of them weren't bad but when Steve stood up and did his thing he blew their socks off and the crowd went nuts.

White Coat wasn't done.

'And finally, ladies and gentlemen, The Black Omega is proud to present ... Miss Lyta Alexander.'

The joint's latest canary shimmied onto the stage. If Talia had been Veronica Lake, Lyta Alexander was Rita Hayworth. I guess that might have made Della Ava Gardner, which is enough to give any man something to think about. She worked the number okay; she had a good voice, I guess, rich and smooth but maybe I was just biased. Some couples hit the dance-floor, weaving around under the mirror-ball and it all looked romantic. I wasn't fooled.

Miss Alexander had plenty of time to show off her repertoire - some fast, some slow. She had a good rhythm on the faster ones, I have to admit. Everyone seemed to be having a good time. Champagne corks kept popping with the regularity of fire from a Tommy gun. The barman left me alone and I sat at the counter chewing on a toothpick. Pretty much everyone left me alone except for a pair of cigarette girls and their skirts were short enough for me to be certain that their seams were straight all the way up to the top. I bought a pack and some matches just to be polite and because one of them had dimples you could lose a nickel in. They stood and chirped at me for a while and I didn't go out of my way to cut them short. Apart from anything else if a lady is determined to do something it's only right to let her go right ahead and do it.

The party was broken up by a goon squashed into a dinner-jacket and he looked about as comfortable in it as live-bait in the lion house.

He jerked his head at the girls. 'Beat it.' They grabbed their boxes and hoofed it back to wander among the tables. 'You the party who wants to talk to Mr Bester?'

'That's right, Mac, well done. Looks like all that education of yours didn't go to waste.'

'Wise guy, huh?'

I stood up. He was taller than me but I don't have a complex about stuff like that. 'Yeah, want to make something of it?' I gave him a minute to think it over and I could practically hear the cogs turning with the effort. 'Okay, bud, I guess you've been sent down to take me to Bester, right?'

'Right.'

'So maybe you better take me up there, right?'

'Right.'

'Lead on, Mercury.'

He looked at me again and watching the puzzlement work its way across his big face was almost painful. 'Mercury,' I said as we walked, 'little Roman guy with wings, got the job of carrying messages for all the god-like big cheeses. See the resemblance now, Mac?'

He pulled his lips back and I got a good look at his teeth; they were very big and very square. He jerked his big thumb again. 'Up the stairs.'

'These stairs?'

'Get.'

I grinned at him. 'I'm going, Mac, I'm going.' I took them two at a time and waited for him at the top. He came panting up and didn't look too happy about the exercise. He took me along the corridor and you could still just about hear the band, Miss Alexander warbling away on top. The way into the sanctus sanctorum was through a set of double doors and on the other side the office was the usual set-up: thick carpets, a one-way window overlooking the main floor (probably a hidden one somewhere overlooking the gaming room) and a heavy wood desk. And behind the desk was Al Bester.

The man had eyes that should have gone to a shark but there had obviously been a mix-up on the assembly line. He leaned back in his overstuffed leather chair and gave me that same cold smile that I remembered from last time.

'Well, well. Lieutenant Garibaldi. Oh wait - it's not Lieutenant anymore, is it? It's just Mister now, I understand.'

I walked across the room and sat down without waiting to be asked.

'Hello, Al.' I made a show of looking around his digs. 'Not bad. Going for the bordello look, I see.'

He showed me his teeth. 'I had forgotten how entertaining a conversationalist you can be, Mr Garibaldi.'

I stretched back, linking my fingers behind my head. 'Well, maybe you should keep me around - that way I can entertain you to death.'

He affected a look like I'd wounded him. 'If you keep talking like that I'll start to get the impression that you don't like me.'

'It's not an impression,' I told him, 'you're right on the money.'

Bester smiled again, like this was something that pleased him. 'I've been trying to remember when the last time was that we saw each other.' He raised a hand. 'Of course: Miss Winters' funeral. Such a sad business; I was so fond of her.'

I had my teeth gritted so hard it was a wonder they didn't break. Bester was trying to rile me and so far he was doing a pretty good job. I have to admit, I can get riled pretty easily; John was better at handling that sort of thing. Not that things didn’t get to him, it's just that he was better at not letting it show. When it did show you really didn't want to be around to see it.

I still hadn’t answered so Bester decided to prod me again. ‘As I recall, you were also quite fond of Miss Winters.’ He showed me his teeth again so I showed him mine.

‘Fond is a relative term.’

He did this little chuckle – the type that has no mirth in it. He was enjoying this and I was determined not to give him too much material to work with.

‘Well, Lieuten- Forgive me: Mister Garibaldi. What can I do for you? I suppose I can take it that you’re not here to apply for our private membership?’

‘You must be a mind-reader.’ I unlinked my hands, sat forward a bit and his shark eyes watched my every move. ‘Actually, I wanted to offer my condolences on your friend.’

There was a slight frown – very slight, his eyebrows moving about a sixteenth of an inch but it was more than I’d ever got out of him before. ‘My friend?’

‘Richard Morden. He managed to get himself killed this morning.’

‘That’s awful. Really, really terrible.’ His hand rested on top of the desk. ‘But you’re mistaken in calling him a friend.’

‘Oh? What would you call him?’ I always love having my terminology corrected by the villain of the piece.

Bester thought this over long and hard; he manipulated himself out of his chair, crossed to a cabinet and poured a drink. Then he poured another drink. He brought them both back over, set one in front of me and drank some of his own while he sat down.

‘It wasn’t a trick question,’ I growled.

‘I didn’t think that it was. Let’s just say that Mr Morden and I had occasion to do a little business together.’

‘So you were associates.’

His shoulders went up and down. ‘He would occasionally do some work for me, moving merchandise, driving people... That was his profession, you know. He was a chauffeur.’

I picked up my glass, sat back with it. It smelt like brandy and a good one at that. Al Bester evidently didn’t believe in depriving himself of the good life and if he was willing to throw some hospitality around I wasn’t going to refuse if it would help get me to hear what I wanted to hear. I took a sip; it was brandy, it was a good one and the taste of it filled my head.

‘He worked for the Ramir family.’

‘Yes, I know that.’

Bester inclined his head, raised his glass fractionally. ‘Of course you do – after all, your profession is detective work. Tell me, are you of the school who only asks questions when you already know the answers?’

‘You’re obviously not or you wouldn’t be asking.’ I knew that as answers went that one didn’t make much sense but it sounded good and it shut him up for a second.

‘I believe that the late Mr Morden was friendly with the younger of the Ramir sisters – Maya. A charming young lady. We, uh...’ That smile was hovering around his lips again. ‘We have seen a great deal of Miss Maya here.’

Behind me Mercury sniggered; Bester was warming his brandy, the liquid swirling around in the glass, clinging to the sides. And he was still smiling. They had the photographs. They’d probably had a great time pawing them and Bester didn’t give a damn that I knew it. Just like before. Anger was like a black cloud, blotting out everything else; I fought through it, tried to push it down, tried to be the person I had gone there to be. I downed more of the brandy and it seared the back of my throat.

‘Mr Morden had taken some items that belonged to Miss Ramir.’ I was proud that I managed to keep my voice from shaking, prouder still that I managed to keep my hands off him. ‘She’d like to have them back.’

Bester blew out a breath, his features twisting into something that in his head probably looked like sympathy. ‘Awful. Young women are so careless these days, don’t you think? They allow themselves to be taken advantage of and then...’ His hand lifted then fell back to the desktop. ‘Miss Maya Ramir has been terribly careless. Like poor Talia was and look where that got her. It would be a tragedy if the same thing happened to Miss Ramir. Or her charming sister ... Della, isn’t it? Of course, Talia was so much more ... expendable...’

‘You son of a bitch.’ I lunged at him. Or I would have, but everything slipped sideways. The world had been straight and now it was tilted, blurring; it wasn’t a black cloud anymore, it was a fog, and I was stuck in it. And I’d been ten kinds of idiot. I staggered, grabbed hold of the edge of the desk and I heard Bester laughing. I looked up and he raised his drink to me.

‘Be seeing you.’

Then some kind person slugged me across the back of the head and everything went black.

ooOoo

Coming to was a mistake. Someone had my arms pinned behind my back; someone else was playing the crescendo to the 1812 Overture on my ribcage. I squirmed and they took this as a sign of encouragement – the percussionist redoubled his efforts.

My head was still foggy but they were doing their best to wake me up. We were in an alley, I guessed the one behind The Black Omega, and this was clearly where I was going to be spending the night. I got a slug in the gut and grunted, doubled over.

‘Had enough? Mac?’

It was my buddy Mercury and what passed for his sense of humour.

‘No.’ I knew it had to be my voice because I was talking but I didn’t recognise me. ‘Nowhere near; I could do this all night.’

There was a green neon strip somewhere and it lit up Mercury’s grinning face; he looked like a cut-price Mephistopheles but he had fists the size of hams. I closed my eyes.

Light cut through, even with my eyes closed. A horn blared and then footsteps, a voice shouting. I knew that voice. John J. Sheridan, doing what he did best – riding to the rescue. I heard the sounds of flesh hitting flesh; my dance-partner loosened his hold on me and I aimed one at him. I hit him. Or I hit something. More scuffles. More shouts and I fell into a pile of garbage – week-old newspapers and vegetables whose vintage I didn’t care to think about. Right then it felt like a sweet bed.

‘Mike. Michael.’

I got pulled into something like a sitting position; there were footsteps, quicker than the others, lighter, they made this high-pitched click-clack.

‘Oh my God...’

I knew that voice, too.

‘I thought I told you to wait in the cab.’

‘He looks terrible.’

Cool hands stroked my face and I got that scent of ridiculously expensive French perfume again. I knew the price of that stuff and I also knew how much John earned. He could probably just about afford to let her have a whiff of the stopper and that was all.

‘What happened to him?’

‘Apart from being beat up, you mean?’

‘Drink,’ I told them. ‘In the drink. Bastard.’

‘What?’

‘They slipped him a Mickey Finn.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘They put something in his drink.’

John put his shoulder under my arm and I was hauled to my feet. I could just about get one foot in front of the other.

‘Ought we take him to hospital?’

‘No, you oughtn’t,’ I said. I felt someone else take my other arm, try to hold me up. She might have been a tiny scrap of a thing but she was stronger than she looked. I got marched down the alleyway towards the light. I’d always thought that when that happened you were supposed to be greeted by angels. If those two were mine, I was in deep trouble. They poured me into the back of a boiler; those cool hands were on my forehead again and we peeled away from the kerb.

ooOoo

I don’t remember much about the car ride; the next thing I do clearly remember is being propped up in a hallway while Della unlocked the door to what turned out to be John’s apartment. His digs were a step up on the snazzy stakes from mine – for one thing, his building had an elevator and I guess he hadn’t much taken to the idea of dragging me up the six flights of stairs to my place. Plus, his were usually neater than mine; that military discipline had to pay off somewhere. He manoeuvred me inside and Della followed us in, closing the door behind us.

‘Nice work,’ I told him, ‘you managed to get her back to your place on the first date.’

‘Michael, shut up.’

His teeth were gritted and I object to that – I don’t weigh that much. He pushed me into a chair and I sat without too much argument. John stood looking down at me.

‘I thought you were going straight home.’

I looked pointedly at Miss Ramir who was sitting modestly on his sofa. ‘I thought the same about you. Fresh air my ass; the next time you tell me you’re going for a walk I’m going to tie your shoelaces together.’ A muscle in his jaw was twitching; Della just looked amused. ‘Where did you two go, anyhow?’

‘We had dinner at Twenty-One,’ she said, ‘and then we went dancing at The White Star.’

Great. Two of the most expensive joints in New York City. Why couldn’t he have just hummed down her ear and waltz her around Central Park for free? ‘I hope he put it on the expenses; we can’t afford that kind of style.’

There was a rumble from the man in question, a noise like distant thunder; Della looked up at him and laid a smile on him. ‘Could I possibly have a drink? And perhaps Mr Garibaldi could do with some water?’

John lightened up some then; although, I think that where the water was concerned he might have preferred to drown me in it than give it me to drink. He took himself across the room to where he kept the liquor; Della unfolded herself from the sofa and slipped her wrap off. Under the mink-family reunion she was sporting, she was wearing this slinky black number that left you in no doubt that regardless of her financial situation, Della Ramir had her assets in all the right places.

The telephone rang, John answered it.

‘Hello? Oh, hey, Doc.’

Good old Steve – one of life’s worriers and had the unshakeable belief that there was no problem that he couldn’t help fix in some way.

‘Yeah, yeah he’s here. We found him being worked over by two of Bester’s goons. What? –Oh, no, no, it – uh – it wasn’t Susan.’

I glanced at Della and smirked.

‘Yeah, that sounds like a good idea ... Okay, thanks. Goodnight, Steve.’

John came over with the drinks. ‘That was Steve.’

‘No fooling.’

He handed me about a gallon of water. Della got a Martini and I decided that John had been holding out on me again – I didn’t know that he owned such a thing as a Martini glass – while he got to work on a Scotch on the rocks.

Della took a sip and looked like a woman whose needs had been met. ‘Thank-you. Rescuing people from alleyways is terribly thirsty work.’

I made myself sit up straighter in my chair. ‘Speaking of which, what were you two doing in my alley?’

It turned out that after I’d spoken to the younger Miss Ramir, Maya had rung round every place in town she knew her sister might be at so that she could tell Della, so that Della could tell John. I had to admit, even if it was just to me, that her sister might have been right and Maya might not have been such a bad kid after all.

And Maya was also obviously even more on the ball than I was when it came to the relationship budding between the Terrible Twosome. Actually, I think they’d by-passed ‘budding’ and headed directly to ‘full blown’. They both had the nerve to look innocent while they sat looking at me. I drank more of my water. Della drank more of her Martini and then shifted a bit.

'Are you okay?'

'Oh, I'm fine.' She looked delighted that he'd asked and then a little embarrassed. I didn't know why. Maybe they were speaking in code and if they were I didn't get it. 'Actually, I, uh, I'm hungry.' She sounded surprised - obviously no-one had told her that rescuing people from alleyways is also hungry work.

'I see.' There was a bowl of cherries on the coffee-table; John leaned forward, took one and held it up by its stem. 'There you go, plaything; open up.'

Della looked at him and then tilted her head a little so she could take it between her teeth. She pulled the fruit off the stem and they stared at each other while I played gooseberry in the corner. I put my glass down loudly; I expected them to jump or at least have the grace to look guilty but they didn't bother. John smiled at her and stood up.

'I'll get you something to eat.' He looked at me. 'And something for you, you look like you could do with it.'

That woke me up some; I was horrified. 'You're not going to cook, are you?'

He grimaced. 'Sandwiches. Okay?'

I relaxed, waved a hand. 'Good - for a moment there I thought I was in real danger.' He muttered something under his breath as he walked into the kitchen.

The fog had broken up, more or less, but every now and then it came back for an encore. I tried to lift my head and didn't get too far; I held my eyes wide and Della was perched on the edge of the sofa watching me.

'Would you like some more water?'

I nodded, or grunted, or maybe a bit of both.

She came across, poured some out, then held the glass to my lips; she really was stronger than she looked and she poured the stuff down me like a pro.

'Thanks.' I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. 'You've done that before.'

'I volunteered at the hospital during the war.'

Now that was an image I hadn’t bargained on. I looked at her and she looked right back with that grey steel gaze of hers like she could see right through me.

‘I, uh, I’m sorry about her.’

‘Who?’

‘The woman you were talking about. Talia?’ Her eyes dropped, she shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything; it was thoughtless of me.’

‘Nah.’ I raised a hand and let it fall back. ‘Nah, it’s okay.’

‘You must have cared for her a great deal.’

‘I did.’ It was funny talking about Talia like that, to a stranger, but somehow I didn’t mind. ‘She was something really special. Funny thing is, the first time I met her, it was like... It was like I already knew her. You know, like when you haven’t seen an old friend for a long time, so long that you’ve forgotten all about them, but then you see them again and think, “Hey, I remember you.” It was like that. Like all along I’d just been waiting to meet her again. I guess that sounds pretty stupid.’

Della had sat back; she was absorbing it all and then she smiled a little. ‘Stupid? Oh no, I don’t think so. There are some faiths that believe that our souls do not have just this one existence on earth but that they are reborn over successive lifetimes. And sometimes there are souls, groups of them, who are always born into the same places at the same times and they will always find one another in each lifetime.’

‘You mean like soul mates.’

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

‘Is that what you believe?’

Her eyes slipped past me to the doorway to where John’s shadow, enlarged, was moving across the kitchen ceiling. ‘I believe that it is a very beautiful idea.’

I think I smiled. I know I closed my eyes again; and my brain was working at half-speed because it was only then that the terrible thought occurred to me. ‘Hell, you’re not interested in John’s soul are you? ‘Cos that only spells trouble. He already looks like a man who’d cut himself loose from a lifeline if he was thrown one. You know, it would be much easier all round if you were only in it for his physical attributes; that I could understand; for some reason he has that effect on women – not that he’d mess you around, he’s funny that way. And I’ve got nothing against you, but John is a buddy and I’m just looking out for him.’

She’d gone rigid, shoulders tense and for a minute I thought she was going to slap me. ‘There’ll be absolutely no soul talk,’ she said, ‘I promise.’

I could have kissed her. 'There's good news,' I told John when he came back in, 'she only wants you for your body; I say, let her have it - she'll give it back when she's done.'

Della had pressed her lips together and dimples appeared either side of her mouth when she looked at his face. 'I believe that the, uh, Michael Finn is still in effect.'

‘Mickey.’ He put down the tray. ‘Mickey Finn.’

Her nose wrinkled a little. ‘But that sounds so common.’

I sniggered and John thrust a plate of sandwiches at me. ‘Here; eat those before you hurt yourself.’

He might not have been much of a chef - that man didn't cook food, he tortured it - but John could put together a mean sandwich and he believed in putting plenty on them. Della probably wouldn’t need to eat again for a week. He’d added coffee to the repertoire and it was strong enough to blow the back of your head off. I was the only one laying into it – Della and John were having another round of what they’d had before.

My fog was still making the occasional guest appearance and I set about fighting it off; I left the conversation to the other two and most of it washed over me but I can report that during the course of it he called her Della once and she called him John twice. It must have been getting on for some ungodly hour of the morning before Della made a move. She smiled down at me while John put her wrap back around her. He took his time about it.

‘Goodnight, Mr Garibaldi; I hope you feel better in the morning.’

‘Thanks. And it’s Mike; just plain Mike.’

‘Goodnight, Just Plain Mike.’

I decided to chance it. ‘Goodnight, Della.’

She smiled and if she hadn’t been too interested in John’s body I might have offered her my own.

John walked her to the door and they stood there for a minute, real close. I guessed I was cramping his style.

‘Don’t mind me,’ I said, ‘I’m just sitting here with my eyes closed.’

I heard John blow out a breath, then he said, ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t move.’

They went out into the hallway. I was not listening in but if people don't close a door properly and don't keep their voices down, they only have themselves to blame if someone else overhears everything they say. It was Della who spoke first - I only caught the end of it.

'...be all right?'

'Sure, he'll be fine. As long as his mouth doesn't run away with him again. I, uh, I'm sorry about that.'

'It's fine. I think it's touching the way he's so concerned about you. But I have to admit, I only told him what he wanted to hear: I'm not really interested in renting; I might want to make an outright purchase.'

'Careful, plaything, it's talk like that that girls into trouble.'

'According to Mr Garibaldi you're the one who's already in trouble.'

'I am that.'

There was silence for a while in which there was probably enough time to play the whole of The Ring Cycle, then John spoke again.

'I'll get you that cab.'

'You don't have to walk me down.'

'Yes I do.'

Footsteps went down the hall, then the stairs and I went back to floating on my fog. Only for a moment – I decided to pull myself together and kept myself entertained by looking over the things in Johnny-boy’s digs. I’d seen them enough times to know them by heart but I took an inventory again. The chessboard, set with the game he seemed to be playing permanently with Father Theo; the photo of his family – Mom, Dad, Sis – and the wedding photo of him and Anna. From the photograph I knew that Anna had been beautiful, from John that she had been a history teacher and had died in a car crash while he was fighting the so-called good fight in Europe. And that he’d loved her and they’d been happy. Since I’d known him I’d never seen him show much of an interest in what the fairer sex had to offer – maybe once you’ve had a taste of the real thing you can’t settle for second-best - until Della Ramir had walked into our office. That morning, I reminded myself: that had only been that morning and they were already acting like it had been forever. The cynic in me wanted to say that it would never last; I only had to take one look at them to know that it probably would.

There was a new addition to the decor – a piece of folded paper on the table next to my nice, comfortable chair. I picked it up. It was dated that day – or what was now the day before – and I realised it was the note that Della had given John. If a man leaves something lying about in the open he can’t start complaining when somebody else reads it. I read it.

To John Sheridan

Call me Della.

~Della N. Ramir

So that was how they did things in the upper echelons. I prefer the more casual approach but then I’m just a simple guy. There were footsteps in the corridor; John came back in, closed the door behind him.

‘You damn idiot.’ He sat down opposite me. ‘Jesus, Michael, what the hell were you thinking?’

‘Okay, it wasn’t my finest moment – I’ll make it up to her next time I see her.’

‘I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about you playing at being a one man army and marching into Bester’s place. Is this how it’s going to be? Every time something connected to Talia Winters comes up you’re going to blow your top on me?’

I felt so tired, skull full of lead. ‘You didn’t know her.’

‘No, I didn’t. And if you keep going like this there’ll be an awful lot of people who’ll never get the chance to know you.’

‘Knock it off, will you.’

‘No. No, I will not knock it off – dammit, you could have got yourself killed. And for what? What the hell was worth that risk?’

‘I wanted to make him pay for it. For that poor shlub lying dead on the floor in some flea-pit; for Talia. He may not have killed Talia himself but he damn well sent the bastards who did and they’ve never had to answer for it. Yes, I think it’s worth anything to make them pay. I lost her; have you any idea-’

There was plenty he could have said then, but he didn’t. He didn’t even look mad, just thoughtful, and that made it worse.

‘I’m sorry-’

He waved both his hands at me. ‘Skip it. But if you ever pull anything like this again, I swear to God I’ll strangle you myself. I still might, except that you look half-dead already.’

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s a pleasure.’ John sat back, ran his fingers through his hair. ‘So?’

I finished off the last of my coffee; it was stone cold but I drank it anyway. ‘Bester has Maya’s photos.’

John grunted. ‘Of course he does; that’s the way our luck has been running on this case.’ He eyed me again. ‘What set you on Bester in the first place?’

‘You remember when I was in Morden’s room? While you were keeping Julie-From-Reception entertained?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘I remember.’

I squinted at him – two in one day would be a record for him. ‘How did you get on with her?’

He growled again. ‘That woman would stick like flies on paper given half the chance.’

‘Nice. Anyhow, Morden had started to scrawl something on the floor before the big one took him over. At first I thought it was the start of a name, then I realised it was an omega sign.’

‘Uh-huh.’ His nostrils flared. ‘And when were you planning on telling me this?’

I shook my head. ‘I wasn’t holding out on you; I didn’t get it until I’d taken another look at the crime scene photos. Aw, hell...’

‘What?’

‘I lifted one of ‘em; I had it in the pocket of my topcoat and that’s still-’

‘At the Omega,’ he finished. ‘Zack is going to love you.’

I scrubbed at my face. ‘Don’t remind me.’

John stretched out his shoulders, stood up. ‘I think it’s time for some shut-eye. I’ll take the couch.’

‘No need; I’m heading home.’

‘Mike-’

‘Forget it.’ I hauled myself to my feet; I was unsteady for a second or two but I managed to remain vertical – just as long as no-one pushed me or so much as breathed on me. ‘I want to go home; apart from anything else I can’t face the thought of spending the rest of the night listening to you snore.’

John was indignant. ‘I do not snore.’

‘Buddy, last time we had to share a room I thought someone was trying to get through the wall with a pneumatic drill. I’m going home.’

He knew better than to argue but then he wanted to walk me down the stairs to make sure I got a cab okay.

‘You’re overplaying this gallant defender shtick, you know that? Save it up for the lady. I can get my own cab.’

He folded his arms. ‘Yeah? And while your wallet’s on the other side of town, what are you going to pay for it with?’

‘Nuts.’

John got me down the stairs, stopped a cab, put me in it, gave the address to the driver and paid him.

‘You’ll make someone a wonderful mother someday,’ I told him.

John bent down to the driver’s window. ‘If en route you feel like tying some concrete blocks to his feet and dumping him in the river, feel free; I won’t say a word.’

The driver sniggered, John grinned at me, straightened up, thumped on the roof of the cab and we started off.

I was half asleep by the time we reached my building. When I got up the six flights of stairs and down the hall, I didn’t have to bother fishing my key out because my door was ajar. I pushed it all the way open. The place was a mess, as always, but it was even more of a mess than usual because in my absence someone had turned it over. They’d done a pretty thorough job and just as a nice little addition my hat and coat had been returned, left hanging on a peg by the door.

I took a quick look around but nothing had been taken; nothing had even been broken; they’d obviously kept it quiet, not wanting to attract any attention. I wondered if it had been my pal Mercury and if he was the guy who was so handy with an ice-pick.

And I wondered what the hell they’d been looking for.

It would all have to wait until daylight. I searched through the drawer in my dresser until I found what I wanted: the photograph of Talia sunning herself on that last day at Cape Cod, all long legs and golden hair. I smoothed it down then put it back. And when I finally fell asleep I smelt the trace of the perfume of gardenias.

Chapter Text

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ooOoo

6

ooOoo

I was getting used to it – that feeling that waking up was a serious mistake. Most of my body wasn’t speaking to me; I can’t say as I blamed it considering that the night before I’d seen my way clear to getting it filled up with some kind of dope and then had it used as a bouncing ball by a couple of gorillas. I persuaded it to ease out of bed, which took some doing, stretched out gingerly, had me a good yawn and took a look at myself in the mirror. I’m not exactly the vain type but even by my standards what greeted me was not an attractive sight. Eyes like two pinholes, an unhealthy-looking bruise flowering across one cheekbone and enough stubble on my chin to double as an industrial strength sander.

But after a shower, a shave and pouring the best part of a pot of coffee down myself, me and my body made it up and decided that it had never happened. I even treated it to a good breakfast of ham, eggs, toast, more coffee, mushrooms and tomatoes. By the time I was done we were old friends again.

I took another look around my place. The guys had done a bang-up job going through it; and from the looks of it, it wasn’t the first time that they had performed such a service. Every cushion had been relocated to the floor, every cupboard opened and its contents rearranged. And I still didn’t know what they were after. I checked the pocket of the coat that had been so kindly returned to me and the snap I’d lifted from Zack’s pile was still there, so that was one thing on my side. I’d worry about how to restore it to him later. Although, five would get you twenty that they’d never even notice it was missing.

I set out for the office, counting on the exercise to finish the job that the shower and food had started. My ribs objected somewhat; I told them to skip it and count their blessings. Like the fact that none of them were cracked, which was something of a miracle considering the size of Mercury’s fists and the enthusiasm he had shown in applying them. It was a colder day than the one before: the sky grey, wind tearing at clouds that nothing would shift. Dust swirled up into the air with every gust; people scurried past, heads bowed, hands thrust into pockets; everyone was locked in a battle with the streets. It was days like that that the city seemed like some great beast trying to find a way of ridding itself of the life teeming through it.

I made it to the office, opened the door and almost walked straight into the bird who was in the process of walking out. Dark hair and light eyes, he took a step back and beamed at me.

‘Mike!’ His eyes narrowed slightly and he gave me the once over. ‘Oh, I say, you look like you’ve had quite a night of it.’

‘Nice to see you too, Mark. I hadn’t realised it was already that time of the month again.’ I moseyed past him into the office and he lurked in the doorway. Mark Cole was British and more than slightly crazy; I’m not saying that those two facts were related but there was always that possibility – I’ve met a few Brits in my time and when I meet a sane one, I’ll let you know. He’d been one of what they called ‘The Few’ during the war; he’d landed up in New York and I was never sure exactly what it was that he did. John had a theory that Mark was British Intelligence. I’d said that that was a contradiction in terms and John had laughed at me – at me, not with me, you’ll notice. Sometimes entire weeks would go by when we wouldn’t hear anything from him; but once a month, the same date each time, he’d either show up in person or send a telegram and ask Susan to marry him.

I looked from Mark to Susan and back again. ‘Any luck?’

He shook his head. ‘Not this time – but there’s always hope, yes?’

For someone who’d just been knocked back by the dish he was dizzy over he looked surprisingly chipper. But, as I say, he was British.

‘If you say so.’

Mark grinned at me; we both looked over at Susan and she looked like she was contemplating homicide. As I was standing near Mark at the time, it might well have been a double homicide; I took myself a few steps back from him.

Mark was still inspecting me. ‘I have a good recipe for a hangover cure passed down from a great-uncle on my mother’s side. He was a gentleman’s gentleman, renowned for his ability to restore his master to full health after a night on the tiles.’

I always hate to disillusion a man but at that point I thought it necessary; Mark had good qualities but I didn’t feel any great confidence in entrusting my health to him. ‘It isn’t a hangover,’ I told him, ‘I got worked over last night.’

‘Oh, bad luck. Is, er, is there anything I can do?’ He had that weird look in his eyes that he always got when he was contemplating inflicting physical pain on someone. I don’t mean that Mark was a nut-job – not exactly – just that he had some interesting talents and he wasn’t averse to displaying them.

‘Thanks, Mark, but I think we’ve got it covered.’

‘Right you are; still, you know where to find me if you need me.’

Yes I did, but right then I didn’t and I probably wouldn’t but I decided against pressing the issue.

‘Bye, Susie.’

I said that Mark was crazy but he wasn’t crazy enough to have delivered that line from inside the office – he waited until he was in the hallway then called it through the door. I closed it after him then ambled over to Susan; she was muttering under her breath and I didn’t need to speak Russian to know what she meant. I perched on the edge of her desk.

‘If you accepted him one time it would probably shock him into stopping from asking you.’ I considered this. ‘Then again, that would possibly mean that you were engaged to him; but I guess you could always think of a way around that when the time came.’

Susan breathed down her nose heavily, looked up at me and decided to ignore the whole last five minutes of her life. ‘You look terrible.’

She, it had to be noted, looked the opposite of terrible; with her hair back in one of those snood things that dames were sporting that year and her pale blue dress all crisp and clean, she looked like someone had pressed and starched her before sending her out on duty.

‘And you look like the stuff that dreams are made of, angel.’

She rolled her eyes at me; I winked at her.

‘Honestly. Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, precious.’ I jerked my head towards the door of the inner sanctum. ‘Is he in?’

‘Uh-huh. And so is Della.’

‘Della?’

‘Yes, Della. Della Ramir.’ She looked at me like I was an idiot. ‘Your client, you met her yesterday.’

Susan getting on a first name basis was even harder to take than John doing it. ‘I know who she is. Did she ask you to call her that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did you get it in writing?’

A frown rippled across her smooth brow; Susan was a smart kid but at that moment you wouldn’t have known it. ‘What?’

‘Writing – these upper class pieces like to keep things formal. How long have they been in there?’

‘About half an hour.’

I grimaced, eased myself off the edge of the desk; Susan was using a pencil to unscramble the keys in her typewriter that had got jammed together; I left her to it, crossed to the door, rapped on the glass. ‘I’m coming in,’ I yelled, ‘you’ve got three seconds to make yourselves decent.’

I gave them five. I inched open the door and peered in. Della was sitting in our best chair; John was leaning against his desk, arms folded. Neither of them looked particularly flushed nor dishevelled; Della’s lipstick wasn’t even smudged, which meant that it was either incredibly resilient (in which case Ramir Industries should buy the patent and make another fortune on the marketing) or that she’d been keeping her lips to herself. She smiled at me.

‘Good-morning, Just Plain Mike. How are you feeling?’

‘Frisky as a newborn lamb. How about you?’

‘Oh, I’m very well, thank-you.’ She looked it, too – she had that glow of health and well-being about her that you read about in certain magazines; money obviously has its uses. ‘I wanted to see how you were doing after last night.’

Della sounded so sincere I could almost believe that concern for my welfare was her sole motivation in making that long journey from her corner of the city to ours. Her suit was grey, her furs were a sort of silver and she had a bunch of violets pinned to her lapel. Violets for her furs; I wondered if John had bought them for her. She didn’t look like a girl who’d been up half the night fishing doped-up shlubs out of alleyways. And then I remembered that at some point during that said night, I had had what could only be termed as a somewhat inappropriate conversation with my partner’s classy new main squeeze. Nuts.

‘Look, uh, Miss Ramir-’

‘Della,’ she said, and gave me another of those smiles that had an adverse effect on my mental capabilities. And I was getting the diluted version. Presumably John was getting the full dose and if that was the case there was no wonder that she was getting him all hot under the collar.

‘Right. Della.’ I glanced over at John; he had his arms folded and was clearly enjoying himself. The wiseguy had forgotten I could take it out on him in other ways later on. I wasn’t sure how, exactly, but I was sure I would think of something. ‘I, uh... Thing is – about last night...’

There was a pause. I could hear the traffic from the street below. It sounded deafening.

‘Yes?’ Della looked at me encouragingly.

‘Yeah, last night... I, uh- Look, I wasn’t exactly at my best last night-’ John made an undignified snort that did not help proceedings. ‘And I realise that I may have said some stuff ... to you ... and... Well, I just, uh-’

Her eyes were wide; she adjusted the set of her furs, raising her shoulders in a little half-shrug. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about; as I recall, you were perfectly charming.’

I gawked at her but if that was her lead, it was jake with me.

John’s eyebrows had worked their way up his forehead. ‘Uh-huh – he’s a prince.’

Della glanced at him with a look that probably would have been called reproachful except that she probably didn’t mean it. One side of his mouth went up and her eyebrows rose a little. And I thought it was just swell that they’d developed their own sign language. I lowered myself into my chair and it felt nice to be sitting in something that had moulded itself to me over the years; there were no surprises there.

'You know,' I said to her, 'if you keep making us your first appointment in the mornings, they'll kick you out of the high society club.'

'It's overrated anyway. And you're not my first appointment - I went riding in Central Park after breakfast.'

Huh. I put my eyes on John, giving him a significant look and I hoped that he was paying attention. Riding in the park. If he saved up every nickel and dime he earned for the next ten years he still wouldn't be able to afford her. He didn't look too fazed by this development and I considered washing my hands of the whole lot of it.

Della shifted in her chair, crossing her ankles neatly and smoothing her skirt down over her knees; I already recognised it as the sign that she was ready to talk business. 'Now that you're both here, there is something that I wanted to discuss with you.'

I put my eyebrows up. 'Oh?'

'Yes: it's a matter of your fee. I understand from Duke - Mr Greybourne - that he offered you two thousand dollars to retrieve the photographs and pass them along to him.'

'That's right.' There was an edge to John's voice like steel when he spoke; obviously being offered a wad of cash by Duke Greybourne was still an unforgivable offence.

‘You refused it.’ Her voice was softer.

‘John refused it.’ I wanted to be clear on that point. ‘I was just the guy sitting next to him when it happened.’

Della smiled slightly in my direction. ‘You could have taken the money anyway.’

John’s shoulders went up an eighth of an inch. ‘We could; but we already have a paying client and there are rules about that sort of thing.’

‘I see.’ She tossed her Ava Gardner locks over her shoulder. ‘Well. It occurred to me that my own offer was substantially less than that and I would like to rectify that by matching the amount that Mr Greybourne offered.’ She started to open her purse. John watched her for a moment then said,

‘Put it away, plaything.’

She looked up at him.

‘You’ve already paid us.’

I groaned inwardly; morals and ethics are all very well – I have nothing against them – but I could see that I was going to have to take John to one side and have a word with him about little things like turning down perfectly good honest lettuce.

‘But it isn’t-’

He cut across her. ‘Look, we get forty bucks a day plus expenses; you’ve already paid us four hundred and it’s probably more than the case is worth.’

I’d tried with him, I really had; and Della Ramir was clearly on the side of the angels but you never, ever tell a client that they’ve paid you too much.

‘If more is needed, we’ll let you know as we go along.’

‘Like an installment plan, you mean.’ Her lips curled slightly. ‘That sounds a lot like renting and I’ve already told you – I’m not particularly interested in that.’

I’d seen lots of expressions cross John’s face in the time I’d known him – but the one he had at that moment was a new one on me.

‘There’s always the option of a lump sum on completion if you would rather.’

Her head tilted. ‘I always prefer to do my business up front.’

‘Well, you have already put down a deposit – that gives you a stake in the action.’

‘And in that case, I think it’s only fair that I get to see some of the action; it feels like more of a partnership that way.’

‘Partnerships can get very messy – it takes a certain level of familiarity for it to work out.’

‘I’ve always found that a one-to-one approach results in the more successful outcome.’

‘Have you two forgotten that I’m here?’ I couldn’t stop myself from sounding peevish.

John didn’t take his eyes off her face. ‘We hadn’t forgotten.’

‘All right; you’ve taken the deposit but I’ll still owe you the two thousand dollars.’

‘One thousand six hundred,’ John told her. ‘Plus expenses.’ There was a pause and then he continued, ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’

Della kept her chin high and her grey eyes took on the colour of polished steel. ‘I’m sure.’

‘Okay. But things could get pretty messy, plaything; we might have to get you a bulletproof girdle.’

She looked almost offended, straightened up in her chair. ‘I don’t wear a girdle.’

John’s eyes nearly glazed over. Della dipped her head then uncrossed her ankles, stood up. ‘I have to go – I have another appointment.’

He eased himself away from the desk. ‘I’ll see you out.’

I threw up my hands and hauled myself to my feet with more effort than it usually cost me. ‘Let’s ring the changes – I’ll go outside, you two can do your good-byes in here. At least that way I’ll know where you are.’

I let myself out without stopping to see if either of them watched my grand exit. Susan looked up at me, frowned when I sat down on the battered leather sofa that was nominally there for clients but I’d never actually seen one of them sitting on it. It probably had fleas and if so I’d be scratching for the rest of the day. I picked up a magazine and rifled through the pages ostentatiously.

Susan still watched me. ‘Are you going to tell me or are you going to make me ask?’

I looked at her innocently. ‘Huh? Oh, you mean what I am doing out here?’

She leaned back in her chair, tapping her pencil against the desktop. I grinned at her.

‘Love’s not-quite-so-young dreamers are going through their good-bye motions in there.’

‘Oh.’ Susan glanced at the door into the office but there was nothing to see through the frosted glass panel. She smiled slightly; Susan may have liked to present a hard-shelled face to the world but I knew that under it all the kid was a secret romantic. Plus there was the fact that John was like her big brother and anything that made him happy had a knock-on effect with Susan.

I looked through my magazine and discovered that I’d missed out on some detergent coupons in the July of 1947 – if only I’d known. Five minutes passed quite happily. Ten was a bit of a stretch. By the time fifteen minutes had come and gone and we were heading towards twenty, I was getting antsy and knew that they were just doing it deliberately. Susan was attacking her typewriter, hitting the keys with the precision of a machine and was no help whatsoever in sharing the exasperation I had inflicted on myself.

The door opened, finally, and Della sailed out looking as unruffled as she had when I’d last seen her. She smiled at me benevolently then turned her attention on Susan.

‘Good-bye, Susan; it was lovely to see you again.’

‘Oh, you too. Good-bye.’

I rolled my eyes, kept my arms folded. John got her out of the door to the hallway and managed to stay on the right side of it when he closed it after her. He turned around, looked at me and came as close to smirking as I’d ever seen him.

‘You stinker,’ I said.

He made a noise like a chuckle. ‘Do the words pot, kettle and black mean anything to you?’

ooOoo

Susan Ivanova entered MedLab, a detour on her way to Earheart’s at the end of her shift. It was quiet, just the faint beeps of monitors and the rush of ventilators to break the air of calm.

‘Commander?

She turned, found Lilian Hobbs behind her, file in hand, looking at her enquiringly. ‘Doctor. Is Stephen around?’

‘He’s in MedLab Two – an emergency consult.’ The physician looked Susan over, a swift, clinical appraisal that was more instinctive than deliberate. ‘Are you here about Mr Garibaldi?’

Susan nodded. ‘My shift just ended, I thought I’d stop by and see how he’s doing.’

The doctor pressed her lips together thoughtfully, held out a hand. ‘Please.’ Ivanova followed her to a room off the main floor.

Michael Garibaldi was still oblivious to everything and he looked almost beatific in that slumber – something that Ivanova had never seen in him before. ‘It’s been a long time now.’

‘Yes, it has,’ Lilian said softly. ‘We still don’t know the reason. He should have woken up by now but apart from that there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong physically.’

‘Is- Is there any chance of brain damage from the blow?’

She shook her head. ‘No. We’ve been monitoring activity and the levels are normal. In fact, they’re very active, especially in the regions associated with memory retrieval.’

Ivanova digested the information. ‘Maybe he’s dreaming his life all over again.’ She shivered slightly. ‘If it had been me and my life, I’d have woken myself up hours ago.’

ooOoo

We were back at our desks when I told John about my unseen visitors the night before. He sat forward in his chair, one thumb rubbing against his forefinger, back and forth, back and forth.

'Any idea what they were looking for?'

I shrugged. 'Nope. But I'm guessing that it was the same thing that they were looking for at Morden's place. It can't have been the photographs, they obviously already have those.'

'Hm. And even if they didn't I can't see them killing him to get them back; the only people they're worth that much to are the Ramir family and we've pretty much ruled them out.'

'Yeah.' I put my feet on my desk, scratched the back of my neck and then gave it another scratch for emphasis. 'I think our couch out there has fleas,' I told him; John's face was a study. 'What I don't get is why Bester and his buddies thought that I'd have whatever it is in the first place; we never even met Morden, we didn't see him until after he was dead; and by that point he wasn’t much of a conversationalist.'

'Hm.' His thumb was still moving. 'But Bester probably didn't know that; he may have been working on the assumption that you had already seen Morden.'

I tilted my head at him. 'You leaving yourself out of this picture?'

'Why not? You did.'

I blew out a breath. 'You're not letting that go anytime soon, are you?'

'Not really, no.'

I was thinking of a suitable reply when the door opened again and Susan came in; she held it half-closed behind her.

'Miss Ramir is here to see you.'

'Didn't she just leave?' Maybe she was back for a second helping; I glanced over at John but he looked equally blank.

Susan rolled her eyes slightly. 'Not Della; the other one.'

We exchanged looks; Maya had evidently fallen short of Susan's standards. 'Better show her in, angel.'

She sniffed a little then disappeared and two seconds later Maya Ramir edged into the office. The kid had scrubbed up well, I have to say; she looked respectable even if she did still have the tendency to ooze. She also looked nervous, eyes darting between us.

'Maya.' John stood up, apparently sensing that the girl needed some encouragement, and ushered her across to a chair. Then he walked over and shut the door that Susan had forgotten to close properly, thereby depriving her of her entertainment for the day. He stood for a moment, listening, until the clack-clack of her typewriter started up again.

Maya crossed one leg over the other and, just like her sister, made sure that her skirt covered her knees; I hadn't expected it from her and wondered if the Ramir girls shared some strange leg-related fetish. I had taken my feet off the desk; I sat forward, resting on both arms and looked her over. I hadn’t forgotten that I somewhat owed her for my still being in one piece but with girls like Maya Ramir it doesn’t always do to look too grateful – it gives them ideas and I had the impression that Maya got plenty of ideas all by herself.

John smiled at her. ‘Thanks for ringing last night; you did us a big favour.’

She beamed at him. Right then I decided to give up on him entirely as a bad job.

Maya ducked her head, glanced at me from under lowered eyelashes and cooed at him. ‘I’m glad it worked out. Are you all right?’

The last part was directed at me; I took the nonchalant approach. ‘I’ve got no complaints.’

‘Good.’

‘So,’ John took up his perch on the edge of his desk, ‘what can we do for you?’

Maya took a deep breath and lifted her chin; it was strange but at that moment she looked like a little girl and a proper woman at the same time. She had a way of holding her head at a certain angle that reminded me of Della and I could sort of see the person she could be if someone gave her the chance. Maybe it was a screwy thought but I thought it just the same.

‘It’s about the- the photographs.’

Of course, it would be.

‘Okay. What about them?’

She took another breath. ‘I know that Della hired you to find them; I know that she’s paying you but- But I don’t want you to take her money. If you get them – get them back, I mean – I’ll pay you.’

We both looked at her and she kept her head up and I decided I was on her side.

‘Della has already paid us four hundred-’

‘Give it back to her,’ she said to John, ‘I can match that.’

‘And she’s bringing the total up to two thousand.’ He kept his voice gentle and his face impassive.

‘I-’ Her cheeks went pale. ‘I-I can get the money.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know but I’ll get it. This whole mess is one that I made, it’s my problem; Della shouldn’t have been involved in it anyway and if anyone is going to pay for it, whichever way, it ought to be me.’

She had a nice turn of phrase and she knew how to hold a room. John watched her for a moment more and then smiled slightly. ‘We’ve got no intention of taking anymore of your sister’s money-’

This was news to me.

‘-and we can’t break the contract we’ve made with her; if you want to repay her then you pay it back to her. When we get the photographs – and I promise you, we’ll do everything we can to make that happen – Della will have to be told. But we’ll give them to you. That’s the best I can offer.’

She kept her eyes on him then released her breath in a long stream; her shoulders relaxed some – not sagging, just more like the tension had gone out of them.

‘I understand. Thank-you.’ She lowered her head and fiddled with the clasp on her purse. ‘And I- I’m sorry about...’ She looked over at me. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you.’

‘Don’t be,’ I said cheerfully, ‘it was my own fault.’

Her lips quirked and she was a cute little thing when she smiled; she was even cuter when she wasn’t trying to be and I grinned back at her. The thought occurred to me that if the exchanges of smiles continued at this rate, I may well end up as John’s brother-in-law. I closed my lips firmly over my teeth and concentrated on the rock flashing away on her left hand and wondered if O’Neill had shelled out for it just for her or for her sister.

John was still examining her and he had that look he gets when he's about to be all concerned about someone. 'You might make things easier for yourself if you didn't try looking for attention so much.'

She looked up at him and her lips went into a hard line; then she relaxed again. 'I know.'

'Maybe you should try taking up horticulture,' I suggested.

'Hort- Oh, the orchids.' She made this little moue with her lips. 'That was Father's thing with Della. She still spends a few hours up there most days; to be honest, sometimes I think she just does it to get away from Leonard.'

'He doesn't go with her?' This was news - I would have thought that nothing could prise Leonard away from her for that long.

Maya's nose wrinkled. 'He gets hayfever.' She sounded scathing; there was obviously no great love lost between those two.

That might have been then end of it but John wasn't done playing at being the avuncular type yet; he had his arms folded and was scrutinising her. 'What was your father's thing with you?'

Maya rearranged herself in her chair; there was a bracelet on her wrist that looked like it was worth the gross national product of a small developing country. 'Oh, well, our mother left when I was very young; I don't think he really knew what to do with me. Della was the one he talked to; we didn't really-' She stopped suddenly and her eyes shone more - tears, I realised. 'He used to sit me on his lap and read to me. Poetry, mainly. That was our time together.'

'Della said that you write very good poetry.'

She looked up at John, eyes wide. 'She told you that?'

He nodded. 'She says you're very talented.'

Maya Ramir then did something I hadn't thought she'd be capable of - she blushed. 'Della's always been too kind to me,' she said softly.

He cleared his throat and looked embarrassed and I felt for him there; I've never been much good around dames when the waterworks start and John's not much better but this time he really had brought it on himself. Maya dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief that was about the size of a postage stamp and seemed to consist entirely of lace. 'I should probably get back,' she murmured. She gave her face a quick once-over, uncrossed her legs and stood. John was on hand to escort her the five steps to the door; he opened it for her and she offered him her hand, which he accepted.

'I, uh- I would prefer it if you didn't tell Della about this.' She gazed up at him. 'I'd rather do it myself.'

'Of course.'

'Thanks.' Even from that distance I could see her eyelashes flutter. 'I can see why Della likes you so much. Good-bye, Mr Sheridan. Mr Garibaldi.'

She slinked her way out the way she had come in; John closed the door, turned around and looked at me. Both his eyebrows went up.

'What?'

I leaned back, putting both hands behind my head. 'I was just thinking - if things don't work out with Number One Sister, it looks like you might be in luck with Number Two Sister.'

He pushed himself away from the door and scowled at me. 'Can it.'

John made it back to his desk and had just about got himself settled when Susan opened the door again.

'You two are in demand today - you've got another client.'

I groaned. 'Tell 'em to take a number and wait.'

'Who is it, Susan?'

Her eyes gleamed. 'Nero O'Neill.'

I gawked at her. ‘Nero O’Neill?’

‘Yes.’

‘The Nero O’Neill?’

‘Yes.’

I turned my disbelief on John. ‘What goes on here? Did he get lost?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know – but if we ask him in we might find out.’

That was a cue if ever I heard one; I gave Susan the usual formula. ‘You heard the man, angel – in with him.’

Chapter Text

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ooOoo

7

ooOoo

Susan hopped to it and vanished; less than a minute later Nero O'Neill sidled into our digs. I say sidled and I mean it - he sort of inched in, eyes darting around the place suspiciously and looked like he was hoping that if he wished hard enough he might find himself someplace else. He'd been stripped of his hat and coat so it looked like he was there for the duration.

'Mr O'Neill,' I said heartily, 'long time no see! Come to find out how the other half lives?'

He made a rumbling sound that may or may not have contained any words. O’Neill turned his glare on John and my partner returned him a dazzling grin that was designed to infuriate. Judging by the fact that O’Neill’s nostrils had started flaring I’d say that John had been successful. They eyeballed each other and I thought that maybe they weren’t done playing at bullfighting yet, in which case I’d have to get Escamillo over there a red cape and a matador’s hat. Then all we’d need was Della on the sidelines with a mantilla and some castanets and we’d be good to go. Olé.

O’Neill’s lips twitched; he had a look like he’d swallowed a bug; he let out a breath and advanced into the room. ‘Gentlemen.’ It came from between gritted teeth and I guessed that in his estimation he was using that word advisedly.

John was leaning back in his chair, his fingers drumming lightly against the desktop. ‘Why don’t you grab a seat? I’m already on the edge of mine.’

'I did not come here to trade insults.'

John's eyebrows went up. 'Who's insulting anybody? I simply extended an invitation and made an observation.'

O’Neill’s eyes flashed; he turned to John, looked down at him. ‘What do you want from me? To say that I made a damn fool of myself yesterday? Very well – I made a damn fool of myself. I allowed my temper to get the better of me and I am sorry for that.’

John’s eyebrow’s went up a quarter of an inch; I'm sure that, like me, he had no illusions that O'Neill was sorry for any insult he may have slung John's way - he was just sorry he'd looked like an idiot while doing it. Even so, guys like him weren't used to playing scenes like this so whatever he wanted had to be worth hearing. John narrowed his eyes slightly, tilted his head back. ‘You really better had sit down, Mr O’Neill – all that unaccustomed apologising must be quite a shock to the system.’

His lips twitched again but this time it looked more like humour. He arranged himself in a chair, picked an invisible piece of lint off his trouser leg and looked at each of us in turn. ‘Before I go any further I should make one thing quite clear: I am not someone who is accustomed to allowing outsiders into their private business, nor am I someone who requires help from anyone else. If I have a problem, I deal with it myself.’

My hands were linked together on my desktop – I spread them slightly, palms up. ‘Okay.’

O’Neill leaned back, pulled a cigarette case out of his pocket; he selected one, tapped it against the flat silver surface then lit it. Once the ritual was over he stared at us through the smoke. ‘I have- Well, I suppose that you could term it a problem.’ He flicked ash into the tray on the small table next to his chair. ‘Earlier this morning I was contacted by a man of whom I had heard but with whom I have never had any dealings, nor would I wish to – that is something else I want to be clearly understood.’

‘We’ve got it, loud and clear,’ John said. ‘Does this character come with a name?’

‘Al Bester.’

I sucked in a breath and my ribs flinched. ‘What did he want?’

It came out harsher than I’d meant it to; O’Neill noticed it – he looked at me, hard, his eyes narrowing a somethingth of an inch.

‘I take it that you’ve heard of him?’

‘You could put it like that,’ John replied smoothly; he looked O’Neill over and his face got that closed-off look that he does so well. ‘I’m going to hazard a guess here – do you mind?’

O’Neill spread the hand that wasn’t clenched around his gasper. ‘By all means.’

‘Bester has something to ... sell. For a high price. Photographs, perhaps?’

O’Neill had himself a good long drag on his gasper and studied John. ‘So. I was right – that is why Della hired you.’ He stubbed out the cigarette, sat up straighter in the chair; he had a lot of expensive material in the suit stretched across his broad shoulders. Crawnley, if I knew anything about it, with a Monteith tie. ‘Yes, the man Bester contacted me and told me that he had certain photographs that had been taken of my fiancée, Maya.’

I put my eyebrows up. ‘Tell us something we don’t know.’

O’Neill growled again, his face darkening. ‘This is not easy for me, Mr Garibaldi. Despite what you may think of me I am trying not to make a bad situation any worse.’

It really was quite a temper he had on him and for a moment I wondered if we’d got it wrong; maybe Morden’s friend with the nifty line in ice-pick maintenance hadn’t been one of Bester’s boys.

‘Was that the first time you’d heard about these photographs?’

He looked at me, puzzled, and it looked genuine. ‘Yes, of course it was.’

‘There’s no of course, bud, the man who had the photos before Bester got ‘em wound up nice and dead yesterday.’

His lips writhed. ‘And you think that I- Just who the hell do you think you-’

‘Ah, knock it off.’ John glared at him. ‘Who the hell do we think we are? Who the hell do you think you are coming in here throwing your weight around? If you don’t like it, skip it.’ He jerked his thumb. ‘There’s the door.’

Nine times out of ten John was just plain old Mr Sheridan but then once in a while the military colours put in an appearance and on that morning it was very definitely Captain Sheridan who was in the building.

O’Neill subsided; his lips pushed out and in and he gave his nostrils another flare. 'Until this morning, I had no idea that such photographs even existed. There. Does that satisfy you?'

John shrugged. 'I guess it'll have to.'

‘Kind of you.’ O’Neill tapped his fingers against the arm of his chair; I wouldn’t say that he was squirming exactly – guys like him don’t, as a rule – but it was obvious that the situation had got away from him somehow and he wasn’t quite sure how it had happened. And he didn’t like it one bit. But something was keeping him and his bulk squashed into our beat-up old best chair with the leather coming away from the studs and it wasn’t just to give us an update on the latest business proposition that had been slung his way. He breathed out heavily down his nose. ‘The photographs that you quite correctly deduced, Mr Sheridan, as being in Mr Bester’s possession have been offered to me in return for ten thousand dollars; I requested assurance that this transaction would include any and all prints as well as the negatives. Such assurance was not forthcoming.’ He paused again and redistributed himself in the chair. ‘I pride myself on being well able to attend to my own affairs; had this been a simple business transaction I would have paid Bester and have been done with it but I am not so foolish as to be unable to recognise when I am in a situation beyond my ability.’

I looked over at John and he was looking over at me; he put his eyes back on O’Neill and said, ‘I’m guessing that somewhere under all of that is a request for something – why don’t you just come right out and tell us what it is?’

O'Neill located another piece of invisible lint; maybe he had an invisible valet who wasn't up to the job to go with it. ‘I have my own people-’ he allowed himself a smile at that, ‘-but I prefer that as few people know about this as is absolutely necessary.’

It would be tough for any guy to take that his girl was being used as a pin-up by any number of other unknown specimens but for a character like O’Neill there was that whole public standing thing that would come under threat and by that time I had figured that it was that fact that had seen him haul himself across town.

‘You are both already involved in this affair and you seem ... capable.’ His eyes slid across to John. ‘As I said, Bester’s asking price is ten thousand but I do not suppose that any blackmailer stops his games when he knows that there is more money to be had; I will pay you twice that amount – twenty thousand - if you retrieve the photographs, the negatives and all prints.’

‘And is that just another simple business proposition?’

I’d been so busy watching O’Neill squirm that I hadn’t even noticed that the office door had not been closed properly, nor that it had been pushed slightly wider and that a girl had been standing there listening to all of it. Maya Ramir had a spot of bright colour in each cheek and her eyes glittered. She’d dropped the coy act and she was all woman – claws out and teeth bared. O’Neill turned in his chair, started, stared at her and then stood up.

‘Maya.’

‘What is this? Grand Central Station?’ I asked no-one in particular.

O’Neill took a step and stopped. I didn’t blame him – the look she laid on him would have stopped a charging lion dead in its tracks and sent it running for the hills. Even so, he still aimed a scowl at her that surpassed anything he’d produced so far. ‘What are you- How did you know I was here?’

‘Because I saw your car on the street where you’d left it, you-you great lug! Did you think I wouldn’t notice? Just how stupid do you think I am?’ For a moment I thought she was going to stamp her foot and also thought that if she was, it was a shame that O’Neill’s toes wouldn’t be under it. ‘How dare you! How dare you do this behind my back! You didn’t even have the decency to consult me.’

His chest swelled up. ‘There was nothing to consult about. Go home; leave this to me to deal with.’

Her eyes flashed – she must have been taking lessons from Della. Maya took a few steps forward and glared up at him – even in her heels she only just cleared his chin but that didn’t seem to bother her. O’Neill looked down at her but he was the one who was looking uncomfortable. I folded my arms and waited for the fireworks.

‘Leave this to you – why should I?’

‘Perhaps because I’m the one to whom Al Bester offered to sell your ... foray into the photographic arts.’

She sucked in a breath. ‘And it never occurred to you to discuss this with me? To actually consider me in any of this!’

He stared at her. ‘Consider you- I have done nothing but- My God! I have tried to spare you-’

‘Spare me!’

‘-Spare you and your family any inconvenience and this is the thanks I get!’

‘Thanks?’ Her lips curled and her eyes narrowed, cat-like. ‘Thanks for what, exactly? For treating me as though I were a child?’

It was his turn to sneer. ‘Perhaps you should stop behaving like one.’

I would have expected her to throw a tantrum at that – and thus rather prove O’Neill’s point for him. She didn’t. Instead, Maya went very quiet, very still and when she spoke her voice was low, steady and clear as a bell. ‘I am aware of the mess that I have made – all too aware; I know that other people, my sister, have paid the price for that. But I don’t need anyone to remind me of a fact that I already know – least of all you.’

I almost felt for the guy – he looked like a man who has been playing with his favourite kitten and can’t believe that it’s just put out its claws and scratched him. His mouth opened but no words came out for a moment.

‘Maya-’

‘I know what people think of me and that is all my own fault entirely; and I know what you think of me, Nero, having to settle for second-best just because you failed to get engaged to my sister.’

His lips went white, eyes blazing. ‘That engagement was Greybourne’s idea, not mine. And I never settle for anything.’

There was a pause then and they stared at each other; I had them both in a little more than profile and John was getting a great view of the back of O’Neill’s head.

Maya kept her eyes on his while they stood there saying nothing, then her feet started to shuffle and she looked down at the floor for a change of scene. O’Neill looked even more uncomfortable than he had the entire time he’d been there – which was saying something – and I got the feeling that those two might have got somewhere if they’d taken the apparently unheard of step of having a proper conversation with each other.

She looked up again, kept her chin high. ‘I’m sorry that you’ve been dragged into this ... rather sordid affair. I am. But as I have told these gentlemen and as I will tell Della when I see her, I will take full responsibility for this. The fault was mine and so too will be the remedy. I don’t want your money; you are under no obligation to me.’

He looked at her; one hand was clenched tightly at his side and I saw it relax a little. ‘I see. I do not consider myself under any obligation, as you put it; you may not require or even wish for my help, but you have it – as well as any resources necessary. No strings attached.’

‘Is that another business proposition?’

His hand clenched again. ‘That is not what I intended; but if that is how you prefer it...’

The two bright spots of colour had faded but there was still colour in her cheeks, warm and diffuse. ‘Thank-you, Nero.’

O’Neill made a noise in the back of his throat; when he’d finished with that he pivoted on his heel and turned his eyes on us. ‘About the ... situation ... I had mentioned-’

John held up a hand. ‘Maya already knows the routine – I suggest you ask her for the details. But we, uh, we will have to deal with Bester again and it might suit us to represent ourselves to him as your agents – is that okay with you?’

O’Neill’s shoulders moved fractionally. ‘Considering that that was the intention... I suppose that it will have to be.’ He paused. ‘Well.’

‘Well.’ John leaned back in his chair and he was smiling again – not the full-beam and not the one designed to annoy but something slow and amused like he had some private joke.

‘It would seem that there is nothing else.’ O’Neill turned again. ‘If you will permit me, Maya... That is, if I may take you home?’

He almost managed to sound humble and it would have worked except for the way he was looking at her – up and down like he had some propositions in mind that had nothing to do with business. Maya wasn’t buying it either but we had already established that she was a game girl and she seemed to be willing to play this particular game. She gave herself a few seconds to consider his offer, her head tilted to one side.

‘All right,’ she said casually, ‘why not?’

O’Neill’s lips twitched. They both murmured their farewells and took themselves out. I leaned back in my chair and restored my feet to their favourite position on the desk.

‘That was quite a performance,’ I said. ‘What odds do you want on their marriage still going ahead as planned?’

John grinned and shook his head. ‘No bet.’

‘You think they’ll make it?’ I was sceptical.

‘Buddy, I think they’ll not only make it, I think they’ll downright enjoy it.’

I guess he was right at that, but why was beyond me. Like I said, I don’t get dames; the whole thing was screwy. ‘I hope you were taking note, by the way – one will get you twenty that that kind of, uh, temperament runs in the family.’

I had thought that it might wipe the grin off his face. It didn’t. If anything, I got an even better look at his pearly whites; he put his hands behind his head and eyeballed me. Susan stepped in and John swivelled in his chair to face her.

‘I suppose that you let her in and let her listen in at the door?’ He narrowed his eyes, looked accusing.

She returned the gaze and didn’t even try to look sorry. ‘Well, you know how I feel about indoor sports and that was a doozy.’ Susan perched on the arm of the chair. ‘She’s a funny little thing.’

John raised his eyebrows, grunted in agreement.

Susan shook her head. ‘No, I mean really – she stole my letter-opener.’

Now that did wipe the grin off his face.

‘She did what?’

‘She stole my letter-opener,’ Susan repeated.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. It was right there on the desk and now it’s gone. Apart from Mr O’Neill, no-one else has been out there.’

‘Maybe he took it,’ I said.

Another shake of her locks. ‘No, it was gone before he came in, I just didn’t put it together at first.’

John looked at me. ‘Who the hell steals a letter-opener?’

I considered this. ‘Maybe that’s the answer to the age old question – what do you get the girl who has everything?’

Susan sniggered; John looked pained. I smirked at them both.

‘Say, just how many people have hired you two clowns for the one job?’

I ran it over in my head. ‘Today’s tally brings it up to, uh, four. And a grand total of twenty-six thousand dollars.’

Susan pursed her lips, eyes widening. ‘That’s not a bad little haul.’

I laughed. ‘Isn’t it just.’ I jerked my head at John. ‘Now, why don’t you tell her how much we’re actually taking for it.’

‘Four hundred dollars.’

Dammit if he didn’t sound proud of that fact.

I looked back at Susan. ‘You hear that?’

‘I hear that.’

‘Four hundred. That’s twenty-five thousand six hundred dollars less than the grand total. You know, we could have just taken all of those commissions, got the damn snaps back and let them fight it out between themselves.’

John put his eyebrows up and looked amused. ‘You done?’

I blew out a breath. ‘Yeah, I guess. You’re a lousy businessman, you know that?’

‘Just as well I’m not in business then, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, and what do you call this?’

‘An honest living.’

I snorted. ‘Honesty is overrated.’

John and Susan shared a look and she slid off the arm of the chair, smoothed down her dress. Neither of us ogled her, exactly, but she got our attention all right.

‘Are we going out for lunch?’

‘There she goes with this “we” again,’ John observed.

I nodded. ‘I noticed.’

‘And I’m hungry,’ she said. ‘Well? Are we?’

John put both palms flat on his desktop, pushed himself up. ‘Okay, okay, get your hat and come on. The Great White Hope over there could probably do with something to keep him going anyhow – it’s going to be a busy day.’

I groaned audibly – truer words were never said.

ooOoo

I’d been bracing myself for the inevitable all morning and after our interview with Nero O’Neill I knew how we’d be spending our afternoon. The Black Omega looked the business at night when its lights were low and the booze was keeping its patrons in that happy, hazy place where everything is beautiful. By day and with the house lights on full it just looked overblown and tacky.

After our guests had departed we had taken Susan to the Babylon for lunch and drawn up our plan of attack. Not that it was much of a plan. I remembered from Talia that Bester had one day a week, Friday, where he arrived at the club midday and stayed until closing – as luck (if you want to call it that) would have it, we were on Friday. So, after we’d let Lon feed and water us and listened to one of Gerry’s interminable and incomprehensible stories we gave Susan the rest of the day off and headed across town to the Omega.

'Promise me one thing,' John said as we hoofed it up the steps.

'What?'

'That you'll keep your head in there; I don't much feel like dodging blows.'

'Yeah,' I agreed, 'it might mess up your suit.'

He gave me one of those looks.

'Okay, okay, I promise. Have I ever let you down before?'

He was behind me and paused on the steps. 'Do you really want to pull on that thread?'

I'd already pushed the door open and it took too long for me to come up with a reply for that; John picked up the pace and marched through the door ahead of me, leaving me hanging on the handle. I muttered something under my breath and then followed him in.

We hanged a right past the coat-check desk that was now missing one coat-check girl, which was a pity because she’d been a cute little number and there are very few circumstances where the sight of a pretty face is unwelcome to the discerning male. And I can discern with the best of them. There was one familiar sight, however, and I recognised the big square even from behind.

‘Well, well – Mercury gets some time off from playing messenger boy after all.’

The big lug actually jumped and manouevred himself around to glower at us. I let out a low whistle.

‘What happened – you walk into a door?’

He had a bandage across his whole nose and two black eyes; I admired John’s handiwork and had to admit that when he set about something he did it properly. No wonder Mercury had hoofed it so fast the night before.

‘Wise-guy.’

I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Listen, Mac, you really should consider getting yourself a wider vocabulary. Vocabulary,’ I enunciated clearly, ‘it means the range of words that you know and can use and in your case it’s very limited. Limited. That means you don’t know that many words – you following this, Mac?’

Mercury let out a rumble and the little eyes in his big round face narrowed – but they kept darting towards John who was standing a little behind me with his hands shoved in his pockets and his head tilted back. He was smiling slightly and it was the one that usually meant he was spoiling for a fight and I thought it was a shame that he’d laid down that whole blow-dodging stipulation before we’d even made it inside.

‘Nice to see you again,’ John said lightly, then added, ‘We’re here to see your boss.’

‘Don’t bother bestirring yourself,’ I added, ‘we already know the way.’

‘He ain’t here!’ Mercury started after us.

‘Oh, ain’t he? Don’t worry, we’ll wait.’

We strutted down the staircase, Mercury puffing behind, and onto the main floor. The only other people were the cleaners working the dance-floor up to a nice shine and the band who were lounging around near the bandstand. Steve was in the middle of them, leaning back with his sleeves rolled up. He glanced across and I saw his eyes widen when he saw us. He moved forward, making to get up and I shook my head a little, just enough for him to see. He settled back but I could feel his eyes on us all the way across until we rounded the corner for the stairs up to Bester’s office. When we made it to the end of the corridor I threw the doors open and had the gratifying sight of Bester looking up at us, startled. He put his eyes on us and then they slid past us.

'I'm sorry, boss, I told 'em-'

'It's all right,' Bester snapped. 'Leave us.'

'But boss!'

I rounded on Mercury. 'You heard the man, Mac, get lost.' I glanced at John. 'You do the honours?'

His lips curled. 'Gladly.'

He closed the door in Mercury's big face and I hoped he managed to clip the lug's nose while he was at it. John dusted off his hands and we both sauntered across the room. The office looked just as tacky as it had the night before only more so with daylight coming in at the windows. There was something else different about it too, something I couldn’t quite get a handle on. I shook it off and concentrated on Bester. He had taken the opportunity to get himself arranged and he had this weird rictus grin that didn't do much to improve his looks.

'Mr Garibaldi,' the so-called smile widened, 'this is an unexpected pleasure.'

'Isn't it just,' I agreed.

His shark eyes moved to John. 'And I take it that this is Mr Sheridan?'

'You're right,' John said to me, 'there really are no flies on him.'

I sniggered and we both sat. Bester kept his face in its arrangement but the hand resting on top of the desk was clenched a little too tight.

'Could I offer you gentlemen any refreshment?' His smile turned sly. 'A drink, perhaps?'

I crossed one leg over the other and gave this some consideration. 'I think I'll pass. John?'

'I'm good.'

'But it's decent of him to ask.'

'Oh, definitely,' John agreed, 'in fact, we must remember to return the favour as soon as we can.'

'That's a great idea.' I turned to Bester. 'Isn't that a great idea?'

'You find yourselves very amusing, don't you?'

‘Yeah, we’re thinking of starting a side-line for parties and bah mitzvahs.’ I gave him an eyeful of my teeth. ‘How’d you like to be our first booking?’

Bester’s eyes glittered. ‘Trust me, the only type of booking that I would have in mind for you really isn’t the sort that you’d be interested in.’ His fingers tapped out a rhythm on the top of his desk; he was making a pretty good show of not being too bothered by our having taken up occupation of his fancy office but I could tell he was rattled. ‘Well, gentlemen, to what do I owe this honour exactly?’

‘Two words,’ I said, holding up my fingers and counting them off, ‘Nero O’Neill.’

‘I see.’

‘As I understand it, you got in touch with him - and then he got in touch with us.’

Bester’s eyebrows moved fractionally. ‘Ah.’

John leaned towards me. ‘You have to admit, he has a way with grunts.’

I nodded. ‘Oh, he does.’

‘I must confess to being somewhat surprised,’ Bester said, ‘I would not have thought that someone who moved in Mr O’Neill’s circles would be so...’ he lifted one hand and tilted it, one way then the other, ‘...apt to move in yours.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ I held up my hand, crossing two fingers and waved them at him. ‘We’re like this.’

One corner of Bester’s mouth twitched. ‘I see. So. I assume that Mr O’Neill has asked you to act on his behalf.’

‘Sure, you can assume that,’ John said pleasantly. At least, it sounded pleasant on the surface; what went on beneath that was a whole other ball game. ‘And in return we can assume that you’re looking for some sort of transaction.’

His hand tilted again, just the one way this time. ‘Of course – that is how business works.’

‘Business?’ John let out a snort of laughter down his nose, glanced around the room. ‘Is that what you call this dump?’

‘This dump, as you call it, is a perfectly legal, perfectly respectable establishment.’

‘Oh? You’re stretching the definition of that word “perfectly”, aren’t you?’

Bester’s mouth gave another twitch. He would have said something but he was stopped when a door to our left opened; a girl took a few steps in, saw us and came to a halt.

‘Oh. I’m sorry, I, uh, I didn’t...’

Lyta Alexander, the chantoosy with the red hair and the big eyes stood in the doorway and looked uncertain. Her gaze darted between us and Bester and I could have sworn that her eyes lingered on me a little but I figured that was a screwy notion.

‘What is it?’

‘The boys need the programme for tonight approved.’ She walked across, held out a sheet that looked like it had a list written out – probably the band’s numbers for that night. Bester took it, gave it a cursory glance and dropped it onto his desk.

‘That’s fine.’ He glanced across at us. ‘Gentlemen, this is Miss Lyta Alexander – she fills the spot that the late, lamented Miss Winters filled so admirably.’ He had one paw at the small of her back; she just stood there, impassive and I wondered just how badly she wanted her break if she was prepared to be groped by the sleazeball-in-chief. ‘Say hello, Lyta.’

She put her eyes on us. ‘Hello.’

We stared back and John inclined his head to her.

‘Why don’t you run along?’ Bester slid his hand down a little before removing it and Miss Alexander still didn’t look like she cared one way or the other. She didn’t bestow a glance on any of us as she took herself out the way she had come in. Bester let out a long, contented breath. ‘Lovely girl, don’t you think, Mr Garibaldi?’ He had that sly look again. ‘Or do you prefer blondes?’

I’d known before even going in there what it would be like and I’d promised John that I wouldn’t put my hands on him; even so, my nails dug into my palms. ‘That’s just a myth,’ I told him, ‘gentlemen don’t have a preference, we take them anyway they come.’

Bester actually allowed himself a snigger then, leaned back in his chair. ‘So. I believe we were about to talk business. You are aware of the amount involved?’

‘Ten thousand dollars,’ John said. ‘That’s a pretty high price for a bunch of snaps.’

‘Well, these aren’t just any photographs. Imagine the sensation they would create on, say, the front page of the New York Times. I’m sure that Mr O’Neill would wish to spare so lovely a lady as Miss Ramir – not to mention his own reputation – so ugly a public censure.’

‘No doubt.’ John paused. ‘That price will also cover the negatives as well as any and all prints.’

‘Hm.’ Bester’s lips pushed out. ‘That is a matter for consideration.’

It was John’s turn to smile and he did so – grimly. ‘That wasn’t a negotiation, it was a statement of fact. We’re not haggling at some market stall, we’re buying outright. Consider it a hostile takeover.’

Damn, maybe he would have made a go of it on Madison Avenue after all.

There was another pause then John added, ‘Besides, I’m sure that your interest lies in something beyond a mere ten thousand dollars – something, say, connected with Richard Morden?’

Bester leant his head back, looked down his nose at us from under half-closed eyes. ‘You two do seem to have taken quite an interest in that young man.’

‘Well, we’re not the only ones,’ I put in. ‘After all, isn’t he the reason you’ve been sending your boys to pay house calls on unsuspecting slobs?’

His fingers had taken up the beat of their tattoo again. ‘Have I?’

‘You have,’ John informed him. ‘You must want it pretty badly.’

There was a fraction of a pause in the beat, an eighth of a second, where he was probably deciding whether or not to call our bluff. ‘Mr Morden ... removed a certain item of mine from my possession. I would like it back.’

‘And just what is it worth to you?’

‘Is there a chance that you may be able to retrieve it?’

‘There is.’

Bester watched John for a while, as though he thought that if he studied him for long enough he’d be able to see inside his head. I could have told him it was a waste of time; I’d been trying to get a bead on John Sheridan for two years and I knew as much by the end of it as I had when I’d started.

‘I would be interested to know how you would propose to set about that when you don’t know what the item is.’

John shifted in his chair a little, his hands resting loosely on the arms and looking entirely at his ease. ‘I never said that we didn’t.’

It was the first time I’d ever seen it – Bester actually looked genuinely amused. ‘Well, well. Let’s just see what good detectives you really are; if you are able to retrieve my property I will return the photographs - the negatives and the prints – to you.’ His dark eyes hardened, flashing unpleasantly in the dying sunlight. ‘And then you can use them as you will.’

It was like dancing with the devil and it left me feeling dirty; even if we were just playing at exchanging civil words with that man I’d still sooner have ripped his throat out with my bare hands. We hauled ourselves to our feet, crossed the room. John opened the door, stepped out into the corridor and waited for me; at the threshold I stopped, repeated the salute that Bester had given me the night before.

‘Be seeing you.’

Mercury was skulking in the corridor, looking like he was just killing himself to give something a tune up with those big hams of his. He looked at us suspiciously.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘he’s still breathing – but only just.’

Like the boy scout he was he worked his bulk down the corridor at speed to see what state his beloved boss was in. I allowed myself a good sneer and John all but rolled his eyes at me.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s blow this joint before you start raising cain.’

We reached the main floor again. The band was on a break; some of them were lounging in chairs giving their pieces a bit of solo action all at the same time; Miss Alexander was leaning against the piano, both her elbows on the closed top, chatting with the guy with the hang-dog expression on the stool. Steve detached himself from them and made straight for us.

‘Hi.’ He nodded at us. ‘You two okay?’

‘It’s fine, Doc,’ John said.

‘Okay. Good. Well, I just wanted to say hello. You guys should stop by one of the after hours places sometime – we’ve got a great jam going on most nights.’

‘We’ll do that.’

He looked twitchy and I narrowed my eyes at him. He swallowed.

‘Okay.’

Then he stuck out his hand and I took it. And I felt the sharp edges of a piece of paper pressed into my palm.

‘You guys take it easy.’

‘You too, Doc.’

John stared after him. ‘What the hell was that?’

‘I haven’t had a note passed since seventh grade.’

‘Huh?’

I waited until we’d hit the sidewalk and had a few clear blocks between us and Al Bester before I told him.

‘Well, what does it say?’

I unfolded the slip and read it out.

‘”The Astoria Apartments, room seven a, tomorrow. Ten O’Clock. L. Alexander.”’ I looked up at him. ‘I did not see that coming.’

He looked thoughtful, his jaw doing that twitch thing it had going on when there was some serious mental workout underway.

‘It could be one of Bester’s games – setting us up with his floozy.’

‘You think?’ He was still doing thoughtful.

‘You don’t?’

‘I don’t know – she didn’t look too happy about him having his hands on her.’

‘She didn’t exactly fight him off,’ I complained.

John gave me an indulgent smile. ‘She may have had her reasons.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘One date and he thinks he’s the oracle on all things female. Listen, brother, you still have a lot to learn about women – take it from one who knows.’

‘Oh, I do, absolutely,’ he said, ‘after all, the things you don’t know about women could fill a warehouse.’

‘Nicely played.’

‘Thanks.’

We went another block or so and then passed a bar that looked like an inviting place for two honest gumshoes. We agreed that we deserved something restorative to burn the taste of Bester’s club off our palates. We went in, took a booth and got ourselves a round of bourbon with a bourbon chaser. Once the liquor had started to instill that peaceful easy feeling I said, ‘It’s a nice case you’ve got for us, by the way. Work out what the thing was that was stolen by a guy who was dead before we ever met him and was so important that he obviously thought it was worth dying for. Nuts. This is the screwiest case.’

John blew out a breath. ‘I hear that.’

I shook my head. ‘What the hell could be so valuable that he’d sooner have got an ice-pick in the neck than give it up?’

John took a swallow, kept his hands cupped around his glass on the table. ‘Maybe that was a mistake; those goons of Bester’s don’t seem too bright and I can imagine that they might be a bit more ... enthusiastic ... than necessary.’

My ribs gave a twinge in agreement. I inhaled the bourbon fumes, let them roll around my head some and then had me a good yawn.

‘You look all in,’ John said, eyeing me critically.

‘I feel all in.’ It was a fact; aches were starting to make themselves felt again and it seemed a lot more difficult to keep warm than it had a few hours before. I though longingly of food, a hot shower and stretching out under a ton of blankets.

John looked at his watch. ‘There’s probably nothing doing now anyhow; I guess it makes sense to start again tomorrow. Who knows, maybe Miss Alexander will be the making of us in the morning.’

I squinted at him. ‘You’re an optimist, you know that?’

‘Can you imagine what it would be like if we were both like you?’ He grinned at me. ‘Go on, go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

We agreed to meet one block up from the Astoria Apartments before we peeled out of our booth; I laid out the jack for the drinks, as it was the least I could do after John had saved me from an even worse beat-down than the one I’d actually got.

Outside we treated ourselves to a few lungfuls of exhaust fumes; John shoved his hands into his pockets and studied the sky for a few moments.

‘You headed home? I asked.

He lowered his head and his eyes flashed – amused, not annoyed. ‘Eventually, I’m sure.’

We traded a few more insults then called it a day; he took himself off down the street and I have to admit that what happened after that was not my finest hour. I was not tailing him, I was just keeping an eye on him; plus, I had a feeling that I knew where he was going and I was curious. I wanted to know just how serious they were and how much of it was just a performance for my benefit. I’d always had this theory that you could tell a lot about a person just by watching them walk down the street; it had always been one of those ideas that actually paid off and it was an interesting experience watching John make his way across town on foot when he didn’t know I was watching him. He still moved like a soldier – back straight, shoulders set, his arms moving slightly and regularly as he walked. And people got out of his way – boy, did they get out of his way. Not because he barged at them or demanded it, it just sort of happened. I’ll bet he was so used to it he didn’t even notice it; and the people doing the side-stepping around him probably couldn’t have told you why, either.

And I can tell you, getting that reaction on the streets of New York City is no mean feat. Like I said, you can tell a lot about a person.

I kept well back; even though I’m the one who was actually trained in this stuff and John wasn’t, he wasn’t half-bad at the whole covert stuff. There were times when I thought he knew I was there – times when I’d lose sight of him or when he’d suddenly stop, look in a window. In the end I figured that he really was just browsing and after about half-an-hour I knew that my first instincts had been right. I was even more sure when he disappeared into a florist’s – one of those ritzy ones with the girls with the perfumed hair and the shiny lipstick. He was in there for a while and I blended in by getting the evening edition off a newsie and leant against a wall on the other side of the street pretending to read it. After enough time had passed that he must have looked at every flower they had and when the girl had finished batting her eyelashes at him – trust me, she would have been; they always did – he emerged, clutching a bunch of bright blooms almost as big as the dish they were intended for.

I ditched the paper and resumed my stalking; we skirted the park and I started to hang back further as there were fewer people walking along this particular street. John mounted the steps and Drahl didn’t keep him waiting for too long; when the door opened he was probably only held up another five seconds before he headed on in. The front door closed and I moseyed along the street, looking up at the front of the house. The streetlights had come on and the occupied rooms had a similar glow of lamplight from inside.

I wasn’t even sure what it was that I expected to see but it never hurt to take a good long look. After a while I saw it – two shadows cast against the blinds in one of the upstairs rooms. They were either side of the window, facing each other and then they weren’t two figures anymore, just the one, all blurred together and they stayed that way for a good while.

And it was about that time that I started to feel sort of cheap and a lot of a louse so I turned up my collar, pulled down my hat and headed home.

Chapter Text

ooOoo

8

ooOoo

The Astoria Apartments were a quiet block on a quiet street in a part of town that wasn't up, wasn't down and wasn't quite in the middle. The white-washed façade looked like it had been redone recently and it sparkled in the sun that had decided to put in an appearance. It seemed like overnight the seasons had made up their minds once and for all which one was in residence and by the time I'd met John it was already warm enough not to need a topcoat. I gave him the eye but he didn't look anymore wore out than usual; he returned the look.

'Busy night?'

'Who, me?'

'Yeah, you.'

I squinted at him and he didn't blink; I tried to work out the odds of him being on a fishing expedition, if he was stringing me along or if it was an innocent question and I was just suffering the pangs of a guilty conscience. In the end I decided that taking the casual approach was the wisest one - I wasn't accustomed to wisdom coming from myself and the experience of it was a little heady. If it had lasted much longer I would have needed to sit down. I flashed him some teeth.

'It was okay as far as nights go - how about yours?'

His eyes got this gooey look that I’d never seen before but had a feeling I’d have to get used to it. 'It had its moments.'

I kept my opinion to myself and felt virtuous as we sauntered down the street to our rendezvous. I kept my eyes out as we walked but I didn't see any tell-tale signs of the joint being watched - no car at a convenient distance down the street, no sinister-looking character lurking somewhere he had no business being.

The inside of the building was as quiet as the outside and no-one challenged us as we crossed the lobby; there was a desk and there should have been a man manning it but it was empty. I paused by the neat row of mailboxes and next to the one marked 7a was the name L. Alexander. So far it all seemed on the level but just because the dame actually lived there (apparently) it didn’t mean that we should be taking any risky steps – like assuming that we could trust her.

We got on the lift and discovered that we had company – an attendant with a dopey expression, straw-coloured hair sticking out from under his hat and he didn’t look any perkier at the prospect of having customers than he had before we stepped in.

‘Floor?’ He barely looked at us when he asked and left us in doubt that our destination made no never mind to him. If we even had a destination – I guess we could have set up home in there and he wouldn’t have batted an eye.

‘Seven,’ I said. The gate got dragged across with force and he pulled the lever.

‘Quiet round here,’ I said, although that seemed a stupid comment given the screech of wheels and gears as we lurched upward.

He grunted in response.

‘No doorman?’

‘He’s on a break.’

I glanced at John and filed the information away for later. I wondered if Miss Lyta Alexander had specified the time to coincide with the doorman’s break and if she had, what was she trying to hide and from whom?

The elevator juddered to a sudden halt and we both had to brace ourselves against the walls.

‘Seventh floor,’ he announced in the tones of a man who considered it to be a job well done. It wasn’t; the car had cleared the landing by a good inch and as he was only a short, skinny squirt I wondered if he had done it deliberately to experience the sensation of looking down at people once they’d stepped off. He needn’t have bothered in our case – John’s eye-level was still a few inches above the kid’s head and he looked down at him witheringly.

‘Thanks. Don’t give up the day job.’

The kid blinked at him. ‘This is my day job.’

‘Really?’ John widened his eyes. ‘I’d give that some serious thought if I were you.’

‘Having fun?’ I asked John as we made our way down the corridor.

‘You have to take it where you can find it.’

We reached the door of apartment 7a, which looked just as innocuous as all the others. I pressed the buzzer; a few seconds passed and then we heard it – the sound of footsteps, soft and muffled. Another period of silence and I figured that she was looking at us through the peephole; then the lock was turned, a bolt was shot back and the door opened a fraction.

‘Good,’ she said, ‘you’re on time.’

Lyta Alexander held the door wide and stood back to let us enter; she closed it after us, locking it carefully but only after she’d glanced up and down the hall. Anyone would think that she didn’t want to be seen with us, which could have been seen as impolite considering that she was the one who had invited us there. It was a nice place, small but with aspirations; it was a symphony of thick white carpets, ivory silk cushions and flashes of fawn just to add some colour. One table held a big crystal vase of creamy white roses whose petals were the same shade and lustre as our hostess’ skin.

‘Please, sit down.’ Her speaking voice was soft, gentle, a pleasant instrument. She spoke like someone who wasn’t used to having people interested in hearing what she had to say.

I arranged myself in a two-seater sofa; John took possession of a chair. He’d removed his hat, I’d just pushed mine to the back of my head. I looked up at her; she was watching us both but I had again the same impression that I’d got at the club – that her gaze was staying on me longer and with some intention behind it that I didn’t get. ‘Okay, Red; you’ve got us here - now spill.’

Her dark eyes turned almost black. ‘Oh, really!’

‘Yeah, really. You can lay off the innocent act, precious, you’re the last person we would have expected to start passing notes behind the big boss’ back; unless, of course, he knows all about it and you’ve got a little welcome committee stashed away for us behind one of those doors.’

She was still standing, looking down at us, and she was quite a sight: the sunlight streaking across the room touched her hair, burnishing it to the colour of leaves in the Fall; she was tall, long-limbed and elegant like a racehorse. And as nervy as one – her head moved slightly, like she was trying to get us in proper focus, and her hands kept clutching each other convulsively. Any minute she’d start pawing the ground.

‘He doesn’t know anything about this.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I was sceptical and I let it show.

John cleared his throat slightly and showed that while we’d been down in the trenches, he’d been grappling with more esoteric concerns. (If I haven’t used that word right don’t let it bother you and don’t tell me – I just like the sound of it.)

‘Lyta... That’s a very unusual name.’

She looked at him uncertainly, thrown by the change in topic and by his tone, which was friendly; he leant forward and smiled at her. Her eyes went from him to me and back again.

‘Yes. It’s really Lydia. Lyta’s just my stage name – they thought that Lydia didn’t sound exotic enough, so...’ She shrugged a little and her tone had softened again.

‘Which do you prefer, Miss Alexander?’

She hesitated. ‘Lydia. Please, call me Lydia.’

He smiled at her again. ‘Lydia.’

Once they’d got that settled I leant across to him. ‘Hey – stop making nice with the enemy.’

Her eyes went black again. ‘I am not the enemy.’

I rested back against the small mountain of silk cushions. ‘Come on, Red – you’re Bester’s girl, aren’t you?’

‘No, I’m not!’ Emphatic.

I saw John glance at me; he didn’t say ‘I told you so,’ but he didn’t have to. Lydia took a deep sharp breath and sat down; her legs were only visible from just below the knee down to her ankles but they were good enough to have inspired a few verses all by themselves if a guy was in a poetic frame of mind.

‘And that’s another thing,’ I added, ‘what’s with giving me the eye? First at the club, now here. What gives? Have I got spinach in my teeth or something?’

She sat forward, her hands clasped together on top of her knees. ‘I will answer your questions but first you have to answer one of mine – were you at the club because of what happened to Richard Morden?’

‘Yes.’ I folded my arms. ‘Okay, now it’s your turn – what’s with all the interest?’

Lydia’s shoulders moved up and down slightly. ‘When I walked into Bester’s office I recognised you.’

I stared at her. ‘Yeah, of course you did; snaps of me are in the papers as much as Bogart; I get stopped in the street all the time for my autograph.’ I sneered. ‘Try another line, sister.’

Her lips tightened, turning almost white. ‘I did recognise you from a photograph, as it happens-’

‘Yeah, I’m sure-’

‘It was one that Talia sent me.’

The silence that followed rang in my ears. I didn’t see John stiffen but I heard him move; I could feel his eyes on me. Mine were on her. Lydia sat back, her chin raising and she looked almost triumphant – she’d scored a point and she knew it. I had to do some searching for it but I finally found my voice again and gave it an airing.

‘Like hell.’

‘Talia and I were friends.’

‘Of course you were; you were such good friends that you were at her funeral – oh wait, except that you weren’t.’

She didn’t answer me. She stood up, crossed the room in three swift, graceful strides and opened the drawer of a little table standing by the wall. She picked out a rectangle of shiny paper, a photograph, walked back and all but threw it at me. The tendons on her neck stood out – she was trying to hold it together and only just managing it. ‘I was in Havana when Talia died; I had a residency at a hotel there. She sent this along with a letter she wrote me.’

I looked down at the snap and I remembered it being taken; one night at one of those restaurants where they fleece the guests in any number of inventive ways like getting you to cough up honest dough for getting yourself snapped. But it had been one of those nights and we’d had it done. Talia had been wearing blue satin. I stared at the faces caught in that one moment. She looked happy and so did I.

Lydia had taken her seat again and she watched me. ‘I couldn’t get back; and even if I could have, by the time I heard what had happened it was already too late. Then I was in Honolulu for six months. I only got back to New York last year and I got the job at the Omega because I wanted to know what had happened to Talia – what had really happened.’

I heard John shifting again and it came as a surprise – for a few seconds I had forgotten he was there. ‘You were close to her.’ He made it a statement, not a question. Lydia nodded.

‘We were close – very close, once. I met her when we were both doing a tour during the war – entertaining the troops.’ She smiled a little and her gaze slipped past us, seeing things that weren’t there anymore. ‘We stayed in touch; we’d always planned to do an act together, it just... It just never worked out that way.’

I sat forward, placing the photograph on the coffee table; I smoothed it down then used one finger to push it towards her. I sat back. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘okay. So what’s with the secrecy, huh? If you wanted to know about her why didn’t you come to me? You obviously knew about me, about us.’ I put my eyebrows up. ‘Well?’

She wasn’t a lady who scared easily.

‘I didn’t know you. I didn’t know if it was worth getting in touch with you; I didn’t know who I could trust.’

I turned over a hand. ‘So why now?’

‘You’re friends with Steve, aren’t you?’

Our pal the go-between. I nodded.

‘Yeah, we’re friends.’

‘He was worried; he said that you were probably in over your heads and he was probably right – people don’t tend to stay alive for too long around Al Bester.’

Good old Doc – always looking out for other people’s problems and not too good at dealing with his own. Then again, that seemed to be a characteristic shared by a lot of people I knew and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

Lydia flipped open a box on the table, offered us each a cigarette; after we both refused she lifted one out and lit it with a heavy tabletop lighter. She tilted her head back, blew out smoke and looked at us. ‘I figured that maybe we could help each other; at least, maybe I could help you.’

John was tapping one finger against the arm of his chair. ‘You really hate him, don’t you?’

A smile curled her lips and it wasn’t a pretty one. ‘Everyone hates him – mostly they’re just too scared of him to do anything about it.’

He tilted his head. ‘And you’re not scared?’

‘Yes, I am; of course I am.’ She blew out more smoke, a short hard breath. ‘I’d be stupid not to be.’

He digested this. ‘What can you actually tell us about Richard Morden?’

Her lips moved out and in. ‘Not that much, really. I mean, I didn’t know him all that well - he was just someone who always seemed to be turning up. I wasn’t even sure at first that he was the reason you were there but of course it had to be, because after Della-’

She stopped herself and it was John’s turn at surprise. Admittedly it was one that we both shared.

‘Della... Della Ramir?’ He stared at her.

Lydia’s lips had stopped moving out and in – they were pressed together and a flicker, like resignation, crossed her face.

‘Yes.’

A pause and then, ‘You’re the friend who recommended us to her.’

She nodded. ‘Yes.’

I finally took my hat off, dropped it on the table and passed a hand over my head. ‘Whoa. Let me get this straight: you work for Al Bester; Morden was one of his boys – he also worked for the Ramirs and Della Ramir is your friend. But, what, you never thought to mention that her chauffeur was doing a little moonlighting on the side?’

Her eyes flashed again, impatient. ‘I didn’t know that he worked for her; I didn’t know that they even knew each other.’

John shifted in his chair, made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a cough that caught in his throat. ‘You never recognised Della’s chauffeur?’

Lydia stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Do you really think I wouldn’t have told her if I’d known? We’re not bosom companions; we hardly mix in the same circles. Look, I was booked to sing at some benefit and Della was there. We got talking, we got on, we liked each other. That's quite a big thing, for someone like her to want to be friends with someone like me. Every now and then we talk on the phone; sometimes we have lunch. I never saw Morden with her; I only found out that he’d worked for her sometime after he’d left them-’

‘He was fired,’ I put in.

Her hand waved dismissively. ‘Fine, fired then. And by that point it really didn’t seem relevant – and what was I supposed to do? Call her up and say, “Oh, by the way, did you know that your ex-chauffeur works for a gangster?” ’ She released a breath, played with the bracelet hanging from one slim wrist. ‘I didn’t see the point. Then a few days ago Della called me and asked if I knew anyone who knew the name of a good private detective. She didn’t tell me what the trouble was and I didn’t ask. I gave her your name because Talia always said that you were on the level. Are you?’

It was real quiet then; there was a clock in the room, a sleek silver number, and I could hear every turn of every cog in it. I cleared my throat. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m on the level. We both are.’

Lydia tilted her head back, drawing in a deep breath that seemed to go all the way down to her toes.

‘Why don’t we start this again?’ John said. ‘You tell us everything you know about Morden, Bester, the lot – and we’ll see where that gets us. Okay?’

Lydia nodded. ‘Okay.’

She treated us to coffee; while she was in her kitchen rattling cups and heating up the percolator I leant across to John.

‘Hey – did Della mention anything about knowing someone at the Omega?’

‘No.’ Then he put his lips together and that was it, I didn’t get another word out of him. I narrowed my eyes at him but all I got was his profile.

Lydia came back with a tray, swaying across the room and when she sat down her skirt moved a little higher and from what I could tell the top half of her legs was probably just as good as the bottom half. I took the cup she passed me, spooned in some sugar and gave it a stir. She made good coffee. And she was also the second girl who had chosen to give me something on Bester and I promised myself that it wouldn’t end up like the last time. Not again.

‘You said you didn’t know why Della wanted a detective,’ John said, waiting for his coffee to cool.

She shook her head. ‘No, but I can guess.’ Off his look she continued: ‘There’ve been rumours flying ever since we heard what happened. Maya Ramir was mixed up with Morden, wasn’t she?’

He didn’t confirm it and he didn’t deny it either but that pretty much told Miss Alexander what she wanted to know. ‘And now Della’s being blackmailed because of it – right?’

I gave her a hard look. ‘That’s one hell of an assumption to make.’

Her lips curled again – that strange, cold smile. ‘Maya Ramir wouldn’t be the first girl to have her picture taken.’

We both stared at her. Maybe it was more than poetry that those legs of hers had inspired. Back when I was on the job I'd done my fair share of busting up rings that dealt in girly pics and I'd met plenty enough girls who'd done the posing - they were usually on their uppers and prepared to do most anything to keep body and soul together. Even so, it was still one of those things that left me not quite knowing where to put my eyes but I decided to brazen it out and keep them on her face. John had spent most of his life well removed from anything that sordid so he did a great deal of throat-clearing and shifting about. If I knew him, which I like to think I did, he was probably studying the back wall.

'So you, uh-' The frog in John's throat must have leapt across to mine.

'Not me.' Lydia didn't look shocked or even offended at what we had both been thinking; if anything, she looked a little bored. 'My value to him comes from other talents - I can sing. Bester can make more money out of me if nobody's got any dirt on me, not even him.'

'So how do you know about it?'

She raised her shoulders and let them down again. 'A lot of girls at the club have ended up that way.'

'So he takes the pics then peddles them, huh?'

'Something like that; as far as I know they're ... distributed ... to certain clients. But then there's the other side of it.'

'Oh?' I waited. Her cheeks coloured a bit and I didn't blame her - it was an ugly business.

'A lot of people owe Bester money... I mean, they owe the club money.'

'Gambling debts.'

'Yes. And sometimes, well, I've heard that sometimes Bester will take the payment in kind, if it's a woman. A good-looking one, usually.'

'With a rich husband,' John stated. There was tension in his voice - given half a chance he'd be off on another crusade.

Lydia nodded again. 'That's right. They pose for him to write-off the debt but then Bester blackmails them with the photographs. He's very selective about his victims and it's all done very discreetly.'

'Yeah,' I said, 'he's a real prince.'

For all that, I couldn't really imagine Bester playing at photographer and as it turned out, he hadn't - he'd been the brains behind the operation but the cameraman had been none other than Richard Morden. And what a pair they must have made. It was a house in Harlem they'd used, well out of the way in a neighbourhood where the comings and goings of the rich folk would have been noticed but everyone was used to keeping their mouths shut if any questions were asked. Maya Ramir had probably been a solo effort on Morden's part, taking a leaf out of the boss' scummy book.

When she'd finished giving us the low-down John blew out a breath redolent with disgust. 'Is there anything Bester isn't into?'

Lydia had her feet tucked neatly together to one side, she looked more relaxed than she had when we first got there. 'I don't think so; he pretty much runs everything out of the Omega: blackmail, the photographs, dope...'

I rolled my eyes. 'Great - that racket.'

'It’s pretty big business for him; but I don't know anything about it and I don't want to know,' Lydia said; she looked at us both as if we'd suggested that she should. I held up my hands.

'Take it easy - we're not exactly sold on getting messed up in that either.'

'Good; because I'm willing to help you, obviously, I wouldn't have taken the job in the first place and I wouldn't have asked you here if I didn't, but that's all. I'm not going to play the patsy.'

'And no-one's asking you to.'

She settled again. 'Okay.' She leant across for another cigarette, rolled it between her fingers before she lit it; when she looked up again she looked a little embarrassed. 'I'm sorry; I wasn't always like this, you know. You get used to people always wanting more from you, I guess.'

It was true, what she said, and sort of sad but it seemed to fit her. Her eyes were sad - well-shaped and liquid, especially when she was talking to you. She was just as out of place in the whole damn mess as Talia had been. As we all were.

We left her in her white apartment with the clock ticking and rode the elevator down to the lobby. Lydia had told us that the kid on the car was called Joe and that he was okay; we had to take her word for it as he seemed as unmoved by us on the way down as he had on the way up – except that I caught him darting looks at John and figured that maybe the kid was thinking over the advice about the day job. He got us within half an inch of the ground floor, which I guess was good enough.

When we got to the sidewalk again it was even hotter than before – it was going to be a long summer. I looked at John’s face and that tick was in his jaw again.

I sighed.

‘I guess we’re headed uptown, huh?’

He turned to me; I took one look at his mug and felt sorry for her. Ritzy dames weren’t used to having that kind of hell unleashed on them.

‘I am; you don’t have to be.’

‘Guess again, brother,’ I said, ‘I don’t shake loose that easy.’

His jaw unclenched a fraction; I got a flash of teeth that was meant to be friendly. ‘You don’t say.’

We started up the street.

‘You know, it could be innocent,’ I told the side of his face. ‘Maybe she just didn’t think it mattered.’

The hat pulled down shadowed most of his face but I could still see the glitter from his eyes. ‘Well, we’ll soon find out.’

ooOoo

Neither of them had taken that path deliberately; one had not guided the other’s steps; but through an unspoken, possibly unconscious, assent, they had found their way there.

The Zen garden was a public space, there was no claim on it. Even so, Delenn felt strangely possessive about it. There were many who found solace and peace there – and there was no reason why they should not. But she could not prevent herself from thinking of that place as theirs.

It was occupied when they arrived there: a young man on one of the benches reading a book; a couple talking quietly, laughing with each other at some private joke.

Delenn glanced up at him, caught the annoyance that flashed across his face before it was controlled, hidden again. It came as little surprise that, apparently, he thought of this place in the same way the she did; but the sure knowledge brought its own rush of pleasure.

They had walked side by side but as they passed through the opening into the garden Sheridan stood aside, one hand guiding but not quite touching her. She passed him, turned, her paces slowing until he was next to her again. The new uniform suited him, she thought: the lines were cleaner, less bulky; the black stark against the tan of his skin.

He looked at her then and for a moment she felt caught, the indulgence of her gaze exposed so unexpectedly – but she did not lower her eyes. And he smiled.

ooOoo

We were becoming regular guests on the stoop outside that particular establishment. Any more visits like that and we’d have had to take out a lease. John had rung the doorbell and we waited until Drahl popped out from wherever it was that they kept butlers until some butling was required. He opened the door and peered at us.

‘Yes?’

Anyone would have thought that he’d never seen us before; maybe he was just hoping that he’d never seen us before and that if he kept the act up for long enough we’d go away.

‘Is Della in?’

Drahl looked at John with an expression like he’d just been given a lemon to suck. He breathed heavily down his nose but as he seemed to be aware of the state of affairs between his employer and my partner (and I was starting to wonder if anyone in New York State wasn’t) he obviously decided that it was best to come clean.

‘Miss Della is in the plant rooms.’

‘Fine.’ John marched on in and I trailed behind feeling for once like the more urbane one of the outfit. ‘We’ll show ourselves up.’

We made it a little more than halfway across the marble hall when another voice stopped us. I use the word ‘stopped’ loosely – it really just slowed us down.

‘Forgive me, but what are you doing?’

It was Leonard – my favourite spectacle fetishist; his cheaters were in place for once but it was even money that they wouldn’t stay there long.

‘We’re here to see Miss Ramir,’ John told him, prodding the button that called down the elevator; it kicked into life with a lot less fuss than the one at Lydia’s building and without the dubious charms of Joe.

Leonard took a step forward and addressed the back of John’s head. ‘I’m sorry, but you cannot simply walk in here and impose yourself on Miss Ramir; she is not-’

John turned with something as close to a snarl as I’d ever seen. ‘Look, kid, when I need your opinion I’ll ask for it.’ He got on the elevator; I hopped in next to him; he drove the gate home and then jabbed his thumb in the direction of the call-button. ‘Until then, if you’ve got anything else to say, press that and wait.’

‘You can always polish your glasses in the meantime,’ I called to him helpfully – and I’d swear that as we moved upwards I saw the handkerchief go from his breast-pocket.

The plant rooms were just as hot as I remembered. In fact, I’d say that they were even giving it a bit of extra steam just for the occasion. Water dripped down onto my head to say hello and I wished that I hadn't fallen prey to a moment's weakness and let Drahl make nice with my hat. We pushed on through the indoor jungle and there were around a few hundred blooms in there from big bold numbers that practically shouted at you to tiny little pale things peeping out from under foliage. And in the middle of that we found Della, wrapped up in some Japanese-type silk number on top and wide trousers below. She was spraying a row of dendrobium aphrodite and with the mist rising up around her she looked a bit like Aphrodite herself – and as cool as a long drink on a hot day. Her grey eyes wandered over us both with no sign of surprise.

'I was not expecting both of you,' she said calmly.

'I didn't know you'd been expecting even one of us at all,' John said.

Della allowed herself a faint smile. 'Lydia called me.'

'Ah.'

They stared each other down; Della placed her sprayer on the workbench.

'It's funny,' John continued, 'or maybe I'm just remembering things wrong but I don't seem to recall your mentioning that you knew a girl who works at the Black Omega - even when we were outside the place.'

She held herself very straight, very still. 'No, I did not mention it.'

'I see.' He gave her a long hard look and if it was designed to embarrass her it didn't work - she just stared straight back at him. 'Any particular reason?'

'I didn't think that it was relevant.'

'That's what I said,' I told her and grinned ingratiatingly - it never does to alienate your meal-ticket. 'I told him: "Maybe she just didn't think it mattered," that's exactly what I said.'

'Michael.' John ground the name out between his teeth; I turned the grin on him, added some infuriation to it and he shook his head, blowing out a breath.

Della watched the exchange with some interest and what looked like amusement but when she addressed John again she was all seriousness. 'I didn't mention Lydia because I didn't think that it was worth mentioning. I had asked her for a favour and she didn't know why or what it was about; that we ended up there was just a coincidence and I didn't want you to get the wrong idea about Lydia. She's a good person.'

'I'm not saying she isn't-'

'Then what?'

His shoulders relaxed. 'Then nothing. Nothing; it isn't important.'

Her lips twitched a little and her eyes changed from slate to something more like the colour of a turtledove. ‘Good.’

Della moved away from her arrangement of horticulture and I realised that she wasn’t quite as cool as I had first thought – her cheeks were flushed and there was a sheen clinging to her skin, down her throat to the open V of her top. She brushed the back of one hand across her forehead.

‘Here.’ John pulled the display handkerchief out of his breast-pocket and applied it to the face that she obligingly turned up to his. And I was back playing gooseberry so I leant against a bench and buffed my nails against my lapel until they were done.

‘Thank-you,’ she said eventually.

‘Anytime,’ he replied, folding up the square of silk and putting it back where it belonged.

‘Is there anything else that I can do for you?’ She was nice enough to include me in the query, flashing her peepers in my direction so that I wouldn’t feel left out.

‘Nah, that does it,’ I said. ‘Oh, one thing – Maya’s a bit light-fingered, isn’t she?’

It was the first time I’d seen it happen and I didn’t count on seeing it again any time soon, but Della grimaced. Only a little, but enough so as you’d notice.

‘She only does it when she’s nervous. What did she take?’

‘She ran off with Susan’s letter-opener yesterday. It was an antique, too – passed down to her by her mother’s uncle’s cousin on her sister’s side; the funny thing is-’

‘The funny thing is that when we find it, it will probably be lodged between your shoulder blades,’ John said.

I looked pointedly at Della. ‘You see what I have to put up with?’

She smiled benevolently. ‘I’ll make sure that she gives it back.’

‘Don’t bother,’ he said, ‘we’ll add it to the expenses.’

‘I take it that I’ll be receiving a full breakdown of all costs?’

John nodded. ‘Comprehensive.’

She smiled again – not benevolently – and then frowned. ‘Yesterday – you didn’t say anything about it last night.’

She sounded accusing and I’m sure that I wasn’t the only one on whom the irony of this was not lost. John was unfazed.

‘It slipped my mind.’

I tried not to see them looking at each other but it was pretty hard to avoid. I cleared my throat but I needn’t have bothered; a bomb going off right under them probably wouldn’t have been a distraction.

‘Right. Okay.’ I clapped my hands together. ‘People to see, bad guys to catch – we better get moving.’

‘I’ll catch you up.’

I blew out a breath. ‘Yeah, of course you will.’

I fought my way back through the jungleland to the elevator; I waited for it, got in and turned around to drive the gate home. They were both still visible through the small rainforest in between. John had his hands on her waist and then pulled her to him with more force that I would have thought he’d use on a woman: not that I’d given that much – or any – thought at all.

Della didn’t seem to mind.

The elevator started downward and it was a pleasantly smooth ride back down to the hall. Drahl was on hand to see me out, peer in after me in an attempt to locate the other half of my particular duo and then escort me across to a chair. I sat cooling my heels and he stood over me, looking slightly less disapproving than he had on our first acquaintance – he even offered me refreshment. I squinted up at him.

‘Y’know, you’re starting to sound almost friendly there, buddy – what gives?’

He gave me one of those sniffs and I can tell you that until you’ve been sniffed at by Drahl, you have not been sniffed at.

‘Miss Della informed me that neither Mr Sheridan nor yourself are quite so uncouth as I may have initially assumed, sir.’

‘No fooling?’ I folded my arms and grinned at him. ‘Well, she’s absolutely right – we’re as couth as it gets.’

It may have been a trick of the light bouncing off all that white marble but I think that he almost smiled.

It was a good twenty minutes I was in that hall before we heard the elevator engage and the car rose up; it returned a few moments later and Drahl shimmied across to let John out. He didn’t have a hair out of place but he wore a look like the cat that had got the canary. I half expected to see feathers coming out of his mouth. He was reunited with his hat and then looked at me looking at him.

‘What?’

I shoved my hands in my pockets. ‘Oh, nothing; I just thought that you’d got lost up there.’

He looked all innocence with just a hint of indignation. ‘I was helping her with the germination records.’

I know it was vulgar but I couldn’t help it: I threw back my head and roared. ‘Brother, I have never heard it called that before.’

‘Really.’ He pulled on his hat, stopped at the door and then grinned at me. ‘You need to get out more.’

ooOoo

I may have made a song and dance about getting out of there but it was with good reason: it was - as I pointed out once we were back pounding the sidewalk – a good two hours past lunchtime and I got cranky (Susan’s word for it) if I wasn’t fed at regular intervals.

‘I’d never have guessed,’ had been my partner’s response and I’d told him that sarcasm didn’t suit him and that he should leave it to the pros.

We found our way to a reasonably respectable-looking establishment that sold food appropriate to two guys who had to work for a living. The waitress was a cute brunette with a wiggle in her walk and when she breathed the bodice of her uniform stretched across her breasts, the buttons gaping a little under the pressure. When she opened her mouth a Louisiana drawl came out. It could easily have become my favourite place in the city to eat.

We ordered food and enough coffee to keep the Brazilian economy afloat for a year and took a good long look at our headache of a case. When that didn’t help we walked away from it, took another look and in the end I was considering sneaking up on it and clobbering it while it wasn’t looking.

‘Nuts.’ I drained my third cup of coffee. ‘I don’t know about you but I’m seriously considering taking up the ratfink code – cut loose and get the hell out while the going’s good.’

That earned me an amused smile. ‘Nice try.’ John tapped his fingers against the tabletop. ‘You know, I can’t shake the feeling that all of this is a lot more simple than we think it is: there’s something right in front of us, I’m sure of it. I’m just damned if I know what it is.’

I’d scooted down in my seat, had my head tilted back and my eyes closed. ‘If you get a revelation, let me know; I’m busy working out what I’ll do with my share of four hundred dollars.’

‘Plus expenses,’ he reminded me.

I waved a hand. ‘You keep ‘em, I’m feeling generous; buy your girl some more flowers.’

‘More?’ There was a note of suspicion in his voice.

Double nuts. I played it cool.

‘She likes flowers, doesn’t she? She’s got enough of them. I would have thought it was a nap: boy likes girl, girl likes flowers, boy buys girl flowers.’ I opened one eye. ‘Why?’

He looked vague, finishing his coffee and fixing on a point somewhere to the left of my ear. ‘Oh, no reason.’

I amused myself by ripping up a napkin into shreds and watching the passing trade through the window. 'Actually, I take it back; on second thoughts I think I will hang onto the expenses money considering that you're working your way into the upper echelons.'

'You're not letting go of this any time soon, are you?'

I grinned at him. 'Not planning on it. You better get your throwing arm in good working order for the next time you and O'Neill are playing quarterba-'

And there it was, just like that. All the pieces that had been spinning around suddenly fell into place.

'What? What is it?'

'That's it, by God; that's it!'

He stared at me, worried. 'What's it?'

'The whole damn thing! Listen.' I sat forward, elbows on the table. 'Remember what Maya said? That Morden had told her he needed money, a lot of it, and she didn't have enough?

'Yeah, I remember. And?'

'And what if he was setting himself up in business? He was already setting himself up in the snaps and blackmail racket but that may not have been the only thing he took from Bester. It's a nice little earner but there's a bigger score that guys like that get into.'

'Dope.'

'Dope,' I agreed. 'One will get you fifty that what Morden stole from Bester was dope. Maybe not even that much - just enough for him to get a few clients of his own and get his hooks into them.'

John thought it over in the time it took most people to draw breath. 'It would be enough for Bester to want him dead over it. But Morden didn’t have it to give when Bester’s goon squad came calling – so what happened to it?'

'Maya happened.'

His eyes widened. 'Maya? Look, Mike, I know she's flaky but I think that even she might have owned up to nabbing a packet of dope from a dead guy's room.'

I shook my head, leant forward and he actually pulled back a little - I guess I looked as crazy as I felt. 'She didn't know she had it; I bet she still doesn't know. And Della just told us – Maya lifts things when she gets nervous and she'd have been nervous all right, going back with him; probably scared stiff when he wouldn’t give her the photos so she did what she does and picked up the first thing to hand. The dope is hidden inside, it's got to be. I bet Morden didn't even realise what had happened - he may not have even when they were killing him.' I paused. 'And if he did and kept her out of it, it may have been the one decent thing he did in his life. You see? You do, don't you? It's the only thing that makes sense.'

John's lips pressed together for a moment. 'All right, it makes sense; but what makes you so sure?'

I jabbed my finger on the tabletop and the cups danced in their saucers. 'Because I saw the same damn thing in Bester's office the night I was there, then when we went back it was gone; I just didn't realise what it was I'd seen - and then didn't see. They must have a lulu of them, probably be what they use to hide the stuff in, ship it about.'

He was getting antsy, his jaw starting to tick. 'What "thing"?'

'It was exactly the same type of dingus that you and O'Neill were tossing around. It was that damn bull.'

Chapter Text

ooOoo

9

ooOoo

It was near enough dusk by the time we got back to that fine old townhouse overlooking the park. When Drahl opened the door we spilled into the front hall like a couple of corks out of a bottle. He went stiff, trying not to look too surprised at the couple of mad men who had just invaded but there was a wrinkle between his eyebrows. He opened his mouth and a second later his voice caught up.

'Miss Della is not at home, sir.' He addressed John.

'Thanks, but that doesn't really matter right now.'

'Is Maya here?'

Drahl was caught between us, his head swivelling as he tried to decide which of us was the more rational and so his best bet to deal with; in the end he swelled up his chest and addressed a point somewhere in between.

'I will ascertain whether or not-'

'Fine.' I pushed past him, started for the door on the far side of the hall. 'While you're busy ascertaining, we'll be in the study.'

'Mike, for God's-'

I didn't even know if I was headed in the right direction but I'd get where I was going one way or another. I heard John say something to Drahl and then his feet pounding after me. He caught me up, grabbed my elbow.

'Will you take it easy?'

'Take it easy?' I shrugged him off, kept going. 'You take it easy - take it easy for both of us. Am I going the right way?'

He swore under his breath and I took that as a yes. We kept going forward and it wasn't too long before I heard more footsteps pounding after us - quick, light ones this time that clattered on the exposed floor between the expensive rugs.

'What's going on; what are you doing?'

I stopped, turned and peered at Maya over John's shoulder.

'Is that dingus still in your sister's room?'

She frowned. 'What dingus? I don't even know what that means; what are you talking about?'

'I'm talking about the statuette you lifted from Morden's place the other night.'

If I'd had any doubt that I was right it was gone then. Her cheeks went white and then flared red.

'I don't- I don't know what-'

'Skip it,' I said. 'You took it, we all know that. Is it still in the study?'

Her eyes were wide, round; she kept trying for a little smile but guilt or panic kept tugging it down. In the end she nodded, once, stiffly.

I turned back and headed down the corridor again. 'Is it this door?' I called back without looking. There was a murmur from further down the line. 'Speak up, precious, I can't hear you.'

'She said yes.' John's voice sounded just behind me, low and contained; he wasn't happy.

I threw open the door, flicked on the light and stood in the middle of the carpet, taking a good long look. It was tidy, not the sort of place that you'd have to spend a lot of time trying to find something in. There was a scent on the air, roses from the big vase of them over by the window and behind that aroma the one I recognised as Della's perfume. I wondered vaguely if the flowers were the ones that John had bought her. Or maybe that bunch had been put in some other room she spent a lot of time in.

The statuette had been moved from the table where O'Neill had found it and was taking up space on a shelf along with half-a-dozen leather-bound volumes. I walked over, picked it up, considered its weight in my hand. It wasn't the type of thing I'd want cluttering up my digs under any circumstances: it looked to be made from bronze and the subject was at its leisure, sitting on the ground with its legs folded under it, resting on a thick wooden base.

I turned around. Maya had followed us in: the overhead lighting gleamed against her hair and showed up the chalky pallor of her face; it made the rouge on her lips and cheeks look like garish blotches; she was biting down on one thumbnail and she stared at the thing in my hands. John had got behind her, leaning against the closed door and I moved across a few steps, blocking the door set into the panelling and her only other way out.

'You took this from Morden?'

'I...' The fight had gone out of her but she must have dug around deep down and came up with something else. She lowered her hand and it balled at her side until the knuckles turned white but she raised her chin. Her eyes were big and luminous and beautiful. 'Yes; yes, I did.'

'Why?'

She shrugged. 'I don't know. I was nervous, I suppose; I didn't want to be there. He wouldn't give me the photographs so ... so I took something from him, maybe...' Her voice wavered; she couldn't even convince herself that it had been a conscious act.

'Why did you put it in here?'

Another shrug. 'I don't know.'

'Didn't Della ask you where it had come from?' I remembered the look on her face when she'd noticed it that day, the puzzlement; but she'd been too distracted by her new swain and I wondered if she'd even given it another moment's thought afterwards.

'Yes, she did. I- I told her that a friend had given it to me. As a joke.'

I put my eyebrows up.

'And she believed that?'

Maya shifted, the toe of one shoe screwing against the floor. 'Why not? It's the sort of thing my friends would do.'

'Some friends you've got there,' I commented.

Her eyes flashed and she tossed her hair over her shoulder. 'Who are you to judge? You don't even know the people I know; there's nothing wrong with them.'

I sneered; I shouldn’t have but I couldn’t help it. 'If there was anything right with them, would you do half the things you do?'

Her lips tightened and then curled, dismissive and not without contempt. 'You're so smart. You think you have all the answers, don't you?'

I opened my yap but John's voice cut through.

'Come on, Mike, lay off her.'

He eased himself away from the door and crossed the room to us. Maya kept her eyes on me, looking down her nose in that way that only girls with money can, even if you know more about them than is good for either them or you.

'Okay.' I put the dingus down on a table, wiped my hands one against the other as though that would somehow get rid of the taint. 'Okay, I'm sorry.'

She folded her arms and then raised a hand, started twisting a lock of hair between her fingers and giving a good impression of someone who didn't give a damn whether I was sorry or not.

'What's the big deal about that thing, anyway? It's just some statuette; it isn't even a nice one.' She looked at it. 'In fact, it's incredibly ugly.'

'If we're right about it, it's not its looks that anyone is interested in,' John said.

A frown rippled her brow and her mouth formed a pout. 'I don't understand.'

'You will,' I said. I picked up the bull again, turned it over and then studied the heavy base. 'Is there a blade or something lying about?

John did the honours, grabbing a letter opener from the writing-desk (it wasn't Susan's - this one probably really was an antique) and handed it to me. I inserted one point in the joint that ran all the way around the base; I twisted the blade, working up a bit of leverage until I felt the wood start to give. The other two crowded around me, eyes fixed on where I was working. I dropped the letter-opener and started easing the thing apart with my hands; it was a tight fit and took more effort than I would have thought but in the end it gave and the bottom of the base came away in one hand. I put that part down, held the whole thing upside down and we all peered into the exposed hole. Light glinted off the smooth rounded plastic inside; I stuck my fingers in and pulled it out.

The dingus must have been hollow all the way up to the top because it was a good-sized packet when it finally came out. It was tightly wrapped, bound with Sellotape all the way around, and through all that I could clearly see the white powder all packed together inside it.

Maya’s breath came fast and shaky; when she spoke her voice wasn’t much above a whisper. ‘What is that?’

‘Dope,’ John said and he sounded grim. ‘Probably nose-candy.’

She was blank. ‘What?’

‘Cocaine.’

The change in her face was immediate – a little shocked and a lot disapproving. She took a step back, putting distance between herself and the stuff that had come along and dirtied her sister’s favourite room in the house. And it was genuine all right, that reaction, no play-acting. So the wild girl wasn’t quite as wild as she had seemed and I guess that had to be a point in her favour.

‘I didn’t know it was in there,’ she said.

‘I know.’ I slipped it back into its home and jammed the base back on. When it was hidden from view Maya seemed to come back to life and the colour flooded back into her face.

‘I don’t understand. Why is that stuff hidden there? Where did it come from?’

‘Morden stole it from a man called Al Bester,’ John told her. ‘You know who he is?’

She nodded. ‘He owns the Black Omega.’

‘Right. And he’s a gangster; and Morden had been one of his boys. Did you know that?’

‘No!’ Vehement.

‘Okay.’ John leant against the back of a sofa, folded his arms. ‘When Bester realised that Morden had made off with that’ –he jerked his head towards the dingus- ‘he sent someone to get it back; but Morden couldn’t hand it over.’

‘So they killed him,’ she said and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘That’s why Richard was... They murdered him for that. I’ve done it again, haven’t I? I’ve messed everything up.’

John moved to her, took hold of one of her arms and squeezed it a little.

‘No, Maya, it wasn’t you fault. It was already a mess; you just got in the middle of it.’

‘But-’

He shook her, gently. ‘Listen. You don’t go stealing from men like Al Bester and think you’ll get away with it, not unless you’re a real dope. Morden died because of what he did, not because of you.’

Maya chewed on her lower lip and I thought that she was going to go all coy on him and start sucking her finger again; instead, her face went all blurry and soft and she swallowed hard against something that was in her throat and would have managed a smile for him except that the almost tears kept washing it away.

John could always manage a smile for everyone so he laid an extra-nice one on her and let her go.

‘Della wouldn’t have done anything so stupid.’ She didn’t sound self-pitying, just matter of fact.

‘Stop beating yourself up, will you?’ He sounded gruff and friendly; any more of that and Maya would have been putting a bow around his neck and sitting him on her bed in place of her teddy bear. ‘Where is Della anyhow?’

‘She’s out – one of her weekly meetings.’ She smiled briefly and with affection. ‘Setting the world to rights. But I’ll be sure to tell her you said hello.’

‘That’s swell,’ I said. ‘Okay, precious, I guess that wraps it up. But we’ll be back with the, uh, items that caused all this fuss in the first place.’

Maya straightened up again and did her still routine; I have to say it looked better on her than her cute one did. ‘Right. Well, I... I should thank you, really... I-’

‘Forget about it.’ I hauled up the statuette, holding it in the crook of my arm. To John: ‘You ready?’

He’d been staring at a point in the wall and then turned his head, slowly, looking at me with that slight surprise that people get when they haven’t quite been expecting to see you.

‘Just hang on,’ he said. ‘You really think that Bester’s going to let us make the swap and then stroll back out in one piece? We wouldn’t make it one block.’

I gave this a good ponder and knew that he was right.

‘Where did the photographs get taken?’ This was to Maya and she started, her whole body clenching before she answered.

‘Richard’s apartment; he had some rooms in a block in Midtown.’

John was on the move before she was done talking.

‘Mind if I use your phone?’

It would have been too bad if Maya had minded – he had already fished it over and was dialling the operator. It was one of those curvy white numbers that dames go for and no self-respecting man does but he managed not to look too much of a dope using it.

‘You see that look?’ I leant across to Maya. ‘I know that look; it means he has an idea.’

She stared at him, fascinated; and when she answered she barely moved her lips. ‘Ought I be nervous?’

‘Most probably,’ I said.

John had got the number he wanted and tapped his fingers against the desk while he waited to be connected. He straightened up some when his mystery contact answered, as though he didn’t want to be caught slouching while in conversation. Not that he ever slouched anyhow, and not that anyone could have seen him while on the other end of the phone even if he had been but that wasn’t the point, I guess.

‘Lydia, it’s John Sheridan.’

I tilted my head; I hoped it just looked like a sign that I was listening and not that I was surprised, which I was.

‘Yes, I’m sorry to disturb you. Look, that house in Harlem you told us about – do you know where it is? Exactly where it is, I mean, the address.’

I had a feeling that I knew what he was planning.

‘Uh-huh ... Uh-huh ... Yes, we’re going there now. Thanks.’

He hung up on her before she had the chance to get any more out than what he’d asked her for.

‘You’re leaving now?’ Maya’s voice sounded thin and sharp but there was a firmness to it that I hadn’t noticed before.

‘Yes.’

‘To Harlem?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you have a car?’

He blinked at her. ‘What?’

‘A car, do you have one?’

‘Well, not here-’

She nodded. ‘Take mine. It’s fast; it will be easier.’

We both looked at her for a moment. ‘Okay, precious, let’s go.’

We started moving when the door behind me opened with the softest click I’d ever heard any door make. Duke Greybourne stood in the doorway and surveyed the party.

‘Gentlemen. I had no idea you were here; truly, an unexpected pleasure.’

‘Don’t get excited,’ I warned him, ‘we’re just leaving.’

He turned his eyes to Maya, questioning. She held her ground and it seemed to be a habit that she was getting into.

‘I’ll explain later,’ she said, and led us out of the room.

We followed her back out the way we had come and when we crossed the hall we met Drahl and she told him to ring ahead to the garage and tell them to have her car ready. Then we veered off, went through another door, down some stairs and through a series of corridors that were obviously where the kitchen and laundry room, and all the other places that a house like that runs on but never talks about, were kept. We went through the kitchen itself and it was the sort of place that you could quite happily lose yourself in for a couple of hours each and every day if you had a mind for cooking, which I did. I had about five seconds to admire the copper pans and bundles of dried herbs before we were through another door and outside. They had their own little herb garden out back and the scent of rosemary was strong. Maya took us up the steps and all the way to the garage, which was on a side street just around the corner. Her motor was a sleek dark Packard, already purring quietly and waiting for us.

I looked at it and then at her. 'You know something, kid – you’re all right.’

She was hugging herself and her big eyes looked all dewy in the light from the streetlamp. ‘Thanks. And good luck.’

ooOoo

It was quiet during that cross-town drive. We’d pretty much said all that needed to be said and all that was left was the plan that we’d come up with and to go through with it. It was dark when we rolled into Harlem: the glare of flashing neon, headlamps and streetlights all seemed to make the place even busier than usual. There was always a fizzy energy in that part of the city – something that crackled and snapped, sharp teeth ready to bite at anything. A lot of anger under the surface, sometimes not even hidden and with plenty of reason. A drunk Irishman standing on a corner sang songs about the old country and we could hear him through the closed windows. No-one passing paid him any mind and I figured that he was probably there most nights.

No-one paid us much mind either, although heads turned to watch the progress of us and Maya’s shiny car through the streets. It was a disinterested sort of watching – eyes following us for something to do more than anything else. We were a novelty and for some we were probably also the enemy but they had too many problems on their hands to spend much energy directing hostility at us.

We turned through streets until we reached a quiet, clean, respectable street containing a row of quiet, clean, respectable houses. The inhabitants of all the others would probably have been horrified if they had known what had been going on in the middle of their street but not entirely shocked at the antics of the idle rich. John rolled the car to a stop a little way down the road from the house we wanted and then sat back against the seat.

‘I hope you’ve got heat,’ I said. ‘We may need it; and I’ll be too busy covering my own ass to be worrying about yours.’

One corner of his mouth turned up and he patted his pocket. ‘I’m good.’

‘Okay.’ I blew out a breath. ‘Let’s do this.’

We got out of the car, locked it and started down the street on foot. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and that old familiar roil in the pit of my stomach. No matter what they show in the flicks, detective work is not glamorous and it certainly isn’t fun; mostly it’s boring as hell but every now and then you get the moment that starts the adrenaline going and you can feel all of your senses more alive than they usually are. I could feel it then: every sound was clearer, every line was more clearly defined, even the smell of folks’ dinners in the oven came more strongly than normal.

The joint we wanted had a small patch of lawn out front, a narrow path leading to the stoop and some hedges with shiny dark green leaves that sheltered it from any prying eyes on the street. It was in darkness: in between two streetlamps but not close enough to be lit by either and with no light on over the porch, it made for an unwelcoming sight. We made our way up the path and a movement at the corner of my eye caught me; I turned my head, my hand going for my piece.

‘Who’s there?’

‘It’s okay! It’s me.’

Lydia Alexander stepped out of the shadows, the scarf that had been covering her bright hair slipping down to her shoulders. Her face was clawed white with nerves.

‘What are you doing here?’ John’s voice was harsh. She braced herself against it.

‘You asked if I knew where the house was, you didn’t ask me where the key was.’ She held it up in her hand, silver catching the light flashed against her black glove. ‘I know you’re going after Bester to take him down – I just want to see you do it.’

I liked the fact that she didn't add 'if you can do it', because if I was honest that was a possibility but I wasn't going to think about that. And standing out in the open arguing the point wasn't going to get us anywhere; I doubt if we could have moved her - the lines of her mouth looked stubborn and there's something about a red-haired woman in a snit that you don't want to mess with.

'Okay, Red, have it your way; let us in.'

Lydia unlocked the door, pushed it open and we filed in after her. I closed the door, got the key off her and locked it. John fumbled with a light-switch for a second and then the lamp clicked on and I looked around. Heavy furniture, lots of black lacquer inlaid with gold, fussy rugs, masks on the wall and big bright Chinese fans. I always wondered why it was that joints like this always got done up with some oriental shtick: it never made what went on there any less sleazy and if I’d been an Asian I would have been pretty tired of the association.

Lydia stood in the middle of the rug, twisting her hands together. ‘What now?’

‘Now we make a call,’ I said.

I fished over the phone and dialled the number; it rang long enough that my nerves started to jangle then there was a click, a buzz, and a voice.

‘Yes.’

‘That’s some greeting you’ve got there, Al.’

There was a slight rush like an intake of breath.

‘Mr Garibaldi. How delightful; and just as I was about to call you – considerate of you to have spared me the trouble.’

I drew my lips back from my teeth; I couldn’t help it. ‘I aim to please. I’ve got some information for you – that dingus you were after, we’ve got it.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah.’ I cradled it in my hand and it didn’t look any prettier now than it had in Della’s study. ‘A statuette in bronze, or something masquerading as bronze, of a bull. The workmanship is lousy but I guess that’s not why you want it back.’

There was a pause.

‘Well, well. I must confess to being impressed; you have managed this far more quickly than I had imagined.’

‘Save it,’ I told him. ‘If I want to go dancing round the maypole with someone I have some better candidates in mind.’

‘I’m sure you do – as does Mr Sheridan, no doubt.’

‘No doubt,’ I agreed. There was a note in his voice, a shift in tone when he had said that and I didn’t like it. Bester wasn’t done.

‘I had arranged a certain ... incentive ... for your efforts in this matter; now that you have already retrieved the item it is no longer necessary in that capacity but it will still serve its function – collateral, shall we say, to be certain that you will not attempt any games during the, uh, exchange of assets.’

I gripped the receiver a little harder. ‘What “incentive”?’

‘You can hear that for yourself – I take it that Mr Sheridan is there?’

I looked up at John. ‘Yeah, he’s here.’

‘You’ll want to put him on.’

John scooted around the table and I tilted the receiver towards him enough that we could both hear. There were muffled voices, a dull thud, a crackle and then another voice.

‘John?’

Next to me he was rigid; I couldn’t even hear him breathing.

‘Della. Are you all right?’

‘Yes. I’m fine, I’m just-’

She was cut off and I couldn’t make out what was going on in the background.

‘Are you still there, Mr Sheridan?’

John was quiet for a moment and then he spoke; his voice was low, rough and when I glanced at him I could see the cords in his neck standing out.

‘I’m still here.’

‘Good. That’s good. We ... offered Miss Ramir a lift this evening. She felt obliged to accept. She will come to no harm, I assure you; I simply require her cooperation in order to be sure of yours. I suppose that all that’s left to us now is to make the trade. You are at your offices?’

I turned my head, stared at him but John didn’t go soft on me.

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, I can easily make that trip-’

‘No.’ John took a breath, his chest vibrating. ‘Not here.’

A pause, then, ‘Very well. I am currently at my club – the Omega. If you would care to come to me...’

‘That’s no good either. We’d prefer somewhere private, more discreet.’

‘I see.’ The line was quiet, only a few crackles of background chatter to break it, then Bester spoke again. ‘I have a property, a small place, in Harlem. Very out of the way. Would that do you?’

‘Fine. What’s the address?’

He gave it to us and neither of us bothered copying it down.

'And be on your own, Bester,' I finished. 'We don't want to walk in there and find your crew.'

'Of course.'

When he rang off I put down the receiver. John didn’t move; he had both hands braced against the surface of the table; everything about him looked lean and tough, stretched out by hard muscle and I’d never seen him look like that before. He raised his head. For the rest of my life I’ll never forget the look on his face. I’d made a lot of wise-cracks but none of that was important; whether I thought that their whole affair was a good idea or not didn’t matter. The fact was that he was in love with her and there was a good possibility that Della was in love with him.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Lydia’s voice sounded too loud, too strident in the thick silent air.

‘He’s got Della,’ I said. I flicked a glance in her direction and I saw her mouth opening and her head shaking.

‘No.’ She shook her head again.

I looked back at John. Most of the time he was the most easy-going guy you could wish to meet; once in a while he’d get explosive and it was like watching a volcano erupt but it was what happened after that sometimes that was really frightening. When he’d get calm and icy and he’d seem capable of anything.

He’d by-passed explosive and gone straight to icy

‘If he hurts her, if he does anything to her, I swear to God I’ll tear his throat out.’

I didn’t doubt it. ‘Fine. I’ll help.’ I looked at him. ‘You want to call this off?’

He stayed by the table, his fingers flexing, the bones in the backs of his hands standing up in ridges. ‘No. No, we have to do this.’

I nodded, patted my side where my piece lay snug in its holster. Lydia had got a hold of herself and looked between the two of us.

‘What happens now?’

‘Now we wait,’ I said. ‘You better get yourself out of sight, precious; it won’t be long.’

ooOoo

We heard the occasional car roll by, its headlamps lighting up the front room and then passing. The lamp had been turned off but there was still plenty of light to see by: the drapes were drawn back and it was a full moon on a clear night; everything was turned to silver, sharp lines against dense black shadows. From my corner of the room I could see the front door and the solid bulk that was John in another corner, so still you would have thought he was a statue. I could hear my own breathing and it sounded too loud so I tried to keep it down but probably the only person who could have heard it was me.

We'd judged it would take Bester half an hour to make the trip from the Omega to the house in Harlem and it was almost right on the money. It was just under forty minutes before we heard a car roll to a stop a little further up the street and the engine cut out. Silence and then footsteps, two pairs, coming up the path. There was a noise, scratching at the lock as someone tried to get the key in with no light. It clicked, finally, and the door swung open. A figure entered, stumbling slightly as though someone had given her a push. Bester followed, closed the door behind him and leant against it. He didn't turn on the lights.

Della faced him, strips of moonlight and shadow cutting across her. Her hair was ruffled and she'd lost her coat and purse and anything else she'd had with her somewhere along the way but she held herself straight and still and looked at him. Her hands were loose at her sides.

'You seem remarkably calm,' he said.

Her head tilted back. 'Did you expect me not to be?'

Bester moved forward a little and I could see his shark eyes glittering. 'Most people would be pleading by now.'

'And you enjoy that, no doubt. You want me to be afraid, don't you? You want me to fear you; but I don't. I know what you've done; I know that you've had people killed, other women killed; I saw what you did to Mr Garibaldi. And I know that you could do the same to me or far worse. But it doesn't matter. You can do whatever you like. You can hurt me, you can even kill me; but you still won't have touched me. I am not afraid of you.'

There was a spasm across his mouth - anger or amusement I couldn't tell but she had got to him. His voice was taut, ready to snap.

'Fine words. You've made a good speech but I wonder just how far that will really go. You're an impressive woman but perhaps not a very smart one; you're all alone here, your friends haven't arrived and there is no-one to help you.'

'Guess again.'

Light flooded the room, dazzling everything and John had spoken right behind Bester's ear. It always came as a surprise that a guy John's size could move as quietly as he could when he wanted to. He'd got behind Bester without him even knowing about it and had his piece jabbed in the big lug's back. Bester started, his head whipping around to look behind him and then he looked at me; his tongue darted out, running along his lips.

'Della.' I jerked my head towards her and she moved away from him, crossing the rug and standing behind the sofa like it was a barricade. John's eyes followed her.

'You okay?'

She nodded; if she hadn't been before she was then.

Bester's mouth gave another spasm and I knew it was anger this time; his nostrils had flared, the points turning white.

'Is he carrying?' I asked.

'Let's find out. Get your hands out and keep 'em where I can see 'em.' John took hold of one arm, spun him around against the wall and made a thorough job of going over him.

I glanced at Della; she had both hands gripping the edge of the sofa and she watched every move John made.

'He's clean,' John said, finishing off, 'and I use that word in the loosest possible sense. But look what I found.' He held up a thick white envelope. Bester turned his eyes on him for a moment and his eyes burnt pure hate. John still kept his shooter on Bester; he tossed the packet across the room to Della; she caught it neatly and looked inside.

'Are they the photographs?'

She looked back up at him. 'Yes: there are prints and some negatives.'

'Is that everything?' John jabbed the gat into Bester's back for emphasis.

'Of course,' he said levelly. 'I am a man of my word.'

'Skip it.' To Della: 'I'd burn those, if I were you.'

She didn't need telling twice. There was a fireplace on the left-hand wall; Della crossed over to it, dropped the packet in and doused it with lighter fluid before taking a match to it. It went up like a bonfire on the Forth of July and she held the mess in place with a poker until the last curl of paper had fallen into a pile of ash. She came back, took up her position behind the sofa again.

'Anyone else in the car with you?' I asked her.

'Yes, there are two of them; they've parked a little way up the street. They both have guns.'

I nodded. 'I figured.' I curled my lip at Bester. 'Why don't you have a nice sit down? You look like you could do with one.'

He resisted this for a moment then decided to play along; he managed to pull his lips back from his teeth and his eyes turned almost black; he looked just like what he was - a mean tough guy in an expensive suit.

'Nice little trap you thought you'd set for us, didn't you?' I continued when we had him in a chair. 'But we got here first, Al; you weren't counting on that. You weren't counting us already being here when we rang you to set up this party.'

Bester's head lifted then and he stared at me.

'He looks puzzled,' I said.

'He does,' John agreed. 'Guess he can't figure that one out.'

'Maybe we should let him in on it. You can come in now, precious.'

Lydia had been in the next room, listening through the half-open door; she walked in and Bester made a low hissing noise and then he laughed.

'Well, well. Miss Alexander. I'd thought you had more intelligence than this, Lyta.'

'Lydia,' she said. 'My name is Lydia.'

He tilted his head back and looked at her. 'Just how did they talk you into this?'

'No-one talked me into anything; I was never on your side; the only reason I went anywhere near you was because of Talia.'

His eyebrows went up an eighth of an inch. 'Talia?' He looked from her to me and back again.

'Yes, Talia; she was my friend and you killed her. And I want you to pay for that.'

Bester's lips writhed against each other like two snakes. 'Talia Winters was a stupid little girl who got in my way; if I were you I'd be thinking very carefully about doing the same.'

'Hey! You're in no position to be making threats,' I warned him. Like John, I had my piece out and my finger was itching to be used. Lydia was still standing over him, breathing hard. I called her and when she looked at me I said, 'Get over next to Della.'

She opened her mouth, thought again and then hoofed it.

Bester took a breath and crossed one ankle over the other; he spread his hands.

'What will you do? Shoot an unarmed man? That's not very gallant, now, is it?'

'You may not be armed, but those two goons of yours out there sure are. That was the plan, wasn't it? Get us over here, make it look like the deal was going down and then spring the trap with those two heroes. And that's why you're not armed - but then a guy like you never does his own dirty work, does he? Not with the beat-down your boys gave me; not with Talia; not even with Morden. Sure, the guy sounded like a louse - a blackmailer and a two-bit wannabe dope peddler but he still didn't deserve what came to him.' I could feel my hand starting to shake; saying it all out loud didn't really make it any better, it just made me more mad. 'And now us. But we're not going on that list, Al, because you got here too late, see?'

His eyes flicked to the door and back, judging his path. John had moved a little, closer to Bester, clear of the door and blocking the two girls.

'This making sense to you?' I asked John.

'Perfect sense,' he replied. 'We'd have got the snaps and we'd have gone stepping out of here.' His jaw twitched when he obviously remembered that Della was meant to have been included in that. 'Straight into the arms of the welcoming party - is that how it was supposed to go?'

Bester still looked mean and tough but his eyes kept darting to the door and giving him away; he licked his lips again. 'Whatever you may think, it's immaterial now.'

'Oh,' I said softly, 'is it.' I lowered the gun and fired two shots straight into the floor. Bester started, hands gripping the arms of his chair. 'What are they going to think now? Your boys out there? They must know you're not armed because that was whole deal, wasn't it? So who will they think was doing the shooting? Mercury seems pretty protective of you, Al; do you think he'll come in here to find out what happened or is he just dumb enough to start firing without asking any questions? You better think pretty damn quick because I can hear them coming.'

There were footsteps pounding up the path and Bester did what rats always do and threw himself at the door. I fired again, in his direction but clear of his head and the lead chewed a hole right through the wood. The two outside didn't hold back - they let rip and couldn't hear Bester yelling them to stop. The lamp took a hit and shattered; after that the only light came in bursts from the fire fight. I saw John's face, grim and set in half-shadow; I saw Della throw her arms around Lydia and drag her to the floor; and I saw Bester's body jerking like a puppet tangled in its strings where he hadn't had the sense to get out of the line of fire.

The door was splintering under the assault and I let off a couple of rounds at the pair of stooges on the porch, John covering me. And then over that I heard the siren rising and falling. It was a high, thin sound and it had been building for some time but now there was no missing it. Maya had done her stuff in those forty minutes while we waited for Bester, putting in that anonymous call to the police just like I'd asked her to when I called her up. The sound cut through everything else in the night and the gunfire stopped.

My ears rang in the relative quiet: there were calls from outside, feet running and still the siren building. Inside there was broken glass crunching, heavy breathing as tense bodies eased themselves out of cramped places.

I reached over and flicked on the light-switch. Al Bester lay slumped, the top half of his body propped against the door and dark patches showed up on the front of his coat, spreading across his chest; he looked up at us and pulled his lips back, showing his teeth stained red. 'Be- be seeing you.'

I shook my head. 'Not this time, bud.'

One last breath rattled around his throat for a bit then came out in one long rasp.

Lydia was wrapped in herself, her fingernails digging into the flesh above each elbow. Della stood in John's arms, her hands against his chest; she had no expression except for a quick something that looked a little like pity then she turned her face into the curve of his neck; he put one hand on the back of her head and his face was stony.

There were shouts and whistles outside; light flooding in through the holes in the walls and the door. More feet gunned up the path and the porch.

'Mike! Mike, are you in there?'

'Yeah,' I called back, 'hang on.'

John helped me pull Bester's feet and we cleared him from the doorway, left him crumpled on the floor. I stepped over him, pulled open the door and got Zack's bean-shooter right in my face. I knocked it away.

'Watch it, will you?'

A bunch of flatfoots jostled him from behind and he snapped at them. 'It's okay; lay off.'

I stepped back and Zack stepped in. 'What goes on here? We got some call-'

'Yeah, I know.'

His shoulders slumped. 'You would, wouldn't you?' His eyes took in the scene, finally resting on Bester and they went wide.

'Isn't that-?'

'It is. He had Richard Morden killed over a little dingus we've got for you - it's a cute number with a few Gs worth of dope inside of it. I'm guessing his two boys out there will be singing like canaries before too long - you, uh, you did lift them, didn't you?'

Zack's eyes flashed. 'Of course we lifted them!'

'Good.' I considered things. 'With all this on your clean-up records it looks like you'll be getting that promotion after all.'

Zack pushed at his brim until his hat sat on the back of his head. He opened his mouth and I knew what he was going to say before he did so I saved him the trouble and said it for him.

'Phooey.'

Chapter Text

ooOoo

10

ooOoo

It took nearly ten hours to get it all sorted out. The whole lot of us got taken Downtown and if you think that that was the first association that Della Ramir had ever had with an establishment like that then you would be wrong: as she cheerfully told Zack, the desk sergeant, the Commissioner and the D.A. – both of whom had been hauled in to join in the fun – a company owned by Ramir Industries had poured the foundations for the building back in the day. They took it better than you would have thought.

Bester’s lifting of Della was explained by the fact that he’d got wind of a personal relationship between her and John and he’d wanted John under his thumb. It was sort of true. As there was nothing left to tie Della or Maya or anybody else of theirs to any of it, there was nothing left for the boys in blue but to swallow it.

It was daylight by the time we finally stumbled down the steps and onto the sidewalk and the not-too-clear air of Downtown had never smelt so good. To my astonishment, Zack had offered to take Lydia home, personally in person; to my even greater astonishment she had accepted, with a smile and lowered lashes. No-one offered any of us a lift but when we hit the street we found that we had our own welcome committee: in the red corner, Maya and Nero and in the blue corner, Susan Ivanova. She and O’Neill were wearing matching scowls.

Susan shook her head and inspected us. ‘Just look at the state of you, the pair of you.’

John automatically straightened his tie and smoothed down his hair. I would have told him that the effort would make no difference except that on him on did.

Maya started fussing over her sister and Della looked a little amused at what was obviously a reversal in roles for those two. I had me a good stretch and yawned widely; Susan looked at me and wrinkled her nose.

‘We came to take you home,’ O’Neill announced, looking pointedly at his future sister-in-law.

John had given her his jacket to keep her warm and it swamped her; she looked like a little girl playing dress-up but still held herself like a queen. She looked up at John and he looked down at her.

‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘but I think we’ll take a walk.’

‘It’s such a beautiful day,’ Della added. ‘Nero – would you mind taking Miss Ivanova and Mr Garibaldi to wherever they want to go?’

He sucked in a breath, looked sideways at us both like he was trying to find a way out and gave in. ‘Of course not.’

And off they went, strolling up the avenue like a couple of swells.

That was Sunday morning. By Wednesday night we had decided to get the boys and girls together to celebrate. I rang Lydia but she had a dinner-date – but she told me she’d stop by later if I let her know where we’d be at; oddly, when I rang Zack he was also all tied up Wednesday but, just like Lydia, would try to make it later on. Which just goes to show that you really never can tell.

We went back to our favourite haunt, the Babylon, and it was swinging, even if it was only Wednesday. Some joints are like that and the Babylon Bar and Grill was one of them: sooner or later, everyone went there. Adira was having the night off, so we were shown to our table by a tall, striking girl with slanted eyes called Natalie Tothman who was Gerry’s...

Actually, we were never sure exactly what she was; let’s just say that she was Gerry’s and leave it at that.

We were seen to personally by Vinnie Cotto, some relative of Lon’s from back home. Vinnie was a sweet kid but he had a repertoire of twitches and gasps that always reminded me of a fish that had just been landed. He stood over us, stammered and turned beet red when Della smiled at him.

It was a merry group through dinner and a nicely mellow one by the time Maya and Nero were wrestling each other around the dance-floor; I guess that they’d had another argument earlier that day and were in the process of making it up. It wasn’t my idea of heaven, but I guess it’s a case of whatever floats your boat.

Steve was beating out the time to the number the band were laying out on the side of his glass and saying, ‘Don’t get me wrong – it’s doing the world a favour getting rid of Al Bester; but, well, since the club closed most of us are out of work. It’s back to hauling the carcass around town and seeing if any of the gin-joints are hiring.’ He quirked an eyebrow at us. ‘Know anyone who’s looking for a horn-man?

‘The White Star is looking for a new bandleader,’ Della said.

He put his eyebrows up then breathed down his nose. ‘That would be great – but getting in to see the manager of that place? That’s a whole other story.’

‘Oh,’ – Della waved a hand, dismissive – ‘he’s easily dealt with.’

John watched her, his eyes narrowing. ‘Ramir Industries doesn’t happen to own the White Star, does it?’

She looked at him over the rim of her glass, all innocence. ‘Doesn’t it?’

John choked out a laugh.

Della put down her Martini. ‘Are you ever going to ask me to dance?’

He made a show of grimacing for a bit and then hauled himself up. ‘Come on, plaything; don’t say I never do anything for you.’

She slid along the booth. ‘You know, I don’t mind your calling me plaything, but I’d just like to know if you’re playing for keeps.’

‘When I’m not I’ll let you know.’

She gave him a smile that would arouse in most men the feelings necessary for the reproduction of the species. ‘Well, all right then.’

They wandered off and Steve looked at me. ‘Plaything?’

I held up my hands. ‘Don’t ask – I have no idea.’

He sniggered, one corner of his mouth turning up.

‘Think she was serious?’

‘Oh, I think so – she seems pretty gone on him, for some reason.’

Steve rolled his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean that, you big mook. The job, the bandleader, do you think she meant it?’

I swallowed some of my highball. ‘I guess so – she’s pretty on the level for a moneyed type. “Doc” Franklin and his Orchestra – I like it. It’s catchy; I might even buy the records.’

I grinned at him and raised my glass.

‘I second that,’ Susan added and clinked her glass against my mine.

Steve blew out a breath, ran a hand over his head. ‘Man. I don’t believe it.’ He glanced back at the couples on the floor, his eyes following Della and her partner for a moment. They looked like they didn’t know there was anyone else there with them. He turned around again and said to Susan, ‘How about it? Once around the floor?’

He led her off. Susan couldn’t dance to save her life but Steve could hoof it with the best of them so between the two of them they managed to look pretty good in with the rest of the couples.

I sank the rest of my drink, sat back against the booth and closed my eyes. I felt that everything was right with the world and let myself drift on this nice little cloud I had found; everything else seemed to fall away – the music, the scents, everything.

‘Michael. Michael?’

I opened my eyes; the light was bright and I squinted against it; John’s face was close to mine and I grinned at him like a dope.

‘Hey, Johnny-boy. Where’s Della?’

He frowned. ‘What did you just call me?’

ooOoo

‘And who’s Della?’

Michael Garibaldi blinked against the white light, focused on the two faces hovering over him. Sheridan glanced at the doctor, worried, then back down at the man stretched out on the bed.

‘Is he okay?’

‘Just give him a minute,’ Franklin said indistinctly, watching the readings on his scanner.

Garibaldi moved his head and tried to find a way of holding it that didn’t hurt. And tried to reconcile two different realities that both seemed equally viable, equally vibrant in his mind. Only for a moment. He sighed.

‘Well, Toto, it looks like we’re back in Kansas.’

ooOoo

John Sheridan shook his head, placed his cup back on the table. ‘I always knew you had an over-active imagination; but this...’

Garibaldi waved a hand at him. ‘Nah. You’re just jealous because you never had a dream so good.’

He had signed himself out of MedLab against Franklin’s wishes – although, everyone else suspected that the doctor’s admonishments were merely a formality and he was only too glad to see the back of his obstreperous patient. But Franklin had insisted that Garibaldi not be allowed back on duty until he had at least twenty-four hours rest and Sheridan had taken time out after his shift had ended to make sure that his security chief was following those orders at least.

He had listened to the full extent of Garibaldi’s dreamscape with a mix of amusement and incredulity. He smiled a little.

‘You might be right at that.’ His own dreams had been none too pleasant of late.

‘Hm.’ Garibaldi drained his cup. ‘With all the stuff we’re facing at the moment there’s a part of me that wishes I could curl up and go back to that safer, simpler time.’

‘Simpler? With all the- What was it? Thugs pounding on you and gangsters trying to shoot holes in you? That’s different from here, how?’

Garibaldi snickered. ‘You’re getting cynical in your old age, you know that?’

‘Maybe. Still – you had us worried for a time. It’s good to have you back.’

Michael looked at him, his eyebrows raised comically. ‘Why Captain, I almost think you care.’

‘I don’t – I’ve just grown used to having you about the place. Besides, it would be a giant headache trying to find anyone dumb enough to take your job.’ He stood up, paused then smiled benevolently at the man on the sofa. ‘Goodnight, Michael.’

‘Night.’

Sheridan left, the door swinging closed behind him with a rush of air. Garibaldi stretched his arms along the back of the sofa, glanced around his quarters and his gaze ended on the book he had been reading. Raymond Chandler had a lot to answer for, he decided; it was too soon – maybe in a few days. He turned on his BabCom unit, scrolled through some vids and found one that was already playing. Humphrey Bogart was looking on in exotic surrounds just as Lauren Bacall, in a dress that left little to the imagination, was about to launch into song. Garibaldi turned it off. Maybe he should just get one good night’s sleep and forget about all of it. He turned down the lights.

ooOoo

Epilogue

ooOoo

I’d never really thought about getting married again. After Anna died, I mean.

I had thought that that was it and that was about as far as I had thought. The possibility of feeling much of anything for anyone else had never occurred to me, let alone the idea of ... this. This thing that had happened to me the moment I saw her.

And I had never believed in love at first sight. Actually, I’m still not sure that I believe in it even now, but it really was love – head-over-heels, can’t-live-without-you, crazy in love. There has to be some sort of explanation. Something in the air, or the water. Or something. I mean, I knew Anna for almost two years before we got married; I’d known Della for less than two weeks but it felt like I’d known her all of my life.

And I had intended to ask her to marry me – I just hadn’t intended to hear myself saying, ‘Let’s hop on a train to Vegas and get married.’

And she said yes. It took me a good few minutes to realise that she wasn’t just saying yes to marriage, she was saying yes to the train and Las Vegas.

Actually, I had suggested Atlantic City but Della had been set on something more traditional. And in the end we had hopped on a plane for the journey down because amongst other things, Ramir Industries owned a large part of a small commercial airline.

So, less than twenty-four hours later, there we were in a little chapel near Fremont Street exchanging vows and I was putting on her finger the ring that I’d emptied my bank account to buy and if I’d had a hundred times that amount to spend on her it still wouldn’t have been enough to pay for anything worthy of her.

That’s me talking, by the way, not her – Della isn’t like that.

Della. My wife. My beautiful, wonderful wife. I twisted the ring that was around my finger and tried to get used to the weight of it. I hadn’t worn one before – it wasn’t really the done thing for a man the first time I’d got married but times had changed and I’d wanted to. It felt right somehow, showing the world that I belonged to her just like she belonged to me.

I’d sent a telegram to Mike and Susan to let them know the good news. I felt sort of a heel not having them there but, well, that’s just the way things go sometimes, I guess. I promised myself that when we got back to New York we’d take them out for the best dinner either of them had ever seen.

The train swayed and I braced myself against the wall. The compartment could probably have fit my apartment in it with room to spare and I tried to come to terms with the fact that from then on I was going to be kept in the style to which I was not accustomed. But I’m used to working for a living and there was no chance I was about to abandon Mike – he may claim to be the original lone wolf but when he’s left to his own devices it turns out he’s actually not that great at it.

The door from our bathroom opened and Della appeared, looking like a gift from the gods. I looked her up and down and tried to remember words. Any words. She smiled and I guess that meant that the desired effect had been achieved.

‘That’s a nice bit of nothing you’re almost wearing,’ I told her eventually; I was trying to sound casual and I was failing and we both knew it.

She smiled again, moving towards me with that controlled fluid grace of hers. ‘Thank-you. You bought it for me.’

‘I’m spoiling you.’

We could have been in the swankiest hotel or the cheapest dive, I didn’t care. Right then, that train compartment was heaven. I was just worried that Della might not think so. She was uptown, a lady; she was pure class. Her type of wedding should be the society shindig followed by a honeymoon in the more expensive hotels of Europe. Not a car on the Union-Pacific where if I’d stretched out my arms I could probably have touched both walls at the same time, even if it was a Pullman. The longer I looked at it, the smaller it got.

‘Della.’

‘Yes?’ She looked up at me; I stared at her and forgot the basics of the English language again. There was definitely an upper-hand in this marriage, and I wasn’t the one who had it.

‘Della – are you sure about this? I can already see the headlines in the New York Times – “Society Heiress Marries Gumshoe.” It isn’t going to be pretty.’

Della laughed and I realised that it wasn’t something that she did very often. I don’t mean that she didn’t have a sense of humour, just that she was normally a serious person. I decided that my mission in life was to make her laugh more. ‘Darling, don’t be silly. You’re not important enough to rate the Times – you might make the Gazette, though.’

If I didn’t strangle her first.

‘I’m serious – your family will have a fit, all at the same time.’

‘Oh, let them. Maya is the only one who counts and she's thrilled. As for the rest... I hardly ever see them and they already disapprove of me anyway. I haven’t seen my mother since I was sixteen – the last thing I heard she was in Charleston living with a racing car driver. She has nothing to say that I want to hear. There’s Aunt Lucy and Great-Aunt Dora and Uncle Willie...’ She shuddered. ‘And Great-Uncle Frederick and Cousin- oh, they’ll just have to get used to it. Anyway, I don’t care what they think or say – why should you?’

‘I don’t – I just care if you do.’

‘Well, I don’t.’ She paused. ‘But, uh, we will probably have to see them all when we get back...’

‘Oh?’ I watched her and even by then I knew that she was trying to handle me. What was worse was that it worked.

‘Well, I had to tell Maya - and Aunt Lucy was there at the time so I had to tell her. And she asked us to dinner so I said yes. John, if we don’t go it will be as though I lied to them and that would be terribly ... dishonourable.’

I almost couldn’t believe my ears. Dishonourable? I’d just been co-opted into dinner with her extended family and they sounded like something Charles Addams had dreamt up.

‘Okay, but just this once – I don’t care if you turn out to have twice as much money as I think you do.’ I tried to sound lighthearted but the truth was my heart was beating hard enough to burst out of my chest. It’s hard to put into words what being with Della is like; the first time I met her it felt as though a piece of me that I’d never even known was missing had finally been put into place. I got that same feeling again, then, looking at her. I’ve had it every time since. More than anything, I wanted her to be happy and it was only then that I started to realise just how crazy this had been and just how many things she might end up regretting. ‘It wasn’t much of a service for you to look back on. Wouldn’t you have preferred a big white wedding at St Patrick’s, like Maya’s having?’

She grimaced slightly. ‘That’s what Maya wants and I hope that she enjoys every second of it.’

‘And what do you want?’

‘I’ve already got what I want.’ She tilted her head at me and smiled and somehow managed to make that bit of nothing slip down her shoulders.

Women don’t fight fair, that’s a fact; and Della was one of the dirtiest fighters I’d ever met.

The train swayed again, we both stumbled and I caught her, supported her. She was all clouds of perfume and soft hair and skin and she looked up at me.

I glanced at our berths. ‘You know, we’ll be taking our lives into our hands sleeping in those things.’

Della put her arms around my neck. ‘Don’t worry – if you fall I’ll be here to catch you.’

A lock of her hair had curled itself around her throat and I moved it aside. ‘Well, plaything, with an offer like that...’

ooOoo

John Sheridan woke, suddenly, gripping the edge of the bed until he realised that nothing was moving and he was, most definitely, entirely alone.

No train, no Nevada horizon speeding past and certainly no dark-haired, grey-eyed woman in his arms.

‘I’m going to kill Michael Garibaldi,’ he muttered, punched his pillows and tried to recapture sleep.

In the morning, he thought; I’ll kill him in the morning.

The End