Aaron Conners - Tex Murphy 02 (3 page)

My amusement didn’t last long. I had to get to either the stairway, which was next to Ching’s apartment, or to the elevator, which was across the hall from the vacant apartment I’d first entered. Suddenly, someone knocked at the door of the apartment I was in. They knocked again, more forcefully. I hurried to the window and crawled through. Without the luxury of caution, I scampered along the ledge, my arms wrapped around the statuette. I reached the window of the empty apartment pushed it open, and jumped inside.

I crossed the room to the front door and put my eye to the peephole. There didn’t appear to be anyone at this end of the hall. Through the door, I heard the elevator chime and then watched as a half dozen swarthy men piled out, led by an unsmiling Alfonso. They bolted off in the direction of Ching’s apartment. Behind them, the elevator doors were open.

I turned the knob and opened the door. The elevator doors were starting to close. I bounded across the hallway and knifed into the elevator, but the opening had narrowed and I’d brushed one of the doors, causing the elevator to reopen. From the far end of the hall, I heard several voices yelling “Alto!” Heavy footsteps came thundering down the hall as I repeatedly pushed the button for the first floor. As the doors began to close, I had no idea how close my pursuers were.

Apparently not close enough. The elevator doors pressed lightly together, and I began to descend away from the loud voices. A wave of relief washed over me, but I wasn’t out yet. The lobby and parking lot doors, as well as the stairways, would almost certainly be guarded. I tried to think. My speeder was parked out past the covered parking area, so that would be the direction to head toward. Maybe if I took the guards unawares, I could get past and outrun them to the speeder. Unless, of course, they had guns, which they undoubtedly did. I didn’t have much choice. I pressed the button for the second floor.

The doors opened at the second floor, and the immediate area was mercifully devoid of humanity. I stepped out into a hallway almost identical to the one on the eighteenth floor. In the corner across from the elevator, someone had placed a small, elegant stand with a vase full of flowers. Nice touch.

I started with the closest apartment and tried the door knob. Locked. I made my way down the hallway, stopping at each door and trying to open it. By the time I reached the last door, I decided that I wasn’t going to get lucky, so I reared back and kicked it in.

Cradling the statuette like a football, I ran into the apartment, past a startled old man wearing nothing but a pair of dingy boxers. He had dropped a can of beer onto his lap and was staring at me, wild-eyed, as I dashed past him toward the window. I pulled the window open and looked out. It was about a twenty-foot drop. It wouldn’t kill me, but it would probably leave a few bruises. Wrapping my arms tightly around the statuette, I stepped onto the ledge and jumped.

A bed of flowers came rushing up at me. I tried to roll as I hit the ground, but didn’t quite pull it off. As I lay in the garden dirt, staring up at the filthy night sky, excruciating pain shot up and down my back and both legs. I decided to wait until the agony subsided before making any attempt to stand. Several seconds passed.

Suddenly, above me, the beer-soaked man started to yell. The welcome addition of still more adrenaline gave me just the boost I needed. I pried myself out of the loam, glanced around, and hugging the statuette like a football, ran to daylight. Gunshots rang out above and behind me. Weaving like a punt returner, I crossed the street and reached the speeder. It was where I’d left it and still had its license plates, wipers, and antenna.

Perhaps there was a god, after all.

I climbed inside, turned on the ignition, and lifted off. The lights of Mexico City faded behind me like firework residue. The statuette glowed faintly on the passenger seat.

Hands shaking and back aching, I lit a cigarette, took a drag, then opened the window and ejected the abomination. I checked my radar - no one appeared to be following me.

It looked like I’d pulled it off. A glance at the geo-grid showed that the nearest decent-sized US city was Brownsville, Texas. Four more hours, and I’d be seated in a café, a strong cup of coffee on the left and a fresh pack of Luckys on the right. Four hours away, three and a half if I pushed it.

Things were hopping at the Post-Nuclear (pronounced Nucular) café. The dinner seemed to be particularly popular with truckers and migrant workers. A lone waitress with orange hair the size of an award-winning state fair pumpkin bustled feverishly about the teeming horde of Brownsville’s finest.

A single laminated page, burned and stained like the toilet tank cover in a bar restroom, sat in front of me. An index card paper-clipped to the menu proclaimed the special of the day to be beef pot pie and waldorf salad, with cherries jubilee for dessert. After brief consideration, I discarded the special as a viable option. It sounded good in theory, but pot pies are a lot like used vehicles and dames - no matter how good they look, it’s what’s under the hood that counts.

I reached for the unopened pack of Lucky Strikes I’d bought approximately ninety seconds after touching down in Brownsville. As I ran through the menu, I packed the fresh set of smokes against the heel of my hand. Seven times - no more, no less.

This was the first step in a complex, yet satisfying ritual known only to those who indulge in the world’s second or third most dangerous habit. Pinching the starter tab, I pulled gently and unsealed the pack with all the care and anticipation of removing a bra.

Next came the stripping of the foil, and finally, the extraction. It was as close as I would ever get to organized religion.

I tapped the cigarette on the tabletop, then moistened three quarters of an inch on the packed end with my tongue. With my left hand, I placed the cigarette between my lips, just left of center. My right hand approached, bearing the fire. My hands cupped around the Zippo as its flame touched the tip of the Lucky Strike. I drew in deeply and slowly and heard the pleasant crackling of toasted tobacco. My eyes closed, and I leaned back, wanting to savor indefinitely this sensation of reuniting with my one true love.

In the midst of the rapture, I felt a distinctly pink presence close by. I opened my eyes and saw that the orange-headed waitress had arrived. My head still resting on the back of the vinyl booth seat, I glanced at her name: LaDonna. LaDonna looked down at me indulgently, her foot tapping at about 6000 RPM and a brown cigarette dangling from her lip like an exhaust pipe. I tossed her a disarming smile and sat up, my attention returning to the menu.

There were so many choices, and LaDonna was like a ticking bomb. If I didn’t order soon, possibly within seconds, she was likely to detonate, which would likely hurl her away from my booth and into a refilling condition-shuttling frenzy. God knew when she’d be back to take my order. I had to think quickly, yet my sense of self-preservation told me I had to be careful. Chicken-fried steak was out. So was the goulash. The meat hash intrigued me, but I passed. Finally, my eyes came across the grilled cheese sandwich. How dangerous could a grilled cheese sandwich be?

“I’ll have the grilled cheese sandwich.”

LaDonna scribbled furiously. “One grilled cheese. White, wheat, light rye, dark rye, pumpernickel, or pita?”

I wasn’t sure how heavy I should go. I still had a long flight home. “White, please.”

“American, Swiss, Muenster, cheddar, Brie, Colby, of longhorn?”

“How about a nice medium cheddar? Something in the four-to six-month range.”

“Coffee?”

“A gallon, please. Make it extra thick.”

LaDonna nodded and returned in the direction of the counter. She was good. In the thirty feet between my booth and the kitchen, she lit two cigarettes, dropped off three bills, told a joke, laughed at two others, all without missing a step. As I watched her work, I noticed with some shock how shapely her legs were. Of course, they were doing miraculous things with nylons these days, but those gams looked authentic. They were certainly her most attractive feature. The area between her hips and shoulders could’ve belonged to a Texas A&M middle linebacker, and the beehive towering above her head made the distance from the nape of her neck to her hair net measure a full third of her total height.

After a brisk, lingo-filled exchange with a dazed-looking short order cook, LaDonna set off on another lap around the diner. She was fun to watch. I finished my first Lucky Strike and was about to help myself to a second when LaDonna swung by and thrust a full cup of coffee at me like a relay baton. Without spilling a drop, she slid the cup onto the table and continued on without breaking stride.

If only the coffee had been as enjoyable and full-bodied as the service. At least it was hot - and I’d had worse. As I blew steam across the top of the chipped mug, I couldn’t help but yearn for an oversized serving of Louie Lamintz’s Armageddon blend. It was a truly magical beverage. I could drink a fifth of bourbon and still do origami, but after three cups of the Brew & Stew house blend I’d catch a buzz. Louie said the secret ingredient was love, but I wasn’t so sure.

A thumping sound and the tinkle of broken glass caught my ear. I looked over toward the counter and saw a heavy-set man face-planted onto the bar. A rail-thin older man behind the counter was scurrying to mop up spilled beer as the patrons reacted with amusement, empathy, and/or disgust. The sight made me think shamefully of my own recent behavior, which would have been just as embarrassing if I’d had the money to drink in public.

As it was, I’d spent most of the previous month locked in my office with a bottle of rot gut and a couple of Edith Piaf Cds. Sure, I knew I was better off without Sylvia - hell, I hadn’t entertained a single Christian thought about her or even remotely wished she’s come back the whole time - but the divorce had been a psychological root canal. The abscessed tooth had been removed at the expense of the entire jaw.

With my naïve and reckless idealism blown to bits all over my office floor, I’d done the only thing a hard-boiled PI could do under the circumstances: I picked up pieces, dropped them into a tumbler, and poured myself a double bourbon. From there, I went through the usual phases: disillusionment, resentment, anger, self-doubt, regret, rationalization, more anger, grief, a little more anger, and finally, black and thirsty angst.

Then, exhausted from my jog around the emotional gamut, I’d rapidly descended into an amnesiac stupor of self-pity and devil-may-care intoxication.

A door in the Post-Nuclear Café slammed shut, rousing me from my pondering, and I noticed LaDonna approaching, a plate of food in one hand and a toxic-looking coffeepot in the other. “Here you go, honey.”

LaDonna slid the plate in front of me and somehow topped off my mug at the exact same instant, without spilling a drop. I looked up into her overdone eyes. “You’re an amazing woman.”

For the first time since I’d seen her, LaDonna paused. Looking me straight in the eye without a hint of a smile, she raised an eyebrow.

“You couldn’t afford me, sugar.” With a wink, she turned and resumed her plate-spinning act. I understood why the place was packed.

When my smoke was finished, I turned my attention to the plate in front of me. The grilled cheese sandwich looked surprisingly appetizing, a light golden brown except for the crispy dark brown edges. I made a conservative estimate that half a stick of butter had been used to grease the griddle. Melting cheddar seeped out from all four sides.

Crunchy crinkle-cut fries formed a hot, salty halo around the sandwich. There was no parsley to discard, no orange slice to remove. This wasn’t cuisine - it was grub. Tasty food with no garnish required. I delicately lifted one half of the still-steaming grilled cheese and took a large bite out of the center. The smoldering cheddar was almost too hot to eat, almost. The mingling flavors of bread, butter, and cheese went to the very root of my soul and spoke to me. They said “Mmmm.”

After I’d finished half the sandwich and a handful of fries, my stomach (fresh off a five-day hunger strike) voted to light the post-prandial smoke and be done with it. My taste buds, despite active campaigning by the other senses, eventually had to concede, and I pushed the plate away. I was full and happy, a sensation I usually reserved for the Brew

& Stew. I’d never had Louie’s grilled cheese sandwich, but it was now on my list of things to do.

Over a third cup of coffee, I glanced down at the backpack on the seat beside me.

Hopefully, this was a sign of things to come. My career had never been the stuff of legends. Hell, I’d lost count of how many part-time jobs I’d taken just so I could afford to be a gumshoe. My resume, if I ever had the inclination or funds to have one made up, would read like an unskilled-labor listing board at an unemployment office. I had a better chance of getting invited to speak at a NOW rally than getting my bio in the PI Who’s Who.

Still, it was the only thing I’d ever really wanted to do. Mom had her heart set on my being an optometrist. Of course, that was back when people still needed glasses and contact lenses, before they became ostentatious fashion accessories. My father had me pegged to follow in his footsteps and be a security guard. Maybe that was why I’d become a detective…some sort of subconscious Oedipal thing.

The problem started thirty-two years earlier. The babysitter let me stay up and watch the late, late show. Little did I know how lasting the impact of The Maltese Falcon would be. I didn’t understand the plot, and most of the patter went right over my five-year old head, but there was something about it that captivated me. Oh, I’d gone through the usual childhood phases - dinosaurs, Robin Hood, space travel - but the hard-boiled PI was a shtick I never grew out of. Fedoras, trench coats, cigarettes, and bourbon.

Scheming dames, shady chumps with names like Lefty and Rocko, and sinister

characters with pencil-thin mustaches and foreign accents.

Now, here I was. Glimpses of the glamour were few and far between, but everyone has their own delusional fantasy. I selected a Lucky strike from the pack and rolled it gently between my fingers. I had the look. I had the aptitude. I even had the skills. All I really needed was some steady employment. And maybe a dame.