The World's Finest Mystery Part 47

I said, "It could be Grundfest, sure. He's got a.s.saults. It could be a high muckety like Wooley. Or it could be a low-a.s.s snake-clambake like the one cut the boy in the shoulder. How you gon' pick which one?"

"Young brother down, Cisroe. Could've done good in this world."

"I know that. But there are ways to handle it."

"Sure there are."

"Legal ways."

"Bulls.h.i.t," he said, and yanked the far window handle in circles till the gla.s.s got down low enough he could spit. Then he pulled out a white sock he carried in his pocket and wiped his mouth with it. "Who gon' tell Minnie Chaundelle that? You?"

After dinner we drove to Minnie's. A woman named Ardath Mae was there. She had silver in her hair and a church look about her that I guessed made Stinger all of a sudden shy. Ardath Mae said Minnie went with another friend to make Verlyn's funeral arrangements. "That child all broken up," Ardath Mae said. "Don't know how she gon' come out thothah side."

I asked if it would be all right if I checked Minnie's bedroom for something Verlyn might've left there.

Ardath looked at Stinger before giving me a nod. As I was leaving to the back, I heard her say, "Whatchu been up to, Mistah G.? Been a long time, ain't it, now?"

Minnie's room was full of picture frames and vases glued with beads and nutsh.e.l.ls, and more hanging in strands in front of the closet like something out of the hippie days. It took me all of a minute to find Verlyn's book under a s...o...b..x on the closet shelf. When I came out, Stinger and Ardath Mae were standing kind of close together. I showed her what I was going to make off with and told her to tell Minnie. She frowned but said okay, and then I saw her hand slip out of Stinger's, which was hiding behind a fold of her skirt.

Back at my place, I set a bottle of JW Black on the table, got gla.s.ses, the ice tray, hot peppers and pretzels, and commenced to read Stinger the list of investors in Mitch.e.l.l Mining and Drilling Corp. He'd nod at each one, sip his whiskey, and let the sounds roll by while his lids were half-closed. There were eleven names, with sums from a quarter million to a cool eight zeroes posted. When I got to name number nine, Stinger's eyes came open. He said read that one to me again.

Houston is rich in gentlemen's clubs- Centerfolds and Baby Dolls, La Nude and Peter's Wildlife; Rick's and a dozen others. The one we were headed for you had to know was there to know was there. It was a sandstone stucco box with soft-lit arches guarded by two palm trees and had no sign out front, but I knew the place from when it did, remembered it when Stinger said to read that name to him again- Ba.r.s.ekian's Lounge.

We found a place to park at the back of the lot. In the shadows off to the side a security cop in a black uniform sat still as cardboard in his golf cart. The white wafers of his eyegla.s.ses drew him into a cartoon.

Inside, I asked of a man with bleached hair and a face like a chunk of chipped concrete for Mr. Ba.r.s.ekian. He gave us the twice-over, asked our names, then left off through the crowd.

Armen Ba.r.s.ekian used to be one of the biggest bookmakers on the Third Coast, but he retired at the behest of the federales. Maybe he was trying to go legit now, run with the bulls down the slick streets of Oil and Gas. If he was the same A. Ba.r.s.ekian listed as an investor in Verlyn's notebook, maybe he'd just like to stimulate an accounting of the Brickner Deposit operation. Only thing was, if this was the hood I thought he was, he also used to be the kind you don't mess with unless you have a fondness for medical personnel of the emergency kind.

Glamour-boy came back and said Stinger could see Mr. B. I'd have to wait at the bar. I started to object but thought maybe Stinger, with his lighter skin, thinner build, and grayer hair, wouldn't be so terrifying as Cisroe Perkins to an old, beat white man.

I went up to the bar and ordered a stout from a woman whose outfit left little to the imagination. She looked about ready to blow and shower us all with beer fuzz. She wore a skirt that could make a man holler and not even know he did.

The crowd was mixed, but not very. I thought I recognized a cop smiling pretty at a dancer and figured you take your pleasure where you can. The music wasn't over-loud, but it was that kind of music anyway, and before long I felt a pulling need for someone with heat and perfume and a great, kind heart.

When Stinger came back I was on my second. He swiped at his goatee, then tipped his head back toward the office door, and said, "It's done, man. It's in the right hands."

Armen Ba.r.s.ekian was an influential man. I didn't much like what I might have guessed about the various businesses he was in nor how he conducted them, but sometimes, I thought, you have to let water cut the channels it is born to cut.

Minnie's baby brother Verlyn Vincent Venable had died on a Wednesday night. The Friday following, way out the Katy, a hunting dog learning to retrieve on a swamp-lake by a shooting range found Guy Grundfest, operations manager at Mitch.e.l.l Corp., in a dive to its muddy depths. And Ray Wayne Wooley suffered an unfortunate mishap that broke both his legs at the knees, jet-skiing, he said, on Lake Houston on Sat.u.r.day midnight when he knew he'd had too much too drink.

Monday I took a trip to Chicago, work-related. I was gone four days. When I came back I had other things to attend to, so I didn't make it by Minnie Chaundelle's till the Sat.u.r.day following.

When I drove down Gross Street, the sun was bright enough to score diamonds. The radio reported ninety-five degrees and about the same dewpoint and I thought it would be all right on this sticky day if it turned out Minnie Chaundelle wasn't there. She didn't answer the door. But then I walked around back and looked through the thick stand of glowering green oak in the cemetery and saw that lovely full-figured woman who from here seemed tiny as a child as she stood by a gravestone.

I walked through the high weeds, watchful for snakes. Walked by headstones broken and stacked in piles and others whole but overturned as though a tractor had plowed them down. I took my time, glancing at the stones, wanting Minnie Chaundelle to see me and get used to the intrusion. Some of the graves had sunken so the names barely showed above the soft earth, and I thought what a shame it was: Gone, then double-gone.

As I got closer I saw the clean mounded earth Minnie stood by. At its head was a shiny black stone with Verlyn's name and dates on it. Minnie turned eyes on me deep as the River Sorrow. No words could cover a time like this, so I didn't try. I just poked out a finger in the direction of her slack hand, and she took it and held it hard as if she were slipping in quicksand.

She said, "This here ain' the real stone. They'll be more on it latuh."

"I know it will be nice," I said. "The best it can be."

She nodded and clamped her lips and leaned into me, wiping her left eye with the ball of her palm. "It's gon' say, 'A ray of sun would be enough. But there was you.' "

"That's real nice, Minnie Chaundelle."

"Ain' it evah?"

The wind took a path alongside us and blew Minnie's skirt forward and tunneled through the brush and leaves ahead as if showing a new way. We stood there, Minnie Chaundelle and me, head touching head, arms about each other, like old lovers locked in memories too hard to name. After a while, I walked back with her to her house, where I comforted her some more.

Later that night, I left my desk to go to the window where the moonlight painted the sill blue and powdered the tops of trees and houses in the same cool shade. I felt sorry for those men caught in the wash of greed, and for the weak ones who open the gates, and for those women held blameless who somewhere wait for both.

And as I unb.u.t.toned my shirt to prepare for bed and smelled the sweet scent of Minnie Chaundelle still upon me, a single tear fell beside my foot on the hardwood floor. I wondered what was becoming of me, letting other men take care of my work so that I could not in honesty lie next to a grieving woman and tell her Cisroe Perkins looked after justice the way he best knows how.

I resolved to do better next time.

Mat Coward.

Three Nil.

THIS SECOND of Mat Coward's stories that we're featuring in the volume is just as entertaining as "Twelve of the Little b.u.g.g.e.rs," but in a rather different vein. It was first published in the November issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

Three Nil.

Mat Coward.

Along with two billion other people, I was watching the biggest sporting event in TV history, the final match of the 1998 FIFA World Cup. France had just scored their second goal against Brazil (the defending champions, red-hot favourites, and the world's greatest soccer-playing nation), when my doorbell rang.

Of course, not all two billion were watching the match in my microscopic north London flat. I don't know where the rest of them were- here and there about the globe, I'd guess- but at my place there were just three of us, and two of them were ostentatiously not responding to the summons of the bell.

So: Not only was it my flat, my TV, my beer, and my crisps- looked like it was my turn to answer the door, too.

"Don't let anyone score while I'm away," I told my guests, and went to discover what sort of person rings your doorbell while two billion other people are watching the biggest sporting event in TV history. A rugby fan? A North American? A North American rugby fan?

Good guess, as it transpired. At least, I couldn't instantly intuit the level of her devotion to rugby, but the woman standing on my step was clearly North American. Even if I hadn't heard her accent before I'd finished opening the door, her huge white teeth would have given her away.

"Are you Charlie?" she said. "The cat detective?"

I admitted it. I trade under the name Charlie WFYC- Will Find Your Cat. That's what I do for a living: I find lost cats, in the suburbs north of London, for money. It's what you could call a niche market. Or it's what you could call a desperate way to pay the rent, depending on how you feel about euphemisms.

"I am Charlie," I said. "I am the finder of cats. But at the moment I'm watching the football, along with two billion other people, so perhaps-"

"Right," she said. "Follow me." And with that she turned and began ascending the stone steps that lead from my dilapidated bas.e.m.e.nt bedsit to the dilapidated street on which it rots. She didn't look back.

Well, I stopped taking direct orders from women when I was fifteen, and then again when I was thirty, so I didn't follow her. I went back into my room to drink some more beer and continue enjoying the rare spectacle of Brazil getting stuffed at footie by a nation of cyclists. But I left the front door open in case she chose to return. I hadn't had a paying client all month. I couldn't afford to appear too unwelcoming.

The game finished three-nil, with Brazil taking the nil part, and Paris erupted into what was, according to the newsmen, a bigger street party than that which marked the end of World War Two. You don't see something like that every day of the week, and I pitied the big-toothed American woman for having missed it. What would she tell her grandchildren in years to come, when they asked "Where were you the day Brazil got done over by France, Granny?"

Well, yes, possibly she'd tell them, "I was trying to get some help finding my cat from a guy who advertised his services as a cat finder, honey. Only he didn't want to know, the cold-hearted b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Well, yes, possibly.

"I've got to pop out," I told my guests- who by now were starting to act more like lodgers. "Make yourselves a nice cup of tea, if you fancy one." That got a few laughs, at least.

I wasn't really looking for the woman. I needed fresh air, some cigarette papers, and some pizza, anyway, so I thought while I was out I might as well have a quick butcher's up and down the street, round the block, and in the nearest pub. Just in case.

First thing I did when I came out of the door was trip over a large rockery stone, apparently laid upon my step for that precise purpose. I wasn't as upset as I might have been, though, because the stone was acting as a paperweight for a fifty-pound note. You ever seen a fifty-pound note? Nice design. I especially like the part where it says "Fifty Pounds."

Written along the edge of the banknote, in red felt-tip, was the message: "Want more? Find me. Where? You're the detective."

I walked up as far as the main road, keeping my eyes open for an American female, my sort of age, large teeth, expensive sungla.s.ses, dyed red hair, slim (by British standards, I mean; by American standards, downright skeletal), carrying a black leather attache case. I didn't see her. I had a quick look in the pub, and a squint through the window of the cafe. She wasn't there. I picked up my smokes and my pizza, and walked home by a different route. Still didn't spot her.

Fifty pounds, and the promise of more. I decided to go and fetch my car, extend the area of the search. She wanted to be found, after all: She had to be somewhere.

I got back to my place and there she was, sitting next to the money-stone, right there on my step.

She was quite good-looking, if you go for the all teeth and bones look, and, frankly, it's a long time since I could afford to be fussy. Even so, she was beginning to irritate me. I sat down next to her, got my notebook out of my pocket, and said, "Let's start with a description of the missing cat."

"No, let's start with you giving me my fifty pounds back."

Now I was irritated. "Why should I give you the money back?"

"Because it was an advance on your fee for finding me. You didn't find me. I was here all the time." She pointed towards a tumble-down, roofless wooden shack which hid the communal dustbins (from sight, though rarely from smell). "I was right over there."

"Then you hired me under false pretences," I said. But I gave her the money anyway. I suppose I'd known all along that that fifty-quid note had "Too Good to Be True" written all over it, in red felt-tip.

She put the money in her rear jeans pocket, then stood up and brushed the brick dust off her backside. "My name's Marie," she said. "Can we talk in your office?"

I lit a cigarette. "We are doing," I said.

"Oh, I see. Cla.s.sy operation, huh?" Marie chuckled. From the sound her throat made I guessed she was a smoker, but if she wanted a smoke now, she could have one of her own. "Okay," she said, still standing. I stood up too, because it seemed like the polite thing to do. And because my b.u.m had gone to sleep on the stone. It's not as young as it used to be, that b.u.m of mine.

Marie reached round to her back pocket and brought out the (by now legendary) fifty-pound note. Then she dug in one of her front pockets and came up with its twin. She held them both out to me. I just about stopped myself from kissing them. "This is a retainer, okay?" said Marie.

I tucked the hundred away, somewhere deep within the folds of my poverty. "Okay. So what's the cat's name?"

"Venus Arisen."

"Venus Arisen?" I wrote it down. "That's a pity."

For the first time since we'd met, Marie looked a little unsure. "A pity? Why?"

One of the worst parts of this job is having to be polite to annoying people. Since it's one of the worst parts, I rarely bother with it. "A pity to give a cat such a b.l.o.o.d.y stupid name," I explained. "How long's she been missing?"

"He. I don't believe in gender-restricted names. And he's not missing." She showed me an unpleasantly, if appropriately, feline smile, designed to prove that she was back in control of the conversation after a brief derailment.

What she didn't know was- well, she didn't know me. She didn't know that, with one hundred pounds of her money in my pocket, I really couldn't care less what silly games she wanted to play. "So you know where the cat is?"

"I know where the cat is."

"And you want me to get it back for you?"

"Nope."

"You don't want me to get the cat back for you?"

She shook her head loosely from side to side. Frankly, it was not what I would consider a very grown-up gesture. "What I want you to do is, I want you to find out where the cat is."

Oh, right. A loony. No problem. Far as I'm concerned, you can be as loony as you like, just as long as you're paying. Like, in advance. "Well," I said, cheerfully, "that should be simple enough."

"Oh yes?"

"Sure. I'll ask you where the cat is. You tell me. Then I'll tell you, and you can pay me. Yes, that ought to work. Though it leaves unresolved the question of what I'm going to do with my evenings now the World Cup's over."

She burst into tears. I mean, she exploded into tears, like an Iraqi water-cooler hit by an underachieving smart bomb. "You're not taking this seriously!"

Now, that hurt. How could she say such a thing about me? This woman had given me one hundred pounds and implied that there was more to come. And she thought I wasn't taking her seriously?

"Madam," I informed her, "I can a.s.sure you I take this matter most seriously and will endeavour to deliver complete satisfaction in whatever mission with which you see fit with which to charge me with. How many withs was that?"

She dabbed at her tears with her sleeve. "I don't know. I lost count."

"The thing is, I need to get all the facts straight in my head." Even if they're not straight in your screwy nut, I could have added. But didn't, obviously. "So, tell me the whole story, will you?"