Episode 12 - Stake Out

A night out in Brooklyn.

It sounded like the title of a movie, one of those romcoms where everything that can go wrong does, but the two get together anyway.  Where had those days of Jane Fonda and Cliff Roberson gone?

Harry could be home watching a movie at home with the cat, but instead, he was enduring the onset of a cold night, in his car on a stakeout.  He was outside the address Jennifer Jones had given him, one of several brownstones.

Harry had already scouted the location and if he was lucky he might get a photo of them in the kitchen, or one of the front rooms if I didn’t get caught outside.  The chances were he was going to get nothing but a cold.

At least he’d arrived there before, at the very least, Miriam got home.  If she turned up alone, Harry might yet get home in time to watch that movie.

Harry doubted the cat would worry whether he turned up or not.

Not even his experience as a night patrolman had prepared him for the long, cold, lonely night he expected to spend in the car. 

Watching, waiting.  For what, he had no idea.  

He'd brought the obligatory thermos of hot coffee and donuts, but it did little to assuage the boredom or cold he felt.

Nothing was happening, not after the first hour, not the second.

At least he didn't think anything had happened. There were times when he drifted off, sleep induced by the right sort of classical music softly played on the car's radio.

One of those nap0s was interrupted by a slamming car door, and he looked over to the building where Miriam lived and saw her on the sidewalk, watching the taxi leave.  She was alone, and he hadn’t seen anyone else but the driver in the cab.

No incriminating photographs tonight.

The clock on the dash said it was 1:40 in the morning.  It had taken her a long time to get him.  Perhaps they had stopped off at a hotel for their dalliance before she came home.

Or not.

She was a little unsteady on her feet, the sign of too much to drink, and she carefully negotiated the steps leading up to the front door, and after a rummage in her purse, she found her keys, took a few minutes getting the key in the lock before going inside.

One job down, onto the next.

Hardly worth going home to annoy the cat.  He would go over to Al’s brother’s place and stake it out, see what he was up against.  Perhaps he might even catch Jennifer Jones sneaking away very early in the morning.

Anything was possible.

It was half-past two on a very cold early morning when he settled down.  The coffee was drunk, the snacks were eaten, the next meal would be breakfast in a cafe if he could find one.

His head slipped onto the car window, and he woke suddenly.

Opening his eyes, he realized it was morning.  Overcast.  Still cold.  Colder than the night before.

He could hear a tap on the window.  He wiped the fog inside to see who it was.

A man.  

Middle-aged with a beard, In a tracksuit.  A jogger, trying to see if Harry had died in his sleep.

He wound the window down.  "Can I help you?"

"My brother got you watching me?"

It was the man in the photograph.

© Charles Heath 2016-2018

Episode 11 - Memories of the Past

It was later than his usual time being out in the city.  Night set in with a vengeance.  Not only had the darkness come down like a black blanket, but the cold had also arrived from the Arctic circle.  Crossing from his car to the Cafe was like walking through a refrigeration unit.

Harry needed some thinking time, and that, for now, worked only with a large black coffee, no milk, no sugar.  The bitterness of the brew sharpened his mental processes.  Later he might consider a key lime pie, or perhaps a custard tart.  Maybe, maybe not.

The odds of starting the day with no client, and no job to go on with, and by night having two clients at odds with each other, and having to decide which took priority.

A woman who wanted to catch her husband with another woman, a woman she was familiar with.  Miriam might be a ‘floozy’ like Jennifer Jones said, but she wasn’t up to having an affair, at least not with Al.  Something else had drawn them together.  I’d seen the look between them when Al called me out.  It was not one of guilt.  

Then there was the husband who wanted to catch his brother with his wife.  That had a lot more credence to it, because Jennifer looked the type if there was such a type, who would, at the very least, flirt with other men.  And Al’s brother wasn’t too hard on the eye, either.

Jennifer also had a degree of sophistication that Al lacked, which made it an improbable pairing.

Just saying.

Oh, what a tangled web...

There was a beat-up piano being driven by an elderly man, who deftly hammered out something that bordered between classical and jazz.  With my tin ear, he could either be a prodigy or a hack.  At the end f the piece there was no reaction from the few diners nearby, so I asked the waiter to take him a drink of his choice, and a request.

He thanked me by doffing his hat.

It provided a short diversion from the problem at hand/

Moonlight Sonata, by Beethoven, and a favorite of an old friend.

It was not so much the sound of it as it was the memories the music invoked, and of whom Harry had been with and when, and how very different it had been.  It had been his first real love, and he still hadn’t got over her.

The piano playing suggested the player was more than just a hack, but it was lost on the current clientele.  Their loss, he thought.

He pulled out his cell phone and called the number under JJ in his autodial list.

“You have it?”  It was the expectant answer of the husky-voiced woman.  And just a little abrupt.

“Too early in the night, and if I’m not mistaken, they’re hardly going to be doing anything in front of a large crowd.”  She’d taken me by surprise and I was a little blunter than I intended.

“Follow them home.”

“Or I could wait for them.  Where’s home?”

She gave me an address in Brooklyn.

“Her place, not his.  She entertains there.”  Though ‘entertains’ was not explicitly described, I got the hint.

“You husband would not be that stupid.”

“You’d be surprised.  Oh, and don’t let him buy you off like he did the others.  He thinks I don’t know.  Don’t let me down.”

The line went dead.

No pressure then.

© Charles Heath 2016-2018

Episode 10 - Brothers

Harry waited until he was back in his car before he looked more closely at the photograph.

If it was Al’s brother, there was no family resemblance, but, on the other hand, there was a sort of familiarity with his face, as if he had seen him before, somewhere.

Definitely, they were opposites.  Al looked the epitome of a thug, his brother looked like he would be more at home in a mansion.  Both wore expensive suits, so there was money involved.

Was Jennifer Jones looking for a divorce and a large financial settlement?

He turned the photograph over and there was an address written hastily on the back.  One of the more exclusive suburbs.

Another look at the man in the photograph and Harry had to wonder what Al’s game was.  It felt like a game.  How many investigators did he say came before him?  Three.  And none of them had success in getting evidence on either of the two, because Harry was sure Al would have made the same play with the other three.

Did they just take the money and make up some story?

He looked in the grubby envelope thinking it would have a wad of twenties given how thick it was, but no, it was a mix of fifties and hundreds, used, nonsequential, untraceable, and definitely, a lot more than the five thousand Al said he was paying him.

Was this overpayment an incentive to finish the job, or take the money and go away.  Obviously, the other three investigators took the hint.

And it was not lost on him that he was treading the very murky waters of client confidentiality, or that what he was doing was downright unethical.

This was his first real case and he was still brimming with enthusiasm.  For a moment, greed overtook common sense.


© Charles Heath 2016-2018

Episode 9 - Punch...Counterpunch

Choking on his drink gave the game away.  Harry didn’t have to answer.  But it was not entirely the reason for the giveaway, it was how remarkable Al looked like Sidney Greenstreet’s Kasper Gutman in The Maltese Falcon.

Harry had to blink a few times just in case it was his imagination.

“I thought so.  How much is she paying you?”

Not the same jolly voice though.  Should he expect to see Joe Cairo come out of nowhere to join them/?  And while he was making mental notes, the red-haired woman was no Mary Astor.

Should Harry lie, should he try to make money out of this?  Or should he turn around, walk out the door, find the woman and give her the money back?

It was clear he wasn’t the first private investigator she had sent to get evidence.  Both Al and the red-haired floozy had bemused expressions.

What had Jennifer Jones sent me into?

I sighed.  “Not enough, apparently.”

“I’ll double it.”

Predictable.  And worrying.  “And if I walk away?”

“You’d be a fool.”

But a live fool rather than a dead one.  This wasn’t his first time around.  “How many before me?”

“Three.”

“What happened to them?”

He shrugged.  He wasn’t going to say, and I wasn’t going to ask.  Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.  This man had thug written all over him.

“Five thousand,” he said.

“Doing what?”

“Catch my bastard brother with her.  One photo.  You’ve got three days.”

He gave me a photo and an envelope.  He’d obviously been prepared, and if I was not mistaken, this was a trap he had set for his wife, and she’d fallen into it.

“I’m supposed to get a photo of you two together,” I said.

“Of course, but don’t you think if we were in a more compromising position it would be better?”

True.  I hadn’t quite thought the implications of the job too closely and realized perhaps it may have been better if I waited for them, followed them home, and got the photo then, of course, if it was possible.

A lesson learned the hard way.

“Don’t worry.  There’s nothing between Miriam and I but air.  Jen seems to think because we work together, there’s something going on.  I suspect she wants to find something on me to cover her own indiscretions.”

He must have seen my rather bewildered expression.

“”I like you, son, which is saying something given how much I hate investigators, police or private.  Now, off you go.”

© Charles Heath 2016-2018

Episode 8 - Finding Trouble

More people were moving from the bar area towards the band stage at the same time he was, and walking between groups getting more difficult.  It felt like the crowd was moving in on him, preventing him from making any headway.

At the spot he had last seen the woman and Al he stopped, looked around, but neither were there.

Damn, he’d lost both of them, which, given he was a  portly imitation of Alfred Hitchcock, or so Harry thought, and the bright red hair of the woman he was with, was some feat.

He drank what remained of his beer and put the empty glass on a shelf.  Just as he did, he felt a thump on his back startling him and also causing him to hit several other empty glasses, knocking them to the floor with a loud shattering sound.

Patrons jumped back and sideways to avoid the glass.

A booming voice behind me said, “Well done, son.  Not many can down a pint in one gulp.”

I turned.  A guy in a suit, by the look of it a very expensive suit.  And one not to mess with.  Several of those avoiding the shattering glass had turned to square up, saw him, and turned away.

Then Harry recognized him, the man with the red-haired woman.  He looked very different closer up, much less like a gangster, but still not a man to mess with.

The red-haired woman appeared at his side, three drinks held carefully, and which she placed on the now empty shelf.

She gave the man the Scotch and offered a pint to me.  Same beer as my last.

He grinned.  “Take it, son.  It’s a peace offering.”

“I didn’t know we were at war.”

“We might be.  It depends on what you say next.”

Harry accepted the drink and sipped it.  It seemed foolish not to.  “Would it make any difference what I said?”

“Not really, but a truthful answer will help your cause.  Are you the latest piece of shit PI my wife has sent after me?”


© Charles Heath 2016-2018

Episode 7 - Looking for Trouble?

The bar was crowded, and the collective sound of a hundred conversations was overlaid by the louder noise of a live band who had cranked up the volume.  They were, he thought briefly, playing a poor version of an Eagles cover, A Horse With No Name.

He liked the song, just not their rendition of it.  Why he thought briefly, did people have to mess with perfection?

He stopped just inside the front entrance for a minute,  long enough to locate the exits, and where trouble might come from, before continuing towards the bar, picking a path through the patrons.

He kept one eye on the women, looking for a likely candidate for the red-haired ‘floozy’, and the other on trying not to inadvertently brush past any of the women, a task made difficult because of the crowd.

There were a number of natural red haired women, but the were office girls, and hardly what he’d label a floozy, and far too young.  Nor were they with any male company.

This was going to be harder than he first thought.

At the bar, he squeezed between an auburn haired office manager in a business suit, a woman definitely the other side of forty but trying to look younger, and a spotty faced office boy, tie askew, messy hair and a spotty face.  We they together?

“What are you drinking?”  Bartender, gruff.  Not a man to mess with.

“Beer, large,”

Twenty seconds, the bartender thumped the bottle on the bar in front of him, and Harry handed him a twenty.  He took the money.  There was no change.  Harry opened his mouth to ask, but the glare told him it was not worth the argument.

As he took a sip, he was bumped by the woman on the other side of him, spilling beer down the front of his jumper.

He turned to look at her.

She smiled.  “Haven’t seen you here before.”

Mid thirties, dyed blond hair with visible black roots, too much makeup, clothes a size too small and a skirt far too short to be sitting on a stool.

This woman was trouble.

“I came to meet a friend.  Didn’t realize it would be so busy.”  This woman made him feel uneasy, and he realized he would have to handle meeting beautiful women better.  Getting tongue tied wasn’t going to help in investigations.

“You can drink more for less,” she said, downing her drink and nodding in the direction of the bartender.  “Who are you looking for?  Maybe I can help.”

Harry cast his eyes over the crowd, looking around the perimeter starting at the band stage.  They’d moved on to a slightly better version of Hotel California.  He could see, now, the lead singer was wearing a purple suit.

Still no obvious red haired floozy.  Perhaps the client had been wrong and they were not here.

“Thanks, but it’s my problem.

He stepped away from the bar, and accidentally stepped into a man twice his size, with a face that looked as though it has seen several rounds at Madison Square Gardens.

“Watch yourself,” he growled, taking the empty spot I’d just vacated.

“Sorry,” I muttered, and slowly headed towards the back, near the band stage.  A number of people were dancing to the music, or in one case, to the music in their heads which had to be something entirely different.

The woman I left behind was now talking to my replacement.

I heard this strange shriek, what was meant to be laughter, and there she was.  The ideal candidate for the red-haired floozy.  Bright red hair, definitely not a proper hair color, and made the last woman I spoke to at the bar look like a kindergarten teacher.

And the man she was hanging off, the lying cheating bastard husband.

Oddly, I thought, they looked good together.

Only one problem.  Al looked like a gangster, right out of a 1940’s movie.

© Charles Heath 2016-2018

Episode 6 - A bar is a bar is a bar...

Harry went back into the station and headed for the nearest cafe to get coffee, and something to eat.  What he really felt like was a good stiff drink, but it was too early in the day.

Maybe in an hour or so, when the realization he had a case that didn’t involve a missing cat, dog, bird, or pet of any kind, a case that involved real people.

‘A lying, cheating, son-of-a-bitch husband’.

And from what he gathered from the short discussion, all she wanted was a photo of this ‘husband’ with what he assumed was his mistress.  He’d reserve judgment as to whether she was a floozy or not till when he saw her.

Coffee and a croissant in front of him, it was time to formulate a plan.  He had nearly 10 hours before he was to arrive at the bar.

Firstly, no point in taking a large camera with him into the bar, that would only invite attention.  His cell phone camera would suffice.  Its camera was better than the Pentax he had sitting back in the cupboard in the office.

Should he take Ellen with him so that he would not stand out?  No, it might get dangerous, after all, he was theoretically dealing with a cheating husband, and when he realized why Harry was there, there could be trouble.

Right, go back to the office and get some rest because it might be a long night, do some research on the establishment, and the client if possible,  Planning done.

When Harry closed the door, Ellen was coming out of his office and stopped.

“You get the phone call?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Find your uncle?”

“Luckily.  He was just about to wander off in the wrong direction.  Did you make a note of the call?”

“As much as she didn’t tell me.  I asked for a name, and what the call was in relation to, but all she wanted was to speak to you personally.  That was it, nothing.  You have better luck?”

“Her name is Jennifer Jones, the job is to get a photo of her husband cheating on her.”

“Want me to dust off the camera?”

“No.”  He walked towards her, and then, before he went into the office, gave Ellen the piece of paper Jennifer Jones had given him.  “Find out what you can about her.”

She looked at the note.  “Not a lot to work with, Harry.  Smells nice, though”  She lifted it to her nose and took several sniffs.  “Expensive too, I bet.”

“Do what you can.”

There was Ellen told him some hours later, nothing to be found.  Not for Jennifer Jones, other than there were a lot of them, nor Al Jones, of whom there were a lot more.  It seemed to Harry that the names were phony, or aliases.

He’d soon find out later.

The Mailroom was a bar next to the main mail sorting building in the southern part of the city, near the docks, and instantly remembered it for a bad experience..

He'd been there once before, later at night, nearly collected by a drunk who'd been thrown out of a hotel just up the street.  Whatever description there was on the internet about the bar now, it was not how he remembered it, nor did it accurately describe the establishment.

It was not the sort of place to go without purpose.

When he arrived, night had set in along with the cold, and the street lighting added to the garish neon advertising, gave it a surreal look.  He parked his car a block away, near the railway station, hoping no one would steal it.  There was a mist, and it might yet turn into fog.

Harry shivered.  It was hard to tell if it was the cold, or fear.  Perhaps a little of both.

After a moment's hesitation, he went in, immediately feeling the warmth from the artificial heating.  It was crowded, many of the patrons were nearby workers of all types, blue collar and white collar, who'd just come off shift or finished for the day.  

None looked particularly friendly, nor did any take any notice of him.

Then.

© Charles Heath 2016-2018