Gumshoe Gorilla (11 page)

"Well, there's LA, like I said. And I get the impression that he used to live in Dallas for a while. He's mentioned going to see the Cowboys play a few times."

It took me two clicks to find out that no one named "Collin Cartwright" had rented an apartment or bought a house in Dallas in the last ten years.

"Anywhere else?"

She thought for a moment.

"No. Not that I can recall."

I slipped my palmtop back into my pocket and leaned back in my chair, thinking.

"Well?" she asked. "Do you think you can help me?"

Ms. Hastings looked at me expectantly. I said nothing, as if continuing to mull over the problem. I picked up the cards and put them back in their case, turned on the lights, and blew out the candles. Finally, I turned back to my new client.

Drama is all in the timing.

"I think that there is something serious behind your concerns. The cards show a deception, and suggest some paths that may lead us to the truth. I am willing to pursue the matter. If you'll leave me with the retainer we discussed earlier, I'll begin looking into this."

"Oh thank you!" Ms. Hastings said, relieved almost to the point of tears. "I've had no idea what to do about this. And then my friend Ms. Waterford told me how you helped her out with her problem a couple years ago, and..."

"I can't discuss other cases, ma'am. But if your friend was a client, then I'm glad to know that she was happy with our results."

Ms. Hastings pressed a cash card on me, and I punched up our usual retainer on my palmtop. Then I showed her to the door, and she left, still thanking me for the privilege of giving me her money. Ah, the fortune I could have made selling used cars.

Unfortunately, not everyone appreciates my gifts.

As my new client's footsteps retreated down the hall, I was greeted by a sarcastic round of applause from my coworker.

"Beautiful," Drew said. "P.T. Barnum would be proud."

"Hey, you run client interviews your way, I'll run 'em mine."

"Fine," Drew said, looking over the boxes and files and pieces of costumes piled around my desk. "But does your way ever include tidying up the office so that the clients can actually find their way in?"

"Hey, that's not fair!" I shot back. "All of that stuff is related to a case we worked. I just haven't had a chance to put it away yet."

Drew picked up a leopard print leotard.

"This? This is related to one of our cases?"

"Yep," I said. "Remember the Gaskins case, when you had me doing surveillance at two in the morning on a downtown street corner? What do you think I dressed as?"

"What about these?" he asked, holding up my big yellow clown shoes.

"The Perkins case. How do you think I got that bug into his office? I stuck it inside an inflatable elephant and delivered it as a balloon-o-gram."

"And this?"

He held up something green in a zip lock bag.

"Oh. That was a peanut butter and banana sandwich I was gonna take on a long stakeout last week."

Drew sighed and tossed it at the wastebasket. And missed. It landed against the door with a squish. We both looked at it, then at each other.

"You're closer," I pointed out.

"It's your sandwich," Drew responded.

"Yeah, but I'm not the one who missed an easy two point shot."

Drew rolled his eyes.

"You really don't see a problem with the fact that you have to use my desk for your tarot readings?"

"What's the big deal? So I used your desk? There was nothing on it."

"My point exactly," Drew said, propping his feet up on my desk. Or more specifically, propping his feet up on top of the makeup case that was on top of the leather jacket that was on top of my big volume of
Fenton's Encyclopedia of Herbs
that was on top of my desk.

OK. Round one to Drew. I went and put the sandwich in the trash can.

"Happy?" I asked.

He looked around the room.

"Actually, happy is gonna take about four trips down to the storage area in the basement. But I'll take what I can get for now. So how'd the interview go?"

"Pretty straightforward. Her daughter came back from vacation with a new husband, and the client has a bad feeling about him. I checked, and it turns out that her new son-in-law has changed his name at least once, and is probably lying about some details in his background. I've got some strong leads to start with."

"Good."

"How about you?" I asked. "How'd the bit go with the travel agent tonight?"

Drew smiled.

"Piece of cake. He was putty in Daniel's hands, and I got everything I needed off his system. I'll write up the report tomorrow morning and get it off to the client."

Drew picked up a construction helmet that was on my desk, raised an eyebrow, and then decided not to ask about it.

"So what's the story on this ten o'clock you mentioned on the phone?" he asked.

"I don't know much yet. Her name is Skye Phillips. We've been swapping e-mail all day, trying to set up a meeting. She's in a real hurry to see us. Apparently she works late, so she's only available at night."

Drew got a sour expression.

"Only willing to meet after dark? Just tell me she's not another one of those vampire wannabe necro-nerds."

"I don't think so," I said. "I ran her e-mail address through National Demographics, and she doesn't visit any of the Goth web sites on a regular basis. You want to see her profile? I've only had time to skim it."

Drew nodded, and I had Cassandra forward the document to him. While he looked it over, I changed the sign on the door, taking off the brass plate that read
Jennifer Grey, Licensed Psychic Detective
and swapping it out for the one that reads
Fortress Security
. Fortress is the name we advertise under to land the fat corporate accounts. Or to try to land them, at any rate. It had been a while since we had a call on that line. Mostly we survive off my private-third-eye gig and the business that Drew brings in handling gay divorces.

Drew highlighted a couple of things on his palm top, and then skimmed down through the rest of the report. You can learn a lot about a person from one of those profiles, if you know how to read them. National Demographics is this nice company that collects the information from all those "cookies" on your hard drive-- you know, the little spy programs that advertisers quietly slip into your system every time you hit a web site. In theory, the company only releases the data to people with a "legitimate need". In practice, that means anybody who can cough up their $12.95 fee for a report. Something to think about the next time you're tempted to cruise a porn site.

While Drew read, I opened the window and lit a stick of incense. An air elemental had been following me around for the last few days, and I wanted to see if I could entice it up to our office with a tasty snack. So far it had been keeping its distance. I'd first noticed it on Sunday, as a small whirlwind stirring up the leaves in our parking lot. I hadn't remarked on it much, but then it turned up again while I was having dinner on the patio at The Vickery. And when I saw it a third time, on the steps leading up to my apartment, I knew that something was up. Since then, it has been putting in an appearance at least twice a day. I've tried talking to it, but air elementals are notoriously skittish. I wasn't sure if this one needed something from me or just wanted to be friends.

I looked back at Drew. He'd finished reading, and was staring at the window, trading facial expressions with his own reflection. I watched him do this for about twenty seconds before I said anything.

"Uh... Drew? Is this a private conversation, or can anyone join in?"

Drew turned to me. And for a split second I caught a glimpse of something strange in his eyes. Or maybe, a glimpse of
someone
strange. Every so often I get this feeling that the good old cynical Drew that I know and love is just a mask for someone else.

It started last fall, when one of our cases went ugly in a major way. It's a long story. Our client wound up dead, and I was taken prisoner by an insane painter, and Drew... I still don't know what happened to Drew. I didn't see him until it was all over. But something had changed in him, underneath.

"So we ever gonna talk about it?" I asked.

"About what?"

"You know what 'what'. The 'what' you keep avoiding every time I bring it up."

Goddess! It's easier to get men to sit still for a root canal than to talk about their feelings.

"Come on, Drew. It's not nice to keep secrets from your partner."

"Oh," Drew said. "You mean like working a whole case and not telling him about it?"

"No, that's not what I mean. That was a special situation, and the client asked..."

"Oh, then you mean secrets like the fact that you were a fundamentalist Baptist before you were a Wiccan?"

"No, Drew. That's not..."

"Or maybe you mean secrets like where you got the money for that new Vesta you've been driving. Win the lottery last fall and forget to tell me about it?"

Drew can be really obtuse at times. OK, the car had come from the money that I had gotten from the insane painter. But I'd kind of earned it, so it was OK. And besides, I need a good car in my line of work. And I donated the rest of the money to the school were Raven worked, as a memorial fund. And it really was none of his business.

Anyway, the point is that Drew's secret isn't about money or client confidentiality or ancient history. It's about who he is, deep down. That's a different kind of secret. The kind that gets in the way of a healthy relationship. Which is why Drew resorted to the usual male tactic for handling talks about relationships. He changed the subject.

"Our ten-o'clock appointment is an interesting little puzzle," he observed.

"How so?" I asked, grinding my teeth. I was not done with the previous subject. One of these days, I would get an answer out of Drew. I was just gonna have to be sneaky about it.

"Well for one thing she moves around a lot," Drew said. "Over the last few years her shipping address has gone from LA to New Orleans to Orlando. It changed over to a hotel room at the downtown Hilton about two months ago. I've seen their rates-- she must have money."

"Drew, you have the soul of an accountant."

"If only I had the bank account of one as well. Still, why do you think she moves around so much?"

"You haven't guessed?" I asked.

"No, should I?"

It seemed pretty damn obvious to me.

"Think, Drew. LA. New Orleans. Orlando. And now Atlanta. There isn't something about those cities in that particular order that rings a bell?"

Drew gave me a blank stare. I wasn't sure if he really didn't know or was just playing dumb. Drew likes to affect this "I'm too busy to watch television" attitude.

"Drew, you are aware that
CzechMates
is shooting in town, aren't you?"

Drew thought about it just a little too long. Now I knew he was faking it.

"Oh yeah," he said. "Isn't that the show with the Rockland brothers?"

"Yeah," I said. "Three of 'em, at any rate."

"I think I saw an episode once," he admitted. He was trying to play it cool, feigning indifference to the fact that three identical hunks were shooting a show within a couple miles of our office.

"I'll bet you have."

Personally, I hadn't started watching the show until they released the first Atlanta episode two weeks ago. Which I guess is the idea. Get the hometown crowd to tune in, get 'em hooked, and then move on and hope they follow you. Well, I'm sorry to say that their shameless marketing ploy had worked. We were only two episodes into the new season and I was already a hopeless junkie. I'd been devouring the old seasons at a rate of two or three episodes a day, and was about halfway through the New Orleans storyline.

It's not that the show was particularly original. The premise was sort of a stock Hollywood "opposites attract" thing: exotic Czech con artist teams up with hard boiled LA Detective. But the writing was really funny, and there was this crazy chemistry between the two characters. And of course, it didn't hurt that the detective was played by the Rockland brothers. Woof. I'm sure I'm not the only person who bumps up the nudity setting on my media filter for that show.

While I took a moment to mentally replay the sauna scene from last season, Drew clicked his way out to the show's website.

"Yeah, you're right," he said. "She's listed in the credits.
Skye Phillips, Plot Coordinator.
What do you suppose that means?"

There was a loud knock on the door. I glanced at the clock. 9:50 pm. She was ten minutes early.