“Which you don’t when the feds are your guardian angels,” I said.
“Which they are as long as you can be helpful.”
“How do you build up a list of clients when you’re an unknown, new investment counselor recently retired from the mob? Cold calls? Door-to-door?”
Imagine a guy his size knocking on your door selling mutual funds.
“I scammed my way into it.”
Why did that not surprise me?
He continued. “I sent e-mails to about two hundred investors and told half of them that a particular stock would go up and the other half it would drop. Whichever way it went, I removed the other half from my list and did it again with another stock.”
“I can see where this is going,” I said.
“I did it three times. After that, I had a list of twenty-five investors that had just gotten three consecutive hot tips. I sent them invitations to be clients. Most of them signed on. After that it was word of mouth.”
“After that you had to deliver.”
“And I do.”
“And now somebody has found you and wants to be paid for his silence.”
“Exactly. He uses e-mail and requires online payments, for chrissake, using OnlinePay.”
“What’s that?”
“You send money using the Internet.”
Learn something new every day.
“How much dust does he want?”
“Started out twenty grand, which I paid. But it seems that’s only the first installment. Apparently this goes on forever. This time he wants thirty. I can’t do that. Twenty grand here, thirty grand there, it adds up.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“I want it stopped,” he said. “Not just because of the money, but because I don’t want some scumbag knowing he got one over on me. I hate that. That’s where you come in, Stan. Find out who and where he is. You say that’s your specialty? That’s what I’m buying. You find him. I’ll take it from there.”
“I just have to find someone whose name, address, and likeness we don’t know. Should be easy enough.”
That was a bluff.
“All I have is his e-mail address. Can you do anything with that?”
“Well, that will take some serious hacking. I’ll call in Rodney.”
Rodney was my nephew, my sister’s boy.
“Rodney?”
“My computer expert. When he’s not working for me, he surfs for porn and breaks into government computers. Just for the hell of it.”
“You sure a guy like that is reliable? Sounds flaky.”
“I’m sure. When it comes to computers, if he can’t do it, it can’t be done.”
“Okay. What’s your fee?”
“Five hundred a day plus expenses.”
I seldom got that much, but if you don’t ask...
“What kind of expenses?”
“Travel, bribes, tips for information, whatever I have to pay Rodney, and such.”
“Makes sense.”
“For now I need the e-mail address of the blackmailer. And a way to reach you.”
Buford took a card from his wallet and wrote on the back. “This is his e-mail address. My cell and e-mail are on the other side. Don’t pass them around.”
I looked at the card. “I’ll need your home address.”
“No, you won’t. You need to talk to me, call. You can e-mail or text an invoice when you need to be paid. Just don’t try to outbid the blackmailer. Keep me in the loop too. Daily progress reports.”
“Will do.”
“Stan, you do this for me and your financial worries are eased a bit. I’ll keep you on retainer for as long as I might have these kinds of problems.”
That was the best news I’d heard all day. “Don’t worry, Buford. I’ll find the rat.”
We shook hands and Buford threw a twenty on the table and left. I went to the front window and watched him cross the street and go behind my building to the alley. Soon a white Rolls Royce Phantom pulled out of the side street and turned north. I couldn’t see the driver. But the big man in the alpaca coat and fedora was in the back seat lighting another cigar. The Rolls sped away.
I ordered another drink.
Chapter 3
I must have spent the night in my car. That’s where I woke up. My head pounded like the bass drum in a street band. Thump, thump. My stomach churned like a cement mixer.
I got out of the car, went into my office building, and climbed the stairs to the third floor. There seemed to be more stairs today than usual.
I’ve got to talk to the landlord about that elevator. It hasn’t worked since before Nixon resigned. But then he’ll talk to me about the rent. Which hasn’t been paid since...well, you get the idea.
I went in the door marked, “Bentworth Detective Agency, LLC.” I had lettered that sign myself. It showed. The door opened into Willa’s office, which served as a waiting room and reception lobby. My office was behind hers with a closed door that separated us. The two offices could have used some paint, and the few pieces of furniture were more suited for the land fill, but clients didn’t seem to mind. Like Buford, they had problems to be solved, and most of them cared more about results than about how my office looked.
Willa was already there, settled at her desk, looking in a hand mirror, and adjusting her makeup, a wasted effort. She was in her fifties with graying hair, square-rimmed reading glasses, and was as skinny as a fourteen-ounce pool cue. Today she was wearing a drab one-piece suit and Eleanor Roosevelt shoes.
Willa had come to work the previous year and was the most efficient office manager I’d ever had. For the first time in my long and illustrious career as a P.I., my files were in order, my schedule organized, my books balanced, and my bank account reconciled. Overdrawn but reconciled.
Rodney was waiting for me in my office, sitting in my chair reading a comic book with his feet up on my desk. I stood in the doorway, bleary-eyed and head throbbing, and looked at him.
“What’s up Uncle Stanley?” Rodney was too cheerful for this kind of morning. Hell, Ebenezer Scrooge before the ghosts would have been too cheerful. My mouth felt like I’d been licking the bottom of a bird cage, the ringing in my ears would have rivaled the Anvil Chorus, and my asshole felt like Johnny Cash’s burning ring of fire. I didn’t dare fart. They’d have had to pick me up somewhere near Cleveland.
If you need any more hangover metaphors, come back tomorrow.
I made my usual morning-after resolution to quit drinking. This time I meant it. Like all the other times.
Rodney made no move to vacate my desk. He was tall and gangly with spiked orange hair. He was dressed in the usual baggy shorts, the top of which was down around the lower part of his ass with the crotch at his knees.
“Rodney, what holds those pants up?”
He put the comic book on the table and turned the swivel chair to face me.
“Will power,” he said.
“Get up,” I said.
He stood up and walked past me. I sat down.
“Your Jockey shorts are showing,” I said.
“That’s the style.” He turned to face me.
“I hope you change them every day.”
“Yellow in front, brown in back.”
His T-shirt said, “If God hadn’t meant for man to eat pussy, He wouldn’t have made it look like a taco.” The back of the shirt had a picture of a vertical taco.
“Damn, Rodney. That shirt can get you arrested. Does your mother know about it?”
“She bought it.”
My sister. What a piece of work.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“You called last night. Said we have a job.”
“I did? Oh, yeah, I did.” I didn’t remember the call, but we did have work. “Got your laptop?”
“Yeah, in my backpack.”
“If I give you an e-mail address, can you find out whose it is and where they are?”
His backpack hung from a hook on the coat rack. He got it, pulled the other chair over, unpacked the laptop, and set it up on the desk.