“Too...early.”
John
slapped the alarm clock off the nightstand and pulled himself back onto the
pillows. Still dark as
pitch outside. The only light
came from the red
Another loud buzz. Not the clock. The door? His or downstairs? The incessant off-key droning through his
brain forced him awake. He cursed.
Three
days of surveillance without more than a couple of catnaps and he’d managed
three hours’ sleep. And now some idiot
couldn’t keep his hand off the doorbell?
This
was somebody’s lucky day.
He’d
locked up his Sig.
Raking
his fingers through his hair, John eased himself out of the bed and made his
way naked through the office to the frosted glass door. With perverse pleasure, he flipped the lock
and yanked it open.
Nobody there.
And
he was awake.
A
shower might help, but the thought of getting wet so early in the morning
irritated his cat DNA. After coffee would be soon enough. He did take the time to pick a towel off the
bathroom floor and wrap it around his waist before venturing downstairs for
caffeine. He needed coffee.
Badly.
Zanetti’s luncheonette didn’t officially open
until ten on Sunday. Old Mrs. Zanetti, his landlady, usually had a fresh batch of coffee
steaming away in the huge commercial brewing machine...not one of those sissy
cappuccino makers, but real, one hundred per cent Brazilian coffee with enough
caffeine to clear his brain. He was
welcome downstairs at any time, she’d told him since he moved in. And today he needed about a quart of black
coffee to get his brain functioning.
He
opened the connecting door, inhaling the fragrance of liquid intelligence. Mrs. Zanetti slept
late, sometimes, but always got the coffee brewing before six. He reckoned she was in her apartment getting
dressed--not allowing his brain to venture any further--and would come out if
she heard him moving around the spotless stainless steel kitchen, so he hitched
up the towel, just to be sure. The
stacked cups called to him. She’d left a
spoon and sugar packets on the counter, as she did every day. Two little packages of
dairy lightener...whatever the hell that was...next to the spoon. This was new.
John
pulled the handle and watched the coffee fill his cup. He paused, letting the perfume fill his
nostrils, then turned to find a woman with a huge kitchen
knife in her hand, standing ten feet away.
#
Liz
barely had time to toss her suitcase on the saggy bed when she heard odd noises
coming from the kitchen. Her grandmother
shouldn’t be walking around, fussing over getting breakfast for her when she
was perfectly capable of making something for herself. But Flo
was Flo and nothing, not even gout, could stop her.
As
she rounded the corner, Liz stopped dead.
This wasn’t her grandmother rummaging in the kitchen. It was a naked man. A big, nicely built naked man with his back
to her. Great
shoulders. Whoa! This wasn’t good, was it?
Think
quick.
Her
eyes searched for a weapon. The kitchen
knives lay on the counter, washed and ready to use. She snaked out her hand and grabbed one, hefting
it defensively against her chest.
He turned and started.
“Ah, shit!”
He flinched, spilling coffee over his hand, sending hot liquid to the
floor and his bare feet. He danced in
place for a few seconds.
Liz saw great humor in the situation but
maintained her cool.
“What the hell do you think you’re
doing?” Just the right amount of
calculated heartlessness to scare off a guy wearing a tattered towel that
covered not much more territory than a Speedo.
“Getting coffee, like I
always do. Jesus, you scared
me.” He stepped away from the
puddle. “Where’s Flo?”
“Never mind where she is,” Liz
snarled. “Who the hell are you?”
Suddenly his expression mellowed as if he
thought the threat was gone. “I’m her
tenant, John Preshin.
I live upstairs.”
Giving him the once over, Liz took in his
height and thick, dark hair that looked straight off the pillow. Nice. She
saw his blue eyes twinkle as he returned her gaze, but as her inspection went a
little lower, she got a real surprise. Something
was stuck to his chest. Duct tape?
She worked hard to hold in a laugh. “You always come down here naked?”
His smile widened, showing nice teeth and making
it very hard for Liz to keep up the don’t-mess-with-me
demeanor.
“Only on Sundays. This must be your lucky day.”
That got the snort it deserved. But Liz lowered the knife, her eyes going
back to the ridiculous Z of duct tape across his well-muscled hairy chest.
“Had a visit from Zorro last night?” she
asked offhandedly.
The man, nonchalant as all get out, leaned
one hand back on the counter and sipped from the cup. His eyes closed in obvious appreciation, but
when they opened, they blinked at the duct tape. He resumed his pose as if he had the silvery
stuff stuck on his chest every day of the week.
Yeah,
right.
“Let me get back to you on that,” he
grinned.
And totally disarmed her
for a second.
“Anything else we can offer you?” Liz struggled to hold in the smirk that
wanted to come out.
“Doughnuts aren’t in yet?”
What nerve!
“Not yet. Shall I call you when
they are?”
“If you don’t mind...,” he slurred, his
voice deep and husky and dangerous.
Liz stepped back, denying the tiny thrill
that spiked through her. “You gonna clean up that mess on the floor?”
He reached across the counter, grabbed a
wad of paper towels and bent to wipe the spill, showing far more of his anatomy
than Liz had been prepared to see. Yet
she couldn’t take her eyes off the sight.
With that audacious grin plastered on his
lips, John Preshin from upstairs stood, tossed the
wet mess into the garbage and slowly padded past Liz toward the back stairs.
“Jelly,” he whispered as he passed her.
The heat of his breath played on her neck
and a chill sizzled up her spine, leaving her speechless. All she could do was nod and put down the
knife.
#
Perhaps this day wasn’t going to be so bad
after all, he mused as he swallowed the last of the coffee and headed for the
bedroom. A redhead. Hmm. He liked redheads, but then, he liked
good-looking females of any shape or style.
This
one was gutsy, he had to admit, and he’d seen the subtle approval in her eyes
as she scoped him out. Never failed once
he turned on the charm, unless it was with wise guys who didn’t get his natural
magnetism.
Or jerks with high
powered rifles.
He shut the thought away, crawled back into
bed and felt sleep overtake him with gentle feminine hands.
The additional hours’ sleep revived him
enough to entertain thoughts of a shower.
With a burp from pipes old enough to have voted for Roosevelt--Teddy,
not
As he stepped into the shower, the tepid
water brought gooseflesh to his body and he shivered. At least something about him worked correctly
this morning. Bit by bit as he scraped
the soap across his skin, he remembered pieces of last night’s drama after he’d
located his quarry and tagged the guy for sure.
Investigation over. So he’d allowed the bleached blond to pick
him up. She’d slithered against him and
practically given him a handjob on the barstool after
he’d bought her a martini.
There hadn’t been enough caffeine in his Coke
to keep him awake long enough to satisfy either of them but he’d left and
gotten back to the office before crashing completely.
The tape puzzled him. After a one night stand, had she marked him
with her initial? What kind of crazy
woman did a thing like that?
Best forgotten one.
Not like that rash redhead downstairs. He knew she’d be something else.
As the water trickled down his body, he
scrubbed at the puckered scar on his shoulder, gritting his teeth against the
obscenely wrinkled flesh. From beyond
the shower curtain, a different pounding began, not in the pipes this
time. Somewhere outside,
maybe in the street. Maybe a jackhammer trying to break through glass. It registered. His door.
“Keep your shirt on,” he bellowed as he
turned off the water, grabbed a towel and, soaking wet, wrapped it around his
hips. These inappropriate interruptions
were part of the trouble of living in his office.
He shook the water from his hair, took one
quick, futile tug at the duct tape, stifled a scream and stomped through his
inner office, bent on opening the door and giving major grief to whoever kept
threatening to break the glass.
“What the hell do you want?” John threw
open the door, startling the two people on the other side.
One he recognized. Cop named Stoffel,
a sluggish ape of a man wearing a blue
“What?”
Stoffel took a
step back, eyeing John up and down with a malicious sneer that made John’s
returning humor go sour all over again.
“This your kid?”
A negative stopped short of his teeth. Something required thought here. A kid. What was up?
“Dunno. Let me see.”
The cop grabbed a handful of oversize
jacket and pulled the kid from behind him so John could take a look.
“What makes you think it’s mine?”
Stoffel
snorted. “Caught him
in the Rexall about to make off with some items. When I asked him for ID, he said he was Carl Preshin. Father was
John Preshin, maybe I knew of you.”
John kept his face and voice neutral. “And as luck would have it, you did.”
The cop leaned closer, so close John could
smell the coffee on his breath. A slight
trace of powdered sugar dusted one corner of his mouth. “I think this makes us even.”
For what?
John grunted. “Yeah.”
“Now take teach him it ain’t
polite to steal.”
Reaching out, John caught the kid’s
shoulder and pulled him past the large man’s blockade of his door.
“I’ll
do that.”
Stoffel tugged at
the visor of his cop hat, gave a snicker as he once again eyed the duct tape
and dripping-wet private eye and left them.
His control didn’t last more than ten feet down the dingy hall. Doughnut-breath would have some tale for the
boys back in Central.
Slamming the door didn’t do wonders for
John’s brand new headache. He grabbed
the kid and hustled him into the reception area.
“What
gives?”
The kid looked up for the first time. Heavily lashed big blue eyes, wide with fear,
looked back at John. “I didn’t take
anything.”
“Jesus!” He snatched the cap off the kid’s head,
revealing short, spiky black hair with tips of blood red stuck against a pale
face.
Panic made him reach for his ancient trench
coat on the nearby coat tree. He fumbled
to get it on, but he was wide awake now.
“You’re a girl!”
Her eyelids lowered as she turned away
slightly, and stepped back, out of reach.
“No shit, Sherlock.”
John
raised his hand to scratch the hair on his chest, stopped it in mid air.
“It says on the door that you do ‘discreet
investigations’.”
“That’s
right.” He groped, one-handed without
effect, at the buttons on the coat.
The
girl dug into the pocket of her jacket.
Holding out a crumpled bill, she said, “I’m hiring you to find my
father.”
He
shook his head. “Nope.”
Her
challenging expression fell, replaced by one of weariness and defeat. “Why not?”
John
scrubbed at his face again. “I won’t
enter into a contract with a minor. Especially a runaway.
My advice --go home to your mother.
She left him, probably for a good reason. Living with him won’t be any better, believe
me.” He made to escort her to the door.
Hands
on hips, fire in her eyes, the girl thrust the bill toward him again. “It’s a hundred. A C-note. That’s a lotta money.”
Her eyes scanned the dowdy office.
“Looks like you could use the bucks.”
“Go
home to your mother, kid. Tell the new
boyfriend to leave you alone, stay out of his way, and talk to the school guidance
counselor. I can’t help you.”
Her
chin went up and her eyes focused on him, daring him, wordlessly pushing. Then she turned her head and shot him a look
that scorched his heart.
“I
have no mother. I have no one in this
world. What I do have, though, is a list
of six names, any one of whom could be my father.”
The
words seeped into his brain, slowly, unaided by sufficient caffeine or
aspirin. Without thought, his one
eyebrow raised.
A
tight smile curled the corner of her mouth.
“Your
name, John Preshin, is at the top.”
graphics by Karyn Peterson || Old Palace Amusements Building