Too Many Suspects
It was going to be a hot June day after the fog burned off. I got to the office early to finish rearranging the furniture and set up the computer equipment. Everything smelled like new leather, freshly polished wood, and electrical components. No sweat, no tears, and no bullet holes - yet. The paint was barely dry on the sign out front that read: JOHNNY CASINO, PRIVATE DETECTIVE.
After a few years of retirement I opened a new place in a nicer part of L.A., if there is such a thing. Crime doesn't have its own zip code. I was still close enough to the mountains so I could head for the hills when I got tired of the sad stories and the unhappy faces, yet near enough to trouble if it came knocking at my door.
And it did. That afternoon.
The front door swung open. The sudden change in light played tricks with my eyes. All the color drained from the scene and it looked like an old black and white movie. You know, the one where the gorgeous dame wearing the mink coat and stiletto heels walks into the hardboiled detective's shabby office and pleads her case, usually to the tune of "Harlem Nocturne" playing in the background.
Only thing, this wasn't a movie.
She stood in the doorway, the glare of the lazy afternoon sun backlighting her. She wasn't wearing a mink, just a slinky sundress that didn't leave much to the imagination. But she did have on a pair of black stilettos. She walked into the office.
"Are you open for business, Mr. Casino?" said a liquid gold voice. It was deep and rich and went with the burnished tan on her good-looking face.
"At your service." I ushered her to a chair, and then went behind my desk and took a seat. "What can I do for you?"
She looked around the office like it wasn't exactly what she had expected. Maybe she'd seen the same movie and thought the place should have been seedier.
"Find out who's trying to kill me," she said.
She didn't blink. I studied her face a little longer. Her silhouette fit a woman about thirty-five, but the little bird feet dancing around her eyes said she had a few more miles on her. And the tan was probably sprayed on in one of those trendy salons on Rodeo Drive. I guessed her hair had been eased into that summer blond shade with the help of a big bottle of bleach. Up close and under harsher light she looked to be in her mid-fifties. Ten years older than yours truly.
"Anybody in particular up for the job?"
She sighed. "It's a long list, Mr. Casino. I'm not well liked in my circle."
"What circle is that, Mrs.‛&?"
"Ellison. Daphne Ellison. My husband was‛&"
"Larry Ellison. I've heard about you and your late husband. Sorry for your loss."
She ignored the condolences and crossed her legs in a move that let me know that tan went up pretty far. She watched me watch her, but she didn't adjust her skirt.
"You don't look like one of the horsy-set, Mr. Casino," she said, studying me like I was a racehorse and she was thinking of throwing a saddle on my back. Since I knew she and her late husband had an interest in one of the nags that raced at Santa Anita, she probably knew just how to do it.
"Should I take that as a compliment or should I rewrite my résumé, Mrs. Ellison?"
"Why don't you call me Daphne, and I'll call you Johnny?"
"Works for me. Do you want to discuss my fee, or did you inherit‛&"
"Everything, Johnny. That's why I'm expendable."
"Who inherits if you're out of the picture? Do you have kids?"
"Larry and I didn't have children. We had two 'vipers' instead, just to be different. And to tell you the truth, if they didn't kill their father, they hired someone to do it. But their funds are limited now. They'll have to do the deed themselves."
"You really think your kids killed your husband?" I watched her body language to see if she was telling the truth. Okay, maybe I just liked looking at that terrific body, but I did need to know if she was just an hysterical female, or if she were really in trouble.
"They as much as told me so," she said, easing back slightly in the chair. "I asked where their father was after a day of boating and Alexander said Larry wouldn't be coming home. I stupidly inquired where my darling husband was dropping his trousers that evening, and Eunice said, 'Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.'"
"Alexander and Eunice are the vipers?"
"Very perceptive of you, Johnny. I knew you and I would get along famously."
....Continued.