Red
The stilettos came into the smoky bar first, cutting through the nicotined murmur of the room with precise ice-cracking determination. Wax-smooth calves next, then legs that actually did go all the way to the top. The sharp heels clicked into the stunned silence of the room, stabbing at the already dead, worm-eaten oak floor. Her auburn hair glowed through the stale, smoky haze like the tip of a smoldering boardroom cigar. Her femininity was poured into a low neck, knee length white silk dress, triggering the alcohol-soaked imaginations of each of the sack of shit, testosterone-laced assholes in the room.
She stopped in the middle of the muscatel-stained floor, hands on hips, thumbs in front. She was looking for someone. You could see it in her face: the frown, the squint, the tight lips. The expression said a lot of things, mostly something like “okay, you bastard, I’m going to cut off your balls and stuff them down your throat, you two-timing son of a bitch.” Poor bastard. She turned in a slow lighthouse beacon-in-the-fog pirouette, intense jade eyes searching for him. Him, because there wasn’t another her in the room. The end-of-the-runway turn ended with a stopwatch tick, a Gestapo boot heel click. She’d found the bastard, reflected in the mirror in front of her. He was right behind her, and he was me.
“Am I glad to see you?” I asked. The bastard wanted to know.
“Depends,” she replied. Her back was still to me and she was talking to the mirror, like it was safer that way.
“What can I do for you, Miss…,” I asked. The room was silent. A rapt audience.
“William McVane, right?” she said. Greek accent, watered down.
That was me alright. The one sitting on the cheap aluminum-legged barstool with the ripped vinyl cover, wearing a black Hugo Boss suit with half of a red silk tie dangling from one of the pockets. The one packing a sweat-damp 45 under his arm pit.
“Who wants to know?” I said.
She turned, cat walked the twenty feet between us. Her hands didn’t leave her hips, the expression on her face, on her body, didn’t change. She looked me over like a butcher sizing up a side of beef. I know what she saw, and I’m not proud of it either: short graying blond hair, three day’s stubble, slightly off center nose that’s been broken too many times to be considered cool. Her green eyes bored into my gray-blue, bloodshot ones. She was tall, a couple of inches shorter than me, all of six feet.
“Gianna Petrakis,” she said.
Greek alright.
“Okay,” I said.
“Most call me Red,” she added.
Made sense.
“Okay.” I said.
“You’re a man of few words,” she said.
“Safer that way,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I want to hire you,” she said.
“I’ve got a job,” I said.
It wasn’t a lie. I owned the bar.
“My brother was murdered,” she said.
“Okay,” I said. “What’s that got to do with me?”
“You’re the one who sent him to prison, apparently,” she said.
“I don’t remember a Petrakis,” I said.
“His last name was Pappa,” she said.
I remembered him now.
“So who told you about me?” I said.
“A friend of yours,” she said.
I could count all of my friends on one hand. A few fingers, really.
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” I said. “You need a local detective.”
Her expression changed. Like I’d tossed my beer onto her face.
“Stop giving me the run around,” she snapped.
I could have, should have, let her let down easy. Instead of beer, I tossed fuel. Instead of her face, I tossed it into a fire.
“Hey, I don’t need this shit,” I said. “Why don’t you take your pretty ass down the street to the police station, bat your eyes, and get someone who gives a crap to help you.”
I’d done it again. She slapped the snot out of me. I saw it coming and I could have gotten out of the way, but something told me she needed to get it out of her system. The blow didn’t break my nose this time, but it hurt like hell. My eyes started to water from the physical pain, and so did hers, from a different kind.
“Feel better?” I said, rubbing my jaw.
Red brought her hands up, covered her face. Her body started shaking, tears seeping through the long fingers. Damn it. I stood up and put my arms around her, taking in the sweet, exotic smell of her perfume. She started to push me away but gave it up without much of a fight. I felt the soft mounds of her breasts meld into my chest and I knew that I’d have to break off the hug to keep from getting it in the face again. I looked over her shoulder and nodded at the guy standing next to the juke box. He nodded back, put a couple coins in the machine and pushed some buttons. Monk’s piano started its magic and the losers in the bar turned back to the only real friends they had; Jack and Bud, Jose and Sam.
“Okay...alright,” I whispered into her ear. “I’ll listen to what you have to say. No promises.”
I let go of her, reluctantly, and stepped back. I pulled up a barstool. She sat on it, wiping the tears away from her cheeks. The mascara didn’t run and the frown went away. Night and day. She was beautiful without the tension, without the anger.
“His name is John,” she said. “The man who called me.”
John Brooks, my ex-partner. Asshole should’ve called me first.
“Okay,” I said. “You’ve got my attention.”
Red turned to Pierre, the bartender, who was still trying to hear what we were saying over the sound of the jukebox jazz.
“Cuba Libre, no ice,” she snapped, clearly annoyed at him.
Pierre was a scumbag, but he could mix a good cocktail. I picked up the box of Camel Lights on the counter next to me.
“Cigarette?”
“No, thanks,” she replied. “Trying to stay away from them.”
“Mind?”
“Go ahead, your funeral.”
I lit one, took a deep inhale of the poisonous gas and exhaled it to the side, away from Red. Snoopy the bartender took away the old ashtray full of used, bent cigarette butts and replaced it with an empty, clean one. Monk gave way to Coltrane. The guy across the room had better taste in music than bars.
“So, what’s up?” I asked.
Red took a swig of the lukewarm rum and coke, put the tall glass down next to my sweating bottle of Peroni. She stared at her glass, at the bubbles working their way to the top. That, or at the wedge of lime.
“I’m sorry,” she said without taking her eyes off the drink. “Wasn’t looking to slap you...it just happened.”
“I earned it,” I replied. “It’s been a tough week for me too. Been a little on edge, a little tired. Had it coming.”
It had actually been a tough two years. I took another drag of the cancer stick. Red kept staring at the cocktail.
“John said you would be interested in this case,” she said. “He said it was right up your alley.”
Which was code for ‘might help me find the bastards who killed Angelina’.
“Okay,” I replied.
“My brother was murdered yesterday,” she said.
She looked up from her glass, catching me glancing at the curve of her breasts. She smiled thinly without showing her pearly whites.
“Panos and I were orphans, and we were raised in Athens by different foster parents. I never even knew I had a brother until he made that one call from prison. He told me ...” She stopped talking when she caught a glimpse of the gun I was packing. I pulled on the lapel of my suit, hiding it again.
“I’ve got a permit,” I said.
“I’m sure,” she said.
“Keep going,” I said.
Red looked up from the glass, scanned the room making sure no one was listening in. Miles’s trumpet started up on the juke box. The lush across the room was three for three. She leaned closer.
“Panos told me that they had found him,” she whispered.
“They?” I said. “A lot of people live in the land of they.”
Brooks had sent her, so there was more to it. Enough to keep listening.
“That’s what he said,” she said. “I was about to ask him what he meant by that, but the line went dead before he could answer. When I went to the prison the next day, they told me he’d been murdered.”
“That’s it?” I replied. “Not much to go on.”
“I know,” she said. “Not exactly a case for the local police, right?”
Red took another swig of the tepid coke, looking over the top of the glass at me the whole time. She set it down next to the smoldering cigarette.
“Panos told me that they would be coming for me too,” she said.
“Whoever they are,” I said.
“Will you take the case?” she said.
I got up from the barstool, and signaled Pierre.
“On the house,” I said.
I turned back to Red, who hadn’t moved.
“I’ll think about it,” I said.
“But...” she said.
“Let’s meet up tomorrow,” I said.
I walked across the room, reaching for the bacteria-caked door handle.
“Three o’clock, tomorrow afternoon,” I said, over my shoulder.
I yanked open the door and the mid-afternoon Paris sun poured into the cave and the smoke billowed out.
Red
Comments that stroke my ego welcome.