Dark Blonde

Dark Blonde: A Mike Angel Mystery

By David H Fears

Copyright 2008 - 2014

Discover other titles by David H Fears:

Dark Quarry, Dark Lake, Dark Blonde, Dark Poison

Dark Idol, Dark Moon, Dark Fantasy
,
Dark Conspiracy, Dark Red

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

It was 1962, a year after I’d chased a Russian mob responsible for my father’s murder to Chicago and got a nasty scar from my ear to my chin that tingled every time danger dropped by. I stayed in the Windy City after breaking the mob case, partly because my Jersey license had been iced by a crooked judge (in Jersey that’s an oxymoron), partly from the notion that Molly Bennett might be the girl for me, as much as I doubted any skirt could adjust to my awkwardly obsessive personality. But then, private detectives usually don’t love their work as much as they’re driven by it.

I’d bought a smallish bungalow and ground out enough boring insurance fraud investigations to keep scotch and coffee in the place. Molly lobbied for and became my office whiz; she worked overtime seeing to it that I didn’t skip too many meals or spend all my nights alone. I was reaching a point where I knew I’d have to say the words to Molly or get out of her life and let her marry someone better looking and more stable. As the pressure grew to lay it on the line with Molly, a recurring dream about a mysterious platinum blonde brought tantalizing torment to my quiet hours. Who was she? Needless to say, Molly was not blonde.

Then the case fell on me that flushed my boredom blues and commitment chaos, and it came while I was having the dream in a most vivid Technicolor splash: the blonde in the next building fixed her emerald eyes and the chrome-plated revolver on me as she unhooked her bra, a pretty good trick and one that might only happen in a dream, where dames are triple-jointed and never get enough. Stupid Male Fantasy. I gaped across a gulf between two high-rise apartments, over a wobbly board spanning our two terraces. I crawled half way across, teetering with each nudge of wind. My scar tingled then burned like an icy snake crawling into my ear. The seductive voice faded into mush
 
—
 
I was waking up. Plus, a real voice came from a phone wedged between two pillows next to my head. I fumbled the receiver and drooled some complaint into it.

The clock said 5:15.

Be careful, son. This one could be trouble.

It was Dad’s voice in my head. Though he’d been murdered on his first case as a private investigator a couple of years ago, the “voice” was always so clear that I imagined it was audible, though I knew it was not. I’d heard it first on that last case, especially when death was near. At first I thought I was going nuts, but I learned that it was his way of keeping tabs on me and warning me whenever danger lurked. His voice had never failed me. I’d tried to ask his advice on things but he only spoke short warnings. Here he was, warning me about a phone call from an unknown female. Or maybe I was not awake.

 
The blonde in my dream was gone and the one on the phone wasn’t talking
 
—
 
that is, if she was blonde. I wanted her to be. I was about to hang up when a rusty breathy voice floated out like sunset clouds.

“Mister Angel, are you there? This is Julia Gateswood, Congressman Henry Gateswood’s wife. Can you hear me?”

5:15 a.m. Maybe that’s the proper time for Congressmen’s wives to call. “Soon to be Senator Gateswood?”

“The same. You’re Mike Angel, aren’t you?”

I was. Cold light above the drapes hinted morning, but my mind fought the reality. “You’ve interrupted a fascinating dream. Are you blonde?” I was still treading slumber.

“Please. I only have a minute. It’s vital that I meet you today somewhere and I can’t be seen going into a private investigator’s office.”

I rose to one elbow and brushed aside the dream blonde by pressing my fingers up and down the tingling scar. My stomach was queasy from the tightrope act, my mouth sour from the night before. Platinum Babe would be there another night just as she’d been there several before, each time the distance between the balconies grew shorter, the strip tease progressed further. But it was no mystery how it would end.

Julia Gateswood. It suddenly occurred to me who she was; her picture had been in some of the campaign photos
 
—
 
a willowy flaxen-haired arm gadget, although not the platinum variety. Made to order for an aspiring politician stepping up in class. Trophy but not trickless. A mature sort of beauty.

Even without Julia, Henry Gateswood was a lock for the office; the other party was putting up some seedy councilman who’d been a plumber’s union leader
 
—
 
fewer bucks and less class. But a lock in Illinois politics doesn’t mean much, unless you know which way union bosses will deliver Cook County and how many dead people get to vote. My head got a lot clearer. “A lot of people feel that way about being seen going into my office, which is why I don’t spend money on it. I can’t blame them. I try not to take it personal. What do you have in mind?”

“Can you meet me in thirty minutes downtown in the lobby of the Palmer House? There’s a small coffee bar just off the main lobby.” She did a pretty good imitation of Marilyn Monroe. Maybe she was asthmatic. I never could tell the difference.

“No.”

“Why not?” She bit off the “t” and I could hear her warm breath washing over the receiver like a tropical tide. I liked that she was direct. It saves time.

“I don’t do divorce cases, which is the only reason I can think of why an ex-beauty queen would call me out of breath at this hour. Divorces make people too raw. Besides, I need thirty just to pry my other eye open.”

“This isn’t divorce, nothing like that. Are you in business or not? You’ve come highly recommended.”

“Sorry. I’m only 32 but feeling old
 
—
 
and grumpy. The sun disappeared weeks ago and that Hawk wind off Lake Michigan brings me down. Or maybe it’s the rye my liver’s marinating in. Then again, maybe I don’t like being poked at five and asked to run downtown when I’m not told what the score is.”

Dead air on the line; the tropical tide had subsided. I let the receiver sink back into the pillows and thought about hanging up.

From what I’d read in the Chicago
Tribune
, the breathless Mrs. Gateswood had won Miss Midwest 1958, a few years before shrewd Henry had snatched the crown off her pretty blonde head and put her in charge of his burgeoning career
 
—
 
she’d over-burgeoned his ambition just the way she stuffed a bikini. The
Tribune
joked she’d be the real senator if Henry was elected next month. Only two years older than Henry’s daughter, the marriage had raised a few eyebrows in Henry’s country club set. He’d been a widower only a few months, which fueled the talk.

A faint sniffle sneaked out of the receiver, or so I imagined. Maybe it was left over from the platinum stripper. Or maybe it was me who’d sobbed. Wherever the sob came from I realized that asleep or awake this would be a blonde day.

“Please
 
—
 
I can’t discuss this matter on the telephone,” came her squeezed, less practiced voice. The breathless come-on was gone. I could tell this dame collected different voices for all occasions and plots.

“If it’s so sensitive you don’t want to be seen with me, why not make it out of town somewhere? About nine o’clock then,” I said struggling to find a kinder me in the cobwebs, my ebbing hard-on re-fueled from dreams of a rendezvous with the Julia I’d seen in the papers.

“I’m afraid the only time I can get loose without anyone knowing is later this afternoon. Henry’s got a policy conference and I’m not needed.”

“Okay. This afternoon’s jake. You’ll find I’m somewhat more receptive once I’ve had breakfast. By then I will have had lunch, too. I’ll be downright civil.”

“I’ll be at Alfie’s Corner at four. It’s up near Winnetka. I’ll have my assistant bring a retainer to your house before then. Five hundred enough?”

Five hundred. Exactly twice as much as I had left in the bank. From a babe. Was I still dreaming?

“Four at Alfie’s. I know the place. And I can’t say what’s enough until I hear your problem, but for five up front it might be too big for me to reel in. You haven’t committed a crime have you Mrs. G?”

The click on the line told me she very well could be dirty or didn’t like being teased about the idea. Downright abrupt for a wakeup service. So we were even
 
—
 
she didn’t like teasing and I didn’t like being jolted away from a half-dressed blonde.

I tried to sift out the dream again but every time I closed my eyes the balcony across the way was empty and the distance across was a mile and still that damned Hawk wind whipped off Lake Michigan. My hard-on had split like a lucky streak at craps. Fantasy time was over.

I struggled out of bed and propped myself up in the shower piecing together the night before. Rick, my self-appointed partner, flew out of Newark to attend the funeral of his 90-year-old mother. Molly, my secretary and official love interest, also left, for Oregon, where her brother had just become the father of twin girls. Drinks last night were a death and birth send off party, an all around yippee for mortality. On my own for a few days, I’d thrown caution out the window and clung to the bottle a couple of hours after the flights left. I remembered Sam the bartender calling me a cab, but nothing afterward until the platinum-haired seductress wooed me out on her wobble board six stories above Addison Avenue.

I was cuddling my third cup of coffee when the doorbell rang.

“I’m Miss Mathews, Mrs. Gateswood’s assistant,” she said in a fog whistle voice that didn’t match her small frame.

“Come in.”

A sweet little package, Miss Mathews, all fluff and efficiency. She wore a red belted raincoat, a cupcake hat with boots to match, a clear plastic folded umbrella and a pair of brown eyes so dark the pupils were lost there. They seemed larger than life behind a pair of efficient rimless glasses. Her brunette pixie-do swept the edges of her tiny face, giving her the expression of one of those life-sized Santa helper dolls that Marshall’s sticks in display windows at Christmastime. She smelled quite nice, something close to spicy vanilla. Her tiny purse was a shade off from her other red things, and she clutched a pair of black gloves against the purse like her life savings was inside.

As she walked to the nearest chair and sat down, her legs, almost too slim, but curvy and clean, as far as I could see. My eyes wanted to see further. I’ve always had optimistic eyes.

I lifted my coffee cup. “You take it black?” I said, noticing her fine-grained skin. Her brown eyes looked at me like I’d just called her a name. I turned my now bluish scar away from her and showed her my nice teeth. Some dames find the scar interesting, and want to hear all about how I earned it, the same sort of dames who like a fast ride on a Harley, or who get wet looking at bad boy pictures in the post office. But Miss Mathews wasn’t that type, though might act the part with the right encouragement.

“I never drink coffee,” she said. “I’m strictly a tea person
 
—
 
good tea
 
—
 
if you have any. One sugar.” She slid her raincoat off her shoulders, letting it fall behind her on the chair. She crossed her legs and rocked one foot out rapidly. Her eyes took a guarded tour of the room.

I peeked at her from the kitchenette and brewed some Earl Grey that Molly had left on her last stay-over. The place was starting to fill up with Molly’s things
 
—
 
a comb here, pair of slacks and a change of underwear there, even a toothbrush in the holder facing mine like the two were conversing intimately about the state of our respective molars. I draw the line at sharing a toothbrush.

Molly’s flimsies stashed about was our way of gradual commitment I’d told her, a safe way of letting things develop, getting used to the idea of emotional risk, mainly to placate my nerves, not hers. That way, I’d pointed out, when we looked back at how our involvement developed, we could laugh about such little things and the big leap made an inch at a time. For Molly’s part, she was fine with the setup and hadn’t wanted to move in before she’d known me a year or so anyway. Or so she said. It became Molly’s game to add little things on each visit, laugh at me behind those green Irish eyes.

I put the tea and sugar on a tray and slid it in front of Miss Mathew’s perfect knees. She dug a small manila envelope from her purse and shoved it at me. I touched her icicle white fingers when I took the envelope. Cold hands, warm lap, Rick always says.

“I’d like a receipt, if you don’t mind,” she said, “when you can stop staring at my legs.”

I rifled a pack of Luckies and waggled one in her direction. She took it like it was owed her and laid it between her pressed red lips, nearly the same color as her raincoat, hat and all the rest. All that red made me want to put my horns down and charge. I could almost hear the echo of Herb Alpert’s brass and a tequila-sodden mob shouting “Ole!”

“I only wanted to see if they were that skinny up north. I wouldn’t mind staring at other things if you’d rather,” I said, snapping a lighter for her. “Some women take such things as a compliment.” I walked back across the room and took a seat on the couch, opened the envelope and pulled out five pictures of Benjamin Franklin all done in green.

“Mister Angel, I’m not some women. I don’t like passes before noon.”

“That means we have three hours, Miss Mathews, how much tea can you drink?”