Read Online Hunting Sweetie Rose : A Mystery (9781429950879) by Jack Fredrickson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jack Fredrickson
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the window had been changed by the superimposition of Amandaâs reflection on the glass. Chicago no longer sparkled. It looked like a cold, hard town, a place of dark shadows and too bright lightsâthe kind of place where a guy could lose his girl, or a clown could go off a roof, and nobody would much mind.
My appetite was gone. I set my plate on an end table, and left Sweetie Fairbairnâs penthouse as quietly as if I were sneaking away with a pocket full of silverware.
The same guard whoâd ridden up with me was waiting when I got out of the elevator. Across the lobby, outside the glass door, someoneâs black limousine had pulled up under the canopy.
It prompted an inspiration.
âTim Duggan around?â I asked the guard.
âSomewhere,â he said.
I pulled out the little spiral notebook I am never without. I wrote two words on a sheet, signed it, and tore it out. I folded the little note in half and handed it to him.
âFor Ms. Fairbairn,â I said, and walked out, quite alone, into the night.
CHAPTER 11.
It should have been a clown tumbling off a high roof, or Sweetie Fairbairn murmuring lies, or Amanda ecstatic at the wit of a finely dressed man, but it was a dream of Elvis Derbil that tore me, sweating, from sleep at four thirty the next morning. Heâd been kneeling on the far side of the Willahock, filling empty salad dressing bottles with the muck that moved cloudy at the bank.
It didnât matter. Most nights, one dream or another usually wakes me earlier than four forty. At least Elvis had the decency to let me sleep until almost sunrise.
I pushed myself out of bed, rang the curved wrought-iron stairs going down to the would-be kitchen, and awoke Mr. Coffee. Leaving him to burble, I went outside, crossed the street, the spit of land, and Thompson Avenue, and bought an Argus-Observer from the box under the red and white Jiffy Lube sign. The coffee was ready when I got back. I took a travel mugâs worth and the paper up to the roof. I keep a lawn chair there for when faces awaken me in the night and I go up to wait for the sun to make them go away.
Rivertown is best in the dark just before dawn, when the neon and the noise from the honky-tonks along Thompson Avenue have shut down; when the girls who work the curbs have shut down, too, gone to the rooming houses back of where the factories used to light the night, to lie for a few hours blessedly alone. It is a good time to think.
I started with the strong probabilities. Sweetie Fairbairn learned I did investigations from some earlier, innocuous comment of Amandaâs. Supposing Iâd be as good as anyone to take a fast, anonymous look at the death of James Stitts, she sent Duggan to hire me. Iâd become troublesome, insisting on meeting with Dugganâs client. That demanded an inspection by Sweetie Fairbairn, before she proceeded with me. Or not.
After that, my certainty floundered. If Sweetie Fairbairn was innocent of any knowledge of the clownâs death, she would have gotten better and faster results using the connections a woman like her must have had to the highest levels of the Chicago police.
If she werenât innocent, sheâd never respond to the note I left at the Wilbur Wright.
My mind flitted then, back to the party and the delight on Amandaâs face, as she laughed at a slick manâs joke. I pushed the image away.
The sky had begun to lighten to the east. The tonks, liquor stores, hockshops, and the bowling alley were beginning to materialize, gauzy and indistinct, in the dim, growing light of the new morning. There was enough light to read now. I picked up the Argus-Observer .
As usual, the rag carried little serious news. Keller teased about a supposed kickback scheme in Chicago; another columnist wrote of a diet regimen gone wrong in Hollywood. The longest story was on the third page, about a cat that could play the piano. Or not.
There was nothing about the clown.
My appetite was gone. I set my plate on an end table, and left Sweetie Fairbairnâs penthouse as quietly as if I were sneaking away with a pocket full of silverware.
The same guard whoâd ridden up with me was waiting when I got out of the elevator. Across the lobby, outside the glass door, someoneâs black limousine had pulled up under the canopy.
It prompted an inspiration.
âTim Duggan around?â I asked the guard.
âSomewhere,â he said.
I pulled out the little spiral notebook I am never without. I wrote two words on a sheet, signed it, and tore it out. I folded the little note in half and handed it to him.
âFor Ms. Fairbairn,â I said, and walked out, quite alone, into the night.
CHAPTER 11.
It should have been a clown tumbling off a high roof, or Sweetie Fairbairn murmuring lies, or Amanda ecstatic at the wit of a finely dressed man, but it was a dream of Elvis Derbil that tore me, sweating, from sleep at four thirty the next morning. Heâd been kneeling on the far side of the Willahock, filling empty salad dressing bottles with the muck that moved cloudy at the bank.
It didnât matter. Most nights, one dream or another usually wakes me earlier than four forty. At least Elvis had the decency to let me sleep until almost sunrise.
I pushed myself out of bed, rang the curved wrought-iron stairs going down to the would-be kitchen, and awoke Mr. Coffee. Leaving him to burble, I went outside, crossed the street, the spit of land, and Thompson Avenue, and bought an Argus-Observer from the box under the red and white Jiffy Lube sign. The coffee was ready when I got back. I took a travel mugâs worth and the paper up to the roof. I keep a lawn chair there for when faces awaken me in the night and I go up to wait for the sun to make them go away.
Rivertown is best in the dark just before dawn, when the neon and the noise from the honky-tonks along Thompson Avenue have shut down; when the girls who work the curbs have shut down, too, gone to the rooming houses back of where the factories used to light the night, to lie for a few hours blessedly alone. It is a good time to think.
I started with the strong probabilities. Sweetie Fairbairn learned I did investigations from some earlier, innocuous comment of Amandaâs. Supposing Iâd be as good as anyone to take a fast, anonymous look at the death of James Stitts, she sent Duggan to hire me. Iâd become troublesome, insisting on meeting with Dugganâs client. That demanded an inspection by Sweetie Fairbairn, before she proceeded with me. Or not.
After that, my certainty floundered. If Sweetie Fairbairn was innocent of any knowledge of the clownâs death, she would have gotten better and faster results using the connections a woman like her must have had to the highest levels of the Chicago police.
If she werenât innocent, sheâd never respond to the note I left at the Wilbur Wright.
My mind flitted then, back to the party and the delight on Amandaâs face, as she laughed at a slick manâs joke. I pushed the image away.
The sky had begun to lighten to the east. The tonks, liquor stores, hockshops, and the bowling alley were beginning to materialize, gauzy and indistinct, in the dim, growing light of the new morning. There was enough light to read now. I picked up the Argus-Observer .
As usual, the rag carried little serious news. Keller teased about a supposed kickback scheme in Chicago; another columnist wrote of a diet regimen gone wrong in Hollywood. The longest story was on the third page, about a cat that could play the piano. Or not.
There was nothing about the clown.
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