Ed Gorman - Short Stories, Volume 1

“How can you tell?”

Favor shrugged. “I just don’t.”

“Then what do you think it is?”

“He drink a lot?”

“Not really.”

“Take drugs?”

She laughed. “David? God, he’s the most conservative man I know.” Her laugh made him mushy inside. He knew that even if there happened to be a fourth Mrs. Favor, his last thought on planet earth would be about Princess Jane. She was drinking wine and he was drinking Diet Pepsi because he was afraid he might blurt out something embarrassing if he had any booze in him. Many, many drunken nights he’d come this close to picking up the phone and calling her and telling her something embarrassing.

“I guess I wouldn’t blame him if he did have a woman on the side.”

“I told you. That’s crazy. Nobody married to you should even look at anybody else.”

She smiled. “Maybe I should’ve married you, Favor.”

“Yeah, right. What a prize I am.”

He wanted her to go on a little more, you know, kind of extol the hell out of all his virtues, but she didn’t. “I haven’t been much company since Dad died.”

“I was sorry to hear about it. I would’ve been there but I was working in Chicago.”

“That’s all right. We just had a small family funeral. Dad wanted to be cremated. He hated big funerals.” Her blue blue eyes were damp. “Things were kind of rough for him the last couple of years. All the foreign competition. Profits were way down. He didn’t blame David. My two brothers, did, of course. They’ve always thought that they should be in charge of the company. He got so sick, the cancer and everything, he had to turn it all over to David. Actually, after the chemo didn’t do any good, I expected he’d die right away. But he hung on for almost a year.”

“He was a good man.”

“He always liked you and your father very much. He never forgot where he came from. The west side, I mean.”

Her lower lip began to tremble. He wanted to take her in his arms, hold her, comfort her, make her forever grateful for his remarkable powers of succoring. “How’s the business doing now?” he said, trying to forestall her tears.

“Much better.”

“Oh?”

She sipped wine, then nodded with that gorgeous head of hers.

“We were way overextended,” she said. “The bank was even calling in some of our biggest notes. Then, thank God, right after Dad died, David met Mr. Vasquez.”

“Who’s he?”

“A very rich Argentinian. David’s broker knew him. And he brought them together.”

“Vasquez bought in?”

She shrugged. “You know me. I don’t know much about business. And really have no interest in it. I’m really more artistic than anything.”

“Right. Your painting.”

“It’s still the center of my life.”

She was a terrible painter. Fortunately, she chose the representational mode to paint in. If she did abstract art, Favor wouldn’t have been able to tell if she was any good or not. If he found a bunch of paintings by Picasso in his garage, he’d be inclined to throw them away.

“So the company’s doing well again?”

“Yes. As I said, I just wish Dad were alive to see it. He spent his whole life building that company. And at the end—” Her eyes were moist again. “I’m sorry.”

“No problem. I cry sometimes myself.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“Somehow I can’t imagine that. You crying, I mean.”

Favor wasn’t sure how to take that. Was she saying that he lacked the sensitivity to cry? Or was she saying that he was too macho to cry? Either way, he wasn’t sure she’d paid him a compliment.

“The only time I ever saw David cry,” she said, “when my father got on him one night and blamed him for the business going downhill.”

“I thought you said your father didn’t blame him.”

“Just that one time.”

“Oh.”

“It really got to David.”

“I imagine.”

“Took away all his pride. So he went into the den and I knocked but he wouldn’t let me in. And then I heard him crying. It was a terrible sound.” More wine. “I just don’t know what any of this has to do with that man in the red Mustang.”

“Neither do I. But I’m going to try and find out.”

She reached over and put her hand on his. He felt as if he were going into cardiac arrest.

“I really appreciate this, Favor. And I want to pay you for it.”

“No way.”

She gave his hand a cute little squeeze. “Maybe I really should have married you, Favor.” And for one brief moment he had this wonderful thought: what if he really got something on her husband, and she really did decide to take up with Favor? What if...

Sitting in a car and doing surveillance allowed you certain liberties. You could pick your nose, scratch your butt, belch, pass gas, and dig the green stuff out of the corners of your eyes. While his thoughts of Princess Jane were mostly ethereal, every once in awhile thoughts of her got him right in the old libido. He kept seeing the swell of her small but perfect breasts, and smelling the erotic scent of her perfume.

This was five hours after leaving her at the restaurant. He’d started following Sam Evans right after dinner. While he waited, Favor picked up his cell phone and called a private number at the credit bureau.

“Hey, Favor.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

“We got one of those deals?”

“Oh, that identifies the caller?”

“Yeah.”

“I should get one of those. So what’d you find out about Sam Evans.”

Paulie Daye worked at the local credit bureau. At night, from his apartment, he hacked into the bureau’s computers and sold information to a variety of people.

“Well, he paid off all his bills. Had about ten different creditors really on his ass. Had a whole bunch of stuff — stereo, shit like that — repossessed in fact.”

“Any idea where the money came from?”

“Huh-uh.”

“When did it start showing up?”

“Eight, nine months ago. Paid everything up to date in two days.”

“Cash or checks?”

“What’m I, a mind-reader?”

“He buy a lot of new stuff?”

“A lot. Bought himself a condo, for one thing, and a new Mustang and about five thousand dollars worth of clothes.”

“Man, what a waste.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, he ain’t exactly a male model.”

“And he took two vacations.”

“To where?”

“San Juan and Paris.”

“Wow. Sounds like Mr. Evans is doing all right for himself.”

“He shaking somebody down?”

“Probably.”

“Figures. No male nurse makes this kind’ve change.”

“I need to see his checks for the past ten months. That possible?”

“You looking for anything special?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Cost you five big ones.”

“Done.”

“Take me till about this time tomorrow. I got a friend at his bank can help me, but not till right after work.”

Just then, Sam Evans came out of Cock A Doodle Do Night Club and got into his red Mustang.

“Gotta go,” Favor said.

Turned out Sam Evans was a real XXX-freak.

He hit, in the next two hours, Club Syn, Lap-Dance-A-Looza, Your Place Or Mine, and The Slit Skirt. He stayed about the same time in each one, forty, forty-five minutes, and then jumped back in his red Mustang and hauled ass down the road. At the last one, he emerged about midnight with a bottle blonde with balloon boobs and a giggle that could shatter glass. He shagged on back to the condo. And ten minutes after crossing the threshold, killed the lights.

Through the open window on the second floor, the blonde’s giggle floated down. A waste of a whole night. Didn’t learn one damned useful thing about Sam Evans.