Ed Gorman: Cold Blue Midnight

Corday didn't want to say it, loathed his bitchy side, but couldn't stop himself. 'You know when you asked me to take some of your clothes to the cleaners? A note fell out of your pocket.'

Silence. Then, 'Are we reading each other's private mail now?'

'It's not private mail. It fell out of your pocket!'

'Same thing.'

'Seems you and some guy named Wyn became very good friends when you were in Miami a few weeks ago.'

Silence. 'I'm a lot better than I used to be.'

'True. Now you're only unfaithful every month. It used to be you were unfaithful every week.'

'You need to concentrate on the woman, Rick. Forget about us for the time being. We'll work it out.'

'Right,' Corday said. 'We'll work it out.' Then, 'You think you'll ever change?'

'I want to change. For your sake.'

'You should want to change for your own sake.'

Laugh. 'You've been watching Oprah again, haven't you?'

'I'm serious.'

'So am I, Rick. You listen to all that touchy-feely crap on TV and you think that's how everybody should be. A lot of very good relationships include one or both of the partners getting a little strange tail on the side. It doesn't mean that the relationship has to end.'

'So you're going to keep right on doing it?'

Sigh. 'I'm going to try not to, Rick. On that I give you my word. I'm going to try not to. That's the best I can tell you. That I'll try.'

Rick hated himself when he sulked. Professional, that's what he needed to be now. Professional. 'I'll see you in the morning then?'

'I'll be landing around ten o'clock.' Silence. 'Rick?'

'What?'

'I'm sorry you feel betrayed. It didn't mean anything to me. The guy's a dork.'

'Right.'

'He is. God, he peddles TV time. Some closet fairy who likes to strut around and tell you how he knows half the Miami Dolphins personally.'

'Do you want me to save the note?'

'Now what the hell do you think? I just told you what a dork he was, didn't I? Burn the goddammed thing.'

'With pleasure,' Corday said.

A few moments after hanging up, Corday had another one of his blackouts, a phenomenon that sometimes followed arguments with Adam.

He had to grab the back of a chair to steady himself. All was cold yet sweaty darkness as he clung to the chair to keep from falling over.

And from somewhere within himself came a voice crying out to him. He could not understand the words to this voice, but he knew that it was saying something vital and urgent.

After a time, Rick Corday went into the bathroom and threw up.

The fading Hollywood star explained, in the course of the interview, that she had once been abducted by these strange-looking creatures that often landed in a spaceship in a nearby field, and that they had often given her enemas while she was aboard their ship. The National Peeper was the only thing Jill could find to read here at Marcy Browne's.

Then the office door burst open and in came one of the grungiest and most violent-looking women Jill had ever seen. She belonged on a direct-to-video poster for a B-movie called Barbaria.

The woman wore a sleeveless denim jacket, on the back of which was the insignia of what was presumably a motorcycle gang, The Marauders. On her right biceps, a tattoo repeated the insignia. Around each wrist was a miniature spiky dog collar that matched the much larger one around her neck. Her too-tight faded jeans were streaked and filthy. Her tight blonde curls resembled a hybrid of Shirley Temple and Madonna in one of the latter's many incarnations. She smacked gum with chilling ferocity. She came snarling and bow-legged into the outer office, fixed Jill with an icy blue gaze and said, 'Is that bitch in her office?'

Jill, abashed, couldn't find her voice. She stammered, cleared her throat and said, 'No, she isn't due back for a few minutes yet.'

'That slut. I never should've hired her to find out if my old man was porkin' Cindy. You know what that bitch did?'

'Cindy, you mean?' Jill enquired, feeling as if she were about eight years old and being intimidated by a giant straight out of the Brothers Grimm.

'Cindy? Hell, no, I mean Marcy Browne.'

'What did she do?'

'I think she was gettin' it on with my old man herself.'

'Oh, really?'

The woman glared around the neat but very, very tiny outer officetwo battered secondhand filing cabinets, a desk that had one end propped up with books, and the most inexpensive black dial phone available these daysand she said, 'Hog Face fools a lotta chicks, you know.'

'Hog Face?'

'My old man.'

'Ah.'

Now they'd gone from the Brothers Grimm to Alice in Wonderland. The conversation was starting to get strange indeed. Jill squirmed, a nervous smile on her lips. She did not want to displease this woman in any way.

'I mean,' said the woman, 'you look at him and what do you see? He looks like three hundred and fifty pounds of blubber and he's got real bad teeth and when he's drunk, he kinda likes to beat up on chicks. I mean, he don't sound like the kinda guy most women'd be interested in at all, does he?'

This was like a trick question, Jill thought. She had to answer carefully, otherwise this Biker Mama might suddenly become even more psychotic than she was at the moment.

'Oh, I don't know,' she said. 'Some women have different tastes from others.'

The woman shook her head bitterly. 'Yeah, I wouldn't think that Hog Face'd get the chicks, either. But he doesand that's why I hired this little slut. To find out if he's been slippin' the salami to Cindy.'

For a long moment, the woman looked hurt and confused, then she lunged toward the cheap pressed-wood door which led to the inner office.

'I really don't think you should' Jill started to say.

But the woman stormed into the inner office, shouting: 'You slut!' and hurled the door closed behind her.

No sound came from the inner office.

Jill sat perfectly still. She felt very self-conscious, as if the Biker Mama might be peering out of a hidden eye-hole, watching her.

Maybe she should try some other private investigator.

Maybe this Marcy Browne wasn't as competent as she'd seemed to Kate.

Jill stood up.

Sneak out of the office.

Sneak down the stairs.

Sneak away in her car.

Give Marcy Browne some kind of headache excuse if she called and asked why Jill hadn't waited.

That's what she'd do. Just sneak out right nowand hope she never saw the Biker Mama again, not even in her worst nightmares.

At that moment, the door to the inner office opened up. An attractive, honey-haired young woman in a white blouse, blue pointelle cardigan and fashionably long floral skirt stood in the door, smiling. 'You must be Jill.'

'Yes. Are you?'

'How did I do?'

Back to 'Alice in Wonderland' again.

Do? What was this young woman talking about?

'I'm afraid I'

'The biker chick. Was I convincing?'

'You mean you were'

Marcy Browne nodded and smiled. 'Last year at the National Private-Investigators' Convention in Las Vegas, one of the speakers suggested that we try taking acting lessons so that we could really go undercover when we needed to. So I've been going to this night-school acting workshop at Northwestern and trying out different parts.' The smile again, one of those quick and totally winning smiles. 'So how'd I do?'

'You did great.'

'I knew you'd be a tough audience and all. I remember Kate telling me that you directed a lot of TV commercials.'

'God, you really had me going. I thought she was the most disgusting woman I'd ever seen.'

'You like that ''Hog Face" name I gave the guy?'

Jill laughed. 'Not to mention "slipping the salami". There's an elegant turn of phrase.'

'Well, now I can be confident that if I ever need to infiltrate a biker gang, I'm ready.' She effected the loud crude voice of Biker Mama. 'C'mon, Hog Face, slip me the salami real quick. I'm just a horny Mama tonight.'