When the telephone rang, I rolled over and squinted blearily in its general direction, my head swimming from too much whisky the night before. What was this, Grand Central Station? I'd gotten more phone calls in the last week than I had in the entire previous year.
Cursing would-be friends and telemarketers under my breath, I fumbled for the handset. Though booze helped blunt the pain from my ruined legs, the side effects left a lot to be desired. My coordination was off, and I couldn't stop my hands from shaking.
Somehow, I got the receiver up to my ear.
"Who is this?" I rasped.
"Hello, Pit," said a too-smooth voice.
I felt the blood drain from my face. Gulping hard, I sat up, nearly dropping the phone.
That voice belonged to Cal Tortelli--or Mr. Smith, as he now called himself. He ran an illegal gambling club outside Philadelphia. When an old college friend of mine fell victim to a blackmail scheme, I had manipulated Smith into handling the problem for us. I didn't know all the details, but I knew the resolution had been neither legal nor pretty for the blackmailers.
Unfortunately, Smith seemed to have taken a particular interest in me. He had researched my life, even going so far as to have my phone bugged. I seemed to intrigue him ... probably due to my trick memory. I could recall every name, date, face, and fact that I had ever encountered.
"Hello, Mr. Smith," I said warily. "What do you want?"
"Don't you ever leave your apartment?" he asked with a low chuckle.
"I try not to. Walking hurts."
"Come outside. I need to see you."
"You're ... here?"
"Yes." He paused. "And bring your toothbrush, 'Pit-bull' Peter Geller. You're going on a trip." He hung up.
With an uneasy feeling, I fumbled my phone back into its cradle. I really needed to get an answering machine and start screening calls. Mr. Smith was the last person I wanted to meet again ... in my book, he ranked somewhere south of doctors and lawyers.
Bring a toothbrush? Why a toothbrush, but not a change of clothes?
No sense guessing. Throwing off my blanket, I hauled the hideously scarred pieces of flesh that now passed for my legs over the edge of the bed and, with a groan and several grunts, levered myself to a standing position. From the arches of my feet to the joints of my hips, I ached with a dull constant pain. Getting up was the worst part of any day.
I eyed the nearly-empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the pillow next to mine. Maybe one quick drink, just to steady my nerves? No, I had better not ... Tortelli/Smith was a sharp man, and I'd need my head clear to deal with him.
Taking a deep breath, I glanced around my Spartan bedroom: bed, dresser, night stand, closet with shut doors. No pictures, no calendars, no clock--time doesn't mean much when you're waiting to die. Nothing had been moved; nobody had been inside while I slept.
I felt my attention starting to sharpen, all the little details leaping out at me. It had been an asset in college, a useful talent at work, but my always-racing, always-analyzing mind had pushed me to a nervous breakdown five years before. Thin blades of sunlight shining through the not-quite-closed blinds on the east-facing window meant late morning, somewhere around eleven o'clock. Not that the hour mattered; I only worked one day a month, when I made my regular pilgrimage to Atlantic City to win my monthly expenses at the gambling tables. Sometimes it helps to remember everything ... like the number of aces and face-cards played from an eight-deck blackjack shoe.
I had left my silver-handled walking stick leaning up against my night table. Using it, I limped into the kitchen. Four aspirin and a glass of orange juice made breakfast. Then I returned to my bedroom, where I dressed methodically in my last pair of clean Dockers, a blue-and-gold sweater, and worn leather loafers--all remnants from better days, when I had been a wunderkind at a Wall Street investment bank. But that had been before my always-racing mind led to a nervous breakdown. And before my run-in with the taxi.
At the front door, I paused just long enough to pull on a Yankees cap and shrug on a windbreaker against the cool October weather. In an act of defiance, I deliberately forgot my toothbrush. Then, taking a firm grip on my walking stick, I slowly limped into the hallway, then out to my building's tiny front porch.
A cold wind gusted, stirring leaves in the gutter. Lowering gray clouds threatened rain. A long black limousine with dark-tinted windows sat double-parked in front of my door, its powerful engine purring. The chauffeur--short but stocky, sporting a military-style haircut and dark sunglasses--opened the rear door and stood stiffly next to it, waiting for me to get in.
Three careful steps down, leaning heavily on the rail, and I reached the sidewalk. When I limped over to the limo, I noticed the bulge of a gun at the chauffeur's right armpit--which meant he was not only armed, but left-handed. Just another useless detail I couldn't help but observe. My mind turned like a well-oiled machine now, noting everything around me and analyzing it.
Surreptitiously, I gave a quick glance up and down the block, but found no sign of life--everybody in my lower working-class neighborhood had already gone off to work or school whatever else they did during the day: no witnesses left to see my abduction.
Carefully, grimacing a bit, I lowered myself into the extra-roomy back seat and stretched out my legs. They hurt less that way.
Mr. Smith sat inside, dressed--as he had been the last time we met--in an impeccable Italian silk suit. He wore his short salt-and-pepper hair swept back, and the faint scent of lavender surrounded him. Against my better judgment, I eyed the two glasses in his hands with interest, amber liquid with faintly clinking cubes of ice. As the chauffeur closed the door firmly behind me, Smith passed me a drink. I gulped without hesitation, then made a face. Ginger ale.
"You spoiled perfectly good ice," I muttered.
"Alcohol kills brain cells, Pit. I want you at your best."
"Why?" I asked bluntly. My hands started to tremble again. As subtly as I could, I placed the glass into a holder in the door, spilling just a little.
"Because," he said, "I have a problem, and you can help me solve it." It wasn't a request; it was a statement.
Leaning forward, he tapped on the plastic partition separating us from the chauffeur, who had returned to the driver's seat. Slowly we accelerated. At the end of the block, we turned left, heading toward Roosevelt Boulevard.
I half grumbled, "Why does everyone think I'm some sort of freelance problem-solver?"
"Aren't you?"
"No!"
Smith chuckled again. "My aunt has a farm west of here. You're going to pay her a visit and keep an eye on things for a week or so. She..." His voice trailed off. I couldn't read anything from his expression. "Someone--or something--may be stalking her."
"Some thing?" I asked.
"Well..." He shifted a tad uncomfortably. "She's claimed to see ghosts and angels as long as I can remember."
"Then she needs a psychiatrist, not a seedy drunken cripple!"
"Come on, Pit! You aren't seedy. Merely depressed."
"That makes me feel so much better," I grumbled sarcastically. Boy, had my stock fallen. From stopping blackmailers to babysitting crazy aunts.
"Actually," he went on, "I sent a couple of my boys out to visit her a month ago. They scared off a prowler one night--though I suppose it might have been a dog or even a coyote. It was dark; they couldn't tell. Anyway, after that, things got quiet. As soon as they left, though, Aunt Peck started reporting disturbances again."
I frowned. "What sort of disturbances?"
"Oh ... noises at night, her possessions disappearing or moving around inside the house. That sort of thing. She thinks the spirit-world is trying to communicate with her."
"What about you?" I asked. "Do you believe in these spirits?"
His eyes narrowed. "Let's say ... I have an open mind. I've seen a lot of odd things over the years. And believe it or not, I used to be a choirboy. Growing up in the Catholic church, you get a good strong dose of saints and miracles and superstition."
I snorted.
"You don't believe?" he asked.
"There are no ghosts, ghouls, zombies, vampires, werewolves, or angels prancing around farms in rural Pennsylvania!" I said it with absolute certainty.
"Then prove it!"
I looked out the window at the passing rowhouses. Laundry hung outside on tattered lines. Trash and graffiti spoke of a neighborhood heading downhill fast, just like my life. Suddenly I felt old and tired.
Angels...?
Once upon a time, before my accident, so long ago it felt like someone else's life--once upon a time, when I was a good little boy, I had believed. But now...
Frowning, I took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Did I really want to do this? Did I really want to babysit a delusional old lady?
It wasn't like Smith had given me a choice in the matter; we were already on the road, so I might as well make the best of it. Besides, maybe a change of scenery would be good. At least it would keep me from drinking myself to death for a little while longer.
Leaning back, I closed my eyes. "Tell me," I said, "everything you know about your aunt. Start with her name and family background."
"Don't you want to know about the disturbances?"
"No. You're a second-hand source of information. If I need to, I'll question her about them."
"Then you're going?"
My mind was racing ahead. Ghosts ... farms ... noises in the night...
I sighed. I shook my head.
But I said, "Yes."
)
From best-selling author John Gregory Betancourt comes the second installment in the Black Orchid Award-winning "Pit-Bull" Peter Geller mystery series. Brilliant but handicapped, Pit attracted the attention of a mob boss when he saved a friend from a blackmailer. (See "Pit and the Pendulum," the first "Pit" story.) Not that mob boss has a job for him--a little trip to the country to keep his widowed aunt company. It seems she has been having night prowlers (which she think are angels), and it's up to city-boy Pit to cope with country life, crazy little old ladies ... and a mystery that may just get him killed!
