Mr. Menace by R. Michael Burns

Author:R. Michael Burns [Burns, R. Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WordFire Press

Sixteen

Shuteye

I was wonderin’ if you were gonna make it in before I went home for the night,” Cass said as I dropped my hat on the stand. Her tone was breezy enough but I thought I read a little relief in those baby blues of hers, like she was happy to have me back no worse off than when we parted ways.

“Weren’t you headed to your mother’s house?”

“I got halfway there before I remembered she’s visiting my aunt up in Smyrna. So I figured I’d come into work … you know, just in case.”

Just in case Miss Night came in, she meant, and I liked her a lot for that. I guessed it told me something about her life outside of work, too.

“Good thing I did, too,” Cass continued, “’cause you got a call I figure was pretty important.”

“Cora from the Trib?”

Cass nodded. “She got that information you asked for.” She flipped open her memo pad, reading. “Mister and Missus Danaus Night. Died in an automobile accident on …” She scanned her notes and gave me a date a few years back. “Only surviving relative, Miss Evelyn Night, their daughter.” Cass looked back at me with real sorrow in her eyes. “Tough break, huh?”

I nodded, thinking of my client suddenly orphaned at the very beginning of her adult life. Being left alone in that big, empty museum-piece house. “Yeah, tough.”

“She inherited their whole estate—a house in the city, a summer place, stocks, bonds, and plenty of cash. At least she doesn’t have to worry about keepin’ the lights on.”

The whole picture was coming into focus for me now. The lady loses all the family she has in one smash and ends up in an empty mansion with more cash than she can figure out what to do with. She’s like a luxury yacht cut loose from its moorings with no one at the helm. She starts looking for some diversion, a little adventure, why not? Take a few risks because you’re feeling like you’ve got nothing important to lose, only money. Plus the booze and the opium and … whatever else … helps her forget about what happened to mother and dad. She meets Junior Dapper at some ritzy club where he plays Mister Big by throwing the Tartarus Syndicate’s money around. And he’s got that vaguely dangerous edge she’s been looking for, even if she didn’t know she was. He likes the looks of her—and hell, who wouldn’t?—and they make some time for each other. Pretty soon she’s mixing with some of the bigger fish in that scummy pond, swimming with sharks like Radamanthus and too turned around to realize how deep the water’s getting, or that the big fish have big teeth and big appetites. Or maybe in her pain she just doesn’t care. Junior makes a few wrong moves and ends up feeding the guppies in the West River or who the hell knows where, but by now Miss Night’s in up to her neck, there’s no getting out.

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