3 Women Walk Into A Bar Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Kindle Press, Seattle, 2015

  A Kindle Scout selection

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Press are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  For those who will never be satisfied living just one life.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Preview: Grand Theft Cargo

  Chapter 1

  JULIE ANDREWS SAID TO START AT THE VERY BEGINNING, BUT DO YOU?

  The smell that drifted out the propped-open door to Flannigan’s was sweet coppery blood with an undertone of fish and chips.

  On the sidewalk, a pigeon pecked at a lipstick-stained cigarette butt. A gust of warm wind ruffled his feathers, sent paper trash skittering into the gutter. He cocked his head as black rubber–soled shoes passed by, pushing a gurney.

  At the entrance to the bar, cops milled about in various stages of procrastination. Some were putting off returning to the station out of dread of the paperwork that lay ahead, another thought that although there was no investigation to speak of, he’d rather be standing around an empty bar than go home to a wife who was still pissed about that thing last week. The two rookies leaning against the brick front, drinking coffee and sharing photos on their cell phones, knew there was no hurry. They’d be the last to leave—after the detectives and investigators, after the reporters, the extra cops, the coroner and the guys rolling out the corpses, after the technicians and the photographers. They were the tail end of a grisly parade on this Monday morning.

  Inside, a well-dressed detective removed his latex gloves, tucked them into his pocket, and nodded at the crew to indicate they should continue collecting evidence.

  It seemed like an open-and-shut case. No sign of struggle, three dead girls shot at close range. The murder weapon, a .45 caliber Glock looking more like plastic kid toy than real, on the floor near the killer. A man who’d taken the easy way out, offing himself with a shot to the head after the murders. The front door was locked from the inside, and a quick glance showed three surveillance cameras that would probably provide the rest of the answers. Murder. Suicide. Open-and-shut. It wasn’t a bad way to start a morning—for the detective, anyway.

  A shadow passed over the bodies as a broad-shouldered man in a ball cap stepped through the door. He pointed to the camera hanging from his neck, flashed a lanyard holding credentials to the rookies.

  “Hey Sam,” the detective said without turning around. “Took you long enough.”

  “I was going to stop for donuts too, but . . . you know,” Sam said, adjusting the flash on the camera.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Sam approached the four bodies, careful to stay out of the way of the forensics team. He raised his camera and fired off a burst of flashes, finishing with a chopped-beef looking shot—the close-up of the killer’s face.

  “Looks like someone got seriously overserved,” he said, focusing on the three girls. They’d fallen side by side and were still holding hands. If it hadn’t been for the blood or broken glass or splintered wood, they might be sunbathing, napping at the shore, waiting for low tide.

  The detective made a grunting sound.

  Sam clicked away as happily as if he were the lead photographer at a wedding. “Pretty,” he said.

  “What’s that?” the detective asked.

  “I said, they’re pretty. All three of them. Unusual, don’t you think?”

  Sam stepped back and reviewed the digital pictures on his camera’s screen.

  The detective peered over his shoulder. “Yeah, unusual. Like their names.”

  “How’s that?”

  The detective pointed at the display on the camera. “That one is Roxanne Dupont.”

  “Was . . .” Sam said.

  “Right. And that one.” the detective said, pointing to the palest girl. “Crescent Moon.”

  Sam chuckled then clicked the display again.

  The detective leaned in. “The last one is Chamonix Leonard. She tried to cross the Leonard off her driver’s license though. Must have preferred just Chamonix.”

  “Like Cher?” Sam said.

  “Or Madonna.”

  “And the shooter?” Sam asked, tipping his chin to the faceless dead man.

  “No ID. I’m betting on the owner, currently MIA. Guy named James John Smith.”

  “Is that right?” Sam turned off the camera and tucked it back into his jacket. “I went to school with a J. J. Smith.”

  “I think everybody knows a James or John Smith, don’t we?”

  “You mean like we all have an Aunt Rose?”

  The detective laughed as he walked Sam to the door. He said, “That last photo, of the three of them? You can have it. We’ll need the rest.”

  “Just one? That’s all you’re giving me to run?”

  “That’s all for now.”

  Sam looked over his shoulder into the dim bar. Black body bags were being unfolded. “Reminds me of a joke,” he said. “Three women walk into a bar. A blonde, a brunette, and a redhead . . .”

  Chapter 2

  TEDESCO. I’M THE PI.

  When the real estate agent showed me the Mercer Building last year, I thought no one in their right mind would want to rent space there. The brick exterior had been painted with a Pepto-Bismol wash, the halls smelled like cat piss, and all of the interior doors hung askew—as if a giant had lifted the building, shook it, then placed it down on a hillock. But when she told me the price, I surprised us both by saying, “I’ll take it.”

  Six months later, the place had been transformed under the careful eye of my HGTV-watching, wannabe-designer wife, Michelle, and an artist client, Jean Claude.

  They sandblasted the exterior to reveal a maroon-and-cream brick facade accented with decorative inlays. According to Michelle, the black iron railings and window grates added a certain je ne sais quoi to the whole place. While I felt the interior paint choices of “Seafoam Surprise” and “Linens on Holiday” were a bit too froufrou, Jean Claude assured me it was perfect and would provide an air of calm and serenity
for my clients.

  I told him as long as it didn’t cost more than three hundred bucks—the exact amount he owed me for following his boy toy home one night and taking the photos that broke up their relationship—I didn’t care about the color of my walls. And if the color palette produced a soothing ambience that meant an irate client might feel a little less compelled to jump across the desk and strangle me . . . well, I was all for it.

  I put “Bill Tedesco, PI” on the door and the mailbox, added some furniture, some cheap art. The office really wasn’t half-bad, which was good because it had also become home since Michelle had recently found out an old grudge wasn’t the only thing I’d been holding against my secretary, Lindsay.

  I understood Michelle’s anger but still thought there was a chance she’d take me back. In the meantime I made do with the living arrangements: showering in a two-by-two mildewed shower, shitting in a community bathroom, and waking up in pain every morning on a mattress that might have come from the set of The Princess and the Pea.

  If you had asked me, I would have’d admitted that I missed my wife. I also missed conjugal sex, Turkish linens, and the NASA-approved king-size memory foam mattress we had shipped in from Ottawa. But there was a decent parking spot in back for the Lincoln and I hadn’t nailed the landlady yet—meaning she still liked me, or at least the idea of me—a handsome, fortysomething, former exotic dancer and karaoke star also known as “Free Willy.”

  I tried to not think about my size-zero wife as I downed the third pastry of the morning and finished my extra-large coffee. Michelle had never been one for breakfast—or any meal for that matter—something about food taking too much energy to chew.

  The ding on my phone reminded me of the morning’s appointment, a new client.

  According to the note Lindsay had left before she quit, the new client had been reluctant to leave her full name. She'd said that she’d found me through a friend of a friend and that the issue was urgent. Apparently urgent enough to earn three exclamation marks.

  From my experience, I knew women could be vague like that. Not willing to give up anything more than they had to but usually asking for a hell of a lot in return.

  But this was different. This was business. Though, I may have read something between the lines that touched me. I’m not ashamed to say I have a soft spot—or two.

  I dropped some bills near my plate and left the coffee shop, cutting through the back alley and making it up to the second floor in plenty of time to shove a week’s worth of newspapers off the couch, restack the folders on my desk, and reach into the bottom drawer for a blue bottle.

  As I swished a slug of mouthwash for that minty fresh feeling, I thought about how Lindsay had left me high and dry on three counts. First she had given up her luxury condo to which I had a key, next she had stolen the power of the grudge match by saying “You win,” and last, by taking that talent-management job she’d always wanted with a Caribbean cruise line.

  She had some advice for me before she left. “You know, Tedesco,” she said, “Women get married so they don’t have to play games anymore. They like having the same predictable sex with the same predictable man in the same predictable bed twice a week. They want to cash the paycheck, pick up the kids from daycare, and pay the sitter on Saturdays. They don’t want marriage to be like dating. They don’t want to wonder, guess, or pretend. There’s nothing that a wife hates more than a lying husband. I heard it on Dr. Phil.”

  I spit into my trash can. Lindsay was right. I saw it every day. Red-eyed women came to me with a wad of cash and a tinge of suspicion. They said, and I believed most of them, that the cheating was something they could forgive, work out even—if only the guy hadn’t lied.

  Because once you lied about a thing like boffing some broad in the back room of a strip joint when you were supposed to be driving your cousin Andy home, well then, wasn’t it easy to lie about the little things—like where you got those scratches on your back, how much you lost at the casino, or why you logged in as Russell Indaleeves on a sex addicts’ website.

  Lies hide secrets. Secrets destroy trust. Women are big on trust and the only secrets they like are their own, the ones they’ll spill to their girlfriends over a few glasses of white wine and a Cobb salad.

  I checked the clock, thinking about the broad coming to see me. I’d recognized her last name, Leonard, as also belonging to one of the girls who’d been murdered in a local Irish bar a few days ago. I was all ready to give her my “I’m sorry for your loss” spiel and wondered what she expected me to do since the case seemed pretty cut and dry. Witnesses heard gunshots. Dead bodies. Bad guy—now dead guy—with loaded gun and key to the front door captured on surveillance equipment. Cops on scene. Film at eleven.

  The Syracuse Times had run two pictures under the article, a black-and-white from the crime scene, and an older one in color, right under the headline death served up cold at flannigan’s. In it, three sexy girls—a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead—were braced against the bar, eyes forward, backs arched in a Mae West bordello pose. They were beautiful in three different ways, but each was giving a genuine smile, the kind that crinkles your eyes and shortens your neck. Cold wasn’t close to what the photograph made me feel.

  It was only later that I noticed the reflection of the guy taking the picture. Turned sideways to capture the girls from an advantageous angle, he’d caught himself in the mirror behind the bar. The camera covered his face, but I could see the top of his head and one hand. The palm was facing out, like he was saying, “Perfect. Stop right there. Hold it . . .” As if he could freeze the moment. That part of the picture made me uncomfortable. It made me think of unsaid things and had me wondering about these girls who were working together, talking, and sharing secrets over Cobb salad. It was intriguing, and if I’m going to be honest, stimulating in a slightly twisted way.

  My client was right on time, her knock more of a rap. Two sudden thumps. I imagined this was the kind of woman who wouldn’t wait if you were running late, a list maker who would add things she’d already done just so she could cross them off. She’d spend a whole day precooking meals to save thirty minutes a night in the kitchen. She’d be the kind of woman who set a timer for sex, tossing her spouse a towel and telling him to finish it himself if he took too long. As a trained PI, I knew these things.

  But as a warm-blooded male, I’ll admit, her entrance suggested something else altogether. After years playing Free Willy on the stripping circuit, I’d become a pretty good judge of character. A quick scan of the crowd could save your pecker. I wouldn’t hang it out there on stage if there might be a psycho in the crowd with a knife under her skirt. You had to know when to approach and when to dance behind the bigger, dumber guy.

  The trick was to find the money. To figure out which women were there for more than a one-hour show. The ones who’d slip crisp twenties—tagged with their phone numbers in Sharpie—into your T-strap while running their tongue over an expensively enhanced lip.

  When Mrs. Leonard stepped in, jewelry jangling, boobs bouncing, all blonde and tall and pink with one delicate hand extended, I came around my desk to meet her.

  I was totally unprepared for the left hook.

  When I came to she was leaning over me, her blouse hanging away from her chest, giving me the full view of a rack that was oddly familiar.

  “Oh, God. Bill. I’m sorry. I never—I mean, are you all right?”

  Mrs. Leonard helped me up. I took advantage of my weakened state to lean into that bosom, using it as a soft pillow for my aching jaw—a soft, peach-scented pillow attached to a fortyish body that could easily pass for thirtyish.

  We made it to the couch. She looked around.

  “Do you have any—”

  “Cold pack in there.” I pointed to a small refrigerator in the corner while massaging my jaw. Son of a bitch hurt. It would bruise, in rainbow colors. I knew from experience.

  “Here.” Mrs. Leonard handed me a small pad of fake ice. I s
nuck a look at her, thinking more than the rack was familiar. That mole under her left eye . . .

  Being a man who speaks his mind I said, “What the hell was that for?”

  “I said I was sorry. And you can’t say you didn’t have it coming, Bill.”

  “Yes. I can,” I said, but even as I did, I knew she had a point. The breasts, the mole, the way she said Bi-ill in two syllables . . . this woman had a right to be angry with me. Mrs. Leonard was none other than my high-school sweetheart, Buffy Schenk.

  She leaned back on the couch and crossed her long legs, Buffy-style.

  “C’mon. After how you treated me? You’re lucky I only punched you.” She clenched and unclenched her fist of doom, then smiled. “Geez, Bill, the way you passed out like that, I could’ve done a lot worse. To you, or your . . .”

  Her gaze drifted to my crotch and I felt my testicles draw up. I dropped a hand, felt around.

  She scoffed. “Don’t worry. Little Willy’s fine.”

  But I left my hand there, like a flesh shield against thoughts of Lorena Bobbitt and the girl who’d superglued her boyfriend’s erect, cheating penis to his abdomen. What might Mrs. Leonard’s method have been, I wondered?

  I took a longer look at my ex-sweetie. Buffy Schenk had done well for herself. She wore an expensive-looking, tailored pink suit with a Chanel scarf tied at the neck. Her legs were still firm and muscular. It looked like she’d learned to avoid the sun—the result was an unlined face with just enough creases in the right places. No, Buffy wasn’t lifted or Botoxed, and I knew the tits were her own. I like my women natural. And this one was, 100 percent.

  “How you been, Buffy?”

  “It’s Barbara now. Mrs. Barbara Leonard.” She held out her left hand, twisting the large diamond ring on her finger. “Mick finally popped the question. Three months after you left.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.”

  She looked at me, and our eyes caught in that awkward way where you know there’s something happening, something that shouldn’t be happening for all the conventional reasons, but also because you want it so bad it must be wrong. We both squirmed a little, then found another place to rest our gazes.