Cover Design: yourCoverSt©ry
Copyright Manuela Cardiga 2014
Murder in D-Minor
By
Manuela Cardiga
You could say I was at the end of my tether. There wasn’t much left of me to salvage after a lifetime of blood, wet-work, cheating and theft. So at sixty-two, having spent a considerable chunk of my time in jail; and most of what I’d earned avoiding even more convictions, I’d decided to invest my skills and know-how in the straight world as a PI.
A reformed criminal turned Private Investigator - you would think the clients would stay away in droves, but surprisingly enough, I was a busy man indeed.
I was putting my life back together, bit by bit, until that fateful August night.
A mistake. A woman, of course, with me it was always a woman.Other men, it was drink or gaming, or blood lust or drugs.With me it was women.
Not necessarily beautiful women. Just a woman with that intangible something that moved me: a smile, a way of lifting a shoulder, the vulnerable curve of a neck. Once I nearly married a girl for her scent. The sweet scent of the curve of her throat...I can smell it even now. I loved that girl.
So that August night I was alone. Morry, my partner had already gone home, when someone buzzed. If you are picturing some sleazy PI hangout, think again. I'd done a lot of wet-work for high-rollers and I had a fifth floor, with a corner office, and a snazzy reception area - my daughter and some prancing prick in pink had painted it in these smarmy colours and hung some bloody expensive shit on the walls. She said you've got to dress for success, and the space says it best...
I even paid some woman to come align energies and chakras or some other good shit.
I myself hated it all, but I must admit it suited the sharp suits that paid Morry and I to trail their biz partners, secretaries, children and fourth or fifth wives.
Dull stuff. but profitable; and at my age, after spending 18 years in jail, and having lost more than I'd gained - and by my count I'd blown away millions - I needed to think about my future.
Some of my investments had paid off. A lot of important people owed me favours; and favours, my friends, can be worth more than money in the bank. I knew where a lot of skeletons were buried, and a few lively bodies too...so you could say I was drawing a pension of sorts. The customers came, referred by nameless debtors; and I did the work, and took the cash. It was fairly clean money. watching, mostly. It was ok. I slept nights. Until that night.
The man who buzzed carried a pretty hefty IOU, let me tell you, one I'd done my best to forget was still outstanding. I let him in. He was a sharp suit, like all the rest: grey suit, silk shirt, palest tie - hand painted - and narrow shoes that looked hand-made, and a face I hated at first sight.
He had a square-jawed, dimpled-chinned face; with wide brown candid eyes.
Nothing to dislike, right? But something didn’t jibe. He looked like a lie
He was in his late fifties, maybe - a bit younger than me -but better kept. Firm fleshed, bronzed, grizzled full head of hair, sunny smile; even his handshake was just right. The correct pressure, exact timing, and left me with the sensation I’d touched slime.
"Mr. Markovitch? I'm Tad Smeadon."
I shivered. Markovitch was a ghost, a dead man. Buried and long gone.
"You've made mistake Mr. Smeadon. I'm George Warrick, my partner is Morris Brady. There is no-one called Markovitch here."
His smiled broadened, showing perfect square teeth. Natural too, not capped, the left incisor slightly bent.
"No mistake." he extended a tiny cloisonné box. I didn’t want to take it, touch the poisonous thing.
"A friend said you had a debt to repay, Mr. Markovitch, she said to give you this, that you knew what it was"
"Take it away!"
The happy eyes narrowed "I insist, Mr Markovitch, you must take it. It is proof of my identity. My credentials, you might say."
I took it, and so sealed my fate.
He walked past me into my office, sat on the chair, easy as you please.
"What do you want?"
He crossed his legs, shot his cuffs, and smiled. The fucker was enjoying this.
"I want someone dead"
"DEAD?" I took a deep breath, "I'm a private detective Mr. Smeadon, I don't kill people."
"Oh I think you do, in fact, I know you have. And I know," he gestured with beautifully manicured hands at the little box clutched tight in my hand, "I know you will kill again."
"Yes." I croaked it out, "Yes."
He withdrew from his pocket an envelope.
"The money, Mr. Markovitch. In Swiss francs." He laid it on my desk, "And here - here she is..." Another envelope.
"She? A woman? The hit is a woman?"
"Are you squeamish? From the story about that box, I’d hardly think so."
"No, I’m not. Just curious, is all." I drew out the picture: a bland woman. Bland was the first word that sprung to mind: neither young, nor old; thin or fat; pretty or ugly. She was just bland, dressed neatly but boringly. No pizzazz.
"Why," I asked him, "do you want her dead? Is she your wife?"
"My wife?" he reared back as if I’d slapped him "No! Not at all...I just want her dead, that's all. They told me you would ask no questions."
"I was curious, Mr. Smeadon, that's all."
I flipped the picture: Dorothea Sandoval. Dorothea Sandoval was dead, or at least, as good as dead; when it came to wet-work there was no-one better than I. I rose to my feet and picked up the fat envelope with the money. I gave it back to Smeadon. "Take this crap and get the fuck out. Tell her I'll do it and the slate is clean. Tell her this pays for all. Tell her anyone else comes to me from Dusseldorf is dead." I bared my teeth in Zoozi Markovitch's deadly grin, "Tell her I want someone to come..."
Smeadon stared at me for one long moment, took the envelope and left. I sank into my chair, my head in my hands.As ugly as George Warrick's past was - and believe me, it was bad - it could not compare to who Zoozie Markovitch had been. I would dig a burial pit: Dorothea Sandoval would lie with Zoozie Markovitch. I would toss their dead, tumbled limbs into a nameless grave, bury them deep.I would put an end this once and for all. George Warrick I had reformed, brought him into the straight world. In two month's time my daughter would give birth. I would stretch out my hand over a cradle and the finger my grandson gripped would be clean. No blood under the fingernail. I heaved myself out of that chair and went home.
Next day I went looking for a dead woman. Dorothea Sandoval. The address scribbled under her name at the back of the photo indicated a flower shop in an average middle class neighborhood. Made sense, everything about Dorothea screamed average, mediocre. And there she was. No luster to the woman: she moved behind that counter, neither brisk nor slow. I watched for a while from the café across the street. She arranged the flowers "just so", somehow failing to impart that singular grace that is the gift of an artistic eye and a deft hand. It astonished me she would be a target for violent death.
Nothing in her invited either violent hate or love; even I, found my initial revulsion at the thought of taking her life fade. There was nothing there for me to connect to. No passion, no beauty, nor ugliness, even.
She was a blank woman shape with a name tag attached. Yes, I could remove her, erase her name; nothing in her demanded response. She was simply not real enough for remorse.
After two days of watching I had her routine down pat. She left the flower shop at six, walked to the subway, stood on the curb, just a little too close. She walked into the second carriage always. Sat by the window, and nodded her head to the cadence of the train. Exactly 23 seconds before it pulled into her station, she would get up, make her way to the door and peer out at the flashing darkness, th
e leprous walls.
What did she see out of those nondescript eyes? The train stopped: she'd get out, walk home, up the stairs and through her front door. And that was where Dorothea Sandoval ended for me. Through walls I could not see. On the third day I decided to make contact. I walked into the shop and ordered some flowers. Roses, I told her, red.
"Black velvet?" her voice was extraordinary! It reverberated, thrummed in my chest as if she had reached in and strummed at my heart. I could listen to those words again and again "black velvet".
Her mouth shaped the words, I caught glimpses of her moist tongue moving, -"black velvet" - and that voice; that beautiful extraordinary voice...
She was extraordinary and all of her blandness now seemed the necessary foil, the setting for