The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories Read online

  THE MIKE MURPHY FILES

  AND OTHER STORIES

  By Christopher Bunn

  Copyright 2010 by Christopher Bunn. All rights reserved.

  This collection of stories is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any mechanical or electronic means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover illustration by Jimi Bonogofsky. www.jimidoodle.blogspot.com

  Other books by Christopher Bunn

  The Tormay Trilogy

  The Hawk and His Boy

  The Shadow at the Gate

  The Wicked Day

  The Model Universe and Other Stories

  The Mike Murphy Files and Other Stories

  MISSING DOGS, HEADS, HANDS, ETC.

  From the Files of Mike Murphy

  The morning sun was as hot as the Devil’s coffee. The pavement was hotter. It scorched up through my shoe soles. Light bounced off windows and the metal and glass of passing cars. People were surly from the heat. The newsman snarled his thanks when I paid for my newspaper. The fat guy behind the donut counter slung my apple fritter into the bag with contempt. A taxicab tried to run me down in the crosswalk. The driver hung out the window and yelled something unintelligible after me. Something about coming back and getting run over like a man.

  I trudged up the stairs to my office. The placard on the door said M. Murphy, Private Investigations. That’s me. Mike Murphy. Detective. You might be tired of hearing about detectives, but what choice did I have? It was either that or working for my brother’s law firm. I don’t believe in lawyers, just like I don’t believe in Santa Claus. I’m Irish, so, even though I believe in some things, a man has to draw the line somewhere.

  I pulled the curtains shut and sat down at my desk. The air conditioner wasn’t working, but I wasn’t about to call up the landlord, seeing I was two months behind on rent. The newspaper didn’t hold anything instructive, other than another headless corpse floating in the harbor, several bribed politicians looking like lobotomized monkeys in their photos, a case of arson, and a new city budget spending fifty million bucks more than the city had.

  Ho hum. Business as usual.

  I ate my apple fritter. It was greasy and good.

  I eyed the telephone. It was better that it didn’t ring. If it did ring, it would probably be a bill collector or my girlfriend Maura. Maura was mad at me. Mad enough to throw a bottle of beer at my head last night. I’d give her a few days to cool off. Only trouble was, nobody cooled off in this kind of weather.

  I investigated my wallet and found a dollar bill. Two dimes and a nickel in my pocket. I opened the desk drawer and found a quarter under a pile of unpaid bills. A buck and a half. That would be enough for a hotdog from Fat Joe’s Lunch Cart.

  It was high time I found some clients. The last paying client I had was Mrs. Georgia Pulley-Givens, wife to Mr. Frederick T. Givens IV, banker and fathead philanthropist. She paid me four hundred bucks for finding her missing Chihuahua Bootsie. I would’ve charged her two hundred bucks, but I always figure hyphenated names are good for twice as much. She thought the Mafia had kidnapped Bootsie. Either for ransom or to torture information out of the dog. Mrs. Pulley-Givens claimed Bootsie was the smartest dog since Lassie, and chock-full of dog information any criminal would kill to know. I considered explaining to her that Louis Six-Fingers, the local Mafia don, probably wasn’t interested in what various people’s shoes smelled like, or whether the cat in 16-B was a snotty piece of work. I just nodded and thought about the cash.

  I had found Bootsie gobbling stale pizza out of the garbage behind Gino’s Italian Grill. Bootsie didn’t look all that smart, pizza sauce smeared all over her ugly little face. But Mrs. Pulley-Givens smothered Bootsie in her ample bosom and wept tears of joy. The dog had given me a dirty look, as if to say, why the hell didn’t you leave me with the pizza?

  I leaned back in my chair and thought a moment. Maybe that arson job mentioned in the paper might have some money in it. Poke around, ask a few questions, steal a march on the cops. Pressure the right person and who knows? They might cough up some bucks for my silence.

  I trudged along Grove Street to the precinct station. The gun in my shoulder holster felt like a lump of lead. My feet hurt. I needed some new shoes. Or maybe it was high time I got in shape. I was six-three in my socks, heavy enough with muscle, but my gut was starting to show the influence of a few too many beers. I could join a gym. Pump some iron, run on a treadmill while staring at a TV talk show twenty inches in front of my face. Do time on the elliptical next to some flabby gasper in spandex.

  Or maybe I just needed better shoes.

  As if the city agreed with me, I noticed a sign across the street. Finnegan and Sons. Shoemakers since something-something. The paint of the something-something part of the sign was cracked and peeling. It looked like it might read 1948, or maybe 1848, or maybe even 1748.

  The shop was tucked between a grocer and a bank belonging to Mr. Frederick T. Givens IV. I’d been up and down this street for years and I couldn’t remember seeing the place before. I pushed through the door. A bell jangled in the back of the shop. The walls were lined with shelves and the shelves were full of shoes. All different kinds of shoes. Boots. Sandals. Tennis shoes. Weird shoes. Shoes covered in fur. Covered in feathers. In what looked suspiciously like gold. A pair of boots that looked like they’d been carved from stone. Some running shoes that looked big enough to fit an elephant. I picked up one of the running shoes.

  “Those are already spoken for.”

  The voice came from behind me. I turned and didn’t see anyone until I looked down. He was short. Short enough to be prickly about it. And he looked prickly. Spiky gray hair, green eyes, and big ears that stuck out from the side of his head like bat wings. He grabbed the shoe from my hand, brushed off an imaginary speck of dust, and put it back on the shelf.

  “People usually make an appointment,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said cleverly.

  “Then we’re in agreement you should leave. At least, I’m in agreement.”

  He began shooing at me, making sweeping motions toward the door. But my feet were aching and I had held that running shoe in my hand. That thing, enormous as it was, had been light as a feather. Hand-stitched, too.

  “You make the shoes in here?” I said.

  “Of course,” he said, pride winning out over reluctance.

  “I’d like a pair of shoes. I walk a lot in my job. I’ve never found a pair that really fits, you know what I mean? It’s all those mass-produced Chinese knockoffs flooding the market. You can’t find a good shoe anymore.”

  “Er, no, you can’t,” he said, unable to help himself.

  “You obviously know what you’re doing. These are real shoes you’ve got here. Real shoes.”

  He couldn’t help smiling, and, before he knew it, he was measuring my feet and taking notes in a worn leather notebook he whipped out of his pocket.

  “Walks a lot,” he mumbled, scribbling. “Six feet, three inches. 235 pounds. Irish. Green eyes, crooked nose, smells of cheap coffee. Man of business, not too casual, but nothing dressy either. Serious shoes, correct? No! Don’t tell me. Not a word. I know what a person needs in shoes just by looking at them. Leather uppers, gum rubber soles. Cushioned inner. Let’s see. . . Shoes that can stand up to concrete sidewalks, dodging traffic, a quiet dinner at Fleur de
Lis, resistant to mustard stains, spilled beer, and modern music. Got it. Right. They’ll be ready tomorrow morning.”

  I thanked him and left before he could change his mind.

  The 53rd Precinct station is brick and plaster. I know the place like the nose on my face. I used to be a cop there. Eleven years until I got bored of filling out paperwork, drinking bad coffee, and having to listen respectfully to gibbering idiots from City Hall.

  I was past the front counter before the duty sergeant saw me.

  “Hey, MacGregor,” I said.

  “Hey, Murph,” he said, without thinking. “Hey! You can’t go back there. You ain’t working here no more.”

  “Relax, you mashed potato. I’m not gonna steal the crown jewels.”

  The Captain was in the back, frowning at a jelly donut.

  “Whaddaya want, Murph,” he said. “You come to get fired again?”

  “You didn’t fire me. I quit. Remember?”

  “I shoulda fired you. I should fire the lot of ‘em! Whiners, that’s what they are. Drooling, incontinent babies licensed to carry guns and arrest people. But the modern policeman’s more concerned about violating people’s civil rights than beating the tar outta some scumbag. In my days we beat ‘em until their kidneys bubbled. But you should hear the rookies now. It’s Captain this and Captain that. Captain, we should have Evian in the break room. Captain, I’d like to attend the Ethnic Diplomacy Convention in Manhattan. Oh Captain, perhaps the mugger I just brought in would benefit from a session with the psychoanalyst. I tell you! I’d like to take that Ethnic Diplomacy garbage, plus that psychoanalyst and a crate of Evian, and shove ‘em up—”

  “Any word on that arson?” I said.

  “What’s it to you?”

  “Oh, I might have a line on the burner.”

  “You do, do you?” He glared at me.

  “Of course, I’d bring what I find straight to you. It’ll be like old days.”

  He glared at me some more and squeezed the donut until jelly spurted out.

  I strolled out of the station half an hour later with a pocketful of scribbled notes. The arson had taken down Hong Sho’s Wash ‘n’ Fold over on 57th. Rubble and ash and a few smidgens of heat accelerant. One scorched skeleton that probably belonged to old Hong Sho, but missing the skull and hands. One suspicious person seen leaving the area, carrying a sack, who fit the description of Joe Lugg. Lugg worked for mob boss Louis Six-Fingers. And Louis Six-Fingers, well, he was a mean old junkyard dog, mean enough to boil his grandma into grease and sell the poundage to some fancy-pants cosmetics factory.

  I headed east on 3rd Avenue, thinking about arson, and Joe Lugg running off with old Hong Sho’s head in a sack, and whether one hot dog would be enough for lunch. It wasn’t, even though Fat Joe piled the sauerkraut high enough to sink the Queen Elizabeth full of senior citizens playing shuffleboard.

  “Got any news for me?”

  Fat Joe glanced around. People hustled by on the sidewalk. He leaned in a bit closer.

  “Buy my pickled peppers at Pepe’s Peruvian Emporium,” he whispered. “Every Tuesday.”

  “I’m not going to buy your pickled peppers,” I said. “On Tuesday or any other day of the week.”

  “I don’t want you buying my pickled peppers. I merely omitted the personal pronoun in my sentence.”

  “Oh.” I took a bite of hotdog.

  “Pepe said Manny Lolo came in and bought a gallon of barbecue sauce, a box of chopsticks, and an industrial-size walnut cracker. You know, the kind big enough to crack open a stone basketball.”

  “A stone basketball? Why would anyone want to crack open a stone basketball?”

  “Or a frozen one.” Fat Joe shrugged. “You know. Anything hard and round, about the size of a nice big skull. Third time they've bought one of them crackers this year. They must wear out fast.”

  I detoured over to 57th. The Wash ‘n’ Go was cordoned off with yellow tape. Blackened brick lay tumbled in piles. The place was a complete write-off. If anyone hadn’t picked up their laundry before Wednesday evening, they were out of luck. The interesting thing about the place, though, wasn’t the remains of the shop. The interesting thing was the fact that the stores on either side—Versnecker’s Music and the Ye Olde Worlde Fudge Company—were completely untouched. There wasn't a single smudge of smoke on their walls.

  Ye Olde Worlde Fudge Company was a dark, gloomy place. It smelled of butter and chocolate and rum and nuts and dust. A glass counter ran alongside the inner walls. It was full of fudge. Trays and trays piled with slabs of fudge. A face peered over the counter. An old woman with a face as wrinkled as the raisins in her rum fudge.

  “May I help you, sir?” she said.

  “I was thinking about buying some fudge.”

  I wandered down the length of the cabinet. Her face followed me, looking as if it was sliding along the top of the glass.

  “Is there a specific kind of fudge that interests you, sir?”

  “What’s the best fudge you have?”

  “Ah.” She let out a dusty sigh. “That is a matter of subjectivity. There’s the Charlotte Corday Peanut Butter Nougat, one of my favorites, or the Genghis Khan Chocolate Crunchy Crunch.”

  “The Charlotte Corday?” The name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Maybe she was that fat witch on the city council who had banned cigar smoking in public.

  “Yes. She assassinated Jean-Paul Marat in his bath in 1793. Afterward, she whipped up a batch of Peanut Butter Nougat to celebrate the occasion. The Chocolate Crunchy Crunch was invented by Genghis Khan’s chef, Bharli Zup. The Mongol hordes always carried some in their saddlebags when they rode out to burn and pillage. The original recipe included the pulverized bones of Polish peasants.”

  “Those Mongols.” I shook my head. “I, uh, assume you updated the recipe a bit?”

  She didn’t answer, but just stared at me.

  “A friend of mine buys fudge here. Name of Lugg. Joe Lugg.” My eye fell on the nearest tray behind the glass. Chamomile Tea Fudge. “He always buys the Chamomile Tea Fudge. Raves about it. Has he been in lately?”

  The wrinkled face behind the counter was still for a moment. “The name isn’t familiar.”

  “Tall fellow, big shoulders. Sort of resembles a gorilla, but hairier and not as pretty.”

  “Perhaps you should leave now. It’s time to close for the day.”

  “At one in the afternoon? Does Lugg come in often? Does he trade protection for fudge? Or for cash?”

  “You should leave.”

  The wrinkled face disappeared from behind the counter and the room fell silent. I loitered in front of the Hazelnut Slash ’n’ Hash Fudge for a while and then left. As I walked out the door, I thought I heard the sound of an old rotary phone being dialed. Zip-chchchching. Zippp-chchchching.

  Someone was sitting behind my desk when I unlocked my office door. My heart almost did a back flip, because I had been thinking about Joe Lugg the entire walk back. Lugg and Manny Lolo and their industrial-size walnut cracker. But it wasn’t Lugg sitting there. It was Maura. My heart did a real back flip and I froze, wondering if I should draw my gun.

  “How’d you get in here?” I said.

  She batted her eyelashes at me like a Venus flytrap. “Through the door. How else?”

  “Don’t play stupid with me, Maura.”

  “Me?” She widened her eyes and managed to look shocked. Her eyes were green enough to give a tree-hugging hippie cold sweats. “I’d never do such a thing. Now, where are you taking me for dinner tonight?”

  Obviously, she had forgotten the beer incident from last night. To be fair, though, I doubt she referred to it with that title. Her version was probably named something like “Murphy’s Snide Comments About My Mother, Referring to Her as Evidence for the Existence of Hell, Which Caused Me to Heave a Bottle at Him.” Comments which, I’ll have you know, were completely justified. Women are like that. They refuse to see the man’s side of the story. Or even a
cknowledge that the man has the right to have a story.

  “Fleur de Lis,” I said.

  “Fleur de Lis!” she screamed, bouncing up from the chair. I moved in for a kiss.

  “If I had any money.”

  She slapped me. Slapped me so hard I could hear the ocean waves pounding on the beach. Could hear seagulls calling back and forth. It was a real pretty sound except for the noise of a shotgun going off. Someone was shooting the seagulls.

  “So make some money!”

  “I’m working on it.” I told her about the arson, about Joe Lugg, and about the old woman in the Ye Olde Worlde Fudge Shoppe.

  “She knows Lugg,” said Maura. “She knows him, she’s paying protection, and she probably knows what happened with Hong Sho.”

  “Why are you so sure about that?”

  “I’m a woman. I know. If you had half my brains, you’d be solving crimes right and left, in a nicer office with a secretary, an old, ugly secretary, and taking me out for dinner every night of the week.”

  “Maybe you should be doing my job,” I grumbled.

  “Maybe I should.”

  And that’s how I found myself walking down the sidewalk with Maura. It was close on five o’clock, and the city was overflowing with life, thronged and crowded with bumper-to-bumper taxicabs hollering and cursing in sixty-three different languages. We passed Finnegan and Sons. A “Closed” sign hung in the window.

  “Bought a pair of shoes here today,” I said.

  “With what money?” scowled Maura. I could see her mind at work: The jerk has money to spend on shoes, but not a dime to take me out to dinner.

  “Don’t even think it,” I said. “Wait.”

  “I’m not going to wait,” she grumbled. “You’ve got a lot of nerve. I think what I want. And I’m definitely thinking something now.”

  “Not that. Look. Look through the window.”

  The lights were off inside, but there was still enough illumination to see the jumble of shoes scattered across the floor. Shoes everywhere, swept off the shelves.