Part 17 - Wolfe: Black & White & Red all over

She was staring at me when I walked in — black hair, a face that looked familiar somehow, and the end of a snub-nosed revolver, something small and easily concealed. Cop.

I dropped my keys on the stand beside the door and looked around. “Cleaning lady quit last week, but since you’re here…” I let it hang between us — ice breaker, smooth — but she didn’t budge. “Well, I’m not one for small talk either, so let’s get right down to it. No foreplay. Wanna see my badge or my gun first? You know I’m a cop. You’re in the wrong fucking house, lady.”

She stared at me and winced, closed her eyes for a second. I saw the barrel waiver — all the time I needed.

Three steps — long distance to cross when there’s a gun pointed your way, but I’d always been quite quick, silent. My name said it all. Before you knew it, my jaws were clamped around you, and you hadn’t even caught a whiff of my scent. But that was a long time ago, and her aim was up and coming around on me sooner than I expected. Not soon enough. My boot caught her wrist, and my fist glanced off her temple, catapulting her and the chair back onto the floor with a racket that made my mushy head all the mushier.

Where the gun went, I couldn’t see. There was no cleaning lady, although since I’d thought of it — I looked around, then shrugged and stared at the woman flat on her back. She blinked up at me as I stepped closer. That’s when I saw her lash out with her foot — thought I saw it? Too slow. Too late, I jumped back, grabbing my groin, feeling my stomach come up through my nose and mouth until I was doubled over, tasting the Ultra the wrong way around and whatever else was in my stomach with it. Seemed like nothing, though, as I was dry heaving, one knee down on the floor between the bitch cop and the door.

“It’s not my day for introductions,” she said, climbing to her feet.

I spit out the burning phlegm, wiped my mouth on the back of my wrist, and felt the knee-buckling throb in my groin. I was seeing colors — red mostly, some blue, an angry green, but maybe that was just what was on the floor and splattered on my boots. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Breathe through it. She was still here, and I needed to get back on my feet, back on my game, and get this bitch out, or get her talking, or…I had no idea. No idea earlier what I was doing, where I was going with that money, where it had come from, why it had ended up behind the dumpster. No idea why someone had broken into my house, a cop no less — not one of ours either. The shit was getting old. And now I was down, and my shit was going to be sore for days.

And my girl was dead. My girl was dead.

“Where the fuck you been, Wolfe?”

She knew my name. Then she stepped into that tight little circle of vision that was still functional around my feet — black boots like mine, decent height heels, a little warm for this time of year, but I wouldn’t complain. Hooker or cop — now I wasn’t sure. But she knew me. And she had her gun back.

I looked up from my semi-permanent genuflection and saw her lifting it, but I countered, some parts of me still functional, and my chrome Beretta met her halfway. Even Stephen.

“Put that shit away, cop. Identify yourself, or get the fuck out.”

Barrel to barrel — it was a stand-off, and we both knew it. I just had to look past her silver snub-nosed to see it, past the shiner I’d just laid on her. But she was standing, and something was to be said for that. Better than me. I wondered where her chair was and if there was ice in the fridge.

“Gretel No-Last-Names-Here. FBI. That’s all you get.” She dropped her aim, shoved the little popper into a pocket, and turned her back on me. She knew where the chair was all right. She scooped it up with all the grace of a grocery clerk and plopped back down on it. “Is this place always a shithole like this, or did the fucks who cracked me on the head when I came in do this?”

I stared back at her, not sure if she was blowing smoke up my tail or telling me something I didn’t know.

“What fucks? Lay it on me.” I shifted and put my weight on the little table next to me, groaning my way to a pair of straight legs. I tucked the Beretta back into its snug little spot under my left arm and shrugged out of my jacket. There were Ultras in the fridge — probably the only thing in there, so I headed that way. Introductions out of the way. Friends now; time for a drink.

“Didn’t see ‘em.”

“Ha. Heard that kind of bullshit before. Sure you’re a cop? Didn’t see ’em. I get that shit from dope fiends and scared hookers — pick a corner down on the Lower East Side.” The fridge didn’t let me down, even though Gretel was working on it. Two Ultras. Maybe the sauce would open her up a little. I hadn’t quite started things off smooth — a gun pointed at me will do that.

“Heard some shit, came around the back to get the drop on whoever it was, but it didn’t turn out how I planned it.”

“Yeah, that shit works great on television. Read some more pulp fiction. Always works then.”

“Hey, fuck you, Wolfe. I don’t work burglary. I don’t work the street beat. I’m not a flat-foot, washed-up has-been like you.” Her voice was dull but her words weren’t. None of that shit needed to be true, but it did mean she knew someone who knew me or had a file on me. Where had I seen her? The precinct? This fucking conversation was going to take all night.

I dropped on the couch behind her, grimacing through the delicate situation between my legs. “Yeah, you’re killing it from that desk of yours. Maybe you should have held up your government-issued laptop when I walked it. I might not have hit you.” I giggled to myself, eased my feet up on the coffee table, knocking some old magazines off onto the floor.

I’d expected her to turn the chair around; I’d sat on the fucking couch just to make her move. I didn’t think she’d plop down next to me.

“At least you left me a spot that wasn’t too stained,” she mumbled as I handed over a cold one and popped the top on mine. “Cheers.” She popped her top, threw it on the floor. Cleaning lady was gonna be pissed. “Today is shit. I come over here to talk to you, someone’s broken into your house, I walk around back, and someone cracks me on the back of the head the moment I poke my head in through your now busted back door. Then you walk in and take a swing at me.” She pressed her bottle to her left eye and rolled it back and forth. “And I’m going to need another bottle for the back of my head. Whatever they hit me with, it felt like a brick.”

“First you point your pea shooter at me; now you want more beer. Hell of a first date. What’s next? Demolition derby in Hoboken? Matching tattoos? Keep talking.” I stared straight ahead. My balls told me not to look over and eye her cleavage, even though there was a decent amount. She was pretty hot, even with that shiner coming on. Not my usual, but I didn’t deny a little rough-and-tumble. Red would understand.

Red. How did this connect to her? The bag of money? What did this Gretel want?

“Tell me about Red.”

I couldn’t help but look at her then.