For some reason he wanted to hate me, but he knew I was yanking his chain. He sighed and leaned back, taking another sip.
“What are you drinking?” I asked.
He licked the clear liquor from his lips. “Chianti.”
“Chianti.” I smiled. He was Italian. “I should have known. But I might have taken you for a Scotch man.” I hated Scotch.
In the pause that followed, the old-time elevated train roared by not two hundred yards away. It was the only original el-track still functioning in the entire country and a real tourist attraction. In the mid-twenty-first century, all of Chicago’s elevated trains and subways had been replaced by aboveground superconductor lines, which were virtually noiseless. I had the dubious privilege of living near the only remaining electric track capable of making my two-flat rattle from its vibration.
“So, Detective,” I said when the rumble died, “let’s cut to the chase. I’m not a bloodthirsty ogre and we both know it. What really brought you here?”
“Danny Black,” he said.
Two words. They may as well have been two fists pounding into my solar plexus. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I tried to keep my cool, but my eyes closed of their own will while unwanted images flashed in my mind. I saw Officer Daniel Black’s body lying in a pool of blood in a rat-infested alley in the Loop. A minute before there had been seven of us—me and Darelle Jones, a drug dealer I’d been contracted to bring in, Officer Danny Black and four dealers—connected with the neo-Russian mob.
Darelle opened fire, killing everyone but me. I was close enough to witness the massacre, but just out of sight around the corner of a nearby building. When the smoke cleared, I was the only witness. The fact that I was the lone survivor and had prior connections to the assailant made me doubly suspicious. But a thorough investigation cleared me of any collusion.
I put the unpleasant memories aside and opened my eyes. I found Detective Marco heading toward the door, readjusting his sport coat. He wasn’t even going to hear me out.
“If you’ve bothered to look at the record, Marco,” I said as I stood and crossed my arms, unwilling to chase after him, “you know that I was found completely innocent in that tragedy. The chief even held a press conference announcing that conclusion. The case is closed.”
He opened the door, adjusted his collar and seared me from the distance with a laser-beam glare. “I’ve read the record, Baker. And you’re right, you were cleared of wrongdoing. But you couldn’t be more wrong on another count. The case isn’t closed. It’s now officially reopened.”
He slammed the door behind him. I didn’t move for a long time. I couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d said, “Frankly, Scarlet, I don’t give a damn.” And in a way, that’s exactly what he did say.
Chapter 4
Black Coffee, Blue Dragon
As soon as Marco left, I called the private eye whom I’d hired to watch the abuse shelter where Drummond’s wife and kid were staying. Some retributionists who make good money have a whole staff of private investigators who do everything from watching over victims to tracking the whereabouts of ex-cons. I kept my operation simple by using a freelance P.I. when needed.
My guy was an old pro from Skokie. I told him about my fight with Drummond and told him to call the cops and me, in that order, if my threats failed to cower Drummond and he showed up at the shelter. The police could legally shoot the sonofabitch if he attacked his family. I could only do it with a bogus Gibson Warrant and wind up in jail for fraud.
I had just hung up when someone knocked on the door again.
“Now what?” I muttered as I flung it open. And there, standing before me with a rakish smirk and a tilted fedora, was none other than Humphrey Bogart.
“Bogie,” I said on a long sigh of relief. “I forgot you were coming. Man, am I glad you’re here.”
He passed me with a wink and a whiff of tobacco trailed behind him. There was something so simply and confidently masculine about him that just watching him climb the stairs and saunter into my flat made my wire-tight shoulders unfurl. Okay, fine. I’d given in to Chicago’s uniquely primal summer heat. I was here. He was here. My libido was definitely here.
Though Bogie wore a trench coat, he wasn’t sweating. I was. He shrugged out of the coat and tossed it onto my couch, then poured himself a glass of Vivante. Bourbon. You never had to ask with a man like Bogie. He took a long sip, then looked at me long and hard. His upper lip twitched once—one of his rare signs of emotion.
“You look tired, Angel.”
I nodded. “More than you could ever know.” Between Drummond and Detective Marco, I felt as if the whole world was against me. I needed someone who would accept me as I was, ask no questions and leave no doubts that I was a woman. Lucky for me, that someone was standing in arm’s reach.
When Bogie put down his glass on the serving bar and came my way, hands tucked into his suit pocket, my skin tingled all over. He kissed me lightly. I smelled tobacco on his breath, and it was so real I melted in his arms.
“Make love to me, Bogie.”
“Is that an order?”
I nodded. He took me to my bedroom and undressed me. His jaded eyes lit with hunger.
“Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.”
And I knew from experience he would do much more than that.
The next morning I arose, as usual, to the soft sound of Mike’s Chinese gong and the smell of incense. Both were di rigeur for his meditations. Sound and scent floated up from the garden through the open French windows in my bedroom. I flopped my arm across my double bed, not expecting to find Bogie there. And I didn’t.
I’d only contracted with AutoMates to have Humphrey Bogart until 3:00 a.m. With his internal clock fully engaged, quite literally, Bogie always rose promptly, no matter how deliciously exhausting our lovemaking was. He’d light a cigarette, which AutoMates were permitted to do. After all, tar and nicotine can’t hurt a robot. Granted, second-hand smoke was still a problem, but the stinking rich AutoMates corporation lobbyists had convinced Congress that a few smoking movie star robots couldn’t produce all that much smoke.
After lighting up, Bogie would dress in darkness, his rugged features illuminated only by the red glow of his cigarette, and depart.
His zombielike obedience to time always reminded me a little of those blond people in The Time Machine who went off in a trance whenever the Morlocks called. The 1960s movie, starring Rod Taylor and Yvette Mimieux, was a classic. It was in color, but I still liked it.
The fact that Bogie had been programmed to send me to the moon diminished the afterglow, but not by much. With a compubot produced by AutoMates, the premiere manufacturer, satisfaction was always guaranteed. And I was lucky enough to get exclusive dibs on the star attraction of Rick’s Café Americain, the reality bar down the street.
Yet I’ll admit the physical satisfaction did little to relieve my loneliness. That’s why I always sent Bogie home before morning. The emptiness of our so-called relationship always glared in early daylight.
