Dark Quarry: A Mike Angel Private Eye Mystery

By David H Fears

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Lust stalks Mike Angel as he stalks his father’s killers in this complex mystery. The first of the Mike Angel Mysteries of historical, erotic novels. Set in the New York/New Jersey and Chicago areas in 1960. Plenty of action and seduction in this case connected to the infamous Purple Gang of the 1930s.

Burdened by the unsolved murder of his father, a career NYPD lieutenant whose “voice” warns whenever danger is near, 30-year-old Mike Angel is a Korean vet and bored private investigator of insurance fraud. When a wealthy ex-college buddy hires him to tail Joe Ambler, a petty blackmailer, Mike fixates on Kimbra, a stunning beauty who kills the blackmailer with a “lucky shot” from a peewee .22. Mike impulsively helps her dispose of the body and finds himself on the wrong side of the law.

Mike discovers the dead man was the grandson of a feared and legendary mob leader, founder of Detroit’s Purple Gang of the 1920s and 30s. When a well-dressed thug comes looking for Ambler, and the wealthy buddy who hired Mike runs off with Kimbra and is murdered in the Bahamas, Mike is turned around on the case. While searching for Kimbra, Mike stumbles across connections to the Russian-Cuban branch of the ring responsible for a string of unsolved murders in three states. The discovery leads to a chain of events and a frame up. Mike is convicted of murder, and is sent to the federal prison at Trenton. A lustful but single-minded newspaper woman, Heddy McBright, visits him in jail right before a break is planned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David H Fears
• Release date: Jan 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9780971486867

David H Fears

David was known by the handle “professor” as a boy (no doubt the thick black spectacles, Buddy Holly style), and has had a lifetime interest in Mark Twain. He has also written nearly one hundred short stories with about sixteen published, and is working on the 14th Mike Angel PI Mystery novel.Fears is a pretty handy name for horror stories, but he also has written mainstream nostalgic, literary, some fantasy/magical realism, as well as the PI novels. For the past decade he has devoted his full time to producing Mark Twain Day By Day, a four-volume annotated chronology in the life of Samuel L. Clemens. Two volumes are now available, and have been called, “The Ultimate Mark Twain Reference” by top Twain scholars. His aim for these books is “to provide a reference and starting-off place for the Twain scholar, as well as a readable book for the masses,” one that provides many “tastes” of Twain and perspective into his complex and fascinating life. He understands this is a work that will never be “finished” — in fact, he claims that no piece of writing is ever finished, only abandoned after a time. As a historian, David enjoys mixing historical aspects in his fiction.David recently taught literature and writing at DeVry University in Portland, his third college stint. His former lives enjoyed some success in real estate and computer business, sandwiched between undergraduate studies in the early 70s and his masters degree in education and composition, awarded in 2004.He was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and has lived in New England, Southern California and Nevada. David is youthful looking and is the father of three girls, the grandfather of four and the great-grandfather of two; he’s written, “It all shows what you can do if you fool around when you’re very young.” David’s a card. How many of us think humor has a place in mystery tales or history tomes? He claims his calico cat Sophie helps him edit his stories while lying across his arm when he is composing, and sinking her claws in with any poorly drawn sentence. As a writer, a humorist, a cat lover and father of girls, he relates well to Clemens. Writing hardboiled PI novels is his way of saying "NUTS!" to politically correct fiction.UPDATE: Beloved Calico Sophie died on Apr 24, 2016 at 13 & 1/2 years. She is sorely missed.

Book preview

Chapter 1 – The Crime and the Sap

There might have been any one of a hundred reasons why Kimbra plugged Joe Ambler that night — I never understood why because I never understood her — but lack of reason made me cover up the crime: Kimbra flaunted some mysterious mix of power and vulnerability that hurled my caution out of orbit.

She wasn’t the most glamorous dame I’d ever shadowed. But she was a powerful drug on my reason. Maybe I was tired of watching Joe smack her around for weeks and felt he’d earned a hole in his chest. Maybe I wanted out of investigations — I was tired of a lot of things. Tired of working with and against dirty cops — I wasn’t the only GI back from Korea who flunked out of the 23rd precinct for refusing the take. Since then, six years of following insurance cheats as a PI dulled my nights and wasted my days. Now and then a divorce case fed the bills, though barely. Looking back, it was all that boredom that made Kimbra so attractive. Six years of yawns set me up for a flashy babe with innocent lips masking lust and danger.

Her gunshot spun me over the line I’d always resisted. I’d run afoul of the law. In my line of work that means trouble.

Here’s how it happened: I’d been hired to follow Ambler on a blackmail case when an insurance company tapped him for fraud. The company paid the mug off on a jewelry loss, but something smelled to the indemnity suits and I was called in by Ed Bergman, an old college buddy now a bigshot executive, to clear away the stink. Bergman confessed he was being blackmailed to rubber stamp the case.

After a few days I started watching Kimbra more than Joe. She was a man’s woman, doing things without words that ignited my insides. I went against everything I’d tried to be since I came home from what Truman called that police action. The way Kimbra walked invited me; the way she lit a smoke made me want her to light mine. Whatever her brand was would be my brand, whatever dance she offered was for me.

The boredom was gone. Danger does that. I didn’t seem to give a damn about my investigator’s license. It felt like I’d been in the wrong line of work anyway.

After hearing the shot I strolled through Joe’s door like I was home for pot roast. The 1960 debates were on a black and white Philco in the corner and Nixon looked like he’d seen the killing. Kimbra trembled in a red bra and garter belt, trying to make her mouth form words. The composure she normally wore like permanent press was gone. In its place, cold wrinkled fright.

I peeled her fingers from the .22, a pearl-handled trinket no man should be killed with. Standing over the body I saw one wound in the heart. From across the room it was a good shot, a perfect shot. Lucky. That’s all it took, one peewee slug from a sissy gun with his name on it.

Maybe she’d only meant to scare him — that’s how I wanted to figure it. But what she meant or what I thought didn’t much matter. The guy was just as dead as if she’d used a bazooka and planned it for a year.

There wasn’t much blood. Murder’s not always gory, but dead is dead and dead the creep was. Stacked next to the body were wads of fifties and hundreds big enough to choke an IRS auditor. Definitely not gory.

I pocketed the trinket and threw Kimbra a skirt and blouse from over a chair. She scooped up the dough before getting dressed — priorities. In a half hour we were cruising down Jersey Parkway through a mist thicker than London fog with Joe’s carcass in the trunk of my Buick coupe. Mike Angel, big shot insurance investigator, had graduated to big time sucker.

***

The quarry next to my uncle’s house near Wildwood had been deserted for decades. I used to play there as a kid and knew every hole on the place. Some were bottomless with caustic, quicksand-like mud.

The mist turned to light snow, which quickly dusted the quarry. I’d rolled the body in a carpet at the murder scene, rubbed my prints off the barrel of Kimbra’s popgun, leaving hers, and slipped it into Joe’s pocket. I sealed the makeshift body bag with duct tape. At the quarry Kimbra waited in the Buick, steady, like she was job interviewing.

The wind whipped the flakes into a blinding swirl, but I knew which way to head. At least, I thought, no one could see me unless they were standing next to me.

Across the valley a Central Jersey locomotive wailed. Angry ice pellets stung my face. My shoes skidded on the gravel. After fifty feet or so, three dark ovals loomed on the ground just ahead. Nothing had changed. I knew right where I was. I staggered right to the deepest yawning pit, dropped to one knee and dumped the body down that hole. I never heard it hit bottom.

Standing upright, I stared down the shaft, silently hurling a nasty and well-deserved goodbye after Joe. He wouldn’t smack Kimbra around now, or anyone else. I lit my last Lucky in his dishonor, inhaling the smoke deep in my lungs. There’d be plenty of smoke where he was headed.

Snow raced down thicker, harder. My blood slowed to a crawl, bringing back nightmares a guy doesn’t forget — the paralyzing cold of Korea, the frozen face of death I’d faced there. I flashed to a ravine where I once left three bodies, one a buddy.

My lungs ached. My shivering body wanted to go, but I wanted to make Kimbra wait. Didn’t want her to think it was too pat for me; wanted to figure what to do next, and how and why I got to this spot.

No use wondering why, no use trying on what-if’s — I was as guilty as if I’d planned the shooting. I knew why — Kimbra was why — I wanted to cash in my good deed to get next to her: another stupid urge on the night of all stupid urges. She didn’t have the greatest body or the prettiest face, but it was that mysterious element.

I flipped the cig butt down against the wall of the shaft, watching the sparks fizzle out into the blackness. That’s what life is, I thought, a little spark or two and then, nothing.

How did I get so crass at 30? Maybe it was time to ditch investigations and get a real job. Maybe something out West, outdoors.

When I got back to the car I had no thought of what to do next, what she’d do. When you don’t know enough to plan you wait like a stupid turkey for the ax to fall. Wait for life to close in. Wait for those last sparks.

Driving back we were silent. I thought about Dad. He’d been a cop all his life. All he ever wanted to do after retirement was set up his own agency. Right out of the chute he solved a splashy murder case. He got such a kick out of sharing all the clues and casework with me. He solved cases with his brain, his shrewd sense of people and a never-die way of pushing through obstacles. But he was found shot in an alley a week after making the case. No arrest was ever made. Nobody knew why he was even in that alley. I didn’t have an inkling either, and it angered and tormented me that I didn’t. What had I missed? Dad used to joke if he knew where he was going to die, he’d never go near the place. As a kid that joke made me feel safe, that Dad would live forever. I knew why I followed in his path — it was to make sense of it all, to gain what he had wanted and died trying for. I didn’t need a couch and a shrink, not as long as I could self-analyze.

Kimbra’s composure was steady. She’d been a mummy all down to the quarry, past the point of my no stupid return. Almost back in the city, she slid up close and perched her head on my shoulder. A touching play that seemed fake, her Hero the body-dumper. Her breath was an even feather against my neck, like she hadn’t a care. I couldn’t square the relaxed kitten with the trembling shooter in red undies; but then, I never did square much about Kimbra.

Someone might miss Joe in a few days, or maybe never. He wasn’t the type to have a lot of pals. Does anyone ever miss a toothache?

I’d need to stay cool, to revisit the murder scene to make sure no details incriminating Kimbra or myself were left behind. After being this reckless, I needed to be logical. An idea crept into my head — Kimbra would have to find another city to bat those eyelashes in, another shoulder to put her cute head on. Yeah, the view down her dress and her lilac fragrance were tempting, but I kept both hands on the wheel and drove. I didn’t stop until we arrived at her place on West 58th Street.

I switched off the motor. She lit a cigarette and turned to me with the match swaying below her face and said, Thank you without a whole lot of emotion. She was steady all right. Cold and steady and polite — though it was obvious none of it fit her or the fix I’d fallen into.

You ready to explain before I buy you a bus ticket to Topeka? As if her reason might be my redemption, explain my foolish help.

She didn’t answer. She didn’t smirk or blink or flirt. She just sat there. Her fingers pressed around the flame with a light hiss. Obviously, she had some sort of plan, and I soon found out it included me.

She reached for the wheel and tapped it lightly, provokingly, cutely even, next to my hand, like it was some sort of signal I was supposed to understand. It only made me antsy, peeved. I yanked the cigarette out of her mouth and flung it out the window behind me, leaned a little and took hold of her shoulders. I wanted to slap her but I knew that was only a cover for other urges. Kimbra was the sort of dame that rough stuff would be ice cream to. I understood Joe Ambler’s brutality right about then.

Then I took it, the first step. It felt better than socking her. When I let go of her, she slid to the door and rubbed the back of her hand against her mouth. She tasted fine. I wanted more, needed an aspirin for why I’d lowered myself into such a pit, even though I was halfway down and the ladder above me crumbling. Impulse and a kiss weren’t enough cause to break a career pattern of staying uninvolved, boredom aside.

I waited for her to show herself. To show me a better reason why I’d been the sap, something redeeming in her I’d only sensed.

We just looked at each other for a long minute. Then, liked she’d rehearsed it, she said, evenly, "I wanted you to kiss me. Even before tonight. I didn’t always want it, you know, until you started peering in my windows. I knew you were there. I started wanting to look good for you, wanting you to come closer. That red lingerie? I bought it for you. I liked your eyes on me, wanting me. You do like red, don’t you Mike?"

This dame was a mind reader all right. She had it on the nose. A private dick isn’t much removed from a peeping Tom. I figured her shooting Joe was impulse, something she did in anger without believing it would kill, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe Joe had pushed her too far once too often. Knowing I was there, eyes feasting on her, maybe she’d counted on my help. If so, she was quite the gambler. Yeah, I liked red but I wasn’t going to thrill her by saying so. Not then. I was still mad, mostly at myself.

You can skip the mushy talk, dead bodies give me a headache.

She glanced over her shoulder toward the front of her apartment building. Not looking at me she said, I was with Joe, you knew that. You also had to know I didn’t want to be. What you didn’t know is that we were married. Nobody knew. Even Joe didn’t know most of the time, he didn’t always act like it, even though he forced me into it. Her voice was detached. Flat. Far off. This dame had hot and cold and no stops in between. She stared out over the street. Maybe that’s why I shot him. I can’t give you a better answer.

That wad of cabbage next to the body might have been another answer, a few thousand reasons, one she made sure not to leave behind. You’re right. I didn’t know. Bergman didn’t know either. He had his own plans about you. Seems you’re a real heart breaker. I wanted a smoke right then even more than another kiss. I’d been quitting for a month. It felt good to talk dirt to her.

I won’t talk about Edward Bergman, she said coolly, lighting up again. He paid. The scheme was Joe’s idea. I…well, I hadn’t planned on falling for Edward. Or, rather, him for me.

"I noticed you didn’t leave the dough behind, his dough."

Her composure broke at that. She fidgeted. "Hell — we all pay. Even you. What’s your price, Mike Angel, or is it really D’Angelo? And can I have my gun back now?"

Her expression changed — she was eating me with her eyes. I didn’t know what to ask for first, her or another smoke. They both smelled good. I wanted both. Smoke always does with that first puff, something like toast. But it’s the last drag that grates nasty in the throat that brings you back to another first puff, wanting that good taste again. Kimbra affected me that way — I was always looking for that first taste of her even when things got painful.

You’re pretty cool compared to earlier. Do you always get over killing a man so easy?

"Joe deserved it. He was a heel. A wife-beating heel. You must have seen that. But he had connections, ugly murderous connections. I was worried about what to do, how to find a way out. Anyway, I didn’t plan to kill him. I just wanted to hurt him. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t — "

Looking at Kimbra, giving in to the power she had over me, the trap I’d put myself in didn’t feel so bad, except the trap held more traps inside. The joker — someone connected might come looking for Joe? Right then I didn’t care. Joe was a grifter who’d never cheat anyone again — a dead weed in a far off quarry hole. His friends could look till doomsday.

Though my impulse to help Kimbra came from desire to possess her, Dad’s warning in the back of my brain told me she wasn’t worth having. Since he’d been killed, I’d spent time trying to break the case, find his killer, and in the dead still of the wee hours, I’d still hear his voice, or imagine it, or whatever. Not a real voice, though at times it seemed so, but one I sometimes carried on a conversation with anyway. It beat talking to myself.

Now Kimbra had a noose around my neck and it was connected to the one around hers. No doubt someone would come looking for her when they couldn’t find Joe. Still, I didn’t care right then — she made my blood run steamy hot. Yeah, from that first erotic need, I knew it was a dead end, but I didn’t give a damn. That sort of desire should carry warning lights.

I had an urge to dump her out and drive off, even though I didn’t really want to. Her silky smoke floated around me, seducing me, while her voice pulled me closer. Then I noticed her skirt hiked up high. More mystery called. I was outside her window again, the peeping dick, watching her undress. I shook off the view, resenting her power. Steady, Mike, hold on to anger — it’s the best way out. This is just another dame.

Cut the crap. Joe was small time. And don’t forget, sister, I ditched a dead man for you. If I hadn’t been outside when you fired, you’d still be sitting there shivering in your undies, or downtown facing some ugly cops peering down your dress.

She looked away and her lip quivered slightly. Maybe it was an act. Then she turned back to me with watery eyes and said, Little B was Joe’s grandfather — Izzy Bernstein. Her voice had changed again, now a distant, scared little girl. The power of her vulnerability drew me closer, Sucker that I was.

Was I supposed to know the name? Izzy? I didn’t. But then, I didn’t run in the same gutters as the Amblers.

Bernstein? Detroit? she said, tapping her pretty forehead like I was a dumb kid. She had me pegged. Purple Gang, the founding four brothers — they still have connections, including New York. Her eyes were steady as she pulled her hair back over her shoulders. She wasn’t making it up.

I’d read about the hooch-running Purple Gang of the 20’s and 30’s — tough Russian immigrants; they even held Capone out of Detroit, but as far as I knew they never had tentacles this far east. A few tit-for-tat mob connections maybe, but no influence. Most of those mobsters were six feet under, lifers, or pushing 80 in rocking chairs by the Black Sea. Still, I’d have to check out Joe’s grandpop to scope out what I’d gotten myself into. Except for a passing urge to drive back to the quarry with a long rope, the mention of the Purple Gang didn’t rattle me. I’d only been following Joe for two weeks and I’d stayed out of sight. When I’m tailing some mug, I figure someone else might be too, but I never got a sniff anyone was behind me. No queasy feelings in the shadows. If Joe had gang connections, I was pretty sure they hadn’t trailed him, or me. But there was always that chance.

There was also the matter of Kimbra’s popgun in Joe’s pocket. Only this dame knew where the body was, and she’d pulled the trigger. Crazy, but it started to feel like I’d plugged him.

So, what’s your last name? Not Bernstein and you don’t use Ambler, judging from the initials on your toy gun. Oh, don’t worry — it’s going in the East River, bright eyes, right after I tuck you in.

The insurance game had taught me to play the averages. Kimbra’s prints on the gun in Joe’s pocket would prevent any double-cross. Still, lying to her didn’t match my urges. I had to meet her nonchalance without showing interest.

Phillips. She smoothed her skirt. I didn’t like Ambler, and I don’t like bedtime stories. Unless I’m in them, playing the lead role.

Normally, that’s three times the invitation I’d need with a dish like Kimbra, but I didn’t bite. I needed to know everything she knew. I had to be tough even though the Buick was heating up.

Go on, then — sell me a bucket full — tell me about Kimbra Phillips. You can work Joe in when you get finished dressing it up. And no sob stories about the orphanage you grew up in. I catch why Bergman got involved, how you suckered him in. Maybe you’re the type that blames bad company you keep — Ed will want to thank you personally about disposing of Joe’s bad company. She was fast becoming the dame I hated for being attracted to. Wriggling on her hook.

Kimbra’s protest stuck in her pretty throat. I had to push her even though I wanted my hands on her again. I was in deep, and knew reality might careen around the next curve like a runaway beer truck. In that fix, threats and demands became my illusion of control. Still, it would work better than I’d hoped.

Oh, don’t worry. I won’t tell Bergman about Joe, I said, if you won’t see him again. I’ll tell Ed you’ve left town, which you will, tomorrow. Those connections you spoke of will come sniffing around and it’s you they’ll knuckle up first. I can handle them if they get to me. So, just spill it — now — give me the whole scam. My tough crust was so thin a batted eyelash

Reviews for Dark Quarry

[ssimon2000-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Wow, this is really bad, like written-in-junior-high-school-English-class-bad. Cliché after cliché, nothing original and it doesn't look like it will change, either. DNF after 16 pages/7%.