Dark Blonde: A Mike Angel Private Eye Mystery

By David H Fears

In another complex mystery, Julia Gateswood hires reluctant PI, Mike Angel, to find her missing sister, but Julia’s social position and her sister’s sordid past make this anything but a simple case. Julia’s a power-hungry ex-beauty queen, married for ambition to congressman Henry Gateswood, a charismatic ex-professor running for a vacated US Senate seat from Illinois in 1962. When Julia’s sister, a loose woman with past mob connections disappears, Julia calls on private eye Mike Angel, who quickly learns his new employer isn’t everything she seems to be, but what she is beyond a doubt is a great hypnotist of Mike’s libido. Can Mike live up to his father’s dictum, never to bed a client?

Before Mike is hardly into the case, he’s visited by Julia’s strange secretary, who later finds the missing sister’s headless body in the guesthouse of the Gateswood estate. Mike and his unofficial partner, Rick Anthony, a 25 year veteran of the NYC detective force and, whose vocabulary suffers from too many NYU grad classes, get to the crime scene before the police and follow clues that pit them against powerful Chicago mobsters.

One twisting aspect of Mike’s investigative instincts is often timely warnings from the “voice” of his late father, and also through sensations felt in a long scar Mike won during a shootout with the Russian mob who was behind his father’s death (in Dark Quarry). He also struggles with a desire to commit to Molly Bennett, his office manager and love interest, while conflicted with rescuing attractive babes who cross his path.

The 3rd in the Mike Angel Mysteries of complex, historical, erotic novels set in Chicago in 1962.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David H Fears
• Release date: Jan 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9780971486881

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

It was 1962, a year after I’d chased a Russian mob responsible for my father’s murder to Chicago and got a nasty scar from my ear to my chin that tingled every time danger dropped by. I stayed in the Windy City after breaking the mob case, partly because my Jersey license had been iced by a crooked judge (in Jersey that’s an oxymoron), partly from the notion that Molly Bennett might be the girl for me, as much as I doubted any skirt could adjust to my awkwardly obsessive personality. But then, private detectives usually don’t love their work as much as they’re driven by it.

I’d bought a smallish bungalow and ground out enough boring insurance fraud investigations to keep scotch and coffee in the place. Molly lobbied for and became my office whiz; she worked overtime seeing to it that I didn’t skip too many meals or spend all my nights alone. I was reaching a point where I knew I’d have to say the words to Molly or get out of her life and let her marry someone better looking and more stable. As the pressure grew to lay it on the line with Molly, a recurring dream about a mysterious platinum blonde brought tantalizing torment to my quiet hours. Who was she? Needless to say, Molly was not blonde.

Then the case fell on me that flushed my boredom blues and commitment chaos, and it came while I was having the dream in a most vivid Technicolor splash: the blonde in the next building fixed her emerald eyes and the chrome-plated revolver on me as she unhooked her bra, a pretty good trick and one that might only happen in a dream, where dames are triple-jointed and never get enough. Stupid Male Fantasy. I gaped across a gulf between two high-rise apartments, over a wobbly board spanning our two terraces. I crawled half way across, teetering with each nudge of wind. My scar tingled then burned like an icy snake crawling into my ear. The seductive voice faded into mush — I was waking up. Plus, a real voice came from a phone wedged between two pillows next to my head. I fumbled the receiver and drooled some complaint into it.

The clock said 5:15.

Be careful, son. This one could be trouble.

It was Dad’s voice in my head. Though he’d been murdered on his first case as a private investigator a couple of years ago, the voice was always so clear that I imagined it was audible, though I knew it was not. I’d heard it first on that last case, especially when death was near. At first I thought I was going nuts, but I learned that it was his way of keeping tabs on me and warning me whenever danger lurked. His voice had never failed me. I’d tried to ask his advice on things but he only spoke short warnings. Here he was, warning me about a phone call from an unknown female. Or maybe I was not awake.

The blonde in my dream was gone and the one on the phone wasn’t talking — that is, if she was blonde. I wanted her to be. I was about to hang up when a rusty breathy voice floated out like sunset clouds.

Mister Angel, are you there? This is Julia Gateswood, Congressman Henry Gateswood’s wife. Can you hear me?

5:15 a.m. Maybe that’s the proper time for Congressmen’s wives to call. Soon to be Senator Gateswood?

The same. You’re Mike Angel, aren’t you?

I was. Cold light above the drapes hinted morning, but my mind fought the reality. You’ve interrupted a fascinating dream. Are you blonde? I was still treading slumber.

Please. I only have a minute. It’s vital that I meet you today somewhere and I can’t be seen going into a private investigator’s office.

I rose to one elbow and brushed aside the dream blonde by pressing my fingers up and down the tingling scar. My stomach was queasy from the tightrope act, my mouth sour from the night before. Platinum Babe would be there another night just as she’d been there several before, each time the distance between the balconies grew shorter, the strip tease progressed further. But it was no mystery how it would end.

Julia Gateswood. It suddenly occurred to me who she was; her picture had been in some of the campaign photos — a willowy flaxen-haired arm gadget, although not the platinum variety. Made to order for an aspiring politician stepping up in class. Trophy but not trickless. A mature sort of beauty. Even without Julia, Henry Gateswood was a lock for the office; the other party was putting up some seedy councilman who’d been a plumber’s union leader — fewer bucks and less class. But a lock in Illinois politics doesn’t mean much, unless you know which way union bosses will deliver Cook County and how many dead people get to vote. My head got a lot clearer. A lot of people feel that way about being seen going into my office, which is why I don’t spend money on it. I can’t blame them. I try not to take it personal. What do you have in mind?

Can you meet me in thirty minutes downtown in the lobby of the Palmer House? There’s a small coffee bar just off the main lobby. She did a pretty good imitation of Marilyn Monroe. Maybe she was asthmatic. I never could tell the difference.

No.

Why not? She bit off the t and I could hear her warm breath washing over the receiver like a tropical tide. I liked that she was direct. It saves time.

I don’t do divorce cases, which is the only reason I can think of why an ex-beauty queen would call me out of breath at this hour. Divorces make people too raw. Besides, I need thirty just to pry my other eye open.

This isn’t divorce, nothing like that. Are you in business or not? You’ve come highly recommended.

Sorry. I’m only 32 but feeling old — and grumpy. The sun disappeared weeks ago and that Hawk wind off Lake Michigan brings me down. Or maybe it’s the rye my liver’s marinating in. Then again, maybe I don’t like being poked at five and asked to run downtown when I’m not told what the score is.

Dead air on the line; the tropical tide had subsided. I let the receiver sink back into the pillows and thought about hanging up. From what I’d read in the Chicago Tribune, the breathless Mrs.Gateswood had won Miss Midwest 1958, a few years before shrewd Henry had snatched the crown off her pretty blonde head and put her in charge of his burgeoning career — she’d over-burgeoned his ambition just the way she stuffed a bikini. The Tribune joked she’d be the real senator if Henry was elected next month. Only two years older than Henry’s daughter, the marriage had raised a few eyebrows in Henry’s country club set. He’d been a widower only a few months, which fueled the talk.

A faint sniffle sneaked out of the receiver, or so I imagined. Maybe it was left over from the platinum stripper. Or maybe it was me who’d sobbed. Wherever the sob came from I realized that asleep or awake this would be a blonde day.

Please — I can’t discuss this matter on the telephone, came her squeezed, less practiced voice. The breathless come-on was gone. I could tell this dame collected different voices for all occasions and plots.

If it’s so sensitive you don’t want to be seen with me, why not make it out of town somewhere? About nine o’clock then, I said struggling to find a kinder me in the cobwebs, my ebbing hard-on re-fueled from dreams of a rendezvous with the Julia I’d seen in the papers.

I’m afraid the only time I can get loose without anyone knowing is later this afternoon. Henry’s got a policy conference and I’m not needed.

Okay. This afternoon’s jake. You’ll find I’m somewhat more receptive once I’ve had breakfast. By then I will have had lunch, too. I’ll be downright civil.

I’ll be at Alfie’s Corner at four. It’s up near Winnetka. I’ll have my assistant bring a retainer to your house before then. Five hundred enough?

Five hundred. Exactly twice as much as I had left in the bank. From a babe. Was I still dreaming?Four at Alfie’s. I know the place. And I can’t say what’s enough until I hear your problem, but for five up front it might be too big for me to reel in. You haven’t committed a crime have you Mrs. G?

The click on the line told me she very well could be dirty or didn’t like being teased about the idea. Downright abrupt for a wakeup service. So we were even — she didn’t like teasing and I didn’t like being jolted away from a half-dressed blonde. I tried to sift out the dream again but every time I closed my eyes the balcony across the way was empty and the distance across was a mile and still that damned Hawk wind whipped off Lake Michigan. My hard-on had split like a lucky streak at craps. Fantasy time was over.

I struggled out of bed and propped myself up in the shower piecing together the night before. Rick, my self-appointed partner, flew out of Newark to attend the funeral of his 90-year-old mother. Molly, my secretary and official love interest, also left, for Oregon, where her brother had just become the father of twin girls. Drinks last night were a death and birth send off party, an all around yippee for mortality. On my own for a few days, I’d thrown caution out the window and clung to the bottle a couple of hours after the flights left. I remembered Sam the bartender calling me a cab, but nothing afterward until the platinum-haired seductress wooed me out on her wobble board six stories above Addison Avenue.

I was cuddling my third cup of coffee when the doorbell rang.

I’m Miss Mathews, Mrs. Gateswood’s assistant, she said in a fog whistle voice that didn’t match her small frame.

Come in.

A sweet little package, Miss Mathews, all fluff and efficiency. She wore a red belted raincoat, a cupcake hat with boots to match, a clear plastic folded umbrella and a pair of brown eyes so dark the pupils were lost there. They seemed larger than life behind a pair of efficient rimless glasses. Her brunette pixie-do swept the edges of her tiny face, giving her the expression of one of those life-sized Santa helper dolls that Marshall’s sticks in display windows at Christmastime. She smelled quite nice, something close to spicy vanilla. Her tiny purse was a shade off from her other red things, and she clutched a pair of black gloves against the purse like her life savings was inside.

As she walked to the nearest chair and sat down, her legs, almost too slim, but curvy and clean, as far as I could see. My eyes wanted to see further. I’ve always had optimistic eyes.

I lifted my coffee cup.You take it black? I said, noticing her fine-grained skin. Her brown eyes looked at me like I’d just called her a name. I turned my now bluish scar away from her and showed her my nice teeth. Some dames find the scar interesting, and want to hear all about how I earned it, the same sort of dames who like a fast ride on a Harley, or who get wet looking at bad boy pictures in the post office. But Miss Mathews wasn’t that type, though might act the part with the right encouragement.

I never drink coffee, she said. I’m strictly a tea person — good tea — if you have any. One sugar. She slid her raincoat off her shoulders, letting it fall behind her on the chair. She crossed her legs and rocked one foot out rapidly. Her eyes took a guarded tour of the room.

I peeked at her from the kitchenette and brewed some Earl Grey that Molly had left on her last stay-over. The place was starting to fill up with Molly’s things — a comb here, pair of slacks and a change of underwear there, even a toothbrush in the holder facing mine like the two were conversing intimately about the state of our respective molars. I draw the line at sharing a toothbrush.

Molly’s flimsies stashed about was our way of gradual commitment I’d told her, a safe way of letting things develop, getting used to the idea of emotional risk, mainly to placate my nerves, not hers. That way, I’d pointed out, when we looked back at how our involvement developed, we could laugh about such little things and the big leap made an inch at a time. For Molly’s part, she was fine with the setup and hadn’t wanted to move in before she’d known me a year or so anyway. Or so she said. It became Molly’s game to add little things on each visit, laugh at me behind those green Irish eyes.

I put the tea and sugar on a tray and slid it in front of Miss Mathew’s perfect knees. She dug a small manila envelope from her purse and shoved it at me. I touched her icicle white fingers when I took the envelope. Cold hands, warm lap, Rick always says.

I’d like a receipt, if you don’t mind, she said, when you can stop staring at my legs.

I rifled a pack of Luckies and waggled one in her direction. She took it like it was owed her and laid it between her pressed red lips, nearly the same color as her raincoat, hat and all the rest. All that red made me want to put my horns down and charge. I could almost hear the echo of Herb Alpert’s brass and a tequila-sodden mob shouting Ole!

I only wanted to see if they were that skinny up north. I wouldn’t mind staring at other things if you’d rather, I said, snapping a lighter for her. Some women take such things as a compliment. I walked back across the room and took a seat on the couch, opened the envelope and pulled out five pictures of Benjamin Franklin all done in green.

Mister Angel, I’m not some women. I don’t like passes before noon.

That means we have three hours, Miss Mathews, how much tea can you drink?

The rocking foot stopped short. She took one sip of tea, put the cup down almost hard enough to break it, threw me a sour smile, mashed out her cigarette, and reached back for her raincoat. She stood and folded the raincoat over one arm, revealing a tiny smart waist and a bunch of smart little curves lurking under her smart little business suit. The receipt, if you don’t mind, she said smartly.

She was a smart little woman. Too smart for me. I was feeling dumber by the second.

And what sort of services do I make the receipt out for?

A dumb look was all she fed me.

What kind of trash does your employer wish to dispose of?

I’m sure I have no idea why she’d call a man like you. You’ll have to take that up with her.

You are her assistant, aren’t you?

Yes, but she didn’t see fit to inform me.

Then I take it this wad of lettuce is for something personal, something embarrassing.

She sniffed and pointed her little nose higher. I wanted to give her a smart little slap.

I went to the secretary desk in the corner and wrote out a receipt, making a carbon for my records. On the bottom I wrote, retainer for embarrassing personal services to be determined and signed it.

Standing at the open door I fluttered the receipt just above her eyes, which now held a hint of fire or anger, or maybe sexual tension that hadn’t been there before. I wasn’t sure if the tea or my leg-staring had sparked her imagination.

What about expenses? I said. And do you have a first name?

Mrs. Gateswood will discuss that with you. Expenses, not my name, which is Dee. My employer feels an advance retainer will pay you for your time, should you not wish to handle her situation. A pulse showed at the base of her neck and a tinge of color formed on her cheeks. My intuition said the lady was thinking about my practiced stare, and my suggestion we wait until noon, but then my intuition only batted .300, good only in baseball. Her repression wrestled with my confession. She seemed transfigured looking at my scar with an expression one might have for an exotic snake. I understood how Eve messed up in the Garden.

She took the receipt and turned her eyes up to mine. If she was leaving she wasn’t in a rush. We stood there waiting for the other to say something. Just when I was about to say goodbye, she took a quick step toward me, put one hand on my arm, took her cheaters off with the other hand and pushed her lips up into mine. She had to tiptoe on heels to get there, but I helped her make that last inch. Her cool mouth tasted like a kiss a small child gives you for a long awaited birthday gift. I added tongue to the kiss, again, like an exotic snake might. She pulled back with surprised eyes, feigned, or so it struck me.

There was more than a quota of prick tease in Miss Mathews. My prick rarely minds being teased. The thought struck me she wasn’t blonde.

You’re not quite as tall as my last lover, she said, tilting her head and leering at me along her eyes. He was six three.

Lincoln was also six three. I hope your last lover made out better.

Without those spectacles her eyes were small, intense, deadly — cobra eyes to go with my scar. She pulled away, slid the cheaters back on and was gone. I stood and listened to the purr of her car’s engine receding down the street.

Miss Dee Mathews, all fluff and efficiency, even if she was ignorant as to the reason for her visit. A bit thin, but lovely legs, I’d give her that much. I was certain other qualities would emerge given some time between the sheets, though she’d be a third-round draft choice, at best.

Chapter 2

Alfie’s is nearly empty at four o’clock. By six the after work singles crowd throngs the place and by eight the dinner set arrives to slosh down double martinis and gnaw on T-bones that they can’t taste any better than the olives in the martinis.

I parked next to a couple of beat up Pontiacs in the otherwise empty lot, probably employee cars, and picked up a Sun-Times from a box at the door. While I waited for the good congressman’s wife I could pick up scuttlebutt on the up-coming election flap by checking Kup’s Chicago column. After my little interview with the ex-beauty queen, Kup might be worth a phone call.

Irv Kupcinet was the first person Molly introduced me to when I transplanted from Newark. He’d earned the title Mister Chicago, and had been writing a column on the town for over twenty years, back since the Sun-Times was the plain old Times. Whatever drama percolated in the City of Big Shoulders, Kup was in on it, from hoodlums to sports heroes, celebrities to financial wizards. Molly’s late Dad, Joe Bennett, had been fishing buddies with Kup, and although Kup was Jewish, he’d been Molly’s unofficial godfather. Molly adored him. Kup’s daughter and Molly used to do sandbox drills as kids and went to the same schools, Molly a year behind her.

If there was any gossip on anyone, Kup was the man, and thoroughly honest. His column often dropped little scalding ingots into the shorts of local politicians. He had more than enough material to work with. Whatever was worth knowing about the Gateswood’s, Kup would be privy to, including a few things he couldn’t print.

The interior of Alfie’s was dark paneled with high-backed leather booths lining the outside walls. A half wall separated the main bar from the dining hall. A gothic fireplace with a gas log hissed white flames next to a tiny dance floor that might have held three couples tucked into one corner like an afterthought. The long bar looked like a survivor of the Civil War, trimmed with fluted half columns of the same dark wood, backed by a glittering beveled mirror with glass shelves ten feet high holding bottles of booze. A sliding ladder fronted the mirror.

One college boy with a bad case of acne polished glassware behind the bar. He didn’t look up as I stepped in. Two aproned anorexic women scurried around the tables in the dining room laying out accoutrements from a rolling cart. I took a booth near the far corner window where I could watch the entrance and the bar. A side door to the back lot was next to one end of the bar. Whichever door Julia came in, I’d be able to study her as she walked across the length of the room, something I was looking forward to.

Pimples stopped polishing and shuffled over. His tunic was already stained with some sort of wine, either that or they only did laundry once a week. He had a thin conceited face with narrow deep-set filmy gray eyes that swam spastically. Slouching, he waited for my order like he didn’t want to be there, and was too good to actually talk to a customer.

A deluxe cut glass decanter of Murphy’s Irish whiskey sat lonely on the top shelf. Murphy’s had been my late father’s favorite poison. I ordered a double shot with a Rheingold suds chaser. While the kid stretched to the top shelf, a woman came out of the restroom and took a seat at the end of the bar near the door. She had long straight hair, dark brown, and body that messed up my concentration. It was poured into a tailored business suit, expensive looking, even if the hemline was a bit shorter than she’d learned in business college.

She crossed her legs provocatively, finessed a matching bag up on the bar, and cooed a word up the backside of the kid hauling down the decanter. Then she opened her purse and took out a gold cigarette case and lit up, her head back and smoke drifting in a puddle over her. She didn’t glance back at me, but what profile I caught had high-cheekbones, a prominent nose, and full lips. The bartender drew my beer and poured two whiskeys. He gave the brunette a tall water with her shot and shuffled over with my drinks on a small tray. The way he slapped the glasses down and his dull expression told me he was filling in until the barmaids came on duty. It was all a bother to the kid.

I sat there sipping Murphy’s and reading Kup’s column about a councilman who’d been caught in a prostitute sting on Michigan Avenue. It was the second time in a month the poor sap had been flashbulbed with his pants down and with enough cash on him that Kup asked the obvious — was Fred dipping into a city petty cash fund that he’d been appointed to manage? Kup threw in a few other facts about the guy’s new Lincoln, his second home up north, and a painted mystery woman bathed in furs who’d been seen coming and going from his office over the past year. The people’s money: too easy, too slick, too available. But then taxes were too high, rising too fast — no wonder government jobs attracted such sleaze. Go get ‘em Kup.

I finished my Murphy’s and skimmed the front page: three homicides, a kidnapping and a story about a drug-crazed woman selling her baby to an undercover cop for twelve bucks. Inside the front section there were other items about the upcoming election, including one survey that gave Gateswood a commanding eight-point lead that had fallen from an even more commanding fourteen-point lead. Several of the articles quoted his main opposition, Councilman Jake Whipple, who’d been the Teamster’s fair-haired boy since Dave Beck had sponsored him after the war.

It seemed every time Whipple opened his mouth in the opening days of the campaign he’d lost another point. Gateswood