Chapter one

“Monkety, monkety, monkety.”

A raspy voice dragged me up from the depths of my boozy sleep.

“Monkety, monkety, monkety.”

I opened one bloodshot eye and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. Eight fifteen. Ungodly hour to be pulled from the arms of Morpheus. Oh God, please let me escape from this grating sound and return to silent oblivion.

“Monkety, monkety, monkety!” More insistent this time.

Shuffling footsteps in the hallway outside my room identified the owner of the rude, raspy voice. Mrs. Rothstein, landlady of the once fashionable Art Deco hotel, now degraded to boarding house, was calling her cat, Besty.

Beasty would be more like it, I thought. Damned cat kept hours even more unregulated than my own. “Come on kitty” – or “ ‘mon kitty” was what she was croaking.

I had come by my hangover honestly, scouting through the bars on South Beach, looking for a call girl. Not just any call girl, but one Sherry Devine, known to every barman and vice cop in Miami Beach. Almost everybody knew her, nobody knew where she was.

I had lived in Miami Beach since the end of the war, using my G.I. 52/20 stipend to bankroll a dozen months in the sunshine. A few busts for vagrancy convinced me that I needed to have some visible means of support, so I took out a small ad in the classified section of the Miami Daily News.

"Private investigator. People tracer. High performance, low rates. Biscayne 5-2000."

I hadn’t got rich as a PI, mostly checking on philandering husbands and straying housewives, but what the hell, it was a living.

Yesterday morning, I had picked up the phone on the seventh ring (mustn’t seem too anxious, and besides, it helps to establish that the caller is really interested), and said “Steven Sterling, how can I help you?”

“I want you to find a dame for me. She took off with my diamond ring.” – this in a voice just slightly above a whisper.

“I can probably help you”, I replied. “And you are?”

“Is that important?”

“Yeah, I gotta know who’s putting up the stakes, or I don’t play”, I answered

“Name’s Harriman, Phil Harriman.’ The soft sibilant sound of a hissing snake.

“So tell me more about the dame and the diamond ring”, I prompted.

“I’d rather not discuss this on the phone, can I meet you somewhere?” Harriman whispered.

“Sure. You know Harry’s juice bar at Twelfth and Washington?’

“I’ll find it.”

“I’ll be there at ten. Look for a guy in a gray seersucker suit.”

He hung up without answering.

Ten o’clock – that would give me time to down a couple of javas and clear the fog from my brain.



I had finished my two cups of coffee, and was starting to restore basic body stability with the help of a large orange juice, when he came through the door.

His eyes scanned the room before he had taken a step inside, telling me that this was my caller. If you want to know the greatest secret to reading people, it’s just this – watch their eyes.

Some people might have expected a smallish man to go along with the diminutive voice, but I pegged him at six foot one or two, and about 250 pounds – no Tiny Tim, but no Man Mountain Dean either.

His eyes gave the slightest flash of recognition, and he came over to the café table in the back corner of the joint. I always look for a back corner or other place where I can see everyone who can see me. If that makes me paranoid, so be it.

“How much do you charge?” – no introduction, no preamble, no nothing.

“Twenty five bucks a day, plus expenses.”

“Expenses?”

“Cab fare, car rental if I have to leave town, motel if I overnight, and ‘tips’ to bellhops and bartenders to help lubricate their vocal chords.”

“Fair enough. I want you to locate a slut called Sherry Devine. That’s probably not her real name, but that’s what she uses with Johns.”

“She’s a hooker, then. That how you know her?”

“Yeah. I was in the mood, and my steady is in New York for her grandmother’s funeral. The bell captain at the Versailles gave her a call after I slipped him an extra fiver. She came around right away, walking into the bar like a regular patron. We agreed on what she would do and how much I would pay, and went straight up to my room. When we were finished I hopped into the shower, and when I came out, she was gone, and so was a diamond ring I kept in the drawer of the bedside table.”

“Not a very safe place to keep valuable jewelry. Describe the ring.”

“About a two caret square-cut center stone, with eight smaller stones surrounding it, set in gold, and engraved inside with ‘Thanks from JR’ and the date 2/14/46.”

Valentine’s day gift, I thought. How sweet.

“You made any attempt to find her?”

“I got the phone number from Jimmy, the bell captain. Called it, but it’s been disconnected.”

“Give it to me anyway. I’ll find out whose number it was, and a few other things. When I find her, you want to have her charged?”

“Nah, I just want the ring back.”

“I can start on this right away if you like.”

“Deal”, he said. He jotted a phone number on a paper napkin and slapped a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant down on the tabletop.

“That’s just two day’s fee. You have a lot of confidence in me.”

“She shouldn’t be too hard to find. Dames like her generally ain’t very bright.”

“How do I get in touch with you?” I asked.

“Just call the Versailles, room 1410.”

He left without further discussion, and I sat staring at the fifty. Enough to pay off my debt to the bookies, with a couple of bucks left over for beer and grins.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...