Dead Men Don't Wear Flannel
by softydog88
Disclaimer: Many years ago, amiblue and I wrote a story with this same title. This is a new story in the same style, film noir, but I like the title, and I'm re-using it, along with some of the prose.
Chapter One
A Lady Pays The Local Private Dick a Visit
It was a muggy night...hot, humid, still, and the streets were teeming with muggers looking for blue-haired old ladies to prey on. The kind of night that made my trigger finger twitch. It had been too long since I felt the oh-so-satisfying recoil of my .38, and the sound of a punk crying out in pain as my bullet tore through his pasty flesh. I finished the last shot of my last bottle of Scotch and glared at the picture of Rachel on my desk. We had had it out over my job time and again, until she got so tired of trying to change me into some 9 to 5 schlub that she hit the road. She just couldn't understand my need to dispense justice in a tough town like Stars Hollow. This place is lousy with corruption, sin, vice and violence. The cops were all on the take, so it was impossible for the average Joe or Joanne get a fair shake in this sinkhole. That's why they needed me. A day didn't go by that I didn't kick in the teeth of some card sharp on the corner or take a crooked cop to task for looking the other way when a "businessman's" bar mysteriously caught fire. But those jobs didn't pay, and I was flat broke. I spent a minute trying to scrounge up some cash from behind my pull-it-out-of-the-wall bed, but all I could find was a poker chip from Taylor's casino, the Taj Mahal. Lately, things had slowed down...a lot. I was barely able to meet the rent, and the last decent case I had was a month ago when I found the local madam's best girl inside a whiskey barrel. OK, three whiskey barrels. Anyway, when a long-legged brunette with a rack like the Tower of London came in, the ol' trigger finger started twitching again. And it wasn't the only thing twitching, either. This dame pushed the door in like she was pushing away a lover and flashed a thousand-watt smile at me...strange, considering the first thing she said.
"Luke Danes, private dick? My millionaire mother is missing!"
The broad know how to pique a guys interest! I stood there giving her the once-over, and tried not to breathe too hard. She had it all—looks, legs, and, most important at this stage of our relationship, moola. Her mama must have been generous; even I knew that dress had to cost a coupla g's, minimum. It was the same style that the local working girls wore when the big Wall Street money boys came to town, and Miss Patty always kept her girls dressed in the best. Even her purse had to cost some serious scratch, though I don't think they sold it with that gun-shaped bulge in it. The dame was still sporting that smile, though it seemed like she was trying too hard to keep up appearances. Still, I felt like I had just been shot in the heart. And believe me, I know exactly what that feels like, but that story's best saved for another fan fiction. I pointed to the chair in front of my desk and waited until she sat down before I did the same. My dad raised me right—I know the proper etiquette to use in front of a broad like this.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" I asked, sweetly. I was going to play it real cool. Her cherry-red lips parted a bit, and I hastily swiped at my forehead to brush away the sweat that had suddenly accumulated.
"Gilmore. Lorelai Gilmore."
She didn't say the words as much as exhale them, and her voice had the unmistakable tone of a hard woman, soft in all the right places, sure, but a woman who had lived a hard life. She looked at me with two of the bluest eyes I had ever seen, and it was a good thing, too, because she wouldn't have been nearly the same dish if there'd been three. And then those sapphire orbs narrowed, as though the sight of me was perplexing in some way.
"Have we met before, Mr. Danes?" she asked carefully, fully expecting me to say yes.
"It's possible. Where do you live?"
"Why right here in Stars Hollow."
"Then I'm sure our paths have crossed." Not, I thought, at Miss Patty's, thank goodness.
"Yes, I'm sure you're right." She said it with a sadness that seemed genuine enough. But who was I kidding? If her money was genuine, her honesty hardly mattered.
"OK, sweetheart, tell me about your mother."
"There isn't much to tell. My father, Richard Gilmore, the insurance magnate of Hartford, called me and asked me to come see him. When I got there, he didn't even say hello, he just showed me this."
The dame handed me a note. It was one of those crazy, haphazard ones, made out of letters cut out of newspapers and magazines. Hard to find items, these days. The guys who made the note weren't messing around. The language was simple, like most of the scum I deal with.
We have Emily Gilmore. If you want to see her alive again, it will cost 2 million dollars. You will be contacted again with instructions on when and where to leave the ransum. Do not go to the FBI or you will never see Emily again.
The '2 million dollars' was underlined, as though just the words might not sink in by themselves. And 'ransum' said volumes. Yep. They might not be messing around, but they had all the sophistication of a hamster wheel. I slipped the note into my pocket and hoped that the broad would forget about it.
"Can you get two million dollars, doll?" I asked with a smile of my own.
"My father can. He's—"
"The insurance magnate of Hartford, right," I said. What I didn't say was that I knew all about Richard Gilmore, and in the circles I ran in, his nickname was The Corruption King of the Northeast.
"Why are you here seeing me? Why not just pay the ransom?"
"We intend to, Mr. Danes. That's why I'm here. We want you to make the drop."
The drop? Not your everyday lingo among the 1%. Or maybe she just watches a lot of TV.
"I don't know. It's not really in my wheelhouse."
"It isn't?" she said with moist, puppy dog eyes. "But you were recommended to me by a detective in Hartford, Dixon Hill. He wanted the job himself, but he's busy with a case involving some Swedish immigrants, the Borgs. He didn't want to take that job but...he couldn't resist."
"Dixon Hill?" I said, shaking my head. The dame rooted around in that ridiculous purse of hers and extracted a business card. It read:
Dixon Hill, Private Detective
Late of Pinkerton's Detective Agency
1701-D Enterprise Street
Hartford, Connecticut
06132
(959) 555-GUNS
The broad was lying. I knew Hill, of course, the man was a legend, but I wasn't going to tip my hand. In fact, I knew Hill well enough to know that he had retired a while back to his family vineyard in France, though rumor was he was making a comeback, but not before next January.
"What about my mother?" she pleaded again.
"Even if I wanted to do it, I'm pretty booked up right now." I could lie, too. The corners of her mouth dropped as she considered the next move in our negotiation.
"Mr. Hill says you make $50 a day, plus expenses."
"Dixon needs a new rate card. I haven't charged that since the iPhone 1," I lied again.
"What's your new rate?"
"Well, since it's outside the scope of my normal work, I'll need some time to consider it. Have you heard back from the kidnappers?"
Her phone rang. She held up her hand and looked at the caller ID, the pressed a button and the speakerphone kicked in.
"Daddy?" she said. "You're on speakerphone."
Ah, Richard Gilmore, The Corruption King of the Northeast himself, I thought.
"Lorelai," Richard said, "the kidnappers called back."
That's some timing. They should put together an act and take it on the road.
Richard continued. "They want us to pay the ransom at 2 a.m. I've got my bankers drawing the cash now. Have you met with Mr. Danes yet?"
"I'm with him now."
"Mr. Danes," Richard said, "I hope you can help us."
"I can," I replied, "for the right price."
"Money is no object. I just want my wife back, safe and sound."
I exhaled sharply. "I'll take the job," I said.
"Good," Richard said. "Tell Lorelai to cut you a check. I've got to go."
The phone went dead. Lorelai pulled her checkbook out of her purse and produced an elegant Montblanc fountain pen before my very eyes.
"Put that away," I said. "We'll need to be in Hartford no later than 1 to be safe. It's only 6, and I'm famished. Care for a bite to eat? I know a little diner, Cesar's place. It's no-frills, but the food is good."
"Cesar's Place? Isn't that the restaurant I walked through on my way to your office?"
She said it knowing damn well it was. This was some dame, maybe more than I had ever known, and I had known some dames in my day.
"Yeah. It used to be my dad's hardware store. I had no interest in taking over the business when he died, so I leased it to Cesar. Maybe I should have opened it as a restaurant myself. Cesar made enough dough to buy the building out from under me. But we're old friends, so I was able to lease the apartment from him at a good rate."
"And it doubles as an office," she said. "You're an astute businessman, Mr. Danes."
"Ehh," I managed to say. "And call me Luke."
"OK, Luke." She stood up and looked at the door, then looked back at my ugly mug. "Aren't we going to have dinner," she asked, "or does Cesar deliver?"
No, I thought, it's too early to have dinner with this broad in my apartment. There's time enough for that. And for dessert.
I escorted her downstairs wondering whether she was a very good daughter, or just a very good actress.