Not my characters, just my story. I only wish I owned Pete. The story is best read if you've seen the series and know the characters. If you haven't seen it lately, watch, enjoy.
A Lifetime in Eight Days
Chapter 2: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Lieutenant Jacoby slumped back in his chair and ran his hands tiredly over his face, leaving his palms pressed against his eyes for about half a minute before dropping them to his lap. He stared at the ceiling, wondering where things had all gone so wrong. How had a seemingly uncomplicated meeting between Peter Gunn and a couple of somewhat shady but innocuous street hoods ended up with two men dead and his friend nowhere to be found? He slammed his fists down on his desk in frustration, the sound so loud it startled the detectives and uniforms in the outer office.
There had to be something he was missing. Pete had been doing him a favor, plain and simple, by talking to the two low-class hoods who were rumored to have the skinny on several recent heists. Pete knew who the guys were and Jacoby figured they'd be more forthcoming with the PI than with a cop. Word on the street was their information was available for cheap, mainly a few bucks and an unwritten promise that Jacoby and his men would lay off them for a few recent minor infractions. They were small potatoes compared to the gang he was after, making Jacoby more than a little willing to turn a blind eye.
Pete had conferred with one or two of his wayward flock, slipping a five here and a ten there, and had managed to set up a meeting in a relatively circumspect area of the rundown warehouse district along the waterfront for ten-thirty the prior evening. Easy as pie. Maybe too easy. Jacoby had sent along an unmarked car just in case trouble broke out. After all, Peter Gunn and trouble seemed to go hand in hand, no matter the circumstances. Sergeant Davis and a plainclothes detective had been in the car near the meeting place at the appointed time. The meet had gone down as planned and his men had left the scene upon seeing Pete head for his car at approximately ten til eleven. That was the last anyone had seen of Pete. When he failed to make an appearance in Jacoby's office shortly following the meeting, as planned, and when he didn't answer calls to his car phone or his home phone, Jacoby had personally rounded up Sergeant Davis and headed back to the warehouse district. Pete's car was still parked in the same spot. But there was no Pete. And that's where things continued to stand over twenty-four hours later.
And now it was fast approaching the point where he had to do something he really didn't want to do.
"Hello, Mother."
The woman in question glanced up from a pad of paper she was scribbling on, her shrewd gaze taking in the plainclothes policeman standing at the bar, hat in hand. She gave him a dour look and returned to her writing.
"If you're looking for Pete he isn't here." Mother's response to Jacoby's greeting was brusque and unsmiling.
The policeman set his hat on a stool and placed his clasped hands on the bar as he leaned against it. This might be even harder than he thought it would be.
"Actually I am looking for Pete and I'm aware he's not here. I wish it were that simple."
His voice was soft. It was the one he reserved for imparting bad news to the families of crime victims. Mother didn't know that of course. She figured he was just trying to keep the peace. Wasn't that what always happened when little families were torn apart and the friends and acquaintances held in common were affected? They didn't want to take sides, didn't even know if there were sides to take. Some drifted away, some tried to help pick up the pieces, some tried to pretend nothing had happened, and others just tried to keep the peace. Mother tabbed Jacoby as one of the latter. And to be perfectly honest she didn't have the time or patience for any of them.
Jacoby tried again.
"When was the last time Pete was in here?"
Something in his voice must have pricked Mother's attention. She put down her pencil and mirrored his stance at the bar. She gave what appeared to Jacoby to be a furtive glance toward the stage area. He turned his head just enough to note that he'd gained a little attention from that part of the club, where Edie Hart sat at the piano with Emmett Ward apparently going over some music with the other members of the combo. They were all looking at him and Mother. Great. Just great. He looked again at Mother as he waited for her reply.
"Couple mornings ago," she finally said. "Late." Ergo, after Edie had gone home. Which meant probably somewhere between two-thirty and three.
"Anything in particular on his mind?"
"Just the usual." Mother shrugged. The new usual. She didn't say that though. "Checked his messages. Had a Coke with Barney. Asked about Edie, if she was okay, if there was anything she needed." She looked like she wanted to say more but she didn't.
"His messages. You remember how many, who they were from, anything like that?" Jacoby pulled a small notebook and a pen from his shirt pocket.
"I know one was from Babby. The others-" She shook her head and motioned Barney over from where the bartender was watching and listening with overt interest as he pretended to dry a glass. "You remember, Barney?"
"Yeah, Babby left a message that he had some information and that he'd hang around the pool hall until Pete got there. And there were a couple callbacks, just letting Pete know that whatever it was he wanted was set up. One was from a guy called Felony." Mother rolled her eyes at that. "And one was from that little guy with the thick glasses, I can't remember his name offhand but I remember that's who it was. And there was a message from a man who wanted to talk about something having to do with insurance, I guess maybe an insurance case, I'm not sure." Barney shrugged. "Pete crumpled that one up and threw it away."
Jacoby nodded and stared at his notes. Nothing really new there, other than the insurance man, and that seemed pretty innocuous. He wondered aloud if the trash from the day before might still be in the alley and if it was possible to find that message. Barney shook his head no, the trash and been picked up the prior afternoon.
Mother leaned further in toward Jacoby, watching as he slowly put his notebook and pen back in his pocket.
"What's with all the questions, Lieutenant?" She frowned. "Has something happened to Pete?"
Jacoby sighed.
"I wish I knew the answer to that." And he proceeded to tell her what had happened, leaving out a few disquieting details she really didn't need to know.
Sitting on the piano bench next to Emmett, Edie Hart's attention wavered between the scales the piano player was experimenting with and the conversation between Lieutenant Jacoby and Mother. A conversation that appeared to be quickly escalating into an argument. Mother's hands slapped the counter as she exchanged some heated words with the policeman, spurring Edie to abandon her perch on the stage and head quickly to the front of the club to intervene. The soft music from the stage came to a halt as she rounded the bar and gently grasped Mother's arm, a glare from her blue eyes directed at Jacoby.
"What's going on?" Edie had a sinking feeling that she really didn't want to know the answer to that question but she asked it anyway, her gaze never wavering from Jacoby's.
"He lost Pete, that's what's going on!" Mother's voice was almost venomous in its intensity. She pulled her arm out of Edie's grasp and rounded the bar to come face to face with Jacoby. "How can you lose a full grown man?" she demanded.
Her flabbergasted question echoed around the club as Edie continued to hold Jacoby's gaze, that sinking feeling of hers beginning to take on sickening overtones.