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Ruby Tuesday
An Eddie Dancer Mystery
By Mike Harrison ECW PRESS
Copyright © 2007 Mike Harrison
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55490-303-0
CHAPTER 1
I WASN'T THERE, BUT THIS is what happened to Paul Miller on the second Thursday in April, as told to me by Valerie, his wife of twenty-seven years.
She came to see me in my office, unannounced, one bright spring morning in early May. I was sitting at my desk, feet up, hands locked behind my head, balancing body and soul and wrestling with seventeen across in the Calgary Herald's crossword — a five-letter word meaning "to turn inside out."
I swivelled towards the door as it squeaked open. She was unannounced because I have no receptionist. No secretary. No pretty young thing to proclaim the arrival of potential new clients. I save on a secretary's salary by not oiling the door hinges. People just walk in off the street and tell me their life stories.
Or at least, the nasty bits.
And Valerie Miller's nasty bits were as nasty as anyone else's.
No more, no less.
But it was early days and there was plenty of time for things to get worse. And they did. Much worse. But I'm getting ahead of the game.
She paused a moment, unimpressed by my feet on the desk. I could tell patience wasn't high on her list of virtues.
"I need a five-letter word meaning 'to turn inside out,'" I told her.
She never missed a beat.
"My life."
"One too many letters."
And one too many words, but she wasn't in the mood to stand corrected a second time.
"Story of my life," she said. She slumped in the chair across from my desk and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "Y'mind?"
"Yup."
She paused again, the unlit cigarette clamped between full lips.
"You're kidding?" she said, out the side of her mouth. "Nope."
She snatched the cigarette back and crushed it into the carton.
"Jesus H. Christ. Nobody told me you were goody two-shoes."
She didn't seem to expect an answer so I just gave her my goody two-shoes smile.
"You are Eddie Dancer, aren't you?" she asked emphatically.
"Yup," I said emphatically back.
"Eddie Dancer, the private detective?" she said.
"Uh-huh."
Some days you just can't shut me up.
"You don't seem very —" she waved a hand in the air "— detectively."
"How about I shoot a hole in your sunroof? In the Lexus?"
That got her attention.
"How'd you know what I drive?"
"I saw you pull in."
She glanced out the window at my million-dollar view of the parking lot and shrugged.
Mystery solved.
"You're sure about the cigarette thing?" she asked.
"Golden rule."
"Crap. Okay, where do I start?"
"Depends. How long can you go without one?"
"Without bitchin' you to death?"
"Preferably."
She drummed her fingernails across my desktop, fidgeted some more and shrugged.
This woman made coffee nervous.
"Thirty minutes."
"Start there, then."
So that's where she started.
CHAPTER 2
VALERIE MILLER'S HUSBAND, Paul, had been the creative director with Adkins and Associates Advertising, or Triple A as it was known in the biz, for eleven years. Advertising years are like dog years. Eleven years at Triple A equates to seventy-seven years in the real world. On a Thursday, three weeks earlier, Paul Miller had parked in the underground parking space allocated him six years earlier when he made creative director, and rode the elevator to his office on the fourteenth floor of Bow Valley Centre in downtown Calgary, where he set his briefcase down on the corner of his desk.
It was eight-fifteen in the morning.
By eight-thirty, he was out of a job.
The night before, Adkins and Associates Advertising had been taken over by Sumpter Advertising out of New York, Toronto, Los Angeles and Washington. It was not, in the words of Valerie Miller, a friendly takeover.
"The bastards screwed him to the wall," she said.
The suits from Sumpter offered Paul Miller six months severance, three months full benefits, three months job counselling and a super buyout deal on his company Mustang.
Take it, they said.
Or leave it.
He took it and they shook his hand, averted their eyes, wiped their corporate brows and steered him gently but firmly out the door.
When he returned to his car, they had already removed his nameplate from the wall.
He did not go home immediately. He would tell me, later, that he drove aimlessly around the city for hours "in a total mindfuck," his brain shutting out the awful reality of what had just taken place. At forty-six, Paul Miller was under no illusions about finding another job tomorrow.
Or even the next day.
Eventually, he found himself out near the airport, watching the big planes roll in, and wondered what the hell he was going to do with the rest of his life. His wife, Val, had been a stay-at-home mom most of her married life, but their two children, Donna and Mitchell, now in their twenties, had left home years ago.
Val Miller liked to entertain on a fairly grand scale, especially since moving to an executive family home on the lake in Crystal Air, an upscale subdivision in Okotoks, a small but rapidly growing white-collar town just fifteen minutes southwest of Calgary.
Paul had leased the Lexus for her a year earlier. He was paying a six-figure mortgage on their lakeside home, plus rent on a house up in Varsity where his daughter, Donna, attended the University of Calgary. He owed for a big-screen TV and a surround-sound home theatre system, carried two small life insurance policies and owed in the low five figures on a variety of credit cards.
He didn't tell me any of this. I found out on my own. It was the least I could do, since I was being asked to take him on as a client.
Against his will.
And without his knowledge.
CHAPTER 3
PAXSXUL MILLER'S LIFE WENT even further down the proverbial toilet when he drove home around six that evening. In fact, it went around the bend, out the pipe and into the primor-dial swamp.
And that wasn't counting the interest accruing on his decision not to tell his wife he'd lost his job. He'd hoped to find a new one before telling her he'd lost the old one. He'd decided to take the counselling, send out résumés, line up some interviews and put a positive spin on life in general before 'fessing up. He knew his severance package wouldn't last long and it wouldn't get paid into his bank account for several more weeks, maybe a month. After calculating his running expenses, he decided to draw a chunk of cash from his current account right away.
He banked in Okotoks and stopped by the branch on his way home that night. He parked outside and entered the overly bright lobby. The lobby was partitioned off from the bank by floor-to-ceiling security gates.
When he arrived, both bank machines in the lobby were in use. An elderly lady was making a cash withdrawal from one machine, and a scruffy married couple in their mid-twenties was crowding the other. When the elderly customer finished, she snapped her purse shut, clenched it tightly beneath her arm and scowled at him as she left.
Paul Miller slid his card into the machine and punched in his PIN. As he did so, the couple to his right began an intense whispered argument.
Miller glanced over at them.
The man jabbed a finger at the display screen.
"What's this shit?" he snarled at his wife.
Paul moved back a casual three feet until he could see the high-intensity backlit message of doom on the couple's bank machine.
INSUFFICIENT FUNDS
"Ah, fuck it!" the man hissed and hit the glass display screen hard with the flat of his hand.
The woman winced. She stood very still.
"Where's all the goddamn money?" the man asked her.
"It's spent," she whispered, a quiet tone Paul assumed was meant to calm the other man. "The car insurance. I told you they were gonna cancel it. And Paula's medicines. We can't go without, Vic."
"Fuck the insurance!" He smacked the screen again. "I told you they could wait!"
"Vic?"
She reached out, laid a hand on his arm, but he shook her off, the uncontained rage boiling up from deep within.
He turned to face her. She broke eye contact, stared hard at the floor.
"You can't keep driving without insurance," she said.
What was intended to reassure was interpreted as criticism.
Paul Miller saw the man boil over, a sudden eruption that had him swinging at his wife. She saw it coming and took a quick step back, trying to protect herself, but he caught her in the belly, doubling her over and driving her down to the lobby floor.
Appalled, Paul Miller grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and threw him backwards across the open lobby.
And that was the view the security cameras caught.
Which was why Paul Miller was then charged with assault.
CHAPTER 4
WHICH DIDN'T SEEM FAIR.
"That doesn't seem fair," I said. "Losing his job and getting arrested, all on the same day."
As if an extra day might have evened up the odds.
"That's not all," Valerie sighed. "When Paul tried to help the woman up, Asshole rabbit punched him in the back of the neck, then kicked the living crap out of him."
"Ouch."
"Someone found him unconscious on the floor. He was bleeding from the head. It took fourteen stitches to close the wound."
"No witnesses?"
"None."
She fidgeted, needing a cigarette.
"So what do you need from me?" I asked her.
"Oh, it gets worse yet."
Paul Miller was a proud man. Having the crap kicked out of him by a man half his age was disconcerting. He stewed about it for days, lying in a hospital bed in High River, twenty minutes south of Okotoks.
And then the Royal Canadian Mounted Police laid formal charges of assault against him.
"You could tell they were reluctant," Val said. "It was all Asshole's doing. He lawyered up and pressed charges, figured if he won, he could then sue for damages. Damages." She looked disgusted. "Right. He scuffed his boots on my husband's head." She looked away for a moment before continuing. "The cops felt that Paul would be acquitted, based on the severity of the attack against him. And they hinted it wasn't the first time Asshole had beaten the snot out of his wife."
"Is Asshole his first or his last name?"
"It's his middle name. Victor Asshole Shriver. His wife's name is Ruby."
"Let me guess," I said. "Ruby Shriver won't go up against her husband? She won't testify?"
She gave me a look.
"You know Ruby, do you?"
I didn't, but I've dealt with a lot of women in similar situations. Women who live every day in mortal fear of their husbands.
The wages of fear are paid with silence.
Val phoned Paul's boss early the next morning, to advise him that Paul wouldn't be in for a few days.
Quelle surprise.
Paul who? Paul Miller didn't work there anymore.
When she got over the shock, she went and sat at her husband's bedside for the next three days.
And never let on that she knew he'd lost his job.
He was discharged Sunday evening and spent the next four days pretending to go to work. He got up at the same time every day, showered, shaved, put on a suit, kissed Val on the cheek and drove into the city.
By Thursday, she'd had enough. That evening, she asked him why he hadn't been to the office in a week.
At first, he denied it, but when she told him she'd called his boss the previous Friday, he grudgingly admitted the truth. She understood his pain, empathized with his feelings of loss over a job he really enjoyed, a job that had kept the wolf from their door and allowed her to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle.
But what she couldn't understand was his decision not to confide in her. She felt betrayed, as if her support meant nothing to him.
In turn, he felt embarrassed. He felt ashamed that he'd lost his job. In keeping it from her, he'd hoped to spare her the humiliation that haunted him day and night.
A fierce argument ensued, and by the end of the night they were at each other's throats.
"And we've been there ever since," she said. She took a cigarette from the carton and twirled it a few times before shoving it away again. "Then on Monday of this week," she said, "my husband called his lawyer. He asked him to set up a meeting with Victor Asshole Shriver and Asshole's lawyer. They met yesterday." She turned and looked out the window for a while before continuing. "At which time my husband made Asshole an offer he couldn't refuse."
I waited.
"And it were a doozy."
She fidgeted some more but I waited her out.
"He offered to go three rounds in a boxing ring with Asshole if he'd drop the charges. Queensberry Rules."
She was right.
It was a doozy.
"Your husband," I said. "He's a boxer, is he?"
"No."
"A martial arts guy, then?"
"No."
"A street brawler, perhaps?"
She shook her head.
"A wrestler?" Head shake. "An ex-army commando?" No. "He has a cape and wears his underwear over his trousers?" A smile. Followed by another shake.
"He hit some kid on the nose when he was in grade three."
Finally.
Something to build on.
"What happened?'
"The kid's older sister pummelled him after school."
A sister?
Good grief.
"All right." I tried a different line of questioning. "What did Asshole say?'
"You need to understand how Paul set the thing up first."
Fidget.
"Sure."
"He called him a coward, undermined his manhood. Said he just got lucky at the bank. Said even though he, Paul, was twice Shriver's age, he had bigger balls. He insulted him pretty good, made it virtually impossible for Shriver to say no and walk away with his manhood intact." She paused. "My husband's a risk taker."
"Clearly. You were there?"
She shook her head.
"I talked with Paul's lawyer."
"Shriver agreed? With his lawyer present?"
"The lawyers never stood a chance. There was way too much testosterone in the room for just two real estate lawyers."
"So, Shriver agreed?"
"Yeah. But not before he fired his lawyer," she said.
"And Paul?"
"He fired his lawyer too."
"This fight," I said. "What's its status?"
She looked at me and shrugged. "Boxing," I explained, "is governed by a whole bunch of bodies. I don't remember them all but there's the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council and I think there's an International Boxing Organization. Those are professional bodies. Then there's the International Amateur Boxing Association. If they've agreed to fight, I assume they'll use a referee, and so I think they will have to be sanctioned. Hopefully, it will be sanctioned as an amateur bout."
"Hopefully?" she said.
"Yeah. Amateur boxers wear headgear."
"Like helmets?"
An image of two boxers wearing crash helmets formed in my mind. I shook my head.
"No. Think of the movies. When you see boxers sparring, they usually wear leather headgear."
"Oh. Okay. And that's good?"
"It's better than nothing. Headgear helps to protect against cuts and scrapes from the gloves. But it doesn't do anything to protect against a concussion."
"Why not?"
"Because it doesn't cover the chin. You get hit on the chin, your head snaps back. When your head stops, the bits inside keep going. Then the head snaps forward again and they slam against here." I touched my forehead. "That's how you get a concussion."
"Why do they call it the sweet science?"
"It's usually only managers and promoters who call it that."
She nodded, thoughtful for a moment.
"Have they set a date?"
She nodded.
"July thirteenth. A Friday," she said and pulled a face. "That's just eight weeks away." She stared at me. "I want you to stop it."
"Is that all? I thought you were going to ask me to do something difficult."
"Are you being a smartass?"
"I was going for derision."
"Well, you missed."
"My apologies. I will try again. Are you out of your gourd?"
"Probably."
"I'm a private detective. I detect things. I follow people without their knowledge. I snoop in their garbage. I dig up dirt on them. How am I supposed to stop two consenting adults from punching each other's lights out? Especially when I'm in favour of the old guy."
She glared at me.
"My mistake. The more mature gentleman."
She took a long, deep breath.
"Look." She fidgeted some more. "I'm at my wits' end. This asshole is going to beat my husband senseless. He's half his age, strong as an ox and he's a street brawler. There's a very good chance he could inflict permanent damage on my husband. As in brain damage. God almighty, he might even kill him. I don't know what else to do, who else to call. You were referred to me. You're supposed to be a good guy. A knight in shining armour. And right now, God knows, I need a knight in shining armour."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ruby Tuesday by Mike Harrison. Copyright © 2007 Mike Harrison. Excerpted by permission of ECW PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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