LOSERS LIVE LONGER
by Russell Atwood
Plus a BONUS Payton Sherwood mystery story:
“East Village Noir”
Originally published as a paperback original by Hard Case Crime, an imprint of Dorchester Publishing, September 2009
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—MORAL ANSICHTEN, by Novalis (von Hardenburg), translated by Edgar Allan Poe, 1842, in “The Mystery of Marie Roget.”
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—MINNESOTA STRIP, by Michael Collins, 1987
Chapter One: OWL’S CALL
The downstairs doorbuzzer buzzed.
I didn’t answer it.
It was too early to be the mail lady, only half-past nine in the morning the first Thursday after Labor Day. Couldn’t think who else’d be ringing my bell, not for a second it might be a client.
I never had walk-in trade before, and gone were the days when I lived in anticipation of any. Most of my work came from referrals, and all of it began with at least a phone call first. With no appointments on the calendar that morning, I was at my desk drinking coffee and smoking, fresh from the daybed, dressed only in t-shirt and jeans, and barefooted.
The buzzer I figured was just some drunk again, leaning against the doorframe buttons, getting back his bearings before another uncertain stagger forth.
Couple minutes later, the phone rang. I let the machine pick up.
And heard my voice from seven years ago give the outgoing message: “Hello, this is Sherwood Investigations. After the tone, please leave your name, number, and the time. I
An outgoing outgoing message. My voice back then held in it a clear quality of confidence and conviction. I didn’t dare record a new one.
After the beep, an old man’s voice and a name I didn’t recognize. “Hello, Payton. This is George Rowell.” Out of breath and speaking over the radio-static sound of random street traffic. “We met some years ago, don’t know if you’ll remember the occasion—” The dry squeak of a truck axle. The roar of a revving Harley over the line. They sounded in stereo, coming in simultaneously through my open window. “—it was in Matt Chadinsky’s office over at Metro. I’m calling to see if you’re available today to hel—”
I picked up the phone. I was nothing if not available.
“Good morning, Mr. Rowell. Sorry, had my hands full,” I said, a little embarrassed by how long it’d taken me to fill in his blank: Owl.
I’d only met him once before, over a decade ago, back when I was just starting out in the business, working at Metro Security, Inc. But I knew of him; everyone did. George Rowell was something of a legend in the trade: one of the most successful P.I.’s on the East Coast, he’d operated a one-man agency for over fifty years. People— well, other private investigators —swapped stories about him going back half a century and extending around the globe. He’d tracked down the Chelsea slasher in 1976. In 2000, he’d been instrumental in the rescue of an abducted American girl from a child pornography ring operating in the Ukraine. And when anyone talked about him, they only ever called him by his nickname, Owl. A drunken slurring of his last name that had stuck, I supposed. He didn’t look owlish the time I met him; too tall and thin, he’d looked more like a hawk-nosed heron.
He’d been old then, had to be in his eighties now. I’d heard he retired to a small town in New Hampshire. Also a rumor that he’d gotten Alzheimer’s and died. Sounded alive enough.
“Glad I caught you in, first wasn’t sure…” He sought to catch his breath. “I rang your bell, but I guess I should’ve called first. I’m not…interrupting anything, am I?”
I looked around the office. A bare cement floor. A couch with a pillow and a rumpled quilt. Two leather- backed club chairs. My desk. All gathering dust, a dust partly made up of my dry, dead skin gradually shedding.
“No, not really.”
“I was saying, I don’t know if you, if you remember our meeting. It was some time ago that Matt introduced us.”
“Of course, Mr. Rowell.”
No surprise that I did. For me, shaking his hand had been like touching history. At the time, I thought my meeting him would prove a good omen.
He chuckled softly. “Please, call me Owl. How’s Matt doing these days?”
“Fine,” I said. Only Matt and I hadn’t spoken to each other in over five years.
“I hear he’s a father now.”
About a year ago, I’d run into a mutual friend who told me Jeanne was pregnant, so I agreed.
“Boy or a girl?” he asked. He had me there.
“Probably,” I said.
I heard metal clank, both over the receiver and through my window. I went over, looked out.
Owl said, “Boy, did you say? Sorry, this isn’t a very good connection.”
Across Second Avenue on the southeast corner of Twelfth, a delivery truck driver had just dropped his handtruck to the sidewalk. On the same corner, a pair of payphones, Janus-faced, with only one in use. A dome of
