Sign off 1. Lit. [for a broadcaster] to announce the end of programming for the day; [for an amateur radio operator] to announce the end of a transmission. 2. Fig. to quit doing what one has been doing and leave, go to bed, quit trying to do something, etc.Last week I alluded to someone pushing me out of the writing comfort zone. You know what? That cat from Arizona wasn't the first. I was afraid to mention particulars but today I've decided to come clean. I'm saying good-bye to my lackluster P.I. character Charlie Byrne.
I've had some luck with Charlie over the last two years (almost twenty plus stories and my first serious attempt at a novel). He was the first character someone actually took to print and I think I've become way too attached to him. Why? Charlie is easy and unfortunately easy means negative growth as a writer.
The feedback I've gotten on Charlie has been mostly positive but then again the feedback on work when I step out of the Charlie box has been so much more so. That said I think it's high time to give the hapless chump from south Jersey a long, perhaps permanent, break.
Yeah, sure...of course I'll miss him (and Stevie too). Hell I've learned a lot by working and writing about Charlie's small world. Pacing, constructing small arcs...but you know what? The more I learn about other writers I admire the more I realize that that they too (to some of their admitted shame) have once dabbled in the P.I. arena. It's true. Check around.
But it's hard to hold your own on the highway of giants who have gone before. Perhaps knocking out a few shamus tales is a way of cutting your teeth. Maybe but, man, there's also a whole lot of naysayers and hatchetmen out there ready to dump all over you. Nobody wants traditional investigator stories...you're no (insert author name here)...it's all been done before...after Crumley--why bother?
Fine. I never meant for Charlie to be "traditional" P.I. but more of reluctant life cobbler on his way to self-discovery...the loose idea was that one day he would step over the line and be forever changed for the worse. Come to think of it, now that Marty has his HBO Drama coming out about the early days of crime in Atlantic City...Charlie's pathetic adventures are going to look pretty milquetoast. That said, hang loose, Mr. Byrne. Other than an upcoming fight piece at David Cranmer's BEAT TO A PULP, below is my last Charlie story for a good, long time. Unless of course someone asks real nice or my luck changes. I should be so fortunate.
THE SAD PEOPLE
A Charlie Byrne Grind
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At six foot five inches Roy Kearny was doing his best Braveheart rage, swinging a Ping three wood in a violent loop around his head.
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“Gahhhh!”
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I could understand. Really. The man was upset. I mean, nobody likes bad news especially the kind of bad news I was delivering him on the first tee.
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Gap mouthed, Kearny’s foursome partners gave the big man a wide berth. I shuffled a pumping sidestep as Kearny tornadoed past me and sprawled off of the tee box into a thicket of Rhododendrons. A white granite ornamental yardage plug the size of a large grapefruit was nestled on the tee box. Quickly I kicked the marker free, snatched it up, and cocked it back ready to throw. My hope was to slow Kearny down or at least give him pause if he decided to charge the messenger again.
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Kearny flailed.
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“She! She! God! She! That, that—”
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“Mr. Kearny?”
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“What?!”
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“You need to get a hold of yourself.”
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More thrashing. “Get a hold myself?! Get a hold myself?! Screw you get a hold of myself!”
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It was then when I noticed a growing number of humming black specks of twirling around Kearny’s sweaty, rage-crimsoned face. He batted a hand.
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“Are those bees?” I asked.
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Nine o’clock on a warm May morning. Nothing quite as ridiculous as five grown men screaming down an open fairway.
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#
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Two weeks earlier Kearny powered his Range Rover into Garden State Parkway rest stop at Forked River as I was finishing off a soapy-tasting tall cup of Starbucks black. Wearing sunglasses and an eleven hundred dollar suit, Roy Kearny had that polished sunburned privileged ease about him I’ve always equated with aging frat boys who’d did well in the world after leg-ups from relatives, the kind of Biff-Chip-Tucker-smarmy who favored tasseled loafers over flip-flops and microbrew over a simple, cold Bud.
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I climbed down from my white Ford Econoline van and walked over to his SUV just as his driver’s side window powered down. Kearny and I shook hands through the open window and I couldn’t help but notice that his watch, if properly secured, could drown a small dog.
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“Charlie Byrne?”
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“Flesh and blood.”
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A bunch of the lips and a quick glance down to the passenger seat on his right. “I’ve a meeting up in Freehold in an hour so let’s get right to it okay shall we? No doubt you know who I am, what I do, and where I plan on being after November.”
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I nodded.
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“So you also probably know I’ve plenty of investigators working for my law firm and for my campaign who could easily handle a job like this but I’m coming to you because you’re supposedly pretty good and I need discretion and detachment.”
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“Certainly.”
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Kearny handed me a manila-colored envelope from the passenger seat. I used the tips of my fingers to lift the envelope’s flap and peered inside. Somewhere in nearby crush of Garden State Parkway traffic a truck horn blared long.
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“I want everything you can find out about her. All that in there’s a good start.”
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“And the woman in question is?”
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“The woman I’m seeing.”
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“Girlfriend?”
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“Possibly the future Mrs. Kearny.”
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“Oh.”
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I could feel Kearny giving me the once over, but when I glanced up he was looking straight though his windshield and shaking his head with disdain.
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“Tell me, do you always dress like a Ramone when you meet with new clients?”
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I gave myself an inventory and looked up. “For your information a black t-shirt and clean jeans do not a Ramone make.”
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Kearny sneered at my pithiness, “If we ever meet again for business wear a tie for Christsakes. I expect to hear from you in two weeks.”
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He powered up his window and dropped his Range Rover into drive.
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#
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Sharvari Nerurkar whipped up a batch spicy red lentil dahl with tofu as my best friend Stevie Maguire and I took turns playing Crash Bash on his Playstation 3. We were in Stevie’s bungalow at the south end of Ocean City four blocks off the beach and huge washes of ticking Spring rain flashed down the living room window.
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Sharvari and Stevie had been dating for a few months. Theirs was an online romance that started with an impassioned debate over the importance of the Bhagavas Gita and quickly blossomed into a full blown love affair. They were good together. A gentle beauty, Sharvari was a little wisp of a thing, a Temple grad, and applying to medical school. Her calming presence was good for Stevie plus she lit a well-needed fire under his ass even forcing him to give up his sketchy economic sideline of dealing bud. But from the vibe that evening my hunch was they were cycling through rough patch of sorts. I hoped it wasn’t the third act of a play I knew all too well with Stevie. Stevie’s romantic m.o. had always been to bail late in the third and boogie for the exits.
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“Can’t believe your working for that putz, man.” -
I shrugged my shoulders and concentrated on the television screen. To my surprise I was racking up a pretty high score on Crash Bash.
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“Guy is a total Richard, Charlie. You know he was one of the big whigs who pushed for filling in the marshes down off the backside of Cape May to build yet another golf course, right?”
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“Yeah, I know.”
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“Like we need another golf course for the Black Horse Pike crowd treating the shore as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Philadelphia. Now Kearny wants to be a big swinging dick up in Trenton and make everybody in the state miserable? Ugh. I’m so sick of it. Less government, no new taxes, family values and lah-dee-dah.”
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“It’s just a background check, Stevie.”-
“Yeah but on his fiancé? That should tell you something about his character right there. I mean who hires an investigator to run down their fiancé?”
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“Careful people?”
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“Sad people.”
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Sharvari called out from the kitchen, “Leave it alone, Stevie. Charlie needs the work. Besides, he wouldn’t take a job for a someone like that if it didn’t pay well, right, Charlie? Who cares if he’s a creep? Money is money.”
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Stevie shook his mop of sandy hair and growled.
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Dinner was served and we killed off two bottles of inexpensive California Zinfandel to smooth out the heat of Sharvari’s home cooking. The meal was delicious and afterwards Stevie and I did the dishes. I washed, Stevie dried, and Sharvari excused herself to go study. After a few minutes of silence working on the mess in the kitchen sink I felt Stevie’s repugnant glare.
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"What?”
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Steve swabbed a wine glass, “Nothing.”
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“Kearny’s just another client, Stevie. What would you have me do? Pass on a fat paycheck? You paying my bills lately? This is pretty easy stuff you know, meat and potatoes, ask a bunch of questions to people who are on the perimeter, poke in the dirty laundry, check the history, find and maybe meet those who never liked her for some reason. The guy is a politician, he needs to be cautious. Since the grand jury indicted that Egg Harbor City dude I brought back from Indiana a month ago things have been a little slow for me. No, correction. They’ve been dead.”
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“You went to Indiana?”
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I turned and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, searching the silverware drawer for an opener. I had to use an ancient rubber grip can opener that had seen too much tomato sauce and better days. I snapped the cap into the trash.
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“Yeah. Freakin' Indiana. Eighteen hours out and back for a terrorist threat slash domestic violence skip. And that involved a gun. Lucky for me the skip was passed out in his dumpy little Hyundai when I found him and didn’t squawk much until he woke up in the van. Had to pay a kid fifty bucks just tell help me haul that tubby waste-oid out of the Hyundai. The gin sweat, you have no idea.”
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“So you’re a bounty hunter now too?”
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“God no! Look at me. Do I look like I have a death wish? Recovery agents are complete Rambos. I needed the money and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Believe me I prefer simple research gigs like Kearny’s so do me a favor here and stop riding me all bitter because you don’t like a man’s politics.”
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“That’s not the point. The thing is you should care. You used to care.”
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“Yeah, well. Things change."
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Stevie held up his hands in front of him and wiggled his fingers, “Ooh, stop. The green glare of jade is blinding me.”
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“Dude, they’re all the same. Pile enough money in front of a politician, point to a gunny sack full of kittens and give them a hammer. Right or left, they’ll ask you how flat you want them.”
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Stevie dried the last plate and sleeved it in the wooden dish rack set next to the sink with a slap. I rubbed the space between my eyebrows with the tip of my thumb and then took another pull on my beer. We let a minute pass to diffuse.
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“Hey,” Stevie said finally, “Didn’t want to hackle up the polemics and shit. Whatever, dude. You say it’s a job, it’s a job. I’m sorry."
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“Thank you."
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“Yo, The Magnificent Seven is on Turner Classic Movies starting at eight. You want to hang out some, maybe rip a bong hit and chill?”
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I set my half empty beer bottle on the counter and grabbed my leather jacket draped on the back of a nearby chair.
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“Tell Sharvari thanks again for dinner.”
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#
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Hands braced on his knees, Kearny caught his breath. His face swelled with yellowy stinger welts. -
“She had an abortion?”
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We stood in a sand bunker halfway down the fairway beneath a couple of tall pines. After some nervous laughs the other three men in the foursome hiked back to the tee. I’d gotten stung on my right hand and my skin vibrated from the venom pumping through my blood. I straightened my tie.
We stood in a sand bunker halfway down the fairway beneath a couple of tall pines. After some nervous laughs the other three men in the foursome hiked back to the tee. I’d gotten stung on my right hand and my skin vibrated from the venom pumping through my blood. I straightened my tie.
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“Two actually. One in college, one after when she started her second sales gig for that drug company out in Valley Forge.”
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“How did you find this out?”
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“It’s in my report.”
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“No, tell me now. How did you find this out damn it.”
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“I said—”
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“I know what you said, Byrne.”
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“I know what you said, Byrne.”
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I puffed out a long breath. “Short of it is she’s made a few enemies over the years. A spurned lover for one—the first baby was some lacrosse defenseman's she met at Villanova—then later she pissed off a roommate by sticking her with a three thousand dollar deposit on an apartment when she was knocking around Philly. The roommate provided all the details on the second terminated pregnancy. Your fiancé was going through a bit of an experimental phase then. She wouldn’t say who the father was.”
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“That was before or after she was at the drug company?”
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“The second pregnancy? Just after.”
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“So she was, what?”
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“Twenty-seven maybe?”
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“They could be lying about her, you know,” Kearny said, “It’s not unheard of, hell, you and I have probably made up things about people we’ve not liked."
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I bit my lip and studied him thinking, gee, why does him saying something like that not surprise me?
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“Do you have any actual proof?” Kearny asked.
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I answered, “Not me personally.”
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“What? Then this is all conjecture. People spreading lies.”
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“It isn’t though.”
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“But you just said you don’t have any proof.”
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“I don’t personally, but somebody else does.”
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“Who?"
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“Your opponent. Medical records, affadavits, everything.”
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Kearny looked to the cloudless sky, “Christ…”
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“They’re hanging hardball fire until you really start sticking your neck out and pounding your religious tom-toms.”
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He shook his head with scorn, “Democrats….”
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“It’s not the Democrats.”
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“What? Who? Oh. No way. You have got to be kidding me.”
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I made like I was waving an invisible protest sign. “Down with tyranny, up with liberty….”
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I left Kearny dumbfounded and made my way back to my van parked in the golf course parking lot. A week later I heard the news. Kearny and his potential fiancé broke it off. Stevie was right. Sad people.
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I cashed the check.
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