“I’m on my way.”
CHAPTER 2
My commute back to the office took me via the main bridge over the river that snaked through the centre of the city. The view afforded from the bridge always seemed to make me reminisce.
The city of Santa Justina is something of a curiosity. From its foundation as a small port with a trading outpost in the early eighteen hundreds, over the following century, apart from minor road and rail links, very little changed. Its small community grew at a snail’s pace – but then World War II happened and things went crazy. In came massive investment, the natural harbour was utilised as a fully fledged dock for export and import, factories and industrial infrastructure sprang up all over on the previously empty and undeveloped land. Residential blocks were rapidly erected to house the inevitable influx of workers and an urban sprawl began.
Shortly after the war, amongst many others, I arrived in town. Back then things were very different, it was like the model town – the American dream. I don’t know exactly when it changed - a lot of people blamed the change in the drinking laws. Prohibition was long over but Santa Justina was a dry city up until 1950. Boy, did we ever make up for it after, though! Then things got a little complicated, it seemed that as the city grew at an ever increasing rate, it was somehow mutating. There was always crime, but now it became organised and on a grander scale. The night opened up to all manner of vices; late night bars, gambling dens, strip joints, prostitution. Santa Justina had become a city of sin, a dirty city.
I moved there to become a cop, and who knows, had things been different I might have been a cop for a lot longer. One day I was a fine, upstanding officer of the law, I made one mistake and trusted someone I shouldn’t have - the next day I was an ex cop with a dirty reputation. There weren’t too many career paths open to someone under those circumstances, disgraced cops had a habit of either turning their back on the law altogether and adopting a life of crime, or they became private detectives. I chose the latter.
So, Santa Justina was a dirty city, but this worked to my advantage. There’s a lot of good business in a dirty city for a private detective.
My office was right in the centre of town, I’d been lucky to get the place – it was a first floor premises above a busy convenience store, accessed through a discreet side door and up a narrow stairwell.
‘J.Jerome Private Investigations Ltd’ emblazoned the outer office door in as impressive and dynamic a font as I could afford the sign writer to produce. The door gave way to a modest reception and waiting area – this was Lydia’s domain. She was seated at her sizable desk, the usual array of paperwork strategically placed in front of her. Hell, I didn’t even know what most of it was these days, but Lydia did, thank God. Those bits of paper, receipts, bills, licences - to me they were like the by-product of my profession, the annoying detritus that ended up clinging to me at the end of a working day. When a case was over I would dust them off me and they’d fall chaotically onto Lydia’s desk, and she would gather it all up and make sense of it all.
Lydia was a well built woman, gracefully negotiating her forties, about five-five, pretty - with feminine charm, but a good head for figures and a very sharp mind. She’d never married, she always told me she’d never found a guy who measured up to her expectations. I could understand that, she didn’t suffer fools and she was never going to be some guys obedient housewife. Considering this was a largely pre-feminist era I guess Lydia was well ahead of her time.
“Well it’s about time, he’s in your office, on his fourth cup of coffee.”
Lydia didn’t even look up, she was ensconced in a complicated assortment of papers and files.
“Thanks, Sweetheart. And the car-.”
“He’ll be over at 11.30, and he says if its blood he’ll charge you double.”
“He’s got me by the balls on this one, it ain’t blood but I sure as hell ain’t touching the stuff – but if he asks for more than fifty dollars, tell him he can go take a hike.”
I hastily hung up my hat and coat on the stand in the waiting room and headed into my office.
“Mr Jameson, Johnny Jerome, apologies for keeping you waiting, it’s been a crazy morning.”
Richard Jameson rose to meet me as I entered and offered an outstretched hand. I took it, firmly – but cautiously, that’s the extent to which I don’t trust lawyers - they’ve always got something nasty up their sleeve.
“Mr Jerome, glad to make your acquaintance. Apologies for appearing on your doorstep unannounced, but I require your assistance in an urgent and delicate personal matter.”
I politely ushered him back into his seat, then strode around to the other side of my oak desk.
“Well, you better tell me all about it?”
“Word is that you know a bit about the, how shall I put it? The ‘darker’ aspects of this city.”
“You could say that.”
“My son, Anton. I sent him to a top college last summer, away from here. It wasn’t cheap but I thought it was best. He flunked out after the first semester – so I dragged his sorry backside back here. I fixed him up with some part time work, a junior clerk role at my legal practice, just something to get him re-focused, show him what work really was and let him earn some money. I was hoping he’d come around to trying college again the following year, write this year off as a false start.”
I could appreciate the sentiment, what parent wouldn’t want the best for their kid? But most people I knew didn’t earn in five years what it cost to put someone through a top college for a single year, and that just made me dislike Jameson all the more.
“But things didn’t go to plan?”
I offered Jameson a cigarette from a box on my table – I never touch the filthy things, I guess I was ahead of my time in that respect, but pretty much all my clients smoked, it was kind of expected. Jameson took one and lit up right away. He exhaled deeply, as if composing himself for the finale of the story. This was the bit where it all went bad.
“At first it was fine, I thought he was back on track. But he’s a young lad, impressionable, and he suddenly had his own money in his back pocket. And in this city, well, you know how it is?”
“I’ve an idea, but why don’t you tell me how it is, exactly?”
“He fell in with some – unsavoury sorts. I didn’t want to discourage the boy from having friends, a social life. I’m not an ogre. Perhaps I should have been, I let him go astray. Before I knew it he was into something over his head.”
“And what would that be?”
I could tell Jameson had trouble admitting it to himself, let alone saying it out loud. He swallowed hard, took another long puff of his cigarette then came out with it.
“Drugs, Mr Jerome. First it was just liqueur, I wasn’t happy, I disciplined him severely, but I put it down to youthful hijinks. But then it got more serious. I began to suspect he was dabbling with marijuana – he’d become lethargic, vague. He started turning up late to work, then skipping shifts feigning illness. Then he stopped bothering to turn up at all. I took him to task, threatened him with packing him off to a military boarding school. He promised me things would improve, that he’d sort himself out. Next day he didn’t show up for work again. I got home and found him gone, along with $250 in cash from the safe in my study. That was four weeks ago, there’s been no trace of him since.”