Find The Lady : A 47th Shopping Precinct Mystery Episode 1

By Stevie Smith

By Stevie Psmith

It had been quite a few years since I'd last seen 'Fast' Andy.

We'd grown up as kids together on Hove's Lower East Side, where I still kept an office.  Not much to look at maybe, but in my line of work if you can pay the cleaning lady at the month's end - or, at least, not notice when your last bottle of Old Harper's springs a leak - you don't complain too often.

Andy didn't seem to have a lot to grouch about when I ran into him on the corner of Third.  The stickpin in his silk tie was reflecting like a searchlight, and whoever had fixed his teeth must have been persona non grata at Fort Knox.

"Hey!  What do you hear?  What d'ya say?"

The vaguely familiar voice had come from a pool of shadow as I'd been making for the main drag.

I spun round.  For a second or two, my vision already adjusted to the brightness of the street lights up ahead, there was nothing.  Then, with a grin that would have left Croesus looking like a disappointed returnee from the Job Centre, Andy stepped forward and stuck out a hand.

"Long time, no see," he said.

My reflexes are usually pretty good.  I like to keep them that way by occasionally visiting the training camp an old friend runs up North.

This time, my tongue managed to get trapped between my wisdom teeth as I manfully snapped my jaws closed.  I hurriedly wedged a small cigar in the corner of my mouth, offering one of the pack to Andy with a casual:  "I hear plenty, Andy.  Smoke?" 

It broke any remaining ice.  "Never touch 'em," laughed Andy, clapping me on the shoulder with a heavily ringed left hand.

I observed his right hand didn't stray far from the pocket of a suit that'd probably originated a lot closer to Savile Row than I'd been for some time.  You get to notice these things.

'Fast' Andy had got his name from a certain restlessness that had been largely foreign to me in our mutual youth.

While I'd chosen to spend more and more time in the country bird-watching, Andy had never relinquished his obsession with speed.  Trains became his favourite form of transport, rather than the sports models we'd tinkered with, like most of the other neighbourhood kids, way back when.

Eventually, as some of the elderly folks who kept a watchful eye on the local teens had more or less confidently predicted he would, Andy took a train to London one day, and that was the last we'd seen of him.

After a few weeks, no one asked after him and his place in the sandlot ball team was filled by a gawky kid with glasses who frequently retreated to his dad's garage - not to get grease and spray paint on his jeans like most of us, but to fiddle at a home-made bench with some mysterious contraption consisting of pieces of plastic and wires.

We tolerated him, much as we tolerated, and then completely forgot, Andy's absence. 

So, I asked myself, what brought Fast Andy back from the big city?

As the ache in my tongue subsided, he indicated a neon sign winking from the mass of mainly darkened buildings that surrounded us.

"Drink?" he asked.

"Another time, maybe, Andy," I replied.  "I've an unbreakable appointment in Worthing tonight."

"Business, or pleasure?" quipped Andy.

"A little of both, I suppose," I said, as non-committally as I could manage.

His right hand moved straight to his jacket pocket, and I could feel my face muscles losing the fight to stop me from flinching.

It was a pretty fancy visiting card that he withdrew, more like the kind of thing you leave on the mantelpiece hoping to impress the cleaning lady enough to retain the makings of an Old Fashioned, than the sort of pasteboard I'm used to toting.

I discerned a Brighton phone number in the glow of the street lamp.  Andy muttered that I should call him, turned and, within moments, was lost from sight among the Sunday night crowds starting to flock on to the strip. 

I put the card in my wallet and slowly made my way to the railway station.  That was one thing I did now have in common with Andy.  My car had long gone to the scrap heap.  Bus, train, Shanks's pony were my means of keeping appointments.

Tonight's date was with nothing more sinister than a view of the pier head and a stroll along the seafront to take off some weight.  My last trip to my buddy's training camp had been a while back, and the extra inches I'd gained since had been causing me to calculate, somewhat frantically, that new pants could see yet another cocktail-free month having to be endured. 

Worthing is bracing at this time of year and I needed a change of scene, anyway.  What puzzled me as I waited for the train was Fast Andy's reappearance in Brighton.  I decided to call the number on his card over the next few days.  After all, what did I have to lose?

(to be continued...)