Chapter 34

My favorite private eye was outside Smokey's sipping a sherry. Her blue rinse matched her sparkling gimlet eyes and clashed with the red plastic parasol with an 'S' that branded Smokey's street furniture.

Her movements, as she patted and preened her hair were fast like a bird's and her eyes were as watchful and inquisitive.

"What's new, Barry?" She seemed to scent something was afoot.

I took a seat next to her and leaned back nonchalantly hoping the feeble London sun might take the opportunity to modify the white pallor of my face with a hint of bronze. The sun promptly hid behind a large dark gray cloud and a lorry roared past with a crash of gears leaving a choking trail of fumes and flying dust that briefly prevented a reply.

On the other side of the street, a messenger cyclist illegally used the pavement to decrease his chances of being road kill by the end of the day. His sweeping, swerving mount narrowly missing several American tourists who were so immersed in their A - Zs of London that they hardly seemed to notice.

"It seems strange being away from Smokey's. The day doesn't seem the same without seeing the regulars with their smiling faces." This was my attempt at leading up to the subject gently.

"Don't give me that," she shot back. "They've usually got hangovers and you know smiling isn't in their dictionary until they've had a few. Anyway, you can see what's going on with that CTV thing you've got in the bar."

"It's a web cam, actually," I admitted gently. "It's linked into the Internet so the world can visit Smokeys without actually being there."

She took another sip of her sherry. It was getting dangerously near the point where I would have to get a refill. It occurred to me she had probably increased her sips to the minute deliberately in the hope of a top up from a grateful ex client.

"How's it going with the young lady you were chasing?"

"Not too well," I'm afraid. "There was one night of passion and now she seems to be avoiding me."

"Your other girl friend seems to have teemed up with the guy that was doing that watching. He's now become a regular here -  he throws his money about too which is buying him friends."

"The whole thing has got me baffled," I confessed. We relapsed into a silence as we puzzled the possibilities.

"He's still there watching her, you know," she volunteered.

"But I thought the room was put up for rent?"

"He's moved along to the next property and probably gets an even better view now."

"How do you know?"

"It's on my route to Smokeys so I've maintained an interest."

"He wont see much. She knows he's there and is giving up the lease."

"It doesn't look like that to me. There was a 'To Rent' sign for a few days but then the agent took it down. Plus I saw them talking together. She was on his arm and they seem quite friendly."

A cold evening breeze was beginning to chill my back. Together with the darkening clouds, it was beginning to make this one of the worst evenings of my life. Nothing made sense. One minute he was her greatest enemy and I was her friend. The next, she wouldn't have anything to do with me and they were back together as best buddies."

The challenge of working out some sense from this jumble of contradictions was well beyond my meager mental capabilities so I was relieved to be interrupted by the friendly voice of Gerda behind me.

"It's Barry. Hi Barry! How does it feel to inhabit the real world for a while instead of virtual reality?"

It was good to hear her voice and my spirits were momentarily lifted. They were immediately dashed again when I saw whom she was with. Bruno's bland face smiled with the inoffensiveness of a born predator over her left shoulder as she pulled him towards our table by his hand.

"Hi Gerda!" I smiled brightly as if completely unconcerned but inside my emotions were doing a double back flip.

He held out his hand, drawing his face into a rictus of a smile. He'd make it big in any horror movie, playing the ghoul.

I took his hand with a "Pleased to meet you" that lied all away from my mouth to my eyes.

Gerda said "Barry designs Web sites for a living?"

"I'm in charge of Smokey's Web site," I admitted. "Are you in that business too?"

"No, I'm in buying and selling. If you want it, you can buy it from me. If you want to sell it, I can usually find a buyer. There's a possibility I could put some web site business your way if you have a few minutes for us to talk.

Copyright of this site is Rob Hopcott's, 1999 - 2009, all rights reserved. All characters in this story are fictitious and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.
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