“Sure it is. They don’t need me.”
They do their shrug. They’re not so sure. There’s only one Charlotte.
With an effort she gets up. “Okay, I’m going to mingle. Good to see you guys.”
“You too. Thanks.”
Then Inspector Gen emerges from the elevator and walks by.
“Hey Inspector!” Mutt says. “How are ya?”
She stops. Cop on the beat, hang with her people. “I’m okay. Working. How are you guys?”
“We’re good.”
She grabs a free chair from the nearest table and sits down heavily beside them. “I was just here for a shower and now I’m on my way back out. My assistants are gonna come get me and we’re going back to work.”
“Now? It’s late, isn’t it?”
“We’re on a case. There’s something I want to find as soon as we can.”
“Hey speaking of cases,” Mutt says, “did you ever find out anything more about whoever it was who kept us in that container?”
She shook her head. “No, nothing much. Nothing I could prove. I think I know who might have done it, but we never got evidence solid enough for a conviction.”
“That’s too bad. I don’t like the idea that they’re still out there.”
“Or that they got away with it,” Jeff adds grimly.
She nods. “Well, that’s right. But, you know. Some of the people involved with that might have thought they were doing you a favor. Might have thought they were saving you from something worse.”
“I wondered about that,” Jeff says.
“It’s just a theory. I’ll be keeping my eye on the people who might have been involved. Not the ones who thought they were helping you, just the ones who actually did it. They’re a bunch of idiots, so they’re bound to fuck up sooner or later in a way where we can nail them.”
“We hope so,” Mutt says.
Inspector Gen nods wearily. “Meanwhile, my assistant Sean finally got a package out of the SEC, some stuff they got in a bundle when the Chicago exchange got hacked. Sean said it was mostly a bunch of crazy political stuff, SEC couldn’t make anything of it, but there were some financial fixes in it that they’ve actually put to use. You boys know anything about that?”
“Not me,” Mutt says. “Sounds like some different kind of idiot.”
“Maybe so.” The inspector stares at them. “Well, you take help where you can get it, right?”
“Oh definitely, certainly. That’s what we do all the time.”
Then her two assistants show up, a young man and woman in uniforms, bags of sandwiches in hand.
“Okay, back to work,” the inspector says, standing up with a groan. “I’ll see you guys up on the farm.”
Off the three officers go, headed for another long night in front of their screens. Mutt and Jeff know what that’s like, and give each other a glance.
“She works hard.”
“She likes to work.”
“I guess that’s right. Also, it passes the time.”
It passes the time; and then you don’t have to think. Don’t have to have a life. This is what they know, and so they watch the inspector leave with puzzled expressions on their faces. How can they help their friend, caught as they are in the same trap themselves? It’s a mystery to be gnawed at.
“So the SEC is using the contributions of some lunatic.”
“Fuck you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Then, just as the Institute of Mutt and Jeff is about to call it a night and retire to their hotello, Amelia Black breezes by and grabs them by the arm.
“Come on guys, it’s time to go dancing.”
“No way!”
“Way. I want to hear this band, and I need company. I need an escort.”
“Can’t you hire escorts?” Jeff asks grumpily.
Amelia pretends to be offended. “Please!” she retorts. “I mean, please?”
They can’t really say no to her. For one thing, she is a lot stronger than even the two of them put together, not just physically but in terms of will. What Lola wants Lola gets: another New York story. So they are swept along on each side of her, their arms firmly clamped by hers. Down to the boathouse, out onto the ice covering the bacino. They tramp up Madison with all the other walkers on the iced-over canal, staying near the buildings and leaving midcanal for skaters, of which there are many. The avenues are well lit, the streets are dark. Amelia steers them up a few blocks and then hangs a right on Thirty-third. Very few people on this canal. Closed shops at canal level, apartments in the three or four stories above. A quiet night. She guides them in a door and down some basement stairs, take a turn and down again, down and down into some submarine speakeasy. A door with MEZZROW’S painted on it opens its Judas window, and Amelia puts her face on view. Door quickly opens, and in they go.
Long bar here, barely room to move behind the people occupying the stools or standing as they belly up to the bar. Bartenders madly busy. A clatter of talk and clinking glasses. Squeezing behind these people, Amelia leads the guys to the back, where there is another door, and a doorman taking a fee for entering. Amelia shows him her wristpad and they are all three waved in.
Nearly empty room, very small. Tin ceiling painted blood red and crimped in square patterns. At the far end a band is setting up in a leisurely way, tuning electric guitars, trying out licks, chatting to each other in French. Half of them black Africans, half of them whites, no one seems local. After a while the guitarists settle down in folding chairs against the far wall and begin playing. It’s some kind of West African pop, fast and intricate. Two guitar players, an electric bass man, a drummer playing fast but quietly, mostly on one cymbal. The two guitars have different tones, one clean and sharp, the other fuzzy. They lay down complicated lines, crossing each other and the bass. Then a trumpet and a trombone player join in and pop some choruses in harmony. A man and a woman trade off on the vocals, which are in some language neither French nor English: very complicated shouting, followed by long howling melodies, wonderfully accentuated by the horns.
Infectious music, for sure. People from the bar drift in and some begin to dance. Pretty soon the room is full; this only takes thirty people. Amelia and the guys have been sitting against the back wall, but now Amelia pulls them to their feet and they join the dancing. The guys are not dancers. Some are born bad, some achieve badness … Mutt, the situation having been thrust upon him, moves in tiny abrupt jerks. Jeff flails so spastically he achieves some kind of nerd sublime. Amelia, somewhat to their surprise, was just born bad. Hands over her head, she twirls, she waves; she could not be more off the rhythm.
Jeff yells in Mutt’s ear, “Our gal is a terrible dancer!”
“Yeah, but can you take your eyes off her?”
“Of course not!”
“That’s Amelia for ya. Our klutz goddess.”