Jersey Score

Chapter 2

Chapter 2Jimmy

It may be a city of eight million people, but when you boil New York City down to the basics, it reveals five boroughs and countless neighborhoods, each with its own style, its vibe, its culture and history, its own brand of people. The Upper East Side oozes Old Money and the Upper West Side grows New Money, a central park separating them. Take a place like Hell’s Kitchen then, found on Manhattan’s West Side, its avenues traveling north and south, streets shooting west toward the Hudson, then east towards the craziness of Times Square. A large Irish population, generations of them, called it home, many of them, too, also their place of work. Toss in a steady influx of young theatre professionals and other cultures, it was a melting pot of the working class.

This is where private detective Jimmy McSwain hung his hat, not literally, of course. No fedora here, this wasn’t a 1940s black-and-white. When Jimmy saw blood, it was as crimson as a firetruck, bruises yellowed from an exchange of brutal fisticuffs. Life could be quiet, too, sometimes the private eye business could be slow, like now, with just a simple case to occupy his time. An unavoidable staple of his cases, the cheating spouse.

Or in this case, two of them, only one of them his client. This unhappy couple, they were on their way to meet him. But not together. Not unlike how they lived their shared life.

Their arrivals were spaced out, fifteen minutes apart. Starting at noon. Jimmy’s doing.

The time was eleven forty-five and Jimmy and another guest entered the narrow confines of Paddy’s Pub, a local tavern on Ninth Avenue and 45th Street, not coincidentally owned by a seasoned publican named Paddy Byrne, who just happened to be Jimmy’s uncle and his mother’s brother. Hell’s Kitchen was like that. You couldn’t swing a dead rat without hitting a relative.

“Morning, Jimmy.”

“Hiya, Paddy. Paddy, meet Clark Ramble.”

He indicated the guy at his side. Country-club handsome, approximately thirty years of age, nice smile, engaging, perfect teeth. Perfect hair, too. Looked like a model, dressed in a gray suit that fit his body like a snakeskin without the sheen. Slim cut, they called it. Jimmy himself was in his trademark jeans, a shirt with no collar, sleeves rolled up toward the elbows. Unlike Clark, Jimmy was sporting a few days scruff; he alternated being between clean-shaven and full bearded. He went with his mood. This morning he’d been lazy, focusing instead on this meeting.

“Frisano still away, huh?” Paddy asked. “You got a new friend?”

Jimmy laughed. “Hardly. Clark here is helping me with a case, aren’t you, Clark?”

The man named Clark seemed less than amused to be there, his smile fading at Paddy’s insinuation. Or maybe the surroundings. Not posh enough. Still, he shook hands with Paddy. The guy had good manners at least.

“What’ll you have, boys?”

“Smithwicks for me, Paddy. Clark? Got a preference?”

“It’s a bit early.”

“You’re gonna need it,” Jimmy said, more than a suggestion.

“Chivas. Neat. Double.”

Paddy nodded. “Man knows a succinct drink order. That’ll be it?”

“One more thing, Paddy. The back room?”

Needing privacy was the implication. Jimmy kept a small apartment on the second floor of the building, which doubled as his makeshift office, functional at best but it wasn’t conducive to client meetings. He often asked to use his uncle’s private office for more privacy and now was one of those times; Paddy always agreed. Family looked out for each other.

Drinks served, Jimmy urged Clark toward the back of the bar, past the regular patrons, ignored the pool table and dart board. He just turned the knob on the back door and entered the office, simple in design, a desk and a couple of chairs, lots of cases of beer, both empty and full. A metal cabinet with bottles of liquor atop it. Only thing this room was missing? Sam Malone.

“Cheers,” Jimmy said as the two men settled down into their chairs. He drank; Clark, not smiling, didn’t. He seemed to be waiting for the point of all this. Jimmy could oblige.

“Here’s the deal, Clark. You’re gonna wait inside here all by yourself. Might be fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Do as you’re told, and your secret remains secret; at least, I’ll never say a word. Not mine to tell.”

Clark Ramble nodded slightly, his ready smile suddenly gone missing. This wasn’t the first meeting between these two men, but by Clark’s expression he hoped it was their last. He finally took what could generously be called more than a sip of scotch.

“Pace yourself,” Jimmy said as he started to leave the office. Then he stopped. “Oh, one last thing. I’ll hold onto your cell phone for now. Don’t want any texts going out to people who don’t need to know what’s going on. Right?”

Clark dug into his suit jacket pocket and withdrew the latest version of the iPhone.

Jimmy powered off the phone and slipped it into his pocket. “Remember the cue.”

“Yeah, got it. The sound of a glass breaking on the floor. Original. Then I come out.”

“So to speak.”

No laughs were exchanged. Jimmy left his guest without his technological lifeline, just to his own devices. “This feels like blackmail.”

“Moral codes aren’t your strong suit, Clark. I’d avoid judging.”

With that, Jimmy re-entered the bar area, where he sat at one of the high-top tables. His uncle had dropped a reserved sign on it, set four chairs around it. Jimmy took one that faced the entrance, drank from his beer. At the turn of the noon hour, the door opened and let in a fresh blast of the cool October air; in two weeks’ time, Halloween would be gone, All Saints would have their day. Sinners prevailed now.

Jimmy took note of the new arrival. She looked around nervously, her body language skittish. As though a rough-hewn tavern, even at midday, didn’t suit the Chardonnay-sipping socialite. Her name was Joss Enders, twenty-eight, married, a pretty girl made striking by her good sense of fashion. She wore a brown-tweed blazer with a solid maroon skirt, Autumn colors. A gold necklace dangled, no doubt her earrings matched. They were not visible from the way she wore her straight-auburn hair. Joss was his client.

Jimmy waved her over. She stood before the table, all five four of her.

“We expecting company?”

He feigned ignorance. “Oh, the four chairs? Table was set up that way. I just sat down.”

She joined him, eyeing her surroundings with uncertainty.

“Private eyes like joints like this. What can I get you? Not sure about the wine’s vintage.”

“Clever, Mr. McSwain. I’ll take my chances.”

Jimmy ordered the lady a Chardonnay that Paddy poured from a box. She stiffened as the offending beverage was set before her. “Don’t got much call for wine. You don’t like it,” Paddy said. “I won’t charge Jimmy.”

Paddy never charged his nephew.

“I’m on an early lunch from the office. You said you had information for me?”

All business. “That I do.”

“You work fast. I only hired you a week ago.”

“Pretty standard investigation. Lots of following, stakeouts, kinda old-school but it works in cases like this. But before I show you what I found, let me ask you this. Can you think of anything else you haven’t told me, or left out? Even the smallest detail can provide big results, sometimes even be the missing piece of the puzzle.”

“I’ve told you everything I knew. I’ve suspected Reggie of cheating on me for some time, and I wanted you to find out with whom. As you said, a pretty standard case for you. Guess you get a lot of these types of scenarios. Sad, really, that vows don’t seem to matter much anymore, do they? You spend a year-plus planning your dream wedding, memories that will last a lifetime. But after a while, the glow dims. People revert back to their gut instincts, the need for instant gratification.”

“Are you looking to mend the rift between you two? Or divorce him?”

“Yet to be determined. Depends what you’ve learned,” she said, checking the time on her phone. He could see from his seat that it was 12:12, time was advancing quickly with this chatter about vows and love eating up the precious minutes Jimmy had allowed for. “Now, I don’t have all day, Mr. McSwain. You have photographs?”

“Several. Some interesting, some…revealing.”

She shifted nervously in her chair. Sipped at the wine and grimaced. Then took a bigger sip the next time. Need winning out over taste.

Jimmy had already placed a manila folder on one of the chairs, prior to his bringing Clark here. Uncle Paddy was part of this sting. In fact, one of his regulars sitting at the bar was an off-duty cop from Midtown North. Just precautionary, in case things got out of hand. Now, he placed the folder on the table, slowly undoing the clasp. But he wasn’t ready to show his handiwork. It would only be another minute or so, and in fact, it was a mere thirty-seconds before the door to the pub opened again.

Joss had her back to the door, so she couldn’t see who had walked in.

But she turned as she noticed Jimmy waving over their new arrival.

“What the hell!?” she said.

“Uh…Joss? What…” He turned to Jimmy. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Husband and wife were reunited. But perhaps not united.

* * * *

“I believe you two know each other,” Jimmy said. “Remember, you promised to love and honor, all that stuff. Probably said all that stuff in front of hundreds of family and friends. A beautiful day, bright sunshine? Featured in the Times?” A slight pause to let the initial shock die down, then Jimmy offered up the third seat to their guest. He sat down. One Reggie Enders, tall, dark, handsome, as impeccably dressed as the man waiting in Paddy’s office.

“You said on the phone you wanted to look at the property I have for sale.”

“Let’s forget, for now, how I got you to come here.”

“What property?” Joss asked.

The men ignored her question. “You’re here, Reggie, as is your wife. Might I suggest you join us for a drink? Oh, Paddy…”

As Jimmy raised his arm, he accidentally on purpose did as he’d planned to do knocked over Joss’s wine glass. It went falling to the floor, where cheap wine splashed against Joss’s skirt, the glass shattering into shards. Before anyone could react, the door to the back office opened and all three at the table gazed at the man who had emerged.

“Clark…” Joss said.

“What are you doing here?” Reggie asked.

Guess they were the kind of spouses who finished each other’s sentences. Or shared men.

Clark Ramble strode over to the table, but he was at a loss for words. He should be.

All eyes fell on Jimmy McSwain, he looking like the cat who not only ate the canary, but digested it, too. He wasted no time in pulling from the envelope a series of photographs. Eight-by-ten, full color, hard to miss the people who populated them.

There was Clark and Reggie, the two together entering an upscale piano bar on the Upper East Side, holding hands. Then there was Clark and Reggie at what turned out to be the former’s apartment building, the two men locked in a passionate make-out session. A third photograph revealed them entering the building. The final photo was taken hours later, time-stamped, past midnight, Reggie leaving, looking slightly disheveled as he hopped into a waiting Uber. A tie was on in the earlier shots. No sign of it in the last one.

“This…this is an invasion of my privacy,” Reggie said.

“Is that really the issue?”

“You f*****g cheat,” Joss said. “You’re…gay? Why the f**k did you marry me?”

“Joss…I can explain…

“I think I can explain a lot more,” Jimmy said. “There’s more photos.”

Clark began to distance himself from this display of marital strife gone wild when Jimmy pulled him back. “Not so fast, Clark. Check out these photos.”

Four more shots were placed before them. Same guy in all of them, the one named Clark. As for the other person sharing space with him, it was none other than Joss Enders. Heading into a dimly lit restaurant on the Upper East Side, Italian and expensive. Sitting at a table in the front, candlelight, fingers entwined, a bottle of wine—red, this time—between them. Same pattern in motion, first wining and dining, then it was back to Clark’s apartment. A few hours on stakeout, a waiting Uber the sign that the evening was ending.

The Enders’ lived in Soho, so it was a long trip, an expensive cab ride for Jimmy.

“You s**t. I paid you to find out who my husband was cheating on me with,” Joss said, angrily. “Not to investigate me!”

Jimmy shook his head. “See, that’s the thing about clients, I don’t always trust them, so I do my homework on them, just so I’m not ambushed by an unsuspecting motive for requiring my services. Have to say, I’m not sure why you hired me, since you wanted to prove your husband was being unfaithful, but meanwhile, you were busy being unfaithful to him. Thinking maybe you wouldn’t get caught since you were the one who hired me to get the goods on him. Curious turn of events. Even I was surprised at the level of duplicity going on. Or is it triplicity?”

Three people, no answer. It was rhetorical anyway.

That’s when Jimmy stood up, leaving the evidence he’d gathered out in the open. “I think I just closed my case.”

“You swindled me, Jimmy,” Joss said.

“I could punch the hell out of you, McSwain,” Reggie said.

“Careful, this is a cop bar.”

“Fine. Get a cop.”

“Hardly necessary, Mrs. Enders. You hired me to perform a job and to get results. Got a signed contract and all. I did my job. Fallout isn’t always pretty in these situations. Don’t worry about the billing for today. Your generous retainer covered all my expenses, time and legwork going between East 75th Street and Franklin Street. Both areas, very nice, looks like the three of you are doing well financially. Sometimes, I find that kind of early success can lead to a harsh, early downfall. I’ve met lots of cheating spouses, but this was a first for me. Both cheating on each other with the same man. I’ll leave you three alone to figure out your futures. As for me, Jimmy out.” He took one final glance at Clark Ramble, who despite the circumstances looked rather pleased with himself. As shallow as they come. “I hope he was worth it, both of you.”

Jimmy exited this little drama, eyeing Paddy on his way out with a slight smirk. Back in the sunshine of the day, he unlocked the door to his building and went up to his office. Closed the door and finally allowed himself a deep breath. He’d had misgivings about how to handle the end game of this case. When he’d decided to track Joss’s activity, he wasn’t looking for anything specific. His usual policy, know who hired you and he got to know her. Not like Clark had. He wondered if she’d known he was Reggie’s lover and wanted to see what the fuss was all about.

In the end, it hardly seemed fair to give her all the info on her husband and let her own indiscretion remain secret. What made it all work was the fact that, when he’d uncovered the fact that Clark was sleeping with both, he paid Clark a visit to see how he wanted to play it out. Clark was a rising star in his stuffy, old-school conversative law firm. He wasn’t ready to be outed, not before making junior partner. Jimmy assured him he wouldn’t say anything, why would he? He had nothing to gain. He’d just present the three players with the evidence and walk away.

Jimmy spent the next hour completing his notes on this case. He rarely gave names to smaller cases like this, but he made an exception here. “The Case of the Cuckolded Couple” seemed to work. Still, as he put the file in his cabinet located in the closet, he stared at the metal door. All his case files were kept there, as well as backed-up in the Cloud. So, the details of his cases were never far from him. In truth, they lived in him.

Had he made the right choice on this one?

A moral dilemma hit him. Maybe he’d return Joss Enders’ money, quiet his conscience.

Maybe not.

He made his way back downstairs to Paddy’s to thank him for all his help.

No sign of Joss, Reggie, or Clark.

“They all left together, go figure, huh?” Paddy remarked with a shake of his head. Jimmy accepted the fresh pint of Guinness set before him, took a grateful sip. “That one’s on the house, of course, but you’ve gotta pay for the glass you broke. Guess you’re gonna need a new case, huh?”

“I’ll take the peace and quiet for the time being.”

Just then the front door opened again, not an unusual occurrence for a pub, and in this case, not an unusual clientele that entered it and sat down in the two seats at the far edge of the bar. Jimmy looked at them, locals, regulars, a troublesome twosome. Lenny and Bruce.

“Maybe time’s up,” Paddy said. “Never a good sign seeing them.”

But Jimmy was more interested in the other man who had pulled open the door moments later, a flood of sunlight encasing him. Guy took a seat at the bar, sitting not far from Lenny and Bruce, but not close enough to look suspicious. Not unless you were a private investigator, and instincts kicked in. It was clear this guy, the way he moved his eyes, was scoping out the joint. Or more accurately, the troubling twosome who’d just been served Buds by Paddy.

Jimmy McSwain wondered who this guy was, and more importantly, what he wanted. The suit he wore looked a bit crumpled, like he hadn’t been home all night. He kept fussing with his right wrist, like it was sprained, maybe broken. Trouble often came with bruises.