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  ©2020 Delia C. Pitts. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  ISBN: 978-1-09833-503-8 (print)

  ISBN: 978-1-09833-504-5 (ebook)

  Author’s Note: This book is a work of fiction. None of the characters, incidents, or locations are meant to resemble any real people, places, or events, now or in the past.

  Praise for the Ross Agency Mystery Series

  “I’ve been a fan of SJ Rook since he first stepped foot into the Ross Agency and he just keeps getting better and better. I can’t wait for the next book in this amazing series.”

  – Kellye Garrett, Anthony, Lefty, and

  IPPY Award-winning author of the Detective by Day Mysteries

  “Rook is a modern, hard-boiled antihero; as the story [LOST AND FOUND IN HARLEM] carries on, he demonstrates ability, humility, decency, and respect and concern for Harlem and its inhabitants… Pitts lovingly illustrates what life is like in a vibrant Harlem, showing people from different walks of life, nationalities, and socio-economic statuses. The neighborhood features prominently not only as a setting, but as a character all its own.”

  –Kirkus Reviews

  “Her Ross Agency Mystery series is a whirlwind of quirky characters, dexterous writing, and imaginative subplots. Her black, male, protagonist, SJ Rook, is a determined and thoughtful PI with a penchant for the underdog reminiscent of the compassion of Easy Rawlins.”

  – Cheryl A. Head, Lambda Literary Award finalist and

  GCLS Ann Bannon Award-winning author of the

  Charlie Mack Motown Mystery Series

  “Rook is a cross between Barack Obama – fearless, chivalrous, and fluent in both Harlem patois and standard English – and Humphrey Bogart – tough on the outside, but inside, a heart of gold. PAUPER AND PRINCE IN HARLEM is cinematic. Hollywood, are you listening?”

  – Robert W. Fuller, author of The Rowan Tree: A Novel and Dignity for All: How to Create a World Without Rankism

  “A great story with enough twists and turns to keep me on the edge of my seat. Pitts does a terrific job!”

  – Carolyn Marie Wilkins,

  author of Death at a Seance: A Carrie McFarland Psychic Mystery

  “Modern, vibrant noir. The [LOST AND FOUND IN HARLEM] plot was perfectly balanced, the writing illuminated the story, and the characters were drawn with witty sympathy. The relationship between them is especially refreshing.”

  – Lisa Southard, author of The Small Histories of Anya Polgarrick

  “The setting is riveting, but what truly keeps you reading is characters and story. Rook, with his bum foot, cluttered apartment, and abiding (usually) faith in the human condition, is endearing, totally believable. This time [PAUPER AND PRINCE IN HARLEM] he’s out to discover why the teen-ager he’d been playing checkers with in a park was gunned down by men in a van. As usual, Pitts’ prose gives the greats of noir a run for their money.”

  – John Burgess, author of A Woman of Angkor

  “From an all-too-common tragedy at the start of this fast-moving story [PAUPER AND PRINCE IN HARLEM] to the satisfying resolution, you’ll not want to put this one down. PI Rook is a winner.”

  – Tracy Clark, Anthony, Lefty, and Shamus Award-nominated

  author of The Chicago Mystery Series

  By Delia C. Pitts

  Lost and Found in Harlem

  Practice the Jealous Arts

  Black and Blue in Harlem

  Pauper and Prince in Harlem

  For my Oberlin College friends – faithful, fun, and inspiring.

  Dear Ones, we’re still going strong!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter One

  Chapter

  One

  Mountains of muscle lumbered behind us, closing the distance as we plunged through the warehouse door. I slammed home the bolt, locking the goons inside. They rattled the handle as we sprinted away. Like most door hinges in Harlem, these were rusted, but the iron bar was solid. The thugs were trapped. I hoped. They banged again, but the metal gate wouldn’t budge. We galloped across the night-draped parking lot to the jumble of old cars, one hundred yards from the stubborn door.

  Sabrina Ross flung open the trunk of a pink Pontiac and glared into the dusty interior. Bubblegum-colored rubber mats covered the floor.

  “You remember that old movie with J-Lo and Clooney?” Brina said in a low voice. She was a detective, my boss, my boss’s daughter, and a whole lot more in my life. When Brina Ross spoke, SJ Rook paid attention.

  I jabbed at my cell phone and listened to the line ring on the other end. “Yeah, I never could figure out how two grown-ass adults fit into the trunk of a car.”

  “Unless they’re dead,” Brina muttered. She holstered her gun in the waistband of her jeans.

  I hung up, then hit redial. Norment Ross, Brina’s dad, wasn’t answering. The cavalry was not on its way. I heard a noise and stole a glance at the warehouse.

  Brina took off her denim jacket and threw it into the trunk. “Yeah, well unless you’ve got a better idea, I say we hide in here. We’re running out of options.” Shouts rose from the warehouse at the far end of the parking lot. “I’ll get in first. Then you…Hey!”

  I launched backwards into the trunk, grabbing her wrist as I fell. She landed hard on the rubber mats. I slammed the hood shut two seconds after she snatched her sandals inside. “I told you I’d get in first! What the hell is wrong with you?”

  I jutted my chin into the soft braids on the top of her head. “Shut. Up. Now.”

  Male voices in multiple languages fanned through the parking lot. Spanish, Portuguese from Newark’s Ironbound district, some kind of Slavic, and a Vietnamese-accented command voice. Crime in Harlem was an equal opportunity business.

  My arms tightened around Brina’s back and she pressed her face into my chest. Sunlit amber of forest paths pricked my nose, her fresh scent mingling with sweat and the tang of blood. Her lip was split, matching my eyebrow. We were in a fix.

  Angry shouting swelled, the slits of light around the keyhole flickering as the men passed by. Then all fell silent. We waited several moments in the dark, listening to our breaths even out. I reached over her shoulder to push on the hood. It was locked. I muttered a curse into the thick rows of braids above her temple.

  “Looks like we may be here for a while.” Her voice rumbled through my chest, amused rather than pissed off. Which I defin
itely was. When I didn’t answer, she chirped. “I thought you were calling Daddy.”

  “He didn’t pick up.” Her father was the head of our little neighborhood detective firm, the Ross Agency. Norment had sent us to collect against an overdue bill. Sixteen months without one dollar paid was too much even for Norment’s over-generous soul. That job led to our confrontation with the multi-culti gang in the warehouse. And to our retreat to this goddamned pink car trunk.

  “Well, call him again.”

  “The phone’s somewhere in here. But with you taking up so much space, I can’t move enough to find it.” Dammit, was she smirking? “Roll over.” I pushed her shoulder. “Maybe you can feel it.”

  She squirmed, shifting to face the trunk opening, and patted the floor mats. Grainy, sticky, wet, rubbery. But no phone. My knees pressed behind her thighs. She was tall, five eight to my six one, so I adjusted my shoulder to cover hers. Might as well make the best of the close situation, George Clooney style. She relaxed into me and I rested my hand on her hip. “Sorry, it’s tight in here.”

  “I can’t feel the phone.” She shoved at the trunk lid. Maybe it would open by magic. Two sharp raps from her fist. Or by brute force. Nothing. We lay for what could have been minutes or only seconds.

  My hand grew heavy on her hip. Not pressing, but firm and still. “A little privacy, a little quiet.” I whispered across her ear, its rim warm under my lips.

  “Look, we’re cool and all that.” She squeaked, a giggle bubbling inside the cheek next to mine. “But I’m not trying for any of that mess in the trunk of a frickin’ car!”

  “But it’s got pink floor mats!” I chuckled. “Brina, relax. You’re safe from funky flirtation.” My stomach molded against her ass, my fingers increasing the pressure on her hip. Dipping my face to the soft bend between her shoulder and neck, I inhaled. “You smell good. Now, no talking.”

  She harrumphed and lowered her head to the grimy mat. I waited for more movement, her stillness spooking me. The slits around the key hole darkened. Night in August dropped late and sudden, like a heavyweight boxer’s knockout blow. I counted her heartbeats. Strong, slow, steady as a river they came, thudding against my chest until I lost track of time. I counted past one hundred, maybe one fifty.

  I slipped my hand from her hip to rest it against her stomach. The t-shirt was damp with sweat, sticking to the spirals of her belly button. She softened under my touch. “We need to get out of here.”

  The cell buzzed, a rude hum against my ribs. I patted the grungy mat until I found the phone. I skated my fingers over the slick face to open the line, then fumbled the phone to my mouth. “Norment? That you? Where are you, man!”

  “No. Not Norman. Or whatever you said.” A silky female voice drawled through the electronic crackle. “Is that you, SJ?”

  I knew that purr. Low, sandpaper tough, devious, enticing. My ex-wife’s voice hadn’t changed since high school. “Annie! Where are you?”

  “No need to shout, SJ. I’m right here in New York.”

  “You’re here? Where? How?” Stupid, but still better than croaking like a strangled frog.

  “Continental Regent Hotel. For the week. Meet me tomorrow in the bar for drinks.” An order, not an invitation.

  “Sure, Annie. What time?”

  “Seven-thirty too late?”

  “No. Fine. I’ll be there.”

  Annie hung up. Silence. No greeting, no explanation. No adios or good night. Silence. Payback for the last seven years of our mean marriage. And the three dark years since our divorce.

  Brina jumped on the case. “Who was that? Didn’t sound like a wrong number.”

  “Ex-wife. Anniesha Perry. She’s in town for the week.” My heart thumped against Brina’s spine.

  “She’s from Texas, right?” Her voice was tight and higher than usual.

  “No. Florida. Miami.” I swallowed the groan rising from my gut. I wasn’t having this conversation here. Or anywhere in the known universe. My past could stay past. For at least one more day. Or forever.

  “We gotta get out of here. Now.” Was that squawk really my voice?

  She turned her head; moonlight seeped along the edges of the trunk’s lid. Jutting from her cornrows, a slender metal hook grazed my face.

  “Hey! You poked me in the eye with that idiot hairpin!” I sucked breath at the sudden idea. “Give it to me.” With a few twists, I tugged the bobby pin from her braid. I hummed as I bent it. “Switch places with me.”

  Brina rolled under me. She snickered as I balanced on knuckles and toes over her. Not going to crush my boss. Unless absolutely necessary. Code of a gentleman, a soldier, and a private eye. I worked the hairpin into the key hole. After a few strokes, the lock yielded.

  I eased from the trunk, unfolding the cramped muscles in my torso. I crouched beside the Pontiac to scan the parking lot. Clear. The goons were gone. Straightening, I grabbed Brina’s hand and pulled her out. A smirk creased her face in the humid moonlight. She retrieved her jacket, stained with oil and sludge from the floor of the trunk. As she brushed transparent insect wings from her t-shirt, I punched Norment’s number again. Success.

  As I rattled ice in the heavy tumbler, memories washed through me. Out of the cloud-pink past, a woman ambled into a ritzy bar. A guy dropped his jaw, his wallet, his pants. Not necessarily in that order. Rollercoaster soared, swooped, crashed, and trundled on. I swallowed the soda’s fizz. My mind rambled through our shared past, bracing for the ride to begin again.

  Anniesha Perry, wife of my youth, was the woman. I was the guy. This swanky hotel saloon was the rollercoaster’s latest stop. I wasn’t the teenager who’d first met Anniesha or the young soldier who’d married her, but the thought of her could still send me to that fine summit where all the time and sex and money and laughter in the world were mine to take. The rollercoaster had crashed, of course. Several times before I reached forty. Our divorce was three years old, after seven years of married strife. But the carnival ride still circled. Not past enough.

  Working as a private investigator in New York toughened me against the soaring and crashing. Right? Grew a turtle’s horny shell for skin. And tied a knot of gristle where my heart used to beat. Sure. After two years tackling the grit and grief of neighborhood cases, Harlem sophistication dusted my shoulders. Right? Wrong.

  The bar Annie picked was the jewel in a mid-town fortress of luxury I’d never enter on my own. The Continental Regent hotel was host to a week-long conference on twenty-first century entrepreneurship. Three thousand people jammed into the glittering pile for the meeting. Tuesday night after her call, I scanned the conference program online. Anniesha Perry was the convention’s biggest deal: keynote speaker at the plenary session and a featured participant on several panels. In her photo, Annie wore a sunrise-pink blouse, a thin gold braided chain nestled in the notch of her throat. The bio under her glossy picture said she owned a Miami cleaning company which reeled in a million dollars a year.

  A million. I was lucky to make three hundred dollars in a good week of detecting. Being a private eye was gratifying, but the rewards were non-financial. I liked solving puzzles, fixing problems, restoring order in the neighborhood. I was good at my job: tough on bad guys, sweet to old ladies, stingy with words, quick with fists. The combination played to my strengths. My business was long on danger and boredom, short on money. Since our high school days in San Marcos, Texas, I’d known Annie was out of my league. Now the black ink of her company’s ledger offered proof positive.

  Annie had said seven-thirty. At seven-ten I arrived at the Continental Regent to settle my nerves. I wanted to case the scene. Wednesday evenings in mid-August were slow; the saloon was stocked with tourists in mint green shorts, damp t-shirts, wrinkled shifts, and white sneakers. Posh regulars had bounced to the Hamptons or Martha’s Vineyard. My own summer vacation had been less classy: Brina and I had spent ten days
driving a mob hitwoman and her baby to a safe house in Florida. I’d survived that overheated road trip with sanity intact, but dignity and jeans in tatters. Now I kept my urban cred by wearing the same uniform of black trousers and black button-down shirt I always wore. My poverty could pass for elegance in these circumstances.

  The damned black shirt. Brina had clocked it when she barged into my office at six that evening. Two buttons fastened, working on the rest. My fingers froze.

  “Ex-wife gets a new shirt, hmm?” Her squint and abrupt tone pressed me into a stupid reply. I’d spent the afternoon lobbing single word answers to her questions about the date with Annie. She pried, I dodged. She steamed, I froze. She’d chewed off her lipstick in that exchange. Now she’d reapplied the loud red paint. Brina was looking for a fight.

  So, I gave her one. “What makes you say that?” Standing behind my desk, I fumbled the third button and shifted from one foot to the other.

  No answer needed. Brina shot her eyes toward the trash bin beside my desk. Crumpled cellophane and a flattened cardboard shirt box offered mute evidence of my purchase. She leaned over the desk and stabbed a finger into the wood. “Fancy linen. Never seen you wear that. And mother-of-pearl buttons dyed to match. It’s expensive.”

  “You don’t know what it costs.”

  “No. But I do know how much you earn, Mister Detective.”

  Brina was right. She knew my exact income. Because she made the weekly deposits. When we’d met two years ago, I was sunk in the trench of my personal collapse. A crippled bum turned out of my whorehouse apartment by a fire. Meeting the Rosses gave me a job, a purpose. Saved my life. She had picked me from the mire of my private gutter. I’d become Brina’s special rehab mission, her very own fix-it project. That was a past I’d never escape. What did Brina see of value in me? What did I bring her? In my years with Annie I’d been whole, a man bursting with potential. My strength and independence were hallmarks of those lost years. Now, the contrast with my present life of low wages, narrow expectations, and tight reins glared with dismal ferocity.