Excerpt of Dirty Laundry by Tori Carrington

One of the great things about being a private dick—aside
from saying those words and presuming to lay ownership to
something possessed only by men—is that it gets you out of
going to Sunday Mass. Well, okay. It’s not so much the Mass
I have a problem with. Rather, it’s the prospect of having
to attend with my mother, Thalia Metropolis, that makes me
cringe. Aside from her smooshing my face into various Greek
Orthodox religious icons propped up just inside the door of
St. Constantine’s, I’d have to sit next to her. And thus
would endure much fussing and pulling and poking to make
sure my rarely worn blouse was unwrinkled and that my hot
pink thong wasn’t showing through my miniskirt. And forget
all the gossip I’d have to catch up on. Frankly, I didn’t
care whether Mrs. Stefanou was suing her hairdresser
because he turned her hair orange or that Mr. Zervas
had “personal” problems and had gotten a free trial of
Viagra. (Trust me, if you knew Mr. Zervas you wouldn’t want
to think of him in that regard either. Especially not in
church.)

I have more important things to do with my time. Like serve
papers.

My name is Sofie Metropolis, PI. Okay, so I wasn’t born
with the title, but I liked tacking it on if only because
it detracts from the obvious Greekness of my name. Are you
Greek American? Then that means you or one of your family
members owns a café, a restaurant, a diner, or a club,
sometimes all of the above (in my case my family members
fell into the former two categories). Especially in
Astoria, a one-time predominantly Greek neighborhood in
Queens, one of the five boroughs of New York City.

I became a PI five months ago (really a PI-in-training
because I can’t become a certified private investigator in
New York for another two and a half years). That’s when I
caught my would-be groom Thomas-the-Toad with his tux pants
around his ankles on the day of our wedding . . . and it
hadn’t been my thighs he’d been wedged between. The moment
was life changing in many ways, the biggest change being my
new vocation. And while my current assignment proved that
even the job of private investigator wasn’t all it was
cracked up to be, it was better than dividing up the
contents of the tip jar any day.

And besides, it got me out of learning that Mr. Zervas was
taking Viagra and chasing his seventy-year-old wife around
the dining room table with his pants down around his ankles.

My professional philosophy was pretty simple: Screw with
me, get a bullet in the knee. That’s what happened to one
of my recent clients when it turned out he had set me up as
an alibi to his murderous intents on his wife, then
switched his aim to me when I figured it all out. Word had
it Bud Suleski would have a limp for life, which meant he
couldn’t run away and was quite the popular guy at Rikers
as a result.

My personal philosophy . . . well, I was still working on
that. And that wasn’t an easy position to be in when you’re
Greek. Greeks seemed to know exactly where they are, how
they feel, what opinions they hold every moment of every
day, no matter if they’re later proved wrong. Look
up “Greek” in the dictionary and you’ll find
that “conviction” is part of their heritage, along with
much spitting and shouting and interesting hand gestures.

“Live and let live.” Maybe I’d go with that for now until I
figured out something better. Then again, no. Because I
wouldn’t mind if my ex turned up dead. “Live and let one
person die”? Doesn’t have the same ring to it somehow.

Anyway, on this sweltering Sunday morning in August, at
just after ten, I sat in my classic Mustang convertible
(read: Bondo Special) outside an apartment complex in
Jackson Heights, wishing for air-conditioning and hoping to
spot one very wily Mr. Eugene Waters.

Serving court papers made up a nice percentage of my Uncle
Spyros’ agency’s profits. And while I normally didn’t
serve, the success rate of our top two servers dropped when
it came to Mr. Waters. Over the past week, neither of them
had been able to get the guy to accept landlord dispute
papers, and the deadline was fast approaching. Yes, after
two failed attempts, the agency could go the nail and mail
route, meaning I could nail the papers to his door (or slip
them under it), then mail two additional copies, one
regular and one certified, to Mr. Waters. But the reason
why Uncle Spyros and his agency were popular in the serving
business was because he didn’t like to do that. The client
wanted the papers served in hand? Then in hand was how they
would be served.

So I’d rolled my eyes and told everyone I’d do it myself. I
mean, how difficult could it be?

Rule number 565: Never underestimate the potential of any
case to turn dangerous or complicated, or both.

My uncle Spyros—the certified PI, my mentor, and owner of
the agency where I work—was fond of rules. And while I was
exaggerating the number of this one, the rule itself stuck
in my mind. Which would make my uncle happy. Me, I made a
face and determined I should come up with my own list of
rules. The first of which would be to ignore Uncle Spyros’
rules.

Muffy barked from the backseat as if putting an exclamation
point on my ruminations.

I stared at the scruffy Jack Russell terrier. It had been
two months since my mother’s neighbor and best friend Mrs.
K had gone on to the Big Hindu Heaven in the sky, and Muffy
the Mutt had been promoted from rescued pet to my pet. And
I had the bite marks to prove it.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Muffy and I had become
friends. But we had reached a truce of sorts. An “I won’t
mess with you if you don’t mess with me” attitude that was
working out so far. Except when I was leaving the
apartment. Somehow he—yes, Muffy is a he—sensed when what I
was about to do might be marginally exciting, and he found
a way to follow me out and jump in the back of my car.

He rarely followed me when I went to my parents’ house up
the block from my place, however. Then again, I didn’t much
like how my paternal grandmother eyed him while she diced
vegetables either. I mean, dog meat couldn’t be that far
from goat meat, could it? And seeing as Yiayia had lived
through some difficult times back in the homeland, like
World War II, communist guerillas, and two military
juntas . . . well, I decided I didn’t want to pursue that
particular line of thought.

“Bingo.”

I switched my attention from the dog to first-floor
apartment number sixty-nine. A short, thin black man had
stepped outside—was that a pink satin bathrobe with feather
cuffs he was wearing?—looked around, then bent over to get
the Sunday Times I’d put out there. (I knew few people who
could resist a paper put right outside their door,
especially on a Sunday, although I suspected Mr. Waters was
the type who would probably steal his neighbor’s paper.)

My brand-spanking-new pair of K-Swiss hit the pavement as I
got out of the car, capturing my attention where they
contrasted against my jeans so that I nearly closed the
door on Muffy when he followed after me. I growled at the
dog then hurried the fifty or so feet to apartment number
sixty-nine.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I was hoping you could help me . . .”

Mr. Waters eyed me warily, then Muffy.

“I’m lost and need some directions.”

He went inside the apartment with the newspaper then
slammed the door.

Humph. Maybe Pamela had tried the “plant the newspaper then
pretend to need directions” angle already.

I left the map around the sealed documents and sighed,
Muffy panting at my feet as if waiting to see what I would
do next.

I knocked on the door.

“Please . . . I’ve been driving around in circles for an
hour. If you could at least let me use your phone to call
my aunt . . .”

A muffled, high-pitched male voice came from the other side
of the door. “We ain’t got no phone. Go away.”

“Maybe you could take a look at my map . . . tell me where
I’m going wrong?”

“I ain’t from around here.”

“Me neither,” I said in my best defeated-tourist voice,
hoping my Queens accent wasn’t too strong. “I just drove
all night from Ohio, and I’m tired and I’m lost and I could
really use some help right now.”

“Ohio?”

A spark of hope. “Yes.”

“Where at?”

I searched my mind for a city name. “Toledo,” I said,
remembering M*A*S*H reruns. Klinger’s favorite oath had
something to do with a Holy Toledo, and he was always
talking about the city as home. (Okay, I’m a TV-rerun
fanatic. So sue me.)

I heard the lock give and the door opened on the chain. “I
got people in Cleveland.”

I smiled. “Nice city, Cleveland.”

He slammed the door again.

Okay, maybe Cleveland wasn’t nice. But I’d bet the people
were a hell of a lot more hospitable.

“Please,” I said again, employing a politeness that might
not be natural for most native New Yorkers, but would be
for an Ohioan. “My aunt was expecting me four hours ago and
is probably worried sick. She’s got this heart
condition . . .”

“Call her on a pay phone.”

“I’ll pay you for your trouble.”

Silence, then, “...