Mister Jinnah Mysteries 2-Book Bundle. Donald J. Hauka
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by Manjit at the door that evening. He tried to slide past her with a muttered growl of a greeting, but Manjit grabbed his arm and steered him towards the living room.
“Hey! What’s the matter?” she asked, shoving Jinnah lightly into his easy chair. “Hard day at the office?”
“Oh, typical stuff,” sighed Jinnah, putting his feet up on the proffered footstool. “Routine, sweetheart.”
“So what happened?” she said, crouching down beside him.
“The Vancouver Police betrayed me, that bastard Grant scooped me and Blacklock humiliated me in front of the entire newsroom, Mister Puri issued the equivalent of an economic ‘fatwah’ against me, and a crazy, one-eyed axe-murderer tried to kill me — you know, normal-type stuff.”
“Kill you?” cried Manjit. “Are you hurt? Did you tell the police?”
“It was the police who let me walk into the bastard’s shack by the river in the first place, so I don’t see much use in reporting anything to them.”
Manjit stood up, her easy manner having disappeared completely.
“Hakeem, I think we should talk.”
Jinnah knew his wife. The last thing she wanted to discuss was some half-assed attempt on his life. There had been genuine, serious efforts to kill Jinnah and this hadn’t been one of them. He knew with absolute certainty what she wanted to talk about.
“If this is about the Orient Love Express, it can wait until after dinner, hmm?”
Manjit gave him a penetrating look.
“Hakeem, my friends are already asking me if you have a harem of Russian women. Do you have such a harem?”
“Of course not, for God’s sake!” cried Jinnah. “We don’t even launch the thing until tomorrow!”
“So, then you will have a harem?”
“Manjit, I can scarcely handle you, so why would I want a harem?”
“Who says you can handle me?”
“An unfortunate turn of phrase. What’s for dinner?”
“Left-overs,” said Manjit and disappeared into the kitchen like an angry djinn.
Jinnah sat in his chair, staring at the flames of the gas fire against the artificial logs, thinking. It had been a hellish day, one where he could scarce imagine how it could possibly have been worse. He’d completely mishandled everything and couldn’t account for it. His instincts had been tingling. He had been on to something, but what? Maybe this Crazy Jake had more to do with the murder than Graham was letting on. But if the man was really a suspect, they wouldn’t have let Jinnah within a country mile of him, given how hard they’d tried to protect Robert Chan from his charms. He looked to his inherant instincts for guidance, but they were inconclusive.
“Sam Schuster was murdered,” he said.
His instincts tingled slightly on the left. Logic. Hmm …
“It was suicide,” Jinnah intoned.
A slight tingle on the right. Emotional. Son of a bitch.
Jinnah puzzled it over and over and came to no good conclusions. At least the day was nearly done. After dinner, perhaps he would surf the net and look for information on Sam Schuster. He was just starting to doze off when Manjit awoke him, calling from the kitchen in a voice devoid of spousal affection.
“Hakeem! Are you there?”
“Yes darling?” Jinnah said, sitting bolt upright, jarred from near-sleep.
“There is a young woman on the line who wishes to speak with Pepe le Peu or, failing that, Kenya’s Love Idol. When I said there was no one of that name here, she assured me that this was your nickname at work and you were on intimate terms with her. Do you know her, Hakeem?”
Name of God. Crystal. Suddenly, with the blinding clarity that comes to men just before they are hanged, Jinnah realized how the day could get worse.
“Wrong number!” shouted Jinnah, now on his feet and racing to the kitchen. “Obviously this is a crank call. I’ll speak with her.”
“Perhaps I will just hang up,” offered Manjit, holding the phone away from him.
“No, no — one must tell these people off so they don’t call again,” said Jinnah, beginning to sweat.
He wrenched the phone from Manjit’s hand. Her nostrils were flared, her breath coming in little gulps. This was serious.
“Listen, you crazy crack-head!” Jinnah shouted into the telephone. “I don’t know who you are —”
“Do you want to know what Grant’s story is or not?” said Crystal Wagner.
Jinnah closed his eyes and put his hand over the receiver. Why couldn’t she just have identified herself and asked for him properly instead of teasing Manjit like that? Really, young women these days! No sense of propriety.
“Manjit,” he hissed. “It is indeed one of the receptionists from work. I know her slightly. I believe she is on drugs. I had better try and talk her down. If you could just go into the next room —”
“Surely anything you have to say to this young woman whom you know only slightly you can say in front of your wife, can you not, Hakeem?” said Manjit, her voice dripping with an acid that was as strong as the gastric juices currently consuming Jinnah’s innards.
“Of course,” said Jinnah, waving a hand. “I simply didn’t want you to get upset.”
“Oh, I’m not upset, Hakeem.”
Manjit pulled up a stool next to the telephone and sat down with an alarming air of finality. Well, there was nothing for it. He took his hand off the mouthpiece.
“Crystal, tell me how much of the drug you took, sweetheart,” said Jinnah.
“Sweetheart?” cried Manjit.
Jinnah glared at her. Manjit glared back.
“Another unfortunate turn of phrase?” Manjit asked.
“Is your wife still there?” asked Crystal. “She sounds nice.”
“Oh, she’s a nice person, all right,” agreed Jinnah.
Inwardly, Jinnah was vowing to murder Crystal in as gruesome a manner as he could possibly devise — that is, in as gruesome a manner as a man who had recently been castrated by his wife could manage.
“Crystal, is it the crack again, hmm? Or maybe the meth? You can tell Jinnah.”
“Stow it, Pepe. Are you gonna tell your wife about us or am I?”
“What’s to tell?”
“Hakeem! Sweety! You promised you’d do anything for me!”
Jinnah closed his eyes. He was by now drenched in perspiration and Manjit’s eyes looked like they were about to start from their spheres.
“I promised to buy you a coffee,” he said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.
“A coffee!” squawked Manjit. “This young woman does not rate herself very highly if all she charged you —”
“Manjit!” shouted Jinnah. “For God’s sake! This is about work!”
“I don’t know about work,” returned Manjit. “But it certainly has to do with being on the job!”
“Hakeem,” said Crystal. “Hakeem, put Manjit on.”
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”
“Trust me. I’ll tell her the truth.”
“Which version?” asked Jinnah quickly.
“Don’t