The Big Charade: A Dirk Malone Mystery

Written for Sunday Whirl Wordle. Our host is
Brenda Warren; her prompt words for this week are
shown below. Here’s where the prompts took me.

façade, doubts, curiosity, bitter, torn, hit,
restless, hope, massive, frail, strip, and sting

The rain hit the city hard, like woman with a grudge …. cold and personal.

Dirk Malone sat in his office on the first floor of the old Delacroix Building, nursing a bourbon that tasted as bitter as a broken promise. The ceiling fan turned restless circles overhead, pushing the humid air around like it had somewhere better to be. He had doubts about this city. He always had doubts. But tonight, they sat heavier than usual.

The knock came at half past nine.

She stepped through the door like trouble usually does and she wore it well.

Huge fur stole draped over a frail frame that somehow carried itself like a queen. Platinum blonde hair that caught the light and held it hostage. A cigarette burned slow between two fingers, tracing a lazy ribbon of smoke toward the water-stained ceiling.

“You Malone?” Her voice had an edge to it. Honeyed, but with a bite.

“Last time I checked.” He didn’t stand. “You got a name, sweetheart, or you just here to decorate?”

She crossed the room and dropped into the chair across his desk like she’d been in it a hundred times. “Veronica Croft. My husband Reginald owns Croft & Carter …. the development company.”

“I know it.” Dirk knew it the way you know a rotten tooth. “They’ve been buying up every building on the waterfront strip for two years. Tearing down anything with history.”

“Was.” The word landed soft and lethal. “Reggie was found this morning at the bottom of Pier Eleven.”

Dirk said nothing. He let the silence do its work.

“The police are calling it an accident.” Her eyes …. green as old money …. stayed perfectly dry. “I’m calling it a façade.”

“And what are you calling it when you talk to me?”

“Murder.” She took a long drag of the cigarette. “Reggie had torn apart a deal three weeks ago. A massive one. Waterfront rezoning …. millions of dollars. There were men who wanted that deal to move forward very badly.”

“Men always want things to move forward badly,” Dirk said. “That’s how they end up on the bottom of piers.” He leaned back, the old chair groaning its objection. “Mrs. Croft, you don’t strike me as the type of dame who runs on hope alone. What else you got?”

She reached into her handbag and slid a photograph across the desk.

Dirk looked at it. His curiosity, which he’d kept deliberately sedated for the last few weeks, woke right back up and stretched its arms.

“That’s City Councilman Bragg,” he said.

“Shaking hands with the man who threatened Reginald’s life two weeks before he died.” She stubbed out the cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. “His name is Sal Pinza. And before you ask …. yes, that Sal Pinza.”

Dirk had heard the name. You didn’t work this city without hearing it, whispered low and quick, the way people mention a disease they’re afraid is contagious.

“What do you want from me, Mrs. Croft? Specifically.”

She stood, smoothing her dress in one clean, practiced motion, and looked down at him with those glass-green eyes.

“I want you to pull the mask off this city, Mr. Malone. I want everyone to see what’s been living underneath it.”

Dirk looked at the photograph again, then back at the woman, then at the bourbon glass gone empty in his hand.

Twelve years off this stuff, he thought. Seems tonight’s the night to reconsider.

He reached for his coat on a hook in the corner, knocked his hat down onto his head, and glanced back at her.

“My rate’s fifty a day plus expenses, Mrs. Croft. And I’ll warn you now …. the truth in this city rarely comes gift-wrapped.”

She smiled for the first time. It didn’t reach her eyes.

“Mr. Malone, I was married to a Croft & Carter man for fifteen years.” She moved toward the door, the fur stole trailing behind her like a lost puppy. “I stopped expecting gift-wrapping a long time ago.”

She left. The door clicked shut. The rain kept hitting the window like it had a point to make.

Dirk looked at the photograph one more time.

The waterfront. Pier Eleven. Bragg. Pinza.

Yeah. This one was going to sting.

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This is “Masquerade” by Leon Russell

Wordle 748

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