Her Nightly Embrace: The Ravi PI Series (Volume 1) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Adi Tantimedh has a BA in English Literature from Bennington College and an MFA in Film and Television Production from New York University. He is of Chinese-Thai descent and came of age in Singapore and London. He has written radio plays and television scripts for the BBC and screenplays for various Hollywood companies, as well as graphic novels for DC Comics and Big Head Press, and a weekly column about pop culture for BleedingCool.com. He wrote “Zinky Boys Go Underground,” the first post-Cold War Russian gangster thriller, which won the BAFTA for Best Short Film in 1995 and is the author of Her Nightly Embrace, Her Beautiful Monster, and Her Fugitive Heart.

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Her Nightly Embrace

ONE

Before we start, there’s something you should know.

I see gods.

Usually in the corner of my eye. They just pop up from time to time, deities from the Hindu pantheon.

I never talk to them. I don’t want to.

They never talk to me, just watch in silent judgment. Occasionally they tut-tut and tweet about me to one another on their phones.

I’m not mentally ill. Honest.

Back when this started, I was switching from antipsychotics to mood stabilizers to antianxiety to antidepressant medications before I finally got it under control.

I haven’t been seeing many gods lately. That must be a good sign.



“What am I doing with my life . . . ?”

I pushed the thought to the back of my mind as I knocked on the door to the luxury suite.

“Who is it?” The voice of the man in the room was a little high-pitched, nervous. He wasn’t expecting anyone.

“Hotel security, sir,” I said. “We have reports of a leak downstairs, and it might have come from your bathroom. We need to take a look.”

“All right! Hold on!”

I heard a rustling of sheets and grunts as he pulled some clothes on. The man who opened the door was middle-aged, a little pudgy and balding, blinking in a bathrobe.

“Mr. Hollis?”

“Er, yes?”

That was the cue for Hector and Dave to barge in from behind me. They used their fridge-like bodies to push through the door and take Hollis by the arms and carry him into the room. I walked in and put the Do Not Disturb sign out before I shut the door.

“What’s going on?” cried the blonde in the bed. She pulled the sheets up to cover herself. Dave and Hector deposited Hollis on the bed next to her. Her name was Bambi. Of course it was. She had, as Dave would say, big bazongas.

“Relax, honey,” Dave said. “This won’t take long.”

It was just as well that Dave and Hector dressed like plainclothes cops. They used to be cops, so they still had that vibe. Like them, I was in a suit and tie, so we all maintained a veneer of authority and intimidation.

I snapped a few pictures of Hollis and Bambi with my phone and emailed them back to the agency in London.

We were in the Hilton International Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. I’d spent the last five days tailing Hollis and Bambi, taking pictures of them canoodling in restaurants, kissing in the back of cabs, groping each other at the top of the Empire State Building and the usual tourist spots. Ironically, following them let me do the tourist thing, which I’d never done before in New York.

Dave pulled out a little video camera to film Hollis and Bambi for good measure. He made sure he got a shot of the lines of cocaine on the nightstand and the clothes and underwear scattered on the floor, leaving no room for doubt as to what Hollis and Bambi had been up to.

“Stop! What are you doing?” cried Hollis as he tried to hide his face.

“You motherfuckers!” screamed Bambi. “Get out! Get the fuck out!”

“Bear with us, sweetheart. It’ll just take a minute,” Hector said as he picked up her clothes and handed them to her.

My phone rang. London. I answered.

“I have Roger here for you,” Cheryl, our office manager, said.

“You still there with him, Ravi?” asked Roger, my boss.

“I have eyes on Mr. Hollis.”

“Good. Stay on the line. You’ll want to watch this.” A chuckle came over the phone.

Oh, God. When Roger says that, it means I’m about to witness something horrible. Roger lives for this shit. I don’t.

The smartphone on the bedside table rang. Hollis went pale when he saw the number, and answered with shaking hands.

“HOWARD! YOU SHIT! I CAN SEE YOU RIGHT NOW! YOU AND YOUR YANK FLOOZY! DID YOU THINK I WOULDN’T KNOW?”

Margaret Hollis must have been in Roger’s office, looking at the photos I had emailed to his computer. It wasn’t my idea to barge in on him like this, but she requested that we did to put the fear of Wife into him. Two years’ worth of pent-up rage after he smooth-talked and manipulated her into thinking his having a bit on the side was all in her imagination. Now she had hard proof and wanted him to know that he was well and truly fucked. We didn’t need speakerphone mode to hear her.

“YOU THINK YOU COULD LIE TO ME ABOUT WHAT YOU WERE UP TO ON THOSE TRIPS TO NEW YORK? CLIENT MEETINGS, MY ARSE! AND WITH MY MONEY! WELL, HOW MUCH DO YOU THINK YOUR BIMBO IS GOING TO LIKE YOU AFTER I STOP YOUR CREDIT CARDS AND FREEZE YOUR BANK ACCOUNT—EH? EH?”

“This is too intense for me,” Bambi said, who hastily and rather messily pulled her blouse and miniskirt on.

“I’VE GOT YOU NOW, HOWARD! YOU’RE FINISHED, YOU HEAR ME? YOU’LL BE HEARING FROM MY LAWYER! YOU WON’T HAVE A POT TO PISS IN WHEN I’M DONE WITH YOU! ALL THE MONEY CAME FROM MY FATHER, ANYWAY! DID YOU TELL YOUR TART THAT?”

Bambi headed for the door. Hollis started after her, but Hector pushed him back onto the bed as Dave continued to film him.

“Bambi! Wait!” cried Hollis. “Darling! I’ll sort it out!”

But she was gone.

“YOUR JOB THAT I GOT YOU IN THE COMPANY? GONE! YOUR SEAT ON THE BOARD? GONE! YOUR CREDIT CARDS? FROZEN! YOUR CLOTHES THAT I BOUGHT YOU? I’M HAVING A BONFIRE IN THE GARDEN TONIGHT!”

“Oh, God!” he cried, and made a lunge for the window. We were on the nineteenth floor. He was that desperate.

“Whoa! Easy there! Settle down!” Dave said.

Dave set the video camera down to help Hector wrestle Hollis away from the window and to the carpet. He made a wailing, keening sound like a dying animal that had been shot. I noticed that the camera was positioned on the bedside table to catch the entire struggle. Dave was a consummate professional, after all. The footage reminded me of BBC nature documentaries in which tigers brought down a hapless gazelle. I could almost imagine David Attenborough narrating.

I’d almost forgotten I was still holding my phone to my ear when Roger’s delighted voice came back on.

“Enjoy the show?”

“As train wrecks go, I rate this one a seven,” I said.

“Good result, Ravi,” he said. “Come on home.”

For Roger, it’s not a good result unless someone’s world ends up in ruins. I looked at Hollis and saw a fat little boy caught with his finger in the cookie jar—whimpering, crying, trying to make mummy feel bad and forgive him. This is what my life had come to.

New York City was such a cultural boiling pot that all the gods were here. Not just Hindu gods, but all of them—Chinese gods, Japanese gods, even Yahweh Himself pulling multiple duty for the Jews, the Catholics, the Greek Orthodox, the Lutherans, and what have you. Fortunately, the city was so crowded and everyone was so busy that we could happily ignore each other as we went about our business, so I didn’t see any gods all week, and I didn’t even have to take my mood stabilizers to make them go away.

Hector and Dave were nice enough to drive me to the airport. They were always happy to meet someone from the London office. I wasn’t...