Swifty Taylor and the Missing Child – Episode 1

 

 

It was almost the perfect evening. A generous finger of Jameson only an arm’s length away, John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme gambolling out through the stereo speakers, my eyes half closed, my mind in quiet contemplation. The last remnants of the mild Williamstown autumn were a reminder that the hearth would soon be called into action. Really, all that was missing from this scene was someone to share it with. I reached for the tumbler and raised a toast to solitude – those who chose it and those who did not. And those, like me, who were perhaps somewhere betwixt.

 

Coltrane had just launched into another epic sax solo when I detected a muffled knock on the front door. It was too late in the evening for hawkers or religious fanatics, and too early for a home invasion. I padded silently down the hallway and opened the door. A small squat man with a bulbous head stood before me. He was in his late 50s, and there had possibly been a time when he could have been called handsome. But no longer. Now, he merely looked like trouble. His hairline was in retreat from his forehead, and his belt was straining to contain an expanding girth. He was displaying all the signs of a man going to seed.

 

 

“Swifty Taylor?” he asked in a voice I sensed was used to getting its own way. I nodded in the affirmative. He waited for me to speak, but when he realised at length that I was not going to say anything further, his bossy voice continued. “You’ve been recommended to me. And I’ve done some research of my own. I would like to hire you to find a missing person.” A missing person! How often had I heard that old chestnut? And how often had I been the sucker in the middle – played for a fool – just so the person who hired me could either wreak some vengeance, or satisfy themselves that their ex had not moved on to bigger and better things, or even worse? And having been rudely hauled away from one of the greatest jazz albums of all time, I suspect that he noticed that my patience was in shorter supply than oil from the Strait of Hormuz.

 

I reached for the door and began to close it. “I’ll pay you one thousand dollars a day to retain your services”. I didn’t need to do any mental arithmetic to tell me that was one way of getting doors to open. What was that old Cyndi Lauper song about money changing everything? And after all, it wasn’t as if I had been run off my feet lately. “Come in, and I will listen to what you have to say. But no guarantees. If I don’t like what I hear, not even a grand a day will make me change my mind”. He shrugged in acquiescence, and followed me into the makeshift study in the front room of the house.

 

Before he sat, he thrust out his right hand. “The name is Mick Rogers,” he said briskly. I shook his hand and motioned for him to sit. But I wasn’t about to temper my gruffness or roll out the red carpet for him. “Start telling your story, Rogers. And make it quick. It’s getting late”. It was obvious that he was not familiar with being told what to do. But to his credit, he was straight to the point. “I’m afraid it’s a familiar tale, Swifty. I had an affair with my secretary”. I shot him a look of disgust, but he continued with his tale of woe. “Unfortunately…well, I shouldn’t say ‘unfortunately’. But, well, she got pregnant”. My countenance shifted from disgust to indifference; I jumped onto my high horse and interrupted. “This wasn’t the immaculate conception, Rogers. You mean to say that you got her pregnant?”

 

He nodded slowly and silently. “I was married, with four adult kids. There was no way I could let her keep this baby. But she said that there was no way she was going to terminate. And she said that if I didn’t like it, she would go straight to my wife and spill the beans”. Mick Rogers looked out the window into the night. “I told her I wanted nothing to do with any of it. She had the baby. It was a boy. And we came to an agreement that I would buy her an apartment and pay her five thousand dollars a month for the child’s expenses. Every six months or so she would send me a photo of the kid, but about a year ago the photos stopped. I heard a rumour that the boy had died, but I can’t be sure. I don’t even know the kid’s name. And now that my wife is divorcing me, well, I want to meet my son”.

 

I gave him no sympathy, as it was a story as old as time itself. When the little head rules the big head, all sorts of consequences can follow. “What brings you here, Rogers? Why have you come to me?” Again, his answers were rapid fire. “I am led to believe that since the child was born some six years ago, she has been living here in Williamstown. And although I am not from around here, I am told that nobody knows Williamstown like you do, Swifty”. He pulled a thick wad of notes from his pocket and pressed it into my hand. “Here’s your first instalment”.

 

 

The cash in my hand did nothing to dispel a sudden and deep feeling of uneasiness, bordering on nausea. Ruefully, I accepted that, sometimes, all it takes is a knock on the front door to ever so slightly transform an evening from perfect to imperfect…

 

 

You can read more from Smokie HERE

 

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