Page 105 of The Suit

I hadn’t thought about Beulah.

Much.

I’d limited it to once per hour, which I’d reasoned was acceptable given she was dead to me. My grandfather was also dead, and I thought about him regularly, though he was less of the reason I’d worked solidly through the last five days with very little sleep.

“What do you know about this?” I finally glanced at Murray who was still standing in the same position, arms firmly crossed over his chest.

“Not much.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think Beulah’s okay?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking. Not that I cared.

He offered me nothing but a fucking useless shrug. I stood up.

“Where are you going?”

I wasn’t sure, so I sat back down.

“No, get up. I’m here for a reason. We need to go and see Penn.”

I frowned, “Penn, why?”

“Because, again, if you’d checked your phone, you’ll have seen that he has also been M.I.A.”

“Why?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out. And then you’re going to have a shower.” He pointed at me.

I sniffed under my shirt, perhaps I was a bit ripe. But hard work didn’t come without a bit of sweat, and I’d worked my ass off all week to make up for all the fucking about I’d been doing.

I looked at Kit who said nothing. In fact, she’d said nothing at all since she walked in; something that was as unusual as it was unsettling.

“Kit, are you okay?”

She went to open her mouth, but she became nothing but a ventriloquist’s dummy when Murray answered for her.

“She’s fine.”

The scowl she shot him said that wasn’t in any way true, but I had no interest in getting involved with their lovers’ quarrel, so I left it alone. Instead, rubbed away the tightening in my chest.

Murray opened the door, letting Kit walk through ahead of him. “Come on, Raferty, let’s go.”

I followed him out of the door, and thirty-five minutes later we were letting ourselves into Penn’s apartment, and his darkened foyer.

“Pennington?” we both called out while Kit walked off down the corridor in the opposite direction to Murray and me, flicking the lights on as we went.

We didn’t find him in the kitchen.

We did find several empty bottles of whiskey, an empty case of beer, and an overflowing ashtray which was ominous in itself seeing as Penn didn’t smoke, but at least it went in some way to prepare us for the destruction we found in the games room.

Glass was everywhere.

The display cabinets Penn kept all his prize, and in some cases priceless, Yankees memorabilia - from his Babe Ruth signed 1932 jersey, to his Mickey Mantle baseball cards, Derek Jeter’s last home run ball, Joe DiMaggio’s bat – all smashed.

“Holy shit, has he been robbed?” Murray’s voice dropped to a horrified whisper before shouting Penn’s name again.

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