BENNINGTON P.I. “BONITA” by D.W. Ulsterman

that left me wondering who the hell this client was?  Maybe he or she was already dead, just like Walt. 
     
    A car drove past outside, one of those little hopped up rice burner jobs that the kids love so much these days.  The car’s stereo must have been set to eleven, because the damn bass was actually vibrating inside my apartment.  It was that rap shit.  I could here the singer yelling out the word nigger over and over, with the occasional shout out to some otherwise nameless bitches and hoes thrown in for good measure.
     
    It was a long ways off from a Sinatra tune, that’s for sure.
     
    One of my favorites!  Sinatra!  A song called Bonita. He recorded it with Tom Jobim in the late 60’s. I used to dance to this one with a woman I dated almost forty years ago.  She gave me the album as a gift and I’ve kept it ever since.  It might be the most valuable thing I own!  Very rare!  Whenever I feel lost, Bonita seems to help me find my way back to myself.
     
    Walt’s words echoed in my mind loud enough to drown out the horrible rap music from outside.  Son-of-a-bitch!  Could he have been leaving me a clue in case something happened to him?
     
    It might be the most valuable thing I own!  Very rare!  Whenever I feel lost, Bonita seems to help me find my way back to myself.
     
    I remembered Walt playing the song again when I was leaving the marina after meeting with him last night.
     
    Whenever I feel lost, Bonita seems to help me find my way back to myself.
     
    I needed to get back over to Walt’s boat and find that album.  If my hunch was right, there was something there to help me start figuring out what the hell was going on.  That meant I had to find a way out of my apartment without the cops knowing.  The last thing I needed was the police following me around D.C.
     
    There was a small window above the kitchen sink of my apartment that I eyed carefully, wondering if I could manage to fit myself through.  Six months ago there would have been no way, but the newly improved, leaner version of me might just pull it off.  I made sure the front door was locked, turned on some lights and the television, and then grabbed a chair and set it under the window.
     
    I won’t say I made it through that window easy, but I sure as shit made it through, and at the end of the day, that’s all the score’s gonna say, right? I made it through.  I just about passed out, had a moment of mess my pants panic when I sat stuck halfway out, with my legs dangling over the sink and the other half of me pointing outside, but then, slowly, I squirmed my way further out until my hands came to rest on the concrete ground below.  I gave a final kick with my legs and did this sort of half roll move and ended up back on my feet standing outside. 
     
    Part of me wished someone was there to see it.  I’m pretty sure I actually looked like I knew what I was doing. Not too bad for a sixty four year old, borderline diabetic with a pacemaker.  James Bond has nothing on me!
     
    The name’s Bennington.  Frank Bennington.
     
    My self satisfaction at having dropped so impressively from my kitchen window was cut short by a neighbor’s barking dog.  The noise startled me enough that I stepped backwards and then tripped over a half inch drop in the poured concrete pad I was standing on.
     
    Maybe that James Bond reference was a bit premature.
     
    The back of the apartment complex was a narrow strip of greenery bordered by a chain link fence behind which a narrow alleyway ran the length of the complex.  I walked a few hundred yards down the ally, and then back onto a main street.  It took about five minutes to hail a cab and begin making my way back to the Gangplank Marina where inside, I would find Walt’s Chris Craft and then hopefully, a clue as to who was responsible for his death.
     
    Walt had warned this case could make or break me.
     
    I guess it was time to find out.
     
     
    10.
     
     
    Standing outside