The I's for investigator: Goodnight, Slav

Among the many questions that have puzzled football scholars over the years, perhaps none is more important than this: why do so many Premier League managers look like detectives in various states of disgruntlement? This story doesn’t provide an answer to that question, but it does imagine a world in which Premier League managers are not Premier League managers at all, but detectives in various states of disgruntlement. This is The I’s for Investigator, the speculative noir crime periodical you almost certainly haven’t been waiting for.

Slav sat in his car, took the coaster out of his pocket. “Ron’s,” it roared, in ‘20s lettering. He knew the place, as, unfortunately, did every other undesirable in the city, one of which was the place’s owner, Ronald Koeman. Ron’s deal was that Ron liked jazz. He had been an accomplished trumpet player once upon a little time, before the accident, the details of which were unknown, but the upshot of which was that he had two fewer fingers on his right hand than he’d started with. Ron’s dad had been a musician, alto sax, had spent a large part of his 20s chasing Miles and Cannonball and Coltrane, even playing a show once with Art Blakey, but never really catching up. And so Ron grew up with his head tilted to one side, nodding up and down, listening, traveling, sleeping in strange places, meeting strange people, a flat-seven life in a major-seven world. Slav didn’t know about jazz — no one knew about jazz, which was the problem — but he knew what Ron looked like when he played his horn, and Ron looked happy.

And so anyway Ron’s was Ron’s attempt to keep the beat alive, to spread the jazzy word to those who needed it most, which was everyone, as far as he was concerned, equally. Business was not booming. Fortunately for Ron, business was not what was keeping the doors open. What was keeping the doors open was illegal. Or at least not not illegal: know the right people, ignore their wrong behavior, everybody knew the scoop. In this way Ron’s had become a kind of sanctuary, a place to talk, a safe zone for bad guys and good guys and in between guys all alike. Slav had come to talk.

“Slav,” said Ron, smiling, arms outstretched, as Slav walked toward the bar.

“How are you, Ron?”

“Good, good. Take a seat,” gesturing at an empty table.

“You want a drink?”

“Why not?” said Slav, unenthusiastic. Ron returned with drinks, unbuttoned his jacket, sat down.

“So, how can I help you?” Slav tossed the coaster onto the table. They watched it spin around a moment, and settle on its back, “Ron’s” side up.

“I found this at Jack Wilshere’s place. He’s missing.” Ron cocked an eyebrow, looked at the coaster.

“It’s one of mine,” he said.

“Yes,” said Slav. “I’m wondering how it got there.”

This wasn’t a question, but Ron avoided it anyway.

“You say he’s missing?”

“That’s what I say.”

“Not for the first time,” said Ron, and laughed a fake little laugh to let Slav know this was a joke.

“How did one of your coasters get to his house?”

“We have a lot of coasters, Slav. And a lot of guests.”

Slav drank, looked at the stage. A three-piece — piano, bass, alto — was fooling around in preparation for the night’s set. As the band noodled its way through a few songs, Ron’s fingers danced on the table, up the side of his glass. Slav didn’t know what he was listening to.

“You like jazz?” said Ron.

“Sure,” said Slav.

“Any favorites?” said Ron.

Slav, looking over Ron’s shoulder at a picture frame on the opposite wall, squinting: “Mile Davis.”

“You mean Miles?”

“Sure.”

“You know what Miles said?”

“What did Miles say?”

“Miles said, ‘you get the right guys to play the right notes at the right time, and you got yourself a motherf—r.’”

Slav didn’t know what this meant, or who Mile(s) was, so he returned to the matter at hand. “Ron,” he said. “I have a missing person and I have your coaster at the crime scene. Seems to me whoever did this must have been a customer.”

“It’s a kidnapping then?”

“That’s one possibility.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Slav.”

“Tell me what you know.”

“About what?”

“Jack ever come here?”

“Maybe once or twice.”

“Recently?”

“No one’s seen that poor bastard since the derby,” said Ron, and a beat later: “ … feel bad for him. Got no hope in that team.”

Slav, looking at the table, nodded to himself. F—ing Granit Xhaka, he thought.

“Was Jack with anyone when you saw him?”

“No one I recognized,” said Ron.

Ron, it was known, was full of s—t, but he liked to talk, and might in his own weird way tell an inquiring detective something useful once in a while. This didn’t seem to Slav to be such a once, but Ron was acting evasive enough for him to conclude he knew more than he was willing to say. The band had stopped playing, and now sat smoking and drinking and talking on the stage.

“Alright, Slav,” said Ron, standing. “I’ve got to get back to work.” He stuck out his hand. Slav shook the hand: “Let me know if you hear anything.”

“Of course,” said Ron, who was full of s—t, and walked away.

Slav went outside. Somewhere along the way, it had got dark again, and he stood in the dark, smoking and thinking, watching the evening’s customers file in, and eventually decided to go back inside to see what he could see. Standing at the bar, Slav surveyed the room, busy now, thinking about what Ron wasn’t telling him. Samantha had called him because she didn’t trust the police. Dyche was solid, in Slav’s experience, but the same could not be said for his superiors, or inferiors, or anyone else he worked with, meaning on second thought maybe Dyche wasn’t so solid.

But what could the police possibly want with Jack Wilshere? Maybe the poor kid was just plain kidnapped. Probably worth a nice ransom, after all. But the crime scene was suspicious, no doubt. Whoever took Jack went out of their way to make sure Slav, or someone else, showed up at Ron’s. And what about the book? Jack liked to read before bed, said Samantha, but no book at the scene. What kind of kidnappers let their victim bring a book with him? What was he doing in that chair, then, if he wasn’t reading? Sleeping, thinking, sitting. Waiting.

And so it went, for maybe an hour and two or three drinks, when Slav noticed sitting front and center his old friends, constable Craig and his colleague from the closet. Slav, who had a bad habit of assuming people were as stupid as they looked, crossed the room.

“Gentlemen,” he said, arriving at their table. They turned to him at the same time. Neither spoke.
Slav, pulling up a chair, sitting down: “You guys like jazz?”

“Oh yes,” said Craig, too quickly.

“Who’s your favorite?”

“Um— ”

“Mile Davis for me,” said Slav. “You know what he said?” The two constables looked at each other.

“He said,” said Slav, “he said, ‘you get the right guys to play the right notes, motherf—er.’”

“What?” said Craig.

“I think it’s Miles,” said the other one.

“You come here often?” said Slav.

“Occasionally,” said Craig.

“Some nasty business about Mr. Wilshere this morning.”

“Hm,” said the other one.

“What happened, do you think?”

“I’m afraid we can’t talk about an ongoi—”

“Humor me,” said Slav. “We’re on the same side.”

“I think—”

“Eddie,” said Craig, meaning, don’t.

Slav started again: “What, might I ask, brings you upstanding gentlemen to an establishment such as this?”

“Like we said,” said Craig. “The music.”

They all three looked at the stage as Craig said this, where they found Ron, bright red, cheeks puffed, head seemingly on the verge of becoming only neck, piano, bass and alto sat with their own heads tilted all to the same side, nodding up and down, listening.

“Ah, yes,” said Slav. “The music.”

Eddie was fidgeting, uncomfortable, thinking something about the scene in front of and around him that could not have been far away from how did I get here?

“You know,” said Slav, looking at Eddie. “I used to be police. Worked with your boss, Sean. We worked this one particular case, this murderer, real grisly stuff. This guy’s calling card was gloves, like goalkeeper gloves, he’d leave them around his victim’s necks. Maybe you heard of him … called him The Grim Keeper. Pretty stupid name, right, but it sold papers, I guess. Anyway.”

As Slav spoke, he noticed Eddie peeking over his shoulder, so Slav peeked too, leaning back in his chair, looking around the room first, playing it cool. There were two big brown doors leading to kitchen, each with a small circular window three-quarters of the way up. Through one of these Slav saw the back of a familiar-looking head, the front of which was engaged in a conversation with someone out of view. Turning back to the table, Slav caught the final act of a conversation Craig and Eddie were trying to have with their eyes.

“!!” said Eddie.

“!!!” said Craig.

“!!!!” said Eddie.

“Excuse me, lads,” said Slav, and left for the kitchen. He could hear Craig and Eddie whispering angrily behind him, could hear them push back their chairs, excuse-me their way through the tables. Slav sped up, eyes on the window to the kitchen. Twenty-five yards to the door. Craig and Eddie were half-skipping, half-running, no longer apologizing. Fifteen yards. The head in the window was gone. Ten yards. Slav ran. Craig and Eddie ran. Five yards. Slav tripped, kept his feet … four … Eddie bumped into a waiter, spun, kept running … three … Ron and the band finished playing, the audience clapped … two … Craig yelled … one … Slav barged through the doors, followed by Eddie. Craig got hit by the door on its way back out, fought his way through, screamed profanity, finally made it to the other side and joined Slav and Eddie looking confused in the direction of their victim.

“Jack?” said Slav.

“Slav,” said Jack. “You’re late.”

Slav’s mouth was open when he felt it, but his body hit the floor before he had a chance to speak.

“Goodnight, Slav,” said Jack.

Home/Premier League

The I’s for investigator: Chapter 2

By Jake Walerius | Dec 14, 2017