I leaned back in my rickety leather chair. It had been a long day...long week...long life. The days are always long in the private eye business. Long with boredom, long with the dregs of humanity. Long with seeing how low people can stoop to scratch out a petty gain.
I poured two fingers of my only luxury. Scotch from the western coast...harsh, bitter, salty because they use sea water in the distilling. Just like me.
I lit a cigarette and took another drink. My office was as cliché as the booze. Spartan, dreary. Through the window behind me a neon sign dropped "Eat at" then "J-O-E-s" with a final arrow running top to bottom pointing below my third story window. The neon came in through partially drawn shutters, leaving a striped pattern of light on the opposite wall. I watched the light-show as it appeared, then repeated over and over.
It's a metaphor for life...I took another drag from my cigarette.
Coat rack, wooden filing cabinet, an old leather sofa that was my home away from home and two chairs opposite the battered wooden desk. Two legs on that desk had been broken and patched...one in a fight, one from being put to a use the maker never intended. If you don't get it wait around a bit...I'm certain it'll become clear.
I took another drink.
The only real oddball in the room was a small picture opposite the desk. It was not much bigger than a postcard, but framed and bolted to the wall. A tropical bay with sand and palm trees. A leftover from the last occupant. The blue sky and blue water faded to indistinguishable white, and the palm tree looked old and tired. The glass is cracked where I'd bashed it with a chair once after trying to tear it down with my bare hands. Maggie's the only reason it's still there.
I guess there's another metaphor for you...I stared at the tumbler and the smoke, not remembering whose turn it was. Even clichés forget sometimes.
A shadow moved across the door. Maggie stuck her head in.
"A client to see you. Her name is Angie. She doesn't have an appointment."
Of course she doesn't. Nobody makes appointments to see me. Nobody ever knows that they are going to end up at my door. By the time you need me, you're beyond appointments and courtesies. 'She doesn't have an appointment' meant the client had been crying. 'She's without an appointment' meant something else. It was code...Maggie and I'd worked it out.
"Bring her in." I got up and drew the shades, then pulled the chain on my desklamp and leaned back in my chair. Put my hands behind my head and adopted a casual-but-competent aire. I'm all about atmosphere.
She stepped in and stopped a moment, comparing our clichés. Me in a wrinkled shirt loosened tie and 5 o'clock shadow. Her dressed to the nines as the Femme Fatale. High heels, black stockings on legs that went all the way up. Black skirt, white silk blouse unbuttoned down to there. She looked damn good.
She walked in quickly and sat down before I was more then half way up. "Have a seat" I said belatedly.
She started blubbering immediately, launching straight into her story. Between breathy statements she dabbed her eyes and moved her gaze all around the room, stopping to meet my eyes only in passing.
I didn't listen to a word. I took a deep drag on my smoke, belatedly realizing that I should have taken a drink...damn.
She wasn't as society as she was putting on. Her perfume was a cheap knockoff, so were her shoes. The hem of her skirt was worn enough that no woman who had a choice would be caught dead in it, and two buttons on her blouse had been sewn back on with different weight thread.
She spun her tail of a kidnapped brother. A ransom demand...can't involve the cops. It was all so much fairy dust and moonbeams. Clients never tell the truth.
Never.
"Would you like a drink?" I offered, pretending some sympathy while running the angles through my head. I needed some more information.
"If it's no trouble...please?"
I fetched another glass out of the desk. That left only three other things kept in those drawers. A pencil, a book of matches and my pistol. The pencil was a gift, the matches were useful and the gun...well, let's just say it's a friend.
"Work like this is likely to get nasty. That means expensive."
"I don't have much...only $50." She produces said 50 from her purse. It was a lot of dough, and people who 'don't have much' produce two tens, four fives and ten singles...or maybe nine and some change. Dropping a Grant on the table is fishy.
See how easy it is to see through people who think they're being clever?
I walked over to the door and told Maggie to 'hold my calls'. "Are you sure?" she replied, barely hiding the disappointment in her voice. It was code too, nobody ever called.
I walked back and parted the horizontal wooden slats to see the street outside. There was a thug across the street who stared too pointedly at my window and turned away too fast when I looked out. He'd have done better to pretend he was looking at the Joe's sign and cross to the diner. Amateur.
"Are you aware you're being followed?" I asked as I opened first the shade, then the window a third of the way. The neon sign made a buzz that altered pitch as each new light joined in. Maggie would be well on her way out by now.
She paused before answering, but had composed herself by the time I'd turned around.
"No...I'd never dreamed..." and then oddly disconnected "...don't you own a gun? I thought men like you...". She let the sentence trail off, momentarily embarrassed. My heart thumped and my groin tightened...she did embarrassed well.
Still driving for facts, I played up the thug. "This is serious miss, if you're being followed, then I'm going to need a lot more than $50." If my guess was right, I'd get a lot more.
"Please, I'm desperate. I don't have any more." She turned on the water works again.
I took a deep drag on the cigarette...right on schedule.
"I'm sorry miss, I can't help you. Maybe Sig Cooper over on 15th and Jackson?" I rose, and stepped around the desk as if to escort her out the door.
"Wait" she said in a quiet voice. She slowly stood and for the first time caught and held my gaze. She leaned in and whispered "there has to be something..."
Damn, I hate being right, but it does have its advantages. They say if you're going to hell, you may as well commit the sin. I figured it might come to this...that's why I'd asked Maggie to leave. She's got delicate sensibilities.
I grabbed the $50 off the desk and stared right back. "You can let me take those curves of yours for a spin." She didn't bat an eye. We in the business call that a clue.
Her mouth said "I can't do that" but here eyes were gleeful, as if to shout "Gotcha!". We harangued a bit more to preserve the image of her coquettishness, then we got started.
She was quick, efficient and a damn good actress. She kept her noises ardent, but relatively quiet. Had it been for real I might have been convinced, but from the moment I took the cash this was A Case and while she might be the pro at sex, I'm the pro at detecting.
She meant me to believe that I'd seen the depths of her desperation in a frame of demi-cut brassiere, silk stocking and smeared lipstick. She'd shown me the act and I'd played along. I'd have taken a drink, if my scotch was near.
As she was nuzzling up to me and cooing in her 'afterglow' I lifted her to standing and got up myself. I turned her around and held both her arms behind her in one of mine. With the other I leaned her forward onto my desk. She started struggling, but by the time she thought to resist I'd taken her leverage away. I answered her "what are you doing?" by sliding back into her from behind.
Her willingness vanished. This was no longer on her terms. She struggled and cursed and fought and I'm embarrassed to say the bastard in me enjoyed it.
About halfway through, the oft-repaired desk legs broke...again. The far side of the desk was now four inches lower than this side. It always breaks about halfway through. The desk lamp shattered plunging the room into the surreal neon semi-light. The phone clattered to the floor with the glass shattering right after. What a waste of good scotch.
With her body leaning that much more forward, I was able to take her deeply. Her curses never stopped but she rose up onto her toes and changed the angle even more. Before we were done she was orgasming for real and not quietly.
At least I knew her Truth. I'd tell you now but it would spoil the surprise.
Heavy breathing and the buzzing of the neon were the only sounds for a full minute. Then I stood straight and helped her up. She straightened her skirt as I put myself away.
"The exchange of the ransom for your brother's return is 8pm tomorrow?"
"Yes"
"And the address..."
"17 Walker Street, apartment 302. In the West End."
"Call me here at 7. I'll come pick you up. Here's my card, call my service if you need to reach me before then."
"OK." Then belatedly "Thanks for helping me." But her tone held no real gratitude...She was worried she'd gotten more than she asked for.
She was right. I showed her out the door then picked up Maggie's extension to place a call to an old cop buddy of mine who works the Vice Squad in the West End. He gave me a straight answer to a straight question about one Angie Evergold and it was all over. Cue the fat lady.
The smoke and the scotch were both casualties of the desk. On the more interesting cases, this is where I would finish both of them. Instead, I grabbed my coat and hat and headed downstairs.
I stuck my head into the diner long enough to let Joe know the desk upstairs needed repair again. He gave me a nod and a knowing smile.
I stepped out onto 8th Street and started toward my apartment. Not surprisingly, the thug across the street followed. He had his hands stuffed in his pockets and walked with the quick, stiff steps of an angry man. I suppose I would too if I were him.
I didn't like him following me. It doesn't pay to encourage that kind of behavior, even if there wasn't a chance in the world he could change how things unfolded. I turned down the next alleyway and ducked behind a dumpster.
He wasn't a complete dummy. He peeked around the corner first, then reached into his coat to pull out a revolver before making his way. He was careful, but there were just too many places to hide in the darkness and I'd picked a spot directly opposite an empty doorway. As he gave the gaping black hole its proper respect, he turned his back to me for a moment too long.
