The clock ticked on the wall, the minute hand finally reaching the 12. Ten o'clock, thought Eddie. Quitting time. He got up to pour himself a drink. It was best for a private eye to keep slightly later hours than your average business. Women usually waited at least a while for their cheating husbands to come home before finally making the decision to seek him out. Sure, some came during the day while the scumbags were at work, but you'd be surprised, he thought, how often they'd wait. Besides, he had nowhere else to go, and quitting time merely meant drinking time starting and sending Gladys home.
Right on cue she opened the door to his office. "Still no clients, Eddie. I can't complain about the workload, but if this job doesn't start paying better, you'll be out one assistant."
"Come on, baby," Eddie replied, pouring himself a glass of bottom shelf scotch, "you know you'd never leave me. Where else can a dame find a boss who treats her right?" He had to admit, they'd hit a dry spell lately when it came to clients. He could barely afford the rent on this office, let alone a receptionist's salary. But he had always afforded himself that little luxury.
And what a luxury she was. He glanced over at her again. Her hair was up, but he could tell she was anxious to let it down and take off those glasses. She tried to hide the girl he'd found in a lousy bar with those glasses, just like she tried to hide her hourglass figure in her high-cut blouse, but neither of them worked on his detective's eyes. It didn't hurt that he'd already seen what she was hiding. He wouldn't mind seeing it again, he thought, bringing the glass to his lips.
"Yeah, yeah, you can take off. Looks like another day of nothing doing. Unless of course you wanted to stick around?" he gave her a wink. "Eddie, I've got better places to get drunk and higher class men to get drunk with," she said, turning to leave. It burned a little more than the whiskey in his throat, but he didn't mind watching her leave.
"Yeah, I'm sure you do, doll," he said to her retreating figure. "But I know you'll be back tomorrow."
"We'll see about that, Eddie," she said, turning to wink at him before disappearing out the door. He settled back into his chair and considered his options. Gladys was right, the business needed a client more than a drunk needs just one more drink to get him through the night. Go back to the force? Nah, they'd never have him back after what he'd pulled to get him kicked out in the first place. What else could an ex-cop, ex-soldier, ex-everything do for dough? A shadow across his desk interrupted his thoughts.
"Your door was open, so I assumed you were still seeing clients. I took the liberty," a voice came from his doorway. He looked up with a start to see the silhouette of a tall woman, the lamp from Gladys's desk leaving her face in shadow. He took to his feet to hit the lights.
"Yes, yes, come on in Miss...?" he said, flipping the lights back on, revealing an elegant woman, perhaps ten years his elder but wearing the years well. She wore a wide hat, a long, high-cut black dress, and a fur throw over her shoulders. She carried a purse with her. He took the throw and gestured to the chair in front of his desk.
"Mrs., actually," she said, seating herself, "Mrs. Jeremiah Stevens."
"Ah, I see," said Eddie, hanging her throw on the hatrack. "Jeremiah's a funny name for a woman," he joked, circling back around his desk and seating himself. The woman's lips curled only the slightest in the politest suggestion of a smile. "Yes, rather. It is of course my husband's name, the reverend Jeremiah Stevens. My own name is Prudence."
Her manner was cold, but Eddie noticed something in her gray eyes, a sort of fire. A cold fire, perhaps, he thought. In the light he was better able to make out her appearance. Maybe ten years had been an overestimate. Her hair was a light brown, pulled up in an elaborate fashion. Her dress, while modest in cut, did little to hide her figure. The reverend was blessed, indeed, he thought. Her complexion was white, almost unnaturally so, and her full lips were unadorned with lipstick and pulled tightly into an expressionless line.
"We would like to engage you in a delicate matter. Your reputation for discretion proceeds you," she continued. "Ah, yes," Eddie replied. He couldn't imagine how a reverend had any idea of his reputation. "And what is this...matter?" He fought his urge to suggest anything untoward about the reverend; most of the "delicate matters" that crossed his desk were of that unsavory sort.
"Our daughter, Lilith, seems to have gone missing..." she trailed off. "Gone missing?" Eddie asked, "and you haven't gone to the cops?"
"We..." she hesitated, "don't believe there is any, what I suppose you call 'foul play' involved. To put it simply, she has always been a bit of a disobedient child, and we believe she may have run off with some unsavory friends. It pains me to bring the matter to you, but we have not as yet had any success in tracing her whereabouts. Perhaps you might have avenues available to you that we do not." She pulled a photograph of a girl, perhaps in her twenties, from her purse and passed it to him.
"I see," Eddie said. "Well, I'd be happy to. My rates are $100 a day, plus expenses. As much as I hate to ask that of a man of God." She did not hesitate at the number and he immediately surmised he should have increased his rates. "Money is no object. She is, of course, of much more value to us than any earthly possessions."
"It's settled then. Now, if I could just have you fill out this form," he said, bringing a standard contract out of his desk drawer. Now she hesitated. "To be quite honest," she began, "we would prefer not to...leave a trail? I suppose that is the parlance. We would be happy to pay extra if necessary." She reached into her purse and withdrew an envelope, clearly full of something, placing it on the table and pushing it towards Eddie. He picked it up and pulled from it a stack of bills. Quickly putting the money back in the envelope and secreting the envelope into the desk drawer, he replied, "Yeah, who needs all this paperwork, anyway, right?"
She got up to leave, and he joined her, taking the throw from the hatrack and placing it on her shoulders. Leaning in close he picked up a scent of something. What was it? Floral but, no not quite, but intoxicating in its own way. "Is there anything else you can tell me before you go?" he asked.
"I don't suppose it will be of much assistance, but the last time she disappeared, she came back reeking of alcohol. Perhaps you will find her in one of those awful bars." She slipped out the door, leaving Eddie to consider his luck. No doubt this girl would turn up in one of the local joints and all he would have to do is pick her up and take her back to...
He realized he hadn't even learned their address or any way of contacting them for further payment. He somehow had a feeling that wouldn't be a problem, though.
***
That night Eddie hit the bars. He started downtown, where he figured a preacher's daughter might try her first taste of something high class, showing the photo off to every barkeep along the way and any customers he thought might be receptive. Same story, no dice, everywhere he went. Not that he minded, what with the good reverend Stevens footing the bill for the night.
He made his way to seedier and seedier places, and by the time he'd reached the type of joint where his own face would be familiar, he was already feeling the whiskey having its effect. By this point he was down near the docks; he doubted a preacher's daughter would take up with any of the sorts he knew were partaking here, but he found the dim lighting and cigar smoke eased along his thoughts as well as his appetite for that good, old fashioned rotgut.
"Say," he approached the bartender at the Anchor in facsimile of friendliness, "you wouldn't have a wine list on you, would you?" The burly man behind the bar did not seem to find this as amusing as Eddie did and merely let out a grunt. "Nah, I didn't think so. Scotch, then, on the rocks, and make it the good stuff tonight."
The bartender silently poured the drink, glancing up at Eddie as he did so, briefly, before returning his attention to whatever he was trying to pry from his teeth with his tongue. Eddie surveyed the room. Not much to see here, just the usual assortment of drunks and lowlifes. He turned back to the bartender as the drink slid his way and pulled the photo from the inner pocket of his trench coat. "Any chance you've served this broad lately, my good man?" he asked.
The bartender's eyes narrowed but he said nothing. He turned and walked down the bar, leaving Eddie to wonder where this girl could possibly have gotten herself off to. He picked up his glass and took what one would call a sip if one were trying to be polite. He settled back to thinking, this time about mother Stevens. Maybe his ex was right, he mused, about him having some sort of strange ideas about women. His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a pair of heavy hands around his neck, grabbing at the collar of his coat.
The hands pulled him off his barstool and he momentarily mourned the loss of the remainder of the scotch before realizing he was being dragged across the room. He looked up and noted his assailant was the bartender, who dragged him around the bar to a back room, tossed him inside like a sack of potatoes and slammed the door behind him. He pulled himself together, brushing his hands off and got up to his knees only to be met with the steely gaze of an all-too-familiar dame.
Her hair was blacker than a shoeshine boy's hands after a day's work and her thick full lips stood out in contrast to it like a blood stain on someone's new carpet. Her eyes were the same green as he remembered. "Hiya, Maude," he said, starting to get to his feet, "if you had wanted to see me again so bad, you could have just asked nicely instead of leaving it to that chatterbox bartender of yours."
He was met with a slap to the face. "You're lucky the rookie's on shift tonight. You wouldn't have liked it so much if I had my real veteran staff out there. They know that the garbage goes out the back."
"Ah, Maude, is that any way to treat one of your best customers?" he asked, getting to his feet. "I might just have to find myself a higher class establishment."
"The term customers," she replied, turning and walking back to a big wooden desk a few feet away, "generally implies paying. I think 'boozehound' is probably a more fitting appellation for a fellow such as yourself." She seated herself and removed a cigarette and lighter from a drawer. The desk was illuminated by a small lamp that sat on one of its corners, providing the only light in the small office. "I prefer my customers by definition," she continued, placing the cigarette gingerly between her lips and lighting it, "over deadbeat PIs who can't pay their bar tabs and bother my staff with questions about missing broads."
"That missing broad," he said, coming to the lone chair in front of the desk and seating himself, "is the target of an active investigation, for your information. A well-paying investigation, I might add. So you can can your worries about bar tabs, babe. Ol' Eddie's hit the jackpot with this one." He leaned forward to get a better look at her face, now mostly hidden in the murky darkness.
