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I release the grip on my Saturday Night Special as two globes walked in, so round and perfect Magellan would have dropped to his knees and begged for permission to be the first to circumnavigate them. Their owner stepped through the door a full second later. She was tall, blonde and had enough curves in her possession to make a figure eight turn green with jealousy. She barely wore a black dress. The fabric seemed to be struggling for all its might to cover the beauty queen with its meager surface area. The hem sat just below her belt, while the top plunged down in a tasteful fashion to stop just shy of her belly button. The whole getup was so tight you could count her freckles through the silky fabric.
She paused in the doorway to look at me briefly with her big blue eyes and tried to stop the tremble in her ruby red lips, which had apparently been stung by some damned lucky bee. Then she stepped forward and tripped the light beam I have set up for just such an occasion, and a lonely trumpet sighed out some muted notes from my stereo speakers in response. She paused once again to look for the source of the music, then set forward again with so much sway in her walk I heard a fizzle and smelled smoke as a motion sensor blew a fuse trying to track all the movement in the room. I was vaguely surprised that there was no sax accompaniment. That kind of walk usually carries one.
“I hear you’re the kind of guy that solves problems, Mr. Steel,” she said when the trek from door to desk ended, much too soon for my taste.
I tugged my battered Fedora down another notch to make sure my eyes were properly shaded from the dirty light bulb I keep swinging slowly from my ceiling, and leaned back in my chair. After an appropriate pause I leaned forward again and nodded. “You might say that, doll face,” I said, letting the artificial Plastipaper cigarette surgically implanted on the surface of my lower lip bob as I spoke. “You just might say that. When you spend as much time chasing trouble as I do, you can’t help but learn a thing or two about problem-solving.”
I flicked the brim of my hat with my thumb to lift it up, so she could see me narrow my eyes thoughtfully before I continued. “Seems to me that anyone asking a question like that probably has a reason for asking. Could it be that you have the kind of problem that needs special attention I could provide?”
The leggy hourglass of a prospective client bit her luscious ruby lip with perfect teeth so white I could see the swinging light bulb above slump in shame at the amount of light they reflected, while her pendulous walk carried her over to my 3-Deo screen. She stared at the buzzing neon hologram flickering on the side of the fake building next door, reading “MOTEL, va ancy.” I rumpled my raincoat a little more while her back was turned and turned up the control under my desk to give the room a little more haze. A puff of smoke floated from the ashtray-shaped smoke puffer on my desk while Dollface sighed at the false window. She turned just enough to say, “There’s been a murder.”
I suppose she thought that would shock me, to hear that someone could get bumped off their mortal coil in this day and age of happy citizenry and high-tech safety, but I solve a murder case a week, and that’s during the slow times. She could have told me the world was round for all the shock I felt. I said, “It’ll cost ya two hundred a day, plus expenses. If I feel like taking the case.”
That got her to turn around entirely. She looked at me in surprise with her bedroom eyes, roofed by the kind of eyebrows Michelangelo neglected to paint on the Mona Lisa. “But you haven’t even heard the story yet, Mr. Steel,” she breathed. It was a good thing she had so much room for her lungs; her voice was so breathy she was probably losing a liter of air for every word she spoke.
I smirked and took a long artificial drag on my false cigarette. “I just wanted you to know what you were in for before you got started. If you want cheap, don’t even waste your time forming those plump puckerers into another syllable, because my price tag is as firm as those headlights of yours. If you want good, then sit right down and spill the cat out of its bag of beans. You want cheap, you’re in the wrong place, sister. So go ahead and pick whichever has more appeal to you, the door or the chair.” She didn’t hesitate one second before gliding across my hardwood floor and planting herself into the green Plastivinyl chair opposite my little desk. She seemed to have a little trouble sitting still, probably because her legs were too smooth to offer any sort of friction with the chair to keep her in one place.
“Well, let’s get started, then,” she sighed. Her batting eyelashes were long enough to knock a few papers of my desk with the resultant breeze. She swallowed heavily once before continuing. “It’s my grandfather. He’s been murdered.” I took out my battered notepad and scribbled Grandfather — dead on it. It’s a move that a client usually finds reassuring. Shows I’m paying attention.
About Sean MacKendrick
