"She Had Long, Tan Legs that I Wanted Desperately to Climb, like a Little Native Boy Harvesting Coconuts

Before I could even locate my cocktail shaker, a dark-haired woman in a yellow cotton sundress burst into my office. “I’m looking for Kurt Fitzroy,” she said. The door banged shut behind her. I took in the entire tableau in one bleary-eyed but professional glance. She was showing a lot of arm — I liked that. I’d always been an arm man. “My husband is missing,” she said. “And I want you to find him. ”

I was shocked to hear my name in a woman’s mouth. Nobody had visited my office in months, and I’d become a little depressed and maudlin. Maybe it was the all-booze-and-salami-sandwiches diet, but I was not proud of the way I’d been acting lately: hitting Karoake Night at airport bars; crashing company picnics for the free potato salad; visiting cyber chat rooms and posing as a much younger man with a mint Harley-Davidson. Hell, the life of a private dick could be lonely at times. The solitude took its toll on a gregarious guy like me.

“Lady, you don’t want to hire me,” I told her. “I’m dead inside.”

. . . “I’ll pay you five thousand dollars to find my husband,” the client said.

On the other hand, wasn’t it time to get back in the game? To stop feeling so damned sorry for myself?

“Five oven fresh cookies, eh?” I said knowingly. . . . “So what’re we talking about exactly? . . . Murder? Rape? Adultery?”

She dug around in her shoulder bag and produced a stack of dusty books. Hardcovers. I scanned the spines as she handed them over. Selected Poetry of Lord Byron. Sentimental Education by Gordie Flaubert.

It was getting ugly.

I've always loved the prose of noir fiction.