The rain-slick mahogany door is lettered in flaking red paint: Starling Hexel, Investigations. It is a reasonably worn-down door at the end of a reasonably worn-down alleyway in a city which has never been new and never will be. The door is rarely locked, but next to it is a brass-handled knocker if you want to be polite. Come on in—it’s just me at the desk, and I don’t bite. Not like the nightmares you meet around here.
***
It was one of those storms which rattles at the window and forces the world to dance to its pounding rhythm. Everything was grey except the flickering store lights and the huddled, hurried shadows passing in front of them. The diners and cafes had their doors thrown open for sodden customers, while in the streets behind them slick coins and damp bills changed between the same hands as always. Down at the docks, the water churned, a rising tide to sweep over the piers and posts and wash their grime away.
My .38 aluminum-bore Scotts & Mare laid dismantled on the desk in front of me, the name ‘Bella’ engraved in blocky script along her grip. My dented flask full of too-strong moonshine stood beside it, cap loosely jammed on. I kept it rationed in nice easy portions. One drink for me, one soak of the rag to polish up Bella’s innards and leave her shining in the light that filtered through the window blinds. It’s a transactional relationship we have: I keep her hale, healthy, and gleaming, and she returns the favor by keeping me alive when I need her to. Not often—I’m a coward, and I try not to get into those sorts of scrapes.
I held up the cylinder between my fingers. Such a small thing, to hold six deaths inside it. Such a small thing, neither good nor evil. Round and round it spins inside the gun, no idea where it’s pointed. “Don’t we all?” I said aloud to no one in particular before I began to slot it back into the frame, careful to avoid any dings or scratches that would mean I’d have to start the whole process over again.
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Then the phone rang. I stared at it for a minute. With my right hand still firmly clasping Bella, I picked up the phone with my left and spoke into it softly. “Hold just a moment, please.”
I laid the receiver down on my notepad before I heard an answer. The gun needed my full attention. With a steady grasp and a lover’s touch I jammed the cylinder back into Bella’s body, then tucked her into my top left desk drawer. Easy enough to reach in a pinch, but not so blatant that it scared the clients away.
“Thanks for waiting,” I told the phone.
“Is this Hexel the detective?” It was a rough voice trying to sound rougher than it was, a voice to scare people into following its orders. I confirmed that I was Hexel the detective. “Do you keep your services confidential, Miss Hexel?”
“What was it you wanted done?”
The voice developed an audible sneer. “If I wanted it confidential I wouldn’t very well tell you on the phone, would I? But I’ve gotta see what my money buys me first.”
“Thirty talents a day, plus expenses. And you could have saved some of that on the phone bill,” I said. “Doesn’t cost a jot to have a knock at my office door, and then we could have had all this conversation over again without the fuss.”
“Not sure I like your tone.”
“Well, you’re not paying for it. Comes free with the territory.”
“Then it goes away for free, too. This won’t be a job you get to run and mouth off all you like. It’s nasty business, and there are nastier people than me involved, people who won’t be so courteous as to drop you a line first. They might not like your tone either.”
I matched his sneer and wondered if he could catch it. “Better try the dens, I hear they have all the lickspittles you need. But you gotta be quick about it—they clear out fast when the storm comes.” I hung up.
It was the right decision. But I needed to keep making right decisions after that. I ought to have turned out the lights, locked my door, closed the shutters, and hid under the desk.