Watching the detectives

The dame walked into my office at eleven-forty-three, which was three minutes later than trouble usually arrived and about ten simoleons cheaper.

She wore a little black Audrey Hepburn-style Givenchy model that had never met a moth it couldn’t seduce, paired with long satin opera gloves, a many-stranded pearl choker, a wide-brimmed black hat and a foot-long cigarette holder.

Holly Golightly in the flesh.

She closed the door behind her and stood there like she owned the darkness. Because she did. The rain had lacquered the city outside, turning every streetlamp into a dirty yellow halo.

“My sister’s missing,” she said.

“People go missing every day.”

“My sister isn’t a person who goes missing.”

Golightly had red dogs under illegal legs longer than a moon shot, so I feigned attention in her story as she sat down on the cane settee, crossed her ankles, and stared back. I wasn’t feigning any more. An American geisha in scrapable stockings. Looked so good I was ready to get down and beg.

She placed a photograph on my desk. Blonde kid in a purple gown. Twenty, maybe twenty-one. Big eyes. The kind of face that makes lonely men believe in redemption and married men consider divorce.

“She looks just like you, save for the strands of albino-blonde and yellow.”

“Not bad, detective. She’s just drawn that way.”

“Cops say she ran away.”

“Cops say a lot of things.”

“Then who took her?”

“If I knew that, Marlowe, I wouldn’t need you,” she purred. “But just so you know. Things could get a little … hot and sticky.”

“Hot and sticky is my business,” I growled, standing up so our shadows tangled on the frosted glass of the door. “But you, sister, you’re a five-alarm fire in a matchstick factory.”

“Then lock the doors,” she breathed, her lips parting slightly. “And let it burn.”

“The door doesn’t lock,” I admitted, ruining the moment. “The landlord took the handle last week for back rent. But if you want to look at some mugshots, I’ve got a really nice collection.”

She smiled, a slow, wicked curve. “I’d rather look at the mug right in front of me. Ooh, he’s so cute.”

Was that a fedora in my trench coat or was I just happy to bill her? It was going to be a long, bumpy night, and I had a feeling my expense report was about to get very complicated.

Truth was, we were both a couple of no-name slobs. We belonged to nobody and nobody belonged to us. I charged her for the answer and another twenty for the attitude. That was how I got into the case.

By midnight I was watching a nightclub called Tiffany’s (formerly Wanda’s) on de Maisonneuve, where the the door had been open since Prohibition and a neon sign buzzed like a migraine. The floor was crowded with dames who looked cellophane shrink-wrapped and men who looked like they had been raised by denture commercials with gambling debts.

Cut to baby on the dance stage, taking off her clothes. Golightly had told me that Tiffany’s was the only place that calmed her sister when she was feeling anxious or overwhelmed. Told me the breakfast specials were to die for. Turned out she meant that literally.

I found the missing girl’s photograph in the bartender’s pocket. He found my fist in his stomach.

“Who?”

He coughed. “Detectives.”

“Which detectives?”

He looked toward the back room.

“The kind that don’t put their names on no reports.”

I followed his eyes. Three cops were sitting beneath a cloud of cigarette smoke, watching the room. Watching everybody. Watching me. One of them raised a glass. I raised mine. Neither of us drank.

To surveil, with love.

The first punch came from behind. The second introduced me to the floor. By the time the third arrived, I was thinking about retirement in Palookaville. Then I remembered I was broke. That cured me.

Had to move fast. If I did anything cute, they just might shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. Thing is, I can’t be wounded when I got no heart.

Woke up in an alley, with rain running through my collar. My ribs felt like they’d been used to tenderize steak. Across the street, Golightly was sitting in a parked car, filing her nails. Watching the detectives. Watching me crawl out of the alley.

I crossed the street. She pulled the eyes out of my face like a magnet. Invisible shivers ran down my spine.

“You knew they’d be waiting for me.”

“I suspected.”

“You could have warned me.”

“I thought you’d enjoy the surprise.”

I looked at her. She looked back. There are women who enter a room and change the temperature. This dish could have frozen gasoline. Her perfume was unspeakable — it lingered in the air like her artificial laughter, her mementos of affairs. I was starting to wonder how much more of this I could take.

“Where’s your sister, sister?”

“Dead, perhaps.”

“You seem awfully calm about it.”

“I’ve had practice.”

That was when I knew I was in trouble. Not the ordinary kind. Not the kind with fists and guns and unpaid bills. The kind where the truth is standing three feet away, in a cloud of unspeakable perfume. You think you’re alone until you realize you’re in it. Fear is here to stay; love is just here for a visit.

When we got to the river, the cops were already there. Two floodlights were sweeping over the black water while some uniforms dragged a weighted net through the reeds. Somebody found a shoe. Nobody found the girl.

Golightly leaned against the car and lit a cigarette. She’d switched to a purple gown. The same one her sister was wearing in the photo she’d shown me. She’d also gone blonde.

“You’re taking this pretty well.”

“I’m trying not to ruin my manicure.”

“People are looking for a body.”

“People always look for bodies after they’ve decided what happened.”

One of the detectives approached. He had a face like an old brick wall and eyes that had never seen a law they couldn’t afford to bend. His shoes, however, looked bi-curious.

“Your client?” he asked.

“She doesn’t have one.”

“Then you’re trespassing.”

“Funny. I thought that was your department.”

His hand drifted toward his coat. Mine drifted toward mine. We stood there listening to the river. They call it instant justice when it’s past the legal limit.

“Go home, Marlowe.”

“Where’s the girl, O’Callahan?”

His smile disappeared. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“That’s the advantage of being clueless.”

O’Callahan leaned closer. He stunk like Axe body spray on a brick of Camembert. An active, slightly funky aroma from the active white mould on his face.

“She was last seen with you.”

That stopped me.

“I've never had the pleasure.”

He tapped the photograph in my pocket.

“Sure you haven’t.”

He walked away. Golightly was gone. So was my car. I stood beside the river and listened to the city breathe with the torpor of a dying possum.

Fear is a permanent tenant in this town. Love comes by occasionally, stays too long and leaves the door unlocked. It had only taken her little fingers to blow me away.

Went back to my office. The window was open. Someone had left a file on my desk. Inside was another photo of the missing girl.

Underneath it was a newspaper clipping from six months earlier. The girl wasn’t missing. She’d been dead since spring. Unsolved murder. Distraught parents. No mention of a sister. And according to the time stamp, the photograph had been taken three days ago.

I sat down. For the first time that night, I was scared. Not because somebody wanted me dead. That happens in my line of work. I was scared because somebody wanted me to believe the dead were still walking. And maybe they were.

The phone rang. I answered. A woman’s voice: “Marlowe?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been watching the wrong detectives.”

“Don’t get cute.”

“And now they’re watching you.”

The line went dead. I traced the call to a phone booth in Rio. Outside, a patrol car rolled slowly past my window. Then another. Then another. They weren’t looking for anyone. They knew where I was.

I reached for my gun. The lights went out. Someone or something was scratching at the windows.

I figured it was her cat. She never bothered to name it. Said you mustn’t give your heart to a wild thing. The more you do, the stronger they get, until they’re strong enough to run into the woods or fly into a tree.

I get so angry when the teardrops start. But you can’t get wounded when you got no heart.