Put The Sepia On by Nick Feldman Page B

that.”
    “He’d… he’d been talking to the Dogs.” My least favorite word in the whole world lingered in my office, and spat in my ear.
    “Dogs?”
    “Yes.”
    “Any idea why?” She shakes her head. The lie isn’t in the way she shakes it so much as in the way she stops. It’s a guilty stop, sudden and doubtful, like the first time your momma caught you with the girl next door. She’d get better with practice.
    “Any idea why?” She looks at me now, surprised, wondering how I knew she was lying. She says nothing, but gives me a half-c onvincing annoyed shrug. I sigh, and lean back in my crappy chair. It creaks a little.
    “Any idea why?” I ask for a third time. She tries the shrug again, and even she doesn’t believe it this time.
    “I don’t know?” I should not take this case. I should not take this case. I should not take this case.
    “I’ll take the case.” Write this on my fucking tombstone:
     
    “Here lies Mr. Detective,
    He’d have lived a longer, happier life,
    If instead of sexy, lying clients,
    He’d have just settled down with a fat and pleasant wife.”
     
    After taking a moment to digest my own stupidity, I ask the only question left to ask that matters.
    “Any idea where I should start?” I know the answer before she gives it to me, but it still ticks me off.
    “The Dogs.” In the interests of theatricality, I check the ammo in my big, obvious gun. I already know my small, useful one is loaded.
    “Ok. Let’s see the money.”
    “How much?”
    “Everything you’ve got, and enough besides to cover medical.” She produces enough. Barely.
    “Do I get it back if you don’t find him?” I pocket the money, and pull on my coat.
    “You get it back if I can’t find any pieces of him.” I start for the door, because when the Dogs are involved, even the pieces have a bad habit of disappearing around dinnertime. I’m halfway out of my office, and I hear her sob. I’m supposed to say something here. Everything that comes to mind is true, and mean.
    “The pain you’ve gotten used to will keep you from regret,” I manage, without much conviction. It does the trick, and she stops sobbing. She smiles at me for the first time, and I almost give the money back, because the odds say that when this story ends that smile will be harder to find than her almost certainly dead brother. But I keep it, because the money will still be good enough for whiskey.
    “What was that?” she asks, comforted or damn good at playing it that way.
    “Something my grandmother used to say.” I’m not lying, I just neglect to mention how senile she was when she said it, or how little I liked my grandmother. I grab my hat off the rack, nod to the client that’s likely to get me kil led, and walk out the door.
    No point asking for her address; if I make it back alive, she’ll come around to see what her money bought her. If she’s real lucky, it might be as much as a finger. If I’m real lucky, I’ll be there to show it to her.

Chapter 2: But The Dead Are Happier Dead
    I hit the streets like they owe me money. Maybe they do; I’ve certainly put in some hours keepin’ em clean. In the same way that a single toilet’s flush keeps a sewer clean.
    It’s raining, because of course it’s raining. Streets get slick when it rains, giving me one more way to slip up. I think this one puts me in the triple digits, easy. But I took the job, and I know a couple things. I know a few places to ask, and ways to phrase the question. Just might make my knuckles sore if I have to ask too many times.
    First place I stop is the smart place to stop; one of the only bars that really sees Dogs in with the drunks. Mostly the Dogs keep to their own places, with higher ceilings and higher proofs, but every now and then they wander out to one of these places to make shady deals with people who can get things they can’t, or maybe just to appreciate some women who don’t stand eight feet tall. In fact, the women in