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  AT THE BACK DOOR, MICHIKO PLEADS SOFTLY: COME see me, baby, Michiko fuck your ears off! and hands you a folded piece of paper. You kiss the yellowing “4” on her forehead (up yours, death), pat her picturesque patoot and slip away into the dark hollow night. Foghorn somewhere. A cat’s anguished howl. As if expressing your grief for you. You find a lone streetlamp by which to read the note, but you hear Michiko scream and then running footsteps. Coming your way. You duck down an alleyway, scale the brick wall at the end, jump down into somebody’s back garden on the other side. There’s a lonely woman undressing in a window, silhouetted against a drawn blind. On the other side of that blind lies another story, better maybe than the one you’re in and one you might reasonably pause to explore as a kind of intriguing sidebar, but first, by the light of the window, you read the note Michiko passed you. It says: Urgent. See me at Loui’s. No signature. The handwriting could be Flame’s. On the other hand, you’ve never seen Flame’s handwriting. You play out the story behind the blind in your mind and, as the silhouetted woman lifts her slip over her head, hurry on down the glittering night street toward Loui’s Lounge.

  Loui, or Louis (you’ve never known for sure if Loui was his name or if that was a neon typo, but everyone calls him Loui) is a pal of yours. You helped him duck an assault and battery rap brought against him by his latest ex by uncovering some dirt about her she didn’t want brought out in court. To wit, that she was a klepto and aggressively into shoplifting, if the bigtime moves she made (she could strip out whole stores right under the owners’ noses) could still be called that. You didn’t tell him how you found out, he wouldn’t have liked that part. The mob likes to eat here and for some obscure reason, maybe just happy bellies, they have taken Loui into their confidence, with the consequence that he is, indirectly, a source of useful dope about them. He knows if he gives anything away he will be executed in a cruel manner and buried in concrete at the bottom of the sea, and in his anxiety not to reveal what he knows he invents elaborate disinformation of his own, which with patience can usually be decoded. His lounge is an upscale joint with underdressed hatcheck girls, aged whiskeys, live torchers who mix with the clientele, slots in the back room, and prime rib on the menu. The cocktail napkins use the motif of a drunk in a tux, leaning against a lamp post, and the clock over the bar repeats it, the drunk’s arms as the clock’s hands. Happy hour starts at 5:45 when the minute hand rises to a full erection.

  You chase off the wimp who’s sitting on your customary stool at the bar and order up a double on the rocks, ice being potable in this hole. Joe the bartender, wearing a poker face, greets you as he would a stranger, which probably means that something’s up. Flame is in the middle of a song about a brutal lover called the Hammer (there are rhymes like wham her, jam her, slam her, and goddamn her), who can be lethal (. . . I know you think you’re the big cheese, but, baby, don’t kill me, please, she sings), and you expect her to drop over after her number, but before that a big-fisted suit sits down on the stool beside you and offers to buy you a drink and you realize things are not as you thought. I’ve got one, you say. Have another, he says and signals the bartender. Beware of geeks bearing gifts, you say, and pull your glass back. Suit yourself, he says with a shrug and taps his own glass for a refill. Just trying to have a friendly conversation, mac. What about? You’re looking for a body, he says. Yeah? Stop looking. The Hammer is ramming: It’s just a little trick, Flame sings, but it’s got a mean kick. . . . You can see that the suit has a gat pointed at you from his jacket pocket. You’d be dead before you reached your own. You set your glass back on the bar and shrug at Joe. If you insist, you say dryly.

  Before Joe can pour, the song ends and Flame comes over and interposes herself between the two of you. Move your ass, buster. I want to converse with my lover here. Joe is also coldly staring him down. The suit scowls but takes his hand out of his pocket and slips back into the shadows. Flame kisses you, running her tongue along your teeth as if checking to see if the ones that remain are all still there, then nibbles at your ear, pressing up between your legs. Looks like you’re staying here tonight, lover, she whispers. Her wild-animal aroma is dizzying. Who does that bozo work for? you ask, stroking Flame’s silky backside. You know, she says. Over her shoulder you can see Loui’s bouncers disarm the suit and toss him. Why did you come here tonight, Phil? After what happened to Fingers, you must’ve known there’d be trouble. They know you were at the Shed last night. I got a note, sweetheart. I thought it was from you. If I want you here, baby, I don’t have to write a note. I just send out vibes. This is true. You often turn up here on what you call intuition and find her waiting for you, her desire like a magnet. Not for nothing does she call her lovers moths.

  YOU MET FLAME THE NIGHT THE RICH WIDOW FIRST BANKrolled you and you went out to celebrate, figuring on oysters and prime rib at Loui’s. Maybe pick up a lead or two, as often happens, like a side dish on the menu. Rats had filled you in on the basics of the case down by the docks, and laid some class blow on you to boot, so when you arrived your mood was definitely upbeat. You greeted Joe and Loui effusively like long lost brothers (if you have any brothers, they are certainly long lost), tucked some bills in the cleavages of the hatcheck girls, and bought drinks for everybody. Including yourself. But then you set yours down and forgot where and had to buy another and made it another round. You were having a good time. All the while you were watching Loui’s new redheaded torch singer, aglow under the spotlight like a hallucination. A smoky voice and the sort of body that cracks mirrors. Last time you saw a body like that was in a wet dream when you were still in knee pants, and because you didn’t know what to do, it was more like a nightmare. Now you knew what to do. As you were, being momentarily flush, a big spender on the night, she was naturally watching you, too. She was singing a song asking longingly for an old lover named Charlie who was always good to her: you flashed your stash at her to lure her over after her set. Loui, standing at the bar with you, introduced you to each other (Philip is a private dick, Flame, he told her, hard but doting . . .), and then, after Flame leaned down and kissed his bald pate, waddled off table-hopping, greeting his customers. What’s your real name, sweetheart, you asked her, ever the tireless investigator.

  Well, the one before Flame was Fannie, if that’s what you mean, but using it was just an invitation to pinch it. Men can’t seem to stop themselves, she said, wincing (you couldn’t stop yourself). She parted the satiny curtains of her long split skirt and peeled her silken undies down off one hip to show you the bruises. Kiss them, honey, to make them well, she said and you did.

  She asked you where all the lucre came from and you told her about the rich widow and related the story she told you.

  Not many jobs in town for drum majorettes, she said. She probably had to work the streets. So she meets this rich john . . .

  In short, Flame was soon burning holes in the widow’s story. You showed her the note she’d given you. Flame whistled softly. Looks like your last night as a nobody, Phil. Let’s go to my room and have a group snuggle, you, me, and Charlie.

  I was planning on dinner.

  Have Loui bring it to you. Get the Big Guy Special, we can share it. Come on. Once those yobs know what you’re up to, we may never get another chance. A chilling thought. Shriveled you right up. Fortunately Flame was able to do something about that with her little deicer.

  YOUR SECRETARY BLANCHE ALSO HAD HER DOUBTS ABOUT the widow’s story when you told it to her the next morning. Blanche is a born skeptic. She can never just accept the world at face value. Which is admittedly somewhat less than nada, a bad investment. And Blanche always starts with the money: Did she pay you anything?

  A little.

  By the looks of you this morning, Mr. Noir, it was more than enough.

  Well, I think she liked me.

  Don’t be naïve, she said, giving you a scolding look over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses. It was a business transaction. She expects to get all that back and more. />
  Maybe the dame just wanted to save her ass, Blanche, pardon the French. She said she was afraid she might be knocked off and asked me to tail a guy.

  Who? You showed her the slip of paper with Mister Big’s name on it. Oh oh. What does this gentleman have to do with it?

  He was her dead husband’s business partner.

  So they are both going after the same money. That’s why she’s afraid. Or he is. Must be something wrong about the insurance policy. A no-suicide clause or something. Or else the will. Was there a will?

  She didn’t say.

  You didn’t ask. Blanche sighed impatiently, tapping her pencil against her teeth. I’ll call my friend at the Registry, see what I can find out.

  Thanks. What would I do without you, kid?

  She seemed to melt momentarily, then quickly turned brisk again, jotting down some notes. You can’t type and have no head for numbers and only insult people when they call on the blower, so you rely utterly on Blanche, her irritating superciliousness the price you pay. A no-nonsense blonde, not much fun, but she can count and sort and sponge up the daily trivia. Empty the wastebaskets. She does not always come in to the office, you never know when to expect her, but you can’t pay her anything except compliments, so you can’t complain.

  Whose money was this in the first place? she asked, studying her notes.

  You mean, the husband’s?

  I mean, whose really? My guess is it belonged to the dying wife. What did she die of?

  I didn’t ask about that either. Do you think it’s important?

  Think, Mr. Noir, think. You said your client’s father was a pharmacist.

  Right. And taught Sunday school.

  And the wife, you said, died a lingering death. A man wants to get rid of a wealthy wife in a discreet manner and meets a woman with access to pharmaceuticals.

  Hmm. But she and her father aren’t speaking. He threw her out of the house.

  She said. For exposing herself in a lewd manner in the town park. Not long after Sunday School.

  Yes. He was outraged.

  Or jealous.

  Oh my God, Blanche. You have a really evil imagination.

  Just a practical one, Mr. Noir. You could use a bit of the same. It might help you to stop associating with wicked and dangerous persons. Whatever made you take up this case?

  Well, she has nice legs.

  Legs are legs, Mr. Noir. There are more of them than there are people.

  Sure, but—

  And a bullet in the brain is a bullet in the brain. As her husband could tell you, were it not too late.

  WHILE BLANCHE CHASED DOWN THE WILL AND INSURance policy, you stretched out on the office sofa to think things out. You seemed to be following clues that led nowhere. Which became the pursuit of a criminal with five legs, only three of them human. When you woke up it was dark and you didn’t know where you were. The blinking neon light outside the window, however, was a useful hint. It had a short and made a stuttery buzzing sound like bugs hitting an electric screen. Electrocution. Pest control. Once you woke up in an electrocution chamber. This was a different case. A member of the mob who was electrocuted for murder later turned up on the streets. About that same time, the warden left for Brazil. The hood killed some people but they said he couldn’t be prosecuted because he was already dead. A double? Or funny business at the death house? A rival mobster hired you to find out. You snuck in to check the circuits. Hit the wrong wire.

  So, alone in your darkened office, that’s where you were. Where you feel most at home. You have a bedsit somewhere, but mostly you eat and sleep here when you’re not being entertained by some dame. It’s a place where you can pick your nose, scratch your itches, fart your farts. Which, on the occasion, stretched out there in the dark after a daylong nap, you did. You lifted your butt off the cushions and let fly. That’s better, you said aloud.

  I’m sure it is.

  You were not alone. There was someone sitting in the shadows. Your client, the generous widow. You didn’t know whether to apologize, let another, or change the subject. Tell me about your father, you said.

  Well, that’s what I came to talk about, Mr. Noir. There was something I didn’t tell you. Although my father was a loving father who doted on my mother, my brother, and me, he could be hard on us when we misbehaved. Like many in our little town, he had a rather pure Biblical notion of obedience, which was sometimes difficult for us to live up to. I was his favorite and fared better than my brother who was, I must say, quite terrified of him. And as we were obliged to witness each other’s punishment as a kind of deterrent, I quite understood his terror and, on his behalf, shared it. But after you received your due and thanked him for it, he was always forgiving and hugged you tenderly to his bosom and gave you candy from the drugstore, making you promise not to disappoint him again. But of course we always did. In the town park, they sold popcorn and cotton candy on Sundays; he often took us there, it was so nice. And one day, when I was a little girl, walking past the wooden bandstand with him, I saw a thin pale rubbery thing like a dead worm. Or, rather, what appeared to be the empty skin of a worm like the skins molted by snakes. I let go his hand and reached down and picked it up, and my father slapped it fiercely out of my hands and smacked the side of my head so hard I flew against the side of the bandstand. When the tears flowed, he cuddled me and apologized and promised to show me a clean one and what they were really for. And it turned out they were in fact a little as I had imagined.

  Aha. I have it, you said. When he threw you out, it was not out of righteous anger. He was jealous. Your father was your first lover.

  Of course not! You have an evil imagination, Mr. Noir!

  Not really. I just borrowed it.

  You sat up and yawned and tapped out a fag. And your brother?

  But she was gone. You worried you’d just lost another client. But there was another roll of bills on your desk, with the note: Are you protecting me, Mr. Noir?

  YOU WERE NOT. IT WAS TIME TO FACE UP TO MISTER BIG. But if you found him, tailed him, uncovered a plot, what? No way to reach the widow, you’d failed to ask for an address or phone number. Your notorious impatience with details. It’s why you need Blanche. Rats had told you her name, you’d paid him for it, but you had forgotten it. All you could remember was the butt ground under Rats’ three-inch heel and Flame’s deicer. That kind of night.

  You phoned your pal Snark, your inside feed in Blue’s unit, and asked him to meet you at the Star Diner. The Diner doesn’t have a liquor license, but for those in the know, they keep whiskey in the milk dispenser. Snark is a heavy drinker and usually after five or six mugfuls he starts opening up. The trick is to keep up with him. Waiting for him, you ordered up a bowl of chili, a fresh doughnut, and a mug of black coffee. If pressed, you’d have to admit you prefer the cooking in here to the fancy spread at Loui’s. You’d just got paid. You could have two doughnuts. One of them jelly-filled. Another of Snark’s soft spots, you could share it with him. He likes to dip them in his whiskey. You also ordered up several glasses of ice water and put them down as fortification for the night ahead.