Dead X

ONE

The phone jingled from deep within my workbag somewhere in the blackness. I peeled the black tape from my watch face and pushed the tiny button that kicked on the bright, blue-green glow.

8:08 a.m. I’d been on the clock for fourteen hours and eight minutes and awake for a little more than twenty-five. Four thousand feet of film was waiting to be unloaded before I could turn the light on. So, with the sixth sense I had developed while spending years loading film in the black holes of movie studio loading rooms and cramped makeshift mobile darkrooms, I reached up to the shelf I couldn’t see, into the bag I couldn’t see and quickly and precisely located the phone. Cupping my hand around the LED display, I turned the phone on, hoping against hope it was a client.

I hadn’t had a case in 11 weeks.

Domestics make up the bulk of my cases. Woman’s good-for-nothing husband takes up with less-than-noble girlfriend. I spend most of my time following the unscrupulous jerk with my Kodak and my video camera.

Sam Spade I’m not. Never seen a Maltese Falcon. Being a private detective is not glamorous work. Most people think it’s all about the detective part, but it’s really all about the private part. Private secrets. Private meetings. Private problems. Private documents. Private affairs. Private lives. Most people’s private lives aren’t very glamorous, they’re sordid and ugly and sad. Which is why they want to keep them private. That’s where I come in.

Most of them find me, not because I come highly recommended, but because I’m the only female private eye in the phone book. Most of my clients are women who want a sympathetic ear. Someone who will understand their problems. And I do.

I used to work full-time in the film business, now I take a day call once in a while when I hit a dry spell. People think the film business is glamorous too. It isn’t. But that’s another story.