Noir

Well, I could use a good brandy, but—

There’s a bottle on the table beside you, Mr. Noir. I took the precaution. .

Beautiful. You’re an angel, angel.

She blushed, took her glasses off for a moment, put them on again. I try to do my best, Mr. Noir. Now get some rest and take care of yourself. You shouldn’t be disturbed. The phone is disconnected and I’ll doublelock the door.

Thanks, kid. And hit the lightswitch when you go.

A FEW BRANDIES LATER, YOU WERE STILL ON YOUR BACK, but back on the case again, thinking about your client, her story. On the one hand, she seemed to have been a ruthless schemer who twisted men and truths around her little finger like taffy, and on the other, a sweet kid from a nice town with a weakness for older guys. You, for instance. Not Blanche’s view, but then Blanche trusted no one. Made her a useful assistant in a detective agency but blinded her to life’s tenderer side. That night, lying there in pain and darkness (this is a tough life), the cough medicine just beginning to take a numbing grip, was when you first started thinking about the way the widow might have been using her old-guys stories as a way of coming on to you. I was strangely flattered by the heartrending ardor of his gaze when he looked at me, she said of her grandfather, or else her father. While gazing steadily at you through her veil (you supposed), her thighs whispering. I felt an eager affection coming from him, melting my resolve. My heart jolted and my pulse pounded. I knew it wasn’t right, but I was powerless to resist. It was the most important experience of my life, Mr. Noir. But not always older guys. There was that football player in her home town, her first sweetheart, the stud she romped with on the village bandstand. You once asked her whatever happened to him. It is unkind of you, Mr. Noir, to keep bringing up embarrassing moments from the past, she said. If you continue, I will have to be less candid with you. But if you must know, my father had a man-to-man talk with him over a new drink he had concocted in his laboratory. My father was always a great experimenter. Perhaps my sweetheart overindulged. He awoke several hours later less a man than he was before.

When was it she told you this? In the Shed? Here in the office? Maybe the night she picked you up on the street when you were in trouble. You’d just come out of the Vendome after meeting with that guy in the goatee who wanted to buy the toy soldiers, Marle, one of Mister Big’s lieutenants, you’d assumed, and had started down the mostly empty street. You’d paused to light up, and noticed there was a little cluster of men huddled in the shadows just beyond the next streetlamp. Others, you sensed, were gathering behind you. You touched your rod, looking around for some place to throw yourself if the bullets started to fly, when a limousine screeched up to the curb. The back door flew open: it was the widow. Get in, Mr. Noir. Quickly. You needed no second invitation. Bullets were zinging off the limo’s roof even as you sped away. What was that all about? she asked as though somewhat exasperated. I think I’m on to something, you said. You couldn’t help but notice that her black skirt had hiked up a bit when she leaned over to open the door, revealing a tiny patch of pale flesh just above the gartered black stocking. Since she didn’t pull the skirt back down you thought tonight might be the night. The driver was a hulk who didn’t talk, though there was something stiff-necked about him that suggested an inner rage, or else a humorless stupidity. You filled her in on the miniature soldiers scheme, she told you family stories. You remembered that at some point she said: My body melted against his and the world was filled with him. A golden wave of passion and love flowed between us. Was that the football player? Her husband? Or maybe she was defending her father after some disparaging remark you’d made. The sacredness of family: one of her themes. Might even have been her brother. Any of whom other than the dead husband may have been driving the limo. My body began to vibrate with liquid fire, she said. You figured this was an open invitation but knew better than to throw yourself on her and rip her clothes off, as was your wont. Even trying to touch her knee or that bare patch which you couldn’t stop staring at would be rebuffed, you knew. You had to hope you were headed to her place where all would be revealed. But she dropped you off in front of your office building and said good night, the liquid fire abruptly quenched. Or dammed. What do you do with liquid fire? You were in some pain and about to slam the door in reply, when she reached out her hand, took yours, and squeezed it gently in her warm moist palm. Had the same effect as if she’d squeezed your dick. When all this is over, she said, her voice trailing off into some limitless future. And then she was gone. That was the last night you saw her alive.

You were still hurting, but the edge was off, blunted by Rats’ prescription, the brandy, and the flow of blood to other parts. Recalling the widow’s stories had filled your dick with a bit of liquid fire of its own and, lying there on the office sofa, you had taken it in hand. You were changing the story. You weren’t ripping her clothes off, she was. She was mad with desire, couldn’t wait. Neither could you. Nevertheless you fell asleep. You don’t remember what you dreamt, but when you woke you thought you were locked in that fishbait hut at the docks and couldn’t get out. There was someone in the office. Over near the hall door. More than one. Where’s the fucking flashlight, one of them asked. I forgot it, Marle. Shall I turn on the lights? No, you goddamn idiot. Light a match. Seemed to be several of them, all bumping into each other, cursing softly. Your heater was in your trenchcoat pocket, hanging from a clothes tree near the door. What you still held in your hand was useless. Fishbait. Where do you think the snoop’s stowed them little fuckers, Marle? Start with the desk. I’ll look for a wall safe. Dibs on one a them camp followers if we find them. You slid softly off the sofa onto the floor for maximum cover. The only thing close at hand was the brandy bottle. You took a final slug, hating to waste it, then pitched it toward one of the struck matches. He hit me, Marle! one of them screamed. They started shooting. Bullets were flying. One struck the sofa where you’d been lying with a muffled thud. Oh shit! He got me! It’s an ambush, Marle! There’s hundreds of ’em! They—aaargh! All their guns were blazing at once. It was like the finale of a fireworks display. There were screams, curses, crashing bodies. The shattering of glass.

When silence had fallen, you crept over to get your rod, throw on the lights. There were five dead guys in leather jackets. May have been more. The door was open and there was a trail of blood out into the hallway. Was Marle among the late departed? Probably. Three of them had goatees, more than you’d seen before in the whole city. You felt good. It was as if you’d accomplished something. It relaxed you and you locked the door and doused the lights and crashed to the sofa again, falling almost immediately into the sweetest deepest sleep you’d enjoyed since the widow first turned up. Certainly nothing like it since.

BY THE TIME BLANCHE WOKE YOU THE NEXT MORNING with your mended and freshly ironed clothes, she had already cleaned up the mess. Except for a few new pockmarks in the walls and furniture freshly stressed by ricocheting bullets, the place looked like it always did. Good thing, too, because Blue turned up while you were still shaving. He’d traced the phone number in the ad and wanted to see your miniature soldiers.

You’re not going to believe this, Blue, but they were rented, photographed, and returned.

You’re right, Noir, I don’t believe it. Who’d you return them to, the man you rented them from?

A guy who said he was his brother.

Sure, tell me another. They’ve been stolen, Noir, and you’re the last guy to have seen them. I’m putting you under arrest.