Never bet a buck on a horse named Immortality.
It was raining hard in the Queen City. A cold, stinging rain. The kind of rain that floods the sewers and the gutters. The kind of rain that washes all the filth and the scum and the slime and the sleaze out of their holes and into the streets. The kind of sleaze that should never be seen by honest, decent, law-abiding citizens in the light of day, nor in the dark of night, nor any time at all.
It was the kind of day that made you wonder about the meaning of life and decide there isn’t one.
I pulled my fedora down tight, folded the collar of my trench coat up around my neck, and looked through the single-pane window as the lightning flashed across the sky. Then I counted.
One mutherfucker, two mutherfucker, three mutherfucker.
The thunder was a bit of a let-down, like most things in this world. This life and the people in it don’t amount to a hill of beans.
I’m Wilbur Umstead. I’m a private eye. I need a case. I need a wad of cash big enough to choke a horse. I need the love of a beautiful woman, for the rest of my life or at least for one night. I need a drink.
I don’t have a case and I damn sure don’t have the money. As for the love of a woman, I’ve gone without that for at least as long as I’ve gone without the cash. I do, however, have a drink.
A connoisseur might complain that the Scotch wasn’t very good, but it all gets you to the same place in the end, so I take my oblivion on a budget. Middle drawer on the right. Gat in the top drawer, empty file folders in the bottom. Empty because a case hasn’t walked through that door since Jesus was in diapers. Plus I don’t do paperwork.
I like to shoot first and ask questions later because I’m less likely to get an answer that way.
I need the means and the opportunity to get out of this dirty city. The motive I’ve got. In spades, Sam.
The Queen City. Like a dame she takes and like a sap I give, and I just keep giving her more. But if not me, then who? Dirty crooks and dirtier cops and the mugs who think they’re running this whole rotten show?
I used to be a flatfoot, pounding the beat for peanuts. But that’s like a life sentence without plurals. Anybody with two brain cells to rub together knows coppers are useless, and I got tired of being useless. So now I get by on street smarts and a smart mouth and a bad attitude that my old man beat into me every time he tried to beat it out of me.
I opened the middle drawer on the right, knocked back one last plug of booze, and decided it was time to head for home.
Then she walked in.
The door opened, then shut.
Her body had more curves than a mountain road, perched on a pair of gams that would make a Rockette take a desk job. She left my lips dry like a dead towel. She had a face that could launch a thousand ships or stop traffic on a dime and leave nine cents change.
Yeah, the broad was a real looker. The kind who would kiss you one minute and put a slug in you the next. She was bad. She was dangerous. I wouldn’t trust her any farther than I could throw her. In other words, she was my kind of woman.
One thing I did learn from my old man. Treat a dame like a lady, and treat a lady like a dame. This was a lady, so I knew if I treated her like a dame she’d be mine right here on this dusty desk.
Since we’re all gonna die anyway, I might as well do it with a smile on my face.
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