hall to my office. The receptionist must have been off that day. Anyway. Things were looking up. She was one of those high-profile, high-maintenance dames that only rich playboys and queer actors have. One eye focused on her and eyed her up and down. The other eye couldn’t manage just yet. Black patent-leather high heels tied at the ankle. A light gray wool suit that clung to her curves better than Mario Andretti at Sebring. Blue silk plunge-neck blouse that showed enough of the Valley of Contentment that imagination could take the rest of the day off. Her amber hair was sun streaked, professionally coiffed, cut, and colored. Hazel-green eyes were clear and alert. High cheekbones, cute little ski-jump nose, and those lips. Full luscious lips in red’s own red. I blinked and tried to focus, but she was still there. The light show wasn’t going away. I tried to speak through dry cracked lips.
“Yes?”
“I need to hire you.”
She said “need.” Not “want to” or “I’d like to.” Or even “may I.” Used to getting her way. Not used to discussion. Oh, and a voice like tinkling crystal. I was sure I would wake up any minute.
I managed to ask.
“What about?”
It sounded like an old frog croaking.
“You need to stop a murder.”
Pause. How do you stop a murder unless one’s already being contemplated? Things got more interesting. The throbbing in my head reached a drumming crescendo as I forced Mr. Brain to go to work.
He wasn’t very happy about it.
A fat white number 10 business envelope hit the desk with a noticeable thunk. I’d seen that movie before. A number 10 envelope always contained cash. Lots of cash. Crumpled, used bills. Filthy lucre.
Interesting just became curiously intriguing.
I looked up at her with the question in my eyes, and she explained.
“There’s a ten thousand dollar retainer. There’s more if you get the job done right.”
Damn. Ten grand. One hundred hundreds. Ben Franklin, the centurion. That was essentially a quarter of this private eye’s annual revenue. I decided this would be an excellent time not to mention that my standard retainer was a grand. And then only if I could get it.
The envelope got swiped into my desk’s top drawer. There was life coming back. The drummer in my head was doing a solo.
“OK, let’s hear it.”
She glanced around. I nodded to one of the overstuffed chairs in front of my desk. She took a seat on the edge, knees together, those long legs crossed at the ankles, back straight, hands folded daintily in her lap. This dame had class and breeding. You could tell. It showed. What a dish.
“Well, I had a dream last night about getting killed.”
Oh, boy. Mr. Brain was begging for the day off. My head was making throbbing sounds in my inner ear. It drowned out the tinnitus.
“A dream.”
It was a statement more than a question.
“Yes.”
I waited for her to continue.
She took a deep breath as she figured out where to start.
“It’s about Bob Dylan’s belt. He had auctioned it off for charity and I won the bid for it. It was a nice engraved leather belt with a large cowboy-style buckle. A bas relief of Bob Dylan in pewter. Maybe it was silver. I don’t know.”
Uh-oh, I thought. Mr. Brain was trying to wrap his arms around this. We’d never solved a bad dream before. Mostly insurance cases. Ten grand, I told him. Stay with it. It’s ten grand.
I attempted a smile, and my chapped lips cracked and bled. She pretended not to notice.
“So it’s time for him to autograph it. Dylan, I mean. Which will make it authentic and more valuable, I suppose. So I and my bodyguard spot him in the crowd and work our way over. But there’s a rabid redheaded female fan hovering around him, and as I get close, she jumps up at me and stabs me in the neck. In the carotid artery. I see my bodyguard draw his .45 from his shoulder holster and shoot the woman in the head. But the knife is still my neck. Well, Bob Dylan’s bodyguard sees all this, draws his pistol, and shoots my bodyguard. But he was only using a 9mm and my bodyguard had enough time to shoot both Dylan and his bodyguard dead before he died.”
She paused and took a deep breath. She looked down, her impossibly long eyelashes fluttering. Reliving it was work for her. I wondered exactly how in hell I factored into all this. Mr. Brain was whispering in my ear. It came in over the tinnitus. Ten grand, Jake. Focus. Ten grand.
I paused and just looked at her expectantly, like I’ve seen psychologists do with their patients in those old movies. Waited for her to continue. It was a good play. I didn’t know what the hell to say to her anyway.
At least she understood ballistics.
“So everybody’s dead, and I’ve got to figure out how to get this knife out of my neck. I can’t leave it in, but if I pull it out, I’ll bleed to death in mere seconds. And on top of everything else, now I can’t get Dylan’s autograph on the belt. And I already paid for it!”
I could hear little capillaries in Mr. Brain popping and bleeding out. I was sure the blood was collecting in the whites of my eyes.
“What . . . I mean, what can I do?”
She looked at me as if I had farted at dinner.
“Do? You must stop that redhead from stabbing me!!”
“You said it was a dream.”
“Yes. You need to find her and stop her from getting in it.”
“I’m not sure I understand. Who is she? How’d she get in your dream? And are you going to dream a do-over, just so you can get Bob Dylan’s autographed belt?”
A disbelieving stare.
“Well, of course.”
I was not sure how to go forward. My liver was working overtime to process last night’s tequila. My stomach was making noises even I had never heard before. And my tinnitus had my ears ringing like church bells.
Then my Zen kicked in. Solutions presented themselves. I knew exactly how to beat this. It was just too simple.
I looked at her for a long beat. What the hell. I had to go with it.
“I think I may have just the thing.”
I rooted around in my bottom desk drawer where I keep all the stuff I don’t need or can’t use. There it was. A souvenir from the pub bar at the Harborview Club. It’s the ritziest private club in Clearwater. Very exclusive. Top floor. Overlooks the bay. You know the type. Dark wood, lush ferns, expensive drinks, mediocre food. But a great view. I had saved it from that time I took Rebecca Lynn Russo there on a date. She was Miss Chamber of Commerce then and we were the social climbing couple to be seen with. But that’s a story in of itself. For another time.
