I awoke with a start. The world was a blur and it took me a few moments to realise the phone was ringing on the lampstand beside my couch. I reached up to grab it, glad of the darkness my office blinds offered on mornings like this.
"Are you up?" The voice at the other end had a familiarity about it the felt unfriendly. I looked around for a clock, the analogue face difficult to read through the haze of a hangover. I sat up and a bottle rolled across the floor.
"Yeah." My voice was almost unrecognisable, low and edgy from a combination of drinking and the most unwelcome morning.
"Where have you been?" She sounded upset, like I'd done something to hurt her. I probably had. "I've been trying to call all week, but you weren't answering. You haven't been home all week. I was worried."
"Well I haven't been here." I lied, I had been here. I was the only place I could go, work had been slow and I didn't have the money to pay for a hotel. Truth was I didn't want to go home at the moment so I'd been camping out on the dilapidated sofa I kept in the corner of the office for such eventuallities. "I've had a bit of work to do that's kept me out of town. Should be getting some money soon, which'll be nice." That was true, I'd done a job recently which was going to give me enough to pay out the rent on the office for the months owing and a couple in advance, it'd be a new experience for me. PI's make bugger all, and rent is a luxury not an expense.
"That's good, you're doing something." Tears edged into her voice, she was holding back; I wasn't sure if she could hold it for long. "Odysseus, we need to talk."
Those four words could send chills down a man's spine from any distance. A collective shudder reverberated through all the men in the city. Some even crossed themselves and mouthed a silent prayer for the poor sap, name unknown. Nothing positive ever came from those words...
Case Number: 0139
Type: Infidelity
Clients: Ms. Jonson-Smythe
Status: Closed
She'd come to me late one steamy afternoon in December, the heat that summer was unbearable. She was a bored suburban housewife who had just wanted her husband home for Christmas, he had told her that it was impossible.
She was attractive, blond, probably in her mid-thirties. Exactly the sort of woman that was taken as a trophy wife and mounted on the wall of the den. I suspected that she spent most of her days in a gin-induced blur, teasing the pool boy by tanning topless in front of him. Her voice had a husky edge, sultry with just a hint of the sensuality which lay just under her facade of perfection.
"It's not like he's the sales-rep for a toy company, he's a divorce lawyer... and who the hell gets divorced over Christmas?"
I couldn't answer her question, I'd never been married and didn't have many prospects.
"See the problem is I can't just leave him. He pays me an allowance, which is enough to get by, but that'll dry up if I leave. The man is a cunning bastard, he keeps all of his income tied up in his firm so I can't touch it. If I can prove he was unfaithful his firm has to cough up enough alimony to keep me in the manner to which I have become accustomed."
"And you need my help to prove the infidelity?"
"If you could I'd be VERY grateful," her voice was lowering like a sudductress in a D-grade porn flick, "and I could make it... worth your while."
"... Odysseus... are you there?" I pulled out of the flash back suddenly when I heard her voice.
"Yeah, I'm here..."
"I'll come over and we can do brunch. We'll talk, just like we used to." I didn't want to talk, but it looked like I wasn't going to have much choice.
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