People expected certain things when they hear about my line of work: violence, mystery, and a whole lotta tail. Two outta three wasn’t half bad, and neither was the cash grateful clients forked over at the end of a case. Not as good as it could have been, not as good as you heard sometimes, but enough to keep a single body going. When I had got the sack from school my folks pretended they worried, and maybe if I’d been straight and narrow I’d have sunk down to my knees in some back alley after the war, but people like me and my friends had a ton of secrets, and always needed a quiet bit of work for which they were ready to pay.
Like the man on the other side of the desk, right now, his pallor making the freckles stand out stark. Came in a full five minutes ago and hadn’t said a word yet. Made no matter, though. Nervous, nervous as hell, but one of our sort: normal men didn’t usually know about me; women sometimes, the hard, hard-bitten bitchy sort who looked as though they despised me for being around to help and themselves for needing to ask. Sweet-looking, from what I could make of his face between the brim of his hat and the one light being on the fritz, and fidgety, hands moving to clutch at each other, the edge of the table, the ball of his knee. Injured, maybe at Dunkirk, maybe later in France or Italy. Not a new injury, any rate, he’d walked in easy and under his own power, no cane in sight. Not one of the RAF boys, who all swaggered like they were emperors of a dying world. B.E.F, then, or maybe the Senior Service. My money on B.E.F.
“You can go slow, but you’ve got to start somewhere,” I said, and hazarding a guess based on likely age and the old but good tweeds of his mufti, added, “Come on, Lieutenant, I haven’t got all day. Missing husbands and cats to look for.”
“I never made Lieutenant,” he said, automatic, and huffed a laugh. “Dropped out of ROTC in school. Joined up as a private, blew my leg up before I could make Sergeant.”
Idealistic and patriotic. What a goddamned mess to land up in my office of a Monday morning when I was still reeling. All week sober didn’t work so well when you’re up till the wee hours on a Sunday night locked in a kiss with a bottle of rum. “Alright, Corporal, why don’t you tell me the trouble and I’ll see whether I can ease it for you.”
He nodded, went to tug at his hair and realized he had his hat still on. “You might as well know all of it,” he said, and pulled it off.
L.P. Odell, pale and nervous, sitting across my desk. I hadn’t seen him in going on five years, not since that fateful glimpse on the deck of my ship. “You’re dead,” I said stupidly, and he looked up.
“Lanyon?”