July,
1947. And hotter than hell in Hamilton. But it sure felt good to be back on
my old stomping ground. Felt good? Well, hell, it felt great. I didn’t think I’d get back alive. After five long years in war-ravaged Europe,
count me among the lucky ones who survived.
Now I was back on Civvy Street – and
if you believed the folks at the Rehab Centre, I was becoming a productive
member of postwar society. But I say the
jury was still out on that score.
I boarded a Belt Line streetcar on
King Street, followed by a couple of soldiers in uniform toting duffel
bags. Must’ve been on leave, judging by
the big grins on their mugs. They
reminded me of that old song from the last war: “Pack up your troubles in your
old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.”
Not always easy to follow that
simplistic advice. But after three
operations, the shrapnel wound that blew out my right knee was on the
mend. Sure, I still limped, but so did a
lot of other guys who’d survived the German shelling. And I was a helluva lot better off than my
comrades who’d stayed behind under the Normandy sod.
At the Ferguson Street railway
tracks, the motorman clanged his bell and stomped on the brake when a market
truck loaded with cucumbers veered toward us.
Our sudden stop jolted the pole on the streetcar’s roof from the line
above in a shower of sparks. When the
driver walked behind the tram and returned the pole to the overhead cable, he
shook his fist at the truck driver. That earned him a round of applause from
his passengers, me included.
I swung off the streetcar at John
Street and limped across King to the Wentworth Building, which housed the
one-man agency I’d bought a few months ago, determined to prove that my
so-called disability wouldn’t stop me being the best damn private detective
this side of Philip Marlowe. So what if this was Hamilton?
And my job today?
Hire a new secretary.
Down the hall on the third floor I unlocked my office
door; the frosted glass panel still lettered W.J. Jeffries Investigations. For the umpteenth time I puzzled over what to
replace it with. Something snappy. Maybe Veterans Investigations or … Max
Dexter, Master Detective. No, not quite
right. I’d think about it later, as
usual.
I flipped on the lights and tossed
my grey fedora onto the filing cabinet by the door. In front of the window facing King Street,
three worn club chairs hunkered around a low table like old soldiers in a
retirement home. The secretary’s desk
and typewriter stand guarded the door to my own office in the opposite
corner. The lease referred to this
layout as a two-room suite. Washroom
down the hall.
I ignored the Mount Everest of paper
on my scarred wooden desk, crossed to the window and forced it open a few inches. Muggy air crawled over the sill, carrying
with it the stench of car exhaust from below.
Another day of record-breaking temperatures in Southern Ontario, which
meant too damn hot. Annoyed by the
traffic noise, I closed the window, opened the bottom drawer of the desk and
sat down, using both hands to place my right leg across the drawer.
“Ahhh,” I said, out loud. “Contrary to popular opinion, there is indeed
rest for the wicked.”
“I beg to differ with you, Young
Man,” a stern voice boomed from the doorway.
“As far as I can see there’s been far too much rest taken in this
office.”
I gaped up at a middle-aged woman
standing tall and straight-backed before me.
She wore a severely-cut black suit and her coarse grey hair was so
closely cropped it conformed to her head like a pewter helmet. For a panicky moment I was back in Grade 6
and Sister Theresa was targeting me with her X-ray vision. I put my hands behind my back to avoid a blow
across the knuckles from her ruler.
I snapped back to the present,
withdrew my leg from the desk drawer and sat upright. It took me a moment to dig through the pile
in my pending basket until I extracted the list of interviewees for the
secretary’s job. “Ah, yes, you must be
Miss Higgins. In response to our notice in
The Hamilton Spectator.”
“Well, of course I am. We made an appointment for nine a.m. sharp
this morning. And it is now nine a.m.
sharp.”
I flicked my eyes to the wall
clock. It read oh-nine-thirty but I
couldn’t remember the last time I’d wound it.
I glanced back at Miss Higgins but her eyes had followed mine and her
lips were now pinched in a prune-like frown.
If my years of training in the Canadian Army had taught me nothing else,
it was the hard-won lesson of when to abandon an unwinnable position. I could spend the next hour being lectured by
this officious woman or I could save us both a truckload of aggravation.
I gave Miss Higgins a tight smile
and lifted my leg back across the desk drawer.
Hands behind my head, I squeaked back in my chair and cocked my head
toward the wall clock. “I’m sorry, Ma’am, but the success of this business is
measured by the punctuality of its staff.
And arriving a half-hour late for your job interview has disqualified you
as a candidate.”
Her face became a purple mask and a
wormy vein crawled along her forehead.
She sputtered but couldn’t speak.
Then she turned and puffed through the still-open door like a cartoon
steam engine.
I sighed with relief, not realizing
I’d been holding my breath. Judas
Priest! Miss Higgins’ scornful scowl at
the disarray in my office had pushed my guilt button and I hung up my jacket,
rolled up my shirt sleeves and began to clean away the clutter. My former secretary had worked twenty years
for old Jeffries and when she’d quit last month she delivered a short, but
impassioned, speech: “You take the cake, Mr. Dexter,” she’d said, “for the
world’s messiest man.”
At the secretary’s desk, I plowed
through the mound of accumulated paper, advertising flyers and other junk. I’d filled three medium-sized boxes with
trash and I still hadn’t reached the desktop when the scent of too much perfume
wrinkled my nose.
I looked up at a skinny woman in a
sagging red dress as she peered at me from behind a veil of dark hair. She closed the door without a sound and crept
a timid step forward, clutching a black purse and a newspaper against her flat chest. “The ad,” she whispered. “Miss Jones.”
I waved her toward a chair beside
the desk and she sat. When she raised
her eyes and brushed her hair from her face with long, bony fingers, I realized
Miss Jones was just a kid, probably wearing one of her mother’s dresses.
“Well, Miss Jones, tell me about
your work experience,” I said. “You’re
familiar with typing and filing, arranging appointments and keeping accounts?”
Her eyes widened and her mouth
dropped open as if to answer but not knowing what to say. “I’m just starting
out,” she finally squeaked.
I smiled and lowered my voice. “What’s your real name?”
Her lower lip pouted and her
shoulders slumped. When her eyes met
mine, she said with a tiny grin, “Linda Jaworski.”
I pushed back my chair and
stood. “Whaddya say we go next door for
a Coke, Linda?”
We took a booth in the White Spot,
where Linda told me her parents didn’t understand her because they were too old
to remember that high school was an “utter waste of time.” So she planned to move out, get a job and her
own apartment. Show them she was old
enough to live on her own. She was 16,
after all.
“War’s over, Mr. Dexter. Boys are back from overseas and there’s lots
of jobs. Jeepers creepers, I don’t want
to be left behind, miss out on all the fun.”
After she ran out of steam, I got
her to promise she’d call a friend of mine, a counsellor at Central High. And she’d consider giving her parents another
chance. After we waved goodbye I felt
better about her prospects. I hoped she
did too.
Back in my office, a young guy with
an armload of newspapers breezed into the room. “Hot off the press, Max.” He flapped an early edition of The Hamilton Spectator on the desk,
lowered his voice and glanced around as though he were selling risqué
postcards. “Ya shoulda seen the
glamourpuss I seen downstairs. Whatta
gorgeous dame. Slinky like Betty Grable,
but even sexier. Like Lana Turner.”
I laughed and gave him a light punch
on the arm. “What d’you know about
dames, Rick? Now beat it. I’m busy.”
Back to my cleanup of the
secretary’s desk. I glanced at the Spec’s front page – the good news: Rationing
of Coffee, Sugar & Butter to End This Year; the not-so- good news: Removal
of Wartime Price Controls Sends Prices Soaring.
I riffled through the new mail. Bills for electricity, rent and office
supplies. No cheques for services
rendered. A full-colour flyer
proclaimed: Coming Soon – The All New
1948 Studebaker Starlight Coupé:
Manufactured Right Here in Hamilton.
I sighed as I pitched it into the wastebasket; I couldn’t afford to
replace my Model A Ford. In fact, I was
just making ends meet on a disability pension from the government and a few new
accounts I’d managed to acquire. And I
retained the credit and background checks that Jeffries had serviced, but I
planned to reduce the amount of that boring work in favour of more interesting
cases. I hoped my new secretary would
help me become more efficient and, maybe someday, make a profit.
In my own office, I retrieved the
interview list for the morning, crossed off Miss Higgins’ name with a shiver
and glanced at the wall clock. Still
oh-nine-thirty. I stroked off the next
name as well … the rebellious Miss Jones/Jaworski, a sweet kid. Maybe she’d stay in school but somehow I
doubted she’d resist the tidal wave of hopeful excitement now flooding Hamilton
after years of rationing and anxiety caused by the war.
Next on my list was Isabel O’Brien. What was that old saying? Bad luck comes in threes? Was it just an old wives’ tale? That thought teased me when I heard a firm
knock on the door and looked up to admire a striking redhead striding into my
life. Her flaming hair, cut in a
shoulder-length curl, contrasted with her green tailored suit, its skirt
falling just below her knees, accentuating her hips. Nifty.
She glided right through into my office and extended a velvety hand
across the desk as I scrambled to my feet.
“Good morning,” she said, giving my
hand a firm shake. “You must be Max
Dexter. I’m Isabel O’Brien, your new
assistant.”
Her dazzling smile pulled you right
into her orbit. But what did she mean,
my new assistant? She’d skipped over
secretary and promoted herself already?
My mind was spinning its wheels.
I was still standing, still shaking
her hand, still mesmerized by her green eyes and the sprinkling of freckles
across her nose, still deciding what to say, when she walked back to the outer
office and returned with a small man dressed in a sombre three-piece suit,
twirling a homburg in his left hand.
Everything about his appearance, from his spit-shined shoes to his
pencil-thin moustache, shouted I’m a successful man of commerce and I’ve no
time to waste.
Isabel slid her arm through his and
drew him closer to the desk. “Max, I’d
like you to meet our new client, Mr. H. B. Myers.”
Lord love a duck, now she was
calling me Max. I hadn’t spoken a word
to her yet and she’s hired herself, promoted herself and brought in a new
client, all in the space of two minutes.
I reached across the desk and shook
Mr. Myers’ hand as though I were the one in charge here….
Chris Laing is a native
of Hamilton, Ontario, but now lives in Kingston, with his wife, artist Michèle
LaRose. Chris’s short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Hammered Out as well as online journals including Futures Mystery Magazine, Mystical-E Magazine and Flash Me Magazine. His short story Golden Opportunity appears in the
anthology Best New Writing 2013,
published by Hopewell Publications. His
first novel, A Private Man, was published by Seraphim Editions.
You can pick up a copy
of A Private Man at Bryan Prince Bookseller in Hamilton or at Novel Idea in
Kingston or you can order a copy of here. For information on
submitting to Seraphim editions, see here.
See Brian Henry's
schedule here, including writing workshops and creative writing
courses in Kingston, Peterborough, Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Georgetown,
Milton, Oakville, Burlington, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Dundas, Kitchener,
Guelph, London, Woodstock, Orangeville, Newmarket, Barrie, Orillia, Gravenhurst,
Sudbury, Muskoka, Peel, Halton, the GTA, Ontario and beyond.
