Sleuthier

Steel Deadeyes sat on the floor of his office, crossed legs, Indian style. He had been told a long time ago that it was a good for circulation, and while he had not looked into whether that was true or not, he felt now was the best time to figure it out on his own.

For you see, Steel had sold his chair (along with his desk, gun, and ‘coffee towel’) in order to pay the rent for his office/apartment. Laid out in front of him, on the floor, were his crime journal, a telephone, and a phone book opened to his own ad that he had bought at the start of his detective career. The ad ran as follows:

Need a detective? Call Steel Deadeyes
and he’ll “Steel” your problems
right from under you!
55S-TEEL

Considering his line of work, he wondered whether it had been wise to associate his name with theft. Also considering that he had received a total of no phone calls.

As of yet. He thought. Only a matter of time. And time is the one thing, I’ve got plenty of.

A month of time, to be exact. And then he’d have to either sell more of his possessions (and he didn’t have much left to sell) or be evicted.

He was wondering whether he would sell the phone book or the phone first, when he heard four very distinct knocks.

“What the hell is that?” he said to himself, reassuring himself with his own voice, as he is liked to do. He looked around from his vantage point of the floor, trying to locate the origin of the knocking.Failing that, he returned to the whole phonebook or phone selling issue.

Well… He thought. While I do think the phone is an important aspect of getting and then solving cases…I do get a kick out of seeing my name in print-

Knock. Knock. Knock.

He looked to the phone, wondering if this might actually be his ringtone, as he’d never actually heard his phone ring before. Again the knocking ceased.

“Okay Steely boy,” He said aloud to himself (and instantly reminded himself to never call himself ‘Steely boy’ again.), “Think like the detective you are. First, what was the noise? A knocking noise-“

“Hello?” came a voice from the hallway, on the other side of his door.

“Be with you in a moment!” he yelled, slightly irritated in having his thought process interrupted.

“Alright,” He continued, “Second, what kind of knocking was it?” This took him a while, “Kind of like knuckles…against wood.” Again he scanned the room, his eyes eventually falling on his door.

He stared at the door of his office for a few moments when he heard, “Is this a bad time?” from the voice in the hallway. All of the pieces locked in place, like a jigsaw puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle of someone knocking on a door. His eyes grew wide in excitement.

A possible client! He stopped himself from yelling it aloud. Instead he yelled, “I’m coming! Don’t leave me!”

He attempted to stand from his crossed legs position and suddenly realized how sore his knee joints were. He slowly made his way to the door, emitting a small expletive with every step.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! Just…uh… Stubbed my toe on my desk!” He yelled. Then looking back to his things piled on the floor, he instantly regretted it.

It was another few seconds before he reached the door and opened it.

The woman standing in the hallway was the kind of gal you only saw at the grocery store. The kind of woman that guys like Steel would approach in the vegetable aisle under the pretense of looking for a good head of lettuce, and then back off when he lost his nerve.

“Hiya,” She said, “Are you Mr. Deadeyes?” Her voice was nasally in a 1950s-New York- secretary-lost-in-a-crime-novel kind of way. Steel could have kissed her for being so cliché. Her being cliché made it easier for him to be cliché.

“That’s what they tell me, Toots,” He said, knocking on the cloudy window pane on his door that had his name etched into it. The pane fell back into the office and shattered.

Steel had always prided himself on having a neat and, above all, safe work place. He thought back to his days of reporting at The Crimetown Chronicle, and his desk with home made "safety edges" and the perfectly organized system he had set up to file away papers. When he tried to take his system office wide, he had been fired. He assumed for unrelated reasons.

So while Steel trembled at the thought of all those deadly shards of glass spread out in his office, he put on a brave face for his prospective client, and decided it was best to ignore this and continue as if it had not happened.

“How can I help you?” He continued.

“May I come in?” She countered. Steel looked back to the glass shards and his “desk area” on the floor. An ordinary man would have come up with an excuse. In a town like this, looking unprofessional could get you killed. It was a proven fact; this town had the largest death rate for unprofessional looking people in the nation. These were the kind of facts Steel would report on in The Crimtown Chronicle.

But Steel was no ordinary man, and he had seen too many detective movies to start improvising now.

“Watch the glass,” he said, swinging the door open and walking back to where his chair would be, had he still owned a chair. He began to sit back down on the floor, but then stopped himself, remember his sore knees. He straightened himself back up.

“Now, what can I do for you, Ms…”

“Mrs.” She corrected, looking around the room, “I thought you had a desk.”

“What?”

“You said you stubbed your toe on your desk”

Steel considered this for a moment, shook his head, and simply said, “No.”

A moment passed. Steel knew he had this effect on people. Most of his conversations had a moment just like this one. The other person would have to stand their and consider what exactly had just happened. They rarely make heads or tails of the situation, and Steel usually took the initiative these moments allowed.

“Now, what can I do for you, Mrs…?”

“Beckwith. Bellany Beckwith,” she said, with a voice so nasally Steel felt like sneezing.

“Mrs. Beckwith. I’m Steel Deadeyes-”

“Yes, do you have somewhere I can sit?”

Steel looked around the mostly empty room. “Uhhh…Here we go.” He said, bending over and placing the phone book perpendicular to the floor.

She looked at the makeshift seat for a while and then decided to stand.

“Now,” Steel continued, turning toward his window, looking contemplative and deep, “How can I help you, Mrs. Beckworth?”

“-with”

“What?” he turned his head to look towards her.

“Beckwith.”

“Becks with who?”

“ME. Beckwith. I’m BeckwITH. Bellany-“

“Beckwith, yes. I see. How can-“

“-you help me?” she hesitated, “I’m not sure you can…”

“What makes you think that?”

She looked around the empty room once more. Her glance, settling on the phone book for a few seconds, eventually found its way to meet Steel Deadeyes’ gaze.

Steel understood what she was getting at, “Yes, well. My desk and chairs are just out for…cleaning. Big murder case before you. Yeah, I solved it, but there was a lot of murder in here. Lots and lots of murd- where are you going?”

“I think I’ll just look into my problem myself. Thank you.” She said, as she started out the door.

Steel tried to run after her, but what with all the sitting, his knees were in no condition. He watched as she closed the door behind her

Steel went to the window and tried sitting on the sill, and as he was sliding to the floor he realized he had missed the window entirely by a few feet. He sat with his feet out in front of him and looked to the place on the wall where his calendar used to be. He could not remember when he had sold it.

Crazy broads. He thought, thinking back to Mrs. Beckwith. He smoothly took a cigarette from his pocket and placed it in his mouth. He searched his pockets for a lighter, but came up short. He smoothly took the cigarette from his mouth and placed it back in his pocket.

One month, he reminded himself, I’ve got one month to get a case.

He looked around his office. He tended to do that more often, now that he didn’t have much to actually see

I need some chairs.