Steel Deadeyes smiled to himself as he wrote in his crime journal. His office barely lit, except for a small lamp on his desk and the moonlight fighting its way through the slits in the window shades.
‘I had a BLT sandwich down at the deli today.’ He continued to write, ‘He wouldn’t give me a discount for being a Private Eye. But it was still good. Really good, in fact. Good enough…’ He skipped a few lines, imagining the anticipation of anyone who might read it later. “Just how good was it?” They would be asking themselves.
‘Good enough…to kill for’
Satisfied, he leaned back in his chair and simultaneously took a drag of his cigarette and a sip from his black coffee. A trick he had learned after repeatedly debating with himself which one made him look more like hard boiled. His coffee mug had the words, “Worlds Greatest Sleuth” written in big bold gold letters. He had bought it at a garage sale.
He opened the upper right drawer of his desk to reveal his .357 Magnum revolver. He lifted the gun out of the desk just to feel the weight of it.
“On nights like this,” he said to the empty room, “Sometimes the only protection from the cold, hard streets. Is cold, hard steel.” Extremely pleased with himself, he placed the gun back in the drawer.
“Come in!” He said to the person he thought was standing outside his door. The door didn’t open however, because no one was there.
“Just checking” Steel said to himself. Usually he could see through the moderately opaque glass, but the hall light blew out 2 weeks ago. And he had learned to do without by merely guessing when someone would be there. It might seem foolish now, but when he’s right, it really throws people off guard.
The window he had installed into his door had the words:
Detective
P.I.
The ‘Steel Deadeyes’ and ‘Private Detective Investigator’ had been professionally added to the glass, but Steel had crossed it the latter out with a sharpie when he felt it was redundant and wrote in ‘Detective’. And when he saw in the yellow pages that the majority of people in his line of work were listed as P.I. and not Detective, he made the change again.
‘That’s what I do” Steel Deadeyes thought to himself, “I adapt.”
When Steel was fired from his job as a television critic, did he just roll over and give up?
“No!” Steel shouted to no one in particular.
Did he sell out and get a steady paying job that he wouldn’t have enjoyed very much because he has a problem with authority?
“Not a chance!” Steel yelled, after sipping from his mug, causing coffee to spew over his desk.
“Damn it!” He yelled, reaching into his lower left desk drawer and pulling out a towel that he kept there just for this very reason.
“Come in!” he yelled, realizing he hadn’t done so in a while, and leapt back in his chair in shock when the door opened and Steel’s landlord, Mr. Mosalletti walked in.
Steel tried to compose himself, but when he leapt back in shock, the towel he had been holding flew up in the air. Any dignity he might have salvaged from the situation was quickly destroyed by the fact that the large coffee-soaked swab decided to land on Steel’s head, completely covering him down to his shoulders.
Still, Steel persisted in his nonchalance, “How may I help you, Mr. Mosalletti?” he asked, putting his feet up on his desk and his hands behind his towel covered head.
“Take that stupid towel of your head.” Steel did so with a, “Yes, of course” and proceeded to sit up straight. “Listen, Steven-“
Mosalletti was broken off by Steel loudly coughing and pointing to the sign on his door. The landlord looked at it, and quickly turned back to face Steel.
“I’m not going to call you by Steel Deadeyes, Steve. Frankly, I’m not all that thrilled with you having a window installed into my door AT ALL. But Steel Deadeyes has to be the dumbest name I ever heard. And my name is Moe Mosey Mosalletti. Listen, I let you rent this place because you told me that you were going to have a job soon. That was 2 months ago, and you’re 2 months behind on your rent. Now, you seem like a nice guy. But without a job…I just can’t-”
“I have a job…” Steel interjected, pointing to the door once more.
“A real job. A paying job. How much dough has this Private Eye whatever brought in?”
Steel looked down and began folding and refolding his towel. He mumbled something.
“That’s right, nothing.. I need that rent money by tomorrow Steve, or I’ve gotta kick you out.” He started toward the door, and turned back to add, “Also, I’ve been getting complaints that you’ve been yelling things to yourself again. It’s bothering the other tenants.”
Steel took the towel and placed it neatly back in the bottom left drawer. He looked at his Crime journal still on his desk, now with wet patches where the drops of coffee had landed.
He turned to the first entry and read:
“Crime Watch: Day one.
A man jaywalked across the street right outside my office today. Is there no justice in this city?
A car sped through a red light, trying to catch the tail end of yellow. Is he trying to get some place quickly, or is he running from his past?”
He closed the journal and rolled his chair over to his window. He pried open the window shades and looked out at the busy street. His office was one story up above a laundry mat. He had asked for a third or fourth story, but those rooms already had people in them. People with incomes.
Steel had wanted to be able to look out across his crime-ridden city, just like all the P.I.s from TV and movies. He decided that that must be their secret to success. They had a view of the city, and he didn’t. They could look out and see all of the crimes and mysteries out their just waiting to be solved. And from that vantage point, the solutions must be crystal clear.
His vantage point only showed him a deserted street and a rival laundry mat on the other side.
He rolled back to his desk, put his feet up, and watched as the phone didn’t ring and the door wasn’t knocked on. He almost yelled out, “Come in!” but then remembered his fellow tenants.
He sighed and took his journal and opened it back up to the current day.
‘‘These were dark times in the city of Crimetown…”
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