By the time I got back to my car it was almost dinner, and despite the gruesome nature of my afternoon, I was starving. That’s when I made the bad decision of eating the still half rapped sandwich that had been laying in the sun, in my locked car, for the better part of the afternoon. It tasted awesome, until I was halfway through with it and my hunger abated. They say hunger is the best spice and those bastards are right. Hunger can get you in a lot of trouble. The halfway point of the sandwich was when I realized the mayo probably wasn’t the best. Hell, I was iffy about it when it came out of the dark hole I like to call my fridge. I say I like to call it a fridge because it does indeed keep things inside of it cold, but whether or not what’s inside of it is food, who can say really.
Unfortunately, the slightly sick feeling I experienced when I hit the halfway point of the sandwich was only slight and I finished the whole dang thing at about the time my cell rang. The cell phone ringing probably hastened the sandwich scarfing now that I think back on it. Anyways, enough about the sandwich, the phone rang, that’s the important part.
“Hello.” I say through bits of pastrami and rye.
“Hello, is this Bernie’s Detective Agency?” I hear a female voice on the other line come in.
*Swallow* “Yeah, it’s me, sorry. How can I help you” I say.
“This is Miley Stiles. Vince Stiles’ daughter.” she says.
“Oh?” I say, losing track of whatever I was thinking about in the back of my mind.
“I understand my father is dead.” she says.
“Yes miss, unfortunately he died this afternoon.” I say, managing to not add in ‘by falling out the third story window of an illegitimate massage parlor.’
“I also understand that you witnessed his murder.” she says.
“Yes, ma’am, that is also unfortunately correct.” I say.
“I have a job for you then sir.” she says. “I’d like for you to kill the man who murdered my father.” she says.
“Uhhhhhhoooookay. Well i don’t usually do revenge jobs seeing as their illegal…” I start to say.
“I pay well Mr. Bernie.” she says.
“And they usually involve a lot of side expenses…” I say.
“I’ll cover those.” she says.
“And may involve me being bailed out of prison or a mob torture chamber…” I say.
“I’ll get you out if it comes to that.” she says, all very calmly and coolly.
“Well it looks like we might have a deal. One last thing. I need to meet up with ya to hammer out the details.” I say.
* * *
