Private Investigations

Case #1: The Collectors Organization

It had started out a bad morning

The window still says HECTOR AND LAYNIE, PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS, even though Hectors been missing for nine months now. Doesn't matter to me, I'm not changing it. Some idiot from maintenance came by a little after he disappeared and tried to scrape his name off the door, but I ran him off with a broken stapler.

I opened the door to our office and tripped over a stack of bills that had been pushed through the mail slot, but managed to keep my balance and continued on in even if I didn't quite look like I had taken three years of ballerina lessons beginning when I was eight.

My office has that musty-carpet, old-lady-forgot-to-put-out-the-dirty-clothes smell that hits me every time I come in. Which is surprising since the carpet was repossessed two months ago. Even worse, I left the lights on when I was last in and god only knows what my electric bill will be.

Speaking of bills, I pushed the stack on the floor over to the side where they joined the growing heap behind the door. I take a quick glance and see that most of them appear to be irate notes printed on pink paper; long wordy documents that begin with “Please Remit Promptly.” The good thing about crappy credit is that you no longer get the countless circulars from credit card companies offering pre-approved silver, gold, platinum, and for all I know, uranium cards. I'm long passed worrying about these guys. The time for worrying won't come until they start sending guys out and leaving personal messages taped to my door.

The answering machine on the desk is blinking and I've got a bunch of messages. Perhaps one of them might even be for a job. I walk over, reach out slowly and punch play.

Beep. “Ms. Laynie, this is Mr. Corubun at the Mortgage Unit of the Second National Bank. You should have received documents from our legal department regarding our notice of foreclosure for non-payment of rent for the last year.” Erase. A little bird begins flying in my stomach, but determinedly, I listen on.

Beep. “Hello. Please call Visa Card at---.” I don't really worry about these guys too much until they start getting a little more aggressive. Erase.

Beep. Silence. Click. I love those kinds of calls.

Beep. “Hello, my name is Carole and I'm calling from Visa Card----.” Erase.

It goes on like that for another four or five messages, when suddenly;

Beep. “Hey, it's Rubin at Zero-One.” Rubin's a pretty good guy even though he works for one of the biggest jackasses of the world. Zero-One is the largest private eye firm in the city and it controls all the good, high paying business the creeps in this burg can generate. Sometimes they hand out menial jobs that they don't have the manpower for, but I haven't had anything from them since Hector disappeared. Seems I don't have the personality that suits the suits at Zero-One. But Rubin's always been good to me and has never pretended that he didn't know me when we passed on the street.

“Mr. Baughman wants to see you at 4 this afternoon.” He lowers his voice, “He might have some work for you. It's a job, Jaynie.”

I know, I know. I was only married once a long time ago, and his name was Laynie. Jaynie Laynie. With a first name of Jaynie, you wouldn't believe the number of assholes whose arms I had to break to get them to lay off. Anyway, it was better than my maiden name, Schnitzelgruber, which is too close to Schickelgruber, which is too close to the Fuehrer. So I stayed with Laynie, even after the asshole split.

I dump the rest of the messages and think back to the last time I worked for Baughman. It was one of those missing school girl cases and I'd been lucky enough to solve it. She'd been kidnapped by some pretty rough biker dudes and I'd kicked ass. Well, sort of. Anyway, I got her out of there before they'd had a chance to abuse her too much and Baughman had showed as much pleasure as he ever shows someone that he doesn't need something from—which is to say none.

My head started to hurt and I needed to lay down, so I walked over to the couch and laid down to take a short power snooze. I dream of men that wanted to take me away from all of this and I dream