"Sorry this didn"t work out."

"Me too. I"ll resign in the morning. I didn"t really want to see sliced flesh anyway." He turned around, took a step toward the kitchen, then hesitated and returned his attention to me. "You know, I"m out fifty bucks."

"Yeah, and...?"

"Maybe you could pitch in a little. It doesn"t have to be the whole fifty, but something for my time would be nice."

"I"ll be honest with you. Paying somebody not to kill me would feel sort of like paying for s.e.x."

"You"re just saying that because your wife monitors the finances, aren"t you?"

"No, I"m saying it because it would make me feel icky."

Victor frowned. "Oh."

"Sorry."

He stood there for a moment, silent.

"Well, do you have any of those juice boxes left?"

"I think there"s one in the fridge."

"Thanks."

"Don"t take the cherry one."

"Okay."

Victor wandered into the kitchen and rummaged through the refrigerator. I heard him leave and sat on the recliner for a while, more than a little annoyed. I couldn"t even get back into my book.

Still, at least I was alive. And I"d helped Victor realize that the life of a killer-for-hire wasn"t for just anybody with access to a bladed weapon. So the evening wasn"t a total loss. In fact, since I now knew that my lightning fast reflexes needed to be honed, I had fodder for self-improvement.

If you really thought about it, it was a very worthwhile experience.

I returned to the novel, feeling good.

Then Helen came home and I got in trouble because I forgot to clean up the grape juice on the carpet. So the rest of the night sucked.

A Harry McGlade Mystery by JA Konrath "I want you to kill the man that my husband hired to kill the man that I hired to kill my husband."

If I had been paying attention, I still wouldn"t have understood what she wanted me to do. But I was busy looking at her legs, which weren"t adequately covered by her skirt. She had great legs, curvy without being heavy, tan and long, and she had them crossed in that s.e.xy way that women cross their legs, knee over knee, not the ugly way that guys do it, with the ankle on the knee, though if she did cross her legs that way it would have been s.e.xy too.

"Mr. McGlade, did you hear what I just said?"

"Hmm? Yeah, sure I did, baby. The man, the husband, I got it."

"So you"ll do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill the man that my husband-"

I held up my hand. "Whoa. Hold it right there. I"m just a plain old private eye. That"s what is says on the door you just walked through. The door even has a big magnifying gla.s.s silhouette logo thingy painted on it, which I paid way too much money for, just so no one gets confused. I don"t kill people for money. Absolutely, positively, no way." I leaned forward a little. "But, for the sake of argument, how much money are we talking about here?"

"I don"t know where else to turn."

The tears came, and she buried her face in her hands, giving me the opportunity to look at her legs again. Marietta Garbonzo had found me through the ad I placed in the Chicago phone book. The ad used the expensive magnifying gla.s.s logo, along with the tagline, Harry McGlade Investigators: We"ll Do Whatever it Takes. It brought in more customers than my last tagline: No Job Too Small, No Fee Too High, or the one prior to that, We"ll Investigate Your Privates.

Mrs. Garbonzo had never been to a private eye before, and she was playing her role to the hilt. Besides the short skirt and tight blouse, she had gone to town with the hair and make-up; her blonde locks curled and sprayed, her lips painted deep, glossy red, her purple eye shadow so thick that she managed to get some on her collar.

"My husband beats me, Mr. McGlade. Do you know why?"

"Beats me," I said, shrugging. Her wailing kicked in again. I wondered where she worked out. Legs like that, she must work out.

"He"s insane, Mr. McGlade. We"ve been married for a year, and Roy always had a temper. I once saw him attack another man with a tire iron. They were having an argument, Roy went out to the car, grabbed a crow bar from the trunk, then came back and practically killed him."

"Where do you work out?"

"Excuse me?"

"Exercise. Do you belong to a gym, or work out at home?"

"Mr. McGlade, I"m trying to tell you about my husband."

"I know, the insane guy who beats you. Probably shouldn"t have married a guy who used a tire iron for anything other than changing tires."

"I married too young. But while we were dating, he treated me kindly. It was only after we married that the abuse began."

She turned her head away and unb.u.t.toned her blouse. My gaze shifted from her legs to her chest. She had a nice chest, packed tight into a silky black bra with lace around the edges and an underwire that displayed things to a good effect, both lifting and separating.

"See these bruises?"

"Hmm?"

"It"s humiliating to reveal them, but I don"t know where else to go."

"Does he hit you anywhere else? You can show me, I"m a professional."

The tears returned. "I hired a man to kill him, Mr. McGlade. I hired a man to kill my husband. But somehow Roy found out about it, and he hired a man to kill the man I hired. So I"d like you to kill his man so my man can kill him."

I removed the bottle of whiskey from my desk that I keep there for medicinal purposes, like getting drunk. I unscrewed the cap, wiped off the bottle neck with my tie, and handed it to her.

"You"re not making sense, Mrs. Garbonzo. Have a swig of this."

"I shouldn"t. When I drink I lose my inhibitions."

"Keep the bottle."

She took a sip, coughing after it went down.

"I already paid the a.s.sa.s.sin. I paid him a lot of money, and he won"t refund it. But I"m afraid he"ll die before he kills my husband, so I need someone to kill the man who is after him."

"Shouldn"t you tell the guy you hired that he"s got a hit on him?"

"I called him. He says not to worry. But I am worried, Mr. McGlade."

"As I said before, I don"t kill people for money."

"Even if you"re killing someone who kills people for money?"

"But I"d be killing someone who is killing someone who kills people for money. What prevents that killer from hiring someone to kill me because he"s killing someone who is killing someone that I...hand me that bottle."

I took a swig.

"Please, Mr. McGlade. I"m a desperate woman. I"ll do anything."

She walked around the desk and stood before me, shivering in her bra, her breath coming out in short gasps through red, wet lips. Her hands rested on my shoulders, squeezing, and she bent forward.

"My laundry," I said.

"What?"

"Do my laundry."

"Mr. McGlade, I"m offering you my body."

"And it"s a tempting offer, Mrs. Garbonzo. But that will take, what, five minutes? I"ve got about six loads of laundry back at my place, they take an hour for each cycle."

"Isn"t there a dry cleaner in your neighborhood?"

"A ha.s.sle. I"d have to write my name on all the labels, on every sock, on the elastic band of my whitey tighties, plus haul six bags of clothes down the street. You want me to help you? I get five hundred a day, plus expenses. And you do my laundry."

"And you"ll kill him?"

"No. I don"t kill people for money. Or for laundry. But I"ll protect your guy from getting whacked."

"Thank you, Mr. McGlade."

She leaned down to kiss me. Not wanting to appear rude, I let her. And so she didn"t feel unwanted, I stuck my hand up her skirt.

"You won"t tell the police, will you Mr. McGlade?"

"Look, baby, I"m not your priest and I"m not your lawyer and I"m not your shrink. I"m just a man. A man who will keep his mouth shut, except when I"m eating. Or talking, or sleeping, because sometimes I sleep with my mouth open because I have the apnea."

"Thank you, Mr. McGlade."

"I"ll take the first week in advance, Visa and MasterCard are fine. Here are my spare keys."

"Your keys?"

"For my apartment. It"s in Hyde Park. I don"t have a hamper, so I leave my dirty clothes all over the floor. Do the bed sheets too-those haven"t been washed since, well, ever. Washer and dryer are in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the building, washer costs seventy-five cents, dryer costs fifty cents for each thirty minutes, and the heavy things like jeans and sweaters take about a buck fifty to dry. Make yourself at home, but don"t touch anything, sit on anything, eat any of my food, or turn on the TV."

I gave her my address, and she gave me a check and all of her info. The info was surprising.

"You hired a killer from the personal ads in Famous Soldier Magazine?"

"I didn"t know where else to go."

"How about the police? A divorce attorney?"

"My husband is a rich and powerful man, Mr. McGlade. You don"t recognize his name?"

I flipped though my mental Rolodex. "Roy Garbonzo? Is he the Roy Garbonzo that owns Happy Roy"s Chicken Shack?"

"Yes."

"He seems so happy on those commercials."

"He"s a beast, Mr. McGlade."

"The guy is like a hundred and thirty years old. And on those commercials, he"s always laughing and signing and dancing with that claymation chicken. He"s the guy that"s abusing you?"

"Would you like to see the proof again?"

"If it isn"t too much trouble."

She grabbed my face in one hand, squeezing my cheeks together.

"Happy Roy is a vicious psycho, Mr. McGlade. He"s a brutal, misogynist pig who enjoys inflicting pain."

"He"s probably rich too."

Mrs. Garbonzo narrowed her eyes. "He"s wealthy, yes. What are you implying?"

"I like his extra spicy recipe. Do you get to take chicken home for free? You probably have a fridge stuffed full of it, am I right?"

She released my face and b.u.t.toned up her blouse.

"I have to go. My husband gets paranoid when I go out."

"Maybe because when you go out, you hire people to kill him."

She picked up her purse and headed for the door. "I expect you to call me when you"ve made some progress."

"That includes ironing," I called after her. "And hanging the stuff up. I don"t have any hangers, so you"ll have to buy some."

After she left, I turned off all the office lights and closed the blinds, because what I had to do next, I had to do in complete privacy.