All Write, Already!

There are two things I have in my desk drawer: one's a .45, and I keep it loaded. The other's a bottle, and it keeps me loaded. When I heard the knock on my office door, I opened the desk and started to reach for one. Couldn't tell you which one, exactly, but either would do just fine. It was dark in the hallway outside my office, so all I could see through the frosted glass was the backside of the letters that spelled out "Lester Cage Investigative Services" on the window. I figured that this would be one of Tommy Fishbone's goons come to work me over for the vig I didn't have, so the gun might keep them busy for a bit. On the other hand, the bottle would give me a little anesthetic for the beating I'd be receiving tonight.

"'S open," I said as my hand landed on the checkered grip of my Colt. Ah, well. If nothing else, I could keep myself amused when the mook saw the heater, and that's almost as good as not getting my face rearranged.

The doorknob twisted, and I set my gun hand on the desk, barrel angled up to point at the heart of my nocturnal visitor. After the door opened wide enough for me to see, I realized that either Tommy Fishbone had a very different concept of the words "work me over," or my luck was even worse than I thought. The dame who stepped across my threshold looked like real trouble: not the kind where you get a broken finger, the kind where you get a broken heart. A broken heart ripped out of your chest and thrown on the floor, which is where it will be when she does the Mexican hat dance on it. She was wearing maroon, which isn't the color I usually associate with femmes fatale, but on her it worked like a charm.

She raised an eyebrow on a forehead the color of alabaster and looked at my iron. "Is that how you greet every potential client?"

"I only break out the heater for special occasions, sweetheart. Most folks just get harsh language." Great. Her voice was like church bells in winter: clear, crisp, and chilly. I put the .45 back in the drawer and decided to leave the bottle in there to keep it company. For the moment, anyway. "Have a seat."

"A gentleman would stand when a lady enters the room, you know."

I grunted. "Lady, I ain't a gentleman." She folded herself neatly into the chair and I turned down the Truetone, where Ed Murrow was telling the world about Truman's request for aid for Greece and Turkey. I'd met some Greek partisans during the war, and figured that about half of the money Truman was asking for would end up going for ouzo and cigarettes. "What seems to be your problem?"

She reached into her handbag and pulled out a silver cigarette case, extracted a cigarette from it, and waited, looking at me. When I made no move, she frowned a little and lit her smoke with a Dunhill lighter. Players cigarette, I judged from the smoke. Expensive imported cigarettes, expensive lighter. Maybe things were looking up after all. I grabbed a Lucky from the pack on the desk and lit a match.

"My name is Elizabeth Schmidt, and I've come about my husband," she said, and looked down at her lap. "We've been married less than a year, but there have been three times in the past month where Gunther hasn't come home all night."

"So you think he's got himself a little something on the side?"

"I don't think he's fucking someone else, if that's what you're insinuating." Her eyes flashed a warning that this line of questioning might be a bad idea. "That's what I thought at first, and when I confronted him, he told me to make a list of my grievances and he would look at it! In case you hadn't noticed, my husband's name is Gunther Schmidt. He's German, but he told me that he was a university professor and escaped to Switzerland in '38. I believed him, until last week. I was searching his dresser, trying to find proof that he's been unfaithful, when I found this." She reached into her bag and tossed something from it onto the desk. The skull-and-bones motif was unmistakable. Germans didn't get pins like this when the dentist didn't find any cavities. You had to be Waffen-SS to earn this kind of a reward. "And this." She set a photograph in front of me -- a group of smiling Teutonic men in feldgrau, standing in front of some kind of scientific equipment. The handwritten note on the back said "Haigerloch, 17. Mai 1942".

"Lady, this is a job for the police. Maybe the Army, or the FBI. Not a private eye, anyway. The authorities will want your husband under arrest, and that's pretty far beyond what I can do."

"That's just it! I went to the police the day I found this...this evidence, and the next day, two men who said they were from the FBI came to my house and told me to forget what I had seen, that it was a misunderstanding and that my husband was not and had never been a Nazi." The way she took a drag from her cigarette told me exactly what she thought of the agents. I decided to stall for time while I debated taking this kind of a hot potato.

"First, why me? Who told you that I could help with something this big? And second, what do you want me to do if I find out you're right, and he was a Nazi?"

"My maiden name is Anderson, Mr. Cage. My brother's name is Martin Anderson." Just like that, the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Marty and I had been Jedburghs together in the OSS, and one night just outside of Biche, Marty had saved my life when I took a bullet in the leg and the communist partisans we were supposed to be leading in the fight against the Krauts decided to turn tail and run. Hell of a way to collect on a debt, though. I nodded at her to continue. "As for what I'd like you to do, well, let's just say that I don't want you to read him a list of grievances."

"Whoa, Mrs. Schmidt. I'm a dick, not a leg-breaker. Everything I do is strictly above-board," I lied. What she doesn't know, I figured, can't hurt me.

"Which is why you pull a pistol on guests."

"Occupational hazard." I stubbed out the remains of my smoke and looked her straight in the eyes. "I'll take your case, Mrs. Schmidt, but on one condition: if I can prove your claim right, you'll get your brother to help me in taking care of the situation." I mentally congratulated myself on that turn of phrase; plenty of wiggle room in it.

"Thank you, Mr. Cage. You won't regret this." She stood abruptly and held out her hand. I eased myself out of my chair and took it. She smiled warmly at me. Maybe more than warm. More than friendly, at least. I knew that she was wrong, and that I probably would regret this, but the way her smile touched nerves I'd forgotten I had told me that I might enjoy regretting it, after all.