The Referral Game

continued to the second floor. I remembered why I didn’t take the stairs too often. The stairwell was filthy and it looked like someone had been doing some drinking as I kicked away two beer bottles and an empty pint whiskey bottle just on my short trip. I made a mental note to call building maintenance for all the good it was likely to do.
    I opened the second floor door and made my way down the hall to my office. The door had Frank Randall, Discreet Investigations painted on it and I noted that the paint was fading. It was the first thing people saw when they came to the office and I liked to keep up appearances. I made another mental note to call the painter. The office set up was a two room affair. The outer office had two bookshelves with various tomes I had picked up at a book store when I had first opened the place. It was an eclectic collection with classic novels, references materials, and the odd biography that was available on the cheap at the time. There was a couch and three upholstered chairs arranged for customers to be seated if I was busy and a desk and chair for my secretary. The secretary was an off and on addition to my detective firm and the position was open at the time. Two filing cabinets on a wall to the right of the desk and a sink and mirror behind a partition in the back of the office rounded out the accruements. I passed through into the inner office, hung my jacket up, stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on my desk and sat down.
    My office was a roughly half again as large as the outer office. Immediately to the left of the door was a large couch for my clients and it also doubled as a bed for me at times. My mahogany desk dominated the room and there were two chairs in front of it for clients. On one wall a had a huge map of the city and it was flanked by two more bookcases. A television and a radio in the corner rounded out the room.
    I had a pile of mail from yesterday that I had not gone through as of yet. I loosened my tie and grabbed my ornate brass letter opener. Slicing each envelope neatly I began to plow through the pile. I was hoping to find a check, but there seemed to be only bills and advertisements. I looked at one letter that was shilling toothpaste and tossed it in the trash. The next letter was advertising answering machines. I put that one in the maybe pile and it reminded me to call the service and have them send my calls through. As I was hanging up the phone I heard someone walking in the hallway and they seemed to pause at the door to the office. After a moment had passed they continued on. I had noticed in the past that some customers needed a couple of runs at the door before they came in.
    Sometimes the investigation they wanted to commission was embarrassing and sometimes it just seemed that private eyes were low on the social level and that in itself was embarrassing. I could wait until they steeled their courage up. I stepped behind the partition to splash some water on my face and check out my appearance in the mirror. My 170 pounds was spread out over a frame of some six feet. I shaved the day before and I had a clean shirt on. I heard the door to the outer office open and I dried my face and walked over to my office door. Before I reached it the door opened and a woman steeped in.
    “Mr. Randall?” She asked in a raspy voice with just the hint of an accent.
    “I’m Frank Randall. How can I help you?”
    She strode up to me and firmly shook my hand. I motioned for her to a seat in front of my desk and sat down myself.
    “I am Glenda Petersen,” she said. “I have been married for just over a year and my husband has disappeared”
    She spoke calmly. I pulled a cigarette from a package in my front pocket and lit it. I drew in a lungful of smoke and studied her. She was a well dressed woman of perhaps fifty. Well groomed hair with perfect makeup and manicured nails. She had on a gray jacket and a gray skirt. She looked like money.
    “Mrs. Peterson most husbands who disappear don’t want to be found and when they are the wives usually don’t like what they have found.”
    “Mr. Randall,” she said still in a calm tone. “I am a woman who is used to getting what she wants. I have been told you are a competent and discreet investigator. I want Tony found. I’ll deal with any consequences that such an investigation might produce.”
    I drew in another lungful of smoke. Blew it out and stubbed the cigarette.
    “Okay. You win Mrs. Peterson. I