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The Art of Truth

By Shelley Ontis

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I knew the moment she sashayed into my office that nothing would ever be the same again.

It was one of those nights where the sirens and stink of the city rose up off the pavement like upside down rain and you couldn't help but get soaked in it, you'd left your umbrella at the bar and some luckless wino finally had a good moment as he palmed it on his way back out after begging for a bourbon, straight that never came. You know, one of those nights. And then she swayed into my office.

She cocked a hip on the corner of my desk like it was her spot all along and how dare I not keep it dusted and smart for the next time she chose to plant her caboose. She said, "You the detective, or you just keepin' his chair warm?"

She had a smoky voice, a voice that spoke of late nights, hard liquor, harder men and the occasional hard candy. So I says, "Who's askin'?"

"I'm asking," she said, as if that's what I'd meant. She lit a long, thin cigarette. "Need to find somebody. You up for it?"

"Maloney's the name, I'm a gumshoe, a snoop, a private dick. If he's missing, I can find him." She turned to say something soft and wise, but I stopped her. "For a price."

"I expected as much. Good men don't come cheap." She pulled a piece of paper from way down low inside the front of her dress. I took it from her, fighting the urge to hold it against my cheek, or smell it.

"His name, last address, aliases, everything you'll need. And I want him alive." She took a long drag off her cigarette and blew smoke bullet holes above her head.

"You got it all wrong, baby, I'm not a hit man, I'm just a dick. If I find him alive, he'll be alive, see."

"No," she said, as she undulated off the corner of my desk and oozed toward the door, her perfume and smoke trailing behind her like adoring fans following her everywhere she goes, fans that you can kind of see through and that float off the floor and might make you cough, if you got allergies. "You've got it wrong, Maloney. Just remember, I want him alive." She reached up, stroked her long, auburn hair, and then removed it all in one quick motion revealing an envelope taped to her bald head. She tore it off and threw it to me. "Here's half a mil. Twice that when you're done." Then she put the wig back on and swiffered out the door, leaving as if she'd just gotten the best of me, but I knew the truth. She wasn't so smart. She'd put the wig on crooked.

I poured myself a shot of bourbon and decided to take a nap before starting the case. I dreamed of the dame with the crooked wig, and wondered if any other parts were detachable.

The next day, the city still stinking and the sirens still blaring, I hit the pavement looking for the mark--J.D. Smith. I hit my usual narks, came down hard on a few of 'em, just to get this case done and out of the way, but I didn't know if it was so I could end my business with that feisty dame or so I could see her again, real soon.

One squealer said he'd heard of the guy I was looking for, he liked to play the backroom poker games, bet on back alley dogfights, score high in unfinished basement tiddlywinks. A real sicko.

I finally tracked him down at a skid row flea circus, betting on whether the trapeze artist would bite it or make the triple. I started to get nervous, this was easy, too easy.

"Smith?"

"Ayuh, that's me." He held up a wrinkled dollar bill and shouted at the manager. "I got a buck says the tightrope walker chokes!"

"Smith, finish your dirty bets and then we got something to talk about."

"Sure, Mac, sure, jess gimme a minute."

I waited, and when Smith had blown his wad on an unusually talented troupe of fleas, I took him aside and said, "Somebody's lookin' for ya, and I'm gonna deliver ya, see?"

"Sure, sure ok." He stared at me, waiting for me to show him the way. Too easy. Sweat stung my eyes. I started remembering all the cases that had gone bad, who might still have a grudge.

"You know a dame with a pretty talk, a pretty walk, a pretty convincing wig?"

He scratched his thick head with a meaty paw. "She smoke long, thin cigarettes and blow bullet holes in the smoke?"

I nodded.

"That sounds like Syd, but she don't wear no wig."

"Sure she don't, Bud. Why don't you come with me and we'll discuss it in my office."

He came like a puppy afraid to pull on its chain, afraid its owner'll kick it and leave it out in the rain with only a can of food and no can opener.
Or a can opener, too, it wouldn't really matter, would it?

This case wasn't adding up. Syd, if that was her real name, acted like he'd be hard to control with all her 'I want him alive' talk. But he was like a puppy, afraid to pull on its chain, and all that, and then some.

We walked down the street together, his almost clumsy bulk next to my street-hardened body, one clodding along, one walking straight and sure like the wind was at his back and a home-cooked meal might be at the end of this and every street, and the big oaf kept stepping on my feet and spraying me when talked. He was in front of me, too, which made it even more frustrating, but every few steps he'd crunch my toes and mumble, "So sorry," and I'd be stuck hopping on one foot and wiping my face with my sleeve.

And he babbled about everything he saw. It was a running commentary on everything I couldn't have cared less about.

"Say, Mac, can we stop and get a hot dog, I like hot dogs, only I don't want no mustard or no ketchup, oh sorry, just a few onions and some relish maybe, how often do you think they clean those carts anyway, do you supposed hot dogs are really made a dogs, I wonder if they are if they're made of big dogs or little dogs, so sorry about that, I once saw a coat that was made of dog hair or at least the guy wearing it said it was but I'm starting to think he might have been just yanking my, oops my clumsy feet, I saw a guy
wearing a chain for a necklace once and I asked him where the lock was and who had the key and do you know, sorry, he punched me right in the yap, and you say Syd wears a wig but she didn't when I knowed her, but I don't think some of her other parts was real, hey I'll bet you two dollars she wears a push up bra, sorry about that, are those expensive shoes because my toes get squished in these--"

I shot him right between the eyes.

I ran, making my way through the few brave men who tried to stop me and make citizens arrests and impress their dames and mommas and maybe make the papers and have a moment in the sun, but I ran back to my office wondering if anyone could identify me and in walked Syd, this time wearing a zoot suit, a short black wig and smoking a long, brown cigar.

"You tricked me," I railed. "Why didn't you tell me he was an idiot?"

"He stayed with me a while, a favor for a friend. Mixed up my shampoo with some snake oil he'd won in a Parcheesi game. Nothing grows up top since." Syd sat back in a chair and propped her black and white shoes up on my desk. She'd stepped in gum and something no one would want to chew on, but I didn't tell her. Damn her for tricking me. Let her shoes stick to the floor.

"So that was the plan all along. You didn't want to find him. You wanted revenge." I almost admired her smarts.

"No one can take that for long. And you look like a man with a hair trigger. But don't worry, Maloney. You can keep the half mil. I got plenty, and you deserve something for your trouble."

I stood so fast the chair blew out behind me and crashed out the window. I heard someone scream but I didn't care, I couldn't take that smoky voice anymore, I had to have her or get that sultry voice out of my life forever. I rounded the desk like a wildebeest on the prowl.

She stood as I reached her and wrapped my arms around her. I bent her back and kissed her, her wig floating to the floor, the business end of her cigar just missing my good eye.

"Oh, Maloney."

I looked at the ceiling. "Why, of all the detective's offices in all the world did this dame have to waltz into mine?"

"Your name was first in the Yellow Pages. A typo: Baloney, Private Eye."

I remembered the near-sighted, hard of hearing clerk that had taken my ad, and thought what a funny thing fate was, funny like a blue joke you're told and you don't get until three days later when you're soaking in the bathtub wondering if anyone suspects you use bubble bath and a loofah and how much you'd have to pay if they found out. Funny that way.

"You're some dame, dame," I said. "Let's blow this joint. The coppers will be on my tail any minute, looking for the man who shot Smith and left him laying in the stinking street, see."

"Okay, Maloney, let's go," she breathed.

"One thing, Syd." Her bald dome was blinding me under the hard lights so I tossed her the black wig that looked too much like something on the side of the road and watched her arrange it on her head. I looked her suit up and down, pointed my chin in her direction. "I think I like a dress better."

"Oh, Maloney. How lucky for you. You'll need one to get out of the country."

I followed the feisty broad toward the rest of my life, leaving this stinking city behind me, all the Smiths, all the coppers, all the sirens and locks and guns. Turns out she likes bubble baths and loofahs and men who have deep thoughts in deep bathtubs, and I found I don't mind the feel of chiffon against my skin, even if I'm the one wearing it while I'm on the lam.

We got far away with all her money. The biggest mystery to be solved here is who's pouring the next drink, how do you say 'I'm sorry, I didn't know you were a prostitute,' and how did I end up naked on top of the hut?

Maybe for you the city doesn't stink like dirty underwear in the overflowing hamper of life, maybe it's more like day old socks, not worn for sport or heavy activity, or a shirt worn during breakfast, but not lunch and dinner while eating spaghetti or soup or something equally messy. Maybe it even smells good to ya. Well, you can keep the city. I'll take Syd in paradise any day.

And if they ask you what you know about a clumsy, lisping man called Smith they found dead on a city street some years ago, you tell 'em the last person he was seen with was a sweaty-faced, limping man called M.J. Baloney and you won't exactly be lying.

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Shelley lives in Illinois surrounded by corn, cows and pick-up trucks.  She insists it's not nearly as exciting as it sounds.