Snake Eyes

It’s a gorgeous dame asking me to murder someone. It always is. Men want to take care of the delicate cases themselves, I guess, but women are smarter and outsource. They don’t want to get their pretty hands dirty, and there’s never a shortage of people willing to exchange someone’s life for a little burlap sack with a dollar sign on it. She picked up my name somewhere and came to my office, her shadow falling over the reversed letters that read Joe Spratt, Private Eye.

“I don’t need an investigation,” she says. She sits in the chair across my desk, refusing my offer of a knock of whiskey, and lights a cigarette. I watch, keeping my disinterested face on, but I feel a twinge of warmth in me. She’s a stunner, one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever shared a room with. She’s the reason they call them drop dead gorgeous. “I need you to murder my husband.” She’s colder than a February mackerel, but she’s smoking hot at the same time.

“That’s the tricky part. It’ll be a bit of dough. Half up front.” I lean back in my chair and put my feet up, to the side so I can keep an eye on her. Not because I think she’s going to run, but because I can’t not look at her.

“Half of how much?”

“A thousand bucks, doll.” She flinches slightly, taps ash into the ashtray on my desk. She’s poised, elegant, but she hangs up at the money.

“What guarantee do I get that you’ll do it? I’m not in the business of handing a thousand bucks to someone I can’t trust.”

“You walk in here saying you want me to kill your husband. Anyone who you would approach about that, you can’t trust.” I laugh. “And good luck finding someone who’ll do it cheaper. Door isn’t locked. Feel free to use it.”

“Now, let’s not be hasty, Mr. Spratt,” she says, silkily. Her voice is as sexy as her face. “I have the money. I just want some reassurance the job will be done.”

I watch her across the desk. The wisp of smoke from her cigarette curls around her head like a halo, the only one she’d ever wear. Dames who want to bump off their husbands don’t go to heaven, as the saying goes. But she’s beautiful, oh, she’s gorgeous. My loins can testify to that, and while I may be a killer, I’m no liar.

I stare at her, heart thumping. The circles I run, you always have to be willing to pull a trigger, especially for money. I work both sides of the law, whichever pays better, and I have a hell of a time saying no to a dame, especially one like Sarah Neiman.

I pick up the photo she’d brought me, a glossy picture of her husband. Henry Neiman, businessman. He‘s worth a lot of dough, a millionaire. Owns a fancy restaurant downtown. I can’t see the damage that she swears is there, no black eye, no stitches; but he’s a real dog of a man, to hear her tell it. Unafraid to smack her whether she needs it or not. She’s standing to inherit his empire, she tells me. She just needs something to happen. Enter Joe Spratt.

“My word is my bond,” I say. “That’s the best I can do for you. Now, we can go ahead with this, you give me the money and you let me do my job. The other option is I run you downtown myself. Get you measured for a nice jail cell, nice and fitted to show off your curves. You walk in here talking of murder, that’s against the law.” I level a cool eye at her. “It’s up to you how we play this.”

She leans over and twists out her cigarette, blowing one last thin wisp of smoke at me. It stings my eyes, and I regard her through a teary film. Reaching down, I opened my desk drawer a couple of inches, the one that holds my .38 revolver.

“I wouldn’t do well in a jail cell. I’m far too delicate,” she says, batting her eyes at me.

“I doubt that. You’re gorgeous, all right, but I don’t see any delicacy about you.” She looks indignantly at me, like a child called out for being wicked. “I’ll do it. Give me forty-eight hours.”

She smiles, pulling money out of her blouse. Of course it’s in her cleavage and not in the expensive handbag she’d flouted when she gracefully swept into my office. She hands me five hundred dollar bills and stands.

“Thank you, Mr. Spratt,” she says, coyly. She turns, leaves the office. I can see the mirror image of my name on the door, again superimposed over her immaculate body. I envy the glass. Then she’s gone.

“To you, Miss Neiman,” I say to her absence. Her money smells softly of her, with a finely intoxicating touch of her warmth, her body, lingering on the cash.

I think I’m in love.

***

It’s raining, course. My overcoat collar is turned up, even sitting in the car. The windshield fogs if I keep the windows up, so I roll one down an inch and keep swiping at the glass in front of me.

I can feel the comfortable pressure of my .38 in my shoulder holster, enjoying the lethal shape close to my heart. I pull the flask of whiskey out of my other pocket and take a burning slug of it.

He has a silver Packard I’m watching for. She said he would be home about eleven, so here I sit in the heavy rain, stinking of booze and death and cigarette smoke, waiting. I check my watch and it’s three minutes to eleven. The usual burn of anticipation stings in my chest, right next to the sour mash courage I keep knocking back.

She was going out, and had gone. A black Cadillac town car, blurry silhouette in the back seat, had left the place exactly at half past ten. I’m parked along the curb in a long line of cars so Sarah didn’t see me. The house itself isn’t quite visible from the street, set back on its lawn at the top of a rise. The view must be fantastic, I think. Oh, how the other half live.

I sit a few more minutes staring through the smudgy blur of the windshield. The rain beads, streaking the glass. Another knock from my flask, another cigarette. A moment later, a silver Packard rolls out of the night.

It’s him. He turns into the slick driveway and up he goes. In the car, I slip my gloves on and unclasp the strap of my holster, feeling the .38 swing slightly out from my side.

I get out of the car when the road is clear and jog across, following Neiman’s Packard up the drive. I see the taillights shut off in the garage as I move as quietly as I can towards him. His shape stands beside the car and tugs up his own collar against the driving rain, then he bolts for the door of the house.

When he gets home, the servants will be gone, she’d scrawled on the back of his photo. He’ll be alone in the house. Make it quick, make it look like a robbery. Keep what you take.

Keeping low I follow Henry to the front door. He fumbles with a key as I watch and match his timing. Finally it catches and he opens the door- I push him through it, gun in my hand, and kick the door closed behind us.

Henry Neiman stumbles as I shove him and falls forward, crashing to the thick marble tile floor, sliding wetly up against the stairs. I level my .38 at him, right between his eyes.

“Wait,” Neiman says, desperate. He looks like a drowned cat, hair slick and overcoat streaked with rain.

“Wait, don’t shoot!” He holds his hands up in front of his face, rainwater in his eyes, pleading.

“Sorry, bub,” I tell him. “Nothing personal, just business.” I pull back slightly on the trigger, knowing he can see it.

“Sarah!” he exclaims. “Did Sarah put you up to this? Did she lie, say I hit her?”

“Doesn’t matter.” I keep pressure on the trigger, looking down at him.

“How much is she paying you? I’ll give you ten thousand dollars to walk out of here right now.” His hands are shaking. “Ten thousand dollars. It’s in my safe, upstairs.”

I consider this. I lower the gun slightly, keeping that trigger pressure on. If it goes off now it will hit him in the gut as opposed to the bridge of his nose. Much worse.

“Let’s go to the safe, then,” I say, gesturing with the gun. “Don’t do anything stupid, now. I’m already paid so you pulling a fast one on me just gets you dead anyhow.” He turns slowly, keeping his hands up, dripping rain. Up the curving stairs we go, my gun pointed at the small of his back.

“Combination,” I bark as we enter the office. There’s a fancy desk with a typewriter on it, and a heavy metal safe on the floor. The whole room is painted white, both of us trailing water onto the matching rug in the office. He gives up the combination as ordered, I whirl the dial with his magic numbers until I hear the click. I open it and see stacks of cash.

He doesn’t look nervous but he sounds it. “The month’s profit from the restaurant, at the front there,” he says. “Just over ten thousand bucks.”

There’s an empty bank bag and I count in ten grand. Dropping the bag into my coat pocket, I lower the gun but keep it hot in my hand, finger on the trigger.

“Now what?” he asks.

“Now what is that I’m going to leave. You bought your freedom, sir. Congratulations.”

“No, that’s not it,” he says to me. He goes behind the desk, taking his overcoat off. He throws it over the back of the chair. “It was Sarah? She set me up?”

“Could have been,” I say. I tuck the .38 away and finger the bag in my pocket. “What helps my memory is cash.”

“That’s plenty!” Neiman cries. “Ten thousand dollars!"

"You set that price, sir," I remind him. “So far I’m up eleven grand and don’t even need to buy a new bullet. Yet.” He sits down at the desk, just the typewriter between us. “Got any whiskey?”

“Jesus,” he mutters, turning. There’s a little credenza behind the desk and he pulls a cut-glass decanter and glasses out, pouring both of us a knock. “You show up here, pull a gun, rob me of ten thousand dollars. Then you bleed me for whiskey.”

“We’ll cheer to our new arrangement of you not being dead,” I say, lifting my glass and throwing it back, feeling that familiar burn. I pulled the photo out of my coat pocket, slightly curled at one corner. “Here,” I tell him. “This is what she gave me.”

I hand the photo over, the one she’d written on the back.

When he gets home, the servants will be gone. He’ll be alone in the house. Make it quick, make it look like a robbery. Keep what you take.

“My God, Sarah,” he says. He has one short, rueful laugh, reads her writing again. “All this for money. Well, she’s about to learn a hard lesson, Mr.…”

“Spratt.”

“Mr. Spratt, what is your usual fee for this sort of work?”

“Five grand.”

“Five thousand dollars? Jesus, I should just kill her myself.”

“Be my guest. Save your dough.” When Sarah had been in my office intoxicating me with her beauty, her pure burning sex, I’d given her a deal because I didn’t want her to leave, although I did want to watch her go. I debate shooting him anyway, feeling the bulge of my .38 against my thigh. I could kill him, take her and the money. Too good an offer to turn down.

“Five thousand, then,” he tells me with his hands raking his hair. He stands up, drains his whiskey, and goes to the safe. It’s like a vault inside, stacks of money. Ten thousand dollars short. My hand drifts to my gun again, of its own volition. He hands me another five grand. “She’s been nothing but a curse on me since the day she blew into town,” Neiman says, his face reddening. “Do what you need to do. I don’t ever want to see her again.”

“Fair enough,” I say, tucking the money into the bank bag. At the same time, I reach into my other pocket and pull out the .38. His eyes bulged like saucers as I put two shots in him- snake eyes, I thought- painting the wall behind Neiman red. I’m no artist, but the white office needs some color.

I stand up and excuse myself from the room. Make it look like a robbery, she’d said, so I did. To start, I took all the whiskey and the nice decanter as I left. Plus, the safe was still open.

***

Forty-eight hours pass in the blink of an eye, and the city’s newest widow walks back through my door. Again I see her silhouette over my lettered name and my heart jumps like a crazed monkey. She comes through the door like an angel on the wing, although I knew she was of the devil.

“Well, Mr. Spratt,” she begins, lighting a cigarette like she had the last time. “You’ve killed my husband.”

“Yes, I did,” I tell her. “Good thing, too. Money’s been tight and I was running low on booze. I took his stash from his office.”

“Good. I can’t stand that horrible firewater. I’m glad it’s gone.” She traces her fingers sensually along the brim of her hat. From it dangles a veil, her concession to the fashion of widowhood. “I’m glad he’s gone.”

“You’re about to be a very rich woman,” I say. She might not like whiskey, but I do, so I pour myself another drink from the cut-glass decanter. It gives the office a certain air of glitz. “What with Henry’s business and all.”

“Being a wife is hard work. But, it can pay very well,” she smiles. My heart skips a beat.

“If you have people you can trust, I suppose it can.”

“And what do you mean by that, Mr. Spratt?” She lowers a gorgeously smoky eye at me.

“I found something interesting in the safe that you obviously didn’t know about.” It’s quick but her smug expression falters.

“There was minimal cash in there,” she says, straightening. I grin. She looks like a pussycat that realized it wandered down the wrong alley.

“About thirty grand, all told. He gave me fifteen of it himself. Ten for his life, five for yours. I welshed on the deal I made with him but your death is paid in full.” She flinched. “Then I helped myself to the rest of the dough, for the pain and suffering I underwent, killing him.” I pour another knock from the fancy decanter, offering her a shot. She refuses, again. “But your husband didn’t trust you, and he was right in that.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, haughtily. Her lovely face is ringed with smoke and I can smell her perfume, strong and sultry.

“Well, he didn’t have much to say,” I say, winking at her. “He gave me the combination to the safe, thinking it would save him. I let him know you’d paid me to kill him. Speaking of which, where’s the other five hundred?”

As last time, she dips her long, elegant fingers into her cleavage, handing me five more c-notes. I take them and tuck them safely away. I can still smell her on the dough.

“You and me are square, baby. What you need to remember is safes aren’t just for money, doll. There was other stuff in there.” I cast a hard eye at Sarah. “His will, for one thing.”

“You didn’t take it!” she exclaims, standing from her chair.

“It was just sitting there,” I say calmly. “So I had a peek. I was wondering what good old Henry Neiman was worth. And, like I said, Henry didn’t trust you. The beneficiary isn’t listed on the will, doll. Blank. Zip.”

“What do you mean?”

“Henry had no intention of leaving you anything,” I said, coldly. “Who he meant to put on there is anyone’s guess.”

“He would never!”

“That’s right, Sarah, he wouldn’t. The beneficiary on the will was blank.” I lean forward in my chair, the clasp of my shoulder holster undone. “Do you remember when you came here the first time, asking me to kill him?” She nods dumbly. “And I told you that you shouldn’t trust anyone who you would ask for murder.” Again, a nod. “Well, us unsavory types tend to know other unsavory types. For a small fee, I was able to insert my own name as the sole beneficiary of the estate of Henry Neiman. It’s notarized by a lawyer who you also shouldn’t trust, but I trusted him enough to pay him twenty-five grand to do that job. He’s also cooked up some spicy documents showing I have been Mr. Neiman’s trusted associate.”

Her eyes widened so big I thought they might fall out on my desk like dice. Snake eyes.

“That’s steep, his price, but it’s next to nothing for Joe Spratt, multi-millionaire.”

“How could you!” she screams at me. She lunges across the desk and I catch her by her delicate wrists, holding her back effortlessly. Dames always think they’re stronger than they are. “You bastard!”

I reach for my .38. I level it at her face, holding the barrel right over her eye so she can see how serious I am. I smell gunmetal and her lovely perfume, a mix I could get used to.

“Calm down if you want to walk out of here,” I tell her. “Ask Henry- this slug will put tiny pieces of you all over that wall, a match for his office. But this one will go right through my nice plate glass. I’ll have to have it re-lettered and I don’t want to do that.” She calms, but slowly. The crimson flush of rage appears on her chest and I look at it. She’d had murder in her eyes, but the fury is fading. “Are you calm? Are you going to be a good girl now?” She nodded and I let her go.

The anger radiates off of her. I can feel her smoldering there, just waiting to burst into flames. I want to scoop her in my arms and kiss her until she changes her tune. I thought she just might kill me if I tried, so I reconsidered. Not an easy decision with a doll like Sarah Neiman.

“You know, this private eye business is too rough and tumble for a multi-millionaire,” I say. “I’m retiring, baby. Out of the game. I have enough money to live forever, and I hear Belize is beautiful this time of year.” She sulks across the desk, her hat askew and mascara smeared below her left eye. “Want to come with me? I could use a gal to keep me entertained.”

“You can’t be serious,” she says, keeping an angry voice, but her face is relaxing.

“Oh, I’m serious, baby. We can leave tonight.” I watched as one corner of her beautiful mouth, those irresistible ruby lips, curled into a catty smile. “But if I think, for one second, that you have it in for me, if you’re going to cheat me, I’ll kill you. I killed your husband for money, don’t think I won’t kill you too. He paid for your death and he’ll get it yet.” Her smile widened. “What do you think, doll?”

“Call a cab,” she says, grinning gleefully. “We can be at the airport in twenty minutes!”

It was more like twenty-five minutes, but close enough.

The End

BIO: Nathan Poole Shannon is an emerging writer of the strange and macabre. Creepy and weird stories, whether they be modern or historically set, are his specialty. From crawling shadows to cryptic specters, he is only beginning to share with the world. He lives in Ottawa, Canada, with his spouse and a small menagerie of pets who are decidedly not creepy- but from time to time, inspire something that is.

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