A/N: New story.

Big Swamp

Chapter One: New Client

Not all detectives are the same — some play bad cop, some are awkward, some are funny.

— Juliette Lewis

I got in the car and started it, twisting the A/C knob so forcefully it should have come off in my hand. It didn't. Instead, cold air blew out of the vents. It was not enough. Not enough cold. The black dashboard of the car had soaked leisurely, sunbathing in the Alabama midday: it was now hot enough to be the scene of eternal punishment.

I reached out slowly for the steering wheel, knowing from painful experience how hot it might be. I was right. More searing wheel than steering wheel. I steered like the wheel was a hot potato, two fingers of each hand pinching it cautiously.

I was in a shitty mood, not just because of the beating sun.

I'd been eating my lunch in Ed's Diner, a place I go for three reasons. One, the A/C chills the place like a morgue, and there are days in the Alabama summer when you would rather be dead than sweat. Two, because the food is tasty and a country mile from haute cuisine — call it low cuisine — kinda like the contrast between high church and low church. Third, the waitress, Hannah, is one of those women you find now and then in Alabama — small of frame but large of heart, with just enough figure to insist she's a woman, but not so much to spill out of things. When I'm there I do my best to study my food and not Hannah, even though she's made it clear she likes to be studied by me. I should do something about that, I know, but I can't seem to bring myself to action, and so, partly because I'm a gentleman and partly because I'm a coward, I keep my eyes to myself. Mostly. Speaking of eyes, hers are entrancing (there's an expensive word) — slightly tilted and exotic — think Middle-Earth, not just another country — and deep. You know how some people, women especially, have eyes that you just bounce off of? Not Hannah. Although I should say I get it, about women's eyes — too many men are asshats. I'd close myself off too.

— Sorry, I was in the middle of a list, wasn't I? I spiral sometimes, follow thoughts further than I should, forget where I was going. So, anyway, Hannah's the second reason. The third reason, three, is that Ed's Diner is near my sister's office. She's a doctor, general practice, and she gets so lost in work that she forgets to eat. I often drag her from the office to a booth in Ed's and feed her. Another thing I like about Hannah is that she likes my sister and my sister likes her. My sister's name is Ellie.

So, like I was saying, I'd been eating my lunch — without Ellie, she had patients — when my phone buzzed. I answered, still chewing on a French fry.

"Chuck?"

"Yeaah," I mumbled in French-fried near-English, "it'sshh mee."

I don't normally answer the phone with my mouth full. But I saw that it was my assistant, Morgan Grimes, calling and — let's just say we don't always bring out the best in each other.

"You're at Ed's," Morgan concluded from my answer. "Listen, we just got a case. And when I say a case, I mean a case. Real Chandler stuff. A tall blonde came into the office a few minutes ago...No, not a tall blonde — the tall blonde. The tall blonde to end all tall blonde's, one of the shock troops in some Amazonian army, and I mean shock..."

"Morgan," I say in a tone that brakes him mid-gush. Morgan's enthusiasm for women is matched only by his failure with them. The failure's no mystery. I said I was part gentleman, part coward. Morgan's not even part gentleman.

"Sorry, Chuck, but this woman..." He stops himself this time. "This woman…" his tone is now as business-like as he can make it, "...she's waiting in your office. Says she needs help but that she'll only talk to you. She's just sitting in there, quiet, and...well, you need to come right away. Not just because she wants you, but because...well, because she scares the hell out of me. I don't think I can go back in there and sit in silence with her. I'll end up like a Spinal Tap drummer; I'll spontaneously combust."

"Morgan," I say his name because it focuses him, "Morgan, what have I told you about clients? What's the first rule?"

"No ogling the clients."

"Good, and what's the second rule?"

He took a minute to think. Lists with more than one item challenged him. Not a disciplined mind. "Um, don't invite waiting clients to play video games?"

"That's right. So, just go back to the front room and sit quietly. Do not stare at the client. Do not speak to the client unless spoken to? Got it?"

"Got it. Will do, boss."

Morgan is my best friend. Long story. But he needed work and my files were a brush pile, and so I hired him to disentangle them. It was meant to be temp work, but I couldn't seem to get him to leave, to find another job. I didn't pay him much because I couldn't, but he didn't mind. He lived with his mother in a run-down but massive old house a few blocks from my office, and he paid no rent and biked to work. I guess he could live on what I paid him, he did, and he seemed to like the work, though there wasn't much of it.

Given all that, you might've thought I'd have been glad for his call, but I wasn't. I'd hoped to have lunch with Ellie; it'd been a few days since I visited with her. That was one thing — I was disappointed. But I was also due at St. Dunstan's, where I sing in the choir.

I know, I know. Not many PIs are choir boys. It kinda jolts the whole roman noir thing I've got going here, huh? But I like to sing and, though my relationship to the church is, um, complicated, I keep going for the music. For the music and because I've become friends, I guess you'd say, with the priest, John Casey, who doubles as the choir director. We don't have much in common. He's not a talker and I am. Funny thing, a priest not being a talker. He grunts. I asked him one day if his grunting was him speaking in tongues. He didn't grunt at me for a few days after that, but I guess he forgave me. Priest, and all. He started grunting again. I sometimes say things I should only think. And maybe not think.

So, Hannah was swamped by the lunch rush and I was disappointed about Ellie and looking forward to choir practice and trying to eat the remains of my lunch and I got this call and so I had Hannah box my fries and I went to my car.

That's how I ended up driving to the office in a shitty mood. In a sweltering car that would only cool down by the time I got out at the office. I called St. Dunstan's and told Father Casey's secretary, Diana, I would not make it to practice, and when I finished, I pulled into my parking space. As I expected, my car had only just become comfortable. I sat for a moment, enjoying the coolness, and then I got out.

My office is in the back half of an old house, one that was built shortly after the Civil War. The front half is a law office, the office of Langston Graham. I rent the back from him. He's a good guy, once you get to know him. He's intimidating until you do. Come to think of it, he's intimidating afterward too. But still, a good guy. He's a tall black man with a baleful stare and a rare smile. Folks who come to see him park on the street out front. Folks who come to see me park around back, in the irregular gravel parking lot behind the house.

That parking lot was empty except for my car, a dusty white Camry, Morgan's bike, an old Trek, and a navy Porsche that had no business in any such lot. I stared at the car, the California plates. The car seemed to stand gingerly on the loose gravel, a pretty little girl lifting her fancy skirt to her ankles when she realizes she's standing in a puddle. I imagined it was in a hurry for its owner — the blonde, undoubtedly — to rescue it from its sojourn among the unwashed — like my Camry.

I took a breath and then climbed the wide back stairs leading to the narrow door of my office. I couldn't afford any fancy front sign, so I made do with a brass sign affixed to the door:

Charles Bartowski, PI

Closed Fridays

I like long weekends. Unfortunately, it was Tuesday and I had a client. As I opened the office door, I glanced back over my shoulder at the shiny Porsche. I felt sorry for it. I vowed to return its owner to it ASAP.

The cool air from the office was the first thing I noticed. Just the few strides from my car to the door had me sweating again. The second thing I noticed was her. And then the air conditioning was no help. The arctic would have been no help.

She was sitting in a chair, although her posture, seated, was so perfect that I realized it was possible to be seated at attention, and not just to stand at attention. She was blonde and tall and so much more. Despite her beauty, vast and formidable, it was her eyes that seized me. She looked at me with a cool, velvety blue gaze: her eyes were not deep like Hannah's, but they weren't the kind you bounce off of either. I didn't know what to make of them. I had no expensive word. But they gripped me like strong hands and held me. It took me a moment to find my way to her full lips, to her smile, half-amused, half-doubtful. She stood up. She stood as perfectly as she sat.

I am quite tall, and I was taller than her. But she was tall. The black pants suit she wore fitted her so exactly that it clearly had never been on a store's hanger. It had been made for her. She had on low black heels that came to a sharp point. A bit of blue ruffled silk showed above the jacket. She had no jewelry except a small, golden woman's chronograph. Her hair was pulled back in a simple, refined ponytail. I hadn't known ponytails could be refined.

She was everything Morgan said and so much more. I've said that, haven't I? The so much more thing? But she really was so much more than so much more. That I managed to extend my hand and say my name was, I declare, the greatest single accomplishment of my life.

"Chuck Bartowski."

She took my hand. Hers was as cool as her gaze but she shook my hand with surprising strength. I had the sudden, disconcerting realization that she was probably stronger than me. Oh, well, Ellie's always telling me that I should join a gym.

The woman smiled at me. The smile was not mechanical; it was real, but it also seemed practiced, too ready. A whiff of artifice.

"Hello, Chuck — you prefer that to Charles?"

It took me a minute to hear words because all I heard was the music of her voice when she said 'Chuck'. When I heard the words, it took me a minute to realize she was asking because of the sign on the door.

"Oh, yeah, um, yes, I do. I do. Prefer Chuck, that is, although my sister says that's a bad idea — who ever heard of a serious detective named Chuck? But I am. A serious detective, that is. And called Chuck. Which I do prefer."

I made myself stop talking — or whatever it was I was doing.

Her smile became less practiced and I liked it much more. She laughed softly. "Okay, Chuck it is."

She reclaimed her hand and I realized I had kept it until then as if she'd given it to me.

"May we talk in your office? I've come on a...confidential matter. I hope to hire you." She glanced at Morgan then back to me.

It's not often a guy like me, a detective in a small town in Alabama, a town named Opelika, which, I'm told, means Big Swamp, feels like a detective in Raymond Chandler's 1950s LA, but I did just then. I did. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen had Porsched in black to my begrimed back-half office — and she hoped to hire me.

Hoped. That word struck me funny. For a detective like me, disbelief, fear, and loathing were commonly caused by the job. Not hope. But seeing her caused me to hope. I wasn't sure for what or when or why, and I'd probably regret that hope, but my shitty mood vanished and I led her into my office.

"Sure, come with me. Morgan, hold my calls."

"But, Chuck…" Morgan started.

I cut him off. "Hold my calls." Of course — I answered my own phone. I didn't trust Morgan to do it. But the woman didn't need to know that.