Softboiled Hard Case: The First Installment of the Scarlett Redman Series

My brief case smelled like old shoes. To be precise, my brief case smelled like old, wet shoes just pulled off of a chronic drunk who'd passed out in a drainage ditch, foot first. 

I'd discovered the smell shortly after I'd arrived to the closet I called my office. I say shortly, because first I had to check my voice mail. None. Then I had to check my email. None. Well two, but not having a penis, I regarded the promise of porn star penis enlargement to be junk mail. Finally, the post. Big fat nada. Not even a bill I could ignore. I was reduced to performing the only professional gesture I had left. I opened my brief case. 

That's when I was assaulted with the smell. The entire contents of my brief case showed a three-day old peanut butter sandwich, an 81/2x14 yellow legal pad containing only doodles, some of them not to bad, if I do say do myself, and the aforementioned old, wet shoes. It was when the smell started burning the hairs in my nose that I was jolted back in to the moment, and thus reminded of my damp socks. 

If I neglected to mention that my feet were damp--which might lead some with quicker intellects to draw certain conclusions--it was merely because I was trying to cope with the myriad of olfactory sensations with which I was being accosted. The omission has absolutely nothing to do with attempting to hide the fact that the old, wet shoes, and their lively odor which were only recently removed from the ditch, had been peeled off my own soaking feet. It had been a hard week. 

It had been a hard week, and it didn't look like it was getting any better. Those were good shoes.

I shut my brief case, to contain the smell, peeled off my socks, which had stained my wet-wrinkled feet navy blue, and headed for the bath. As previously mentioned, my office was a closet. There aren't many times when this pays off, but today, on this morning, having my office in a actual closet in my small, but perfectly adequate house, was just about the best thing in my life. With no mail, no calls, and no sign of any work, any time, I thought a bath, a handful of aspirin, and a quiet chance to ruminate on my apparent failure in Tailing a Suspect 101, were in order. 

As I stood in the increasingly steamy bathroom, my favorite room in the house, and gratefully undressed, my wallet fell out of my coat pocket and hit the tile. As I bent to pick it up, I realized it was empty of the two 20's it contained. Worse though, well, certainly more damaging to my fragile sense of self, was the glorious bandito mustache that had been drawn, in what appeared to be permanent marker, on the photo of my brand new, shiny, freshly minted private investigators license. Scarlett Redman. Private, and public, dick.  

 This private eye schtick was going to be harder than I thought.