A Short Story a Day

by David Michael

Makenzie never looked so good as when she helped the blonde into my office. Makenzie was six kinds of hot. Pick your favorite points, she scored high enough in all of them to make her the perfect receptionist. The blonde, though, added a touch of class and another eight kinds of hot–even after deducting for the black eye and the bloody scratch down one cheek.

“She just stumbled in,” Makenzie said. She maneuvered the blonde into one of the visitor chairs, helped her sit down. For several long seconds, both women leaned toward me, the necks of their blouses hanging open. “Said she had to talk to you.”

I could’ve helped, I guess. But then I would’ve missed the show. “You didn’t try to talk her out of it?”

Makenzie straightened up, adjusted her blouse. “No. Only God knows why.”

“I …” the blonde said. Makenzie and I both turned to look at her.

“Is she drunk?” I asked, trying to decide how that might affect her score, and the houly rate I charged. “Or stoned?”

The blonde fumbled with her handbag, opened it. “I,” she said again. “I need you to … solve … a murder.”

“Whose?” I asked.

“Mine,” she said. She opened her mouth to say more, then closed it. “Mine,” she said again. Her stomach heaved. Her mouth opened. No words this time, just blood.

“Jesus!” I said, pushing back from my desk, away from the red splash of gore and bile. “Jesus!” I repeated.

The blonde had dropped her handbag when she convulsed, spilling out a green rainbow of cash. Hundreds, in neat, wrapped stacks, little bricks of paper worth $10,000 each.

“Poisoned,” said the blonde.

“Oh my god,” said Makenzie. “How many do you think there are?”

The blonde sat up straighter in her seat, bracing herself on the arms of the chair. Maybe she was trying to stand. “Someone…poisoned…” Her arms gave out then and she slumped out of the chair onto the floor. I couldn’t see her now, but I heard her retch a couple more times.

“Shit,” I said. “Did she miss any of the stacks?”

Makenzie had backed away from the woman too. She leaned forward, then sideways. “A couple, I think.”

“OK. Get those. See if they’re sequential.”

“Help … me …”

“You get them,” Makenzie said. “She’s staring at me. And I’m not stepping in that mess. Not with these shoes.”

“Bah. What do I pay you for?”

“Filing,” Makenzie said. “Answering the phone. And these,” she added, with a quick, disgusted flick of one wrist, her fingers brushing the side of one breast.

She had me there. “Normally,” I said, “you’re worth every penny.” I stepped around my desk, trying not to step on any of the blood.

Three stacks of bills had been spared a blood bath because they lay behind her on the floor. I squatted down and picked those up, riffled through them.

“Ick,” Makenzie said. “She’s blowing bubbles of blood.”

“Fuckin’ ay,” I said. “They’re not sequential.” I stood back up. I leaned over the woman so I could see her face. Damn. She was blowing bubbles. Nasty stuff. One of her eyes rolled up to look at me, seemed to focus on me. “I’ll take these as my retainer,” I told her, waving the three stacks where she could see them. She might’ve nodded, it was hard to tell, the way her body shook.

I went back around my desk to my chair, sat down. I opened a drawer and pulled out a Fedex package. I filled out the paperwork, stuffed the stacks into the package and sealed it. I launched the package across the room to Makenzie. She caught it one handed. “Put that in the out box, will you?” I said.

She nodded and went into the front office. “One of those is mine, right?” she asked when she came back.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Is she dead yet?”

“The bubbles have stopped.”

I picked up the phone and punched in the numbers.

“911 emergency hotline,” the voice on the phone said.

“There’s a woman just came into my office,” I said. “I think she was poisoned. She’s throwing up blood and I don’t know what to do for her. She just collapsed.”

As I listened to the operator I settled back in my chair and looked at the ceiling. It looked like I could take off early today. Makenzie too. Fuckin’ ay.

Copyright © 2006 by David Michael. All rights reserved.