Trouble

Trouble. The girl was trouble. I knew it as soon as she made her stereotypical entrance through the smoke laden air that partially obscured the office. She walked in like a bad metaphor, dressed like a cliche, but sipping from a genre defying bottle of Lucozade spring water. She opened with a vague and half ironic pleasantry, cheerfully phrased but clearly hiding the fact that her heart was breaking and she just wanted to get down to the matter at hand. My own forced and empty opening greeting was halted by my realization that I had seen her before. Not exactly in person, but maybe just a little bit in each and every face you see every day. She had a familiarity that made you wonder if she was more than just a literary construct, a description, like maybe she was real at some point, like an actress, or some random woman seen on the street but never forgotten.

I had yet to speak, and this weighed heavily on the opening paragraph, I had yet to introduce myself as well, which may alienate some people. "How can I help you?"

"Well, Mr Rand, I heard from a reliable source that you're the best investigator around. There's no case you wont solve in your own maverick manner, no missing person you can't find, no matter how ludicrous the manner of their disappearance. The most convoluted and intricately plotted murder always has that one small seemingly immaterial mistake that you'll pick up on in your own unique and renegade way."

I thought about blushing but realized it wasn't in character. "So you're familiar with my work, should I be impressed? How do you know that this case will be any different? What makes you think I'll be able to stumble upon that final clue this time?"

She laughed. "I know you might fail, and I'll be left heartbroken and without resolution, forever tormented by my pain. But isn't that the only impetus you need to convince you to take the case? And we both know you won’t fail, you're not written that way."

She took out a cigarette, and offered me the pack. "Do you smoke?"

"What's your brand?"

"Standard Noir cigarette," she shrugged as she threw one across the desk at me.

I yearned for a normal life, one free from these kind of exchanges. Maybe after this case I could be done, go and retire somewhere and become a romantic hero instead of a Noir character. But there would always be one last case, one last missing girl or old friend that needed my help. Us hard-boiled Noir characters don't get to retire in the normal way.

"So what's the case? Missing boyfriend? Cheating husband? Are you going to ply me with the standard Noir character list, or are you going to offer me something truly interesting and refreshing."

She reached into her bag and pulled out a picture. She gazed at it for a second before she pushed it across the desk towards me. "There's a missing girl".

The picture showed a young girl, maybe late teens or early twenties, sitting forlornly holding some balloons. The picture was in black and white and looked like a still from some French New Wave movie, or the cover of a Raymond Chandler book. A missing girl. That was interesting.

"Who's the broad?"

"Does it matter? She's missing, isn't that all that matters? Do you need anything else?"

"A name, a better description, a place, a time. I may be the best in my own renegade way but I do actually need something to go on. How did she go missing?"

"I don't know. That's what you need to tell me."

"Anything else you can tell me?"

"There was a contest, a creative writing contest on some shitty website. It's about this girl, thats the prompt, that picture is all the information you're given. Apparently there's a prize, I don't know what, for the person who can write the best story about the missing girl. But is that important when she's still missing, and isn't likely to be found?"

"Those bastards never think of what happens to the people in the prompts they give. A missing girl is a missing girl."

I took a long drag from the cigarette that she had offered me and looked down at the picture. "I'll take the case", I said as I stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. "I'll do my best."