Five percent of that occupancy was sitting behind a second-floor window. A hat rack stood in the corner with a single rumpled fedora. On the desk was a black rotary phone, a bottle of rye and a dirty glass. The person behind the desk had his feet propped up, repeatedly shuffling a deck of cards without intention. His necktie had a pattern of dart boards. The playing cards had stag-party pictures of dames.
The phone rang.
And rang.
The feet eventually came off the desk. Cards scattered. He grabbed the receiver.
“Mahoney, mumble to me.”
Former state agent Mahoney, officially retired in the greater Miami-Dade community with a private office in the shadow of a drawbridge. The frosted glass on the original 1940s door had gold letters with his name and PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS.
The person on the other end of the phone was a recent client, the victim of a fly-by-night mortgage-loan scam. Mahoney could barely understand because the client was talking so fast, expressing profuse thanks. Once again, he’d gotten someone’s money back, and word was getting around.
“Ice it, Goldilocks,” said Mahoney. “Just hoofin’ my beat. Two-bit shylock bent job.”
More thanks in closing.
Mahoney nodded. “Shama-lama-ding-dong.”
He hung up and gathered the playing cards. Before he could resume shuffling, the phone rang again. Mahoney eyed it. He never answered on the first ring. Because once he did, mundaneness set in. But until then, the possibilities were endless: a coded message from a wharf in Bangkok until the line went dead after a gunshot; someone with an eye patch wanting to arrange a border crossing in East Berlin; a dizzy broad with a mysteriously dead sister, but that turned into a case of split personality when she pulled out the meat cleaver. Or even, dare he hope . . . Hollywood.
The phone reached the tenth ring. He snatched the receiver.
“Mahoney, your dime.”
It was the credit-card company.
Mahoney winced. But not because he was behind on payments. It was the inevitable march of technology. Serge had persuaded him that no matter how loathsome this intrusion of the modern world, he needed to start taking credit cards to stay in business:
“It seemed like just yesterday,” Mahoney said to himself. “I was listening to a maudlin strain of jazz that mocked my run of bad luck, performed in the same schadenfreude riff as a dope-fiend trombone player who moonlights for his habit doing studio-session work that involves overdubbing Warner Brothers cartoons with a toilet-plunger
“Mahoney just stared down into his empty glass of rye like a calico cat that gets its kicks watching water circle a drain.”
“Maybe this will cheer you up!” Serge ran over to the desk with Christmas-morning zeal. “I just got a cool thing that plugs into the earphone jack of my new smartphone. Smartphones rock! I can check the rainfall in Tulsa, play roulette online, ask it to give me voice street directions and quiche recipes, identify constellations, track airline flights in real time, scan bar codes to see if duct tape is cheaper nearby, and watch YouTube videos of hilarious injuries involving archery equipment and trampolines. I’ve heard rumors it also makes phone calls but haven’t had time to verify that yet.”
“El gizmo?” said Mahoney.
“Oh, right.” Serge twisted a tiny piece of plastic into the top of his phone. “This thing swipes credit cards! Isn’t that fucked up?” He waved his free hand, magically wiggling fingers. “Then it flies through the air and ends up in your bank account.”
“Skeeze rap the skag twist.”
“Of course I need it,” said Serge, fiddling with the top of the phone. “I have to run people’s credit cards every day.”
Mahoney stared.
“It’s the weirdest thing,” said Serge. “I don’t even ask; they just offer. It started right after I got the smartphone and was so excited I couldn’t help running up to people: ‘Have you seen these? They’re the shit! You have to get one! I’m going to show you every single app I’ve downloaded. Only takes a couple hours. I’ve almost figured out how to use it to blow things up from a distance, and this little accessory on top even swipes credit cards.’ Then someone just hands me a Diners Club . . .”
It took a week. But finally, Mahoney fought every fiber in his being and decided to accept Serge’s advice in the name of keeping his noir dream alive. He placed the dreaded call. Since he had a rotary phone, he couldn’t navigate the automated menu options.
“Yo, chief!” said Mahoney.
“Gaffer!”
“Brass, honcho,
