Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

long couch behind those, its back against the opposing brick wall. The rest of the room was just filing cabinets and unusable space.
    Frank was behind the desk when I entered, seated with his back straight in his big leather chair. He was on the phone, a stack of files at one elbow and a lit reading lamp at the other. Between his elbows was an ink blotter, heavily stained.
    His skin was clean-shaven and taut, and he looked like a man who took care of himself, did so to the point of pampering. No one really knew exactly how well-off Frank was. He had his home on Hill Street, his pretty wife, his two daughters, both in nice Ivy league colleges, and his two Cadillacs. He never seemed to want for anything. His exterior appearance was polished, and yet it did little to hide the real man inside from anyone who did business with him, the rough and violent ex-cop who had found a much better life as a private detective maneuvering in and out of the countless cracks that existed between laws.
    I closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it. I didn’t want to step any farther into that tight room. I looked at Frank for a while, then realized there was someone else here, standing in the back, by the rear window, in the shadows.
    I looked toward the figure and saw that whoever it was, he had his back to me and was glancing at me over his shoulder. He was holding a folded newspaper under his left arm. He waited for a moment, staring at me, before turning away and looking out the rear window at the cop parking lot below. This was obviously what he had been doing before my arrival.
    There was no getting around the fact that whoever this man was, he was a big guy, with a neck like a hydrant. He wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans, and something about his build reminded me of one of those performers in the circus who bend metal bars around their necks as a show of their strength. He wasn’t muscular like a weight-lifter or a professional athlete, just tremendously solid. He was a giant to my gargoyle, blacksmith to my scarecrow. I didn’t have to think hard to figure out what kind of work he did for Frank.
    Frank waved me in but I remained by the door. This refusal made my having come this far already a little easier for me to bear. He was listening intently to the person on the other end of the phone, not speaking or even nodding, just sitting with his back straight, the phone in one hand and his other spread flat on the blotter. I shook the rain out of my hair and my three-day-old beard and wiped the palms of my hands on my jeans. Then I looked again toward the giant at the back of the room. He was reading his paper by the weak light that came in through the small window. I looked at him and couldn’t help but wonder how exactly he could fit behind the wheel of a car.
    Frank finally hung up the phone and stood. He waved me in again, this time more insistently. He gestured toward one of the two seats facing the desk as he looked through the pile of files. I ignored his gesture and stayed where I was, my hands in the pockets of my jacket. Frank looked up again. He was clearly puzzled that I was still where I was, almost annoyed by it. I took a degree of pleasure from this.
    “Jesus, Mac, come in,” he said.
    I took a few steps forward and stopped. I turned my head toward the large storefront window that looked out over Main Street. There was nothing beyond it but the shifting, grainy gray of the rain and the half-stripped trees that lined Main. The sound of the rain was so relentless I was starting to feel a little beaten by it. I was spent, and a little drunk still, too tired to think or care about anything.
    “You’re late, you know that, right?” Frank said
    I nodded. “Yeah.”
    “I’m running a business here. You work for me, you need to be on time. Do we understand each other?”
    I didn’t answer. The giant was looking at me over his shoulder again. His face was in shadow, but I knew his eyes were on me.
    Frank was looking at the scratches on my face. He said nothing about them, but then he didn’t need to; he knew how I got them, knew the whole story.
    He looked down at the pile of files then and pulled one from the bottom half of the stack. He dropped it on top of the blotter and opened it, flipping through the papers inside.
    “You know, there’s not that much work out here for skilled labor, let alone someone like you.”
    I had lived in Southampton my whole life. I knew what was and wasn’t out