Lilian Boatwright’s nose was too short. It was the first thing I noticed about her as she stood across my desk from me. The second was her outstretched hand. I reluctantly shook it.
   Above her nose, rather small and porcine, were two very round very pale blue eyes. Her face was round and pink, her hair a wavy golden blond that reached just past her shoulders to hang level with the cross dangling from her neck. She had a nice enough figure, I decided, but not the kind I would notice in a crowded room. Standing there, at about 5 feet tall, in her cream colored rayon dress and grey-pink mary janes, she looked singularly American and exceptionally harmless. And I knew that if there was anyone I had met in my years as a PI who was going to kill me, it was her.Â
   “What can I do for you, Miss Boatwright?”
My voice was congenial but the angle of my lips remained unchanged. I gestured toward the chair across the desk from me, and she perched herself softly on the edge of its seat.Â
“To get straight to the point, Mr. Abel, I’d like your help keeping a man away from me,” she answered, a studied sort of mid-atlantic approximant touching at the edges of her voice.
So she was going to be matter of fact about it. That was rare. It ought to make things nicer for me, but I wasn’t so sure I liked it.
“Well, why don’t you tell me a little more about this man?”
“Certainly. His name is Jonathon Briggs. He stands at about six feet tall, has brown hair and greyish eyes. He lives on the fourth floor of City View Apartment, on M street. I called things off with him a little more than a week ago. I guess I figured he wouldn’t take it too well, but he’s been worse than that. Showing up outside my apartment once or twice a day, that sort of business. I didn’t mind too bad and wasn’t going to do anything about it, I was already planning to move out soon, so it was just a matter of getting through the week.”
“So what made you change your mind?”
“Well, when he found my apartment empty after the move, he decided to bother me in public. At work, I mean. In front of people.” I couldn’t tell whether she was scared or angry, but the flame in her eye had to be one of the two. “He might have hurt someone,” she added, as an afterthought.
“And where exactly is work for you?”Â
“I’m a singer at The Red Ropes Lounge, it’s a theater in Columbia Heights.” In response to my raised eyebrow, she added “Alright, fine. It’s a nightclub, more or less. But it has real, legitimate plays sometimes, during the day before they can open for the night crowd.” Without pausing, she added “Are you taking the job or not?”Â
“Give me a second to think.”
She nodded and reached into her purse for a compact, retouching her face while I deliberated.
It would be easy. The sort of job I had done a million times before, and would probably do a million times again. Just show up at the guy’s doorstep and shake him up a little. But something told me it wouldn’t be as simple as that. Something about the girl made me uneasy, something beneath her soft appearance. I didn’t want her money, and I didn’t want her around. But who ever got what he wanted? It was what I needed that mattered, and the fact was that I needed both.
   “I’ll see what I can do about it for you,” I finally answered.Â
   Her compact snapped shut.
   “Thank you, Mr. Abel,” she responded. “And whatever your rate is, I assure you I can afford it.”
   “In that case, I’ll let you know what it is once I’ve figured out how much trouble I’m getting myself into by helping you. Where else does this Mr. Briggs spend his time?”
   “He tends to hang around this bar on 14th and Vermont, The Fruited Plain.” She rolled her eyes as she said the name. “The place is a tourist trap, but I always liked the way the outside of it looked.”
   “And what about the address of this old apartment of yours, where he’s been showing up?”
   She hesitated. I assured her I wouldn’t tell anyone if it were on the wrong side of the tracks, and she informed me that she had been living in Thornbridge Towers. I told her I knew the place.
   “That should be about all,” I announced, rising from my chair.
   “You can reach me at this number.” She produced from her bag the gilded business card of one Antonio Alabaster, Esq, and handed it to me. The fine silver print told me he was based in Georgetown.
   Without another word, she rose from her chair, nodded a goodbye, and left.Â
   I leaned back in my chair and watched the door that had just swung shut behind her. It was chipped and faded on the inside, but the side that faced outward, toward her retreating figure, had a shining, fresh coat of paint. After all, the best way to get business was to look like you didn’t need it.
   I wasn’t sure what to make of Lilian - or of Miss Boatwright, I couldn’t decide which name fit better. By the time she had left my office, I’d had a pretty good idea of who she wanted me to think she was. But who she was really I was yet to learn.