It was already a ‘not enough aspirin and vodka in the world day’ and the digits on my wrist said 9:54 a.m. One minute later than the last time I looked.
The man sitting across the desk from me—it would be a man—was explaining the historical significance of German U-boats coming up the Mississippi to New Orleans, dropping off spies who ended up being stranded here and what happened to them.
I had been watching for the last ten minutes, waiting an ‘uh’ or ‘like’, so I could break in, but he had perfected the art of letting not a wisp of breathe in, less his monologue be interrupted. He wanted a PI to find the decedents of the spies. I’m a PI here in the Big Easy. Michelle ‘Micky’ Knight. M. Knight Agency on the door downstairs.
The first two minutes had been mildly interesting. I knew enough history to know there had been German subs in the Gulf of Mexico, that they sank several ships, but them actually coming the 90 miles up the Mississippi to peep at the French Quarter was fanciful. Descendents of spies still living here was in unicorn territory.
The first two minutes had passed a long time ago. Long enough for my coffee to be going from lukewarm to downright cold.
Now he was staring on how lucky I was to be involved in this (luck can be bad, you know) as it was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I would surely understand why he would only pay for results, if I actually found the descendants of the unicorns—spies is what he actually said—blah, blah, blah.
Desperate times require desperate measures.
I abruptly stood up. At five-ten I’m not short.
“How dare you!” I thundered, using my most outraged voice. “You sexist pig! There is no way you’d ask a male detective to work for free! Please leave!” Yes, I did put an exclamation point on every sentence. Desperate times, remember.
Finally, the monologue ceased. For a split second. Then he was appalled, offended, how dare I turn him down. He was a true feminist, wanting to offer this great chance to a woman. It was so thick, I heard bulls with colon spasms in the background.
I got him to leave by calling down to Melba in the hipster coffee shop on the first floor and asking her to bring her shotgun up. Melba is a six-three transwoman who served in combat.
She was disappointed he didn’t hang around to be shown out. As was I.
After she left, I debated locking my door to discourage any more walk in clients. Or to keep ‘you’d be lucky to work for free on something this important’ from returning.
Just another day at the office. This is New Orleans, cher. Crazy is a daily occurrence. I’ve been hired to find missing Mardi Gras floats (faction that split off, and repainted it) locate a real voodoo priestess (go to just about any corner in Treme) and to search for perpetrators of a python heist (found the people, left the snakes to snake handlers). Mr. U-boat was only atypical in how hard he made it to say no.
I made another pot of coffee, regretting it was too early in the day to spike it.
You can read more about Micky in Not Dead Enough, the tenth book in the “Micky Knight” private investigator series, released November 12, 2019.
A woman wants to find her missing sister. That should be easy for an experienced PI like Micky Knight. Until the woman―or someone who looks like her―ends up in the morgue. Micky finds herself in a tangled mess, not knowing who the real victim is, or how her name keeps coming up in places it shouldn’t. Like newly minted Realtor Karen Holloway’s house sale papers, as the contact for another missing buyer, one who looks a lot like Micky’s client. The same woman? The sister?
Micky has to uncover what the game is and who’s playing. Because the stakes are murder.
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Meet the author
J.M. Redmann has published 10 novels featuring New Orleans PI Micky Knight. Her first book was published in 1990, one of the early hard-boiled lesbian detectives. Her books have won three Lambda Literary awards, with seven nominations. Her third book, The Intersection Of Law & Desire, was an Editor’s Choice for the year of the San Francisco Chronicle, which called Micky Knight, “One of the most hard-boiled and complex female detectives in print today,” and was a recommended book by Maureen Corrigan of NPR’s Fresh Air. Writing as R. Jean Reid, she has published two books in the Nell McGraw series. She lives in New Orleans.
To learn more about J.M., visit her website at jmredmann.com.
All comments are welcomed.