Reel One

Samantha was not happy. Something felt wrong. It was one of those times that something in your head said “STOP!!!” Samantha had felt it a couple of times before, and both times it had saved her life.

Tonight she was Samantha Spade and dressed like a cheap hooker. The job on hand seemed easy, too easy, and paid well, too well. All she had to do was to find a person and recover an item that person had. This was something she did to live, not for a living, as it was, she thought, better than sex. The adrenalin surge when the goal was near and the satisfaction of a job well done made up for the long days of boredom and drabness.

She had tracked down the person described and it was almost too simple to be sitting at a bar when he sat next to her. It was even simpler to attract his attention and hold it long enough for him to get the idea that he was going to be a very lucky boy tonight. She had clung to his arm and played the tipsy card that he fell for, hook, line and sinker. He did, as she expected, lace her drink when they got to his apartment and it was too easy to drop a capsule of her own into his own glass of beer.

So, here he was, on his back on his own bed, stark naked with his wrists tied to the bead-head and his ankles tied together. While he snuffled, she searched his apartment for the item she had been hired to recover. That was what bothered her, she realised. The customer had described the envelope very carefully, as if he knew what it would look like when she found it. The message had also stated that any money she found was hers and that there was a bonus if the quarry did not live to tell the tale.

All this added up to one thing in her mind; someone wanted to put her on the spot. The item was likely to be totally meaningless and the money was probably all in new notes with the numbers ready to be tracked. She was not going to fall for anything so crass, no sirree! Her bag contained a handy little electronic gizmo that she turned on and waved around. She picked up three hidden pinhole cameras; one at the entrance, one in the lounge and one pointing at the bed. It was no good blocking them now as there was no way to find where they were sending to vision to.

But, as they say, forewarned is forearmed and her plans were fluid enough to allow for a little innovation to fit the situation. If the idea was to get her arrested for a meaningless murder then she had better provide some evidence. First she went back to the guys’ bedroom where he was starting to gain his senses. She sat on the bed and grabbed his scrotum, giving it a good squeeze. That woke him up! “OK, buster” she snarled “I found the wall safe behind that picture of your mother. All I need is the code. You have one chance and if you give me the wrong one I will remove one of your balls. Now give!”

“Up yours, bitch!” he said, so she showed him the flick-knife and it snapped open in front of his nose. “Ready for a little pain?” she asked. He had an expected change of mind and gasped “Seventeen thirty six” Sam took a sock from the pile of his clothes and pushed it hard into his mouth, saying “Now you remain a good boy and you may come out of this alive.” She went into his office area and entered the number on the keypad. Lo and behold, the door locks clicked and she opened the safe. As she expected she saw the envelope as described; the yellow paper with a big rose seal on the flap was a good give-away. Someone was either winding her up or else thought she had come down with the last shower.

There was money as well, several bundles of, as expected, new notes in numerical order. She pulled them all out and put them into her large bag. From the bag she pulled out a snap-lid case which she held low behind the desk when she opened it. She took out the pearl-handled, single shot Butler Short and twisted it so she could take out the .22 hollow-point round it contained; replacing it with a blank.

The gun was put under one bra strap for easy access and she then took a small gun-like item from the case. This was a miniature tranquiliser gun with a surgical grade drug which guaranteed several hours of oblivion. Finally there was a small vial of a red substance which she would need to complete the scene.

Back in the bedroom she got on the bed and straddled the, now red-faced guy so that the camera would just see her back. She pulled the sock out of his mouth and, as he gasped for air, asked him who it was that gave him the cash and envelope. She could have written the screen-play herself as he told her that it was his drug pusher who told him that he was to keep the stuff for a couple of days and his reward would be a week of free hits. She took the tranquiliser gun and held it against his carotid and pulled the trigger. I a few moments his eyes rolled up and he started taking shallow breaths. Stuffing that gun into her bra she took the Derringer out and waved it so that whoever may be watching through the camera could see, before putting it near his mouth and pulling the trigger.

Putting it back in the bra strap she took the vial and snapped it so the red fluid dribbled from one side of his mouth and down his cheek. The blast would have caused some damage to his throat but he would live, as long as the expected arrival of the police went as she thought. Getting off the bed she walked to the door and, looking back, thought it looked very real. She snapped off the light and went back to the office area, putting the two guns back in the case along with the now-empty vial.

She turned off all the lights as she left and made sure the door was as locked as it could be to make it a little more work to break in. In the street she walked three blocks before hailing a cruising cab and getting the driver to take her across town, paying him with a couple of the snaffled bills with a big enough tip that he would remember her. She then walked a few more blocks before going into an underground station and entering the gents toilets after making sure no-one was watching. In a cubicle she stripped off the sleazy dress and falsies, putting them into the bag and then pulling a pair of lightweight slacks out of the bag and pulling them on. A simple cotton shirt covered the womens’ underwear and a pair of loafers completed that part of the picture. The wig and heels followed everything else into her bag which was then placed into an old, plastic, shopping bag. It just took a few minutes to wipe off the make-up and comb his hair. Then he peeled off the latex gloves with attached long nails and flushed them down the toilet with the wipes. With the addition of cheek pads to round out his face it was Joel Cairo that stepped out of the cubicle and stopped at the wash-basin to make certain that none of Samantha remained visible.

Joel looked just how he wanted to look, an effeminate weedy guy with sparse black hair and a ‘well-tanned’ look about the face. At this time at night there was not usually a high traffic in the underground but he still cracked the door ajar and peeked out to make sure the coast was clear. He took the shopping bag and went down to the platform to ride a couple of trains in any direction they took him, until he was certain that he had no little followers. He looked like every other seedy character that sat in the trains, rather seedier than most.

He then took another couple of trains to his proper destination and went up into the lightening dawn, just a couple of blocks from his home. He shuffled along, looking for all the world a pimp or a male prostitute getting home after a long and weary nights work. At a non-descript terrace he made sure that no-one was around then went down the stairs and let himself into a basement apartment that he had purchased many years ago before he became a successful ‘recoverer’. Without putting on any lights he walked through towards the back wall of the place, thinking to himself that he really needed to vacuum and dust sometime. In the pantry he pulled on a tin of peas on a side shelf and there was a satisfying click.

He pushed on the back wall and it swung open to let him into a freezer which had a dull safety light for illumination. Inside that room he pushed the panel closed and heard the double click; one for the panel locking and the other for the freezer door unlocking. He let himself out into the basement of the house that backed on to the one he had entered. This one had sensor lights that lit as he walked into a well-appointed store-room and then into a room that resembled an actors’ make-up studio. That is exactly what it was and it had taken years to perfect.

He took his original bag out of the plastic one and emptied it out on a work-bench. Making sure he did not touch the money or the envelope, he separated out the items to put into the wash. The gun case was set aside for cleaning the contents and reloading and the vial went into a trash bag with, sadly, the dress destined for the incinerator. He then stripped completely and added everything he took off to the wash pile, gathering it up and taking it into a side-room which had a row of washers and driers. Everything was put into the right machine which was set for lights, darks and flimsies, and he set the machines going.

Then he went into a bathroom and took a long shower to wash all of the remnants of Samantha and Joel away before drying himself, combing his now wispy white hair and putting on a towelling robe. He walked down a short corridor and up a flight of stairs, pushing yet another hidden button that opened a door that let him into the back of a coat closet on the ground floor. Closing it behind him he let himself into the hall of a very well furnished building, thinking to himself, as he always did at such times – “Of all the terraces in the city, you just had to walk into this one!”

Marianne G © 2021