It was getting dark when she walked into my office. The hall light was on. She stood for a moment, framed in the doorway. I tucked the bottle of bourbon back in the drawer and snapped on my desk lamp. A black strapless dress hugged her slender frame. Flame-red hair rippled down her shoulders like waves of liquid fire. Her bare arms were white as scar tissue.

She was tiny. Well, most of her was tiny.

I opened my desk drawer and took out the bourbon. I was going to need it. I fumbled in the drawer and found a second glass. I set it on the desk next to its partner and looked at my visitor. Her lids draped over her eyes, then opened like stage curtains. She nodded, still posed in the doorway.

I poured her a drink. Then I filled my own glass. When I looked up, she’d started to move, her hips swaying as she angled her way towards me on a pair of heels you could have fashioned out of a single matchstick. She stretched out her hand. Blood-red fingernails filed into lovely crescents. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to shake, or if she was demanding her drink. As a compromise I offered her a cigarette. She took it and sat down.

I slid her drink across the table. Her fingers curled round the glass. She ran her fingertips along the side. Up and down. Up. And down. I gulped my drink and poured another. I was sweating like a boxer in a fur coat.

"I guess I should introduce myself," she said.

"Good idea." In all the excitement I’d forgotten we hadn’t met.

"Miss Epiphany Hood," she said, offering me those blood-red fingers once again.

"Nice name." I finished my drink, poured another and took her hand. "Sam Tuesday," I said.

"I know that, Mr Tuesday. Your name’s on the door and, my goodness, I can read."

I smiled at her. "I never doubted it for a minute, Miss Hood."

She smiled back. Her lips were ripe and full and responded well to having her tongue flick over them. "My friends call me Li’l Red." She patted her hair with the fleshy part of her palm.

"I wonder why?" I asked her.

She frowned. "On account of my extraordinary hair of course." She grabbed my lighter off the desk and lit her cigarette. She inhaled deeply and held in the smoke for so long that when she breathed out not so much as a trickle squeezed through those wet, pulpy lips.

"Perhaps my friends should call me Mousey," I suggested. "On account of my extraordinary hair."

She looked at me with those hooded eyes and I was suddenly six years old. I scratched my head, uncomfortable under her gaze. I felt like I was wearing shorts. In winter. In Chicago.

Fortunately my embarrassment didn’t last long. A figure appeared in the doorway. He was square-jawed and burly and he was carrying a rod. It was pointed at me. "Tuesday?" he said.

"Come back tomorrow," I told him, grappling with the handle of the drawer I kept my gun in.

"You’re a dead man," he said.

I got the drawer open. My fingers found the gun. I didn’t take it out. I aimed in his direction and blew a hole through the desk. A rose blossomed on his shirt and he fell on the floor with a thud.

The dame never flinched. She drew on her cigarette, pouting, lips shiny as a pair of polished Eastern Red Cedar coffin lids. "I was hoping you were a serious man," she said.

I shrugged and poured myself another glass of bourbon. I was beginning to develop a taste for it. "Miss Hood," I said. "Let’s get to the point. How can I help you?"

"Oh, please," she said. "You make me sound like a gangster’s moll." She glanced at the corpse, then back at me. "Li’l Red is what I’m known as and I’d heartily appreciate it if you abided by convention, sir."

"I’ll call you Fred if it makes you happy," I said. "Or Bob. You think Duane is taking it a bit too far?"

Her forehead bunched into creases. I thought she was going to slap me. No such luck. She sucked that cigarette right down to the filter, then, with the ball of her thumb, squashed the life out of it in my stolen hotel room ashtray. I swallowed. My throat was dry. I reached for the bottle and took a swig. "Maybe I should go elsewhere," she said. "I can’t take another wisecrack."

I said, "Don’t go, Li’l Red." She took my packet of cigarettes and jiggled one out. It looked like she was staying. "I’ll stop cracking wise."

She lit the cigarette and pasted it to her lips. She puffed on it. We were so quiet we could hear the rumble of early evening traffic two storeys below. I poured myself a drink. I hadn’t had one for a while. I drank it and poured another shot. The bottle was almost empty. I banged it down on the desk. The silence dragged, broken only by the muffled clang of a tramcar bell. Eventually she said, "I’m worried about Grandma."

She paused. I raised my eyebrows in encouragement.

She said, "Grandma’s been seeing this guy."

"Grandma has?"

"It’s not so unusual." Her brow wrinkled again. It made a pretty pattern. "Under the circumstances. She might be seventy-two, but she’s rich."

I did the thing with my eyebrows again.

"Filthy rich," she added.

"Who’s the lucky fella?"

"I hate him." Li’l Red stabbed the air with her nose. Her fury was unexpected. "I detest that man." She was leaning across the desk. Her breath smelled of almonds. Almonds and smoke and a touch of bourbon. Which reminded me that my glass was empty. I turned the bottle upside down and shook it. "He’s only interested in her money," she said.

"It’s not just sex, then?"

She didn’t like that. I could tell by the way she picked up the ashtray and hurled it at me. It hit me on the shoulder. It didn’t hurt, but it did make a lot of mess. I brushed the ash off my sleeve.

"Won’t happen again," I said. "Please carry on."

She was still angry. She examined the backs of her hands, studied those long, curved fingernails and slowly the tension left her face. "Grandma is infatuated. She talks about him all the time. It’s Brad this and Brad that. Well, I just know he’s only after one thing and it’s not what you just said, you insolent man."

"Brad," I repeated.

"Yeah," she said. "Big Brad, they call him."

"Does Big Brad have a surname?"

"Surely," she said. "Wolfe."

Something rang a bell. I couldn’t quite place it. "What would you like me to do?" I asked her.

"He’s going to kill her," she said. "I want you to stop him."

I thought about her proposal for a second. Li’l Red Hood wanted me to stop Big Brad Wolfe killing Grandma. I drank the remains of my bourbon. "I can’t do that," I said.

"Why not?" she said, blowing a plume of smoke towards me.

"I’m far too drunk," I said and fell off my chair.

A NOIR PARODY

He didn’t want to kill the old woman, but he didn’t have any choice. If only that stupid girl hadn’t stuck her nose in, everything would be just fine. Was it any of her business? Huh? He wanted to ring her scrawny neck. Interfering little harlot should have stayed home in Arkansas. What good reason was there for her to come to L.A.? None other than to meddle with his plans. Here he was, minding his own business, working hard to set himself up with a suitably rich old broad, when all of a sudden this backwoods tramp arrives and starts trying to bewitch him. Oh, yes. Oh, Lord. With that brazen flaunting of her frail little body and oversized bosoms and flaming hair. Casting some kind of accursed spell. Last time he saw her he came over dizzy and nearly fainted clean away.

The broken glass in his shoes helped take his mind off the old broad’s granddaughter. He walked slowly, each step cutting the soles of his bare feet. The pain was good, helped him breathe, helped him concentrate. His feet were latticed with pain, sticky with blood.

Big Brad chuckled as he climbed the stairs to the old broad’s apartment.

"You home, honey?" he said, taking the key she’d given him out of the lock and closing the door behind him. He laughed again. Of course she was home. She was bedridden. She couldn’t go anywhere. Apart from Up There. He felt a shiver of anticipation. The Will was signed. He’d seen to that last week. When he fixed the pillow over her face, he’d be free.

No more debts. No more beatings from Oklahoma Jim and Jester Himes. Once Chopper Goodis had been paid off, he’d call off his boys. Then Brad could get on with his life without worrying who might be waiting round every corner. Yup. He’d pay off the lot and still have enough to live the life of a pampered mutt. He could relax. Chew on a meaty bone. Take himself for a walk anywhere he wanted to go. Anywhere at all.

Today was Tuesday. Today was a good day to die. In the kitchen he cut her a slice of cake, poured a glass of wine. She shouldn’t die hungry and thirsty. That wasn’t right. He was considerate, see? Pa had told him that was one of his gifts, the way he felt for others.

The heavy drapes were pulled across the bedroom window, blocking out all but a sliver of light that slanted across the foot of her bed. He crept forward in the near darkness, wondering if she was asleep, wondering if he should do it now before she woke up. Under the bedclothes her feet moved. She was awake, then. He placed the tray on the floor and reached out, touched her leg, his fingers tracing the outline all the way to her thigh.

"You have beautiful long legs," he said.

Her leg twitched under his hand. And again. Then, suddenly, she pulled away from him and turned on her side. Was something wrong, he wondered? Or was she just getting comfortable? Was she reaching for the light? Unlikely. Still, he asked her if she wanted him to turn it on. She placed her hand on his arm, restraining him. "Okay," he said, speaking in an undertone as if she was a baby. "No light. But you have such beautiful big brown eyes." He fumbled in the darkness until his fingers found her shoulder. "And such perfectly straight, strong white teeth," he said. She was proud of her teeth. The fact that she had any left at her age was indeed a miracle. His hand groped for her face. His fingers touched her lips.

He realised he had to do it now. The cake and wine on the floor were going to have to stay there. Sorry, Pa. Let you down again, he thought. An intense pressure built up behind his eyes. He had to do this. Quickly. He grabbed the edge of a pillow with his free hand. With the other, he caressed her cheek. It was leathery and rough. The feel of it disgusted him. He hated himself for what he was about to do. But he had no choice. Get it over with, he told himself.

He scrunched his toes in his shoes, holding his breath. Then he gasped as the stabbing pain of a dozen sleeping cuts awakened, shooting him full of adrenalin. He snatched the pillow from behind her, pushed her face backwards. Now he was falling on top of her, pressing the pillow over her face, holding it with both hands and pressing down and down and down and wondering why his eyes were wet and wondering what that noise was, that loud bang, that roaring in his ears, and the furious, burning pain in his chest. His grip loosened. The pillow fell slack.

The light snapped on.

In the old broad’s bed lay a man with a gun in his hand. Big Brad made the connection. The gun. The pain. He looked down at his shirt and saw a hole oozing blood. A small hole. Not much blood. He’d be okay. Shot point blank, yes, but it was a small hole, a tiny hole, not much of a hole at all, see? Lord, but it hurt like a big hole.

He looked at the stranger. Big Brad Wolfe managed to say, "Who are you?" Try as he might, in the last few seconds of his existence Brad failed to work out why the bastard who had shot him felt compelled to tell him what day of the week it was.

Copyright© 2003 Allan Guthrie

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