Dead Reckoning, Chapter One, Scene One. Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #10. Louis Shalako.

It's been a long week in the homicide business.

Dead Reckoning

Chapter One

Scene One

Louis Shalako

Anticipation.

Police work was dangerous, boring, tedious at times, and also prone to moments of grim satisfaction—an arrest, a charge, the successful prosecution of a case, for example.

Justice, or at least the appearance of it, having been served.

A kind of symbolic recompense, yet it hardly seemed worth it sometimes.

As for excitement, it was a rare commodity, although not unknown. Shoot-outs and automobile chases did happen, but nowhere near as often as the average person might have thought. There were real differences between actual police work and what was in the pulps, the comic books and magazines, the Saturday matinees with their serials and their popcorn-gobbling, all-ages audiences. Written for the ten year-old mind and devoid of any real intellectual content.

What the average person did not know, and could never understand, was the waiting, waiting and waiting for something to happen, and when it did, it was almost invariably unexpected, in which case, the police were often caught with their pants down. Then there was the galling cost, the psychological toll that it took from a man sometimes. More than anything else, Gilles was looking forward to the weekend. A weekend alone, at home, with the cat and the radio, newspapers, the brandy and the cigars…a good meal or two along the way, and more than anything, the quiet. A good night’s sleep, as if that were even possible anymore.

Good, old-fashioned peace and quiet; dozing in his chair. If only the phone would not ring—

It had been a tough week, a long enough week, and more than anything Maintenon just wanted to get home. To toss the jacket aside, still damp in the armpits, the old fedora moist around the inner band, to sit there on the maple chair beside the door and just to get those damned shoes and socks off…

Yes, it had been a long week in the homicide business, and a sour grin crossed his face. One of the boys had said that. These younger guys were really something these days, irreverent of authority and yet hard-bitten soon enough, perhaps showing a cynicism that was merely an eggshell-thin shield against what lay without—and within. Very few had started out in life as cynics…quite a few had ended up that way.

A little bit of gratuitous gun porn...

He wasn’t sure what was doing it, possibly a combination of brand-new shoes and brand-new socks, which was resulting in a kind of black goo between the toes, very smelly and very hard to get rid of. It must be the lint, from the socks, perhaps a little bit of dye from the shoes, he had decided. All it took was moisture and a few spores. Ten or twelve hours a day with the feet stuffed in there, it was more than enough. Yet one had to have new socks sometimes, black socks, as for the shoes, it was that time of the year when the chits, an allowance for work-approved shoes went out, and he’d simply gone out and gotten the thing done one afternoon last week. Blame the safety committee, who, like many a committee, had to be seen to be doing something at all times. The best thing for toe-rot, an occupational hazard in the profession, was to bathe the toes and feet in cider vinegar. He’d asked Madame to pick up a jug of it, and she had always seemed to forget, to the extent he’d decided to get it on his own time—and just like her, he kept forgetting it too. It was something that wasn’t exactly a staple of diet, a regular feature on the good old shopping list.

Only a fool turned down a free pair of shoes, after all. And it was still three flights of stairs, always had been, and always would be.

Turning the key, slightly out of breath after three flights up from the street, the kitchen was warm indeed in these first early days of June. Madame, a certain Yvonne d’Coutu, had gone for the day, and he had expected that. Hired through an employment agency, she was very competent, very prompt in the coming and going, and just a little bit intimidating. Which probably worked both ways, as he had quickly realized.

Maybe they just didn’t like each other very much, but were afraid to admit it. Neither one wanted to be the first to initiate any sort of exchange—or discussion or resolution of any kind. It was just one of those things. She still needed the work and he still needed a housekeeper.

What was unexpected, was the giant deep freeze planted in the exact middle of the open space, there between the big kitchen table and the door…

“What in the hell—” Gilles stood there with his mouth open. “Putain de merde.”

Holy shit, in other words—

That sure as hell hadn’t been there this morning. Curiously enough, someone had run a small extension cord from the nearest wall outlet, and the thing was plugged-in and apparently running, judging by a faint humming sound coming from the back and bottom of the thing.

Opening the lid, at first glance, the machine appeared to be full of ice, nothing but cubes and cubes of ice and that was also very strange indeed.

That will keep them cold...

There was a barely-audible thump from the other side of the thick, load-bearing wall that divided the structure into a front and a rear…

Right about then, Sylvestre came in from the front room or somewhere, a black and white mongrel of a cat, and it was time for Gilles to feed him before the thing tripped him up in its incessant purring, circling in figure eights around his ankles and rubbing up against him.

Mindlessly, he reached for the buttons on the jacket.

Next, he’d have to give the lady a quick call and find out more about it—but he sure as hell hadn’t ordered it and there was no reason for Madame d’Coutu to do so either.

It had to be some kind of mistake.

END

Louis has books and stories available from Amazon.

See his works on ArtPal.

His audiobook, A Stranger In Paris, is presently free from Google Play.

Thank you for reading.