The little guy was unprepared. I could see that as soon as he walked into the coffee shop where we’d arranged to meet. He craned his head and looked around in that way people have when they’ve made an appointment with someone they’ve never actually seen in the flesh, like the guy will be wearing a sign. I knew he was my guy because who else would come in here at 3 p.m. on a weekday wearing that look, but his hands were empty. Most people who retain my services come loaded for bear at that first meeting, carrying legal-sized manila envelopes stuffed with photos and documents. Always manila, always legal-sized. Must be a law somewhere.

The little guy wasn’t getting anywhere with his neck-craning. He was looking for Bogart, or at least Jim Rockford, and I don’t look like either. I raised my hand and waved at him. He nodded and joined me at the table and gave me the eye.

"Mr. Salewski?" he asked, and I nodded.

"I’m Dave Tanner," he said. He frowned. "You don’t look like a detective."

"Most of us don’t," I said.

"You look like a beach bum, actually."

"So do half the people on the island. Makes me a lot less conspicuous than if I got regular haircuts and wore a trench coat."

"Fair enough," the little guy said. He looked to be in his late thirties and was built on a smaller scale than most. Not just short, but delicate. He was thin to the point of emaciation and had the jittery look of someone who’d always be that way, even if he took up competitive eating as a hobby. His skin was so white it was almost translucent. His blond hair was receding but putting up a hell of a fight as it went. His eyes were watery and too big and looked vaguely wounded. They would always look vaguely wounded, set in a face that had almost certainly been a magnet for meaty football-player fists in high school. Back then the face would have had that effeminate, almost pretty look the jocks just hate. With the extra years on it the face just looked weak.

Weak face or not, he had an address on the south end of the island, which meant he had money. That’s all I really knew about him. "So what do you do, Mr. Tanner?" I asked.

"I’m retired."

I gawped at him. He smiled.

"I started a dot-com and sold it a couple years ago," he said. "Not for YouTube or Facebook money, but enough to live pretty comfortably."

"Good work if you can get it," I said.

"Yeah," Tanner said. He looked around the shop. "No office, huh?" he asked.

"A lot of us single operators don’t bother with one," I said. "It’s just extra overhead, and if you’re doing your job right you’d barely ever be there anyway. What can I do for you?"

"I think my wife is seeing someone," he said.

"Uh-huh," I said. "What do you want done about that?"

"I’d like proof."

"And what would you do with the proof?" I asked.

"What does that matter?"

"Some guys just want dirty photos of their wife and another man so they can sit alone and cry over them and feel awful," I said. "I’m not interested in providing that. Some guys want dirty photos so they can wave them around as justification while they’re beating the shit out of the unfaithful missus. I’m not interested in providing that either. Some guys want them, frankly, to stare at while they beat off, and I’m sure as hell not interested in providing that. Matter of fact, I’m not interested in providing dirty photos at all. If your wife is seeing someone else, I’ll provide a detailed report of where they go and when, with photographic proof of said comings and goings. But if they check into any motels the only shots you’ll see will be taken from the parking lot. Them getting out of a car, them going into a room. I’m not gonna be peeping at them through the blinds."

"That sounds reasonable," he said.

"That is, if you don’t fall into any of the categories I just mentioned."

"I’m not interested in self-pity or revenge," he said. "I have a feeling she’s working up the courage to leave me anyway. If we can work it out, I’d like to do that. If she insists on a divorce, I want leverage to make sure she can’t take me to the cleaners while she’s at it."

I nodded. "That’s reasonable," I said.

"It actually sounds pretty awful to me," Tanner said.

"Divorce isn’t fun and you can’t always be nice about it," I said. "Just because it’s awful doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable. What’s your wife’s name?"

"Teresa. Without an H."

"Got a photo?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Tanner blanched. "No, I--"

"Don’t worry about it now," I said. "Going to need one eventually, though. You have any idea who she’s seeing?"

"No. Just suspicion that she’s seeing someone. No actual, um, suspects, I guess you’d say."

"What makes you suspicious?"

"She goes out a lot at night," Tanner said. "Stays gone for hours. She says she’s going out with some girlfriends or something. She probably is, sometimes. But sometimes she comes back well after midnight looking -- you know how people look when they’re put together, but they’ve obviously just then put themselves together? Like not long before they’d been looking a lot more, well, disarranged?"

"I know the look," I said. "Ever try following her on one of these girls’ nights out?"

"No. I’m not confident she wouldn’t notice me."

I nodded. "Okay," I said.

"You need a retainer?" Tanner asked.

"It would help to motivate me."

"How much?"

"Twelve hundred to start," I said. "That’s 24 hours at fifty bucks an hour. If I use less than 24 to solve your problem, I’ll return the balance."

I expected Tanner to hem and haw at the price. He didn’t.

"Cash okay?" he asked.

"It spends," I said after I retrieved my jaw from the floor. Most people want to write you a check drawn on the Bank of Slovenia.

Tanner counted out hundreds from his wallet and gave them to me. I handed him a business card.

"My e-mail’s on there," I said. "Shoot me a picture of your wife as soon as you get a chance. A good, clear head shot, as recent as possible."

"Okay," he said, and climbed off the stool and shook my hand and left. I riffled the new hundreds in my suddenly-fat wallet. I was happy. It wouldn’t last long.

###

I stuck $900 of Tanner’s retainer in my bank account and headed off the island and south into Jacksonville. I spent the first part of the evening at a strip club in a part of town where they’d stab you in the face for smiling and then kick you in the gut for bloodying the sidewalk. The owner of the club was convinced that some of his girls were giving handjobs during lapdances, and had me come in every so often and scope things out.

I’d buy a few dances from a few different girls, report that they’d given me nothing but the standard service, and the owner would reimburse me for the dances and give me an extra hundred for my time. I always told him everything was still kosher, and he always told me it was only a matter of time. I always told him he couldn’t afford a Puritan streak in his line of work anyway, and he always told me there were some things that just weren’t right no matter what line of work you were in. Once I told him he ought to just install some closed-circuit cameras in the back rooms, but he said it was too expensive. I told him he probably could have bought a CCTV system twice over for what he’d paid me in fees and reimbursements, and he just stared at me. After that I gave up trying.

I bought the usual number of dances and, as usual, was offered a handjob by two out of five girls. Both offers were politely declined. Then I ducked into the office and told the owner I had once again received only standard service, took my fee, and beat it.

While I was headed back up 95 I got a text message from Sheri. She was going to a bar and grille in River City Centre and would I like to meet her and buy her a late dinner? So I met her and bought her dinner and then we took separate cars back to my place on the island and took our clothes off and allowed the evening to develop from there. It developed satisfactorily, and after it was through developing we smoked cigarettes and talked and then Sheri pulled her clothes on and gave me a peck on the cheek and left.

Sheri Conroy and I had met three months ago at a bar called Rivermill. We’d hit it off and ended up going back to my place, and since then we’d enjoyed the casual relationship of two people who didn’t really know each other that well but shared a deep and abiding enthusiasm for orgasms. We got together probably once every week or so, grabbed some dinner and went to my place. The house I lived in had been divided long ago into two apartments; mine was on the second floor, and had a swell view of the Atlantic Ocean from the deck. We never went to her place; she lived off-island and I got the impression she had a roommate who wasn’t fond of gentleman callers. She never stayed over, which suited me fine.

Sure, the relationship was as shallow as the kiddie pool in a pygmy village, but she didn’t seem to care and I knew I didn’t. It was a no-strings deal, the only true friends-with-benefits arrangement I’d ever had, and I liked it that way.

After Sheri left I looked at the television for awhile and then read until I couldn’t keep my eyelids propped. I turned off the light and slept the sleep of a guy who just got a $1,200 retainer.

###

The next morning I showered and shaved and got some coffee going while my computer booted up. It was an old computer and it got going about as fast as an eighteen-wheeler gains momentum up a steep hill. It was just about ready to go by the time my coffee pot was full. I poured myself a cup and sat down to check my e-mail.

Dave Tanner had sent me a message with two jpeg attachments. "Two recent pictures of Teresa," he’d written. I double-clicked each and waited for my machine to pry the files open. When it finally showed me the pictures I spilled my coffee in my lap.

Teresa Tanner was the kind of woman rich old men dreamed of showing off at the country club. She looked to be about the same age, around thirty, in both shots. In one she stood on a beach wearing a bikini top. The other had been taken at a party somewhere, and she was grinning a slightly glassy grin while she toasted the camera with a bottle of beer. She had a lot of dark hair that fell in thick waves past her shoulders. Almost-black eyes with tiny laugh lines at the corners. Wide mouth with about a million white teeth.

Teresa Tanner was gorgeous, all right, but that wasn’t what made me spill my coffee. I was sitting there with a scalded right leg because last night Teresa Tanner had been calling herself Sheri, and she’d spent a good part of the evening in my bed.

Next Chapter: TWO