Mister Petty
Jim Butcher
Monster LLC gets by on an extremely low overhead. My office isn’t in the pricey part of Chicago, and I sleep there. I don’t spend money on advertising. My receptionist works for nothing for reasons that aren’t any of your business.
It isn’t that I don’t have money. You’ve been alive since most business was done in coins, you have money. It’s the principle of the thing. If you’re running a business, you should be writing numbers in black ink—which is why not every job I do costs one dollar. I mean, sure, paying The Rent is important to me, but I gotta make enough to use the black pen too, and when you’re running a low-end private investigation business, that means doing a lot of divorce and adultery cases, finding small-time embezzlers, that kind of thing.
And sometimes, someone’s heard about my real skill set.
My name is Goodman Grey, and I am a professional monster.
She came into my office around eleven on a Thursday morning, a thirtysomething woman who wore clothes that would have looked stylish and well fit maybe ten years or pounds before, giving heran overstuffed look. She’d started pregaming for the weekend by the smell, though she moved with that kind of self-aware precision that experienced drunks can sometimes achieve. She’d cried at least once since putting on her mascara, and her short blond hair was tousled in an attempt to be chic. She carried a lit cigarette in a bejeweled bright pink plastic holder. Old school.
The woman stopped at my receptionist’s desk and said, in a quavering voice of melodrama, “My name is Sheryl Petty. I am looking for Goodman Grey, if you please.”
My receptionist, Viti, looked up from her tablet. She was a blandly attractive young woman, one you’d hardly notice going by. Her dark eyes tracked ash falling from the pink cigarette holder to the spotless office floor with calm, severe disapproval. “May I ask what this is regarding?”
“Reven—!” The woman slammed her open hand down on the desk, but she wobbled on one of her heels when she did it and wound up almost falling. She recovered and drew herself up with deliberate dignity and sniffed. “Revenge.”
Viti put her hand on the weapon she kept tucked into a holster under her desk and glanced at me hopefully.
I shook my head.
She frowned in disappointment. Viti is a little fuzzy on the details of how moral decisions get made. It’s one of the reasons she’s with me.
“Ma’am,” I said. She had enough ice for a hockey game on her left ring finger. “Why don’t you step into my office. Mrs.Petty?”
“I suppose that is who I am, legally speaking,” she said. “I have a husband.” She gave me a small, friendly leer. “Technically.”
I gave her a bland smile and opened my office door with a small inclination of my head. She swayed in on the heels. I hoped she didn’t roll her ankle. I had her pegged as the sort to make aproduction of it. I held out the seat across from my desk for her and she sat down, making a display of crossing her legs.
“My husband has ruined my life,” she said. “I wish to even the scales. Word has reached me that you are exactly the sort of man I need.”
“Justice is a noble pursuit,” I said in a very neutral tone. “Why don’t you tell me about what has happened?”
She took a long drag from the cigarette holder, exhaling smoke along with her words. “I married Maurice fifteen years ago. When I was younger and far more foolish.”
I had my personal doubts on that score. I got a biography after that. Rich older man, beautiful young woman, happiness, then boredom, then distance, then contempt.
“Honestly, what did he expect?” she said. “That I would just sit in the house and wither away instead of enjoying the fruits of life? Of course I didn’t.”
“I take it Maurice didn’t react well to news of your infidelity?”
“Hecanceledmycredit cards,” she snarled. “Look at this,” she said, waving a hand in the general direction of her chest. “I must have worn this outfit four or five times now.”
I’d grown up with people who’d owned a shirt. “That sounds like a difficult change for you.”
“Oh, you’ve no idea. None at all.” She tilted her head back and put her fingers to her forehead as if fighting off a headache. “I think he’s cheating on me. I wish evidence, for everyone to know. And I wish you to make him sorry he has treated me like cattle.”
I think the word she’d been looking for was “chattel.” Not enough people read. “For all intensive purposes,” I said, “I think we can work together. I’ll need to talk to him.”
Wariness went over her face. “Why? What for? I just told you what he did. What would be the point?”
“I always verify targets,” I said. “Makes things simpler afterward. I can leave you out of it if you like.”
She leaned forward, her eyes viperish. “Oh, let him know. I want him to know. I want him to be afraid of it coming. I’ve heard about the things you’ve done.”
I smiled at her. It wasn’t the polite smile. It was the one I used to make people uncomfortable. It worked.
