City of Mists

1. Wednesday, Downtown
"The Client"

Liv Tyler It was just about quitting time when trouble dropped by. I'd fired my secretary, so I had no warning other than the creaking of the hinges as the door swung open. Black letters stenciled on the glass said MORTENSEN P.I.

Trouble was wearing a pearl grey jacket and a knee-skimming skirt, very retro, complete with white gloves and a thin little hat capping one side of her silky brown hair. Trouble had dark velvet eyes and a rosebud mouth. She tugged at the fingers of her glove and made eyes at me behind the mesh of her half-veil. "Mr. Mortensen?" she husked.

I glanced from the girl to the door she'd walked in and back again. She laughed, a nervous, breathy sound: "That's what it says on the door, right?"

"Take a seat," I nodded. "My consultation fee is twenty dollars per fifteen minutes."

She settled on the edge of the wooden visitor's chair, her legs crossed neatly at the ankle. "I guess you won't mind if I smoke," she drawled.

I stubbed out my spliff and pushed the ashtray across the table. "It's medical," I said.

"Of course." She fished in a little handbag and came out with one of those ridiculous skinny cigarettes that women smoke. She had an antique lighter that needed four strikes to produce fire, and then gave up only a small and wavering flame. She took a deep drag and fixed me in her lovely gaze. "I'm Liv," she said. "Liv Tyler? I have a vintage boutique in Hayes Valley—Sweet Things?"

I shrugged one rumpled shoulder. "Not much for fashion," I said.

She smiled a little. "That's all right. That's not why I'm here." She tapped the end of her cigarette against the ashtray, watching the grey flakes loosen and fall. "Let me be honest with you, Mister Mortensen. You're not the first…professional…I've talked to. But everybody else wanted to ask me too many questions. I don't want to answer questions, Mister Mortensen."

"All right then," I said evenly, "suppose you say what you came here to say?"

"I have a fiance I haven't seen for a week. Nobody knows where he is. I'm awfully worried about him, but I don't want to involve the police. I have my reasons and I don't want to explain them."

"Am I allowed to know his name?"

She reached into the handbag again and came out with a photograph. She laid it flat on the table and slid it across. The tips of her manicured fingernails lingered on the glossy surface as I reached to take it from her.

The photo was of a boy, curled on a black velvet couch. The lines of the piece were stark and modern; the floor beneath looked to be smooth concrete. With the black furniture and grey backdrop, the kid's pale skin and night-dark hair, the photograph might as well have been monochrome—except for one startling source of color in the boy's blue eyes. They stared out of the photograph with defiance, challenge, and what could have been hatred.

"Elijah," she said. "Elijah Grove."

I didn't bother to hide my skepticism. "Fiance? This kid looks sixteen."

"He's much more than he looks."

I waited. She lifted the cigarette to her lips. Its delicate orange tip flared into life. She exhaled slowly and dropped her eyes demurely.

I didn't like it, didn't like her movie-star mystery act and her breathy little-girl way of talking, didn't like her goddamn impractical cigarette lighter. Didn't like her looks. Cute women are happy women; they're optimists. People are nice to them, they usually get what they want. Beautiful women are poisoned. Nobody's ever honest with a beautiful woman, they never learn what honesty is. Men lie and cheat and fight to possess them; other women try to punish them. They get everything and it's never what they want. I'd rather work with a pit viper than a truly beautiful woman: when the snake sinks its teeth into you, at least you feel it.

But I was in a place where I couldn't turn a client away. Rent was overdue. Business was terrible since the Monaghan disaster. And I was sure she knew it.

I rubbed my jaw. I should've shaved. "Your secrets will cost you, Miss Tyler."

"Mister Mortensen, is that some kind of a threat?" Her eyes were round and wondering, her smile coquettish.

"No, I'm telling you my rates. I work by the hour. If you keep information from me, if I have to waste time going down blind alleys, it will cost you exactly sixty-five dollars an hour. If this turns into a criminal investigation, my rates go up."

"I'm happy to pay," she said, "but I want discretion. I care for Elijah's reputation. And my own."

I gave her a sharp look; she gazed back, the picture of innocence. She was needling me for sure. "Discretion," I ground out, "is not a problem."

"I believe you, Mister Mortensen," she said simply.

"Normally this is the point where I'd ask some questions. Like this: has he disappeared before? Does he do drugs? Does he have enemies? Where'd you see him last? Where does he live? How long have you known him and how did you meet? But seeing as I'm not asking questions, I'll wait for you to tell me everything I need to know." I kicked back in the chair and watched her smile fade.

"Elijah is...a free spirit," she said carefully. "He has a private life, which I have always encouraged; I believe two people can only be truly united if they retain certain spaces in their lives." She ran one palm slowly down her thigh, smoothing an invisible wrinkle in the skirt. "I know that he is active in a men's club here in the city. Something secret and frivolous, I don't know the details. I think they may have spirited him away for something like a bachelor party. But he's been gone too long. I want him found, but I don't want scandal."

"You don't know which club?"

"None of the usual ones, not the Bohemian Club or the Pacific Union. I get the impression it's for a younger set. They're ridiculous about their secrets. But there are some important men involved, people I would like to continue to know after I am married."

"All right, I get it," I said mildly. "You're not so much worried about his safety as worried about what he's up to, and who with. You think this secret society may have got up to some kind of—"

"—Boyish hijinks," she cut in, with a bit of steel flashing through her whispery voice. "Fraternity-style initiations and general rowdiness. I don't care, I'm not a Puritan. If he's been…indiscreet…I don't want to know. I just want to know where he is."

"But you don't want me bothering anybody important."

She dimpled. "You understand."

"Yeah. So it seems to me that the easist thing to do would be for you to give me a name, someone you suspect of being part of this club. I follow this person around—being very careful not to bother them, of course. I keep my eyes open, and when I find something out, I call you."

"Yes," she said sweetly, "that would be perfect."

"All right then, go ahead."

She twisted her gloves in her hands. "Well." Deep breath. "Paris Howe Strewe."

"Fancy name."

"He's a fancy young man."

"Spell it for me. And your fiance's name while you're at it."

She did, and I wrote the names down in my pocket notebook. I held it up for her to check; she looked at the names and nodded. "Fine," I said. "I'll need a deposit."

"I'll write you five blank checks," Liv said. "Will that do?"

"Fine," I said again.

She fussed with her checkbook and wrote my name out five times in tiny, looping script. Then she handed me the papers, along with her business card, which was edged in gilt and smelled of violets. "Is that all, then? Are we done?"

"Just one question," I said. She tensed. I tapped a finger on the photograph. "Did you take this?"

"No," she said. "A friend did. Why?"

"It's very good." I did my best to smile for her. "I'll start tomorrow."