The Quest

The door opened and trouble came in. Brunette, as usual. She always liked to have her hair black.

"Are you a detective?"

Again? was what she meant. I shrugged and said "It's what it says in the door." Signs mattered, as usual.

She sat down in a chair and pleaded at me. "I need your help. My husband is missing."

I lighted a cigarette, not offering her one. We weren't yet at the right point, although we would soon be. "And you want him back."

"Of course, I love him."

It had been many years since I had last believed that story from her. I was a good man back then, a knight in shinning armor. Nowadays being a man was all I could aim to.

"I don't care, precious. Just tell me what you know and I'll find your guy."

She passed me a photograph. There was a handsome man on it, holding in his hand a big diamond.

"That's my husband Arthur. He's a geologist, an expert on diamonds. I'm afraid he's been taken because of that stone he found."

Her words made me feel older than usual. A husband named Arthur, an special stone to search for. We had done this thing many times, but at least there had been some change to it, some variation, even if the betrayal, the lust, and the greed had remained the same. There was a time when I'd have preferred a Grail to a Maltese Falcon, but that had been long ago.

"Alright, Guinevere, I'll find the bird."

Her eyes widened. She looked nothing like she used to, and was as beautiful as ever. "How did you know my name?"

She played the innocence game as well as ever, too. "I'm a detective, babe. It's what I do."

And I didn't have any choice on that. None of us ever did.

.finis.