"I had a client."

I had a client.

She wore a brown suit, all businesswoman like. Underneath, a mannish shirt and a blue tie. Real expensive walking shoes. Sheer stockings, the kind that men like on women. I couldn't see as much of her legs as I would have liked though. She had some fashionable hat on. I never really had a thing for hats.

“No, need to get up,” she said. She must have been used to men with manners. She wrinkled her nose at the faded wallpaper that lined the wall behind me. I was seated in of the two easy chairs this office could afford. The other one had been partly disintegrated by an angry bio-grunt’s blaster. That was a different story and possibly a more interesting one. There were curtains for her to wrinkle her nose at. I also had a small library behind my desk but not because I was the reading type. 

“Your office is exceptionally unclean.”

I smiled. “My name is Lydia Cole-Greenwood. I have a case for you. I can pay you good.”

She looked a little flustered and stressed, but she looked like a girl who liked being flustered.

“Hi, Mrs. Angela Owens. Wife of Harvey Owens. He is missing, yes. I am, Detective White. My office and manners may not be much but I would ask you to respect my abilities and credit me some brains too."

She stood up and said: “I had to check. There are a lot of such shams in the District, Mr. White. Perhaps I was rude.”

I opened a door to the inside of my real office and held it for her. We went inside. The room contained a grey carpet, nine filing cases, an advertising calendar showing some of those AniTex models rolling around on a red glass floor. AniTex, "for the animal inside you". They did biotic re-assimilation and it made me sick to my goat bladder.

I sat in the usual squeaky swivel chair.

"You don't put on much of an act," she said. I threw my hat on the coat stand. I missed.

"No and that is because I am genuwine." I said and chuckled at my wit. "I make fair money at this game by being honest."

"Oh—do you? How is it? Being honest?" she asked and opened her bag. She picked a sim-cig, out of a fancy case, rested it between her red lips, dropped the case back in. Sim-Cigs, for the rich smokers who want to smoke but who don't want to poison themselves.

"Painful. I am a oneiropath, Mrs. Owen. I saw you coming in my dream last night. I know what you are going to say. I can find your husband, Harvey. If that is what you want."

"Yes. That is what I want. I will pay you, of course. Handsomely. Harvey was a food critic. Recently, he had some professional setbacks and was not very happy with life. He was last seen near Chinatown Abbey."

I did not get much cases. I made whatever honest work gets you in the District. There was nothing for me to do this morning apart from tracking a briefcase for that gray guy. 

I needed this and she need not know that.

I nodded, all professional. I had my e-note take all this down. I already had a pretty fair idea of where Harvey was. It was going to be easy money. I assured her that I would find Harvey. She left.

All nice and straight. Except for one thing. She had not smiled since she walked in.

Odd.