I was dead.

My body just hadn't realized it yet.

I tried to climb to my feet, but the muscles in my arms had given up long ago and I collapsed to the dirt strewn street. The comfortable numbness of defeat was welcoming me.

"Get down."

As I lay there, thunder rumbling and icy droplets stinging my battered face, I stared at the twisted form of death above me. Then I knew the painful truth; this was it. All my searching, and all my fighting was for nothing. I would have laughed if I could have remembered how.

The voices came again, calling for me to surrender my struggle against the inevitable, dragging me from conciousness.

"Give it up," they echoed.

I blinked at the bitter rain clouds as colored stars wheeled overhead and time slowed to a crawl. The monster lifted his arm to finish it, and I watched him swing the weapon at my head, beckoning me beyond.

"Luke?!"

Then it all went black.

I sighed and leaned forward while I waited. Rain started to pelt the roof. The intensity rose to that hypnotic beat that made me realize how bad I wanted a snooze. I didn't know why I was so tired. Maybe it was the lack of sleep since my life went sideways again. Maybe it was the booze. I certainly hadn't exerted myself over the past few weeks.

I remembered reading somewhere that people with office jobs in cubicles would become more fatigued than those in manual labor. Something about the computer screens did it to them. If that were true, I figured sitting in a rain-streaked parking lot, watching a scummy joint like this could do the same thing to a fella.

Was it in Playboy?

The memory stayed buried deep, and I didn't care. I had a job to do and needed to be at least slightly alert.

I felt that snake curl inside me. The need for drink twisted my insides. It beckoned sweet numbness and with the the familiar pains of anger like hot coals in the pit of my gut. My grandfather had died with an addiction to booze, and my old man was, what he called himself a "high functioning alcoholic." I spent my life trying not to become either of them, but here I was making all the mistakes they had. Loss had done this to me. Drinking was the only way I knew how to cope with the hand I was dealt.

The memory of that night haunted me. Ghostly chains dragging my mind back to a life and happiness that was no longer mine. What happened turned me into a shell. Eaten me away like a slow cancer, until all I had was this grimy excuse for a life. Death seemed to ride shotgun ever since.

I stepped out of the car and into the rain. My camera, I stuffed beneath my jacket as a moisture shield. The rain felt good. A steady sprinkle of cool across the top of my head. I decided that of all the things the day had been so far, this was going into the WIN box. So far, the FAIL box was winning by leaps and bounds.

I made my way to the breezeway and looked around, while trying to look like I belonged there. Unshaven, dishelved, and unkempt as I looked, it wasn't a far stretch. To the regular passers by, I was just another guy with his hand out. Thanks to the weather there wasn't anyone else out. And when I stopped to think about it who would be? Early afternoon on a miserable middle week day. The realization hit me hard and made me feel a wave of depression. The same, familiar feeling since that event not long ago.

I moved along, passing the tiny windows and doors. Briefly thinking about all the fragments of people's lives that had taken place behind them. Deception, lust, anger and healthy amount of passion. Something about it was almost poetic. But, I was never a poet and I let that thought fade out. I didn't want to go down that path.

At the last window, I stopped. I checked my camera, and then looked into the glass. The shades were drawn, but there was enough of a break between them and the flimsy, floral curtain to see the stirrings of what was going on inside. I had been correct. It had taken less than five minutes for them to get naked.

I could have gone without seeing the man's naked ass as I looked in. Adding to that, her hands cupping it. I shook my head and chewed harder on the gum, fighting the urge to run back to my car and the flask waiting inside.

I'm not getting paid enough for this.

Hearts were going to break over this. But, that wasn't my problem. I was already thinking about how I was going to spend the money coming to me. I'd have it in a couple of hours, not long after that, I'd be at the club down the street from my office.

I looked back in my rearview, but the hotel parking lot was no longer visible. All that remained was the dreary weather, the tire's rooster tails of spun up water, and heartache. I needed a drink, but my client needed these photographs more.



****

Jimmy Todd was broken.

An hour after I'd taken the pics, I was sitting in my office, not far from my house. Looking across my cluttered desk, I studied the man I had just ripped apart. He was quiet, sitting in the chair and looking up at the ceiling while the photos hung from his hand. I followed his gaze upwards, wondering if we were both waiting for it to come crashing down out of pity, or for mercy on our lives. The office was nice, and held everything I needed to conduct my business, even these sorts of visits.

Jimmy started to cry. I wasn't surprised. I knew he would be a cryer when he showed up, asking me to look into his wife. Even though he was a shark among bankers and a shrewd business sort, well dressed and more money in his savings than I would have for a long, long while, he was still a man in love with his wife. He was a man in love with his wife who happened to be the woman in the pics.

I'd taken on other cases like this. It was easy getting proof that a spouse was cheating. In almost every case, there was anger, then sadness. They seemed to tow one another. The anger sped forward to the surface with sadness floating along in its wake.

Jimmy had skipped all of the anger and rage. He had known it was coming. When he saw the pics of his wife, bent over naked in front of some other fella, her face twisted into one of passion and that smile on her gasping mouth, the depression and sadness hit him right away. It rose like the tides from the pits of his guts.

I watched him crying. He was close to hysterics, and I knew that I should say something. It would be the kind thing to do. But, I was hardly one to offer advice on emotional stability, and a damn far cry from being a couple's counselor. I had no idea where to start, so I just watched him and waited for him to get his crap together. After all, this was what he hired me fore. There was no room or reason for me to play Doctor Phil.

It took a while, but he finally back around and wiped his eyes on a handkerchief retrieved from his jacket pocket.

"Sorry," Jimmy said. "I usually don't lose control like that."

"I've seen worse'n that," I lied. Jimmy had fallen apart right across from me, and I really didn't think I'd forget that anytime soon.

"So, who's the guy?" Jimmy asked.

"No ideas." I said as I reached for my pack of smokes. If I couldn't drink, I was going to add butts to the already overflowing ashtray.

"Can you find out? I'll pay..."

I rubbed my jaw. The growth of stubble sanded on my fingertips. The question on the tip of my tongue was how much more? But I inhaled it with the nicotine and shook my head. "No. I mean, I probably could, but I don't think it's a good idea, Jimmy."

"Name the price," Jimmy said, sitting forward and pulling his checkbook from the breast pocket of that well tailored blazer. He was trying his best to look like he was all business. The puffy red eyes and bubbling snot under his nose killed that look.

"Look, I can't help you," I said and tried to look sympathetic. "Sorry."

Jimmy stood up. e looked like he wanted to take a poke at me. For the moment, I wanted him to. I deserved it. Punishment for my sins. I was looking for an excuse to get my own violence on, and the hell of it all was I wasn't even sure why. I'd been feeling that way for a couple weeks now.

"Why not?" Jimmy asked.

"What the hell good's it gonna do ya anyway? I mean finding out who the hell he is?" I fired back as I pushed through the pics and put my finger on the flabby man's back. "You gonna go over there and beat ass? Use it as ammo against your wife? Trust me, Pod. I've been doing this work too long. It won't do ya a bit of damned good. You might feel better a couple days, but eventually you'll end up regrettin' it all."

He was fuming, but I saw his posture relax. Within a few seconds he was back in the chair, rubbing his head in defeat. "I don't know Luke," he said. "I don't know what I would do. I just wanted...something."

"Look," I said. "Sleep on it. Think about what you'd do with the info if you really knew who he was. It's for the best."

He gave a nod and got back to his feet. Looking dazed, like the zombies on television when they weren't eating someone. He moved for the door and have me a wave. I thought I should say something else, anything to maybe try to lift his spirits. But, the pics he paid me for, the information to confirm his wife's affair had leveled him.

Besides, what could I say? It's been a pleasure taking your cash and ruining your life!

Never again, I decided. I am done with this kinda job.

All I came up with was "See you, Jimmy."

He gave a thin smile and closed my office door behind himself.

I knew the show was going to start. I took my bottle and glass with me to sit at gynecology row. Strobes flashed and stage lights blinked off and on, bathing her in a swath of colors but I could still see her eyes and they locked with mine.

She walked toward the pole on stage, her hips swaying and footsteps precise. She wrapped her hand around the cold metal, circling it before smoothly wrapping one of her long legs around and spinning.

She stopped herself so she could grasp the pole with both hands, rolling her hips in short, provocative motions. She arced her back dramatically away, meeting my gaze with hooded eyes. Before I knew what happened she was off the ground, ankles locked around the pole as she shimmied higher. She was still doing that hip thing and I'm not ashamed to admit, it was driving me a bit insane. She bent her back again, this time going perpendicular to the pole as she stretched a graceful leg and arm out to full extension.

Damn.

She held a few seconds before slamming her bare torso to fall against the pole so she was staring at me, as she hung upside down. I swallowed the rest of my whiskey. She let go with her hands and hung there by her legs, a sultry smile and wink offered to me. I admired the form, and the way her muscles rippled under her skin as she grasped the pole. Her feet back to the stage and she dropped halfway down. She was there long enough to sway against the cold metal, and draw my attention to the expanse of bare flesh before me.

I pulled out my billfold, feeling silly and carefully folded the bill in half. She crawled toward me like a tigress stalking prey. The look in her eyes and on her face was hard to describe. It was the look of a predator, but still held a feigned innocence. She knew how to work her body for max effect.

Her body pressed into mine as she laid an arm on my shoulder.

"You didn't have to do this," She said as she pulled the barely there G-string aside. "I plan on giving you a private show."

I smiled. "Well, the other fellas in here were eyein' me, so I figured I'd best do somethin'," I lied. The other men were busy with their own fantasies and learning how far the dollar would let them go.

She leaned forward again, pressing her face close to my neck and I felt her soft lips against my jugular. My breathing quickened.

Just like that, she was gone and back to that pole. She bent her body so that one ankle and one hand were attached and spun quickly around. Another shift of her body, and the spin slowed as she hooked her knee behind it and let her upper body lean almost to the stage, arms out. She moved almost lazily then, her arms moved up and to the side, keeping with the music's beat. A perfect flip and she was bent over, legs spread into a perfect V offering the perfect view.

Luckily for me, the song was drawing to a close. I didn't know how much more I could take. She executed a few more flawless moves before letting go of the pole and walking toward the back stage exit.

"WOW! Give it up for Tawny! Remember you can have your own, private dance with her anytime!" The DJ's voice boomed over the sound system, breaking my reverie.

I poured another glass full, I needed it for what I was about to do.

So after another two hours, and a drink for breakfast I said my goodbye and headed home. Home is a refurbished warehouse of some kind. It had all the things I wanted in a home. Roof, walls, and privacy. When I first moved in, even after coats of paint and other new things, there was still a lingering smell of machinery.

I sat down in my leather recliner, sipping on a tumbler of Jack that I had no taste for. It seemed fitting, and the glass was comforting in my hand.

I thought of everything that'd gone on in the past few days, and then that turned into thoughts of the past few years. I was a different man now, living a different life in a different world. And men like Jimmy had more of an effect on me than they used to.

I thought about him and his cheating wife a lot that day. I almost reconsidered his follow up. I felt like I owed him something, and if that something meant finding the guy dicking his wife, then so be it.

Something inside told me to let it go and focus on the next job.

My plans to track him down were interupted by a knock at my office door. I put the camera away, not wanting anyone to see Jimmy's wife in that state, then answered the door.

There were three men on the other side holding up some sort of badges. They claimed to be detectives, and as was my habit of late, I found myself sizing them all up.

"Mister Boudreaux?" The one in front asked. He was tall, but thin. His mustache looked almost drawn on with eyeliner and his eyes were squinty, like he spent too much time staring at the sun.

"Yeah," I answered. "What can I do for you fellas?"

"There's a situation that we hope you can provide some answers to," the middle one said. This one was the opposite of the first. Bulky and jowly, like my great aunt's bulldog. They all looked at me like I was going to let them in, but the third one was the reason I didn't. Something about him just set off warning bells in the back of my brain. He was exactly like the second guy, only his pock-marked face and glassy eyes told me that he was the most dangerous of the three.

"And what situation would that be, Gentlemen?"

"Mister Boudreaux, do you know a man by the name of James Todd?"

The warning bells turned into every alarm klaxxon from every bad movie I've ever seen when something bad is about to blow up. I tried not to let that show. "I do, but I know him as Jimmy Todd." I answered as nonchalantly as I could.

"Mister Todd committed suicide last night." Three sets of eyes stared unblinking at me.

"Jesus," I muttered. The guilt hit me again. As did the need for a drink.

What else could happen?

"We saw in his planner that he had a meeting with you yesterday," Lanky said. "As you were an acquaintance of his, we thought we would check to see what, exactly, you were meeting about."

"That's private info," I said, but was pretty sure they'd tear that down quickly, which they did.

"He killed himself and as far as we know you're the last person that saw him alive. You know that privacy shite won't work here," Bulldog said.

They were right, all I could was shrug my shoulders. "He thought his wife was cheating on him but didn't have the strength to confront her about it," I informed them. I stepped in front of the door, making sure they knew damned good and well that I wasn't going to invite them in. Yes, they were doing their job, but for a reason I couldn't explain. I had a sense of responsibility for Jimmy now, not what he had decided to do, but in the personal ramifications of working with him.

"And?" Bulldog asked.

"And he was right. I showed him the evidence yesterday."

"Evidence?" Finally the third guy spoke. His voice was deep, and sounded like it hurt him to talk.

"Yeah," I answered as I looked him in the eyes. "Pictures."

The two in the front shared an expression that enraged me. An expression that, to me, translated to: Get a load of this worthless pile. Anything for a buck. And damn them if it didn't make me feel worse.

"You didn't think that there would be repercussions?" Lanky tried to glare at me, but it didn't work.