“Oh,I don’t think your secretary would have kept me away Mr Baker,” the woman replied in a sultry voice as she stepped into the room. She wore a form fitted dress of black silk, tight enough to require the slit that snaked up her thigh to reveal her stocking beneath. Dark hair was elegantly coiffed shimmering slightly with the few drops of rain that had fallen on it in her passage from the taxi to the front of the slightly run down building. It was obvious to the P.I that she had come from somewhere, though where exactly remained a mystery. 

She crossed the room and took a seat across the desk from Baker, lifting one leg to cross on her thigh before leaning forward and tugging the cigarette free from his lips. Holding it between two slender fingers she took a long drag and then allowed the smoke to stream out from between plump pouty lips. For a moment she seemed disinclined to speak, simply pondering the run down office and the somewhat disheveled man behind it. Reaching forward she taped the ash from the end of the cigarette into an overflowing ash tray, the action seeming to galvanize her into speaking.

“I need a man to find someone for Mr Baker,” she said at last, her tone containing a slightly ominas edge.

“I asked around, and I am told by…” she paused with another glance around the office, “reliable sources, that you are the man for that kind of thing. Outside rain began to rattle against the window pane with increasing intensity, pressaging the coming storm.