The Big Sleep

All characters are 18 or over

After hanging my fedora and trench coat on the rack, I leaned forward, allowing my head to bump the wall. I had already taken 6 Tylenol, but my head still felt like a collision of Cal football and the Stanford Marching Band. I've had a lot of hard nights in the 6 months since she left. She, being my girlfriend of 6 years, Brigid Wonderly. She said she wanted a man with higher aspirations than being a mall cop. I think she just couldn't handle being with a man with this dangerous of a job, never knowing when the store manager might show up at her door to announce my demise.

And for the record, I ain't no fucking mall cop. I am an investigator. I sit in a room full of cameras, watching the store for shoplifters, watching the employees for theft. And sometimes, I just watch. The name's Marlowe, Sam Marlowe and for the last two years this room has been my sanctuary and my prison, observing the lives of my co-workers, which rules forbid me from co-mingling with. Of course this job does have it's thrills, like the adrenaline rush of stopping a shoplifter, never knowing of this will be THAT time. I turned and smiled at "Susi," my trusty can of pepper spray. There's also the thrill of putting an employee under the hot lamp and badgering a confession out of them.

Just then I heard a knock at the door. It opened and I saw the ugliest woman I have ever known. Overweight, under-kempt and bitch to the bone, she was also my boss, Agnes Brody. I've never been quite sure whether her intentions were to fuck me or fuck me over. Probably both.

"I've got a case for you," she said with as much enthusiasm as contempt. "Designer pillows, disappearing by the dozens. I think it's an inside job."

"Suspects?" I asked.

"It's all in the file," she said tossing it on my desk. "I want it figured out by week's end."

Figures, I thought. I half-wondered if she wanted me to succeed so it would make her look good or fail, so she could finally hold it over me. I don't fail.

"One more thing," she added, "bringing in a new hire, worked in that department for years at another store, just applied to work with us. I think she'll be valuable."

I rolled my eyes. I worked best alone. The last thing I needed was some hot-shot rookie trying to make her name on my back. I flipped through the file. Of the four employees employed in the bedding department, 3 were ladies at retirement age, one was a college girl. I knew Agnes had already pegged the college girl. She was so fucking predictable: snag the easy targets, kiss the regional manager's ass, use my busts to up her grade. But it made no sense, why would this kid be stealing designer pillows?

I focused on one name, Iva O'Shaughnessy. A fiery Irish woman who's red hair had long ago turned gray, but was kept red by dyes and sprays. She had started 4 months ago, about the same time the pillows had started disappearing. I'd had the opportunity to chat with her several times and two things were clear, she had been a sexpot in her day, and she was shadier than a cove of pine trees. I decided to start there. I looked at the camera shots I had and decided I needed to set up a few more. Some after hours work there, but that was part of the job.

The phone rang, so I picked it up.