It was the last day of a bitter month, the War in Europe and the Pacific kept pouring in the bad news, and Stahl wondered how much longer it would be before his number came up in the draft. Even though they hadn't yet started taking guys his age. He tried to picture himself digging foxholes and dodging enemy fire.
Maybe I still got it, he thought as he trudged wearily up the five flights of darkened staircases to his office floor. But his legs told him otherwise.
You think the super could at least change the burned-out lightbulbs since the damn elevator took a fritz. The hallway was just as dark as he made his way toward the office.
He was surprised to find the door unlocked.
Mack must have come back early, he thought and placed his hand next to the wooden frame beside the big, block letters spelling out, MACKEY & STAHL, PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS. Stahl flipped on the lights, stepped over to his desk, and placed his fedora on the hat rack. He looked at the closed door that separated the two inner offices. Through the opaque glass, he saw that the light was on.
He grinned and called out, "Hey, Mack, you awake in there?"
His partner, Joe Mackey, had been doing detective work since Christ was a carpenter, and was known for dozing off after coming back from a long surveillance
The only response came from the rotating fan on top of the gray double-stack filing cabinet as it tried in vain to circulate the stale air.
The door for the water-closet swung outward.
A dame in a red dress so tight it left little to the imagination stepped out looking distressed and holding her upraised index finger in front of a pair of luscious lips. "Are you Bradley Stahl?" she asked in a husky whisper.
But she was easy on the eyes. Very easy on the eyes. Stahl grinned broadly. "Yeah. Now that all your business is taken care of in there, you want to tell me what the hell you're doing in my office in the dark?"
)
