Film Noir (beginning)

She walked into the door. I could smell by her perfume she was trouble.
She walked right up to my desk and out came that same old line:

“Mister, I need your help.”

Before speaking I lit up another cigarette. She had come all this way, she could wait.
I slowly exhaled, looked up at her from under the brim of my cap, and said,

“Honey, you ain’t kiddin”

Her voice sounded like she had just been crying.

“No, Mister, You gotta understand, my husband...”

Husband. Go figure.

“...my husband, he’s dissapeared. He’s been gone two days, and I just know that he, he might be in trouble.”

I’d heard this same old song too many times, and my ears were getting a bit sick of it. People come to me when they're scared. Scared their wife is cheating on them. Scared their new boss is in the Mob. Scared their daughter will never come home. Scared of life. Scared to be happy. Blah, blah, blah. It all started to sound the same to me. This was my job, and they paid me to do it.