I sat in an Italian joint waiting for the food to come. The client was late. They always were. I imagine they’re too scared of their rush looking obvious to the people around them. “Something important you’re running to, Bob?” Simple questions, but dangerous ones. When you work with someone like me, you don’t want people asking questions. Hell, you don’t really want answers. But when there’s a dirty truth you need found out, a Pandora’s Box you find hidden away in your room, I’m the dick with the key. Or at least, I know how to pick a lock.

In the corner of the room, a door opened. There he was. Today’s client. He was balding, but tried to hide it with a combover. Just what I needed, a bad liar. But in this business, you make do with what you can get. He walked over to my table.

“You’re late,” I told him. “I already ordered. Consider the food one of my expenses.”

He looked confused, the dumb bastard. “What expenses?”

I smirked. “You must be new to this sort of thing. A private eye like myself tends to charge a rate—we’ll get to that when you spill about what you’re asking me to do—plus expenses. All of this to say, you’re taking care of the check.”

“What the fuck are you talking about,” he barked at me. 

I pulled the newspaper clipping out of my pocket and showed it to him. Against the dim light, you could barely make out the words. 

“JANITOR WANTED: FOR FURTHER DETAILS CONTACT LITTLE ITALY OWNER, BOB GAILES.” 

“You put an ad out in the paper. Need someone to do a job. Unless you aren’t Bob Gailes, I’m your man.”
I watched his eyebrows flutter around. “Yeah, okay. I’m Bob Gailes. Are you here for the janitor position?”

“I’ll get in any position you want,” I snapped back. 

“Are you…” He lowered his head to talk to me, “… are you a gigolo or something?”

“Listen, Jack. I’m a private eye. Put a dollar in my hand and I’ll do what needs doing. Now do you want me working for you or not?”

He shrugged. “Listen, pal, if you work for minimum wage and can push a broom, you’ve got the job.” As he walked away I heard him mutter, “Goddamn internet driving everyone crazy!” I decided to make sure he knew something else before he left.

“One more thing, Mr. Gailes.” His head jerked back at me, murder in his eyes. He didn’t want to hear what I had to say. Some people get like that when you start saying something real. “If you’re looking to trick people into thinking you’re really Italian, don’t go running around with a name like Robert Gailes. Change it to something like Roberto Gailieo or Giuseppe. And grow a moustache while you’re at it. Better yet, hire a real Italian to take your place, because brother, for an Italian, you make a hell of a Frenchman.”

He stared at me for a second, letting the reality of what I said sink in. “Get the hell off that crack cocaine before you clock in or you’re fired!” 

I smirked. He was a better detective than I would’ve pegged him for.

—

The cook was wearing a dirty apron. Red stains seemed to dance around the damn thing. Sure, it could’ve been tomato sauce. It could’ve been a lot of things. But it wasn’t my place to guess about things like that. It was my place to know.

I looked him up and down. He was a big guy. Strong guy. You don’t get that kind of figure from making spaghetti. If I were going to fight him, I needed to find his Achilles heel. Something that’d make all that muscle turn to blubber. After a few minutes, I found it.

When he stepped outside of the joint for a smoke, I followed him. He had just taken out a pack of cigarettes when he saw me. “Hey, man. How are you…”

I kicked him in the balls. He keeled over, and the cigs scattered into a dirty puddle by his feet. Before we were done, I planned to add a new puddle to this street. A puddle of piss. His piss.

“Listen, punk.” I leaned in so close we may as well have been conjoined twins. “I saw what you did in there. You’re not going to get away with it.”

He coughed as tears streamed down his face. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about this!” I held up a piece of ravioli. “This mean anything to you, Jack?”

“It means literally nothing to me. And my name’s not Jack. It’s Anton.”

I smirked. “You just told me two things, but I happen to know one of them’s a lie. And I’m not so sure about the Anton thing.” 

I took his wallet out of his pocket and looked it over. According to his ID, his name was Anton, alright. Still, these things can be faked. I decided to keep it so I could give it a closer look later.

“Hey, give that back!” He yelped. 

“No, ‘Anton.’ I’m afraid I can’t do that. When you’re dealing with a liar, you can’t take chances. And that’s what you are, punk. A liar. This piece of ravioli I’m holding here… It’s evidence. Evidence of a crime you committed. See, the food we make here at ‘Little Italy’ is for the customers, Jack. Customers are people who visit our establishment and buy the food we’re selling. Thieves are people who don’t pay.”

I put the piece of ravioli in his wallet and put it in my pocket. “So, what else am I supposed to call someone I personally saw make a nice, hot lunch for himself on company time? A good Samaritan? No, ‘Anton.’ I’ve gotta call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

He was starting to recover from my hit. A shaky pair of legs started straightening up. I had to watch out. “I was on my lunch break, asshole. They let us make ourselves lunch.”

He was getting to be a real smart-aleck. I couldn’t have that. I gave him another kick in the balls. 

“OUUUUCCCHHH! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Not me, Anton. Not me. That piece of ravioli I showed you. It wasn’t from your lunch, which we’ll pretend you had legally for the moment. It was from a customer’s order. Remember ‘customers?’ I just explained what they were to you a minute ago. A big boy like you oughtta remember these sorts of things.” 

I picked his pack of cigarettes off the ground and pulled one out. I lit a match and started smoking. “You pulled this piece out with the intention of eating it. Skimming off the top, you freeloader. It’s a good thing I was hiding in the trash or I might not have been able to swipe it out of your hand while you were distracted.”

“I wasn’t distracted, you idiot. I saw you whip the ravioli out of my hand. I’ve spent the whole day wondering why some weirdo janitor would do that. I thought you were like, high or something.”

“You wish.”

“So you weren’t the one who threw like five bottles of whiskey in the trash?”

I hit him in the balls again. “Drunk isn’t high, is it, Anton? Besides, it takes a little whiskey when your job is to take out the trash. And that’s what you are, punk. Which means it’s time to do what I was paid to do.” I flicked my cigarette on his writhing body as I went for my final move.

—

I picked up my check later that week. Mr. Gailes asked why his new janitor worked a day and then stopped showing up. He wondered what happened to his cook. He wondered about a lot of things. If he stopped all the thinking and did a bit more listening, maybe he’d hear the sound of something behind the joint moving around. If he did some moving, he might even go out back to look and see how his trash can was tied shut and was moving around a bit. He might be wondering about that till his brain started ticking again. I did what he paid me to do. I took out the trash.