The Case of the Mad Scientist

Chapter 6: Briefing
When you’re the best, word gets around, and people start coming to you. I was sitting at my desk, contemplating the sorry state
of crime in Los Angeles when this guy walks in. He’s tall, early twenties and dressed in an off-the-rack black suit with white shirt
and black tie, the kind of uniform that just screams “FBI”. So it was a bit of a surprise when he flashes this id at me saying he’s a
spook, a spy type for our own CIA. Well, I had fingered him for some authority type.
After making sure that I’m who the sign on my doors claims I am, he tells me that he has a job for me. I was floating along just
fine on money I made from the Case of the Kidnapped Countess, so I could afford to be picky. I may be a hardboiled Private
Dick, but I am one hundred percent all American and when my country calls and all that...
This guy says it will involve body-guarding some show business dame named Stella. Well, the way he put it, I would be
supplying “internal security” for her and her attendants during a couple shows overseas. I hoped she would have a body worth
guarding. He gave me an address down by LAX and a time early the next morning. I told him I was between cases right then, so,
yeah, I’d be there.
With disparaging look around my office, he took his leave.
I opened the lower left hand drawer of my desk and had a good shot of whiskey. Us Private Dicks always do that at the
beginning of a case.