It’s a hard city, and a hard night. Luckily, I’m hard man, or it would be luck if I believed in luck, which I don’t, except that you make your own luck, and you have to, especially in a city this hard. Speaking of hard, I’m Joe Bennedict, like the egg, not the traitor, except I’m more prone to cracking cases than cracking shells. Because I’m a private eye. Or a private dick, though mine’s been on display more times than I care to count in more bear-traps than I’ve got time to go into. Because a case just walked in, and I don’t mean the kind you keep your business papers in. I mean the kind with legs like a sequoia more curves than a bootlegger’s roadmap. She walks in and takes my breath like she’s starting a collection.

“I’m looking for my husband,” she says, and I feel the Almighty slamming his big mitt into the back of my head and reminding me that I have a pretty good thing going with Candy Stripes, who spends more time at the hospital than an ambulance with a busted axel.

“I’ll take the case,” I say.