Posted March 6th, 2019, 07:50 PM
Reply #1587
By Scott Loupin
If Phillip Marlow’s hobby was astrophotography…
It was a slow evening at the Phillip Barlow Detective Agency. I was sitting at my desk, reading the instructions on polar aligning my new scope and mount and laughing at the funny parts, when She walked in. A symphony of Chanel No. 5, Super Lube synthetic grease, and sensible shoes. She didn’t look hard, but she looked as if she had heard all the answers and remembered the ones she thought she might be able to use sometime. She was pointing a 9 mm at my chest.
I leaned back in my chair. “Nice eyepiece, sister. What I can I do for you?” She had a question. Dames always have questions. “My name is Lotta Pixels,” she said in a voice like velvet. “Someone keeps spoiling my imaging, ruining a night’s worth of stacks!” I was about to make a wiseacre comment about stacked, but decided not to do that. I stalled her, and offered her a drink. She sniffed. “That stuff smells like paint thinner.” I shrugged and poured myself another drink. ““There is no bad whiskey”, I opined. “There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others.”
I wasn’t interested in working for her, she looked like trouble. The kind of trouble that follows a man, draining his batteries, blowing dust onto his primary,and grit into his gears. I remembered my bank account, and took the job.