The Cup of Life

The Cup of Life - 1

When the client stepped into my office, I could tell right away that she was bad news. I could tell precisely because she didn't look like bad news at all.

As soon as she was through the door, I rose from my chair behind the office desk, and hurried across the worn but spotless carpet to help her out of her coat. It was a gray woolen trenchcoat, reaching down to her calf-high leather boots; peeling it off the woman revealed a simple blue sweater dress with a neckline that stopped just on the edge of decency. Simple, elegant, looked a lot like cashmere... probably cost more than my monthly rent. My spine was tingling already with something not unlike static electricity.

"Thank you," the woman murmured. She smelled of lavender soap; no perfume to make me wrinkle my nose. Her voice was deep and rich as honey.

"De nada," I replied. I settled behind my desk again and watched her arrange herself in the visitors' chair, with her knees together and her ankles neatly crossed. "What can I do for you?"

"My name is Emma Robichaux. We talked on the phone yesterday. I'm here to hire you, Miz Weston." She gave me a look above the bare desktop, taking in my short black mohawk, the scar above my left eye, my nose—broken a long, long time ago and healed just a little crooked—and my white tank top under the nicest Hawaiian shirt I owned. Her eyebrows twitched, as if she wanted to raise them but thought better of it, when she saw the faded rose tattoo below my collarbone.

I held back a sigh. Miss Robichaux seemed like just the kind of person to raise her eyebrows at me. She was a small, slender, twentysomething woman with warm brown skin, the face of an angel, mahogany curls in a severe ponytail, a tiny gap between her porcelain-like front teeth. I imagined she'd look even prettier with a smile on; I'd never been very good at making people smile, though. Yes, she was a fine-looking woman, with good fashion sense, and money to dress herself with. The problem was that people like her rarely visited my office, and when they did, they always smelled like trouble—she smelled like trouble, too, underneath the lavender. Rich folks hiring the likes of me usually meant three things: the job was tough, it was urgent, and it was going to be illegal as hell.

"All right, Miss Robichaux," I said anyway, because an empty fridge and an overdue rent check were invincible in a debate. "Tell me the particulars."

The woman did smile then, showing me that I'd been right about her. She reached into her tiny purse and drew out a plain white business card with a familiar design: all it said was ROSEMARY WESTON, REPAIRER OF REPUTATIONS, with an address and a phone number in opposite corners. It looked a little wrinkled and gone soft at the edges, like it was handled often. "This is from The King in Yellow, isn't it? How many people understand the reference?" Her dark eyes glittered.

Now it was my turn to smile. "Few enough that it's always fun to meet one of them."

"And how do you, ah, repair reputations?" Miss Robichaux asked, and my expression withered.

"Whichever way is the fastest and the least painful for everyone involved," I replied with a shrug. "Threats. Fists. A kick to the balls or two, but only if I have to. Now what is it that you need help with? Blackmail? Embezzlement? Cheating?"

Miss Robichaux giggled elegantly. "Good Lord, Miz Weston, that's a colorful resume. I'm clearly in the right place." She reached into the purse again, and emerged with another card. I took it, taking care not to brush my fingers against hers... but when I looked at the card, a static shock crackled all the way down my back. My sixth sense had just pressed the fire alarm.

This business card was a lot classier than mine—printed on cream cardstock, with a little logo of a building in one corner, done in gold foil. ECLIPSE GALLERY, the letters told me, and my eyes widened. The Eclipse was my city's equivalent of the Louvre.

"What I want your help with is a theft," Miss Robichaux said sweetly.

I leaned back in my chair and gestured at her to take another look around my office. It was clean enough that if I dropped food on the floor I could eat it from there—I had an image to present to clients—but the 80's furniture looked exactly like it was from the 80's, the landscape painting on the wall behind me was clearly a framed magazine cutting, and the carpet was fraying in more than one place. "Do you see a license in here? I'm not a P.I."

"No?"

I smirked. "I'm not nosy enough." Then I dropped the smirk. "I'm flattered, but what makes you think I can handle something of that caliber? Your paintings are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. My services are worth a couple hundred a day, and a firm handshake. You'd better hand this over to the cops if you want the thing found before it vanishes on the black market."

Miss Robichaux's dark eyes darkened even more, and she gave me a flinty glare like a schoolmistress waiting for a slow pupil to catch up with the lesson. "If I thought the cops could help me, I'd be talking to them." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I know where the painting is. I want you to steal it back before anyone gets very hurt. They will get hurt either way, but I need you for... call it damage control."

There was a heavy silence in my little office. I looked at the woman in front of me again, more closely this time. Robichaux. Of course. I'd gotten hit on the head enough times over the years to make my memory a little spotty, but I should have recalled this name. "Where did you say you found that card of mine?" I asked slowly.

Miss Robichaux's smile returned, but this time it was a smile like a glass shard. "I didn't say it. My grandfather's papers from when he was running the gallery. I have to mention, Miz Weston... you look remarkably fresh for someone who's at least eighty-seven years old."

I couldn't hold back a genuine grin now. "That's a very generous underestimation of my age, but thank you. I keep in shape." I paused. "So what's this painting called, again?"

Miss Robichaux squared her shoulders and straightened her back, her brows set firmly above the hard look she was giving me now. "The Cup of Life by Francis Stern," she said.

I whistled between my teeth. "Yeah, Miss Robichaux... in that case, I reckon you did come to the right place."