Working Stiff

Chapter One One of the great things about being a private dick---aside from saying those words and presuming to lay ownership to something possessed only by men---is that it gets you out of going to Sunday mass. Well, okay. It's not so much the mass I have a problem with. Rather, it's the prospect of having to attend with my mother, Thalia Metropolis, that makes me cringe. Aside from her smooshing my face into various Greek Orthodox religious icons propped up just inside the door of St. Constantine's, I'd have to sit next to her. And thus would endure much fussing and pulling and poking to make sure my rarely worn blouse was unwrinkled and that my hot pink thong wasn't showing through my miniskirt. And forget all the gossip I'd have to catch up on. Frankly, I didn't care whether Mrs. Stefanou was suing her hairdresser because he turned her hair orange or that Mr. Zervas had "personal" problems and had gotten a free trial of Viagra. (Trust me, if you knew Mr. Zervas you wouldn't want to think of him in that regard either. Especially not in church.) I have more important things to do with my time. Like serve papers. My name is Sofie Metropolis, PI. Okay, so I wasn't born with the title, but I liked tacking it on if only because it detracts from the obvious Greekness of my name. Are you Greek American? Then that means you or one of your family members owns a cafe, a restaurant, a diner, or a club, sometimes all of the above (in my case my family members fell into the former two categories). Especially in Astoria, a one-time predominantly Greek neighborhood in Queens, one of the five boroughs of New York City. I became a PI five months ago (really a PI-in-training because I can't become a certified private investigator in New York for another two and a half years). That's when I caught my would-be groom Thomas-the-Toad with his tux pants around his ankles on the day of our wedding . . . and it hadn't been my thighs he'd been wedged between. The moment was life changing in many ways, the biggest change being my new vocation. And while my current assignment proved that even the job of private investigator wasn't all it was cracked up to be, it was better than dividing up the contents of the tip jar any day. And besides, it got me out of learning that Mr. Zervas was taking Viagra and chasing his seventy-year-old wife around the dining room table with his pants down around his ankles. My professional philosophy was pretty simple: Screw with me, get a bullet in the knee. That's what happened to one of my recent clients when it turned out he had set me up as an alibi to his murderous intents on his wife then switched his aim to me when I figured it all out. Word had it Bud Suleski would have a limp for life, which meant he couldn't run away and was quite the popular guy at Rikers as a result. My personal philosophy . . . well, I was still working on that. And that wasn't an easy position to be in when you're Greek. Greeks seemed to know exactly where they are, how they feel, what opinions they hold every moment of every day, no matter if they're later proved wrong. Look up "Greek" in the dictionary and you'll find that "conviction" is part of their heritage, along with much spitting and shouting and interesting hand gestures. "Live and let live." Maybe I'd go with that for now until I figured out something better. Then again, no. Because I wouldn't mind if my ex turned up dead. "Live and let one person die?" Doesn't have the same ring to it somehow. Anyway, on this sweltering Sunday morning in August, at just after ten, I sat in mCarrington, Tori is the author of 'Working Stiff', published 2008 under ISBN 9780765317445 and ISBN 0765317443.