The Man with the Luminous Eyes—Chapter 1: The Client from Hell

I sat in my Southside office, watching the light snow fall outside my window. I tried to remember a day without snow, without those all-enclosing gray skies. I knew, somehow, that there had been another season than winter. But that memory was too vague to grab on to and hold.

The office was empty. Usually was. The memory of a client was about as vague as the memory of another season. I snubbed out a cigarette in the overflowing ashtray next to the black cube paperweight on my desk, stared at the dusty glass door of my small office on the South Side, and re-read the reversed lettering, "Frank McGill—Private Investigations".

"Why?" I asked myself, almost audibly.

When I'd gotten back from the trenches, my family was dead in a gas attack. My fiancée was gone, without even a note.

I'd left three fingers of my left hand at the bottom of a trench, with almost every friend I'd ever had. So I wasn't going back to my prewar career.

I'd been the second violin in the City String Quartet. But there's just not much call for a seven-fingered violinist.

I lived on the dole for awhile—me and about 12 million other returned soldiers. But the dole wasn't for me. I couldn't play. Couldn't work in any of the few factories that were still operating.

So I spent eight months trying to find my fiancée. I followed up every lead. Talked with everyone who'd known her.

Unfortunately, I found her.

She was working the streets by the docks. Like a few thousand other girls the war had shredded. She always did look good in heels.

I walked up to her. She didn't even recognize me. I walked away. Before she could proposition me. Sat on a bench, and watched the snow fall. That's when I decided to become a private eye. I seemed to have a talent for finding things better left buried. With no need for those missing fingers. After all, I shot with my right hand.

"Yeah. That panned out well for you, Frank," I said to myself.

I looked up, surprised, and saw a man standing in front of my desk. I noticed that he was wearing sunglasses—though there was little enough light out on the street, and considerably less in my office. Very little light passed through the long unwashed windows.

I wondered if the man might be blind.

Beyond the sunglasses, he was of medium height, balding, nondescript, very solid. I wouldn't have given him a second look if I'd passed him in the street—beyond the sunglasses. He was wearing a gray pinstriped suit, a navy blue tie and matching handkerchief, and a black fedora. They all said money.

No overcoat, I noticed with some surprise.

"I'm not disturbing you, am I, Mr. McGill?" he asked, hat literally in hand. He was looking dead at me through the sunglasses. Not blind, then. "I knocked a couple of times. But when I saw the door was unlocked, I thought I'd come in and wait."

I got up quickly and shook his hand. Business was business. And something to do beyond watch the endlessly falling snow and ruminate on my poor career choices.

"Sorry, I was woolgathering. Must be this endless winter. Have a seat. What can I help you with?"

He sat silent for so long that I would have thought he was dumb if he hadn't greeted me on entering. I sat, patient, hands folded on my desk next to my well-worn volume of Epictetus. I might not have been any great success, but I'd been in the business long enough to know that clients needed an act of will to walk into my office. After the adrenaline wore off, it could be awhile before they'd tell me why they came. Some actually got the shakes. I knew that feeling well.

Finally, he looked up at me, through the dark glasses.

"My name is Al DiGiordano," he said simply, and lapsed again into silence. I knew that the time had come for me to take charge. Clients might need time—but if I gave them too much, they began to question whether I was the kind of tough, no-nonsense guy they imagined a private eye to be.

"How can I help you, Mr. DiGiordano?" I asked more firmly.

"Al, please, Mr. McGill. I'm only Mr. DiGiordano at the office." I made a mental note of that.

"And Frank's fine for me, Al."

He smiled, and the tightness in his shoulders, jaw, and throat relaxed slightly.

"Thanks, Frank. I'm not quite sure where to start. I'm not sure you can help me. But I'm running out of options."

He paused again. I could see him battling to master his nerves.

"I'm an attorney. I work at one of the big firms in the Northside. Nice, brightly lit place. I work on corporate cases. Complex, interesting to me—though I doubt to many others."

Another pause.

"But I like the work. And what's more, I like the office. Nice and bright. You see, this constantly dim weather is, well, rather difficult for me."

"Eye problems?"

He laughed. Loud. Sincere. Absolutely chilling.

"You might say that, Frank."

He continued to laugh until I started to wonder about his sanity. I opened my desk drawer slightly, and moved my hand subtly closer to my .38. In my business, it was always wise to have reasonable precautions near to hand.

"The weather's been getting to me, too, Al," I said, trying to calm him down in a less-than-lethal way.

Al paused again, then looked up, slowly.

"It doesn't seem right to me," Al said, twisting his expensive fedora in his hands. "I can't put a name to it. But it doesn't seem right that there's snow. Every day, month in and month out."

I thought for a moment.

"You know Al, it doesn't seem right to me, either."

"But no one else seems to notice."

"I hadn't thought about that," I replied. I didn't see many people. My social circle had contracted to a single point. But when I was out—getting a beer at Ken's, the local tavern, or working, on the rare days when I had work—I didn't hear anyone talking about the weather.

"But I'm sure you didn't come here to discuss the weather, Al, unpleasant as it may be."

"Well, yes and no. As I said. The weather makes my life, well, difficult."

I though I caught something behind his sunglasses. A gleam of light, maybe?

"Well, Al. I'm happy for the business, and happy to try and help you with your difficulties, if they're in my line. But the weather? That's a bit beyond my scope as a private eye."

"Of course, of course," he said rapidly, with the original nervousness. "But you get to the bottom of things. That's what I've heard."

"I had no idea I had a reputation."

"You do. 'Frank McGill gets it done.' That's what I've heard. That's why I'm here. I need you to find out if there's more to the weather, than, well, the weather."

I looked at him. Stunned. I had no idea I had a reputation. Nor could I remember why I thought that the endless snow wasn't right.

"Why's it so important to you, Al? Nobody else seems to mind."

"Nobody else has my eyes."

He slowly removed his sunglasses. He looked me dead in the eye. I passed out.

For the first time in my life. I'd been through the trenches. Lost half a hand in a grenade blast.

And remained conscious.

Al's eyes, though, were a different matter.

When I came to, I was still sitting in my chair. Al was standing over me, with a glass of water in his hand. Mercifully, his sunglasses were back on.

"I can see why the winter is a problem for you, Al." I smiled. But I was still more scared than I'd ever been in the trenches during the war.

"When it's this dim out, the eyes are really hard to ignore. But who wears sunglasses when there's no sun?"

"It's been this way for as long as I remember."

"For as long as I remember, too, Frank. But I know that it wasn't always this way. I can't tell you how I know that. But I do, deep down in my gut."

"Maybe. But I'm not a meteorologist, Al."

"There's something wrong."

"There's a lot wrong, Al," I said bitterly, looking at my maimed left hand.

I lit a cigarette, smoked in silent thought for a moment, and then extinguished the cigarette, angrily. I didn't much like my job when it was only finding straying wives.

Now, I've got a guy who wants me find out what was wrong with the weather. Hell, I didn't even know if there was anything wrong.

But he'd hit on something that had been gnawing at me for long time, something I didn't want to be reminded of. I'd wanted that sense of dread every time I looked out the window to vanish. And here was a client wanting me to get to the bottom of the one thing I most definitely did not want to think about.

"As I said, I'm not a meteorologist. Not an ophthalmologist, either. I can't help you."

Al got up, slowly, with great weariness.

"Well, it was worth a try. Here's my card. Think about it. If you change your mind, let me know. I will make it worth your while." He put down his card with his Northside address—wrapped in a pair of one-hundred-dollar bills. I moved to return the money to him, painful though that was.

"Keep it. Call it a retainer. Or compensation for the fright. And Frank? I've seen every ophthalmologist in the city. There's nothing wrong with my eyes. From what the doctors tell me, there is no light. They've run every test there is—and what they've found is, well, nothing at all. The light—if there is light—isn't physical. Maybe it's metaphysical." He smiled grimly, turned, and walked out my door as silently as he'd entered.

I lit another cigarette and watched the closed door for a few minutes.

It was 2.30. Another client coming by was statistically unlikely. After the one who'd just left, I wasn't too sure I wanted another client. That day or any day.

I got up, put on my overcoat and hat, and walked out into a day slightly brighter than twilight. Hell, I couldn't remember the last time it had gotten bright enough for the streetlights to go out.

Snow. Everywhere. The drifts were as tall as I was. Icicles hung precariously off of every ledge. Periodically, one would fall, shattering on the ground with a sound like a gunshot.

Walking under those ledges put me in mind of Damocles. He was lucky. He only had the one sword hanging over his head. I had one every few inches. Although, as I thought about it, I'd never seen anyone hit by a falling projectile. The icicles seemed timed to fall for maximum terror, but with a minimum of actual damage.

My house wasn't far from the office, so I walked the few blocks, dodging snow drifts and explosively descending swords of ice.

I'd remembered loving snow as a boy. But I'd loved a lot of things then.

I unlocked the door, took off my snow covered overcoat, hat, and my tie. I went to the stereo, and put on Haydn's complete string quartets. I was up to number 29—about half way through.

I went to the kitchen. Made dinner. Ate. Smoked half a dozen cigarettes. Listened to the music. And watched the snow fall outside. On the 16th day of June. In a year with a number I couldn't even remember.