Free The Spellmans Strike Again by Lisa Lutz

Where is it? I don’t see it anywhere,” I said, scanning the room for emphasis.
    “Drink your drink, Isabel, and then you’ll get your information.”
    I drank my drink and glared at Henry. I slammed my glass on the table, indicating a second drink was in order. He obliged, even though he was stingy with the bourbon, the way all moderate drinkers are.
    “Now,” he said. “Tell me about your day. Or would you prefer we chat in the alley using code names?”
    My day had been dull, but Henry hung on every word. Eventually I pried that bit of information out of him.
    “I’ve been here long enough,” I said. “What have you got for me?”
    “Tonight’s a full moon,” Henry replied.
    “And?”
    “You should stop and take a look at it. That’s all.”
    I punched Henry in the arm and left.

THE SNOWBALL EFFECT
    My cheap screenwriter client had only one assignment for me: pick up his ex–writing partner’s trash and see what she was writing and whether her writing was getting her anywhere.
    Spellman Investigations keeps a schedule of the city’s sanitation collection in order to organize our garbology assignments. The law is simple. If the trash is left out for collection, we can confiscate it, search it, and use it however we see fit. However, if the garbage is kept behind a fence or along the side of the house or in a garage, it’s not legal to take. So, late at night or in the predawn morning (and who wants to get up that early—unless you’re a sanitation worker?) 1 are the only times to get your hands on someone else’s trash.
    After Henry’s place, I drove over to Shana’s residence and parked out front to case the neighborhood. It was ten P.M. and I wanted a few more lights on the street to fade before I took a look in the trash bins perched outside her residence. She lived in a three-unit building—not as easy as a single-family home, but also not as nightmarish as a high-rise, which can make garbology one of the worst jobs in the PI playbook.
    A half hour later, I pulled a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves from my aptly named glove compartment and exited my vehicle. The key to a safe and subtle garbology is a simple grab-and-walk. You pull the most promising bags and deal with the sorting at a later time. Garbology often involves a good news/bad news scenario. For example, the client doesn’t recycle, but the client also doesn’t own a shredder. In that case, you’re stuck going through rank garbage, but at least the paperwork is in one piece. Shana, on the one hand, was an ardent recycler, or at least her building was deeply into the cause. The smell from their compost bin almost flattened me on the spot (and I’ve been doing this for twenty years), but their recycling contained three lightweight bags of fluff with the unmistakable airiness of shredded paper, which is generally the worst news of all.
    I swiftly grasped three bags in my hand, popped the trunk of my car, and took a visual sweep of the neighborhood to make sure that I wasn’t made by any nosy neighbor. The coast was clear and I headed home.
    Piecing together angel-hair strips of paper is a job I usually leave for Rae. But since she was otherwise occupied and the economy had left us with no choice but to let go of most of our support staff, I had no alternative but to tackle this hideous puzzle on my own.
    Four hours later, I’d managed to assemble one inch of one page of a script and had connected approximately ten two-or-three-strip matches on the coffee table. I took a shower and went to bed, hoping that I wouldn’t continue reassembling screenplays in my dreams.
    I awoke an hour later when Connor came home. I heard him mumble, “Bloody ’ell,” which he mumbles a lot, and then I heard a noise that sounded like the rustling of papers. Although, at first I didn’t recognize the sound. At least I didn’t recognize it until it was too late.
    I got out of bed and walked into the living room.
    “What are you doing?” I