Free The Naked Detective by Laurence Shames

client. They don't have to know that either, okay? Will you help me out?"
    Vanessa took a moment to expel a long slow breath. "Listen, I'm hanging on by a thread here. I can't afford a mess."
    "I understand," I said. "I'm asking you to trust me."
    She looked at me hard. I stared right back. Two small-timers trying to do the right thing and not get hurt for doing it. Frankly, I was touched by the slimness of our respective chances.
    Vanessa said at last, "There was a guy who stayed here that might've been your man. Paid cash. Called himself Josh." She moved behind the counter, flipped a page of the register. "Josh Slocum."
    My mouth curled because it so happened that I recognized that alias. Joshua Slocum, New England sea captain, first man ever to sail alone around the world. Wrote a book about it.
    "That'd be him," I said.
    "Nice person," said Vanessa. "Quiet. Considerate. Nervous though."
    "Anybody with him? Anybody visit?"
    "No," she said. "All by his lonesome. Paid for three nights, stayed for two. Never came back for his things."
    "You still have them?"
    She didn't answer, just squeezed her lips together, paused, then gestured for me to follow her. She led me down the hall and out the back door to a courtyard, where a handful of guests were having breakfast next to a big octagonal hot tub. Beyond the tub was a small outbuilding, totally swathed in raspberry-colored bougainvillea. Vanessa's studio apartment. It had African fabrics and pictures of women embracing on the walls. There was a small neat kitchen with many jars of grains and spices.
    Vanessa reached into a closet and came out with a yellow nylon duffel, the kind that's shaped like a sausage and opens on top. She handed it to me and I didn't quite know what to do with it; I couldn't haul it on my bike. "Mind if I look through it here?" I asked.
    She gave an uneasy shrug, and I dumped the contents onto her bedspread. It made for quite a still life, and I tried not to feel like a ghoul or a voyeur riffling through the stuff. Sweat socks and stockings. Jockstraps and bras. Sandals, pumps; sun-block and eyeliner; panties for every mood and occasion. I told myself I was there not to gape at underwear but to look for clues—which made the process not a jot less weird. Five minutes ago I'd finally fessed up to being a private eye, and here I was, sifting through a corpse's personal effects like I knew what I was doing. The power of the things we call ourselves . . .
    I tossed aside razors and rouge, foundation and foot powder, looking for something of consequence. A journal would have been nice, but Kenny Lukens didn't seem to have kept a journal. There wasn't even an address book—but then, a person whose past could kill him any day wouldn't have much use for one. I pocketed a handheld compass, which I thought to give to Maggie as a keepsake. And I took a matchbook that intrigued me—there always has to be a matchbook, right? This one was from a place called Freddy's Beachside on Green Turtle Cay, in the Bahamas. But what I found of interest was a phone number scrawled inside that started with the digits 294. That's a Key West exchange.
    I raked my fingers one last time through Kenny's things, then turned back toward Vanessa. I thanked her for her time; her eyes asked me once again not to bring down havoc on her little enterprise. We shook hands and I turned to go.
    I was halfway to the door when she said to my back, "Just like a man."
    I looked across my shoulder to see her beginning to attack the mess I'd left behind. Abashed, I made a move to help repack the duffel. She treated me to a last look at that amazing smile and gestured me away. "Hey," she said, "I'm used to sloppy guests."

10
    Back on the street, the world had moved from morning to full day. Houses seemed to stand up straighten like soldiers at attention, as their shadows were sucked in beneath them. The pavements had spent their nighttime coolness; I felt sharp sunshine through my sneakers and