Novel Noir (Sample Chapter)

NOVEL NOIR

CHAPTER 1
 

“You Raven?”

A woman’s voice. Behind me. Deja-vu hidden somewhere deep down inside it.

I didn’t look up. Didn’t turn around. Kept my broom moving. Waited to see if anybody else had heard her say the name.

The back of the cafe where I was sweeping was dark. Boxes of disposable salt and pepper. Floor trash. Cans of tomatoes. Without looking up, I knew the only light nearby was a single, bare bulb. Behind me. At the edge of the kitchen. I stroked my broom across the hard, sharply-defined shadow of her on the floor.

“You rang the wrong doorbell, lady,” I said. “My name’s Jack. Jack Somebody.”

“I said I was looking for...”

“Keep your voice down,” I snapped.

My eyes had never left the floor. My body was still aimed away from her.

Just in case anyone was watching. Listening.

I sensed her leaning closer.

My nose–surprising me with perfume. A barely-perceptible vanilla.

“You Raven?” she whispered. “As in the black bird? As in William Raven?”

I poked my broom between two boxes. Dragged back some cigarette butts. A plastic drink lid. Some large bread crumbs. A cheap bead necklace. A tiny fake feather. “Who wants to know?”

“Me.”

I straightened up, thinking ‘yea, right’.

Leaned my broom against the wall.

Turned.

Looked her in the face.

Jesus!–my eyes said to themselves. The piston of my heart froze. Locked-up. Like the final friction of two unlubricated pieces of metal deep inside an engine.

The bulb at the edge of the kitchen was on her left.

She was standing close enough to kiss.

Looking right at me.

And that instant became totally unforgettable.

Some experts believe it’s in the genes. Some say it comes from cultural constructs. Psychology. Biology. Misogyny. Others maintain that it originated in ancient, male-dominated preferences for a mate. But even if my hand had never held a scalpel, something would have felt obligated to inform me–with sayings as superficial as the people that voiced them–that beauty was only skin deep, that loveliness was sometimes only a matter of millimeters. And medical school had taught me even more about what men perceived to be the ultimate in skin-deep beauty. Much more. Width of the eye equals width of the nasal base. Middle of the iris, on a perpendicular line with the base of the nose. Delicate jawline. Silky skin. Base of the nose an equilateral triangle. Large eyes, relative to the length of the face. Ideal nose projection-angle, 30 to 36 degrees. Short distance between the mouth and chin. Low waist-to-hip ratio. Full lips. Identical breasts, proportioned to the curvature of the midriff.

All these equations, for the most part, based on symmetry.

Every part of the body, but especially the face.

Most men sense these formulas intuitively. Their eyes overexposed to the air-brushed perfections of advertising. To the features of the female body upon which their own secret stares linger just a little bit too long. My particular expertise, however, had dealt with everything from Elephant Man deformities to crow’s feet; horrifying accidents to turkey wattles. My eyes had evaluated prep-photographs of everything from cleft pallets to Cupid’s bows. Still–in spite of intuition and formula, genetics and culture, expertise and experience–the heart always wins out. And, within that memorable instant, she had put a check mark in every box. She was the most perfectly beautiful woman my eyes had ever seen.

“You get off work at 8 a.m., right?” she asked.

It was her real face. An exquisite shock in itself. The Cabaret Festival was only six days away, and I think my eyes had expected to see another mask. Another costume.

I glanced at the clock. Almost three a.m. “Why?”

“Fayetteville Street Mall. 3:30.”

“Do I need another cup of coffee, or is that supposed to mean something?”

“Means you’re back in business, Raven.”