The sky changed no less than three times on the way to the detective's office. First, as she stepped out the front door of the Iceberg building, a line of bright blue stars swayed erratically across the sky, casting sprays of sharply defined shadows down the length of Rammas Street. That wasn't a good start; blue days always put her on edge. She took every step in a hyperaware state, gaze directed down at the cracked pavement and mindful of every angular movement in her peripheral vision. The skin of her folded hands looked plastic, as though it might crinkle and peel away at any moment.

Fortunately the blue stars didn't last long. Magnificent, twisting nebulae, painted a thousand shades of orange and yellow, crossed the sky as she boarded the bus and headed downtown. As lulled by the aerodynamic vehicle's rumbling as by the warm light, she let herself be rocked ten blocks through the bumblebee traffic, thinking of anything other than why she was on the bus and not off to work, where she would normally be going were this a normal day.

It was anything but a normal day. The photograph of her sister, which she'd left lying facedown on her bedside table, had turned itself over during the night. On seeing it, she had thrust the portrait deep into her calfskin shoulder bag and resolved that the time had come, finally, to do something about it.

She almost failed to notice the single, lambent gem that had replaced the nebulae by the time she left the bus. Her attention was on the brownstone two doors up, whose address matched the one she'd torn from the telephone directory that morning. Only as she approached its glass double doors did she register how her hair turned golden in the soft light, making her look like something from a crime movie. How many posters for such movies had she walked past in her life? Hundreds probably, all featuring a busty blonde and a private dick. Almost she turned and walked away. She didn't like men looking at her like that.

The door was stiff. She shouldered her way through and into a stuffy, tiled foyer. A building directory on the wall to her left confirmed that she'd read the address correctly. She pressed the call button for an elevator, and concentrated on the conveyance's stained brass fittings as it carried her unevenly to the third floor. The father up she went in the building, the more it stank of cigarette smoke and sweat--and something worse beneath it all. Not booze or rot, but definitely something corrupt, as though too many dark secrets had been carried along the same route as she was taking, indelibly tainting the air itself. Such corruption probably came with the territory.

The doors slid open. The elevator had stopped half a foot short of the floor, so she had to step up into a reception area from which three offices radiated. The carpet was green, darkest around the wooden baseboard and worn almost grey elsewhere.

The middle-aged receptionist's eyebrows rose at the interruption. "Yes?"

"Good morning." She held her shoulder bag close to her stomach like a shield. "I'm here to see Mr. Grimes."

The receptionist's cool iron gaze darted over her diary and back up again, knowing what it would find there before making the gesture. "You don't have an appointment."

"I'm hoping he can find time for me."

"Is this regarding a matter he's working on at the moment?"

"No." She wondered how few matters it took to end up in such a dive. "I'm a new customer."

At the word "customer," the receptionist's interest was kindled, although she tried to hide it. "Take a seat. I'll check to see if Mr. Grimes is available for new clientele at the moment."

"I understand."

"What name shall I give?"

"I can't tell you that." There was a moment's awkwardness. She twisted the calfskin of her bag so tightly she feared it might tear between her fingers. She would say nothing more. Of that she was determined. But it took all her willpower to stare down the receptionist's disapproval--which came with an amused edge, as though she thought she'd heard it all before--and turn away to take a seat. Three straight-backed chairs formed a triangle in the room's only bare corner. She took the one closest to the elevators.

There was a button intercom on the desk, but the receptionist forwent that option. Rising from her creaking seat, she walked briskly to the second office door from the right and tapped discreetly on the frosted glass. At a grunted monosyllable from within, she slipped inside and closed the door behind her. Black letters on the translucent glass spelled "M. Grimes, P.I." in strident block capitals.

The silhouette of the receptionist was faintly visible, like a shade in fog. Another joined it. They danced together for a moment, keeping time with a conversation that wasn't quite entirely inaudible, then the door was opening, and the gatekeeper emerged.

"Mr. Grimes will see you now."

A wave of dizziness passed through her. It was all she could do to stand and continue as she had planned: to walk into this stranger's office and tell him her troubles. The ones she could part with, anyway. Her sister. Her name. Not the dreams. Not the radio. The receptionist was looking at her strangely, and she wondered what could possibly be showing on her face. Fear? Anxiety? Dread?

"Thank you, Bea," called a rough male voice as she passed through the door and entered the office. He wasn't a big man, for which she was grateful, and his gray suit was rumpled. His hat rested on the "in" tray on the left-hand corner of his desk. The hair it normally hid was greyer than she had expected, almost white, and slicked tight across his scalp with Brylcreem, but his grip, when he leaned over the desk to shake her hand, was vigorous. He smelled like the building he worked in: of cigarettes and corruption. Like attracts like, she thought; or one begat the other.

Grimes smiled as she sat on the edge of a leather chair that, matching its sibling to her right, formed a set of five with those in the reception area. His chair looked more comfortable than hers, and thoroughly lived-in. A cigarette sent up a lazy banner of smoke from its perch in a glass ashtray near his left hand. Two parallel silver pens formed a perfect right angle with the base of his cobra-necked lamp.

"Mr. Grimes--"

"Call me 'Mac.'"

Nervousness, and perhaps a hint of disappointment, made her irritable. "Must I?"

"We'll get along much better if you do."

"It's not my intention to get along with you, Mr. Grimes. I want you to help me find someone."

His smile didn't slip a notch, but he did lean back in his seat and reach for the cigarette. Exhaling through his nose, he studied her through the silken miasma for a long moment.

"Why me?"

The question threw her. Not Who or What for, which she had expected. "I saw your advertisement."

"Where?"

She tugged the bag from her shoulder and reached inside. Her fingers brushed the photograph of her sister, but she ignored that for the moment in order to show him the fragment of telephone directory that had caught her eye that morning. The ad was simple, little more than a name, telephone number, and street address. She had been drawn to it by the border: a simple geometric pattern created from the letters P and I, which, combined with the utilitarian text, promised someone with a little more flair than the average private detective. Perfect, she had thought, for someone with more than the average problem.

Hope was a fine thing, frequently dashed. She offered him the fragment as answer to his question. He took it, looked along his nose at it as though he'd never seen it before, and then gave it back to her with a wink.

"You like puns too? That was my idea," he said, taking the last drag from his cigarette and butting it out in the ashtray. "Best ten bucks I ever spent."

She didn't know what he was talking about and was determined not to pursue the subject any further. "The person I want you to find--"

"Let me guess. Some guy who gambled your college fund away? Or a producer who promised you a part and didn't deliver? A pretty girl like you can get into all sorts of trouble if she's not careful."

"It's not like that. I know how to look after myself."

He reached into a drawer and pulled out a soft pack of cigarettes. He flipped one out with a well-practiced gesture, lit it with a Zippo lighter, and pointed it at her like a sixth finger. "You must be in some kind of trouble, lady, if you're talking to the likes of me."

She looked down, angry at herself for letting him focus on her an accusatory malaise he clearly felt for the world in general. The corner of the photo peeked out at her from the bag. She pulled it out, smoothed it on her knee, and gave it to him. "This is who I'm looking for."

He stared at the picture for a long moment. No posturing or playacting this time, just puzzlement. "This is--"

"Not me, Mr. Grimes. That's my sister. We're identical twins."

He nodded, took another look, and pulled an appreciative face. "Nice. When did she go missing?"

"A week ago."

"Do you think she's been kidnapped?"

"I--" She hesitated. "I don't think so."

"That makes sense. If it was me, I'd never break the set." His leer repulsed her, but she was glad to see his mind working, not just his mouth. "Could be an accident. I can check the hospitals for a Jane Doe with amnesia, see if that turns up anything."

"Does that sort of thing really happen?"

"Only when it's convenient for the missing party. Never fools anyone for long." He ran his right index finger along the edge of the photo as though testing its sharpness. "Did she say or do anything unusual before she left? If she left a message of some kind, that'd make it real convenient."

She shook her head, feeling a flush creep up her neck. The smoke was making her dizzy again.

His eye was incisive. "Are you feeling all right, Miss . . . ?"

"No. I don't feel all right, and I won't until my sister is found. She took--" She swallowed a sudden rush of nausea. "She took something very important to me."

"And you want it back." He nodded. "Sounds like a hundred stories I've heard before. You, like everyone else, want a happy ending." He rested the cigarette in the ashtray and pulled a notepad from the drawer. Picking up one of the reservoir pens, he uncapped it and paused with the nib hovering over the paper. "Let's start with the basics. I'm going to need a name. Yours or hers--take your pick. I'm easy."

"I can't," she said.

"Why not? There's no family in this city without a scandal or two hidden in the closet. Whoever you are, you can rely on me to be discreet."

"It's not like that," she said again.

"Then what is it like?" He tapped the nib to paper, releasing a bubble of ink that was immediately absorbed. "Come on, lady. You gotta give me something. Cruising the streets for nameless blondes is why my last gal left me."

"Mr. Grimes--"

"Mac."

"--please don't mistake my inability for unwillingness. If I could give you my name, I would." She took a deep breath. "The reason I can't is because she has taken it."

His gaze lifted from her cleavage and his face assumed a blank expression. "Who took what?"

"My sister," she said, feeling like an idiot saying it aloud but refusing to balk now. "She took my name with her, wherever she went."

"Your twin sister took your name."

"That's what I keep saying, Mr. Grimes."

The pad went onto the table, and the pen, recapped, followed. "Not 'took' as in she assumed it. She actually stole it, somehow?"

"I presume so."

"You don't sound so sure of that. I'd have thought that was something you'd remember." His expression hadn't changed. "Can you, ah, tell me the circumstances in which it went missing?"

"That's the odd thing. I can't. I woke up a week ago and it was gone. So was she. The two must be connected, don't you think?"

"I don't know what to think." He leaned forward and rested the weight of his upper body on his elbows. The desk made a hollow sound, like a laugh at a funeral. "Do you?"

"I think you don't believe me."

"I never believe my clients."

"Does that mean I am one?"

"You don't need a PI, lady. You need a shrink."

"Are you saying I'm crazy?"

"You're original, at least. That sometimes don't sit so well with the sane folk." His face broke with a smile that had a crooked cast to it. He eased back in his seat and reached into a lower drawer with his right hand, this time to produce a bottle of whiskey and two shot glasses. He poured a pair of well-practiced measures and offered her one. "You call me Mac like everyone else, or you'll be 'dollface' every time you drop by. And I'm paid by the day, plus expenses."

She picked the shot off the table and held it for a moment. The glass was oily and the liquor golden in the light coming through the blinds behind him. With one smooth motion, she cocked the glass and tipped its contents down her throat. The whiskey burned as hot as it shone in the light, and she closed her eyes for a second, dissolving without pleasure in the sensation.

"That's the last drink we'll ever share, Mac," she said. "While I'm paying your expenses, our relationship will be strictly business."

"Nothing friendly about drinking," he said with a weary kind of defiance. Nevertheless, he put the bottle away and picked up the pen again. "You'll find I don't do anything less than one hundred percent, when I set my mind to it."

"I trust your mind is on my problem now."

"Let's just say I'm thinking about the money. Why don't you tell me when exactly you think this . . . theft occurred? We'll work from there."

Her hands eased their grip on the shoulder bag, and she felt a tiny knot of tension unwind. Grimes had doubted her and cast aspersions on her sanity, but he hadn't turned her away. She wasn't alone in this any more. That helped--more than any nebulous hope that the situation might be reversed.

(Taken from the opening of The Grand Conjunction.)