An Inside Look by David E. Feldman

Author:David E. Feldman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Literary Fiction, Memoir
Publisher: David E. Feldman
Published: 2023-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

In a small strip mall in the center of Beach City, on Long Island’s south shore, was a storefront that housed Geller Investigations. The storefront was divided into the front, a reception area comprised of a desk, an office chair behind the desk, another chair opposite the desk that was for clients, and two others off to the side and next to an end table that offered old issues of People, Cosmopolitan, and Men’s Health magazines. The end table and two chairs served as a waiting area. On the wall behind the office chair was the framed professional license of Adam Geller.

Adam was sitting in the client chair facing the desk. He was sixty-five years old and five feet eight inches tall, with gray hair and a matching mustache and goatee. He’d once been an athlete, and despite those days being long gone, he retained a surprising degree of muscle and strength.

He’d just finished telling Thelma—his office manager, occasional confidant, and constant critic, who was sitting in the office chair—about an unpleasant medical procedure he’d endured at a major New York City cancer hospital.

“What made the whole damned thing even worse was that it was performed by eleven-year-old girls.”

“Eleven? Stop exaggerating.” Thelma’s honking tone might as well have been calling to someone several blocks away. She was dressed in a gray sweater over a white button-down blouse whose collars were flipped over the sweater’s neck. Her hair was battleship gray streaked with white and stood straight up, like the bride of Frankenstein’s. Her eyes were small and sharp, and her lips pressed tightly together in a permanent expression of displeasure.

“Well, maybe they were thirteen,” Adam grudgingly offered.

Thelma made a clucking sound with her tongue and looked away. “I suspect they had medical degrees.”

Adam shook his head and waggled a finger. “To do what they did to me wouldn’t require a medical license—a porn license, maybe.”

“It’s always something with you.”

“Death is nonexistence,” Adam recited in a monotone. “It’ll be the same experience after I’m gone as it was before I was here.”

“Ugh.” Thelma rolled her eyes. “This again!”

Adam looked back at her. “Seneca—Roman philosopher.”

Thelma’s eyes looked back steadily. “Self-pity,” she said emphatically. “My boss.”

A woman’s voice called from the other side of the wall dividing the front and back of the store space.

“Seneca was born in Spain!”

Adam brightened. “She’s right. He moved to Rome later.”

On the other side of the wall, two women were sitting together at one of two desks and looking into a laptop computer. The walls were bare except for a hanging calendar and a printed list of clients’ names and addresses, along with short descriptions of the work to be performed for each.

Dora Ellison had a pale, pinkish complexion and was five feet eight inches tall and just shy of one hundred and fifty pounds, nearly all of it muscle. Her dark wavy hair fell over the collar of her T-shirt, which read “Shay’s Mixed Martial Arts,” a place she frequented and occasionally taught. Beside her was Missy Winters, who was a half foot shorter and significantly rounder and softer.

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