Detective comedy 3: Getting the job

I want to deposit something with you

Most of this snippet is more narrator observation about the client, to build up the tension. When the job is eventually mentioned, it’s said quickly and simply.

Naples laid a carefully manicured hand on the desk. His initials—JN—were cut into a gleaming ring. There was so much gold around that third finger he could have added his name and address, too. “I want to deposit something with you,” he said.

The Falcon's Malteser(2004)

It’s time for a new detective story trope! The Hardboiled Detective. They’re a feature of American detective stories in the 1930s and 1940s. They’re tough, cynical, unsentimental, street smart antiheroes—no fancy ‘Sherlock Holmes’ types here.

Hardboiled detective

The line in this passage about the gold ring is a typical ‘hardboiled’ observation. To this sort of person, a gold ring that large is a pointless trinket. It’s something that shows the client to be a show off with a lot of money, or someone who thinks they’re important. Hardboiled types don’t care much for people driven by money or power.

How ‘hardboiled’ you make your narrator is up to you. 

Don’t worry… it’s also a weird answer! The term comes from the late 1800s and early 1900s. A hard boiled egg is tough and ‘hard to beat’. It became the way to describe an emotionally ‘hard’ character who used that attitude to survive in an uncaring world.

This is not to be confused with a ‘bad egg’, which meant someone was rotten to the core, or a ‘good egg’ which meant they were dependable.

Why describe people as types of eggs? No idea!

Let's see how the examples introduce their jobs.

Jane produced a small Hello Kitty purse from her jacket and started searching it, frantically. Some blue tac fell out, then a tube of glittery lip gloss, five loyalty cards, a cluster of used toothpicks, quarter of a donut… it felt like some kind of unhygienic magic trick was being played out. She finally produced a sticky-looking USB drive with an old Gummi Bear attached to it. “I- I have proof of aliens!” she blurted.

Mr D’Angelo leaned back, his hands folded in his lap and his feet crossed over each other. His sneakers were white like tic tacs. I didn’t get the impression this was a guy who liked to walk. “I want you to look into something for me,” he said.

Write your own variation.
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