With the killer safely in custody, I decided to return to my office. A beggar, I mused to myself. It was so obvious, surely the assassins could have thought of a better disguise. I am the great inspector Ricardo Merducci Giovanni Dijorno Da Vinci, and Florence is my lover. I walk the streets like my hands run over the curves of a voluptuous lady of the night. The familiar perfume of her unwashed citizens and chamber pots wafts over my nostrils: the scent of a lover. She’s a tease, my lady Florence. Hers is the kind of love that leaves you broken, humbled and sprawled naked on the floor next to thirty or so very confused guardsmen. Yet, she always leaves just enough of a taste in your mouth to keep you coming back. It is like the taste of a three day old almond roll you find on the street; bitter, but sweet, with just a slight hint of cinnamon. The promise of what the almond roll once tasted like, fresh, succulent and free of the taint of untold handlings and the ever present odor of manure, brings you back bite after disgusting bite. If you are not strong enough, if you are not man enough, lady Florence will crush your spirit the same way that almond roll will tear up your colon. She was certainly the lady for me.

The sign to my office hung gaily above my door, the sun shining brightly upon it. I made a note to darken that sign up a tad.

“ Maybe some bat wings? And then flames coming off from the sides like some sort of flaming dragon or griffin or something. Isn’t a Griffin part eagle, part lion? What’s scarier than an eagle? A Dog? A Giraffe? A Snake? That’s it! A fire breathing lion/snake… With tits!”

“ What are you talking about inspector?” Sofia interrupted my thoughts. She was an older woman, mid-50’s. She had certainly already seen her best days go by. Her face was like a well worn leather boot -- all wrinkles and feet.

“ Certainly not how much your face reminds me of my time in the army. What’s hot on the wire?”

“ I don’t know what a wire is sir.”

“ Any news from my big bust this morning? Did the guy crack under interrogation?” They always cracked. You can only take a fire poker to the asshole so many times before you confess.

“ Actually, no. He died first. From severe loss of internal organs.”

“ Yeah, that’ll get ya.”

Sofia was about to say more, but trailed off when she realized I had already walked out of the lobby.

My desk greeted me like an old friend. We had been together for a long time, and friends always tend to greet each other the same way every time. Some embrace, some shake hands, others break-dance. But the one constant is everything about those greetings changes when the old friend has a note stuck to his back with a dagger.