Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned/ Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

A day like any other day. I glance at the faded calendar on the wall. September 1, 1952. I take another drag on my cigarette as Bette sticks her head in.

“Johnny, your 11:30 is here.” I nod my head, and Bette sends in my appointment.

The woman who walks in is like a tornado, sucking my breath away. She wears a little red dress, the type with the legs that go all the way up. She’s a round-one knockout, this broad: lips of fire and a body to match… but it’s her eyes I can’t get enough of. Full of hell’s fire and a diamond’s ice, they have me. Angel Eyes. Her curves feel familiar, but there’s been too many like her: too many single nights and awkward mornings.

Angel Eyes introduces herself as Tanya Buiton. I stand up so I can see directly into those eyes of hers.

“The name’s Johnny. Johnny Mercedes. What do you need me to do?”

She leans the slightest bit forward. “I need a private investigator, and they tell me you’re the best.”

“I tell myself that too, babe. But that doesn’t answer my question.”

Angel Eyes takes a deep breath. “I need you to find someone. Someone who I loved.” She hides her eyes. “Someone who has hurt me dearly. I can still feel the sting.” I take another hit on the cig and then grind it into the desk.

“That’s the nature of love, baby-doll. It pricks and it bites.”

But I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Take a look at her legs, those curves, that dress. What fool would leave her? Angel Eyes isn’t like the broads I usually go for down at Niro’s Bar. Those girls are a dime a dozen with change to spare. No, this Tanya Buiton, Angel Eyes, she’s something special. She’d get the call the next day.

I lean back in my chair. “Everyone who walks in here is looking for someone. The real question is: do they want to be found?”

Angel Eyes looks back up and stares straight into my soul.

“No. No, he doesn’t want to be found.”

I can’t help but smile. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Angel Eyes smiles.

She gives me a name, and I get to work. In this city, if you call in a few favors, make a few concessions, and knock a few heads, you’ll find what you’re looking for.

In one week’s time I’m finished. I stand with a phone in one hand and an address in the other. All I have to do now is call Angel Eyes. Just one thing stops me.

Doubt. Something tells me to just walk away, a feeling that has been growing inside of me ever since Angel Eyes walked into my office. Back on that day, I told her what I thought of her. Maybe the words lowered her defenses, maybe the promises and lines caught her off guard, but I saw something then in those Angel Eyes. There’s a truth hidden deep inside her, some truth that she’s keeping secret from me. There’s something I don’t know—and in this business what you don’t know is what gets you killed. I remember the cardinal rule of my profession: no job is worth dying for.

But this isn’t about the money anymore. It’s about her. I shouldn’t have made this personal, but I did. I should let this case go, but I can’t. I have to see this one through. I’m walking a fine line between lust and love and I need to know which side I’m on.

I call up Angel Eyes.

The trail takes us to the top floor of a building in the South Side. When we get there, the hallway is in a shambles. “It’s deserted. I must’ve gotten a bad lead.”

Angel Eyes has nothing but a deadly calm on her face. She nods to a door at the end of the hallway. “What’s behind the door?”

I pull out my piece and move to the door. Think. You think and you live. Something doesn’t feel right. In one motion I kick it open and level the gun. It’s a short stairway to the roof. I carefully walk out. When I’m 20 feet out on the roof I stop.

I call back. “I think it was a mistake coming here.”

It’s only then I hear it, unmistakable. Something I’ve heard altogether too many times: the cocking of a gun.

“You don’t remember me, but I remember you.”

I spin around. Angel Eyes is standing there as stolid as a tree. There’s a Luger in her hand.

“My real name is Talia. Talia Monet.”

I try to remember. “No dice, baby-doll. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

She grimaces. “Toss your gun towards me, and the sidearm strapped on the small of your back. Slowly. Don’t forget the switchblade you keep strapped on your ankle.”

This broad has done her research on me. And when you’re staring down the barrel of a gun, you do as you’re told.

But Angel Eyes forgot one thing, and that one thing is the trigger-action Derringer I literally have up my sleeve. As I stand back up I bend my elbow sharply, the mechanism triggers and in less than a breath the revolver shoots down my sleeve, into my right hand, and points dead at her heart.

We both stand staring down a gun in a close range stalemate. Neither of us will miss.

“Your move, Angel Eyes.”

She takes my words like a shot to the heart. “That’s what you called me.”

My blank stare is answer enough.

“The night we met, at Niro’s Bar.”

Oh no.

“I was wearing red and you were wearing that smile of yours. You made the right moves and said the right things. We had the greatest night of my life. You said I was your Angel Eyes. You said I was the one.”

Oh no, no, no. I know what’s coming next.

Her face contorts into a blend of confusion and fury. She snarls: “You told me you loved me. And look at you, you don’t even remember.”

I’ve talked my way out of worse situations before, but now I’ve seen it all.

“That’s really what this is all about?”

Angel Eyes nods her head. “You didn’t call.”