“I was the one that they never knew about, you know?”

The old man who had crept up on me made me start right out of my skin when he spoke. I turned to look at him and was surprised to find a very old man indeed, perhaps in his nineties, but still stood very straight, not stooped with age. He was dressed to the nines in the fifties style, a deep grey suit with a fine pinstripe and a sombre charcoal fedora on his head; simple yet stylish sunglasses hiding his eyes.

“I’m sorry, who never knew what about you? In fact who are you?”

He flashed me a wicked smile from under the brim of his hat and handed me his card:

John de Lancey – Private Security

There was no number or address, but at the time I paid it no mind.

“Kid, I was the one who was in her heart when the G-men came down on her and left her looking like she’d done herself in. I found her, and had to make like I was just shocked, not plunged into despair as I was.”

I looked back at the inscription and then back at him;

“You and Marilyn?”

He nodded.