I took up smoking two years into the job. It wasn’t the stress. God’s no. The rush from the work was enough for me. I did it because it gives you a good excuse to hang around places, a way to start conversations with strangers, and a place to eavesdrop. I wasn’t a regular smoker, just an opportunist. I always had a pack in my pocket ‘cause you never knew when a proffered smoke would open a door.
I hadn't always done this work either. It wasn’t an aspiration of mine. I had wanted to be a lawyer growing up. I got my first taste as a personal vendetta. Not out for blood mind you, but I had a bone to pick with some corporate shills, and it turned into quite the dinner show. But that’s for another time I suppose.
The real question is how I ended feet up on the wrong side of a fire escape with a dead man’s wrist watch and blood stains on my shirt. It’s a fair step sideways from corporate espionage, but like all thing in life it started with a dame. Dame Marissa Richards of Lourdes, Curator of the Grand Museum of Modern and Classical Art.
