Written for the Sunday Six Sentence Story prompt from Girlie on the Edge, where the prompt word is “interest.”

Rain varnished the streets of San Francisco while Lou Braddock sat in his office pretending to take an interest in honest work.

The woman who walked in wore a black coat, tired eyes, and the kind of smile that charged interest on every bad decision a man could make.

She said her husband had disappeared with fifty grand and a suitcase full of secrets, but her trembling hands suggested she was more worried about who might collect the debt.

By midnight I’d found the husband floating face-down near the docks, pockets stuffed with betting slips and a receipt from a pawnshop on Geary Street near Union Square.

That’s when I realized the real interest in the case wasn’t money — it was revenge accruing quietly in the dark hearts of everyone involved.

When the cops finally arrived, the woman was gone, the cash was ash in a burn barrel, and I was left with nothing but a bottle of rye and another unpaid tab with fate.

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Image conjured using ChatGPT.