[ WP ] The last words of anyone as they die are prophetic , and always come true : tell the story of a professional Prophecy Detective .

She breezed into my place at five past, classy and smoldering. Wading through the thick ganja smoke my assistant was exhaling in the reception area, like he ’ d lit his whole goddamned crop on fire all at once, she proceeded into my inner office without hesitation. She glanced approvingly at the scotch held loosely in my left hand; my right hand was under the desk, gripping my 10mm, ready to put an end to any shenanigans brought about by the hands of potential ambushers. 
 
 “ Goddamn it, Scotty, when I say I need you to screen visitors, that means if somebody walks in you fucking stop them, get their name and the reason for their visit, and then you make them fucking WAIT! ” 
 
 “ Sorry boss! She just walked right on through, it ’ s five past five, man, I got ta cut! ” 
 
 “ Whatever man, just clear the fuck out, ” I spat, lacing the honorific with as much irony as I could muster. “ And be here on time tomorrow! ” 
 
 “ Roger that, boss! ” he called out gleefully, whether from his newfound high, or some rendezvous that was presently approaching, I didn ’ t know. He scooted out the door and I could hear the speakers in his backpack blasting some glam-rasta bullshit as soon as he hit the hallway. 
 
 I fumed at him from my desk chair, feigning apoplexy, appraising the woman while I bought some time. Fewer and fewer people were dying, it seemed, and the ones that did usually offered no mystery at all with their death rattles. Usually, prophecies could be deciphered with some rudimentary investigation on LifeBucket, or any of the other countless social media suppositories. Repositories, I mean. Might as well use them for the other though, for all they were worth. Like my last case, Grandpa Al. He had bellowed, not at all cryptically, that “ the cows would come home to roost! ” and then promptly keeled over and died. Mixed metaphors aside, his daughters, all on the north side of 600 pounds and strapped with grav-resist harnesses to help them get around, indeed came home to roost. They had all decided to move into his old home; in fact, they had been waiting for the old man to kick the bucket for awhile now, so that they could devour his assets like so many moon pies. These kinds of prophecies were the worst drivel, easily solved and paying virtually nil. A juicy case is what I desperately needed, landlord breathing down my neck and all; if this lady was the real deal I would have to play it just so to maximize my profit. 
 
 “ You can take your hand off that iron, and pour me a drink, Detective. ” She infused the words with scorn, like somehow my profession was an affront to her very existence. Touchy, then, and from the looks of it, very available. No ring on her finger; no jewelry anywhere, for that matter. It struck me as strange, for a dame that seemed so put together, but what did I know? I ’ d seen plenty of strange. I slid the blued revolver back into its holster, and rose slowly while I set my scotch down. I took the opportunity to look her over again and decided against the smart-assed reply I had cooked up. I crossed the room to make her a drink, drab lemon light filtering through sparkling motes of dust and the old-style metal blinds in the ass crack I called my office. I poured her three fingers of my second-best, slid it across the desk, and said with my best eat-shit smile, “ So, to what do I owe the pleasure, Miss…? ” 
 
 She rolled her eyes at my attempted pleasantry while she took a long pull, trying way too hard to be disinterested, I thought. Swallowing heavily, she replied “ I need to hire you for a case. It ’ s not going to be like your normal cases, Mr. June. In fact, once you ’ ve heard my story I ’ m pretty sure you ’ re going to agree that you don ’ t have a choice in helping me. ” 
 
 She was absolutely, positively, one-hundred-fucking-percent correct. The bird ’ s old man had passed, telling her in oddly specific detail about her own death. The glitch in my program was the end part, when he told her she ’ d be in bed with one Mr. Gabriel June when it happened. Gabriel June, that's my name. I guess it was an afterthought to her, but I ’ d be going the way of the tiger as well, in her dead husband ’ s bullshit tragedy of a dying monologue. 
 
 I exhaled, long and slow, a whistle involuntarily escaping my lips. I polished off the scotch, walked back to the bureau, and retrieved the good stuff. I grabbed her tumbler without asking, emptied it unceremoniously into the trash chute, and poured her three more fingers, my best this time. Pouring myself three plus one, she raised her glass and said “ Well, here ’ s to new friends. Now, please, Mr. June, can you tell me how we ’ re going to get out of this mess? ” For the first time since she had bulldogged her way past Scotty, I could tell that she was shaken. No, terrified. She was brave to keep her composure like this, but underneath, all I could see was a weepy dame about to have a meltdown. I kissed her glass with my own, and pointed the bottom at the sky for all I was worth. Always needed a little something in me, to think, to make moves, to do my job. And goddamn, I better make this my best work, or I might wind up dead, and I didn ’ t even know if we were supposed to have consummated our little relationship or if we were still just cuddling when the axe came down. 
 
 An hour later, after we ’ d been over every detail of their last conversation, I said, “ Look, sometimes there are… ” I paused, unsure of the right tack here. “... interpretation problems, or translation problems, or maybe he spit his prophecy just before he told you some bullshit story. Some people do that you know? Catch a loophole, tell you the sun will rise tomorrow, like it will, of course, and then attach something else at the end just to fuck with your mind. Only their own mind can know their intentions at that moment, and only they choose when and how to reveal the prophecy, understand? ” She did, but she was adamant that there was no trickery, nothing ambiguous in the story at all, that it was the only thing he ’ d said to her in days, and that he passed immediately after. “ Christ on a fucking pogo stick, ” I muttered sourly, losing my composure momentarily. Usually cases didn ’ t hit so close to home, and it didn ’ t get any closer than me shuffling off my own mortal coil, as they used to say. “ And you ’ re absolutely sure he was dead, yeah? ” That was the other big red flag in these cases, people faking their own death to get some machination out into the world through the supposedly infallible prophecy.
