Bradbury Tales

Holdfast Under Pressure

Holdfast Under Pressure

It was a year to the day after Holdfast first opened his private detective agency that a stunning blonde walked unannounced into his office. Holdfast, who had been dozing in his chair, chin propped up against a fist, raised his head at the sudden interruption. The sight of the gorgeous lady before him quickly brought him to full consciousness.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” said the gumshoe. “How can I help you?”

Best to assume that she was here on business, he thought, rather than having entered the wrong room.

She stood for a moment, looking down at him, before collapsing into a chair.

“Oh, Mr Holdfast, you’ve got to help me. I’m in big trouble.” Her voice was low and husky, her manner grave and immediately focused.

Holdfast could tell that this was not the usual domestic type of case and he straightened his tie. “Certainly I will, ma’am, if I can. What seems to be the trouble?”

The lady leaned forward earnestly and uttered just one sentence. “Someone is trying to kill me.”

“I see,” said Holdfast. “But how do you know this?”

“Letters,” she replied. “Threatening letters and, and, um things.” The last word was spoken with fear and loathing, her lip curling just a little, as though disgusted at the memory.

“What sort of things?”

“Horrible things. Dolls with broken heads spattered with red dye, knives with dark stains on the blades, stockings tied in knots, that sort of thing. And now he’s even sent a bullet with one of the messages.”

Holdfast was a bit taken aback. This was not the sort of thing he was used to. “And what do the messages say?” He asked this more for time than interest. If his suspicions were correct, he had a good idea of their content already.

“Promises to kill me,” she said.

“Figures,” muttered Holdfast. Then he continued, “So you want me to act as your bodyguard?”

She shook her head, her long locks twisting from side to side. “No, no, I want you to follow me and watch for suspicious characters. I’m certain the man follows me around because he knows so much about me. His messages always refer to things I’ve done that day.”

Holdfast was disappointed. The case had looked as though it was going to be very different from his usual run of business. He was becoming tired of spending his days trailing shady hoodlums and errant wives.

“Well, even private eyes gotta live, ma’am. I’d have to charge you for that sort of service.”

“Not a problem,” she replied. “What are your going rates?”

Holdfast considered his usual fee, made a quick assessment of the lady’s likely wealth judging by her clothes, and doubled his estimate.

She accepted without hesitation.

The detective rose from his seated position to shake her hand. “We have a deal, Miss err… I don’t think I know your name.”

“I’m Marcia Willens. You might have heard of me.”

He had heard of her alright. You don’t earn the title of twenty-ninth most wealthy woman in the States without becoming fairly well known.

Holdfast later cursed himself for not wondering why such a woman would be interested in his services. But his excitement at landing such an important customer was entirely too much for him at the time. He accepted details of her expected itinerary for the next few days and began his usual course of shadowing the subject while keeping an eye on what was going on around him.

She was not overly onerous to keep watch on. Her tall and willowy figure was easy on the eye and those long blonde tresses made it impossible to lose her in a crowd. Even so, by the sixth day, Holdfast was becoming bored with the task. He was good at disappearing into backgrounds but there was no sign of his client’s enemy and he was beginning to think her fears might be due to an undiagnosed case of paranoia.

And then he noticed he was being followed.

At first it seemed a coincidence. A flashily dressed fellow, with trilby hat pulled down as if to hide his face, stepped back into the shadows of a shop doorway when Holdfast turned around unexpectedly.

Holdfast gave no sign of noticing anything but then watched carefully at every opportunity. It became clear that the guy was tailing him and was not as good at it as Holdfast himself.

The detective bided his time, waiting for the right circumstances. And then, when the moment came, he pounced from a dark alleyway as the man hurried by, afraid that he’d lost sight of his quarry. Holdfast had him in an armlock from behind and dragged him into the alley. He snarled into his ear.

“Who are you? And why are you following me?”

The man was not struggling and seemed eager to cooperate. “Go easy, Holdfast. I can hardly breathe. Loosen up and we can talk.”

Holdfast tightened his grip briefly but then eased off and the man began to speak.

“The name’s Arnold. Harry Arnold. And I’m a private eye. My job’s been to follow you for the last few days. Don’t ask me why, I dunno.”

“A likely story,” said Holdfast. “Who’s paying you?”

“I can’t say. And you wouldn’t believe me anyway.”

Holdfast tightened his grip on the man’s throat again. “Try me.”

“Aargh, steady on, man. You’ll throttle me.”

“Answer me and I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. Just let me breathe, will ya? It’s the dame you’ve been following, she asked me to do it.”

“You were right,” said Holdfast. “I don’t believe you.” But he loosened his hold. There was something weird going on here.

“It’s true, I swear it,” said Arnold. He squirmed a bit under Holdfast’s grip.

Holdfast was puzzled. The man sounded authentic but it made no sense. Why would a woman hire a private eye to follow her around and then set another gumshoe on his tail? It did not make sense.

“So why’s she doing it?” he asked.

The man wriggled again. “Look, I can’t see any reason why I shouldn’t tell you, but you have to promise you won’t tell her that you know what’s going on. Just drop the case and let it lie.”

“Deal,” said Holdfast. He could always renege on it if it turned bad. As his father always said, a verbal contract ain’t worth the paper it’s written on.

And so Arnold told Holdfast the whole story. “It’s like this: Marcia Willens is active on that social media thing they call Tik Tok. And there’s a craze on it at the moment. Seems the idea is to have a stalker as a status symbol. But you have to produce proof that you have one. It’s the sort of thing only the rich can indulge in and that makes it all the more competitive.

“So she hires you as the stalker and then gets me to take photos of you And the photos are proof. It’s silly but hey, it’s worth a living to me.”

Holdfast was stunned. It was bad enough being made a fool of but those photos could be used against him one day. With evidence like that, who would believe his crazy story?

“You delivered the photos yet?” he asked.

“What? No, I’m supposed to produce them tonight.”

“Give me the camera,” said Holdfast. He tightened his grip again as a persuasion and Arnold fumbled in his coat before producing the desired object. He handed it over.

Holdfast released him. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said. “You’re going to make up some story about me catching you and destroying your camera and photos. You’ll get paid and I’ll be paid off because her plan failed.”

Arnold nodded glumly.

“And one more thing,” said Holdfast. “Not a word to anyone about this or I’ll find you and make you regret it.”


Word count: 1,331
For The Bradbury, Week 10 2025.