Krista Pavey has a black eye.
The bruise peeks out from beneath a careful layer of makeup applied as a disguise, framed by hoops in Pavey’s ears and a nose ring. Is it from a surveillance job gone wrong, an unfaithful husband catching a glint of a camera lens from across a seedy motel parking lot at 4:00am? Or did a client-turned-stalker, on the prowl for months, finally carry out threats conveyed in hundreds of maniacal texts? No. Pavey, AKA SpyGirl, 53, is armed—learning to carry a weapon was part of the private detective training she completed 13 years ago—but the shiner is unrelated to her job. It’s from botox.
A girl’s got to keep up appearances.
It’s a typical day, calls and emails from home through the morning, then downtown at lunchtime to an office near Cain’s Ballroom, and if you want to know exactly where you can sleuth that out for yourself, pal. By design, the office has a noir vibe: a couple of codes to get into a cavernous foyer, precipitous stairs up to another code door, then a dusky hallway to a room with walls on the brown side of maroon, two candles flickering, a couch, and a desk with a magnifying glass laid out as decoration, but no Meerschaum pipe. There are framed quotes—“Well-behaved Women Rarely Make History,” “Nevertheless, She Persisted”— and shelved books: The Art of War for Women, The Gift of Fear, Fight Like a Girl and Win. For creature comforts, the room has a small flat screen TV, a coffee maker, a microwave and minifridge, and, portentously in a corner, several crystal flasks filled with amber liquors that Pavey is happy to offer to casual visitors, along with a ball of sphere ice.