A hardboiled noir parody, written as an assignment for a “Detective Fiction” class at CMC, during Fred’s time at Pomona College (1984–1988). Rating on the original notes page: “Good story, though. Some parts of it are wierd and need to be changed.”
The first guy to walk into my office that morning was a gangster. I didn’t like his looks, so I pumped a couple of slugs into his head. He fell back against the wall, blood oozing from the impact points on his forehead and his face. But I didn’t think he had had enough, so I kicked him a couple of times in the chest with my steel-tipped dress shoes. I kicked him until I heard a gurgle from his already blood-soaked mouth, and a stream issued forth from his wrinkled lips. That would teach him to come in without an appointment. I quickly frisked him, and dropped my findings on the desk. One alligator-skin wallet; one fancy calculator, which had been in his jacket pocket, now completely destroyed; and a clipboard filled with indistinguishable forms. I checked his wallet for identification. His business card said he was from the IRS. Just as I thought - organized crime.
I stuffed his limp body into my filing cabinet. Under ‘New Business’.
I don’t have a secretary - I fired her last week, because she didn’t seem to know what her job was. She thought all she was supposed to do was answer the phone and type memos. All I wanted was a Pepsi, and she wouldn’t give it to me - just one Pepsi.¹ So I fired her.
An old broad came in. She was really ugly. Coyote ugly was the phrase that came to mind - so ugly, that if you wake up with your arm underneath her you chew it off to get away. Two-bag ugly. She wanted me to look for her husband, who, she suspected, had met with foul play. I asked her if that had anything to do with the fact that her face looked like it had been the focal point of a five car collision. She flipped her middle finger up at me. I reached across my desk and broke it - off. I threw the bloody stump on the floor and ground it under my foot. She turned to leave. I jumped up and grabbed her by the arm, my fingers digging into her flabby bicep.
“Listen, you ugly bitch, when I break off your finger, you’ll take it and like it, understand?”
“Mr. Harlowe, you’re a cruel, disgusting man.”
“It’s a cruel, disgusting life, babe.” As she stood and watched, I dragged a fifth bottle of Everclear out of my bottom desk drawer, took a large swig of it, and spat it into her face. She dropped a fifty dollar bill on the desk in front of me.
“Will you find my husband for me? There’s more where that came from. Or do I have to find another detective?”. She scowled at me, then looked out the window, drew a pouch of chewing tobacco from her purse and inserted a wad between her cheek and her gums.
I picked the bill up off the desk, examined it, and inserted it into my new alligator-skin wallet. I’d always had a lot of respect for F.D.R. But not for old, ugly women who chewed Skoal. “Sorry, but I don’t work for old, ugly women who chew Skoal. And I’m not impressed with your flashing money in my face. Money don’t buy happiness. I would ask you if you have a teenage daughter, but with the way you look, I’m sure she’s pretty butt ugly, too.”
The wicked witch of the West stormed out of the office. As the door swung closed, I saw her spit her wad of chew onto the wall. I let fly a few warning shots, but by that time she was on the elevator and on her way out of the building.
“Good riddance,” I mumbled.
“Friend of yours, Harlowe?” The fat policemen carefully avoided the line of tobacco juice that ran across the floor.
“Bob, you and your police force are just a bunch of bumbling idiots who wouldn’t know a murderer if you caught him feeding the bloody body into a Cuisinart. Your idea of a Corpus Dilecti is baked halibut in white wine sauce.” I pulled out a cigarette, offered it to him, and lit it up. He took about four puffs and the cancer stick blew up in his face.
“See what I mean,” I chuckled, “you really shouldn’t smoke those, they’re bad for your health.” He looked disappointed, so I grabbed the cigar box off my desk and handed him one. This time he had a chance to say, “Good taste - are these Columbian?” before the stogie exploded. I always feel sorry for the cleaning lady, having to sweep up cigar parts every day the detective comes by. The effect is worth it, though. I pulled a hunk of marijuana out of the metal snuffbox in my top drawer and rolled him a joint; I made a mental note to call Jenkins, of the narc division, and give him an anonymous tip to check the detective’s blood levels when he got back to the station. I always get a kick out of a well-thought-out practical joke, especially when Bob wouldn’t be able to tell pot from plant fertilizer, if he could draw smoke out of it.
“By the way, Bob, I found something interesting that won’t make me any money, so I thought I’d throw it your way.” I spread a garbage sack out on the floor and emptied the New Business onto it. The cockroaches scattered back into the far corners of the room like lightning, leaving the dead man’s face staring up at us. “Know who he is?” I prompted.
“Didn’t have any I.D.?” he asked, trying to sound concerned.
“Nope. Just a smashed calculator and some forms I couldn’t figure out.” I showed him the clipboard. He looked at them for a second, shrugged, and then lit them on fire with his joint and tossed them into the trash can. It smouldered for a few seconds and then caught. I could see him faintly through the smoke, reaching for the bottle of Everclear on the desk and before I could stop him, there was a trail of fire halfway across the room. He ran out of the room in search of a fire extinguisher, and I unzipped my slacks and pissed out the fire in the trash can. When he returned twenty minutes later I was contemplating the phrase, ‘going to the can’, and trying to think of someone to send a very repulsive package tomorrow. I decided to forward it to my ex-wife, with her alimony check and a note which read, “I’d rather be pissed off than pissed on.” The cop put down the fire extinguisher, panted for a few seconds and then sat down on the edge of my desk. I was always careful to keep my ink blotter close to the edge of the desk so he would be sure to sit in it.
He did this time, but I choked back laughter and returned to the business at hand.
“Well, do you?” I asked, rather annoyed.
“Do I what?” he returned, confused.
“Know him. I asked you if you knew him. Do you?”
He prodded the body with the fire extinguisher, and then a look of recognition crossed his face. “Yeah,” he replied distastefully, “He audited my tax returns a few years back. Bastard.” He looked at me, then planted a solid kick in the man’s groin. If there’s one thing these cops can do well, it’s kick a man when he’s dead. “You didn’t see that,” he informed me.
“See what?” I replied innocently, “Nope, I didn’t see a thing, Bob, not wun ting.” Until I need to blackmail you, I thought.
“How’d it happen,” he asked, back into his official police facade.
“Gosh, I wouldn’t know,” I told him, “I found him like this on my floor when I came in.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said, giving me Official Police Suspicious glance #534.
“Well,” I conceded, “there is something. I have my suspicions. I’d have to say…”
“C’mon, Harlowe, it’ll come out in the courtroom if not here. What do you think?” He listened to me as if I were E.F. Hutton.
“Well, if it were up to me…” I glanced around the room and then continued in a hoarse whisper, “I’d have to say he either fell down a flight of seven stairs, or tripped over a number of banana peels, or both. I’ll tell you, Bob, if you find someone with a seven step staircase in their house, and if that person owns, say, a chimpanzee or a small orangutan, I would bet even money that he’d be your men. Or woman, Bob - you have to consider all the possibilities.”
He looked at me seriously for a minute, and I looked at him seriously, and then he said, “Thanks, Don. I don’t know how I could do it if it weren’t for guys like you to figure out the details. I’ll get on it right away. I’m really sorry about the fire.”
“No sweat, Bob.” He bent down to pick up the IRS man. I patted him on the back as he left, and wished him luck. I watched him amble out the door, unaware of the ‘Kick me’ sign I had planted on his back. I almost felt bad about it. Almost.
I sat back down at my desk, took a long pull from the Everclear bottle, and leaned back in my chair with my feet up on the desk. After allowing the alcohol to wash down, I lit up a cigarette. I didn’t want to catch my throat on fire - I’d had just about enough excitement for today, and it was only eleven in the morning. I was just about to declare an early lunch when the phone rang.
“Good morning,” I answered in my best falsetto voice, “Harlowe detective agency.”
“Yes,” a timid little female voice said timidly from the other end of the line, “may I speak to detective Harlowe, please?” She sounded very unsure of herself. I got the feeling she would be easy to take advantage of, so I let her speak to me.
“One moment, please. I’ll see if he’s in.” She was lucky - if I hadn’t liked the sound of her voice, I would have been out for the rest of the week. But as it turned out, I was here. I put her on hold just long enough to get her annoyed and catch her off balance. I answered her gruffly, as if I was on my way out the door and didn’t want to be disturbed.
“Yeah, Harlowe here. Who’s this, and what can I do you for?”
“Uh, this is Jill Abbel. I…I’m afraid someone’s going to kill me.” She was almost in tears, from what I could hear.
“Bullshit. I bet you’re just paranoid. Take a load of stress pills and call me when you’ve got enough bullet holes in you that you can drink a glass of water and collect it at your feet. What do you think, I’m some two-bit operator who works as an escort service for lonely, paranoid dames? I’ll tell you, I got more class than that, sugar.”
“If it’s money you want…”
“It is money I want, sister. But that’s not all. If I work this job for you, are you going to put out? You know what I’m saying?”
“I’m not sure I…oh no!” There was background noise, a pounding that sounded as if a door was being broken open. “He’s here, Mr. Harlowe, he’s here! What should I do?”
“Come on, babe, you don’t think I’m as gullible as that, do you? You just want me to think you’re in trouble so I’ll feel sorry for you and you won’t have to put out when the time comes. Call me when you’re dead, okay?” But I didn’t hang up - I wanted to stay on the line in case I got a chance to harass her again. Then I heard gunshots, and a scream. It hit me that maybe she wasn’t just making it up.
Nyeah, couldn’t be. She was just a tricky, paranoid wench who wanted to fool me into working for her out of pity instead of money or sex. The next voice I heard was low and gravelly, but didn’t sound in the least convincing - apparently she was still on the pity trip. It was a man’s voice. “Think you could double cross me, bitch? Well, you can’t!” Then two more ‘gunshots’. She was really playing this up.
But then something happened that really got me sore. I can handle some paranoid girl calling me up, trying to get me involved with a case without the promise of money or sex, but some things I just can’t stand. This was one of them.
Someone on the other end of the phone hung up on me. That really makes me want to cause some pain. Whoever had hung up on me was going to be real sorry. I called the phone company and had the call traced. Five minutes later I had the number and the address. There was no answer when I called back, so I loaded my automatic with hollow-point bullets and locked my office up. I took the elevator down to the parking garage below the building. There was a wino passed out on the elevator floor, so I passed the time on the way down by stepping on his hands until he screamed. Scum like him don’t deserve any mercy, so I make it a point never to give them any.
It took me twenty-five minutes to find my tan 1975 Ford LTD coupe. There were fifteen others, identical in color and model. The parking attendant didn’t notice me as I drove out. The policeman on the corner didn’t even flinch when I cruised by at seventy-five miles per hour. This car was so incognito, I had given up going to drive-through restaurants - but at least I didn’t have to worry about parking meters or radar speed traps.
The girl’s apartment was in Westwood, but it was in a terribly sleazy section. I was disappointed - if the girl lived in a dump like this, I didn’t stand a very good chance of screwing her out of the large amount of cash I had been planning on. I almost turned around and drove back, but then I remembered the fact that I had been hung up on. I parked the car with two wheels on the curb, just to be safe. I didn’t want some spoiled preppie in a BMW his parents had given him driving too close and tearing my door off.
Just as I opened the door, a silver BMW rolled by, snapping the door off at the hinges. I cussed at him, and he chirped his tires and sped away. The sticker on his rear window said, “GO USC TROJANS”. I whipped out my automatic and drilled five shots into the car. The fifth one hit the gas tank, and the car careened off the side of the road into a group of trendily dressed mods and exploded, killing them all. I bet that damn kid was on cocaine, or something. Another drug-related homicide.
I made my way up the stairs to the girl’s apartment. When she didn’t answer the door, I pumped three shots into the knob. Then I realized that I hadn’t even checked to see if it was unlocked. I kicked the door open with all the force I could muster. It slammed back against the wall and fell off its hinges, smashing an ornamental coffee table that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The room smelled like death. Or maybe it was just her perfume. I looked around. She had staged it pretty well - the desk drawers had been emptied onto the floor, and the pots and bric-a-brak had been smashed. Not a very thorough job, though - I noticed one vase on the mantle still intact. I made my way through the overturned furniture and over the mutilated body and smashed the vase to smithereens with the butt of my gun. Then I suddenly realized there was something I had missed. I retraced my steps - over the body, through the furniture, to the door, kicking the door open - that was it! The lights shouldn’t have been on when I came in - the last person to leave the room would have turned them off. I blew the light fixture apart with a single shot. Then I thought to myself, if the lights hadn’t been turned off, then…the last person to leave the room must not have left! I looked around the room, but there was nowhere anyone could hide. In fact, the room was relatively empty, except for a few pieces of overturned furniture, a rug, a pile of clothes rolled up in the corner, a nude, mutilated young woman’s body, the smashed bric-a-brak, the door, torn off its hinges (how could anyone live in an apartment falling apart like this, I thought), and a few surrealist sculptures and paintings. I checked the laundry first, but it yielded very little - I pocketed a pair of soiled underwear, for evidence. Then I searched the furniture, defaced a few of the paintings, and frisked the dead body. Then it hit me, like a helpless animal thrown from a tenth story window hits the pavement below. The dead body must have been put there by the girl who had called me, in order to stimulate my interest in the case. I looked the body over carefully. Nice, but not my type, though I’m the first to admit that being a necrophiliac means never having to say you’re sorry.
I dragged the body across the room and dumped it in the corner, and then searched the room for any other evidence that would lead me to the girl, or whoever it had been who hung up on me. All I found was a wallet, but it was just a cheap imitation-vinyl job, and there wasn’t any cash in it. As I was about to toss it out the window, I saw a stack of business cards in one of the pockets. On a hunch, I pulled one out and saved it. The only other item of value I found in the apartment was a girl’s diary, but I glanced through it and there didn’t seem to be any dirty parts so I doused it in Everclear and left it burning on the floor in the middle of the apartment. I wouldn’t want to pry into anyone’s personal life.
The business card being the only thing I had to go on, then, I decided to follow it and see what I could find out.
I got out to my car, and was about to get in when I realized that while I had been in the apartment, someone had stolen my rear-view mirror and my seat belts. If there’s anything I hate worse than someone who hangs up on me, it’s some punk who steals important safety equipment from my car. I swore to myself I’d never drive into Westwood again - the whole city is a jungle!
I wouldn’t have felt right driving my car without the proper safety equipment, so I jimmyed the door of a red Porsche 911 turbo convertible parked nearby, smashed the alarm with the butt of my gun, and exchanged the license plates with my own. I hot-wired the Porsche and sped away. If there’s one thing I hate almost as much as people who hang up on me and punks who steal safety equipment from my car, it’s driving around in a fast, expensive sports car that isn’t incognito.
The business card was from the Beverly Hills Pussycat Theatre and Adult Book Store. It was a classy place - I’d been there quite a few times myself, to look over 25¢ movies for possible suspects.
When I got there, the place was packed. It took me an hour to find a parking place, and the one I did find was marked, ‘Handicapped’. Fortunately, there happened to be a knee-length overcoat in the back seat of the Porsche, and I put it on and limped into the theatre. When I got to the box office, I handed the kid inside the cubicle a five dollar bill and said to him surreptitiously, “I’m looking for a man.”
“Hey, dude, I’m not into that. I just work here.”
“No, you don’t understand, I’m looking for a special man,” I explained to him, reaching into my pocket for the business card. Instead I pulled out the soiled underwear.
“Hey,” he told me nervously, “I’m used to getting rid of sickos like you. I’ve seen 'em a lot weirder. You can just take your…panties…and get the hell out of here.” He slammed down the window grate and turned away.
“You little robbing bastard, I’m as weird as they get! Give me back my five bucks, or I’ll break your neck,” I yelled in at him. You have to be tough with these inner-city punks. But he didn’t come back, so I made a mental note to find out his name and address and let his parents and his parole officer know where he was earning a living. I knew I wouldn’t learn anything else here, but I went into the theatre and watched a couple of short movies anyway, just to look inconspicuous.
I drove back to the office and left the Porsche in the parking garage under the landlord’s name. He had been hassling me about the rent lately, and he deserved a little trouble. I made sure to switch the license plates with a set I had stolen them from a wrecked Pinto earlier that month - I’ve got more than a few enemies in the Missing Vehicles department.
The elevator took too long, so I kicked in the controls and walked up the twenty-five floors to my office.
I sat down, put my feet up on the desk, and waited for the phone to ring. It rang.
“Good…(I looked at my watch)…afternoon, Harlowe detective agency.”
“Dis isn’t Trusty Plumin’?”
“No, it isn’t! You have the nerve to call here with a wrong number? I hate people who make wrong numbers almost as much as I hate driving fast, expensive, cognito sports cars, punks who steal safety equipment from my car, and…”
“(click)”
I had the call traced and sent a pipe bomb to his house. Then I sat back and waited for the phone to ring again. I breathed a deep breath and let it out slowly. It was too easy, so I smoked away a pack of cigarettes, two at a time. When I had finished, I took a shallow breath and coughed until I could feel my lungs coming up in my throat. That was better.
I stared out the window at the yellow afternoon haze that had settled on the city. It’s lucky I live in Los Angeles, or I’d really have a smoking problem.
I was still waiting for the phone to ring three hours later when I had to go to the can. Five minutes after I had sat down, the phone rang.
There was no toilet paper.
I staggered into the office, pulling my pants up around my knees, tripped, got up, and waddled to the phone. I got there just in time to hear the click as the person on the other end hung up. I was pondering how I should retaliate when a gorgeous blond opened the office door and walked in.
“Uh, Mr. Harlowe?” she asked, staring astonished at the exposed area between my shirt and my knees. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything…”
I put the phone down, lit up a cigarette, took a swallow of Everclear, and then pulled my pants the rest of the way up. The girl was still staring at me, her mouth hanging open. It was one of those wide mouths, with large, red wraparound lips.
“You shouldn’t leave your mouth in that position - it might get stuck that way, and then what would you do for a living?”
“Oh, you’re terrible! Your mind is in the gutter!”
“Yeah, and yours is in the sewer, honey.” I glanced down at my pants and added, “Did you see anything that interests you?”
She looked revolted and turned to leave, but I stopped her. By using my body to press hers up against the wall. “I’m relatively sure you didn’t come here just to look at my bod. What do you want? I’m Harlowe.”
“Can I sit down?” she asked, nervously.
“Aww, I was just starting to enjoy this,” I told her, but I released her and pointed her to the chair by my desk. I looked down her dress as she sat down - this looked like a case I was going to be interested in. I strolled around behind the desk and eased myself into the chair. I drained the Everclear bottle and pulled another out of the case in my file drawer. I offered it to her.
“No, thank you,” she replied primly, “I don’t drink.”
“Oh, come on! Try it! What, are you chicken?”
She wrenched the bottle from my hands, broke the top off on the edge of the desk, and emptied the entire bottle down her throat. She leaned back in the chair, squinted her eyes and commented, “That tastes funny. It kind of tingles, you know?” She grinned widely. I knew I had to work fast, before she passed out.
“What did you come here to talk to me about? Do you have a case for me?”
“Yyeah,” she hiccupped. “I just was over at my sister’s apartment, and it looks like she’s been brutally murdered.”
“It may have just looked like that,” I assured her. “these things can be faked pretty easily.”
“Oh,” she answered, rather confused. She was beginning to rock back and forth in her chair. I reached out to steady her, but she slapped me. “I’m noth thhat kint uf kurl,” she told me. “Do you have any more uf that sthuff?” She winced her eyes and stared dizzily at me. I handed her another fifth bottle, and she downed it faster than she had the first. When she had finished it, the hand holding the bottle dropped limply to her side. I made sure to keep the rest of our conversation simple.
“Do you want to pay me money, so I can find out what happened to your sister?”
I grabbed her face and nodded it gently.
“And will you pay me whatever I ask for?”
This time she had the idea, and nodded for herself. She shivered, and her face started to turn blue. I helped her to the window, and she leaned out and puked. I was going to ask her if it tasted as good coming back up as it had going down, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate it. I helped her back to her chair and left her there while I typed up a binding, comprehensive contract for her case. I helped her sign it - I had to look up her signature on the back of one of her credit cards to get it right and then I signed it and dropped it in my desk. I pulled her limp body up over my shoulders in a fireman’s carry and balanced myself. I checked my watch. As I suspected, it was quitting time, exactly. I flipped the page on my calendar, then turned out the lights and locked up the office.
Some idiot had busted the elevator, so I had to walk down the stairs. It was probably the bum I had seen on there this morning, I thought. I knew I should have kicked him again, when I saw he was still breathing. Oh well - live and learn.
I hijacked one of the fifteen tan 1975 Ford LTD coupes in the parking lot, and drove the girl home. She lived in a condominium on the beach in Santa Monica. I dragged her up to her room. There was an old woman in the doorway of the apartment across the hall - I gave her the key and had her open the girl’s door for me. “I always feel so ashamed of her when she gets drunk,” I explained. I dumped the girl on the living-room floor, unconscious.
I looked back at her neighbor. She was about fifty, and not all that cute for fifty, either. “Listen,” I said, “she’s pretty out of it right now. You wouldn’t happen to have a teenage daughter who’s free tonight, would you?” The woman turned around and walked out in disgust.
I closed the door and turned back to the girl. I undressed her, gave her a shower, and put on one of her nightgowns. Then I put a nightgown on her and put her to bed. I straightened up her bedroom, vacuumed the apartment, washed the dishes that were in the sink, did her laundry, ironed her curtains, dusted and rearranged her furniture, fed her fish, straightened out her refrigerator, took out her garbage, cleaned her oven, put a new deodorizer in her toilet, replaced the Arm and Hammer in her freezer, watered her plants, emptied her ashtrays, dusted out her fireplace, balanced her checkbook, washed her windows, mopped the kitchen floor, sprayed the apartment with air freshener, dusted the blinds, changed her air conditioner filter, and polished her sterling silver. I went into her bedroom and slapped her around a little, but she didn’t respond, other than a few low groans, so I left her a note to let her know I was working on her case, and took her bank card with me. The lady who had been in the hall was gone, so I spat on her doorknob as I went by.
I was tempted to use her credit card to pay for an expensive call girl, but by the time I got back to my apartment, I wasn’t in the mood for a big hassle, so I called a phone sex place instead. I charged it to her Master Charge.
It wasn’t that great, but at least the girl didn’t hang up on me.
I spent the rest of the evening smoking plant fertilizer, dropping LSD, and jamming on my electric guitar. In the morning I had the case completely solved, but I couldn’t remember what the solution was. I think it had something to do with spiders and broken glass.
I woke up early, but I decided that since I was being paid by the day, I might as well sleep late. I got up at about eleven, had a leisurely breakfast, and went to take a shower. I vaguely wondered why I was still wearing the girl’s nightgown, but I didn’t let it bother me. When I got out of the shower I was starting to feel a hangover, so I banged myself on the head a couple of times with a rubber mallet, so I could appreciate the full affect.
I got to thinking about the girl’s case, and it didn’t interest me that much, so I thought about her body for a while. This broad had some bod. She was built like a brick shipyard. A paragon of pulchritude. Stacked. This was one slick chick. I had to get into this doll’s drawers, and do things that would be illegal if we were in any state other than California.
I figured that the only way I was going to pluck this tomato would be to solve her case. I had to decide which was more important to me, the money I would earn if I prolonged the case for a couple of weeks, or the fantastic sex I would have tonight if I solved the case today.
Four hours later I had made my decision, to wrap the case up today. I’d always preferred instant gratification to long-term satisfaction. That’s why I had a Versateller card.
But I had to figure out how to solve it. I called up a spiritualist and palm reader I knew, but she was going to be busy, working for the FBI for the next couple of weeks. Her answering machine didn’t have a beep at the end - it told me, “…Don’t worry about leaving your name, number and message - I already know who you are and what you want.”
I sat back in my desk and contemplated the problem. I knew I had all the necessary clues, and all the suspects, but I just couldn’t put together the answer. I started to write down the suspects, clues, motives, and times and places people had been, but my pen ran out of ink so I had to quit. I was just about ready to find some patsy on the street and put all the blame on him, when I remembered another method I hadn’t tried. I think some French guy was the one who used to use it.
I’d put all the suspects in a room and kill them one by one, until someone confessed.
Either that, or I could question them all again. I figured that the latter method would be slower, but it would be cheaper and there would be less mess to clean up afterward.
I called up Bob at the police station, but didn’t say who I was.
“Uh, huh, Bob Winslow, Homicide.”
(I disguised my voice)“Do you have a soda machine in your office, Bob?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Do you have Mr. Pibb in a flip-top can?”
“Just a second, I’ll go check.” I heard him set down the phone, walk a few steps, then come back. “Yeah, we sure do.”
I chuckled. “Well, let him out, he’s suffocating!”
“Uh, I don’t understand.”
(I returned to my normal voice)“Mr. Pibb? In a can? Suffocating? You don’t get it? Jeez, Bob! You are so stupid! It’s no wonder you’re a police detective - you must have flunked the test to become a garbage collector!”
He started to get mad. “Who is this?”
“Harlow. How you doing on the case, Bob?”
“Oh, it’s you, Don,” he said, relieved, “I thought someone was trying to insult me.”
“No, Bob, just creative criticism. Well, how?”
“How what?”
“I asked you how you were doing on the case. How?”
“Well, I’ve got a woman here with a seven-step carpeted staircase. Does it matter if the staircase had carpet on it?”
“What does she look like?”
“Five-ten, Caucasian, wavy black hair, about twenty-three.”
“What are her measurements?”
I heard Bob cover up the receiver and ask a question.
“34-28-34, B cup.”
“Is she wearing a low cut blue minidress?”
“Dark blue, actually. How did you…”
“Never mind. Can you reach her from where you are?”
I heard a slap. “Yeah.”
“Bob, this is important. I want you to knock her out. A right hook to the jaw should do it. Okay?”
“Okay.” I heard a half-scream, and a punch. “Alright, Don. she’s out cold. Anything else you needed?”
“Yeah, I’d like you to get to work on something for me. It’s real important, and I need you to get on it right away. Got me?”
“Sure Don, anything.”
I read him off my list of suspects and instructed him to round them all up and get them to my office as soon as possible. In the meantime, I drove over to the girl’s apartment to pick her up. When I got there, the place was a sty. She was pouring spaghetti sauce on the floor of the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” I asked pleasantly.
“Well,” she answered, “when I woke up the apartment was really clean, and I can’t stand living in a clean apartment. I guess I’m just a repulsive, slovenly pig at heart. Do you mind?”
I moved out of the way, and let her put the dirty spaghetti sauce pan upside down on the drain rack, on top of the sterling silver.
“Have you figured out who brutally murdered my sister yet?” she asked cheerfully, picking up a bag of coffee grounds and carrying them into the living room to dump them on the carpet.
“Well, I’ll be having a meeting in my office in a few minutes, and I expect the murderer to reveal himself. I’d like to have you there too.”
“Oh, okay,” she replied, surveying the apartment. “I think that’s it for the housekeeping”
“You forgot the air conditioner filters,” I reminded her, and then helped her sprinkle dust on them. On the way out, we picked up her neighbor, being careful not to touch the spit on her doorknob before she had had a chance to put her hand in it.
When we got to my office, it was packed. I climbed up on my desk and looked over the crowd. My secretary was in the corner with the parking attendant. Next to them were the boy who had been in the porn theatre and Jenkins of the nark division. They were talking to the girl’s neighbor, who had just joined them, and my landlord. Bob had my ex-wife handcuffed, next to him, and was trying to look professional. In his other hand he held the leash leading to my ex-wife’s orangutan. The ugly woman was standing next to the wino from the elevator, who was draped across a chair. Lining the wall was a long table with dead bodies laying across it. The group of mods, the boy from the BMW, the nude girl, and the IRS man. Finally, there was the policeman who had been on the corner. I could tell the spiritualist was there, in karma, if not in body.
I cleared my voice, but no one paid attention, so I pulled out my automatic and shot the IRS man’s body. That got their attention.
“Listen here, people. And I use that term loosely. There’ve been a couple of murders here, as you can see. Someone in this room is responsible for each one of them, and we’re going to pull an all-nighter if we have to to figure out who it is. I’m going to interview each and every one of you, because you all have something to hide.” The orangutan climbed up on the desk, and I picked him up. “That’s right - everybody’s got something to hide except for me and my monkey.²”
I pulled a chair up onto the desk, and sat down. It was starting to get late, so I called up Domino’s and ordered a couple of large 'zas, and two dozen diet cokes. Then I pulled a box filled with handcuffs out of my desk and set it down.
“See what I told you?” the boy from the porno place told the girl’s neighbor, “He’s some kind of pervert! I’m getting out of here before this turns any weirder.” He turned to leave.
“Not so fast, kid,” I told him, “you’re not out of this yet. And speaking of weird, are you aware that bestiality is a felony on the United States?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you have anything to say about your friend over there who was driving the BMW, and a certain chicken?”
He was shocked. He looked over at the BMW boy’s body and his jaw dropped. “How did you know…I mean, you can’t prove that.”
“I’m afraid I can. When I saw you before, you had chicken feathers on your shirt. You do now, too. I just guessed about the guy in the BMW but it looks like you’ve proved that, too - as I recall from the medical report, there were chicken feathers on his shirt, too. That about locks that up. Put these on,” I said, tossing him a pair of cuffs. “And your mom,” I said, pointing to the girl’s neighbor, “is guilty of harboring a felon. Yes, she knew about what you did in your spare time. I could tell when I asked her if she had a teenage daughter.” I handed her a pair of locking bracelets and continued. “She was afraid that if she turned you in, your parole officer” I indicated Jenkins, “would find out about your sister,” I pointed to my secretary, “and her illegal phone sex service. Sorry, honey,” I said, passing over a pair of handcuffs, “I just loved the call, but it’s illegal to say those things over the telephone. But I must say, you sure have a vivid imagination.” Turning to the narc man, I asked, “So, what do you have to say for yourself, Jenkins?”
“Sure, that slimeball was in my parole rehab group. What does that prove?”
“Does the word, Lasagne, have any significance to you?”
The detective just about fell to the ground. “How…how could you possibly know…”
“You forget, called to the girl too. I’m sure she gave me the same treatment she gave you. And you repaid her with illicit drugs, is that right?”
He was so stunned, he had to nod. I locked the wristlets on him. Then I turned to the corner policeman, who was staring at the body of the BMW boy. “Know him?” I inquired.
“Uh, no…”
“I think you do,” I told him. “He’s your son, and you had him killed because it was costing you too much to pay for him to go to college, plus you took out a huge insurance policy on him, to pay for the BMW. Haven’t you ever heard of financial aid?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t think I’d qualify…” he began weakly. I tossed him a pair of cuffs.
“I think you know how to use these. Now, let’s get back to the murder.” I helped Bob drag the nude, mutilated girl’s body over to the desk. “I want you all to take a good look at this body, and then tell me…” There was a knock at the door. The pizza was here. We took a half hour break to chat and munch down the 'za, and then I got back to work. While I talked, I fed the crusts to the orangutan.
“By the way, does anybody know these mods?” I asked, pointing to the bodies. There was no answer, so I had Bob help me drag them to the window and hurl them out. When we were done, I looked down at them. I told Bob, “Looks like natural causes, Bob. Chalk it up to UFO’s, or something.” Then I grabbed the parking attendant, who didn’t look like he was going to be a valid suspect, and hurled him out. He screamed all twenty-five floors down.
“Him, too,” I told Bob. I got back up on the desk. “Now, what do the rest of you have to say for yourselves?”
“I didn’t do it,” was the mutual response.
I looked at the landlord. “How much rent do I owe you?” He looked confused, then shrugged and replied, “Well, next week it’ll be four month’s worth. About nine hundred dollars.” That was all I needed. I stepped down off the desk, walked over to him, grabbed his belt and pulled his pants down.
Just as I was expecting, he was wearing hot pink women’s panties. He tried to run from the room, but I quickly grabbed an empty diet coke bottle and hurled it at his head, knocking him out. He fell face down to the ground.
“That’s your man, Bob. When he comes to, book him.”
“Sure, Don. But, I don’t understand.”
“Oh, come on, Bob, do I have to explain every detail?” I sighed. "Oh well, I guess I might as well tell you, and get the whole thing cleared up. I knew from the beginning that it had to be the landlord. The first clue I found was the unsmashed vase in the dead girl’s apartment. But I don’t remember why that was important, so I’ll go on to the next clue. When I returned to my office yesterday, there was no toilet paper. I had asked the landlord two weeks ago to put in a new supply, so I knew he hadn’t been around the office that day. If he wasn’t at the office, where could he be? He wasn’t in the elevator that day either, because if he had been he would have taken care of the bum who ended up breaking the elevator that afternoon.
“By the way,” I said to the ugly woman, "you owe me another hundred and fifty bucks for finding your husband. I’ll expect the payment by Monday.
“So anyway,” I continued to Bob before the old bag had a chance to speak, “When I went over to the girl’s house I found the landlord’s car there. If you check with Missing Vehicles, I’m sure they’ll tell you that the red Porsche in the parking garage is registered to him, and there’s a ticket in the garage in his name. I found an overcoat in the back of his Porsche, the kind usually worn by flashers. That was the first thing that tipped me off to his sick habits. Obviously, he was some kind of sexual deviant. Then there was the underwear in the girl’s apartment. If he was such a sick-o, why wouldn’t he have taken them, while he was there. The answer was the spiders, but I’ll get to them later. I knew he was involved with the murder. But he knew I knew he was involved in the murder. But I knew he knew I knew he was involved in the murder. I think he knew I knew he knew I knew, you know? But I didn’t think he would try to murder me, too. Fortunately for me, he chickened out. When I woke up this morning, I had a number of large bruises on the side of my head,” I said, showing him the bruises, "which could only have been inflicted by the rubber mallet I found lying next to my bed. Apparently he had broken into my house with the intention of smashing my head in with a hammer, but had wimped out and just hit me a couple of times with the rubber mallet instead.
“Then there were the spiders. It appears that the landlord had a rather peculiar hobby of aracnothology, the keeping of spiders. This was evident from the sand I found in the pockets of his overcoat, and the obvious glee he showed in the number 900, which is divisible by 12, the number of legs on a normal spider. And he must have gotten a new set of spiders recently - I intercepted a call he was making to a plumber, obviously contracting a new water system for the new spider cage. I think he was having an argument with Miss Abbel, who must have also been an aracnothologist, concerning a trade or sale of spiders. When she wouldn’t sell, he came over and killed her. On his way out he broke her aquarium, and so proceeded to break all the other bric-a-brak in her apartment so as not to call attention to the broken aquarium. He slashed up the body to draw attention away from himself - any good aracnothologist would use black widow venom, but that would have made his guilt obvious. He would have gotten away with it, too, if he had resisted the temptation to wear hot pink underwear today - if he hadn’t it’s just possible that I wouldn’t have connected him with the Porsche and the overcoat. But he wouldn’t have escaped justice, because there are still honest, hardworking guys like you and me, Bob, that will eventually bring crime to an end, right?” I patted him on the back and he smiled triumphantly at me.
“And speaking of scum-of-the-earth criminals, Bob, I’d like you to meet my ex-wife.”
“Hey, she’s the one I’m holding for…”
“The killing of the IRS man? Yep, hate to say it Bob, but I think she’s the one. And this is her orangutan. Tell you what, Bob,” I lowered my voice, “Do you think in the light of the girl, the boy with the BMW, and the mods’ killings being solved, you might be able to let her off with a warning this time?”
Bob looked at me respectfully. “Sure, I think we can work it out this time, Don. And thanks. Okay, everyone, let’s move it out of here.” He herded everyone except my ex-wife, her orangutan, and the dead girl’s sister, out of the room like cattle. A few minutes later the homicide boys had dragged the dead bodies out. I grinned at my ex, and she slapped me and walked her monkey out of the room.
I wrapped my arms around the girl and was about to kiss her when she stopped me. “Before you do that,” she told me, “I think there’s something you should know…”
“Anything, babe. What’s the problem? Don’t you have any money? I’m sure we can work something out…”
“No, it’s not that, it’s just that…” she blushed, “I’m a male trans-sexual”
I grabbed him by the face and shoved him out the window. I shot him twelve times before he hit the ground.
Then I walked down, picked a tan, 1975 Ford LTD coupe at random and drove over the body five times.
I walked back to my office, called Bob and had him report this one as ‘heart attack’, and then sat back in my chair and drank myself halfway into a coma.
Life’s a bitch, I thought, and then you die. If you’re lucky.
Endnotes
- Excerpt from ‘Institutionalized’, by the Suicidal Tendencies.
- ‘Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey’, by the Beatles, from the White Album, 1967.