by Goulart, Ron
"Thirty-two is nothing," Rhonda Sankowitz assured her. "In fact, anything in the thirties is still great."
"I can also recommend the forties highly," added Joe Sankowitz.
Ben was watching the water. "When I was a kid, I figured I'd be rich and famous before I was forty," he said. "Turns out I was right."
"Fame is fleeting," reminded the cartoonist. "Last week, after you turned Don T. Timberlake and his minion over to the authorities, you were celebrities. 'Foil tycoon, find heiress!' trumpeted the tabloids. This week, though—"
"This week we're in People," reminded H. J. "And the local papers wrote us up because we also blew the whistle on Eva Dahlman Dobkin and her love-crazed driver."
"Okay, but by next week you'll be non-entities again. That's the way the world works."
Rhonda patted H. J.'s arm. "Is the Timberlake heiress actually going to give you folks a handsome reward?"
H. J. nodded. "Yeah, and she also told me she's going to set up a fund for me to help finance my new career as a gallery painter. Specific amounts haven't been worked out yet."
Joe asked, "But she doesn't actually have any money yet, does she?"
"Laura has accepted her as the real thing and given her access to a bank account of her own while all the legal angles are being worked out," explained Ben. "She has money."
"And she really is the baby who was carried off way back then?"
"Yep, they've pretty much established that."
"All I have on my backside," complained the cartoonist, "is calluses."
"He does," confirmed his wife.
Sankowitz turned to H. J. "Now that you've solved another mystery and earned a handsome, we hope, reward, are you going to retire from getting into messes like this?"
She smiled sweetly and took another sip of wine. "From now on I intend to live a life of reclusive probity," she assured him "I'll get started on that soon as we come back from Hollywood."
"Hollywood?"
Ben said, "Our fleeting notoriety reminded some people out there that I was a dependable voice man. They want me to do the lead voice for a new animated cartoon show."
"Which one?"
"It's based on a comic strip about a chicken, thing called Dumb Cluck."
"Doesn't sound like a PBS series," said his friend.
"Pays better, though."
Sankowitz leaned back in his chair. "Los Angeles," he said slowly and thoughtfully. "'And you're going along with him, Helen?"
"I am."
"You can get into all kinds of messes out there," he said.
"That's true," she agreed.