by Joe Meno
The boy detective picks up the phone and watches as the computer noisily begins to dial, its gears and sprockets turning wildly. Busying himself, his heart pounding, he nervously flips through the Mammoth Life-Like hair catalog and stares at the strange words on the salesperson script.
Out there in the world, somewhere, a lonely customer—a middleaged widow in a yellow housecoat—answers the ringing phone, her hands weak, her eyes gray and sad. In the background, her children are screaming and fighting. The customer tugs on her stringy blond hair and black mascara streaks down her face as she stares at a photograph hanging in the hallway, a picture of her husband: a square-faced brickmason, recently deceased.
“Hello?” the woman whispers.
“Hello,” Billy whispers back.
“Yes? What? What is it?”
“I’m sorry …” Billy says, his breath coming quickly. “I …”
“Glen … is that you? Oh God, just say something. Please, say something … anything …”
Billy sighs, holding the phone nervously, unable to speak.
“Oh, Glen, you don’t have to talk at all. I miss you. I miss you so much. Just, shhhh, just be quiet. I’m so sorry. I miss you. I miss you so much. When are you coming back? Just tell me when.”
“I …” the boy detective sighs.
“No, no, you’re right. I need to be strong on my own. I need to make it on my own.”
“Yes.”
“The kids, Jesus, Glen, they miss you, too. We all do. You, you would have been proud of little Leonard. He went right up to the casket and kissed his daddy’s cheek and … Oh, Glen, what am I going to do without you? What am I going to do?”
At that moment, the boy detective remembers Caroline in her small white coffin, her long blond hair spread out like a glowing halo, the image exactly matching the Nordic Princess wig from the catalog Billy is now holding.
The customer is now crying on the phone.
Billy cannot think what to say or do. Holding the phone against his ear, he whispers, very sadly, still thinking of his sister Caroline: “I’m so sorry.”
Billy hangs up the phone. He wipes many small tears from his eyes. He gets up from his desk and heads for the bathroom, falling into an adjoining cubicle before he really begins to cry uncontrollably.
The boy detective stumbles into the men’s bathroom and finds another man inside, also weeping. He is drinking from a flask and wiping his teary eyes. The man is a short, greasy, round salesman with an enormous black hair piece and a tiny black mustache. He is wearing a ton of gold chains and several gold rings. The man smiles, shrugging, then offers the flask to Billy.
“This here, friend, is the only way to make it through the sob stories, day after day.”
Billy frowns, backing away. The man shrugs his shoulders, taking another swig.
“We’ll see what you say after a week of being here. They sign you up for the graveyard shift yet, kid?”
“No.”
“Well, those are the worst. You never know what people are going to say when they’re all alone in the middle of the night. You do one week of the night shift and then you’ll be as lousy as me, I promise. Poor old Larry here? I worked the graveyard shift for five years straight. They say you get used to everything being left-handed, but you don’t. I know that much.”
Billy looks at Larry’s left hand and sees the white spot where a wedding ring used to be. He notices there are green markings beneath all of Larry’s remaining rings.
“Sure, well, I’m the national sales leader in this office now, you know, but it wasn’t always this easy.”
“I believe Patrick Vigo is the national sales leader. I think I just saw his plaque outside in the lobby.”
“That’s this month, kid. I’m talking for the whole year.”
“But Debra Cummings was the national leader for the year. Her plaque was beside the others.”
“Well, sure, you’re a sharp one, huh? Well, what I mean is this current year. I’m not talking about the past year. The current year.”
“It’s better never to lie. To be honest, I don’t care either way.”
“Why’d you say that, kid? Why’d you call me a liar like that?”
“There’s a pawn-shop ticket stuck to the top of your shoe. And all your jewelry is fake.”
“Well, sure, I had to pawn the good stuff, but I got this junk because I have to keep up the image. Wow, well, that’s amazing, kid. You some sort of mind reader or something?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s uncanny is what it is. How’d you do all that? Figure me out like that?”
“I dunno. Everyone is good at something. I’m good at finding out the truth.”
“Well, you’re a real danger to have around here. You’re OK by me, pal. You sure you don’t want a quick snortful?”
Billy stares down at the white tile floor. “No thanks. I think maybe I should go back to my desk.”
“Well, OK, stay alive out there, kid. It’s more than you can say for your clients, ha ha. You get dreary, you know where to find me.”
Larry shakes Billy’s hand. Billy slowly returns to his desk, wiping his hand on his pants.
The boy detective picks up the phone and dials once again.
Somewhere, some other phone rings. Sitting at a table, an old man with large glasses stares at a photo of his deceased wife and answers the telephone regretfully.
“Good afternoon. Is Gladys in?”
“Hello? No, no, I’m afraid Gladys isn’t home. No … not, not anymore. Not ever again.”
Billy hangs up the phone quick. He lifts it again and the computer dials the next number.
Somewhere else, on the edge of town, in a tiny, run-down boarding house, Killer Kowalzavich—a monstrous, hammer-faced ex-convict in a dirty blue torn shirt—sits in the darkness of his shabby rented room. He is shaved bald and has all kinds of tubes and devices hooked up to his person. He is very old and very sick, but still frightening. The boy detective begins: “Good afternoon …”
“Who is this?”
“Hello, good day; my name is Billy Argo with Mammoth Life-Like Mustache International. I was wondering—”
“Did you say Argo? Billy Argo?”
“Yes sir, with Mammoth Life-Like Mustache International. I was wondering if I could take up a few moments of your time?”
“I’d say you already took up most of the time I had, Billy Argo.”
“Pardon me?”
“You took up almost all of the time I was given and now there’s not much left. Don’t you remember my voice, Billy Argo?”
“No. I’m sorry, I wish I did.”
“Sure, sure, you and your brat sister and your little fat friend got me locked up about ten years ago. The Case of the Pawn-Shop Kidnapper? Sure, sure, the boy detective solves a string of strange, mysterious kidnappings. Sure, sure. That was me.”
“Killer Kowalzavich? When did you get out?”
“Just a few weeks ago. Just in time to sit in this lousy room by myself and die.”
“I’m … I’m sorry it ended up like this for you. I … I never wanted to see anybody—even you—get hurt. Only I know they would have gone easier on you if you had told them what happened to Miss Daisy Hollis. You know, they … they never found her.”
“I told them I had nothing to do with that girl. What kind of kidnapper do you think I was? Sure, I tried to pawn the other girl’s fancy belongings, but that Hollis girl, they couldn’t ever pin that one on me. I’ll take that, and, well, a whole string of things with me to the grave. Boy detective, huh? You wouldn’t know the half of it.”
“I’m done speaking with you.”
“Sure, sure, but before you go, be swell and tell me, how’s that sweet little sister of yours?”
The boy detective slams down the phone. He immediately begins crying. Larry crosses the aisle and helps Billy to his feet, gently rubbing the back of his neck.
“First-day jitters is all, kid. Nothing a good nigh
t’s sleep won’t fix. Get a good meal and turn in early. Tomorrow, you’ll be back among the living, good as new.”
“OK,” Billy says, and realizes he is still holding the phone.
The boy detective, at the bus stop, prevents himself from calling his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Argo. He imagines they are, at that particular moment, too busy to talk to him. He thinks his father is probably pounding a great wood table, calling out some objection in naval court, and the judge is shouting back, “Objection overruled!” His mother is either working on a new substitute for plastic or painting a masterpiece reminiscent of some Flemish work of art. He stands in the telephone booth and stares down and sees a strange brown shape near his feet. His heart stops beating: It is someone’s hair. There is a clump of human hair just lying there in the corner of the phone booth. The boy detective, at this moment, thinks: The world has gone mad. The world is broken and falling apart and completely mad. He finds his small bottle of pills and pops three Ativan into his mouth, his fingers trembling.
The boy detective hangs up the phone and then is running awkwardly down the street, toward the bus stop, small tears streaming down his cheeks.
ELEVEN
The boy detective always returns to the case of the Haunted Candy Factory:
Caroline, sitting in her hiding spot beneath the white wood porch, wrote the clue in her gold-colored notebook again and again. It was now a bet—who could discover the meaning to the phantom’s riddle first—and Billy, listening to her fuss beneath the wood slats, only laughed at her struggle, then feeling bad, he was quiet. After a good few hours, he climbed beneath the porch and took the pencil and paper from her hand, revealing:
EVERY DEAD GHOST IN A FACTORY IS BENT
which easily became the anagram:
EATING CANDY IS SO VERY BAD FOR TEETH
Caroline smiled, shaking her brother’s hand. “But golly, who wrote it?” she asked.
“Who do you think?” Billy replied.
“A dentist?”
“Perhaps,” Billy said. “A very mean dentist.”
Caroline added: “A very mean dentist who really hates cavities.”
TWELVE
The boy detective and the Mumford children are searching for clues beside their front porch. It has just stopped raining and Effie, in her purple and white jacket and her yellow soccer uniform, kneels beside her brother, Gus. Each of them is quiet, looking for some sign, some intimation, each of them caught in a strange world of curious wonderings.
“Billy?” the girl asks.
“Yes?”
“Do you think people are mostly good or mostly evil?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’d like to know your thoughts on the matter.”
“I don’t know. I would have to think about it.”
“I don’t know the answer either,” Effie Mumford says.
“It is a good question.”
“Yes, I think so,” the girl says.
They are both silent for a moment. Gus Mumford nods too, giving it serious thought.
“Do you think we will find my bunny’s head?” Effie asks.
“I do. I am quite sure of it.”
“Why?”
“The only thing all men have in common with one another is their inherent capacity to make mistakes. We will always fall short. We will always fail at our grand schemes; we can trust that there will always be a clue or a fingerprint or some sign. That is what we must now find. We must think like the criminal here: Surely it was night time when he did his terrible deed.”
“Yes.”
“Surely he was in a hurry, nervous that he might be caught.”
“Yes.”
“Then surely he must have overlooked something as he made his escape.”
The boy detective pauses, inspecting a spot of dirt that is crossed with several horizontal marks, a trail of prints running under the porch. Billy follows them on his hands and knees excitedly.
“What do we have here?” he whispers.
Gus Mumford hands Billy a note which reads: It looks like a footprint.
“Have either of you been under the porch recently?”
The Mumford children shake their heads. Billy, on his hands and knees, crawls beneath the front porch, the Mumford children following.
“It is the footprint from a large man’s shoe. It’s muddy but it’s clearly a man’s, no? We now know our friend was under here, as I assumed, and that he is a he—yes, he had to hide his actions, so he chose this place. Notice how there’s very little blood about. Only a speck or two there. We should continue our search.”
“No,” the girl whispers. “I don’t want to look anymore.”
“But I believe we are getting somewhere. There is more work to be done,” Billy replies.
Effie Mumford nods, covering her eyes. She has silently begun crying.
“I know it’s because a lot of people don’t like me. That’s why they did this,” she says.
“What?”
Effie Mumford’s eyes are wet with tears.
“It’s because of how I am in school, but I can’t help it.”
“I know.”
“I wish I was better at sports and not smart. I really do.”
Billy smiles and turns. A large black automobile pulls up in front of the Mumford house. An angry-looking man begins to honk the horn loudly.
“It’s my coach. I have to go to soccer practice now.”
“It’s all right. We will continue this later.”
“OK,” she says, continuing to cry.
“What’s wrong now?”
“I wish my coach didn’t hate me so much.”
“Why do you think he hates you?”
“I make my team lose all our games.”
“I see.”
“He’s very mean. He says very mean things to me.”
The boy detective and the Mumford children hide under the porch listening to Effie’s coach honking.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep, but the third honk doesn’t come. The fact that the sound is so loud and harsh and the third honk doesn’t come causes a nerve to twitch beneath Billy’s eye. The coach begins again:
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep, again missing the third beep. Billy’s hands begin to clutch helplessly at the air. Once more, the coach hits his horn:
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep-beep.
Beep-beep, and before Billy knows it, he is crawling out from under the porch.
“You two, wait here,” he tells the children.
“Billy?”
Immediately, Billy decides he does not like the looks of the coach. The man’s face is large and angry with an enormous, stubbly chin. The coach holds the horn down: Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb bbbbbbbbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp.
An intense white heat is exploding from behind Billy’s eyes. It overtakes him. He looks around and sees Effie Mumford’s field hockey stick lying on the front lawn: He grabs it and charges the automobile without a word, smashing in the front headlight. It breaks without much of a sound at all, just a single soft crack. The coach lays off the horn and is suddenly out of the car, shoving Billy. He has Billy in an awkward full nelson. Effie Mumford is hurrying out from under the porch but not before the coach punches Billy in the stomach, pushing him to the ground.
“No, no, no!” Effie Mumford shouts. “He doesn’t understand.”
“That guy started hitting my car!” the coach yells back. “He’s crazy.”
Effie Mumford helps Billy to his feet, holding his hand while he tries to breathe.
“Billy, why did you that?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t like that man’s face.”
“Oh,” Effie Mumford says.
THIRTEEN
It is truly his secret weakness: The boy detective is not very daring, though he wishes he was. While he is lying in his small bed, holding his sore ribs, he hears, from down the hall in the Shady Glens television room, a theme song from his favorite television show playing loudly. The show is Modern Police Cadet, a black-and-white British series from the ’50s. The theme song’s lyrics are:
Modern
Police
Cadet
Familiar with all the latest laws
Modern
Police
Cadet
Beware criminals
Everywhere
Modern Police Cadet is, without a doubt, the boy detective’s favorite television program of all time. It is a series that follows the investigative exploits of one Leopold Jones, an awkward, stuttering, nervous Scotland Yard cadet by day, who, because of his amazingly modern crime-solving skills, is allowed to work on unsolved cases by night. Billy must decide if he will go down to the television room and watch it or not. He thinks about it for a good, long minute. He imagines the thinly mustached Leopold Jones, Modern Police Cadet, working some strange case—the Mystery of the Stolen Diamond Hand, perhaps, following the clues, missing his cadet exams (as he was often apt to do), coyly admonishing the beautiful cat burglar when catching her in the end. Billy then decides he will go down the hall, but only to check to see if it is an episode he has watched already.
As he reaches for the doorknob, he stops, realizing there is a good chance if he goes down the hall, one of the other residents will want to talk to him about something, or will want to touch him, or worse, may try to assault him. He stands in front of the door, wondering if it will be worth it. He will stand there for more than an hour, trying to decide.
FOURTEEN
It is embarrassing to admit, but Chapter Fourteen has been stolen. We truly apologize for this.
FIFTEEN
The boy detective and the Mumford children are now playing freeze tag. It is twilight and the children only have one hour before they must be inside. Billy is frozen in a running position as Gus Mumford chases Effie Mumford around him. Just then, two teenaged boys in black dusters and black eye makeup pass. The boys are looking at each other and winking. One of the boys is rounder with a black ponytail, the other is taller with short, spiky blond hair. They push a suspicious-looking little girl’s bike in between them, small and awkward and pink.