The Drunk Detective

by Mary Jean Curry

  “Let me tag along with you on this case. You can teach me some pointers. You know about being a great investigator.”

  “There’s no case. I don’t even have a job.”

  “You can work for yourself. You don’t need an agency.”

  “I just got out of jail.”

  “Many great women went to jail. Men sleuths, too. Sherlock Holmes...”

  “A wuss. He didn’t do anything and they’d have his ass at the Round House, too. Anyway, he’s fictional.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. I was just hoping.”

  “I don’t know kid,” Dotty said, popping in a toothpick. “Maybe there is something you can help me with. I’ve read something in your personnel file.”

  “Perfect. What’s that?”

  “Hold up, don’t get your panties pooped in. No pay, just experience.”

  “What you need me to do?”

  Dotty smiled. “You know why you were arrested in Chicago. I need that expertise.”

  14

  “Get away from me, Dotty,” Swayze said, sitting in a semicircular booth in the Circ Restaurant inside of the downtown Marriott Hotel. He wore a white bib with a Maine lobster on it and the remains of the same life form lay on his plate. Classical music played very low in the background.

  “Your secretary told me that I could find you here. I need your help.”

  “Tell my secretary she’s fired. Who’s this with you?”

  “Naim Butler. He’s an intern with the agency from U of Penn Law School.”

  “Hello, sir,” Naim said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  “You bitch,” Swayze said to Dotty. “It had better be all nice. I see no one has killed you, yet.” Swayze picked out some of the lobster’s brain with a miniature fork.

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  “Oh, I’ll kill you after I’m done with the lobster.”

  “Such a comedian, Swayze.” Dotty and Naim slid into the booth and a waiter handed them menus. “Isn’t you got any cheap burgers?”

  “The ground sirloin here is good,” Naim said. “And it’s don’t, ma’am.”

  “You can afford it. A firm sent you here from New York and pay for your Ivy League schooling. I’m sure they’re paying for you to have fine dining. I don’t have that luxury.” She returned her menu to the waiter, and said, “I’ll have what he just praised. Well done with a slice of Velveeta. None of that provolone crap.”

  “And to drink?”

  “What’s on tap?”

  “There’s a full assortment of imported beers.”

  “Nothing from Mexico. It makes me piss all damn day and mine is just starting this late. Bring me a Corona in a can. I found a nose hair in a bottle once,” she confided to Swayze and Naim. “What do you think, he does it to the busboy, or the busboy does it to him?”

  “Jesus Christ, Dotty.” That was Naim. “You can’t be homophobic.”

  “You see the way those hips sway when they carry trays. Waiting tables was made for a woman.” She took a gulp of Swayze’s water. “So here’s what I need from you two.”

  “Oh boy,” Swayze said.

  “Look, you’re still a whiz with computers?”

  “Never was.”

  “That’s why Naim is here. He was in jail for hacking credit card numbers from Chance Bank. Did hard fed time, now he’s on track.”

  “There is a God,” Swayze said.

  Dotty said, “We need to use a computer at your job.”

  “Why the hell is that?”

  “Simply put. To bust into the files at the Justice Department. The Chinese do it, so can Mr. Butler, here.”

  “You’re talking about the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.?”

  “They don’t have one in Washington state. I asked. They have rain.”

  “You idiot.”

  “Oh well, I’ve been called worse. I need to know why the AG would want to kill a male prostitute and a bishop, and what it all has to do with a dead nun.”

  “Loretta Scalia, as in the first African-American female AG with an Italian last name?”

  “That’s funny, right?”

  “Their files. I can break into them,” Naim said.

  Dotty’s ground sirloin came on a big plate with a kid’s portion of broccoli and wild rice. Dotty asked, “People pay twenty-eight-dollars for this. Am I supposed to eat it or take a picture of it to post it on Instagram?”

  “You have an Instagram account?” Naim asked in spite of himself.

  “You can shove it up your rude ass for all I care.” The waiter left.

  “He gets no tip,” Dotty told Swayze. “He forgot my beverage.”

  “You said that like you ordered a Sprite.”

  “Why do you like the attorney general for murder?” Swayze asked.

  “When I called there, because I found the number in a notebook that I stole from Bishop Sinclair...”

  “You’re going straight to hell.”

  “...I said it was the City of Brotherly Love calling, Scalia came on the line and called me Lynch.” Dotty spoke while chewing ground sirloin. “Lynch is the one that booby-trapped the gigolo’s apartment. That will be on tonight’s news thanks to Naim who’s banging a production assistant there.”

  “Dotty!”

  Swayze said, “That was on the radio this morning. Cops claim to have a suspect awaiting arraignment.”

  “That was me, you dope. I was sprung not too long ago. So can we use the computer?”

  “The AG has all kinds of server security codes, I doubt lover boy here can get in as easily as he gets into pants.”

  “See that, Dotty. You’re giving people the wrong impression of me.”

  “He can. Did you know last month a teenager obviously bored in Lincoln, Nebraska tapped into the Pentagon and sent a thousand cases of Magnum condoms and KY-Jelly to Syria.”

  “Quite the international care package. It cuts down on the number of little Islamic State babies being born,” Swayze said.

  “This is about money, Swayze,” Naim said.

  “Yup,” said Dotty. “If the bishop was willing to pay on his low wage, what do you think a member of the president’s cabinet would pay up. All them assholes down there want to be president.”

  “Have you asked yourself why Scalia would care how a Philly priest kicked the bucket?”

  “That’s why I need to help Dotty hack into the AG’s E-mails. It’s hard to blackmail someone without the goods,” Naim said.

  “This could be a million payout,” Dotty said.

  “Dollars,” Naim added. “Hell, BMWs for everyone.”

  “From this moment on it’s all fifty-fifty,” Dotty said.

  Swayze raised his eyebrows. “You cross me, Dotty-O-Pal, and I’ll have your ass for breakfast.”

  “I would never stiff a friend. I resent the accusation.” Dotty finished her meal and stood. Naim followed suit. “Don’t forget what I said about the tip.”

  NAIM DROPPED DOTTY off at her apartment. She planned to have him pick her up later near closing time for Swayze’s bank. They planned to slip into the back door and do what they had to do. Sitting on the front steps of her apartment building was Hank Robinson in a puffy Eagles NFL jacket, complimentary fitted ball cap pulled down to his eyebrows and gaudy sunglasses.

  Dotty said, “I didn’t recognize you. Thought you were a thug rapper.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t know that you lived next door to a sleazy massage parlor.”

  “Now you do. What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting on you. I really need to talk to you,” he said and looked deeply into her eyes.

  “Well, I am all ears. Let me go straighten up my apartment. It’s a mess. I’ll call you in a sec to come on up.”

  Racing to her apartment, Dotty got right to straightening up her apartment. She put chairs and tables upright, flipped over damaged cushions to disguise the holes. She even mopped with disinfectant, something that she never did. Finally, she emptied
the dregs of four different kinds of liquor from nine bottles into a tall glass and gulped that down her throat. The empties went into a garbage bag with the rest of the trash and then out of a window aimed at a dumpster in the alley. It landed with a thud, sending a cat scurrying, and just missed a bum. She, then, went downstairs, to collect her guest. The dregs had provoked her appetite; the steak did nothing.

  UPSTAIRS, HANK GASPED at the door to Dotty’s lair.

  “Bad termite problem,” she said, unlocking it.

  He went in first and walked through a path that Dotty had cleared to her bedroom. He reached for the light switch, Dotty screamed, “No!” and grabbed his bicep. She sniffed for gas before flipping the switch. “Can’t be too careful,” she said.

  “My place never looked this bad on campus as a freshman. You need a man.

  “What’re you, broccoli?” she asked at the bedroom door.

  “I mean to clean for you. This place looks like it’s been ransacked.”

  “It could use a light dusting.” She picked up a destroyed pillow, releasing a cloud of feathers into the air. “You thirsty?”

  “A little. What do you have?”

  She lifted a bed sheet and a bottle with liquid in it popped into the air. She caught it, opened it and smelled. “Looks like vodka.”

  “I’ll take it. What I want to do, I shouldn’t be sober for.” His tone slipped to seductive and she turned to face him. “Let’s drink this.” He took the bottle from her.

  IT WAS LIGHT OUTSIDE when Dotty rolled out of the bed onto her hands and knees, grabbed the dresser to stand and stumbled naked to the bathroom. She flicked on the light and looked absurdly at herself in the mirror above the sink. Her breasts hung down near her stomach and were depressingly flat. Her skin tone was pale and pink-colored. She threw water on her face, before a quick wash over her pertinent parts, and then crept back into the bedroom.

  She kicked the door and stubbed a toe, biting down on her lip to avoid screaming. She was deathly afraid of waking Hank, who was breathing heavily on his back with his eyes shut, and the sheet pulled down exposing a chiseled chest and stomach. He looked serene and ready for another round. This must run in the Robinson family, she thought. Immediately after Dotty gathered herself, she put his fitted cap on her head. She smiled looking in the mirror at herself.

  When she was done parading around in the mirror on her dresser, he asked, “Having fun?”

  “I might buy one of these. We’ll be twinning. Or to wear to the Eagles games, of course.”

  He chuckled.

  “What’s funny?” she asked, sitting the hat down on the dresser.

  “You are. When you’re naked.”

  She sat on the side of the bed and smiled at him. “Well, I don’t hit the Zumba classes or run. I own a car.”

  “I meant the hat.”

  She grinned. “Oh, good thing I took it off.”

  He sat up and pulled on his boxers. He checked his watch and then shot off the bed. “Shit.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I had a class this afternoon. I have to go.”

  “It’s not polite to eat and run,” she said. “Come back to bed.”

  “I really can’t. I have to get to a class late.”

  “I understand,” she said, slipping into her clothing, too. “I guess, I better let you go.”

  “We’ll meet up again. Call me.”

  “You never got around to telling me why you came here in the first place.”

  “Well, you’ve taken my mind off my problems and I don’t even know why I came. Glad that I did stop by, though.” He winked at her. “Bye, Ms. Dotty.”

  Hank left and she decided to straighten up her apartment. He may come back. I did put it on him. After minimal work, she became hungry, and said, “Fuck this shit. He can do this. That is what he said. I gotta eat to pack back on those calories that I lost.”

  She dressed—ugly X-mas sweater and pajama bottoms, loafers without socks—and walked out of the door.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Lombardo,” she said as she spun around the second-floor landing.

  The blind bat was perched at the bottom of the stairs looked up, fixed her glasses on her nose, and pointed a pale finger. “That’s her!”

  Then, Dotty saw the officer who had seen her in the car with Sister Tudor and the same one that busted her nose. In front of them, the door of Chen’s apartment where Dotty had stashed his body was ajar. The officer un-holstered his revolver.

  “Freeze!”

  He had sounded like a TV cop, and Dotty guessed that’s where he’s gotten the line. No criminal had ever frozen on that command. Obviously, innocent people didn’t freeze either, Dotty turned around and was running up the stairs she’d just came down. The police officer gave chase.

  On her floor, Dotty didn’t bother to try to locate her keys, she said, “Eff this” and went through what was left of the door. The window used for a trash shoot by her a moment ago was still open.

  Without second guessing, she climbed over the sill, was perched there for a second, then as soon as she heard the footsteps enter her place she pushed off. She was a woman without wings but flew for two seconds. Then, she slammed into the ground with her knees in her chest, on top of a dead rat. The bum that she scared away earlier may have caught all but one of the bottles she had thrown out moments before.

  When she was able to refocus, she saw a homeless woman right outside the dumpster. The woman had the other bottle tipped upside down and was rubbing at the insides of the neck with a crusty finger. Dotty recognized her as a panhandler outside of the McDonald’s on Market Street.

  The woman popped her lips and balled up her face. “You actually drank this piss?” she asked.

  15

  The only jarring difference between the woman and Dotty, worth noting was the woman’s jacket was a green and yellow Green Bay Packers number covered in a patina of filth. Dotty’s blazer was a more conservative black polyester.

  “You got a hoverboard or something ‘cause you get around the Center City area, I see,” Dotty said. “I thought bums stayed closer to where they ate and panhandled.”

  “Who the hell you calling a bum? Do I look like a bum? I am not any body’s bum.”

  “What are you, Ms. Universe?”

  “When the Christmas lights get put away, I am homeless.”

  “OK, Homeless, can you drive a car?”

  “Is Putin a communist?”

  “I take that as a yes.”

  “I wasn’t always like this.”

  “Homeless, I have twenty easy bucks for you. Wanna make a quick buck?”

  “Did Martin Luther King win a Nobel Peace Prize?”

  “You must get rest in the main library on Vine.”

  “Yup, you can find me between African-American studies and Russian History on Monday’s,” she said, smiling with five teeth that had never been close to each other.

  Dotty held up a twenty-dollar-bill. “Let’s exchange jackets.”

  Homeless looked skeptically, put down the empty bottle and felt one of Dotty’s lapels between thumb and forefinger. “I’m used to foreign wool and Asian denim,” she said. “But OK.”

  They switched outerwear and Dotty handed her the bill and the car keys. “There’s a fancy Mercedes parked in front of this apartment building. Get to it and burn rubber. Someone will chase you.”

  “Cops or robbers?”

  “Cops.”

  “OK, I don’t mess with the South Philly Italian mob. Where should I leave it?”

  “How ‘bout Canada? I don’t care, it ain’t mine and the owner has much bigger problems.” Dotty heard keys and the squawk of a walkie-talkie entering the alley. “Get out of here.”

  Homeless shrugged, flicked a banana peel off the sleeve of Dotty’s blazer, and jumped over the dumpster. Dotty heard the officer shout, “Freeze!” again and then there were galloping footsteps. A shot rang out and made the dumpster ring as loud as the Liberty Bell. She then hea
rd more police footsteps.

  She backed against a wall and then jumped inside the dumpster as the cops ran by. She heard the Mercedes revved up and burned rubber.

  Ten minutes passed before, she grabbed the top of the dumpster and peeked over the side. The cat that she had scared off earlier hissed at her between licking the interior of a discarded tuna can. Otherwise she was alone. She climbed out. The loud jacket had begun to make her itch. At the length of the alley, she came out on Spring Garden Street, where a few cabs passed her up until a Saudi with an expired Green Card, driving a newer Yellow Cab stopped for her.

  “I gotta get twenty up front, ma’am, to take you anywhere.”

  Dotty dug into her pocket and showed him some cash. She handed the driver a ten.

  “Where to, ma’am? ‘Cause this won’t get you far.”

  Dotty hesitated. She had time to kill before she was supposed to meet Swayze in a city with cops that were tracking her for murder. “U of Penn,” she said. “I’ll tell you where to drop me exactly when we get over there.”

  “That’s normally how it works.”

  For Dotty the ride across downtown was magical. She was whisked by corporate buildings that ran along JFK Boulevard until they reached 30th Street Station, all the while the cab driver—a devout Muslim—avoided blasphemies while cursing every driver that crossed lanes or turned without using a signal. As she texts Naim Butler, they shot over to Market Street and passed Drexel University before they reached the University of Pennsylvania Law Library with a cop car just a car behind them. She had him pull over with the meter reading: $9.75.

  “Keep the change,” she said, leaving the driver a quarter tip for his harboring a fugitive.

  She walked a block up Walnut Street to Naim’s dorm and he was waiting in the lobby for her. When he noticed the Green Bay Packers jacket he cringed.

  “You need to get rid of the jacket. In Eagles Nation you stick out a lot and with the whole PPD gunning for you, I doubt you want that kind of attention.”

  “Keep it down. Jesus,” she said, tossing the jacket on a seat in the lobby as they walked to a corner with a bank of pay phones. “Do these work?”