“Well, I do,” I explained.
She took another gander at me through her binoculars and adjusted her wimple. “Tell me,” she asked, “what religion are you?”
I told her that Dad had been an atheist but Mom was a devout agnostic and had demanded from Dad that I be raised a Quaker. I had gone to a Quaker school for several years until I began to feel my oats and slugged the headmaster. I had been thrown out for that and so was he for having slugged me back. Since then I had searched for faith and the meaning of life but so far without success.
“Well, at least you're not one of those nasty Protestants the Devil sent,” she fumed.
Sister Semper Fidelis took another chomp of celery and then went back to her puzzle. She looked up a few minutes later and seemed surprised to see me. “What do you want? I've seen your face before, haven't I?”
I reminded myself to kick Louie in the nuts the next time he sent me on a wild goose chase. I was also about to tell Sister to go take a flying leap, but good manners and the knowledge that I was in a sanctified place stopped me. I got up from my chair and stuck my tongue out at her. She couldn't see this because the wimple had once again fallen down.
Suddenly she sat upright and adjusted the wimple. “Wait a minute, you poor excuse for a Quaker. Did you say you were looking for a six-five blonde with a basketball? Why of course I know her!” She told me to sit down again and stick my tongue back in my mouth.
“That's Mona Tuvachevsky-Smith you're talking about. I just call her 'stilts.' She used to be a student at the school. She palled around with a girl named Gertie something-or-other, whom the other girls unanimously voted 'most likely to become a tramp.' Had to let Gertie go when she was found shacking up with the pawnbroker next door. Wonder what's become of the trollop?”
I was not about to say but made a note to ask Gertie about Mona the next time I was frequenting the Elbow.
“Sister, about Mona…”
“Who? Oh, yes, Mona. Mona showed up a few weeks ago. I thought she had come back to return the silverware that went missing at the time she took a leave of absence, but she said she'd returned to seek sanctuary. She needed to hide out for a while. Well, we don't let just anyone take sanctuary here, especially if they've stolen our silverware, but we're a forgiving bunch of sisters. We also were in bad need of someone to play center for our basketball team in the Nuns Net League. Our previous center, a sweet young thing by the name of Clorinda Katootch, surprised us all by leaving the school a couple of months after some accident or other at the pawnbroker's. She was getting too fat around the middle to play a good center in any case.”
Sister Semper Fidelis returned to her puzzle and celery, but I drew her back by asking if Mona were here and if I could speak to her.
“Why of course you can speak to her, young man. I noticed that you had a tongue. She's not here now. She's on the road for a few days with the rest of the team. But they'll be back the day after tomorrow … or is it the day after that?”
I gave her my card. She thanked me and said that she didn't receive many cards these days, except at Halloween. I asked her to have Mona call as soon as she returned. “From where?” the good sister asked.
It was still a longshot.
14
I had a quick lunch after my visit to the Sisters of Pleurisy and then went to the office. I told Joe the elevator man that the slimeball landlord still hadn't fixed the sign on my door and that I was fed up. He asked if lunch had been good as well as filling. I took the stairs and ran into the same tramp who had been darkening our stairwell a couple of days ago. I kicked him, but not hard and not for long.
And speaking of tramps, I was glad to see that Dotty was back at work. She looked tired as hell but had a smile on her face the size of both of Primo Carnera's fists. We shot the breeze for a while. Then Dotty went back to Proust—volume three, she said—and I thumbed through my proverbial little black book. I didn't find any proverbs, and I had last seen any of the skirts listed about the time Julius Caesar had crossed some river to fight his enemy Pompous. Horny, horny, horny. I couldn't get doing you-know-what off my mind. Watching Proust's number-one fan playing with her hair wasn't helping matters.
The next forty-eight hours dragged by like a turtle on sleeping pills. No new ideas for finding Mona, no new clients. I moped around the office during the day, puttered around the apartment at night. Paid the landlord, sent the ex her alimony check. This is what you call a life?
Then things picked up. I was seated at my desk reading the latest issue of The Police Gazette and telling Dotty, who was trimming my hair, to go easy. I liked the cheap—actually, free—haircuts she gave me every month or so, but she had a bad habit of sticking me with the scissors. Once she nearly took off my right earlobe. Now as the phone rang she jumped and so did the scissors, which all but took off the left one.
“Dick DeWitt, Privates Investigator.” Try as I might, I could never convince Dotty that she need not mimic the sign on our office door. “Yes, he's terribly busy”—but I could and did convince her to lie—“but I'll see if he can come to the phone.”
On this occasion I actually was terribly busy. The blood from my left earlobe was spewing out and down my white Arrow shirt. “Who is it?” I mouthed silently to Dotty. She wrote on the pad that was on my desk and not yet completely covered with my blood: “Sister Semper Fidelis.”
I yanked the phone out of her hand. “Yes, Sister, do you have news for me, I hope?… What do you mean, 'what news?' … No, Sister, I didn't call you, you called me … Yes, that's right … Sister, you called me just now!” By this time I wanted to grab her by the throat, pull down her wimple, and announce that I had become a Protestant. But I kept my temper and finally did ascertain that Mona had returned and would call me as soon as possible. I thanked the good Sister, who in turn asked me to say “hello” to that nice Mr. DeWitt.
A big smile attached itself to my puss. “Dotty, we're in business. This last lead is panning out. Our case is fast heading for a close.”
“That's just great, Mr. D,” she said, gently wiping the blood off my ear with my tie. “Should you call Mr. Baker with the news?”
Dotty had a point. She had two of them actually, but that's another story. “No, I think it best to wait until I tie up the whole kit and kaboodle and surprise him with it.”
I was so pleased with the way things were breaking that I invited Dotty for lunch. Dutch treat naturally. We locked up the office and walked downstairs. We got a lot of bug-eyed stares while walking over to Ye Olde Foods Emporium, a chow joint that I heard was decent as long as you didn't go there with high hopes. I couldn't decide if the stares were for Dotty, who had more curves than Carl Hubbell, or for me, holding my tie to my left earlobe. The grub was odd at the Emporium. Dotty ordered the fish and chips, which tasted more like spagetti and meatballs. I had the canard à l'orange, or so the menu claimed. Frankly, I thought the canard was a canard.
We returned to the office and waited for Mona to call. We waited, and when we had finished, we waited some more. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Zilch mixed with bupkus. From time to time Dotty startled me with a shriek of laughter. She said Proust was really funny, although not nearly as humorous as Kafka. Around half-past four I told Dotty to take her Proust, shelve it, and go home.
I was trying on—just for fun of course–the pair of Dotty's underwear that she had left in the file cabinet, when the phone rang. I was annoyed at the interruption.
“Dick DeWitt here. What can I do for you?”
“Mr. DeWitt, this is Mona.”
My heart skipped a beat. Dotty's panties were much too tight. Trying to control my voice, which had become a high soprano, I said, “Mona, I've been looking all over this great, crazy town for you. Where are you?” She gave me an address on the city's east side and told me to meet her there at 7:30 sharp. “Come alone,” she demanded, “and whatever you do, don't tell dear Mr. Baker until after we've met.” I could hear a basketball bouncing in the background. I
suppose I could have been suspicious but not of a convent school girl with a gentleman for a boyfriend. Nonetheless, I oiled and cleaned my .38 before leaving the office.
I had plenty of time before meeting Mona. The air was crisp, but there was no sign of the white excrement falling from the heavens. I walked to the east side of town and stopped for dinner at a Mexican cantina, where I ordered huevos rancheros. The waiter brought me duck.
Mona's place was on the ground floor of a small apartment building. I pushed the buzzer. She buzzed me in. I was not surprised to see how tall she was, but I was surprised to find her wearing a thick fur coat. I figured she was cold, although five seconds into this hothouse and I was sweating like a pig.
“Aren't you warm wearing that coat?” I asked.
“No,” she said. I waited for her next sentence but there wasn't one.
“Were you about to go some place?” A good private eye knows how to ask questions that get right to the point.
I didn't have to wait long for a response. Only it didn't come from Mona. “Sí, sí, señor.” I wheeled around. It was Sadie's amigo, the Black Llama, and he was pointing a nasty-looking revolver at me.
“Let's discuss this,” I said, to which he sneered. I was getting nowhere fast and he, for all I knew, had an itchy trigger finger.
Now I was sweating even more and it wasn't only because of the heater in the hand of Señor Black Llama or the temperature in the apartment. I had surreptitiously and secretly felt for my rod in my back pocket, only to discover that I had forgotten to bring it.
“Mona, what's up? Who is this man and why is he holding a gun?”
“It's a long story, Mr. DeWitt, but I guess you deserve an explanation. His name is Miguel Malvado, and he used to teach me advanced calculus at the convent school. I never learned much, however. I was never good at math, and he spoke little English. By the way, Señor Malvado was a priest in his country before he got defrocked for staging a cockfight and bribing one of the cocks to take a fall.”
“But what's he got to do with your disappearance? Don't you know or care that Mr. Baker is frantic with worry about you?” I saw a tear come to her eye but decided that she was only allergic to her fur coat.
She smiled. “Don't you get it, Mr. DeWitt? Mr. Baker is a helluva nice guy, but he's also the most boring schlub I've ever met. Has halitosis, too. I need the bread since there's no place for a lady to play professional basketball. And playing basketball is what I do best, aside from crocheting.” She paused to give an endearing pat to her basketball, which was resting on a nearby chair. “So Señor Malvado and I decided to take away some of the baker's bread, if you know what I mean. We were stringing out our sting, figuring that the longer we waited, the more lover boy would be willing to pay once he received a ransom note. But you had to get involved and get too close to discovering what was happening.” She smiled. “You're what's known as a goddamned pain in the ass, a term I learned from the Sisters of Pleurisy. And now,” she nodded to her confederate, “I'm afraid we'll have to silence Mr. DeWitt forever.”
I didn't want to be silenced forever. I didn't even want to be silenced for now. My life raced before me, the good times and bad, the pleasures and regrets, Dotty's panties, and my mom's can opener.
Mona motioned for her partner in crime to let me have it. Malvado cocked his gun. “Adiós, amig…,” he started to say, when a fury straight out of hell burst through the door.
“You don't walk out on me after doing it only four times!” The shrill voice belonged to Sadie Plotz, who began to struggle with the gaucho wannabe for his gun. Meanwhile I tackled Mona, who went down with a thud and hit her head hard on a suitcase. I found some yarn that she was crocheting with and bound her hands and feet. I tried to stuff the basketball into her mouth but it was too big. The basketball, that is. Then I turned to help Sadie, who didn't need my assistance. She was firing at Malvado and chasing him out the front door before she tripped on the doormat. She might have winged him, but I couldn't tell.
I went over to straighten the doormat. Then I helped Sadie up. “You did good, Sadie Plotz,” I told her.
I called the police and explained that we had an emergency situation on our hands. They arrived an hour and forty-five minutes later and took Mona into custody. Sadie suggested that we go back to her place for a quickie, but I declined the offer. Another time, I told her. She seemed miffed and grumbled something about a lack of gratitude for having saved my life. But I needed some fresh air and time to sort through all that had been happening since Mr. Baker had first come to see me. I said good night to Sadie as we walked out of the building and headed for our respective apartments. It had started to snow again. I raised the collar on my coat and thought of the galoshes I wished I had brought.
15
Exhaustion hit me with a series of one-two punches by the time I reached home. My body felt like a football the Chicago Bears had used to scrimmage with all season. I owed some of my fatigue to the duck I ate. Eating duck for both lunch and dinner was no easy matter. Nor was the episode with Mona and the Black Llama. But the case was all but closed now. Finito. I sank into bed without setting the alarm clock. Tomorrow would come soon enough.
And it did. My brain was racing a hundred miles an hour by the time the city was waking, yawning, and getting ready for what lay ahead. I wondered about Mona and what craziness had made an ordinary six-foot-five blonde who loved to dribble a basketball turn to crime. And I reflected upon my near-miss with Mr. Death. If Sadie Plotz had not arrived in the nick of time, I would be dead meat on a cold slab in a cold morgue in a cold city on a cold November morning. The thought made my blood run cold.
The heat in the apartment came on, and I felt less cold. I got up, splashed water on my face, and fixed some Quaker Oats and piping hot coffee. I wondered what the temperature was outside.
All this rumination, I knew, was an excuse not to do what I had to do. It was still early, but I called my client to tell him about last evening. He was heartbroken, as I knew he'd be. No pastryman wants to be taken for a patsy. And this pastryman, with all his dough, would need a lot of time and care to heal his wounds and make his yeast rise again. My heart went out to the poor schmuck. I told him that if there was anything I could do to help, he should let me know. I also told him that I would send him a bill for the remainder of my fees and expenses, payable upon receipt. Hell, I had earned every penny of it.
Little snow had accumulated overnight. I walked to the office in a good mood and bounded up the eight flights of stairs. It didn't last. The mood, not the stairs. The scumbag landlord had repainted the sign on my office to read: “Dicks DeWitt: Private Investigator.” I unlocked the door and found that someone, probably Joe the elevator man, had slipped a note under it. It contained a single word, “Muerte,” and was signed “The Black Llama.” I knew that my adversary would show up sooner or later, and probably sooner. And his accomplices? The one or ones who had delivered threats in English on the phone and in writing? The tamale at Sadie's office? People I had interviewed? I took my .38 from the file cabinet and placed it on the desk. Being a gumshoe had its days. Trouble was, one never knew what any particular day would bring.
16
I didn't have to wait long. A loud banging on the door followed by “Open up, you creep” got my full attention.
I grabbed my .38 and said, “Come on in, you lousy spic bastard. I'm ready for you.”
“And we're ready for you, too, you pimple on society's ass.”
The door flew open and there stood two of the city's finest: Detectives John “Jack the Ripper” O' Meara and Tony “Holy Canoli” Bruttafaccia from the 13th Precinct. From where I was sitting, their revolvers looked like cannons and were aimed squarely at me.
“Drop it, dickhead,” O'Meara ordered, “or we'll turn your ugly puss into Swiss cheese.”
I dropped my rod faster than I had dropped my old high school flame when I learned that she had the crabs.
“Okay, boys, take it easy. Wha
t's this all about? So I promised to buy a ticket to the Policemen's Ball and broke my promise. You come all the way here just to collect?”
“Shuddup, wiseass,” snarled O'Meara. “We got a tip that you did in some chink waiter last week. You didn't pay for your food, but you're going to pay for this, DeWitt. Cuff him, Tony.”
“Hey, you can't do this to me,” I protested, as Bruttafaccia stood me up, put my hands behind my back, and threw on the shackles. “I didn't do nothing. You can't do this to me. I got my rights!”
“Oh yeah? Let's see what the Lieutenant has to say about that. Let's get this bag of horse manure out of here, Tony.”
We took the short walk from my office to the elevator and waited for Joe the elevator man to bring it up. The door opened and out stepped my secretary Dotty. “Good morning, Mr. DeWitt. Sorry that I'm a little late but I was reading Moby Dick while I was having my cereal and I just couldn't put it down.” She giggled, as only Dotty could. “The book, not the corn flakes.”
She started to walk away but then turned. “Say, who are these men, Mr. D? Are you going out for coffee with them? Just in case someone should call, when shall I say you'll be back?”
O'Meara, who along with his partner had been standing with their mouths open at the sight of my shapely Gal Friday, snickered, “When it's a cold day in hell.”
Dotty looked puzzled and seemed about to ask if hell had cold days when I cut her short.
“Just call my lawyer, Dotty, and have him come down to the 13th Precinct. And pronto.”
“But you don't have a lawyer, Mr. D. The last one you had, that nice Mr. Finagler, said that he wouldn't help you if you were drowning because you stiffed him his fees.”
“Then forget Finagler,” I yelled over my shoulder as the suits were pushing me into the elevator. “Call my mother, call my ex-wife, call the mayor, call anyone!”
Once we were all inside, Joe, whose eyes were opened wider than the wide Missouri, asked which floor we wanted.
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