Scrambled Hard-Boiled

by E.R. White, Jr.

  * * * * *

  It was a Tuesday morning, and the weather was perfect, sunny, cool and not a cloud in the sky. I’d come into work at my usual time and checked the answering machine messages. There weren’t any, so I hung up my coat, made some coffee, sat at my desk and started to read the morning paper I’d brought with me.

  I was just finishing the paper when the bell sounded on the wall, indicating someone had opened the door to our office. I got up, put on my coat and walked into the waiting room. Standing there was a man in his mid-to-late thirties with thinning, brown hair, wearing an expensive gray suit with white shirt, maroon tie and black horn rim glasses.

  I introduced myself and asked him if I could be assistance. He said his name was Dr. Elmo Randall (with an emphasis on ‘Doctor’) and said he needed assistance of a private investigator.

  I told him that I was the junior partner and that Mr. Twillfigger was on a well-deserved sabbatical (i.e., banging whores at the Mustang Ranch in Nevada, as Ernie was to tell me later).

  He grunted, and I invited him into my private office. He brushed by me and walked into my room, sitting down at the chair in front of my desk.

  I offered him a cup of coffee, which he curtly refused.

  Already, I was sizing the man up as a major-league dork, but dorks pay just as well as anyone, so what did I care. I then asked him of what assistance could I be and after a few seconds of silence, he began.

  “I’m an Internal Medicine physician, Mr. Dafoe,” he started, “and have been in private, and if I may say so, very successful practice for the past twelve years. I’ll have been married to my wife, Gloria, for eight years come this August. We have no children. As with all marriages, we have had our ups and downs, and I admit I have strayed a few times, but it was always a short-term physical thing, and it never meant anything. I’ve been faithful these last three years, and I thought we were happy.”

  Uh-oh, I thought, here it comes. In my short time as a private dick, I have found out that while the man can rationalize his indiscretions as a “physical” thing that means nothing, he can’t do the same for his wife. For some reason, men have bought the line published by all these damn women’s magazines that when a woman has an affair, it always involves a great deal of emotional commitment (dare I say love?) from the woman and is therefore, a greater threat and affront to the marriage.

  It's pure bullshit, because if women were wanting more emotional commitment in their lives, than so many of them wouldn’t be banging the golf or tennis pro at the club. They get horny just like us men, but somehow have cloaked it in the guise of romance and love. And we men buy into this crap.

  Sure enough, Dr. Randall played true-to-form.

  “I … guess I was wrong. I think my wife is seeing another man. I have tried to be a good husband, but the demands of my profession, I fear, have placed a strain on our marriage and obviously, Gloria has maybe sought out companionship elsewhere.”

  “Are you sure she’s seeing someone else or is it still a suspicion?”

  “Well, it’s still only a suspicion, but she has been away from home a great deal during the day. She’s taking golf lessons at our club and claims to be on the links a lot during the week.”

  I had a pad of paper out and was taking notes.

  “Which country club is that?”

  “Fairfield Oaks. We’ve been members for the past three years.”

  “What else makes you think there’s another man involved?”

  As Ernie taught me, try to keep the sexual imagery out of the conversation with a client. Never say, “Are you sure she’s banging the bejeezus out of the milkman?” or words to that effect. Try to keep it as neutral as possible.

  “I really can’t put my finger on it,” he said, “it’s just a feeling I get when we’re together, which is getting rarer and rarer, if you get my drift.”

  I merely nodded, as if in sympathy.

  “Does she have any other hobbies or habits that I might need to be aware of?”

  “Well, she does some charity work with the Red Cross and sings in the choir at church, but golf and tennis seem to have taken up the bulk of her time.”

  “How about coming home at odd hours, stuff like that?”

  Dr. Randall looked out the window for a moment, and then began to speak.

  “My partner and I have a contract with Ridgeway Hospital to work in the emergency room ten nights a month and every third weekend. Usually, we split up the time in half and alternate our weekends. On normal workdays, when I got home from work, Gloria has always been there, unless a late round of golf delayed her. However, when I’ve worked nights at the emergency room and tried to call home, she’s been out—on numerous occasions. More than once I’ve called late, one or two in the morning, and she hasn’t answered the phone.”

  “How did she explain that?”

  “She says she took a pill to sleep and must have slept through the phone ringing or was out with a girl friend. And before you ask, I’ve never gone home early and tried to catch her in a lie…not that I haven’t wanted to, but I’m afraid of what I might do if I succeeded.”

  He paused for a moment, then continued.

  “I don’t want a divorce … at least I don’t think I do. All I want is to know the truth before I confront her with it and then try to work things out. I—I don’t want to lose my wife to another man.”

  There was a twitch in his eye when he said this, and that should have set alarm bells going off in my head, but I was still green back then. I got some more personal details from him (home address, what kind of car she drove, golf lesson times, physical description and a few other items that would help me along.) We settled on a fee, and I told him I’d get back to him when I found out something for better or worse.

  I went to work on the case the next morning, driving out to the Fairfield Oaks country club, located to the east of the city. It was your typical upper-middle class country club. The main building had a couple of large party rooms, a spacious dining room and a comfortable barroom. Behind the building was a fifty meter pool with diving well and adjacent to that was a tennis-court and handball complex. The golf clubhouse was located about fifty yards to the east of the main building, and a large parking lot was shared between the two.

  The clubhouse was two stories tall, with the “19th Hole” restaurant on the top floor and the pro shop and changing rooms located at the bottom floor. Behind the clubhouse, the two eighteen hole courses, “Devil Dune” and “Angel Lake” respectively, began. The driving range was across from the parking lot.

  I’d gotten to the club around 8:30 in the morning, knowing that Mrs. Randall was due to get there at nine o’clock for her golf lesson on the range. I sat in my car and sure enough, around 8:55, a blue Pontiac Bonneville, license tag WH3-12A, pulled into the lot, and I got my first good look Gloria Randall.

  She was around thirty-five years old, short and had brown hair and eyes. Her husband had described her as voluptuous, and she was that maybe twenty pounds ago. She did have a pretty face and nice smile and while she was overweight, she was quite firm. She wore a white golfing outfit with her blouse clinging to her ponderous breasts like saran wrap and her skirt emphasizing the swell of her haunches. She looked like the babes I’d been picking up at Joe’s Bar. You know, the women facing the onset of spreading middle age, hoping a hot passionate fling can ward off the encroaching years and pounds for a few more months.

  She got her clubs out of the trunk and walked over to the driving range, joining a couple of more women there. She set up her clubs and went to the ball shack and bought a couple buckets of balls. She went back to the clubs and began to do some stretching exercises and took a few practice swings. Around 9:15, I saw a man with a golf iron in his hand stroll out of the clubhouse and walk to the range. He approached Gloria, smiling. She gave him a great big smile, and the morning lesson began.

  The club pro was in his late forties and tall. He had a bald head that was tanned nut brown o
n top and had steel-gray hair on the sides. He appeared to be in somewhat good shape, with only the beginnings of a paunch. The lesson lasted about thirty minutes, and it concentrated on hitting her irons.

  During the lesson, I strolled into the pro-shop and appeared to be shopping for some clubs. I went by the cash register. After some discreet talking with the register attendant, I determined the pro’s name was Willard Simons, and he’d been at the club some twelve years.

  I went back outside and climbed back in my car, keeping an eye on the couple using my rear-view mirror. A couple of times Willard placed his arms around Mrs. Randall, trying to help her swing. I thought I caught him copping a feel every now and then. She just wiggled around a bit, and continued to work on that bad slice of hers, as if nothing had happened.

  I knew then, something wasn’t right.