The Case of the Missing Cliché Continued

Rick O’Shea, Private Detective, still on the case of the missing cliché and not enjoying it at all. I’ve been in so much hot water since I went P.I., that I am truly a hardboiled Dick which isn’t all it is cracked up to be.

The goons were coming back to finish the job; I could see them about half a block away. The tire irons they carried didn’t look very friendly. Reached under my arm for the good friend I keep close to my heart. Drained it dry and threw it away. Then I took my revolver out and screwed a silencer on it. This time I was ready for them.

They didn’t see the revolver until it was too late. Three shots, three dead toughs. I rolled the bodies down the bank of a conveniently located stream and covered them with conveniently located brush. It would be a day or two before anyone found them. We don’t get buzzards this far into the city, at least not feathered ones.

She hadn’t given me a contact number but tracking the broad wasn’t that difficult. The spinach in her teeth when she was in my office gave her away. There was a Vegan restaurant nearby. First place to look. I knew she wasn’t a vegan because she didn’t tell me she was and obviously meat was still on her menu. I hoped they would remember her. They did. She came in a couple times a week for a decent salad, they said. My idea of a decent salad is a rare 20 oz prime rib, but I didn’t say it.

They heard someone call her Lori. Should have been Lorry. They’d no idea where she lived other than nearby so I would have to stake this place out until she showed up. Steaking it out would have offended the staff. I sat in the corner booth for an hour each side of lunch and drank free-range organic coffee. Tasted like it had been wrung out of Jon Arbuckle’s sock and at the price, I knew I wouldn’t even be drinking cheap Scotch for a while.

The cook/waiter/busboy was pale and skeletal. Good thing people like him eat so healthily otherwise they might be dead. I’m a person of balance. I eat four donuts at a time, so my hips, butt and belly stay in balance. And much prefer females the size of Lorry..er..Lori. Built for comfort not for speed as the saying goes.

Fortunately, Lori was a creature of habit like the nuns who tried to educate me a millennium back. Three days later she entered the café. She didn’t waltz in but more of a slow two-step. I’d love to dance with her as long as she had power steering. She saw me immediately and came over to my table with a smile on her face.

I grabbed her arm and said, “Let’s get out of here. There’s a pub around the corner that is more my style”. It was owned by two Irishmen, Gerald Fitzpatrick and his partner, Patrick Fitzgerald. They served Guinness and Old Bushmills. Irish whiskey instead of Scotch whisky. When we each had a glass in front of us, she began where I’d cut her off at the salad bar. (As his master descended the ladder, the little dog jumped, caught his foot in the trigger and shot him just below the hayloft…but as the new bride said when she got out of her honeymoon bed to bake a cake, “I digress.”)

“Well, did you enjoy it?”

“Enjoy what? Watching you and your boyfriend bump uglies or the uglies bump me? Didn’t you hire the bully boys that beat me to a pulp, then came back later to finish the job. And missed?”

“I did not! I would never do such a thing!”

“Yeah? So who were they? Who hired them? And why did you hire me? I’m tired of games and you owe me an explanation and a cool grand. I should charge you double.”

“My ex-husband hired them. He is a jealous type. I should have warned you about him but that would have given the game away. The guy I was with is just someone I promised a good time to if he met me at a time and place. I’m not a woman to turn a man’s head unless I’m going break his neck. I‘ve seen you around the neighbourhood and thought you might be useful. I hired you and fed you a line of bull, expecting my ex and his friends to try to kill you. I never meant for you to get killed. I was hoping you would kill him.”

“You could have just hired me to kill him.”

“That’s illegal. This way it was you in self-defense and I’ve got an alibi. And I would certainly have made it worth your while.” She smiled seductively. No spinach in her teeth this time.

This woman didn’t have a case; she was a case. Just what I needed, a nutcase with a murderous ex likely to show up with more hoods when he discovered his missing muscle. And I’m supposed to kill him. For a lousy thousand bucks and future benefits.

“Pay me and if your ex shows up again, I’ll think about your further offer.” Like that was going to happen. She peeled off the bills, gave me her address and phone number this time and I split out of there like a turpentined cat.

I blew half the grand on a bottle of 30-year-old Glenmorangie. Figured I owed it to myself. I am sitting at my desk, sipping very slowly on a glass of the amber liquid, with the blind pulled and the door locked, contemplating giving up my life of sin and becoming a TV evangelist.

Then there was a knock on the door…