Reed Ferguson Short Stories

by Renee Pawlish

  “I don’t know.” I rubbed a hand over my jaw. “I want to talk to The Supremes and see if they can shed any light on this. Dean said that Trish is having some financial troubles. Maybe she took the card to help with that.”

  “Trish?” Perry swiveled around in his chair. “That doesn’t sound like her. She’s too sweet to do something like that.”

  “I don’t have anything else to go on,” I said. “I’ll push her a little. If she did steal the card, maybe she’ll break down and admit it.”

  “That’s kind of thin,” Cal said.

  I threw Cal a ‘help me out here’ kind of look.

  “Sorry,” Cal mouthed at me.

  Perry scowled. “I guess you’re right. The Supremes go on after Barney. When they wrap up, I go back on for a bit, then Barney and I do this cheesy duet, and I end the evening. Barney’s almost done, so they’ll be going on.” He glanced at his watch. “Should be about a half hour.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Cal and I will watch their set.”

  And we did. And The Supremes were good. Afterward, we ran into the women as they were walking to their dressing room. All three were decked out in tight dresses and heels. And all three were gorgeous.

  “You’re that guy Perry hired,” Sondra, aka Florence Ballard, said, after I introduced Cal and myself.

  “That’s correct,” Cal said, shaking her hand with a slight bow.

  I stared at Cal. He was smitten with her!

  “Aren’t you the polite one?” Sondra winked at Cal.

  “I hate to bother you,” Cal said, more formal than I had ever heard him. “But I do have to ask where you were the night the baseball card was stolen.”

  My jaw dropped.

  “Honey, as we told Perry, we weren’t in his dressing room that night,” Elaine, a dead ringer for the third Supreme, Mary Wilson, patted Cal’s face. “Anybody could’ve taken that card.”

  She sashayed on down the hall and disappeared into her dressing room.

  “She’s right.” Sondra gently extracted her hand from Cal’s. “You are sweet, but I’m taken. You boys have a nice night.” She strutted after Elaine.

  “What about you?” I said to Trish. Her black hair was cut short; the way Diana Ross wore it in the mid-sixties.

  “I don’t know anything, either.” Trish started to step past me.

  “I hear you could use the money.” I leaned against the wall, giving her room, but she stopped and confronted me.

  “Who told you that?” Her eyes blazed. “Perry?”

  I remained silent.

  “I didn’t take the card. You have no way to prove it.”

  “I can check around, see what financial problems you have. It’s easy to find out if you suddenly have money to burn. It would be quite a coincidence, so soon after the card went missing.”

  Trish leaned in close. “You listen to me,” she said. “I’ve got some troubles, but I didn’t steal that baseball card. Perry got us this gig, so there’s no way I would ever do anything to hurt him.”

  I tipped my head toward her. Our noses were inches apart. “Money makes people do funny things, especially if they’re desperate.”

  Trish sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. Minty. “Leave me alone, or I’ll tell Dean you’re hassling me.”

  “What’s going on?” Barney hurried up to us. He put a hand on Trish’s shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

  “This jerk thinks I took Perry’s card. That’s a laugh.” Trish stalked off.

  “Trish is a gem,” Barney said. “There’s no way she took that card.”

  “How do you know?” I pointed toward Perry’s dressing room. “It seems like just about anybody could’ve gone in there. If someone figured out the combination, or if Perry forgot to lock up the card, it would be easy to steal.”

  “She didn’t do it.” Barney hurried after Trish.

  I grimaced. “I don’t know how Bogie did it. He could be brutal to the women he interrogated.”

  “He hit them,” Cal said matter-of-factly. “Something you would never do.”

  “I can barely make myself be mean to Trish.” I shuddered. “Let’s go wait for Perry.”

  We went to Perry’s dressing room. A few minutes later Barney hurried by. He glanced in and glared at us.

  “He’s not happy with you,” Cal said.

  I sighed. “Not much I can do about that.”

  A few minutes later we heard Perry and Barney singing together, and then Perry singing ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’, Elvis’ signature closing song.

  “Cue the king,” Cal said.

  Sure enough, a moment later, Perry entered the room.

  “Ah, what a show,” he said, plopping into his chair. He toweled off his face. “I love this stuff.”

  “Perry, I don’t think I’ll be able to help you,” I said.

  Perry’s face fell. “No luck?”

  I shook my head. “Trish didn’t admit to anything. For that matter, no one did. Anybody could’ve come in here. They all say that. I don’t know how someone could crack the combination, but there’s virtually no way I can prove anything.”

  Perry played with his long sideburns for a second. “I guess you’re right. I just hoped to get the card back, since it was my dad’s.”

  I pulled out the check that he’d given me earlier as a retainer. “Here. I can’t take your money.”

  “No.” Perry raised a hand at me. “You came here and asked around.”

  “We got paid.” I jerked my head toward the door. “You all put on a great show. That’s payment enough.”

  Perry slowly reached out and took the check. “Fair enough.”

  And that was that. Or so I thought.

  A week later, Perry called me again.

  “You’re never going to believe this.”

  “What?” I said.

  “The card’s back.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Perry said. “As I was getting ready today, I went to the safe to get some rings I have, and the card was there.”

  “Are you sure it’s not a fake?”

  A long pause ensued. “Why would someone put a fake in there?”

  “If the card’s back, you stop trying to figure out who stole it,” I said. “The thief can sell the original without you being the wiser.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Let me take the card. I might know someone who can authenticate the card for us.”

  “Sure,” Perry said. “Come by tomorrow. I’ll be here at two for rehearsals.”

  The next day Cal was with me as we got the card from Perry.

  “You wanted to come along because you’ve been doing research on baseball cards?” I said as we left the club.

  “Uh huh.” Cal stared at me. “I was curious.”

  “Like you need to be an expert on anything else,” I laughed.

  Cal studied the card as I drove down south Broadway, a street filled with antique and collectible stores. He carefully took the card out of its plastic box. “I wonder if this card is real,” he said.

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  I pulled my Forerunner into a metered parking spot in front of Classic Hollywood Memorabilia, a store run by my friend, Henri Benoit. He was a World War II vet who was born in France, but had lived in the United States for years.

  “Ah, Reed,” Henri said when he saw us. “My friend, I owe you so much.”

  I had saved Henri’s life while working on a case [author’s note - see This Doesn’t Happen In The Movies], and he never let me forget it.

  “It was nothing,” I assured him.

  “Are you here about a poster?” Henri was an expert of Hollywood memorabilia, and knew of my love of Humphrey Bogart and film noir.

  “Not this time,” I said, setting the baseball card down on the counter. “I’d like you to take a look at this card.”

  “That’s funny,” Henri said, pulling at his long white ponyt
ail. “I saw this exact same card just the other day.”

  “What?” Cal and I said in unison.

  “Did a woman bring it in? Tall and thin, looked kind of like Diana Ross?”

  Henri laughed. “No, it was a man. He wanted me to authenticate the card.”

  “Did you?” I asked.

  “No.” Henri shrugged. “I know about movie memorabilia, not baseball cards. I took a look at the card but I couldn’t tell if it was a fake or not. I referred him to my friend, Jack. He owns an antique store a mile up the road. He’ll be able to authenticate the card, or he’ll call someone in who can.”

  “What did this guy look like?” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice.

  “He was shorter, like me,” Henri said. He stood a good four inches shorter than my six feet. “The whole time I was talking to him, I kept thinking he reminded me of someone else.”

  “Did he look like Bobby Darin?” Cal asked.

  “No,” Henri stroked the ponytail. “But now that you mention it, he sounded like Bobby Darin.”

  “Don Adams?” I said. “From that show, Get Smart?”

  “Yes!” Henri smacked his forehead. “That’s been bugging me. That was a silly show.”

  “Sounds like Barney took the real card,” Cal said.

  “Did you just figure that out?” I rolled my eyes at him.

  “Ah, you are on a case, yes?” Henri said, his eyes twinkling.

  “Yup,” Cal said.

  I turned to Henri. “What’s the name of that antique store?”

  “In The Old Days.” Henri walked us to the door. “It’s just up the road, on the east side of the street.”

  We thanked Henri and left.

  “I wonder how Barney stole the card from Perry,” Cal said as I pulled the Forerunner onto Broadway.

  “If he did it.” I donned my sunglasses to help with the bright Colorado sunshine.

  “How many other guys that look surprisingly like Don Adams, but sound like Bobby Darin, do you know, that would just happen to have a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card?” It was Cal’s turn to roll his eyes at me.

  “Just trying to give him the benefit of doubt.”

  I found a parking space on the street and pulled in. After slipping a quarter in the meter, Cal and I walked down the block to In The Old Days Antiques.

  “Man, there’s a lot of stuff here,” Cal whispered as we entered the store.

  “No kidding.” My eyes roved around the place. Dishes and other glass items loaded the shelves, along with nic nacs of all sorts. Old posters hung from the walls, but I didn’t see any of the classic noir films. A series of glass cases lined the back part of the store, full of old antiques: coins, jewelry, baseball cards and signed balls.

  A huge man stepped out of a hidden room at the back, pausing behind the display cases.

  “Can I help you?” he squeaked like Minnie Mouse.

  “You think he got bullied in school?” Cal murmured.

  “Shut up,” I muttered back. The man may have sounded like a mouse but he was built like a bull, and I didn’t want to get gored by him. I strode over to him. “Are you Jack?”

  “Yes.” Jack put immense hands on the edge of the counter and leaned toward me. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Reed Ferguson. Henri at Classic Hollywood Memorabilia said that you might be able to help us.”

  Jack relaxed slightly. “Henri’s a good man. He knows his movie memorabilia.”

  “And he said you would know baseball memorabilia.” I set the baseball card box on the display case. “Could you take a look at this and tell me if it’s an authentic card?”

  Jack picked up the box and gazed at the card. Then his eyes fell on me. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  Cal sidled up next to me. “Why do you ask?”

  Jack turned his attention on Cal. “Because I’ve seen this card before. Or one like it. Two identical cards don’t waltz through the door within a week of each other without something being fishy.”

  “I think this card is a fake,” Cal said. “The coloring doesn’t seem right.”

  Jack opened the box and let the card fall gently onto the glass display top. He pulled an eyepiece from his pocket, squeezed it in one eye, and leaned down over the card. “Hmm,” he said. “The border isn’t right at all, is it?”

  “No,” Cal concurred.

  Jack popped into the back office and returned with a black light. He turned it on and held it over the card.

  “See how the edges kind of glow? It shouldn’t do that. My guess is someone touched up this card. It could be a real Mantle card, but it’s been restored.”

  Cal bent down and got as close as he could to the card. “I hadn’t noticed that.” Those were rare words from Cal.

  Jack picked the card up by the edges. “Whoever did this spent some time on it.” He flipped the card over and studied it some more. Then he dropped it back into its box. “But it’ll never get a grade that would authenticate it.”

  “Just like I thought,” Cal said.

  I shot him a sidelong glance.

  “So it would never have the value of an original,” I said, thinking back to my research on baseball cards.

  “Yes,” Jack replied. “A restored card could still be worth some money, but nothing like a true original.”

  “Someone’s trying to put one over on Perry,” Cal said.

  “So, which one of you is going to tell me what’s going on?” Jack squeaked.

  Since I was the detective, I took the lead, much to Cal’s chagrin. The sleuthing seemed to be growing on him. “The one you looked at the other day was real?”

  Jack nodded. “It sure was. I told the guy he had a beauty on his hands. I offered him five thousand for it, but he wanted to try listing it on EBay. I told him that any buyers would want it authenticated and he might have some trouble selling it without that.”

  “What’d he say to that?” I asked.

  “That he might be back.” Jack pointed at the card. “Where’d you get that card?”

  “I think the same man who visited you used this one to fool the original owner,” I said.

  “So he stole the card he showed me.” Jack grimaced. “That’s not cool.”

  “No, it’s not,” Cal edged into the conversation. “How would you like to help us get the card back to the original owner?”

  Jack and I both stared at Cal.

  “What do you have in mind?” Jack asked.

  I turned to Cal, all ears. What was my sidekick conjuring up?

  “Is there any way you can get a hold of that guy again?”

  “Sure,” Jack smiled. “When we were dickering over price, he asked if I would let him know if I had someone interested in buying the card. He said if he could get a solid buyer, that he’d come down on his price.”

  “Call him,” I said, seeing where Cal was going with this. “Get him down here.”

  “Should we call the police?” Jack asked.

  “I don’t want to scare him off,” I said. “Contact him and see when he can come back down with the card. Cal and I will handle it from there.”

  “I can do that,” Jack said. “Give me a minute.” He disappeared into the back room.

  “Not bad,” I glanced at Cal. “You’re starting to enjoy this detective work, aren’t you?”

  “As long as I’m out of the house, I’ll make the best of it,” Cal shrugged.

  Jack returned, smiling. “I told him I have a buyer interested in the card, so he said he’d come right down. You sure you don’t want the police here?”

  “I don’t think it’ll come to that,” I said. I looked all around the store, forming a plan in my mind. “Okay, this is what we’ll do.”

  An hour later, Barney Whitman sauntered into the store.

  “He’s here,” Jack whispered, poking his head in the back room, where Cal and I were quietly waiting.

  Cal nodded at me and dashed through a back door that led out to the alley. I edged up to
the inner door. Jack was talking to Barney.

  “It is a nice card,” he was saying.

  “Yeah,” Barney replied in his Bobby Darin voice. “So you can pay me cash, right?”

  “Yes,” Jack said. “It’s easier than messing with EBay.”

  “You got that right,” Barney said.

  “Where’d you get this card?” Jack asked. That was my cue.

  “I’ve had it around for-” Barney stopped when he saw me step into the room.

  “You’ve had it around?” I repeated. “Or you stole it?”

  “What are you doing here?” Barney snarled.

  “He knows you?” Jack’s eyes widened.

  “Uh huh.” I moved toward the display case, where Barney’s, or more correctly, Perry’s original card, lay in a clear plastic box. “How’d you steal it?”

  Barney snatched the box and whirled around, ready to bolt out the front door. But at that moment Cal opened the door. He stood with arms crossed, blocking the entrance. Barney took a step back and I grabbed the box out of his hand.

  Barney cursed at me.

  “Want to go to jail?” I held up the card. “Time to spill the beans or I call the cops.”

  Barney sighed and his shoulders drooped. “No cops, please.”

  “Start talking,” Jack squeaked. Whoa, what a threat, coming from Minnie Mouse.

  “Perry talks about that stupid card all the time. It was like his good-luck charm. Elvis and baseball, that’s what he loves. Before he went onstage, Perry would sing that Elvis song, ‘Good Luck Charm’ while holding the card. It was stupid, but Perry said it helped him to put on a stellar show.”

  Now I knew why Perry didn’t want to tell me why he kept the card at the club instead of safe at his house.

  Jack’s eyes darted between Barney and me, confused. “Who’s Perry?”

  “He’s an Elvis impersonator,” I said.

  “How did he know about the card?” Jack gestured at Barney.

  “Barney sings with Perry.” I turned back to Barney. “So you saw Perry get the card out of the safe.”

  Barney nodded.

  My mind raced back to the night we saw him perform. “The card tricks.” I paused. “You’re some kind of memory expert, right? You saw Perry dial the combination on the safe, didn’t you? And you memorized it.”