Curioddity

by Paul Jenkins

  * * *

  INSIDE THE lobby, Mr. Dinsdale and Mary Gold stood dwarfed by two very large men who—unless Wil missed his guess—were trying to behave like the kind of mobsters usually found in video games or on TV specials about the early days of Las Vegas. In between them—much to Wil’s amazement—stood a diminutive figure that Wil had never met before, and yet with whom he was all too familiar. Wil squinted, his eyes slightly dazzled by the diminutive man’s impossibly white teeth. What on Earth was noted TV pitchman Marcus James doing inside the Curioddity Museum?

  Wil’s smartphone buzzed inside his pocket. He retrieved it to find that SARA had switched herself on and was attempting to activate the phone’s camera function. And was no doubt gearing up to provide him with directions to a Bangkok drive-in. Before he had a chance to yell at his smartphone, the animated argument developing in front of him took a sinister turn.

  “I don’t care if you’ve been here since the invention of the sundial, Mr. Dinsdale, I’m afraid you’re going to have to accept it: this Museum is finished. In fact, judging by the poor state of your finances, it has been finished for a very long time. I’m just putting it out of its misery.”

  “But I need a little more time!”

  “So does a sundial. But the sun still sets every night, does it not?”

  Wil stepped toward the fray, trying to work out the logic behind Marcus James’s sarcastic comment. It was either unintentionally brilliant or downright idiotic. Whatever the case, Wil was not going to let the comment go unanswered. He might not have a firm grasp on extortionist vernacular but he knew a bully when he saw one.

  “But Mr. James, this building is owned outright by my family, and has been for nine generations,” said Mr. Dinsdale, despondently. “There’s no mortgage to pay.”

  “That’s well understood, Mr. Dinsdale. Unfortunately, the museum’s first curator—a Mr. Herbert Horatio Dinsdale—found himself behind on payments for an installation that occurred just after this city’s first electric lights were required by municipal code. He neglected to repay a compulsory surcharge on his late fee of”—Marcus James consulted a clipboard held up for him by one of his goons—“thirteen cents. Our records indicate that while he did pay his thirteen-cent late fee, the surcharge was subsequently ignored. And so you are looking at nine generations’ worth of compound interest at roughly thirty-three percent, carry the one and adding an additional surcharge for every subsequent late fee, which comes to”—Marcus James consulted the clipboard again—“$458,307,200.59. Payment of which is due in full by Saturday evening.”

  Mr. Dinsdale coughed. His hands began to flap of their own accord, giving him the appearance of an emotional swan. “Outrageous!” he exclaimed. “Preposterous!”

  One of Marcus James’s goons cracked his knuckles and took a step toward Mr. Dinsdale. In response, Mary Gold—who until now had been screaming silent invective in the direction of Marcus James’s forehead—moved directly in front of her employer and tried to stare the behemoth down. This did nothing to deter the goon: the enormous man simply thrust his chin out and took another very purposeful step toward Mary. Given Mary’s propensity for silent communication, this was obviously intended to send a message.

  Wil now stepped between the giant man and the combative-yet-far-smaller woman. He was unwilling to subject his already aching head to the whims of an angry human gorilla but even less willing to let Mr. Dinsdale and Mary Gold fall afoul of an undersized bully and his oversized muscle. For his entire life, Wil had always hated bullies, and he had always stood up to them. This had made him a frequent target during his formative years, and he had the bruises to prove it. Nevertheless, facing up to bullies had always been worth the risk. Always.

  Dinsdale, for his part, seemed mightily relieved that Wil had arrived. He shot the younger man an imploring look while Mary simply glowered at Marcus James’s head.

  “You may have noticed, Mr. Dinsdale,” continued Marcus James, his dazzling white smile resembling that of a well-appointed great white shark, “that your museum is situated between two very large banks. I am close personal friends with the manager of the one on your left.”

  “What about the other one?” replied Wil, inserting himself into the one-sided conversation.

  “I own it,” replied Marcus James. Without skipping a beat, the TV pitchman turned to face Wil and proffered a hand. “And you are…?”

  “I am, yes,” said Wil, ignoring the offered handshake.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t finish,” said James, without skipping the next beat as well. “That wasn’t a question, it was the beginning of a statement. You are Wil Morgan, insurance scam detective to the stars. One of my tenants at the Castle Towers, I believe. And you are three weeks behind on your rent.”

  Eschewing any further kind of beat skipping whatsoever, James turned his palm upward from its sideways position, as if to make it clear he demanded payment immediately. Much to his obvious surprise, Wil reached inside his pocket and withdrew the envelope full of money Mr. Dinsdale had given him a few days previously.

  “Of course,” Wil replied, never allowing his eyes to leave Marcus James’s. “Here’s your payment in full, plus next month’s rent in advance. Now about some of the issues we’ve been having with the elevators…”

  Marcus James’s façade crumbled a few inches, his fake grin morphing into a not-so-fake grimace. Having no choice but to continue in the direction he’d pointed everyone, he took the money and handed it, without looking, to one of his goons.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “As a matter of fact there is. They smell like rat vomit. That leads me to suspect we have a rat infestation. I’m sure the building codes have all sorts of clauses dealing with that sort of thing. Since I’ve been a tenant I’ve requested repeatedly that they be replaced or cleaned properly. Now they just smell like rat vomit and bleach.”

  “I’m sure the superintendent—”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t finished,” said Wil, smiling sweetly. “I have also been the recipient of one of your products—the Air-Max 2000 golf club. I neither ordered such a product nor have any use for such a product. Nevertheless, one was delivered to my office address a couple of years ago. No matter how many times I tried to return it, it was repeatedly sent back to me along with some very threatening letters demanding payment. I’m afraid this is in complete contradiction to the claims made on your many TV specials on the Shopping Network.”

  “Well, I can hardly be expected to deal with product returns personally, Mr. Morgan. You’ll have to contact our customer service department.”

  “On the contrary, Mr. James, your TV pitch specifically states that you personally stand behind every product that you made. So I’m addressing it personally with you.”

  “Then I assure you personally,” replied Marcus James, his eyes narrowing dangerously, “that your money will be refunded.”

  “I don’t want a refund,” replied Wil, evenly. “I’d like an upgrade.”

  * * *

  MARCUS JAMES shuffled nervously, and looked to his goons for validation. “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “You’ll notice, Mr. James, that I’ve handed you an extra twenty dollars in addition to my rent. That’s the exact amount required for postage and packaging on the free upgrade for the Air-Max 3000 driver, which is what I want.”

  “Well, if you insist—”

  “Now I have just a couple of questions about that. Shouldn’t be too difficult to answer if you’re going to stand behind your products as you claim on TV.”

  Marcus James’s eyes narrowed even tighter than before, giving him the semblance of a man who’d either just walked out of a smoky bar or just walked into a metal one, accidentally. “What kind of questions?” he asked, carefully. Clearly, he was beginning to get the picture that Wil was not a man to be trifled with. Nearby, the two goons began to shuffle, nervously.

  “There’s one thing that’s been puzzling me about the Air-Max 2000,” continu
ed Wil, never allowing his eyes to leave Marcus’s for a split second. “You stated it was a pinnacle of golf club technology that could never be surpassed. And then you came out with the Air-Max 3000.”

  “Yes.”

  “New and improved.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Then it wasn’t, was it?”

  “Wasn’t what?”

  “A pinnacle. If it had been, you wouldn’t have been able to improve it.”

  Marcus James looked puzzled. It was beginning to dawn on him that he’d just walked right into a rather scruffy and beleaguered trap but a trap nonetheless. Behind Wil, Mary Gold looked on triumphantly and smacked her bubble gum in Marcus James’s direction.

  Having succeeded with his curveball, Wil now decided to press the attack with a changeup.

  “I think you misunderstand the concept of a pinnacle, Mr. James. If you’re already at the summit, then any further claims of improvement would have to defy gravity to keep going upward. Like, I suppose, a flight of fancy. This golf club of yours … it doesn’t contain levity, does it?”

  Behind Wil, Mr. Dinsdale erupted with a spluttering sound that could roughly be equated to a nine-year-old who’d just seen his teacher split his pants and then thought better of laughing about it. Mary Gold burst into a fit of silent, emotionless giggles. Marcus James also stood silently, unable to form a coherent response. If Wil was as sharp as a tack in this moment, then Marcus was most definitely the balloon in the balance of things.

  “Also,” said Wil, pressing onward, “I just want to get your assurance that you’ll stand by your guarantees regarding the newer model.”

  “Naturally.”

  “So I have your personal guarantee that I’ll drive it as long and straight as the pros? Even though I’ve never taken a golf lesson in my entire life? Because I’d hate to think that that very attractive proposition is nothing more than an outrageous claim designed to pull in cheap money from unsuspecting and desperate amateur golfers the world over.”

  “Of course.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “You will.”

  * * *

  AT THIS very moment—and as if taking a cue from Mary Gold—the world about Wil seemed to go very silent indeed. Marcus James may have been about to concede this initial battle but the war was only just getting underway.

  The TV pitchman leaned in toward Wil, and smiled the smile of a Vegas gambler who has paid a lot of money to a lot of people and knows the outcome of a professional sporting event before it has ever been played.

  “You’re going to lose, Mr. Morgan,” he hissed, angrily. His oh-so-white teeth glittered, unnaturally. “You’re going to put your head in a dangerous place and it’s going to come off, accidentally.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” replied Wil in a hushed tone intended only for his adversary. “I think I’m doing pretty well so far. I’ve already made you blush twice.”

  “Don’t get used to catching me off guard because it won’t happen again. Those are just one-offs.”

  “Both of them are one-offs?”

  “Don’t get clever with me.”

  “I’m trying not to, Mr. James. But you’re not making it easy.”

  Marcus James leaned in even closer—to a position so dangerously close to Wil’s chin that had Wil not shaved that morning they would have touched. “Let me tell you how it’s going to work, Mr. Insurance Scam Investigator: I’m going to tell you you’ll get a refund for your golf club, and you won’t get one. And you’re going to complain for two years, and I’m going to keep sending you threatening letters and adding surcharges that you can’t keep track of, until you lose interest in standing up to me.”

  “That sounds like a threat, Mr. James.”

  “And when you lose interest, I’ll still be chasing mine. And I’ll have my debt collectors take you to court. And I will own you, as I own all of my so-called customers. Because I make money the old-fashioned way: I steal it.”

  * * *

  FEELING SLIGHTLY unclean in such proximity to someone so dirty, Wil took a step backward.

  “Well, I think we understand each other, Mr. James. I’m sure you have a busy day ahead of you. For one thing, you have to make sure you fix the smell in the Castle Tower elevators. By the way, your limousine is double-parked. Have a wonderful day.”

  “Likewise, I’m sure.”

  Marcus James moved away toward the exit, flanked by two hulking-yet-confused goons who’d just witnessed a mugging that neither of them quite understood. After spending just a moment too long staring Wil in the eyes, the TV pitchman gestured to his two men to follow, and turned his attention in the direction he was rapidly headed—specifically, somewhere else.

  Mr. Dinsdale clapped, excitedly. Mary Gold’s body language said a few rude things in the direction of Marcus James’s shoulder blades. For once, Wil was inclined to agree with her.

  “Oh, Wil,” exclaimed Dinsdale. “That was tremendously well played!”

  “I’m going to find out which bank that guy owns,” said Wil. “I’m not going to deposit any money in it but it might be a good place to deposit the contents of my bladder. Can you believe someone like that even exists?”

  “Sadly, yes. And unfortunately, he knows that I exist, and that I own a piece of prime real estate that he would like to turn into an additional wing of his bank—”

  Mr. Dinsdale paused suddenly as over at the door, a small commotion ensued. Marcus and his men had become briefly entangled in the revolving door and were yelling at each other. Moments later, having extricated themselves, they plopped out on the sidewalk and stumbled toward Marcus’s waiting limousine.

  As Wil watched them head away, one of the wooden crates in the lobby moved in the area of his peripheral vision. He smiled, and looked in the direction of the box. Only to find himself confronted by Mary Gold.

  The strange woman looked at Wil in a combative and unfriendly fashion, and smacked out a huge wad of bubble gum that burst perfectly back into her mouth.

  “You did okay,” said Mary Gold with an intonation that seemed to also say she had forgiven him for any imaginary transgressions she was expecting him to perform. Terrified, Wil looked toward the museum’s curator, only to find Dinsdale still staring toward the street with a satisfied smile on his weathered face. As Wil looked back to Mary, she abruptly leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek before gliding away as quickly as possible.

  Wil rubbed the lipstick from his cheek. It didn’t stand much of a chance of coming off, preferring instead to smudge across the back of his hand.

  “He’ll be back,” said Dinsdale, calmly. “But he’ll probably think twice about causing trouble when I have crack detective Wil Morgan on the case!”

  “So he’s repossessing you?” asked Wil with genuine concern. “Can he do that?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know,” replied Dinsdale, rubbing his chin. “We’ve been fighting his lawyers for years now. He owns one of the largest law firms in the country. He uses his trained attorneys to fight all of the claims against his products. That’s why he always wins.”

  “It’s about time someone put a stop to it,” said Wil. “I had no idea.”

  “If you ask me, the man’s a menace to society. The bigger and more corrupt he gets, the easier it is for his corporation to become bigger and more corrupt. I sometimes wonder if it all won’t just explode in a big bubble of corruption.”

  “Can’t you call the police? I overheard the guy saying you owe him four hundred million dollars to pay off a thirteen-cent tab. That sounds a bit implausible.”

  The older man sighed. “That’s a logical path I’ve already been down, Wil. It’s bordered by a mass of sharp shrubs that have created a very thorny problem for me over the years.”

  “Why so?”

  “Because James may be right. We can’t tell. I have just one lawyer on retainer—my cousin Engelbert—and he’s really just a part-time insurance adjuster who does legal work on the side. E
very time Engelbert asks to see the original thirteen-cent bill next to the request for a surcharge, Marcus James’s army of attorneys slap a pile of injunctions and motions to suppress. Each one is so expensive to remove that we’re being ground into submission.”

  “That’s completely unfair.”

  “If I thought life was supposed to be fair and balanced,” said Mr. Dinsdale with a rueful look in his eye, “I would have owned half of Marcus James’s bank by now for all the trouble he’s caused me. Now, what brings you here? Have you made any progress in your search for my Levity box?”

  Mr. Dinsdale looked pointedly at the mother-of-pearl-inlaid box tucked under Wil’s arm.

  * * *

  THE OLD man’s sudden change of direction—moving from a train of thought to a slightly uneven line of questioning—startled Wil momentarily. He’d been expecting the unexpected ever since he’d set out through the teeth of a Thursday-morning gale toward the Curioddity Museum. Nevertheless, he had not fully been able to predict the unpredictable. And so with the practiced ease of a man who has spent years lying to father figures, Wil tried to change the subject.

  “What happened to the sign at the end of the street?” he asked, pretending to be interested in something inhabiting the vague direction of the museum’s exit. “I thought it was supposed to be Mons Street.”

  “I took your advice, Wil. That old sign seemed to be confusing everyone so we had a man come around from the local department of public works. But I think we’ll have to ask him to come back. It’s worse now than it was before. The new sign’s harder to un-look for than the old one.”

  “Why do people have to un-look for it? Can’t they just look for it?”

  “Where would be the fun in that?” The old man seemed genuinely enthused now that Marcus James was temporarily out of the picture. “And besides, un-looking for Upside-Down Street gets our patrons in the exact mood we need them to be to view the exhibits properly.”

  “But the only way to read the sign is to turn your head upside down. Aren’t you afraid people will crash their cars?”