“It has no monetary value, as you have guessed,” he said “but it was my family’s most prized possession. It belonged to my grandfather. Get it back for me and you can name your own price.”
I thought about his story, and consulted my notes. I realized I couldn’t read my notes, and had forgotten most of his story.
Sometimes my clients have to explain their problems to me more than once. I don’t charge them for that. It’s part of the service, I figure. If the case is really complicated, I might ask a smarter detective, or the guy who runs the elevator, to sit in and simplify the whole thing for me. You can’t be vain about these things. You can only bluff your client for so long, then you have to admit you didn’t understand what he was talking about and you’ve forgotten his name, and to please start again. And the longer you put off admitting it, the madder he’s going to be. I made Mandible run through his story again. He was mad, but like I said not as mad as he would have been later.
I studied the picture of the figurine he’d given me. “I could probably find your house easier.”
“Just the figurine, Mr. Burly. Find that and you’ll have earned your fee.”
“Who do you suspect? Who steals from you normally?”
He said his family had always had trouble with a group of idle low-lives called “poor people”. Ever since Mandible Manor was built poor people had been plaguing it; squatting on the extensive grounds, stealing fruit from the trees, and so on. Some of them even lived in the walls of the manor itself. You could hear them at night, sometimes, when they scuttled out to play the piano.
“It might have been one of them. Or it could have been one of those pest control people I bring in periodically to spray for poor people. Or it could have been just a common burglar. But that’s what I’m paying you to find out.”
I closed my notebook and told him I’d get right on it. But I figured I’d better be honest with the man. You’ve got to have a bond of mutual trust with your client.
“I’ve got to warn you,” I warned him, “I’m a pretty lousy detective, all things considered. I mean, I don’t know if things like that matter to you, but I stink.”
He said he knew that before he came up here. No decent detective would take a case like this. He had already asked them. And they had already said no. So he had to take what he could get. He dug into his smelly pocket and pulled out his squalid checkbook. He tore off a check that had flies buzzing around it and handed it to me.
“I’m giving you a blank check.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have any money in the bank. But I will soon. Don’t worry about the money. Just get going and solve this case. In fact, here are five more blank checks. That’s how important this case is.”
I agreed to take the case and tossed the blank checks in a drawer. I didn’t have any other clients at the moment, and I didn’t think my stomach could take another bodyguard job right now. Maybe this would turn into something.
Mandible left as regally as he had entered. I put on my hat, got my gun and notepad and headed for the door to see what kind of a start I could make on this case. My secretary watched me go, suspiciously.
“You’re not going to be fooling around with any of those criminal women are you?” she asked.
I told her that wasn’t too likely the way my day was going, but she would be the third to know.
CHAPTER THREE
Every detective has his own methods for solving a case, but for me it’s mostly just legwork. When I first became a detective I had tried solving crimes the way mystery writers do: coming up with the solution to the crime first, then working back to the point where you don’t know what the hell is going on. But for some reason every time I tried that I ended up locked in a closet. So now I just solve crimes the old fashioned way - I walk there.
The first person I went to see was a fence I knew named Frank. Frank the Fence, we used to call him. Then we’d laugh a little, because there were two “F”s in there. He never got the humor of it. It was easier to track him down than usual because instead of operating out of a dimly lit back room somewhere, or from a slowly moving automobile, he had a big neon sign over his downtown showroom that said “Frank’s Fencing Service. We Pay Cash For Stolen Merchandise”. That seemed a bit brazen to me, but I guessed that he knew what he was doing, and that the cops didn’t.
I walked in, waited while Frank haggled with a bank robber over the value of a teller’s window, then I asked Frank if he’d handled any worthless figurines lately. He asked me how stupid I thought he was. I told him and we stared at each other for awhile. Then he checked in the back.
“Just these,” he said.
He had a couple of Maltese Falcons, but that was about all. I thanked him for his time, reminded him that trafficking in stolen goods was illegal, wiped his spit from my eye, then went on my way.
Then I checked the pawnshops around town. Stolen merchandise often ends up in such places, despite the laws that discourage that. But the results I got were invariably disappointing. I would describe what I was looking for, they would listen, nod, then excitedly show me some second hand luggage and meerschaum pipes. I got the feeling they were more interested in making a sale than in helping me out. It’s a sad commentary on something. Money money money, when will we ever learn?
During my visits to the pawnshops I noticed a lot of valuable merchandise was circulating around the city these days. A lot more than normal. Every shop seemed to be loaded with rare coins, old paintings, and all kinds of valuable collectibles. I asked the proprietors where all the good stuff came from and they got real excited and tried to sell me that luggage again, so I left. I don’t want any luggage. I thought I had made that clear.
Even though Mandible had told me that his missing figurine had no intrinsic value, I thought I should check that out. So I went to several art galleries and showed the proprietors the picture Mandible had given me. They all made the same raspberry sound I had made, so that settled that.
I also made discrete inquiries about Mandible himself. It’s important to know if your client has been telling you the whole truth. Because one of the things he’s been telling you is that he’s going to pay you. So I checked out his story. I got the same answer everywhere I went. People had seen Mandible around, but nobody could remember him ever being rich. He had always just seemed like a tramp to them.
I decided I’d better take a look at the house he said he had lived in. He said it was called Mandible Manor and was on top of the biggest hill in town. That should be easy to find, I thought confidently, even for a detective of my caliber. I got in my car and drove up there.
The gate didn’t say Mandible Manor. It said Pellagra Place. And it looked like that name had been on the gate for a long time. I was familiar with the Pellagra crime family. Strictly minor leaguers, I had always thought. But that didn’t fit with what I was seeing here.
I knocked on the door and asked to see the head of the house. The butler looked me over in that snooty way butler’s have, put his gun away, and told me to wait. A few minutes later Big Al Pellagra came to the door and asked what I wanted.
I told him what Mandible had told me. Pellagra frowned. He said he had never heard of a guy by that name and, more than that, he had never heard of me either. This guy had never heard of anybody. He said his family had always owned this place – everybody knew that - and I should get lost. I agreed I probably should. It would be best for everybody.
I went back to see Mandible at the address he had given me. It wasn’t so much an address as a couple of cross streets. I found him sitting in a gutter, accosting passersby.
“Spare change, peasant? Oh it’s you, Burly. Have you found out anything? Do you have a theory?”
“Yes, I’m working on the theory that you’re a nut. I not only haven’t found your figurine, I’m beginning to doubt there ever was one. I think that figurine of yours is one of those things people have in their minds, but it isn’t anywhere else. And I’ve been che
cking around about you too. Nobody in town ever heard of you being anything but a tramp. Some added descriptive adjectives like ‘stinky’.”
Then I told him about my visit to “Mandible Manor”, and how I’d discovered that it was actually named “Pellagra Place”, and had been named that since it was built 60 years ago.
Mandible got pretty angry at this. “I specifically told you to confine your investigations to the figurine. You’ve exceeded your authority! Disobeyed instructions! Violated confidences!”
“Well I’m sorry.”
“You’ll be sorrier still if you disobey my instructions again. Now get back to work. And make sure you follow my orders to the letter this time.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just resign from this case. I don’t need your money that much, especially since it’s so imaginary.”
His tone changed immediately. “You can’t quit. I need you. No one else will help me because I have no money to offer them and my story is so preposterous. You’re my only chance. I need help. My family needs help.”
He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. I saw a group of snooty looking tramps eyeing me coldly.
“My daughter used to be the #6 ranked debutant in the city,” he said. “She was fondled by Presidents. Now she counts herself lucky when she gets slobbered on by a garbage man. If you won’t continue on this case for my sake, do it for hers.”
I looked over at his daughter. She gave me the finger. I didn’t really feel like doing anything for this family. I told Mandible so. He couldn’t believe it. It was the most amazing thing he’d ever heard. The most astounding thing anyone had ever said. He couldn’t believe he had heard me right. I told him he had. Now he couldn’t believe that! This guy was making me tired.
“Thanks for the afternoon’s entertainment,” I said. “I’ll flush a copy of my bill down the toilet. You should be getting it in a couple of days.”
I left. Behind me I could hear the protesting Mandible taking out his fury on a nearby dog turd.
I started heading for home. I had decided to call this case “The Case Of The Lying Tramp”. Halfway down the street I spotted a small time crook I knew named Small-Time Charlie. He was walking down the street carrying a briefcase. I wondered about this, because criminals do not generally carry briefcases. It doesn’t match the rest of their costume. I wondered if this was some new fad, like when criminals briefly went to the see-through mask.
While I was watching him he looked around to make sure no one was watching him, then ducked into a telephone booth. It shimmered for a second and went out of focus, then returned to normal.
The door opened and Small-Time Charlie came out. He was carrying a bag stuffed with money and had a Van Gogh under his arm. He looked around to make sure he still wasn’t being observed, then hurried down the street. This got me curious. Small Time Charlie had gotten his name from the small crimes he specialized in. A big day for him was when he stole enough to stay alive. He had started out stealing things from people’s garbage cans and then hiding them in the dump. He stopped doing it when the city started paying him for it. Seeing him making big scores like this was intriguing to me. So I followed him.
I kept about a block or so behind him all the way to the seedy hotel where he lived, gave him a couple minutes to drag the loot up to his room, then followed him up and knocked on the door.
“Nobody home,” he called.
I thought about this. “Then who is talking to me?”
“The answering machine. Beat it, Burly.”
The hinges on those old hotel doors are no match for the old Burly Shove. I forced open the door and ambled in.
“Hi, Charlie. I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d drop by and nose around your home. See what I could find.”
He was hanging up the Van Gogh next to a print of dogs cheating at cards.
“You can’t just barge into people’s happy hotel rooms like this. I got rights.”
“I know. I just want to see what else you’ve got.”
I gave the place the old Burly Onceover. It was obvious that Charlie had been doing very well since I saw him last. His cheap room was filled with valuable antiques and bales of cash. There were fancy paintings on the wall. I looked closer at one of them. It showed an old lady sitting in a chair.
“Did you paint this?” I asked. “Because it’s good.”
“Yeah, I painted it last night. So what? Get outta here. You ain’t invited to as many places as you show up.”
There was a brass plate attached to the frame that said “Whistler’s Mother”.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “This is Whistler’s Mother!”
“Used to be, maybe. It’s my mother now.”
Along with the paintings, there were also a number of diplomas on the walls from major universities issued in the name of “Professor Groggins”, which Charley informed me was his nom de college, the name he used when he graduated from colleges. It surprised me to find out that he was a learned man. I sat down on a small stack of gold bars and looked through some photo albums he had on a coffee table.
“These pictures of you?”
“Sure,” he said. “Why? Don’t they look like me?”
“Not really. They look more like an older, taller, different man.”
He glanced at the pictures. “Those were taken back when I was different.”
That didn’t make sense, but it followed. I put the photo album down.
“Where’d you get all this money all of a sudden, Charlie? And if you’ve got so much money, why are you still living in this dump?”
“What do you mean? This is a great room. What’s wrong with it? It’s great.” He looked around the room, suddenly not sure.
I kept questioning him for awhile, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. He had an answer for everything, even if most of the answers were “none of your business, Burly” or “you already asked that, stupid”. So I decided to cuff him around a little and see if that would shake any information loose. It’s said that the first person who raises a hand in violence is the person who’s run out of ideas. That’s usually me. I run out of ideas fast. Violence I’ve got plenty of. While I was shaking him I threatened to call the police if I didn’t get some answers that were more useful and less insulting to me personally.
“Go ahead and call them,” he said. “I don’t care. In fact, I’ll call them myself.”
He shook himself loose from my grasp, picked up the phone, and called the police. I confess this maneuver surprised me. I wasn’t sure what my next move should be, so I pretended to look at some of the paintings on the walls, making what I hoped were intelligent sounding comments.
Five minutes later the cops arrived, listened to my story, then invited us both downtown to sort the matter out there, where they had better lighting and more ways to make people talk.
CHAPTER FOUR
Everything should have been great once we got to the police station. The police and I are on the same side in the fight for truth and justice. Teammates. Like ham and eggs. But I didn’t like the way things were going this time. They had me in the interrogation room, where they were beating the stuffings out of me with their billy clubs. Meanwhile, Small-Time Charlie was behind the one-way glass watching me being interrogated and wearing an honorary police chief’s hat.
“What do you want me to tell you?” I asked one of the cops.
“We want you to tell us how much this hurts.”
They pounded me some more, then conferred. One of the cops said: “This is definitely the billy club for me, the Riot-King. I like the grip.”
“I think I still prefer the Lump Master,” said the second cop.
“Let me try that one again.”
They beat me for a little longer, then tried out various truth serums on me. ”Which truth serum tastes better?” asked one.
“It’s hard to say,” I said. “They’re both so awful. This one, I guess.”
“He’s lying, Lieutenant.
”
They worked me over a little longer – trying out various brands of tear gas and suspect kicking boots on me – you can’t beat that kind of “in the field” testing - then they spent a half hour pushing me off the tops of file cabinets. I don’t know what that was about. I would have broken down and talked after awhile, but, like I said, they didn’t seem to want to know anything. So I confined my comments to the occasional request that they quit it.
Finally they told me that Charlie had declined to press charges on the breaking and entering, so I was free to go. This was good news. I’m always glad to be free to go. But the way I’d been treated kind of stuck in my craw a little bit. There was part of a police pencil stuck in there too. As they were returning my possessions to me and processing me out, I took the opportunity to complain to the desk sergeant about the treatment I had received.
“The arresting officers didn’t even read me my rights,” I complained. “They just stapled them to my forehead.”
The desk sergeant looked at me for a long moment. “That’s awful,” he said finally. “I blame myself.”
Detecting a sympathetic ear, I started showing him some of my bruises. He made a slight motion with his head and two policemen walked up to me. I started showing them my bruises.
I picked myself up off the pavement in front of the police station and started limping home. I couldn’t figure out why Charlie – clearly the bad guy here - had gotten such good treatment while I – the good man - had been knocked all over the lot. I also wondered where the police got all those valuable paintings they had on the walls. And where some of the policemen got those top hats they were wearing. The whole thing was a mystery to me. But then, most things are. I guess it’s lucky for me I’m a detective.
As I was walking along puzzling about this, an elevator suddenly appeared on the street, I heard a small ding, the doors opened, and a bunch of crooks ran out of it at full speed carrying armloads of loot. Now there’s something you don’t see everyday, I thought. This, I felt, was something that should be looked into.
The Time Machine Did It Page 2
