bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2001) — Fall 2001 // Automne 2001, pp. 41–43
She paused in the doorway, a tall silhouette out of Vogue by Charles Addams. “T,” she said. “R. U. B. B. E. L” Right away I knew: this dame spelled trouble. Her way. She had more curves than the Thomson Highway and a smile cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass walrus. Brushing the icicles from my snap-brim fedora, I ushered her into the office. “My name is … Wonderly,” she breathed. A whiff of belladonna went well with the deadly nightshade embroidered on her long black dress. I handed her my card. “SHAMUS DIKK, PI,“ she read out. “So, Dikk, what does PI stand for?” “My rates: $3.14159 a day plus expenses.” “Then you’re a pretty cheap detective,” she sneered. “Maybe yes, maybe no,” I said. Just then the voice of Effie, my secretary, came over the intercom. “Great news, boss. Your last expense claim has been short-listed for the Giller fiction prize.”
I moved around my desk and sat down. “What can I do for you, Miss Wonderly?” “Butt out of the Mumbles Morgan case.” I stormed to my feet. “Sorry sister, but I never rat out on a client. Maybe Mumbles isn’t the brightest light on the street, or the straightest arrow in the quiver. But I’ve taken his money and he gets the best I’ve got.” I pegged my cigarette hard and low into the corner, like they do in the movies. It ignited a dried-out palm. I guess Bogie never forgets to water his plants.
“It’s just a friendly word of advice,” she said. “But people will hurt you if you don’t take it.” Her eyes gleamed a little. “Look, lady,” I replied. “If you’ve spoken your piece, this conversation’s over” As I ushered her out, Effie walked into the anteroom. They looked at each other and smiled. The temperature dropped about twenty degrees and two loud clangs sounded from the alcove with my Inuit art collection. Wonderly had the edge overall, but Effie had longer gams and thicker lashes. He was also wearing a stunning knock-off of a Balmain party dress in scarlet.
Wonderly turned on a shapely heel and swept out as I restrained Effie. “Good work, boss,” he said. “You can’t let punks push you around. Especially one with such a bad dye job.” “Right,” I said, “but who the hell is Mumbles Morgan?” “Huh?” “I gave her that spiel on principle. I’ve never heard of the guy. But under sub-section 310(a) of the Mean Streets Code, you know what we’ve got to do.” “What?” Effie eagerly asked. “We have to find him anyway,” I said. “Get involved in a big case, probably murder-one. Go up against the mob and the cops. All ending in a big shoot-out where at least one good guy gets killed. Plus we never get paid because our client either goes toes-up himself or turns out to be the murderer.’ Effie nodded. “Oh, right, that sub-section. Where do we start?”
Damned if I knew. Fortunately, at that point a bird flew through the window — a large, black and white bird with a forked tail and a German sausage strapped to its back. “Mail’s in!” exclaimed Effie, deftly detaching the sausage, slicing it open and pulling out a small white card. On one side was the logo of my biggest client. On the other were scribbled the words ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’ below the drawing of a descending boot. A few minutes on the Internet and I had both the place to go and the routine to get in. “Let’s blow. Effie. A client’s in danger and this boot means we’ve got to step on it.’ I checked my automatic while Effie extracted the violin case from the shelf below his Edward G. Robinson shrine. Pausing only to douse the palm and toss a herring to the bird, we blew. I hailed a cab. “The old pajama factory, corner of Adler and Ross,” I told the driver. “Right,” he snapped and took off like a cockroach on speed. We moved to the next cab in the rank. This time we got in before giving directions.
We pulled up at the factory. A dusty sign spelled out Kuhl Pajamas. “Ridiculous,” snorted Effie. “Pajamas haven’t been cool since 1956.” The building was dark except for one light over a side entrance. I went through the secret routine and was admitted by a large man in a sharp black suit, nicely accessorized with matching silver pistols, both pointing in my direction. Before we had a chance to get to know each other, gunshots shattered the silence behind him. As he turned to look, I picked up a dusty bolt of flowered chenille from a nearby bin, brained him and wrapped him up like a mummy. The chenille clashed with his shirt, but he wasn’t in any shape to complain. Pocketing his guns and drawing my own, I stepped over him and onto the cutting room floor. There I found three more hoods, tied back-to-back. Seated behind them, calmly loading a revolver, was the sinister Miss Wonderly.
She snapped the cylinder closed and started to lift the gun from her lap. But I had the drop on her. “Damn,” she said. “I was sure you’d be diverted by that Code 310(a) ploy, Inexplicable Threat Involving a Character not Previously Introduced. Especially since there is no Mumbles Morgan.” I flashed her a grin. “Nice try, but over-ridden by Code section 778, Incomprehensible Emergency Message from a Client with Really Egregious Sideburns” She looked at me curiously. “But none of the Gang have big sideburns.” Clearly I was still missing something.
Just then Effie limped in, a broken spike-heeled shoe in one hand. “Sorry, boss, one of my stilettos got caught in a passing mugger.’ I was distracted for no more than a second, but I turned back to find a tall blond man standing beside Wonderly. It was .22 Tony McTeague, an eagle-eyed assassin with the brains of a warthog (who was suing to get them back). Tony bragged that he could shoot the whiskers off a gnat at 50 yards. Lately, there have been a lot more bald insects around town. Right now, his gun was pointing at me. Mine was still pointing at Wonderly. Standoff. Until Effie whipped open his violin case. “Look out boss,” Tony shouted, “he’s got a … violin?”
Effie lifted a bow to the strings. “You better believe it, buster. Now throw down your gat or I play my Concertino Tedioso in C-flat minor.” Wonderly shuddered, then tossed her piece into a nearby steam press. “Tve heard you play. I know when to fold.” “But boss,” pleaded Tony, who had been secretly taking tuba lessons, “there is no key of C-flat minor.” “Do you think that would stop him?” she snarled. The gunsel reluctantly dropped his revolver. Effie looked deeply disappointed. He didn’t get much chance to perform. I was deeply relieved. I’d heard him play that Concertino.
“So who are these bozos?” I asked Wonderly. “You really don’t know, do you,” she mused. “I was told you were on their side. I heard it through the grapevine.” “Then you’d better drop Marvin Gaye from your database, sweetheart, cause them and Mumbles are one to me.” I decided to take a chance. “Look, let’s pool our chips. My clients have heard that a certain Middle East leader is desperate to become cool, ’the mother of all hep-cats’. • He believes there’s something in this city that will do it for him, and he’s hired goons to get it. But we know diddley about the gadget or the gang.”
She thought a minute, then said, “OK, I’ll see you and raise. The gadget was in this factory. It was invented by my father in 1957 in an attempt to keep pajamas cool, but he disappeared before he could perfect it. The guys on the floor must be the mercenaries you heard about. They called themselves the Sun City Gang. Tipped off by the silent alarm we installed, Tony and I got here just as they were testing the device. With the guy you wrapped at the door, we nabbed four, but the leader got away — with the KuhlRay.” “What does it look like?” I asked. “Papa converted a small drop-press from the Cadillac production line,” she replied. Effie nodded. ’The ’57 Caddie was cool.” “Yes,” she agreed, “but the world was not yet ready for sheet-metal nightwear with fins.”
“Where was it kept?” I asked. “Maybe the head hood left a clue.” We followed Wonderly to the back of the building and through a door ripped from its hinges. Inside was the kind of laboratory where blondes wake up in a Karloff flick. Dust was everywhere, except in one corner, where a clean square in the floor confirmed a recent removal. Spotlighted behind the square were two frozen figures in matching outfits: maroon and yellow jackets to the knees, nine-inch lapels and pants that ballooned between a waistline under the armpits and legs cinched at the ankle. “Zoot suits! Way cool!” Effie exclaimed, and started snapping his fingers rhythmically. “A drape shape with a reet pleat and a tough cuff.. He withered under our combined glare.
I recognized the pair, barely. “These are my clients, Liebnitz and MacBannock,” I told the others. Wonderly nodded. “They’ve been exposed to the KuhlRay. It worked, for a change, but the process must have been interrupted. With the machine gone, the only thing that will bring them back is something so totally un-hip that the field collapses. But what? We don’t have time to find their parents.” Effie moaned. “Jeez, when that bird flew in with the sausage, I just knew things would take a tern for the wurst?”
I don’t know how he does it. He doesn’t know he’s doing it. But puns are certainly uncool. There was a loud ’clunk’ and a flash of light. When we could see, Liebnitz and MacBannock were themselves again: square but mobile. Liebnitz dusted off his fusty cardigan. It didn’t help. MacBannock nervously pulled at his muttonchop whiskers. Fakes, they came off in his hand, leaving livid patches of spirit gum and gravy. Only MacBannock would use real mutton.
Liebnitz turned to me. “Thanks for the rescue, Shamus. My undercover man, Felix Africa, sent us the ’Hernando’s Hideaway’ card, and we were searching the factory when a bunch of thugs broke in. We barricaded ourselves in the lab. I managed to get the card into the sausage and the bird out the window before they broke down the door, but then they trapped us and decided to use us as guinea pigs. After that, I remember nothing until you showed up.” I put him in the picture and told him that the leader of the mercenaries had escaped with the KuhlRay. “Fortunately,” said the ace logician, “Felix left us a full report here in the lab. Now where did I put that lasagna?” It was MacBannock who found a greasy take-out carton that had fallen behind a bench. “We’ve really got to find Felix a new cover-job,” he said. “I’ve gained five kilos since we slipped him into that deli.”
Liebnitz pulled a wad of waxy paper from the pasta and wiped it off. “Right, here’s Felix’s note on the members of the gang and the blank table into which the data fit.”
The Sun City Gang has despatched five of its members to get the KuhlRay. Imagine five photographs taken at night, one for each gang member, lined up in a row, number I to 5 from left to right. (You’ll have to imagine them, since the originals were inadvertently dissolved in a vat of pickled herring.) Each gang member has a different alias, nationality and ethnic group. Each picture was taken on a different date. Each gangster has planned his escape from a different city, by different means. In addition:
(1) The photos of DAVIS and the man from South Africa are at opposite ends of the row.
(2) The photo of the man planning to escape by balloon, the photo of WINDING and the photo taken on November 15 are adjacent in that order, left to right.
(3) The Dogon tribesman in photo #4 was born and brought up by emigrés in Argentina.
(4) The photo of the man planning to escape from Flin Flon is beside the photo of the man from Zimbabwe. (5) ROACH’s photo was taken the day after the photo of the Shona tribesman, #2. (6) The Nuer tribesman from Sudan plans to escape from Batoche.
(7) The Boer, Mulligan, plans to escape from Joe Batt’s Arm; his photo is immediately to the right of the one showing the man planning his escape from Tuktoyaktuk.
(8) The photo of the man planning to escape by dogsled was taken on November 7; it is directly between the one of the Ovambo tribesman and the one taken on November 22.
LEWIS’s photo, #3, is somewhere to the right of the photo of the man planning to escape from Arnprior. One of these men plans to escape by unicycle. (10) The photo of the man from Namibia and the photo of the man planning to escape in a Zodiac are both somewhere to the left of the photo of the man planning to escape on a pogo stick, which was taken on November 29.
The ace logician frowned. “The table’s easy enough to fill in, but where do we go from there?” Wonderly came up to him with the empty lasagna package. (By now, the contents were in Effie.) “There’s something faintly pencilled on the underside: Simon sub-Sahara: see www.friendsofcheese.com/scimusic/” she said. “The only other thing I remember is that they called their leader Joe.” After a few minutes on the Net via his wireless Palm Pilot, Liebnitz chuckled. “Typical of Felix not to give Ronstadt any credit. And you have to know that the full moons in November were on the first and the 29th. But I have enough to head the man off.”
Liebnitz turned to the phone to alert the border patrol. “Maybe we should let him get away,” Wonderly mused. “The KuhlRay is unpredictable. Given what it was based on, if the settings aren’t exactly right, your would-be hep-cat could wind up the mother of all hub-caps instead. Ah well. C’mon, Tony, nothing more for us here.” They strolled down the hall to the foyer. She stopped in front of an oil painting with a label reading ’Hermann de Kuhl’. It showed a short round man in Harris tweed pajamas and a propellor beanie. “Still looking for you, Papa,, “ she murmured. Suddenly I twigged. “If that’s your father, then you must be … Bertha de Kuhl, full-time ganglord and part-time anchovy importer.” “So think of me next time you order a pizza, peeper. Just don’t assume we’ll always be on the same side of the crust.” Recognizing an exit line, Tony shot out every light in the room (none of which were lit) and dashed out the door. Bertha followed him, gently shaking her head.
Can you duplicate Liebnitz’s feat by identifying the name used by the escaping leader, the city from which he intends to leave the country and the means he hopes to use? Not necessary for entering the contest, but can you (a) describe the routine used by Dikk to get into the factory; and (b) indicate how it is possible to keep tuba lessons secret? bout de papier will decide the winner by drawing from a box containing all correct entries received by April 15, 2002. The winner will receive a CD selected by A Aalto.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 18, No. 3 (2001) — Fall 2001 // Automne 2001, pp. 41–43. Read the rest of this issue →
