Taco Noir (14 page)

              “That’s quite an eye you’re sporting,” said Throaty, nodding her head towards my shiner.

              “This old thing? It’s nothing,” I countered, opening a pad of paper in the pretense of professionalism. “Cut myself shaving this morning. What can I do for you?”

              The red-head told me her name was Wanda Tate, and that she was the daughter of a Dr. Martin Tate, a well-known researcher and inventor. I had never heard of either of them and I suspected that well-known researchers and inventors didn’t really exist. Since it’s bad business to call clients liars to their faces, I pretended to write all this down. Besides, with my luck, she just might belt me one.

              “Dear old dad sounds swell,” I said. “Where do I come in?”

              “I’m here because dad disappeared last night. This morning I found his laboratory in disarray. Equipment had been smashed, files were rifled through, and the desk drawers were pulled out and smashed to pieces.” I assumed that all this wasn’t a bad housekeeping day and that someone had given the lab a ‘once over.’

              “And you think that someone made off with the old man?”

              “I don’t know,” said Wanda as tears began to seep from her forest green eyes and made their way down the labyrinth of freckles that dotted her cheeks. I knew in that very moment that I would be taking her case, because I’m that kind of stupid. “I don’t have anyone to turn to….”

              I gave Wanda Tate the standard “chin up” speech that all detectives hand to their weeping clients. I think it came from a dime-store comic book. I told Wanda that it was hopeful that there hadn’t been any note or mention of ransom. I had no idea if this was true, but it sounded good. You should never tell a client that you don’t have a clue as to how to proceed on a case. Page fifteen of the handbook is very clear on this.

              My client told me that she had spoken to the police shortly after she left her father’s lab. The police did their due diligence, patiently listening, filling out a report, and efficiently filing it. I appreciated the effort on Wanda’s part. It saved me the time and effort of visiting the precinct house and having the cops make fun of me.

              I told her that I would give Pop Tate’s lab and office the once over and poke around as to his whereabouts. I wished her a good night before I took my steak out of my office drawer and properly wrapped it up. I made a brief stop at my apartment to toss the steak into my icebox before I checked the local hospitals and morgues. That’s page eighty-seven of the handbook. Never tell clients that you are looking in the morgue for their loved ones.

              I came up snake eyes with the hospitals and morgue, so I headed to the lab and it was every bit as bad as reported. There were shards of beakers, test tubes, and science whatsis all over the place, and the good doctor’s files took up whatever space on the floor the equipment missed. The couch cushions had been torn open and ripped apart, the file cabinets pulled away from the walls, and the vents had been removed. It wasn’t an amateur job. Someone had given the place a methodical going over, and it looked as if they had come up short. Since I couldn’t do any more damage to this dump, I made the trek uptown to Tate’s apartment.

              The Tate residence was in similar condition, drawers pulled out and cabinets thrown this way and that, but the closets were bare and the suitcases were gone. A quick check revealed that the doctor’s toothbrush, shaving kit, and most of his personal possessions had disappeared as well. The only thing left were some pictures on his desk of him on the college swim team and of him on a sailboat. Everything else was either broken or gone.

              I spoke to a few of his neighbors, at least those who were willing to answer questions from a guy sporting a shiner. They told me that the doctor had kept to himself and they had only known him well enough for the odd ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ They told me that they had heard a racket coming from his place the other night, but when I asked if anyone called the cops, they looked at me as if I were trying to convert them to religion. I asked if they recalled meeting the doctor’s daughter, but my dime had apparently run out because the door slammed in my face.

              All in all, it looked as if I had struck out without swinging. I decided to call it a night.

              It rained on the way, because it always rains when detectives walk to their office at night. See page eighty-one. By the time I got their I was drenched, tired, hungry, and my eye throbbed. I was beginning to think that my mother was right. Maybe orthodontia WAS the way to go. I took out my key and started to open my door and then I froze.

              I keep a small piece of thread draped over the top of my door whenever I leave my apartment. I do this so that when I get back I can tell if someone has let themselves in during my absence. And before you ask, this was page seventy-three, but in the Scout’s Handbook. I let out a breath, drew my revolver from my shoulder holster, slid my key silently into the lock, and prepared to greet my guest.

              I threw open the door and aimed my gun with one hand while I flipped on the lights with the other. Caught like deer in headlights were two palookas in the process of redecorating my office in the same style that had graced Doctor Tate’s place.

              Both apes wore dark suits with long coats and fedoras.  The one furthest from me, the younger of the two, was in the middle of going through my desk and looked like a disobedient kid who had just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The other mug was going through my files, and from his language I figured he must have spent some time in the navy. I waved the gun towards the ceiling and they reached for it.

              “I appreciate the hard work, boys,” I told them as I waved them towards the far corner of the small office, “but I was hoping for a colonial décor.” I reached for the phone, keeping one eye as well as my gun pointed at my guests. I started to call for the cops when one of the monkeys found his voice.

              “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said the lead ape, the one who had cursed when I opened the door.

              “I hope you weren’t planning on an evening of ghost stories and hair braiding.”

              “We’re feds,” said the palooka. I looked at the other mug, but he was still staring at his shoes, looking like a puppy that just got the business end of a newspaper.

              “Okay, big guy,” I told the lead palooka. “Prove it. But go nice and slow.” He started to reach into his lapel before I stopped him. “Only two fingers better go inside that lapel, or none are coming out.”

              He slowly reached into his jacket and brought out a wallet, holding it between his thumb and index finger. Looking at me for permission, he opened it up to show me his credentials.

              “Is that good enough, tough guy?” he asked me. I told him to hand me his wallet so I could have a look, and I examined his ID as if I could tell if it were a forgery. It wasn’t issued by Ovaltine, so I gave it back to him and lowered my gun.

              “G-Men,” I said with disgust. “Do you feds usually make it a habit of going through honest folk’s property?”

              “Honest folk, no,” said Agent Whoever, obviously the leader of the duo. “Mugs like you are fairer game than most.” Behind him, the younger agent was looking at me through narrow eyes, obviously in an attempt to let me know that J. Edgar’s boys didn’t like to be trifled with. His face was still red with anger and his freckles glowed. I resisted the urge to tousle his hair and dealt with his boss.

              “So what is it you’re looking for?” I asked. “And please answer my question before I ask either of you goons to show me some kind of warrant.” The ring leader gritted his teeth a moment and sighed.

              “We’re looking for some papers regarding a… detection device,” said the big guy. The kid continued to try and burn holes through me with his eyes. “We’ve got the inventor of the dingus on ice, and most of his papers as well, but there are a few items that we need to run down.”

              “I put two and two together, and the result comes up ‘classified.’ You’ve got most of old Doc Tate’s plans for a secret radar doohickey, and the old man himself, but the old boy can’t remember some of his mojo and you thought I might have it.” I watched the junior G-men’s mouths drop open. There’s nothing like getting one over on the feds to make a gumshoe feel superior.  When the boys composed themselves, their eyes told me that I might be put on ice right next to Doc Tate. I held up my hands in defense.

              “I might happen to know which Cracker Jack box the prize is in, but you gotta fill me in on a little of the good doctor’s family life.” The younger fed looked as if he wanted to introduce me to his handcuffs, but his boss’ cooler head prevailed.

              “Uncle Sam doesn’t make a habit of playing ball with small time operators like yourself,” said the senior agent.

              “Yeah, Uncle Sam does have that reputation. But if you CAN find it in your heart to play ball with me, I think I can put a bow on all this for you.”

              The senior agent sighed and nodded to his partner. Junior closed the drawer he had been rummaging through and Senior pulled out a chair and sat down. I walked over to the hotplate, put on some water for coffee, and we settled down for a nice little chat.

              I called the number that Wanda had given me and told her to meet me at my office that evening at seven. I gave her the good news that I had found Daddy Dearest and all the information was wrapped up in a dossier for her, available to her as soon as she paid my fee. The bad news for her was that the fee had ballooned up a bit, to around two grand. She balked in that throaty voice I had grown so fond of, but eventually she agreed to meet me at seven.

              Around six-fifteen I heard a rattling of my office doorknob, followed by the gentle clicking of the lock. The door eased open a crack, and the barrel of a revolver snuck through the opening. The chair behind my desk faced towards the window, as if I were watching the rain. A shot rang out, the bullet hitting the hat that peeked over the top of my chair.

The bullet found a home in the stack of books that sat on my chair, keeping the hat aloft.

“Federal Agents!” barked the boys, rushing in from the office across the hall behind the lovely Miss Tate. The senior agent liberated the pistol from her hand as Junior pulled her hands together and accessorized her pearl necklace with a pair of Uncle Sam’s finest steel bracelets.

“What is going on?” gasped the lovely Wanda as she was wrapped up by our nation’s finest. “How dare you…?”

“Lock you up for trying to kill yours truly?” I asked, walking behind my desk to retrieve my hat. I held the hat in front of my face and looked through the hole in the crown. While it wouldn’t work for winter, it was freshly air conditioned for spring.

“It started when I went looking for your ‘father.’ I went through his lab, his papers, his apartment, and I couldn’t find a hint as to who made off with the old boy. It wasn’t until I met up with the men from Good Humor here in my office that I finally discovered that the feds had swooped in and whisked the good doctor off to an undisclosed location.”

“Do you really have to explain all this?” snarled the senior agent as he force-fed the woman I knew as Wanda Tate her rights. From the way she was dragging her feet and the European curse words flying from her mouth, I didn’t think that she was interested in remaining silent.

“I only want my moment in the sun,” I told the G-man. “Besides I have to tell ‘Wanda’ here how I figured out that she wasn’t the good Doctor’s daughter.”

“Fine,” said Dick Tracy. “Just make it snappy!”

“It was the doctor’s desk in the lab that first clued me in,” I told the woman as she threw a kick towards the shin of the young civil servant. “He had no pictures of a wife or kids. The only sentimental thing there was an autographed picture of Pee Wee Reese.”

“Could you wrap this up?” asked the fed, wrestling with the tiger.

“Then, in his apartment, he had pictures of vacations and graduations, but nothing to let me believe that he had ever had a family, let alone a loving and concerned daughter.” I moved in closer to the hellcat so that I didn’t have to gloat from a distance.

“By the time I met the boys here in my apartment, I knew that my client, like most of my clients, had lied to me.”  I put a finger to her chin and tilted her head upwards, so that our eyes locked. “Unlike most of my clients, though, you were a foreign spy, out looking for the radar system that the good doctor was working on.”

I caught a brief smile from Wanda that confirmed my story, and for a moment, I had that rare feeling of satisfaction one gets from outwitting a brilliant opponent.

Then she head-butted me in my one good eye.

After the boys had wrestled Wanda into the wagon, and had a good chuckle about my two black eyes, they gave me a half-hearted, laugh-riddled thank you on behalf of a grateful government as well as a lift home.

And along the way, they stopped at the butcher’s shop to get a steak for my other eye.

GUMSHOE’S NEW YORK STRIP STEAK WITH BASIL GARLIC BUTTER

½ lb. New York Strip Steak

¼ cup softened butter

2 tablespoons fresh basil, minced

2 cloves garlic, minced

½ teaspoon of Dijon mustard

¼ paprika

Dash of fresh cracked black pepper

• Let the butter sit out so that it is as soft as an uptown mouthpiece. By hand, blend in the basil, garlic, mustard, paprika, and pepper. Spoon the mixture onto a 12” square of plastic wrap and roll it into a log about 1 ½” in diameter, or approximately the size of hefty lead pipe. Wrap the log in tin foil and put it on ice. You can do this a day or two in advance of cooking your steak.