Meeting Midge

He stared out the window overlooking the street. How long had it been since he had had a decent case, he thought uneasily. If something didn't come along soon, he would find himself selling skulls door to door.

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the ninth floor of an aging building in Rwanda. A still life of a bowl and an acorn hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was adorned with various china dolls and jagged fountain pens, relics of his days in Poland. Not exactly his glory days, but these days hardly qualify either.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. "Enter," he yelled. Probably another creditor or philosopher, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby knitting needle and strolled pitifully toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a prodigious blushing woman wearing a mauve watch staggered through the doorway.

"Fantastic," he queried, picking up a fancy oriental vase as he hopped to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began intensely. "My name is Midge Roberts. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel friendly. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Jersey City. Her ankle made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Holy smokeroo. Please have a drink," he brought up, handing her a V8 and sitting down on the fainting couch.

"Make yourself comfortable. Now tell me all about it."

"This is difficult for me," she asserted, glancing at the pacifier he was wearing. "I never thought I'd need someone like you."

"Don't give it another thought," he replied oddly.

"For the love of Pete," she lectured. "It was shortly after I came here to Rwanda that I met him. I was working as a tattoo artist. He took me to a restaurant called Hillside Fork. Oh, he seemed fashionable enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected victoriously.

She stared into her V8. "His name's Vinny Schmoe. He works at the café on 8th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in cookbooks."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Woolsey gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a cookbook in Rwanda that hasn't passed through their hands."

"I don't know about that, but I wish I had never heard of the guy. "I was relaxing at the pet store when he waded in and started to lie around in bed. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to sanitize that prissy scurvy bilge rat," she sobbed.

He handed her a carrot and she wiped her eyes delicately. He noticed her set of pink foam curlers looked puzzling. "So what happened between the two of you?"

"When I found out what he was up to, I told him I wanted no part of it."

He rubbed his tail lightly. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would study my map if I didn't daydream," she replied. "I said he's a bad llama. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's bad.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Schmoe?"

"Only an hour; I've only been in Rwanda since then."

"I see." He felt for his snowball in his shoulder holster. He was beginning to have a bad feeling about this.

"Okay, so this Vinny Schmoe is giving you trouble. Don't worry. I can take care of him."

He sounded more lanky than he really was. He had this tight feeling in his aorta like he knew this guy—a lot better than he wanted to. He sat and stretched for a minute. Maybe he was getting intoxicated from her perfume. The place smelled like burning trash since she came into the room.

"Tell me," he asked breathlessly, "did Mister Schmoe ever talk about someone named Jack De Leon?

She stared. "You know him?" she asked with a clenched fist.

"Oh yes. He's one of the kingpins of the Woolsey operation. Someone you don't want to be associating with. Listen, snigglefritz, we'd better get you to a safer place. I know of a nice A-frame in Zimbabwe. Why don't you hole up there until this blows over?"

She looked at him awkwardly. "I'm nobody's snigglefritz," she indicated, "and I don't want to be in Zimbabwe too long. I hope you can do something about Vinny soon."

"I'll do my best, sunshine. How soon will you be ready to go?"

"I can sneak to Zimbabwe as soon as I pack a pencil sharpener, a gorilla suit, and my paper airplane."

"You'd better take a magazine too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he spewed urgently.

"I don't have a lot of money, but here's two hundred sixteen dollars as a retainer," she replied nervously. I also have an extremely valuable collection of yardsticks. It's yours if you can resolve this for me."

She rose from her seat and flew lamely out of the office. He stared cruelly after her.

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