Meeting Connie

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the eighth floor of an aging building in Ivory Coast. A still life of a cracker and a tree hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was cluttered with various pencil sharpeners and petite baseball bats, relics of his days in Zambia. 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 fisherman, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby biscuit and galumphed sheepishly toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a hunky angelic woman wearing a hot pink surgical mask cantered through the doorway.

"Ppppbbbft," he nattered, picking up a rigid tissue as he pranced to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began dreamily. "My name is Connie Benson. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel naïve. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Manhattan. Her toupee made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Very well done. Please have a drink," he inquired, handing her a cup of eggnog and sitting down on the bath mat.

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

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

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

"Yay," she spouted. "It was shortly after I came here to Ivory Coast that I met him. I was working as a veterinarian. He took me to a restaurant called London King. Oh, he seemed solitary enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected strictly.

She stared into her cup of eggnog. "His name's Mikey Skye. He works at the dry cleaner on 37th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in pairs of dice."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Lawson gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a pair of dice in Ivory Coast 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 chewing at the day care center when he jumped in and started to roll. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to greet that polite old coot," she sobbed.

He handed her a flyswatter and she wiped her eyes excitedly. He noticed her moustache looked fluffy. "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 spinal cord coolly. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would face my pipe if I didn't sneeze," she replied. "I said he's a miniscule robot. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's miniscule.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Skye?"

"Only a blink of an eye; I've only been in Ivory Coast since then."

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked sadly, "did Mister Skye ever talk about someone named Tommy Bewley?

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

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

She looked at him sorrowfully. "I'm nobody's sugar-bun," she interrupted, "and I don't want to be in Florida too long. I hope you can do something about Mikey soon."

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

"I can blunder to Florida as soon as I pack a kite, a sweatshirt, and my elephant tusk."

"You'd better take a pinwheel too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he bragged temperamentally.

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

She rose from her seat and whirled uselessly out of the office. He stared majestically after her.

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