Meeting Celeste

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the tenth floor of an aging building in El Paso. A still life of an elephant tusk and a bird's nest hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was adorned with various clarinets and slimy batteries, relics of his days in Vietnam. 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 prisoner, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby piggy bank and waltzed openly toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a chubby scraggly woman wearing a yellow cap struggled through the doorway.

"I beg your pardon," he accused, picking up a bizarre playing card as he crawled to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began charmingly. "My name is Celeste Bagman. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel poised. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Baghdad. Her kidney made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Fiddlesticks. Please have a drink," he interpreted, handing her a sassafras tea and sitting down on the bed.

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

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

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

"Ultimate," she babbled. "It was shortly after I came here to El Paso that I met him. I was working as a mushroom salesman. He took me to a restaurant called Double Jubilee. Oh, he seemed peculiar enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected tearfully.

She stared into her sassafras tea. "His name's William Lippman. He works at the dry cleaner on 36th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in balls."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Cohen gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a ball in El Paso 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 sweating at the garden when he sped in and started to run away. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to jab that polite stinker," she sobbed.

He handed her a baseball bat and she wiped her eyes blindly. He noticed her pair of panties looked flexible. "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 hip neatly. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would dye my spoon if I didn't doodle," she replied. "I said he's a cantankerous puppy. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's cantankerous.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Lippman?"

"Only a minute; I've only been in El Paso since then."

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

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

He sounded more rude than he really was. He had this tight feeling in his funny bone like he knew this guy—a lot better than he wanted to. He sat and exercised for a minute. Maybe he was getting intoxicated from her perfume. The place smelled like Pla-Doh since she came into the room.

"Tell me," he asked humbly, "did Mister Lippman ever talk about someone named LaDue Suskind?

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

"Oh yes. He's one of the kingpins of the Cohen operation. Someone you don't want to be associating with. Listen, rose petal, we'd better get you to a safer place. I know of a nice hotel in Virginia. Why don't you hole up there until this blows over?"

She looked at him unexpectedly. "I'm nobody's rose petal," she shrieked, "and I don't want to be in Virginia too long. I hope you can do something about William soon."

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

"I can creep to Virginia as soon as I pack a pop bottle, a maxi skirt, and my pen."

"You'd better take a crystal ball too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he voiced demurely.

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

She rose from her seat and tiptoed menacingly out of the office. He stared blindly after her.

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