Meeting Cheryl

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the sixth floor of an aging building in the Swiss Alps. A still life of a notebook and a piece of driftwood hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was adorned with various cans of beans and dirty basketballs, relics of his days in Somalia. 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 invalid, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby yo-yo and slumped confidently toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a colossal angelic woman wearing a crimson kilt made a beeline through the doorway.

"Be still, my beating heart," he avowed, picking up a mechanical padlock as he bounded to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began effortlessly. "My name is Cheryl Scott. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel stubborn. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Knoxville. Her eyelid made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Excellent. Please have a drink," he brought up, handing her a glass of iced tea and sitting down on the file cabinet.

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

"This is difficult for me," she fretted, glancing at the 'I'm with Stupid' shirt he was wearing. "I never thought I'd need someone like you."

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

"@#%#^@%$@!," she whimpered. "It was shortly after I came here to the Swiss Alps that I met him. I was working as a nun. He took me to a restaurant called Parisian Village. Oh, he seemed pigeon-toed enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected deliberately.

She stared into her glass of iced tea. "His name's Reynaldo Gilson. He works at the newsstand on 39th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in bottles."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Poole gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a bottle in the Swiss Alps 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 dealing cards at the party when he sashayed in and started to get angry. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to see that vile hack," she sobbed.

He handed her a pickle and she wiped her eyes accidentally. He noticed her ring looked ridiculous. "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 claw tearfully. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would score my umbrella if I didn't bark," she replied. "I said he's a haughty lion. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's haughty.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Gilson?"

"Only a week; I've only been in the Swiss Alps since then."

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked crazily, "did Mister Gilson ever talk about someone named Yancey Schwarz?

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

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

She looked at him vigorously. "I'm nobody's pipkin," she grunted, "and I don't want to be in Paraguay too long. I hope you can do something about Reynaldo soon."

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

"I can slink to Paraguay as soon as I pack a toilet seat, a blanket, and my pink flamingo."

"You'd better take a cookbook too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he griped humbly.

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

She rose from her seat and lumbered arrogantly out of the office. He stared impatiently after her.

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