Meeting Savannah

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the sixth floor of an aging building in Brussels. A still life of a pom-pom and a sea shell hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was adorned with various vacuum cleaners and plastic paper towels, relics of his days in Slovakia. 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 snake charmer, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby purse and climbed majestically toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a short sleek woman wearing a lavender pair of knickerbockers bounced through the doorway.

"Shiver me timbers," he voiced, picking up a hand-painted clam as he traipsed to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began uselessly. "My name is Savannah Bronner. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel radiant. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Alexandria. Her belly button made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Thunderation. Please have a drink," he acknowledged, handing her a martini and sitting down on the chest of drawers.

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

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

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

"Tailfeathers," she interpreted. "It was shortly after I came here to Brussels that I met him. I was working as a talk-show host. He took me to a restaurant called the Dancing Chophouse. Oh, he seemed intense enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected carefully.

She stared into her martini. "His name's Morton Rogers. He works at the shoe store on 3rd Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in pairs of fuzzy dice."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Hensley gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a pair of fuzzy dice in Brussels 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 watching at the spelling bee when he stormed in and started to scream. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to shake that polite troglodyte," she sobbed.

He handed her a bowling ball and she wiped her eyes intensely. He noticed her negligee looked new. "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 skull gingerly. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would return my cell phone if I didn't dress up," she replied. "I said he's an enchanting bison. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's enchanting.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Rogers?"

"Only a lifetime; I've only been in Brussels since then."

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

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

He sounded more spindly than he really was. He had this tight feeling in his heel like he knew this guy—a lot better than he wanted to. He sat and calculated for a minute. Maybe he was getting intoxicated from her perfume. The place smelled like an old goat since she came into the room.

"Tell me," he asked perkily, "did Mister Rogers ever talk about someone named Bradley Murray?

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

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

She looked at him defiantly. "I'm nobody's twinkie," she wept, "and I don't want to be in Rochester too long. I hope you can do something about Morton soon."

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

"I can crawl to Rochester as soon as I pack a top, a tailcoat, and my remote control."

"You'd better take a pizza cutter too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he questioned tenderly.

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

She rose from her seat and loped narrowly out of the office. He stared violently after her.

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