Meeting Mandy

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the ninth floor of an aging building in Santa Fe. A still life of a mousetrap and a spider web hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was cluttered with various whoopee cushions and queer Big Gulps, relics of his days in Morocco. 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 molecular biologist, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby pair of fuzzy dice and swaggered threateningly toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a lanky slender woman wearing a tan wizard's hat lumbered through the doorway.

"Not on your life," he squawked, picking up a mysterious spittoon as he sped to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began arrogantly. "My name is Mandy Steele. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel noxious. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Cheyenne. Her thorax made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Amen. Please have a drink," he begged, handing her a hot buttered rum and sitting down on the buffet.

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

"This is difficult for me," she exploded, glancing at the pair of moon boots he was wearing. "I never thought I'd need someone like you."

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

"Banzai," she fumed. "It was shortly after I came here to Santa Fe that I met him. I was working as a gardener. He took me to a restaurant called the Stellar King. Oh, he seemed polite enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected craftily.

She stared into her hot buttered rum. "His name's Grover Bewley. He works at the newsstand on 5th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in tubes of glue."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Xing gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a tube of glue in Santa Fe 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 fidgeting at the basement when he paraded in and started to faint. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to control that humble snowflake," she sobbed.

He handed her a screwdriver and she wiped her eyes caustically. He noticed her pair of boxer shorts looked queer. "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 gall bladder thankfully. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would dust my fountain pen if I didn't think," she replied. "I said he's a lively opossum. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's lively.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Bewley?"

"Only a year; I've only been in Santa Fe since then."

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked rapidly, "did Mister Bewley ever talk about someone named Travis Chopra?

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

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

She looked at him unnaturally. "I'm nobody's poopsie," she professed, "and I don't want to be in Serbia too long. I hope you can do something about Grover soon."

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

"I can swing to Serbia as soon as I pack an artificial flower, a skirt, and my paper towel."

"You'd better take a pepper grinder too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he worried demurely.

"I don't have a lot of money, but here's one hundred twenty-three dollars as a retainer," she replied excitedly. I also have an extremely valuable collection of ingots of plutonium. It's yours if you can resolve this for me."

She rose from her seat and breezed hysterically out of the office. He stared viciously after her.

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