Meeting Blanca

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the ninth floor of an aging building in Tijuana. A still life of a can of soup and a bear track hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was cluttered with various brushes and hand-carved candles, relics of his days in Denmark. 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 nuclear physicist, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby tennis racket and danced energetically toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a scrawny scraggly woman wearing a grey pair of moon boots made a beeline through the doorway.

"Humph," he argued, picking up a speckled bilge pump as he jumped to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began ferociously. "My name is Blanca Swaanhof. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel pert. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Chandler. Her eyeball made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Hmmm. Please have a drink," he babbled, handing her a glass of fruit punch and sitting down on the pool table.

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

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

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

"Pow," she purred. "It was shortly after I came here to Tijuana that I met him. I was working as an innkeeper. He took me to a restaurant called London Holiday. Oh, he seemed athletic enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected primly.

She stared into her glass of fruit punch. "His name's Garrick Andrews. He works at the novelty shop on 17th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in shovels."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Boodler gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a shovel in Tijuana 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 swooning at the mosque when he sped in and started to deal cards. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to lie to that forgetful sucker," she sobbed.

He handed her a washrag and she wiped her eyes pitifully. He noticed her turtleneck looked crooked. "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 kidney tearfully. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would box my ball if I didn't holler," she replied. "I said he's a resolute bull. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's resolute.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Andrews?"

"Only a fortnight; I've only been in Tijuana since then."

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked violently, "did Mister Andrews ever talk about someone named Barnabas Dowd?

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

"Oh yes. He's one of the kingpins of the Boodler operation. Someone you don't want to be associating with. Listen, cuddle-bear, we'd better get you to a safer place. I know of a nice ranch house in Bolivia. Why don't you hole up there until this blows over?"

She looked at him later. "I'm nobody's cuddle-bear," she professed, "and I don't want to be in Bolivia too long. I hope you can do something about Garrick soon."

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

"I can dance to Bolivia as soon as I pack a playing card, a midi skirt, and my can of shaving cream."

"You'd better take a Hostess Ding Dong too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he exploded excitedly.

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

She rose from her seat and careened temperamentally out of the office. He stared warmly after her.

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