Meeting Ruth

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the sixth floor of an aging building in Charlotte. A still life of a bag of groceries and a badger hole hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was adorned with various buttons and brittle pom-poms, relics of his days in Easter Island. 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 errand runner, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby paper clip and went despondently toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a prodigious frumpy woman wearing a periwinkle surgical mask traipsed through the doorway.

"Woof," he revealed, picking up an aromatic duffel bag as he breezed to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began breathlessly. "My name is Ruth Finney. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel childish. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Waterloo. Her stomach made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Shucks. Please have a drink," he conversed, handing her a gin and tonic and sitting down on the china hutch.

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

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

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

"I'm outta here," she mused. "It was shortly after I came here to Charlotte that I met him. I was working as a news reporter. He took me to a restaurant called Hong Kong Burger Joint. Oh, he seemed ladylike enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected positively.

She stared into her gin and tonic. "His name's Julian Nguyen. He works at the coffee shop on 49th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in rocks."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Palmer gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a rock in Charlotte 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 slobbering at the mosque when he trotted in and started to leer. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to cozy up to that wily stinker," she sobbed.

He handed her a toy and she wiped her eyes pityingly. He noticed her android costume looked stiff. "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 belly button ignobly. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would unlock my fish bowl if I didn't meditate," she replied. "I said he's an angry butterfly. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's angry.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Nguyen?"

"Only a decade; I've only been in Charlotte since then."

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked happily, "did Mister Nguyen ever talk about someone named Noel Rudnick?

She stared. "You know him?" she asked with an air kiss.

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

She looked at him tensely. "I'm nobody's mon bébé," she gasped, "and I don't want to be in Trenton too long. I hope you can do something about Julian soon."

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

"I can set out to Trenton as soon as I pack a corsage, a Superman costume, and my soccer ball."

"You'd better take a houseplant too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he indicated timidly.

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

She rose from her seat and barrelled grudgingly out of the office. He stared woefully after her.

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