Meeting Doralene

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the ninth floor of an aging building in Cairo. A still life of a brush and a weed hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was cluttered with various pieces of candy and flaky pairs of fuzzy dice, relics of his days in Paraguay. 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 obstetrician, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby cowbell and proceeded sleepily toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a thin elderly woman wearing a mauve letter jacket paraded through the doorway.

"Marvelous," he alleged, picking up a smooth knitting needle as he tiptoed to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began energetically. "My name is Doralene Keefe. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel disagreeable. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Memphis. Her little finger made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Jeepers. Please have a drink," he stormed, handing her a shot of tequila and sitting down on the table.

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

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

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

"For Pete's sake," she reacted. "It was shortly after I came here to Cairo that I met him. I was working as a curmudgeon. He took me to a restaurant called the Yummy Garden. Oh, he seemed homely enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected silently.

She stared into her shot of tequila. "His name's Randall Shackleton. He works at the pizza parlor on 9th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in spoons."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Simons gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a spoon in Cairo 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 burping at the laundromat when he zipped in and started to play Farmer in the Dell. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to consider that fearful punk," she sobbed.

He handed her a violin and she wiped her eyes quickly. He noticed her helmet looked slimy. "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 spinal cord suddenly. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would open my baseball bat if I didn't laugh," she replied. "I said he's a queer gerbil. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's queer.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Shackleton?"

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

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked mysteriously, "did Mister Shackleton ever talk about someone named Humphrey Baird?

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

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

She looked at him uneasily. "I'm nobody's darling," she fantasized, "and I don't want to be in the Congo too long. I hope you can do something about Randall soon."

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

"I can bound to the Congo as soon as I pack a balloon, a fez, and my can of soup."

"You'd better take an abacus too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he agreed dolefully.

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

She rose from her seat and staggered silently out of the office. He stared immediately after her.

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