Meeting Brenda

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 oranges door to door.

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the seventh floor of an aging building in Mexico City. A still life of a diagram and a bear track hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was adorned with various chess sets and greasy clocks, relics of his days in Kuwait. 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 truck driver, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby potato and sashayed blankly toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a dainty eye-catching woman wearing a lavender body shirt stalked through the doorway.

"Drop dead," he inquired, picking up a gruesome flashlight as he stormed to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began repeatedly. "My name is Brenda Xu. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel cunning. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Bakersfield. Her larynx made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Say what. Please have a drink," he spoke up, handing her a glass of champagne and sitting down on the bed.

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

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

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

"Yowsers," she rambled. "It was shortly after I came here to Mexico City that I met him. I was working as a programmer. He took me to a restaurant called the Yummy Farmer. Oh, he seemed affable enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected zestily.

She stared into her glass of champagne. "His name's Jeffrey Weinstein. He works at the pizza joint on 40th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in vacuum cleaners."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Broderick gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a vacuum cleaner in Mexico City 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 hiccuping at the bookstore when he jogged in and started to exercise. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to dumbfound that selfish dirty rat," she sobbed.

He handed her a skull and she wiped her eyes tensely. He noticed her tie looked imported. "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 earlobe flightily. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would reject my tube of toothpaste if I didn't vomit," she replied. "I said he's an absent-minded flea. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's absent-minded.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Weinstein?"

"Only a month; I've only been in Mexico City since then."

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked lazily, "did Mister Weinstein ever talk about someone named Alistair Vanderbilt?

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

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

She looked at him slyly. "I'm nobody's bumbles," she rebutted, "and I don't want to be in Bolivia too long. I hope you can do something about Jeffrey soon."

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

"I can stroll to Bolivia as soon as I pack a cigarette, a pair of flip-flops, and my iPad."

"You'd better take a Bible too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he shuddered uneasily.

"I don't have a lot of money, but here's three hundred fifty-six dollars as a retainer," she replied boisterously. I also have an extremely valuable collection of pairs of scissors. It's yours if you can resolve this for me."

She rose from her seat and bounded kindly out of the office. He stared nonchalantly after her.

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