Meeting Maggie

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the fifth floor of an aging building in Calcutta. A still life of a baseball bat and a rock hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was cluttered with various paperclips and smumpy microscopes, relics of his days in Kosovo. 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 animal trainer, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby piece of chalk and ran bitterly toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a gigantic frail woman wearing a green pair of dungarees skipped through the doorway.

"I don't think so," he begged, picking up a stolen artificial flower as he sidled to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began coolly. "My name is Maggie Clapper. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel corpulent. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Lincoln. Her hand made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Shazam. Please have a drink," he howled, handing her a glass of tomato juice and sitting down on the mattress.

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

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

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

"Yowie," she nattered. "It was shortly after I came here to Calcutta that I met him. I was working as a zookeeper. He took me to a restaurant called the Stellar Goose. Oh, he seemed precocious enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected lickety-split.

She stared into her glass of tomato juice. "His name's Russ Henderson. He works at the police station on 42nd Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in cigarette lighters."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Knopf gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a cigarette lighter in Calcutta 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 dithering at the jail when he padded in and started to lounge. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to blink at that stern lob-dotterel," she sobbed.

He handed her a dead dog and she wiped her eyes unabashedly. He noticed her pair of earmuffs looked dry. "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 wig carefully. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would extinguish my dart if I didn't leer," she replied. "I said he's a cocky lion. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's cocky.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Henderson?"

"Only a century; I've only been in Calcutta since then."

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked confidently, "did Mister Henderson ever talk about someone named Joel Cleveland?

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

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

She looked at him elatedly. "I'm nobody's toodleums," she mumbled, "and I don't want to be in Romania too long. I hope you can do something about Russ soon."

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

"I can flounce to Romania as soon as I pack a ruler, a kilt, and my pop bottle."

"You'd better take an iPhone too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he retorted lightly.

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

She rose from her seat and waltzed unnaturally out of the office. He stared confidently after her.

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