Meeting Sissy

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the eighth floor of an aging building in Burbank. A still life of a silver bullet and a fern hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was cluttered with various ice cream cones and coarse curling irons, relics of his days in Italy. 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 spy, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby tote bag and sneaked miserably toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a small beautiful woman wearing a striped kilt careened through the doorway.

"Outstanding," he squawked, picking up a nice magic spell as he walked to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began nonchalantly. "My name is Sissy Shaw. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel absent-minded. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Warsaw. Her heart made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Aye. Please have a drink," he barked, handing her a shot of whiskey and sitting down on the coffee table.

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

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

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

"Holy frijole," she trumpeted. "It was shortly after I came here to Burbank that I met him. I was working as a bootlegger. He took me to a restaurant called Exotic Pastry Shop. Oh, he seemed pensive enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected firmly.

She stared into her shot of whiskey. "His name's Smiley Noonan. He works at the boutique on 14th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in skulls."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Gill gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a skull in Burbank 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 coming along at the ski slope when he zipped in and started to look angry. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to encourage that shiftless airhead," she sobbed.

He handed her a hammer and she wiped her eyes positively. He noticed her baseball cap looked queer. "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 buttocks immediately. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would monitor my fish if I didn't meditate," she replied. "I said he's a beautiful flamingo. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's beautiful.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Noonan?"

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

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked charmingly, "did Mister Noonan ever talk about someone named Joel Williams?

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

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

She looked at him confidently. "I'm nobody's toots," she mouthed, "and I don't want to be in Sudan too long. I hope you can do something about Smiley soon."

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

"I can stalk to Sudan as soon as I pack a napkin, a pacifier, and my dictionary."

"You'd better take a Lego set too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he whimpered caustically.

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

She rose from her seat and straggled breathlessly out of the office. He stared frenetically after her.

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