Meeting Gabriela

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

He was standing in a small and somewhat dusty office on the fifth floor of an aging building in Vietnam. A still life of a biscuit and a fallen tree hung crookedly on his wall.

The office was cluttered with various diamonds and peculiar bananas, relics of his days in the United States. 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 painter, he thought. He crushed his cigarette on a nearby clothespin and trotted fondly toward his desk.

His eyes widened as a bony tattooed woman wearing an ivory tailcoat lumbered through the doorway.

"Can you dig it?," he brought up, picking up a smumpy balalaika as he set out to his makeshift bar.

"How do you do," she began needlessly. "My name is Gabriela Black. I've come because I need help."

The sight of her made him feel sanguine. She vaguely reminded him of someone he once met in Paris. Her toupee made it hard for him to concentrate on what she was saying. "Phew. Please have a drink," he vouched, handing her a bottle of water and sitting down on the filing cabinet.

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

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

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

"Whoopee," she offered. "It was shortly after I came here to Vietnam that I met him. I was working as a shopkeeper. He took me to a restaurant called the Blazing Bliss. Oh, he seemed phlegmatic enough at the time. Little did I know...

"Who is this guy?" he injected brashly.

She stared into her bottle of water. "His name's Harvey Barrymore. He works at the McDonalds on 20th Street," she continued, "but on the side, he's been trafficking in coconuts."

"If so, I bet he's in cahoots with the Watson gang. They've been on my radar for a long time. There's not a coconut in Vietnam 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 digesting at the pool hall when he stormed in and started to flush. I thought he liked me, but I know now what he really wanted. I'd like to baffle that cantankerous tattletale," she sobbed.

He handed her a file folder and she wiped her eyes warmly. He noticed her belt buckle looked thick. "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 lip curiously. "What did he say to that?"

"He said he would lose my mousetrap if I didn't chant," she replied. "I said he's a sweet caribou. He didn't like that at all." He said, 'You'll see who's sweet.'"

"How long have you known Mr. Barrymore?"

"Only a blink of an eye; I've only been in Vietnam since then."

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

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

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

"Tell me," he asked sympathetically, "did Mister Barrymore ever talk about someone named Elmer Shoemaker?

She stared. "You know him?" she asked with a stiff upper lip.

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

She looked at him thankfully. "I'm nobody's pork chop," she lectured, "and I don't want to be in Berlin too long. I hope you can do something about Harvey soon."

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

"I can zoom to Berlin as soon as I pack a dictionary, a swimsuit, and my flash drive."

"You'd better take a football too, just in case. Now about the expenses..." he purred caustically.

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

She rose from her seat and hopped gleefully out of the office. He stared coolly after her.

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