3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany (10 page)

“And that’s a good thing?” I ask.

“One less bell to answer,” he sings, poorly.

In California and other states, if you want to smoke dope legally, all you gotta do is go into your neighborhood cannabis clinic and tell the “Doctor” you’ve got an “anxiety problem.” He’ll ask you what you’re so anxious about and you tell him: “Because I don’t have any pot.” So, he’ll write you a prescription for medical marijuana which you can purchase in the front of the store. Suddenly you’re cured.

“Did you find out who owned the place?” I ask.

“The usual off-shore corporation that’s more time and effort to uncover than it’s worth.”

“Has the building been used recently?” I keep the questions coming.

“As far as we know, no.”

“Did anything come up on the three digits I got off that limo license plate?” I’m referring to Mr. Ponytail’s vehicle.

“No,” Jack says. “It’s a lot easier to trace a car if you get the entire plate number.”

“If I add that the guy driving the limo had a little ponytail, would that help?” I ask.

“I doubt it.”

We talk for a few more minutes on what we don’t know about the case. Jack then tells me he has to go “soak in a tub of Epsom Salts,” and hangs up.

I walk another hundred yards and my phone rings again. I’m supposed to look at the screen before I answer, but I always forget to do that. “Hello.”

“This is a courtesy call,” the voice says.

I interrupt, “Before you start, let me tell you I don’t buy anything from anybody who calls me on the phone or sends me anything in the mail.”

“I ain’t selling nothing.”

I interrupt him again, “I don’t do phone surveys either.”

“Listen bud.”

“And I’d like to help all the charities that call, but I’m a charity case myself.”

“Listen,” he raises his guttural voice, “you keep your nose outta where it don’t belong or you ain’t gonna have no nose to stick in no place.” He hangs up.

I hate telemarketers. Whatever happened to the No Call List?

I fumble around with the phone, somehow getting to the “Calls” screen and see Private Caller at the top of the list. I manage to find my way back to the main screen, hit
*69
and get a busy signal. Private Caller comes back on the screen. I’ll have to stop by More4LesMobile and inquire about having Private Caller installed on my phone.

I’m approaching the Northwestern campus athletic fields. I’m willing to bet that most people around here don’t know that the ground they’re walking on used to be Lake Michigan. The terra firma beneath them is nothing more than an honest-to-goodness landfill, or in this case “lakefill.” Northwestern is probably the only university in the country that manufactures its own land for its own expansion. I turn around and start back south and my phone rings for the third time. In life, some say everything comes in threes.

“Hello.”

“Gibby Fearn.”

“How are you?”

“A person here wants to speak with you,” Gibby says, putting all pleasantries aside.

“Put him on the phone.”

“He’s not here.”

“If he wants to speak with me, why didn’t you just wait until he was around, and then call me?” Seems logical to me.

“Why don’t you be here at nine,” Gibby asks/orders.

“Where?”

“Where else? Zanadu.”

I seem to be in the middle of a streak of bad-mannered phone callers.

“Who should I ask for?” I ask.

“Who do you think?” Gibby says. “I’ll make the introductions.”

“Should I bring anything?” I’d hate to show up, discover it’s pot luck, and not have a dish.

“Nine.”
Click
.

I’m almost back to my car when the rule of three plus one kicks in.
Ring
.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Sherlock.”

“Tiffany, where are you?”

“I’m getting a peel.”

“I wish I was.”

“We have to talk,” she says.

“We are talking,” I remind her.

“Not about that. It's personal what we have to talk about.”

“Okay.”

“So, when can we talk?”

“How about tonight?” I ask. “I have to be at Zanadu at nine. Want to join me?”

“Like on a date?” she asks in a tone that suggests she is going to be exposed to a deadly bacteria.

“No.”

“Oh, Mr. Sherlock, that’s a relief,” she says breathing a little easier. “I thought you were asking me out. That would be, like, totally creepy.”

---

Arson and Sterno wear matching pink, shiny, silk jumpsuits. They resemble two mountains of coal wrapped in breast cancer ribbons.

Sterno opens the rope wide for Tiffany to enter, but again slams the door on me.

“Look on your list,” I tell them. “Richard Sherlock.”

Arson runs his finger down the first page on his clipboard and stops suddenly. “How’d you get on the list?” he asks.

“I told you, I don’t follow the trends, I set ’em.”

The rope comes off its mooring and I pass by, “Nice to see you boys. Love the new look.”

The second door is wide open. No Slimy Guy to recheck the people who have already been checked. We walk right in. The god-awful rap music is still blaring away, but the place isn’t yet cooking. It’s a little easier to make yourself heard. “I need you to go find Bruno,” I tell Tiffany.

“I’ll start my surveillance at the bar,” she says.

“And, if he’s not working, find out why.”

“Where are you going?”

“Gibby wants to introduce me to somebody.”

“Isn’t that nice,” Tiffany says sweetly. “Why?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

We walk through the dance floor, but split when we come to the bar. Tiffany goes right, I go left. I arrive at the door marked
No Admittance
, knock, and wait. The door automatically opens and I walk in. The Behemoth sits in the same chair, reading the same
Fantastic Four
comic book; talk about a slow reader. The guy has on an ill-fitting blue suit this time, but it’s the same brand and style as the one he had on before; no doubt the product of a 2 for 1 sale. Gibby quickly removes a bill counting apparatus, placing it into the lower drawer of his desk, before he comes around the desk to greet me.

I hear the
whoosh/plop
sound. “What’s that noise?”

“What noise?” Gibby asks.

“That
whoosh/plop
noise.”

“Dun’t know,” the Behemoth speaks without lifting his eyes from the
Fantastic Four
. The plot must be quite intriguing.

“Every time I come in here,” I tell the pair. “I hear the same weird noise.”

“Do you hear it now?” Gibby asks.

I pause to listen. “No.”

“I dun’t neither,” the Behemoth adds.

Gibby heads for the door and motions for me to follow. “Why don’t you come with me?”

Before leaving the room, I turn to the Behemoth. “You know the Fantastic Four save the world in the end of that comic book.”

The Behemoth peers up from the page and gives me a big brute sneer. I think I hit a nerve.

Gibby leads me down a narrow hallway that parallels the back side of the bar. We reach an unmarked door. He punches a code onto the small keyboard and the door unlocks. We go through and find ourselves in a back stairwell. I follow him up one flight to another door. He knocks. A light goes on above us, the camera turns on, and the lock on the door clicks. Gibby pushes it open.

The office is more suited for the top floor of a Wall Street brokerage firm than a nightclub with disco balls. The only thing missing is a downtown view. Tasteful art on the walls, Oriental rugs, ultra-modern furniture, a wet bar, and a very large desk three oak trees gave their lives for. I feel about as out of place as a plaid suit at a funeral. A black guy, maybe mid-forties, impeccably dressed, comes forward.

“Mr. DeWitt,” the stern, business-like Gibby, says. “This is Mr. Sherlock. Mr. Sherlock, Mr. D’Wayne DeWitt.”

DeWitt looks me up and looks me down.

“You can call me, Richard,” I say extending my hand to shake.

DeWitt ignores my outstretched hand. “You can call me, Mr. DeWitt.”

And so I shall.

DeWitt motions for Gibby to leave the room. He does so without hesitation. Mr. DeWitt moves to the corner and pulls the drawstrings on a set of curtains on the left. Once open, the Zanadu Club lies beneath us like an IMAX movie being played with no sound and lousy plot. “Sit,” he says motioning me towards a couch. “Drink?”

“No, thank you.”

He pours himself a glass of ice water from a Waterford pitcher on the coffee table, and sits across from me. “Miss being on the force?” he asks.

“Some days,” I tell him. “Mostly, I miss my paychecks.”

Mr. DeWitt folds his hands above his lap. He wears diamonds on two fingers and in one ear lobe. “I have a problem, Mr. Sherlock.”

I immediately think, “Just one?” I got a whole slew of them, my kids, my ex-wife, the rent, the electric bill, gas prices, car, etc., etc., etc.

“Are you available for hire?” he asks.

Is a rabbi Jewish? Is the Pope Catholic? Is Buddha a Buddhist?

“I better ask what the problem is,” I tell him.

“Someone is trying to destroy my business.”

I look out on the dance floor packed to the gills with well-dressed partiers. “Whoever it is, Mr. DeWitt, it doesn’t look like they’re doing a very good job.”

“Trust me. Poisonous seeds have been planted and they are ready to take root.”

“A few spiked drinks aren’t going to kill your vibe. They might even help it.”

“Success breeds envy. Envy breeds ideas. Ideas breed ill-conceived actions.”

I lean forward a bit. “What exactly do you think they’re going to do,” I ask, “that could put a dent into what you’ve got going here?”

“Kill me.”

I pause to contemplate his answer. “That certainly wouldn’t help your bottom line.”

“No, I wouldn’t say so.”

He sits straight as an honest judge, staring right into me, with absolutely no emotion of his face.

“Did someone try to slip a Mickey into your drink?” I ask attempting to link two crimes into one investigation.

“I don’t drink.”

“Well, what exactly did he, or she, or they, try to do?”

“Nothing yet.”

D’Wayne DeWitt is not being very helpful to the cause of his new employee. “Then why do you suspect someone is attempting to kill you?”

“I know,” he says. “And that’s all you need to know.”

D’Wayne DeWitt might be better off spending an hour with Miss Freeda, Palm Reader, Tarot Master, and Seer to the Stars. “From what I have seen, you already employ enough muscle to keep the Taliban at bay.”

Mr. DeWitt shifts in his chair ever so slightly. “All I want you to do is find out what is going on. You don’t have to stop them, confront them, or come up with a plan to solve the problem. All I want to know is who and what.”

“And then what?” I ask.

“I’ll be happy and you’ll be paid.”

Something is wrong with this picture; actually there are many things wrong with this picture.

“Four hundred dollars an hour, plus expenses,” he says.

But that isn’t one of them.

He pulls a gold money clip out of his pocket, counts out a number of hundreds, and offers them to me. “On account,” he says.

Once I lay my hands on the money, I know my fate is sealed. I contemplate it for less than a nanosecond and grab the cash. Boy, do I need this cash. “I’ll start tomorrow.”

Mr. DeWitt rises from his chair. “You’ll start tonight.”

Well, it’s clear who will be the head ramrod on this wagon train. “What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “You’re the detective.”

“I’ll get right on it.” I rise. With the wad of money in my pocket, pressing against my leg, I feel as if I have risen from years in a financial coma. The dawn has broken. Spring has sprung. Unplug me from life support. I’m alive. I’m alive.

I am almost to the door when I turn around and ask, “By the way, do you have a guy working for you, kinda short, wears aviator glasses, and has a little ponytail running down the back of his neck?”

“No.”

I believe I just found my starting place.

“I’ll be in touch.”

I make my way down the flight of stairs. At the stairwell door which leads back into the club, I insert one of my business cards against the locking catch. I test the door to make sure it will open next time around, close it gently, and make my way back down the narrow hallway. When I reach the bar, I find Tiffany having a grand old time. She’s sipping a martini, while three or four guys are chatting her up. Alix Fromound is back-to-back with her; the same as they were the night Tiffany took a header off the barstool. Alix has only one guy talking to her. Tiffany is definitely ahead in tonight’s popularity contest. A number of other well-dressed friends are yipping and yapping, playing with their cell phones, or bouncing to the music; a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

“Oh, Mr. Sherlock,” Tiffany says seeing me approach.

“What’d you find out?” I ask.

She pulls me close to her, “Monroe is no longer seeing Alix,” she says in all her glory. “He dumped her ass.”

“I meant about Bruno the bartender.”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Did you ask?”

“They said he hasn’t been here all week,” Tiffany says. “But it’s okay, this new guy makes a much better Cosmo.”

Good to know my assistant has done such a thorough job in her assignment. “I need you to help me,” I have to yell since the music has been pumped up to its highest decibel level.

“You see someone you like? I can run interference for you if you want.”

“No. thanks. I need you to watch a door for me.”

“It’s not the men’s room door is it?” she asks.

“No.”

I tell the current Tiffany fans she will return in a few minutes and pull her off the barstool. “Come with me.”

I lead her down the way I came until we reach the narrow hallway leading to the door I just jimmied. “All you have to do is stand here and if anybody goes in that door you call me on your cell phone. Can you do that?”

Tiffany has to think it over, “Probably.”

Not the answer I wanted, but it will have to suffice. I leave her at the head of the hallway, walk to the stairwell door, open it, remove the card, and close the door gently. I walk down the stairs until I reach the bottom floor.