It broke over George then, like a wave of sunlight and understanding. “I,” he said, “am the standard of American male sexual averageness.”
“Baby, you’re a unique platinum bar exactly one meter in length and there’s nothing else like you in the whole world. Come here, my fool, and show me what the average sexual experience is really like.”
Well, word got around, because girls tell these things to other girls. And many women heard about it, and of those who heard about it, enough were interested in checking it out that George soon found his time fully and pleasurably occupied beyond his wildest dreams. They came to him in unending streams, Americans at first, but then many nationalities, having heard of him via the underground interglobal feminine sex-information linkup. He got uncertain Spaniards, dubious Danes, insecure Sudanese, womankind from all over, drawn to him like moths to a flame or like motes of dust in water swirling down a drain in a clockwise direction in the northern hemisphere. And it was all good, at worst, and indescribable at best.
Blaxter is independently wealthy now, thanks to the gifts pressed on him by grateful female admirers of all nations, types, shapes, and colors. He lives in a fantastic villa high above Cap Ferrat, given by a grateful French government in recognition of his special talents and great importance as a tourist attraction. He leads a life of luxury and independence, and refuses to cooperate with researchers who want to study him and write books with titles like The Averageness Concept in Modern American Sexuality. Blaxter doesn’t need them. They would only cramp his style.
He leads his life. And he tells me that late at night, when the last smiling face has departed, he sits back in his enormous easy chair, pours himself a fine burgundy, and considers the paradox: his so-called averageness has made him the front-runner of most, if not all, American males in several of life’s most important and fun areas. Being average has blessed his life with uncountable advantages. He is a platinum bar sitting happily in its glass case, and he would never go back to being simply unique, like the rest of the human race.
This is the bliss that averageness has brought him: The curse that he could not shake off is now the gift that he can never lose.
Touching, isn’t it?
So you see, Joey, what I’m trying to tell you is that apparent liabilities can be converted into solid assets. How this rule can apply in your own particular case should be obvious. In case it isn’t, feel free to write to me again, enclosing the usual payment for use of my head, and I will be glad to tell you how being known far and wide as a lousy ripoff shortchange goniff (and a lousy lay, in case you hadn’t heard) can be worked to your considerable advantage.
Yours in Peace,
Andy the Answer Man
SHOOTOUT IN THE TOY SHOP
The meeting took place in the taproom of the Beaux Arts Club of Camden, New Jersey. It was the sort of uptight saloon that Baxter usually avoided—Tiffany lampshades, tables of dark polished wood, discreet lighting. His potential customer, Mr. Arnold Conabee, was in a booth waiting for him. Conabee was a soft-faced, fragile-looking man, and Baxter took care to shake his hand gently. After squeezing his bulk into the red leatherette booth, Baxter asked for a vodka martini, very dry, because that was the sort of thing people ordered in a joint like this. Conabee crossed him up by asking for a margarita straight up.
It was Baxter’s first job in nearly a month, and he was determined not to blow it. His breath was kissing sweet, and he had powdered his heavy jowls with talcum powder. His glen plaid suit was freshly pressed and concealed his gut pretty well, and his black police shoes gleamed. Looking good, baby. But he had forgotten to clean his fingernails, and now he saw that they were black-rimmed, he wanted to keep his hands in his lap, but then he couldn’t smoke.
Conabee wasn’t interested in his hands, however. Conabee had a problem, and that was why he had arranged this meeting with Baxter, a private detective who listed himself in the Yellow Pages as the Acme Investigative Service.
“Somebody is stealing from me,” Conabee was saying, “but I don’t know who.”
“Just fill me in on the details,” Baxter said. His voice was the best part of him, a deep, manly drawl, exactly the right voice for a private investigator.
“My shop is over at the South Camden Mall,” Conabee said. “Conabee’s Toys for Children of All Ages. I’m beginning to acquire an international reputation.”
“Right,” Baxter said, though he had never heard of Conabee’s scam.
“The trouble started two weeks ago,” Conabee said. “I had just completed an experimental doll, the most advanced of its kind in the world. The prototype utilized a new optical switching circuit and a synthetic protein memory with a thousand times the order of density previously achieved. It was stolen on the first night of its display. Various pieces of equipment and a quantity of precious metals were also taken. Since then, there have been thefts almost every night.”
“No chance of a break-in?”
“The locks are never tampered with. And the thief always seems to know when we have anything worth stealing.”
Baxter grunted and Conabee said, “It seems to be an inside job. But I can’t believe it. I have only four employees. The most recent has been with me six years. I trust them all implicitly.”
“Then you gotta be hooking the stuff yourself,” Baxter said, winking, “because somebody’s sure carting it off.”
Conabee stiffened and looked at Baxter oddly, then laughed. “I almost wish it were me,” he said. “My employees are all my friends.”
“Hell,” Baxter said, “anybody’ll rip off the boss if he thinks he can get away with it.”
Conabee looked at him oddly again, and Baxter realized that he wasn’t talking genteelly enough and that a sure seventy-five dollars was about to vanish. He forced himself to be cool and to say, in his deep, competent, no-nonsense voice, “I could hide myself in your shop tonight, Mr. Conabee. You could be rid of this annoyance once and for all.”
“Yes,” Conabee said, “it has been annoying. It’s not so much the loss of income as...” He let the thought trail away. “Today we got in a shipment of gold filigree from Germany worth eight hundred dollars. I’ve brought an extra key.”
Baxter took a bus downtown to Courthouse Square. He had about three hours before he was to stake himself out in Conabee’s shop. He’d been tempted to ask for an advance, but had decided against it. It didn’t pay to look hungry, and this job could be a fresh start for him.
Down the street he saw Stretch Jones holding up a lamppost on Fountain and Clinton. Stretch was a tall, skinny black man wearing a sharply cut white linen suit, white moccasins, and a tan Stetson. Stretch said, “Hey, baby.”
“Hi,” Baxter said sourly.
“You got that bread for my man?”
“I told Dinny I’d have it Monday.”
“He told me I should remind you, ‘cause he don’t want you should forget.”
“I’ll have it Monday,” Baxter said, and walked on. It was a lousy hundred dollars that he owed Dinny Welles, Stretch’s boss. Baxter resented being braced for it, especially by an insolent black bastard in an ice-cream suit. But there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
At the Clinton Cut-Rate Liquor Store he ordered a bottle of Haig & Haig Pinch to celebrate his new job, and Terry Turner, the clerk, had the nerve to say, “Uh, Charlie, I can’t do this no more.”
“What in hell are you talking about?” Baxter demanded.
“It ain’t me,” Turner said. “You know I just work here. It’s Mrs. Chednik. She said not to give you any more credit.”