“I do love animals. Grilled, fried, and broiled. Or stuffed with cheese. I'd eat any animal if it had enough cheese on top. It wouldn't even have to be dead first.”
“Oh.”
Morribund made a face, and I could tell he was thinking through things. I glanced again at his Save the Dolphins tie tack and realized I might have been a little hasty with my meat-lovers rant.
“I had a dog once,” I said.
“Really?”
“Never tried to eat him. Not once.”
I mimed crossing my heart. Morribund stared at me. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, softer.
“Headmaster Sousse, he's a terrible man. A hunter. Gets his jollies shooting poor little innocent animals. His office is strewn with so-called hunting trophies. It's disgusting.”
“Sounds awful,” I said, stifling a yawn.
“Mr. McGlade,” he leaned in closer, giving me more tuna and bourbon. “I want you to find out something about Sousse. Something that I could use to convince him to accept our application.”
I scratched my unshaven chin. Or maybe it was my unshaved chin. I get those words confused.
“I understand. You want me to dig up some dirt. Something you can use to blackmail Sousse and get Rheumatism—”
“Rosemary.”
“—into his school. Well, you're in luck, Mr. Morribund, because I'm very good at this kind of thing. And even if I don't find anything incriminating in his past, I can make stuff up.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can take pictures of him in the shower, and then Photoshop in the Vienna Boy's Choir washing his back. Or I can make it look like he's pooping on the floor of the White House. Or being intimate with a camel. Or eating a nun. Or...”
“I don't want the sordid details, Mr. McGlade. I simply want some kind of leverage. How much will something like that cost?”
I leaned back in my chair and put my hands behind my head, showing off my shoulder holster beneath my jacket. I always let them see the gun before I discussed my fees. It dissuaded haggling.
“I get four hundred a day. Three days minimum, in advance. Plus expenses. I may need to bring in a computer expert to do the Photoshop stuff. He's really good.”
I took a pic out of my desk drawer and tossed it to him. Morribund flinched. I smiled at his reaction.
“Looks real, doesn't it?”
“This is fake?”
“Not a single baby harp seal was harmed.”
“Really?”
“Well actually, they were all clubbed to death and skinned. But the laughing guy in the parka wasn't really there. We Photoshopped him into the scene. That's the beauty and magic of jpeg manipulation. Look at this one.” I threw another photo onto his lap. “Check out that bloody discharge. And those pustules. Don't they look real? It's like they're going to burst all over your hands.”
Morribund frowned. “I've seen enough.”
“Want to see one with my head on Brad Pitt's body with Ron Jeremy's junk?”
“I really don't.”
“How about one of a raccoon driving a motorcycle? He's wearing sunglasses and flipping the bird.”
Morribund stood up.
“I'm sure you'll come up with something satisfactory. When can you get started?”
I fished an appointment book out of my top drawer. It was from 1996, and only contained doodles of naked butts. I pretended to scrutinize it.
“You're in luck,” I said, pulling out a pen. I drew another butt. A big one, that took up the entire third week of September. “I can start as soon as your check clears.”
“I don't trust checks.”
“Credit card?”
“I dislike the high interest rates. How about cash?”
“Cash works for me.”
After he handed it over I got his phone number, he found his own way to the door, and I did the Money Dance around my office, making happy noises and shaking my booty.
Things had been slow around the agency lately, due to my lack of renewing my Yellow Pages ad. I didn't get many referrals, because I charged too much and wasn't good at my job. Luckily, Morribund had found me through my Internet site. The same computer geek who did my Photoshop work was also the webmaster of my homepage. Google “Chicago cheating spouse sex pictures” and I was the fourth listing. If you Google “naked rhino make-over” I was number two. I still didn't understand the whole keyword thing. That's probably why Morribund thought I was an animal lover.
A quick check of my watch told me I wasn't wearing one, so I looked at the display on my cell phone. Almost two in the afternoon. Time to get started.
I booted up the computer to search for the Salieri School and Christopher Sousse. But instead, I wound up on YouTube, and watched videos of a monkey in a funny hat, a fat woman falling down the stairs, and a Charlie Brown cartoon that someone dubbed over with the voice track to Goodfellas.
After wasting almost an hour, I went to MySpace and read all of my messages from all of my friends, all of whom seemed to work in the paid escort industry.
After that, I checked my eBay bids, my Hotmail account, and added a new entry to my blog about the high cost of parking in the city.
After that, porn.
Finally, I located the Salieri School's website, found their phone number, and dialed.
“Salieri Academy for Exceptionally Gifted Four-Year-Olds, where children are our future and should be heavily invested in, this is Miss Janice, may I help you?”
Miss Janice had a voice like a hot oil massage, deep and sensual and full of petroleum.
“My name is McGlade. Harrison Harold McGlade. I'd like to enroll my son Stimey into your school.”
“I'm sorry sir, there's a minimum five year waiting period to get accepted into the Salieri academy. How old is your son now?”
“He's seven.”
“We only accept four-year-olds.”
“He's got the mind of a four-year-old. Retard. Mom dropped him down an escalator, he fell for forty minutes. Very sad. All someone had to do was hit the off switch.”
“I don't understand.”
“Why? You a retard too?”
“Mr. McGlade...”
“I'm willing to pay money, Miss Janice. Big money. I'll triple your enrollment fee.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Okay, I'll double it.”
“I don't think that...”
“Look, honey, is Mikey there? He assured me I'd be treated better than this.”
“You know Mr. Sousse?”
“Yeah. We played water polo together in college. I saved his horse from drowning.”
“Perhaps I should put you through to him.”
“Don't bother. I'll be there in an hour with a suitcase full of cash. I won't bring Stimey, because he's with his tutor tonight, learning how to chew. Keep the light on for me.”
I hung up, feeling smug. I hadn't shared this with Morribung, but this case really hit home for me. Years ago, when I was a toddler, I'd been forced to drop out of pre-school because I kept biting and hitting the other children. The unfairness of it, being discriminated against because I was a bully, still haunted me to this day.
I hit the computer again and prowled the Internet for dirt on Sousse. Nothing jumped out at me, other than a minor news article a few weeks back about one of his teachers being dismissed for reasons unknown. According to the story, Sousse was deeply embarrassed by the incident and refused to comment.
Then I surfed for Morribund and his wife and kid, and found zilch.
Then I surfed for naked pictures of Catherine Zeta Jones until it was time for me to keep my appointment.
But first, I needed to gear up.
I wound my spy tie around my neck, careful with the wires. Concealed in the tie clip was a digital camera, a unidirectional microphone, and a 20 gigabyte mp3 player loaded with bootleg Tori Amos concerts. It weighed about two pounds, and hurt my back to wear. But it would be my best chance at clandestinely snapping a few photos of Mr. Sousse during our meeting—photos I could later retouch so it looked like he was molesting a pile of dirty laundry.