I leaned over and puked up the coffee, Danish, and Advil. Eighteen bucks and change, shot to hell.
“Mr. McGlade? Are you there?”
I wiped a toe through the puke, looking for the Advil. They were probably still good. Instead, I saw something that made me want to quit eating forever.
Part of a human ear.
I got closer, sure it had to be some coincidentally-shaped chunk of chewed Danish.
No, it was an ear. The upper, cartilagey part. I often nibbled women's ears when we were fooling around. I must have got caught up in the role-playing and bitten off a hunk.
“Mr. McGlade?”
“Scratch that. I want triple.”
“That's outrageous.”
“Lady, I went to third base with a dead guy last night, all because of your husband. Pay me, or find some other schmuck to do your dirty work.”
“You did what with a dead guy?”
“Don't believe me? You want to talk to him?”
I held my cell phone over the ear. Then I realized I was acting a bit hysterical. Maybe I was still asleep, and this was just a dream.
I felt my backside, wondering if the pain in my ass was truly from sitting on my keys, or from something that was still up there...
I stuck my hand inside my pants, reaching down the plumber's crack...
It's a dream, it has to be a dream...
A pigeon waddled over, pecked up the ear, and ran off. My fingers crept closer...
“Mr. McGlade?”
A dream, all a dream, just a harmless dream...
And then I touched the severed end of something that shouldn't be there. Something that felt like a Pepperidge Farm County Style Breakfast Sausage Link.
“Please!” I cried out. “If there's any decency left in this cruel world, let this be a dream!”
Chapter 11
It was a dream. I woke up in bed next to an empty bottle of tequila. Blessedly, there was no head of lettuce between my legs. And the puddle of puke on my pillow didn't contain anything resembling human flesh. I did a nose check and an ass check, and they were both free and clear.
So much for drinking away the nightmares.
I rolled out of bed, padded to the can, showered, dressed in a slightly less dirty suit than yesterday, and visited the local convenience store for a coffee, Danish, and some Advil. That should have been my tip off I'd been dreaming—paying eighteen bucks for those three items. I forked over the real-life money—twenty-six bucks—then called Mrs. Drawbridge and demanded quadruple my rate. She reluctantly agreed, and mentioned her husband was in bed, still asleep. I decided to stakeout her house and tail him. And this time, I'd be taking some sophisticated equipment.
I returned to the condo and entered my Crime Lab. It was actually an extra bedroom that I converted into a crime lab by stocking it with spy stuff and writing Crime Lab on the door. The modern private detective had to stay current with modern gadgetry, so I bought all of the latest high-tech stuff. Phone tappers. Listening devices. Infra red things. A remote control tank with a miniature video camera hooked up to the turret. Cell phone jammers. A set of brass knuckles with a microchip inside that played Pat Benatar when I socked somebody. All the essentials.
I popped the SanDisk memory card out of the tank and plugged it into my computer, to check the footage I'd recorded during my practice run. The video was a little choppy, but more than acceptable.
The first scene was of a dog in Grant Park, urinating.
Cut to the same dog, pooping.
Cut to another dog, pooping.
Cut to the first dog, eating the second dog's poop.
Cut to a third dog, trying to hump the first dog, who was still munching on the poop.
Cut to the poop, which didn't look like it warranted being eaten.
Cut to some gangbanger punk, running off with my tank.
Cut to me explaining to the cop why I fired my gun in a populated area, and then me getting arrested.
With some editing, and the right soundtrack, the footage could be the backbone of a really good documentary about urban crime, and the amusing social lives of dogs.
I opened up a fresh SanDisk card, put that in the tank, and loaded everything into in a gym bag, along with a digital camera that could shoot night-vision, a Bionic Ear listening cannon, and a little wind-up nun that shot sparks out of her eyes. Thusly equipped, I high-tailed it over to the long term garage, jumped in my stakeout car—an inconspicuous green Chevy El Camino with yellow racing stripes on the hood—and drove to Jim Drawbridge's house.
The key to any successful stakeout is three-fold: Food, tunes, and a pot to piss in. The food should consist of chips and snack cakes. Sugar and carbohydrates jack up the insulin level, which leads to a heighten sense of awareness, probably. The music should be high energy, like heavy metal, but don't include the power ballads. The piss pot can be an old milk jug or thermos. Try to avoid cellophane potato chip bags, as I've learned from experience they tend to leak.
Since I never knew when I'd have to go on a stakeout, I kept my car stocked with everything I needed. But once I found a suitable vantage point—on the street directly in front of Jim's house—I realized I was less stocked than I should have been. I was way low on sugary snacks, but had a surplus of urine in an old apple juice bottle. Unless it was, perhaps, actually apple juice. A quick sniff would tell me.
It was urine. And I needed to stop eating asparagus.
I took a moment to muse about the gratuitous amount of bodily fluids that seem to have come up in this case, and cracked open the door and dumped the piss onto the street, where it made a foamy little river down the curb and to the sewer drain.
Then I cranked up the Led Zeppelin, licked the crust out of some old Twinkie wrappers, and waited for Jim to show up.
After half an hour, the coffee needed to be set free, so I filled up half the apple juice bottle. The secret to zero splatter is aiming for the inside edge, and then squeezing dry rather than shaking.
After an hour, Mrs. Drawbridge came out of the house and knocked on my window.
“George left before you got here.”
“Do you have any snacks?”
“No.”
I noticed she had some orange powder in the corner of her unattractive mouth.
“You have cheese curls,” I said.
“No I don't.”
“Bring me the cheese curls.”
She folded her arms. “I don't have any.”
“You have Cheetos dust on your lips.”
“I was eating carrots.”
“Were they powdered carrots?”
“Maybe.”
“Bring me the goddamn Cheetos, or I'm off the case.”
She frowned and waddled off. I called after her, “And anything Hostess or Dolly Madison!”
I air guitared in perfect synchronization with Jimmy Page until the ugly wife returned with my treats. The Cheetos bag only had a few left in the bottom, and Mrs. Drawbridge's cheeks were puffed out chipmunk-style. She also brought me half a raspberry Zinger.
“You ate them,” I said, stating the obvious.
She shook her head. “Mmphmtmummuffff.”
“Don't lie. You did. You're still chewing.”
“Ummurrfumamamm.”
“Are too.”
She swallowed, and I watched the large lump slide down her throat.
“I think my husband went to his parent's house,” she said after smacking her lips.
“What am I supposed to do with half a Zinger? It's like the size of my thumb.”
“I said I think my husband went to his parent's house.”
“Who?”
“My husband. After his parents died, he refused to sell it. I'm not allowed to go over there. He's got all kinds of locks and security devices. I think he may be hiding something.”
I scarfed down the rest of the cheese curls, then washed them down with the remaining half a Zinger. It wasn't even half. Maybe a third, at best.