I wished him good luck and assured him I stood ready to help if he found he needed it. I confess it was a disappointment, and I hung up with a premonition of a tragedy waiting to happen.
BOBBY GURK nobody messes with Big Bobby Gurk-nobody! I Ndidn't get where I am today by being Mr. Nice Guy. You mess with me, and I mess with you. Only I mess first! You snooze, you lose.
Laura Gunther is getting nowhere with Willie Brevoort, and I tell her I don't like it.
"What are you going to do," she says, "feed me to the alligators?"
"Don't talk like that," I says. "It ain't nice."
" Nice-schmice, " she says. "I'm balling the guy, but he just won't spill. What am I supposed to do-beat his kidneys with a rubber hose?
You'll have to give me more time, Bobby."
"Okay," I says, staring at her. "You keep trying."
But I still don't like it. Listen, I know the odds. I learnt them all my life. And I know if your best friend can screw you, he will screw you.
Well, Gunther isn't my best friend, and neither is Brevoort.
But I suspicion the two of them might have got too close and are figuring on giving Big Bobby Gurk the shaft. it's possible. Look, there's a bundle involved here, and money can make people act like rat finks.
Right then, while I'm wondering if I'm being screwed, blewed, and tattooed, I get a phone call from Willie Brevoort.
"Bobby," he says, "I got bad news for you."
"Yeah?" I says. "What's that?"
"The old guy who owned Mcwhortle Laboratory dropped dead-you can look it up-and now the whole business is closed down.
Settling the estate, you know. So they're not doing any work, which means the ZAP pill is on hold. I don't know when they'll start working on it again, if ever, but right now the deal is cold. Sorry about that."
"That's okay, Willie," I says. "It didn't cost me a dime, so no harm done."
I hang up and think, In a pig's ass! So I looked up the number in the phone book and call. A chirpy bird answers, "Mcwhortle Laboratory."
"Hey," I says, you still in business?"
"Of course we're still in business," she says.
"I thought with your boss croaking and all, maybe you closed down."
"Mrs. Gertrude Mcwhortle is now our chief executive officer," she says.
"The laboratory is functioning normally, and all contracts will be fulfilled."
"Thanks, babe," I says.
Oh Willie, Willie, Willie, I think. And you're the guy who kissed my ass for starting you on a new career. I owe you one, you said. Rat fink!
So I call Tomasino down in Miami and ask if I can borrow Teddy O. for a special job. I will pay Teddy a, sweet per them and also pay Tomasino a grand for the borrow. He says sure, he'll send Teddy up as soon as he gets back from Tampa where he's gone to persuade a deadbeat he should do the honorable thing and pay Tomasino what he owes him so the deadbeat's wife won't get an acid facial.
This Teddy is an enforcer and one of the best in the business. Look at him and you'd think he sells shoes for a living. But how many guys who sell shoes carry a sharpened ice pick in a leather sheath strapped to their shin? He is a little bitty guy and talks polite. And he is true-blue, absolutely dependable. He just likes to hurt people, that's all-but what the hey, no one's perfect-right?
He shows up, and I tell him all about Willie Brevoort and the ZAP stuff that's supposed to put lead in a guy's pencil. I also tell him what I want, the name of the chemist at Mcwhortle Laboratory who is leaking information to Brevoort.
"I get it, Mr. Gurk," Teddy O. says. "You want I should lean on this guy."
"No, no," I says. (Usually Teddy leans a little too hard.) "I figured first you could tail Willie awhile and see where he goes and who he meets. If we can't do it that way, then we'll do it your way."
"Okay," he says. "Is there a good barber in town? I need a trim and a manicure."
It takes maybe a week, no more, when Teddy shows up with a notebook full of stuff he's written down. He's got the names of all the guys Willie Brevoort had a meet with during the week and where they work.
Don't ask me how Teddy does it. I told you he was good, didn't I? But anyway, none of the men Willie met work at Mcwhortle Laboratory, so we got zip there.
"But here's something cute, Mr. Gurk," Teddy says. "This Willie putz likes to do drag. He belongs to a private club where the guys all wear women's clothes."
"No shit? " I says, "You know, I always thought he might be a flit.
He dresses too good."
"I'm not sure he's a flit," Teddy says." He's got two broads on the string."
"Two?" I says. "I know one of them. Laura Gunther. I paid her to pump Willie, but so far she's come up with zilch. Who's the other twist?"
Teddy puts on wire-rimmed cheaters and looks in his notebook.
"Her name's Jessica Fiddler. A real pretty blonde. Looks like a high-class hooker. That's all I got on her."
"Teddy," I says, "we're getting nowhere fast. Well, let's give it some more time. Keep on Brevoort's ass, there's still a chance he might meet with the Mcwhortle chemist. And while you're at it, see what you can dig up on the blond hooker."
He comes back to me two days later.
"This Jessica Fiddler…" he says. "Just for kicks I called Hymie Rourke in Miami Beach. He's been in the skin game all his life and knows every pro in South Florida. He made this Fiddler dame right away.
She used to dance in a nudie club in Miami and then quit to free-lance at the convention hotels.
Rourke says he hasn't seen her around for at least a couple of years."
"That's inarresting," I says. "I wonder if she's hustling up here." , "If she is," Teddy says, "she's making out like gangbusters because she owns her own home."
"That don't sound kosher," I says. "You can't buy a house from turning tricks in this burg."
"I went out there," Teddy says. "Good neighborhood. I talked to an old lady who lives across the street and likes to watch her neighbors more than she likes to watch television. I told her I was a private dick working for a married woman who thought her husband was cheating with Jessica Fiddler and wanted to get evidence for a divorce.
"Well, the old bitch wouldn't talk until I slipped her fifty bucks for an outfit she belongs to. It's called SOS, for Save Our Salmon. Then she tells me Fiddler has two guys who visit her maybe two or three times a week. They both drive big cars, one silver, one white. I figure the silver is Willie Brevoort. He owns a silver Infiniti. I don't know who drives the white."
"So what do we do now, Teddy?"
"I want to get inside Fiddler's house to look around. I'll use a con that's worked for me before. I got a fake ID with my picture on it.
It says I'm from the property tax appraiser's office, and I tell her I want to come inside for a little while just to count the rooms."
"Slick," I says.
"It's always worked," Teddy says. "But if she wants to check me out, I'm going to give her your phone number. Will you be here at noon tomorrow?"
"Sure," I says. "What do I do?", "Just tell her it's the property tax appraiser's office, and yes, John R. Thompson is a legit appraiser.
That's the name on my fake ID."
"Got it," I says.
The next day my phone rings about five minutes after twelve.
I pick it up and says, "Property tax appraiser's office."
A woman asks, "Have you got a John R. Thompson working for you?"
"Oh, yes, ma'am," I says. "One of our best appraisers.
He's been with us seventeen years now."
"Thank you very much," she says, and hangs up. Teddy O. comes strolling into my office about an hour later.