Cloud Nine- When Pigs Fly Page 18

  “You go on, Winky,” Tiny’s voice sounded. He stuck his huge head out from behind the hood and grinned at me. “Give me another hour or three, and I think I got this thang up and runnin’.”

  “You sure?” Winky asked.

  “Yep, go on now.”

  Winky let out a hillbilly yell. “Woo hoo! It’s stakeout time!”

  Goober rolled his eyes at me, sighed, and said, “Ya hoo.”

  “WHERE WE HEADED?” GOOBER asked from Maggie’s passenger seat. He’d opened Winky’s box of Honduran cigars and was fiddling with one, wagging his once-bushy eyebrows at me like a plucked Groucho Marx.

  “Put that back!” I’d tried to sound stern, but was betrayed by my own giggling.

  “I thought we’d head to Amsel’s office first,” I said. “It’s Friday morning, so most likely he’s there. If not, we’ll try Langsbury’s place.”

  “Sounds logical,” Goober said. Just then, a sheet of newspaper whirled up in the air from the backseat and wrapped around his bald noggin.

  “Winky, hold down that sack,” I scolded. “That’s your job until we get there, okay?”

  “I’m on it, chief.”

  Winky took my words literally. He tucked the bag of old newspapers under his bum and sat down on top of it.

  Goober pulled the errant sheet of newspaper from his face and began to read it.

  “Looks like they’re having a sale at Mega Shoe Universe Emporium,” he said. “Don’t miss the new Birkenstocks with ultra-grip tread.”

  “Ultra-grip tread?” I said. “What? Are they afraid you’re going to fall of the face of the Earth?”

  “Oh, come on, Val,” Goober whined like a spoiled child. “Can we go? Pretty please? I’ve always wanted to see ultra-grip tread in person.”

  “Ha ha.”

  “Yeah! Can we go?” Winky chimed in from the backseat.

  “It’s on the way,” Goober said with a raised eyebrow and an evil grin.

  “Come on, Val! Pleeeaaasse!” Winky pleaded.

  “You two are a pair of lunatics!” I said, shaking my head. But again, my laughter betrayed my attempt to be serious. When we stopped at a traffic light, I snatched the paper from Goober’s hands.

  “Lemme see that.”

  “Testy,” Goober said.

  I rolled my eyes and looked down at the ad. It showed the picture of a sales clerk standing at a cash register, proudly holding a shoe in each hand. One hand displayed the side view of a shoe so ugly it had to be comfortable. The other hand held the shoe bottom forward to highlight its new ultra-grip sole. The odd pattern of zig-zags and circles looked eerily familiar.

  “This pattern...it looks like the pictures Tom showed me of the footprints they found on the beach at Caddy’s. You know, right after Greg disappeared.”

  I scanned the article. Someone honked behind me. I looked up at the greenlight and hit the gas.

  “How long have they been around?” I asked.

  “Footprints?” Goober asked. “They’re the first clues ever used to investigate a crime. In fact, did you know that the word ‘investigate’ comes from the Latin word for footprint?”

  “No,” I said.

  “It’s true. Footwear impressions are the oldest forensic evidence known to science.”

  “No,” I repeated. “I meant those kind of shoe treads. How long have they been around? Maybe they haven’t sold that many yet. Maybe we could use them somehow to narrow down the possible suspects.”

  “Oh,” Goober said. “There’s that, too.”

  “Yep! There it is!” Winky hollered from the backseat. “Take a right here!”

  I looked over and saw the sign for the shoe store. I hooked a wicked right that sent Winky skidding across the backseat.

  “Sorry,” I said as I pulled into the lot.

  “What fur?” Winky asked, pulling himself together. “That sack a papers give me a good slide. Can we do it again?”

  “Maybe later,” I said, suddenly wondering how my life had come to this. “Come on, you two.”

  Let the festivities begin.

  “YEAH, I SOLD A COUPLE of pairs,” the young clerk from the newspaper clipping said as I held up the hideous purple sandals with the new ultra-grip tread.

  “Any size ten women’s?” I asked.

  “Nope,” the clerk said. “I’m sold out. Besides, I think you take a seven.”

  “No,” I said. “I meant, have you sold any size tens to other customers?”

  “Inquiring minds want to know,” Goober said, and waggled his eyebrows. The makeup I’d applied in the parking lot to hide the purple surgery marks on his bald head didn’t do a very good job. But, alas, I didn’t have a ski cap in the trunk.

  “Out-quiring minds want to know, too,” Winky joked.

  I scrunched my face at them. “Can it, guys.”

  “Who are you people, anyway?” the clerk asked.

  “The Mod Squad, okay?”

  My answer went over his way-too-young head.

  “Look,” he said. “When it comes to customer confidentiality, especially women with feet that big –”

  “We’re private investigators,” I said. “We’re on the trail of a potential double homicide. Are you going to cooperate or what?”

  I flashed him the tin badge Winky had given me for being a Donut Shack VIP. It was amazing how often that stupid thing came in handy.

  “You don’t look like officers,” the clerk balked.

  “Of course we don’t!” I said. “We’re undercover.”

  The clerk looked at Winky. “That’s the best disguise I’ve ever seen.”

  Winky beamed. “Thanky. I made it myself.”

  “Okay,” the clerk said. “I sold both pairs of size tens on Monday, the first day they came out. A woman bought one of them. The other I sold to somebody I thought was a man, but turned out to be a woman.”

  “That’s weird,” I said. “How did you know she was a woman?”

  “Well, when I saw her name on the credit card, I almost called the cops. But then she showed me her ID, and man, that dude was a lady.”

  “You remember her name?”

  “Yeah. It was hard to forget. Norma something or other. You know. Like that movie star.”

  “Norma Jeen?”

  “Yeah. That’s it.”

  My heart sunk. “Crap.”

  “Looks like Norma’s our culprit,” Goober said.

  “Yeah.” I sighed and turned to the clerk. “So, what did the other woman look like?”

  “I dunno,” he shrugged. “Like you, I guess.”

  “Like me?”

  “Yeah. You know, all you middle-aged women look alike to me.”

  “Thanks,” I said through clenched jaws. I handed him my card. “If you remember anything else, call me.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I found a parking spot on First Avenue South and shifted Maggie into it. I set the gear to park and said, “Okay. Time-out is over.”

  Winky and Goober unfolded their hands from their laps and opened their mouths for the first time since leaving the blasted shoe emporium and its twerp of a clerk.

  “Feeling better?” Goober asked.

  “Don’t push it,” I said. “Where’s the cigars?”

  “I’ve got ‘em right here.” Goober reached under his seat and pulled out the box.

  “Okay,” I said. “This is how it’s gonna go down. They already know me, so Goober, you’re gonna go up there and pretend to be the City of St. Pete Cigar Club president or some such hooey. Give Amsel the cigars and invite him to Caddy’s tomorrow night for a final blow-out party. Then, if you can, try to get a look at Darlene Dimson and ascertain her foot size. Got it?”

  “Yes, chief,” Goober saluted. “What was the name of their offices again?”

  “Gallworth & Haney.”

  “Got it. Gallworth & Hooey.”

  I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, Goober was ambling down the sidewalk wearing jeans
, a t-shirt, my floppy pink sun hat, and a blue blazer of Tom’s that I’d scrounged from Maggie’s trunk. Suddenly, I noticed the peanut-headed ding-dong was still wearing his red Converse tennis shoes. The problem was, they matched his ridiculous outfit perfectly.

  I slapped myself on the forehead.

  “This is your best idea yet,” Winky said, causing what was left of my confidence to drain out of me like water from a cracked flowerpot.

  I lay my head on Maggie’s steering wheel and resigned myself to my fate.

  “I DON’T THINK DIMSON did it,” Goober said as he climbed into the passenger seat ten minutes later.

  “Why not?” I asked. I glanced around and was relieved to see he wasn’t being chased by security guards.

  “That shoe clerk guy said she looked like you. But sorry, Val. Darlene Dimson is one lady who’s hard to forget.”

  “Right,” I said. “Who could forget that stupid bun of hers? So, how big would you figure her feet were?”

  “Her feet? I wasn’t looking at them.”

  In the backseat, Winky laughed so hard he farted.

  “She’s a blonde bombshell,” Goober said to Winky as the air cleared. He turned back to me. “And her cute little feet are no size ten, I can tell you that.”

  “Ugh!” I groaned. “That wasn’t Dimson. That was her snotty receptionist, you dimwit! Where’s the cigars?”

  “I gave them to her, like you said.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Tell me exactly what you said to her.”

  “I dunno.” Goober shrugged. “Something like, ‘I’m here to see Mr. Timothy Amsel. I’m from the Cigar Aficionados Club. I want to invite him to join us at Caddy’s tomorrow evening to celebrate his new venture with a box of our finest.’”

  I opened my scrunched eyes. A pleasantly surprised feeling zipped through me, somewhat on par with not being punched in the face.

  “Okay,” I said. “You did good, Goober. Thanks.”

  “Oh, and I gave her one of the cards you put in the blazer pocket.”

  “What cards?”

  “These.” Goober pulled out a business card. It was one of Tom’s.

  Crap on a cracked up cracker!

  “You didn’t!”

  “What? I thought you said you and Tom were working this case as a team.”

  The punch in the face arrived after all. “Right,” I said, and turned the ignition on Maggie. “Where to next? My funeral?”

  “Since we’re in the neighborhood, could we go check on the Chevy?” Goober asked.

  “Sure, why not. I may be in the market to relocate soon myself.”

  I DROVE MAGGIE SLOWLY down the alley and cut the engine next to Goober’s old Chevy. Finkerman’s frizzy head popped up.

  “What the?” Goober said.

  “I guess I should have told you. Ferrol Finkerman’s been living in your car.”

  Goober shrugged. “It was bound to happen.”

  “Where’s Victoria?” I yelled at Finkerman.

  “Went back to her husband,” Finkerman said as he climbed out of the driver’s seat of the rusty, baby-blue Chevette.

  “Couldn’t take life on the road?” I quipped.

  “Actually, we became a clichéd statistic. We fell out over a financial disagreement.”

  “I can’t imagine that,” I said. “As far as I can see, you had nothing to fight over.”

  “Har har,” Finkerman said. “It was that overdue library book thing. Victoria found out that while I was paying her a buck a name, I was cashing them in for ninety a pop.”

  “That’s like a nine-hundred-percent markup!” I said.

  Finkerman scratched his frizzy head. “Huh. That’s what she said. Anyway, I told Victoria what I told you, Fremden. Everyone works for the terms they negotiate for themselves. As you can see, it didn’t go over well.”

  “Right.”

  “So, it’s been three days. Where’s my fifteen bucks?”

  “I already gave you a twenty-dollar advance,” I said.

  “Here. Have another twenty,” Goober said.

  “Thanks, pal.” Finkerman grabbed the money and sneered at me.

  “Look,” Goober said. “The title’s in the glove compartment. Give it to me and I’ll sign it over. The Chevy’s yours.”

  Finkerman eyed the rusty Chevette. “Thanks loads.”

  “What? You don’t want it?” Winky asked from Maggie’s backseat. “I’ll take her!”

  “No,” Finkerman said. “It’s just...well, I gotta get outta here. The neighborhood’s gone to the dogs.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I’ll show you. Come take a look at this pig I found yesterday.”

  Randolph! “Where?” I practically hollered.

  “Follow me.”

  We climbed out of the car and Finkerman led us down the alley.

  “I’m confused,” Winky said, tugging on my sleeve. “Has the neighborhood gone to the dogs or the pigs?”

  “With any luck,” I said, “we’re about to find out.”

  We followed Finkerman about fifty feet to a blind corner in the alley.

  “Have a look,” he whispered, and put a finger to his lips.

  Everyone stopped in their tracks. In the silence that followed, I heard a grunt.

  It’s Randolph!

  I jumped ahead of the guys and stuck my head around the corner. What I saw was pink and fuzzy, but it sure wasn’t cute. I whipped my head back around and nearly puked.

  Finkerman threw back his head and laughed like a demented piranha.

  “What’s wrong, Val?” Goober asked. He grabbed me by the shoulders. “What is it?”

  “It’s Amsel,” I said. “He’s behind there making whoopee with Darlene Dimson.”

  Goober peeked around the corner and winced.

  “Really?” Winky said. “I always wondered how they made whoopee cushions.”

  Goober grabbed him by the collar. “It’s not that kind of whoopee, Winky.”

  “It ain’t?” Winky asked.

  Goober whispered something in Winky’s ear. A second later, like a chameleon, Winky’s face blushed so red his freckles disappeared.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “What should we do?” Goober asked.

  “Turn around and get out of here,” I whispered. I blinked my eyes for the millionth time, hoping desperately to un-see what I’d just seen.

  “Why?” Goober asked. “Why don’t we just confront Amsel right now?”

  “I’ve already seen too much of him for one day,” I said. “And if he sees us together now, he’ll know you don’t belong to any stupid cigar club. Our plans for tomorrow will be ruined.”

  “Fair enough,” Goober said.

  I hissed out an order. “Come on, Winky. Finkerman. Let’s go.” I spun on my heels and started walking as fast as I could back to the car.

  “Wait a minute,” Finkerman said, catching up to me. “You know those two losers?”

  “Shhh! Keep your voice down,” I whispered. “Yes. That’s the guy who’s going to tear down Caddy’s beach bar.”

  “I read about that,” Finkerman said. “What’s his name...Jim Amsel?”

  “Tim.”

  “Kim?” Finkerman asked again.

  “Tim,” Winky called out behind us in a voice loud enough to wake the dead. “Like Tim the Tool Man.”

  “More like just Tim the tool,” I said to Finkerman, and shot Winky an annoyed schoolmarm look.

  “What do I do now?” Finkerman asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Now that Goober’s given me the Chevy, my gig guarding it is over. I could use some gainful employment.”

  “Finkerman, the only thing you’re good for is....”

  An idea hit me like a rotten tomato in the kisser.

  “You know what, Finkerman. I’ve got the perfect assignment for you.”

  “WHAT DID YOU SAY TO Finkerman?” Goober asked as we eased down the alley.
<
br />   “It’s a private arrangement,” I said, and turned left onto First Avenue North to make a straight shot back toward the beach.

  “Well, can I at least ask the terms?”

  I looked over at Goober and put a hand on my purse.

  “Finkerman could either do what I asked or I was going to rear back and wallop him with my hillbilly hacky-sack, okay?”

  Goober picked up my purse. “Geeze, what have you got in here? Bricks?”

  “Rolls of quarters.”

  Goober looked impressed for a bald Frankenstein. “Ah. Both effective and practical.”

  “That’s right,” I said smugly. “Not like that stupid Dalmatian purse Dimson had. Did you see it?”

  “Like I said once before, that wasn’t exactly what I was looking at.”

  Winky laughed, then chimed in from the backseat. “This Dimson gal. She’s got herself a pocketbook made out of a dog?”

  “No,” I answered. “Dalmatian just means it’s spotted black and white.”

  “Oh,” Winky said. “Like the one in the picture.”

  “What picture?” I asked.

  “That one for that shoe place.”

  Goober picked up the newspaper on the floorboard by his feet and studied the picture.

  “He’s right, Val.”

  Goober held the paper up where I could see it, and pointed a long, boney finger at the corner of the picture. There, by the cash register, behind the clerk holding up the shoes, was the corner of a black-and-white spotted pocketbook.

  “Well, I’ll be,” I said.

  “You think it’s the same one?” Goober asked.

  My nose crinkled. “Well, like you said, I was a little distracted by...you know...too. But it could be.”

  “That would mean Darlene Dimson bought the other pair of Birkenstocks,” Goober said.

  “It would, if we could prove it,” I said.

  “Well, that’s what we’re working on, ain’t it?” Winky asked.

  “Indeed,” Goober answered. “So, where are we heading now?”

  “Well, we know Dimson made one set of those tracks on the beach, and Norma made the other,” I said. “They must have been working in cahoots with Amsel to get rid of Greg. I hope that means we’re heading toward a solution that puts Amsel behind bars.”