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-The Swap Shop
I awoke to the sound of a Mickey Mouse faced clock, laughing and singing ‘It’s a small world after All’ with its Felix the cat-type eyeballs moving left to right. It was one of the perks of living in the remains of people’s lives. I slapped it on the top of the head, shutting the damn thing up. I was in an upright position, sunshine coming out of the nearby window lacking the classic detective Venetian blinds (that was down stairs on my office window) for shear drapes that were pulled to the side. I slept in a hundred dollar knock-off of a Louie the 13th king sized-bed with gaudy gold and brown-wooded posts. The ruby red and golden headboard with comforter completed the utter ugliness of the design. Some granny who was mad at grandpa came to me in a U-haul and asked would I take it for a song. I sung like a Central Park pigeon.
Cheap—and—not hard to find.
I had a decent space above the shop. 300 sq. feet with a bathroom and full bath connected to the bedroom to my left. The middle room had an exit door for the private comings and goings that entailed my P. I. life sometimes. I had boxes of junk from my last place stacked up there because I didn’t feel like investing in a storage unit. The front was the living room slash kitchen that had a decent dinette set including a plush matching light brown living room set and rug that a bitter husband bought in to practically give to me due to his wife’s infidelity. Close to ten grand in furniture. Choice stuff. He took $200 and a life-like silicon doll with working tongue.
Of course, the wife came by a few days later with his two-toned Italian hand made shoes, and asked me if I was a size 10 ½. Just my luck, I was. She also came with a 30 inch flat screen TV that could be installed into your wall. $3000 she said the shoes were worth, $7000 the flat screen.
For the whole lot, she took ten bucks and a five dollar bottle of cheap scotch with a satisfied smile. The remains of people’s lives is what I lived in. Some are married lives, others were the remains of broken dreams. Those things I kept in a storage room down stairs. Numbered, dated, and the names of the seller attached to each item. Just in case they came back and found the promise of tomorrow still closed-off inside their hearts. So sue me, I was a romantic. I heard the metallic tinkle of the brass bell over the front door. Kiki must have come and opened up shop already. I still needed to make that anonymous phone call to the cops about a man found dead in his apartment not less than 12 hours ago. Then I needed to go over the list in my pocket, and figure how a woman named Miranda Singer wanted me to find her brother the prize fighter, along with the dead guy whose money I took for payment for finding his murderer. Working two cases, and running this shop would be a pain if Kiki wasn’t around. I hopped into the shower, dressed in something that was passable as being comfortable, and sat down to breakfast that consisted of a couple of Jimmy Deans muffins and day old Chinese all tossed into the microwave and warmed to a decent temp.
A bottle of Heinz ketchup and the BOSE mini-stereo playing a new disco rival station and I was set. Grabbed the pushbutton type rotary, banging out 911. I had to make it quick or they’ll be able to trace the call. The operator picked up on the second ring. I gave her the cliff’s notes version of Cassidy Moore’s location and state of living and hung up.
I grabbed a pen and my pad under arm, making notes on the principles involved in both cases to keep them separated in my mind.
In column one I’ve got Cassidy Moore: He was DOA on his bed with my business advertisement next to his bed on the nightstand. He had a list of names that I was looking over, under the heading of people to contact. About twenty given the few that had his blood smeared over them. I should have searched over him and his room closer but I was not expecting to find a dead man after the phone call giving me the address. There’s another question; Cassidy Moore was already dead for a long time and couldn’t have made that call. Cassidy had said that he was in some trouble, or the person calling me said he was, and that he needed to find someone. That was why he was calling me, to do a location job.
Now I have a murderer to find.
Under column two: A woman named Miranda Singer comes up to me in a bar and pays me $150 to find her prize fighter brother Willie Joe Singer. By the way she was decked out, and the guy in the Caddie, I’d say there was no shortage of funds needed to find her brother. Still wondering why she hired one Dick than hire an organization like International Operations. They handle cliental in the tax bracket Miranda Singer occupies.
So many questions, and so little me to handle.
The intercom next to the front door came on with the scratching static of an AM radio station, “Hey, Lonny! Git your butt down here! I got a fella want to sell watch and won’t take price I quote him. Now he want to see other owner.” Kiki, an old Pinoy woman, 5’2’ smooth round face with crow’s feet at the corners. Short cropped black hair with light blonde highlights, who’s been in the country for twenty-five years, has three degrees in economics, speaks four languages, and has a higher degree of English than most Harvard Five Beta Kappa Key. But she gets a kick out of undercutting idiots who come in with cheap jewelry. The broken English accent fits her looks than the refined English accent she really has.
I walked over to the com switch,
“Yeah, yeah. I’m comin’. Just don’t take the samurai sword off the shelf
and start screaming ‘Bonzai’ and scare the poor slob out of his wits!”
I clicked off the button, she came back on.
“Ah, Lonny. You no fun. Git down here.”
I put down the list, my pen, finished off breakfast, and went down stairs to start the day.
11:05 AM. Monday
I awoke to the sound of a Mickey Mouse faced clock, laughing and singing ‘It’s a small world after All’ with its Felix the cat-type eyeballs moving left to right. It was one of the perks of living in the remains of people’s lives. I slapped it on the top of the head, shutting the damn thing up. I was in an upright position, sunshine coming out of the nearby window lacking the classic detective Venetian blinds (that was down stairs on my office window) for shear drapes that were pulled to the side. I slept in a hundred dollar knock-off of a Louie the 13th king sized-bed with gaudy gold and brown-wooded posts. The ruby red and golden headboard with comforter completed the utter ugliness of the design. Some granny who was mad at grandpa came to me in a U-haul and asked would I take it for a song. I sung like a Central Park pigeon.
Cheap—and—not hard to find.
I had a decent space above the shop. 300 sq. feet with a bathroom and full bath connected to the bedroom to my left. The middle room had an exit door for the private comings and goings that entailed my P. I. life sometimes. I had boxes of junk from my last place stacked up there because I didn’t feel like investing in a storage unit. The front was the living room slash kitchen that had a decent dinette set including a plush matching light brown living room set and rug that a bitter husband bought in to practically give to me due to his wife’s infidelity. Close to ten grand in furniture. Choice stuff. He took $200 and a life-like silicon doll with working tongue.
Of course, the wife came by a few days later with his two-toned Italian hand made shoes, and asked me if I was a size 10 ½. Just my luck, I was. She also came with a 30 inch flat screen TV that could be installed into your wall. $3000 she said the shoes were worth, $7000 the flat screen.
For the whole lot, she took ten bucks and a five dollar bottle of cheap scotch with a satisfied smile. The remains of people’s lives is what I lived in. Some are married lives, others were the remains of broken dreams. Those things I kept in a storage room down stairs. Numbered, dated, and the names of the seller attached to each item. Just in case they came back and found the promise of tomorrow still closed-off inside their hearts. So sue me, I was a romantic. I heard the metallic tinkle of the brass bell over the front door. Kiki must have come and opened up shop already. I still needed to make that anonymous phone call to the cops about a man found dead in his apartment not less than 12 hours ago. Then I needed to go over the list in my pocket, and figure how a woman named Miranda Singer wanted me to find her brother the prize fighter, along with the dead guy whose money I took for payment for finding his murderer. Working two cases, and running this shop would be a pain if Kiki wasn’t around. I hopped into the shower, dressed in something that was passable as being comfortable, and sat down to breakfast that consisted of a couple of Jimmy Deans muffins and day old Chinese all tossed into the microwave and warmed to a decent temp.
A bottle of Heinz ketchup and the BOSE mini-stereo playing a new disco rival station and I was set. Grabbed the pushbutton type rotary, banging out 911. I had to make it quick or they’ll be able to trace the call. The operator picked up on the second ring. I gave her the cliff’s notes version of Cassidy Moore’s location and state of living and hung up.
I grabbed a pen and my pad under arm, making notes on the principles involved in both cases to keep them separated in my mind.
In column one I’ve got Cassidy Moore: He was DOA on his bed with my business advertisement next to his bed on the nightstand. He had a list of names that I was looking over, under the heading of people to contact. About twenty given the few that had his blood smeared over them. I should have searched over him and his room closer but I was not expecting to find a dead man after the phone call giving me the address. There’s another question; Cassidy Moore was already dead for a long time and couldn’t have made that call. Cassidy had said that he was in some trouble, or the person calling me said he was, and that he needed to find someone. That was why he was calling me, to do a location job.
Now I have a murderer to find.
Under column two: A woman named Miranda Singer comes up to me in a bar and pays me $150 to find her prize fighter brother Willie Joe Singer. By the way she was decked out, and the guy in the Caddie, I’d say there was no shortage of funds needed to find her brother. Still wondering why she hired one Dick than hire an organization like International Operations. They handle cliental in the tax bracket Miranda Singer occupies.
So many questions, and so little me to handle.
The intercom next to the front door came on with the scratching static of an AM radio station, “Hey, Lonny! Git your butt down here! I got a fella want to sell watch and won’t take price I quote him. Now he want to see other owner.” Kiki, an old Pinoy woman, 5’2’ smooth round face with crow’s feet at the corners. Short cropped black hair with light blonde highlights, who’s been in the country for twenty-five years, has three degrees in economics, speaks four languages, and has a higher degree of English than most Harvard Five Beta Kappa Key. But she gets a kick out of undercutting idiots who come in with cheap jewelry. The broken English accent fits her looks than the refined English accent she really has.
I walked over to the com switch,
“Yeah, yeah. I’m comin’. Just don’t take the samurai sword off the shelf
and start screaming ‘Bonzai’ and scare the poor slob out of his wits!”
I clicked off the button, she came back on.
“Ah, Lonny. You no fun. Git down here.”
I put down the list, my pen, finished off breakfast, and went down stairs to start the day.
11:05 AM. Monday