Chapter 7: Catcall

It’s disturbing to see double at any time, but when it happens before noon, stocktaking looms. I had time for a quick glance at the wall clock. Five past eleven. I was in the office and outside, the sun was shining in a cloudless sky. Therefore, a.m., so it wasn’t booze. I had a strict rule never to take a drink before the first one of the day. No, really, I had an office bottle, but sometimes it went untouched for a week or more, and anyway it was fairly innocent; just the sherry I used now and then as an aperitif before visiting the greasery where I lunched. There must have been some other explanation.

The entry had been more explosive than average, involving the flinging open of the outer door, followed by similar treatment with respect to the portal to my holy of holies – thanks for the courtesy, boys. I use the plural as, when I was satisfied about my eyes, I had to accept that there were two of them. It isn’t every day one sees identical twins together, and even rarer that they’re six-five and built from the ground up – at least two-thirty each, I reckoned, and none of it looked like fat. They advanced to the desk, looking serious.

The one to my left placed enormous fists on the veneer – I was surprised afterwards to find that there were no indentations. “We come to tell you to lay off jokees,” he rasped, in a voice that suggested a lot of cigarettes – not that I wanted to be judgmental, especially with a fellow of such size only four feet from me.

Unfortunately for him, he’d caught me in one of my purple periods; a time when I was seldom at a loss for either clients or words. “Jokees,” I said. “Well, gentlemen, your advice is welcome, but unnecessary. I don’t take jokees, or any other questionable substances, unless you count the odd drop of something mildly alcoholic. I can offer you a glass if you’re staying.”

This seemed to baffle my new friends for a moment, then Number Two took over, dropping his vast digits onto the other end of the desk. “Don’t get funny,” he grated. Same hoarse, unhealthy voice. I hoped they had good medical cover.

“This is my office. I’m entitled to be funny here.” I spoke with more assurance than I felt. “Still, if you’d like to explain?”

Number One gave me an even closer look at his face, which resembled a relief map of central Colorado. “Look, Flatfoot –”

“No,” I broke in. “Don’t call me that. I’m private. You can call me Peeper, Shamus, or Gumshoe if you like, but not Flatfoot. That’s for the official types. Let’s start out with the right terminology, shall we?”

I suspected that the long word would stump these lads, and it did. They looked at one another for a good five seconds, then Number One swung his ogreish head back my way. “You’re in luck,” he said. “We got no orders this time, ‘cept to tell you to what I just did. You want to push it, we’ll come back and break a few things around here – an’ I don’t mean furniture. You clear on that?”

I hadn’t the faintest idea what these goons were talking about. Before their arrival I’d been pondering on binomial expansion. I was – and still am – intermittently fascinated by mathematics and didn’t want my train of thought interrupted for too long. “Got it,” I said. “If I’m ever tempted by jokees, I’ll consult you before making a move. Now, you may go, and please don’t slam the doors – I’m feeling faint.”

Gog and Magog exchanged glances again, then – maybe there’s some special telepathic process between twins – swung around and strolled out. They took their time about it, presumably to show me that they would be impervious to any missiles I might have directed at them.

I can’t pretend that the interlude left me cold. To tell the truth, it messed up my work on the Pascal triangle and its implications in the field of probability. Damn, I was really into that.

I sat there, wondering what message the terrible twins had been charged with conveying. Whatever it was, they’d failed. Or maybe I had. For anything I knew, jokees were all the rage. It’s not easy to keep up with street slang, is it?

I wasn’t left in doubt for long. Ten minutes after the oxen left, I had another visitor; a small thin ratty type, who came in with head flicking right and left, reminding me of a lizard on the alert. He closed the inner door, still looking around. “We alone?” he said.

Just to reassure him, I also took in our surroundings before replying: “I’d say so. If you have any secrets to impart, I’ll take them with me to the grave. Why don’t you sit down?” I spoke with some warmth, but in fairness to me, I was a trifle irritated. All this social activity wasn’t helping my algebra.

“You’d be Potts?” he said.

“I would.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to upset you, but a man can’t be too careful.”

“No, he can’t,” I said. “But now that you’re here –”

“Yeah, well, I wanted to be sure the bookends had gone.”

“Ah,” I said, “Fasolt and Fafner.”

“What?”

“The big chaps.” I saw no need to expand – he didn’t seem like a man who’d appreciate details of the Rheingold giants.

“Oh, yeah.” He was settling down. “I didn’t want them around.”

“Most people wouldn’t,” I said. “What have they to do with you, or me?”

“They work for Joe Keyes.”

I’ve indicated that I was on a roll, so I made the connection in less time than it takes to tell. Joe Keyes. Jokees. One and the same? Probably just a matter of the first of my earlier callers having poor diction. “I think I’m beginning to get the idea,” I said. “Tell me about Joe Keyes.”

My man seemed surprised. “You don’t know Joe?”

“No. I just asked you to inform me.”

“Gee,” he said, “you being an eye an’ all, I figured you’d know. Joe took over from Jack Lanigan.”

The gears were meshing. I knew about Jack Lanigan’s demise – who didn’t? – but I wasn’t au fait with subsequent developments. Well, as I mentioned, I was busy at the time. “Okay,” I said. “Joe Keyes took over from Howling Jack. That still doesn’t explain things. I can get riddles from comic books. Now, maybe you’d care to spill it – and by the way, you might tell me who you are.” I was going for mastery.

He looked around again, still not sure about privacy, but finally as satisfied as he was likely to be. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m Tommy Spooner. Joe took my cat.”

“Cat?”

“That’s right. A Balinese cat.”

“Balinese, eh? Would that be similar to a Siamese one?”

“I think so,” he said. “Don’t know for sure. Anyway, it came from Bali.”

Though by no means an animal lover, I’d nothing much against cats in general. But Siamese seemed different. I couldn’t rid myself of a certain feeling about them. They look so ... well ... Egyptian. I’ve always thought of them as creatures stepping out of the burial chamber of a pyramid. I mean, what the hell have they been living on for three thousand years? Mummies? Spooky. You’ll note that I’d already lumped the creatures together with Tommy Spooner’s moggy.

I steeled myself. “So, Joe Keyes took your Balinese cat. Until just now, I always reckoned that cats were two a penny. Is yours special?”

“It’s worth four thousand dollars. That’s the difference.”

I knew I was sinking into hitherto unplumbed depths, but couldn’t resist. “So, it’s a show cat, is it? Yard-long pedigree or something?”

He threw back his head, exhaling pointedly to show his exasperation. “Man,” he said, “it’s not a real, live cat. It’s a model, made of gold, all the way through. It belonged to my mother. The only valuable thing the family ever owned.”

Oh, no, I thought. Not another Maltese Falcon thing. For a fleeting, light-headed moment I had a vision of Greenstreet and Lorre giving me hard stares, then I remembered that they did that to the patsy – a role I’d no intention of filling. “Right,” I said. “You’re Tommy Spooner and Joe Keyes took your gold Balinese cat. Now I’m as wise as a family of owls, or would be if you’d get on with it. What’s the connection between you, your cat, Joe Keyes and the Pillars of Hercules I just had in here?”

He heaved his shoulders – I reckoned a three-foot tape measure would have gone all round them, jacket included. “I was the muscleman for Joe,” he began. The idea of this half-portion doing heavy duty for anyone outside Lilliput struck me as odd, but I contained myself. After all, he could have been a gunny and a bullet is no respecter of size. He went on: “I did the collectin’. Coupla weeks ago, I was on the way back to Joe with the week’s take – two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-six dollars. I got mugged. One guy. He took the lot.”

I showed him open hands. “Well, I suppose these things happen in your line of work, don’t they?”

“Now an’ then,” he said, “but Joe don’t buy that an’ he ain’t what you’d call an understandin’ man. He put these two punks on my case – an’ before you ask, they’re new talent an’ I don’t know where he dug ‘em up. I guess they reckoned I’d got to you before they did.”