I needed a new case badly. The old one was looking a bit torn around the edges, and in places the stitching was completely ruined. I was just reaching for the sewing kit when there was a knock at the door. I looked up and saw the outline of a huge man against the window of the door. He looked like one of Jimmy “Spleen Ripper” McFurson’s men - heavies who didn’t bother with the questions. This made me uneasy since I was in debt to Jimmy “The Spade” McFurson to the tune of fifty thousand smackers.
I strode over to the door, punched through the glass and watched as the big man staggered back from the jab to the jaw. He went down and I walked over to him. With a knee on his chest I asked, “Who sent ya? Was it Jimmy “Fluffy Wuffy” McFurson?”
“Er, no”, said the big man, “actually, I was hoping you could help me find my aardvark, Algernon.”
“No-one but Sweet Lips calls me Algernon, and never in public.”
I helped the man to his feet and he introduced himself as Harwin Foxtrot, manager of a menagerie. Rubbing his jaw, he accompanied me into the office where he hit me with the details.
Seems as though Harwin had been getting himself into trouble with the menagerie. Not so many people wanted to see the animals he had on show there. In a desperate bid to raise dough he’d gone to see Jimmy “The Baker” McFurson, and had ended up with Jimmy’s sticky fingers in his pie.
To Harwin, there was no way out until Algernon the Aardvark came into his possession. Algernon could sing, dance and perform many of the lead parts from Shakespeare. He was an immediate hit with the crowds. Business was booming and Harwin was about to pay off Jimmy “Aardvark Thief” McFurson, when Jimmy stole the aardvark. Now all that was left of Harwin’s business was a tortoise that could play the piano, and an infinite number of monkeys who used to supply much of Algernon’s stage material.
“It’s the cost of feeding the monkeys, you see. There’s an infinite number of them, and only one of me. The money just doesn’t cover the cost of keeping them.”
My maths was always bad, but even I could see his point. I was glad I lived on the other side of town from the menagerie. I leaned back in my private eye special leather chair and looked out of the window. Outside the city was going through its morning ritual of noise and pollution. I needed a break, and this could be just the job I needed to get me out of this city.
“Where do I start?” I asked.
“Here are your plane tickets to Switzerland.”
Two days later and I’m standing in a town just west of Zurich called Aarau. I looked around the hedgerows for a while trying to find some trace of Algernon, then I decided to think big. I went over to the local theatre and asked if Algernon was in. They showed me to his changing room.
“Algernon, I’m taking you back. Harwin needs you and the monkeys are getting out of hand.” I rehearsed my speech as I walked down the corridor to Algernon’s door. It had two gold stars on the front along with the name “Algernon “The Aardvark” von Montague-Smith” emblazoned in gold lettering around the top in a semicircular motif. I knocked. He answered.
I looked down at the aardvark. He looked kinda cute in his smoking jacket and slippers. He bade me welcome and I stepped over him into the room. Inside there were the usual things that actors need: lipstick, rouge, mascara - it looked kinda like my bedroom. Algernon poured me a whiskey. I shot the shooter and asked for a chaser. He handed me the bottle. I liked this aardvark.
“I can’t go back, Mr. Bullet, sir.” Algernon looked worried. I looked at my empty bottle - I drink faster when I’m in good company.
“Ya gotta go back, Algae, Harwin needs ya.”
“I know, but Jimmy “Nice Guy” McFurson has set me up here in Aarau four nights a week with my own hit show. Things are looking great, and he says that I can get my family over from Oz anytime now.”
“Hmmmm,” I could see Algernon’s point. Why would he want to go back to a third rate stage show in a menagerie run by a fourth rate manager. Even it did have a tortoise that could play the piano. Here Algernon had a future, he meant something, and Jimmy “Reformed Character” McFurson was looking after him to make sure that he made it to the top of his profession.
However, no aardvark, no cheque.
I tapped the aardvark on the head with the bottle and placed his unconscious body in the suitcase.
Fifteen hours on a plane with an unconscious aardvark in your hand luggage is not my idea of fun. Fifteen hours with a Las Vegas showgirl called Sweet Lips anxious to return all your winnings to the casino below, now that’s a whole different bucket of love.
Apart from the occasional muffled moans from the overhead compartment, my journey back to the Windy City was eventful. The stewardess was friendly, a little too friendly to get my refusal, and the subscription fee for the Mile High Club became just another entry on my expense account. Sometimes it’s good to be a private detective. I think the chicks dig my trenchcoat; either that or it’s my deep, gravelled voice.
I lit up another smoke, inhaled deep and felt the surge of nicotine rush through me. Unfortunately a rush of water to the head followed it. The woman two rows down had emptied her entire supply of Evian in my direction. I figured that she had nothing left to give, so I lit up another. She rummaged, found some DVT socks and approached me with the same look that my Turkish masseur gave me the time I forget my wallet. Reliving those hours in that cubicle with Abdul dropped that weed right out of my mouth.
I called for a drink. The steward wiggled over. I asked for a stiff whisky. He looked at me knowingly and winked. I asked him if he knew Beauchamp. Turned out Beauchamp was his brother. Turned out that he was looking for me. Turned out that he knew kung fu.
The plane touched down on I35, they chucked me out the back and took off. I was stuck out in the middle of Utah, with an aardvark in a carpetbag and as much humour as the British Army when the teabags are missing. I needed a car badly. Fortunately, Sammy’s Car Dealership was just across the highway, through the traffic jam, across the small wood, over the river, under the bridge and on the far side of the mulberry bush.
The car salesman had more patter than the Chinese army in flip-flops. He was six foot four and full of muscle. I needed a car. He needed a sale. I underwent open wallet surgery, and everyone was happy - except my client’s accountant. I was now the proud owner of a pink Cadillac, complete with fake fur and leather interior. It matched my luggage. I reached in and retrieved Algernon and placed him on the passenger seat. The road trip from Hell had begun.
Two days in and I’m feeling lower than a rattlesnake in a wagon rut. Two more days and that rattlesnake is so far above me that I can’t even see it. All I want is to die, and it’s only a misplaced loyalty to my client that prevents me from strangling Algernon. A single run through of “One Hundred Green Bottles” involving a musical aardvark with nothing but a kazoo is enough to test the patience of any man. Four days of nothing else is grounds for justifiable homicide. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had been pushed to the brink. I reached for my pet Magnum and was just about to pop a few caps into Algernon’s musical ass, when the Windy City came into view. I put the gun and the hammer down.
It turned out that one of Algernon’s other skills was map reading which meant that we pulled up outside of the menagerie in time to meet Harwin before he started on the daily feeding run. He ushered us into his office, took my coat, hat and nearly my gun before I could stop him, and bade us sit down. I reclined gracefully on my upturned beer crate, and Algernon leaned against the desk cutting quite a dash with his new found smoking jacket, cigarillo and copy of Q, by Luther Blissett.
“Glad to see you back, Algernon. You gave us all quite a scare with your sudden disappearance, are you ready for your evening performance?”
Algernon opened his mouth to say something when suddenly the door burst open and in stepped Jimmy “Dear God, No” McFurson with two of his favourite heavies dressed like characters from The Dominatrix – the sadomasochistic bar on 13th Street and Main.
“Hello, ladies. It looks like you weren’t expecting me. Cuff ‘em, boys.”
Now, I’m not usually one for submitting to a pair of heavies, dressed in leather bondage gear wielding handcuffs. But when those heavies are working for Jimmy “You’re in real trouble now” McFurson, then you just have to go along with things until Fate can get off her elegant posterior and conjure up some form of deus ex machina. Unfortunately, it appeared that Fate was taking a much needed holiday with Faith, Hope and Charity in Greece leaving her boyfriend Loki in charge. I may not be good at mixing my mythologies, but even I could see that this was going to be bad news all round.
Five minutes of what can only be described as a demonstration of a dedicated passion to one’s chosen profession later, and I was strung upside down over a pool of water looking down at a pair of circling sharks and wondering how my loose change had managed to stay in my pockets.
The rope binding my feet was fed over a pulley and tied off with a neat constrictor knot against a convenient post. Personally, I would have chosen a bowline, or perhaps a shank, but now was not a time to know knots. And, frankly, I was more concerned about the burning candle placed just below the rope that was starting to cause a nasty fray.
“Jimmy, old friend, pal and more than moderate acquaintance. How can you do this to your ex-partner?”
“Dexter, you’ve had this coming to you for a long time. You’ve owed me fifty thousand smackers for weeks now and I’m here to collect it from your sorry white ass.”
“Harwin’s got the money! My fee for getting Algernon back will more than cover the debt.”
“Small problem, Dexter, old mate, buddy et cetera. Harwin doesn’t have the money. He was about to go out of business, remember? Also, Algernon works for me now, so in addition to owing me the cash you have also attempted to steal my aardvark. The way I see it, you’re better off as shark food, old chum.”
Even I had to wince at that delicately built reposte. And then the candle burned through the rope and I fell head first into the shark pool.
I’m not sure who was more surprised: me or the sharks. You see, those sharks belonged to Harwin’s menagerie and had been quietly circling in that small pool for years. Yes, they looked menacing and the crowds would “ooh” and “aah” whenever they flipped their tails or munched on some bits of food dropped in during a show, but the truth was that they were cowards. When I dropped in on them from a short height they froze for a moment and then dived in panic to the bottom of the pool. Never being one to miss an opportunity to escape I swam to the side, climbed out and ran like hell.
The goons were professionals, but even they hadn’t expected this so I had a good ten seconds head start before they gave chase. When they did it was a chase like no other ever described in the history of storytelling. Full of fistfights; death defying leaps to safety; frantic grabs at passing trams; elegant pole vaults over rocks; cunning cliff dives into small glasses of water; unique demonstrations of acrobatic light aircraft flights in the canyons of Tibet with it all ending in a crashing finale that terminated in an ending to end all endings. So I won’t bore you with the details here.
The goons had shuffled off their mortal coils, Jimmy “What the hell happened?” McFurson was nursing a large lump to the back of his head back in the Windy City, and I was sitting with Algernon, my new partner, in a bar in Tangiers. Once again, life was being good.
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