PART THREE PART THREE to this point
Spoiler:
Just as I was sliding up to the most perfect sized sock, I felt a quick pull on the ribbon in my hair. That hairy ape's little squirrel friend hissed in my ear, "Stay focused on the plan!"
I was a little vague as to what exactly the plan was, to be honest, but if it meant wearing these two comfortable socks then I sure didn't mind. "Ooh, that feels good", I smiled down at them.
One red one, and one blue. I wondered the significance....
Then it came to me -- I could recruit the socks against the big ape. So I said, "Hey guys, got somewhere we can stash this pesky squirrel?"
"Sure!" replied Red Sock. "Let's stuff him in the toaster!"
"You do know I charge by the hour?", I interrupted.
"Look, let me tell it my way, or it wont make any sense", she said.
"OK, lady, it's your dime", I replied.
"If you want to pay me to listen to your little adventure with a couple of socks and a squirrel in a sleazy room (as a big hairy ape watches), it's your call", I said, while leaning back in my chair and getting comfortable again.
The pause was pregnant.
There was a sudden pop; then an odour started to tickle my nose, and also hers, we both looked around and noticed from the opposite side of the room, where the toaster was, a small feather surrounded by an increasingly large plume of smoke.
I quickly doused the smoking toaster with a tumbler of gin. It was then that I noticed the toaster contained a small pheasant, and the squirrel was no where to be found!
"Wait!", he exclaimed.
"What?", she asked.
'Squirrel!' he thought ....
'Pheasant!' she thought; and slowly started to faint, (delicately).
When she awoke, she found a nicely roasted pheasant awaiting her, along with a nice glass of Chianti. "Hmm," she thought. "Chianti with pheasant? What could this possibly mean?"
A date ?
Or a mean devilish trick ..... !
Not wanting to appear rude, she cautiously took a bite of the pheasant. It was prepared on the rare side, which enhanced the gamy nature of the bird.
"At least it wasn't chicken again" I thought, as I carefully spit out some bird-shot. But why did we stop for dinner?
"Surely it must be closer to time for high tea." I thought to myself. "Unless, of course, someone had changed the settings on grandfather's clock!"
Through the haze I suddenly realized I was hallucinating. Someone had poisoned me!
I looked out the window and saw the large hairy shadow again. This time there was no mistaking the harsh quality of his eerie laughter!
'What is happening', I thought, 'am I hallucinating, is that really an ape out there, and me indoors with a lady client eating pheasant'?
Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something; but then felt a sharp pain on the side of my head.
Sometime later, who knows how much later, I opened my eyes and found myself on a silk-sheeted bed wearing blue flannel jammies with kitties on them. My head was jumping and throbbing like I had a juke joint going full tilt behind my eyes.
I shook my head to clear out the rumba music playing in the background. Looking around, I was surprised by my surroundings.
Since when had my bed have 4-posts? Since when had there been pink wallpaper on my walls and black sheets on my bed ?
This room looked more like a bad bordello scene in a Pee Wee Herman movie than anything else. Rising slowly to a sitting position I noticed something peculiar in the corner of the room.
The apparently dead body of the ape was slumped in a pool of blood and custard. The only clue was the signed room service receipt for dessert and a bottle of bubbly.
I tentatively tasted the custard. It was still warm.
The bottle of bubbly was still corked. There was no sign of the dame....
I finished the custard and champagne, a mistake I won't make again. Burping up custard, I stooped to examine the body.
But then the body twitched. I staggered back, slightly the worse for wear after the champagne and custard.
I hoped the twitching indicated he was still alive. One because I was having a hard time imagining how I was going to remove the dead body of an 800 pound primate without a lot questions being asked, and even more importantly, he'd not yet paid my fee for the day
After first locating and removing his wallet, I began slapping the ape to wake him up. He suddenly lunged at me, as his fetid banana laden breath washed over my face.
I chuckled to myself as the ape missed me completely and fell flat on his face. I chuckled a second time when I realized "slapping the ape" could have more than one meaning.
Unfortunately the ape wasn't laughing. As he pulled himself up by climbing up the door jamb, he pulled the biggest heater I had ever seen out of his hip pocket!
It must have been 12 inches long, with shiny new filaments. I'd bet that baby could keep the whole bedroom toasty warm on a snowy winter day.
"Whatcha lookin' at bud?" snarled the big ape. I'm a tropical species and need constant heat!
I offered him my pyjamas, seeing as I still had a decent suit on underneath. "I may need to keep warm" he said, "but I aint stooping that low."
So then I offered him my airplane ticket to the Tropics. He took it and left the room without a word, never to be seen again. (what was I thinking?)
So, I thought, is that the case solved? What to do now - that plane ticket didn't pay for itself.....
I decided to follow him to the airport and get a photo of him getting on the plane. Proof may be required to collect my money from the blonde.
But ! Ah! the camera phone. Where is it, I wondered as I quickly ran.....
I ran into the street wildly hailing a taxi! One screeched up to the curb and I jumped in -- and there was the blonde in the back seat with a glass of champagne in her hand!
"Well, hello there", she simpered, holding out another filled glass. Please take a seat and update me on the situation, pronto".
"Nix the drink, doll-face." I said. "We've got more important things to do!"
"You should never turn down a free drink, Private Investigator Sledgehammer," she said with a smile that could freeze the warts of a horned toad. "Especially from strangers who not only know your name, but also have more inside information on the case you're working than you could begin to imagine--and also know more that you realize about just how deep this particularly twisted rabbit hole goes."
"WTF! I thought we were in a taxi!" I shouted, looking wildly about for the exit.
She shoved a leperous distilment of a cocktail into my hand, and stared deep into my eyes. "So!" she said, "what's going on?"
Then my blood froze as I heard the taxi driver laugh. It was the ape -- in a badly fitting jacket and cap!
I asked the dame for a smoke. As she lit the match, I grabbed the matchbook and used it to ignite the drink!
Flames flamed everywhere all at once and indeed at once. The dames' hair caught!
So did the ape's fur! As they started beating out each others flames, I jumped from the taxi!
I ran into the closest gin joint, and stood gasping at the bar. Of all the gin joints, in all the boroughs of New York, I had to stumble into this one!
But there in the corner, what! No Never ..... An ape! playing the piano .....
I shuffled over to the cigarette-smoke scarred piano, and tapped the ape on the shoulder. "You know what I want to hear..." I mumbled to the ape; "go ahead and play it...Play something from...Banarama."
I ordered a gin, not the flaming sort this time, as I listed to the mellow sounds of the piano and distant sounds of fire trucks out side on the street. Just as I thought of my next request, the front door swung open bringing in a squeel of tires, a siren winding down, a small wisp of smoke, and ... No! it couldn't be, not here!!!
In walked the most down-trodden clown I had ever seen. He wore a ratty orange wig, had a torn purple nose, and his clothes hadn't been laundered since Prohibition was repealed.
"The first one who offers to smell my flower gets drilled" he snarled. I'm not a happy clown!
I wondered, once again, of all the joints I could have waltzed into, and it had to be this crazy son of a crazy gin store!
"Bartender", I yelled, "Two gins for me, and whatever the ape and the clown are having, make it three each;" I'll get to the bottom of this case if it means killing me before both these two jack-asses are too drunk to realise what was happening; meanwhile, the Dame ?
I downed the first gin, and turned to the clown. "Have you heard the one about the Rabbi, the Priest, and the monkey in leather chaps?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"You know the answer" they both said, in unison. I was surprised at their synchronicity, as they each looked around.
Gazing into the back corner of the bar, I spotted a flash of platinum blond hair. After buying the ape and the clown another round, I started for the back corner.
I was astounded. When I reached the corner, not only was the blonde sitting there, but also the ape and the clown!
Looking back at the bar, I saw the ape and clown rolling dice, in the same spot I had just left. At that exact moment, the garish neon lights illuminated the clown's bloodshot eyes, exposing what I can only describe as a loving glance at the ape.
It was bizarre. I saw a flash; it started near the doorway and shone around the room until it eventually lit up the back corner.
I closed my eyes to avoid the bright light, but I could see it right through my eyelids! Then I heard a loud bang next to my left ear!
How I wondered, did the ape suddenly get to my left side and discharge that pistol. In the corner, the clown sat; with a look of astonishment on his face, he clasped a white-gloved hand over a bright red stain that slowly and inexorably increased in size.
I watched as the clown tried unsuccessfully to stem the spread of the ketchup stain; it finally dawned on him that it must have been the ape who loosened the top of the ketchup bottle. The clown now knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of a prank, and he didn't much like the feeling.
I looked again at the ape and saw that in his hand he had a ketchup bottle. How on earth had I mistaken that for a pistol; in my old age I could see this case was heading towards being my final one .....
<<<mysterious blond bimbo leaning over passed out detective and slapping his face to wake him up>>>
Next thing I know is that the Dame is leaning over me and having a conversation with someone about ZCD's and not giving them to people who can't handle temporal space time somethings.
"What? Huh?", I manage to say.