3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany (3 page)

“Hi, Arson.” Tiffany greets the first man, then the second. “Hi, Sterno.”

“Good evening, Tiffany.”

Sterno unhooks the rope and Tiffany passes through. The rope is immediately clipped back before I have a chance to enter.

“He’s with me,” Tiffany tells the pair.

“Tiffany, we can’t let your chauffer in.” Arson’s voice does not match his size.

“He’s not my driver.”

“Well, we can’t let your servant in either,” Sterno says.

“He’s not my servant.”

Close, but no cigar.

“Then what is he?”

“He’s with me,” Tiffany explains.

“Oh my God,” Arson says, as his hands go to his face like the kid in
Home Alone
. “You two are an item?”

Sterno consoles Arson with a hug. It’s obvious not only do these two pair up at the door, but they pair up everywhere else.

“Gross,” Tiffany says. “He’s like old enough to have kids smarter than me.”

Arson, whose bicep is the size of my waist, leans over to Tiffany. “We can’t let anybody in who dresses like an exterminator from Cleveland.”

“You have to let him in.”

“We could lose our jobs lettin’ some guy in who uses a 2-in-1 shampoo,” Sterno adds.

“He’s Mr. Sherlock, a detective who is here to find out who roofied me last night,” Tiffany tells them in her
I’ve got more money than God
tone.

“You got roofied last night?” Sterno asks incredulously.

“You didn’t hear?” Tiffany replies.

“No,” Arson says.

“So, let him in,” Tiffany repeats.

“No can do,” Sterno says.

“Let Mr. Sherlock in,” Tiffany says, “or I’ll put on my Facebook Page that the two of you are bald because you can’t grow your own hair and you both wear chin straps when you sleep.”

The rope comes off its mooring. I step forward, suddenly proud to be a member of such an exclusive group. I fluff up my faux leather jacket and my button down collar shirt and tell the not-so-dynamic duo, “I just want you to know that I don’t follow the fashion trends, I set ’em.”

As I pass through the portal, I hear a bewildered comment from the waiting peanut gallery behind me, “You letting that guy in?”

I follow Tiffany up a few steps and down a short path to huge metal door, which looks strong enough to keep Attila and his Hun buddies out. A slimy-looking guy in a slimier-looking suit steps forward to block our path. He takes one look at me and says to Tiffany, “Let me guess, you’re on a scavenger hunt and you found the Forgotten Nerd?”

Tiffany stares him straight in the eye, “This is Mr. Sherlock, Chicago Police Department, Detective First Class.”

Slimy Guy sashays to the left like a matador, “Welcome to Zanadu.”

The metal door slides open and a blast of hip-hop music hits me like a tornado hits a trailer park. I step inside and my entire body begins to violently shake to an over-dubbed backbeat mixed with an incessant string of garbled rap lyrics that must be in some other language.

I take a whiff. My hearing might be gone, but my sense of smell still works. The place smells like a perfumed sweat sock. I look around the enormous, nearly unimpeded floor space. People are jammed together like pickles in a jar. The dance floor is packed with bodies twisting and turning like a bucket of snakes. The scene is so intense, so loud, and so overwhelming; the only way you could communicate is by texting, which I don’t do because the letters are too small to push on my flip phone. The DJ, who’s on a platform above the crowd working two turntables and I can’t see how many tape decks, wears a huge pair of earphones, which makes him the only one in the place that doesn’t have to listen to the awful music he’s playing.

Tiffany pulls me through the throng as if she’s walking an unruly St. Bernard. She’s screaming something at me, but I can’t hear her, or read her lips because the place is vibrating faster than a motel bed with magic fingers. It’s probably a blessing I can’t hear her. We end up on the other side of the club, in a bar area the size of a basketball court. Thankfully, the area is cordoned off by a glass wall, which makes it somewhat easier to hear.

“This is where you go to have fun?” I ask Tiffany.

“No, this is where you go to be seen having fun,” she tells me.

Tiffany leads me to what would be about half court at the bar. She butts in between two guys who have enough mousse in their hair to be a matching oil slick. “This is where I was sitting when I took a sip and my head hit the bar like a tree falling on the moon that you can’t hear.”

I stop, look up to my left and then to my right. I see exactly what I suspected.

“Then I must have slid off the barstool and landed here on the floor.” Tiffany shows me by spreading her hands over the small area.

“How would you know that if you were already passed out?” I ask.

Tiffany ponders my question. “That’s a good question, Mr. Sherlock. I just figured that’s what happened.”

“First rule of life, Tiffany,” I tell her. “Assume nothing.”

“No,” Tiffany says. “The first rule of life is never use soap on your face. It dries out your pores.”

Once again, I stand corrected.

I make some mental pictures of the scene, having a photographic memory does have its advantages. Next, I count the bartenders and barbacks behind the bar. In about a sixty-foot space there are eight, six tenders who take orders and mix cocktails with incredible speed and two helpers who keep the ice wells filled and lug the clean and dirty glasses in and out. I lose track of how many waitresses come into the bar station empty and leave with a tray full of cocktails. I’m always amazed how they seldom spill a drop while navigating through the jungle of pulsating flesh.

Whoever owns this Zanadu is going to be able to build his own Xanadu in no time at all. The place is a gold mine.

“Do you remember which bartender served you?” I ask Tiffany.

“Bruno.”

“Bruno, the bartender,” I say for effect. “Is he here tonight?”

Tiffany looks up and down the bar. “Nope, I don’t see him.”

“Do you remember where you woke up?”

“In the back.”

“Show me.”

Tiffany leads me to a break in the bar and down a slight hallway. We go past the men’s and women’s facilities and stop at a door labeled
No Admittance.
Tiffany knocks. I watch the spy camera above the upper doorjamb switch on. We wait. A buzzer buzzes. I hear a click. Tiffany opens the door and enters. I follow.

It’s an office with two desks, one much smaller than the other. There’s a couch against the wall to my left between two identical doors, both closed. Behind the smaller desk, a behemoth of a man sits reading a comic book. Seeing Tiffany, he puts
The Fantastic Four
down and I spot a large semi-automatic bulge out of the coat of his ill-fitting suit. He doesn’t speak.

But the man seated at the larger desk does, “Tiffany, how are you?” he says.

“I’m good,” Tiffany answers with a smile.

The man, who could double as a
GQ
model, rises from his chair and comes out and around to greet us. “You gave us quite a scare last night.”

“This is no place for a beauty nap,” Tiffany tells him.

The guy takes a look at my jacket, takes a step back as if I have the cooties, and says, “And you are?”

“This is Mr. Sherlock, he’s a detective,” Tiffany informs the man.

“Chicago PD?”

“So to speak,” Tiffany answers before I have the chance.

Mr. GQ eyes me warily, but steps forward and puts out his hand to shake. “Gibby Fearn.”

“And what do you do here?” I give as well as I take.

“I’m the Vice President in charge of operations.”

I pause when I hear a faint whooshing sound behind one of the doors next to the couch before I speak the inevitable detective opening line, “Tell me what happened.”

“We got an alert from the bar last night a little after two. Within three minutes three security men converged on the spot to find Miss Richmond passed out against the bar rail.”

“Oh my God,” Tiffany says. “I don’t want to even imagine what position I was in.”

“What did you do?” I ask.

Gibby continues, “I rushed out, thought she was drunk …”

Tiffany interrupts, “Why would you ever think that?”

“Probably because you were unconscious on the floor next to the bar,” I answer for the VP of Operations.

“But that’s so not me,” Tiffany says.

“Go on, please.”

Gibby continues, “It’s the policy of the club that when an incident like this occurs, we remove the parties in question from the main floor as soon as possible.”

“Bad PR or you just don’t want an open spot at the bar?” I ask.

“What do you think?” This guy likes me about as much as he likes my leather jacket.

I hear the
whoosh
again, but this time the sound is accompanied by a
plop
. “Did you bring her in here?”

“What else would we do?” Gibby loves to ask questions. I hate that.

“But you didn’t call an ambulance?”

“Why should I? Her breathing was even, her pulse steady, and her color normal.”

“Still …” I say.

“What? People drink, people get drunk,” he says. “This is a 3 a.m. club. You don’t think this happens all the time?”

“Do you know if anyone took my picture while I was passed out on the floor like an un-chaperoned model at her first after-show party?” Tiffany asks.

“I can assure you nobody from Zanadu did.”

“If I find out someone did, this place will never see another dime of my or my daddy’s money.”

Gibby never retreats to his desk or asks if we want to sit down. I feel about as welcome as I did at Thanksgiving at my ex-in-law’s house.

“I let her sleep it off on the couch. She seemed fine by the next morning.” End of story.

“You stayed with her?”

“Who else?” Gibby asks with a sarcastic smirk. “I know when to go the extra mile in this business.”

“I’d like to speak with Bruno the bartender,” I say.

The Behemoth at the small desk speaks up, “Sick.”

“Did he pass out like I did?” Tiffany asks.

“Dun’t know.”

“Could I get his name and phone number?” I ask.

“Dun’t know,” the Behemoth answers.

I turn to Gibby. “I’ll need to see the video tapes from the cameras that cover that area of the bar,” I tell him.

“There’s a movie of what happened to me?” Tiffany shrieks.

“At least two,” I tell her. “Enough to make a documentary called,
Tiffany Gets Tipsy
.”

“Oh, my God, I want every copy destroyed.”

“You got a card?” Gibby asks. “I’ll call you when the tapes are returned from our service.”

I give a phony pat to my faux leather jacket pockets, “I left my cards in my other suit. Is it possible to have the tapes here for me by noon tomorrow?”

Gibby gives me a wry smile, as if he’s decided not to call my bluff. “What else can I do for you?”

There is one last
whoosh/plop
from behind the door. “I’ll let you know,” I warn him. Before leaving the office, I ask Gibby Fearn, VP of Operations, one last question, “Would you like to see Tiffany’s toxicology report when it arrives?”

“Why would I be interested in her blood alcohol level?”

“What if it isn’t alcohol that appears in the report?”

“What if it is?”

Life would be so much easier if people merely answered the questions asked of them instead of asking one of their own.

“Thanks for your time.”

I pull Tiffany out the office. Her first comment is “Mr. Sherlock we have to destroy those tapes or at least have my face electronically fuzzied up like they do on those reality TV shows.”

I ignore her request. “Come on,” I say. “I want to hang out in the bar for a few minutes.”

Tiffany says, “Out there? You want to hang out with
me
?” as if she needs each piece of specific information explained in detail.

“If anybody asks, I’ll tell them I’m your driver.”

“Well, okay, but I wish you had one of those chauffeur hats to wear,” she says as we proceed to the bar.

I pick a spot where I can see the entire length of the bar. The place is still packed. Drinks are being poured at a record pace. Waitresses hustle. It’s almost two-thirty in the morning and girls are deciding if, and guys are deciding on who, when it comes to who's getting their tickets punched this evening. The two overly-moussed guys are doing about as well as I would in the place.

Tiffany goes to the bar to get me a ginger ale and herself a frilly cocktail. As soon as she returns, she tells me she’s going to the ladies room. I stand alone like a wallflower at a high school dance. At exactly 2:32 a.m., Gibby and his muscle come out of their office and make their way down the bar, stopping at each cash register. Gibby inserts a key to the left of the computer pad on the machine, punches in a few numbers, waits for the cash drawer to open, and removes a hefty stack of bills. The money goes into a black canvas bag carried by the Behemoth. It takes less than five minutes to complete all six registers and return to the office.

The moment Tiffany returns, I tell her. “Time to go home.”

“But the night is still young.”

“But I’m not.”

---

I sleep until nine, quite late for me. Care gets up at ten and Kelly emerges from dreamland around ten-thirty.

“What do you say we take in a class at Sunday school?” I ask as we all stand in the kitchen.

“I go to school five days a week,” Kelly says. “That’s plenty.”

“How about church?” I ask. “We could go as a family.”

“I like going to the same church Tiffany goes to,” Care says. “The church of St. Mattress.”

I give up on their spiritual upbringing and pull my one frying pan out of the cabinet to start breakfast. “Pancakes?”

“You make terrible pancakes, Dad,” Kelly says.

“How about bacon?” Care asks.

“Bacon is bad for you,” I instruct my children. “It’s just a hunk of salty fat, fried up in its own grease.”

“But it tastes good,” Care says.

“How about French toast?” Kelly suggests.

“French toast it is.” I pull bread and eggs out of the refrigerator. Kelly and Care sit at the small table.