3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany (8 page)

“Hey, that could hurt,” she yelps, as she pulls her precious cell phone close to her torso to protect it.

I might have made a big mistake in my selection of an assistant coach.

Back to the team, “Now, you people try it.”

Dribble, dribble, pass, pass, shoot, shoot. The players are a little better than Kelly, but not much. We dribble, pass, shoot; dribble, pass, and shoot some more. I can’t remember too many baskets being made in the hour we have the court.

“Okay, on Saturday, I want everyone to think BEEF.”

“McDonald’s or basketball?” Wilma asks.

Is it any wonder why we haven’t won a game?

CHAPTER 6

“Wait.”

He says before I have a chance to say “Hello.”

“And who are you?”

“Tiffany.”

“Tiffany who?”

“Tiffany Richmond, investigator in training.”

“Wait” Jack Wayt looks over to me, then back to Tiffany, and asks her, “Do I look a little gaunt to you?”

Tiffany gives him a once over. “You could definitely lose twenty pounds, get a better suit, dye your hair, and get rid of those awful shoes.”

“But do I look peaked?”

“I’m not sure, because I don’t know what that word means,” Tiffany answers and admits.

“I might be coming down with pancreatitis,” Jack informs us of his latest self-diagnosis. “I’m almost positive my pancreatic juices aren’t flowing properly.”

“I have no problem with my flow,” Tiffany tells him.

Yet again, too much information.

“Jack, what did you find out about this place?” I ask.

The three of us are standing in the same spot where I was almost killed the other day.

“It’s owned by some dummy corporation,” Jack says.

“My daddy says a lot of companies are owned by idiots,” Tiffany informs us. “That’s why they’re underinsured.”

Tiffany is at the very beginning of her family business’ learning curve.

We pace around the outside of the building and try to see something that we didn’t see the first time around.

Tiffany would obviously rather be at Saks. She sashays around doing her best not to dirty her fancy shoes in the oil stains, grease, and “yucky” potholes. “Why are we here again?” Tiffany asks. “Because I don’t like being in these neighborhoods, especially in this disgusting alley.”

“This is where the kidnappers dropped me off and somebody started shooting at me,” I tell her.

“You didn’t tell me that, Mr. Sherlock.”

“Yes, I did. I told you about me getting kidnapped, shot at, almost crushed, and roughed up, the other night when you picked me up.”

“Oh, I wasn’t listening,” Tiffany says.

Why do I bother?

Jack leads us into the back door of the building. “So far we’ve got zilch.”

Inside, the CSI techs are unpacking their hand-held vacuum cleaners. “Don’t touch anything, Tiffany,” I say as we walk through the junked-up, two room area that’s as filthy as a third world slum.

“You might want to tell those guys,” Tiffany says pointing to the techs, “they’d be better off hiring a cleaning crew.”

Jack leads us to a window facing the rear alley. “This is where someone tried to pop you,” he says. “There’s powder residue all over.”

I move to a chair which sits all alone, no doubt where the shooter took aim.

“Tell you anything?” Jack asks.

“Plenty,” I lie.

“Good.” Jack knows I’m lying.

We move to the center of the bigger of the two rooms where there’s an old table, which was once part of someone’s kitchen years ago. It has less dust and grime on its top than the rest of the junk in the place. A CSI tech waits for us before he vacuums. “This the office?” I ask.

“I bet,” Jack says.

“What are you two talking about?” Tiffany asks, not wanting to miss out.

“Economics,” I answer.

“I hate that,” Tiffany says. “The only thing I like about economics is the money.”

No surprise there.

We keep searching for clues. Jack points out some things he sees, and I do the same. Tiffany gets real bored--real quick. “Excuse me,” she says to get our attention, “but what does all this have to do with me getting ‘roofied’?”

“Maybe nothing,” I tell her. “Maybe everything.”

“Bad answer, Mr. Sherlock. Really bad answer.”

In the far back of the building, tucked away around a corner are two doors, both closed. Tiffany moves to the first one and tells us, “I’m gonna hate myself, but two Latte Grandes are calling me home.” She opens the first door, steps inside, and yells out, “Oh my God. This is disgusting.”

What did she expect, the Ladies Room at the Ritz?

“Help!”

Jack and I immediately run to her aid. She stands in a pool of sticky, dark-red glop. With her right hand she braces herself against the door and lifts her left foot to inspect the effect her “Wrong Way” Corrigan maneuver has had on the sole of her very expensive footwear. The stuff oozes on it like marinara sauce made with too much tomato paste. I look at Jack. Jack looks at me.

“Sure does kill that Kevlar theory,” I surmise.

“What is this cruddy gunk?” Tiffany asks.

“You’re standing in a pool of blood,” Jack tells her

“Blood!” Tiffany screams. “I’m standing in someone’s blood?”

“Afraid so, Tiffany.”

“In my eight-hundred dollar Steve Maddens!? Oh my God!”

---

The cheapest cell phones, with the cheapest cell phone plans in the entire Chicagoland area, are found at More4LesMobile. The store, which used to be the Meaner Wiener hot dog stand, and could still be a hot dog stand since More4LesMobile did absolutely no remodeling before setting up shop, is located way west on Belmont Avenue. The More4Les Mobile name implies that you will save big money on your communication needs, but it’s more a play on words. The guy who owns the place is named Lester, so every purchase will mean “more for Les." He must be raking it in because every time I drop by, he brags about driving a bigger and fancier car than the one he owned before.

“Richard Sherlock, how are ya?” Les is behind the counter where hot dogs used to lie wrapped around the greasiest fries in town.

“My phone broke, Les.”

“Was it under warranty?” Les asks, eyeing Tiffany.

“I didn’t know your phones have warranties,” I mention to the owner.

“I got guarantees, warranties, protection plans. The whole nine yards. You want it Sherlock, I’ll sell it to you.”

“Do you have any iPhones?” Tiffany asks.

“Let me see,” Les turns around and peers up at what used to be the Meaner Wiener’s menu board. According to it, you could chow down on such cholesterol –laden delicacies as the Big Bad Brat, the Devil Dog, and the Ferocious Frank. In their place now are easily removable listings of the phones currently in stock. “No iPhones,” he says. “But I did just get a shipment of top of the line ZLE Smartphones.”

“What’s a ZLE?” Tiffany, my phone consultant asks.

“Only the hottest phone to come out of China since they put up the Great Wall.”

“Literally, the hottest?” I ask.

“Bad choice of terms,” Les says as he reaches behind the counter, where the food orders used to come up, grabs a phone, and hands it to Tiffany.

“What’s this?” Tiffany asks, pointing out a blotch on the screen of the phone.

Lester takes the phone back, scratches the gunk off, and explains, “Relish.” He hands it back to her. “This phone’s got it all, talking, texting, twittering, it’ll even make ice cream cones on a hot day.”

“Do you have any Samsungs?” Tiffany asks.

“Tiffany,” I interrupt. “I don’t need a music service on the phone.”

Tiffany looks at me as if I had one of Jack Wayt’s diseases.

“Sammys? No, I don’t have any right now,” Les tells Tiffany. “But I could order one from my supplier and have it here by tomorrow.”

“Let me see what else you got,” Tiffany tells him.

Les goes back into the kitchen area and returns holding a greasy wire basket filled with loose cell phones. He dumps them on the counter in front of us as if they were sizzling French fries.

“Do all of these come with a set of directions?” I ask.

“No.”

Tiffany uses her nail file to pick around the phones so she won’t get her nails chipped. “This is all you got?” she asks Les.

“Today.”

“These are like TV’s without HD,” she says of the array of choices.

“Tell me what kind you want,” Les tells her. “And I can special order it.”

“Are they all used?” Tiffany asks.

“Usually, in more ways than one,” Les explains.

Tiffany finally chooses one that has a very tiny keyboard that slides out of the side of the phone; the logical progression from my prior flip phone. Les puts in my old number, and gives me a plug-in charger. I write him a check for seventy bucks and ask him not to cash it for a few days. A new phone, a free charger, and no interest until my check clears. Am I a great shopper or what?

As we’re leaving More4LesMobile, Tiffany says, “Ya know, Mr. Sherlock, technology hasn’t just passed you by, it’s lapped you.”

---

Monroe Chevelier has an office with a television, a wet bar, a 36-inch computer terminal, plus a number of medals, trophies, and awards hanging on its walls. There are no papers on his desk. His wooden in-box is empty, so’s his wooden out-box. He sits behind a mahogany desk wearing a perfectly tailored blue blazer that enhances his muscular upper body.

“What can I do for you, Tiff?” he asks as Tiffany and I sit and share the very comfortable leather couch.

“I wanna talk about the night in the Zanadu.”

“Which night?”

“The night I got roofied,” Tiffany explains.

“I don’t have a lot of time left,” he informs us.

I wonder if he means he’s got some terminal illness, but I don’t ask because he’s as buffed and brawny as that guy on the paper towel package. “I understand some guy came between you and your date while you were at the bar?” I pose this more as a question than a statement.

“She wasn’t my date.”

“Told ya,” Tiffany says to me.

“What happened?” I ask more simply.

“I was there, minding my own business, talking to Alix Fromound, and this geek comes up and …”

“Cock blocks you,” Tiffany chimes in.

“Yeah, exactly.”

“So, what did you do?”

“I stand up, tap him on the shoulder, and I’m just about to crush his windpipe …,” Monroe demonstrates by shaping his right hand into a claw.

“But you didn’t?”

“Nope,” he says. “Everybody starts going apeshit over something that’s going on a couple stools down.”

“That was me they were going apeshit over, Mr. Sherlock.”

“Yes, I figured that out, Tiffany.”

“And when I look back to the guy I’m going to bust,” Monroe continues, “he’s gone.”

“Where’d he go?”

“Who knows?”

“Did you go after him?”

“Nope.”

“Why not? You wanted to crush his windpipe, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but all these chicks are screaming, the bartender’s climbing over the bar, the security guys are running up. It was like a Super Bowl touchdown in the last minute of regulation.”

I sit back, conjure up the DVD scene in my head, and come to no conclusion. When I come back to reality in a few seconds, I ask Monroe, “What do you do here?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing, I just wondered.”

“I’m the Executive Vice President of Preferred Accounts.” He glances down at his gold Rolex and stands up. “Time to go.”

“Big meeting?” I ask.

I turn and see a man in a gym suit approaching us. This guy is equal to, or better than, Monroe in every muscle category on the body. “Ready?” he asks.

“Right with you,” Monroe says to the gym rat. Nice to see you again, Tiff.” Monroe is well-schooled in the art of giving people the bum’s rush. “Sorry, you got roofied.”

“Me too,” Tiffany says. “I’m used to people going apeshit over me, but not that many people in such a big group.”

Monroe Chevelier and the gym rat turn left when they reach the hallway, Tiffany and I turn right. We walk by a number of offices, and a big room with thirty or so cubicles. “What does this CEI do anyway?” CEI being the name of the company.

“I don’t know,” Tiffany says. “Monroe’s dad started it.”

I walk slower, trying to listen in on employee conversations. Nothing. When I reach the reception area, I ask the attractive lady wearing a headphone. “What does this company do?”

“Mergers and acquisitions.”

“What does Monroe Chevelier do?” I figure I have nothing to lose by asking what could be considered a very unprofessional question.

“Anything and anybody he wants,” she states, nonchalantly.

---

It’s late in the afternoon. Tiffany leaves me to go off to some yoga class where they heat up the room to a hundred and fifty degrees, the instructor bends you into different pretzel shapes, and your entire body sweats like a busted faucet. I do enough sweating over my financial situation, and decline Tiffany’s offer to join in the yoga fun.

Instead, I walk over to Bruno’s condo to wait and hope for another sighting. While I'm leaning against the concrete railing over the Chicago River, I ask myself a number of questions. The first being: Why am I doing this? As far as I know, I’m not even getting paid. Tiffany isn’t hurt and is no longer in any danger. I could chalk the whole incident up to her bad choice of a cocktail. Secondly, why did the Thug in the fedora kidnap me? To scare me, to warn me, to keep me away from something or someone? Thirdly, what was that
whoosh/plop
sound that I can’t get out of my head? Fourthly, why does this whole thing intrigue the heck out of me? And, last but not least, will Morrie’s Bail Bonds Bailouts team ever win a game?

I stay lost in thought for about an hour, never seeing Bruno. I make my first call on my new phone to my girls, then grab dinner at the first cheap place to eat that I can find. While I devour a turkey sandwich, I read the latest edition of the
Sun Times
that some thoughtful person left on the seat. By the time I leave the restaurant, it’s close to 8:30. I decide it would be a good time to go stand in line.

---