Private Dick!; Chapter Eleven

The following may be grammatically incorrect, to highlight themain character's lack of smarts! 

Chapter Eleven:

 

     The ringing of my phone sounded like something loud.  After I scraped myself off the ceiling, I answered, “Havelock Investigations; We’ll Find Out!”  That last little bit I came up without going to college for four years, if you can believe that. 

 

     “Yes, I need to hire someone.”

 

     “Well, we’re not a temp agency; we investigate things.  If you need to hire someone, might I suggest somebody else? “

 

     “No, no, I need something investigated.”

 

     “Well then, we’re your man!  I didn’t mean it like a gay thing, although I’d be cool with that; I just happen to be straight.”

 

     “What?  No; I didn’t think you were...; no, I’d like to hire your firm to investigate my boss.”

 

     “And just what do you suspect your boss is doing?”

 

      “Well, he tells us...”

 

     “Who’s us?”

 

     “Oh, I’m sorry, my coworkers; you know those pictures of strangers that come in a new wallet?  Those.”

 

     “You put pre-made photos of people nobody knows into new wallets?”

 

     “Not exactly; we are the strangers in those photographs.”

 

     “What; new wallet models?”

 

     “Exactly,”

 

    One, those things creeped me out a little, and B, I never knew there was such a thing!  “So, what can we do for you?”  I always said ‘we’, not ‘I, as it made Havelock Investigations sound bigger than it was.  I knew that eventually, they’d find out just how small it was, but in investigations, size really doesn’t matter.  It’s how you investigate, not how many investigators you may have.

 

     “Well, anyway, our boss tells us that with the bad economy, he can’t give us raises.  Two things wrong with that, the economy’s not bad, and we have reason to believe he’s out spending money hand over fist, while he pleads poverty.”

 

     “Well, Mr...”

 

      “Sernow.”

 

     Fine; Mr. Sernow, I’ll check it out.”

 

 

     I was shadowing Mr. Craylar, the boss, to see where he went.  I know, I know, isn’t that why people usually shadow people?  Fine, but anyhow, I was shadowing him, and he was attending a polo match!  Polo, really?  I had tried to follow him into the match, but a security guard who looked like a ham sandwich bellied up beside me, and said,

 

     “Whoa, whoa there, where do you think your going?”

 

     “Why, into the polo match, of course; where else would I be going?” I snapped angrily at his flapping jowls.

 

     “Sorry, no vagrants allowed!”

 

     “Vagrant; do I look like a vagrant?”  Then, I looked down at my attire.  Ratty-looking dress shoes, ripped-up slacks, the dress shirt missing buttons, and with the outline of Frank Sinatra made from gravy stains covering the front, didn’t exactly scream, ‘wealth!’  I guess I hadn’t upgraded my wardrobe from the lean times I’d recently gone through.   “Look, I may not look it, but I’m not a vagrant.”

 

     “Whatever you say, pal; you still can’t come inside.”

 

 

     So Frank and I slunk away.  I went immediately to a department store, where I purchased some new stuff.  After using a gas station bathroom to change, I returned to the polo stadium, and with a chip on my shoulder, I walked up to the same security guard and brazenly said,

   

      “There, do I still look like a vagrant?”

 

     “No, you don’t; but the polo match is over, so unless you want to see how fast the grass grows, it may get sort of boring!”

 

     I bit back a witty reply, like, “Hey, screw you!”, and settled on, “Thanks.”  So far, I had nothing on my quarry except that he liked horses.  I then decided to call it a day.  I know what you’re thinking, “Okay, you’re a day!”, but don’t.  I didn’t feel much in the mood to laugh. 

 

 

     “What?  What kind of a dick are you?”

 

     Needless to say, my client, Dave Sernow wasn’t taking the news I’d reached a dead end very well.  “The kind of dick who knows when he’s licked.”

 

 

     I didn’t get paid, obviously, as Mr. Dave Sernow stormed out of my office, incensed that I’d failed to come up with any evidence against his boss, but, though I didn’t like not solving a case, that’s the way the cookie crumbles in the dick business!