Notes

The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:

CHAPTER 1

It was a typical morning in my detective office in Chicago.

I was sitting at my desk which — with only a notepad, a pen and a couple coasters sitting on it — was an oasis in the otherwise cluttered room. As always, I was wearing my morning jacket, a gray fedora and a loose, slipknot necktie. And just like every day at this time, I was sipping my coffee, which I take black with just a lovin’ spoonful of sugar. I had the TV on, set to some news station where the talking heads were chattering about some war or another. Outside, a garbage truck was raising a holy clatter — I swear as loud as a U2, some B-52s and some other kinda jet put together. I peeked out my office window. A trio of skid row rats were scattering in widespread panic, leaving one little, modest mouse to scurry in the gutter. Although it was still early, the street was packed with the residents of nearby brownstones and other village people headed for their offices near Linkin Park, their small faces set stoically. In the alley across the street, a gang of four backstreet boys were pitching pennies, while the waitresses at the sad cafe down the boulevard got busy.

That’s when she walked in.

She was a gorgeous platinum blonde, dressed to the nines. The bangles on her gown were those of a queen, arranged in black and white stripes, and a single golden earring dangled from one lovely lobe. Only her wedding ring seemed cheap, an average white band of gold. She was one of those pretty things who, when they walk in the room, the air supply goes flying out in a rush. She was definitely not one of your average New York dolls, no cheap trick, but sexier than all those barenaked ladies in the men’s magazines that filled the corner newsstand.

“I’m the girl of your dreams,” she said.

“The who?” I stammered.

“My name is Alice. Alice Cooper. And I need your help.”

“No doubt. Ok go ahead, Blondie.”

She sat down across from me. “I’m from Barcelona.”

“Oh. A foreigner. Judas Priest, it’s quite a journey to Chicago from Barcelona.”

She fixed me with those big eyes, and it suddenly occurred to me that those lips needed a kiss. “I want you to find the killers of my husband.”

So it was a murder case. I couldn’t help but think the beautiful Mrs. Cooper might be taking me for a ride. Everything about this smelled of trouble — everything but the girl, that is.

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CHAPTER 2

It had been weeks since Mrs. Cooper had hired me to find the rascals who had killed her loverboy and husband, Floyd, but even though I put blood, sweat and tears into it, the investigation was in dire straits. I still couldn’t be sure Alice wasn’t setting me up for the fall. She had the knack for making my heart pump double-time with those sublime eyes of hers. I wanted to have blind faith in her, but I had learned years earlier to rely on faith no more. Anyway, as long as she was paying, I would do my job — and she kept forking over the green day after day. “I want vengeance for my love,” she told me.

“Don’t worry, doll. Keep paying, and he’ll be avenged sevenfold.” But inside, I wasn’t so sure.

I had personally boarded a train and traveled from Boston to Kansas looking for clues, but America is a big country and I came up empty-handed. Eventually, I had to give up and head east. I had sent a wire to Interpol, and they had men at work searching Europe and Japan. For a moment, we thought we’d picked up a lead in Berlin, but it turned out to be a bust and the Interpol agents had to eat humble pie. I even dialed Jackson 5-2765, the number of my friend, Spanky O’Toole. Spanky ran a small detective agency with offices in New York and Canada. His brother, Slade, answered the phone. I filled him in on the case, and he said, “Don’t worry. Spanky and our gang will scour all of Montreal. It’ll be cake!” But they, too, wound up with zip.

Meanwhile, back home, we had learned that the late Mr. Cooper had a thing for silk, satin and other chic materials, especially in shades of pink. He was known to frequent the black market textile shops that operated out of the basements in the garment district. The police, of course, had put the squeeze on the stooges who sold velvet underground, but no one could remember seeing Mr. Cooper the day he died. No one, that is, except for one daft punk named Ezra McGillicuddy. My buddy, Lou Beyond, who was a captain on the force, let me sit in when they interviewed the kid.

Ezra told Lou, “Yes, Captain Beyond, I remember him. What a player! We used to call him Pink Floyd. That day, he put in a new order for some taffeta. I tried to show him some fine paper lace, but he wasn’t interested. He wasn’t alone, either. He was with that drunk old physician — what’s his name? Dr. Robert. That’s it.”

A-ha! I turned to Lou. “Put a warrant out on Dr. Robert. I’ve seen that geezer downtown. I’ll look for him there.”

Lou nodded. “Roger wilco.” As he ran through the doors, toward the cars parked outside, I smiled. This Dr. Robert was likely to be our best lead yet, certainly better than Ezra.

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CHAPTER 3

I hadn’t heard from Alice in a couple days. Her gorgeous face had lit sparks inside me, and finding her husband’s murderer had become personal. The night before, I dreamed she had been kidnapped, and now I couldn’t get the image of Alice in chains out of my head.

I had a hard time finding the Aviary, the bar where I expected to find Dr. Charles Roberts, the last man to have seen Floyd Cooper alive. I was running low on fuel, and thought I might have to turn back, but a street vendor told me to take Shakin’ Street past Marcy Playground, ‘til I reached the power station, then go west. By the time I pulled up in front of the Aviary, it looked quiet. There was just an old REO Speedwagon parked outside, and a few of the drifters and the misfits you expect to see in that part of town.

The Aviary was owned by Belle and Sebastian Smith, whom I had known for years, and in addition to offeriing liquor and music, they served food as well, like hot tuna seasoned with red hot chili peppers. (Belle also made the jam that I loved to eat right off the spoon. She’d mash the raspberries through a sieve to remove the seeds, then combine them with the cranberries.) The Smiths opened the Aviary ten years after the arcade fire that had razed their previous restaurant. After the fire, the neighborhood was never the same, and the clientele of the Aviary tended to be bad company.

Inside, it was a crowded house. They called it the Aviary because the place was decorated with paintings and statues of birds. All kinds of birds. The coat check girl was nestled between a pair of swans, a budgie perched over the fire exit, and the eagles hanging from the rafters spun lazily over the what seemed like 10,000 maniacs packing the dance floor. A flock of seagulls was painted in shades of deep purple and simply red above the bar where men without hats nursed their everclear. I was counting crows on the liquor shelf when a mountain of a man stepped in front of me. It was “Zeppelin” McGrew, the Aviary bouncer. “Sorry, bub. Your kind ain’t wanted here,” he muttered.

Wham! I hit him with an upper cut to the chin. Big guys like him are all the same; they might be giants, but they crumple like pixies. I picked him up and led Zeppelin to the bar, where he steeled himself. “It’s no use, Mr. Mister!” The big cracker was so dazed, he was repeating himself. “I’ll never talk talk,” he said. I picked up a gin and tonic sitting on the bar and splashed it in his face. “Hey! You got me wet wet wet!”

“That’s the cure for your laryngitis,” I said. “Now talk!”

“Look, Robert is long gone. You need to speak to them!” His thumb was stabbing westward at the stage in the back of the bar. “You need to speak to the band!”

See answers for Chapter 3!

CHAPTER 4

Before heading backstage, I thought it would be a good idea to interview more of the animals in the bar. It was no little feat getting information out of those gorillaz. Most of the toadies I questioned stared at me like I was trying to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge, but a few confirmed that if I was going to find any information on who killed Floyd Cooper, it would be from the band, which was an all-female group that I knew very well indeed.

Meanwhile, my questioning had raised the alarm among the underworld types in the crowd, and there was a murmured frenzy erupting on the dance floor. I had managed to create panic at the disco, a real quiet riot. I slipped from the fray and headed for the wings of the band stage.

It was dark back there, but I kept moving forward, guided by voices from up ahead. I turned a corner and found a trio of dumb-looking woodworkers puffing on cigars under a sign that read, “NO SMOKING — BY ORDER OF MGMT.”

“Haulin’ ash?” I cracked, but they just stared at me like the zombies they were, thereby breaking Benjamin Franklin’s rule that simple minds are easily amused. “Sorry if I disturbed you. Where do I find the band?” I asked. One of the carpenters lifted his tool and pointed to a dressing room 3 doors down.

I knocked on the door. No answer. I could hear the hum of a television set, so I knew someone was there. I decided to count five, then opened the door.

It was hot, at least 98 degrees, in the room, which was a real hole, and the paint job was painful. The walls were aqua, trimmed in moody blues, and the clash of colors made me wince. The band must have hated it too, because one wall had been covered by a black flag with a rainbow in the middle, affixed to the wall by nine inch nails.

The five girls in the band were scattered about the room. Charlotte, the lead singer, was standing at an ironing board, apparently trying to iron butterfly decals onto a T-shirt. She looked up as I entered. “Well, I’ll be. Hey girls! Guess who just walked in!”

Molly, the guitarist, was sitting on a suede couch against the back wall, sucking on Lemonheads and reading about the latest Hollywood scandal in the new edition of some gossip magazine. She was gorgeous, with skin like peaches and cream, a rose tattoo on her arm, and long blonde tresses — although, on close inspection, the roots of her hair suggested that might have come from a bottle. Molly had a reputation for being loose. Word on the street was she wasn’t just a tramp, she was a supertramp. But I knew Molly wasn’t naughty by nature, but instead a survivor. She had been born Molly Borden and had taken the name of Molly Hatchet when she joined the band, but she changed it after an unfortunate incident involving her sister, Lizzy Borden, and an axe. “This better be good Charlotte,” she muttered, then looked up to see me. Her visage softened.

See answers for Chapter 4!

CHAPTER 5

The last few weeks had been a blur. I couldn’t calculate the time that had passed in toto since I’d been hired by Mrs. Cooper. The kinks in this case had become pretty tangled — but now, as I stood in the dressing room, it began to dawn on me that I could be near the solution. With lead singer Charlotte at the ironing board and guitarist Molly on the couch, I looked at the three other girls present.

Jane and Cleo Thompson, the identical twins from Alabama who played bass and keyboards, were eating at a small table. The platters of food in front of the the Thompson twins were full, and Jane was gulping down black eyed peas while Cleo nursed a mug of hot chocolate like the sweet beverage was ambrosia. I knew these two Dixie chicks well. They were the offspring of an old girlfriend named Eve. I had promised Eve 6 years earlier, back in the days of the Bush administration, that I would watch out for them. When I heard Jane (the prodigy of the family) had developed a drug problem, I wrote dozens of letters to Cleo in an attempt to find out how big the problem was. It turned out Jane’s addiction was serious; like a lot of kids, she had sought nirvana in the crazy horse, pot and coke that destroyed so many lives. Those drugs had become her muse. She worshipped them — and I knew well that was one bad religion. Her days of mindless self indulgence eventually left her teetering on the brink of madness. With some TLC from a rehab center sponsored by the church in her hometown, she got healthier and the temptations to indulge subsided. Now, her bright eyes told me she was still clean.

I turned to the last girl in the room, who was absently slapping a rhythm on the bongos. I didn’t recognize her. I thought at first she was one of the replacements the band used when their regular drummer had the cramps, but she didn’t look much like a drummer at all. She was dressed like a deerhunter, with a plaid jacket instead of the cardigans the other girls wore, and a belly the size of a mastodon. She had short, stubby arms like a T. Rex, and a face that could give you the hives. “Bow wow wow,” I thought. “Call the pet shop boys, ‘cause this twisted sister is a real dog.” But then I realized — she wasn’t a girl at all! It was Floyd Cooper — he hadn’t been murdered! I realized he must have faked his death to hide his involvement with the textiles black market.

He knew he was made and started to bolt, but I jumped across the room and punched him hard. He howled like a screeching weasel and tried to kick me in the shins. “Oh, one of those violent femmes, huh?” I hit him again. “Take that!” I yelled. “You’re comin’ with me, Cooper — dead or alive!”

As I led him outside, past a group of stray cats and into the traffic on the avenue, I sneered at him. “Your actions hit your wife like a nuclear bomb, Cooper, and it’s time you faced the fallout boy.”

See answers for Chapter 5!

THE END