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Everybody I have ever known in my entire misbegotten life seemed to find time in his busy schedule to visit good old Sheila the last few days. To my rapidly increasing irritation, I was besieged with such comments as, "My God, you look terrible! What did you do to yourself?" Or, "Big George finally caught on to you, right?" This was usually followed by raucous laughter and much elbow-poking. Really hilarious. Then there were my friends -- sure, they were -- who chewed their lips while desperately looking for a place on which to glue their attention other than my face. They would squeak out some half-garbled message of consolation and make a rapid exit once the viewing was achieved, only too anxious to be out of sight and hearing so they could throw themselves on the floor and roll around, guffawing and mopping their streaming eyes. Screw 'em -- I was really tired of this! "This," as it happened, was a pair of -- well, when I swam back into consciousness in the Emergency Room of Denver General sometime around midnight Friday, George was peering earnestly at me, dabbing gently and gingerly at my forehead with an icebag. The first pop out of his mouth was, "Well, Babe, I don't think you're going to need any eye shadow for a week or two." Even he looked about to burst out laughing as he added, "I hate to tell you, sweetheart, but if you paint rings on your tail, by tomorrow you can pass for a raccoon. "A sexy, lovable raccoon," he hastily amended when I sat up and glowered at him, "but a raccoon, nonetheless." Earlier Friday evening we had gone to see a high school baseball game with one of George's clients, the proud father of the school's star pitcher who had already been scouted by the big boys, the three of us sitting in great seats directly behind home plate. As it happened, I would have been absolutely light-years ahead had I stayed the hell home and cleaned the floors with a cotton swab -- anything else at all. They tell me I was the victim of a one-in-a-million accident. A viciously foul-tipped fast ball came straight back through the chain linking and nailed me squarely between the eyes, right at the top of my chiseled nose, now looking more like a moose proboscis than a human beak. I didn't know anything at all about them dragging me willy-nilly onto the stretcher, hauling my inert form, nose bleeding all over hell and gone, to an ambulance, and carting me away. Above and to each side of my now Jimmy Durante-like schnoz were a pair of slitted and blood-shot blue eyes virtually buried in puffy flesh closely resembling black-and-blue-and-green muffins. That was three days ago, and I was this morning trying to get some paperwork done in my office. But the "well-wishers" were coming by like a herd of army ants to offer their condolences, of course. Raccoon, hell! I looked like something disinterred from a mausoleum. Since my head hadn't really quit hurting for the last three miserable days, it was truly foolhardy for anyone to lose it and laugh out loud at their first glimpse of my lovely visage. I guess somehow everybody figured that out for themselves because they generally made it nearly out of range before dissolving weakly against the wall in helpless, hand-flapping, snorting hysterics. Finally, when the third member of Denver's finest simply had to renew old acquaintance with good old Sheila, not having found the time before in the year I had been back in their midst, I told him what he might consider doing in his usual inebriated condition while playing with his gun, watched grimly as he decided prudence dictated a quick retreat, put the "Sorry, Closed for the Day" sign in the window, locked the place up, and rode my elevator to my loft where I could deposit my wretched self in my big tub, icebag on my throbbing head again. Fuzz, bless his little six-pound body, rolled his big Chihuahua eyes at me, wagging his curvy pencil tail. He didn't care if I looked like a Halloween reject, he was just happy to see me, anytime, in any condition, as usual. Do I appear just a smidgen pitiful, wallowing in it as I am? I guess so; I'll try to do better. It really wasn't going to hurt the kitty at the moment to be forced to remain in seclusion, as they say, and keep skulking about behind closed drapes. The bank account was just dandy, thanks to a pair of clients, one after the other, who were so delighted with my sleuthing abilities, they absolutely forced bonuses on me. My only guilt -- short-lived, I assure you -- in accepting their generosity was that both cases were idiotically simple. They could have solved their problems themselves, as I did, by simply using a little common sense, making a few phone calls, visiting a couple of offices in the City and County Building, and remaining calm. Of course, I didn't set them straight. After all, feeding my dog the expensive cuisine to which he's become accustomed depends on money in the bank. Ergo, I keep my brilliance to myself. Ahem. Said spoiled dog never comes near my snazzy huge bathroom when I am lolling about getting pummeled by the waterjets in the big square tub. With good reason, I might add; you see, he dreads being snatched in there with me because baths are not high on his list of favorite activities, particularly in places where the water shoots from the walls and is hot. However, when the phone started ringing this day, he peered around the corner as if to inquire whether or not I was going to rouse myself enough to answer it. "No, numbnuts, I'm not getting up to answer the damned phone. By now you should understand a little about answering machines." He continued to mumble at me until I extended a dripping and foamy arm over the side in his general direction, crooking a finger at him. His head snapped back out of sight immediately after an "Oh-no-you-don't!" look. There's one thing about answering machines, however; they don't do your work for you unless you've turned them on. This time, unfortunately, I hadn't, so the phone just kept right on ringing and ringing. But Poor Pitiful Pearl here stuck it out until whoever the hell it was finally figured I wasn't going to answer. "Whoever" turned out to be my old partner and compadre, Sergeant Whitey Morales of the Denver Police. I was apprised of that fact when I answered the phone about a half-hour later and Whitey considerately said, "I'd think anybody with a bashed-in mug like yours would be kind enough to do the civilized world a favor and stay the hell home instead of gallivanting around in public, thereby frightening normal-looking mortals into fits." "Thanks a lot! And it's nice to talk to you, too. Not that it's any of your business, sir, but I was here, soaking in my tub, generally feeling poorly." "Then why didn't you answer your phone?" "Because I was in the tub, stupid! Do you need the battery replaced in your hearing aid? Or has terminal dandruff reached your brain?" We still acted like a couple of kids from time to time, poking and jabbing away. Silliness. "So what did you want to talk about that was so all-fired important you let my phone ring forty times before you figured out I wasn't going to answer?" "I didn't 'let' it ring, you did. You really ought to understand the true meaning of English and be more precise about derivation and --" "For God's sake, shut up, Whitey, unless you can get to the point. You're beginning to make my already aching head pound more!" "Okay, okay. How is the battered -- pardon the pun -- woman anyway?" "Did you say 'battered'? That 'precise meaning' you're so fond of touting would require you to describe me as 'balled,' would it not?" Before he could pick that one up and gleefully beat me over my swollen head with it, I quickly added, "Never mind trying to impress me with your nasty mind, Whitey; I know you. Out with it." Through the receiver I could tell he was struggling manfully with suppressed laughter and better-left-unspoken comments which kept his attempt to breaking the silence down to the occasional chortle or two for a minute. Aware that I'd drawn the target on my own back, I simply waited him out. "It has soaked into what you so correctly describe as my enfeebled brain that your current state of loveliness might be of some considerable value to us minions of the law, if you'd be interested in a little free-lance work for us." Huh? He went on. "Did you read in the papers about the two women who were found murdered recently, one three weeks ago and one just last week?" Surely everybody in Denver had; they were splashed all over the dailies and the subject of every local television newscast. The second one had even made the networks. "Sure -- they were really gruesome." "Well, we had another one last night. We found her body in that little park right down your street at about eight this morning, stuffed into the dumpster -- well, not all of her, as usual." Sometimes I wish I had less imagination. "What was it this time?" "Same thing as usual. Her feet; chopped cleanly through right above the ankles." It's often difficult to be able to draw in enough breath at this altitude, I've noticed. Whitey paused and then continued. "Anyway, to get to why I called, how's your old baglady act these days? With your present facial adornment, you ought to look the part even better than you did in the old days when you resorted to make-up and dirt." There was a long silence while I tried to decide if I was insulted or flattered by Whitey wanting me back in my old disguise of a helpless, hapless, hopeless old derelict, and that he considered my temporary disfigure-ment an asset. Not able to decide on the spur of the moment, I temporized. "I can't do the half-toothless part of the act any more, you know. When I suddenly developed a love life again, I had the temporary bridge replaced with a permanent one. Nothing so cools ardor as three or four teeth held together with silvery metal flying across a bed when in the throes of --whatever." "Sheila, I really don't care about the beaver-toothed part of your getup." I could believe that; it always made him queasy to see me with central incisors surrounded by blank spaces. Hell, it even made me flinch and cringe. "You were the best undercover baglady we ever had, and the policewomen these days just don't look the part or feel it, as you did. They wouldn't fool anybody." Well, that cleared that up; I was being insulted, actually. "You mean they're too young, too classy, too thin? Is that why they won't do as bait?" Whitey sighed. "Maybe I should try again to talk with you when you're in a better mood, chica. Come on, now! You know I didn't mean it that way." Grimacing, which made even my eyebrows hurt, I said, "Yeah, Whitey -- I'm sorry. I really do feel like leftover death, and I guess I'm kind of grouchy." "You? Kinda grouchy? Never!" "But let me think about it for a while and get back to you, okay? I haven't done anything like that in a while, and I'll have to think on it." "Fine with me. But don't take too long. The one officer we have who comes close to looking the part is already on the job, and we've got to nail this lunatic quickly. If he sticks with his program, we've got about a week -- maybe less -- before he goes after another victim." We rang off. It took me all of five minutes to decide, but figured I'd best explain my insanity to George Halley, the spring in my step and the sparkle in my eye, to coin a phrase, before telling Whitey he'd got himself a sitting duck. |