Page 75 of Shadow Ticket
“How inconvenient for you, to come all this way for so much less than nothing, and in the middle of a world Depression too,” shaking her head slowly. “You seriously believed everything they told you? For a beat-up old-timer you’re pretty naive.”
“And you’re way more fly than the junior party regular the papers still like to write you up as, too young to know any better, uh huh, instead here’s Greta Garbo, all gussied up and out on the prowl and looking for trouble.”
“And thinking to herself, Oh jumping catfish, once isn’t enough, here comes another rescue job, big sentimental sap, lumbering on in, all reflexes, never asking if anybody even wants to be rescued.”
“Except for right now, o’ course.”
“Oh, you’ve got a nerve.”
“Fact it looks like I come rollin into town just in time, ain’t it.”
“And me wondering when some hired bloodhound will show up, never dreaming it’d be you— Ahh! how down in the world I’ve sunk—this is allI’m worth anymore, look what they’re sending over here toputthesnatchon me, shanghai me back in a drugged stupor—”
“Don’t know that I’d put it that way,” Hicks trying to keep hold of his amiability, “for one thing, no snatch job was ever mentioned in the ticket, maybe something about tactfully passing along an offer to reconcile with folks who care enough about you to be paying Unamalgamated’s ‘Top Insider’ rate to see you back with them safe and sound, what’s wrong with that?”
“All just one more pickup and delivery for you, isn’t it, well, go on ahead, tough guy, what’re you waiting for? Slap on those cuffs and bring me on back to the U.S.A.”
“OK, maybe not ‘bring,’ bring is howtheyput it, what they thought they were hiring me for. Which always turns out to be a mug who won’t mind getting beat up.”
“Maybe you’re one of those Krafft-Ebing cases who enjoys it.”
“Just another kind of hard labor’s all, part of the paycheck, still better than diggin ditches. Where it gets real uncomfortable is the time you lose when somethin gets fractured. Putting in for the insurance. Cheapskate adjusters always trying to blame it on you. ‘What were you doing in that neighborhood, that time of night?’ all that malarkey.”
“Tough guy. Cement block all the way through. And still can’t keep yourself away from any woman even looks like she’s in trouble.”
“What other kind of dame is there?”
“Hope you’re listening, here, Repossess Man, ’cause nothing’s going to change. I won’t go back to the States without Hop.”
“Whereabouts,” Hicks giving her his quit-fooling squint, “unknown right now. Swell. Does this— I hope this doesn’t mean you want to hire me, locate him for you, nothing like ’at ’cause see, that’d have to be written up as a whole new ticket? New case number, forms to fill out?”
As the Gumshoe’s Manual advises, always be watching for the next ticket to be sprung on you with no advance word, no front money, plus that all but certain promise of uncompensated overtime. Someday you may be lucky enough to avoid it, but for now get used to making out the forms in your head anyway.
“Hadn’t occurred to me till you brought it up, but it’s beginning to sound like an idea. Maybe you’re brighter than you look.”
“And all I’ll have to do, let’s see, is track down Hop for you, and you’ll pack right on up and head for home?”
“The minute I see his smiling face.”
How many times has he sworn the same New Year’s resolution, nights posted outside somebody else’s love nest, shivering in freezing rain or Lake-effect snowfall, chances for personal whoopee remote at best—No More Matrimonials! Ever!
“I need a ticket OK’d by the Home Office, if I step into this without one it’ll have to be for free and out of my own pocket, which maybe I already mentioned is empty. Not to mention overtime, carfare, travel and entertainment, extra ammo, each with its own set of forms to be filled out sooner or later, at length and often in triplicate.”
“Suppose I pick up the tab and we do it all in cash?”
“Wouldn’t happen to have a typewriter around?”
“I used to always bring one along in a hatbox, I think this time I left it back in M’waukee, but don’t worry, just a detail. Does this mean that youmighthelp me find Hop and get him out of any trouble he may’ve gotten himself into? Oh, how can I ever…”
Prolonged exhalation. “Let’s go over the rates. Just for the heck of it, understand.”
“Meantime,” after a while, riveting him with one of those sudden gazes broads like to throw around, “fair warning—I might still have to run away from you anyway, maybe even go after Hop on my own. And would you be put to some trouble then, shamus, to get me back, ’cause nowadays I’m a wised-up ol’ fugitive, see, who knows how to get invisible in a hurry.” Twirling elegantly nail-bitten fingers, “Like Champagne bubbles into the night. As the hepcats say, gone. The Absentee Hall of Fame? Midtown Manhattan someplace? Well, last year they gave me the Judge Crater Award. They call it the Joey? Little pedestal with nothing on it?”
“OK, but what if after what’s sure to be a lot of work I find ol’ Hop is just out doing the horizontal Peabody all this time with somebody cute and don’t want to be interrupted?”
“My, you’re sure dwelling down there in the mudflats these days ain’t you, Sport.”
“Must be why the pay’s so good.”
