The Lost Dog by Robert V. Stapleton

It was a grey April morning in downtown LA. I’d stopped outside my office to relight a stale cigarette butt. A woman was standing on the sidewalk just a few yards away, dressed in a red two-piece, the shade of an irate poinsettia. She was looking at me.

‘You Marlowe?’ she asked.

‘That’s me, lady.’

‘My name’s Marcia Reilly.’

I noticed she was wearing a wedding ring. ‘How can I help you, Mrs Reilly?’

‘Oh, Mr Marlowe,’ she sighed, ‘I’ve lost my little doggie.’

I drew on my cigarette and looked into her anxious face. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you,’ I told her. ‘I’m a Private Investigator, not a dog-catcher.’

‘But you don’t understand,’ she whined, creasing her face as if she were on the verge of tears. ‘This one’s twenty-two carat gold, with diamond eyes. It’s an antique bracelet-charm worth a thousand dollars.’

I raised an eyebrow. Now I was interested. ‘Uh-huh?’

‘Uh-huh.’ She rattled the bracelet she was wearing on her right forearm. There was no doubt about it, a tiny chain showed where one of the charms was missing.

‘You’d better come inside.’

We sat on either side of my desk, and I looked her over. She was in her mid-thirties, tall, slim, dark-haired, with intelligent green eyes flecked with brown like a Waldorf salad. She had the kind of legs that could drive a man crazy.

‘Where did you lose this dog of yours?’ I asked. ‘The twenty-two carat one with diamond eyes.’

She crossed those graceful legs. ‘It was two nights ago, in Smokey Faguson’s Bar,’ she said, as though confessing to some shameful secret.

‘Now, why on earth would a nice lady like you visit a low dive like that?’

‘Tuesday’s their Jazz evening.’

‘You like Jazz?’

‘Sure.’

That rang as true as a counterfeit quarter. I let it ride. ‘Have they tried looking for it in the bar?’

‘Yeah, but they didn’t find it.’

‘Now, why aren’t I surprised?’

She gave me a sad smile.

‘How long were you in there?’

‘About an hour, I guess.’

‘Did you talk to anyone?’

‘Not really, apart from a friendly young lady called Dizzy.’

I chuckled to myself. This was the first thing I’d had to be cheerful about all day. ‘Dizzy-the-Dip?’ I said. ‘Is she out of jail already?’

‘You know her?’

‘Sure, everybody knows Dizzy. She’s one of the busiest pickpockets in the whole of California.’

‘Gee, do you think she stole my little doggie?’

‘I’d put money on it, lady.’

‘Perhaps she broke it off when I wasn’t looking.’

‘That girl’s is a real pro, Mrs Reilly, but not good enough to avoid getting caught once in a while.’

‘Can you help me, Mr Marlowe?’ she asked. ‘I really want to get my dog back.’

‘I charge fees and expenses.’

‘Get my dog back for me, and I’ll pay you real well for your time and trouble. All I ask is that you keep my name out of your investigations.’

‘Whatever you say, Mrs Reilly,’ I told her. ‘And yeah, I’ll look into it for you.’

Her face lit up.

‘How can I get hold of you?’

‘Oh, don’t worry, Mr Marlowe,’ she replied. ‘I’ll be in touch with you.’

*

Apart from a drunk, who was sitting on a barstool and resting his head on the tarnished steel counter, Smokey Faguson’s was full of emptiness that afternoon. I pushed past the bouncer and nodded to the barman. He seemed like the only intelligent person in there, but I guess I was mistaken.

‘I hear Desiree’s been up to her old tricks again,’ I began.

‘None of my business.’

‘But Tuesday night you helped a lady look for a piece of jewellery she’d lost.’

He snorted his contempt. ‘You think Dizzy took it?’

‘You think she didn’t?’

The man just shrugged.

‘Where can I find her?’

Another shrug.

‘She wouldn’t want to get caught with something like that on her,’ I mused, ‘so she’d need someone to sell it on to.’

The barman began polishing the counter-top.

I felt like I was flogging a dead mule here. ‘Who might she have used?’

Again a shrug. Perhaps this guy was French and wasn’t letting on.

Then the drunk looked up. ‘Try Dakota Joe,’ he slurred.

‘Much obliged,’ I told him. ‘Where can I find this Joe?’

‘Buy me a whiskey, and I’ll tell you.’

I nodded to the barman.

‘He’s got a hideaway above Murphy’s Pool Rooms,’ said the drunk, sobering up like someone had thrown a bucket of water over him.

I dropped a few bucks onto the bar-top and left.

*

Dakota Joe was dressed in a suit sharp enough to open his mail.

‘Sorry, I can’t help you,’ he told me, in a voice as oily as a grease-monkey’s handshake.

‘But you do help people sell stuff.’

With his pencil-thin moustache and plastered down hair, Joe looked like something out of a third-rate horror movie. ‘I might do,’ he replied, hooding his eyes suspiciously.

‘Say, for example, you had a valuable piece of jewellery,’ I told him. ‘Who might be interested in buying it?’

He looked at me with his dead, wooden eyes. ‘Are we speaking theoretically?’

‘Sure, like my client could theoretically get the cops in to turn this place over.’ I looked around the room. Crates and boxes were stacked everywhere. We both knew they were all full of stolen goods.

He lit a cheroot and drew on it for a couple of minutes. Then he blew an arc of smoke and said, ‘There’s this guy who might be able to help you.’

‘Can you get me in to see him?’

Joe ground out his cheroot in a glass ashtray, took a blank card from his wallet and wrote an address on the back. ‘His name’s Ebenezer Garthorpe,’ he said, in a voice as tight as a piano wire. ‘He’s a private trader. He don’t like dealing with the public.’

‘I’ll risk it.’

He passed me the card. ‘You can try him if you like, but he only sees people by personal recommendation. I ain’t giving you my recommendation, so don’t blame me if won’t talk to you.’

* 

I found Ebenezer Garthorpe in his luxury third-floor apartment. It was at the more exclusive end of town. The place was filled with quality furnishing, but he didn’t invite me to sit down.

‘You’re lucky I agreed to see you, Marlowe,’ he said, as he stood facing me across his antique mahogany desk. ‘I only did that because I was intrigued by your story. I like a good laugh.’ He made a gurgling sound that might have been a chuckle. ‘A lost dog, a gold bracelet and a mysterious lady in red. Are you having me on? Have you tried the lost property department?’

‘Look, Mr Garthorpe,’ I replied, trying to keep my cool, ‘I don’t care what racket you’re into, my client just wants her bracelet-charm back. I guess it has sentimental value.’

‘And you think I’ve got it?’ His voice dangled icicles.

‘Have you?’

Smiling with his teeth, he opened a drawer, took out a two-inch long model of a spaniel dog and stood it on the top of his desk. It shone gold in the light of his desk-lamp. Its eyes winked at me.

‘My client says it’s worth a couple of hundred,’ I lied shamelessly.

His laughter now became a cackle. ‘I gave eight hundred for it.’

‘I’ll bet Dizzy didn’t get half of that.’

He shrugged. It was catching. ‘The item’s worth a thousand to anyone in the market.’

I couldn’t disagree with that, but I was getting nowhere fast.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘In view of the fact that you had the brass nerve to come here, I’ll let your client have it back again for two grand.’

‘That’s robbery, Mr Garthorpe.’

‘That’s business, Mr Marlowe.’

I heard a door open behind me, and watched as Garthorpe’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Marcia!’ he gasped.

I turned, and saw Marcia Reilly, still dressed in her stunning red outfit, standing in the open doorway. She was holding a gun, and she was pointing it at Garthorpe. There was hatred in her eyes.

‘Hello, Ebenezer,’ she drawled.

Garthorpe looked as if he’d swallowed something nasty. His eyes bulged, and his face turned deathly white. ‘So, you’re the mystery client.’

‘Couldn’t you guess?’

‘I should’ve done.’

‘And a good afternoon to you, too, Mr Marlowe,’ she continued, without taking her eyes off Garthorpe. ‘You must be surprised to see me here.’

‘Yeah,’ I told her. ‘Like having a brick drop on me.’

‘Then let me explain. Ebenezer and my husband were partners in a jewellery business. That was until the swine cheated my Jack out of his share of the company. It destroyed my husband. He took his own life, leaving me without a dime in the world. I’ve spent the last five years looking for this man. I learnt that Desiree was the key to finding him, so I got together every cent I’d managed to save and bought that gold charm. I knew she couldn’t resist the temptation to steal it. Then you took over the search and found him in one afternoon.’

‘I got lucky.’

‘All I had to do was follow you.’

I’d had enough of this. I was angry with Garthorpe for swindling his partner; I was angry with my client for taking me for a fool; but most of all I was angry with myself for letting Marcia follow me around without spotting what she was up to.

‘You used me, Mrs Reilly,’ I growled.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘But I did what I had to do, Mr Marlowe. Do you blame me?’

‘It depends. What are you going to do now?’

‘Kill him, of course.’

Garthorpe looked horrified. He now resorted to the only card he had left. He reached into his desk drawer, took out a .44 revolver and levelled it at Marcia. The poor sap never stood a chance. Before he could fire, Marcia pumped two shots into the man’s chest. Ebenezer Garthorpe fell back stone dead. It was the payoff he’d been dreading.

Marcia gave a deep sigh, picked up the gold dog from the desk and tossed it over to me. Her bracelet jangled like it was December 25th. ‘There you are, Mr Marlowe,’ she said. ‘That should cover your fees and expenses. I’ve got what I came for, and believe me, it’s been worth every cent I paid for that thing.’

*

Ebenezer Garthorpe received the best funeral his money could buy, before being laid to rest in the local cemetery. Marcia Reilly was lucky to get off on a plea of self-defence. And the dog? They say that every dog has its day, well, this one’s lying in my safety deposit box, waiting for the next rainy one.

Robert V. Stapleton