Raffie
As I stood over the five gallon polypropylene styrene bucket, man I never regret buying word for the day calendars, nailed to the wall out back between the wall and a row of yellow bushes I contemplated the case. Miss Dew is being blackmailed over some seedy perverted survival pictures Ruffie took when her and this Ruffie get lost, but later finds it is a scam to blackmail her for more favors, favors, now that could be a clue. I mean what kind of favors could a low life scum like Ruffie have in mind? How to survive a freeway shutdown during rush hour keeping our sanity by rubbing our more "active areas"? Now I have to admit the old "lost in the cooler vault" approach was slick and note worthy for a sleuth to file away for future cases. Maybe he is wanting a piece of Mr. Big's action, a noise to my left caught my attention, it was Nina standing there.
"Hey stop shaking that thing, you think Raffie going to stay all day?"
She startled me, I jerked to my left quickly, ready to take matters in hand if need be. Standing there like a tempered steel spring, tightly coiled, ready to spring at a split second's notice. She stared at me, then her gaze dropped and a smile covered her face.
"Hola Mr. Elf, you going to introduce me to your friend?"
I looked down to where her eyes had settled, oh crap, I forgot to put the tiger back in his cage! I put everything back where it belonged and straightened my tie. My face looked a little red, must be the sun.
"Awe now you didn't have to send your friend away before you introduced us. I would consider the elf fetish, providing no spurs involved."
"What about this Raffie guy? I thought it was his attention you were wanting."
"What about Raffie? Not like it is, you could say chiseled in stone, now is it?"
"Yeah, yeah, stone, Stone I get it. The chisel stays in the toolbox."
This is what is referred to as a private investigator's moral dilemma. I am sure you can see it, I mean it is as plain as the freaking elf's suit I am wearing. Here it is, being offered to me on a silver platter, well maybe more like a buffet table, a little something for everyone so to say and my stupid agreement I have with some dame that was given survival lessons by someone less than certified to do so. Crap, a freaking misdemeanor, not even a real crime. ( you will please note how logic in this case is the fact Stone now is thinking with his less than multifunctional head. (not to say that the other one isn't functional at all. doctors said that with an active lifestyle, some mental challenges to sharpen his edge, he should regain full, well almost full use of his left side of the brain.)) So what should I do? Squeeze Nina for any possible information or go with the original plan and actually do what I was hired to do? See, an honest moral dilemma. We are confronted with them constantly, I winged him, he looks a lot like the guy who did it, well, same shirt, okay it is blue too, well kinda blue, no one around, who's to say he didn't do it? I mean I can't get his side of the story being unconscious and all from that nasty chest wound, okay, I thought I winged him. Could be days before someone found him way out here, yeah probably a week or better, anyway not that, that actually happened or anything, just an example of a moral dilemma, I think I learned it in PI School, yeah. PI School that was where I learned it.
"You going to stand there and decide what you going to do or you going to do that favor for Juan?"
"Yeah, yeah I'm coming, just had to think out how I was going to approach this."
"Why not like the others do it?"
"How's that?"
"Hey Sweetness, how much?"
There he was, Raffie. The waitress had just set his food in front of him, he was inhaling, drool gathering in the corner of his sneer. This show wasn't going to be pretty, not pretty at all. They say you can tell a lot about how a man makes love by the way he eats, looks as if Raffie has settled for a lot of pork in his life. I was amazed to see the toothpick hanging from the corner of his mouth while he ate, a bit of dexterity involved there. Dexterity is related to agility and agility would determine his ability and its his ability with that knife that concerns me most. Nina walked into the cafe area, she nodded towards Raffie, he just glanced up and continued the carnage he called eating. She looked my way, slunk into a pose for me and then she winked and said;
"You fall off Santa's sled or he give you to me for Christmas?"
I gave her my most suave look, pushed my hair back with one hand;
"You sure you can handle this package?"
"Oh I can handle packages. What kind of package you got for Nina?"
"I got a ride for you that no sit and spin, hot glue gun and vibrator can ever do you for you Senorita."
"What's a sit and spin and hot glue gun?"
I eased up beside her and let my hand graze across her more liquidable asset as I pretended to reach for a toothpick.
"Mmm, that is tighter than the skin on a bongo."
"Why don't you see if maybe you can keep a beat cowboy."
She squeezed past me making an excuse to go to the lady's room.
"You a tent salesman cowboy?"
"No, why you ask?"
"Just wanted to know if that was a tent in your pants or maybe I erected that pole for you."
So the banter went back and forth, one sexual innuendo that led to nowhere, but it caught Raffie's attention. He sat there staring, glowering if it gets more people to read this, a glower much better than a stare with a reader, shows impending excitement on the horizon. If it is just a stare then the reader could think the stare meant, "That guy some kind of idiot or something?" So expressions are very important to relate to a reader in a story, it gives them that visual, that chance to step into the character's emotional experience and feel what they feel, oh yeah, wandered for a moment, taking a correspondence course in creative writing and I have an assignment due soon. Whoa there peaches, seems Raffie just pushed the two girls sitting on each side of him away and told them to leave his table and then his glare turned to me. He looked me up and down as if he were sizing me for a coffin, his right eye twitching.
"Size me right, that twitch could add a few inches."
"Oh I can size you."
"That's what your wife said last night too."
Yeah I know, not a good thing to come out poking a bear with a sharp stick so quick, but its the way I do things, they are cocky, sure of them self and they make mistakes, that is when I jump. That mistake is their weakness, that moment their guard is down, the gazelle drinking, quenching its thirst, unsuspecting of the ravenous lion in the tall grass. Legs like coiled tempered steel springs, fists that fly like bricks in a tornado, this could just be my chance to put those self defense lessons to use I took through the mail, 'How to Defend Yourself and Work on That Self Confidence, Providing That You Aren't a Sniveling Coward'. Raffie put his left foot forward, the one where I saw the outline of the haft of a knife. Slowly letting my eyes drop I look, there it is. Crap, he is fixing to escalate this to a level that mail order course didn't, actual violence. Bend back, twist and then pivot left, unless it is morning and the sun is in your eyes and it is a fortnight since the last full moon and provided he did not take the same course, then maybe just a few flesh wounds, maybe one penetrating stab wound, but nothing vital severed or pierced. It was in the way you presented yourself the course said. Oh man, he is bending over now, towards his left boot. Eyes shift left, then right, two windows, a hall to the back door to my right, plate glass window and steel front door to my left, damage assessment now. No, not to the property, to me. My sight returns to Raffie, he has pulled the pant leg covering his left boot up, his other hand reaching for the haft, oh geeze, now what was it that it said? Try grovelling, begging, crying, offering other ones up, 'Selective Reasoning Why it Shouldn't Be You' or 'Who Said We Were All In This Together?' It was how well you paid attention when reading it that determined what you learned, now if learning happened to coincide with something I wanted to do because I enjoyed and it made me feel good, then maybe I didn't pay quite as much attention to that chapter as I should have, but it in no way means that I am not at least familiar with it. Just not as familiar as I should be in moments like this.
Options, what are my options? Let's see, I could grab Nina and shove her at him and then run to the back door, grabbing Juan next and putting one more between me, Raffie and the back door and if all true Mexican dishwashers prove, show up at the wrong time and bingo, tic, tac and a toe, three in a row and the back door is mine, one of em has to put up some kind of fight. That was a good option, a workable plan, clean, neat and no one important hurt, like myself. Yeah that would have been the sensible plan, the highest yield option, but who listens to sensible ideas during moments like these? Oh he is starting to pull it out. You ever notice it is times like these you find you wished you had taken care of a particular body function? I had been taken it in, but not let that much out, I was always one of those macho, 'No problemo pardner, I can hold it. That's what men do.' Seems we really should scratch that one out of the old handbook, I think empty bladders are much better to have in situations such as these. Oh man he is swinging his arm back. Quickly I swing into a defensive mode and cross arms over head, tucking chin down against chest. There now, he had two forearms to hack through until he could do any real damage. Then I heard Nina's cry. Oh gee, why didn't I just go and pee before all of this started?
"Ohhhhhh, Raffie, mijo, su es muy magnifico."
I peeked through one eye, I saw the flash, I heard the click of the blade as it locked into place and I felt that familiar dampness as I really wished I had went and relieved myself before all of this. Man, that still stung, didn't think it would still be that sensitive by now, that was last winter. His hand flicked forward and my right sock acted like a wick and started filling my shoe, his hand right above his forehead, the glare of the light drowning out the shape of the blade, switch blade, butterfly knife, jack knife or a very sharp pen knife. He drug it back along his hair, wait, he drug a knife or razor back along his hair? Now even I couldn't see the logic in this, so there must be something to it, so I opened the other eye. A comb, a freaking comb, no knife, no razor, just a comb, a comb I pissed my pants for, oh let's not forget, dressed like an elf and pissed my pants for. Yeah. Mental note to self, call Yadnus have her pick up gray suit, stop by Dave's Discount Clothing and Liqueur Store and put a white shirt on my tab there.
Raffie straightened up and looked over at Nina and thin flicked his head and said;
"Nina, aqui, pronto."
Nina looked at me and said;
"Mr. Elf, listen I am really sorry, but I have to weigh my options here, Raffie or you, Raffie or you, Raffie or you."
"Okay, okay, you don't have to keep repeating yourself."
"You know Mr. Elf looking at Raffie, then looking at you it is easy to understand my choice and the reasons are very noticeable."
"Yeah? Just how are they so noticeable?"
"Mr. Elf, please look at Raffie and then look in the big mirror behind the bar, please what is the first thing that strikes you as what could be called obvious?"
"Well maybe the way we're dressed."
"Yeah, you think maybe? You see him dressed as Santa's little helper? What else?"
"What? I don't know, you tell me."
"Well for one, his pants are dry. Two he don't have flies flying around him. You know I really like that fruit smell on a man, especially with lime and lemon, but the flies Mr. Elf were beginning to bother me. I can put up with a lot of things Mr. Elf, but come on, look in the mirror again, besides, at least you did that favor for Juan."
That's right, the information about Mr. Big, Juan has it and now that my deal has been done with the wanted results, let's see what Juan has for me. I walk back to the door frame of the kitchen and poke my head in to see if Juan is in.
"Hey Pedro, that you over there?"
"Man senor, how many times I have to tell you it is Juan, not Pedro?"
"Yeah, whatever, what is it you have on Mr. Big? Our deal about to be closed and I will be out of your life."
"Senor, if I would have known you would have just left, you would be gone by now. Get back out of my kitchen, senor even we have health laws. Walking around like a freaking fly trap, fruit juice starting to sour, man you going to be ripe soon."
"Just tell me what you know about Mr. Big, we had a deal, remember?"
"Si I remember senor. Here it is, Mr. Big is up in San Fransisco, he is going to be having some kind of Christmas party for his associates."
"Oh crap Pedro. Even I knew that. Heck, you could have overheard me talking to know that."
"Yes I know senor and I did several times."
"So if you knew already that your information was the same as mine, why didn't you stop me and tell me?"
"I really needed that favor senor."
"Your sister couldn't have done that herself?"
"She don't perform too well alone if you know what I mean. She still paying for her cam space on the internet."
"What kind of favor could you have owed to be so low?"
"It was a little problem with the health department, my sister's business and the fact that this is an eating establishment, something about code violations and live pornography. I had to give things a little push."
"You owe me Pedro, I knew this, so you are not telling me new information on Mr. Big."
"It was new to me senor. How was I to know you already knew?"
"What am I supposed to do with you, compare notes first?"
"It would help and save you a lot of trouble in the future."
"Well your information didn't help any Pedro, you're going to have to cough up something else I could use."
"How about I didn't hear it from you senor? But rather you solidified the information, it was no longer just speculation and rumor, it was fact now that Mr. Big is in San Fransisco and throwing a big Christmas party for his associates. You were kind of like what National Geographic calls the 'missing link' senor."
Missing link. Wasn't that something about monkeys? Juan just insult me and call me a monkey? I don't know what it was, whether it was the fact that the fruit juices started to ferment and I was soaking the alcohol through my skin, or that the fumes from the fermentation process were causing my head to go giddy, but this guy sounded smart now, I mean he made sense. Man I am sure craving a banana right now.
"You said you didn't hear this from me?"
"No senor, not from you."
"Who then?"
"It was from Raffie senor."
"Raffie?"
"Si, Raffie."
"So it was Raffie who told you this?"
"Si senor, it was Raffie that told me this."
"You're not mistaken?"
"Unless he has a twin brother or dual personalities, I am sure it was Raffie."
"Stranger things have happened."
"Si senor, you have proven that one."
"What else did he tell you?"
"That he was going to the party, said he had Polaroid invitations to the party. His plane leaves this afternoon for San Fransisco."
Polaroid invitations. Who would want to take pictures of invitations? Unless, which is becoming an even stronger possibility, that these Polaroid invitations were the pictures Miss Dew was telling me about. Now there is a bit of information I couldn't have got anywhere but in Tijuana. But how was this Raffie character connected to all of this? He too have business with Mr. Big? Maybe he was that Ruffie guy's contact man out here, something with bootleg instant photo paper. Too much about pictures and Polaroids being talked about here. Who knows, maybe even Polaroid will throw a few coins in the hat if I uncover a major Polaroid film bootleg ring. Man this is getting deep. His plane leaves this afternoon, only one leaving for San Fransisco this afternoon, looks like we take the flight together.
I nodded at Juan and then glanced at the neon beer clock, 12:23. More than enough time to stop by the Mercado and grab something a little less rancid to wear.
Next: Flight to San Fran
Continued
Continued
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