Collected Short Fiction: Volume 2

By Roger F. Kennedy

The Collected Short Fiction of Roger F. Kennedy now appears in a two book set

Volumes 1 and 2

Volume 1 comprises 27 newly edited stories from The Windup Man and Lauri with an i.

Volume 2 includes 24 newly edited stories from The Three of us and Mirror Image.

Kennedys ironic imagination and wit shine through with fast-moving plot lines and dead-on dialogue in the time-honored tradition of pulp fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456886721

Roger F. Kennedy

Author bio coming soon

Book preview

Collected Short Fiction by

Roger F. Kennedy

Volume Two

comprised of stories from

The Three of Us (2005)               Mirror Image (2007)

Copyright © 2011 by Roger F. Kennedy.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,

and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events,

or locales is entirely coincidental.

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

92310

Contents

Words

Still Barely Visible

Timeless

Interlude

Doghouse Detail

G4t

Trouble On Mars

Rubber Froggy

The Three Of Us

Shy

Another Day On The Job

Weasel

The Invisible Taxi Society

The Invisible Taxi Society

Painted Ponies

Mostly About Luttwak

Worms

Mirror Image

Just You

Dear Gwendolyn

Chasing Krieger

The Abolition Of Names

Praying For Dollars

Questions

The Two Frankies

DEDICATION

For Byron and Angie Long

Words

Kettering slid into the green vinyl booth, picked up the menu. It would probably be two hours before his car was finished being oiled and filtered and poked at. It was a rare opportunity to scarf some forbidden pleasure food. What harm could it do, every four months?

He was fond of bacon and eggs. You could choose from combo 1, 2 or 3, depending on how much saturated fat you wanted to ingest. He decided on combo 2. Two farm-fresh eggs (where else would they come from, a steel mill?) prepared the way you like them (not some awful other way?) accompanied by two strips of crispy bacon, and your choice of oven-baked bread (not just raw dough) or two fluffy buckwheat flap jacks, with real Vermont maple syrup. Enough already.

Coffee? It was the waitress. Young, blond, already pouring.

Thanks.

My name is Annie and I’ll be your server today, she recited from her manual of restaurant words and phrases.

Good, I’m glad that’s settled, Kettering said. He ordered, and spent his waiting time looking at a local paper somebody left behind. He spotted a headline,

Administration Tax Program Ineffective, Fiscal Analysts Say.

Too long, too puffy.

Try President’s Tax Plan Won’t Work, Critics Say, and demote the analysts to the text. Much better—16 characters fewer, and easier to read too. He mentally cut the baggage out of a few more headings until Annie arrived with his order.

Enjoy your meal, she commanded and went away.

Surprisingly, the food really was fresh and tasty and fluffy. Now if he could make sense out of his car service bill, the day might go well.

Kettering wasn’t a disagreeable man, just a little particular about words. His wry sense of humor was cherished by his friends, but often flew right over the heads of others.

He’d cut his teeth in journalism, eventually working his way up to copy editor at the Times. Later on, he became a caption writer for reportage and feature articles. He was a master of short, pithy phrases to give headlines impact. He loved to use words like ail, vie, ax, raw, and savvy. He loathed stuffy words like parameters, accountability, privatization, and promulgate.

He became so good at his craft that a cabal of envious feature writers mounted a campaign of snide criticism against him. Eventually, they annoyed him into quitting. He was only 45, but it was all right with him. He wasn’t sure newspaper work was what he wanted to do in life anyway.

Kettering leaned his butt against the desk and faced his students. This was at the writing class he taught three nights a week at UC Irvine. The pay was relatively low, but the satisfaction was high.

It’s true that I stand for brevity, he was saying. It’s obvious, no doubt, since I leave most of the talking to you guys. But I don’t mean to suggest that every word should be short.

He walked around to the board and picked up a piece of chalk.

"What I am saying is, let every word count. Get meaning out there as efficiently as possible. Let me give you an example."

On the board he wrote the word VEX.

This is a simple Middle English word that can bring a sentence to life. He wrote two sentences:

She was exasperated by his unrelenting crudity.

She was vexed by his lack of manners.

A little thing. But see how it improves the rhythm, or call it meter if you want. That’s a critical factor in readability. You want the words moving ahead like a train, not like cars jerking along in traffic.

A hand went up. It was Sarah, one of the class’s brighter lights.

Speaking of moving along, I’ve been reading ‘Stones for Ibarra’ by Harriet Doerr. She opened the book and read the first sentence.

Here they are, two North Americans, a man and a woman just over and just under forty, come to spend their lives in Mexico and already lost as they travel cross-country over the central plain.

Too long, but you’re right. It really flows like a river, not a series of puddles.

Sarah again. From word one, you see she has a story to tell and she gets right after it.

What else about it? Anybody?

Adam spoke up. As soon as she says ‘Here they are,’ you know the book’s about these two people."

Good. Any other comments?

For me, there’s nothing that can be cut, offered Steve.

Exactly. In that one sentence, she introduces the characters, states their purpose, and states their situation.

And sets the scene, Adam said.

Yes, and that brings us to the use of description. With all this talk of efficiency, I don’t want to leave you with the idea that descriptive passages are to be avoided. The question is, when, where, and how long? Is it pithy, or is it flabby.

And so it went. Kettering assigned At the Bay, a short story from the Katherine Mansfield collection, as an example of masterly description. He asked them to submit a paragraph of analysis for the next meeting.

Noon, the next day. From the fridge Kettering extracted left-over tuna, lettuce, a couple of Italian tomatoes, and a jar of mayonnaise. With these and some whole grain bread he built himself a fairly respectable sandwich. He drank some milk out of a half gallon jug. Such was his practice of the single life.

He wasn’t necessarily single by choice. In fact, over the years he’d dated or lived with a succession of women, but none that challenged him in any special way. As a species, he found females to be fascinating, especially in their beauty and grace. But they could be veiled, at times unfathomable. Not like men, who wore their irks and quirks like a badge.

Kettering rinsed his plate and utensils and placed them in the drainer. He rarely used the dishwasher. Aside from when friends came over, which wasn’t that often, there never were enough dishes to fill it. That done, he locked up and set off for the local frozen yogurt shop, which he visited every few days. He ordered a vanilla mini and sat down by the window. He liked to watch the sexy high school girls come and go, and he loved to listen to their bird talk.

Two of them settled at the opposite table, sipping on smoothies.

Jason Geller asked me out, you believe it? said the sleeker of the two.

He didn’t. Really? What did you say?

I told him, like, I’ll have to think it over?

Oooh, worse than just saying no.

I know, but Jason is so immature. I just didn’t want to, like, encourage him?

"I know."

He puts on this cool look, like I’m gonna be impressed? He goes, ‘Hi, babe, let’s get together tonight.’ As if.

Guys can be so totally clueless.

"I know. Like maybe if he spends an entire ten bucks I’ll roll over for him? I don’t thiiink so."

Not that you wouldn’t do it for somebody sometime.

Well sure, but not somebody like him.

Both girls giggled. Poor guy, I actually feel sorry for him.

Incredible, thought Kettering. Straight talk from the future mall queens of America. Count your blessings, Jason, you lucked out this time.

Kettering’s condominium was in Newport Beach, not far from the ocean. It was simply furnished but comfortable, and home to many books. The second bedroom he used as his study. It contained his computer setup and shelves piled with papers, ephemera, and tacked up photographs. He was a fairly good snap-shooter, and he liked to take pictures around the marina. Of pennants, rusty metal, weathered wood, shore birds, and so on.

At five, he packed a thermos of chardonnay and his Nikon into a tote bag and walked two blocks to the promontory. There was a bench in a small grassy park from which he could see Balboa island and the peninsula beyond.

He poured some wine into a plastic glass and settled down. The late light was rosy and the ocean glittered where the sun was slanting low. Traffic was light in the channel. He watched a few sailboats heading home. He got out the camera and scanned the boats along the docks. Through the 300mm, the masts looked all stacked together, like something out of a Marcel Duchamp. He fired off several shots.

He looked for TAHITI GIRL, a beautiful 30-foot sailboat. The girl in the blue shorts was out hosing it down again. He snapped a couple of shots of her too.

Far in back of her in the channel, he watched a huge sports fishing boat gurgling through, all antennas and radar. A hundred yards behind, a man and his dog ooched along in a simple skiff. Yes, there was true democracy in boating.

Skiff. Sails. It occurred to Kettering that a multitude of marine words started with the letter s. He thought of schooner, ship, sextant, starboard, stern to form a list. Sheet, spar, spanker, spray, spinnaker, all sibilants. The ancient mariners must’ve had space between their teeth.

Two sessions later, Sarah came to his broom closet-sized office after class. Bright she was, this girl, and notably attractive.

Hi, she said. I wonder if you have time to look at this. She handed him a few pages of typescript in a clear vinyl folder. It’s something I’ve started working on.

Sure, any time.

He began to read. Mile after mile of sagebrush flew past below as the chopper churned its way across the desert. The light was harsh and shimmering and the noise level was high. Millen could hear the beat of the blades even with the headset on…

The scene-setting went on a few more lines and then gave way to dialogue. Action soon followed.

Kettering read all that she had written. This is very good. Evenly paced, a telling choice of words. What is it?

A story. Maybe something longer. No title yet.

It moves so swiftly it almost sounds like a screenplay.

Hm, that’s not a bad idea.

Odd, it doesn’t seem like a topic a woman would write about.

She laughed. A girl doesn’t have to write about tea and crumpets, you know.

You’re quite right, of course. Stupid of me.

No, never. But will you stay with me on it? I really could use your criticism.

Sure. I’d be happy to.

Wonderful. She touched his arm, amber eyes looking at him.

What.

She smiled widely. My folder please, professor.

Oh, of course.

But the touch was unmistakable.

Saturday. Kettering had just walked over the Newport Avenue bridge onto Balboa peninsula. He’d first tried to park there, but it was afternoon and there were no parking places left. Even the foot traffic was unusually heavy. He carried his Nikon with the 3.5 zoom on it and planned to take a few shots around the berths. That’s when he ran into Joe Gallagher, a feature writer he knew from the Times.

Hey, Joe, he said, and gave him an abrazo. What’re you doing down here?

I’m covering the Boat Show, man.

Of course. I wondered why there were so many people.

You ought to read the Times, Kett.

It’s too depressing. You want to walk along the docks?

No, I want a drink.

They repaired to the local theme restaurant and sat in the bar. It had a shed roof and enormous wooden beams. Late sun slanted through two-inch oak slats. A girl in a T-shirt that said Cabo Nights fetched their drinks.

I’m Jen, she said. If you need anything, I’ll be cruising past here every little while. Just flag me down. And she left them in peace.

At last, Kettering said. A girl who can speak without a script.

So what are you up to these days? Gallagher said.

I’m teaching a writing class at UCI.

Adults?

Mostly. They’re a pretty savvy bunch too.

Gallagher put down his glass and said, We miss you, Ket.

I get pangs once in a while myself.

You could come back now, you know. That asshole Emerson Platt is gone.

Really.

Yep. He got his ass fired, and good riddance.

Makes my day.

Your desk is available. I’ll even buy you a green visor.

He laughed at the image. Thanks, Joe, but no. I’m happy where I am, at least for now.

It can’t pay a whole lot can it?

No, but I own the condo and I’ve saved up a few bucks. Also, the college has a lot of benefits I’ll qualify for if I stay with it.

Well, at least let me get your number for Marcy. I think she still has a thing for you.

Kettering demurred. Me too, but would only stir things up again, and she deserves better.

Yeah, maybe so.

The TV monitors switched channels and a sports show came on. Pregame with the Pros, it was called. Three analysts sat around a table hyperventilating about the match-ups. The bald one always made his point by splaying his fingers out front, in case nobody knew what a basketball was.

Amazing, Kettering said. The panel of busy hands.

Gallagher had to laugh. You haven’t changed a bit, have you.

For Kettering, nothing was worse than business-speak, unless it was government-speak. After the next session, Sarah handed him a combination of both.

This is up your alley, professor, she said, handing him a clipping.

He saw it was from the Times financial section—not the lead story, but a front-page item nevertheless.

Feds to Stay the Course on Rates, was the headline.

Not bad for a heading, he said. Though I would’ve said Stay Put.

Try the text, she grinned.

A short first sentence, and then a statement by the current guru:

Aspects of geopolitical tensions, together with consumer diffidence in the retail sector, have promulgated (ugh!) continuing restraint of capital spending and hiring by businesses. However, we believe that as those risks dissipate, the accommodative (another ugh word) stance of monetary policy, coupled with ongoing growth of productivity, is expected to provide the momentum for an improving economic climate over the long term.

In other words, Kettering translated, the economy is ailing and we sure hope it gets well soon.

She laughed. I thought you’d like it.

You know, to do my bit to allay consumer diffidence, I think I’ll go buy a fifth of Beefeaters Gin and a bottle of double dry vermouth.

Very sensible, she agreed.

Never say metropolis when city will do. Mark Twain said that, and Kettering’s father never let him forget it. His father had been an editor at Scribners back in the heady days. The old man could spot flaws in a novel like a dowser could find water. But he was a kind man too, and respectful of an author’s sensibilities. He would ask questions rather than make judgements. His writers would usually wind up recognizing the flaws themselves.

Ket always did his best to emulate the old man, but every once in a while he’d manage to offend somebody, never knowing why. Like the time he got the restaurant critic’s hooks up over a comment about broccoli. Trouble was, he tended to overestimate people’s tolerance. He was a damn good editor, to be sure, but he’d never have the subtlety his father had.

Now, sitting on his sofa with his feet up, Kettering picked up his omnibus of New York Times crossword puzzles. He did one of them a couple of times a week, always in ink. With ink there was no erasing. If you messed up, you had to do something horrible, like dust the blinds or balance the checkbook.

Filling in words, he recalled a restaurant sign he’d seen on the peninsula—The Spindrift. A curious word. It sounded like it meant being dead in the water, but he really didn’t know. He broke out his Webster’s Collegiate and looked it up. It derived from the Scottish speen, meaning to drive before a strong wind. So much for guesswork.

Spindrift was a worthy candidate for Kettering’s Omnibus of Odd Words, as he called it. He entered it in the computer file along with the all others—de trop, trendoid, lerp psyllid, ofay, frappucino, blebby—on and on went the list.

Moment, please. Mrs. Nguyen took Kettering’s chit and pressed the rotary hanger system till it came to the K’s. She slipped a plastic covering over his jacket and hung it on the rack. $5.95, please, she twittered. Thank you. Have happy day.

Very pleasant, very sincere, he thought. She’d served him for four years and never said much more, and never without a smile.

Kettering walked a few yards to his parking place. He couldn’t park at the entrance because of a 20-foot strip of red curb that said No Parking in white letters. Simple and effective. Far different than the big box store across the street, where a hundred feet of curb was bracketed by two pole signs.

         NO PARKING

         IS ALLOWED

         3PM to 6PM

He recognized a classic negative/positive screwup. If there’s no parking, why confuse the issue by inserting IS ALLOWED?

Signage illiteracy had always fascinated Kettering. Whenever an otherwise rational civil servant had to create a sign, serious logorrhea seemed to break out. It was like a B movie plot: The Invasion of the Killer Adjectives.

At freeway on-ramps the virus was pandemic. NORTH 405, for example, is all anyone really needs to know. But that message is lost amid a forest of other signs—Merging Traffic, Speed 65, South Coast Plaza next exit, End Agricultural Quarantine Area, Freeway Cleanup by Pizza Oven, not to mention a raft of smaller signs with arcane numbers and orange reflectors, and various diagonal lines and arrows. Kettering blamed it on the legacy of the British, who even today were capable of:

PLEASE OBSERVE THAT EXPECTORATING ON THE GREEN IS NOT ALLOWED. A VIOLATION SHALL RESULT IN A 2£ PENALTY.

A lot of words just to say Don’t Spit on the Grass.

This is damn good, Kettering said to Sarah. He’d finished reading Sarah’s final draft and was returning it to her.

It was evening and they were walking across the quadrangle, heading for the parking lot. The campus was well lighted, and would be until midnight. Some classes were still in session and there were quite a few students about.

Thanks, Sarah said. "I worked hard on it. I was afraid maybe too hard and it showed."

I saw no sign of it.

You’re not just being nice, are you?

No.

She heaved a sigh of relief. Any other comments?

Well, maybe just one. You might consider not describing the actual crash—just ending it with the ground rushing up and Millen’s realization that death was seconds away.

Interesting. I’ll give it a shot.

You’re serious about this, aren’t you, Sarah?

Yes. I’ve always wanted to write. Of course that’s what made me get into your program in the first place.

Then go for it. You write like a natural. You can pretty much choose what you want.

I know.

What kind of work do you do, anyway?

I work for a Ford agency. I’m your smiley cashier girl who sets up your appointments and hands you your bill and takes your Visa card.

I can’t believe God would waste you on that.

She laughed. I’m not wasted. I keep everybody happy.

The girl at the check out counter.

Actually, it’s an office. Would you hold this? She handed him her notebook and loosened her ponytail and shook it out. Thanks. Retrieving the notebook, she neatly captured his hand. Kettering felt a sexual charge, guilt, delight, in rapid succession.

What are you up to, Sarah? he said.

You.

C’mon, I’m pushing 40. You don’t want me.

I’m 26, and you said I could choose whatever I want.

I was talking about the work.

Sure, professor.

They arrived at her roadster and she tossed her notebook inside. She still had his hand and now she took the other one.

Nice night, isn’t it? Come home with me and I’ll make you a martini. I even have some Beefeater’s.

A sweet temptation, Sarah, but it wouldn’t be wise.

Silly. This is the twenty-first century.

But a teacher and his student? I’m in a position to take advantage of you.

That’s exactly what I had in mind.

But aren’t you making the assumption that—

I know you want me. A girl knows.

All right, so I do. But—

You aren’t going to leave me here in a parking lot, are you?

You’re making this awfully tough, you know.

My gin will be lonely, dear.

He had to smile at that. If we’re going to get into this, you might as well call me Kett. My friends do.

Nice. It fits you.

My gin will be lonely, she said. It sounded like a line out of a Bogart movie.

* * *

Kettering took a swig of chardonnay. He snapped on the 300mm and scanned the marina. Another clear day. A light breeze, about five knots he reckoned. TAHITI GIRL’s berth was empty. The girl and her partner with the beard were on blue water by now, on their way to Hawaii, or even Tahiti.

Balboa island was bathed in morning sun, and he fired off a few shots. From his perch, both the island and the peninsula seemed flat as a flapjack. It looked as if they were five feet above sea level. An illusion, of course. It was plain the residents weren’t expecting a tsunami any time soon.

A century ago, the island had been subdivided into twenty-five-foot lots. Many of the original bungalows remained, some with 50-year-old bougainvilleas blazing in their yards. The newest homes were mostly glassy modern boxes or Victorian reproductions, like the one he and Sarah were trying to buy.

People were winding down awnings now, and sweeping off the public walkway. Beach chairs and towels dotted the tiny strip of sand with color. The couple in the double-lot Spanish place came out to plant some impatiens. Kettering spotted a college girl in frayed shorts and a T-shirt sitting on a low wall. Two guys in surf pants were trying to pick her up. In his mind, he heard them speak.

We’re going down to the Frosty Pelican. Want to come?

Maybe not, hon.

C’mon, we’re harmless. We’ll buy you a frozen yogurt.

Sorry, I’m leaving for dance class in half an hour.

We’ll have you back in time.

Thanks anyway.

You can take a look at Leo’s car.

What kind is it?

It’s an Audi TT. The little roller skate.

Oh, those are majorly cute.

So are you, babe.

Roller skate. Teen-speak for a small roadster, Kettering knew. Incredible how their vernacular was dead-on.

With the glowing presence of Sarah in his life, Kettering’s spirit awakened to new purpose and meaning. He came to realize how much had been missing. He had forgotten the joy of love’s anticipation. He’d forgotten the silky perfection of female skin, and the scent of freshly shampooed hair. And the pleasure of looking deep into a girl’s eyes and seeing distant shores. Sarah was all of these things and more. Most of all she was his inspiration.

Kettering finally knew what he wanted to do. It occurred to him that after two years of preparing class sessions he had the raw ingredients of a book, already neatly separated into chapters. He’d title it Huffery Puffery, 20 Bad Habits in Writing or something along those lines.

Such books had been written before, of course, but his slant would be different. There was great opportunity for humor in it—poking holes in prolixity and pomposity, and skewering tweeting and texting, those sorry excuses for language. He’d include a chapter on business-speak, and another on clichés and euphemisms. Extinguish all smoking materials, came to mind from his U.S. Navy service.

Publication wouldn’t be a problem. Kettering had gained something of a reputation at the Times, and could count on a raft of friendly editors and writers. They’d steer him to a decent publisher, he was sure.

And for his personal editor, who could be more perfect than Sarah? Every day that he was with her, the more impressed he became with her talent and intuition. Not only was she a fine fiction writer, but she owned an elemental sense of honesty. When the words were down, Sarah wouldn’t spare his feelings. No, she’d keep his eyes on the prize. She’d make damn sure he avoided the 20 bad habits when he wrote it.

Still Barely Visible

Benny Naults hung a series of long, fluted drapery poles on the paint rack. He loaded his spray gun with number 45 beige, pulled down his protective mask and started painting. The 3-inch by 8-foot-long wood poles were of a style called NeoClassic. Their ends were finished with urn-shaped wooden knobs. The NeoClassic series was one of hundreds of styles of hangers, poles, posts, knobs, and brackets manufactured by his employer, Pacific Curtain Rod Company.

Benny was content in his work. More than content when the colors were other than beige, which is what he was. He was plain, all right, almost to the point of invisibility. His girlfriend Linda sometimes called him Nowhere Man because of his tendency to fade into almost any commonplace background, such as a masonry wall, shelves of books or small drugstore items, or an urban street scene. Benny didn’t ask to be born that way, he just was. It had turned out to be both a blessing and a curse.

When work was over for the day, Benny drove his Detroit beigemobile to his small apartment. This habitat was furnished with tables and chairs of no particular note. His sofa was the familiar rolled arm type, his lamps had pleated shades (except his gooseneck lamp), his pictures were rural landscapes of the Andrew Wyeth sort. The one different thing was his collection of wooden newels, knobs, acorns, and pineapples he’d painted brighter colors.

Benny never really thought much about where he lived. There were too many other of life’s considerations to think about. Foremost among these was his relationship with Linda. The cute and perky data analyst liked him, he knew, but whether that inclination could be segued into a romance remained to be seen. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the slightest notion of how to find out.

After a beer and a frozen dinner he’d picked up on the way home, Benny settled down to watch some television. He flipped through the channels and found Jeopardy! This was a show he enjoyed, not for the money but for its melange of miscellaneous facts. Plain though he was, Benny possessed considerable knowledge and skill. He read many books and could quote from many sources. His guesses were more accurate than most people’s answers.

After Jeopardy! he found a nature show about the chameleon. He had an interest in chameleons, for they had qualities a good deal like his own. But in twenty minutes his lids drifted lower and he fell asleep.

Naults! I’ve been looking all over for you. It was the voice of Mr. Fogarty, his often impatient supervisor. What have I done now? Benny thought.

I’ve been right here working. Look, there’s paint on my—

Never mind. Here’s a phone message, somebody named Roscoff. It’s marked urgent. He handed Benny a slip.

That could only be Ray Roscoff at the investigations firm where Linda worked as a data analyst, the same Roscoff that had involved Benny in a messy divorce case. But being inserted into people’s lives proved to be unpleasant, and he didn’t want to repeat it. He looked at the slip. It was Ray’s private line. Oh well, it was only common courtesy to return it.

Hello, came the basso voice.

This is Benny, Mr. Roscoff. You called?

Oh, Benny. Say, we need you, he said, short and sweet.

Is it about work?

Yes. Would you come in? It’s too complicated to talk about on the phone.

I thought you understood, Ray. I don’t want to stick my nose into other people’s private lives like that.

This isn’t another divorce case. It’s corporate.

What is it?

It’s a matter that’s highly important to the agency.

I don’t know…

How about twelve, for lunch? Linda will join us.

When he heard Linda’s name his reluctance began to soften.

When Benny arrived at Roscoff Investigations, he was asked to drive on to The Quarter Deck, at the marina half a mile away. He found Ray and Linda in the bar, where there was a pleasant view of the docks, and boats with their sails stowed in blue canvas.

This is like a spy movie, Benny said, sliding into the booth.

In a way, it is, Linda said.

They ordered drinks, and Roscoff took over. First of all, it’s nice to see you again, Benny. And thanks for coming.

You didn’t leave me much choice, remember?

Sorry about that. There is some urgency, you see. Our company has been retained by the Justice Department to help them investigate a suspect corporation for wire fraud. Trouble is, there’s no hard evidence.

Why doesn’t Justice handle it themselves?

They’re understaffed to take on all these cases, so they’re farming out some of their load.

But you have experienced investigators. Why me?

Because nothing we’ve tried is working. We don’t have subpoena power. We’ve surveilled their people, we’ve sifted their trash, we’ve tried everything. Nada. Somehow they always seem to be a step ahead of us. We need a stealth operator.

Linda put her hand on his arm. We want you to wire the CFO’s office, Benny. You can do it like nobody else can.

I probably could. But I don’t know.

I’ll be working directly with you, sweetie. Please?

No doubt about it, working with Linda put a different complexion on it.

Okay, he said. I’ll give it a shot.

Roscoff worked out a deal with Pacific Curtain Rod to borrow Benny for as long as it took. In fact he wanted him permanently, but that he didn’t mention. Benny’s talent was unique among all the operatives he knew of, and would be a great asset to the agency. But Benny was sensitive and had to be handled with care. He’d have to depend on Linda for that.

Driving home, Benny passed a newsstand. Seeing all the skin magazines lined up in a row reminded of that time when an entire centerfold slipped out of his history book and fell to the classroom floor. That was when he was ten years old and first becoming aware of girls as something other than pests. After scolding him, Mrs. Frobish wrote a note and told him to take it to the principal’s office.

Benny sat on an oak bench in the outer office for three hours looking at FOSTER HARRIS, PRINCIPAL backwards on the glass door. Then school was over. Mr. Harris came out of his sanctum, and said to the secretary, Who’s this?

Oh, she said, noticing Benny. Are you still here?

Yes, ma’am.

She looked again at his note. Oh, yes. This is Benny Naults. He—

Forget it, Harris said. You’re off the hook, Naults, whatever you did. It’s five o’clock. Let’s all get out of here.

That was fine with Benny. But first he went back to the empty classroom and fished the centerfold out