Harry Pivens: Private Investigator

By Fred Mendelsohn

This book celebrates the life of Harry Pivens who has little to celebrate. He's a flawed P.I. and probably not a great one, but his escapades are witty and charming. He is unique and finds himself in difficult situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665532914

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© 2021 Fred Mendelsohn. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   08/09/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3292-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-3291-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021915083

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is dedicated to my wife, Michal, for her encouragement and support in listening to me read every story to her after finishing it and then urging me to publish them. Without that this would not exist.

CONTENTS

The Case Of The Ex-Stripper’s Son Who Was Dealing Dope

The Case Of The Missing Trombone And An Aside On A Two Man Submarine

The Case Of The Bathtub Dame

The Case Of The Guy Who Owed Too Much To The Mob

The Mob Don’t Play No Violin

Money Can Buy You Anything

The Caregiver and the County Judge

The Rabbi and the Missing Torah

THE CASE OF THE EX-STRIPPER’S

SON WHO WAS DEALING DOPE

A Short Story by Fred Mendelsohn

Through the windshield, spattered with rain, Harry Pivens, a retired FBI agent and now a Chicago P.I. sat in his ’84 Riviera, parked on Halsted in Greektown and stared at the entrance to the apartment building across the street when the limo pulled up. This cold, foggy night Pivens was on a stakeout for his new client, Maribel Lee, who had strutted into his office in the Mohadnock Building and slapped down two dead Presidents on his desk.

There Hotshot she says, two hundred for your retainer. Find my kid.

He could tell from her strut and swagger that this overweight faded blond, with too much blush on her cheeks, and bags under her eyes, had been a stripper. He could also tell because he used to watch her perform at Benny’s Lounge when he still was with the Bureau, from which he had retired three years ago at the mandatory age of 57. This faded blonde, now attempting to be a died redhead without much success, eased into the chair across his desk and crossed her once curvy legs revealing bruised knees gotten from scrubbing floors.

Why should I find your kid, Clairabel?

She interrupted, Can’t ya hear? My name’s Maribel, not Clairabel you idiot! I’m no clown. Do I look like a clown?

Who said you’re a clown? I never said you’re a clown. Harry reached behind his ears to turn up the volume on his hearing aids. You come in here without knocking, plunk down two hundred smackers and just assume I am yours for the hire. I do mostly investigations, not looking for little kids. Maybe you need a truant officer.

Listen, don’t hand me that crap PIvens. My kid is grown up and he’s dealing dope with a bad crowd.

Why didn’t you say so? Bad crowds were nothing new to Pivens. While stationed at the embassy in Germany, he had tracked the Stern Gang. Working with Interpol, he received tips via email from a retired Pygmy in the Kalahari on various members of the Stern Gang. He was about to close in on them when he was transferred back stateside. So, working a bad crowd would be nothing new to him. He squirmed on the rubber cushion he sat on for his hemorrhoids.

That’s how the case began. So now here he sat one fall evening in the cold and damp rubbing his arthritic elbow and watching to see if Maribel Lee’s son, Walter, a fat, lard head guy in his twenties, would emerge from the building across the street. He had been waiting a long time, and sitting here in his old Riviera didn’t provide much warmth. He would have started the engine from time to time and heat it up, but he didn’t want to attract any attention. He’d been on lots of stakeouts over the years, and he was used to the discomfort and boredom. But now, he had trouble seeing at night because of the darkness and he was developing cataracts. He squinted to look at his watch through his bifocals, which were beginning to fog. The last few years with the Bureau, he had difficulty qualifying because he couldn’t hit the bullseye enough with his semi-automatic 9mm Sig-Sauer.

Now he still carried the Sig-Sauer strapped to his hip. He preferred it to a Glock because it had more heft and a better sight. That way when he shot, he was more likely to hit his target, though he hadn’t shot at anyone for years. Tonight on stakeout, as the rain intensified, and hail began to pelt the roof of the old ’84 Riviera, nearly driving him crazy with the noise, which reverberated through his hearing aids, he moved around in his seat, trying in vain to quell the itching of his hemorrhoids.

But when he moved, the handcuffs in his back pocket hurt his buttock. That made him think of last Saturday when he addressed a Chapter of Sisters in Crime at their monthly meeting at a small bookstore in Forest Park. He regaled them with his tales of his exploits during his career with the FBI, which he made up because most of his time there he had a desk job.

One of the women amateur mystery writers had asked him about his handcuffs, and whether he ever had a prisoner whose wrists were too big for them. Yeah, he told her, but I just pulled out some baling twine that I carried in my back pocket and tied him up with that.

But, right now the blackjack in his other back pocket stuck into his spine giving him a stab of painful sciatica. While he was squirming around to get in a more comfortable position, he almost misses seeing his client’s son, Lard Head Walter Lee, as Harry has now dubbed him, emerge from the building across the street, and hurriedly get into the black limo that stopped for him. As the limo pulls out, Pivens sees that the driver is someone he recognizes. Louie Two Feet Scroggins, who just happens to be a soldier in Edgar Amato Pug Face Deltomio’s Northside Outfit. Pug Face Deltomio runs everything in Chicago for the Outfit north of Washington Street. He’s one mean freak.

So if Lard Head has gotten himself tied in with that bunch, his Ma has every right to be worried. Maribel ain’t gona like what I got to report thinks Pivens as he reaches for his cell phone in his back pocket where it is pinching his butt.

He tells Maribel who her kid is running around with, and she says Who? cause she can’t hear so good neither. He shouts into the phone that it’s Pug Face Deltomio, who is one tough nut. Though there is soft side to Deltomio, if you can call it that, especially where his mother is concerned. She is an elderly widow, and Pug Face watches out for her, and she is