Razzmatazz by Christopher Moore

Author:Christopher Moore [Moore, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-05-17T00:00:00+00:00

16

Hard-Boiled Cheese

Stilton DeCheese, Private Eye

Name’s DeCheese, Stilton DeCheese. I was working a double murder undercover in a drag king joint on Broadway called Mona’s 440, trying to shake a few trees to see if I could get a killer to drop. I pulled the gig from a tasty little piece of talent called Sammy Two-Toes, who I’d been giving the razzmatazz in my spare time. I’d borrowed the kid’s Stetson wide-brimmed fedora so he could feel like he helped, and a blue pinstripe suit from Tommy Vasco, a pal of mine who owns a club on the Embarcadero that caters to the lady-lover crowd. The suit was a couple of sizes too small, so I had to take the pants off to drive, but where I was going, that would only help. I wore it over a lace camisole so sheer it might have been woven by spiders that didn’t care if you could see their boobs.

The place was slower than the ladies’ room line on nickel beer night, but that would give me a chance to chat up everyone before the show started. Sammy had fronted me a little of his cookie jar money to oil up a few Bettys if that’s what it took to loosen their tongues, but I didn’t mind slapping them around a little if it was called for. Or requested. I was packing Jimmy Vasco’s little Walther .380, which was as cute as a bug’s ear and only somewhat more deadly, but I’d promised Jimmy I wouldn’t shoot anybody unless they were really asking for it, so she also gave me the clip and showed me how to load it. I’m a wheel-gun dame, myself—give me six coming fast and loud out of a limey .45 revolver that will knock over a buffalo any day over a little Kraut automatic that would really sore a mug up if he found out you’d shot him with it before it jammed. But borrowers can’t be bitchers. And besides, the bulge of a revolver would have ruined the lines of my outfit.

I spotted a sturdy-looking doll sitting at the bar nursing a martini the size of a birdbath and took a seat next to her. She had shoulders like a piano mover and a face that looked like she used to be a bulldog before she grew into her awkward stage, but she smiled sort of sideways when I rolled up.

“Hey, doll, haven’t seen you around here,” she said.

“Nah, I’m new,” I said. “I’m Tilly.” My pal Myrtle always says she’s new. Just like in waitressing, she says, they give you a break if you tell them it’s your first day.

“Babe,” Babe said. “Welcome to Mona’s, Tilly. I run this joint. Can we buy you a welcome-home drink?”

“I don’t know, am I home?”

“You bet your sweet ass you are, doll,” said Babe.

If Babe had different plumbing I’d have called her a hound, but it didn’t much matter since there wasn’t enough room in these tinhorn pants for the two of us.

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