Sauce for the Goose by Robert Campbell

Author:Robert Campbell [Campbell, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9780786205479
Google: w3OXgSe4KcYC
Amazon: B01M8MKMP6
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Published: 1994-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

I meet Willy Dink over at the diner where he takes his messages. He hands me a plastic baggie with a couple of ounces of dried lion dung in it plus a pair of rubber surgical gloves.

"What's them for?" I'd asked him.

"Well, it ain't exactly winter, is it?" he says. "I think it'd look a little funny, you going around wearing a pair of regular gloves."

"Don't you think it's going to look just as funny, me going around wearing rubber gloves?"

"Make like they caught you doing the dishes."

"That ain't the right kind of rubber gloves."

"By the time they get to thinking about why you're wearing a pair of rubber gloves, you'll've already shook their hands and the lion smell'll already be all over them. Now, you just make sure you don't get any on yourself or Alfie won't have anything to do with you for a week."

I drive over to O'Meara's and take Alfie in the house first, telling him to lay down in Billy's basket, Billy not being there.

"Where's Billy?" I ask Cora and Jake.

"He's with my mother, keeping her company," Cora says.

Jake looks at his watch. "You got about five minutes to do whatever you got to do. These people are right on time. You sure Alfie ain't going to trot over to them looking for a pet?"

"I got a feeling Alfie ain't going to like them any better than you do but just to be sure I'll go get ready. Now you be sure to give me a big introduction because I got to shake each and every hand."

I go put on the rubber gloves and then finger the dry dung in the baggie. It don't smell as bad as I thought it was going to smell. In fact it don't hardly smell at all, but then I ain't got a dog's nose who's probably got a better ancient memory for the smell of lion than humans do.

I ain't one to make my mind up about another person on first impressions. I mean some of the most innocent-looking people I ever met, like Chips Delvin, are the craftiest, some of the meanest-looking the sweetest, and the other way around.

But when I get a look at the late Mrs. Papadopolous's nieces and nephews I don't got—have—to have an affidavit to know that what we've got here is some very piggish people, the kind what applaud like mad when some crook gets up and says, "Greed is good," or some woman in a ten-thousand-dollar dress covering her bones says, "You can't be too thin or have too much money."

O'Meara's quick to meet them at the door so they can't all come piling in and maybe have one or two of them get around me, into the parlor and over to Alfie—playing like he's Billy—before I get to shake their hand.

"Hello, Mr. Papadopolous," he says to the first one what walks through the door, a big pushy type, with thinning hair and the blankest eyes I think I ever see on a person.

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