Vic Daniel 6 - As she rides by

about a religious leader?”
    “Neatly done, sir,” he said. “Why not.”
    And on that amicable note we parted. The father saw me to the door, picking up a broom from a closet en route. When I left he was sweeping down the front steps and I was pondering over such things as Indian artifacts and how to beg, borrow, or steal one; Indian history, just to make sure there were Indians once camped on my vacant lot; committees and how to set one up; and—now you’re talking—a press conference and how, when, and where to hold one. That’d do to be getting on with, I thought. Pussycat Adult Cinema Co., I thought, look out, and before many moons have passed, too.
    Unfortunately, it was two days before I could put any of the above into motion, because when I arrived back at the office a client was sitting on the fender of a huge, gleaming white ‘74 Mercedes, with tinted windows and all, waiting for me. “Mr. Daniel?” he said as I was opening the last of the three locks.
    “In the flesh.” I took down the sign on the door that said, “Back soon, or even sooner,” neatly lettered on cardboard by Yours Truly, said, “Mind the dog,” and ushered him in. In he strode. I gestured him to the chair on the far side of the desk from mine, in which he sat primly. King bounded over to say hello, and was rewarded with a gingerly pat. When the dog had quieted down somewhat, I sent him back to his blanket, switched on the desk light, unlocked the top-left desk drawer, took out a note pad, selected a pen from the assortment that stood in a mug by my red Touch-Tone phone, looked businesslike, and then inquired how I could be of assistance.
    “My card,” he said unnecessarily, extracting a magenta calling card from a slim and expensive-looking wallet.
    “Thank you,” I said, taking it from him. The card said, “Flora by Phineas,” then gave a phone number and a Beverly Hills address. I didn’t give it back to him. I collect calling cards, among other things. I have a sizable stack of them in the bottom left desk drawer. A guy in my business never knows when a card that reads, say, “C. A. Wigram, Los Angeles Water Authority,” might come in handy, although I had my doubts that I’d ever be able to use a magenta item declaring the bearer to be “Flora by Phineas.”
    “At high noon, in two days,” my visitor said, adjusting one puffed yellow cuff, “my presence is requested in criminal court number four, to give evidence. I shudder at the very thought, but what is one to do? One is a good citizen or one is not.”
    “That’s very commendable,” I said. “Evidence of what, may I ask?”
    “Extortion is the term, I believe,” he said with distaste. “Two ruffians in the worst-looking gabardine suits you’ve ever seen muscled their way into my private office, which is in the rear of my humble boutique, several months ago when I was right in the midst of planning the floral displays for the Kretzmer wedding, and you certainly must have read about that, goodness knows.”
    “I think I did see something,” I said.
    “And what did these two straights proceed to do but try and extort me,” he went on.
    “How?”
    “Not only,” he said, “not only did they want me to change my major local supplier, but also the import house I use for all my Dutch blooms. Threats were uttered!”
    “No!” I said.
    “Which was only to be expected, I suppose,” he said, touching the curls at the back of his neck carefully. “I mean, there they were, two big brutes dripping menace, and there I was, naught but a poor, trembling pansy.”
    “Yeah, I bet,” I said, taking a close look at him as a person—rather than at his pastel wardrobe and matching accessories—for the first time. Once I got past the manicured and highly buffed nails, I noticed the inner edges of both hands were heavily callused, and you don’t get that from snipping the dead bits off dwarf dahlias, you get it from screaming in Japanese and disintegrating stacks of bricks with one downward chop. Like his cuffs, his shirt sleeves were puffy, too; they probably had to be to hide his rippling deltoids.
    “Shivering with abject terror as I was,” he said, “I did remember to switch on a darling little pocket recorder I have to catch those elusive flashes of pure genius one gets from time to time that otherwise would be lost to posterity. After a while, mercifully, they departed, vowing to return, as I claimed I was, first of all, in too much of a