Write me a Letter

didn’t add up about the whole... affair, one might say? Although it had to be more than that, given the considerable sum of money involved (mine, thank you), and John having to cover it all up and lie to his wife and goodness knows what else. One might conjecture a spot of blackmail on the fair damsel’s part, but (a) John, although not brimming with cheer, hadn’t behaved like VD.’d behave if he was being blackmailed, i.e., to name but three, going through the fucking roof, plotting for dire revenge, and swearing off the so-called ”fair” sex (make that all sex) for life. And (b) I find it impossible to believe that any damsel, fair, brown, or red, would stoop to such behavior in the first place. So what did that leave a poor deducer to deduce? That a certain door-to-door diaper service might have a new client some half-a-dozen, say, moons in the future? Getting warmer, maybe... and maybe, like a lot of things, maybe it was none of my business.
    Right about then, the phone rang, disturbing my sensitive reflections on such things as young love, not-so-young love, autumn leaves a-falling, and calendar leaves likewise. It was my least-favorite bail bondsman, a guy called Fats Nathan, and Fats wasn’t called Fats using the kind of reverse humor hoboes and other noted comedians often employ wherein a midget will be nicknamed Lofty and a skyscraper like me Peewee, Fats was called Fats because he was fat. I suppose he wasn’t really a bail bondsman anymore if one wanted to nitpick, and it’s surprising how many do; since a fairly recent change in the law, the courts now accepted a person’s personal recognizance bond, as in a check, which pretty much obviated the need for outside sureties that used to be supplied by guys like Fats for a hefty price. So Fats had moved more into loan sharking, but he also continued with his old lucrative sideline, which was acting as an intermediary between felon and fuzz.
    Say, for example—perish the thought, dismiss instantly from your mind—you were a felon. You had a trial coming up. A key witness exists whom you would very much like not to testify against you. A friendly cop appears on the witness’s doorstep, the one supposed to deliver to said witness his subpoena to appear in court. He bears the welcome news that the witness can forget the whole business, he won’t have to go through the hassle of a long trial and getting off work and, who knows, putting himself in danger of retaliation, it has happened; his testimony is no longer needed. Merry Christmas. The cop reports back that the witness skipped town, or went back east to his sister-in-law’s ordination as a Baptist minister, anyway he’s done gone. The cop gets a healthy hit, the felon gets off, and Fats takes his middleman’s slice.
    Or so the story goes; far be it from me to even suggest that such things really occur. I for one certainly hope not, and the fact that it is a board of police commissioners that has to yearly decide whether or not to renew my PI license has nothing to do with the matter.
    ”Vic?” Fats said. ”Fats.”
    ”Hey, Fats,” I said, perching on the corner of the desk. ”Still going to Weight Watchers?”
    ”Ha, ha,” said Fats. ”Listen, you want one?”
    ”One what?”
    ”A skip,” he said. ”Smart guy like you, should only take a couple of days at most.”
    ”Maybe,” I said. ”How much are we talking?”
    ”Five plus expenses up to another five?”
    ”How about a grand plus unlimited,” I said. ”That’s for three days max.”
    ”So come on down,” he said. ”We’ll talk it over.”
    ”Let me check what I got on,” I said. I held my hand over the mouthpiece for a minute, then said to him, ”I might be able to get to you about three, or a little after. How does that grab you?”
    He said it grabbed him OK, and we rang off.
    All right.
    Business was booming suddenly.
    I’d done a couple of skip traces for Fats before, and gotten paid, but you did have to watch your step with him, he was brighter than he looked, which wasn’t hard, and as crooked as a hummingbird’s flight path. And besides, Fatso had connections, good ones, on both sides of the law, but especially below it. But could a fatty like that be any match for V. Daniel?
    Unlikely, amigos.
    I gave Jasper Johnson a call at the Downtown Station and luckily found him in.
    ”Johnson, Robbery,” he barked.
    ”V. Daniel, likewise,” I said.
    ”Who?”
    ”V. Daniel. I’m a friend of Frank and