Write me a Letter

once.”
    ”Now, now,” Momma said. ”Shall we go calling, dear, anyhow, on the off chance?”
    ”Delighted, I’m sure,” I said. ”What about a warrant?”
    ”Not for a little social call,” she said. She switched off her machine, arose, gave herself a good shake, poked her bun ineffectually a couple of times, and pronounced herself ready, willing, and able.
    ”A moment, madam,” I said. ”We have a slight problem. You are, excuse the expression, the fuzz. The fuzz needs just cause to enter a suspect’s abode. We do not have just cause, all we have is just a suspicion or two. If you gain access as someone else, such as the gas man or a collector for the home for unwed mothers-in-law, that would be considered fraudulent entry and any evidence seized by you would therefore not be admissible in court. Thus spoke A. Prescott, Claims.”
    ”H’um.” Momma furrowed her broad forehead, and reached automatically for another gasper. ”A pretty dilemma.”
    ”How’s about,” I said, ”you are what you are and I am what I am. Together we are investigating the case of the empty champagne bottles.” I told her about the two guys in T-shirts who worked for the caterer and my subsequent misgivings. ”I have a legitimate client. I have a legitimate right to put a few disarming questions to anyone who might be able to help, especially members of the band as they and the caterers set up so close to each other. And you have a right to just happen to be with me while I put these disarming questions, why not? Perhaps we had just come from an intimate lunch together and I had to make a quick stop before returning you here.”
    ”The intimate lunch I don’t mind the sound of,” Momma said archly. ”Do you know the name of the catering firm involved?”
    I thought for a moment, then had to confess I did not. ”D. Gresham might,” she said. ”Seeing as the band and the caterers were set up so close to each other.”
    ”Not just a pretty face,” I said. ”Un momento.”
    I called up Aaron Lubinski at his place of business. I revealed to him the latest startling developments and asked him for the name of the caterers.
    He said they were called the ’£!!//$**%+!! Kosher Katerers, with a K, and wanted to know why I wanted to know.
    ”They may be ’£!!//$**%+!!s,” I said, ”but you gotta admit their chopped liver was heaven.”

6

    Momma signed us out an unmarked police car—a two-year-old Olds Cutlass—downstairs, into which we strapped ourselves, and off we went, with Momma driving, and extremely competently, too. D. Gresham wasn’t far away, he lived west of where we were, on Denker. During the short drive I asked Momma how she became a cop.
    ”What’s a nice girl like me, eh?” she said. ”I was just out of UCLA—major, art history, minor, phys ed. In other words, totally unemployable. I saw an ad, they were just starting to seriously recruit women to do other jobs than shitwork like filing and answering the telephone. So I went down one day, took the test, didn’t make too many spelling mistakes, passed the physical, then went off to school with all the rest of the recruits. You can’t imagine the crap they threw at me, I threw it right back with bells on it.” She drew out to pass a city bus and got back in line with inches to spare, pretending not to notice my involuntary braking motions.
    ”Second day out,” she said without any apparent rancour, as a rookie cop, I was partnered with a foul-mouthed bigot of Polish extraction called Ski. Ski thought he was tough, which he probably was. He thought he could drive, too, a lot better than any stupid broad.”
    ”Aren’t men the worst sometimes,” I said, shaking my head.
    ”So we get a call and take off,” she said, ”and he runs a light and wham, next thing I know it’s sixteen days later. First thing I see when I come out of the coma is Ski, blubbering like a baby and holding my hand, he hadn’t left the hospital once in all that time. Five months on my back. Year and a half in rehab. I’ve got so many metal pins in me when I go through one of those detector things at airports, it tilts. I must be the only person in the world who put on weight in hospital. Swimming is about all I can do now. Someone in admin with half a brain for once looked over my record, saw I had a background in art history, and as soon as I was more or less mobile again, shifted me to Robbery and then to what I’m doing now. I got interested. I started