Bookshelf Battle

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES:

Part 1   Part 2   Part 3   Part 4   Part 5

“Are you sure?” Delilah asked. “I’m not sure you understand that in 2015, five dollars is not considered a lot of money. It doesn’t go as far as it did in the 1950’s.”

I felt my smile muscles get some exercise for the first time in forever.

“Lady,” I said, “I don’t care. I’ll solve one hundred mysteries for this chump, take his five hundred bucks back to 1955 and live like the King of Siam!”

“You could live like the Emperor of the Universe in 1955 with fifty dollars an hour, which is really a more fitting wage for a private investigator today, especially one with your training and skill.”

Delilah slinked back into my chair.

“Oh,” she said. “Please forget I said that. Mr. Battler will be very cross if he learns I spoke ill of him.”

“Ma’am,” I said. “I doubt a fella who wastes his life away watching the boob tube and making with the typey typey on the beep beep bop machines has much money. Does that big galoot even have fifty bucks per case to spend per case?”

“Between you and I, I don’t think so,” Delilah confided in me. “I wasn’t even sure he had five hundred bucks until he put the sum in an escrow account to pay you upon the completion of one hundred pop culture mysteries.”

“Then it’s settled,” I said. “Although, I have to say, I’m not sure I’m the right man for the job.”

“How’s that?” Delilah asked.

“I slept for nearly sixty years,” I said. “How in hell am I going to be able to answer cultural questions for a man of the modern era?”

Delilah slapped her hand down on the desk.

“That’s precisely why you ARE the best man for the job!”

“How do you figure?”

“You’ll come at these mysteries with no preconceived agenda,” Delilah replied. “You won’t have already formed an opinion. You’ll be able to provide Mr. Battler’s 3.5 readers with full, detailed, unbiased reports!”

“True enough,” I said as I clanked my shot glass against hers. “And I suppose it will be nice to solve a case without having anyone shooting at me for once.”

“Oh my,” Delilah said. “Now I can’t provide you with any guarantees on that, Mr. Hatcher. Hollywood folk are very sensitive about their art, you know.”

It’s all about the Lincolns.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a stogie. It was one I kept close to my heart, ready to be smoked on special occasions. I couldn’t think of anything more special than the chance to become a five hundred-aire.

“Don’t worry about me, doll,” I said. “Whatever those showbiz folk fling my way, I’ll catch it and put it up on my mantle.”

“Very well,” Delilah said as she handed me a pen and the contract.

I signed it. Instantly, I felt a strange sensation. A chill took me over and squeezed me to the very depths of my soul. It made me feel nauseous. I doubled over and grabbed my stomach but then as quickly as it came, it was gone.

“Are you all right?” Delilah asked.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Suppose I’d better lay off the hooch du jour.”

Delilah stood up and extended her hand. I shook it. It was silky smooth, like touching God’s butt cheek.

It’d been awhile since I’d touched any part of a woman. It was nice.

“A pleasure doing business with you,” Delilah said in an authoritative, business-like manner.

“Likewise,” I said. “What now?”

“Ahh,” Delilah said. “Well, we’ll need to make some changes around here. Some men will be by your office within the next few days to set you up with equipment you’ll need to research your cases, namely a T194 Alpha Desktop Unit, High Speed Transmission Cable, WI FI uplink, and of course, a top of the line Android cellular phone.”

“Come again?”

“We’re going to set you up with a couple beep bop machines.”

“OK,” I said. “Those things make me more nervous than a cat in a sack on laundry day, but hell, if five hundred big ones are on the line…”

“We’ll be in touch,” Delilah said as she snapped her briefcase shut and sashayed her way out of my life as fast as she’d dropped into it.”

Now that she was out from behind the desk, I was able to observe that her black dress went down to just above the knee, revealing the sweetest, smoothest, sultriest pair of getaway sticks this side of the Rio Grande.

To my dismay, she was using them to get away from me as fast as she could.

And who could blame her? No high society dame was ever going to be caught dead with a bum like me. It was a fact I’d learned to accept a long time ago.

I never learned to like it, only to accept it. Drinking helped with the acceptance process.

In fact, it was time for another.

It would go well with my moo goo gai pan.

This concludes Pop Culture Mysteries: Enter the Blonde!  Join us next time as Jake Hatcher, Private Eye tackles his very first pop culture mystery!!!

Copyright (c) Bookshelf Q. Battler 2015.  All rights reserved.

Detective and money photos courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.