Bookshelf Battle

PREVIOUSLY ON POP CULTURE MYSTERIES…

Part 1

AND NOW THE POP CULTURE MYSTERIES CONTINUE…

“Signor Hatcher,”  Bellavenuti said.  “I must protest the way you are treating us like criminals.  Your concern over your check is unfounded, no?”

“How do you figure, Signora?”

“Because all you need do is call the casino first thing in the morning and request they cancel the missing check and issue you a new one!”

“I could do that,”  I said.  “But suppose the crook beats me to the punch, cashes it, and runs away never to be found again?  What then?  I fight some cockamamie international legal battle from my home in the states for the rest of my life?  Not a chance…especially…”

“Especially, what?”  Signora Bellavenuti said through her luscious lips.

“…when YOU DID IT!”

“BASTARDO!”  Signora Bellavenuti shouted as she stood up and slapped me across the face.

“Admit it!”  I said.  “Long before you started your own designer label, ‘Haus of Bellavenuti,’ you were a gorgeous fashion model who walked the runway with poise, precision, and grace.  Why, I bet you could put a book on your head and walk from here to Romania without it falling off once!”

“What are your implying?”

“Implying?  I’m saying!  You’re no klutz, Signora, and when you spilled that wine all over the best jacket I own, you did it so you could slip your nimble fingers into my pocket and grab my loot!”

“Best jacket?!  Patooie!  I spit on your best jacket!  If that is your best jacket then you are no better than the beggar who pleads for the scraps that I throw away!”

With that, the Signora removed her stole, unzipped the back of her dress, and allowed it to fall to the ground.

There she stood in a black bra and panties.

“Oggle all you wish, pervert!  I do not need your money, you fool! I can buy and sell a horde of you!”

I gave her voluptuous form the old once over with my peepers.  I didn’t want to but I had no choice.  I was a detective.  I had to do what I had to do.

“My apologies, Signora,”  I said.  “I can now rule you out as well.”

“I should rule out your face!”

Professor Fremont’s head was pointed at me, but his lazy eye was aimed at the Signora’s form.  The ex-model wacked him upside the head.

“Stop gawking at me you deviant!”

“I can’t help it!”

“Can’t you, Professor?”  I asked.

“I really can’t,”  Professor said.  “My eye is permanently stuck toward the right.”

“And yet, you made sure you positioned yourself in a seat that allowed that eye to point at the Signora all evening.  You’re attracted to her aren’t you?”

“She’s quite fetching.”

“You’re madly in love with her!  You’ve been following her around all night, trying to impress her with superficial philosophical observations completely devoid of any real meaning.”

“He has!”  the Signora said.

“What we do and why we do it are two separate agendas,”  the Professor said.  “When it comes to a man’s motivations, the Id, Ego, and Superego all come into play.”

“Did you stink her out?”

“Excuse me?”

“The Signora!”  I said.  “She spurned your advances one too many times so you got your revenge by letting one rip in her general vicinity, didn’t you?  DIDN’T YOU?”

“I most certainly did not,”  the Professor said.  “Detective Hatcher, while tales of your investigatory prowess precede you, you have embarrassed yourself with this line of questioning.”

“How so?”

“Did you forget the part where I passed out?”

He got me.

“I’m afraid I did.”

“It’s an incontrovertible scientific fact that a man cannot be offended by his own expungements,”  the Professor said as if I were one of his students.

“That’s true,”  Yakubovich said.  “Some men even sit around and sniff their own stink as a reminder of their personal machismo.”

Everyone glared at Yakubovich.  He sunk down in his chair.

“So I have heard.”

“My body found the air to be so foul that it shut my entire system down to prevent me from breathing it in any further, thus saving my life,”  Fremont argued.

“Maybe you were faking,”  I said.

The Countess intervened on the Professor’s behalf.

“He wasn’t,”  my host said.  “I held the smelling salts under the Professor’s nose for quite some time.  I checked his pulse and it grew so slight I feared I would have to call for the undertaker.”

“You see?”  the Professor said.  “You can no sooner accuse me of being the olfactory offender than you could purport that Sir Isaac Newton caused his infamous apple to fall on his own head.”

I extended my hand.  The Professor shook it.

“You’re off the hook, nerd.”

“Of course I am,”  Fremont said.  “And while I have the floor, I must object to your investigatory methods.   You’ve engaged in plenty of speculation and conjecture, but only a scientific approach can draw the delinquent out into the open.”

“You’re right,”  I said.  “I’ve been in remiss.”

“Hatcher,”  the Count said.  “Perhaps you should analyze the diplomats’ motivations?”

“He who sniffed it, biffed it!”  Sir Rupert said.

“He who thwarted it, borted it!”

“Borted it?”  Rupert said.  “Bort isn’t even a word!”

“Oh, and biff is?”

“I could do that, Fabes,”  I said.  “But each man would simply accuse the other of cutting one as a precursor to global annihilation.  I’d get nowhere.  No, Professor Fremont is absolutely right.  If this case is to be put to bed, I must conduct a more thorough, rational inquiry.”

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