Bookshelf Battle

By:  Jake Hatcher, Official Bookshelf Battle Blog Private Eye

POP CULTURE MYSTERY QUESTION:  What happened to the original Brady Bunch spouses? (Or, what happened to Mike Brady’s first wife and Carol Brady’s first husband?)

“Son, I’m going to tell you one more time what I want and if I don’t get it, we’re going to have a serious dilemma on our hands.”

The lad on the other side of the counter stared at me blankly, a dumbfounded expression on his face.  We both spoke English, but it felt like we were from different planets.

“I want…a cup…of coffee.  Black.  No sugar.  No cream.”

If there’s two things Jake Hatcher hates, it’s commies and fancy coffees.

Immediately, the kid started in with the fancy mumbo jumbo.

“Do you want a half-caf, quarter-caf, decaf, or slim caf?”

I slapped my forehead and looked around.  The line behind me looked like it stretched all the way back to China.

“Buddy,”  I said.  “I have no idea what you’re trying to tell me.  Just pick one of those.  Any one.” 

“Mega size, king size, or ginormo size?”

“I don’t know,”  I said.  “Smallest size you got.  I just need a little jolt, kid.”

“Vanilla shot, butter shot, raspberry shot or do you want the mango starlight swirl with optional honey berry jasmine?”

Instinctively, I reached under my trench coat and gripped the handle of my old service revolver.  Betsy, I called her.  Old Bets and I shot over a thousand Nazis together in World War II and I never went outside without wearing wearing her in a shoulder holster under my trench coat.  I’d developed a bad habit of grabbing my piece whenever I was annoyed.  (No pun intended).  That’s what happens when you live life on a razor’s edge.

It dawned on me the coffee shop worker was just a boy, no more than sixteen or seventeen, and although I was decapitating scum sucking agents of the Third Reich two at a time when I was only a little older than he was, I decided to give him a pass. 

After all, it wasn’t his fault that he was born at a time when the world was being flushed down the toilet like yesterday’s dinner.

“Take the pot of coffee behind you and pour some into a cup,”  I said.  “Then don’t do anything else to it. Just hand it to me.”

The kid acted like I’d just asked him to paint the Mona Lisa and decorate the Sistine Chapel for extra measure.  He did as I asked and handed me my coffee.

“That’ll be three-seventy five.”

One more surprise.  This strange new world was full of them.

“For a cup of coffee?!  Jumpin’ Jesus H. Christ on a Pogo Stick! Son, what kind of film flam operation are you running here?”

“I’ve got it.”

There she was, sauntering up behind me like a beautiful dream made reality, Ms. Delilah K. Donnelly, Attorney for my newfound employer, the reclusive Mr. Bookshelf Q. Battler.  She wore a slinky black dress and of course, her strand of glistening pearls.  She retrieved a plastic card out of her clutch and handed it to the lad.

“Debit or credit?”  he asked.

“Debit,” my colleague replied.

“Electronic money,”  Delilah explained.  “Takes the price of the coffee right out of my bank account.”

A dame buying me my morning joe.  The indignity of it all.

“Yeah,”  I said.  “We had credit cards in my day, ma’am.  Only tycoons, industrialists, homosexuals, communists and fellas named Lance used them though.  And back then we just had those click clack things that made an imprint of the card on carbon paper.  Personally, I’ve always believed a man should never buy something he can’t dole out the cash for.”

“Then you won’t be buying much these days, Mr. Hatcher,”  Delilah said as the boy returned her card and handed me my coffee.

“I have half a mind to report this establishment to the DA,”  I said.  “Three-seventy-five…the nerve.  Rita Hayworth better come sit with me while I drink this and…”

I stopped myself, realizing I was in mixed company.

“…and I’d tell her to take a long walk off a short pier because I’m busy with you, ma’am.”

We found a table.  I pulled the lady’s chair out and held it for her as she parked her keister.  

“That’s sweet,”  Delilah said as she clacked open her briefcase.  She retrieved a file and handed it to me. 

“Your first case.”

I opened up the file.  Notes, records, transcripts and nine photographs – three boys, three girls, a man, a woman, and an old lady in a blue apron.

“I’ll shake a leg and get to work on this right away,”  I said.

“No hurry,”  Delilah replied.  “I’m sure Mr. Battler prefers a thorough investigation over a fast one.”

I pulled a cigar out of my pocket, struck a match and lit it.  Suddenly, everyone in the place came down on me like a ton of bricks.

“Disgusting!”  shouted an old lady behind me.

“Put that out!” 

“You can’t smoke that in here!” 

“Oh my God!!!!”

The complaints bounced at me faster than a kangaroo on a trampoline.

If there’s THREE things Jake Hatcher hates, it’s commies, fancy coffees and angry dames in trousers.

Some dame wearing trousers waltzed on over, a look on her mug like someone had just beaten her with the business end of a Louisville slugger.  I assumed she was the manager or the boss or something.

Lady bosses.  I’m not against the idea.  I’m just not used to seeing it.

“Sir!”  the woman said.  “This is a no smoking establishment!  I’m going to have to ask you to leave!”

I turned to Delilah.

“Did I miss something?”  I asked her.  “Did the Nazis have a comeback while I was asleep?”

“We’d better go,”  Delilah said.

Good old Delilah.  I hated to see her go, but I loved to watch her leave.  Her derriere was like two ripe cantaloupes packed into an airtight sack, swinging left and right to the tune of their own internal metronome.

Outside, we found a bench and took a load off.  I sucked on my stogie.  Delilah pulled a silver cigarette case out of her clutch and popped a smoke into a long black filter.  I struck another match and gave the lady a light.

“Thank you Mr. Hatcher,”  the lady lawyer said.  “Such a perfect gentleman.”

“Pull out a lady’s chair and offer her a light,”  I said.  “Two rules old Ma Hatcher taught me.”

“She taught you well,”  Delilah said.

“Yeah,”  I replied.  “What the hell was that back there?”

Delilah blew out an array of smoke, too troubled to bother with her usual rings.

“You’re in a different day and age, Mr. Hatcher,”  Delilah said.  “Smoking has been banned in all public establishments.  It’s considered vile and bad for your health.”

“Back in my day if a fella wanted to kill himself it was his funeral.”

“True,”  Delilah said.  “Although modern science tells us smoking negatively affects the health of those around the smoker as well.”

Hatcher’s a ten pack a day man.

“Hogwash,”  I replied.  “Tell me another whopper why don’t ya.’”

“You can’t argue with scientists, Mr. Hatcher.”

“Buncha no good eggheads if you ask me.”

There we sat and smoked away like a couple of broken chimneys.

“Ms. Donnelly,”  I said.  “If I may be so bold, there’s something about you I can’t quite put my finger on.”

“I don’t think you should be putting your finger anywhere on me,”  Delilah said.  “It’s never a wise idea to mix business with pleasure.”

“I never drop a fudge pile where I get my dough either, sister,”  I replied.  “But that wasn’t what I was getting at.  There’s something about you that’s different from the other dames I see around here.”

Across the street, there was a young woman with short purple hair, a ring in her nose, a pink tank-top that revealed tattoo covered arms, and a pair shorts so tiny they barely covered her posterior.

“Take that painted hussy for instance,”  I said, pointing at the floozy.  “Broads like that are a dime a dozen these days.  You?  You dress, act, and sound like a high falutin’ gal from my time and yet, you know all about this modern era – like how to pay for stuff with electronics and how to use a beep boop machine.”

“Speaking of,”  Delilah said as her phone buzzed like an angry bumblebee looking for a flower to copulate with.  “That’s Mr. Battler.  I’d better call him back.  He wants a legal opinion on the propriety of writing, and I quote, ‘the ending of Dexter sucked big donkey rectum.’”

“Helluva job you’ve got there, counselor,”  I said.  “But I’ll figure you out soon enough.”

“I hope you don’t,”  Delilah said as she stood up and stretched out her hand.  “A girl’s got to have her secrets, you know.”

“Ma Hatcher never taught me about that one,”  I said as I completed the handshake.

And with that, I watched Delilah walk down the street until she was a blip on the horizon. 

After that, I stood there on the sidewalk, puffing away on my stogie and doing my best to ignore all of the free, unsolicited advice.

“Damn dude,”  a local yokel said to me as he passed me by.  “Gotta quit that man, you’re gonna drop dead from cancer.”

“We all gotta go sometime,”  I replied.

Will Hatcher figure out what happened to the Original Brady Bunch Spouses?  Join us next time on Pop Culture Mysteries!

Copyright (c) Bookshelf Q. Battler 2015  (All Rights Reserved)

Coffee, angry woman and smoking detective photos courtesy of a shutterstock.com license.