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AARDVARK, PLATYPUS, AND TWINKLETOES: ATTORNEYS AT LAW

 

SPATS BELMONDO

 

Holidays are bad for business, and Thanksgiving and Christmas are the worst of them all.  Especially here in the Twin Cities.  It's not enough that the serial adulterers who are the mainstay of our business, cursed with the occasional twinge of conscience, opt to stay home with their families over the holidays.  No, at this time of the year we also have to contend with blizzards and snowdrifts, which really ruin a wayward doctor's day, not to mention his nights.  I ask you … how is the jerk supposed to interview the cream of the latest nursing school crop at a sleazy airport hotel down on the 494 Strip if the road's impassable?  And even if by some miracle the highway department deigns to roll with the plows, where's he supposed to park?  Leave the Volvo on a city street during a snow emergency, and you get towed.  Put the BMW in the motel parking lot, and there's a fighting chance it'll still be there when the snow starts to melt sometime in March, or maybe April.  Minnesota winters are not exactly predictable.

 

No, there's no doubt about it: holidays are bad for business.  Year after year, Twinkletoes and her trusty Olympus 35mm camera with its handy dandy collection of lenses and filters go their separate ways in mid-November, not to be reunited again until New Year's Eve, when things will finally start to get back to normal around here.  Come early January, aggrieved wives will be storming through the door, eager to get the goods on their wayward spouses en route to a big payday in divorce court.

 

Our paydays are somewhat more modest.  Twinkletoes will cost you seventy five bucks an hour, plus expenses.  Pat and I charge three hundred an hour, and we bill in six minute increments.  Get the picture?

 

Anyway, on the plus side the two of us have six weeks a year to catch up on our reading.  Pat favors Playboy and Hustler. My taste runs to crossword puzzles.  Anybody know a five letter Zulu word for an eland?

 

Oh, and as for Julia?  What can I say?  The week before Thanksgiving is when she renews her acquaintance with the kitchen.  It's an annual tradition.  For six weeks, she cooks up a storm, and we all loosen our belts another notch (it's the Minnesota way).  In any event, Twinkletoes is married to this really nice guy, so we'll overlook the fact that Herb Canon is a cop with more than twenty years on the force.  Alas, it's impossible to overlook their winsome daughter, Priscilla.  Pris is also a cop, of the campus variety, and she packs a mean right.  A guy in a bar up nordeast recently called her Prissy, and she laid him out with one punch.  No one paid much attention, this being a cop bar and all, and to his credit the guy got up, rubbed his jaw, apologized, and then offered to buy her a drink.  She accepted graciously, and all was forgiven. 

He was lucky that Pris didn't break a cue stick over his skull.     

 

So here we were, Thanksgiving looming on the horizon, and nary a client in sight.  Still, there were pluses, and the three of us did have reasons to be thankful.  For one thing, we didn't have to worry about paying the rent because we owned the building.  Our office was on the top floor-- all right, already … a second floor walk-up-- and there was a very good delicatessen down below.  We shared Two with a guy selling insurance, and he had a dry cleaner's underfoot.  We all did well because we were directly across the street from one of the largest hospitals in the state.  Desperate nurses made periodic forays to the deli, the weekly pastrami on rye an antidote to what passed for food in the hospital cafeteria.  The dry cleaners specialized in blood, vomit and assorted gore.  The insurance guy did a booming business writing policies for the boats tied up along the St. Croix, including the houseboats that a small troop of physicians used for extracurricular activities all year round.  And of course the soon to be ex-wives, most of them nurses past and present, were the mainstay of our own thriving concern.  Julia got the goods with her trusty Olympus, and we nailed the cheaters to the proverbial courthouse wall.  Over the years, from Stillwater to Prescott, many a houseboat title had changed hands thanks to our diligent efforts.  In our experience, long suffering wives definitely had a thing for houseboats.

 

To make a long story short, we were just marking time when the door opened and the Incredible Hulk filled our line of sight.  It took the Hulk a few moments to figure out that he needed to do the sideways shuffle, or remain forever condemned to stand in the hallway.  The sharpest stick in the bunch the Hulk definitely was not, and his jacket was at least two sizes too small.  Still, the cannon that he was packing in a shoulder holster looked like a good fit for his hulk like hands.

 

The second guy through the door was a celebrity, although not one whom we had had the honor of representing in court.  In fairness, though, Spats Belmondo tended to favor extralegal solutions for his more pressing problems.  You could buy a lot of lead for three hundred bucks an hour.

 

“You want I should frisk them, Boss?  Maybe look for a wire?”

 

“Fuhgeddaboudit, Walley; deese guys ain't wearing no wires … not in their own office.  Besides, dey didn't know we was comin'.”

 

“Right on both counts, Spats … right on both counts.  But what gives with the muscle?”  I was nodding at the Hulk; a third fellow was now standing just inside the door.  Short and wiry, wearing a fedora with the brow too low, he was sporting a mustache that looked like an oil slick.  The black shirt and white tie were straight out of Hollywood.  The guy couldn't pull off Bogart, but maybe he was going for Alan Ladd.

 

“I mean, seriously.  You've got a walleye on the payroll?  Since when did the gorillas get shoved to the curb?”

 

“Ha, ha; very funny, shamus.  I like your sense of humor.”  Spats settled into a chair on the opposite side of the desk and crossed his right leg.  He studied the shine on his shoe, pulled a handkerchief out of his breast pocket, and flicked an imaginary piece of dust aside.

 

“Julia's the shamus, Spats; I'm a mouthpiece, and my esteemed associate here is a legal eagle.”  Pat had set the latest issue of Hustler aside, reluctantly joining the conversation.

 

“It speaks,” Spats laughed.  “For a moment dere, I thought yous was a potted plant!”

 

The two bodyguards laughed politely.

 

“Twinkletoes I get,” Spats continued, “but what's with Aardvark and Platypus?  Those your real names?”

 

“Andrew Jones and Pat Smith at your service,” I said.  “Aardvark puts us first in the phone book, and I have absolutely no idea how Platypus came about. Pat, you remember?”

 

“I was drunk at the time.  I don't remember a damned thing.”

 

“Smith and Jones?  Jeez … yous was right to scratch 'em off the list.  Smith and Wesson?  Yeah, now that I could see.”

 

The Hulk and his oily friend once again laughed politely.

 

“To business,” Spats announced as he slapped his hands firmly on my desk.  “I wanna hire da Twinkie to help me out with a lidda problem.”

 

“Seventy-five dollars an hour, plus expenses, with a retainer of five hundred samolies, payable in advance and in cash.”  I was not big on beating around the bush.

 

Spats snapped his fingers, and the oil can stepped forward.  He pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket, and handed it to the mobster.  Spats casually threw it on the desk.  “Dere's a G in dere; if the Twinkster needs more, have her call this number ...”

 

Spats slid a business card across the desk.

 

“Lullaby Adult Diaper Service?”  I stared at him blankly.

 

“One of my more profitable enterprises,” Spats smirked.  “We supply all dah nursing homes in the Cities, and we even got regular joes as customers.  Why, we even got us a university guy, a regular war hero who got shot to pieces over there.”  Spats nodded vaguely in the general direction of the Pacific coast.  “Makes us look real classy.”

 

“You mean Viet Nam?”

 

“Yeah … maybe … hell, I don't know.  We're fightin' so many wars in so many places … who can keep track?”

 

“You have a point.  And with whom at your diaper service are we supposed to speak?”

 

“My niece, Harriet.  Nicolo's little girl, only she's all grown up now.  She fronts dah whole operation, and she runs a real tight ship.”

 

“Ah,” I said, the truth dawning as I looked more closely at the card.  “Miss Harriet Belmondo.”

 

Fingering the card, I leaned forward, just a fellow conspirator trying to get an update.  “So, what's the play, Spats?  How can we help?”

 

“Somebody's stealing my diapers,” Spats growled.

 

.  .  .  .

 

“No, Ian, really … there's no need to apologize.  Many of our individual customers suspend service for a week or two, especially during the holidays.  If you're going out of town for a family gathering, you can't very well carry a diaper pail on the plane with you.”

 

Sitting at an adjoining desk, Francine Sullivan could hear the young professor's voice through the phone, but she could not make out what he was saying.  Still, it was easy enough to fill in the blanks.

 

“No, no, there's no inconvenience.  Your service is on Wednesday; giving us notice two days in advance is more than enough time.  Can you call Monday next to confirm resumption of service?

 

More mumbling on the line.

 

“That's a good idea.  Give me a number next Monday, and I'll adjust your order.  No sense in paying for three dozen if you will only need two.  How's your car doing?  Still down for the count?”

 

Mumble, mumble.

 

“It must be so hard for you, this being your first winter.  And I got used to you driving out here on Wednesday afternoons to process your order in person.  Do you realize that you are the only customer I've ever met?  Everybody else is just a name, address and telephone number in the files.”

 

Mumble.

 

“No!  I appreciate how embarrassing it was for you to leave two bags of dirty diapers sitting in the hallway all day long when you left for work, where your neighbors couldn't help but see them.  And then there's our brightly colored delivery truck pulling into the parking lot of an adults only complex.  None of this could have been easy for you, so I was happy to help.”

 

Ian started to mumble yet again, but Harriet cut him off.

 

“No, Ian, it's never been an inconvenience, and please, stop apologizing for the day you came in just as we were closing.  It's not every day that a guy apologizes for something so trivial by taking a hungry gal out to dinner!  And my offer still stands.  I can drive down on Wednesday nights after you get home from work, and do the pick up and drop off in person.  I would be barely going out of my way, so it would really be no trouble at all.  So, will you at least think about it?”

 

One last mumble.

 

“You will?  That's great!  Enjoy Thanksgiving!”

 

Harriet hung up the phone with a long sigh.

 

“Not going out of your way?'  Francine had a very knowing grin.  “Harry, you live on Lake Minnetonka, and he's down in Bloomington, which, the last time I looked, is half way to Iowa!  The two of you are barely in the same time zone!”

 

“I know, I know, but what can I say?  He told my uncle that the tagliatelle was to die for, and the gnocchi the best he's ever eaten.  He praised the wine list, raved about the Valpolicella … and he did all this in Italian so polished that my uncle mistook him for an aristocrat from Milan or the lake district.  He even tore up the bill-- and Rudy never comps anybody for anything!  It was the best date I've ever had!”

 

“Someone's got a crush … nah de nah de nah nah,” Francine teased.  “But he's not Italian, he's not Catholic, and he not only wears diapers and pees in them … he poops in them!  Sorry, Harry, but this guy is definitely a no-no.  Your uncle would have a fit if he found out about your date, and you can count your lucky stars that Rudy chose to keep his lip zipped.”

 

“I know, Francie; I know.  But a girl's entitled to the odd fantasy, isn't she?  And you don't know what it's like!  Every, single Sunday after Mass, Ariana rubs it in … 'you're twenty-six and still no husband?  My Francesca is your age, and she's expecting her third bambino any day now'.  I am so sick of it!”

 

“Shitty diapers,” Francine countered.  She knew that Harriet needed to get out more, but being a Belmondo was a social curse as well as a financial blessing.  No one wanted to date a notorious gangster's favorite niece-- at least, no one respectable.

 

“True, and believe me … I've peeked into his dirty diapers.  Yuk!!!  But you forgot something.  Ian's a professore!  Uncle Vinnie would kill to have a professor in the family!”

 

.  .  .  .

 

“I can't believe how easy it is to rip these people off,” Cindy crowed.  “I mean … seriously?  The driver drops off bags of clean diapers at the front door, picks up the used and walks off.  He doesn't even bother to ring the bell.  Who are these morons, anyway?”

 

“The gift that keeps on giving,” Melanie laughed.  “Just think.  A week's worth of adult diapers for one of their customers is enough to keep one of our pigeons in diapers for a week as well, and the baby diapers make wonderful stuffers!  The photographs should be enough to keep them in line, but if need be, we can always up the ante by threatening to send them to class with a dozen baby diapers stuffed inside their already bulging pants!”

 

“And I can't wait to track them down in the laundromat,” she added as she checked the mirror, making sure that one of their sisters in a trailing car would be stopping to execute the snatch and grab.  “I'll be there offering to help them fold their nice, clean diapees!  God, how I love humiliating these jerks!”

 

“A pigeon here and a pigeon there,” Cindy hummed, “means easy A's in physics, chemistry, astronomy, calculus … am I leaving anything out?”

 

“Why stop there?  Beg, borrow and steal the diapers … invest a little of our own cash in lovely, pink baby pants … seduce the brainiac with a blow job, promise him real sex if he just indulges a teensy, weensy innocent little fantasy, click, click-- don't worry, dear, the photos are just to remember you by-- and then blackmail the twerp for four years to do all of our coursework!  Our house ends up with the highest GPA on sorority row, and we get to spend four homework free years partying like there's no tomorrow.  The frat boys will love us, especially if we get our pigeons to do their homework as well.”

 

“And our misbegotten parents will be so thrilled when we all graduate Phi Beta Kappa!”

 

“The ultimate bang for their tuition bucks,” Melanie concluded, watching the diaper delivery truck round the corner and ease to a stop at the next house on its route.

 

.  .  .  .

 

“Give me the skinny, Spats.  We looking at a B&E at the laundry?  Or did somebody hijack one of your delivery trucks?”

 

“Nah, nuttin like dat.  It looks like somebody's tailing the driver.  He makes the pick up an drop, an takes off.  Before yous can say 'Frank sent me', somebody runs up and puts the snatch on my diapers.  I want da Twinkster to find the guilty party, and den get back to me.”

 

“No police involvement?”

 

Spats gave me a sour look.  It was eloquence itself.

 

“Dey even ripped off Fredo's load.  Can yous believe it?  My brudder … my poor brudder … some asswipe stole his diapers right offa da front porch!”

 

“How's Freddy doing these days?  Getting any better?”

 

“Nah.  Dey held his head under water too long.”

 

“Toothpick Charlie,” Pat suddenly exclaimed.  “That's who he reminds me of,” he went on, nodding at the walking oil slick.  “Toothpick Charlie!”

 

“Yeah,” I said, snapping my fingers, “the resemblance is astonishing!  And you, Spats; did anyone ever tell you that you look just like George Raft?”

 

“Who?”

 

“Spats Colombo … you know … the Windy City hood that got bumped off by Little Bonaparte down in Florida at the annual Friends of Italian Opera convention.”

 

“I don't know nuttin bout dat.  And da convention was in Vegas, not Florida.  We ain't been to Florida since the Commies took Havana.  Dat bearded guy ain't no friend of Italian opera.”

 

“So, when did Fredo lose his diapees, anyway?”

 

Spats turned to look over his shoulder.

 

“Last Monday.”  Toothpick Charlie's voice was as lugubrious as his mustache.  “There has to be a gang of diaper thieves out there, because they followed the driver from stop to stop, and stole everything that wasn't nailed down.”

 

“Dis here's Pauly, my Consigliere.  He keeps an eye on things for me.”

 

“Any chance that a rival gang is trying to muscle in on your territory, maybe another diaper service?”

 

“Geesh!  Come on guys, act yours age.  If we was dealin' with a competitor, I wouldn't need da Twinkster, now would I?  Geesh!”

 

“Point well taken, Spats … point well taken.”

 

“Wally rode shotgun on Tuesday and Wednesday.”  The oil slick nodded at his companion the Hulk.  Now that Spats had taken off his muzzle, Charlie seemed determined to talk us to death.  “We knocked on doors, and if somebody answered, we delivered the diapers and best wishes for the holidays.  But every drop where there was nobody home?  On both days, they all went missing.  The hit to our inventory, both baby and adult, has been significant.  If we don't get our diapers back, service will be interrupted, and we'll lose customers.  Can't have that, gentlemen; the diaper business is very profitable.”

 

“What about the university guy?  Was he condemned to spend Thanksgiving peeing in his pants?”

 

“Nah.  He called Harriet on Monday.  He was goin' outta town or somethin', so he got no service.  Unless somebody broke into his pad, his stash is safe.”

 

“Good to know.  Well, here's what we're going to do.  I'll phone Julia and get her ass in gear.  She'll start tomorrow.  What time's your first truck roll?”

“Eight sharp.”  The Toothpick was obviously in command of the details.

 

“Okay.  Best guess is that she'll want to tail your driver, and see if she can spot somebody else clinging to his fender.  However, at some point she'll want to drop by the shop and have a chat with Harriet.  You know the drill, Spats … always look for an unhappy employee, or one down on his luck.  Nine times out of ten, these capers turn out to be inside jobs.”

 

“Good thinkin', Aardvark.  I'll get Harriet on the blower, and let her know what's up.  She's a good kid, and she's takin' this personally.  She wants her diapers back, period, end of story.”

 

Spats climbed to his feet, tipped his fedora, and strolled out of the room with the same casual grace that he had displayed entering it.  His spats were spotless.

 

.  .  .  .

 

So there we were, Pat and I, alone once more, but with an envelope stuffed with hundred dollar bills sitting quietly atop my desk.  I looked over at Pat, wondering if he was also thinking that having Spats Belmondo for a client was about the stupidest thing we had ever done.  Pat shrugged, picked up his copy of Hustler, and resumed reading, or looking at photos of naked ladies, whatever it was that Pat actually did when he opened the covers of one of his dirty magazines.  I didn't really want to know, and so far had managed to refrain from finding out.

 

Instead, I picked up the phone and dialed the Canon residence.  It was time to let Twinkletoes know that we had a client who was rich and appreciative of her expertise.  It remained to be seen whether she would be less than enthusiastic about solving the case of the missing diapers on behalf of the shadiest mobster in the Twin Cities.

 

.  .  .  .

 

“We need more diapers,” Cindy summed up.  “We simply do not have the resources with which to blackmail the braniacs who can make all of our academic problems go away, for the simple reason that the list of our academic shortcomings is inexhaustible.  If we don't want to lose our charter, we need more diapers.”

 

Cindy was addressing the sorority's brain trust.  Trailing the diaper service truck for the first three days of Thanksgiving week had netted them a huge pile of baby diapers, but precious few of the adult variety.  In fact, they only had enough to entrap three pigeons, which would nicely cover physics, chemistry and calculus, but the rest of the curriculum was a gigantic black hole eager to swallow the sorority whole.

 

“We could all spend more time hitting the books,” Joyce suggested helpfully.  “You know … reduce our exposure.”

 

“Oh, please,” Melanie snorted.  Joyce was only in the house because she was a legacy, and she was only on the Council because her older sister had been on the Council.  In Melanie's opinion, Joyce Wiggins was proof positive that something had gone terribly wrong with the whole fraternity system.

 

“Does anybody else have any bright ideas?”  Cindy shared Melanie's opinion of both the fraternity system in general and Joyce Wiggins in particular.

 

“I have a suggestion,” Tippi started to say.

 

“Who the fuck let that cat in here,” Janis screamed. “Everybody in the house knows that I'm allergic to cat hair. And who the fuck would name a cat 'Blofeld' in the first place? That's just plain sick!”

 

“As I was saying.” Tippi tried again.

 

“Blofeld is an oriental shorthair, and they don't shed,” Melanie sniffed. “So, calm down, already.”

 

“And what's with you and psychopaths, anyway? I mean, really … you boo Batman, and cheer for the Joker. You don't get Smart, but you write fan letters to Siegfried. And you name your fucking cat after the creepiest guy ever to crawl across the silver screen. And who put you in charge of this meeting, anyway?"

 

“Actually, Cindy's in charge.”

 

“Would anyone like to hear my idea,” Tippi asked yet again. A tall, slender, hauntingly beautiful nineteen year old blonde from New Ulm, Tippi rarely spoke up. In fact, she worked hard to stay out of the limelight. Tippi's parents had not done their daughter any favors when they named her for New Ulm's most famous export. From elementary school to university, every boy who crossed her path had asked her the same, dreary question.

 

“Tippi has the floor,” Cindy proclaimed, pounding the table with her gavel in a bold attempt to restore order.

 

“Laying low today was a good idea because we have to assume that whoever owns the diaper service will now have someone shadowing his delivery truck. For the same reason, we should back off tomorrow as well. Rather than trailing the truck, we should send a team to hang out at three different addresses on his route-- addresses widely spaced. If we spot one car at all three locations, we'll know what's what. Then, we get back to work on Wednesday, but we only target one drop … the large, adults only apartment complex down in Bloomington that he hit late in the afternoon two weeks ago. There'll be at least a week's worth of used diapers waiting outside somebody's door, which I am going to steal before the driver gets there. We'll stuff some dirty, old rags into the bag so that it looks and feels the same, and once he's gone, I'll also grab the clean diapers. We get two weeks worth of adult diapers in one go, and give these creeps the middle finger in the process. Then we give our pigeons enough diapers for three or four days, forcing them to visit the laundromat twice a week … for double the humiliation. We'll end up with maybe nine guys doing our coursework, and the Great Diaper Heist of 1979 will be just another unsolved crime.”

 

“Any other ideas,” Cindy asked as she scanned the room. “No? Then we'll vote on Tippi's proposal in accordance with house rules. All in favor so signify by touching the tip of your nose with your right hand; all opposed so signify by grabbing your left ear lobe with your left hand.”

 

Cindy once again scanned the room.

 

“The ayes have it, and the vote is unanimous. Tippi and I will take care of business tomorrow, and on Wednesday. The rest of you get to work drawing up a target list. Finals are just a couple of weeks away, and some of us have term papers. We need to trap our pigeons this weekend, and have them in diapers by Monday next at the latest!”

     

 

 

 

 

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