Dwayne Delivers - A Craven Danger Mystery

“She was last seen in the vicinity of nine-thirty AM — that’s anti-Mediterranean time to the unbeknownst — in the possession of what looked to me to be an Egyptian sword of some over-nourished-sharpness. But that’s pure specification on my part. It coulda been a butter knife. It was wanna them bleak and drowsy mornin’s, Mr. Danger. Like someone dipped my spectacles in pea soup, or cream of tomato if ya got a somewhat sunnier disposition like me. But my spectacles had a much dimmer view of things no matter how hard I looked.”

The teen-age delivery boy sat across from Craven Danger and unloaded a barrage of what he had written down in a notebook. 

“And what did I ask you when I called in my breakfast order to the coffee shop?”

“Ya asked if I seen Betty, and I said No, Mr. Danger, she ain’t been seen by me.”

“And then what?”

“Then ya ordered a bacon and egg sandwich and a container of coffee; light and sweet.”

“And. . .”

“Then ya said, if I see Betty, tell her she’s late for work. And that the next time it happens she can get a job at the coffee shop and maybe then you’ll get your breakfast delivered on time.”

“After that?”

“Well, ya know how I always wanted to be a private eye like you, Mr. Danger. So I says to myself, Dwayne, Betty’s late for work and she didn’t call in. That ain’t like her. Betty’s pretty punctilious and awful pretty and I get all goofy inside when she tussles my hair and tells me how sweet I am to take her order like I do, even though there are three mugs ahead of her givin’ me the stink-eye. But Betty’s worth all the tongue-lashings I get after she leaves. So, when I get your order together I tell Mr. Bunn I gotta deliver this one myself because thunder bolts was goin’ off in my head! Betty’s in trouble! If she doesn’t get to work soon she’ll be fired! I know you hate it when I exclaim like this, Mr Danger! But I can’t help it! It was like my pants was on fire! I just gotta find Betty! It was a pretty drizzly mornin’ and she might have slipped and fell in an open manhole for all I knew!”

“Deep breath, kid. Now go on.”

“So I figure I’ll go to her tenement flat first. I was plannin’ on goin’ up the three flights to her place, but I think, Dwayne! What if she’s bein’ held against her will! She’s probably got a sock stuffed in her kisser and won’t be able to scream for my help!”

“Wow, this is better than comic books, Dwayne. Continue.”

“So I decide to climb up the fire escape. When I get to the third floor I put your breakfast order down and peep in the window.”

“You were still carrying my coffee and egg sandwich?”

“It’s my job, Mr. Danger.”

“Remind me to tip you one of these days, Dwayne. Go on.”

“And there she was! Standing in the kitchen crackin’ eggs and droppin’ em in the fry pan.”

“Ha,” said Craven. “She don’t seem too concerned about work does she? What happened next?”

“I sneezed, Mr. Danger. And that was my fall down a gravelly hill and it hurt just as much, ‘cause Betty heard it and it made her turn to the window and I froze! Betty stood and stared for a moment than she gives me the stink-eye and gestures for me to come inside! So I did. And doggone it, Mr. Danger, after I explained to her the situation — how you said she’d be fired and have to get a job at the coffee shop — she went and made me the best darn breakfast of my life; a stack of wheat cakes with hot buttery syrup and a splash of whipped-cream on top, a plate of and what must have been a pig pen's worth of sausage links, followed by a piping hot cup of home-brewed coffee with real cream to wash it all down with.”

“What? And just how did she explain herself not being at work?”

“Oh, she said to tell you it was her day off and that you should check your calendar more often and to get your sad, sorry over-sat rump down to the coffee shop to get your own breakfast on such mornin’s.”

“I don’t suppose there’s one shred of warmth left in this crumpled breakfast order you placed here on my desk?”

“Not a chance, Mr. Danger.”

“I dont’ suppose you could—“

“No, Mr. Danger. Betty says that some things, to some people, is better served cold.”

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