The Medium Snooze - Chapter 12

Chapter 12 : A Late Night Chat.

Sunday 16th July 01:06am: I’d been asleep for a little over six hours when the call roused me from the case I was working on, something about the entire chorus-line at Turfside (with a few friends) requiring my personal 24 hour protection, how come you can never quite remember the really good ones ? It took me an age to answer it and when I did the ringing just carried on in my head, I made a quick mental note that if I ever had to replace Alice I’d make sure I could out drink any applicants.

“Erm... Hello ?”

“Ernie ? Get your thorax down here now.”

It sounded like Unc, well it sounded like a bell ringing contest, but the voice was familiar at least. I grabbed the clock next to me and moved it around a bit trying to bring it into focus, not an entirely successful action.

“What ? Unc ? Is that you ? What time is it ?”

“Of course it’s me and it’s just after one. Now stop yaking and get down here.”

“Down where ?”

“Wiggies you idiot.”

“Erm, this may sound a little strange but didn’t you shut about five minutes ago ?”

“Yes but there are a couple of orb weavers here who want a word.”

Bingo.

“The ones from Turfside ?”

“Well they won’t say but how many orb weavers do you know Ernie ?”

Good point. It looked like my other lead had finally come in and judging by my earlier meeting it hadn’t come a minute too soon. Of course judging by my pounding head it had come several hours too soon but that couldn’t be helped.

“I’m on my way.”

Outside it was cold and raining. I was feeling hungover and tired but I figured at least the walk to Wiggies would change all that, maybe clear my head a little. And so it was I arrived at Wiggies fresh from my walk in the night air feeling cold, wet, hungover and tired. Unc met me just inside the door, over his shoulder I could see the two spiders hanging around a table at the back.

“Careful Ernie, I don’t think these guys are in a good mood.”

Through bleary, rain soaked eyes I looked into Unc’s worry lined face and smiled.

“Yeah, ok, no problem. Have they said anything much ?”

“No they want to speak to you and you only, I can’t get nothin’ outta them.”

It seemed my little plan for flushing them out may have worked a little too well.

“Ok Unc, listen can you bring over a bottle of something, you woke me up and it’s been a bad day...” I glanced over to the end of the bar. “...and I don’t think it’s going to get any better.”

The two spiders settled down behind the table as I approached. The one on the left nodded to me as I drew closer.

“Pincher, I remember you from Turfside, what’s all this crap you’ve been putting out about us being involved with Spindler’s death ?”

I sat down immediately across from the two and tried to figure out if they were the two from Turfside or not. It was tricky to tell, an orb weaver is an orb weaver and you don’t tend to stare at them too long to pick out distinguishing marks, not if you don’t want your head bitten off anyway. Still at least one had recognised me so it was probably them, but then again they knew who to expect and I wasn’t likely to be anyone else unless... My head hurt already and I hadn’t even started talking to them, I decided it was easier to assume they were the spiders from Turfside and if they weren’t I’d just have to deal with the consequences later. Whilst all this was bouncing around in my brain Unc arrived and put a large bottle and three glasses on the table. The smell from the bottle told me this wasn’t fertiliser, a quick glance at the label confirmed it as Chlorpyrifos or Roach Killer as it’s known around the hedge. Now as I’ve said before I like a glass of insecticide as much as the next bug but I wasn’t sure how good an idea this was. My worries disappeared however when I saw the two weavers grab a glass each and help themselves to a large measure.

“Spiders love this stuff.” Unc whispered in my ear as he left the table.

I poured myself a smaller measure and after a quick taste regretted even that, still it calmed my head a bit.

“I didn’t say you were involved. I said the bug who hired you for the Turfside job was.”

Both spiders simply glared back at me.

“Look guys I don’t know what the deal was between you and Bendelbee but it was him who knocked over Gerald Spindler’s bar.”

“Bendelbee ?”

“Yeah.”

The two looked at each other for a brief moment.

“The darkling ?”

“Yeah.”

The nearest spider let out a short snort that might have been a laugh or just the Roach killer causing one of his internal organs to explode.

“We weren’t hired by him.”

“What ?”

“We weren’t hired by Bendelbee.”

I’d always suspected that Turfside wasn’t Bendelbee’s idea but I’d just assumed he’d taken care of all the details, it looked like I was wrong.

“Then who....?”

Before I could finish the question the spiders started to get up.

“I don’t think I really need to tell you do I ? I mean if Bendelbee was behind the Spindler murder then fine, but we weren’t working for him.”

“No wait. Look guys sit down. There’s a lot going on you don’t know about and it could be in everybody’s interest if we can figure out between us just what’s going on.”

The two looked at each other for a second, one nodded and they both sat down. I’d like to think that it was my persuasive powers of reasoning that had convinced them but I suspect the open bottle had more to do with it.

“Ok Pincher. What do you know ?”

For the next half hour I went through everything and I mean everything. I needed these guys to realise just how bad things were and how bad things could get so I didn’t leave out anything, halfway through Unc came and joined us and listened intently, some of this was new for him too. The spiders tried to act fairly relaxed about a full scale war between the pond and hive, shrugging it off as nothing to do with them but deep down they knew a garden war didn’t suit anyone. At the end I asked them how they’d come to be at Turfside. After a couple of minutes whispering between each other one of them spoke.

“Ok, Pincher we believe you, or we believe most of what you say anyway, so here’s all we know. We were approached to do a small job, we were to act as bouncers for Turfside and stop any trouble. The only exception was that if a beetle by the name of Bendelbee appeared he would have new orders. We don’t normally do bouncer work but we were assured it would only be for a couple of days at most and we were well paid. When Bendelbee showed up with the Stags he told us to stop anyone from leaving, not that anyone got the opportunity to try mind you.”

“Who hired you ?”

“Well the contact was a slimeball of a ‘wig named Clawson.”

Once again Davy boy had managed to keep information from me, I was sure he’d told me everything. The other spider leaned over and whispered something to the one doing the talking, I realised I hadn’t a clue what either of these two were called.

“Yeah, I know, Ok I’ll tell him.” He responded to his buddy.

“Tell me what ?” I asked.

“Well we don’t work for just anybody who can afford us you know, and we weren’t about to do bar work for a feeble little runt of an earwig, so we refused until we knew who was running it.”

“And ?”

“Well the whole thing came directly from the pond, specifically from a water beetle called Walter Rabiner.”

“Never heard of him.”

“No ? Well neither had we but it turns out he’s something fairly senior in the pond, not sure what but it didn’t matter, we figured he was high enough for this to be an official sanctioned pond operation.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

“Yeah well after what you’ve just told us I don’t suppose it was either. Look Pincher we don’t like being played for fools by anyone but Maybrook is dead, you say Bendelbee is dead and Clawson is just some little runt that isn’t worth our energy to find, I don’t see how we can help.”

“Well boys if you’re willing I think I might see if I can’t arrange a meeting with this Rabiner character and I might need some extra muscle.”

The large grins that spread across they’re faces almost made me feel sorry for this Rabiner guy. Whoever he was.

01:30 pm : It was early afternoon when I arrived in the office, Alice was sat behind her desk and gave me an amused look as I walked in.

“You really can’t hold your fertiliser can you ?”

“You're good kid, but not that good.” I replied.

I told her all about the meeting with the orb weavers earlier that morning. Especially the bit about the Roach Killer.

“And what are you going to do now ?”

“I’m going to call the pond and arrange a meeting with this Mr. Rabiner.”

“When ?”

“Tomorrow seems as good a time as any.”

“Where ?”

“Wiggies, During the day so it'll be shut, Unc has given Norman the day off so there's no bar staff to worry about. Me and Unc talked it through last night. Don’t worry it’s all in hand.”

“Do you want me there ?”

“It’s likely to get rough Alice, I mean, I’m planning on inviting the two orb weavers along and Unc will be there of course, I couldn't stop him, but I just can’t see Rabiner coming alone. Or coming quietly.”

“So, do you want me there ?”

She grinned and I smiled back. Sure Alice is my secretary but she’s also a ladybird and they can be pretty mean when roused. Still I didn’t like to think about anything bad happening to her and I really wasn’t expecting the next day to go smoothly.

“Whatever you want.” I finally said.

“Formal or casual ?”

“Whatever would cause the most damage in a bar fight.”

“That’d be casual then. Unless I wear some spikes.....”

I left Alice pondering the fine details of feminine combat dress and headed for my desk. Pouring myself a large glass of bio I settled down for what was bound to be an unpleasant call. On my desk was a number and a name, “Frederick”, scrawled in Alice’s handwriting.

“Alice, what’s this ?”

“... or perhaps the studs with the ... sorry what ?”

Having interrupted the fashion dialogue I hoped it was important or I was in trouble.

“This note on my desk what is it ?”

“Oh that. Yeah sorry I forgot what with your story and everything. Someone from the pond called after you left last night and left that name and number, they said you’d know what it was all about.”

Of course, the Frogfather had said he’d leave me a contact name and I’d completely forgotten all about it. At least now I had a starting point.