Nelson Kowalski, Private Eye.

I was cruisin', just easy-like, with the book of matches on the
dash. They were all I had to go on, that an' some dumb broad's word.
Then I saw it - dead ahead. Sure, this was the place all right, the
"Purple Pengwin." Advertised itself as the place where all the
colorblind dyslexics hang out.

Man, did I need a drink - I'd not been loaded - like really loaded -
for almost half an hour and I was beginnin' to see straight again. It
didn't feel natural - no wonder I'd not recognised the street. I parked
the Buick on top of a sixty-eight Chevvie and strolled in.

This wasn't my usual sort of place, mind: no pile of drunks on the
pavement, no signs of an insurance torch job, glasses so clean you
could see clear through to the other side. Yeah, this was a real class
joint.

I leaned on the bar an' growled:

"Hey, you. Gimme a stiff one."

"You some kinda faggot?" the barman says, stickin' his big ugly mug
into mine.

"Sorry to disappoint ya," I says. "Gimme two fingers.. no, not them two
fingers, wise guy. Two fingers of bourbon, and I don't want none o'
those cookies." He cleans a glass with extra spit an' pours my
drink.

Then I saw her. Boy, she went in and out in all the right places - but
mostly out. She caught my eye and strolled across.

"Is this yours?" she purred huskily. "They sure are puttin' strange bar
snacks out today." She flicked the glass eyeball into my whisky, all
playful like - I could tell right off she liked me. I fished it out,
sucked it - hell, I wasn't wastin' any - and replaced it under my
eyepatch.

"Say, you're some lucky broad, seein' that," I drawled.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, that's my private eye."

"Funny guy, huh?"

"Some broads think so," I laughed as she moulded herself into the chair
opposite, crossed her legs an' hitched her skirt up. I took a drink an'
poured half my whisky clean over my shoulder.

"Say, can I get you somethin'?" I asked. "Like excited?"

"I doubt it. " She lit up, and I flipped: those matches! Now I knew I
was really on to something big. As the smoke cleared, I realised that
there was two of 'em.

"Hey, babe," I said, all casual. "A man could get lost between those."
I was expectin a smack in the kisser, but no..

"Right." She leaned towards me, an' I thought I'd gone blind. "The
bellhop disappeared down there last Friday. Only found him when I took
a shower. He was real disappointed to leave."

"You don't say! Hey, you're real cute," I admitted. "Say, what
gives?"

It was goin' even darker - like real dark. Suddenly, there was more
gorillas standin' round that table than they got in the zoo. Uglier,
too. I reached down under the table - sure, I had a rod in my pocket
all right, all loaded up an' ready to blast off: but it was a real
shame I'd left my gun back in the apartment.

"Hey fellas, you wouldn't ice an unarmed man?" Suddenly, I feel this
real need for the restroom.

"Why not, Nelson?" Frenchboy Louis snarled as the goons shuffled apart
to let him through. "It's what they do best. Say, Nelson, you hear
about Fatso McGraw?"

"The man with the big wad?"

"He ain't got no big wad now, Nelson. Fatso opened that big mouth of
his just once too often. He ain't got no big nothin' now."

"You mean he's singin' soprano?"

"It's real hard to sing anythin' when you're mouth's full of cement,
Nelson. Oh, and especially when you're walkin' along the bed of the
Hudson in concrete boots." The goons smaned, and I crossed my
legs.

"Louis, I'm your friend!" I lied fluently: it's a language that comes
to me all natural-like in emergencies like these. "We go way back!" I
didn't figure I'd got much choice but to keep talkin'.

"You been stickin' your big nose in just a little too much,
Nelson."

"How's that, Louis? Say, you still got Police Chief O'Truncheon in your
pocket, ain'tcha?"

"Sure! You still down there, O'Truncheon?" Louis shouts into his pocket
and all the goons fall over laughin'. Me, I been hearin' that one since
Louis an' me was raggedy-assed kids together at Al Capone High School
over in Jersey. Back then, I never dreamed that we'd end up on
different sides of the tracks; that one of us would slide downhill into
abject alcoholism and finally down into one of the dirtiest, most
pitiful professions known to mankind. Louis, however, had become a
well-respected smuggler and pimp.

"This your place, Louis?" I asked, playin' desperately for time.

"Sure, Nelson. I'm all respectable now." He was smilin' but nobody was
laughin' - least of all me. "Who's payin' you to come interferin' in an
honest man's business, Nelson? Some dame, huh?"

"It's always a dame, Louis, you should know that. Tall, mysterious,
glamorous. These fancy big ear-rings lookin' like pineapples. You know
her?"

"I seen her round. I seen her round a lot, Nelson. You're talkin' about
my wife!"

"What?" I flipped. "Your wife's proppin' up a freeway in Jersey! I
drive over her twice a day."

"My first wife! I hope you show her some respect, Nelson." Now this is
kinda funny, in the circumstances, but I ain't stupid enough to point
this out.

"My second wife, Boom Boom; what she tell you, Nelson?"

"Enough, Louis. Maybe she told me everythin', huh?." She ain't even
told me her name, like, but I figure Louis don't know everythin'. I
lean back, watchin' Louis sweat: boy, does Louis sweat. Back when we
was kids, everybody used to hang out round Louis in hot weather instead
of playin' with the hydrants.

"You better be careful," Louis says. "Them ear-rings, they ain't
pineapples. They're a little keepsake from her first husband. Brought
back a few souvenirs from 'Nam."

Suddenly, I knew why this dame had been keepin' me in the dark. I'd
thought Queen Elizabeth sounded like an odd handle, but hell, I needed
the business. I'd have gone lookin' for the Pope's barmitzvah photos if
the price had been right.

"You remember her first husband, Nelson?" Louis sneers. "'Big Bang'
Goldstein?"

"Oh, yeah.. the guy who blew that security truck clean across the East
River?"

"Sure, that was the guy. They called him somethin' else, too - 'Short
fuse' Goldstein. Shame about the mess."

"Right."

"She payin' you plenty?" Louis says, moppin' his brow an' wringin' his
hankie out into my drink. Suddenly, I figure I've had enough for one
day.

"I'm open to offers, Louis," I says. "Looks like you're holdin' all the
aces."

"Sure I am, Nelson. Okay, you guys, take my old friend Nelson here for
a little ride. The Chevvie's out front."

"Sure, boss." The guy vanished, but before I got time to ask where the
john is he's back - an' he's angry.

"No go, boss," he says. "Some dumb cluck done parked a Buick on top of
the car."

"A Buick?" Frenchboy exploded. "A friggin' Buick, for Chrissake? Jeez!
A Caddie, I wouldn't have minded! but a Buick?"

Just then, the joint goes wild. These G-men, they come from nowhere..
then, lookin' across at the dame, I knew where they'd been hidin' all
along. I was under that table and away faster than Sammy Davis outta a
Ku Klux Klan fundraiser.

I'm away through the flyin' chairs an' tables, an' I dived through the
window with bullets whizzin' past my ears. I'm used to this, mind, I
been married three times.

I drive that Buick off Louis' Chevvie and I'm away just as the first
gorilla bursts through the doors. The way I figure it, Louis ain't
goin' nowhere for a long time, so that's my job done. An' that Boom
Boom, she's gonna be so grateful.. yeah, I reckon I might just get her
to take those fancy ear-rings off. I figure I know another way to make
her go off bang, right?