Aachoo Voo Private Eye 2024 : 2024

Link to Episode 24

https://aachoovooprivateeye2024.blogspot.com/2024/08/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-24.html

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode Twenty-Five

They're Everywhere! They're Everywhere!

Lance was doing a bang up job, no one could say he wasn't. It had yet to be determined what he'd been doing for a living the last ten years despite the fact that he claimed to have been running the country, a chairman of a board, an underworld spy, a golf caddy, a movie star stand-in, a ballroom dancer, an escort, a rodeo cowboy, a bagpipe salesman and a Viking. Someone said they'd seen him selling cotton candy at an amusement park and someone else said he was training elephants for a circus but who could be sure of anything when it came to Lance. He was a wonderful storyteller who could sell popsicles in Antartica. The only person I knew that could possibly beat him in a duplicitous competion was T Wayne, the King of Things. (Though the majority of his lies were true.) One could not say he wasn't a 'ladies man' while he would swear he was not. The ladies loved him. He had looks that could make you swoon for days if you were of that inclination. He had a sexy low voice that could talk you in or out of almost anything. He had dark curly hair you could tangle yourself up in and hang yourself from. He was a mystery wrapped in a riddle, a punch line without a joke, an ocean without a beach, a deep well without a bucket, a..... a........what the hell am I talking about?!

The effect that man had on me! If anyone was guilty and should be locked up, it was Lance. Those eyes! They hypnotized you like Houdini! They made your toes curl and your tongue tie itself up in knots. I'd seen his baby pictures and he hadn't even looked innocent then! No wonder I couldn't walk and chew gum when he was around. It almost sounded like I was in love. No! Not me! Not again! All the men I'd ever loved were......well,,,you know...barely breathing. No wonder they were trying to pin Si's demise on me! Everyone knew I was a female Grim Reaper! A fatal diagnosis, a walking epidemic. Look what I had done to Nick! And where was Nick, anyway? We'd only found half of him in the case. Well, half of his clothes, that is. Where either side of his body was. no one knew. He was just gone. Clyde was growing antsy and looking for new ventures in warmer climes and had put the word out that Nick's was looking for a new manager.

Thank goodness Lance was seemingly indestructible as men go and on my side. He knew what he was doing whether anybody else knew what he was doing or not. He had suspicions about things that MiMi Voo had suspicions about and when those two got together one rainy Friday afternoon as she went over to feed my animals, jigsaw pieces started falling into place. She observed the blowsy bleached blonde attempting to talk Lance into fixing something in her apartment as they waited for the elevator. "Aren't you glad that Aachoo Voo got what was coming to her, Lancy?" she heard her whine. "Of course she's guilty! She was always hanging out at Marshall's buying Shellack! And he was always carrying it home for her! What does a woman need with Shellack, for crying out loud!? Shellacking, indeed! Somebody was shellacking somebody!" MiMi ducked behind a potted palm as Lance tried to calm the bonne a rienne. (no good woman) that dared to talk bad about her Boo! Couyon rougarou!!! She was furious. She peeked out and met Lance's dark eyes and he nodded and winked a silent message."What do you know about it or about them, Margaret May?" she heard him ask huskily. "You just come to my place, darling and I'll tell you all about it!" the blonde squealed as she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the tardy elevator.

MiMi fed the critters and took care of their needs as she did several times a week. The parrot complained about anything and everything while she tended to her chores and listened for Lance's knock upon the door. When it came she breathed a sigh of relief and let him inside. "It was her, weren't it?" "I'm sure of it!" he answered and the parrot squawked from the kitchen, "What have you done with my Aachoo?! Where's my Voo-ey Woo-ey!?" The bird was hysterical, frantic in the way only a bird can express panic. It took a lot of petting and peanuts to calm him down and still he nestled against MiMi's shoulder and gave Lance the evil eye. They were both strangely touched by the parrot's dismay for they knew exactly how he felt. The other pets gathered around them with their little sad faces as they talked for hours while the rain fell outside like tears. At last they came up with a plan. The game was afoot as Poppi would say in his Sherlockian imitation. They drew up a list of everyone that I knew or who knew people I knew or would know who could or would help in any way possible to win me my freedom and bring the guilty party or parties to justice. Viva le justice! Vive l'amour! Viva le crap!!! (pardon my French)

Of course, I knew nothing about any of this and just kept praying and keeping away from the banana girl. It was several days before I was told that there was indeed a plan and the Surd boys were apprised of the unexpected developments. On one hand they were happy and on the other hand they, like the rascally cops that had put me there, were upset that they might lose me as a client and a prisoner. It was maddening! The banana girl told me that she would pull out my hair and knock out my front teeth to make me less attractive but Sylvania advised against it. I was growing almost desperate enough to do it when MiMi and Lance gave me the news. The blonde had done it! The blonde was the double first cousin of the faithful but ignorant wife of the long dead and still dead, Si the Shellack salesman! He'd been working his way up to Co-Manager of Marshall's Hardware and Hat Emporium but had made far too many rest stops along the way. Rest stops that involved other women. I was the 'one that got away' but needless to say, I was the one that got 'caught '. sigh sigh sigh

The plan was to follow Margaret May night and day, 24/7, everywhere she went until she broke and confessed and evidence of her guilt could be produced. Lance didn't think that the wife, the cousin, knew that her very own cousin had been one of those rest stops her slimy husband had been making for some time or that he had promised to divorce his wife and marry Margaret May but had failed to follow up on that promise. All of this information he had found in a dresser drawer full of cards, letters and photographs while Margaret May had fallen into a drunken stupor on his bed after a spaghetti supper he had cooked for the two of them that included several bottles of wine and a few cocktails that he had not imbibed. He'd taken the key from her purse and slipped into her apartment and into the gaudy bedroom she'd been trying to lure him into for ages. He took all the incriminating evidence he could find and hurried back to return the key to the purse of the woman he was now certain had murdered her lover. It made him shudder to do it but he took off his shirt and shook the woman awake. "Wake up, sweetie." he said yawning." My boss just called. I've got to go catch a train. My country needs me. Get up!"

In six days time, the woman would begin to think she was losing her mind and becoming paranoid. She thought she was being followed. (She was.) She thought she could feel eyes on her. (There were.) She thought she was being stalked because she was just so darned gorgeous. (She was mistaken) There were men behind newspapers, men on the corners, men delivering things she hadn't ordered, men everywhere in fedoras and trenchcoats, flashbulbs going off but no cameras in sight, cats, dogs....strange phone calls, knocks on the door and nobody ever there. It was horrible. She felt haunted.

She felt afraid. Alone and abandoned. She called her cousin but she was out of town apparently ~~mourning.~~.celebrating being a single girl again. Lance was never at home. She took to hanging out in bars like she used to before she had taken up with Si while waiting for Lance to notice her. He was her dream man but his eyes were full of that stupid Voo broad. Who names a baby Aachoo for crying out loud!? She hated Southerners! She hated Cajuns! She wished they'd deport 'em all back to Louisiana! But more than anything, she hated men that lied to your face and promised to marry you and give you all the hats you ever wanted but they never did.She also hated men that cheated on their poor stupid wives like her cousin. Those men always got what was coming to them. Yeah, they did.

The unpaid gang of professional and unprofessional private part time detectives/stalkers worked in shifts. They were even joined by ex-boyfriends or want to be boyfriends still nursing broken bones and head wounds. Mario, Andy, Man Nee Joe, Paul, Frank, Philip, etc etc all volunteered their time alongside Mr. D'Sal, P Do the Muffin man, Tom B. and his brother, Terrence, the guys down at Nick's club, Poppi, Dad, Mother's Japanese gardeners, most of the private detectives that liked me and a few that didn't. There was a wide assortment of be's and want to be's that enjoyed following blondes around that kept odd hours and had no discernible morals. She was a flirt to be sure but if and when she grew suspicious of a man, she became a holy terror. They followed her everywhere and they were everywhere. Lance kept a low profile but he co-ordinated like it was going out of style and kept abreast of any and every new detail and suspicion that came up. He enjoyed it so much that he seriously considered becoming a real private ~~dick.~~...detective...you know. (rolls eyes)