Elegy For the Phony Detective
The phone rings, and it is always — and I mean always — the guy from the back of the newspaper.
“You go to the Western Union, there is one in the A&P, and wire me the three hundred dollars.” His voice is a thousand notches of grime streaked across commercial cutlery. It is the worst nightmare of a city. “You get the money back when you do your first event.” He pauses. You pause. “You’ll probably make five, six hundred,” he says. “It’s a black tie dinner.”
Two weeks later, you are the phony detective. You leave him three or four separate messages — one for each different number. “You got me,” you say. “Maybe I want a piece of the action though.” It’s what you think you ought to say, you and the same TV act you took into the bar a few nights ago when you said “a beer please, gimme a beer.” Like Archie Bunker.
Then you get brave, and you get stupid. You disguise your voice and say, this is Detective Wilson from the 60th Precinct and we have several complaints about the bunco you’ve been running. That last sally of wit? Woody Woodpecker.
He never calls back, of course. Another cold case for the phony detective.
