Steely Dan Mysteries: The Jive Cat Heist (Part 1)
Donald Fagen waltzed into the marble bedecked foyer, mahogany pipe spewing out columns of tobacco poetry. A weathered and weary police chief rose from an awkward crouch and tipped his police-blue rimmed hat at the slinky, rat-like Brooklynite.
“Fagen,” he sniffed, “I’m happy you’re here. This one’s a doozy, catch my drift?”
“Caught and returned to sender. Been on an all night bender and Balvenie been clearin’ my head,” Fagen said through the hollow contents of a javaless container. “Fill me up, Corporal Joe Mcginty and make it a double helix for the ages,” he commanded, handing a coffee cup devoid of brew to a confused Sargent.
“My name is Sargent St. James, sir!” the startled Sargent stated. Fagen waved him off and knelt down beside a pile of broken glass. A faint trail of blood and ash ran from the collection of shattered security to a single-paned frame, propped open by a battered copy of Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
“What’s missing from this great hall of design and debonair delights?” He inquired of the chief.
“The Golden Cup of Glendale, Donald,” came a reply from a shadowy corner of the dimly lit trophy room. Donald Fagen’s crime fighting partner, Walter Becker, waddled from the inky shroud of darkness and rubbed his protruding stomach. “For good luck, Don.”
“For good luck, Walt,” Fagen returned. The two middle aged men hummed an unrecognizable melody and exchanged knowing glances. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’ and drinkin’ from the fountain of ethereal knowledge, frosty rhetoric in the tow of the fiery afterglow?”
“It’s the Jive Cat gang with their Lucy Limbo compatriot,” Becker answered, running his calloused fingertips over the rims of his turtledove spectacles.
“How can you be sure, fellas?” the chief inquired with a whiff of disbelief in his voice. He knew the duo were good, but not THAT good.
Becker reached out and adjusted the chief’s stiff collar, staring into his tired eyes. He waited a full 13 seconds before responding. “Because we’re Steely Dan and you’re not.” A trumpet harmony echoed beyond the walls of the mystery mansion which housed a collection of Glendale’s greatest artifacts. “Also, we did a crap-ton of drugs in the 70s.”
“Clear the room and make a break for the towers of tinsel town, chief Devine,” Fagen crooned. “We have work to do and lady sun is fading on the vast horizon of a future world.”
The chief ordered his men to form a perimeter around the home in the hills and left the scene to the academics. “Gentlemen, the room is yours,” he bowed, closing a set of french doors that led to a grand garden.
“One last thing,” Fagen snapped. The chief turned on his booted heel, grimacing at the inevitable request. “Get me Mcdonald. We need him to do backup on this one. Again.”
The chief activated his two-way radio and voiced a command to the dispatcher, “Signal Mcdonald that he’s needed.” He paused and turned his back to the debauched duo, shielding his lips for fear of skillful decipher, “and tell him to wear the beard.”
The boys got to work.
PART 2 is HERE!
