The Empty Frame

a surreal detective story by Nicholas De Marino

When Bigfoot is on the case, nothing can stop him from lumbering into the scene, get himself knocked around a few times, and maybe get messed up enough to rattle loose a spare thought and solve the thing.

Hey, it could happen. Bigfoot big but no one said he thug. Read on, my friends, and compliment the author on the far side.

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The Empty Frame

by Nicholas De Marino

My office was open like always. The door wouldn't lock, the window was jammed, and there was a hole in the ceiling, which is why there were leaves all over the floor. And if you sat in the cracked office chair behind the scrap of steel some designer okayed as a desk, you'd see me, Bigfoot, talking to a bloated bluebottle fly.

“Why you keep flying?” I said. “It rude to tease Bigfoot. Me stoic detective, not regular schlub.”

I stalked it, palm up for a lethal high-five.

“You stuck in ‘fly’ stereotype,” I said. “Try being 'land' instead. Much easier on wings.”

The fly homesteaded a corner of the desk. I slapped down my hand with all the finesse of an elephant. It came back up clean. The fly hopped onto my elbow and rubbed its legs together that way flies do. I creaked into the chair, shook open the bottom desk drawer, and pulled out a pair of tumblers and a cheap bottle of Scotch.

“Expecting company?” purred someone in the doorway. It was a woman's voice, a voice like singed velvet. The kind of voice that made you double check you put on pants this morning. Luckily, I had. I'd even managed to get on my white dress shirt, navy tie, and gray suit. I poured the drinks and slid a glass across the desk.

She was a platinum blonde with soft curls that teased her shoulders. Her eyes were twin lakes of blue rimmed by dark, drawn-on lines. Her lips were red. So was the cocktail dress clinging to her for warmth.

“Aren't you little over-dressed for this part of town?” I asked.

“Aren't you a little over-inquisitive for a private dick in an abandoned office suite?” she said.

“Tennis match dialogue,” I said. “Me like that in future ex-Mrs. Bigfoot.”

“Cute, but I don't need cute. I need tough,” the dame said and scratched a chair across the vinyl tile. “I'm in the market for muscles, and you look like you swallowed a whole seafood buffet.”

She sat down and crossed her legs.

“Lot of names in phone book. Why come here?” I asked.

“You had the foresight to advertise,” the woman said. She flashed a business card that read “Philip Bigfoot, private investigator.” I couldn't twist my neck far enough to read the name on the inside of my shirt collar, but that seemed to check out.

“What kind of name is Bigfoot, anyway?” she asked.

“Dickensian,” I told her. “It because me got dainty hands.”

“What do you make of this?” she asked and put a yellow square of paper on the table. “It came with the mail this morning.” She leaned back and used a match on the cigarette that had leapt into her lips.

The sticky note read, “They're coming for the big one.”

“Sound like threat,” I said and used a whole matchbook on the cigar that had leapt into my lips. “Who from?”

“I'm not sure who, but they're after one of my husband's paintings,” she said.

“What he think?” I said.

“He thinks he could manhandle a unit of Navy SEALs,” she said. “Look, all you've got to do is keep him company tonight. Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, like getting bullet-sized holes in his dinner jacket.”

“Any of these characters got names?” I asked. “Maybe start with the pair of legs dangling from Bigfoot's chair.”

“I'm Emma. Emma Goldberg. My husband is Dr. Carl Goldberg.” She blew out a perfect ring of smoke and puffed a bullseye through it. “Maybe you've heard of him.”

I closed my eyes and pawed the rolodex I keep in my skull for good luck.

“Yeah, the famous dentist.” I said. “He work on Tom Cruise?”

“If you're not going to take this seriously, I'll find another hunk of meat who will,” she said, rising.

“Wait,” I said. “What pay?”

“Fifty bucks and all the bananas you can stuff in your mouth,” she said.

“Me in,” I said.

That's a lot of bananas.

#

There's a spot south of The Whit in Eugene, Oregon, where bums and bikes turn into lawn chairs and SUVs. It's between Jefferson and Willamette, about three blocks south of the guy stripping down to a G-string next to his bike.

“The LTD can lick my sweaty, shaven nutsack!” he yelled. “Hey, Bigfoot! Welcome to America!”

“Hey, John,” I said. “Nice day if it not rain.”

It was raining, but only a little. All you had to do was step between the raindrops. I legged it to Fox Hollow and headed south. The trees stretched out. My lungs needed a smoke break from all the fresh air.

Why didn't I take a cab? Where were you with the bright ideas when I was having roadkill for lunch?

Three hills and a hidden private drive later, a ranch-style mansion popped up in a clearing. I huffed up to the middle door, pinched off a few ticks, and nodded to the plaster frog on the stoop. The bell didn't make a sound. I counted my knuckles and got to double digits before the wooden door creaked.

“Yes?” asked the eyes in the opening.

“Me here to see Dr. Goldberg,” I said.

“Whom shall I say is calling?” The door groaned and the eyes sprouted a face and a body. The speaker was stuffed into a butler's uniform and if he'd looked any more like a walrus, I'd have returned him to the zoo to collect the reward money.

“King Kong Bundy,” I said. “Me pick up doctor for big tag-team match.”

“Very droll, sir,” he said. He stood there till I tried to knock him down with my business card, then left me on the doorstep. I offered the frog a swig from my hip flask, but it refused.

I'd finished counting my knuckles and was halfway through my toes when the walrus returned.

“The doctor will see you now,” he said and pointed the way with a gloved flipper.

I slid a fiver into his pocket and nodded to the frog.

“Take care of little guy,” I said. Then I stepped inside.

#

“Is that your chaperone, Martina?” sang the yellow beret in the solarium. “It must be past your bedtime.” The right wing of the house yawned in the fading afternoon. The floppy hat bobbed as the man under it flapped a green smock and slapped paint at the canvas on the easel in front of him.

Paintings leered from the walls. They were life studies of women—one swimming with sharks, one dancing with a stallion, three pushing empty shopping carts. All naked. All with the same oddly masculine face.

On the other side of the room, framed by picture windows, there was a pile of woman heaped over and off of a chaise lounge like sacks of ready-mix concrete forgotten in a shed. That'd be Martina. She winked at me and crossed her chest with her arm covering just about nothing.

“No, no, no!” the yellow beret yelped and spun around. “You've scared my muse into hiding.”

The man under the floppy hat had pointy eyes. His nose and his cheeks were pointy, too. And his goatee. White hair wrapped around his head like a laurel wreath and his face was a dead ringer for the ladies in the paintings.

“Dr. Goldberg, me presume,” I said and flashed my dental work. “Mrs. Dr. Goldberg sends regards.”

“Martina, my dear, you can go now,” Dr. Goldberg said.

She picked up a neatly stacked maid costume and carried it out the door. My heart thumped. I was either in love or developing a medical condition.

“My father is Dr. Goldberg,” the man said as he quit the easel. “Please, call me Doctor.”

On the canvas, a stump lighthouse on a rocky cliff was facing down a flotilla of billowing breasts atop an angry sea.

“So, how much did she pay you to tag along with me, monkey man?” Dr. Goldberg said. His pelvis led the way across the room. “Whatever it is, I'll double it.”

“Bigfoot no good at modeling. Blink too much,” I said. “Note in mail say 'big one.' What that?” The doctor turned up his pointy nose and grinned.

“Jabez,” he yelled. “Decant some Amontillado and meet us in the gallery.”

The walrus butler had been right there the whole time, doing an impression of a grandfather clock. Jabez chimed and lurched off. I'd be cross, too. Amontillado is fine fresh from the bottle.

Dr. Goldberg thrust his way to a pair of glass doors as he hummed tuneless swing music. He stopped and pointed at me for the solo.

“Zibbidy, zoo-zah-zay,” I offered. We went inside.

It was bright. The walls were yellow and the floor was smothered by a rectangle of green astroturf. There were a few tables and chairs. Probably. I couldn't really see past the ducks.

Acrylic on canvas. Dozens of them. And they all had the doctor's face. And they were posed next to footballs.

“Go Ducks,” I bellowed reflexively. I hadn't pegged Dr. Goldberg for a sports fan, but everyone in Eugene was a little screwy when it came to the college team. “You paint all these?”

“Mm-hmm,” he sang, while his eyebrows used his forehead as a trampoline.

The painting in the center of the room was particularly large and simple. Just a duck perched behind a football. The duck's face was extra pointy, and it had huge, empty eyes. I caught my reflection in them and was reborn as a weather balloon. I soared up and up and up until a silver something ripped through me. It hurt like hell. My guts were scattered across some sort of ranch, laid out and photographed, and splattered on newsprint and cheap paper for decade after decade. Then I blinked and was me again.

The doctor grinned. “It has that effect on people,” he said.

The canvas was as tall as him and as wide as he was tall. It had a plain, gold leaf frame. I stepped closer.

“How much big one go for?” I asked.

“It's not for sale,” Dr. Goldberg said. “Now let's talk about why you're really here, Mr. Australopithecus.”

I didn't hear the whisper of footsteps on astroturf sneaking up behind me until it was too late. Whatever hit me on the back of the head was as soft as a pillowcase full of bricks.

Everything went yellow.

#

The only thing harder than the built-in bunk was the lumpy mattress on top of it. The cinder block walls were painted white and there were no duck paintings anywhere. There was a door with a strip of glass for a window and if it wasn't locked I owe you a Coke. The fluorescent light tubes hummed a tune that clashed with the ringing in my head. The only thing to do was stare at my unshaven mug in the stainless steel toilet.

Don't believe the Yelp reviews. Lane County Jail's less cozy than it sounds.

I was still wearing my own clothes. That meant I was only being held for questioning. They'd taken away my belt, hip flask, .38 special, and wallet. Joke's on them. That flask was empty.

A pair of voices outside argued over who got to play bad cop. I got up to great them. CLICK,CLINK,CLUNK went the door, and in them came.

“I'm Detective Sloan,” said the one on the right. “This is Detective Robinson.”

Sloan was tall with broad shoulders and a middle-aged paunch. Her badge hung on a ball-chain over a white collared shirt and a dark blazer with matching pants. She had slab cheeks you could land a plane on and her brown hair was parted on the wrong side.

“What happened, shamus?” the second detective asked.

Robinson was five-foot-nothing under a frizzy, caramel afro, and she didn't look happy about it. Her badge was on one side of her belt and her gun was on the other. She wore a plain gray top, a baggy blazer not quite the same shade, and navy pants. Her clenched fists hung at her sides like tiny anvils.

“Babysitting job,” I said. “Someone give Bigfoot non-consensual scalp massage. Me not see anything.”

“Who else was at the party?” Sloan asked.

“Just butler and maid,” I said. Then I made an educated guess. “Dr. Goldberg dead.”

Sloan nodded. “Two 9mm holes in the chest, close range,” she said. “Your piece was holstered, unfired.”

“Wrong bullet size,” I said. “Who report body?”

“The butler,” Sloan said.

Robinson leapt forward. She scaled the bunk, stretched my collar with one hand, and finger-gunned me full of questions with the other.

“Who was in on it? Where'd you stash the painting? Who do you work for?” she said.

“Doctor's wife, me not do it, and me not know,” I said. “But different order.”

“I like it when they play smart,” Robinson said. “Gives me a chance to break in the new skin on my knuckles.”

I braced for a blow that didn't come.

“You're not a suspect at the moment,” Sloan said. “If you sign a statement you can leave. Think of it as a professional courtesy.”

I looked down at Robinson. She frowned, let go of me, and leapt back to the floor.

“If you remember anything or stumble across a big painting of a duck, we'd appreciate it if you gave us a call,” Sloan said. “An old white guy's dead. Someone's going to jail.”

I nodded.

“Let Bigfoot know when me become primary suspect,” I said.

Robinson growled.

I kicked off the orange, jail-issued XXXXL sandals and headed to the interview room.

Photo by Salvador Rios on Unsplash

#

“It's horrible! Just horrible!” said Emma Goldberg, sloshing her cordial glass. “The worst thing to happen since creation!”

Emma squirmed on a Victorian couch. We were in a wide room in the left wing of the ranch house. A different flock of naked women with Dr. Goldberg's face looked on with indifference.

“A little peaty, sure,” Jabez said, sniffing a decanter of tinted liquor. “Perhaps the lady's not a Scotch person.”

The walrus butler looked great for a guy who'd just gotten off a red-eye direct from Tijuana. His whiskers were untrimmed, his hair was an oil spill, and there was probably a butler's uniform somewhere under all that wrinkled fabric.

“You…” Emma said. She glared at Jabez and waited for him to turn into a toad. Then she upended her glass and exhaled with her whole body. “Why did they do this? Why did they kill him? Why?”

She wore powder blue, the traditional color of hysterical mourning, and her dress plunged south to a scrappy little town near El Salvador. I knocked back my drink. It was a little peaty.

“What you see?” I asked Jabez.

“When I arrived in the gallery, the good doctor…” he said. “The good doctor, he had already breathed his last. You, sir, were face down on the floor. And the painting—oh, that marvelous painting—was gone.”

“You sure you not see anything?” I prodded.

“My god, he's dead!” Emma wailed. “Dead as a doornail!”

“You're upsetting the lady,” Jabez said. “No, I didn't see a thing.”

“Dead!” Emma shouted. “Dead as a dodo!”

“Calm down, Emma,” Jabez said then turned to me. “The gentleman will sort things out, won't he?”

“Find painting, find killer,” I said. “You show Bigfoot scene of crime?”

Several first downs later, we were standing on Astroturf, staring at a wall where a big simple duck no longer was.

“What so special about painting?” I asked.

“It's half of a diptych commemorating the 1994 Civil War,” Emma said.

“Go Ducks,” all three of us bellowed.

I didn't go in for football. Especially rivalries like University of Oregon versus Oregon State. But if you didn't drink the Flavor Aid, people wouldn't invite you to key parties. Everyone in Eugene, root, root, rooted for the South.

“Who got other half?” I asked. “Good place to start.”

“Her,” Emma spat.

Jabez shrugged.

I handed over a notebook and a pen. Emma scrawled out the name.

I read it and decided I needed another drink. Fortunately, the city's number one football-related art collector ran a distillery.

#

The Still Woman was on West Broadway. It was the building with more bikes out front than most other places.

“Table for one?” asked the hostess up front. She had short, blue hair and enough steel in her face to open a construction company.

“Nope. Head honcho in?” I asked and chucked my chin past the fake stonework and wall of casks.

“Maybe,” she said.

“Some reading material,” I said, handing over a business card.

The hostess bounced. I wrestled a stool at the bar and ordered the house special. Around the room, university kids, suits, and oldsters grinned over pallet tables. Ducks sports memorabilia and artwork littered the walls. I winced down a gin and waited. The hostess returned.

“Ms. Marsh will see you now,” she said and slapped a CD-R on the bar top.

“WoMenses?” I asked. “What that?”

“Your new favorite band, peewee,” she called back.

I dropped the coaster into my jacket pocket and headed behind the false wall.

The back was steel, copper, and clean. Not a bathtub in sight. An office sat in the corner. I knocked and went on in.

The room had the usual desk, chairs, and filing cabinets. A huge empty frame hung on the wall to the right. Across from it hung another frame. This one had a painting in it. A big one.

A familiar, simple duck stared at me from over a football. It was exactly the same as the one from Dr. Goldberg's place, except it was facing the opposite direction. It had the same pointy face and same huge, empty eyes. I fell into those eyes and landed on a tattered, bloody battlefield. I sank into the soil and was reborn as a fertile pasture. Then the cows came. It felt good to be grazed on. Then there were flashes of lights. The cows writhed. Strange creatures came and went, and people with cameras trod all over me. My landscape was broadcast around the world and people posted overly emphatic reaction videos. Then I blinked and was me again.

“Ms. Aoife Marsh?” I said, still clogging the entrance.

“Sit down, darling,” said the woman behind the desk. “Quick, before you think of something clever to say.”

Eugene's premier businesswoman was a mosaic of curly red hair, cheekbones, and freckles. She wore an ugly angora sweater that no doubt had an uglier price tag. Her hair and face were tightened into a bun, and she looked as friendly as a bear trap.

I squatted over a low, padded chair.

The woman drummed her fingertips on a newspaper on the desk. Today's Register-Guard had a front-page blurb about the doctor's murder. The Sheriff's Office had managed to keep the detail about the theft out of the papers. That gave me an angle to work.

“You practical lady. Me get down to business,” I said. “Bigfoot hear you looking for playmate for duck.”

“Now who told you that?” Ms. Marsh asked, eyes narrowed.

“Little bird tell me,” I said. “You in market or not?”

“Sure,” Ms. Marsh said. “But I'm not accepting a delivery this side of a barbed-wire fence.”

We sat there and stared at each other.

“Don't. Move. A muscle,” Ms. Marsh whispered between clock ticks.

Before the clock could tick again, she was standing on her desk. Her eyes were wide, nostrils flared, and she brandished the newspaper like a club. She stepped from the desk onto the arms of my chair and leaned in.

“There's a spider on you,” she said, inching forward. “A vicious, virile, venomous black widow.”

A black smudge ticked across my face into my peripheral vision. It was flesh and blood, or whatever spiders are made of. Ms. Marsh lifted the itsy-bitsy assassin with the edge of the paper, and my heart started thumping again.

Then, before the clock could tick again, Ms. Marsh was back behind her desk. Paper back in place, no spider anywhere.

“I assure you, detective, I have no interest in interfering with an ongoing investigation,” Ms. Marsh said. “Once someone's behind bars, I'll be open to negotiations.”

She'd called my bluff, and I was stuck holding the Old Maid.

“Maybe painting disappear,” I said. “Last chance.”

“I'm sure it'll come back on the market eventually,” she said. “Ducks aren't like people, darling. They float.”

That didn't sound right. I started to say something, but fell into the duck painting again.

“Yes, very good,” Ms. Marsh said, snapping me out of it. “Watch your step on your way out.”

#

The walk home was only a mile and change, but I paid double and circled back to check if I was being followed. I was. By a flea-bitten, tubby cat.

“You got something to eat, Daisy?” I asked her. Three people down the street set out plates of fish on their porches and mewed into the damp dusk.

Some animals had all the luck.

I was getting hungry myself, so I picked up some bread from a dumpster behind a bakery. They always leave the good stuff in clear bags.

I trudged to the abandoned office suite.

“Hey, George,” I said to the tramp huddled in the reception area.

“Mmm,” he moaned. I tossed him a few rolls.

I considered a nap, but when I closed my eyes, my paranoia jumped out from behind the furniture and threw a surprise party. I creaked into my office chair and thought about the case.

This was quite the three-bottle problem. I reached down and yanked on the desk drawer. That's when I felt the weight on my shoulders and the taste of a rag over my mouth and nose. It was burning and sweet. I didn't like it. I spun the chair. The rag slipped, but the weight was still there. Then I felt a blow on the back of my head. I didn't see stars. I didn't see anything. I still tasted the rag. Then there was another blow. Then a third, for good luck.

Guess I didn't lose that tail. Guess I'd get that nap after all.

#

“I told you, it's not like the movies. Chloroform's too slow.”

The voice was familiar, but I didn't recognize the giraffe.

“Head trauma's your answer for everything.”

Second familiar voice and mystery speaker. An okapi.

“Hey, he's waking up,” the first one said. I blinked a few times and she turned into a tall, heavy woman with a lot of face.

“Okay, get into character,” the second one said. “I'm bad cop, remember?” She turned into a short woman with an afro.

“No, it's my turn,” the first one insisted.

I was still in my office, still in my chair, woozy, confused, and unable to lift my arms. The only thing different from my usual weekday evening was the two detectives from the Sheriff's office standing there.

“Why you drug Bigfoot and hit on head?” I slurred.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Detective Robinson said. “Here, have a smoke.” She stuffed a cigarette between my lips and Zippo-ed it.

“Congratulations,” she said. “After that trip to see Aoife Marsh, you're officially the primary suspect. Know what that means?”

“Me get punch in stomach?” I said.

“Spoiler alert,” Detective Sloan said and socked me good.

“Here's the thing, shamus. We know you didn't kill the doc,” Robinson said. “You're just an accessory turned patsy. Now it's time to turn stool pigeon.”

I kept my mouth shut. I got another punch anyway.

“Hey, me not say anything,” I said.

“I was never a big fan of improv,” Sloan said. “I'm more of a one-woman show kinda girl.”

“You either work for Marsh or you're doing business with her,” Robinson said. “All you gotta do is put us in a room with her and the missing painting.”

“Me not know where painting is,” I said. “And what if she not killer?”

“What are you, some kind of cop?” Robinson said. “If you can't give us Marsh and the painting, you're going down for murder.”

Another pair of punches.

“Just remember, even stool pigeons have to come home to roost,” Sloan said.

“Good one,” Robinson said. “You just come up with that?”

“Yeah,” Sloan said. “Turns out I can do improv.”

They left. I felt a little lonely and a lot swollen.

I chased the chloroform with Scotch and dragged myself past the crumbling wall into my bedroom. The pile of mattresses called to me and I heaved myself onto their medium-firm shores.

“¡Ahh!” yelped something squishy and also solid. “¡Cuidado!”

Martina. Naked. In my bed.

“Hola, Sr. Pie Grande,” Martina said. “Lo siento, debo haberme dormido.”

I didn't know whether to question her or start singing in the majestic fields of her folds.

“Querías tiempo de oink-oink, ¿no?” she asked.

“Take rain check,” I said. “Bigfoot busy getting framed for murder.”

“¿Le preguntaste al mayordomo?” she said. “Normalmente es el mayordomo.”

“The butler?” I said. “Little on nose, me think.”

“Sí, y probablemente sea cierto,” she said. “¿Has leído alguna vez una novela de misterio?”

“That's enough,” said a voice from the other side of the room.

A shiny Luger floated out of the shadows. A blue-haired head full of metal followed, then the person under it.

“Sorry to break up such a tender moment,” said the hostess from the Still Woman. “But I only got two hours of overtime approved for this visit.”

“Me just get worked over,” I said. “Skip to part where threaten Bigfoot and leave?”

Martina covered her chest, hiding nothing, and winked at the blue-haired woman.

“Hands up,” the hostess said behind the gun barrel. “I insist.”

I backed into the wall, hands up. She pulled my gun and tossed it in the corner. Then she patted me down.

“These things aren't free, you know,” she said holding up her band's demo CD. “We worked hard on this. Our music's our passion.”

“¿Una músico con un trabajo fijo?” Martina said. “¡Qué sexy!”

“What question again?” I asked.

“Where'd you stash the painting?” she asked and rattled the gun.

“Me not know,” I said. “Think your boss know, but me wrong.”

The hostess smiled. “I believe you,” she said, “but I don't believe in you.”

“Not matter if you believe in Bigfoot,” I said. “Bigfoot believe in you.”

“You're pretty smug for a guy with no neck,” the hostess said. Then she thunked me on the head with the butt of her pistol. I went down like a sack of Idaho spuds.

“¡Tómame, mi diosa de pelo azul!” I heard Martina say. “¡Soy tuya!”

They left me there on the floor. I tried getting up, but gravity got handsy. Tomorrow I'd hock my gun and buy a helmet.

#

It was tomorrow, probably. The gray sky was brighter, anyway. My bruised head and liver tried to call in sick, but my stubborn streak punched in for more abuse. The trail was cold. I did the only thing left to do. I dragged myself to Skinner Butte Park, to the edge of the Willamette River, and I fed the birds.

Walkers glared switchblades. Joggers tramped on my toes. The sparrows sang nasty songs about my mother.

Deep breaths, Bigfoot. Just keep tossing bread crusts.

PBBT.

Stale rye bounced off a Canada Goose. Up telescoped its black and white head and sawtooth beak. It looked at me, opened its jaws, and hiss-honked.

KHRSS! KHRSS-RONK!

The miniature dragon puffed up, flapped its wings, and waddled toward me. I ducked behind a tree, unholstered my .38 special, and came out squeezing.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Through the cloud of blood and feathers I saw where the gander wasn't. Then I looked down and saw my gun. Then I looked around and saw all the people staring. I ran.

Up and down. Over and under. Right into a shabby campsite with a tarp and some sleeping bags. A pair of tramps squatted around a glaring sterno can under a giant, buck-toothed rat on a spit made of twigs. One of them wore a hoodie and sweatpants. The other one was dressed in a tattered Santa suit and hat combo.

“Okay if me chill here?” I asked.

“We don't want no trouble, man,” Santa said to my gun, which I was still holding.

I holstered it and put up my hands. My shoulders and wrists ached from repetitive stress injury.

“No problem,” I said. “Just need to take load off.”

“It's a free country,” Santa said. “Have a seat.”

“But we ain't sharin' none,” said the other tramp, using his pursed lips to keep me away from their singed meal.

“C'mon, man. He looks he could use a bite,” Santa said. “Where's your Christmas spirit?”

“For Christ's sake, it's May,” the other tramp said. “Cool it with the North Pole crap.”

“All yours,” I told them and collapsed down next to the tiny fire. “Bigfoot allergic to nutria.”

The beard on Santa's chin was as yellow as the stuff I'd hacked up this morning. He had a broad face and a huge belly. Like, too huge.

He leaned in close. “Just so you know, daddy-o,” he said. “I ain't the real Santa.”

“Me know,” I said. “You just helper.”

“No, man, look, it's a suit,” he said and lifted the coat and fake belt. Underneath was a stained beige bulge. Padding. A fake belly. “Keeps you warm as hell.”

A hammer hit home. I leapt up.

“Hey, man, where you going?” Santa called.

I turned and said, “Bigfoot got to see woman about duck.”

#

“This is exactly what he would've wanted,” Emma Goldberg said. She buoyed herself with a brandy glass of port next to the half-open casket. Her sheer purple dress was there somewhere in that sea of skin.

The ranch house solarium had been redecorated. There were candles and flowers on every flat surface. The paintings were draped in black. And there, under the picture windows, was the guest of honor in his own personal shadow box.

“To the good doctor,” Jabez said, toasting a glass. “He's at peace now.”

Dr. Goldberg didn't look peaceful. He looked ready to kick a field goal. Because of that green football helmet. And the shoulder pads and jersey.

“He's painting angels in heaven now,” Emma said.

“How him going to add own face without mirror?” I asked.

“What are you talking about, Koko?” Jabez barked.

“Doctor paint own face on everything,” I said. “Everyone know that.”

Emma laughed.

“I'll not hear you speak ill of the dead, sir,” Jabez said. “The doctor was one of the most skilled, under-appreciated artists of the modern age.”

“Modern age?” I said. “More like preschool age. Paintings belong on fridge, not in frame.”

“Why, you insolent, hirsute—” Jabez started.

He lunged, fist raised. I stepped aside and he toppled onto the bottom of the casket. The whole thing levered up. The football player corpse Dracula-ed upright then bent and bowed at the waist.

Emma stared wide-eyed, then swooned at me, hand over her forehead. I dodged and let her plop on the floor.

“Me sorry,” I said, and stepped on the edge of Jabez's shirt as I bent down to help her up.

The butler struggled. His caught shirt ripped as he rose and he spun, his face bouncing off the face mask of Dr. Goldberg's football helmet. When Jabez turned the jig was up.

Under Jabez's shirt was a beige bulge. Padding. A fake belly. Under his face, and a lot of rubber and makeup, was a second, pointy face with pointy eyes, a pointy nose, and pointy cheeks. No goatee, but still a dead ringer for the face in the paintings.

“Dr. Goldberg, me presume,” I said.

Emma screamed. That was the signal. In stormed the detectives.

“Did we miss the party?” Sloan said.

“Hey,” Robinson said. “That's my line.”

Emma loomed behind the back-from-the-dead Dr. Goldberg. She raised a vase and slammed it over his head. He slumped to the floor in a pile of fat suit and pointy doctor.

“That bastard,” Emma wailed. “How did you know it was him?”

“Butler not know how to serve booze right,” I said. “Oldest mistake in book.”

“So where's the missing painting?” Robinson asked.

“Check bedroom,” I shrugged and waited with Emma. A few minutes later the pair returned with the painting.

“Wait, if he's Dr. Goldberg, who's the stiff?” Sloan asked.

“Smart money on Jabez,” I said. “Ask dame. She plan whole thing.”

Emma froze, then wobbled like she was going to do her fainting trick again.

“Recognize these?” I asked and pulled out my notebook. I opened it to the page where she'd written Aoife Marsh's name. Under that, covering my doodle of a sultry sweater-clad spider, was the yellow sticky note she handed over at the office. The spiral-dotted “I”s matched.

“You wrote fake threat,” I said. “This prove setup.”

“You…” Emma said. She glared at me and waited for me to turn into a flock of ravens. Then she huffed and said the magic words, “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

#

“Te dije que era el mayordomo,” Martina said. “Siempre es el mayordomo.”

“That not true at all,” I said. “You understand what just happen?” I flinched down a gin, paid the tab, and headed toward the front door of the Still Woman.

Martina called after me, “Buenas noches, Sr. Pie Grande. Gracias por las bebidas.”

I stopped by the blue-haired hostess at the podium. She had good reason to smile. I'd been footing the bill for her girl's drinks all afternoon.

“Turn out money not buy happiness,” I said.

“Really?” she asked.

“It pay off coroners,” I said. “It stage elaborate plan to raise price of artwork. It buy fancy lawyers. But in end, rich doctor and wife go to jail. Money not help.”

“You realize Ms. Marsh is going to buy the painting now?” she said. “She's getting everything she wanted.”

“Okay, money buy happiness,” I said. “You can use for song lyric.”

“I'm the bass player,” the hostess said and handed me another CD-R. “Make sure you actually listen to it this time.”

“Sure,” I said and dropped it into my pocket. “You make sure Martina get home okay.”

The sidewalks were gray and unfriendly. But Daisy was there. I bent down to scratch her chin. That's when I realized I'd never gotten that fifty bucks from Emma Goldberg.

Then John rode by in a tutu on his bike.

“Go Ducks!” he yelled.

“Go Ducks,” I bellowed back.

#

My office was open like always. I sat at the metal desk creaking the cracked office chair. The light dimmed until the gibbous moon squinted above the clouds.

My old friend, the bloated bluebottle fly, buzzed back into the room.

“Make self at home but wipe feet on doormat first,” I said as it circled. “It over here on Bigfoot's forehead.”

I shook open the bottom desk drawer and pulled out the tumblers and the Scotch.

“Me owe you one,” I said and poured a couple of drinks.

I took a sip and asked the fly, “Why all pretty dames also criminal masterminds?”

It didn't grow shoulders and shrug. It hopped onto my elbow and rubbed its legs together that way flies do. I snatched it up, swallowed it, and belched. Then I swallowed the drinks, glasses and all.

Photo by Anya Chernik on Unsplash

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Meet the author:

Nicholas De Marino is a neurodivergent writer and published crackpot. He founded 5enses and is a foofaraw columnist. He likes petting spiders, watching cats, and writing about both. Read more at nicholasdemarino.com.

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