David Thayer

Wellington Leg: Arthur Murray is Wellington Leg’s premier private investigator, a man so tough that when he orders a White Russian at his local no one dares laugh. Arthur has had a difficult time because of his name, you know, the ballroom dancing thing. Arthur enjoys dancing, but that’s a dirty little secret. This entry from his log book says “I didn’t come here to flamenco.”

It was gray that morning low fog on the windowsill of my office downtown. I had a three o’clock with a dentist but that was six hours away, six hours of bad coffee, bad posture, and pigeons rustling in the mist. I yelled to Connie when the office door opened and a chiarascurro, one of those little Mexican dogs, clicked on in. I saw its nose in my doorway and thought, “here comes sixty four ounces of trouble.”

The dog had an owner and she blew on in like a new breeze off the lake. “Arthur Murray?

I flinched. Here it comes. The dog, the legs, the hooded eyes: she wanted dance lessons.

“Who’ s asking?”

“Call me Babs. I’m here to cancel your dentist appointment.”

That’s when the dog barked. That’s when she pulled the cannon out of her designer handbag. That’s when I hit the deck. She blew a hole in the window and I noticed something under the desk. My palm pilot. I’ve been looking all over for that thing.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 8:28 am and is filed under Crime Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.