More Rock Tuff stories to follow!
“Rock Tuff. That’s a great name for a private detective. Is it your real name?”
“No.”
“What is your real name?”
“That’s a professional secret, Mrs.? Ms.? Miss?”
“Ms. Friend. And this is a strange place to have an office. This building looks like an abandoned warehouse.”
She was right. A retired caretaker from the place I worked before I too retired was now the day- and night-watchman of this closed building, and he let me use this room as an office. I had had a phone installed and it was my only expense.
‘”Your ad says that you take only special cases, usually involving senior citizens.”
“That’s right. I’m a geriatric detective.”
“Why, may I ask?”
“Because I’m not young and I’m not tough. The extent of my martial arts skill is opening a jar of olives, or trying to, so I like to avoid any situation with potential combat. The bigger they come, the harder I’d fall.”
“You must get a lot of missing persons cases — you know, seniors wandering off?”
“Actually, you are my first client. Sorry, there’s no prize. If you hire me, I work for expenses and whatever you care to give me — a tip, vitamin pills, Viagra.”
“You’re completely inexperienced. What are your qualifications?”
“I’ve read most of Sherlock Holmes, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, Robert B. Parker. Oh, yes, and I took a couple of courses in criminology at the local community college. I’d hang up my diploma, but I can’t find a suitable place for it.” It occurred to me that she was questioning me rather than vice versa, so I said: “Now if you want me to help you, tell me about your problem; otherwise I’ll get back to my Simenon novel.”
“All right. My Uncle Henry is gone, vanished. He’s seventy-three and still healthy and lucid. His wife, my aunt Bea, died three years ago and he lives alone. I telephone or visit him almost every day, but for the past three days he hasn’t answered the phone or the doorbell, and I’m beginning to worry.”
“Why don’t you report him to the police as a missing person?”
“There’s probably nothing wrong and, besides, Uncle Henry wouldn’t like that; it would make him feel like a fugitive.”
“Maybe we should check his house. Do you have a key?”
“Yes, but I don’t like to use it except in an emergency.”
“Maybe this is an emergency, although I hope not. Your car or mine?”
“I’ll drive.”
On the way, she asked me more about my background. I told her that I had taught high school English for thirty-five years until I retired two years ago, when I discovered that there was more to life than split infinitives and iambic pentameter.
“You taught English for thirty-five years and you hate grammar and literature?”
“No, I love them, but the students didn’t. How can Shakespeare and Dickens compete with TV and video games? Now, instead of spending my nights and weekends reading semi-literate student essays, I can read good writing. And I don’t have to patrol the halls, supervise the detention room, or wrestle drunks at school dances.”
