Previously in “The Maltese Sparrow…
Our author wrote himself into a bizarre clown-based cliffhanger and then resorted to an even more bizarre dream sequence in an effort to negate the ending. Eyebrows were raised. So were barns. Freakin’ Amish.
And now, The Maltese Sparrow: Part 8 (The One with Penny Coming Back)…
The door opened and the light from Eva’s office framed the silhouette of Ms. Penny Bouvier. I leaned back in my chair and pulled out my pipe. I decided to play it cool.
“Hi, you backstabbing bitch!” I shrieked before running across the room and slapping her. Yeah, nice and cool.
She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “Oh Sam, I had to do it, don’t you see? I knew you’d try to back out of the case once my father put pressure on you. This was the only way to keep you involved.” A tear ran down her cheek.
I sat on the corner of my desk and said, “Spare me the waterworks sweetheart, it’s time you answered some questions.” At this point I presented her with a small booklet full of analogies. She spent the next twenty minutes filling in the bubbles on the answer sheet before presenting it to me. I ran it through the machine and looked ever the results. Penny tried to read the expression on my face. “Well, Sam?”
I balled up the results and threw then in the trash. “78th percentile, baby. Is that the best you’ve got? Why don’t you try this question if all the others are so hard… what’s inside the statue?”
She flinched as she heard the question and then a look of surprise crossed her face. “How did you know?”
“They don’t pay me to be stupid, baby. The statue itself is worthless, so the only possibility is that it’s hiding something much more valuable. What is it?”
“Sam, I swear, I don’t….” I grabbed her roughly and looked her in the eyes.
“Don’t give me any more lies – you took the statue, you knew what it was worth, so you know what’s inside it.”
Penny pulled out of my grip and fought to hold back tears. She looked like she was ready to break. “Alright, you want to know?”
“Yes, what in that statue could possibly be worth $5 million? I’ve been trying to figure it out all day – what’s worth 5 mill that could fit inside a statue? Jewels, state secrets, a treasure map?”
“Um, actually, it’s just stuffed with a check for $5 million.”
“Ah. Well. That makes sense.”
We stood in silence for a moment. That was pretty simple, really. I fished my pipe out of my pocket and thought for a moment. “Well, why is there a check for $5 million inside the statue?”
“It’s a bribe. My father was being paid off by a group of Turkish investors in Cyprus. They wanted exclusive drilling rights to a lucrative olive deposit that my father could help them win.”
“You have to drill for olives?”
She snorted, “Well they don’t just grow on trees, Sam. Anyway, my father never had a chance to meet with the investors alone, so they presented him with the statue during one of the meetings. To everyone else it was a worthless trinket, but I knew what was inside of it.”
“How did you know?”
“I was sleeping with one of the investors at the time. Geez, Sam, I’m cheap as they come. I’d sleep with anyone.”
“Really?” I said, raising an eyebrow.
“Not you, you’re gay.”
“Oh, I’m so totally not. Whatever.”
“I couldn’t stand to see anyone corrupt the fair and just workings of the law, so I stole the statue to stop him.”
I walked around to the other side of my desk and looked out the window, lost in thought. It sounded plausible, but why go through all this trouble? Why not let the old man keep the statue and then expose him when she got home if she was so concerned about fair play? And even if she didn’t do it at first, why come to me when he was trying to have her killed rather than go to the police and tell the whole story? And why did everyone think I was gay? “I’ve gotta admit, babe, it sounds like a pretty unlikely story.”
“That’s because it’s a lie.” Her voice was hard as steel and I turned around to find Penny pointing a gun at my chest.
“Which parts?”
“All of it.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Even the part where you said I was gay?”
“No, that’s true.”
I took a drink of water from my “Absolutely Fabulous” coffee mug. It so wasn’t true.
To Be Continued…