Off the Beaten Path. John Schlarbaum
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what we do. It’ll be a nice relaxing getaway, no matter what.”
“Will you actually be entering the murder scenes to examine them?” Doug asked Dawn.
“A few maybe,” she answered, looking to me for confirmation. “For the most part, I think it’s like a typical bus tour with some walking involved. Instead of seeing enormous churches, skyscrapers or historic landmarks, we’ll visit houses, apartments and other places where a big time murder happened.”
“Like those Homes of the Stars tours in California that point out Jennifer Love Hewitt’s mansion or George Clooney’s house,” Doug said.
“Exactly,” I chimed in. “Except instead of learning the length of Jennifer’s pool or how many rooms she has, we’ll get details about where a puddle of blood was discovered on the property and how it got there.” Once again my words held some kind of fascination with these partying strangers. I caught the attention of one of the job-losers glaring at me. “What are you staring at?”
A look of Who me? registered on his face.
“Yeah, you,” I said. “Do you need medical help? We can call 911 if you want.”
This raised not only the intended’s ire, but also Dawn’s.
“Steve, what are you doing?”
“Don’t worry, Dawn, I won’t cause any trouble,” I assured her. “I just overheard this unemployed bonehead talking about how unfair the world is, after the same world provided him a $2000 a week job for the past three years playing the market with other people’s money. He rubbed me the wrong way. Unlike us, he obviously doesn’t appreciate the value of a buck.”
“Are you going to fight him?” Doug asked expectantly, a glimmer of bloodsport twinkling in his eyes.
“And hurt my knuckles? I don’t think so.”
As my opponent half-stumbled across the room, the groups seemed to break apart to form one bigger, yet still dispersed crowd. Had I picked on their de facto leader? It wouldn’t have been the first time I’d messed with the wrong person and certainly wouldn’t be my last. I pegged this tough guy to be about 28, not bad looking, an inch shorter than me, clean cut, wearing his casual Friday’s khaki pants, Blue River designer shirt and surrounded by an aura of entitlement. You know the type, full of themselves until someone knocks them down a peg or two.
Let me demonstrate.
“Do I know you?”
“In what sense?” I answered indifferently.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Didn’t they teach you any sense at that preppy business school you’re bragging about? What’s its name again? Cylinder, Solenoid?”
“The Solinder Institute of Finance is not preppy!” my adversary declared loudly, which brought a stop to any other conversations in the room. We were now the main event.
“Ah, yes, Solinder. The home of flipped up collars and wing-tips worn by trust fund daddy’s boys, inexplicably named Kal or Regent, who go by equally inane nicknames like The Calculator or Righteous D. Bill.” I paused to allow this information to soak in. “Nah, that doesn’t sound preppy-like at all, Corwin.”
A look of bewilderment dawned across my interrogator’s features, as his red spidery veined eyes widened substantially. You’d have thought I’d produced an elephant out of thin air and laid it at his feet. Some audience members appeared impressed, or more likely, baffled by my seemingly inside information of Corwin Stewart Donovan Mulvoy. In truth I was simply regurgitating facts he’d been randomly spewing to others over the past half hour. Luckily, being drunk only disengaged his memory recall, not mine.
“I don’t know who you think you are or how you know so much about me,” Corwin began his defense. “Someone said you’re a cop or an investigator. Is that true?”
“If someone said it, then it must be true.”
Corwin awkwardly turned to his left, almost losing his balance to pronounce, “I’d like to introduce to you Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who knows everything about everybody!” He attempted a half bow in front of me. “Good day, sir,” he said, invoking a wave of subdued laughter around the room. “I beg of you, please continue to wow us with your mental . . . and I emphasize the word mental . . . wizardry. Tell me something about him.”
A shaky finger was pointed in the direction of a nebbish male sitting on the couch. A short time earlier, he’d stood near us and I’d overheard a few arbitrary facts, which I proceeded to recite with great flare, playing to my audience of one.
“The first thing you should know about Herman is he hates to be called Herm. It sounds too much like germ for his liking.” My target straightened up. It was, to some extent, an educated guess with a name like that. I recalled my childhood friend Wayne hated being called Wayner, because it sounded like wiener. “Next, if you don’t know already, the striking eyewear Herman sports are cosmetic fakes to make him appear smarter. The lenses are made of plain glass with no magnification whatsoever.” As Herman began to fidget, anyone not fully engrossed by my cheap parlour act before, was now. Feeling bad, I said, “The funny thing is he’s very smart, graduating at the top of his class. It’s all of you who aren’t very bright for not recognizing this yourselves. If I had a brokerage firm, Herman, I’d hire you in a minute, with or without your glasses.”
“Enough of him!” Corwin bellowed, agitated I was showing him up in front of his colleagues and friends. “What about him?” he demanded, singling out another recent unemployment statistic.
My many years working the streets, bars and in Vice sting operations had prepared me well for this task. Without having overheard this man speak a word, I had to rely on the two things I’d noted during the evening: his physical appearance and his body language, especially when in close proximity to Corwin The Great.
“I’m sorry I don’t know your name,” I said to my next reluctant volunteer. “I’ll call you Mr. X, okay?” He nodded in the affirmative. “Okay, so . . . it’s quite apparent you and Corwin frequent the same clothing stores. Those slacks and shirt hang side-by-side on the display racks at uppity boutiques. Even Mr. X’s fashionable $500 Prada shoes match yours, Corwin. Did you two share a springtime retail therapy session together?” This elicited some much deserved snickering and smiles all around. “His taste in clothes and the ability to pay for them would indicate he went to an overpriced snooty business school, Solinder perhaps, to learn how to be a financial mastermind, or as you like to crow, a broker. Unfortunately, the one thing they don’t teach in class is how to deal with real-life failure, like when you lose your job and are still stuck with a BMW car payment for two more years.”
As I drive a nondescript family mini-van for a living, I admire the occasional Beamer or Porsche I stumble upon parked on the street. Tonight, I had seen at least seven luxury sports cars and knew Corwin and Mr. X must have keys for a couple of them.
Corwin was at a loss. I had drained his bravado in a few short minutes. I concede that with my cop training this exercise in cold-reading really wasn’t fair, but I didn’t start this ball rolling - he did.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Scott does for a living. Most everyone here is in the stock market,” Corwin proclaimed in an effort to discredit my significant brilliance. “If you’re so smart, tell me something I don’t know, Holmes.” He dragged out the syllables for effect: H-o-l-m-e-s.
“Steve, let it go,” Dawn said softly, gently putting a hand on my arm.
“Yeah, Steve, let it go,” Corwin repeated, again dragging out more syllables: S-t-e-v-e.
I looked at Dawn’s half-empty wine glass. “Is that the last of the bottle?”
“Yes,” she answered tentatively. “Why?”
“No reason.” I lifted my glass to hers and clinked the edges together. “To a wonderful party. Thank you for