Be-Bop Deluxe.

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BE-BOP DELUXE

BY 

PAUL FOX.

CHAPTER ONE

I can’t stand that scene. You know the one; it’s in all those black and white detective movies from the thirties and forties. That scene where the mysterious dame waltzes into the down-at-heel detective’s office and begs him to help her find her long lost sister or brother or the missing black bird that’s really made of gold…familiar? Or there’s my favorite…the one where the family is being blackmailed because of some racy pictures taken of the youngest sister who is incredibly hot but bat-shit crazy too. And the detective knows the dame on the other side of the desk is lying through her teeth, but they are such pretty white teeth in such a pretty mouth on such a pretty face. So, he says he’ll be glad to help and it’s downhill from there for our detective pal.

And the reason I can never watch that scene without a hollow laugh and a sinking feeling in my gut is because it never happens. We’ll in the eight years I’d been in the private detective business it had never happened to me; until that fall day in 1955 when Sandra Nelson walked in. It was September the 30th. I remember the date clearly, it was the day James Dean, the actor died in a car crash on some God-forsaken back road near Paso Robles in Southern California. Funny how those things stick in the mind…

I was in the middle of cleaning out my office. I’m a tidy guy; I try to have a good clean out at least once every five years. I’d been at my shelves with a feather duster and air was showing the results of my activity. I’d found one third of a ham on rye stuck behind a large print dictionary. I have no idea how it got there. I had a tea chest by my desk, and I pitched the moldy remains into it. It was a good start.

I moved on to my desk. Going through my drawers, throwing out anything I didn’t need. I’d just got to the bottom of my right-hand drawer when I came across a copy of the first ever Playboy magazine. You know; the one with a certain curvy blonde film star on the cover. It was a couple of year old now and I’d read all the articles. I really should be throwing it out. I was checking out Miss Monroe on the inside pages when Sandra Nelson walked into my office.

Now when I say ‘my’ office by then it was ‘our’ office. I had a partner, not that you’d have noticed. Inga had been out of that office and out of the country for almost a year. She’d gone back home to Iceland after a major break-up with her last girlfriend. I’ll tell you more about my absent partner later; there’s a lot to tell. But first you want to hear all about Sandra Nelson, don’t you? The first thing she said to me was:

“I ‘ope I’m not interrupting anything.” I tore myself away from Marilyn’s charms and looked out over the top of the magazine. Sandra Nelson looked back and carried on talking.

“Only if you’re busy, I can cum back.”

“Take a seat miss.” I said. 

I put the magazine back in my drawer and closed it with a bang. Sandra sat down. I looked her over. She was not like the dames in the movies, she wasn’t a Hollywood beauty queen by any means, but she was bright and pretty, and she spoke with a very cute accent. She was maybe five foot five and there was a lot of her packed into that five foot five. She was a big girl in every sense of the word. She looked like a mid-west farmer’s daughter, big shoulders, big thighs, big…everywhere. She kinda filled the room with personality in the same way she filled my client’s chair, to overflowing.

She had a no-nonsense haircut; her honey-blonde hair was shaped around her heart-shaped face and cut short at the neck. She kept reaching up to straighten her bangs, like she wasn’t quite used to the way her hair hung across her forehead. I could tell she was from England before she told me…I was stationed there during the war. I was a B17 pilot based near Cambridge, so I knew what an English accent sounded like. Or at least I thought I knew. 

When she first started to explain why she was in San Francisco I had to ask her to slow down. She used words I’d never heard before, and she swore like a trooper on bennies. I got out my handy dandy detective’s notebook and I made some notes. Here’s what I learned: Sandra Nelson was just twenty. She had travelled halfway round the world to try find her brother Billy. Billy was in the Royal Navy, doing his national service. He was an able seaman on a cruiser called H.M.S. Sheffield. Apparently, this was funny because Billy and Sandra Nelson came from a town not too far from the real city of Sheffield. Billy had jumped ship in San Francisco about three months ago. His family had not heard from him since then. Sandra suspected foul play, or as she put it:

“I knew summat werrup. So, I borrowed some money and came out here to look forrim.”

“You borrowed some money? You must have very rich buddies.” Says me, she says:

“Not really. I got Mister Hague to lend me it. He’s my boss. I’m a typist at Hague’s Brewery in Grimethorpe.”

“And why would Mister Hague lend you…how much did it cost to get over here?”

“Not sure exactly, he leant me five hundred pounds, what’s that in your money?”

“Wow! That’s over a grand!”

“A what?”

“That’s just about a thousand dollars. Why would Mister Hague lend you that much…it’s got to be about four- or five-year’s wages hasn’t it?”

“If you say so.”

“So, back to my original question…why?”

“Why would he lend all that money to a dumb typist in accounts payable? Because he’s soft on me and he thinks I’m going to go back to Grimethorpe and marry his idiot son Nigel.”

“Are you?”

“Like buggery I am! Nigel’s as daft as a brush and I don’t really think he likes girls, if you catch my drift. Not like the old man! We all know what he’s like. You know what? I think he wants me to marry Nigel so he can come round his house and give me a going over on a regular basis. He thinks he’s Lord Muck and I’m the bloody chambermaid. Well not me, I’m not falling for that. This is nineteen fifty-five, it’s not the bloody dark ages…I mean it’s okay letting him have a little feel every now and then behind the filing cabinets but I’m not touching his wrinkly tadger for all the tea in bloody China!”

I think I understood the broad strokes of what she said but I wasn’t sure. I wrote furiously in my notebook as I ran the last bit over in my head a couple of times. I said:

“So Sandra, I charge twenty five dollars a day plus expenses. If that’s okay with you, I think we should be able to get somewhere inside a week or so. That’s always assuming that your brother wants to be found.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well America’s a big country. It’s very easy to get lost here. If you don’t want to be found…”

“Why would he not want to be found?” she asked.

“You tell me.” I said.

“I’ve got no idea. That’s why I’m here.”

“Look…Billy jumped ship for some reason and if the Royal Navy finds him, he’s going to be up on charges and he’s going to be in the brig (that’s a jail) for months, maybe years. 

What I’m saying is; he might not want anyone to find him, which will make our job way harder. I’m guessing you’ve been to see the police. Have you checked with the hospitals?”

I didn’t ask if she’d checked the morgues, which would have been another step I would have taken. I could see the tears well in her hazel eyes. She pulled a man’s handkerchief from her purse. It looked about the size of a parachute; it covered her face as she blew her nose with a loud rasp like a Tommy Dorsey solo. Sandra got to her feet.

“Well, if you think it’s going to be too much trouble, I’ll try somewhere else.” She turned to go. I said:

“Sit down please Miss Nelson. I’ll find your brother; you can be sure of that.” She came back, sat down in the client’s chair and the waterworks really started. I hurried from behind the desk then hovered over her like teenage boy on a first date. I didn’t know what to do. I leaned down and put my hand on her arm. She flinched as though shot through with electricity. I decided to get her a glass of water. That’s what a detective in the movies would do. She took the water, drank a little, almost choked on it. Then I gave her my card, asked where she was staying.

She’d got herself a room above a drugstore at Haight and Masonic. It was a low rent part of town. Not the kind of place a single girl would feel safe in at night, even a girl the size of Sandra Nelson. I made a mental note...if things dragged on with this case, I would have to find her Miss Nelson a better place to stay. I didn’t say anything to her of course. No use getting her all jumpy. She was jumpy enough.

“How will we keep in touch?” she asked. I told her to call my answering service every couple of days, leave a message and a number I’d get back to her. I told her the drug store would have a phone in the back.

“When you call the service, give them that number and a time you’ll be there. I’ll call you at that time.”

“Sounds a bit complicated.” she said.

“Tell you what…” I said. “Give me one or two days and I should have some kind of idea how this is going to pan out. When I get word on where your brother is maybe you can come with me.”

She liked that idea. I asked for a picture of her brother; she reached into her purse and pulled out a black and white photograph of Billy Nelson in Navy whites. He was a skinny guy about five nine. He had a long thin face like a weasel with small black button eyes. He looked like the kind of guy who would knife a nun on Christmas Eve.