Detective Paco in "The Case of the Hot Camel" (Part I)

I knocked on the door of the bathroom in my office. “Are you coming out, or do I have to come in after you?”

An irritated voice, somewhat obscured by the sound of the ceiling fan in the bathroom, communicated a threat. “If you do, you’ll be sorry!”

I tried to reason with him. “Look, things can’t be that bad. Come on out and we’ll talk.”

There was a flushing noise, and the voice issued instructions. “I’m coming out now, but you better go back to your desk.”

I did as I was asked, and a moment later, Wronwright waltzed out of the bathroom, whistling a happy tune and drying his hands on a paper towel, which he crumpled up and neatly swished into the wastebasket with an elaborate hook shot. I sat down in my swivel-chair and lit a cigarette.

“Wronwright, why do you eat those things? Bean burritos with jalapeño peppers and habanero sauce! You know the stuff goes through your system like napalm.”

Wronwright eased himself into the visitor’s chair in the manner of a man who thought that there was just a chance that some practical joker had placed a tack or a whoopee cushion on the seat. “I know, I know. I pay for it every time, but they’re so delicious, I can’t help myself. Here,” he said, fishing around in the pocket of his jacket, “you want one? I buy these at a shop down the street. They come in sealed bags, already cooked, so you can microwave them or just eat them right out of the package.”

“Microwave? You gotta be kidding me. You could boil water with one of those things just by dropping it in a pot. Thanks, but no, thanks.”

There was a buzzing noise, and I clicked the switch on the intercom. Sheila’s low, musical voice announced that my 10 o’clock appointment had arrived. “Send ‘em in.”

Wronwright rose to leave, but I stopped him. “Stick around. I might need your assistance on this one; looks like an out-of-state job.”

Wron’s face brightened considerably. “Out-of-state? Do you think I’ll need my…”

“Elvis costume? No, I really don’t think so. This assignment’s up north.”

“Well, how about my…”

“Honduran field marshal’s uniform? No, plainclothes should do.”

Wronwright heaved a disappointed sigh and sat down on the sofa by the wall.

The door to the waiting room opened and Sheila ushered in two short, round, rosy-cheeked seniors. They looked like a couple of extra-large Hummel figurines that had grown old and gray together sitting on someone’s outsized bric-a-brac shelf.

“How do you do, Detective Paco?”, the man inquired, extending a small, liver-spotted paw. “I’m Frederick Stuyvesant, and this is my wife, Minerva.” The wife gave me a nod and a friendly smile. I invited them to sit down.

Sheila, who appeared to have developed an instant fondness for the Stuyvesants, put her hand on the back of the husband’s chair and leaned over to ask if they wanted anything.

Now, one of the most fascinating things about Sheila is this: even when she’s wearing a loose-fitting blouse, as she was that morning, her upper-story charms tend to make the thing look very snug, particularly when the top two buttons are unfastened and she’s leaning over a chair. Mr. Stuyvesant, presented with this unexpected view, began licking his lips, like a hungry bear in front of whom two honey pots had just been dangled invitingly, and his right hand wandered absent-mindedly inside his suit jacket, most likely to give his pacemaker a good thump. Minerva jabbed him in the ribs.

“She means coffee or tea, Freddie. Or maybe a nitroglycerine pill.”

Startled from his reverie, Freddie blushed, coughed politely, took a deep breath (no doubt wanting to inscribe on his mind, forever, the memory of the clean scent of Sheila’s golden hair), and said in a slightly strangled voice, that no, they were fine. Sheila, having done her good deed for the day, smiled and glided out of the office. Freddie, in a display of superhuman effort (I could see the muscles in his neck straining against the temptation), managed to deny himself the supreme pleasure of watching my secretary’s oscillating derriere as she retired from the room.

“Well, Mr. And Mrs. Stuyvesant, I’m flattered that you came all the way from New Jersey to seek my services, but the message you left with my secretary was a little obscure. Perhaps…”

My preamble was interrupted by the rattling of stiff cellophane. “Oh, by the way, that’s my sometime-partner, Mr. Wronwright.” My clients swiveled their heads in the direction of Wron, who had been attempting, with a spectacular lack of success, to discreetly open another packet containing one of his prized bean burritos. He grinned sheepishly and slipped the snack back into his pocket. “Howja do?”

Returning to the business at hand, I continued. “As I was saying, maybe you could fill me in on the details of your problem.”

The Stuyvesants exchanged glances, the wife giving her husband a reassuring nod, and the little man proceeded to elaborate.

“Detective Paco, I’m a retired bank executive, and Minnie and I have a home in Englewood, New Jersey, although we spend a lot of time on a small farm we own in upstate New York. Our place in New Jersey is located next to a house owned by Libya’s U.N. ambassador. As you probably have heard, Muammar Gaddafi is planning on coming to the United States for a meeting at the U.N., and he originally intended to stay in some kind of luxury tent which his people were going to pitch on the grounds of the ambassador’s residence. That idea got scotched because of local complaints – in which Minnie and I joined heartily, I am proud to say – but the Libyan ambassador is still planning on hosting a large reception for Gaddafi at the estate. They’ve even shipped a baby camel to the residence, and I have uncovered the reason.” Freddie’s countenance grew stern; he now looked like an angry Hummel figurine. “They intend to roast that little camel, sir! Roast it and eat it!”

Some vigorous tut-tutting seemed appropriate, so I obliged.

Freddie continued. “Minnie and I have long been involved with both the New Jersey and New York chapters of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, so you can imagine how horrified we were to discover the Libyans’ plans.” He stopped speaking for a moment and nervously ran a finger around the inside of his collar, after which he cleared his throat. I suspected that the conversation was about to take a turn toward some particularly delicate issue. I was right.

“Detective Paco, I hope you won’t be offended by this question, but, ah, I’ve researched some of your very interesting cases, and, er, well…would you characterize yourself as being , um, completely ethical?”

I recognized a trick question when I heard one, but I wanted to hedge my bets. I leaned back in my chair, steepled my fingers, and made with my best man-of-the-world smile. “I have always thought,”, I said blithely, “that honesty is one of the better policies.”

Minnie lurched forward in her chair and blurted out an earnest question. “But not always, necessarily, the best policy?”

“Why, no, Mrs. Stuyvesant. Sometimes, in the pursuit of true justice, we have to bend the rules a little.”

Husband and wife exchanged another of their telegraphic glances. Freddie patted Minnie’s hand; they seemed greatly relieved. Me? I was growing slightly less so. A vague, but ominous, idea crossed my mind that Freddie, when he retired, not content with a gold watch and the well-wishes of his colleagues, had perhaps helped himself to a sack-full of cash and bearer bonds from the vault and was now looking for me to help him flee to Mexico. I comforted myself by contemplating the old axiom that ninety percent of the things we worry about never come to pass. Unfortunately, this case would ultimately wind up being one of those that fall into that infrequent, but not unprecedented, ten percent.

No, he hadn’t stolen any money. After hearing the rest of his story, though, I rather wished that he had.

“Detective Paco, you’re our man! You see, Minnie and I have, in fact, bent the rules, and we want you to help us on our path to…what did you call it?...‘true justice.’ Yes, that’s it. True justice. You have quite a faculty for putting things in just the right way, if I may say so, sir!” Right about then, I would have gladly traded it for the faculty of knowing how to keep my mouth shut. “Let me give you the low-down. Detective Paco, we want you to help us move a hot camel.”

“You want me to …come again?”

“We pinched her! I think that's the word you people in the underworld use, isn’t it?”

Swell. I had just been promoted from private investigator to a fence in the hot camel syndicate.

“You pinched a hot camel?”

“No, no” Freddie corrected me. “The camel didin’t become hot until we stole it. Now that we’ve pinched her, she’s hot.” Freddie was really getting into the spirit of his new life of crime.

“We couldn’t stand by and watch Camilla be slaughtered and eaten…”

Camilla? Of course.

“…so Minnie and I decided to act.” Freddie looked at Minnie, handing her the conversational baton.

“That’s right. The Libyans have a pretty good security set-up – lights, cameras, guards and so on – and there’s a high fence around the grounds. But toward the back, the lawn fades away into a tangle of secondary growth, and a portion of the fence has collapsed. We had made friends with Camilla, passing fruit and hay through the fence, and eventually we managed to lure her toward the gap at the back of the property. Once we got her on our side, we whisked her off to the garage. The Libyans went crazy looking for her, and came to the house twice to ask if we knew anything about it. We told them, emphatically, that we had no idea what had happened to their camel. They went away, but I don’t think they believe us because they’ve got a couple of men watching our place all the time. In fact, I’m sure they believe we’ve got her. Fortunately, our two sons are home visiting and they’re keeping a look out while we’re away from the house.”

Minnie handed the baton back to Freddie. “We want you to help us secretly move Camilla to our farm in upstate New York. We have a lovely place – fifty acres of prime pasture land, ringed about with old forest growth, a spring of crystal-clear water, a few show horses, clean and comfortable barns and out-buildings…”

“And don’t forget the greenhouse, Freddie.” Minnie wiggled with pride as she beamed on her husband. Turning to me, she said, “Freddie has constructed a state-of-the-art greenhouse which contains one of the largest collections of carnivorous plants in the world.”

Freddie simpered and waved away the compliment with a self-deprecating gesture. “Well, perhaps one of the largest privately-owned collections.”

This latest revelation sparked Wronwright’s first contribution to the discussion. “Carnivorous plants? You mean like in Little Shop of Horrors?”

“Oh, no, Mr Wronwright” Freddie reassured him. “That’s just science fiction. My collection consists mostly of venus fly-traps, pitcher plants, that sort of thing. No,” he sighed, with a strange kind of wistfulness, “I’m afraid there are no plants capable of actually capturing and eating humans.”

“So, what you want me to do,” I said, in as level a voice as I could muster, “is help you sneak the camel out of your place in New Jersey, transport her to the farm in New York, and leave the Libyans in the dark. Right?”

“Right,” the couple answered in unison.

“Do you care one way or the other if the Libyans find out that you had the camel, once she’s safely tucked away?”

Freddie and Minnie considered that for a moment. Freddie flashed a pair of raised eyebrows at Minnie; Minnie shrugged. “No,” Freddie said. “After we’ve settled Camilla safely on the farm, I doubt the Libyans would concern themselves any further. The main thing is to get her out of the house. After that, I don’t care what they think”

“Hmm.” I looked at Wrowright and smiled. “Partner, I think you may get to wear a disguise after all.”
* * * *

I laid out a plan of action for my clients. The Stuyvesants would fly to New York, pick up a horse trailer they owned, and drive it to their place in New Jersey, leaving it parked conspicuously in the driveway. Meanwhile, their sons would rent a horse trailer and park it on a side-street in the neighborhood, out of sight. Wronwright and I would pretend to load the camel into the Stuyvesant’s trailer (presumably under the watchful eyes of the Libyans), the Stuyvesants would tear down the road, drop us off on the side-street, and then keep going; my partner and I would wait until we saw the Libyans go by in pursuit. Then Wronwright and I would drive the rented trailer back to the house, put Camilla in it, and proceed at our leisure to the farm. If the Stuyvesants couldn’t shake their pursuers, they were to drive around for an hour or two and then head home. If they were sure that they had lost them, they were to head to the farm, too.

Wronwright seemed a little puzzled. “How do we ‘pretend’ to load a camel in a trailer?”

I threw an arm around his shoulders – as was my custom when trying to convince him to do something that I knew he’d find objectionable – and poured on the flattery.

“Wronwright, that is our challenge. But with you being a master of disguise and all, I’m sure we can come up with something. Perhaps we can discuss that little detail after the Stuyvesants leave.” I turned to our guests. “Mr. and Mrs. Stuyvesant, we will be glad to take on this assignment. Please call me when you get back to New Jersey with the trailer.” Freddie and Minnie departed, wreathed in smiles and sighing in relief (Freddie must have dallied in the anteroom momentarily to pay his respects to Sheila; I heard Minnie say, somewhat querulously, “Come along, Freddie; remember what the doctor said about exciting yourself”).

(To be continued)