STATISTICALLY SLIM

Larry and Rosemary Mild

The glass on my front door reads “Slim O. Wittz, Private Investigator.” How I became a shamus ain't all that exciting. Let's just say I got a smell for it. As for the moniker Slim, I ain't no Sidney Greenstreet—just a shade pudgy, but I'm working on it. I'm trying to eat all the right things, too. There's a catch, though. How the heck can I take time from a stakeout to go food shopping? What if the cops catch me spooning away on some diet yogurt, or the bad guys find rice cake crumbs all over my lap? I'd never live it down. Those guys are like elephants—they don't ever forget.

Voluptuous, that's my secretary's name. The leggy blonde with the turquoise eyes and firehouse lipstick smile answers to the name of Vo. That babe has got real smarts too—she even goes to night school. She's got the big desk over there by the window—something to do with her plants. Besides, she spends more time in the office than I do. Vo supposedly works for me, but she don't do groceries, coffee, or windows. That's because she's one of them liberated-type dames. So I gotta find the time to shop for myself. Maybe it's just as well. I know what I like. Besides, that broad would be substituting stuff she thinks I need.

The case I'm working on don't have a paying client, unless you count me. I'm the client here because there's some kind of conspiracy going on and yours truly is the victim. Know what I think? You can put the yellow crime scene tape around the whole damned supermart down the street. Yeah, something's weird at the Gyant-Lyin store. Stuff that I need is always disappearing from the shelves. The rest, the stuff nobody in their right mind would buy, stays on the shelf forever, collecting dust. And that ain't the worst of it. Whenever I enter one of them aisles between the goodies, I get this weird feeling that someone's put the tail on me. It's like someone's giving me the once-over all the time, keeping track of what I buy. Then the next time I come in to get the same item, it's flown the coop. Swoosh —like magic, my favorite thing is gone. No reason given, just swoosh .

It began even before I went on my diet. I remember the day the bristles started to fall out of my hairbrush. I like using a man's brush instead of a comb—it's gentler on my scalp. Anyhow, I need a new brush, only now there ain't any on the shelf where they always were before. The clerk tells me they don't make 'em anymore. I outsmarted them that time by getting a shoe brush. If I hear another crack about shining up my bald spot, I'll pop you one. I got this receding hairline all right, but mind you, I ain't no Yul Brynner neither. And try to find a polo shirt with pockets now that cigarettes are out of vogue. Where am I supposed to keep my glasses?

Frozen desserts—Lite, Fat-Free, Lo-Carb, and on and on: they're my biggest gripe. Every time I find a flavor I like, Abracadabra! It goes missing like my grandpa's teeth. Then there's the White Fluff toilet tissue issue. The manufacturer swiped every last roll, but left a note, “Try our Cutsie brand instead.” I never did see the sneaky crook, the Benedict Arnold, not face to face, anyway.

I was squeezing tomatoes over in produce and mumbling about my losses, and this gorgeous tomata with the luscious melons overhears me. This dame with hair the color of ripe red rhubarb claims it happens to her, too. Whew! I thought this thing was a personal vendetta. Don't know how widespread this caper is. It may be spreading to other stores, like measles. Then, again she might just be making conversation.

Today I come prepared. I bring this dish towel with me, so when I covertly slip a box of Applenut Triangles off the shelf and into my grocery cart, no one can see me do it. I'm usually pretty good when it comes to sneaky capers. Sometimes, even I don't know what I'm doing. Suddenly, some tall geezer in a trench coat ambles down the aisle, hesitates near my cart, and attempts to look over my shoulder. I block his view, so he can't see bubkes . He moves on and disappears around the corner. Swiftly, I tuck the Applenuts undercover. Just then, some skirt sashays down the aisle behind me carrying a bundled blanket over her shoulder. She seems to be just strolling, but directly opposite my cart, she stops, shifts the bundle to her opposite shoulder, and flips up the blanket. What do ya know? It's a baby wearing a hidden diaper-camera! Yech! Something smells in Denmark . Is her mom taking a picture of me and my cart? Good grief, look who's getting paranoid now. She and her baby spook slip out of sight behind the Pampers pyramid.

There and then I make this big decision to follow her. I leave the cart behind and hurry to the end of the aisle. The skirt and sure-shot tot are gone. I check a few more aisles—vanished, just like the bowl cleaner stuff. By now I'm more frustrated than Tom Dewey in '48. I head back to my cart only to see a short guy with a clipboard stop at my cart, give it the once-over, and then tiptoe to the next break in the aisles.

“Hey!” I yell. “Hey you! Stop!”

The guy keeps moving, then he too disappears. I run after him. At the break I look left—nothing. I look right—nothing. And then I look down at my feet. This short guy with the clipboard is sitting on the floor between the sauerkraut and the relish, all curled up and shivering like a beach bunny at the North Pole.

“Don't hit me. Please don't hit me.” He cowers with his hands over his face.

“Why would I hit you? What were you doing in my cart?”

“I didn't take anything. I swear it.” He lowers his hands, revealing a bald head and a small round face flushed nearly the shade of the ketchup on the shelf behind him. Nervously, he straightens the black bow tie on his short-sleeved white shirt.

“Then why were you there?”

“I'm taking a survey?” His voice trails up at the end.

“That sounds more like a question. Ain't you sure?”

“Honest, it's the truth. Why would I lie?”

“How should I know?” I ask. “Maybe if I take you outside and rough you up a bit, you'll come clean with me.”

“No, no, don't do that! I'll talk.”

“Go ahead then, talk. My ears are listening.”

He clears his throat. “I had to find out what products you selected. It's what I'm paid to do.”

“Why pick on me?” I ask.

“I can't help it if you live in a test area and you're one of our statistically perfect samples,” he whines.

“How come if I'm so perfect, you keep pulling my favorite stuff off the shelves?”

“You're not like any of our other samples, sir.”

“Do you work for the store?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, who do you work for then?” My simmering temper edges toward a rolling boil.

“A private consumer testing agency.”

“They got a name?”

“Consumer Habits, Inc., sir. They're one of the biggest.”

“And nosiest. Let me see your clipboard.”

He clutches it close to his chest: “Oh, no, sir, that's top secret. If I let you look at it, your inadvertent bias will ruin a whole universe of statistically correct data. I can't let you do that. My reputation and the company's will be trashed. Our credibility will fall below that of the former President of the United States .”

“You can't, eh?” I stare at him with my steeliest eyes and begin to rub my hands together as though I have finally reached the fun part.

He slowly pushes the clipboard toward me. “Well, if you promise not to tell anyone that I showed it to you.”

I make no such promise. Instead, I snatch the board from his shaking hands and take a gander at it. “Where'd you get my name and telephone number?”

“I found your check underneath the cash drawer in register number six.”

My blood pressure pushes up the bulb. “I expect my business transactions to be between the store and me. My name, address, telephone number, and selections aren't up for grabs. What ever happened to privacy?”

“You don't have any, sir,” he blurts out. “There's this law that says your privacy belongs to anyone who asks for it—unless you deny it specifically in writing and provide additional personal data, including your Social Security number and your mother's maiden name.”

I shake my head and lift the cover sheet on the clipboard, expecting to find some other poor schlemiel ' s sheet directly beneath mine. I don't find any other completed sheets. “Why is this only about me and my choices? Why aren't there any others in this survey?”

“The undisputed results from the last survey indicated that you are the perfect statistical sample.”

“You already mentioned that.”

“I know. The results showed that you clearly represent the group that chose those products least likely to succeed. So I was selected to observe your shopping habits exclusively. Anything you choose is subsequently pulled from the shelves. The company finds it cheaper that way. Surveys cost big bucks, and I came up with this way to save money. I got a raise, too.”

“And how do you think I feel about this—all my favorite things taken away from me? Mr. Negative—that's who you think I am.” This little pipsqueak has gotten under my skin and he's going to pay for insulting both my good taste and intelligence: “Get up!” I command. I grab him by both shoulders, wrench him to his feet, spin him around, and push him toward the back of the store.

“Where are you taking me?” he squeals.

“You'll see. By the way, what's your name?”

“Why do you want to know that? Are you going to get me in trouble with my boss?”

“I want to know the brand of what I'm taking off the shelf. So are you gonna tell me?” I squeeze his shoulders harder with my fingers—so hard my nails dig in.

“Ow! It's Frank, Frank Whimpert! Please, you're hurting me.”

We reach the rear of the store and a large white door.

“Go ahead,” I growl, “open it. Both of my hands are busy.”

The wuss looks up at the sign on the door and nearly melts into his socks. The sign reads “Trash Compactor.”

Just inside the door I prop the little guy up and drag him to a chair. I pick up an empty soda can from the recycle bin and toss it into the compactor. The machine senses it and makes this grating, booming, and crunching noise as the metal is sucked into its gut. Wimpert's frightened eyes pop wide at the noise.

“Know what?” I snarl. “I want out of this damn survey thing. You go find some other patsy for your fun and games.”

“I g-g-get your drift, sir. M-m-maybe I can help you.”

“Oh, yeah? This I gotta hear.”

“M-m-my boss has a warehouse. She buys up job lots of the stuff taken off the shelves and retails them as rare commodities at exorbitant prices.”

“That can't be legal,” I protest. “Who would buy such merchandise?” I throw another can in the mechanical mouth to maintain Whimpert's level of interest. Scrrrunch! Ka-boom! Poof! Swoosh! The can is sucked into oblivion, and the impact on my hostage is spellbinding.

Whimpert looks away from the bellowing compactor, then back at me. “My boss has a whole list of statistically perfect losers—you should excuse the expression—like yourself. Now she's doing them a favor, offering to sell them the missing products, and the losers are very willing to pay. My boss lives quite high, so she must be successful. She's definitely defrauding the product manufacturers. The selling part is more than a stretch, and her pricing scheme sure is pushing the envelope.”

“Where's this warehouse of hers?” I have another used soda can ready, but instead of throwing it in, I merely flip it around in my hand. I have his complete attention now.

“It's near the tracks. I hear trains when she phones me from there.”

I gotta know more about this broad, so I ask him, “What's she look like?”

He tells me she's a looker—stretched-out, leggy, and a sharp dresser. He adds that she's got a load of shiny black hair and wears it loose. I tear a blank form off his clipboard and tell him to write all the particulars about his boss and her office address on the back. When he finishes, I turn a grateful Frank-the-wimp loose.

That night I call the boss at her home. Her name is Merle Irons. I give the dame my name and explain I'm one of her statistical samples. I don't want to get Whimpert in trouble, so I tell Miss Irons I got her name and number from one of the other sample suckers who want to remain anonymous.

“Can I see some of your merchandise, check out all your goodies?” I ask.

“Down, boy, can't do that, hon.” Her words float out of the phone like a mellow cello. “What did you have in mind?”

I give her some examples of the precious items I've been missing from the shelves—a man's hairbrush, polo shirts with pockets, White Fluff tissue, fat-free cherry-chocolate yogurt, et cetera. I'm too embarrassed to tell her about the Geritol, so I omit it from my list. Miss Irons murmurs sympathetically, but says I can't come to the warehouse. She'll call me when she gets the stuff I mentioned—should be sometime tonight. We agree on pricing, and she hangs up.

I need to get Bessie, my '92 Buick, out of hock. The thirteen-year-old buggy is ready for its Bat Mitzvah. So at the office I borrow some money from Vo, who gets a ten percent pay hike if I don't return the funds by the end of the month. The collateral's got me by the gonads, but there's no arguing with that broad.

I hightail it over to the company address that I weaseled out of Whimpert. I park across the street a few doors down and wait in the car for Miss Irons to emerge from her habitat. It's a two-story brick office complex with head-in parking for five cars. The lettering on several windows of the second floor tells me I got the right address. I'm here because I need the business and I think I can sell my investigative services to some or all of the product manufacturers she's defrauding. I don't think their management will appreciate anyone nixing perfectly good items just to sell them in an underground market.

Since I don't know how long I'll have to wait for this dame, I start munching on a stale slab of mushroom-and-spinach quiche. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as my mouth is full, I see a bozo in uniform making like a toy soldier. He's coming over to my car. I'm parked in front of this luxury apartment building, and the doorman may have some objections to my being there. I dump the crumbling quiche in my lap and await his greeting.

“Move that multicolored pile of junk out of here, buster. Can't you see this is a respectable neighborhood?”

I ignore the diss to my trusty wheels, reach under the dashboard for my garage door opener, and shove it against my right ear. My lips silently recite Mary Had a Little Lamb for his benefit .

“Sorry, officer, hadta make this emergency phone call, so I pulled over to the curb to make it safe.” I salute him respectfully with my left hand and continue the ovine-speak with the garage opener.

The doorman wants to say something more challenging, but finds his brain in a traffic jam with his mouth. So he shakes his head, puffs up his chest, and marches back to his precious station. Like a Catskills comedian says: “Doormen are part door.”

All the while I keep an eye on the Consumer Habits office on the second floor across the street. There's a light on, and a window is open. I finish off the finger-food mess on my lap and brush the crusty remainder onto the floor. Suddenly, this vision of loveliness comes to the front window, reaches up, and slides it shut. She scans the street below and then cuts off my peep show by pulling the blinds. A minute later the light goes out, and quicker than you can say Dashiell Hammett, the door to the street opens and Merle Irons herself pours into view, only partially covered by her plunging peasant blouse and mini-skirt.

My eyes track the young goddess with the Pantene hair. Approaching a yellow Firebird, she slides her chorus-girl legs in and roars away. Apparently, the excitement is too much for my Bessie. She coughs, then floods. After two more tries and a half-minute wait to the tune of a few choice words, her engine catches. I rumble off down the street and ease in behind the Firebird at the first traffic light. When the light changes, I tail at a professional distance. I don't want this dame to get suspicious.

Merle leads me across town at a leisurely pace, and soon I see the train tracks. We cross over at Hickory Street and take the first right. She stops in front of a huge cement and corrugated steel warehouse. I extinguish my lights and park at the corner. Merle sheds the Firebird, climbs the concrete steps, and unlocks a metal security door. As soon as she disappears into the building, I'm out of my car and tripping up those same steps. Through a grated window, I see a distant light come on, maybe in another room—at least, I hope so. Luckily, the only other lock is a deadbolt, and since the dame didn't relock either one after herself, I slip in behind her.

The first room is darker than a coal miner's lunchroom and filled with cartons of every shape and size—the missing products, I presume. The light in the distance is shining from a makeshift office propped up on a ten-foot platform with a flight of grillwork steps going up to it. I hear a rotary phone being dialed and then the goddess gabbing on it, but not what she's saying. I slip in behind a row of palettes containing giant cartons and creep behind them to the left edge of the building. I then snake my hefty torso forward along the not-so-new and non-improved stuff until I'm in the space just under the office.

I can hear pretty well now, and what I hear disturbs me. The beauteous Miss Irons seems to be dealing in smuggled Asian antiques and using the nixed product business as a front. On the phone she's spelling out all the specifics. She even repeats the Swiss bank account number as she jots it down on paper. I thank my lucky stars I take my Ginkoba regularly, so I easily memorize all the incriminating stuff. She hangs up and dials again. This time the subject is about a ship, the Ito Maru , due to dock on Friday. I can hear only one side of the discussion, so all I can figure out is they're working out some pickup arrangements.

The area is dimly lit by an EXIT sign with a broken lens, and I see my shadow projected onto a carton of Oxydol soap powder sitting several feet in front of the steps. I quickly move away from the light to crouch behind an open carton of Ipana toothpaste, but in my hurry I stomp on some broken glass. Immediately, the talking stops, and she ends the call. I hear her move out onto the staircase landing. Her magnified shadow tells me she's toting a small-caliber piece. I can see her just above me through the open grating. By now, I'm wishing I'd brought my .45, but statistically, this isn't the kind of case that calls for firepower.

“Who's out there?” Merle booms, in percussion this time. No more mellow cello. She sweeps her Beretta back and forth, covering the entire warehouse floor. “I know you're out there. I can hear you. I've got a gun, so you'd better show yourself.”

I open the Ipana carton and slip a tube of toothpaste out of its box. Waving the tube in front of the broken EXIT sign comes off like I'm pointing a gun, and the effect ain't lost on Merle. She squeezes off three quick shots at the moving shadows and starts down the steps in her stiletto heels. Silently, I creep forward. Through the open steps, I reach for her nylon-covered leg and latch onto her ankle like a mongrel chomping on a Porterhouse bone. She screams as her body topples forward. I let go, and she bumps and tumbles down the remaining stairs. She drops the piece. It slides across the open floor, lodging out of reach beneath a loaded palette.

I have to admire this view of Miss Irons sprawled out cold on the floor in front of me. Aside from the fully exposed gams and bikini undies, I check out the rest of this dame. I ain't no Dr. Kildare, mind you, but I don't find any fresh blood or serious head injuries. Merle starts to come around now, moving all of her limbs, so I figure there's no broken bones either. Awake, her first move is to cover up her sudden exposure—just when things were getting interesting.

Hoisting Merle to her feet, I prod her back up the stairs to the office. Lucky for me, I find a spindle of heavy duty packing cord on the desk. I truss her up like a heifer—my special delivery package for the cops—and pick up the phone to call them.

“Hey, handsome, put down the phone and let's talk. Don't you want to know what's in it for you?”

She's playing her sweet tones again and I'm her audience. “What're you offering, toots?” I smile back at her.

She forms a smooch on her lips, like I haven't swallowed enough of her bait yet.

“Me! All of me, honey, and there's always a slice of the pie, pretty boy.”

Now I ain't the most moral and honest citizen around. Sure, I like operating between the sheets just as much as the next hombre. And I might try to use a postage stamp more than once or take a good poke at somebody, but this smuggling business is out of my league. I got some scruples, in spite of what you might think of me.

So don't go getting your patooties all in an uproar—I call the cops. The suits with badges get here about twenty minutes later, and I spill the whole shebang. It turns out to be the big break in a case they've been milking for months. For the most part, they're grateful. But one bust-your-beeswax suit hauls me in on a breaking-and-entering charge. I never get along with this long-toothed galoot. So I make my one allowed call to Vo at her home. I tell her to come down with a lawyer and bail me out.

Near midnight, Vo, in a classy pants outfit, shows up alone at the precinct just before I'm tossed in the holding cell.

“Where's my lawyer?” I demand.

She fluffs her platinum blonde curls. “Not to worry,” she whispers in my ear. “I'm a second-year law student.”

My secretary, would you believe, begins to question my accuser. “Was there a sign on the door indicating that it's a place of business?”

“I suppose so,” the galoot replies. “But it was after hours.”

“Were those hours posted anywhere in sight?”

“Not that I noted,” he snaps.

“Were you aware that the door was left unlocked?”

“How the hell would I know that?”

“You got in, didn't you?” she counters.

“I suppose so. What are you—some kind of lawyer or something?”

“Yeah, something,” she answers “Don't you think your evidence is kind of thin? Where's the breaking-in part?”

The galoot reluctantly unlocks my cuffs and shoves me toward the door. I want to give him a piece of my mind, but Vo signals for me to keep what's left of it out of trouble. I realize now why I pay her a decent salary. In addition to her delicious looks, she's got a bundle of smarts and she's a mouthpiece to boot—well, almost one, anyway.

As we walk out, I slide my arm around her curvaceous waist. She throws me this stink-eye look and wiggles free. Just my luck—she's taken off the shelf too.