The Case of the Missing Water

Sam Shovel reports ...

It was a dark and stormy night when the dame walked into my office. I knew then she was gonna be trouble. Most broads are. She was a knockout. To say she had a face that would have stopped a clock would have been to insult her. It would have stopped a runaway horse. She said, "My name is John, er oops I mean Joanna" and she said it in a deep husky voice that was deeper than a Solihull mineshaft.

"Mr Shovel" she said, "I have an assignment for you. I need someone to track down some missing water. It's a tough job though, and I need someone who really knows what they are doing". She fluttered her eyelashes at me.
"Sure" I said. "Trouble is my business." I stared at her. That's when I noticed the thin line of stubble across her cheek and the hair poking out for her stockings. I began to wonder if this lady was all that she seemed.
"Follow these two to Devon and keep and eye on them. I'm sure they're something to do with the missing water" She threw a couple of mug shots on my desk. While I was distracted for a moment, the dame rushed out of my office. "What about my 12 bucks a day plus expenses?" I shouted. I ran to the window and saw her down in the street getting into a red Landrover and speeding off, burning rubber and putting the pedal to the medal. What gives?

Still, I was intrigued by the mystery dame. I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a paddle. I put them on and went out of the room.

The two mugs were easy to track down. I staked out their house and snuck in the back of their flivver (slang for a Ford automobile -- Ed.) and hunkered down like a stowaway. After what seemed like forever, they got going and head out of town. A while later they pulled over at some kind of food joint, and I thought I was going to be rumbled as the trunk opened up -- would they see me? Would it be the Big Sleep or the Long Goodbye? Luckily, it was neither. A hundred plastic bags came down on top of me and whacked me in the kisser, but I was safe. But what gives with the bags? Was this some kind of smuggling operation? I took a shufti through the first bag. I felt something that made my blood run cold, it was hard like a metal shaft -- gun runners! I tried to keep my head, staying as cool as a cucumber. I pulled out the item from the bag. It was a cucumber.

None of this was making sense. (a bit like this article -- Ed.) Was this about food or water? My buddy Holmes likes to say it's "Alimentary, my dear Watson". Maybe he was onto something. A few hours later the jalopy pulls up outside a building in the middle of nowhere. Maybe this was where we hook up with Mr Big. It was some kind of flop house, with an interior on which a great deal of expense had been spared. And it was lousy with outdoor types hanging round trading tall stories round a fire. I slipped in with the crowd and hung low. One was making a lot of noise about going down to South America. I figured this must be Mr Big himself. These guys really were a smuggling operation! Organised crime!

Maybe I was getting in over my head, but that never stopped me before. I sidled up to a moll to grill her for the lowdown. She was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window. "So what's next, doll? When do we hit the road?" She looked at me. She was unclassifiable, as remote and clear as mountain water, as elusive as its colour. "We'll probably just make it up as we go along" she said, "you know, surf a few waves, boof a few drops, maybe play at the washing machine and the spin dryer." Hmmm. Maybe this isn't as organised as I thought.

I hit the hooch with the rest of them, and next morning I woke up feeling like I was on a slab at the morgue. "Coffee," I said. "Black, strong, and made this year." The cook looked at me like he wanted to put me in a Chicago overcoat. "Make it yourself" he replied. This clearly ain't the Hilton, I thought. I went down the kitchen to make coffee-yards of joe. Rich, strong, bitter, boiling hot, ruthless, depraved. The lifeblood of tired men.

The crew gathered up, ramshackle, and headed on down to the rendezvous site. By now I had gone undercover, making like one these gang of stevedores. I even had my own boat and pole. We were clearly going to be shifting a lot of white goods.

We looked down over the bridge. They all gasped, even the rookies. "It's below the ledge", they said. So this was where the water was missing from! Mr Big was not happy, and some of the others called it a day. Where had all the water gone? Now was my big chance.

I slithered down that creek quicker than a maltese falcon in a rabbit hutch. The obvious deal would be that the water had all gone downhill, so that's where I followed it. After some pretty rapid rapids and some pretty rapids and some creek and paddle and brown sticky stuff episodes, I found myself down the bottom of the river. It clearly went on all the way out to sea. That's where the water went! Sleeping with the fishes! All it needed was a bit of sunshine out in the Atlantic and the water would be back again, wearing a raincoat, but back in business.

Case solved! I found the dame up on the bank, like she was waiting there for me. From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away. She had a skirt on, but it seemed to be made of rubber. Still, a gentleman don't stare so I looked here in the eye and said that I found her water for her.
"Oh, thanks very much," she said. "You wouldn't like to write an article for the newsletter, too?" That's the life of a gum shoe. Just one godamn case after another. I told her she could shove it, but I guess she misheard me. Shovel's the name. See you around sometime.

Written with enormous apologies to the memory of Raymond Chandler.