As the hooting died down, one of the hooters came out of the fog. "Daddy?" he queried weakly.

"I ain't your pa," I shot back. I knew that incestuous mug all too well. It was "Scum" McGillicuddy, a local with a penchant for noodling and a rap sheet as long as a handgun purchase waiting period. As he got closer, the smell of Camel dung gave way to the sickly sweet smell of Hav-a-Tampa nickel rockets and sherry through a rubber hose.

"Whaddyou know about ..." I started to ask, but Scum stopped me cold. "I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies," he said in a low-pitched croak I'd heard too many times in the drunk tank.

"Got any tatoo money?" he added, sweetening up his tone a bit. "No," I replied. "I just got hungry and went out for a bite. Ran into a chum with a bottle of rum and we wound up drinkin' all night."

"Deadbeat," Scum muttered. I turned back into the Byzantine fog. I had bigger fish to fry, but I couldn't quite remember what I was supposed to be using for bait.

Suddenly, as if she was a ghost, she appeared out of the Byzantine fog--it was the dame who'd "hired" me with the counterfeit money.

"Hey darlin'--you getting anywhere on my case?" she asked in a low purr.

"Listen, sister--I'm not in this racket to make your brown eyes blue. I'm a P.I., and I do this for a living. That means I have to get paid--get it sweetie? And I mean with real legal tender, not counterfeit money.

"If you want me to find your brother/son, you're going to have to pay me with real cash money. And I don't come cheap. $25 a day," I said.

"Plus expenses."

The Brice Boys; now there was a pair to draw to. They must be close to fifty now. The Brice Boys were a couple of hell-raising tush hogs who had come to San Francisco from the bayous of Louisiana back in '05. Meaner than Bobby Kennedy and Roy Cohn combined, they had red-dogged the bath houses in the tenderloin for twenty years.

The handsome one, Andre would lure the middle aged patrons out to the alley to show them bootleg Hermes scarves that he kept in the trunk of his '59 Chevy coupe. Just as the mark bent over to more closely examine the goods (only to find a selection of second hand muslin dyed in pastels) Marcel would run up on the hapless victim and shove him into the back end of the Chevy. Marcel would sit in the trunk deck while andre sped though the city and headed north to the Presidio.

I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt. The beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert -- I shook myself out of the daydream. That's Johnny Cash, you plagiarizing, sorry-spelling cheat! I told myself. I needed help. We all needed help.

I dragged myself back to Totsy's, bent on relief. A stiff milkshake or two later, I found myself in a quandry. The strains of the Gatlin Brothers Band faded as I fumbled with my last two quarters, flipping them like Tiddly Winks on the green felt of table #2. Should I coax a few Oak Ridge Boys songs from the Wurlitzer or use the quarters in the payphone? There was only one answer.

It only took five rings, and the lady picked up. Relief was on the way.
"D.A.'s office." She'd said that many times before.
"Starnes, get me Jane Starnes, quick."
"I"m sorry, sir, but Ms. Starnes is not available."
I was losing my patience. "Available? I don't want to marry her, I need her to end the madness!"
"Sir, Ms. Starnes is very busy, and she won't be able to end any madness until after the trial."
"Look, Missy. Jane started this, then the Gilleland/Brumley gang got involved, and now I've found myself trapped in a story with more twists and turns than a fat man's colon. Jane has to stop this madness. It was all her idea."
"You don't have to be rude. Just let me have your number, and I'll leave Ms. Starnes a note about stopping the madness. She'll see the message at lunch. I'm sure she'll be glad to stop the madness as soon as she can."
"Forget it. I'll take a powder and slip Jeff Harper a Mickey. We'll stop this madness somehow."

I gave up on any help from Starnes and walked back home. Home, home -- Friends around the campfire and everybody's high. Talk to God and listen to the casual reply. Help, Jane, Help. See Spot jump. Jump, Spot, jump.

The smell got to my nose long before the knock got to my ears. I opened the door, and there he or it, was. He tried to smile, but the prosthesis that struggled to serve as his lower jaw only allowed a slight quiver of his upper lip.
"Daddy?"
Help, Jane, help.

And then, off he ran, his left peg-leg clacking against the stairs all the way down. Damn banjo players...get a real job. But he had done his job. The gargantuan saltwater catfish he had left flopping against my door spoke volumes to me. Yeah, you two bit punk. I got your message. In certain voodoo religions, a warning might be left with a dead chicken in my doorway. But a live flopping 50 pound catfish on my doormat told me more than I wanted to know.

I just kept tellin' myself, come monday, it'll be allright. Come monday, I'll be holding her tight. I've spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze...

Well, I was in San Francisco and not L.A., but you catch my drift. I ambled back to my one room flat, ready to make it a Bloody Mary Morning.

No sooner had I begun mixing that potion than a knock came on the door. I fished my snubnose .38 out of my jacket pocket and moved slowly towards the door. I'm not the type of fellow who ordinarily gets visitors at his home, such as it is.

Yeah, I know all of the hip young P.I.'s carry Glocks and Sigs and Berettas, guns that hold twenty shots or so. But my snubnose was a gift from my uncle, we called him uncle-brother. That snubnose had served me well and never let me down yet, so I had resisted the move to one of the megashot pistols.

"WHO IS IT?" I gruffly answered in my best back alley voice.

"Starnes. Jane Starnes", came the reply. "I heard you was needing me. And I came running just as soon as you called."

[This message was edited by Greg Gilleland on 09-30-05 at .]

Chapter Two

For her, life had never been easy, in fact it had been downright hard. But in spite of it all, she maintained that sunny disposition, that positive outlook, but always, always with that edge that told you, "I'm a good girl, but I can go bad, oh so bad."
A girl who starts her life in an Airstreamer deep in the woods of East Texas rarely has a chance. For most girls like her, the future means a hubby and a mess of kids by 15, having their own singlewide, parked on mama and daddy's property, and a solid night job at Wal Mart. But this girl was different. She had spunk.
And the day she walked into that smoky office to look for her son/brother, was the day she decided - she had had enough.

But, she wasn't really sure if she'd had enough in the way that makes you change your whole life, or just in that way where you 'fill out a protective order, complain about not getting the help you deserve for a week or two, then fall back in love with him'.

She'd heard in the paper that there was a couple down at the hurricane shelter complaining that they didn't want the free Taco Casa meal provided and demanded McDonalds instead. Momentarily she'd thought for certain that had to be a long lost relative of her mother's, until she read they weren't even from Louisiana at all, just from the next town over.

So, it was back to square one, a private-eye, her best bottle of knockoff perfume, (applied with a ladel) and her daddy's emergency bail money. She didn't know much about this 'Templeton' fellow, but she liked his name. It reminded her of that little town North of Seattle where her Uncle was caught smuggling pot. There was a fancy indian casino there she'd loved as a child where Uncle Pete would leave her during the late nights when he was 'doing business'. She couldn't remember the name now though.

Noodling. Fishing at its most elemental level. Just a buck-nekkid red-neck, waist deep (thank God) in a slow moving river...a beer in one hand...feeling along the bank with the other for a sleeping catfish or (the Lord willing) a largemouth bass. When calloused fingers meet with partially-opened slime covered fish lips, a quick lunge forward into the fish's gaping mouth means fish for dinner...or, if done wrong, the loss of a finger tip to a startled bottom feeder. The Brice Boys were legends for noodling with a beer in one hand and a Marlboro in the other. Natural selection at work, if you ignore the fact that the Brice Boys have single-handledly kept a Title IV-D Master at work in the County. Today they were only drinking beer. But from the sounds coming up from the bottom side of the bridge, Bob Earl Brice may have just lost another finger tip. (It was the loss of Bob Earl's entire middle finger several years back in an unfortunate noodling incident that permited him a successful alibi to a charge of disorderly conduct after he waved hello to Reserve Deputy Constable Cleotis Cutbirth, who was running radar on the dirt road out to the caliche pit where the Sheriff's Department blows up forfeited vehicles and retired road-and-bridge pickups under a grant from Homeland Security as part of their readiness training for local terrorist attacks. As Reserve Deputy Constable Cutbirth testified during the two day trial in JP Court, "I coulda swore I saw a finger." When asked why he continued to pursue the charge after discovering that Bob Earl did not have the required digit, Reserve Deputy Constable Cutbirth replied, "Well, Sir...it's for the jury to decide what I did or did not observe. I wouldn't want to comment on the evidence.")

Oops. I posted after reading to the bottom of page one. I didn't realize the thread went on to page two. I keep getting distracted by work and stuff. I'm reading page two to see if that makes any difference.

Yet somehow she had survived that marriage to Bob Earl -- her third, his second, not counting the two sisters he shacked up with after returning from Viet Nam. Nights at the casino whiled-away with crayons and Barbie dolls while Uncle Pete did his laundry, her toddling years spent in an Airstream that resembled a silver suppository and ladling perfume on her tired body weren't enough to keep her from completing dental assistant school and graduating with honors, no less.

Working with the doc, that's how she met Bob Earl. It was a whirlwind romance: a man with a gumline cavity and pieces of pork ribs caught between his molars, Bobby swept her off her feet. It was a combination of his good job at the used tire store and the way he could yodel with a mouthful of chewing tobacco. He wasn't too hard on the eyes, either. As long as he kept his head turned to the side -- the skin grafts never did take real well on the right. But that left side, honey, pure Elvis. And those Friday nights...ecstacy. Love in the pine forest: he'd stretch out on the floor and prop his mouth open with a 50 caliber shell he brought back from the jungle while she flossed all 12 of his teeth with fishing line.

Things would have worked out if he hadn't gotten squirrely and told her that noodling for catfish was for sissies, that if she really loved him, she'd go after some stingrays down in Galveston Bay.

Now, she was alone -- no dental job, no man and the last memory of Templeton an ugly picture of sherry and a rubber hose.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

"Sit down, Cortes, I'll get the door." said Jane.

"WHO IS IT?" Jane said in her best back alley voice.

"Telegram...Telegram for Cortes Templeton!" came the response from the other side of the door.

Jane signed for the telegram, slipping a twenty from her bra and tipping the telegram delivery boy generously.

"Here sonny. Don't spend it all in one place" Jane said as she stuffed the bill in the delivery boy's shirt pocket.

"Give it to me, Jane. It's addressed to me. I want to read it first. I wasn't expecting a telegram. I was hoping it was that case of sherry I ordered yesterday from the drive-through liquor store" said Cortes as he ripped the envelope open.

Templeton strode over to the window where the light was better. The early morning fog had lifted both from his brain and the the sinuous streets below.

He looked down to read the telegram and as he did, something on the sidewalk in the middle distance caught his eyes: it was the Horsewafer, plodding up the street and staggering under the weight of fifteen boxes of quality mouse-brown colored housecoats and three of what her husband Fernando used to call his "pickmeups." Her evil mutt Reggie trailed in the wake of her cigarette, whose smoke was wafting up into the noonday sky and setting the roosting pidgeons to dreaming of far off Araby and icons of Constantine's mother.

Just abaft of the Horsewafer were two earnest young men wearing fedoras, rep ties and clenched jaws. They appeared to be following the Horsewafer and Reggie at a respectable distance. One look told Templeton that these were T-men.

Ah, yes. The Horsewafer had collected her rent, allright. She had gone on a mini shopping spree and now the piper had his hand out. Just as the lawmen crossed the street and the one on the left drew his foot back to administer a dose of salts to Reggie, a speeding, candy-apple red '59 Chevy coupe bore down on the intersection.

Marcel saw the problem before Andre and began to yell at him, cursing loudly in the Cajun dialect they invariably used to communicate with one another, "Watch out dat man-boy! Watch out dat dog! Howcome it smell lik' camel dung here around?"

Alas, Marcel's warning was too late. Reggie turned and fastened his teeth firmly on the T-man's ankle just as the coupe flashed into view. Andre cut the wheel hard and for the next few seconds the air was filled with Marcel yelling, Reggie snarling, one T-man moaning, the other calling on the almighty to hear how he would deal with the Brice Boys, fifteen mouse-brown housecoats and the rapid slap-slap of the Horsewafer's mules as the yelled, "Good BOY!" and disappeared around the corner.

"Cortes," said Jane, "let's get one thing straight. You're a drunk, not an alcoholic. You know why? Because you don't go to meetings."

"What was that awful noise outside?" moaned the 2 1/2 sheets to the wind Templeton.

"Oh, that. That was that old bat sh*t crazy landlady of yours, Horsewafer. She's roadkill now, you lucky bastard. That will get you at least a month's reprieve on the rent." Jane slipped her hand deftly into the petty cash drawer and helped herself its slim pickings and tucked it into her bra. That old drunk would never notice. She'd been with him for 6 years, and he had no clue what she'd been getting away with. He didn't care, either. As long as she brought home the bacon, and kept his ex-wife, his drug-addict daughter, his Aryan Brotherhood stepson, and the IRS off of his butt.

"Yea, babe, I'm a drunk alright. But, the way I figure it, you've got about 18 dollars and right at 67 cents stuffed in your boulder holder. That's not counting the Walther PPK and the throwing star, oh yes and that Mamas and the Papas album, that you like to flash around so much." Cortes was on a roll -- a Kaiser roll, extra sesame seeds.

"So, go ahead chickie...call me names. Put one more thing in that Maidenform and you'll need one of Schlumberger's cranes to keep you upright."

"You, you ... you big ninny! You've got your nerve, mister. Where's my umbrella, I'm going to let you have it buddy! Oh, here it is, almost scratched my album, lucky for you it didn't!"

Templeton got back to the business of reading the telegram. It was hard to get a good read on it, with the letters moving and all.

He saw it was from Cheeves Flatlander, Esq., the local attorney. Cheeves went through wives like other men had ties. He was in his 50's, but wore his hair like loose and shoulder length like a surfer. Even in his 50's, the blonde hadn't given way to gray, except in the roots. He drove around town in a slick sportscar with a catchy plate so all the girls would know he was a lawyer. And, he never missed an opportunity to hit on the young ones, the twenty-somethings that were lonely, looking for Mr. Right. He'd perfected his pick up lines over the years. He always started by bemoaning his fate as the busiest lawyer in the Bay Area, making too much money and no one to spend it with. They would fall, hook, line and noodler. He would discard them like a tissue, but there were always more, seeing him in his shark-skin suit, buffed up black cowboy boots, and toothy grin.

The telegram implored that Templeton reach him immediately! Stop. Bobby Earl had died in a tragic accident, and they were looking for his Mrs. and his kid.Stop.

Cheeves was always the master of the understatement. Templeton picked up the phone and called Cheeves. Some throaty sounding bimbo answered the phone, moaned, and handed the phone to a breathless sounding Flatlander. Templeton learned that Bobby Earl died in a tragic accident. He was out noodling with the boys and got caught up in an undertoe. He was a swimmer of olympic strength, and got out of the undertoe, but too late to turn back, he was at the dam. The current took him under, and ground him through the energy turbines like a frog in a blender. He was spit out the other side, resembling a good chicken cilantro sausage. Colonial Penn was about to pay out big, with the accident rider and all, and had hired Flatlander to administer the monies. Flatlander wanted to hire Templeton, and would pay his full daily rate of $25.00 plus expenses. Templeton accepted, and wondered how he would find his client, and how he could keep her whereabouts a secret for about a week so he could pad his bill.

Reggie watched from the alleyway as the medics shoved the sheet draped gurney and a number three washtub that bore the remains of the Horsewafer into the back of the ambulance. No need for lights and sirens now. Meantime, in the foreground, the T-man on the left was having a rather nasty wound on his ankle cleaned and dressed.

Reggie grunted with approval. The Horsewafer had eluded the T-men and moved beyond the danger of Andre and the Chevy coupe but she had run slap into the path of a trolly.

Around the corner, the T-man on the right was yelling into a payphone trying to get a name to go with the license number he had scrwled on his shirt cuff. The place was crawling with local cops and the general gaggle of gawkers such a scene draws.

"Free at last!" the hound exulted as he turned with a jerk and trotted off toward the golf couse that ran along the east bay. The footing there was perfect for hunting, game abundant and he had always liked the high lonesome sound of the gray seals out on the rocks. It reminded him of banjo music. Besides, the fresh ocean air was bound to clear his sinuses of the odor of camel dung.

On the street, just near a purse, its contents scattered in the gutter like so many A&M fans after losing to Baylor, sat the T-man on the left. He picked up a loose photo as he absentmindedly rubbed his anke. There, staring back at him, was a much younger Horsewafer. She was holding a baby and beaming back at the camera. She stood in front of the Mary Baker Eddy home for Foundlings. Just to her right and a few feet behind stood a longish-haired refugee from Huntington Beach with the unmistakable air of a shyster about him.

"Cortes Templeton, no surfing until you eat all of your green beans".

From the tone in his mother's voice, he knew she meant it.

"But mom, Jane is downstairs waiting for me and she'll leave without me. I won't be able to catch the really big ones unless I leave now".

"Cortes, you're lucky I let you go surfing at all, after losing your older brother to the undertow in Galveston and all. I moved halfway across the country to try to keep you out of the water, hoping the San Francisco water would be too cold for you to become a surfer. But no, you had to meet that girl Jane and buy a wetsuit and try to be a world class surfer. I'll fix your wagon, I've arranged a marriage with a defense attorney's daughter for you. No more Jane Starnes, no more surfing for you."

His Mother continued "And don't go whining about your Father and his legacy. Your Father is doing five to fifteen in Chino because he couldn't stop drinking and driving. Your Father. He says his drinking is a disease, but you tell me what part of alcoholism it is that makes him get behind the wheel of a car and drive after he's been drinking. So he won't be at the wedding."

"The only thing your daddy left us was alone. That and that old rusty Mastertone Banjo sitting up there in the corner of the kitchen" she finished.

[This message was edited by Greg Gilleland on 10-02-05 at .]

As she contenplated my fee, I looked her over with my trained P.I.'s eye. I always used my high school ag teacher's 7 step method in evaluating a heifer to be a replacement mama cow in your herd.

"First," Mr. Bois always told us, "look at her head. Is it feminine?" It was, with wide spaced eyes, and a Roman nose.

"Second," he told us, "does she have big ears? You want that--good heat and disease resistance."

Her jug ears were big enough to hold several earrings at the same time. A lot of heat and disease resistance there.

"Third," Mr. Bois always said, "how well sprung is her chest? You want lots of breathing room."

She sure had that.

"Forth," he said, "she needs a clean bottom line; not drawn up or paunchy."

She had a stomach as flat as a Lubbock ranch.

"Wide hips, boys, means fewer calving problems," Bois always told us.

You wouldn't have to pull any calves with her hips.

"You want good, clean legs, and good feet, so she can hustle when times are lean," Boise always told us.

She had a good pair of gams. Her feet were enscounced in a pair of running shoes, but they looked pretty normal. I already knew she could hustle.

"A mama cow has to feed her little one, so always look for a heifer with a good udder," he always told us.

Judging from her sweater, I'd say she could keep triplets fat and happy.

As we stood facing each other in the Byzantine fog, with the sound of a tug boat's mornful horn on the bay, and a banjo picker's lament coming thru the gloom I knew one thing: she'd make a good mama cow--if she were of the bovine persuasion.

As I looked her up and down, I recalled my old Ag teacher constant refrain, "Boys, always keep this cardinal rule: no matter how much you like a heifer, you can always pay too much for her. Be prepared to walk away if the price is too high, or you'll be taken to the cleaners."

I was about to violate Cal Bois's cardinal rule.

The T-men were at odds. The T-man on the right was all for lighting out after the Brice Boys and the coupe. The T-man on the left was all for waiting for the cover of darkness and slipping into the Horsewafer's apartment for a look-see.

"Look at the scrollwork on these twenties," he said as he waved the bills, "This is good work." The T-man on the left needed a good bust the way a hog needs slop. The way Garcia needs Vega. This was a ticket to promotion and shutting up that smart-aleck brother-in-law of his. "If the printshop is in that apratment we'll be in washinton for the good duty in no time!"

Time for a title don't ya think? I propose:

NEKKID CAME THE NOODLER

(I use the double kk spelling in honor of the great american humorist Lewis Grizzard, RIP)