diminished only slightly by the location from
which she says it.
“What do you mean you know where she
is?” I ask.
“When I fell in the toilet, I just suddenly
remembered,” she says.
“Remembered what?”
“That before we left for spring break,
Corrina Corrina told me about the vacation
she was going to take with her dad.”
“Did she tell you the name of the hotel?”
“Yeah,” she answers. “The Windy Palms. I
remember because it sounded so pretty.”
I am so happy I could kiss her. hug her.
say, “Good job.”
But first I must pull her from the toilet.
“Molly, this is the most prestigious moment
in the history of detective work.”
“It is?” she replies, drenched in toilet
water.
“It is,” I answer. “You have helped solve
the biggest case of my generation.”
“Oh, my God,” she answers, sounding sud-
denly like Rollo. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I tell
her. “Just change your clothes. And perhaps
freshen up.”
“Why?” she asks. “Are we gonna go catch
her?”
“We are,” I answer. “But first we are going
to do something just as important.”
“What is that?” she asks, her mismatched
pupils wide.
“We’re going to celebrate.”
We are thirty stories above ground at the fan-
ciest, most romantic restaurant in Chicago.
And Molly smells like a grape.
“What’s that funny smell?” I ask.
“It’s my new lotion. I bought it at the hotel
gift shop. It was expensive, but I love it. What
do you think?”
“I think you smell like grape jelly. If I put
peanut butter on your nose, you’d smell like a
sandwich.”
“That’s the most romantic thing you’ve
ever said to me,” she replies, covering her
mouth with her hands.
“Don’t get carried away, Molly Moskins.
This is a professional dinner. A thank-you for
your hard work.”
“But look at the view,” she says. “It’s so
romantic. We should dance!”
“It’s not romantic,” I retort. “And we’re
not dancing! I chose this place because it’s
symbolic.”
“Of what?” she asks.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” she answers.
“That tonight I am at the top of the detec-
tive world!” I declare.
“Me too?” she asks.
“Well, you were of great assistance,” I
answer. “And that is being rewarded now.”
She smiles.
“Thank you, Timmy Failure. I never get to
have dinners like this.”
A waiter in a red jacket and black bow tie
approaches us.
“Have you two decided on what you’d like
for dinner?” he asks.
“Yes,” I answer. “I’ll have French toast
and French fries.”
“Oh, how worldly!” says Molly, clapping
her hands together.
“And for the young woman?” asks the
waiter.
“She’d like the most expensive spaghetti
you have,” I answer. “And spare no expense.
We have a debit card.”
I hold up Molly’s debit card.
The waiter nods.
“And neither one of us will write on the
walls,” interjects Molly.
“Very good,” says the waiter, walking off.
“You didn’t have to tell him that, Molly
Moskins. It’s assumed at high-end establish-
ments like this.”
“Well, I wanted to show him that I was
cultured, too,” she answers.
Molly glances down at her iced tea, then
out toward the Chicago skyline.
I use the opportunity to discuss business.
“I guess I should prepare you for what
happens next,” I tell her.
“We eat my spaghetti like those two dogs
in
Lady and the Tramp
?” She giggles.
“NO, Molly Moskins. I’m being serious.”
“Me too,” she answers, winking. “Okay,
what happens next?”
row’s arrest of Corrina Corrina will be a major
news item. Dozens of reporters. Hundreds of
cameras. And I assume you have precious
little experience with public relations.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “What is it?”
“Dealing with the press,” I answer. “The
photographers. Paparazzi can be very pushy.”
“Will they all be taking pictures of
me
?”
she asks.
“They’ll be taking pictures of
me,
” I
answer. “But you can be in the background.”
She thinks about that.
“They’ll probably want to take pictures
of my pretty eyes,” she says, showing off her
oddly mismatched pupils. “So maybe I should
be in the front.”
“So what happens after that?” asks Molly.
“After what?” I answer.
“After the case is over. And the cameras
go away.”
“Well, after that, you’re famous.”
“So I don’t have to go back?”
“Back where?”
“To my family,” she adds.
“Well, I don’t think it means that,” I
answer. “I think famous people still have
families.”
“But they don’t have
my
family,” she
mutters.
I stare at her, silent.
“They don’t have my brother,” she says.
“And they don’t have my father.”
She pauses.
“And I don’t eat like a horse,” she adds.
I take a sip of my orange juice.
“So maybe you and I can just keep going,”
she suggests. “Like to the next city. And the
next hotel. And the next investigation. And we
never have to look back. You know, because
we’re famous.”
I play with the sugar packets. But say
nothing.
“Aren’t you gonna talk?” she asks.
I look up at Molly, and then back at the
sugar packets.
“Sometimes I don’t want to look
forward,
”
I answer.
She tilts her chin to one side.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“It means what I said.”
“But I don’t get it,” she says.
“It means I had my own reasons for leav-
ing,” I answer. “Okay?”
“You left to catch Corrina Corrina,” she
offers.
“Well, of course that’s why I left,” I answer.
“But it’s more complicated than that.”
“You can tell me, Timmy Failure.”
“No,” I answer. “It’s dumb. And I’m a
detective.”
“So what does that matter?” s
he asks.
“So we don’t have conversations like this.”
The waiter refills Molly’s glass of iced
tea. She waits for him to leave and then leans
across the table toward me.
“You don’t have to be a detective tonight,”
she whispers.
I stare out at the tall buildings.
And then back into her mismatched pupils.
And I reach into my pocket.
“Okay. Fine. I wrote it all down,” I say.
“What?” she asks.
“What I heard at the E-Z Daze Motel. What
Doorman Dave said.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
she says.
“Just read it,” I tell her. “It’ll explain
everything.”
So I pull my detective log out of my pocket
and flip through the pages, looking for the
memo I wrote at the E-Z Daze Motel.
But the memo’s not there. And neither is
the part I cut out.
“I don’t get it,” I say. “I had it tucked
right here in my detective log. It must have
slipped out. Or been stolen. There are thieves
everywhere.
”
“Well, tell me anyway,” she says.
But as she says it, the waiter approaches
with our food.
And Molly stares down at her large plate
of spaghetti. And smiles.
And it is the happiest I have ever seen
her.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “Not tonight. Tonight
we’re on top of the world!”
I hold out my orange juice. Molly clinks it
with her iced tea.
“To first-class spaghetti,” she says.
“To the good guys winning,” I answer.
“They know every place you’ve been,” says a
panic-stricken Rollo Tookus over the phone.
“Rollo,” I respond, “I called you from my
hotel phone simply because I thought our prior
conversation ended abruptly. And I didn’t
want you to worry. But if you’re going to get
hysterical again, you’re defeating the purpose
and we should probably stop talking.”
“You shopped at Wild and Wicked
Costumes,” he interrupts.
Suddenly grabbing my attention.
“Okay, Rollo, what do you know and how
do you know it?”
“Your mom told my mom. It’s the debit
card, Timmy. When you use a debit card, they
can track you.”
I contemplate that. And how Molly has
compromised us with her dreadful debit card.
“They’re
tracking
you,” repeats Rollo.
“Think about it.”
So I think about it.
The costume store for the costumes.
The grocery store for the bonbons.
And the restaurant for the dinner.
But they are the only three places we’ve
used it. And we won’t use it again.
“Perhaps it was sabotage,” I say aloud.
“Perhaps Molly
wants
to get caught.”
“That’s even worse,” Rollo says. “She’s
your partner. Timmy, you need to go back to
your mom.”
I pause.
“No,” I answer, defiant. “Because it doesn’t
matter.”
“What are you talking about?”
“All they know is that I’m somewhere in
Chicago,” I respond. “
Allegedly
. But Chicago is
a very large town.”
I can hear Rollo start to hyperventilate.
“Breathe, Rollo, breathe,” I tell him.
“You’re panicking for nothing.”
“Panicking for nothing?”
counters Rollo.
“Timmy, you’re in really big trouble. You need
to go back to your mom! If you go back right
now, maybe you won’t be in as much trouble!”
“I’m not going back,” I answer. “Tomorrow
is the culmination of a lengthy
—
and, may I
add,
costly —
investigation. A case that is very
high-profile. And a case that
you
gave me. Now
if you’re jealous of the publicity I shall garner
or the fame I will accrue, say it now. Because
I won’t apologize for it.”
“Timmy, stop!”
answers Rollo.
“I’m not
jealous! I just know they’re gonna catch you!”
I hear a large splash.
“Thank you, Rollo, but I have to go.”
“What for?”
“I think someone has fallen into the toilet
again.”
But the noise is not from Molly.
It is from Total.
And he is splashing tub water into the air.
“What are you doing
now
?” I ask.
He points toward an empty box of bonbons.
“You’re out
already
?” I ask. “We had
twelve boxes.”
Total drags his large forearm across the
surface of the tub water, creating a wave that
crashes upon the bathroom floor.
“You’re really pushing your luck!” I tell
him. “Do you realize that?”
“Realize what?” asks Molly Moskins as
she walks into the bathroom, strangely clad.
“And what the heck are
you
wearing?”
I ask.
“My zeeba-striped jammies,” she answers.
“You look like a convict!” I tell her. “Am
I to take this as a subliminal suggestion that
you’ve reverted to your criminal ways?”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “They’re just
comfy. Now where am I sleeping?”
I reassess the sleeping situation.
“Well, there are two beds. And I was gonna
share one with my polar bear and give you the
other.”
“Oh, goodie!” she says.
“But I’ve changed my mind,” I answer.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because he doesn’t deserve a bed. And
you’re now a flight risk.”
“A flight risk?” she answers. “But I’m a
zebra, not a bird,” she answers.
“No, Molly Moskins. It means you could
flee
.”
“Flee?”
“Yes,” I reply. “For your attire has
brought back mixed feelings. Of your criminal
past. And whether your commitment to a law
enforcement future is genuine.”
“It is,” she says. “Though I may steal the
occasional bonbon.”
She pops a handful of bonbons into her
mouth.
“Oh, good God,” I exclaim. “You’ve stolen
again!”
I begin pushing her toward the closet.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“I’m putting you in the closet, Molly
Moskins. I can’t take the risk.”
“What risk?”
“Of you escaping in the night. Or harming
me in my sleep.”
“But there’s no lock on the closet,” she
says, poking her head out of the closet door.
“I c
ould escape and kiss you on the nose while
you’re dreaming.”
I am suddenly nauseous.
“Molly Moskins, promise you’ll do no such
thing!”
I shout, pushing her large head back
into the closet.
“I’m not promising anything,” she answers.
“Unless I get a pillow,” she adds.
I grab a pillow off the bed and throw it
into the closet.
“
All
the pillows,” she says, now resorting
to criminal extortion.
“Curse you, Molly Moskins. It is inhumane
to leave a man without pillows.”
“Fine,” she says, and then makes a puck-
ering sound.
“ARRRRGHH!” I groan, rushing to grab
the remaining pillows. “Here!” I say, tossing
them one by one into the closet. “You are a
menace to society, Molly Moskins.”
“But I’m a comfy menace,” she answers
from behind the closet door.
“It is fortuitous for you that you have done
this on my night of triumph, Molly Moskins.
Otherwise, my patience would not be as
abundant.”
But even abundant patience has its limits.
And those limits are suddenly tested.
Not by a zebra-clad criminal.
But by a moose-head-wearing polar bear,
who steps out of the bathroom and threatens
to make a ruckus in the hotel lobby if he does
not get his bonbons.
“More extortion!” I cry.
But he is too big to shove into the closet.
So I leave to buy the bonbons.
I exit the hotel using the same escape route
Molly and I utilized to get to dinner.
Out the back staircase.
Down the stairs.
Into the alley.
And onto the cool, breezy streets.
Where the crisp wind reminds me of the
changes to come. For me. For the agency. For
my global reputation.
I am tempted to find a phone book right
now and look up Corrina Corrina’s hotel.
And then walk to that hotel, and find her
room, and declare to her that no one can escape
the long arm of the law.
But a night arrest would generate very