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By Sam Pollard -- 4/00
Woke up one morning, discovered I was a bum. My clients - even the ones who never paid - had all deserted me. I had no friends. My family didn't want to know me. Frank Bum, P.I., that was me.
One thing I learned long ago - the earlier in the day someone rings you, the more troubled they are. I doubt I've taken more than a couple of calls after lunch that were anything worse than a lost Tiddles, or another dumb fidelity rap. It's the a.m. stuff that's tricky.
It started with the phone ringing before I'd even finished unlocking the door to my office. I could hear it behind the plate glass, screaming, "ANSWER ME! ANSWER ME! I NEED HELP!"
I've listened to some frightened dames, but this one was something else. She was like, terrified.
She sounded East European. Hungarian, or Czech.
"Come quickly!" she shrieked. "Come quickly!"
"Lady, I need details." I pulled open a drawer, took out pencil and paper, asked for her name and address, and then got her to tell me slowly, and in nice short words, what the problem was.
It didn't take long.
"Mrs Samson," I said, when she'd finished, "don't do anything rash. I'll be right round."
They had a crummy flat down on the East Side, the sort of place you wouldn't want to live, but the sort of place that's always putting food on my table. There was fog, trying to hide the cold drizzle. Sunshine State? Please.
At the age of twenty nine, Greg Samson was still living at home with his parents and his sister. If you think that's weird, wait till you hear what he'd done during the night: turned into an insect. (Hang around: I didn't believe it to start with, either.)
Had his own room. Cramped, but adequate I guess if you're the sort of guy who doesn't do much. He was lying flat on his carapace, any number of legs in the air, his brown belly divided into segments. I was so surprised, I took my hat off.
He stared at me with evil looking eyes. His sister stood behind me, like she was using me as a shield, too scared to look at her own brother. I could hear their mother, in the kitchen, crashing cups and saucers as she made coffee, crying her eyes out the whole time. She was one dizzy broad.
I wondered if I'd been taken in by some elaborate stunt. Was this just fancy-dress I was looking at?
I grabbed one of his legs, thinking it might be papier-mâché, and pulled as hard as I could. His squeal was genuine. For the first time in years, I felt ashamed.
I took out a notebook, to let them know the questions were about to start.
"Any idea what's going down here, Greg?"
I never thought I'd be capable of feeling so much compassion towards an insect. I tell you, this job can really make you think, sometimes.
If he'd been human I'd describe what happened next as a shrugging of the shoulders. As it was, his shell moved up the bed half an inch, and several of his legs twitched wildly.
"So what, you went to bed last night, no problems, you wake up this morning, and ... this?"
"He was OK last night," said his sister. I turned round. Looked at her properly for the first time. Not bad. She could have done with a trip to the cosmetics counter, but the bone structure, the way her eyelashes fluttered without her even knowing she was doing it - what I'm saying is, the fundamentals - they were sound. "There was no sign of anything wrong when he came home from work."
He was a travelling salesman for a fabrics company. (That explained the bolts of brightly coloured cloth neatly stacked on top of the chest of drawers.) She would have told me more. She wanted to talk about anything but the matter in hand.
"Later, sweetheart. Anything like this ever happen before? Any history of it in the family?"
"Never," said the sister.
"Do you have any enemies, Greg?"
I wished, afterwards, there was some way he could have communicated in sign language: his voice sounded awful, all squeaky, like a choirboy with a sore throat.
"It's true I'm not the most popular guy on the team, but I can't imagine I've upset anybody this much."
"Messing around with the ladies? Any jealous husbands?"
There was a revolting squeaking noise as he shook his head.
His sister said, very quietly, "He don't really go in for that sort of thing. Women, I mean. He's a bit shy."
The mother came in, carrying coffee and biscuits on a tray. Talking of food, she looked like a lump of dough, on legs, a woman who'd ignored her personal appearance for the last thirty years, at least, and probably still wondered why her old man wasn't biting the cherry as much as he used to. Her eyes were red from all the crying.
"What are we going to do?!" she wailed. "My darling little Greg, he is insect!"
She bent down, as if to put her arms around him, to comfort the poor kid, but lost her nerve at the last moment, stood up straight and burst into more tears.
I asked Greg if he could get out of bed. I don't know why: having him crawl around on the floor - I assumed standing up straight was out of the question - wasn't going to solve much.
He said, "I did try. It's the bottom half that's the problem. I don't feel as though I have full control. I'm frightened I might fall, and hurt myself."
He had enough problems without me forcing him to do things he wasn't happy with.
"Mrs Samson, what you need's a doctor. In my opinion, your son is seriously ill."
"Doctor? What good is doctor? They know nothing. Nothing."
I didn't argue. I'd never found the medical profession much use, myself. Besides, I needed the money.
"Unless I'm very much mistaken, what we're looking at here is some sort of witchcraft. You understand what I'm saying, Mrs Samson?"
She nodded. "Yes, witchcraft, it's a dreadful thing."
"Sure is. 'specially when we're whistling in the wind for a motive. Best thing I can do is get out there, and see what I can find. Meet a few people, ask a few questions. Is that OK?"
She asked if I'd ever seen anything like this before. I had to admit, young men turning into insects was a novelty on my watch. I thought she was going to tell me to get lost, say she wanted to ring round a few more Dicks, see if anyone had experience in this field, but instead she reached into her pocket, took out a couple of ten dollar bills, and said "Take this, for your expenses."
I said, "Lady, you don't need to worry about that at this moment in time. Let's get the boy back into human form before talking money."
His sister showed me to the front door.
I was about to say goodbye when she took a firm hold of my arm, and said - a look of sheer terror doing its best to spoil her pretty little face - "You will be able to help him, won't you, Mr Caffker?"
I looked her straight in the eye. "Sure, but what's with the Mr, babe? Call me Frank."
By Sam Pollard -- 4/00
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