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The Case of the Blonde, The Milk and Al Gore

(originally published in Encore Magazine, 9/12/91)

The glare of red sequins caught my eye. It wasn't the sort of dress one usually saw behind a shopping cart. It wasn't the sort of blonde one usually saw behind a shopping cart, either. She would have looked more natural signing an American Express receipt at one of those highclass poodle parlors where the customers swill Piper Heidseck while their dogs are manicured, clipped and blowdried to resemble the shrubbery at Disneyland.

I was a bit jumpy at the moment anyway, having spent the last hour on aisle seven, pretending to price compare canned beets while keeping an eye on the dairy case. That's how I thought of this job — The Dairy Case. The agency had sent me to this supermarket on the trail of whoever was putting Al Gore's face on milk cartons. Nothing had turned up yet, but it smelled like a gang job to me. So did the blonde as she blazed by. As I watched her pass, I would have laid odds that she wasn't interested in creamed corn, but I would have lost.

Since I had paid $59.95 for the UR-Caught Detective Correspondence School course, I figured I might as well put the textbook stuff to use. The blonde had dropped a can of creamed corn in her cart, generic no less, and it bothered me. It bothered me about as much as the whole lousy case I was supposed to be working on, which I figured was punishment for the way I'd handled the previous assignment. I'd gone through that whole job without being beaten up or shooting anyone, and the agency bigwigs thought I was going soft. So here I was on aisle seven.

The blonde turned in the direction of aisle eight, entertaining the poultry section along the way. I looked over the I creamed corn and shook a few cans for fun, but if there were any clues there, nobody'd bothered to write them in neon for me. My ear hadn't been clubbed much lately, and maybe it wasn't working right, but the cans sounded about right to me. Like pallbearer's shoes coming out of the mud at a funeral in the rain. Like my ex-wife's mashed potatoes hitting a paper plate, and the plate not hitting back. Like generic creamed corn.

I could have followed her, but she looked the type to despise anyone who shopped at the same speed she did, and my expense account for The Dairy Case didn't stretch to disguises, so I went outside. Hands numb from leaning on my cart for an hour, I fumbled for a cigarette and lit up. It tasted like a plumber's business card. It was. I tried again for a cigarette, and this time came up with the prize. The filter was getting worried when the blonde came out, leading a parade of bagboys all trying to carry her single bag at the same time. I caught a nice view of Natchez as she bent to unlock one of those yellow Italian twoseaters that are made more for liqueur ads in ladies' magazines than for the highway. My '66 Dodge Dart wanted to go where she was going, and I didn't argue.

We played hide-and-seek halfway to Tabor City, passing a dozen stores that looked like they had more creamed corn in stock that they knew what to do with along the way. It was becoming evident that she had picked up that particular can for a reason, and I wanted to know what it was. Keeping my eye on the yellow Fiat, I reached for the glove compartment flask to get reacquainted with Mr. Beam. It tasted like cheap gun oil. It was. I tried again, and the flask forgave me for being unfaithful. It forgave me twice more before that blonde and I pulled into a trailer park that was about as scenic as last week's laundry at Camp LeJeune, and for approximately the same reasons.

The flask looked lonely, so I kept it company until the pieces started to fall into place. I thought it might have been the bourbon talking, but the voice was too high. It had been a setup, and I'd fallen for it. I knew that by the time I got back to my post, every milk carton in the store would be advising shoppers that a former United States Vice President had last been last seen at a public swimming pool in Fayetteville on July 6th, wearing soup can patterned trunks and an inflatable swan, and that his parents were worried. The agency was not going to be happy.

I looked over the miscellaneous herd of appliances grazing over the trailer park grounds and pretended to be the Maytag shepherd for a few minutes, just to be cute. My right hand got ideas of its own and reached for the flask again. It tasted like bourbon. At least I had done that right. I went home and clubbed myself over the head with another drink. I went to sleep. It had been a busy day.

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