Murder and Mayhem by B L Hamilton Read Free Book Online

that had
only one tie.
    “Have you got my mints?” I asked her.
    Her eyes scanned the room. “No.”
    “Are you sure? Can I check your bag in case I dropped
them in there by mistake?”
    “Go right ahead but I’m pretty sure you won’t find
them in there.”
    When she reached for her bag she noticed the slightly
unraveled parcel lying partially hidden under the chair. She leaned down and
picked it up.
    “Where did Linda go?”
    “I think she’s gone to the bathroom,” I muttered as I
rifled through her bag – came up empty and handed it back.
    “No luck?”
    I shook my head. “No.”
    “Do you think I should go and see if Linda’s all
right?”
    I picked up my bag, upended the
contents onto my lap and sorted through them. “Eureka!” I shouted when I found
a loose mint caught up in a crumpled tissue. I removed the ragged bits of
silver paper and popped the mint into my mouth.
    “I’m sure Linda will be all
right. It’s probably just nerves,” I said
as I felt the sugar hit kick in. I glanced at my watch and noted the time.
“It’s almost time for Judge Judy.”
    I looked at the man seated beneath the old television
set hoping for another glimpse of firm gluteus that could probably crack
walnuts, but instead saw a gray-haired Japanese man who was so short his feet
barely touched the floor. He was clutching a black briefcase to his chest, his
face an inscrutable blank.
    “Excuse me,” I called, and waved frantically hoping to
attract his attention. A middle-aged woman sitting next to him noted my
flapping, tapped him on the shoulder and pointed me out.
    The man leaned forward and squinted through thick
Coke-bottle lenses.
    “Do-you-speak-English?” I asked loudly making sure to
enunciate ev-e-ry syll-a-ble clearly the way you do with people who don’t
understand English.
    “English! Ah so.” The elderly man nodded his head up
and down like one of those plastic dogs you see in the back of cars driven by
old men wearing hats. Nodding dogs we used to call them – the toy, I mean, not
the men.
    Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against old men−or
their hats. I happen to be married to one. It’s just that they have a tendency
to nod off at the drop of a hat–so to speak.
    “Would-you-change-the-channel-to-Judge-Judy?” I spoke
loudly and clearly.
    The man nodded his head up and down. What did I
tell you about old men, and nodding heads?
    “Ah. Judge Judy,” he said. When he stood up and leaned
over to place his briefcase on the floor, the back of his gown opened slightly
displaying a hint of white flesh. Then, as he climbed onto the chair and
reached for the controls, the back of the gown parted, like an old movie
theater curtain, and revealed a fine line of black hair that ran down his spine
and disappeared between white cheeks that put me in mind of partially deflated
party balloons.
    As the controls were located at the very top of the
set, the diminutive man had to stand on tippy-toes to reach them, causing the
gown to hitch high above his nether regions and reveal parts of his anatomy
that I dare not name–for modesty’s sake.
    Still standing on the chair, his
arm extended high above his head, he turned and squinted in my direction and
everyone in the room had a full view of what I could only describe as an
overcooked, shriveled-up sausage between a couple of dried prunes. Now I can tell the girls in my mah-jongg group back home in
Australia that Asian men are built that same as white men. Just goes to show
what you can learn when you’re out there amongst Joe Q Public.
    Shame my best friend, Hilda won’t be there when I give
them the news, but she ran off with an eighty-year-old toothless man from
Kazakhstan who sold her a Moroccan rug in a bazaar while she was holidaying in
a Siberian Gulag last year. Last I heard, Hilda was living with an Eskimo on
some remote island off Greenland– claimed her rug seller was a hot-blooded
gigolo. I guess Hilda’s what you might call a