Dial "M" for Mustard

I found this on YLCF a few months ago and thought it was great. I read it to my siblings and they all agreed :)

Dial “M” for Mustard

by Joshua Carden

March 23, 2001

Part I

It’s me again, Cash J. Endor, Detective. My friends call me C.J. My enemies call me crazy, at least, the enemies that call me at home. I do get questions about my unusual name occasionally. Most people give up after the third or fourth try at spelling “anagram” so they can look it up in the dictionary. I should add that vocabulary is important to me. Mainly, because of my crossword addiction. I joined a twelve-step program for it once, but it disbanded when they realized that the New York Times wallpaper was too distracting. So I continue on – in fact, as I am currently between cases, that’s what I’m doing now.

The phone rang. A ringing phone is at once good and bad. Good, because it usually means business; bad, because I had the answer to 27 Down on the tip of my cerebellum and now it’s gone. Regretfully, I put down the paper and answered on the second ring, “C.J. Endor, Detective.” “BUDDY!” The phone nearly jumped out of my hand. I shifted it to the other ear, so the first eardrum could quit playing the solo in “Wipeout.” Nobody could greet you like my friend Drew. Drew was my fun-loving, loquacious, and always entertaining friend from down around crawfish country. “Hey, Drew, whazzup?” I had often thought about having my lawyer friends sue that beer company since “whazzup?” had been OUR standard greeting for many years now.

“Have I got a deal for you…” he began. I cut him off: “Drew, the last time you said that, I had to show my P.I. license to convince the policeman not to book us. He said if he ever caught us in the giraffe pen again, we’d be sorry.” “Relax, C.J.,” he said soothingly, “it’s nothing remotely dangerous or illegal. I’ve got a gift certificate for Uncle Mike’s.” My stomach growled. Loudly. Uncle Mike’s is Drew’s and my favorite restaurant. Admittedly, they don’t serve coffee or chocolate, but they’ve got great pizza, especially on Sundays after church. Although it was Monday, Uncle Mike’s was always a good plan. “Last one there has to pay for coffee afterward.” With that parting challenge, Drew was gone, and I was talking to a dial tone. Drew was pretty quick on his feet. I jumped from my chair, tripped over my intricate music-filing system (stacks of music on the floor with the most recent pieces I’ve played on top), and headed for Ol’ Betsy, my trusty blazer. I locked my frosted glass office door, which read “Cash J. Endor, Detective” in solid black letters. I had finally gotten around to painting the letters on the outside of the door.

I gunned Ol’ Betsy and headed for Uncle Mike’s. I kept more or less within the speed limit, and as I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed that Drew’s car was already there. I debated crawling through the window, emerging from the bathroom, and pretending that I had been there all along; but then I figured that wounded pride and the price of coffee weren’t worth that much skin off my nose. As I pushed the door open, I saw Drew grinning at me from our usual booth: “Grande, house blend, cream and sugar please.” Something tugged at the back of my mind as I walked up. “Let me see your belt,” I ordered. His grin became a bit forced, “Why?” “You know why!” I glared at him in mock anger. He pulled back his trench coat to reveal his cell phone clipped to his belt. “Aha!” I exclaimed, “You were on your way here already weren’t you.” The guilty look on his face told the story. “Okay,” he said sheepishly, “I forget that you make a living figuring out stuff like this.” We shook hands, and I sat down across from him.

As we waited for our food, several families entered the restaurant for Uncle Mike’s “Monday Special.” Over in the corner, Earl from Earl’s Auto Dealership was there with his family in one of the special “homeschooling size” booths for families with more than six kids. Sharp kids, too. Two of them had done papers on detective work and had come to interview me. I tried not to glorify the work too much, but I’m pretty sure that “detective” went into the hopper of possible careers, along with “astronaut”, “lawyer”, and “fighter pilot.” It probably didn’t help that I played “Great Balls of Fire” for them before they left. What can I say? I’m a sucker for cute kids who ask me to do stuff.

When our food arrived, we both dug in enthusiastically. As we ate, our conversation ranged from crosswords to computers, with the occasional obligatory Star Wars reference. Me being the expert on the first, and Drew the expert on the second, and both of us chiming in for the Star Wars parts. Drew is a techno-whiz. He knows how to work cell phones, computers, palm pilots, etc., and get them to do what he wants. I know enough about computers to not get white-out on the screen, but that’s about it. I also keep a hammer on my desk whenever my printer needs what I call “farm maintenance.” Anyway, Drew was telling me about one of his latest projects: “So then I get real serious with him and say, ‘look, Jeeves, you pull a stunt like that again, and your computer will have a virus that turns your OS into a giant Barry Manilow jukebox before you can say “We are the world”!’” I laughed, a little vacantly, since he had lost me somewhere around the twenty-third acronym; but I could appreciate the Barry Manilow humor.

During a lull in the conversation, the rest of the restaurant suddenly got quiet as well. As always happens when there’s a pause in the conversation, I thought of Abraham Lincoln. I don’t know why, it just happens. I was about to ask Drew if he had too, when I heard “Nobody move.” I paused with my fork half-way to my mouth. In polite conversation, those two words usually mean that somebody’s got a bee crawling up his back. The voice that said them this time was anything polite. I usually make it a habit to sit where I can see the whole room. This time, since Drew had beaten me there, all I could see was Drew and the wall. His face went the color of cottage cheese, which immediately removed my appetite for two reasons. I risked putting my fork down and did a super-slow turn of my head. Two men with guns stood in the doorway.

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