The Borgia Blade

But the affair is over, and I’m sitting around, staring at the knife and wondering if I should give up the perfect job of playing Watson to Simon’s Fraser’s Sherlock, or Archie Goodwin to his Nero Wolfe, which is comic because Holmes was tall and thin and Wolfe approached a sixth of a ton. Simon, at five feet eight and perhaps as much as 150 pounds, is diminutive. But he’s a Holmes or Wolfe in terms of intellect and, based on the cases he’s helped my brother-in-law solve, he’s got the record to hold his own against the two fictional giants.

Simon, though, is not a work of fiction. I suppose I could be fitted into the Archie Goodwin slot. I’m a bit younger than Archie, at twenty-four, a bit taller at 6’ 2", but no urbane city man by any measure. You don’t get suave on a middle-Nebraska farm.

Whatever else is fiction, I’ll always be attached, one way or another, to Katherine Monroe. It wasn’t love so much then, as the joy of sex without commitment, though the commitment on my part was growing. She reminded me of an older Nancy Drew.

My sister had the full set of Nancy Drew mysteries. Not wanting to be called a sissy, I purloined and read them in the barn.

My current adventure, or, more accurately, misadventure, began when I arrived in San Jose, California a year ago. My name, by the way, is Tom McElrath. When I hit California, I was unemployed, low on funds and temporarily residing at the Majestic Hotel, which was anything but.

My second day, I was parked in a booth at a nearby Denny’s when the waitress arrived, order book in hand. I consulted my wallet and requested the special breakfast at $2.99. I wanted to have enough money to leave her a tip because she was beautiful, I’m generous, though without the means, and enjoy the smiles of gorgeous women. Still, I had to be careful; there was soon to be the hotel bill to deal with. It was this week only that I could pay. After that, I’d have to hit the streets ... a grim prospect at best. Just like my old dad said, endlessly and often, a college cap and gown are no longer protection against a cold, cruel world.

Breakfast over, I scanned the headlines ... there was a big headline about a murder in Ben Nevis. That’s a small town over the hill on the Pacific Coast. Since he’s in charge of homicide there, it would be my brother-in-law’s, headache. He’s that city’s Homicide Lieutenant.

I moved on to more important reading ... the want ads. Nothing much of interest there! That done, I folded my newspaper, tucked it under my arm and left a small tip on the table. At the register I handed over my money and made an attempt at congeniality which the cashier ignored. She muttered the usual cliche about hoping I’d enjoyed my meal, but never looked up. That irritated me. I strolled out to the street and considered other possibilities as I smiled at another lovely maid going by. This one smiled back. Chirped up, I began to feel better.

I loped back to the Majestic Hotel. Ah, the Majestic. What’s in a name? The lobby entry had once been protected by an air current created by a wooden fan above the door. The fan, inert and blackened by an accumulation of soot and an evident history of decay and breakdown, no longer performed its function. Over the passing years curious flies had flown into the lobby and, attempting to exit through the smoke-filmed window facing the street, had died and littered the stained sill with a crust of tiny black corpses.

The desk clerk, a well-scrubbed and muscled exception to the general condition of the hotel, was an overattentive lad named Bobby. He hailed me as I arrived.

"You have a call from a Lieutenant Campbell of the Ben Nevis Police Department. He wants you to contact him as soon as possible."

Bobby arranged a golden lock of his curly hair and asked: "Are you in trouble?"

"No, kiddo," I retorted, "he’s my brother-in-law. Do not fret. I’ll bring this body back later all safe and sound." I studied him a moment and told him the truth. "You know, Bobby, you’re in the wrong city. If you want to meet congenial guys of a similar persuasion, you should get a job in San Francisco."

"You’re here," Bobby observed

"Touche! You do have a cute ass, Bobby, but I’ve promised myself to the ladies for several decades at least, and I wouldn’t want to let them down. But good luck anyway, kiddo. Never say die."

I resisted the temptation to pat him on the aforementioned part of his anatomy and strode up the stairs, three at a time, to my room, content with the observation that the gods knew I’d soon be hungry and couldn’t sustain myself forever on coffee, breakfast specials and the attention of lovely maidens (if any). The gods would, I hoped, provide. But my confidence was fading fast. I’d have been more disturbed had I known I was soon to meet a dazzling older woman, mix in murder and get all scarred up emotionally.

I called my sister in Ben Nevis, was told to come to dinner; assured her I would be on time, which was true; I was not wasting away, which was a lie; steak, potatoes and salad would be fine, which was a gross understatement, and I had not been molested on the streets which, considering the attentions of Bobby, was perhaps a bit of misdirection. My sister had said nothing about hotel lobbies.

It was, before he died, my aging father’s opinion that my late birth frustrated the possibility of a pleasant old age and early retirement. My mother died shortly after, which my father thought punitive of her. Naturally, my sister having escaped into marriage, he took his resentment out on me.

In spite of continuously grim paternal disapproval, I behaved myself, graduated from high school as valedictorian and went to college on a scholarship, but then I compounded my father’s disappointment by majoring in Egyptology. Digging up long-buried objects did not strike him as a profitable calling. And that’s exactly how it turned out. Well-paying jobs in Egyptology are rare. It takes years to get to the top, and the top isn’t very well rewarded. Regrettably, prestige isn’t edible.

That afternoon, I caught three different buses, one from San Jose to Ben Nevis, and two more to get to my brother-in-law’s house. I kissed my sister, shook hands with my brother-in-law, Lieutenant Robert Campbell, and asked rather bluntly: "When’s dinner?"