3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany by Jim Stevens Page A

stairs. At the stairwell door which leads back into the club, I insert one of my business cards against the locking catch. I test the door to make sure it will open next time around, close it gently, and make my way back down the narrow hallway. When I reach the bar, I find Tiffany having a grand old time. She’s sipping a martini, while three or four guys are chatting her up. Alix Fromound is back-to-back with her; the same as they were the night Tiffany took a header off the barstool. Alix has only one guy talking to her. Tiffany is definitely ahead in tonight’s popularity contest. A number of other well-dressed friends are yipping and yapping, playing with their cell phones, or bouncing to the music; a splendid time is guaranteed for all.
    “Oh, Mr. Sherlock,” Tiffany says seeing me approach.
    “What’d you find out?” I ask.
    She pulls me close to her, “Monroe is no longer seeing Alix,” she says in all her glory. “He dumped her ass.”
    “I meant about Bruno the bartender.”
    “I haven’t seen him.”
    “Did you ask?”
    “They said he hasn’t been here all week,” Tiffany says. “But it’s okay, this new guy makes a much better Cosmo.”
    Good to know my assistant has done such a thorough job in her assignment. “I need you to help me,” I have to yell since the music has been pumped up to its highest decibel level.
    “You see someone you like? I can run interference for you if you want.”
    “No. thanks. I need you to watch a door for me.”
    “It’s not the men’s room door is it?” she asks.
    “No.”
    I tell the current Tiffany fans she will return in a few minutes and pull her off the barstool. “Come with me.”
    I lead her down the way I came until we reach the narrow hallway leading to the door I just jimmied. “All you have to do is stand here and if anybody goes in that door you call me on your cell phone. Can you do that?”
    Tiffany has to think it over, “Probably.”
    Not the answer I wanted, but it will have to suffice. I leave her at the head of the hallway, walk to the stairwell door, open it, remove the card, and close the door gently. I walk down the stairs until I reach the bottom floor.
    With my penlight flashlight, which all good detectives carry at all times, I slowly proceed down a dark, dank, moldy basement hallway. I listen carefully, but all I hear is myself. I come to an old pump in the center of a large room. It’s attached to a four-foot high pipe, which comes down from the floor above and runs the entire length of the building. I remember what the nice lady librarian told me. Some of it is starting to make sense.
    I backtrack, find the stairway, and climb up one flight. On this floor I don’t have to use the flashlight. There are a number of hanging light bulbs, the old kind, not the new LEDs, to illuminate my way. The hallway is somewhat clean, as if people use it just often enough to keep it that way. I step gingerly. A whoosh zips by my head faster than an arrow from Robin Hood's bow. I stop. A few seconds later, I hear a faint plop somewhere in the distance . I reach up, lay my hand on a horizontal iron pipe running a foot off the ceiling, and wait. It takes maybe a minute before I feel the vibration. I hear another whoosh and feel something shooting down the pipe at a breakneck speed. I follow the pipe down the hallway until it branches off and disappears into the interior of the building. I keep walking and come to a heavy metal door. It’s the kind they used to use in speakeasies with a metal slide right at eye level. Another whoosh is followed quickly by another plop .
    The doorknob has no dust. I consider entering, but everything changes when the next thing I hear is my cell phone ringing. I get it out of my pocket by the third ring. It’s so nice not having to listen to Lady Gaga or Taylor Swift or whatever ringtone my kids put in when I’m not around.
    “Is somebody coming?” I ask right away.
    “No, Mr. Sherlock,” Tiffany