Psyc 03_The Call of the Mild by William Rabkin

said. “We’re private detectives, and we’ve been asked to meet our client on this very beach at this very time.”
    “Are you, now?” the officer asked, although the question mark seemed to Gus to be more of a rhetorical device than an indication of true curiosity.
    “We are now,” Shawn said. “We also were then. And we still will be ten minutes from now, which is more than I can say for you and your present job as a police officer if you prevent me from speaking to my client, who happens to be one of the richest and most powerful men in Santa Barbara.”
    There was a flash of uncertainty on the cop’s face. An officer on beach patrol spends his life confiscating beers, finding lost children, and putting out bonfires. None of these activities brings him in contact with the elite of Santa Barbara, who either own their own beach or know someone who does, and therefore he is rarely threatened with the force of the local political establishment. This cop didn’t seem particularly intimidated by Shawn’s warning, but he was intrigued enough to signal his fellow officers to back off a step.
    “Are you threatening me?” the officer said.
    “Of course not,” Gus said before Shawn could answer.
    “I don’t threaten people, Officer,” Shawn said. “My lawyer does. Of course most of the time the person he’s threatening is me because I haven’t paid my bill. But the point remains, that scrunched-up old geezer in the wheelchair is my client, and if you don’t let us through to see him, all sorts of bad things are going to happen.”
    “Like what?” the officer said.
    “Well, for one thing, a late-model automobile is going to rise up out of the bay like the Red October, ” Shawn said. “And do you really want to hear Sean Connery trying to sound Russian? Wasn’t the Spanish accent in Highlander painful enough for you?”
    Up until this moment, Gus had been feeling pretty good about the new day. As frustrated as he was by Shawn’s refusal to explain what they were doing at the beach, the idea that he really had found the mime promised that today would be substantially better than the previous one. But now the officer was fingering the snap on his holster, and Gus was beginning to anticipate a second day of staring into gun barrels.
    The other two uniformed officers joined them at the tape. One of them was as tanned and lined as the first, but the other, Gus was pleased to see, was both pale and wrinkle-free.
    “What’s going on here?” the pale cop said.
    “These two clowns claim they’re private detectives,” the first officer said.
    “Actually, only this clown claimed to be a private detective,” Shawn said. “The other clown is too much of a chicken to have said anything, and in fact is wishing that I had never woken him up this morning.”
    “Really?” Gus said. “You think it’s better to be a clown than a chicken?”
    “People rarely coat clowns in batter and drop them into boiling oil,” Shawn said.
    “There’s always a first time,” Gus said.
    The pale officer looked at Shawn, then at Gus. “I’ve seen these two around crime scenes before,” he said. “I think I even escorted them off one once at the instruction of Detective Lassiter, but he had me bring them back right after. So what is it you want here?”
    “I was trying to ward off disaster,” Shawn said. “But it looks like I’m too late.”
    A dozen yards beyond the surf’s edge, the bay had begun to boil. At least that’s what it looked like to Gus. The surface of the water was bubbling; waves seemed to be breaking far from shore. And then the waters parted and a shiny black object bobbed to the surface. As the water poured off it, Gus could see it was a long Town Car floating on an enormous inflatable raft.
    “I’m warning you, if Alec Baldwin steps out of that thing, no one tell him he’s been replaced by Harrison Ford,” Shawn said. “And for heaven’s sake, don’t mention the name Ben Affleck.”

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