The Abu Wahab Caper Read online

  The Abu Wahab Caper

  A Chance Purdue Novel

  Ross H. Spencer

  Copyright

  Diversion Books

  A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008

  New York, NY 10016

  www.DiversionBooks.com

  Copyright © 1980 by Ross H. Spencer

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For more information, email [email protected]

  First Diversion Books edition March 2015

  ISBN: 978-1-62681-653-4

  Also by Ross H. Spencer

  Kirby’s Last Circus

  Death Wore Gloves

  The Chance Purdue Series

  The Dada Caper

  The Reggis Arms Caper

  The Stranger City Caper

  The Radish River Caper

  The Lacey Lockington Series

  The Fifth Script

  The Devereaux File

  The Fedorovich File

  This book is dedicated to David H. Bradley of Temple University and he will know why.

  Ross H. Spencer

  When I was in my infancy

  The Ferris wheel appealed to me

  And fate has managed to arrange

  That fifty years have seen no change

  But never have I once denied

  I’m mighty grateful for the ride

  And my track record will evince

  I’ve gone in circles ever since.

  Monroe D. Underwood

  1

  …a giggle is a cackle without eggs…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  I came out of Schweinschwanz’s Super-Discount Drugs at Belmont and Central carrying a busted carton of Camel cigarettes.

  There was a sparkling-new bronze Driefach-Shrecken supercharged twelve-cylinder sports coupé parked behind my Olds.

  At a forty-five-degree angle.

  Its hood was up.

  Its radiator steamed.

  Its engine smoked.

  A redheaded young woman was jumping up and down and shaking her fist at it.

  She was saying Deutschland über alles my ass.

  Her hot gray eyes caught mine and she lowered her voice.

  I’m a lousy lip-reader but most of her barrage didn’t require an expert.

  I grinned and climbed into the Olds.

  By the time I started the engine the redhead was standing at the door.

  She said all right buster what’s so goddam funny?

  I shrugged.

  I said oh nothing whatsoever.

  I said you see sometimes I get these facial spasms.

  She said facial spasms my ass.

  She said would you be going as far as Kimball?

  I nodded.

  She reached for the door handle and said okay?

  There was a compelling anxiety about her.

  I shrugged.

  She got in and slammed the door.

  She said thanks.

  She said I wouldn’t have bothered you if you hadn’t laughed at me.

  I said I didn’t laugh at you.

  I said I grinned at you.

  She said there’s a difference?

  I shrugged.

  So did she.

  She said twenty-two thousand dollars and the goddam thing won’t run.

  I said well once in a while you got to get a tune-up.

  She said tune-up my ass.

  She said not at sixteen hundred miles.

  Her voice was like shaggy silk.

  If there is such a thing.

  She was mid-twenties and slim except for a bosom that dynamited the front of her floppy short-sleeved black sweater.

  Her faded blue jeans were intriguingly tight and her beaded white moccasins had broken seams.

  She had flaming red hair and a pugnacious nose and six hundred and twenty-five thousand freckles.

  Give or take a few.

  She had a soft gentle mouth and she wore no rings and her perfume was like distant cinnamon.

  She said sorry to lean on you like this but I have a three o’clock appointment.

  I said it’s right on my way.

  She accepted a cigarette and she held a light for us.

  She rode in silence until we reached Pulaski Road.

  Then she said recently it’s just been one goddam thing after another.

  I shrugged.

  I said north or south on Kimball?

  She said the hell with it.

  She said just drop me at the corner.

  She said I’m going to see a private detective.

  She said you may not believe this but his office is in a tavern booth.

  She giggled.

  It was a very nice giggle.

  As giggles go.

  Which isn’t very far.

  She said can you imagine such a thing?

  I shrugged.

  I said there’s really nothing wrong with consulting a private detective.

  She said not that.

  She said I mean the part about him having his office in a tavern booth.

  She said that’s crazy.

  I shrugged.

  I said well you got to admit it’s better than an outhouse.

  She squinted at me.

  She said I think I’ll get out right here.

  I said why?

  She said there’s something peculiar about your logic.

  I beat the next traffic light and kept moving.

  I said are you talking about Wallace’s Tavern?

  She said yes do you know him?

  I said Wallace?

  She said no this detective.

  She said Chance Purdue.

  I said Chance Purdue is undoubtedly the best in the business.

  I said he’s far ahead of his time and he has the courage of fifty lions.

  She smiled an even-toothed white smile.

  She said come on now do you really know Chance Purdue?

  I said sure.

  We had reached Belmont and Kimball.

  I squeaked the Olds into Wallace’s tiny parking lot.

  I said Purdue won’t be in his office so I’ll buy you a drink.

  She gave me a sidelong gray glance.

  She said how do you know he won’t be in?

  I said well in the first place you’re fifteen minutes early and in the second place I’m Chance Purdue.

  She thought it over.

  Then she put her hands to her face and laughed.

  I liked her laugh better than her giggle.

  Not that I have anything against giggles.

  It’s just that I can do without them.

  She said my sincere apologies Mr. Purdue.

  She said I’m Spice Dugan.

  She put out a freckled hand.

  I took it.

  I said I gathered as much.

  I said what’s on your mind?

  Spice Dugan said I want to talk to you about my father.

  She said I’ll explain in your office.

  We got out of the Olds and a big man in a plaid sports coat left a black Ford sedan that was parked in a corner of the lot.

  He moved very rapidly to Wallace’s rear entrance.

  He blocked the door.

  He said are you Chance Purdue?

  I shrugged.

  I said well that would depend on just what you want with Chance Purdue.

  The big man s
aid Purdue I’m gonna give it to you right here.

  I shrugged.

  The big man’s hand darted into his plaid sports coat.

  I stepped right into him.

  I hit him very hard in the solar plexus.

  He crumpled over.

  I straightened him with a left uppercut.

  I drove him into a stack of Old Washensachs Beer cases with a long overhand right.

  Spice Dugan’s jaw was sagging.

  She stared at me like I had just crawled out of a black lagoon.

  She said my God why did you do that?

  I shrugged.

  I said he was going for his gun.

  Spice said gun my ass.

  She said all he had was a white envelope.

  2

  …a juror is a person what usually gets fifteen dollars a day for listening to a lawyer what usually gets fifteen dollars a minute for defending a sex-murderer what usually gets fifteen days probation…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Wallace said there’s been some big bastard looking for you.

  He said he’s been in and out of here all afternoon.

  He said it has something to do with you not showing up for jury duty.

  He said I think he mentioned ten times.

  I shrugged.

  I said Wallace I’m not qualified for jury duty.

  I said I don’t understand Spanish.

  I said I already got more than I can handle with English.

  Spice Dugan took my arm.

  She said don’t you think we should talk somewhere else?

  Wallace said what should I tell him if he comes in again?

  I shrugged.

  I said anything but my address.

  3

  …oncet I knowed a lawn mower sales­man what got reincarnated as forty acres of grass…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Spice Dugan lived in St. Charles.

  To get to St. Charles you just drive west on North Avenue until you run out of gas.

  If you’re driving an Oldsmobile 98 that is.

  I coaxed the Olds into a Texaco station and looked around.

  St. Charles was a sleepy little town where old structures outnumbered the new.

  I sniffed the air.

  I said what’s that smell?

  Spice said just diesel exhaust.

  She said ten million trucks go through St. Charles every day.

  I said I mean the other smell.

  I said I mean the smell that smells like old watermelon.

  I said very old watermelon.

  Spice said that’s the Fox River.

  She said it’s like that in hot weather.

  She said it’s the algae.

  She said most of the time you can’t smell the algae on account of the diesel exhaust.

  The station attendant said forty-six dollars.

  I said oh Jesus Christ.

  The station attendant didn’t say anything.

  We swung north from Main Street onto Route 31.

  Route 31 went to Elgin if you stayed with it.

  Route 31 probably went to Elgin even if you didn’t stay with it.

  We didn’t stay with Route 31 long enough to find out where the hell it went.

  Three miles north of St. Charles we turned east down a long gravel drive flanked by white birch and pin oak.

  We rolled into a huge clearing on the sluggish brown Fox River.

  The white cottage was old but it was in an excellent state of repair.

  It was surrounded by enough grass to graze all the cows in America.

  I said if times get tough you can always rent this lot to a motion picture producer.

  I said providing he’s producing the Battle of Waterloo.

  Spice said my father bought it for me.

  I said who bought the twelve-cylinder Driefach-Shrecken sports coupé?

  Spice said I suppose a detective would almost have to wonder about that.

  She said it was a gift from Dad.

  I said the old boy must be loaded.

  Spice said yes but I’m afraid it’s a temporary advantage.

  She said that’s what I want to talk about.

  We went into the cottage.

  It had been recently jazzed-up in the style of an efficiency apartment.

  The kitchen and parlor made up one big room.

  There was a bedroom and a bath and not much else.

  It had been freshly carpeted in royal blue and it was neat and very feminine with a lot of flouncy pillows and flowered fabrics and ceramics of little girls carrying parasols.

  I dropped into a comfortable brown leather chair in front of a gray-stone fireplace.

  Spice said what are you drinking?

  I shrugged.

  Spice went to the refrigerator and came back with a frosty quart of Old Washensachs and a pilsener glass.

  She placed them on a table at my elbow.

  She sat in a tall black rocking chair that bore a big decoupage of a spread eagle.

  She kicked off her white moccasins and brought her knees up to her chin.

  She peeked over them.

  Like a child listening to a fairy tale.

  She said my father’s troubles began when he inherited grandpa’s money.

  She said my grandpa was E. E. Dugan.

  She said E. E. Dugan invented the Duganola.

  I said what’s a Duganola?

  Spice said nobody ever knew exactly.

  She said that was its great appeal.

  She said a Duganola had no function whatsoever.

  She said all you could do with a Duganola was look at it.

  She said it was an utterly useless weird-shaped blob of green plastic that sold for two dollars and seventy-five cents.

  I said was your grandfather an inventor?

  Spice frowned.

  She said yes I suppose you might call him that.

  She said the Duganola was really his only success.

  She said he invented a vacuum cleaner and a kite that would fly on a calm day and he spent several years on some new kind of internal combustion engine.

  She said just before he died he perfected a lawn mower that would peel oranges and skin alligators.

  I said that lawn mower wouldn’t have been worth much during the winter.

  Spice said it would if you lived in Florida.

  I said that’s right by God.

  Spice said he invented the Dugan Rat Trap.

  She said have you heard of it?

  I said if I had I wouldn’t have paid all that alimony.

  Spice said well it wasn’t exactly a trap.

  She said it was a spring-loaded fifteen-foot cardboard cat that jumped up and scared the rats to death.

  I said how did it do on the market?

  Spice said it never reached the market.

  She said they tried it out in an old warehouse.

  She said the next morning they found twenty-nine dead rats and two dead night watchmen.

  She said grandpa abandoned it immediately after he read Abu Wahab’s Theory of Metempsychosis.

  I said yeah we better do something about that.

  I said I understand penicillin won’t touch it.

  Spice said reincarnation.

  I said oh.

  Spice said grandpa got to thinking that he might be killing humans who have returned as rats.

  I said well I can certainly see where he got off on the wrong foot.

  I said he should have been killing rats who have returned as humans.

  Spice said grandpa became an avid fan of Abu Wahab.

  She said when he made his big money the first thing he did was go to Ishaq and pay a small fortune for the sword of Abu Wahab.

  I said this Abu Wahab was no slouch as a businessman himself.

  Spice said Abu Wahab has been dead for a thousand years.

  I said sorry to hear that.

  Spice said Abu Wahab was an Arabian prophet.

  I sa
id what did Abu Wahab have to say about the price of gasoline?

  I said forty-six bucks is ridiculous.

  Spice said grandpa was no sooner out of Ishaq than the whole damned kingdom went on a rampage.

  I said celebrating?

  Spice said celebrating my ass.

  She said protesting the loss of that silly sword.

  I said have you seen it?

  Spice said no but only recently I read that a bunch of Ishaqi fanatics has vowed to regain it at any cost.

  I said that’s bad.

  Spice said there’s worse.

  I said impossible.

  Spice said Dad is hanging around a place called Hogan’s Oasis.

  I said oh good Lord.

  I said that’s worse.

  4

  …a watermelon is the direct result of a cucumber getting raped by a very large pomegranate…

  Monroe D. Underwood

  Spice brought another quart of beer.

  I said what are you going to do about your Driefach-Shrecken?

  Spice said oh damn I have to call on that.

  She excused herself and headed for the bedroom.

  I looked through the window at the muddy Fox River.

  I inhaled the smell of very old watermelon and watched an idiot in a ninety-horse metallic-blue fiberglass speedboat violate every river rule in the world.

  I heard Spice come up behind me.

  She leaned over the back of my chair.

  Her cinnamon scent was heady.

  She said I called the Driefach-Shrecken dealer and they’re going to tow it in.

  She said it’ll be ready in the morning.

  I said where?

  Spice said Villa Park.

  I said how will you ever get to Villa Park in the morning?

  Spice said well there’s one way.

  She said you can drop me off on your way home.

  I said did you say in the morning?

  Spice said uh-huh.

  I said well Miss Dugan you see.

  Spice said no Mr. Purdue.

  She said you see.

  She came around the chair and stood in front of me.

  There were no freckles on her slender creamy body.

  Her nipples jutted like pink-tipped Saturn rockets.

  You don’t meet a real honest-to-God true redhead every day of your life.

  I said I see.