Planet Willie by Josh Shoemake

putting two and two together,
it’s not equaling four.
    “This may not
be the best time,” I say, scampering around her to trap a little fella who’s making
a run for it, “but I was incidentally wondering if you might have anything
fifteenth century and maybe Italian for sale, say a little Madonna for example.
Maybe even something with freckles if you’ve got it.”
    She squints up
at me and twists those lips, which aren’t painted and don’t need it. “I’m not
for sale.”
    “Sweetheart,”
I say, “I’m flattered you think I could afford it.”
    “So maybe I
don’t understand,” she says, standing with the champagne glass and irritably brushing
off her dress.
    “Recently I saw
a school of Botticelli Madonna in South Texas,” I say, standing to meet her
eyes, “but she wasn’t the one I was looking for. Actually I found her a bit
fake, if you want to be blunt about it. You know those South Texas girls. Of
course it’s not my style to talk about a woman behind her back, but desperate
circumstances call for desperate measures.”
    “What in hell
are you talking about?” she says through her teeth. “Who are you, and why are
you here?”
    “Maybe we’d
better talk in private,” I say.
    “I don’t want
to talk in private,” she says. “I want you out of here.” So I take her by the
elbow and drag her over behind the bar to where the fiddlers are into what I’d
like to say is Mozart. It’s her show, so she’s forced to come along as
graciously as she can manage.
    “I’m a private
investigator,” I say as she smiles sweetly to another patron across the room.
“Your father hired me to get his Madonna back, and the way I see it, we’ve got
two options. The first is you hand it over, we get out of here, and I buy you a
drink. The second is more or less the same except you’re buying.”
    “You’re
insane,” she says.
    “A man who
sees a gourd and takes it for his wife is called insane only because this happens
to very few people.”
    “No,” she
says. “I mean really insane.”
    “A few weeks
ago, your father’s Madonna was replaced by a fake,” I say. “The eyes weren’t
quite right, if you want to know, and I get the impression your father’s the
type who notices pretty much everything. What he doesn’t know yet, and what I
found out just this afternoon, is that you paid a visit to his insurance
company last month. The way I figure it, you obtained a photograph of the
painting and had it copied. Then you somehow had it swapped for your father’s
original. Not bad work, but the photograph was just a bit off. That’s the bad
news.”
    “So what’s the
good news?” she mutters.
    “If it wasn’t
for that one act of incredible sheer dumbness, we wouldn’t be standing here
getting acquainted tonight.”
    “I don’t know
what you’re talking about,” she says coldly.
    “Your father
thinks you do,” I say.
    “It’s him you
should be investigating,” she bursts out. “For the first time in my life I’m
finally doing something I really love, and he…he…he just won’t see me happy.
You can’t imagine the kinds of things he’s accused me of, but this really takes
the cake.”
    “I understand
he bought you this place,” I say. “Sounds pretty decent to me.”
    “He can afford
it,” she mutters. “If it were my sister, he’d of bought her ten. That’s the way
he’s always been, and there’s nothing I can ever do to change it.” Her hand
goes to her throat as she says it, as if she’s searching for some pearls to
hold onto. Then her eyes go moist again as she tells me how her mother died
young, and how since she was the oldest, she had to take care of the house.
Daddy wouldn’t hire any help, but then he resented everything she did to help.
She got out of South Texas as soon as she could, she says. The words are coming
fast now, as if we’re the only ones in the room. She says she’s made mistakes,
God she’s made mistakes, but dammit if she’s going