Chow, Baby!

Written by Laird Long

I was sleeping the little sleep – napping – when a tall, blonde ankled into my office.

“Well, my lunch was stolen again today!” he bleated, planting his slender hands on his slender hips, staring petulantly down at me. “Second time this week!”

I pawed sand out of my eyes, cursing the casual office attire policy that allowed men to wear shorts at work. “What’d ya want me to do about it?” I gritted, shuffling some blank papers around on my desk like I was busy.

Andreas Scolari, our one-man accounts payable department, huffed, “I expect you to find out who the thief is. You are the office manager, aren’t you?”

I didn’t like people telling me my job (after all, it was spelled out in big black letters on my door). “Yeah, Skip Trace, office manager,” I growled, “that’s me. Don’t sweat it, Andreas, I’ll track down the chowhound who put the bite on your lunch.”

At least I’d have something to sink my teeth into for the rest of the day.

After getting the details on his missing food, I gave Andreas a five-dollar chit out of petty cash, good for a crust of bread and a glass of water down at the soup kitchen two blocks over. Then I put my dogs into motion, cornering Beryl Hives at her reception desk out front.

Beryl was 63 going on 200. She had a smoky voice and a smoky pair of eyes -- courtesy of way too many cigarettes. She had a chip on her shoulder the size of her beehive hairdo. But she knew the goings-on in our small business office like nobody else.

“Who’s been in the office this morning, Beryl?” I jawed, leaning up against her elevated countertop. I knew that Andreas Scolari had gotten into work at 9:00 a.m., and that his lunch break start-time had been 1:00 p.m. So his brown bagger must’ve been lifted from the company breakroom fridge sometime between those two times. An egg salad sandwich, an apple, an orange and a milk chocolate bar.

“Pete, Dawn, Andreas, and Konrad,” Beryl rasped in reply to my question. “And you. Why?”

“Andreas lost his lunch again today,” I yammered.

She hacked out a laugh, phlegmy-like. “At least I won’t have to listen to him chomping on those apples of his, then. You can hear him crunching away in the lunchroom all the way up here!”

“Yeah, life’s tough,” I agreed, sweet-talking the old lady. “But you know what they say, an apple a day-”

I choked on my quote when I saw Beryl stick two of her nicotine-stained fingers into her mouth to rattle her falsies around. “Dentures can’t take ‘em – too hard,” she informed me.

I barely kept my lunch down. And I hadn’t even eaten yet.

“When’d you chow down?” I wheezed.

“I had a half a pack of Camels outside at my usual time – noon to 1:00.”

Armed with the list of names Beryl had provided, I trundled away from the reception area and down the hall, crowded up behind Pete Stampkowski at the snack machine. The plus-sized salesman was overindulging one of his many weaknesses again – junk food. “Had lunch yet, big guy?” I mouthed.

He yanked the sisters Sweet Marie and Baby Ruth out of the bottom of the machine and straightened up with an ‘oof’. A grin split his heavy jowls. “Hey, Skip! Lunch? Yeah, sure, just got back – wining and dining Larry Kolger of LK Industries. We went to the Weiner Hut on Broadway. You been there lately? They got a-”

“What time did you inhale the foot-longs and fries?” I interrupted, fingering the fresh mustard and gravy stains on the guy’s shirt. The last time Pete Stampkowski had eaten anything healthy was the time he’d scarfed down a bagful of Styrofoam packing worms, thinking they were white-cheese doodles.

“Oh, we were there from around 11:45 ‘til now, I guess. I just got back. Say, you wanna hear something funny-”

I left Pete to swallow his longwinded story, slipping past him and through the side door, out into the sunshine.

I spotted Dawn de Jong stretching her legs, and I briefly shadowed her. Then flat-out ran to catch up with the well-toned payroll clerk striding down the sidewalk pumping her arms and legs.

“Another walking lunch, sugar?” I puffed.

“You know I never eat lunch, Skip,” she said, barely breathing hard. “I have all the fruits and nuts and water I need at my desk at work.” She turned her head and shone her violet eyes on me, smiling.

I went weak in the knees. The shin splints I got all on my own. “How ‘bout making with the milk of human kindness and going out with me some time?” I gasped.

She quickened her pace, leaving me in the dust. “Sorry,” she tossed over her shoulder, “but I’m lactose intolerant.”

I collected my thoughts, and breath, and shouldered my way back into the office. I set up shop in the conference room, picked up the phone, punched up Konrad Pushkin’s cubicle. “Konrad, it’s your wife!” I warbled in my best falsetto. Imitations were one of my specialties, and I’d met Konrad’s distinctively high-pitched wife at last year’s Christmas party.

“Yeah?” came the exasperated reply.

Konrad was the company’s accounts receivable collector, a dour, hard-faced man with an attitude as stony as the Kremlin. And with good reason – he had seven children at home, and a job that barely put enough food in everyone’s mouth.

“I need you to stop at the market on your way home and pick up a few hundred items!” I shrilled.

He grunted, “I already gave you the food money for the week. There ain’t anymore!”

I set the trap. “Weeell … can’t you maybe take up a collection at work – of food? There must be some lying around in the-”

The trap snapped back in my face, the sharp clicking sound of Konrad angrily cutting the line leaving me speechless. For all his flinty faults, the guy did have a reputation for honesty and integrity.

I ambled back outside to mull things over. But the hot summer sun didn’t burn off the fog surrounding my brain.

Until I wandered into the parking lot out back and leaned up against the dumpster, and my nose started twitching. That’s when I knew it was time to get dirty. Before this case ate me up.

So, I followed my beak, right over the side and into the bungalow-sized garbage container. And after only a few minutes of smelly sifting, I found what I was searching for: A brown paper bag containing a collection of bread crusts, a shiny red apple, a fistful of orange peels and one very empty milk chocolate bar wrapper. Evidence!

I climbed out of the dumpster with my haul and tumbled to the pavement. Triumphantly!

Knowing that I’d have the food burglar regurgitating a confession in no time.