know who you think you are or how you know so much about me,” Corwin began his defense. “Someone said you’re a cop or an investigator. Is that true?”
“If someone said it, then it must be true.”
Corwin awkwardly turned to his left, almost losing his balance to pronounce, “I’d like to introduce to you Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who knows everything about everybody!” He attempted a half bow in front of me. “Good day, sir,” he said, invoking a wave of subdued laughter around the room. “I beg of you, please continue to wow us with your mental . . . and I emphasize the word mental . . . wizardry. Tell me something about him.”
A shaky finger was pointed in the direction of a nebbish male sitting on the couch. A short time earlier, he’d stood near us and I’d overheard a few arbitrary facts, which I proceeded to recite with great flare, playing to my audience of one.
“The first thing you should know about Herman is he hates to be called Herm. It sounds too much like germ for his liking.” My target straightened up. It was, to some extent, an educated guess with a name like that. I recalled my childhood friend Wayne hated being called Wayner, because it sounded like wiener. “Next, if you don’t know already, the striking eyewear Herman sports are cosmetic fakes to make him appear smarter. The lenses are made of plain glass with no magnification whatsoever.” As Herman began to fidget, anyone not fully engrossed by my cheap parlour act before, was now. Feeling bad, I said, “The funny thing is he’s very smart, graduating at the top of his class. It’s all of you who aren’t very bright for not recognizing this yourselves. If I had a brokerage firm, Herman, I’d hire you in a minute, with or without your glasses.”
“Enough of him!” Corwin bellowed, agitated I was showing him up in front of his colleagues and friends. “What about him?” he demanded, singling out another recent unemployment statistic.
My many years working the streets, bars and in Vice sting operations had prepared me well for this task. Without having overheard this man speak a word, I had to rely on the two things I’d noted during the evening: his physical appearance and his body language, especially when in close proximity to Corwin The Great.
“I’m sorry I don’t know your name,” I said to my next reluctant volunteer. “I’ll call you Mr. X, okay?” He nodded in the affirmative. “Okay, so . . . it’s quite apparent you and Corwin frequent the same clothing stores. Those slacks and shirt hang side-by-side on the display racks at uppity boutiques. Even Mr. X’s fashionable $500 Prada shoes match yours, Corwin. Did you two share a springtime retail therapy session together?” This elicited some much deserved snickering and smiles all around. “His taste in clothes and the ability to pay for them would indicate he went to an overpriced snooty business school, Solinder perhaps, to learn how to be a financial mastermind, or as you like to crow, a broker. Unfortunately, the one thing they don’t teach in class is how to deal with real-life failure, like when you lose your job and are still stuck with a BMW car payment for two more years.”
As I drive a nondescript family mini-van for a living, I admire the occasional Beamer or Porsche I stumble upon parked on the street. Tonight, I had seen at least seven luxury sports cars and knew Corwin and Mr. X must have keys for a couple of them.
Corwin was at a loss. I had drained his bravado in a few short minutes. I concede that with my cop training this exercise in cold-reading really wasn’t fair, but I didn’t start this ball rolling - he did.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Scott does for a living. Most everyone here is in the stock market,” Corwin proclaimed in an effort to discredit my significant brilliance. “If you’re so smart, tell me something I don’t know, Holmes.” He dragged out the syllables for effect: H-o-l-m-e-s.
“Steve, let it go,” Dawn said softly, gently putting a hand on my arm.
“Yeah, Steve, let it go,” Corwin repeated, again dragging out more syllables: S-t-e-v-e.
I looked at Dawn’s half-empty wine glass. “Is that the last of the bottle?”
“Yes,” she answered tentatively. “Why?”
“No reason.” I lifted my glass to hers and clinked the edges together. “To a wonderful party. Thank you for inviting me. Now drink up. I don’t want to waste a single drop.”
Reluctantly, Dawn downed the remainder of wine, as I killed off the whiskey. I turned to Doug and whispered in his ear, “Please escort Dawn to the front door and wait for my signal.”
“What signal?”
“Believe me, you’ll know it when you see it.”
The last time I saw Doug look this confused was when he had thawed a package of hamburger and it stayed a grey colour, instead of the rosy red it should’ve turned. You could almost smell the wood burning as he decided if he should still use the meat for the Wednesday chili lunch special.
“Give up?” Corwin drunkenly asked.
“Not by a long shot, kid,” I said, reasserting myself in the conversation and Corwin’s personal space. “The question is, do you really want me to proceed?”
Corwin’s face tightened and his upper lip curled into a Billy Idol sneer. “Everybody’s waiting.”
So they were.
“I know you asked me for only one interesting unknown fact about Scott, however, like potato chips, one is never enough.” I stepped forward and began to ramp up my big finale that I knew would be a real show stopper. “What’s interesting about your friend, Corwin, is how nervous he seems tonight, even before you put him in my sights. I started to think, why would a best friend be jittery in the presence of his closest compadre? You are obviously more than just business associates or classmates. You’re buds who watch each other’s back, which is something you can’t put a price on, right?” Both Corwin and Scott were eyeing each other nervously. “You trust his stock advice, his fashion expertise. Yet, when sulking in your little Us Against Them support group earlier, I saw something in Scott’s eyes you missed, which I’m thinking is exactly what Scott is betting on.”
The stale living room air was still with expectation.
“Corwin, I don’t know what he’s talking about. He’s making this shit up as he goes,” Scott pleaded nervously.
Dawn and Doug had dutifully walked unnoticed to the front door, where they stood with their shoes and boots on. Doug pointed to my sneakers tucked under his arm, smiled and gave me the thumbs up. Dawn grinned and mouthed, “I like you a lot,” to which I mouthed back, “I know.” We shared one last moment of togetherness before Corwin broke the spell.
“I don’t like where you’re heading with this. There’s no way Scott is into me, so you can stop going there,” he warned.
I smiled and replied, “Scott and you? Please. First off, I think everyone here can tell he has better taste than that. Believe me, it wasn’t only his eyes that gave his secret away. It was the way he stood in the group, the way he held his glass, the times he laughed a bit too hard and the occasions when he listened a tad too attentively.” Another person in the room began to sway uncomfortably on their feet. “It was how he lightly touched the lower back of one of your group, as he made his way to the kitchen to fix two more drinks and again when delicately handing the second drink to the same party-goer. Of course, you were too busy to notice any of these romantic shenanigans going on. You can admit it, there’s no shame in being the last to know. I see this type of thing
