Free 3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany by Jim Stevens Page B

computer terminal, plus a number of medals, trophies, and awards hanging on its walls. There are no papers on his desk. His wooden in-box is empty, so’s his wooden out-box. He sits behind a mahogany desk wearing a perfectly tailored blue blazer that enhances his muscular upper body.
    “What can I do for you, Tiff?” he asks as Tiffany and I sit and share the very comfortable leather couch.
    “I wanna talk about the night in the Zanadu.”
    “Which night?”
    “The night I got roofied,” Tiffany explains.
    “I don’t have a lot of time left,” he informs us.
    I wonder if he means he’s got some terminal illness, but I don’t ask because he’s as buffed and brawny as that guy on the paper towel package. “I understand some guy came between you and your date while you were at the bar?” I pose this more as a question than a statement.
    “She wasn’t my date.”
    “Told ya,” Tiffany says to me.
    “What happened?” I ask more simply.
    “I was there, minding my own business, talking to Alix Fromound, and this geek comes up and …”
    “Cock blocks you,” Tiffany chimes in.
    “Yeah, exactly.”
    “So, what did you do?”
    “I stand up, tap him on the shoulder, and I’m just about to crush his windpipe …,” Monroe demonstrates by shaping his right hand into a claw.
    “But you didn’t?”
    “Nope,” he says. “Everybody starts going apeshit over something that’s going on a couple stools down.”
    “That was me they were going apeshit over, Mr. Sherlock.”
    “Yes, I figured that out, Tiffany.”
    “And when I look back to the guy I’m going to bust,” Monroe continues, “he’s gone.”
    “Where’d he go?”
    “Who knows?”
    “Did you go after him?”
    “Nope.”
    “Why not? You wanted to crush his windpipe, didn’t you?”
    “Yeah, but all these chicks are screaming, the bartender’s climbing over the bar, the security guys are running up. It was like a Super Bowl touchdown in the last minute of regulation.”
    I sit back, conjure up the DVD scene in my head, and come to no conclusion. When I come back to reality in a few seconds, I ask Monroe, “What do you do here?”
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “Nothing, I just wondered.”
    “I’m the Executive Vice President of Preferred Accounts.” He glances down at his gold Rolex and stands up. “Time to go.”
    “Big meeting?” I ask.
    I turn and see a man in a gym suit approaching us. This guy is equal to, or better than, Monroe in every muscle category on the body. “Ready?” he asks.
    “Right with you,” Monroe says to the gym rat. Nice to see you again, Tiff.” Monroe is well-schooled in the art of giving people the bum’s rush. “Sorry, you got roofied.”
    “Me too,” Tiffany says. “I’m used to people going apeshit over me, but not that many people in such a big group.”
    Monroe Chevelier and the gym rat turn left when they reach the hallway, Tiffany and I turn right. We walk by a number of offices, and a big room with thirty or so cubicles. “What does this CEI do anyway?” CEI being the name of the company.
    “I don’t know,” Tiffany says. “Monroe’s dad started it.”
    I walk slower, trying to listen in on employee conversations. Nothing. When I reach the reception area, I ask the attractive lady wearing a headphone. “What does this company do?”
    “Mergers and acquisitions.”
    “What does Monroe Chevelier do?” I figure I have nothing to lose by asking what could be considered a very unprofessional question.
    “Anything and anybody he wants,” she states, nonchalantly.
    ---
    It’s late in the afternoon. Tiffany leaves me to go off to some yoga class where they heat up the room to a hundred and fifty degrees, the instructor bends you into different pretzel shapes, and your entire body sweats like a busted faucet. I do enough sweating over my financial situation, and decline Tiffany’s offer to join in the yoga fun.
    Instead, I walk over to Bruno’s condo to wait