The two Jace Teakwood novels (this and "WGDA") were written in tandem from when I was thirteen to just after my fifteenth birthday. Someday I will get around to editing them fully to make them fit for public consumption.
"Jace Teakwood: Everyday Meatloaf" is the first in a series of mystery/humor novels that sprung directly from my extensive Dashiell Hammett period. Jace is a young detective, newly moved to New York, who takes on a lot of little mysteries (finding missing plants, cats, umbrellas,etc.) and one big one: infiltrating an international smuggling ring. Jace Teakwood: young, intrepid, not quite all there, solving the world one mystery at a time.
True to my faith, which I had so gratefully borrowed from my grandfather, it wasn’t too long before— that is to say, in no time at all— well, in reality, it was about three months before my first case walked in the door. She was wearing high heels, too, but the effect was entirely different.
She had thick glasses, big teeth, hair the color of a field mouse, and odd purple eyes. She looked like she should be skinny as a broom underneath her outfit; she was wrapped in clothes that looked like they came from the lost-and-found bin at the local soup kitchen. The most offensive thing, however, was her nose. I didn’t see how you could end up with something like that unless you were specially trying or there was a spectacular accident at the face-lifter’s.
In a voice that suggested a life threatening cold, she said, “Hello, I need help finding something.”
Despite her distinct lack of blond hair and her apparent reluctance to throw shoes at me, or maybe because of that latter, I decided to be gallant.
“Well, Miss, it’s a good thing you came here. This is definitely, beyond a doubt, absolutely the best place to be under the circumstances. I’ll find anything. May I ask what it is you’re looking for?”
Her voice turned suddenly gloomy, nearly sending the room into the depths of despair. “My meatloaf.”
Now, you know my background. So maybe you’ll understand when I say I wasn’t surprised in the least.
Just kidding. I was floored.
“Time,” said the girl, looking sane, yet uttering crazy words, “is of the essence.”
“So I’ve heard,” I gasped. I had just started breathing again. The meatloaf thing had gotten to me, I guess even more than I’d figured. I hate meatloaf, personally. I used to have nightmares about meatloaf. I looked at the girl and figured now I’d have nightmares about meatloaf and her in conjunction.
The girl walked, click, click, click, over to my desk and leaned over it, her palms firmly planted on the paper I kept there. It’s supposed to make me look busy, or at least employed. I use it to draw on when I’m bored, which is most of the time, so it had sketches all over it. Mostly of pigs.
“Mister Teakwood,” she said, “my name is Tovala Ryder and I am eighteen years old, soon to be nineteen.”
She pronounced each word slowly, clearly and as though she either thought I was somewhat dim-witted or expected me to suddenly leap to my feet and shout “Ms. President!” and maybe salute.
So I jumped up, held out my hand for her to shake whenever she decided she wanted to, and said, “Ms. Ryder!”
She looked at my hand for a minute, then shook it impatiently and waved at me to get me to sit down.
“You may call me,” she said graciously, “Tova.”
“And you,” I returned, more graciously, “may call me Jace.”
She nodded, but the stiff look on her face implied that she probably wouldn’t go immediately to first name basis. I figured they probably didn’t do that on her home planet.
“Okay, Jace,” she said, surprising me immensely, “shall we get down to business then?”
“Certainly,” I said courteously.
“Time,” she repeated immediately, “is of the essence.”
I waited for her to continue. She didn’t. Rather than get caught in the same circle, I carried on undaunted.
“Your meatloaf?” I said.
She nodded.
“So your meatloaf is of essence too?”
She nodded.
Meatloaf of essence. Essence of meatloaf. “Sounds like some kind of perfume,” I said out loud, accidentally conveying my confused thoughts into audible words.
She blinked. “That is exactly it!” she said.
I blinked back. “Wha— huh? No, I mean, I was just-”
“But Jace,” she said, more quickly now, “you just said exactly what I had intended to! Essence of time and meatloaf perfume! That’s it! And I need you to find it for me!”
I leaned back in my chair and patiently thought it over for a while. Essence of time and meatloaf perfume. What was this? Some loony’s idea of a new cologne? I frowned. I didn’t have any friends in New York that would play a trick like this on me. So far I didn’t have any friends in New York at all. I had enemies, but something told me they would go straight for the jugular and not for the brain. If they were going to try to drive me crazy I’d have been injected with something by now. All this thinking was getting me nowhere. Sure, I was used to it, but it wasn’t too good for business.
Finally I leaned forward again and said, “I’m sorry, I still have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.”
She looked relieved, as though a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “Good.”
“Good?” I asked, trying not to do a double take.
“Yes, good. Why do you keep repeating things? Do you have trouble understanding English?”
“English, no. You, yes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, offended.
“Look, lady— ” I started angrily, but the phone rang, interrupting me. Testily, I picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Hello, is this Mr. Jacen Teakwood speaking on the phone?”
“Yes, who is this?”
“I said, is this Mr. Jacen Teakwood speaking on the phone?”
“Yes,” I shouted, “Yes, this is Mr. Jacen Teakwood speaking on the phone! Who is this?”
“Would that be Mr. Jacen Aaron Teakwood?”
“Yes,” I said, a little bewildered now, almost as bewildered as I had been when Tova Ryder came into my office and started feeding me a line about meatloaf perfume.
“Ah, good! You’re probably wondering who this is, aren’t you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
“Good! This is Val, with Trough’s Humane Society. Sorry to bother you, sir, but we picked up your dog.”
“Dog? I don’t have a dog.”
“Yes, I said, we’ve picked up your dog, sir.”
“I don’t have a dog!” I yelled in the phone. There was a pause.
“Could you repeat that, please?”
“I do not have a dog.”
“Again?”
“I— do— not— have— a— dog.”
“Are you sure, sir?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
There was another pause, even longer than the first.
“Are you absolutely positive?”
“I’m absolutely positive. Don’t you think I’d know if I did?”
“You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”
“Of course not! Why would I lie about whether or not I have a dog to somebody I’ve never met?”
I was being rhetorical, but something tells me that Val from Trough’s Humane Society has never heard of the term.
“Well,” she started out, “you never know, sir. Sometimes people say they don’t have animals when they do, because they don’t want to bother with picking them up. Why, just last week the very same thing happened. You would not believe me if I told you!”
“I don’t have a— ”
“Hold on a minute, sir. Would you please repeat your statement slowly and clearly.”
“I do not have a dog,” I repeated slowly and somewhat clearly. I was beginning to be very slightly irritated. “Trust me on this one, okay?” Tova Ryder was looking very confused at what she could hear of the conversation.
“Well,” said Val with a one-tries-but-what-can-one-do air, “all right. If you’re sure.”
“I am very sure. By the way, Val, how did you manage to come up with my number to call? You certainly didn’t get it from a tag on some dog’s collar.”
“Oh, it’s a very complicated process, sir, involving— ”
“Never mind,” I said sharply. “I don’t want to hear it after all.”
“Okay. Well, I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Yes, yes, it’s all right. Apology accepted, goodbye.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” she cried. “Before you go, would you mind speaking your earlier statement just once more?”
“Of what possible use would that be?”
“Well, I have a bet.”
“A bet.”
“Yes. I bet my friend that I could get you to say the same thing more than five times. I’d really appreciate it if you would indulge me, just this once more.”
“I— don’t— have— a— ” I said.
“Yes? Yes? Just the one more word, sir, and then I’ll leave you alone!”
“Aaaaaaaaaa....” I said, drawing it out, and banged the phone down. Then I pointed my finger at Tova and tried to remember what I had been yelling at her for.
“Now where was I? Oh, yeah. Look, lady...”
The phone rang again.
“Hello,” I said irritably into it.
“Is this Mr. J. A. Teakwood?”
“It is. Who the heck is this?”
“This is Mr. H. J. Pilate, J.D. I’m the attorney for Berenza Restaurant in N.Y.C. I’d like to talk with you A.S.A.P. My office. Two thirty P.M., BYOB.”
“Pardon?” Attorney, attorney, attorney for— oh, cry eye, the restaurant I’d destroyed! Well, partially destroyed. Something told me I wouldn’t get a chance to make this argument till they got me in court. I thought as quickly as possible, and five minutes later came up with this.
“Uh, uh,” I said desperately. “I’m sorry. This is a recorded recording. We are permanently closed for repairs, opening soon near you..... you’re looking for someone else, mister. Barking up the wrong tree. Goodbye.” I hung up hurriedly and looked at Tova Ryder.
“Um,” I said.
“‘Look, lady’,” she said helpfully.
“Right.” I leaned my head against the back of my chair and closed my eyes. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want me to do.”
I wished I could just order her out of my office. By now, though, I felt exhausted. Plus, I reminded myself, I needed the money that was promising to come from this case. My grandpa loved me, but not enough to blow his entire fortune on me.
She began, obviously choosing her words with care: “I am trying to help with an investigation. This investigation goes against my family in a rather large way, so I do not wish the investigation to be a public investigation, with anybody and everybody investigating false clues.”
“What’s your favorite word?” I interrupted her. She gave me a funny look. “It wouldn’t happen, by any chance, to be ‘investigation’, would it?”
She hmmphed and continued her explanation. Of the investigation. The investigation explanation. Cry eye, now I’m doing it, too.
“Since I don’t want this to be widely publicized, you could guess.... well, maybe you couldn’t, so I will just tell you right off the bat. I’m warning you, Mister Teakwood, the name I have given you is an alias.”
“You’re right,” I said with a broad, heartfelt smile, my first since she had walked into the office and started talking about food. “I never in a million years would have guessed that your parents didn’t name you Tovala.”
She gave me one in a series of sharp looks. “This investigation,” she continued imperiously, “goes against everything I’ve been taught, too.” She suddenly appeared to be trying very hard not to cry. I know it’s cruel and mean and heartless of me, but I was thinking, deep in my mind, get over it. If you want my opinion she deserved it. And besides, how could it go against everything she’d been taught? One plus one is two, of course, and if she disagreed with that she didn’t need a detective, she needed a psychiatrist. Come to think of it she probably needed that, too. And what about the law of gravity? If she has a problem with that, let’s see her try to fly off a fifty-story building.
“Look, Jace,” she said, looking up with brilliant purple eyes (I don’t know how some girls get purple eyes, but it always happens to the ones that will turn out to drive you crazy. I just didn’t know that being driven crazy by a girl was so literal.) “I need your help so much on this investigation. The people that I’m trying to help don’t believe that I’m trying to help them, and so I have to work independently until I can win their confidence and trust, if I ever do manage it. But I can’t work independently! I wasn’t made like that! I need help!”
“I can see that,” I agreed. “But I’m still a little confused.” I thought. “No, make that a lot confused.”
“You need to help me find my meatloaf! Is that so hard?”
“Yes, it is very hard for us sane people.”
“Look, quit making wisecracks and tell me whether you understand it or not!”
“I don’t understand it at all. But here’s a little question for you,” I said, leaning toward her. “Does my understanding really matter? I mean, can’t I just operate with the information I have, like knowing my own name and today’s date?”
“Don’t be sarcastic,” she ordered. The tears suddenly dried up as though being sucked up back into her eyes by a very powerful vacuum. “Now, do you understand?”
I stood up and began to pace back and forth across the room. In one of my favorite detective novels by my favorite author, J.L. Fowler, the detective paces back and forth. It was supposed to make him look like he was thinking very hard, and I supposed it worked, because his clients seemed in awe of him.
“Okay,” I said loudly and harshly, like that detective had a habit of doing to make his clients sit up and take notice. In fact I said it a little louder and harsher than I had intended to, and Tova and I both jumped involuntarily. I’m thinking maybe I spend too much time reading those kinds of books. It’s beginning to rub off on me.
“Who is it that you’re trying to help, what is this investigation about, and how does it go against your family?” I asked, thinking quickly and making mental lists of all the things I needed to have explained to me, not including how to file taxes because I didn’t think she had a clue about that any more than I did.
Tova thought very seriously and very quickly. I wished I could learn that trick.
“I can’t answer those questions,” she said, to my (Warning! Sarcasm approaching! Warning!) great surprise (I told you!).
“Right.” I thought. It actually is surprisingly hard to do that when you’re busy stomping around a room. “Then tell me this: who in your family does it go against?”
“My uncle,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.
I stopped pacing and sat down because my legs were tired. Picking up a pen, I started to draw on the scrap paper I keep on my desk. I drew moodily and out of boredom and a pig, as usual. “It doesn’t affect your parents?”
“No.”
“Does it have anything to do with your parents?”
“No. They’re on vacation and won’t be back for several months. They don’t know anything about this.”
I smirked, quite involuntarily. “That makes two of us.”
She considered. “Well, actually, counting you, my mom, and my dad, it makes three...”
Great. I’ve got a literal genius on my hands here.
“So where exactly are your parents while being on vacation?” I asked, not exactly out of curiosity, but just for something to say so she wouldn’t keep on demonstrating to me her mathematical skills.
“Hollywood, then Pennsylvania, then to Europe for a grand tour.”
I stopped drawing. I found I had semi-unconsciously drawn, next to the pig, the girl I had seen at the restaurant the day I became a fugitive. I thought of Tova’s parents vacation destinations (that phrase ties in well with ‘investigation explanation’) and gave her a questioning look.
“We have relatives in Pennsylvania,” she said, trying to explain.
I shrugged. “I was just wondering why anyone would go to Hollywood for a vacation.”
“Right,” she said, rolling her eyes at me. I rolled them right back at her because I didn’t want them.
“Are you going to help me or not?” she said, getting exasperated. “I pay well.”
This perked up my interest like no other topic so far. “How well is well?”
“A hundred dollars a day,” she started.
“And expenses?”
“Yes, and I pay expenses.”
“Good.” I thought of all the things I could put under the heading of ‘Expenses’. Trips to various places. Like FAO Schwartz.
“ Plus,” she continued, “I buy lunch, dinner, but not breakfast.”
“Why not breakfast?”
“Because that would entirely blow my budget from here to Kingdom come. So what do you say?”
I thought it over. My mind was red hot because of all the thinking I’d been doing today. Maybe, I tried not to think, I shouldn’t think of anything at all. My brain can be pretty fragile at times, and overloading it would probably cause it to short out, leaving me a senseless, drooling idiot for at least a week. The easiest thing to do right now would be to agree with her.
“Okay, Tova. I’ll do it. After all, a guy does tend to get tired of eating pizzas for dinner that taste like cardboard boxes.”
She looked bemused. “What else do you expect me to buy?”
I looked at the ceiling and counted cockroaches.
Her smile was sly as she said, “Think about it.”
Inadvertently, I did, and was turned into a senseless, drooling idiot for a week, during which she refused to pay my expenses.
All materials copyrighted to Felicity Danielle Dippery. No copying, pirating, or reproduction without express permission from the author. Violation of this will cause her father, a prominent lawyer, to come down on you so hard you'll be searching for a rock to crawl under and hide.
