3 The Case of Tiffany's Epiphany Read Online Free
not-so-dynamic duo, “I just want you to know that I don’t follow the fashion trends, I set ’em.”
As I pass through the portal, I hear a bewildered comment from the waiting peanut gallery behind me, “You letting that guy in?”
I follow Tiffany up a few steps and down a short path to huge metal door, which looks strong enough to keep Attila and his Hun buddies out. A slimy-looking guy in a slimier-looking suit steps forward to block our path. He takes one look at me and says to Tiffany, “Let me guess, you’re on a scavenger hunt and you found the Forgotten Nerd?”
Tiffany stares him straight in the eye, “This is Mr. Sherlock, Chicago Police Department, Detective First Class.”
Slimy Guy sashays to the left like a matador, “Welcome to Zanadu.”
The metal door slides open and a blast of hip-hop music hits me like a tornado hits a trailer park. I step inside and my entire body begins to violently shake to an over-dubbed backbeat mixed with an incessant string of garbled rap lyrics that must be in some other language.
I take a whiff. My hearing might be gone, but my sense of smell still works. The place smells like a perfumed sweat sock. I look around the enormous, nearly unimpeded floor space. People are jammed together like pickles in a jar. The dance floor is packed with bodies twisting and turning like a bucket of snakes. The scene is so intense, so loud, and so overwhelming; the only way you could communicate is by texting, which I don’t do because the letters are too small to push on my flip phone. The DJ, who’s on a platform above the crowd working two turntables and I can’t see how many tape decks, wears a huge pair of earphones, which makes him the only one in the place that doesn’t have to listen to the awful music he’s playing.
Tiffany pulls me through the throng as if she’s walking an unruly St. Bernard. She’s screaming something at me, but I can’t hear her, or read her lips because the place is vibrating faster than a motel bed with magic fingers. It’s probably a blessing I can’t hear her. We end up on the other side of the club, in a bar area the size of a basketball court. Thankfully, the area is cordoned off by a glass wall, which makes it somewhat easier to hear.
“This is where you go to have fun?” I ask Tiffany.
“No, this is where you go to be seen having fun,” she tells me.
Tiffany leads me to what would be about half court at the bar. She butts in between two guys who have enough mousse in their hair to be a matching oil slick. “This is where I was sitting when I took a sip and my head hit the bar like a tree falling on the moon that you can’t hear.”
I stop, look up to my left and then to my right. I see exactly what I suspected.
“Then I must have slid off the barstool and landed here on the floor.” Tiffany shows me by spreading her hands over the small area.
“How would you know that if you were already passed out?” I ask.
Tiffany ponders my question. “That’s a good question, Mr. Sherlock. I just figured that’s what happened.”
“First rule of life, Tiffany,” I tell her. “Assume nothing.”
“No,” Tiffany says. “The first rule of life is never use soap on your face. It dries out your pores.”
Once again, I stand corrected.
I make some mental pictures of the scene, having a photographic memory does have its advantages. Next, I count the bartenders and barbacks behind the bar. In about a sixty-foot space there are eight, six tenders who take orders and mix cocktails with incredible speed and two helpers who keep the ice wells filled and lug the clean and dirty glasses in and out. I lose track of how many waitresses come into the bar station empty and leave with a tray full of cocktails. I’m always amazed how they seldom spill a drop while navigating through the jungle of pulsating flesh.
Whoever owns this Zanadu is going to be able to build his own Xanadu in no time at all. The place is a gold mine.
“Do you
As I pass through the portal, I hear a bewildered comment from the waiting peanut gallery behind me, “You letting that guy in?”
I follow Tiffany up a few steps and down a short path to huge metal door, which looks strong enough to keep Attila and his Hun buddies out. A slimy-looking guy in a slimier-looking suit steps forward to block our path. He takes one look at me and says to Tiffany, “Let me guess, you’re on a scavenger hunt and you found the Forgotten Nerd?”
Tiffany stares him straight in the eye, “This is Mr. Sherlock, Chicago Police Department, Detective First Class.”
Slimy Guy sashays to the left like a matador, “Welcome to Zanadu.”
The metal door slides open and a blast of hip-hop music hits me like a tornado hits a trailer park. I step inside and my entire body begins to violently shake to an over-dubbed backbeat mixed with an incessant string of garbled rap lyrics that must be in some other language.
I take a whiff. My hearing might be gone, but my sense of smell still works. The place smells like a perfumed sweat sock. I look around the enormous, nearly unimpeded floor space. People are jammed together like pickles in a jar. The dance floor is packed with bodies twisting and turning like a bucket of snakes. The scene is so intense, so loud, and so overwhelming; the only way you could communicate is by texting, which I don’t do because the letters are too small to push on my flip phone. The DJ, who’s on a platform above the crowd working two turntables and I can’t see how many tape decks, wears a huge pair of earphones, which makes him the only one in the place that doesn’t have to listen to the awful music he’s playing.
Tiffany pulls me through the throng as if she’s walking an unruly St. Bernard. She’s screaming something at me, but I can’t hear her, or read her lips because the place is vibrating faster than a motel bed with magic fingers. It’s probably a blessing I can’t hear her. We end up on the other side of the club, in a bar area the size of a basketball court. Thankfully, the area is cordoned off by a glass wall, which makes it somewhat easier to hear.
“This is where you go to have fun?” I ask Tiffany.
“No, this is where you go to be seen having fun,” she tells me.
Tiffany leads me to what would be about half court at the bar. She butts in between two guys who have enough mousse in their hair to be a matching oil slick. “This is where I was sitting when I took a sip and my head hit the bar like a tree falling on the moon that you can’t hear.”
I stop, look up to my left and then to my right. I see exactly what I suspected.
“Then I must have slid off the barstool and landed here on the floor.” Tiffany shows me by spreading her hands over the small area.
“How would you know that if you were already passed out?” I ask.
Tiffany ponders my question. “That’s a good question, Mr. Sherlock. I just figured that’s what happened.”
“First rule of life, Tiffany,” I tell her. “Assume nothing.”
“No,” Tiffany says. “The first rule of life is never use soap on your face. It dries out your pores.”
Once again, I stand corrected.
I make some mental pictures of the scene, having a photographic memory does have its advantages. Next, I count the bartenders and barbacks behind the bar. In about a sixty-foot space there are eight, six tenders who take orders and mix cocktails with incredible speed and two helpers who keep the ice wells filled and lug the clean and dirty glasses in and out. I lose track of how many waitresses come into the bar station empty and leave with a tray full of cocktails. I’m always amazed how they seldom spill a drop while navigating through the jungle of pulsating flesh.
Whoever owns this Zanadu is going to be able to build his own Xanadu in no time at all. The place is a gold mine.
“Do you
Readers choose
Maggie Marr
Carolyn Cruise
Paul Acampora
Vivian Vande Velde
Stacey St. James
George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
John Everson
Barbara Meyers
Dorothy Howell
Day Leclaire