"Bart Lasiter: Private Dick"
(A Bulwer-Lytton inspired interlude)
by Souvie 
copyright September 2006
/~Souvie/lasiter.html

Author's Note: The first sentence is a Bulwer-Lytton contest winner.
Denny challenged me to write a story around it. Well, it's part of a
story at least. I'm just not much of a detective writer.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


Detective Bart Lasiter was in his office studying the light from his
one small window falling on his super burrito when the door swung
open to reveal a woman whose body said you've had your last burrito
for a while, whose face said angels did exist, and whose eyes said
she could make you dig your own grave and lick the shovel clean.

He tossed the burrito in the trash. 

Before he could say a word, she bent down and lifted her skirt to
adjust her garter; you know, the kind that holds up stockings, not
the green slithering kind that inhabits lawns and gardens. 

"Can I help you?" he asked in his smoothest voice, the kind that
enabled him to pass for Cary Grant over the phone and Jerry Lewis in
person.

The dame smoothed down her skirt and graced him with a smile
brighter than a bug-zapper light. When she spoke, her voice was so
pure it would have made his mother weep, just like she'd done last
Saturday when she found out his youngest sister Alice ran off to
Vegas to become a showgirl at the Flamingo.

"I'm looking for a Dick."

He thought of several replies to that line, most of them fit to say
in front of his best friend Eddie, but not a classy broad, so he
simply pointed to his name stenciled on the outer door and then to
himself.

She put both hands on his desk. "I've lost a valuable heirloom, Mr.
Lasiter. I think it was stolen." 

He took out a pen and prepared to take notes. He wrote 'C sharp' at
the top of the page.

"What exactly is this heirloom, Miss...?"

"Oh sorry, it's Miss LaRue. Betty LaRue."

"Go on, Miss LaRue."

"It's the Venetian Vibrator. It's been in my family for ages, passed
down from mother to daughter. And it doesn't really vibrate, not
unless you move your hand really really fast."

He felt parched, like a man who'd just crossed the Sahara desert on
camel without once coming across a watering hole. He reached for his
coffee cup but it was emptier than a donut shop during a police
strike. 

He cleared his throat. "Where do you think you lost it? Or more
importantly, who do you think stole it?"

"I'm a teacher at the Farmingdale School for Young Ladies. I teach
health and hygiene. I'm pretty sure one of the girls at the school
stole it. I kept it in my lingerie drawer, and I noticed it missing
after last weekend's pajama party and pillow fight."

Her eyes pleaded with him like a woman at the butcher's wanting
filet mignon for the ground beef price. "Please say you'll help me!"

He looked at his notes. He'd added 'B flat'. "Let me get this
straight: you've lost a valuable heirloom called the Venetian
Vibrator and you think it was lost or stolen at a school for girls,
by one of the girls, after a weekend pajama party and pillow fight?"

She nodded eagerly.

A dame with gams like hers and a story like that, how could he *not*
take the case? 

"I'm your Dick," he said with a grin.



THE END