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Skriven 2005-01-31 00:37:10 av DAVE COBLE (1:123/140)
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<http://www.miami.com/mld/charlotte/news/columnists/doug_robarchek>

Buggart: The Case of the Missing Mrs.
DOUG ROBARCHEK

  I stole up the darkened stairs soundlessly. Stealth was all. I couldn't
afford a slip up. The stakes were too high.

  I felt my way through the blackness to the proper door, took out the
slim, stiff steel jimmy and slipped it into the lock to work my magic.
I was a master at the subtle art of lock-picking. I could open a
deadbolt in two seconds flat. I majored in it at Harvard.

  Unfortunately, this was a Yale lock.

  Forty-seven minutes later I got inside. Lucky I brought a crowbar.

  I sidled into the dark bedroom and felt around until I found the
basket full of clean laundry on the bed. I took out a fresh pair of
jockey shorts, swapped them for the ones I had on, and stood the dirty
pair in the corner. I'd been wearing them a while.

The old back-rent problem

  Man, it's a nuisance being locked out of your apartment. I was going
to have to pay that back rent one of these days.Unfortunately, at the
moment I was so broke I couldn't pay attention. I felt like I just
landed on Boardwalk with three hotels, a motor court and the Ratcliffe
condos on it.

  Anyway, I was on a case again. That's what I do. I'm a private eye.

  Buggart is the name. Humphrey Buggart. Like the old movie guy, only
less deceased. Also known as Agent XX7. With the double X rating, I'm
not licensed to kill, but I am allowed to slap like a little girl and
pinch really hard.

  I'd been hired this afternoon by a beautiful dish who slunk into my
office. Slank into my office? Slonked? Anyway, she got in there.

   A man was with her. I didn't know him, but I recognized her, all
right. Every guy in town knew her. She'd been in more cheap hotel rooms
than the Gideon Bible. She was one of the Kabbige sisters. Her name was
Hedda.

A famous name -- kind of

   The guy with her was a big friendly looking rube. He stuck out his
hand and said, "Hi. My name's Kent Clark."

   " `Kent Clark'? What's your other identity? `Mansuper?' Personally,
I'm `Manbat,' but you can call me `Wayne Bruce.'"

   "We want you to find somebody, Buggart," Hedda said. And then she
started telling me about it.

   I let my eyes rest on her body as she talked. But it wasn't all that
restful for them. They had a lot of terrain to climb up and down. She
had quite a built. Her butt reminded me of somebody, but I couldn't put
my finger on it. Every time I tried, she slapped me.

   I had known her for a long time. We were real close for a while, but
eventually she got tired of me and said to me what the vice president
said to the senator.

Hedda had a leaden head

   I didn't mind. I was pretty tired of her, too. After all, she wasn't
exactly Alberta Einstein. I'm not saying she was stupid, but when the
doctor told her she should have a Pap test, she said, "My Pap's dead.
Could you test my Mama instead?"

   She once took a scarf back to the store because it was too tight. She
only changed the baby's Pamper once a month, because the box said "For
up to 20 pounds."

   Finally I got the picture: They wanted me to find Kent Clark's missing
wife. (What was her name, I wondered. Lane Lois?)

   "You have any suggestions as to where I should look?" I asked. "I
mean, I can't just go running around willy-nilly."

   Hedda said, "Oh Buggart, you silly-billy, you don't even have a nilly."

   K, what do you know about your wife, Clark? Have you known her long?"

   "I've knowed her all my life. We was kids together in West Virginia.
But for a long time I thought of her like a sister."

   "Why is that?"

   "Because we got the same mama and daddy."

   As they talked, I began to get a picture of the missing wife. She was
an undercover drug cop named Lark, and she had last been seen trying to
set up a dealer in Freedom Park around midnight.

   Great. I was looking for narc Lark Clark in a dark park.

   The cops were hunting her too, of course, but they only had so many
people and a lot of ground to cover, so Hedda had suggested that her
friend Kent Clark put me on the case, too.

Back on a case again

   So here I was, wearing freshly laundered underwear that didn't creak
when I walked, and gainfully employed again. Life was good.I went down
to the pool hall to talk to one of my best snitches, Stanislaus "Shark"
Starkey. He knew everything that went on in Charlotte.

   I told him I was looking for Lark Clark.

   "Lark Clark the narc?" Shark Starkey barked. "I don't know nothin'
about her. I only know what everybody knows: She's 5-6, 131 1/2 pounds,
brown hair, gray eyes, talks with a West Virginia accent, had a dog
named Worms when she was 7, married her brother, Kent Clark, has a scar
shaped like Marvin Hamlisch on her left buttock, and was last seen in
Freedom Park at midnight. Oh, and her maiden name. It was Clark."

   "No idea why she might have wanted to disappear?"

She had a pet theory

   "Is that your angle, Buggart? She cut out on her own? Well, now you
mention it, there was some talk that she ran up big poker debts trying
to prove her pet theory -- that two fives could beat a full house if
you built up their self-esteem."

  "Aha!" I said. That's private eye talk, meaning, "I'm onto something
here, but I'm in a newspaper column, so I can't say `son of a bitch!' "

  And where does every crackpot with a half-baked theory about gambling
wind up sooner or later? One place: Pete Rose's house. Or maybe Vegas.

  I decided to try Vegas first because it was farther, and I had
experience padding expense accounts there:

  "Cocktail, $2. Tip for cute cocktail waitress, $600. "Six more
cocktails, $12. Tip for my sweet li'l waitress, $3,500. "Nine more
cocktails, $18. New Jag for Carleen, $63,000. "Twenty-two more
cocktails, $187. Divorce from that dog, Carleen, half my stuff."

Lark turns up in Vegas

  Once I got to Vegas, it didn't take me long to find Lark Clark. She
and one other guy were the last two left in the World Series of Poker.

  I got there just as she went "all in" on a pair of fives. The other
guy had three aces, but Lark was cooing to her cards: "You're good
fives. You're good enough, you're smart enough, and doggone it, people
like you."

  She was an idiot.

  Then the dealer put down the last two cards, a five of spades and a
five of clubs, and she was a rich idiot.

  "Oh goody!" she squealed. "Another pair of fives!"

  So Lark Clark and I headed back to Charlotte together, she with the
poker championship and $5 million.

  Which, according to my figures, should just about cover my expenses.

      (Doug Robarchek)
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