Allan Leverone - Postcards from the Apocalypse

Brick isn’t just my uncle’s name, it is also the perfect description for him. His body is thick and muscular, even at the age of eighty, and his head is square like, well, like a brick, with steel-gray buzz-cut hair sprouting from the top of his head. Think Broderick Crawford in “Highway Patrol,” only tougher and scarier.

I might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer (Hell, my ex-wife would tell you I don’t even belong in the drawer at all; she would say that butter knives could kick my sorry ass, sharpness-wise. That, however, is another story entirely), but I’m bright enough to know when it’s time to beat a hasty retreat, and I decided now was as good a time as any to raise the white flag with my uncle.

I lifted my hands, palms out, in front of my red face in the universal gesture that says, “Please stop schooling me in front of everyone, this is getting embarrassing.” My uncle swallowed the last of his lobster bisque with the smug look of a man who has just vanquished an unworthy foe without really even trying.

“Listen, Uncle Brick,” I said earnestly, trying to recover some tiny shred of dignity. “I’m worried about you; that’s all. Now that my dad’s dead and you’ve had to take over the agency all by yourself, it just seems like it might be too much. Hell, it would be a challenge for a younger man, never mind someone with as much, uh, life experience as you have.” I was in full retreat and beyond congratulating myself for anything by now, but I hoped that he might at least try to see my point.

All the other restaurant-goers had finally stopped staring and turned their attention back to their own meals. I hoped the conversation hadn’t looked as one-sided to them as it had felt to me, but I doubted it.

My uncle dabbed gently at the side of his mouth with a napkin and said, “I know you’re worried. Believe me, I’m well aware how much effort goes into running a detective agency, I’ve been doing it for darn near a half-century now. And since your dad got killed, it really has been a lot of work. But I’ll share a little secret with you: showing up at that office every day is what keeps me going. When you get to be my age, you need a pretty compelling reason to continue getting out of bed in the morning, and Callahan Investigations is mine.”

I sat back in my chair, amazed. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t seen my uncle in years, decades even, but the little speech he had just finished reflected a level of, shall we say, sensitivity that I wasn’t aware this rough, tough, bigger-than-life character was capable of. And I had to concede, if only to myself, that he did have a point. He certainly had a lot more experience at being a private detective than I did.

But I hadn’t come all the way back east just to provide free entertainment to a restaurant full of people. I had a proposition for Uncle Brick and I was damned well going to propose it. The entertainment thing was just a little bonus, I supposed.

“Here’s the thing,” I said, hoping what I was about to say didn’t set off another round of verbal butt-kicking. “You know I got divorced from Allison last year, and there’s not really anything keeping me in L.A. anymore, so I was thinking…”

Brick was looking at me with a funny little half-grin on his curiously expressive face, and he interrupted me, shaking his head and chuckling. “Sometimes you remind me so much of your old man it’s downright scary. So tell me, what were you thinking, junior?”

I took a deep breath and jumped into the pool with both feet. I figured the water was as warm as it was going to get. “I want to move here permanently and come to work with you. If you aren’t interested in retirement, then I’d like to take my dad’s place at the agency.” There, I had said it. I sat back and waited for Brick to return fire.

The waitress brought our check and my uncle sat perfectly still, saying nothing until I had picked it up. “You want to join me at the agency? What the hell do I need with a middle-aged accountant who has no experience in detective work? Or in any form of law enforcement, for that matter?”

I knew coming into this lunch meeting I would be asked that very question. I had given it a lot of thought and I still had no answer ready. In point of fact, I knew he was right. Why should he let me work for him? Why did I even want to? Why was he controlling the conversation when I was the one with the proposition? And how much should I leave for a tip, since he obviously wasn’t about to do it?

I had told myself on the airplane that I needed to keep an eye on the old guy so he didn’t get hurt. With my dad gone there was no one left to watch out for him. I could see now, though, that that was a load of bull. My uncle might be eighty years old, but he hadn’t lost a step, either physically or mentally. I should just pack my stuff and go home; Brick didn’t need me; that much was clear.

I looked up and he was staring at me, patiently waiting for an answer to his question. I squirmed in my chair, more uncomfortable than I wanted to admit. “I don’t honestly know, Uncle Brick. I had convinced myself that you needed me, but I think it just might be the opposite. I’ve been spinning my wheels since the divorce and I need to make a new start. I’d like to make it with you.”

He smiled. His next question caught me off guard. I was starting to get used to it. “You planning on picking up the check whenever we eat out?”

“I think I can handle that,” I said.

He reached across the table and shook my hand with one big, beefy paw. “Then you’re hired. For your first assignment, make sure you don’t stiff this cute little gal on the tip. I’d like to be able to eat here again sometime.”

Just like that, I was a private eye. Unlicensed, of course, but my uncle said we could take care of that some time in the future. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, given his age, but I didn’t worry too much about it, either.

I sat with my feet planted on my desk, leaning back in my chair and munching a tuna salad sandwich. It was becoming abundantly clear that when my uncle had said he was planning on eating at a classy place like The Old Man and the Seafood again, he didn’t mean in this lifetime.

It had been three days since I had been hired, and the closest we had gotten to a real meal in a sit-down restaurant was when we took a shortcut through the kitchen of some fancy-schmancy Italian joint on the way to Beekman’s Deli. I thought the manager might be a little perturbed to see us trooping through his kitchen, but he just waved hello to Brick as we passed on by. Everyone in the city seemed to know my uncle, at least by sight.

I was beginning to wonder why all private detectives didn’t weigh 350 pounds. All we did was eat. In my three days, not one single, solitary customer had entered the office, unless you counted the guy who dropped off our new telephone book or the scruffy-looking character who only came in because he was searching for “Layla,” a dubious-looking lady of indeterminate age who spent her days hanging around on the streetcorner by the entrance to Callahan Investigations but at that moment was on her lunch break.

When I mentioned my boredom to my uncle, he just smiled. “That’s the way it works, junior,” he said. “When it rains it pours, and when it snows it blows.” He must have seen the look of bewilderment on my face, because he took pity on me and told me, “Take my word for it, human nature being what it is, we’ll get business eventually. You can always count on people doing stuff to each other that requires our skills. Or at least my skills. In the meantime, how’s your crossword puzzle coming?”

It was Sudoku, but I didn’t bother correcting my uncle, and as it turned out I didn’t have time to answer his question anyway, because no sooner had he stopped talking than a beautiful, shapely brunette walked into Callahan Investigations. She was tall and slim, anywhere from late-twenties to early-forties—It was impossible to narrow it down any more than that—decked out in a form-fitting, knee-length maroon summer dress, and she walked in like she owned the building, which, for all I knew, maybe she did.