Jimmy Plush, Teddy Bear Detective Read online

  ERASERHEAD PRESS

  205 NE BRYANT

  PORTLAND, OR 97211

  WWW.ERASERHEADPRESS.COM

  PRINT ISBN: 1-936383-63-2

  Copyright © 2011 by Garrett Cook

  Cover art copyright © 2011 Samuel Deats

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  To Leza, to my mother, to Jeff Burk, Rose O’ Keefe and Carlton Mellick. And to the 35 awesome individuals on the Plushlist...

  It happened. The bear survived and so did I.

  Thanks for doing what you did.

  CONTENTS

  Mr. Plush, Detective

  Mr. Plush and the Dead Horse

  Jimmy Plush and Mittens O’Hara in Zuvembie Soiree

  Mr. Plush and the Chief Inspector

  Jimmy Plush in the Tomb of the Martian Pharaoh

  Until a month ago, my name was Hatbox. Then, I woke up as a teddy bear in a trench coat and fedora. I wasn’t just a teddy bear, I was worse; I was a teddy bear and a lowdown dirty private dick, the kind of gumshoe you hire when you want somebody found and don’t care if somebody else has gotta get lost. From a hearty six one, I went down to three feet high, all because I needed money and Plush needed to be somebody else. When you got money, you can be anybody, which was lucky for the no-good, cuddly brown bastard that double crossed me. Next time a teddy bear offers to pay off your gambling debts in exchange for your body, you’d better think twice. I sure as hell should have.

  Had I thought twice and not ended up as Jimmy Plush, I wouldn’t have been sneaking into the warehouse where Lillian Benzedrine was being held. If I hadn’t ended up as Jimmy Plush I wouldn’t be padding around, palms frozen onto the oversized-trigger of a custom fingerless forty-five. Life is funny that way. Okay, so life is funny if you’re the worst pulp writer on earth and don’t have the foresight to think that life as a teddy bear would be perfectly peachy if I had my memories of my old life removed.

  This was my eighth trip to warehouses like this in a month. Kidnappers are sloppy in this town. One look at the perpetrators said why. One of the two was a big guy, his face was clenched tight, his jaw square and he had a forehead you could serve a round of drinks for the house off. The other one looked like a ferret standin’ on its hind legs, wore a long tie decorated with hearts. I knew them well by now, Halperin’s men, Johnny Hideous and Skinny Valentine. Not much for brains or creativity, but I will admit that in the past they had been know to press their size advantage with some degree of effectiveness. In short, men who I’m embarrassed to say have literally knocked the stuffing out of me.

  But, lucky for me, I’ve gotten used to this body (as much as a guy can get used to being a teddy bear the size of a toddler) and being tiny and made out of plush and stuffing makes you quiet. Quiet enough to sneak up behind a huge bruiser and shoot out the back of his knee at point blank range with a modified teddy bear .45. Mean enough to do it, too. If this warehouse had neighbors, Hideous definitely would’ve woken them up.

  “Jimmy Plush, I’ll teach ya! I’ll teach ya to sneak up behind me!”

  He was right. His falling to the floor writhing and screaming definitely taught me that I should sneak up on him. His partner reached for his gun, but I was quicker on the draw and shot him in the hand. Last time I’d encountered these two a week back, I was the one getting shot in the arm, while Hideous reached into me and started pulling cotton out. This was definitely a change for the better. Tangle with a couple of thugs nine times you start to figure things out.

  Angry and bleeding, but not down for the count, Skinny charged me and though he wasn’t the stronger of the two I was still a teddy bear. I realized now would be the time to make use of some of the Chinese fighting arts that my chauffeur Chang was training me in, fighting arts used by the real Jimmy Plush to put thugs like these in their places. The Angry Hamster Kick was perfected by vicious Shaolin dwarves for just these occasions, and sure enough, one good quick Hamster Kick used Valentine’s momentum and size to cave his ribs in on themselves.

  Since the two thugs would be more eager to get to a hospital than finish me off, I untied Mrs. Benzedrine and brought her out to the limo for delivery to her husband, who had tried to open a competing Chinese restaurant across the street from Vic Halperin’s gaudy Chinese pleasure palace, J.L Wong’s. Vic Halperin had never liked competition and David Benzedrine’s mother was actually Chinese. As well as hating competition, Halperin hated the Chinese since his greatest desire in life was to be one of them. I pitied Benzedrine, since inheriting this body left me on Halperin’s bad side from day one, and like him there was nothing I could do about what body I inhabited. Unlike him, I owned a gun and was training in the Chinese fighting arts. For a race of wisecracking chauffeurs and crooked restaurateurs, those Chinese sure know their fighting arts.

  I proudly brought Mrs. Benzedrine to the door and rang the bell. Nothing. Knocked. Nothing. Something stank. I worked the knob and it turned out the door was open.

  “I’ll go in first, Mrs. Benzedrine. I think something’s going on.”

  My chauffeur rolled down his window, perfect to the beat. It was uncanny how he did that all the time.

  “Should Chang accompany most honored Mr. Plush inside?”

  “Stay out here and wait.”

  “As you wish. But Chang is not sure…”

  “Wait outside and be ready if I don’t come out.”

  “Yes, Mr. Plush.” Chang mumbled what must have been something rude in Chinese. I’ll have to learn to speak slanty someday and take him by surprise. Someday.

  Chang was right. Chang has an awful habit of being right. I opened the door, walked in to the sitting room and a walrus shot me in the chest. It was probably just a furry dressed as a walrus, but I still didn’t expect to be shot in the chest by anything resembling a walrus. A squid, also definitely a furry, walked into the sitting room with a hand drill. Luckily, I black out from pain easily and am something of a fainter. Otherwise, I would have felt something nobody should ever feel.

  When my eyes opened, I was disappointed but not surprised that the first thing I saw was the long, arrogant, wrinkly face of Vic Halperin, “the Pale Peril” as he’s often called. The squinty eyes, the long, skinny fake moustache, the awful goatee, the cheap fez on his head. Halperin was no easier to look at than he was to talk to. He ran his press on nails over what I now understood to be a gaping hole in my stomach, proudly exploring its contours. I’m grateful that teddy bears don’t bleed or vomit, because otherwise I’d be doing plenty of both things. He backed off, so I could look at the two Furries who knocked me out cold. And appreciate that Chang and the Benzedrines were all tied up beside me.

  Chang’s head was hanging.

  “Chang apologizes to Honored Mr. Plush. There is no counter for squid style martial arts.”

  “That’s alright, Chang,” I said, mortified that all my stuffing was hanging out, “the cotton comes out of your next check.”

  Halperin cleared his throat and as expected, began a lengthy reprimand in his deep voice that was as far from being Chinese as he was, maybe more because it didn’t have a cheap kimono and a fez to hide behind.

  “Jimmy Plush, we meet again, detective, but this time, the advantage is of course my own. I’m sure that you were finally able to put Skinny Valentine and Johnny Hideous in the hospital, but as you can see, I have taken a higher class of thug, men who can’t be outwitted by a two-bit stuffed bear who likes to stick his nose in the wrong honey
pots.”

  It took a lot of willpower not to laugh. I restrained myself not out of any kind of fear of Halperin, but out of knowledge that laughing would make more of my stuffing start to fall out.

  “How do you know it was me?”

  “Mr. Plush, you have a very familiar face.”

  “Common too. You ever been to F.A.O Schwartz?”

  Halperin liked to banter, but was always quick to get steamed. I wanted him to be off balance and give me some kind of advantage. It didn’t work.

  “That’s very funny, Mr. Plush, but the fact is, something must be done about you.”

  “Give him to me,” the walrus furry cooed, “he’s so beautiful, so soft. I could have so much fun with him…”

  The squid crossed his arms.

  “I don’t think he’s so special.” There was a hint of jealousy in his voice, but I didn’t want to think about it.

  “We could both have him, and it would be a delight.”

  “I suppose we could. He is beautiful.”

  “His fur has a lovely texture…”

  Now I was starting to get afraid. Halperin was the kind of scum that would hand me over to his gunsels to have god-knows-what done to me. He also appreciated these guys more than he did Hideous and Valentine, even though they’d only been in his service a little bit. I hoped I could either get out of here before they did or lose enough stuffing to die so I wouldn’t have to experience their plush flippers and tentacles on me.

  “You see, Mr. Plush, what happens when you interfere with me? I’m sure you don’t want Tusky and Bernstein to have their way with you, do you?”

  “I must confess I would not.” I tried to say it with my tough façade intact. I’m pretty sure I didn’t pull it off quite right.

  “So stay out of my way, or you’ll be left to serve as a kind of toy which you were not intended to be.”

  “All right. I’ll lay off your operation.”

  Halperin applauded softly.

  “Excellent, Mr. Plush. Tusky, Bernstein, untie Plush and my countryman.”

  The walrus and squid complied.

  “I hope to see you later,” the walrus whispered in my ear. I hoped I never would.

  I eased into my modified limo feeling like I’d been hit by a truck full of lightning being driven by my girl and the man she was making time with.

  “Chang,” I said to my chauffeur, “that was demoralizing.”

  “I cannot apologize enough, most honored Mr. Plush.”

  “Funny that you say that, Chang. That was just enough. Next time we go against Halperin, I hope there won’t be any squids involved,” I choked a little, “or walruses. God, I hope there aren’t any walruses.”

  “The squid and walrus’ success means there will be more of them. Maybe the time has come that for once you keep your word and leave Halperin alone.”

  I didn’t like hearing that, especially coming from a Chinaman who was working for me. Chang had a tendency to say the wrong thing, particularly when it was the right thing. One of the few joys in my life of teddy bear detective inadequacy was messing with Halperin, especially since I had just gotten an innocent man and his wife killed for opening a Chinese restaurant on the wrong side of town. On the other hand, next time we squared off, I’d have to face Halperin’s Furries. I didn’t like losing and I didn’t like admitting that I couldn’t win. Chang had done something impressive: found a spot where I was even more vulnerable.

  “It’s your fault I got in this mess, Chang. Don’t tell me whose cage I can rattle and whose I can’t! This little bear’s got teeth, Chang and don’t you forget it.”

  The argument ended abruptly when we both noticed the same thing: there were more furry girls on the streets. Usually they were rare and hard to pick up, but now there were squirrel girls or skunk girls or kitty cat girls or even killer whale girls peddling their wares everywhere. First Halperin employs Furries, now every pimp in the city must be doing it. Something didn’t add up.

  “You remember there being so many Furries in this town, Chang?”

  “I can honestly say, Mr. Plush, that I do not. I have never seen two prostitutes dressed as turtles arguing over which lamppost to lean against in my life.”

  “Smells like Halperin.”

  Chang shot down my theory immediately.

  “Mr. Halperin has been running the flesh trade in this city for years. Why would he just now put more furry girls on the streets, most honored Mr. Plush?”

  “You’ve got a point Chang. Let’s go to Jean’s. There’s nobody else I know who can patch me up and tell me about Furries in this town.”

  “A most wise suggestion, most honored Mr. Plush.”

  We drove to Jean’s. She answered the door in her evening clothes, somehow having figured I’d come by. Her evening clothes happen to be a tight, head to toe fox suit. Somehow she pulls it off. I never bought into that Indian shamanic totem stuff, but that suit makes me wonder from time to time.

  Being a teddy bear kind of blunts the impact of a near fatal wounding. Most guys show up with their guts hanging out, their girlfriend faints. Me? It’s always the same:

  “What have you done this time? Let me get my sewing box…”

  “Your compassion moves me to tears.”

  “Your sarcasm bores me to tears. Come in and sit down on the bed.”

  So I did and she began to sew. As you can imagine, it hurt like hell, but not so bad as a gutshot does.

  “You should really stop messing with Halperin.”

  And not as bad as a lecture either.

  “The man’s a crook and a bully. He deserves the trouble I give him.”

  Jean rubbed her nose against my forehead.

  “But do you deserve the trouble he gives you, baby?”

  Maybe if it wasn’t for the fact that Halperin was Jean’s employer I wouldn’t be so scornful of him. Then again, it was money I owed him that made me sell my body to Jimmy Plush. It was between how he helped me end up as a teddy bear and how he was party to Jean leading her secret life of waitressing and crime and how he helped her make a fool out of me on account of it. I was no fool, but Halperin helped her think she could make a fool out of me and that was enough to make me hate him all over again for who he was. I might have actually started to like this girl if I could trust her – and I wanted to like her so much.

  “No matter what happens to me, Vic Halperin gets no quarter.”

  “You shouldn’t talk like that, Jimmy; Halperin’s a big, dangerous man in this town!”

  “And I’m a small, dangerous bear, Jean! I’m not gonna be scared of anybody, you hear me?”

  Sure I meant it, sure the bravado was real, but it was still a bit much. Being three feet tall and having no penis makes a man want to overcompensate. Dripping cotton from a gaping chest wound makes a man angry. In the future I would have to remind myself that my tough guy private dick outburst count was getting to be a bit high.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  I mustered the best sad teddy face I could. I was a pretty sad teddy.

  “You sure?”

  I was hoping this might go where it usually went when I was getting patched up. I lack equipment, but the Jean rubs me against all the right places and it feels nice. I could use a rub against all those places, because believe me, they could be oh so right and my day had gone oh so wrong.

  “I’ve got things to do.”

  I knew what she meant. Waiting tables to help Halperin run numbers, unloading crates of fake name brand cereal, plucking balls of opium so that the poor sods at the den hidden behind J.L Wong’s were shortchanged. Things to do. Bad things to do. I was gonna find out what and break my word to Halperin as I always did, possibly getting the ever-loving shit beaten out of me like I usually did. Didn’t matter. I was tired of this.

  “Alright. Dinner Friday?”

  “Maybe. I might be busy.”

  “Suit yourself. No fuzz off my balls. Thanks for the patch job.”

  “Any time.”


  “Yeah sure, any time.”

  I sulked my way out to the car and sat down.

  “Chang…”

  “Conceal the car, wait for Jean and follow her?”

  “Yes, Chang. Do we do this that often?”

  Chang didn’t answer. He knew he was already on pretty thin ice thanks to the incident with Tusky and Bernstein. We waited and a car picked her up. It drove around in circles for awhile to avoid a tail, not knowing Chang’s Chinese Shadow Driving skills would be more than enough to evade them. Shadow Driving was a recent addition to the Chinese Fighting Arts, but not an altogether unwelcome one. The car stopped and let her out. I didn’t like what I saw.

  Jean immediately began a brutal slap fight with a fat girl dressed like a squirrel for the use of her lamppost. In this city, a girl doesn’t use a lamppost for reading light.

  “So there you go, Chang,” I boasted, “definitive proof.”

  “That your girlfriend is a prostitute?”

  “I’m trying to objectively appraise the situation, Chang. Thinking about that too much will inhibit me. Jean works for Halperin, though. The Furries are on the street, one furry works for Halperin, therefore the Furries are Halperin’s.”

  “I am still not convinced.”

  “Is there anybody else who might know something then, Chang?”

  Chang’s voice got more solemn than usual.

  “Yes, most honored Mr. Plush, but he hates you.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?” I didn’t like the notion, but its veracity could hardly be disputed.

  “Alright, Mr. Plush. Just don’t expect him to cooperate much. Also, I must warn you, Mittens O’ Hara, is unusual.”

  “Nothing’s going to surprise me in this town.”

  Except that is for an office dominated by a large typewriter. And a fat tiger cat whose porkpie hat rested uncomfortably atop its fat head. There was a slip of paper that read “press” on it. The cat sat down on various keys to type out something in enormous letters. It was a surprise, though I’ve gotta say, I had thought Halperin was the last animal left in this town. As soon as it spotted me, it hissed.