Column Chronicles: Nick Cretin P.I.E.; The notebook, part 1

Nick Cretin P.I.E.: The notebook, part 1

Frank Cotolo
July 13, 2023

The myserious notebook was given to Nick Cretin, P.I.E., (private investigator extraordinaire) by Itchy Scales, an unscrupulous character of the underground whose birth name was Ignatious Scalalupe.

"What do you expect me to do with this?" said Nick.

"Brail it," said Itchy, "and mitch the calbart to the slybineck."

That was what Nick disliked most about Itchy; he was impossible to understand when speaking their common language. But Nick needed money again and Itchy paid well, using money from criminal chicanery, so he took the case.

"One question," said Nick.

"Wvagg?"

"You're sure this notebook was written by Walkjab?"

"Flim."

"All right then, I'm on it," said Nick.

Nick stayed in his crummy, stinking, rotting office all night reading the notebook for clues to where Walkjab hid the money Itchy wanted to find. According to Itchy - at least as much as Nick could understand - Walkjab hid a ton of gold coins before he was shot, injured, and shot again twenty times and died. Itchy was convinced Walkjab wrote the hiding place in the notebook because, he said, Walkjab "hack bass mormerry," that is, Walkjab had a bad memory.

Nick read every entry Walkjab made in the notebook but saw nothing pertaining to hidden gold coins. Then his secretary Minnie called.

"Nick's not here," Nick said.

"I know it's you," Minnie said. "I'm tired of being laid off. Can I come back to work? I'll work for nothing."

"Minnie, I know you're good when you work for something so I know you'll be good for nothing. Come back to work."

Nick gave Minnie the notebook and then he caught up on his sleep while she read it. Nick had a dream about falling into half of a huge watermelon and hitting his head on a giant seed and woke up suddenly, gasping.

"You startled me," Minnies said.

"It was the watermelon dream again," he said.

"You never told me about a watermelon dream."

"Did you find anything in the notebook about gold coins?"

"Yeah. There's a lot here. How did you not see any of it?"

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.