Roger Collier

H e traipsed into my office smelling of fried chicken and desperation. I pushed up the brim of my fedora and caught an eyeful of manmountain. A former athlete gone to pot, I figured. Broad in the shoulders but soft in the middle.

The walk from his car to my door had left him huffing and puffing. He was sweating like a word slinger past deadline.

"So," I said, swinging my feet onto my desk, "what can I do you for?"

"Name's Joe," he replied. "Word on the street is you're one of the top eight private eyes north of the Queensway."

"That's what it says on my bus stop bench ad," I owned up. "Which you just proved works, by the way."

"I got a case for ya," he said, unwrapping a Tootsie Roll and flicking it in his maw. "Interested?"

I gave a single nod, the universal sign for "you betcha." Unless you're in the mob, that is. Then a nod could mean something like, "Whack Freddie Smallpants and throw the bum in a dumpster."

But the only mob I serve consists of the half-dozen half-pints I made with the missus.

"My abs have gone missing. I used to have six of 'em, right here," he said, pointing to his stomach. "Now I got this."

He lifted his shirt to reveal a gut that spanned time zones, a mound of jelly covered in skin the colour of whipped cream.

"When was the last time you saw these abs?" I asked.

"It's been a while," he admitted, screwing the cap off a two-litre bottle of Coke and taking a swig. "But they must be around somewhere. You want the case or not?"

"I'm already on it," I said. "Follow me."

We stepped outside and hopped in my Crown Vic. A few minutes later we pulled up in front of a low-slung building with more windows than walls. I led Joe inside.

"Ever been in this joint?" I asked. "Nah," he replied. "What is this place?"

"It's a gym, Joe," I explained. "See that dame on the treadmill? She's getting her cardio in. See that fella with the dumbbells? He's building muscle. If you swung by here sometimes, you might find those missing abs."

"Don't need no gym," Joe replied. "Got me the 9P90Zzz home workout program. It's great. Nine pushups, 90-minute nap, repeat."

Yeesh, what a palooka. This case was going to be tougher than I thought. We left the gym and popped in the supermarket next door.

"Come with me," I said, marching to the produce section.

"What's all this?" Joe asked, looking more confused than a teetotaller in a gin mill.

"Fruits and vegetables," I told him. "I got a feeling the lack of these in your diet has something to do with your abs going AWOL."

"I eat plenty healthy," said Joe. "I'm on the Game of Thrones diet. I mainly eat things I kill with a sword."

"That doesn't sound well-balanced to me," I said.

"Sure it is. I can also eat things I kill with a lance," he replied. "Or a war hammer."

I shook my head and sighed. I'd seen plenty of saps like Joe, suckers who watch too many infomercials. But fad diets and exercise crazes are for selling books and doodads. They weren't going to help this schmuck find what he was looking for.

"I'll give it to you straight, Joe," I said. "If you wanna find your abs, you gotta do two things: stuff less crap in your pie hole and get your keister off the sofa now and then."

"That's it?" Joe sputtered. "Eat less and move more? No pills? No electro-shock ab belt? That doesn't sound nearly complicated enough."

"Ain't math, hombre," I said. "Just truth."

"Sorry, pal," he replied. "I ain't buying it."

Joe pulled a 180, stormed out and bee-lined for a greasy spoon across the street. I returned to the office and barely had time to hang my trench coat before another cat burst through my door, this one bigger than the last.

"Some personal effects of great import have been taken from me," the rotund gent said. "I hear you're the gumshoe to find them."

"I'm listening," I replied. "Talking 'bout my feet. Haven't seen 'em in years," he said, shovelling Cheetos from a family-sized bag into his mug.

"Nuts," I thought, reaching for the bottle of hooch in my desk drawer.

"Here we go again."