Scrambled Hard-Boiled

The next morning Ernie got in touch with our lawyer and had him draw up the contract between Tamara Whippy and us. By mid-afternoon we had a signed agreement. I started to make preparations to start following Mr. Whippy around that weekend. My social life was still enough on the non-existent side to where I could devote the entire weekend to the project at hand without having to break any dates with any babes.

  I told Ernie about my trailing Milton and Tamara to their little love nest at Lake Norman the previous night. Ernie listened a bit and then chuckled.

  “I’ll be damned, Sandy’s tapping that stuff is he? I know he has been divorced for about six years now, so I guess it’s no big deal. But I agree, something ain’t quite kosher here. I’ll make a few calls while you’re out trailing Whippy. I really don’t expect to get much out of it, but ya never know, eh?”

  I agreed. I went home early that day to chill out a bit and have a few beers. I planned to start our trailing of Larry Whippy the next morning. I slept well and got up early, ready to go.

  The information packet that Milton had supplied had been thorough. It pretty well scoped out the biographical facts as well as Whippy’s daily routine. Milton was a slimy bastard, but he knew his job. The information and its packaging was first rate, and really made my job a lot easier. A lot of time and effort had gone into it and back then I was too green to realize how out of the ordinary this was. The sheer completeness and evidence of time spent on this dossier, plus the apparent affair with his client and her attitude in general, should have warned Ernie and me that things were not as they appeared, but as usual, the money blinded us.

  Yep. Milton knew who to choose to do his dirty work for him, all right.