He was a plump fellow in about the approximate dimensions of a penguin, and as stiffly dressed. Since I'd been an insurance investigator last week but had become a private detective this, and since he was my first potential case, I was needless to say interested.
"It's my wife," he said.
"Your wife," I repeated, searching for but not finding some of the sharp P.I. dialogue I'd read in the books by Chandler, Evans, Marlowe and others.
"You see, we're tourists from another planet. My name is Xlptl."
I just sat there.
"Mrs. Xlptl is missing."
"Ah," I said, leaning forward. This was something I could understand. Maybe I had heard him wrong about that name.
"Missing how?" I asked.
"Mrs. Xlptl," said my potential client, "failed to re-transmigrate."
"To do which?"
"Re-transmigrate. To get out of her Earth body after touring Earth."
A nut, I thought. Your first case, Brody, and he's a nut. Ah, well, there goes the retainer. But you might as well humor him. "And did you," I said, "ah, get out of your Earth body?"
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar