BR142 Jilly Dresses

I called Jilly and told her that I'd been delayed getting out to Woody Spit and she sounded relieved.

"Maybe you'd better come straight up here. We're having a crisis with old Tobias Turtle. It looks like Bonnie Bimbo is out and maybe Frankie Dog, too. Frankie might have got her pregnant."

"OK," I said. "I'll be right up."

This time there wasn't any traffic at all. I was pulling into the tiny parking lot behind the Egret Club in less than five minutes. I found Jilly alone upstairs in her dressing room.

"Where is everyone," I said, after I'd kissed her and we'd canoodled a little.

"Bonnie and Frankie went out to a restaurant. It seems the first sign that Bonnie was pregnant was her wanting exotic Dogfood."

"Is it for sure?"

"Not yet," said Jilly, "They've taken the home test but those things are notoriously unreliable for Bitches. Her hormones might just be all over the place."

"So what does it all mean?" I wasn't sure about the big deal of it all. "Are they going to get hitched or something?"

"Tobias says he is going to fire her. He says nobody wants to listen to a wannabe mommy singing torch songs."

"I'll talk to him," I said, "Where is he?"

"Down in his hole," said Jilly. "Thanks, Jack. I really appreciate this. I really need Bonnie here so I can get weekends off."

I took the lift down to the sub-basement and knocked on the office door. Then I waited a long time. I mean a really long time. Finally I could hear him coming. There was some scraping around the door and the peep hole glittered white. Then the door swung inwards. I waited long enough for Tobias to get out of the way and then I went in and sat across the desk from him. I looked at a magazine on a side table while Tobias hoised himself up onto his leather platform. He doesn't like to be looked at when he's in motion. The whole place is a dump down there and I didn't want to be seen looking around at his stuff, either. When he was ready he spoke up.

"Well?" he said.

"I hear you want to fire Bonnie Bimbo."

"So?" he said.

"You don't want to do that," I told him.

After about a minute he replied, "Why not?"

"No one is going to believe that Frankie will be faithful to her. His suits won't be rumpled for the next few weeks but then everyone will start looking to see who he has his eye on. He'll rumple up. Bonnie is going to be a very interesting figure through the whole process."

"I don't care anymore," said Tobias, and he really did look weary. But he must be pushing two hundred now so it might just be signs of early old age. "I'm sick of all the drama and they both know the rules. No hanky panky amongst the staff. I take the whole thing as an insult."

"They do very well and before the current crew you weren't exactly cramming them in. It's healthy now. And Jilly might walk, if you fire Bonnie, and Frankie will definitely walk. Take my advice and swallow this one. It will be better for you."

It took so long for Tobias to gather his thoughts that I went back to reading his magazine, Weekly Showlifters. Finally he poked his head out a little further and I knew the old Turtle was ready to finish this up.

"OK," Tobias said, and now he really did sound weary. "But for three months I'm docking both their wages twenty per cent. They know the rules."

"Fine," I said. "That's fair. I'll give them the word."

"Thanks," said Tobias, pulling in his head, and that was that.