"DARRYL O'MONKEY'S LEPRECHAUN"
by Craig Coley
It's always dark in Darryl O'Monkey's Irish Pub. The light from the amber bulbs falls like dust and then dies on the black wood and crimson upholstery. Not that this is an authentic place; the guy who owns Monkey's is about as Irish as an Eskimo. They serve something they call an Irish Boilermaker, which is a jigger of Jameson's in a pint of Guinness, and it isn't bad as far as boilermakers go, but that isn't far at all. Every college town needs an Irish bar, and in Granlick it's Monkey's.
There were 15 or 20 people at tables and in the snugs when I walked in, and I counted five leaning on the long end of the bar. I lifted my chin when I saw the bartender, Bud Gudd, and took a stool on bar's short end, along the windows. Over my head were some of those green pennants they string up for St. Patrick's Day, which was almost two weeks ago now. Gudd ambled over and offered me a big hand.
"Thanks for coming over," he said. "Have something?"
It was two o'clock on a Tuesday, I was on the clock, and one of the people in the shadows might be someone who knew who I was, but I was here for work, after all.
"Make me a Guinness."
Gudd grinned and turned to the taps. I had known Gudd by name back when he was starting center for the Dust Devils as a sophomore. Then he blew out his knee in the second game of his junior season, lost interest in school, and didn't enroll for senior year. But he stayed in town and I'd often meet him walking his rottweiler around the campus. Also, he built a good stout.
Back in the day, he was a muscular guy with some extra padding, but now he was flab on a big frame. Even his blond and balding head, buzzed close, had rolls. When he puckered his brow, as he did drawing my beer, it looked like he could hide a roll of dimes in the folds on his forehead. He left the Guinness to settle on the grill under the tap and waddled over.
"So what's up?" I asked.
"It's the leprechaun."
I turned and looked at a ledge over the door where a two-foot, banged-up leprechaun, the kind some people put on their lawn, usually stood.
"He hasn't come back?"
"Came back last night. Look at these."
Gudd put a short stack of Polaroid prints on the bar and stood there for a minute while I looked, and then he walked to the tap to finish making the beer.
It was about 10 years ago that the little leprechaun first disappeared on St. Patrick's Day. No one thought much about it; you expect pranks like that in a college town. But two weeks later, on April Fool's Day, it reappeared with an envelope taped to it. Inside were pictures of the leprechaun -- at the arch in St. Louis, at a scenic overlook in the Ozarks, on a table at Arthur Bryant's barbecue...that kind of thing. Since then, it's been an annual gag. Some kids from the college swipe the leprechaun on St. Patrick's Day and take it on a road trip over spring break. The hallway to the bathroom at Monkey's is lined with pictures of the little sprite at places across the country: on the Brooklyn and Golden Gate bridges, at the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore, on the beach, in the arms of David Hasselhof.
But the pictures in front of me on the bar were different. The first showed the leprechaun face-down in a toilet bowl. In the next, he was hanging by a noose from a tree. The third picture was of the leprechaun on a hotel bed with an inflated sex doll. Then came a picture of a sign that read: "Welcome to Weiner." Disembodied arms held the leprechaun over the number next to "Population." In the next picture he was sunk up to his nose in mud on the bank of a big river. After that a car was dragging him down a wide highway.
But the last picture was the reason Bud called me. It showed the leprechaun standing on a pedestal in the lobby of the college's administration building. That interested me because until it was stolen last weekend, a bronze statue of the college's founder stood on that pedestal. As the head of public safety for the college, it's my job to make sure things like that don't happen.
Budd put the glass in front of me. "What do you think of that?"
I watched the caramel-colored bubbles melt into the black liquid. "I'm glad you showed me. What time did the leprechaun come back?"
"Scarlene spotted it around 12:30. The bar was pretty full."
"I would like for you and Scarlene and whoever else was working to make a list of everyone you know who was here." Bud nodded. "I suppose no one saw it get swiped."
"You know how it is on St. Patrick's Day. Crazy. Could have been anybody."
"Who else has seen these pictures?"
"Just Scarlene. I told Mik-luk about it and he said to call the police, but I figured I'd show you first."
"Thanks. Where's the leprechaun now?"
"Back in the office. It's scraped all to hell. We can't put it back up." He shook his head sadly and shrugged. "It's not like it's anything special, you know -- Walmart sells them, probably -- but it's the tradition. That leprechaun's been all over."
"Can I see it?"
Bud scanned the bar top, saw his other customers were all right, and then rolled his thick head toward the back of the pub. I followed him from the other side of the bar and we turned right toward the toilets, but then he unlocked a door on the left. Next to a desk was a case of Bushmills and on top of that was a pathetic-looking chunk of plastic. The leprechaun had been knocked around over the years, but never like this. It was scored with black streaks and its face was a just a blur. Its hands were worn down to the nubs and its pipe was a stem with no bowl.
"Are you the only one who's touched him?"
"Think so."
"I'm going to ask the police to take prints off the leprechaun and those pictures. Since you handled them, they'll have to take your prints, too, so they can figure out which ones are from the guys who did this. All right?"
Bud shrugged. "No problem."
We walked back to our separate sides of the bar and I called the police on my cell phone. The chief was out, and since I don't get along with his lieutenant, I asked to have the chief call me back. I drank my beer and studied the pictures, touching them by their edges.
The kids had marked over the license plate on the car dragging the leprechaun, but I could tell it was a brown Toyota Corolla. One of several hundred in Granlick. A sign on the side of the highway said I-65. Farther on was a green sign saying it was 95 miles to Indianapolis and 200-something miles to Chicago. They were headed north. Coming back. But from where?
I looked at the picture of the leprechaun on the bed. On the nightstand was one of those pieces of tagboard folded into a triangle so it could stand up and tell you how much they were going to overcharge you for using the phone. There was a logo on it. I'd seen it before, but I couldn't place it. Most motels make guests write the model and plate number of their cars when they register. But I had only the vaguest idea where these guys had been. Judging by the size of the river in the picture, that was Mississippi mud he was sunk in. When I was a cop, I crossed that river to work every day for 20 years, but this didn't look like St. Louis.
My phone rang. It was Carl Goyle and I told him what I knew.
"I'll send Benderson over to collect the pictures and the statue, see what we can dust up. I'll look over those pictures when they're done. Come by this evening and I'll give you copies."
"Thanks. I'm going to call some motels to try and track down the car in the photo. I'm going to say I'm a Granlick police officer. All right?"
"Hmm. I'll deputize you for phone calls. Long-distance only -- not around here. Impersonating a police officer's a crime, you know."
"Why isn't Lieutenant the Menace locked up?"
Goyle laughed. "I'll see you later."
I took some notes about the photos, and then I paid and thanked Bud, and drove back to my office. I brought my road atlas in from the car and read the list of city names in several states around the Mississippi until I found Weiner, Arkansas. It was northwest of Memphis, maybe an hour's drive. Then I measured 100 miles back from Indianapolis on I-65 and landed just north of Louisville. With these reference points, I charted out a few possible routes. South to Kansas City or St. Louis. They could have gone down to Dallas, but then Weiner would have been out of the way. Memphis. Maybe farther south from there. New Orleans? Maybe. Probably Nashville, then Louisville, up Indiana and across Illinois to Iowa. Or maybe they went up to Chicago first. Of course, they could have taken any number of detours to visit someone's hometown.
Next I went on-line and punched in some motel searches until I came across the motel logo I was looking for -- the Dewdrop Inn, a small franchise. On their web site I found a map of their hotels, picked 18 that were close to the routes I had made, and then started calling. Three hours later I had a list of 47 names and plates of Corollas registered by guests last week.
I looked up each name in our student database and got three matches. One was a woman majoring in Russian literature. That didn't fit with this crime. The other two were men: a junior named Blintz Danderbent who was studying Latin American history and an undeclared freshman name of Tom Cruise.
I called the registrar for more information. Cruise was from Nebraska, but the plate I'd gotten from the hotel was registered in California. Danderbent listed a Michigan plate, and our Danderbent was from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He was at a Dewdrop Inn east of Memphis last Wednesday, in the middle of spring break. I got his address and drove to the police station.
When I walked in, Jeff Clingkorn was talking with evident patience to an old man at the end of the counter. Clingkorn looked up and nodded. Sgt. Henry Calpis stood to meet me.
"The chief told me to come by."
Calpis stared at me with dumb contempt. He was one of Lt. Squelvin's proteges -- straight, uptight and gung-ho, with a pole up his rear and contempt for college kids who get loud. After a minute, I let him win the silence contest. "Is he in?"
Calpis waited another 15 seconds, then slowly picked up the phone and poked a button. "Yes, chief. Greg McRuffin is here to see you. ... Yes, sir." He set the phone on the cradle and said nothing. Just stared. Finally I walked around the counter and past him.
The lieutenant was at his desk, his eyebrows pinched so close they overlapped, his head making little bird-like jerks as he hunted for the keys on his computer so he could poke them with his index fingers. He saw me coming and stood up, straight and trim and muscular; Squelvin spent all his time working, churching, or exercising.
"I got three of yours today," he said, satisfied but unsmiling. "Drinking beer in the forest preserve. Nineteen years old."
"You were out there looking for the rock you crawled out from under?"
"I saw a car parked off the road and I followed my instincts."
"You're an animal, Melvin. A crime-fighting animal." I saluted him and crossed to Goyle's office.
Goyle was leaning back and staring out the window when I opened the door. He slowly swiveled his chair to face me, smiled broadly, and leaned back again. His handsome face was open to the point of looking naive. He'd wrestled at Granlick and, like most old wrestlers who grew up fasting and gorging for the sport, he struggled to keep his weight down. Goyle did all right, though, through a combination of working out and smoking. I sat in a chair and he lit a cigarette.
"Strange business with that leprechaun," he said, gesturing to prints of the photos lined up on his desk. "I haven't been over to Monkey's since they passed that no-smoking ordinance. I told the boys to take it easy on that one, but it wouldn't look too good for me to be out there puffing away. Besides, Squelvin'd probably write me a summons."
"I still don't know why you made him lieutenant."
Goyle shrugged and smiled. "He keeps me honest." The chief was silent for a while. People in Granlick aren't in much of a hurry about anything. I told him what I'd done that afternoon. I spelled Danderbent's name and he punched it into his computer. He shook his head and leaned back again.
"Figures, though," he said. "If you think about the crime. Whoever it is thinks we'll never catch them. I guess this is what you might call a vanity crime. They stole something that's worth nothing to them but is sure to get attention. And then they took pictures of it and put them where we'd find them. ...Do you remember what Benderson found along with the broken glass at the administration building?"
I didn't.
"A chunk of green plastic. They must have thrown the statue through the window to get in."
"What prints did you find?"
"Lots. Benderson's still sorting them out, figuring out which are Gudd's. We should know later tonight." An idea passed through his face.
"You know what I wonder? I wonder if these guys are planning to return Old Man Granlick's bust the same way they returned the leprechaun."
"Maybe. But I don't plan to wait around and find out."
"Me, neither," he said, standing.
"Let's go meet Mr. Danderbent."
We rode in his car to a three-story apartment building in the old part of town. Danderbent's was on the third floor. Something that fit a very loose definition of music quieted when we knocked on the door. The keyhole darkened and then a high voice called: "Who's there?"
"Police."
"What for?"
"We want to talk."
"You have a warrant or something?"
The chief said, "Yes, we do."
The door was opened by a skinny young man with straggly brown hair and a straight, thin nose that he tipped back provocatively. "Let me see it."
Goyle pushed the door open and stepped inside.
"Hey, what the hell? You can't just come in here!"
"Have a seat."
The building's apartments had been chopped into tiny studio units. Danderbent had a futon, three chairs, two tables, three disordered bookshelves, a guitar and a big poster of Che Guevarra.
"I have rights. I'm calling the police."
Goyle smiled. "We're here. Sit down."
The kid sat on the futon and we dragged chairs to sit facing him across the coffee table.
"You're Blintz Danderbent?"
He nodded.
"You put some miles on your car last week."
Danderbent blanched, and then pulled himself together and said nothing.
"You brought something that didn't belong to you."
"What are you talking about?"
Goyle put the picture of the car dragging the leprechaun on the coffee table. "That's your car."
"No, it's not."
The chief leaned forward. "Listen, there were prints all over the leprechaun and the pictures. Soon as we bring you to the station we're going to find out they're yours, or maybe some of your friends who you were aiding and abetting. It would be a lot easier if you just came clean."
Danderbent screwed up his eyes at the photo, and then shrugged. "All right. We took the leprechaun. What? I'll pay a fine. But I'm not going to pay for that stupid leprechaun. They deserve it for keeping that dickhead bartender."
I said, "What?"
He turned on me with righteous fury. "The guy's a prejudiced asshole. I ordered a beer and he started to make it, then he stopped and poured beers for three other people while I waited. I said 'What the hell?' and he started giving me a bunch of bullshit. I said I wanted to talk to his boss and then he started yelling at me. He's a racist pig."
I stared at the brown-haired, green-eyed teen-ager in front of me and reminded him of his name: "Blintz Danderbent."
"Blintz Bonero Danderbent. My mother's father fled persecution in El Salvador only to be oppressed in the Land of the Slaves."
My eyes met Goyle's and we shared an interesting moment, two micks getting a lecture on oppression by a kid from Bloomfield Hills named Danderbent.
Goyle said, "And I suppose Bulfred Granlick was a racist, too?"
The kid looked confused. "Probably. Why?"
Goyle set the last photo on the table. Danderbent leaned close to look at the leprechaun, banged-up but smiling mockingly from the pedestal. "I don't know about this," the kid said.
"No?"
"No. Really, man. I don't. Where is this?"
"Maybe we need to talk this over down at the station," Goyle said.
The kid started to look scared. I asked him, "When did you get back from your road trip?"
"Sunday. Sunday afternoon."
"Can you prove that?" asked Goyle.
"Ask the other guys. They'll all say the same thing."
"Tell me their names."
While the chief wrote down the names and addresses of three other students, I stared at the picture of the leprechaun on the pedestal. That's when I realized we were talking to the wrong guy.
"Chief, can I talk to you in the hall?"
Both of them looked at me curiously. The kid stood up and Goyle told him to sit down and wait. Just outside the door, I held up the print of the leprechaun skidding behind the car. "I don't know when this photo was taken, but I know it was before this one," I said, pointing to the picture of the leprechaun on the pedestal. "This first one was four hundred miles from Granlick, I guess. And this one was taken right here on Saturday night."
I gave Goyle a minute to realize what I was saying. "You saw how the leprechaun looks after that ride. This one on the pedestal is a different leprechaun."
"A replechaun?" said the chief.
I nodded. "Gudd told me you could buy them at Walmart. All somebody had to do was look at those pictures on the wall at Monkey's and scuff the new one up the same way. Only they didn't figure our friend here was going to mutilate it."
"Somebody with a grudge against Danderbent," Goyle said. "Hmmm. But that would mean they knew the kid took it." He shook his head. "Doesn't figure, though. They'd also have to know when he was going to return it, and then be able to slip the extra photo in with the other ones before the waitress at Monkey's noticed it was back."
That stumped me for a minute. Someone who could slip in the photo with no one noticing. Someone with a grudge against Danderbent.
"Chief, it must have been Gudd. Danderbent probably pissed him off bad. Hell, for awhile there, I wanted to smack the kid. Gudd saw him take the leprechaun and figured he'd stick it to him. Bud told me you could buy those leprechauns at Walmart. He's got time to study all those pictures and scrape up the new leprechaun. All he had to do was add his picture when he took down the old one. He just wasn't smart enough to see the problem with the photos."
"But if he was just trying to burn the kid, why did he go and steal the Granlick statue?"
"That I don't know."
"Let's get a beer."
We sat at the short end of the bar and told Gudd to get a waitress to work the bar for him. He played dumb for awhile, and then Goyle started improvising.
"Here's the thing, Bud. We got other people's prints on all of the photos except the one of the leprechaun in the administration building. That one's only got your prints. Also, when you threw that leprechaun through the window, a piece broke off. We looked on the original leprechaun, and that piece is still there."
Bud rubbed his big hand over his forehead like he was trying to smooth down the rolls, then he slammed his hand on the bar.
"That kid's a shithead. Thought I was dissing him by letting the Guinness settle. Called me a racist. Wanted to talk to Mik-luk, but Mik-luk wasn't around. Kid didn't believe me. Started screaming about racism and oppression and all this bullshit until the whole place was looking at me like I was a grand fucking wizard, you know? I figured he'd leave and never come back, but no. He comes in and times me while I pour his beer. I tried to throw him out once but he threw another fit, so I just got to put up with his shit."
"But why Old Man Granlick?"
Bud's face fell and became sad. "I don't know, Greg. I just...You know I loved the college, loved playing ball for them. Still love walking around the campus and remembering. But when my knee gave and I couldn't play any more...They used to give me tutors to help with my classes, you know? And the professors cut me slack. But then when I couldn't play, they just dropped me like a bag of shit. It's always burned. Sometimes, when I'd be walking Scud around the campus, I'd think about stealing that statue and dropping it in the Suckle. And then when I saw that punk take the leprechaun, I got the idea and...I'm sorry."
Goyle and I were quiet for awhile. Then he asked, "Where'd you drop it?"
"Off the footbridge by the tennis courts."
"It wasn't frozen?"
"Not right in the middle."
The chief considered. "It's probably 15 feet deep this time of year." He considered some more, and then picked up his phone.
"Give me Squelvin. ...It's Goyle. I'm over here at Darryl O'Monkey's and Bud Gudd is telling me he was walking his dog on campus last Saturday and saw someone drop something into the Suckle. We think it's the bust of Granlick we've been looking for. Gudd's going to meet you on the bridge by the courts at 7 tomorrow morning. Wear your swimsuit. He'll show you where to dive. No? ...Maybe we should make it 6 a.m. ...Seven's all right? Good. Greg McRuffin will be there, too. You'll swim down and tie a rope to it and McRuffin'll pull it up. ...No, it's his campus, so I want him to do it. ...Right. Come straight in when you're done. Good night, lieutenant."
Goyle smiled at me. "I figured you'd want to be there."
"Thanks, chief."
Bud poured us double shots of Jameson's. We clinked glasses and emptied them.
Goyle lit a cigarette. Bud looked nervously around the bar. "Uh, chief?"
Goyle glared at him.
"I'll get you an ashtray."
This is the author's first published short story. His writing writing experience includes six years as a newspaper reporter and editor in Tacoma and Olympia, WA, as well as in Brooklyn, NY. His freelance journalism has appeared in the New York Press and the Asian Wall Street Journal. Mr. Coley taught public school in the Bronx, NY for three years and is currently teaching English in Japan.
Copyright © 2006 Over My Dead Body! All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any
form or
medium without express written permission of Over My Dead Body! is prohibited. OMDB! and OMDB!
logos are
trademarks of Over My Dead Body!