"Low. You notice a cute little redhead about a hundred feet up? She's so short I can't keep track."

His grin broadened, exposing the remnants of truly ugly teeth. "You on a case?" Cunning fellow, he had an idea he could get me to hire him to help.

"I don't think so. She was watching my house, so I decided to follow her around."

"Just like that?"

"Yeah."

His grin turned into a horror show. "Dean come home? Or did the Dead Man wake up?" He winked at the Goddamn Parrot.

He was smarter than a rock, anyway. "Both."

Saucerhead chuckled. It was the kind of chuckle I get too often. My friends figure I was put here to amuse them with my travails.

"Look, Saucerhead, this gal is going to lose me if I don't... "

"Speaking of ones that got away, I seen Tinnie Tate yesterday."

Tinnie is one ex that my cronies won't let go away. "Great. Come by the house later. Tell me all about it."

"I seen Winger, too. She... "

"That's your problem."

Our mutual acquaintance Winger, though female, is as big as me and goofier than Saucerhead. And she has the moral sense of a rabid hyena. And, despite that, she is hard not to like.

"Hey, Garrett, come on, man."

I was drifting away.

"She had a good idea. Honest, Garrett."

Winger is chock-full of good ideas that get me up to my crotch in crocodiles. "Then you go in on it with her." There was a small thinning of the crowd uphill. I caught a glimpse of my quarry. She seemed to be looking back, puzzled, maybe even exasperated.

"I would, Garrett," Saucerhead shouted. "Only need somebody with real brains to get into it with us.

"That leaves me out, don't it?" Didn't it? Would a guy with real brains keep following somebody when it was evident that that somebody had decided that she wanted to be followed and was getting impatient with my delays?