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Authors: Charles Willeford
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course, and it has all of the life-sustaining ingredients: turkey, ham, cheese, bacon (sometimes), lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, three pieces of toast, and usually, pickle and potato chips on the side. At any rate, that was the reason Larry gave for always ordering a club sandwich.
I was sitting by the pool with a beer when Larry joined me, about five-thirty one evening. He told me that he had sent in a coupon and a check for ten dollars to "Electro-Date."
"What for?" I said. "There're about seven single women in Miami for every single man now. It's ridiculous to pay ten bucks for an electronic date. All you have to do is..."
"I know," he said. "I have a book with names and phone numbers, and if I got on the horn, I could have a woman join us here at this table in about ten minutes. But that isn't the idea."
Sitting there, with a secret widening grin, Larry was hard on my eyes. His silk shirt, stained with sweat, was yellow, and his Spanish leather tie was the color of dried blood. His textured hopsack jacket was orange, and his hair, Golden Bear styled, was haloed by the low sun with a 1930s rim-lighting effect. He took off his jacket, and draped it over a metal chair.
"All right, Hank," he said, "let's look at the evidence. If I made a phone call, and arranged a simple date—dinner, a movie, and then back to my apartment for a couple of drinks and a piece of ass—how much would it cost me?"
I shrugged. "About fifty bucks. It depends on where you have dinner, and the number of pre- and post-prandials you drink"
"Not necessarily. When you drive to Palm Beach every month, and you stop for a Coke and a hamburger, how much do you put down on your expense account?"
"Seven or eight bucks, something like that."
"Right. And you've made at least a three-fifty profit."
"About that, but on my expense account I'm entitled to a six-dollar lunch. If I take a hospital administrator to lunch, I can get away with a twenty-dollar tab, or, with drinks, even more."
"Exactly. So if I spend forty bucks on a simple date, and forty bucks is the irreducible minimum nowadays in Miami, and I can charge off the date to my expense account, wouldn't you say that I could get away with an over-all tab of fifty or sixty?"
"Sure. But a personal date, even with an electronic service, will be hard to slip by your office comptroller."
"You're right, Hank. Impossible, in fact. But not by the Internal Revenue Service. I can take the cost of the date off my income tax."
He took out his wallet, flipped it open, and displayed the photostat of his private investigator's license.
He said: "The idea came to me this morning when I saw the ad in the 'Herald''. Instead of taking a chance on picking up a broad in a bar or a party who might turn out to be a drag, or a professional virgin, or a husband-seeker, I can get a date through the computer that fulfills most of my requirements in a woman. When I sent in the coupon and the check, I started a new file at the office. What I'm doing, you see, is investigating the possibility of using these women who sign up with Electro-Date as part-time operatives, to employ when we need them at National Security for special assignments. After each date, I'll fill in a mimeographed form I've devised on the girl, and put it into this new folder. I can then take the expenses of the date, padded, naturally, off my income tax."
"Did your boss authorize this?"
"The Colonel? Hell, no! He'd never okay anything this reasonable. This is my own idea, and I'll spend my own dough. But the point is, if I'm called down by the IRS, I'll have the folder with the info on the girls to show them. I 'am'' a private investigator, and one of my duties at National is to check background reports on possible employees. My
I was sitting by the pool with a beer when Larry joined me, about five-thirty one evening. He told me that he had sent in a coupon and a check for ten dollars to "Electro-Date."
"What for?" I said. "There're about seven single women in Miami for every single man now. It's ridiculous to pay ten bucks for an electronic date. All you have to do is..."
"I know," he said. "I have a book with names and phone numbers, and if I got on the horn, I could have a woman join us here at this table in about ten minutes. But that isn't the idea."
Sitting there, with a secret widening grin, Larry was hard on my eyes. His silk shirt, stained with sweat, was yellow, and his Spanish leather tie was the color of dried blood. His textured hopsack jacket was orange, and his hair, Golden Bear styled, was haloed by the low sun with a 1930s rim-lighting effect. He took off his jacket, and draped it over a metal chair.
"All right, Hank," he said, "let's look at the evidence. If I made a phone call, and arranged a simple date—dinner, a movie, and then back to my apartment for a couple of drinks and a piece of ass—how much would it cost me?"
I shrugged. "About fifty bucks. It depends on where you have dinner, and the number of pre- and post-prandials you drink"
"Not necessarily. When you drive to Palm Beach every month, and you stop for a Coke and a hamburger, how much do you put down on your expense account?"
"Seven or eight bucks, something like that."
"Right. And you've made at least a three-fifty profit."
"About that, but on my expense account I'm entitled to a six-dollar lunch. If I take a hospital administrator to lunch, I can get away with a twenty-dollar tab, or, with drinks, even more."
"Exactly. So if I spend forty bucks on a simple date, and forty bucks is the irreducible minimum nowadays in Miami, and I can charge off the date to my expense account, wouldn't you say that I could get away with an over-all tab of fifty or sixty?"
"Sure. But a personal date, even with an electronic service, will be hard to slip by your office comptroller."
"You're right, Hank. Impossible, in fact. But not by the Internal Revenue Service. I can take the cost of the date off my income tax."
He took out his wallet, flipped it open, and displayed the photostat of his private investigator's license.
He said: "The idea came to me this morning when I saw the ad in the 'Herald''. Instead of taking a chance on picking up a broad in a bar or a party who might turn out to be a drag, or a professional virgin, or a husband-seeker, I can get a date through the computer that fulfills most of my requirements in a woman. When I sent in the coupon and the check, I started a new file at the office. What I'm doing, you see, is investigating the possibility of using these women who sign up with Electro-Date as part-time operatives, to employ when we need them at National Security for special assignments. After each date, I'll fill in a mimeographed form I've devised on the girl, and put it into this new folder. I can then take the expenses of the date, padded, naturally, off my income tax."
"Did your boss authorize this?"
"The Colonel? Hell, no! He'd never okay anything this reasonable. This is my own idea, and I'll spend my own dough. But the point is, if I'm called down by the IRS, I'll have the folder with the info on the girls to show them. I 'am'' a private investigator, and one of my duties at National is to check background reports on possible employees. My
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