The Toilet Paper Caper: Chapter 1

A Stark Mystery

I was in the can, contemplating my dietary choices, when I heard the buzzer. Pulling up my pants, I rushed over to the sink and washed my hands for 20 seconds, then stepped out to see who had wandered into my office. The private eye business hadn’t been too lucrative of late, not in the middle of a pandemic, and I didn’t want to lose any potential customers.

“Are you Stark?” The guy talking was around 5’11” and thin with a bald head reflecting the flickering light from the overhead fluorescents. He wore a grey raincoat, and I flinched when he popped it open. I expected anything except what he had under there.

“Yeah, I’m Stark. The name’s on the door.”

The guy reached under his arm and pulled out a white bundle. He set it on my desk. Toilet paper. White gold. I reached for it.

“Don’t squeeze the…” the guy began.

“Okay!” I held up my arms and backed off, behind my desk. The guy took out a handkerchief and wiped his neck and brow.

“It’s just, you know how valuable this stuff is,” he said.

I thought of the industrial strength sand paper currently posing as tissue in my bathroom. “Boy do I,” I said.

“I represent a large corporate client who wishes to enlist your services. We heard about what you did in Kansas.”

“Now wait a minute, I can explain.”

The guy shook his head. “No, we were impressed.” He looked around my office then back to me. “Aren’t you supposed to be sheltering at home?”

I snorted a laugh. “This is my home.” I pointed to the microwave balanced on the edge of the desk. “There’s the kitchen, and you’re standing in my bedroom.”

The guy eased away from the ratty couch he had been about to plop down on.

“So, what’s the job?” I asked.

The guy sighed and gave the tissue roll a little pat. “I suppose you’ve seen the empty shelves at all the supermarkets.”

“Supermarkets, mercados, gas stations, dollar stores, convenience stores, pharmacies, online orders, office supply stores…”

“Right, right.” The man hung his head.

“People are nuts, hoarding this stuff,” I said.

The guy straightened, leaning across the desk so we were eye to eye. “Is that what you think?” he whispered.

“Well, yeah. How would you explain this?” I pulled up a video on my phone. A woman dressed in her much smaller sister’s stretch pants and a t-shirt with Kenny G. on the front pushed a shopping cart filled with packages of toilet paper. She had every brand stacked in there, hovering at the top like she was playing Jenga with the stuff. The woman barreled down the aisle toward the check-out lane, knocking aside an old woman clutching a walker.

“Yes, people are nuts, but there’s more to it than that,” the man said. “It’s why I’m here. There’s someone behind this frenzy. People don’t go crazy buying paper on their own. We want to hire you to track him down.”

“Wait.” I held up a hand. “You’re telling me these people are hypnotized or something? Who would do that?”

“They have to be!” the man shouted. He lowered his voice and continued. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s a respiratory illness for shit’s sake!”

“You got me there, go on,” I said.

“We’ve been watching him for years, he’s been biding his time, gathering strength and biding his time for the perfect opportunity.” The man leaned close and whispered a name in my ear.

“Him?” I asked. “I thought that guy was a character cooked up by an ad campaign.”

“It started as that, but he’s real all right.”

“What’s the gig?”

“We will supply you with the necessary equipment and travel to track him down. You’ll have to take extraordinary measures, which we are prepared to secure.”

“Measures?” I asked.

“You’ll have to go back to the beginning, to where he started.”

I almost called the guy out, told him he was nuttier than the stretch-pants-tissue-hoarder, but I remembered Kansas. I’d never doubt anything impossible again.

“The 1970s? I don’t know if I have the wardrobe for that.”

“We are prepared to offer a substantial retainer and a bonus for completing the job quickly.” The guy pulled a stack of Ben Franklins from his coat pocket. “Please take the job. You’re our only hope. If we don’t defeat Whipple, America will never be the same.”

I nodded. I could see it. If America learned there were other ways to clean our butts, we’d all be speaking French and blow-drying our asses with Japanese robots.

“I’ll take the job,” I told him, “on one condition.”

“Name it.”

I picked up the roll on my desk. “I get to keep this.”

Continues in Chapter 2:

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