I had to see my informant. A dung beetle named Jake. He’d been in and out of the joint for years, but ever since I saved his life from a burrowing owl he owed me. He figured he wasn’t bein’ a rat if he was only talking to a P.I. I don’t like to judge, but it’s a dirty city and I couldn’t believe he was rolling something that small. Maybe times were tough, I don’t know. I asked if he needed help finding dung, he tells me he knows where a big stash is but it’s full male giraffes whipping each other with their necks, all over some broad. He’s afraid to get trampled. I don’t like tall tales but he had a look on his face, I knew he was scared.

I told him, I ‘d see what I could do. I knew a pretty girl over at the zoo who owed me a favor. I helped talk her brother down off a rooftop observatory one time. Thought he could come up with a new constellation. He went mad with all the choices. I calmed him, but the poor kid had stars in his eyes for a week.

He said thanks and asked me what my business was. I told him I was looking for a bower bird. One who likes shiny things. Seems this time he went too far. Took an heirloom from an heiress and she wants it back. So Jake tells me he knows the guy. Just a couple miles east of the lake. Likes to use pretty trinkets to attract the ladies. Uses it decorate his ‘love suite’. I shook my head and told him it was a shame that most of my cases come down to the stupid stuff a man do for a dame he’s into.

I know there is nothing more dangerous than a flamboyant bower bird so I turned up my collar and headed for the lake and tried not to think of the bottle of gin in my office desk drawer.