The Curious Case of Otis Pool
by Gary Clifton
“Open up, Mei.”
The door opened a slight crack. She stood, deep black eyes terrified.
“O-teese, I don’t have the money.”
“You’re five days overdue, lady. Pay in full by 10:00 a.m. tomorrow or I send the Constable.”
“My sister perhaps will help me, O-teese.”
Otis Pool, a fiftyish, nearly bald accountant, had inherited his mother’s rent house. Collecting rent was frustrating.
“Sister?”
“Perhaps you could come over a few more nights, O-teese.”
“10:00 a.m. tomorrow, dammit.”
* * *
He tried to enter his office discreetly. Janeen Smith, Office Manager, looked up.
“Otis, you’re two hours late... again. Leland is looking for you. And where the hell were you last night?”
“Uh, emergency at the boys’ school. Inept bureaucrat.”
“You could have called... or apologized.”
He didn’t answer and barged into CEO Leland Chester’s office. “Hadda crisis at the kid’s school, Leland. Bureaucrat didn’t know her job.”
“Otis, that’s three tardies this week. Speaking of not knowing the job, management at Johnsonworks is livid.” He tossed a folder on his desk. “Your depreciation schedule on their SPX 32 Ultralift is a disaster. All you had to do was extend the diminishing subtotals along a single line on the spreadsheet. Neither they, nor we, can afford the thousands of dollars this will cost.”
“Leland, I’ll call Charlie Jackson over there and iron this out.”
“Otis, I learn you’ve contacted any of their personnel, you’re through here.”
“Leland, I’m third in line to inherit your chair if you leave the company.”
“Inherit? Otis, you’re my employee and nothin’ else. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
Otis spent the rest of the workday in a daze. That evening, he slumped in his car in a nearby park plotting. Eventually, he concluded he would murder Leland but would try a softer approach first.
The night being relatively young, he dialed Janeen Smith. “Whatcha’ doin’, kid?”
“About to hop in bed, Otis? What’s up?”
“Bed, huh? Sounds like time for me to drop by.”
“Otis Pool, you stood me up for the last time.” She hung up.
* * *
The following morning, he was first into the office thirty minutes before the second arrival. He spent the morning slathering co-workers with ludicrous compliments. Before lunch, he exited by a back door en route to the apex of his grand plan. City pedestrian traffic was heavy and the day chilly as he found his way to Luigi’s Deli.
Shortly as he returned to the office with a hundred dollars’ worth of assorted pizzas, he found navigating the crowd more complex. He didn’t see as he cut through Chinatown, the tall, slender, black-haired woman with piercing black eyes standing in the doorway of the Lo San Restaurant. He was too put off at the pizza expenditures and his exposure to the number of foul foreigners to notice any single individual.
As he passed Lo San, the dark beauty stepped from the doorway and bumped into him. He managed to hold onto his cargo. “Damn, lady, watch where you’re goin’.”
She reached out to help straighten the pizza cargo, touching the palm of her hand on the back of his. The spot where she made contact felt like a low-grade burn.
“A thousand pardons, sir. I am new in town. Would you know where Luigi’s Deli is?”
Otis grunted an oath, brushed by her without answering her question, and pushed his way through the throngs of people.
Otis managed the entryway door without dropping his load, stopping at Janeen’s desk.
She eyed him casually. “You’re at the wrong place, buster. We didn’t order pizza.”
“Very funny, Janeen. A surprise lunch for the entire office here.”
She stood behind her desk. “Who the hell are you, boy, and how do you know my name? Are you the creep that burglarized my car last week?”
He stacked his pizzas on a chair. “C’mon, Janeen.” He saw her reach beneath her desk to summon security. In one minute, two burly guards rushed in. Leland Chester and the entire staff crowded into the area. “Leland, for God’s sake, what are you tryin’ to do?”
“I don’t know you, sir,” the portly man replied. He directed the security men to escort Otis from the building. The pizzas were left behind.
Otis found his car. The ignition key wouldn’t fit. He ran to the corner taxi stand to hire a ride home. The cabbie tested his cards in his machine, declared them counterfeit, and turned Otis away.
* * *
With what cash he had and two hours and three transfers later, he arrived at a bus stop six blocks from his home. His door key wouldn’t fit, but a burly man of about fifty answered. “Yeah, bud, whadda you want?”
“I’m Otis Pool, I live here. Who—?” His twin sons appeared behind the man. “Timmy and Tommy,” Otis exclaimed. “It’s me, Daddy.”
Both boys laughed. His wife’s voice wafted out, “Who is it, Melvin?”
“It’s me, Otis,” he shouted.
“Melvin, be careful,” she replied.
“Hit the road, Jack,” said Melvin.
Otis wailed, “I got no damn money.”
Melvin handed him a twenty-dollar bill. In another two hours of bus torment, he arrived at his rent house.
Mei responded. “Yes, sir?”
“Dammit, it’s me, Otis. I own this house.”
“Sir, my sister and I own this property.”
From over her shoulder, he saw the face of the beautiful woman he had collided with earlier in the day.
She stepped closer and said, “Leave, sir, or we’ll call the police.” The spot on his wrist she had touched suddenly burned like it had touched a lit match.
Disheveled and in tears, Otis wandered aimlessly.
* * *
“He’s in cell six, Sarge. Says his identity was stolen by a beautiful mystical Asian witch. No trace of him in any records.”
“No space aliens this time, huh? Leave him in the rubber room while the docs try to figure where to rat-hole him before they forget him.”
Copyright © 2026 by Gary Clifton
