Fic: Humble Beginnings (complete)
Title: Humble Beginnings
Fandom: Perry Mason (books)
Pairing: None. Maybe Perry/Paul if you have your slash goggles on.
Word count: About 1500
Synopsis: My take on how it all began, inspired by an excerpt from one of the books.
Notes:
Humble Beginnings
Mason swung the car around the corner into a side street.
“Remember this little isolated place, Della?” he said with enthusiasm. “It’s where they serve you that heavy bread-like pastry with cheese and spices melted over it.”
“Oh yes!” Della exclaimed. “And they have some perfectly marvellous wine! It’s been a long time since we’ve eaten here, Chief.”
“Paul Drake and I used to meet here a lot,” Mason said. “I wonder if Paul ever did get his dinner finished. I never found out.”
Mason and Della Street entered the little restaurant. The head waiter recognised them, escorted them to a booth.
[…]
“Well for the love of Pete! Here’s Paul Drake tagging us along.”
Drake walked across the dining room, said, “Slide over, Perry. Don’t think you’re going to have dinner and a tête-à-tête and leave me out.”
“What’s the matter?” Mason asked. “Didn’t you get your dinner finished before my phone call interrupted you?”
Drake frowned as though thinking back. “Oh, that,” he said suddenly. “Oh sure! I didn’t get the dessert, but I had the dinner. But that’s quite a while ago! A lot’s happened since then.”
“You mean you’re hungry again and you’re going to horn in on our dinner?” Mason asked, his eyes twinkling.
“Exactly,” Drake said.
The Case of the Black-Eyed Blonde
Perry Mason, criminal defence attorney, sauntered down the corridor with an air of breezy unconcern. He stopped in front of the door at the end, which was marked “Drake Detective Agency”. He rapped sharply on the frosted glass window, before turning the handle and stepping inside.
The Drake Detective agency was less of an agency than a one-man-band. Paul Drake was the owner, director, lead investigator, operator and secretary all rolled into one lanky, slouching, package. He claimed that the secret to success as a Private Investigator was to appear to be anything other than a Private Investigator. This was lucky, since that was the last thing anyone meeting Paul Drake would suppose him to be.
Drake was on the telephone, feet up on his desk, writing furiously on a pad of paper balanced precariously on his knee. He looked up at Mason as he came in through the door, saluted him briefly with his spare fingers and motioned with his head for him to sit down. Mason waited while Drake continued his call, murmuring affirmatives and confirmations into the receiver.
He finished with a, “Thanks, you’ve been a doll,” and with a satisfied grin, he hung up. He swung his feet off his desk and resettled himself in the office chair, tapping the pad of paper with the end of his pencil as he read over the notes he had taken. Then he looked up at Mason.
“Got that information you wanted on McAvery, Perry,” he said. “It’s everything you hoped for. But what are you doing here, anyway? I was beginning to think you never left your office before eight pm.”
Mason sighed and leaned back a little further in his chair.
“She left me, Paul, the new one. She just picked up her bag and said ‘If you think I’m taking this a moment longer, Mr. Mason, then you’ve got another think coming,’ and walked right out of there as if it wasn’t leaving me in the lurch. I thought for sure I had a keeper this time.”
Drake chuckled. “Oh, your poor secretaries. So no more work for you tonight?”
Mason shrugged. “The agency said they wouldn’t send someone new out after hours. They sounded kind of sore about it. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning.”
Drake made a show of looking shocked. “What! They wouldn’t send someone out to start working for you at seven at night? What kind of a crazy idea is that?”
“Which is why I’m here, checking up on you,” Mason smiled. “I know how you slack off. Why, you were just about to go for dinner, weren’t you?”
Drake picked his hat up from the desk, where Mason had no doubt seen it. “A little elementary deduction and he thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes. Yes I was going out, Perry. A man’s gotta eat, and this man hasn’t eaten since breakfast. And you even managed to cut that short for me. It’s a good job my other clients aren’t as demanding as you. If they all worked me as hard as you do, I’d need at least six of me to go around!”
“If you’re going to that little place on the corner, I’ll join you,” Mason said, standing up again. “We can call it business and I’ll let you put it on your expense account.”
* * *
The restaurant was small, but it was near Paul Drake’s tiny office. Drake went there often enough that he was greeted warmly by name, and Mason was fast becoming a regular fixture. Working as hard as he did, he didn’t have much time for friends, and eating dinner alone was not something he enjoyed. He had a feeling Paul felt the same.
They were seated at a small table in the corner, small enough that Drake’s knees were wedged right up against the underside of the tabletop, and Mason had to fold his awkwardly to make sure their legs didn’t brush together. It was earlier than they usually went, and so the restaurant was bustling with more people than Mason had ever seen there.
Drake was quiet as he surveyed the menu, slouched into his chair. He was a tall man, and aware that his height was unusual, something that he could not afford to be in his business. He looked up suddenly and caught Mason’s eyes on him. His face relaxed into its customary semi-amused expression, and he cocked his head.
“Something up?”
“Just marvelling at the way you take dinner so seriously. I’ve never seen anyone frown like that at a menu before.”
“It’s a serious business,” Paul said, closing the menu and putting it down on the red check tablecloth. “Thoughts of dinner get me through those long, difficult days when I don’t have time for lunch.”
“You’d think you’d never heard of a sandwich,” Mason said, smiling. “That’s what normal people have for lunch, you know.”
Drake looked scandalised. “Eat something I actually made?” he said, voice full of disbelief. “Perry, you know me and kitchens.” Mason was surprised to realise that he actually did, remembering with a grimace the taste of Drake’s coffee. He straightened slightly and picked up the menu again as the waiter appeared at his elbow to take their order.
Halfway through the appetisers, Drake dropped his eyes and tapped uneasily at the stem of his wine glass. When he looked up again, Mason was ready for whatever news his dinner companion seemed intent on breaking to him.
“I’ve been thinking, Perry,” he said, “and I want you to tell me if this is the dumbest idea you ever heard or if you think I stand a chance of making it.” He used his fork to push some crumbs across his plate, already empty except for a few smears of melted cheese.
Mason said nothing, chewing a mouthful, while Paul gathered himself. Halfway through any course never really applied to Drake, who could inhale food faster than a normal man could blink.
“It’s just, things are good. Real good, if you must know. I’ve got more clients than I know what to do with, and I’ve got you- if I can rely on you for the long haul.”
Mason swallowed. “You know you can. I don’t know a better P.I. than you, and I don’t want to.”
“I want to hire another detective. Make something of the agency.” He hesitated. “Maybe fix it so I get a lunch break every now and again,” he said, meeting Mason’s eyes with a wry grin. “Get a girl for the phones, and someone to type all those damn written reports you like so much…”
“That’s a lot of people you’re talking about,” Mason said seriously, gathering his brows into a frown.
“You don’t think it’ll work?” Drake said, disappointment well concealed but readable in the stilling of his fingers in their tapping.
“Does it matter what I think?” Mason leaned forward onto his elbows, intently studying Drake’s face, and his subtly crestfallen expression.
“Of course it does.” Drake looked surprised that Mason had even asked, giving his face a suddenly almost angry look. He let his fingers fall away from the wineglass, and instead grabbed hold of the napkin set beside his plate.
Touched, Mason smiled and leaned across the tiny table to clap Drake on the shoulder, knees brushing under red gingham. “I think it’ll work. But,” he paused for breath and waited, amused, for Drake’s wide-eyed look of expectation, “I think you’ll need a bigger office.”
Paul grinned, brightly for once rather than his usual aloof twist of the mouth, and picked up his wine glass. “In that case, we’d better enjoy this dinner. It might be the last one in this place for a while. I don’t like having to go more than five minutes for a good meal.”
* * *
The next morning, Perry Mason unlocked the door of his office at eight forty-five, and was reading the newspaper in the reception room when the knock came at his door at nine. He opened it to an impeccably dressed woman, smart from her perfect hair all the way down to her high-heeled shoes.
Without waiting for him to say anything, she stuck out her hand.
“Mr. Mason? Good morning. My name’s Della Street. The agency sent me.”
* * *
“I have two questions for you. One: do you have a Private Investigator’s license?”
“Sure do, Mr. Drake. Here-”
“Fine, fine. No, put it away. I’ll have to train you to do things my way anyway. More importantly, can you make coffee?”