The second I looked up I regretted it. I could see right off she was trouble.

She had the kind of face you could lose a job over and the kind of body to lose a wife. She put the D in danger. Take it away, though, and you're left with anger. Yeah, she was the kind of dame where you couldn't win, even when you stacked the deck. She was the one stacked. And I was the one who'd be decked.

"Mr. Gilmartin?"

"No, it's Martin. First name's Gil."

"You're a private eye, aren't you?"

"That's what's etched on my door." I gestured to the only other chair in my office, a shabby room that sometimes served as living quarters when I couldn't make rent at the Fillmore Apartments. "Take a seat."

When she sat, she crossed her legs and bounced her foot, like she was showing off a new pair of shoes. A nervous filly. The foot kept rhythm with the Salvation Army Santa ringing his bell on the street below.

"What can I do for you?"

She pulled at her fingers like they'd come off, if she worked them enough. "Well, I lost something, but I'm not sure how to find it."

I crushed my butt and grabbed a pen and notepad. "What'd you lose?" A mink coat? A baby? Your memory? Anything was possible with dames like her.

"My childhood."

Her mind. She lost her damn mind.

I tossed down the pen and sat back. "Sorry, miss, but I can't help you with that. There's a Dr. Shoemaker down the hall. He handles cases like yours."

Her juicy red lips quivered like a Soviet flag on a windy day. "Let me explain. You see, when I was a child, I got toys every Christmas. I loved Christmas, because I loved my toys, but then, about fifteen years ago, they stopped. Instead of toys, I got sweaters and socks." She stopped bouncing that foot and leaned in. "Now, they're all dead, and I don't get anything."

"What's dead, the socks?" I wasn't sure just how Looney Tunes she was.

Her perfect eyebrows furrowed. "No, the family. The earthquake got them. It got all my toys, too." She leaned back and looked beyond me, somewhere into Crazyville. "All those lost toys. All those lost years. All that lost time." Then, to me, "How will I ever find them again?"

"I don't think I can—"

She leapt up and grabbed the edge of my desk. "The only way to get the toys is to get my childhood back. And the only way to get my childhood is to get those toys. Can you help me?" Her eyes spun like pizza dough on the tip of a finger. "Please, help me."

I was all set to walk her down to Shoemaker's office, when it hit me—I couldn't let her go. Not this one. Crazy dames could be wild—in a very entertaining way—when placed in the right setting. "You know, I think I can help you."

Her sigh was deep, so deep it curled my toes. "Oh, thank goodness. I'll pay anything, anything, if you help me."

"Forget it. It's my Christmas gift to you." If I'd named her a price, she'd have emptied her purse and dumped Monopoly money all over my blotter anyway. "We gotta take a short walk." I got up and grabbed my fedora. She followed.

Ten minutes later, we reached Harvey's Hobby Shop. The joint sold model airplanes and paint-by-number kits but also carried secondhand toys, beat-up things Goodwill didn't want. But maybe this nutty dish would.

It was Magic Time, and any good magician knows how to set the stage. "Okay, Miss…Miss…." What the deuce, I never got her name.

"Gimbal."

"Miss Gimbal, I want you to be prepared to change your life."

"I'm ready." Her smile was broad. "I'm so, so ready."

"In the back of this shop is your past. A past littered with, no, adorned with toys of your childhood. Time will—"

"Whatcha lookin' for?" Tubby Harvey waddled around the corner and killed the mise en scène.

Lady Screwball said, "My childhood."

Harvey didn't seem ruffled by her answer. "Oh, you wanna go to the back of the shop. But we got some nice model kits up front."

Her spinning irises drilled down to my soul, begging my permission to escape to her past, so all I could say was, "Go on. I'll be outside." She could pay for her own crap.

She flew off, like a bee after nectar, and I went out to smoke by the mailbox.

I thought about my next move. I'd suggest we take her toys up to my place, maybe play a game of Parcheesi. Of course, I'd pour some potent drinks to get her in the mood, that mood crazy dames operate best in. Maybe I'd get my Christmas present, which would have nothing to do with childhood.

But I wouldn't rule out some grown-up toys. Hope I didn't lose them.

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