And now, faithful followers, Timber Maniacs is proud to present another chapter in the continuing adventures of our roving correspondent, Laguna Loire, with his latest article,
Hey, all you Timber Maniacs! You're never gonna believe what happened to me this time. It all started with a job that Kiros, Ward, and me took in Balamb. We went to see one of the wealthiest men in town! This is how it went:
The butler showed us into the antechamber. A thin, middle-aged man sitting behind a desk looked up as we came in. He stood, and I introduced myself.
"Good afternoon, sir. My name is Laguna Loire, and these are my associates, Ward Sabac and Kiros Seagull." Kiros and Ward nodded as I said their names.
"Alastair MacDougall," he said as he shook each of our hands. "Have a seat, gentlemen."
Ward, Kiros, and me sat down in the ornately-cushioned chairs he had indicated as MacDougall returned to his desk. He began: "The reason I asked for your services, gentlemen, is because of my daughter, Lauren. I have reason to believe that she is involved in activities which are...odd, to say the least. I want you to find out what she is up to, no matter how long it takes, so I can put a stop to it. What do you think?"
A run-of-the-mill tailing job. Should be no problem. Not to sound blase, but I did star in a detective movie once. "We'll do it, Mr. McDougall. It'll be twelve thousand Gil a week, plus expenses."
"That's absurd!" he shouted, leaning over the desk.
"If you check it out sir, it's the cheapest price in Balamb for private investigators," Kiros noted.
"That's because you're the only ones in town!"
"Good point," I allowed. "So, what do you say?"
"Urghh! Very well." He shifted uneasily in his seat. I wondered what he was so uptight about. He was the richest guy in town, so twelve thousand Gil a week should've seemed like nothing to him. Guess being rich doesn't keep you from being a tightwad.
"We'll need a few details first, if you don't mind," Kiros explained. "Starting with a telephone number we can reach you at whenever we need to contact you."
"Also," I said, "we'd like to know what information makes you suspect illicit activity on the part of your daughter."
MacDougall looked at Ward. "Aren't you going to say anything?"
"Ward doesn't talk," I told him. Ward nodded. "His throat got slit during the war. Don't know how he survived the blood loss, but he's a tough guy."
Hold on a second. Maybe you're wondering how I, Laguna Loire, star of stage and screen, heroic veteran of the Esthar War, came to become a private investigator? (as I write this, Kiros brings to my attention that all I actually did during the war was get us lost and nearly get him and Ward killed, but we know the truth, don't we? Refer to my earlier article, "How I Single-Handedly Brought Down an Esthar Stronghold and Brought Victory within Galbadia's Grasp," for details.)
Oh, yeah, the P.I. thing.
It all started about five months ago. I had just finished starring in a Hans Delmer production, "Twelve Miles Over Deling,"---it's one of those action pictures, you know, with yours truly as the hero, natch. It's about this evil group of terrorists who try to take over a commercial airplane and hold all of the passengers and crew hostage and, of course, I have to stop them using whatever means possible. It should be coming out next summer to theaters everywhere, so be sure to go see it! (Editor's note: Timber Maniacs does not necessarily endorse the motion picture "Twelve Miles Over Deling". The views expressed in the preceding paragraph are those of the author and do not reflect the opinions of Timber Maniacs.)
You can see Kiros and Ward in it, too. Ward's the flight attendant who, well, dies in the first twenty minutes (he doesn't have any lines, but he can't talk anyway so it's okay) and Kiros is the co-pilot of the plane and he eventually dies too, though he does get some talking in. Actually, now that I think about it, almost everyone dies except me and---well, I don't want to ruin the movie for you.
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. Okay, after we finally got done shooting that---and by the way, filming a movie is a long, tedious process and you would never believe the amount of work that goes into it---we seemed to be out of work yet again. My on-again, off-again movie star job seemed to be off again, and being a part-time journalist is a blast, but it doesn't always pay that well. So, Kiros, Ward, and me set off to find work.
The final scenes of the movie had been shot near the town of Balamb, so that's where we set out to find work until I could land another acting gig. Balamb's a fishing community, so we thought maybe we could land a cushy job sitting around fishing all day.
We were wrong. I didn't realize this, but the type of fishing the goes on commercially is nothing like what I considered "fishing." It actually involves hauling up nets from a boat and listening to your boss holler at you about how badly you're doing it. Ward was pretty well-suited for the hauling part, but Kiros and I aren't quite as massively built. Plus, none of us really appreciated the being-yelled-at part of the job. You'd think that being in the military would've prepared us for it. Nope. Needless to say, we quit after a couple of weeks.
This presented us with a problem. We were boarding on the top floor of a house which belonged to a nice young married couple, the Dinchts, and while none of us would complain about the accomodations, we wouldn't have the money to stay there too much longer. Fortunately, Kiros had an idea on how we could use our unusual talents to good use.
"Private investigators," he said one night after supper.
"What?" I asked.
"We could become P.I.'s," he repeated. "You know, detectives, gumshoes, private dicks---"
Ward interrupted with a string of hand signals.
Kiros looked at me. "What'd he say?"
Now, most people don't know this, but I'm halfway fluent in sign language. I took a couple of classes in high school, but, to be honest, it was mostly because of the female-to-male ratio in the classrooms. However, when Ward lost his voice for keeps, I brushed up and helped him learn it so we could communicate with one another.
"He asked how much business private detectives would get in a town like this," I told Kiros.
"Tell him we don't have any competition that I know of, so we should get lots," Kiros said.
I began to sign what Kiros had said, but Ward cut me off with his own gestures.
"What was that?"
"Ward says, 'You don't have to sign to me, idiot. I can still hear.'" I laughed.
Kiros looked furious. "You shouldn't laugh. Laguna. You forgot, too." After that, Kiros was all pouty for the rest of the night.
Anyway, for the next few days we did some research and found that we would, indeed, be the only private investigators in Balamb if we founded a business. Kiros went to City Hall to apply for the license, while Ward and I set up a makeshift office in our upstairs apartment. We also put a few ads in the Balamb Fishnet, the local newspaper. They read, "Loire, Seagull, & Sabac: Private Investigators," and under that it read, "Balamb's Number 1 Private Dicks."
Surprisingly, or, rather, surprisingly to Kiros and myself, but not to Ward, we got no business for the first two weeks. Our funds were starting to run out, what little we had left from the movie and our subsequent "job" was spent on the advertising, the license, and the rent, which, while meager, was a constant expense. We eventually got a few calls, but most were of an obscene nature---they had obviously read our ad wrong. One call might have been legitimate, but Ward had to answer it, since he was the only one of us around, and he, of course, couldn't talk, so when he tried burping his words into the phone the other party hung up, disgusted.
Finally, when we were just about ready to give up and get real jobs, we got the call. Actually, Kiros had already applied at the local McSushi Hut as a rice-boiler, but he scrapped it after I told him about this one.
Find out more about how Laguna Loire got out of this sticky situation in next week's issue of "Timber Maniacs!"