The phone rang in the boss’ office. Joe got up and walked down the hall and opened the door. It was cold in here; one of the windows had cracked a few weeks ago. A bird ran into it. Joe had been standing in the hallway, looking into the office, thinking about where the boss kept some of the old ledgers, when a pigeon flew straight into the glass. It sounded like it must have felt. The glass cracked and a small divot, propelled by the pigeon’s hard head, pattered on the boss’ desk. A few days later when Joe opened the window to let in some air he saw the pigeon on the ledge. He poked it with a pencil and it dropped, head first, twirling as if fell.

The phone rang again. He picked it up.  “Midwest Match,” he said.

“Joseph,” said the voice on the other end. The boss’ son. The doctor. “The old man wants his address book. I wonder if you could bring it by.”

“Sure,” Joe said. “He’s awake?”

“Off and on.”

Joe looked at the piece of glass on the desk blotter.

“I’ll bring it by this afternoon.”

“Take your time.” He hung up. Joseph. The man had airs, he did. One of those fellows who could make your full name sound like a clever diminutive he’d just invented. It’s so droll to call the servants by their full names.

Joe got out his keys, selected a short nickel-plated one from the ring, and opened the boss’s side drawer. The address book. Why would the boss want the address book?  Of course, he didn’t; the son wanted it. He probably thought it had all the business contacts. He had no intention of running the business himself after the boss was gone, but the sale wouldn’t bring in the beans without the client list.

Joe paged through the address book. Friends and family. The clients, of course, were in the Rolodex, and that was in Joe’s office in the bottom drawer. Locked. He took some cards down to the coffee shop every lunch and copied the information.

He was up to S.

The boss had used a matchbook cover as a bookmark for the M entries. “Harris’ Fine Foods.” Not one of theirs. Not local, either.  Preacher Style Chicken? What was that, chicken that told you to repent, then asked you to pass the gravy? Looked like a rather well-off preacher, too. Huh: “$400 waffles.” He guessed that was an ad campaign long forgotten, and tried to imagine what it meant. They’d insured the recipe – for four hundred dollars! No, not impressive enough. These waffles require $400 worth of equipment to make! So? If you can find a better waffle, we’ll pay you $400! No, they’d go broke in a week. Someone would always say he’d had a better waffle. Hard to disprove on the spot.

He turned the cover upside down – there it was again. The Case of the $400 Waffles. Call Perry Mason.  He looked at the other side: numbers. Eleven digits long. No hyphens.

He checked  the M entries; the names meant nothing to him. All local numbers except one in Kansas.

Joe picked up the boss’s phone and asked for the operator. He put through a call to the Kansas number. It rang 10 times, and then a man asked a scratchy HELLO? It sounded like he was halfway down a deep well, unsure whether the call came from above or below.

“Sir, this is your Dollar Call from WKNS radio,” Joe said. “And we’re asking our afternoon Big Question, what are four hundred dollar pancakes?”

“Pardon? Who is this?”

“WKNS radio sir, asking if you know what four hundred dollar pancakes are.”

“You have the wrong number,” said the man, and hung up. Joe shrugged and replaced the receiver in its cradle. He locked the boss’ desk and put the address book in his pocket.

The matchbook cover he put in his wallet.

If anyone asked, he’d “find” the matchbook underneath the desk. It could have been there for a while, you know. The cleaning lady didn’t come in here anymore, on Joe’s request.