I thought he could use a friend. "Who died?" I asked him.

He looked like a hound dog, same sad eyes. I almost reached out to scratch him behind the ear. "I just got finished visiting my doctor. He got my test results and x-rays back."

"And..."

"The x-rays showed that my funny bone is missing. I'm a comic! What the heck am I going to do now? For the last month I haven't been able to come up with a single punch line. None of the clubs will hire me. They say I depress the customers. What am I going to do?"

"I happen to be a private eye. Name's Able. Able N. Ready. Here's my card. It sounds like you could use my services."

"I'm Robert Ulysses Smiley. Stage name's Joe Blow. What do you charge? I don't have much money."

Being the nice guy that I am and currently between cases, I told him I'd work for peanuts. And popcorn. And free drinks. And tickets to his next six month's of bookings after I located his missing funny bone. He said it was a deal and we shook on it.

The next morning, after fortifying myself with a long shower and three gallons of strong black coffee, I was ready to start my investigation. Robert had told me he'd last had a sense of humor the night he'd performed for Comic Relief at The Improv about a month ago. I'd bet my mother's false teeth one of the comics who had also performed that evening swiped his funny bone. Those guys are always trying to be comedians.

The manager of The Improv, a 6'4" mental midget with a voice like gravel, gave me a list of all the comics who performed that night. I thanked him for his help and bolted, before he could start telling me about his wife's bunions again.

I figured whoever had stolen the funny bone was doing pretty good for themselves in the humor department the last month or so. After five hours of research on the recent career successes of the twenty comedians named on the list, I narrowed it down to one possible.

Her name was Joy Luck. She was appearing on The Tonight Show that evening. I headed over to the studio, hoping to get a few minutes alone with her before her performance. I found Joy backstage in the Green Room. She was standing in front of a mirror as she practiced her routine.

"Every twelve seconds, some woman in the U.S. is giving birth. It sure isn' t me! We've got to find that woman and stop her," Joy told her reflection. She told a few more jokes like that and I quickly realized Joy wasn't my man; she was just living up to her name. She was also a 5'2" platinum blonde with a 38-22-32 figure. She spoke in high-pitched, breathy gasps, like she'd just run a marathon and had a long drag off a tank of helium. This girl would go far.

Dead-end. I headed back to The Improv and this time I got a list of all of the employees working the night in question, as well as the names of everyone with reservations for that show. After several days of grueling investigative work, a new suspect emerged.

A blue-haired sexagenarian of the female persuasion had been having an incredible run of good fortune. I decided to pay Mrs. Emma Crock a visit.

Mrs. Crock was a widow living on a fixed pension. Her Bingo group had decided to go to The Improv on a lark, just to see what the young'uns thought amusing nowadays. During her fifth trip to the Ladies Room, she got turned around and ended up in Robert's dressing room. "It was just laying there on the dresser and it looked like it would be such a good soup bone, I didn't see the harm in taking it," she told me.

So she stuck it in her handbag and when she got home, made a huge batch of split pea soup using the bone for added flavor. She brought some soup to Bingo for all of her friends and they went wild for it. They told her the soup made them feel younger and more energetic. The old ladies giggled like school children and the old men pulled practical jokes on one another. They wanted more.

So now, a month later, Mrs. Crock has her own line of homemade soups that she sells exclusively at bingo halls and retirement homes across the state. She's already built up quite a nest egg from the sales and received an offer from Campbell's to purchase her secret formula.

I had to ask her for the funny bone back. My client was counting on me. I felt bad though, so I told her I'd try to find a comic willing to sell his cheap. I figured there were plenty of non-funny people with successful careers in comedy right now, so the donor could still get work: probably as a sitcom writer. She was a nice old lady and I really hated to pick a bone with her.