The first thing I saw as I opened my eyes was a patent black stiletto heel grinding out the butt of a cigarette. I was face down on a concrete floor, and stiffer than a plate-mail armor model after a three-day fashion show. Concluding that these were not usual circumstances in which to find oneself after informing a client of the success of an investigation, I felt it wiser to keep my mouth and eyes shut and wait for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. I always was a wise guy.

Ignoring the cold numbness of the right side of my face, I kept my cheek pressed to the ground in hopes that my captors hadn’t noticed my triumphant return to consciousness. Though the woman was standing incredibly close to me, it wasn’t her voice I heard speaking.

“…down to The Palace and I’ll grab the bird while the dentist takes care of him,” muttered the unmistakable voice of Larry D’Angelo. It sounded like fingernails scratching out Judas Priest tunes on a blackboard, if the fingernails had been out for a rough night at the bars. Of course, his presence was no surprise. After all, the trail mix at the playground had given him away.

“All right,” said Sheila, strutting around to my right side. “But once you have the bird, you make on the double to get back to the dentist’s office and get me outta there. I don’t want to hang around too long. That guy gives me the creeps.”

Dentist. The word hit more home runs than Hank Aaron. So they were taking me to Jimmy “The Dentist” Klein. Talk about needing Novocain. Jimmy was the man all men feared. He was top-class, as far hit men went, and had earned his nickname by making sure the cops couldn’t trace bodies by dental records. Unfortunately, his specialty was remedying the problem of teeth while the “patient” was still alive. Rumor had it if he cashed in his collection, he would’ve emptied the Tooth Fairy’s Swiss bank account.

Then there was the problem of Sheila. I never dreamed she was in on it all along. Of course, any woman with getaway sticks like that can’t possibly live a life that never uses them. She was destined to be a criminal dame from the start, and I should’ve seen it. Hair over one eye, fashionable veiled hat, and she looked so great in black and white. She was beautiful, but dangerous. It didn’t matter. I was still stupid, tied up, and due for a root canal.

Larry huffed me over his shoulder and outside, Sheila leading. In true predictable style, he stuffed me into the trunk of his Lincoln, taking no pains to watch my head. The shock of the smack almost coerced me into crying out, but at the last second I thought better of it and bit my tongue.

“Hang on,” said Sheila, “I want to make sure the rope’s still tight. Last thing I need is him waking up and taking me out when I open the trunk at the dentist’s office.” Beauty and brains. Couldn’t argue with her logic, even if it didn’t work in my favor.

She leaned over me and grabbed the rope around my wrists, which were tied behind my back. I felt her fingers work the knot, but not in the direction I had expected. Then she slipped something into my palm and pressed my fingers around the object. As she feigned giving one last tightening jerk on my restraints, she gave a victorious laugh.

“Take that, Mr. Perril.”

The trunk slammed shut and the darkness embraced me tighter than a chocoholic does the last Hershey’s kiss. After we took off, I quickly worked my wrists free of the rope and brought my hands around in front of me. The object Sheila had given me felt familiar in my hands. My brain suddenly caught up: it was the one thing in the world I could use against Jimmy “The Dentist” and hope to survive. There wasn’t a bird-eating cat in history who grinned bigger than I did at that moment.

The bird! The rest of the case came flooding back to me, but there was nothing I could do about it from the trunk of a Lincoln, even one as spacious as Larry D’Angelo’s.

Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t realized we’d arrived. Suddenly, I heard two sets of footsteps walking towards the trunk, and Sheila saying, “He’s too heavy for me to lift, why don’t you go ahead, Mr. Klein?” I knew there was a reason I liked this broad.

I quickly maneuvered into the best attack position I could manage, and waited for the key to turn in the lock.

A hard, cold rain was falling when I got back, the kind that sweeps out of the San Ysidro hills and stays 'til February. A soggy newspaper attached itself to my leg. The streetlamp threw wet yellow light onto the sidewalk.

The light in the hall was out again, I thought I'd better give Mulroy a call about it. Wouldn't do for my clients to bust a leg on the stairs. Tossing my wet coat onto the leather sofa, I smiled at Betsy. She frowned at the puddles, but she couldn't fool me. Betsy was a gal with a heart of gold.

"Y'know, you'd look nicer if you smiled once in a while," I said by way of hello. She huffed. Her eyes squinted slightly as she pecked on the old upright Royal-Underwood on her desk.

"You've got a client," she said as I was halfway to the office door. That stopped me in my tracks. I had to think for a minute to remember what a client was.

"A girl," Betsy said, with a funny emphasis on the word, "Wouldn't give her name. Soaked to the skin. Like she'd been out wandering in the rain."

She gave me the look – you know the look – over her horned rimmed glasses. I shrugged. What fault was it of mine that some dame came in here dripping on the carpets after dark with a problem? I was just the private d**k.

She was sitting in my chair when I opened the door. Oh, she did her best to look slightly uncomfortable, like the cat that ate the canary, but I knew it was just an act.

"Are you Dash Hammett? I've heard so much about you," she said quickly, with a smile like a switchblade, closing, opening and then closing again.

I nodded and threw my battered fedora at the hat rack. Unfortunately it missed, plopping to the floor behind the wastebasket.

"I need to find someone – someone whose discretion I can be sure of, you understand. I've been – robbed, you see, yes, robbed, and I wish to regain my property without a great deal of attention. You understand, Mr. Hammett, I'm sure you've handled these sorts of things before? For Roscoe? He recommended you to me."

I raised an eyebrow. Roscoe Barlow had recommended me? Roscoe was a two bit movie extra in those days, just about to make it big as "Mr. Funny Man" when he got involved with a little roundheeled barfly with a camera and a sweet tooth for a sugar daddy. Getting those pictures back involved me doing the two step cha-cha with five pachuco goons from the little senorita's neighborhood. I still had a scar on my jaw from the ice pick.

If she was friends with Roscoe, then it meant two things.

One, she was either loaded with bucks or soon would be.

Two, she was cheaper than day old fish at the wharf.

And as I watched her light a cigarette – slowly – I added three to the list:

Three, she had legs that went all the way up to there – and then some.

"Mr. Hammett?" The snapping sound her fingers made two inches from my face brought me out of the trance brought on by her perfume. I folded my hands in front of my chin – useful when I didn't know what had just happened – and said:

"Tell me more, Miss…?"

"Smith, Marie Smith."

I always take it personal when a client starts out by lying to me.

I got up, walked to the door and opened it for her. She sat in shocked silence.

"This interview is over, " I said, with a broad sweeping gesture of my hand, "Miss Smith, I do not work for clients who cannot tell me a simple thing like their name."

Then she did the one thing broads do, every time, time in and time out. The one thing they know gets us, right in the gut.

Miss Smith burst out into tears.

I looked out into the outer office. Betsy had heard my goodbye and her response, but she wasn't moving. She was, if anything, more glued to her work than I'd seen her in months.

Serves me right, I thought, thinking that one a them would help a guy out of a fix like this.
So I went back to the client – because she sure was my client now, and I sat down on the desk. After awhile, she stopped the caterwauling and just sniffled, and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue as she began her story.

But I noticed one thing – through all the cigarette smoke that filled up my office. Every time she wiped her eyes with that tissue…

The tissue was dry.

They're like that. And they get ya. Every time.

At a time in their lives when most young men were occupying themselves with the dynamics and ultimate removal of female undergarments, Arden was more concerned with the immediate task of tilting his head far enough to one side so that he could reduce his intake of pond water just enough to avoid his own panicky, choking death. Less than two blocks away, in the small suburb that threatened to become the place of both his birth and his death, young men such as Arden, but clearly not Arden, were gulping deliciously bitter liquids and competing for the attentions of blossoming young females. Arden was wiry and fit, but lying face down with the heel of a boot on the back of his neck, he could find no escape from his attacker’s superior strength and size. And while his thoughts were now fully focused on the drawing of one small breath after another, it had been mere moments ago that Arden’s thoughts had included some elaborate visions of Rhonda’s more intimate garments. He had only wanted to see those last hidden parts of Rhonda that she had steadfastly refused to reveal to him.

Arden was a Catholic. While the teachings of the Catholic Church were of no particular concern to Arden at the moment, he now discovered that he remembered more of the Lord’s Prayer than he might have guessed. Prayer being a personal thing, not usually for the ears of anyone but God, Arden didn’t vocalize his recitations; rather, he continued to use his breath for more pressing matters. But his lips moved, embracing the words of his prayer, and as they did, they allowed the free passage of stale green water in and out of his mouth. Arden had prayed that Rhonda would discover some compelling reason to open her remarkably modest green robe as she passed by her bedroom window, just those very few moments ago. God had disappointed him then, and Arden hoped now that God might judge his current prayer as being more worthy of spiritual intervention.

It had been a simple matter for Arden to climb the rail fence and take up a reasonably comfortable position on the utility shed near the goldfish pond in the yard next door. He had sat in darkness, with a clear view of Rhonda’s bright, warm, inviting bedroom. Perhaps the anticipation of a glimpse of Rhonda’s soft white nether regions caused Arden to overlook the evidence of some rather dark activities having taken place in the home next door, the home whose sturdy shed served as the outpost for his surging libido. A more perceptive observer might have noticed that all was not right in the neatly groomed perimeter of the modest one-story home. Had Arden tempered his voyeurism with the smallest degree of prudence, the presence of a large pool of blood on the well-lit driveway might have alerted him to events of much greater wrongness than were usual in this otherwise serene community.

Someone else nearby, an intruder, had as much reason to be preoccupied as Arden. But it was the intruder who made the discovery that altered the evening’s events so completely. The intruder had a hairy neck; oddly, that’s what Arden recalled now, as his lungs screamed for air. The hairy-necked man spotted Arden on the shed, moments before Arden spotted him. And for all the time that had passed in which Arden had neglected to stumble upon evidence of the horror that was about to engulf him, he suddenly understood everything perfectly in less than a heartbeat. Now he saw the blood. And now he saw the remnants of violence on the clothes of the hairy-necked man, who was now rushing at Arden with madness in his eyes, and murder on his mind.

Time passes. The mind forgets. Or, perhaps, the mind is so paralyzed with terror that it fails to comprehend. Whatever the reality, Arden’s consciousness included no knowledge of the important, life-altering events that clearly must have occurred in the space of time between his discovery and his current predicament. And, Arden was horrified to find, his current predicament had suddenly become much more dire. Now his mouth and nose were fully beneath the surface of the water. His last pleasure, the exchange of good air for bad, had been taken from him. The business of drowning understandably precludes most other concerns, and Arden had very little else on his mind just now.

Just the same, he heard a woman’s voice, a shout of alarm. It seemed some distance away. Had he been saved? Was this the voice of his rescuer? Or was this merely the voice of the person who would be the first to see Arden in death, moments after the last remnants of life had deserted his motionless body?

I loved working late. There was something about being alone in my office with the glow of neon lighting my desk that made me smile. Sometimes when it was raining real hard against my office window, the red and orange letters on the sign across the street looked like a painting running down the glass.

As I sat against my desk and looked out of my window to the street below, I saw her. With a walk like that, she could stop traffic. I watched as she paused and pulled a cigarette out of her bag. She didn't need her lighter because some mook stopped and fired it up for her. "She's done that before, that's for sure." I thought. She looked up at my window and opened the downstairs door. I could hear her on the stairs. God, I love the sound of high heels.

"Are you Nick?" she asked as she stood in my doorway. The hallway light back lit her so that I couldn't see her face.

"Yeah. I'm Nick. And you?" I asked.

"Mitzy. Mitzy Parker to be exact. I hear you're good. In fact, I hear you're the best. Is that true?" She had a flip in her voice that made me think she had been crying.

"Well Mitzy Parker, why don't you come in and sit down. Then we can talk about just how good I am." She walked across the floor towards me like she was on water. One little size 6 put down in front of the other. Quite a show.

"Are you the dame who called me this morning?" I asked.

"No, that was Velma, my maid...I mean...our maid." She stumbled on those words and began to sob. "I'm...I'm sorry. I am just so damned scared. I know they're going to find me. I just know they're...."

"Whoa, whoa lady. Who's after you? What are you talking about?

"Didn't Velma explain it all to you this morning? When I left this morning, I left a letter with all the details and she was to read it to you." As she said this, I noticed she leaned forward. Something was spooking this filly. Something or someone.

"Listen Miss Parker. When this Velma woman called this morning, I didn't know who it was. When I picked up the phone, I heard a voice but it sounded a bit muffled. I waited a few seconds, then heard a loud bang. Finally, a woman got on the line but I couldn't understand her. She had a very thick German accent and...."

"NOOOOOOO!!!!!" Mitzy screamed. "It can't be!! What...what did she say to you??"

"Well to be honest, I'm not sure. I could tell by her tone that she was asking me a question, something about a bracket or maybe she said blanket....I couldn't quite make it out. Whatever it was, she wanted to know if I had it."

Mitzy suddenly grew pale and sat up like she was in church.

"Hey toots, are you ok? Want a drink of water or something?"

"Yeah, water. That would be good. I need to take my pill." she replied.

"What pill is that? Your 'happy' pill?" I cracked.

She gave me a half smile and said, "Yeah, that's it. My 'happy' pill. It'll make all my troubles go away."

I walked to the water cooler and grabbed a Dixie. "Listen Mitzy, I think you'd better tell me what's going on."

"Ok. Here's the deal. I think they murdered my husband. He had just got back from Zurich and had picked up a special piece for a client. A very special piece." she explained.

"You said "they" killed your husband. Who are "they" and what do you mean your husband had a "piece"? Was he carrying a gun?"

"No silly. My husband was Alexander Parker of Parker's Jewelry Store. The piece was a bracelet. It was worth millions." Mitzy drew a breath and said, "And the Germans wanted it. They wanted it bad."

"Did these Germans kill your husband?"

"I'm sure of it. They killed Alexander and they stole the bracelet he was delivering. God only knows what they'll do next. Oh God! You don't think...they killed my Velma do you? Oh God, no!" She began to sob again.

"I'm sorry, I'd offer you my hanky, but I don't have one."

"That's ok. I have a one in my purse." She lifted her bag onto her lap and reached inside for her handkerchief. She pulled it out and lifted it to her face. As she did, I noticed something fall to the ground. It rolled across the floor and stopped at my feet. I bent to pick it up.

"What's that, Nick?" she asked.

I looked at her and said, "Looks like a bracelet to me."

The Case of the Gilded Gams – Chapter Four

The clock was ticking louder than the bass amp at a Snoop Dogg concert. And even though the clock was allegorical, its rhythm seemed to coincide with the pounding in my head. Having wasted two days in San Juan on the wild goose chase Hurtzburger’s widow had sent me on, I was no closer to finding his killer than I had been the day she first strolled into my office wearing black high heels and a low-cut red dress. The trail was growing as cold as a well-digger’s ass.

My secretary brought me a cup of Folger’s, bitter as hell. Of course, the taste of last night’s rum, from the airport’s duty-free shop, didn’t improve the coffee’s flavor. Even the double dose of Listerine I had for breakfast hadn’t cleared my palate. Becky wrinkled her nose when she got closer to me. “Jesus! Remind me not to light a match in here.” She had her steno pad squeezed into submission between her ample bosom and upper arm. It’s the only time in my life I have ever wished I were a steno pad. Becky set the mug down and pulled a half dozen pink While You Were Out slips from the notepad, and unceremoniously dropped them in front of me. “I threw away six other messages, two from the building manager—he wants money—and four from your ex-wife—so does she.”

“Thanks, Becky. What else do we have?”

“The usual. Girls who were expecting you to call them by now, mostly. Oh! And one guy called about the Hurtzburger case.”

I flipped through the slips and found one with only a number and the name Hurtzburger written at the bottom. “Becky, there’s no name here.”

“Yah. He said just give you the number, for you to call him.”

She headed back toward her desk, and I took a sip while watching her hips sway. She definitely didn’t get the job for her coffee skills.

The number was local. It rang only once. “That you, Elam?”

“It is if the price is right. But I warn you now, the price ain’t cheap.”

“You got me all wrong, Mr. Smartass Private d**k. I ain’t payin’ you nothin’. It’s the other way around.”

“Okay, Pal. Let’s start over. First off, I’m at a little disadvantage. You know who I am. Who are you?”

“Who I am don’t matter a hill of beans. What I know—now that matters.”

“Something about my client’s deceased husband, according to my secretary. Is that right?”

“That’s right. Except for one thing...your client ain’t the widow of the guy who she says she’s the widow of. And that’s all I’m sayin’ now. You want to know more, meet me over at the Brown Derby on South Street at noon, and bring me a G in cash. You’re payin’ for lunch, too.” Click. This tidbit—that my client might be lying to me—bounced off my brain like a brick hitting a trampoline.

I could see three basic problems. One: Why would a looker like Mrs. H. lie and say she was married to the old guy who’s bloodied body fell fourteen floors off a hotel room balcony if she weren’t? Two: This could be a set-up. The guy could have some thugs tail me to the bank, then knock my lights out and steal the cash. Three: The bank wouldn’t let me have the cash even if I asked them.

Picking up the phone from my desk, I dialed the client’s number. “Mrs. Hurtzburger? Randy Elam here. No, no luck in Puerto Rico. Wasted eight hundred clams of your dough, but none of the sources you suggested could confirm any of your suspicions about what your husband may or may not have been doing there on his recent visits. Looks like legit business to me, seeing people in the shipping industry and lining up future contracts. However, I have another lead, this one local. Guy claims to have detailed information that will clear up whether or not your husband’s death was accidental, as the police believe. But there’s a catch. He wants two grand in cash for the information. You can understand my hesitancy to invest my own money in this...if you want me to follow this lead, I’ll need you to either meet me at the bank or bring the cash to my office, and it’s pretty urgent. If we don’t do it this morning the guy says he won’t talk.”

Surprisingly, she agreed to bring the money, and asked nothing about the man who claimed to have the information, and didn’t choke on the amount. Damn...should have asked her for three grand.

“Hey, Chief, I think I’ve got something!” Halloway barked at me while staring at the computer screen. “Looks like the last thing he did was upload a file before he disappeared. His computer’s even still online.”

“So what was the file?” I moved to the desk and glanced over his shoulder.

“Looks like some kind of image. Here, let me pull it up…” he said as a picture flared to life on the screen. “Kinda looks like Drew Barrymore.”

“That is Drew,” I took a deeper glance at the picture. “But something’s not right. Zoom in on the face. See, her head doesn’t ‘fit’ on the body. The pixels are too… blocky. Looks like a bad cut and paste job. A Gaussian blur would have helped with that. Shadows under the chin are wrong too. Where’s the site that it was uploaded to?”

The image vanished from the screen, replaced by a browser that that had already been “home-paged” to the site we needed.

“Worth one-thousand dot com. Worth a thousand what?”

“Words, Sam. You need to get out more. Seems to be a lot of pictures on this site. Do me a favor and see if they have some kind of picture details or searches.”

“I see an ‘Image Search’ under ‘Library’. Whatcha need?”

“Look for ‘Bouguereau’”

“Booga-what?”

“Just trust me. B-O-U-G-U-E-R-E-A-U. That’s Drew on a Bouguereau." Screens came and went as Halloway worked his magic. "Hmmmm, seems to be several of his works on this site but all chopped like the other one. Nice hot dog…”

“You think we have art counterfeiting here?”

“No. These aren’t the originals. Do some more digging and see where random snooping can lead you.”

While Halloway’s taps and clicks went through layer after layer of intertwined computer information, I went back through the house examining all of the undisturbed windows and doors. The closets were full. A picture needed to be straightened. Book shelves were trying to offer up clues just by the titles alone.

My notepad flipped out of my overcoat pocket in a move that had been perfected through years of practice. The tip of the pencil got licked out of sheer habit right before I started taking down the thoughts running through my mind.

1. Luggage is in the closet. Very few empty hangers. An excessive amount of camping gear. – Really enjoys camping but had no plans to go away at this moment.

2. “The Castel of Snacks” framed artwork - Suggests very poor taste. Our missing person will likely be wearing a gaudy Hawaiian shirt and sporting a mullet.

3. Lack of image editing books, printed tutorials and Wacom tablet – May enjoy image editing as a hobby, but definitely does not make a living at it. Victim is at least 15% below average.

“Where have you gone?” The words tumbled off my lips in a whisper as I made my way back to the closet that wanted to be a computer room. Halloway’s grin spoke volumes for his success.

“Okay, Chief. Looks like most of this Boogy’s work was done by one Mr. Arsidubu. Here’s some of his pictures. I found them next to a pile of ‘trophies’, of the virtual kind that is.”

I stared through blurry eyes and scratched the stubble on my chin. “Yep. More Bouguereau’s. These look much more polished, even though they’re still derivative works.”

“You think this ‘Arsibubu’ could be a user name of our vic?”

“That’s Arsidubu, and ‘no’, our victim’s work doesn’t even compare to this level of quality. Look at this picture though. That’s the same Drew face and head wrap that our victim used, but it’s on a different painting. Looks like someone has been touching Arsidubu’s stuff.”

“You think he’s involved? Wait… man, I just saw something in the forums. Hold on…" More pages came in went in a blur. It gave me a headache just watching Halloway work. "Yes, here it is. I see frequent references to something called a ‘banhammer’ with respect to this Arsidufu.”

“Banhammer? Sounds like a German weapon. Does it say what it is?”

“No, but this Arsibudu sounds a little off. I’d bet money that he had something to do with our vic’s disappearing act. Take a look at this…”

4. Steel-toed pink fuzzy slippers

I had exhausted all my options and my case was going nowhere fast. I briefly considered returning the check Spinelli had given me but common sense kicked in. Actually, this time common sense took the form of 6 foot 6, 350 pound behemoth as he crashed through the door of my office. I reached for my piece but he was on me before it was even half way out of the holster. With a sharp twist of my wrist, he sent the gun skidding across the floor where it came to a stop against the garbage can.

"You been sticking your nose where it don't belong," he said, gracing me with the stench of his last meal which apparently had consisted of several members of the onion family.

Due to his intimidating size, I decided to be respectful. “Perhaps we can discuss this like gentlemen,” I said calmly, desperately trying to suppress the quiver in my voice.

“Shut up, a*****e!” was his reasonable reply.

Suddenly, I heard a sickeningly wet crunch and the thug fell heavily on top of me, pinning me to the floor.

“Ace, are you okay?” came the voice of Lucy my secretary, who had apparently returned from her two-hour lunch.

“I will be if you help get this brute off of me,” I replied.

After straining and wriggling in a bizarre parody of sex, I managed to squirm out from beneath the silent mountain of flesh. There was Lucy holding my seven-iron and spattered with blood.

“You bent it,” I muttered, sighting down the shaft of what used to be a perfectly straight two hundred dollar club. “Couldn’t you have hit him with a poker or something?”

“Next time hit him yourself,” she replied. “Geez, you don’t pay me enough to put up with this crap.”

It was a dark and rainy Saturday night. Water drenched me in it's wetness and made me long to be home in my own shower and out of the rain. I put on my clothes and stepped back into my office.

My name's d**k. d**k P. Niss. My friends call me 'Wiener' because I won the hot dog eating contest at the '72 Saratoga County festival. Actually, that's not completely true. I don't have any friends. In this business you can't afford to. I'm a private eye.

BAM!!!! The door to my office swings open just as I finish pulling on my trousers. It's Fishy McSkank, my secretary, snapping her gum and strutting in a miniskirt that's at least 3 sizes too small.

'Wiener?' she snapped her gum at me with a biting touch of wit. 'There's a lady here to see you.'

'Don't you ever knock?' I cleverly retorted. I was always quick with the line. That's why my ex left me. 'Send her in and take off for the night, kitten. Go find yourself a tiger.' I grinned. 'I'll entertain the client.'

'Sure you will, Wiener.' She popped her gum and slammed the door behind her, giving one last look my way as she stepped out. I remembered to take down the girlie pictures from my wall just in time.

'Knock, knock,' said a soft voice from behind the door and in came a nice piece of meat. We're talking Grade A beef here, if you know what I mean, enough to make any man stop in his tracks and salivate.

'You got the wrong guy,' I said, loosening my tie. 'Butcher's one store down.' The meat delivery guy apologized and left.

And just then she strolls in. We're talking legs up to her shoulders and curves to put a circle to shame all beneath a red camisole shawl. My jaw dropped and my tongue rolled onto the floor. She picked it up and handed it to me and sat herself down.

'I'm looking for help d**k, and I'm told that you're the man to talk to.'

'Please, call me Wiener, Ms...?' She crossed her legs the other way. 'Tight. My name's Cherry Tight.'

I knew that of course. I'm a private eye.

I grabbed the man around the throat and pushed him up against the brick wall. He made sickening choking noises, trying to steal a dirty breath. My manicured nails dug into his thick skin. I stared at his face with pure hatred, interested in the way he was affected; his mouth wide open so I could see his disgusting tongue, his eyes wildly searching the shadowy graveyard. I’d been dreaming about this. The muscles in my arm were shaking, the stench from his sweat assaulting my nostrils. He desperately looked me in the eye, his red face filled with wild pleading; and I let go.

He slumped, leaning against the wall, holding his throat. Deep breathing accompanied by a chilling rasping sound. I let him rest for a second, observing his heaving body with repulsion. I thought back over the past few months, the late nights in the detective’s dimly lit office, the sight of my brother as he cried. I’d been waiting for this.

Staring at the filthy Englishman, I knew I was right to take justice into my own hands. So I wrapped my fingers around the cold gun in my purse.

“Up” I ordered.

He dragged his trench coated frame up, and stood in front of me. I took three steps back, my stilettos snapping against the concrete, then I held the gun out in front of me, pointing at his chest. I looked directly at him.

“Please… Daisy, please” he whispered, then coughed harshly. He must have known it was futile. I looked along the top of the gun, his body blurred behind the focus of the metal.

‘Do it for Max’ I thought. Then I took a deep breath and steadied myself, ready to pull the trigger…

Always one to interpret mere circumstance as omen, Becks decided against placing the call. He was still in shock from the collision and in desperate need of a strategy. So naturally, he found himself in a booth at Mickey’s staring vacantly at a short whiskey on the rocks. Charlie Becks unfolded the letter for the sixth time in as many minutes.

“How do I love thee, let me count the ways.
One. I love to see you squirm.
Love,
Bess”

Blackmail is a wonderful thing. Not legal by any means but certainly it can be appreciated, if only from a distance. One more snifter of Bushmills sounds like the right distance. Becks folded the missive with reverence and arched an eyebrow to summon an aspiring actress. After the usual unpleasantries, she wandered off to make her trip more profitable.

He glanced at the letter and cursed himself yet again. He’d always known Jack Prinna was a long shot for a Nobel Prize. There was nothing Becks knew about the writer, aside from her probable employment of really bad drivers. Prinna’s pretense was proving to be equally elusive. Becks dislodged a cell phone from his breast pocket and glanced at the time. 1:37 AM. Time for another meeting with his client; he flipped the cover and dialed.

After three rings his drink arrived with a sneer. He tipped her fifty cents and put the phone back to his ear. Six more rings and finally Prinna growled through the static.

“When’s the funeral?”

“Jack, one more time, who is Bess?”

“Chuck? I told you, the only Bess I know is some Gershwin floozie. I’m paying you to find this one.”

“Jack, you’re lying to me. Thirty minutes ago I barely walked away from a poorly orchestrated hit and run. I’m getting to the point where I’d rather just turn this over to the taxpayers. Who is Bess?”

“Ok, ok, but not on the phone. Where are you?”

“Mickey’s”

“Why’d I even ask? I’ll meet you out front in 20 minutes, you know the car. Don’t make me wait.”

Becks stashed his phone and replaced it with a Camel unfiltered. He surveyed the assortment of twenty or so fellow patrons, seemingly absorbed in their own misfortunes. At the corner of the bar sat an abnormally skinny man; his chaotic dreadlocks oozed from a filthy pork-pie hat. Skinny Man’s eyes darted around the room avoiding any prolonged contact. At precisely the wrong instant, Beck’s dull gaze engaged Skinny Man and the two stared at each other in mutual disrespect. Becks enjoyed a heady rush of adrenaline.

The slam of the front door abruptly doused their collective trance. In a display of staged nonchalance, Becks reached for his glass and managed to spill the drink in his lap. Skinny Man snickered in triumph and Becks saw a decidedly unfriendly face approaching from the entrance.

Skinny Man rose and followed the new arrival to Becks’ soaking booth. The demented hippie slide into the opposite bench with a vague flourish. The new guy leaned his massive body against Becks as he blocked all means of egress. After a flinching nod from Skinny Man, the brute leaned chummily on Beck with a meaty paw on his shoulder. His foul breath punctuated his threats.

“You don’t wanna know Bess. You wanna forget bout Prinna.”

Jack Prinna was a raving alcoholic but he took great pains to park his car carefully. This tendency was born on a blurry Halloween some fifteen years prior. He had savagely beaten Hector Wylie for ‘stealing’ his purple Cadillac. Wylie’s associates became concerned when Prinna grabbed Hector and bellowed a theme, “I saw you giving her the eyeball, you stole her, you greasy loser.”

The local law enforcement scampered to the scene and embraced Prinna with Billy clubs and mayhem. They proceeded to drag the wailing drunk to their domain for persecution. In a heated exchange of information Prinna learned that his disease, masquerading as Halloween Spirit, had led him to park his beloved Caddy in front of an obvious driveway.

The results were more than mildly distasteful; the police had Prinna’s purple beast in compound and his body on charges of assault and battery. These were the sorts of lessons from which Jack Prinna derived his personal philosophy.

The beast now idled in a perfectly legal space and Prinna watched Mickey’s door for signs of life. It was now 2:20 AM and he’d been parked here for fifteen minutes, growing more agitated with each tick. He’d debated leaving at ten after but conceded that Becks was one of his few dwindling options.

He glanced in the side view mirror and spied a malnourished hippie stumbling down the middle of the street. He sighed just before the passenger window was violated by an aluminum bat.