Private Eye, Reloaded

Of all the lousy offices on all the Skid Rows of all the crummy cities in this good-for-nothing world, she’s gotta walk into mine. My name is Sledge. Mick Sledge. I’m a private dick.

“What can I do ya for?” Said I.

“Well, aren’t you the clever dick.” Said she. “Do you just hang around all day creating witticisms, or do you occasionally do some detective work too? Because I got some something that needs finding.”

“What is it you want me to find for ya, sweetheart?” Said I.

She slid a Virginia Slim out of the engraved silver case she had just produced from her upper-east-side-style handbag. “You can start by finding a lighter, Sledge,” said she, tapping the cigarette on the case a couple of times. She then raised it delicately, with two fingers of her gloved left hand, to her ruby-red lips.

South paw, thought I. “Call me Mick, please. Miss – hmm – what did you say your name was?” A flame licked out of my ancient NYPD-embossed Zippo.

“It’s Missus, and I didn’t say.” A tiny ember appeared at the end of her cigarette and glowed fiercely as she inhaled. It then dimmed as she directed a stream of smoke from the corner of her lips, away from me. “But I may have misspoken. I don’t want you to find something – I want you to find somebody.” Then she added, with a smirk, “Mickey.”




*Credit where credit is due: this was originally Pen’s idea. And a fine idea it was, I might add. At any rate, the more the merrier, anybody feel free to jump in and have a little fun writing a pulpy detective story. C'mon, you know you want to. In keeping with Pen's idea, the only rule is, let's keep it in the first person.

"So this guy you want I should find, he got a name, maybe?"

She smirked again, a devilish twist of cherry lips that reminded me of a hungry tiger. "Yeah, he's called Jack Valentine by his friends. His enimies and their name is Legion," She breathed the next words like a shot of pheromones straight into my monkier. "For they are many, call him Jack the Ripper. He's got a sharp touch with a shiv, sweetheart."

Great. Fantastic. Whoopee. Valentine, the soulless enforcer for Scarface Al. Perhaps I should just jump out the window. We're forty floors up, but it would have almost the same effect with a damn sight less effort.

I opened the globe on my desk and slid out my nine and a half-empty bottle of tequila. The gat was loaded and with any luck the liquor would get me loaded. "Your kinda poison?" I proffered the bottle.

"Get real! A lady wouldn't touch that swill, especially since your grubby kips kissed the bottle. Ya want the case or not, Mic? I could go scare up Spade if you ain't got the stones for the job."

I took a swig large enough to drop Joe Louis, and wiped my mouth on my sleeve. She smirked and gagged at the same time and rolled her eyes like the freckled cubes out in Vegas.

"You sure you can afford me? I get three hundred a day plus expenses, payable to yours truly, or to my secretary Miss Marple if I cash in my chips on this case."

She dumped a roll of cabbage large enough to have its own area code on my desk. "If that ain't enough jack for the job. lemme know. Jack was last seen at the Brass Monkey over on Third and Maple. Here's my number." She tossed a card and flounced out, the founcing doing wonderful things with her curves.

I took another shot of bottled courage and checked and rechecked my nine. I grabbed my hat and coat, taking one for the road. As I entered the elevator, another mug crossed the hall and entered as well. I checked my timepiece and looked him over. Not much to see.

You capture this kind of writing in this kind of theme rather well. However, the theme is cliché, no?

But the actual writing is good.

A private detective story for someone with the nickname "sancho". Seems fitting.

I ain't seen his ugly mug since two years ago last Easter. He ain't changed much. Still wearing a trench coat looks like he slept in it. Still smoking ten-cent cigars. Still got one eye that'll look right ya while the other one'll look god knows where.

He was workin' a not-so-mysterious murder involving a big-time studio exec from out west and some local boys. Seems the movie man was doin' business up on Broadway, but got bored. Went lookin' for trouble and I'm here to tell ya he didn't have to look far. Got a little too lucky in a friendly little card game just across the Hudson. They found him early the next morning on the sidewalk, just oozin' life. Turns out one his poker buddies was in the employ of the mob - and he was a sore loser.

That's where yours truly got involved. My friend here has a gold shield from the LAPD, but he needed somebody that could get inside. Somebody that could blend, if you know what I mean. Yeah, you guessed it - some two-bit police detective from California wanted to hire me to infiltrate the Cosa Nostra, and he wasn't even paying chump change. Well, I ain't no Einstein, but I ain't no lug nut either. I respectfully declined his offer, but I did do a little poking around for him, so we're still on speakin' terms. And come to think of it, we ain't seen Mack the Knife since.

I said to him, "You slummin' again Lieutenant?"

He squinted at me with his good eye, "Mick! Just the man I'm looking for."

"Mack ain't turned up yet, Lieutenant."

"Forget him, Mick. I'm looking for man makes Mackie look like a choir boy. Ever hear of Jackie Valentine?"

"Yeah, I heard of him."

"By the way, Mick, who was that woman? Sheesh. She had more curves than a race track."

"Watch the clichés, Lieutenant."



*Wolf! Help us out, man. How about a couple of your signature WolfLarsen paragraphs for our little ole detective story?

We stepped out of the building and into a pouring rain. Fortunately the Lieutenant had the old bus he referred to as a car waiting. We pulled out with the engine screeching, and wailing, and sometimes screaming like a mook headed to the chair.

"Youse never answered my question, Mick? Who's the dame? What is her connection to Valentine?"

"Client privilege, Lieutenant. Besides she ain't so forthcoming with info. But she could flash that roll of centuries and I'd try finding hell and capturing Old Nick himself."

"If youse withhold evidence, Mick--"

"Just cheese it, will ya? You always hog the credit for my work anyway, dontcha? Geeze, I know how Sherlock Holmes must have felt with Inspector Lestrade. If and when I have anything, you'll get your dope. Now lemme out here."

"The Brass Monkey? Youse got a death wish, Mick? People go in there and they don't ever come out. Besides, what would Valentine be hanging at this clip joint? It belongs to Fat Tony, and he and Scarface ain't exactly bosom buddies, but they ain't on the outs either. Plenty of gin joints and nightclubs more friendly to Scarface where Jack the Ripper could hang and pay no cover charge." He thought a moment. "Say, does that gal with the hot gams happen to work here?"

I smirked, in a way the Chinks refer to as "making teeth." It ain't pretty, but it makes a statement. It suggests you know more than you do, and it never hurts to keep 'em guessing. The Lieutenant shot away in the rain, shaking his head and probably damning me under his breath. The goon a the door looked me over with the same expression you'd have if you found a dead rat in your bean juice. He looked like he had no neck, and his tux was definitely not "off the rack." His shoulders were wider than the entrance-way.

"Don't know you, bub. Better motivate."

"I got an invitation, pal." Funny how a Franklin opens doors. I entered a haze of smoke, the smell of cheap gin, and cheaper women. Somewhere outside I heard a dog howl. Always a bad omen...

The moment the door banged shut behind me, all the booze hounds at the bar turned to look at me, and then just as quickly, they all turned back to what they'd been doing, which basically was getting wasted. A dozen or so shady characters were sitting around tables in twos and threes, doing "business". And the variety of female patron circulating around the establishment was such that if you were to fly a quail through the room, every single one of them would have pointed at it. Any good P.I. knows certain things about everybody in the room almost the moment he sets foot in it, even if he's never been in the place before in his life. For instance, as soon as I stepped into The Brass Monkey, I knew that nobody there had ever owned a Social Security Card. I had the place pegged - nothing but thieves, whores, and alcoholics; or in the case of the woman making her way across the room directly towards me - all of the above.

"Mickey, baby, long time no see. How you been?" She lurched as she walked and slurred as she spoke.

"Sweet Sally Sonderstorm. My, my, you're looking lovely as ever." I can be pretty smooth at times without actually telling an untruth.

"You're not lookin' so bad yourself, hansom. You come here to see me, or you on business, or both?"

"Sweetness, you know you're too good for me. But now that you mention it, I am sort of looking for somebody."

"Yeah?"

I thought I saw a shadow disappointment cross her pockmarked face.

"Yeah. Ya ever hear of a fella name of Valentine, Jack Valentine?"

Sally's look of disappoint instantly turned to one of raw fear. But before I had a chance to investigate her emotions, I was abducted, physically lifted off of my feet. I had a goon the size of a Frigidaire to my left and a freakishly built circus geek to my right. Each had a hand wrapped entirely around my upper arm, each with his thumb jammed firmly against a radial nerve. I couldn't move. Silently and quickly they moved me through the bar and into the back office where they, not so gently, planted me on a metal folding chair. The only other person in the room was facing me, a sharp-dressed man in a wingback chair. He sat there motionless for a what seemed like an eternity, legs crossed, eyes shaded by his wide-brimmed fedora, a hand on each chair arm, torpedo-style cigar smoldering between two fingers, fat pinky ring.

Finally he spoke, "Thanks Rocco. Thanks Ole. Now leave me alone with Mr. Sledge."

I've gotta tell you, I wasn't so sorry to see the two human mastodons leave the room.

"So, you've been looking for me, Mr. Sledge." Since it wasn't a question, I remained mum.

I tried to glue my eyes to the sorry paint job on the wall behind the slasher. "Show 'em no fear. They can smell fear." my old dad used to say, and he wasn't talking about dogs, at least not the four-legged type. Lying would just have added fuel to the icy fire in Jackie Valentine's eyes, so I came across with the truth, half way anyhow.

"Well, it wasn't because I enjoy your company, Jack, some ditzy dame wanted me to find you, that's all. Looks like I done that. So if you'll pardon me, I'll be going now."

Jack the Ripper snickered. "You tink I believe that? You ain't going nowhere except mebbe to see Saint Peter if you're lucky. You don't look so lucky, Mick, and I know you ain't no yellow-belly, so cough up the dope or you want I should call Rocco and Ole back in. Or turn you over to Doc. He could make the Cardiff Giant squeal. Now talk, damn you! This dame got a name or what?"

"She didn't say. Gimme a phone number but it's a booth at Grand Central. I already called. Some stooge answered to tell me to stay off the line, his customers would be calling. Dead end."

Jackie laughed, mirthlessly, like the hangman just before he pulls the lever and send you on your final fall with a sudden stop. "Booth at Grand Central. That'll be China Charlie, he supplies nose candy for Lower East Side. If he's doing this using some whore as a mouthpiece, I'll send him a message he won't forget. Now, you, maybe I just let you go dis time."

A slick haired torpedo blew into the room and Jackie started to jaw in Eye-talion. He didn't know it, but I savvy Eye-ti. My pores soaked me like a cold November rain. I had a full moving picture show playing in my head, and I wasn't liking the flick. Questions flooded me: What the hell had I been suckered into? I had a feeling I'd be sorry I asked. The cinema in my head came to a crescendo as I excused myself from the room. I hastily grabbed the first cab waiting outside the Brass Monkey. Later, I would rue the decision at my leisure...

The goon in the backseat introduced himself with a pair of brass knuckles. A Chinese fireworks display exploded in my head, and my last thought kindly flipped of the light as it exited. Dreamland was a maze of whirling stars and burning pain.

A bucket of H2O brought me gasping back into the light. I didn't care for the view. I was hogtied to a chair in a musty warehouse that stank of urine and rats. I could see nothing beyond the spotlight in my eyes, but the voice told me its owner.

"Messing in my mud again, flatfoot? Told you the last time it ain't healthy." Damn. Mac the Knife.

"Didn't even know you were back in the apple, Mac. I got nothing on you. I'm after Jackie Valentine. more or less."

Mac snorted: "Yeah? Then why'd you slide out of the Monkey in such a hurry? I was expecting music. Gunshots do pun'chate a conversation so well. Besides I spotted you jawing with Lieutenant O'Hare. Who else would he be after but yours truly?"

My head was still swimming upstream against the current. "As far as we knew, you were dead. Now the Ripper, he's very much alive."

The bright sun in my glims faded away. Mac the Knife was looking at me sourly. "Just so you know, Scarface has a contract out on Valentine for ten grand. Nice chunk o' change. I aim to get it. Can't have you gumming up the works, Mick. Nothin' personal."

The .45's barrel looked like a fast ticket to hell. Well, at least I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing me beg...

So I gritted my teeth, and I ain't ashamed to say it, I clenched my butt cheeks together and waited for the Thompson .45 to bark. I figured it was curtains for Mick Sledge. But I reckon I wouldn't be telling you this story if Mac had'a greased me right there in the warehouse. The submachine-gun did bark though, but not on account of Mackie pulling the trigger. The gun went off when Mac dropped it on concrete floor of the warehouse; at which point it cooked off a few rounds and stitched 14 ventilation holes into the ceiling of the joint. Mac wasn't clumsy, but rather he'd dropped the Tommy Gun on account of he had a Chinese throwing star wedged vertically between his eyebrows. A very short time later Mac hit the ground like a sack of high-grade horse manure. And he moved no more.

From behind me, a small-statured man stepped forward and moved lightly and silently towards the dead man on the floor. The newcomer was dressed in black. He had on a pair of light-weight cotton trousers and a loose collarless shirt to match. His head was shaved except for a small disc at the top of his skull, from which grew a shiny black ponytail, which had been braided and hung to his waist. He kicked the gun away with a slipper-clad foot and then bent over to inspect the corpse. Once he was satisfied that Mac was dead, I suppose, he reached down and jerked the steel throwing star out of Mac's forehead. He then wiped it clean on Mac's lapel and slid it into a compartment inside of his shirt. Then he turned to look at me. His face was emotionless and I could now see that he was sporting a Fu Man Chu that was almost as long as his ponytail.

It was yours truly who finally broke the ice. "So, I'm guessing you're China Charlie."

The Chink looked at me as if he was seeing dog poo on his boots. He said nothing, just grunted and began a search of some rusty cargo boxes skulking in the gloom. He gave a grunt of satisfaction as he extracted a black suitcase. Clutching the bag of blow, he turned to leave.

"Hey!" I yelped. "You gonna leave me here for the rats to eat?"

A double-edged blade sang through the air like a bird, and parted my restraints. I didn't look this gift horse in the mouth, I scrammed. There was a line of flame in my brain that burned its way out through my eyes. I was pissed, and somebody had to pay the piper. I had been threatened by Jackie Valentine, had brass music played on my skull by an unknown gorilla, captured by Mac the Knife and slated for a ventilation, and ran afoul of China Charlie. And whose fault was all this bushwa? Some dame in a tight dress who gave no name. If I didn't have a load of her mamusa, I'd think myself visiting the Sandman.

Somebody had to be hip to her secret and I was guessing The Brass Monkey was a good place to start. I'd have to swing by the office and retrieve my spare gat, and more of the big ones from my safe. Can't go into the Monkey with this mug, so I'd need my disguise kit. I ignored all the waiting cabs and flagged one for myself.

My office ain't on easy street, I got a forty floor corner in a building held together by the rats holding hands with the cockroaches. Still, my work pays the bills. Which reminds me I own Will the Whacko four grand over the last horse race. I opened the disguise kit, trying to decide who I was gonna be this time...

I don't like to toot my own horn too much, but one thing I'm really good at is humility, probably the best I've seen. And in this story I'm unfolding, it's important to know that I'm a master of disguise. I could fool my own mother. Anyhow, I needed a disguise that could get me close to people without threatening them. Something that would make people want to take me into their confidence, to spill the beans and not even know they're spilling 'em. I considered my Father O'Clanahan get up, but I figured the barflies at The Monkey were more likely to hit up a Catholic priest for freebie absolution than to rat out one of their compadres to him. I passed on my sailor-on-shore-leave outfit as well because not even a drunken sailor would be dumb enough to stumble into that joint. I ruled out my tough-guy Teamster togs on account of one of the goons there would just want to fight me. I could go as stinking drunk, but then I'd be going as myself and they've already seen me once tonight. Then it hit me: I'd go as a book worm.

It was the perfect disguise. Nobody fears a bookworm. They'd just figure I was lost and that'd catch 'em off guard. So I dug around in the kit and found my thick glasses, the ones that had the nose bridge repaired with medical tape. (Back in the army we used to call those things birth-control glasses, because it'd be impossible for anybody wearing them to get close enough to a woman to talk to her much less to impregnate her.) Then I found my high-water pants, white socks, and black safety shoes. I completed my ensemble with a checkered shirt that looked like it belonged on a table at a barbecue shack. Then I smeared on a handful of Mrs. Marple's pancake makeup to give me a pasty-white library tan. And finally a grabbed a big ole fat-bastard book that I'd hollowed out for my .38 Special. The spine of the book said, Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce - whoever the hell that is.

My watch said, quarter to midnight - still early. It was time to get to back to The Brass Monkey and do some diggin'.

You fellas have this stuff down.
"China Charlie " had me thinking of Charlie Chan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bIyMBSx5Qo
Your on a roll carry on....

Haha.
Good clip, Gill. And thanks. I was actually just thinking about how much better Pen is at staying in voice than I am. I'll start out as Mick Sledge, but the I keep slipping into El Sancho. Ah well, it's fun, and it's been a good exercise.

The mook that dropped me off at The Brass Monkey shook his head. "No offense, pal, but this ain't no library. You could come outa there in a pine box just for looking like a pansy. You sure you wanna do this?"

I used the high-pitched whine that was this character's voice. "Nobody minds me. A quiet corner and a sarsaparilla, that's all I ask. I am not searching for trouble, so nobody will bother me."

"Your funeral, pal. That'll be a fin." I tossed him a double sawbuck. "Keep the change, sir. And thank you."

That's what I hated about this disguise. Norbert the Nerd was such a pansy! The doorman looked me over a second and shrugged. "Boys inside probably ain't had no fun for a while. Go on in, milksop."

To my surprise I had no trouble getting a table and my wimpy drink. Everyone was watching the floor show. Some dame was doing the dance of the seventy veils, and she was running out fast, if you catch my drift. I slid that .38 special into my hand. I usually keep my weapons close to my heart, under my left arm, to be exact. I slid the thick glasses off. They were just plain glass, but I wanted to take no chances. Yeah, I recognized the dancer, alright. Same tart that got me mixed up in this crock in the first place. I signaled a waiter and used one of her centuries to order a bottle of tequila. I needed it.

The usual suspects sat here and there in the joint. "Fingers" Finley, safecracker; "Fat Tony", mob boss; Tommy and Lonnie Spatz, The Homicide Twins; Ruby Rubinov, Madame of the Manhattan Whore Houses; Shiv, Spotter, Cliff Marsland, "Hawkeye", "Croaker", torpedoes for "Killer" Durgan, and of course Jackie Valentine and his moll Mary Morstan. I didn't have enough beans in my shooter for that bunch, so I sent up a little prayer to the Man. This wasn't gonna end well...


Footnote: Cliff Marsland and Hawkeye are agents of the Shadow, taken from the old pulp magazine. Shiv, Spotter, and Croaker are gang members from the same source. Mary Morstan was the name of Doctor Watson's first wife.

I admit I may have been hasty in the disguise-selection department. Even though it got me through the door and into this of this den of thieves with nothing more than a few snickers, it got me here a little short of firepower. What I wouldn't have given for my Nine and couple of clips right about then. I had nothing but my old police special and pocket full of loose rounds, oh yeah, and China Charlie's toad sticker taped to my calf, Magnum PI-style. I counted thirteen goons that could use immediate ventilation just for breathing my air, just for using my gravity, and thirteen meant I'd need to reload at least twice. I didn't see Rocco or Ole, but I knew they were in The Monkey somewhere, and six rounds from my pea shooter would probably just tick them off.

Speaking of reloading, my edge had definitely worn off while looking down the barrel of Mac's .45 and so this private eye was in serious need of reloading. I motioned to a bargirl for another one. When she arrived at my table I realized she was none other that Sally Sonderstorm. And Sally was just a little further along now that she'd been earlier in the evening.

She said, "Ya need another Shoily Temple, professor?"

"That would be lovely, my dear."

Sally was eating up my polite, book-worm routine. Probably nobody'd ever called her 'my dear' in her whole sorry life. She smiled and batted her eyes at me, and then hustled back to the bar, where after a short search she came up with a passably clean glass. I'm not sure what, other than seltzer water, she put in it, but after she set it in front of me I managed to top it off with two fingers of cheap Irish Whiskey when she wasn't looking. I'd switched out my globe-tequila flask for my globe-whiskey flask back at the office.

Sally, as usual, was in a chatty mood. "Hey, what'cha readin', professor?"

It's details like this that can get a PI plugged. Luckily I have mind like a steel bear trap. I put my hand on top of the hollowed-out book and said, "It's a wonderful book, Miss. It's called Gilligan's Wake."

"Ooo, neat. What's it about?"

I had to wing it, but I was pretty sure Sally hadn't read the book any more than I had. "Well, it's set down in the islands..."

"Which islands? The Hawaiian Islands? I wanna go to Hawaii some day, you know."

"It doesn't really say which islands. Anyway, these vacationers hire a tour boat named The Gilligan to take them on a three-hour sightseeing cruise. They're all real nice people. There's some rich palooka, ahem, I mean there's a wealthy gentleman and his wife; and there's a beautiful movie star; and there's a wholesome country girl who's really kind of hot, er, um, yes well, there's somebody else, but I can't think of who he is right now. Anyway, as luck would have it, there's a stowaway on the boat and he turns out to be a mobster. When nobody's looking he starts tossing the others, one by one, overboard into the boat's wake."

"That sounds like a real good book, professor. Who wrote it? Anybody I know?"

"Some broad named Joyce Jameson." Whoops. It turned out Sally wasn't all that drunk after all. When she heard me slip back into my own self again, she pulled up a chair and sat down.

"Mick! What'cha doin' in that get up? And what'cha doin' back here tonight? Trying to get yerself killed?"