TWO

Six hours later-

Inspector Hemmingway stood up, straightened his back. He looked taller than his six-foot two height. He walked around the chair I was sitting in. He would do a couple shoulder and arm exercises as he walked.

Staff Sergeant Argena was leaning against the wall in front of me. Her auburn hair was a shaggy bob. She looked to be my height but she is a friend to the gym. I’m a friend to gin.

Hemmingway stopped in front of me and appeared to be transfixed on a painting on my wall. I liked that painting and the painter. I would kid him about being the only real Mormon beatnik in the Ozarks. He lived in a third-floor studio apartment overlooking a public parking lot and the greasiest spoon diner in southwest Missouri. His paintings sell well. It keeps him fed in tacos and fried chicken from the diner and when he can’t wear them anymore underwear from the dollar store.

I digress.

Hemmingway leaned into me. I could smell his twenty-four hour deoderant fading away.

“Listen, Mr. Smart Ass Private Eye, let’s make this the last time I ask this question, what happened while you were at Freehand’s manor?” He took a step back and tried to kill me with one of his scowls.

“Glad this is the last time, Inspector. I had no reason to be anywhere near Freehand’s manor. I was not invited. I have no explanation for how I woke up there. The last thing I remember was unlocking my apartment door.”

Sergeant Argena walked over to me.

“May I sir,” she said to Hemmingway.

“Hell yes, Staff Sergeant. I need a smoke and something to eat. Oh, and I give you permission to use any painful device you want. Leave the door open.” He put on his raincoat and left.

Sergeant Argena stood behind me. Silence. I could hear her breathing. She leaned over. I could smell her cinnamon-apple breath freshener and her calming exhalation of her scent free body.

“Taon, close your eyes and picture in detail, what happened when you arived at the manor,” she said.

I tried but all that I could ‘see’ was the room I woke up in. I told her that. She stood in front of me.

“Ok, Taon, by the way, did you make up your name, or was your mom delirious when she named you? Go on, describe it in as much detail as you can,”

“I just woke up. No noise. It was dark. I couldn’t focus on anything. Except I was naked. Then it dawned on me I wasn’t wearing my glasses. I started feeling around for them. That’s when I noticed my hands and the bed were covered in a sticky substance. I found my glasses on a pillow next to me. They were covered in the substance. I put them on. I saw a window across from me. Its shade was drawn. I got out of bed and started to walk to the window. I lost my footing a couple of times, the floor was covered in something very slippery. I got the shade open. The sun was shining. I looked around the room. It was a slaughterhouse. Blood was everywhere. I made my way to the door stepping over body parts, men, women all naked. I think I threw up once -“

“Twice,” corrected Argena.

“Yeah, twice. I got out of the room. I was covered in….in pieces of guts and blood. I was on an upper floor. I could see the stairs below me. Someone said my name. I turned and a young woman dressed like a french maid was standing beside me.

“I will set your clean clothes on this shelf, and the bathroom is here. I took the liberty of turning on the shower. Medium warm, Yes?” She put my clothes on the shelf, opened the bathroom door and went down the stairs.

“I had too many questions, but right then I just wanted to get the blood off of me. I picked up my clothes and shut the bathroom door. I got out of the shower and started dressing. I didn’t find my underwear but a year of fighting in the jungles taught me how to do without. I put on my loafers and stepped out onto the hallway.

“I didn’t want to but I had to look inside the room. The stench was still hanging in the air.

“Then I heard a woman scream. I looked, it was the maid. Her clothes were torn to shreds. She was trying to cover herself with both arms. She was screaming something like “He is here, in the hallway. Hurry please before he kills me!”

“I started to walk towards her. To find out what was going on. That’s when I was tackled from behind. I got a knee in my back and was handcuffed. I must’ve passed out. I came to in my apartment.”

“We arrested you as you were going into your apartment. We were going to arrest you for assault, but later we got the report of what happened at Freehand Manor. The photos arrived. Forensics’ initial report had found over a dozen of your prints all over the room. You really haven’t been much help for us or yourself.”

Hemmingway stepped into the room. “Anything new,” he growled.

Argena shook her head.

“The DA is on the way over. That socialist. You damn well know something you’re not sharing with us,” his face was livid. “I want it now, you S.O.B..” he lurched at me. Argena tried to block him. He slammed into her knocking her backwards. I grabbed her and turned to meet Hemmingway’s body.

“Inspector Hemmingway! We want to win a case by following a proper interrogation procedure. Get your ass in the hall and wait for me,” said District Attorney Merrit.

“Damn it, you get out in the fuckin’ hallway and let me do my job, Merrit. To hell with your court cases.”

Merrit nodded and three large cops came in. They walked over to Hemmingway and two seconds later he was six-inches off the floor being carried out by the two cops.

“You may continue Sergeant,” Merrit said.

She turned to face me. She was maybe an inch shorter. She was smiling. I smiled back. She plowed her fist into my gut. I stumbled back into my chair.

“What the hell was that for,” I gasped.

Argena leaned in and whispered, “Thanks for the rescue. But next time know where your paws are. If I want them on my boobs, I’ll put them there.”

I nodded in agreement.

THREE

“I believe I figured out why you and the Inspector are such good friends,” Argena was typing away on her laptop.

I sat across from her waiting for the first shoe to drop.

Argena’s eyes narrowed. Her lips slowly came together forming a Mona Lisa grin.

“So, tell me about the Twins murders case,” she said.

I took my time collecting my thoughts, going back ten years. I asked for a diet-cola. She told one of the cops watching us. Sgt. Argena continued reading from her laptop screen.

The cola was cold. The last time I got anything out of that machine, it was a distant cousin to cold. I took two swallows and got as relaxed as I could sitting in a metal chair.

She closed the top and leaned back intentionally, creating a stereo distraction.

I took another drink and began,

“I was a DC-Third Grade assigned to the Operational office. A file clerk to move files around. Hemmingway had just made Inspector Second grade. His attitude changed overnight.

“How?”

“Very condescending to those of us in the lower ranks. It reminded me of a school principal who forgets what it was like to be a classroom teacher.

“He had been working on the case of the Twin’s killer who seemed to be set on eliminating every player on the Minnesota Twins team. So far he had succeeded in killing two Designated hitters and a rookie late-inning relief pitcher. “

She leaned forward. “And?”

“Still the cellar.”

Pinioned Mistress Cast of Characters, those living and those not so much. (first draft)

Major Garsty Cios; liason for the Lithuanian Armed Forces Security Agency and the CIA.

Senora Vida Blanca; body painter for the Belize Sumo team.

Prof. Minnie Vanda; Expert Urological witness for an Ozarks law firm.

Miss P. Pitts; Freshman Literature teacher.

Rev. JoAnne Verdant’; defrocked Congregational Minister

Azer Gavali; Used luxury car salesman

Mr. Wentworth Gold; Classical realism artist

Inspector G. Hemmingway; two-years from retirement

Staff Sergeant Irene Argena; seventeen years from retirement

Various unannounced guests and neighbors.

The Pinioned Mistress of The Dishabille Caper

I was a quarter of an hour early. I waited in the shadows of the warehouse. A ‘rent-a-cop’ strolled by keeping his eyes on the rusting tramp steamers moored next to the dock. A couple of minutes later he was out of sight.

The night breeze was coming and going. Making the steamers pennants flap, then hang limp.

A late model Chrysler sedan cruised in with its lights off and parked under the amber haze of a street lamp. The door opened and two human gorillas piled out. Each had a Thompson sub-machine gun.

There were two more waiting in the sedan.

“Do something to make the enemy believe they’ve already lost the battle.”

The two gorillas had set up a cross-fire. I put away my Smith & Wesson semi-auto and pulled a gift from a dying SS solider from my inside my trench coat. I laid it with the kopf pointing at the car.

I took a baseball shaped fragmentation grenade from my inside coat pocket and set it on the empty oil drum beside me.

I still hadn’t been spotted by the escapees from the Bronx Zoo gorilla cage.

I picked up my gift a Panzerfaust 150 anti-tank weapon. I flipped the sight up and aimed at the street lamp. I pushed down the trigger. The head arched into the lamp. The ear splitting explosion was an out of control Fourth of July.

I grabbed the grenade, pulled the pen and let the ‘trigger’ jump away. I threw a grounder, watching it roll under the sedan. It exploded just as the two inside the car were trying to get out. Car and men were shredded, burning pieces.

I pulled out my pistol and crouched down waiting for the gorillas to start shooting. Instead one threw his Tommy gun into the bay, the other just ran into the shadows.

“Nice work, gumshoe’” a soft, slightly hissing female voice said.

I turned around and froze. I was not expecting to see a very dazzling middle age woman wearing a red leather coat and thanks to the breez, not much else. Except for the Browning 22 semi-auto pointed about four inches below my navel.

If I live I’m asking for a raise.

WATCH THIS BLOG.

Coming soon to this blog near You: In a few short days I will be posting First draft chapters of my WIP. Since they will be First drafts, helpful/constructive comments will be appreciated.

Thanks.

A Kilter Off Tangent

Stepping away from my Caper writing something I saw or read on Netflix or the Errata Lover’s Newsletter, got me to thinking (albeit a rare occurrence) about authors and their novels that I have been curious enough to have the local librarians to search and find for me. Then after checking them out, I find myself checking them in a week later having read none. That was then, a much younger me.
Now I am much older, 70, surely that’s to olde to start reading Lowery’s Under The Volcano, still considered a masterwork of the English language nearly 85 years after its publication. Or, William Gaddis’s novels J R, or the Recognitions, or The Rush for Second Place. All of these novels have been credited with changing the way novels are written and read.
I’ll find out if that’s true if I have enough time on the shelf.

CAPER ME THIS –

I’m just having to much of a mental hassle trying to create a strong protagonist with baggage. Actually I’m getting fed up with thrillers, crime, detective novels that have main detective or government agents who cry themselves to sleep each night remembering something from their past.

Give me a break.

Seems like the only protagonists that either don’t have baggage or their baggage is so lightweight the reader doesn’t really care all fall into the youth market or cozy markets.

But—- it has been suggested to me that I move my story over to a semi-classical style: the Caper story. These are not as popular as the more hard boiled type. But there are still authors out there making a decent living cranking them out.

The Caper is a semi-serious style. Emphasis on the ‘semi-‘. Any use of one of the five types of humor are required. Depending on your ability with humor, you can use as many types as you want. Just don’t get yourself or your readers too confused.

The heyday of the caper novels was during the heyday of the pulp noir crime novels.

Here’s the difficult part, the rules of story for the Caper are the same as the rules for writing in the more serious crime noir style.

If there are any so called taboos in the noir stories, those same taboos follow in the Caper except you get to make fun of them.

So here I go hitting the restart button for the fourth or fifth time.

Looks like it’s Caper time, baby!!

Me: A Footnote to History, or, Looking Through My Eyes at 70.

Snowed in. In the Ozarks.

Ought to be a good time to get some writing done. But the continous snow was not motivating me to caress the keys of my laptop as much as I needed to. I did four days of not doing four days worth of writing. It dawned on me that I have a personal deadline to get this first draft finished. I so understand that all first drafts are supposed to look and read like poo. I’m trying to live up to those expectations.

Most of my Indie published works have taken place in the Ozarks whether real or imagined. I want to break out. I realize there are at least a half-dozen writers whose books are all over the Ozarks. Odd but they all seem to be relating the same story – cozy-esque. That shouldn’t be me.

Plus it’s damn hard to write a book that takes place in the Ozarks and not make it into a comedy.

So I decided to move away from the Ozarks, story wise, and choose as my location St. Louis during the Gilded Age. It will be a work of fiction because all I know about the city during that time was prostitutes, baseball, prostitutes, breweries, prostitutes, blues, and soiled doves. This will not be a cozy. Perhaps a cozzy.

Back to rewriting the middle history fo St. Louis, which I will relocate to a private lake in the Ozarks or Ottawa.

Accountability: noose or zip-line

Accountability is a major buzz word with folks diving in to write their first novel or short story. Lots of suggestions on how to.

One that really reeked for me was find an active writing group to keep you accountable. Where I live those groups are few and far away. I’m not obsessive. I’m not driving 90 minutes to sit in a group.

I finally found a small group of active writers in a small town about a 45 minute drive. I called, got a name an time and directions. I showed up a week later to something resembling a gospel crocheting club. I sat and stuck it out. I kept my adversarial mouth shut.

So I took the obvious and easy route to being an accountable novelist – I told a friend of my first draft (crap draft) goal. I know him. He will stay on me even if it’s via Messenger.

My goal: first draft finished by March 10. It’s going to happen. Better, it will happen.

A ‘Novel’ Idea: Writing One

This is not a how to message. Instead think of this as a lesson in controlled insanity.

After I self-published my first and so far only, books on Kindle, two short, short novels (probably just long short stories), and a collection of my early short stories, I naturally decided to test the depth of the long, dark well of novel writing. I had a small filing cabinet almost full of scraps of college ruled paper, recipe cards, journal pages, and Post-It notes with ideas for titles, names of characters, locations, random scenes and all the other mental errata that goes with chasing the dream of writing a novel.

I spent a month revisiting all those notes hoping one would cause a spark. Instead I got a lot of fizzles.

I told a few friends about my dream project. Accountability, perhaps. Most have forgotten my project. Except –

one friend who reminds me everyday that I need to be writing for the well being of all mankind. Scary motivation, no?

To date I have just over 1500 words written. It’s taken me three months to extract those words from my mind and strain them through my laptop. So far it’s a mosh pit of a humorous P.I. caper somehow involving a forced retired U.S. government assassin who is not humorous. And a couple of sex scenes which are more daunting than writing the novel itself. They’ll probably be unintentionally humorous.

Why write a novel? For me it’s because I did not complete NANOWRIMO three years in a row. I will not complete it this year because I will not enter it. Astute qualification for writing a novel.

I’ll be dropping in more and more of my trip in NOVEL WRITING Insanity once or twice a week.

Please stay tuned.

[Willow Wyst]

 

A Flash Fiction Fable

By

Steven G Mann

11/2015

 

 

 

“Come here little lightening bugie,” said the little girl as she crept up on her flickering prey. In one move she had her target safely trapped inside a glass jar. She slipped the lid into place and tightened it down. She watched her catch and smiled in little girl wonder: the lightening bug, firefly, at first flew around in a panic. Then it just hovered. Then something weird and wonderful happened. The firefly’s glow turned from it’s flickering yellow to a bright orange and slowly turned to a shimmering blue.

The little girl brought the jar as close to her eyes as she could. Her eyes widened as she watched her captive’s ‘fire’ change color several times.

The firefly flew level to the girl’s eyes. Its transparent wings beat faster. Its fire became a brilliant white. What happened next caused the little girl’s eye’s to widen and her hands to shake. The Firefly wasn’t an ugly, gray, six-legged insect, but a beautiful dark haired, young woman.

The little girl quickly assessed her situation, “A fairy! It’s a fairy!” She ran back to the patio where her older brother was drawing dinosaur’s on the concrete with colored chalk.

“Andy! Andy! Look, look, look”, she squealed and giggled as she held out her jar to him. He just gave it his usual ‘too bored to bother’ look and went back to his drawings. He was a messy chalk artist. He had his chalk hand prints all over his shirt and chalk dust in his red hair.

She stomped her feet. “Look big brother. Please?” She moved the jar closer to his face. He finally looked up. He wiped his hands on the tie-dye t-shirt he was wearing.

He looked at her jar. He had seen thousands and thousands of Fireflies in his eight years of life. He started to turn back to his drawing, but with a final pleading ‘Please,’ he took the jar and looked at the bug.

“So? It’s a stupid Firefly, Roxy. Big whoop”, he said.

“No, no. Look close. Look real close”, she urged.

“Still a dumb bug,” he started to hand the jar back to his sister. She gently pushed it back to him.

“It’s not a dumb bug. It’s really a fairy”, Roxy whispered.

Andy had had enough. He slowly twisted loose the lid.

“Then she needs a bath.” He quickly lifted the lid and spit into the jar. He replaced the lid and shook the jar.

His sister shrieked, then began crying, trying to get her jar back. Her brother felt

the jar start to vibrate. He lifted it up to his face, which went from curiosity to fear in seconds.

It was a fairy, and she was pissed!

The jar went from vibrating to hot in seconds. Andy tried to drop it, but couldn’t let go of it. The fairy’s glow in the jar had become a furious red, which spread to cover the young boy. His little sister closed her eyes. Then she heard glass break.

Roxy opened her eyes. Her fairy jar was shattered.

She turned and saw a beautiful, young woman dressed in a shimmering red gown looking back at her. The woman smiled and was gone.

Roxy looked searched her brother. Then looked at his chalk drawings.  There was something different about them.

Most of them were crude drawings of incredible creatures. But one picture was magnificent. It was a flying creature holding a person with its sharp teeth. The little girl wondered why the person had the same color hair and dirty ­­­­­shirt as Andy.

 

 

 

END

 

Word count – 610