Excerpt: Original Noir Detective Fiction

In November of 2011 I was given an assignment for an Introduction to Fiction course. The objective: to emulate the writing style of a published author of fiction down to the smallest of details. My choice was the hardboiled detective works of Raymond Chandler, specifically his classic novel The Big Sleep. Chandler set the groundwork for the fiction I’ve written for my own entertainment for years now. I hope you enjoy reading this selection as much as I did writing it, and who knows? You might just see more from this arc in the future.

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It was early March, the time of year when you start looking forward to green trees and spring flowers if you live in the lower latitudes, but the weather in Chicago works hard to remind you that the Windy City earned every bit of her nickname. There was no way I could forget as I sat hunched over in the black leather seat of my car on stakeout around two in the morning, steam drifting from my mouth with every exhale like I was some ancient piece of industrial equipment. With my shivering and chattering I’d wager I was doing a decent impression all around. Every now and again I’d feel a sharp chill working its way down my spine like the fingers of a dame who was taking things way too fast, and I was never one to court Mother Nature.

It was a real struggle not to reach for the ignition to the left of the steering wheel to try and coax just a few seconds of warmth from the now-silent vents, but the deep rasp of my old air-cooled Porsche would have marked me out to anybody in the neighborhood still awake as easily as if I had been shouting my name in the street. That said, the heaters in these machines didn’t do much good even when they were new so I nursed a tall thermos of Irish coffee like some thirty-year-old alcoholic baby in a tweed overcoat. My mother would be ashamed.

My eyes were glued to a graystone row house with a copper awning across the street from my post. Its freshly restored three-story face was shrouded in darkness, but one window on the top floor gave off a soft glow like a sleepy lighthouse. My gaze never left that window. Every now and again someone would pass through its frame: the redhead dame was Leona Walsh, personal assistant to financial giant Stafford Layton, though tonight she’d ditched her conservative business attire in favor of a slinky black number that made her look like she spent more time sipping cocktails than stamping letters. A few seconds later a young guy with a swimmer’s body and a shock of blond hair came into view, slowly loosening the blue striped tie that cinched around his neck like it was the only thing keeping

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his head attached to his body. Andy Schroder had jumped at the age of twenty-six from the playground sandbox to Layton’s head of accounting within his first year of employment, a move that left his senior colleagues permanently disillusioned with his brilliant financial mind. Neither he nor Miss Walsh seemed too concerned about the opinions of their coworkers as he shed his white collared shirt like a tailored French-cuffed snakeskin. The dame obviously liked what she saw.

Things quickly escalated between the two of them from there and right in front of the window to boot. I guess they weren’t worried about having an audience at this hour of the night, and I wasn’t exactly feeling the part myself. “To hell with it,” I grunted and twisted the key in the ignition with my icy fingers. The rear-mounted engine spun into life with a bassy purr like a jungle cat coming to consciousness; a minute later and the clutch juddered slightly as I edged the 911 into first gear and set off around the block, trying to convince some of the engine’s heat to make its way into the cabin.

Thoughts were flying at me like mortar rounds on D-Day as I navigated the deserted streets of Lincoln Park: Why did Chicago’s foremost financial authority bother to show up at my office in person for what sounded like a simple embezzlement case? What was the purpose of the account the funds were bleeding from, and why was he so cagey about it? Were a cold-fish office secretary and an accountant really capable of the kind of fiery passion I had just witnessed? I couldn’t honestly tell which of those disturbed me most, but as I made my way back up the street to my parking spot I noticed the scene had changed in my brief absence. Just my luck.

Andy Schroder’s BMW no longer occupied the space under the phantom orange glow of the streetlight outside the row house. I pointed my gaze up to the third-story window and found the drapes drawn like sentries against my watch. The lamp was still on in the bedroom, and as its light drifted through the fabric shade I could see the dark curtain billowing inward slightly with some wicked draft.

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This screwed with my head until my eyes focused in the gloom and I noticed the jagged maw in the glass windowpane. “Damn my timing,” I swore as I turned off the car and sprinted to the front door of the home. It was unlocked.

The entryway was dark in nearly every direction, the soft glow of an Art deco chandelier in the stairwell helping me just enough to get my bearings so I wasn’t bumping into furniture like Foster Brooks in a china shop. The smooth soles of my leather loafers were no help finding grip as I dashed and slid up the wooden steps. Two flights later I was huffing like a steam train as I barreled toward a half-open door at the end of a wainscoted hallway lined with abstract paintings and thick cream carpet. Too bad I didn’t have time to wipe my feet.

The walls inside the last room were finished in satin gold paint but someone had seen fit to add a splash of crimson over by the window. It was still drying, and it had come from a nasty gash in the head of the dame slumped dead under the sill. Leona Walsh’s right arm rested limp against her side and dripped with the blood of a hundred long, skinny cuts that coursed together like some sort of morbid river valley; I guess I didn’t have to ask who broke the window.

It hit me just then that even brushing the doorknob on my way in could lead an overeager greenhorn cop to the wrong conclusions; I needed to get Chicago PD over here, but I needed to get out of this tainted joint first. As I rounded the newel post onto the ground floor staircase my damn shoes decided they’d had enough and I took a tumble onto my ass at the bottom like a vagabond circus clown. Two seconds later I was gasping for breath as a navy-clad knee came crashing down on my chest like a polyester sledgehammer. “Freeze, asshole!” I let my craned head fall back against the hardwood floor. Mister Overeager Greenhorn Cop to the rescue. “Now tell me who you are you scuzzbag son of a –“

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 “Ease up, Rigoski!” I heard a familiar voice call from the front door. His Memphis drawl dripped off his consonants like hot pralines fresh from the kettle, a serious peculiarity in a town that laid claim to the Midwest lilt. Footsteps rhythmically tapped their way across the foyer before another face appeared above my sprawled body. “It’s just my old friend Detective Blake.” He wasn’t smiling. He was black, in his early sixties with a graying beard and mustache and a full head of hair playing catch-up, though that was hidden under a black fedora at the moment. His immaculate tweed overcoat was in sharp contrast to the worn-out old friend that graced my shoulders and five times as expensive besides, but that was just one of the differences that separated me from Deputy Chief of Police Lucius Matheson.

The pressure on my sternum abated. I wish I could say the same for the pain. “You hang around here often, Pops?” I croaked like a bullfrog with a hangover as I clambered to my feet.

“I stopped being ‘Pops’ to you three years ago, Seamus,” Matheson snapped back at me, his eyes frozen over like the winter shores of Lake Michigan. I guess I handed in more than my badge the day I resigned from the force. “You’re not one of my boys anymore, remember? Now get in here,” he gesticulated to a darkened study off the main hallway, “because I’d say we’ve got a hell of a lot to talk about.”

Resuming Play…

It’s a familiar collections of sounds that greets my ears as I push my way through the front door — animated conversation and bright laughter, clinking glasses, flowing spirits, and good jazz. Nearly two years since my last visit and only the patrons have changed, but that happens every night, so really they’ve stayed the same.

Chasing that logic around my head calls for a drink, so I wander over to my traditional perch at the near end of the bar; it’s vacant, but someone’s seen fit to keep the dust at bay. That someone makes his way to my spot from behind the bar as soon as my ass hits the seat.

“Good to have you back, brother,” Louie the bartender greets me with a one-armed side hug. He’s a good kid, reads his customers better than their own spouses.

“Good to be back, Louie. Sorry to stay away so damn long, but life kept marching on while I wasn’t paying attention. What happened while I was out?”

“Just like you said, my man, life went on,” Louie chuckles a bit as he grabs a Collins glass from over the bar and sets out sugar cane juice, a fresh lime, Bacardi Superior, and a bottle of soda water before walking out front and plucking fresh mint leaves off a plant near the door, carrying the vivid green, aromatic leaves back in on a small stone tablet.

A minute later and my mouth is a crisp, spicy piece of Havana. “Nailed it with the mojito, Louie. So back to where we left off…”

Don’t Misunderstand

So many times in my life have I been spoiled for feeling but lost for words, only to discover some piece of music that says so perfectly what I cannot. Gordon Parks’ lyrics below, as sung by Grady Tate.

Don’t misunderstand

We are only strangers

on our way to somewhere else

to someplace we forgot.

Don’t mistake my smile

It just means I’m lonely

so love me ’til this day has passed

and then forget we met.

We’re just spending time

in some secret place

yielding to a softened day

to love the pain away.

Don’t misunderstand

You are no concern of mine

but in case you’re free sometime

and you need some time

with me sometime

to hold my hand

then I will.

I will understand

No Obligations

Another night of seekin’ relief

from heavy rains physical and otherwise

Nursin’ a glass of liquid amber

I see a newcomer at the far end of the counter, a young brother

Kid looks tired

Haggard

A victim of too much workin’

Not enough lovin’

but plenty of pushin’ and shovin’.

Sorry, boy

I can’t be your wino tonight.

He’s well on his way flirtin’ with his third companion for the evenin’

Kentucky bourbon, aged 12 years

Nice move, kid.

His phone rings

And he glances down for a second

debating

before he gets off the stool and wanders toward the bathrooms

That polyphonic spree in his hand  tirelessly vyin’ for his attention.

I hear the door swing shut

Hear the toilet flush

Ten seconds later and he’s back

But that phone’s nowhere in sight

And I’m left wonderin’ what she was tryin’ to apologize for.

Float

2:54 AM: I hear the traffic off in the distance, the subtle, faraway commotion and blare of horns coming into focus now and again with the gradual ingress and egress of the regulars. Nobody here is ever a newcomer; not by the end of the night, at least.

The name’s Walter. Most around here know me as the resident bar fly – I prefer the term “fixture” myself, but what can you do? – and I will be the first to admit that the title is wholly deserved, frankly. You’ll only stumble upon me here as the arms of time ease the city into the earliest of the late hours, so don’t be disappointed if you get here prior to 11:00 PM and find me absent. Hard as it may be to believe, I have a life during the day. What, you think I conjure these musings from nothing? Yeah, right; the business card doesn’t say Silver. He doesn’t come around here much.

It’s been a fairly quiet night, not that this place is ever shaking on its foundation, thank God; the last thing I need is more noise in my life. I sit in my usual perch near the far end of the counter, safely out of reach of the draft from the lobby. There’s a Tanqueray Rangpur martini, my longtime starter, waiting for me; remind me to give Louie an extra tip before I go.

I sit in silence, gazing through the bottom of the martini glass, losing myself in the endless layers and whorls of the granite surface below. The crystal graces me with its presence as I slowly drink the coercive liquid: my taste buds bask in the intertwining sensations of crisp, burning bitterness and mellow citrus spark with only the slightest fragrant undertone of bay leaf. The tang of gin and vermouth lingers on my lips, the only kiss I’ve known for far too long. My eyes follow the olive’s vermilion core as it waltzes gently across the translucence.

And then the image appears in my head, an image whose appearance I find so difficult to tear myself away from. The intangible haze never clears, but I can almost see who’s standing there…

Not tonight. A bone-chilling blast of air from the front door suddenly rouses me from my conscious delusion. “Probably a good thing,” I say to myself as I pull my old corduroy jacket in closer. “Last thing I need in my life…”

Open 24 Hours

2:17 A.M: It’s dark, the streetlamps casting an indifferent orange glow as the rain falls gently from the gaping black maw above. The temperature is hovering at a thoroughly-unpleasant 36° with no signs of budging in any direction but south. Welcome to your refuge.

Tucked into the shadows of Market Square, between #’s 6 and 7 and facing #13, this establishment offers sanctuary for those caught out during one of life’s downpours. While any and all are welcome, it is the creative individual – the writer, the musician, the poet, the artist – and the automotive enthusiast who will feel most at home among the  booths and bottles, amid the dark wood paneling and leather-wrapped volumes which call the bookcases home, under the soft glow of the ceiling lamps which hang low over the tables.

So sit back, dear patron, and the bartender will provide you with whatever you’re feeling at the moment, be it a double scotch, a 12-year Kentucky bourbon, something slightly more unusual, or my own signature concoction: two parts literary musing, one part profound thought, another part social commentary, add some automotive discussion for taste, shake well,  pour over a hand-carved ice cube and garnish with a touch of the human experience.

Enjoy.