Facebook Noir, Compiled/Edited, Still Unsolved
Saturday, 23 January 2010 01:01
This was the original idea:A murder mystery composed one Facebook comment at a time.
The thing got out of control, written to a dead-end and then forgotten.
I'm not sure if removing the names and timestamps was an improvement or not. Hard to say. Anyway, here it is...Facebook Noir, Still Unsolved:
The puddled blood grew diluted as raindrops splashed lightly. Detective Jorenz Stark squatted behind yellow tape imagining the horizontal flesh before him as it might have been half a day ago. Evidence of an evening's preparations, lipstick, rouge, mascara; ghastly now, designed then for what purpose, Stark wondered. "On again I go," he thought. “Another journey backwards into a life struck dead.”
There was one?
ah, a reflective detective, why not?
The clip-clopping of high-heels on the alley's slick bricks distracted the detective from his moment of reflection.
Jorenz rose. She approached. Tall, thin, blonde, smoking.
No one ever called Stark queasy, but if there was one sight certain to evoke his nausea, it was walking his way.
It wasn't her odd gait so much - he could understand that it took more then sheer aplomb to pull off heels with a wooden leg. It was the cloche hat in mid-July that let everyone in sight know she was odd though her intent, he knew, was to look dangerous.
She pointlessly attempted once again to flick a bright red bra strap back under a spaghetti ... See Morestrap on her ill-fitting blouse, then reached down for a gauloise from her ill-matching purse. Only she would carry a cordovan purse while she struggled to wear black heels.
Ill - it was a word that captured both his feelings for her and that predecessed any positive adjective one might use to describe her.
"Greetings, Greta."
"Hello, Joe."
A cloud of acrid smoke, second-hand perfume and mute tension filled the air between them. In a motion reeking of faux ennui, Greta casually indicated the corpse with a wave of her cigarette.... See More
"Friend of yours?"
"No. Though she's on my preferred plane."
"Plane, Joe?"
"The X-axis, G. It's your best look, too. Your verticality approaches the miraculous considering..."
Confused blue eyes turned steely in a flash, and her vicious gaze scorched Jorenz from retina to vas deferens.
"Just like you, Stark, to reduce human relationships to Cartesian coordinates."
I'll pay you $5 if you do it despite it being done before.
You'd pass John Lillison as my favorite literary artist and move Scalzi to third.
Just updated iTunes software. You the opposite of facebook exposure would be to write the novel within the software licensing agreement of iTunes. No chance it will ever get read.
Detective Stark sighed deeply, "Why are you here?"
"Why are any of us here?"
Stark sighed again.
"I'm a reporter, remember. A Senator's dead daughter sells papers."
"Papers? They still make those?"
Greta dropped her butt to the ground and defiantly snuffed it with her remaining big toe. "Don't waste my time, Stark. If you won't talk, I'll go find Scalzi."
"He's in the van."
Greta leveled her gaze at Stark, trying to read through the inpenetrable wall behind which he kept his true emotions. He was an enigma, wrapped in a cumulus cloud of indifference. Speaking of clouds, she could feel her hair frizz under the cloche hat. Yes, there was a dead body on the pavement. Yes, she had a story to cover, despite the fact that she'd be out of a job once the big globe had spun its final rotation over the city. Greta thought of the St. Patrick's Day revelers who would soon take to the streets, ignorant in their gaity to the sordid events unfolding around them.
"Marigolds..."
Despite years of inhaling harsh French smoke, Greta maintained a finely-tuned sense of smell, and now, walking past a dumpster seeping trash juice and overflowing with the detritus of Taj Majal, the local Indian restaurant, floral aromas floated, perceivable, perhaps, solely to her.
A quick glimpse confirmed her suspicion. There on a bed of curry-stained basmati rice sat a discarded bouquet of yellow flowers.
"Yes," whispered Greta, "I thought I detected a hint of basmati."
She reached into her mouth and plucked a small piece of Algerian tobacco from her tongue with a chipped red finger nail, flicking it away without thinking, then hiked up her dress and knelt to look more closely at the stiff.
The cloying scent of the flowers combined with tandoori, basmati and death should have sent her into a bout of exteme nausea, but instead simply reminded her of growing up over her father's funeral parlor, and the young apprentice she'd met at 13. Far from nausea, it awakened all of her appetites.
"God what I wouldn't do for a man wreaking of cardamom" she whispered, still staring at the gangly body.
Greta noticed the old, fragile lady standing out of her front porch overlooking the small, inner city neighborhood just adjacent to the crime scene. She offered Greta a cup of coffee, and Greta accepted hoping she would receive some valuable information to the wretched crime. As Greta walked in to the old lady's home, she noticed a cat litter box on the floor in corner of the kitchen. Next to the box was a piece of cat poop, round like a Cadbury egg, evenly covered with sand. "Disgusting", she thought, yet somewhat intriguing. She found trouble peeling her eyes away from the cat poop. Just like smelling the saliva on her knuckles after hours of chewing on them, the action was grotesque, yet irresistible.
wheeeHEHEHEHE
Alerted by strange screeching, Lieutenant Scalzi unholstered his firearm, ran through the alleyway and came crashing into the old lady's apartment, breaking the feline scat spell Greta had fallen under.
"Greta!"
"Scalzi!"
"Coffee?" offered their nonplussed hostess.
"No, thanks, ma'am, I'm trying to quit," Scalzi replied, putting away his gun. "What, if you don't my asking, was that screaming?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Sugar, that's just 'Rancho Cucamonga'."
"Rancho what?"
"'Rancho Cucamonga,' dear, the soap opera. I love that Drew, he's just dreamy. I'm afraid with my hearing the way it is, I need the volume way up."
"I totally understand, ma'am. Now, if you'll excuse us, I need to get this young lady here back to the main plotline."
Grasping Greta by the hand, Scalzi escorted her out of the dingy, musty apartment and back into the slow Seattle drizzle.
"Mmm... I'm craving for some Almond Rocha!" thought Greta as she was being escorted back out.
Lieutenant Scalzi pulls Greta into a dark open air alley way to tell Greta a secret. He starts unbuttoning his trench jacket to reveal he is a dwarf standing on the shoulders of another dwarf named Patrick.
Happy Paddy's!
The trio quickly scurried back to the police van as Greta sputtered in disbelief.
"John, I had no idea. All these years..."
"Fortunately, Seattle's constant rain..."
"...made always wearing a trenchcoat seem..."
"...perfectly plausible."
"Yes, I see. Well, have you got any leads. I have to tell you, I'm going to break this story online before noon, so if you've got a statement you'd best give it to me now."
"No way," said John.
"This is a political hot potato," added Patrick.
"We're leaving all public commentary to the Captain."
"He's been in constant communication with Senator Bales."
Greta pulled another cigarette from her purse and eyed the pair of dwarfs suspiciously.
"I think I should tell you, I was friends with Jennifer Bales."
Four small eyes flashed.
"You don't say."
"Well not exactly friends, Facebook friends. We both used to dance at Club Steel.
Before...before the..."
Memories of the tragic end to her promising career as a rodeo clown were still painful.
She faded into herself as she recalled the horrifying accident. Who knew that dwarf tossing could get so violent, so ugly. And who knew their little crania were so much harder and deadlier than your average cranium? And who knew the average density of their crania was enough to - when aimed just so and tossed at just the right velocity – break the back of a promising bronco buster?
Oh yes - dwarf tossing is hilarous until somebody gets hurt. That boy'd seat a horse, she guessed, but he'd never walk away from a rodeo ever again. Not with the spine she'd splintered with a poorly aimed dwarf.
The trenchcoat segment elicited a laugh. Keep up the good work in this exciting new genre!
Shaking her head free of rodeo reverie, Greta took a closer look at the formerly cloaked John Scalzi and saw something a little familiar, short of outright recognition, smaller than certainty, but large enough to acknowledge, at least to herself, that she may have handled this man before. Another glance confirmed it.
John Scalzi noted awareness entering Greta's eyes and his reflected fiery vengeance.
"What have I done," thought Greta. I've gone and connected myself with a corpse, and not just any corpse, the daughter of a Senator, and alerted a police lieutenant, well, half a lieutenant (a second lieutenant?), and an unfriendly one at that, to my relationship with this Social Medea.
Tempted to turn on her heel and run, Greta hesitated. The long arm of the law would eventually catch up with her. Considering the relative anatomy currently in that police van, she decided to take her good gam on the lam.
"If you'll excuse me boys," she started, "I've got a story to file."
"Not so fast, sister. I think I know a potato from an apple, and you're about to get fried, doll. You knew the stiff. You had the opportunity. And if memory serves, you weren't exactly bosom buddies - sorry - pals towards the end of her life. "
He leaned into Greta hard, so close she could smell his rancid aftershave.
"So what gives - you seem to be in a pretty big hurry to file an obit. Sure you're headed for the desk and not border?" Scalzi sneered.
Greta sneered back "you're just like that stiff - dead wrong, toots."
She turned on her heal wondering how far she'd get before he whistled for his posse. If she could just make it to the car...
Out of the police van, through the alley, careening lopsidedly, the one-legged Greta sped towards and past the confused Jorenz Stark.
Before he could comment on the odd sight she made, a spinning metallic orb, roughly the size of a Cadillac Escalade, descended from the sky, its sudden appearance rendering the already taciturn Stark mute.
Further confounding was the image of none other than Jennifer Bales herself, a version of the very corpse he had been examining all morning, beckoning Greta to join her from an opening in the orb.
The confused reporter turned back toward Stark, shocked. The old woman across the street stood on her porch screaming. The pair of dwarfs, Patrick and John, stopped their scurrying pursuit, and gasped in disbelief.
Paralyzed, frozen in time, the entire tableau seemed locked in place when, from behind the animate Jennifer Bales emerged a creature resembling nothing other than a giant pile of spaghetti, complete with grotesque meatball eyes.
This mass of pasta then floated from orb to Greta and, wrapping its starchy tentacles around the reporter, lifted her off the ground and back from whence it came.
In a trice and a flash, the orb was gone, leaving behind an assortment of mouths agape.
If only he'd had a fork and some Parmesan, he may have been able to stop them, and satiate his growing appetite. Now with a grumbling stomach, the dumpster with its mildly rotting basmati seemed like the best solution, he did after all have a mystery to solve.
Patrick and John stood beside Jorenz Stark, all three speechless, gawking at where the orb had been.
Then, turning, the detective had another reason for alarm.
The body was gone.
Behind the yellow police tape, where a corpse had previously lain, sat a bouquet of marigolds, and nothing else.
How do I incorporate teabag as a verb?
Patrick and John both made two fists, and gave each other a two fisted pound. They looked at each other like two seasoned blind lovers and mouthed silently, "Teabag." John took his left foot and stepped up Patrick's left thigh and swung his leg around Patrick's neck. Patrick while rising up secured John's leg by firmly cupping both ankles to his chest. John bent down, winked at Patrick, and zipped up the trenchcoat. Watching closely you could see that John pushed his heel into Patrick's chest when he wanted to move right, left, right, left and digging in both heels when he needed them to stop. John now looking at Jorenz eye to eye said, "WTF?"
Jorenz returned John(Patrick)'s stare, lowered his eyes, shook his head, looked up and said, "Well, John, one of us is going to have to tell the Captain we lost another body, and considering what happened the last time, I think that somebody, or sombodies, should be you.
"No fucking way, Stark," said John(Patrick). "The only reason that last corpse got away was because the EMC forgot to lock the brake on the gurney."
"URR, grr, ah, rrr, ahhh," added Patrick(John) from under the trenchcoat.
"That's bullshit and you know it," Stark replied.
A sharp, audible snap of heel meeting concrete stopped the argument short. Looking at each other John(Patrick) lowered his voice, “We'd better get our story straight, fast”
“Story...or facts?” Stark replied, bordering accusation.
“Who's say'n they aren't both? Too late anyway, best to look busy, keep it simple and solve this thing quick.” John(Patrick)s voice practically a sigh.
Reverberation grew louder, as a shadow confirmed the Captain’s approached. A deep voice only years of cheap bourbon and generic menthols could create broke the silence like a knife cutting a sharp, aged cheese.
“Hello, boys.”
“Captain.” they returned in unison, snapping to attention. The illusion of activity they had staged now broken. Their eyes dropping in false respect and meandered up from the patent leather Gucci boots extending farther than the uniformed pencil skirt.
Jenny Sue, Siamese twin connected-at-the-hip girlfriend, called John, "Where you at...give me the phone I want to talk to him too...I know what you want...Yah a shiatsu massage...You better not...it's our baby, you were just there....Hello, John?"
John(Patrick)'s ears only half-heard Jenny Sue's voice in his ear as his ocular senses demanded all his attention. The Captain struck a fearsome pose. Raven hair and matching eyes glistened in what light filtered through that dim Seattle alleyway. The Captain's blithe greeting was belied by the fearsome, gravelly intonations causing her guilt-stricken subordinates to stand petrified. The fact that she was wearing a skirt constructed entirely of No. 2 Ticonderoga pencils didn't help matters.
“Someone better give it to me straight,” the Captain said as she pulled her Hello Kitty pencil sharpener from her holster.
“What the hell is going on here? Who’s the douche that decided to plant marigolds in the middle of a crime scene?” she inquired as she sharpened her skirt.
Rarely did Stark waiver in his confidence. Ego overcoming lust combined with malcontent, he wiped away the trickle of drool that had begun to cut a path from the corner of his lip to his chin, pulled his note book from his pocket and broke the silence.
“Slugs don’t eat marigolds. It’s been a long night. You want the long or the short of it?”
The Captain giggled and covered her front teeth as she laughed with her eyes closed. She put her pencil in her hair, she began to undress but then quickly remembered where she was. She searched for her smokes and fire in her pant pockets and looked up and said, "Give me the long version, I don't want to miss anything. Mind if I smoke in front of you?"
"Better than behind me," said Stark. 'Who knows where you'll try to blow that smoke."
The Captain smiled a wry smile that seemed to imply second-hand analingus wasn't out of the question. "Why don't you start by telling me where the body went. We did have a body, didn't we, boys?"
"Yes, well, ahem, about that," started John(Patrick), phone still in hand, Jenny Sue's voice softly chirping to no one through the earpiece.
"Not you, little man!" She snapped.
"Little man!" he replied sharply. "Oh, don't think I don't know about your pathetic charade. You can drop the act and the trenchcoat, I'm not an idiot."
With that The Captain snatched the phone from his hand and said, "Jenny Sue you've received your last payment. You were supposed to get information, not pregnant!"
The phone clapped shut with the force of a mousetrap. "Now, Stark, if you don't mind, where's our goddamned body!"
Stark cleared his throat as Patrick(John) emerged from beneath his brother and their now extraneous coat.
In one fluid motion Stark pulled a pencil from the Captain’s skirt and a notepad from his pocket. “You see Captain, it’s like this,” Stark said as he started furiously scribbling in shorthand on the notepad. “When I first arrived on scene the body was laid out in the space now occupied by the marigolds. Upon first glance it appeared to be a young woman ready for a night on the town, but…” he paused.
“But what? What didn’t seem right?” asked the Captain.
“There seemed to be a bulbous object in the crotch area,” replied Stark. “She may have been a he, or a she-him, a shim for short.”
“A transvestite?” John (Patrick) asked with a quizzical tone.
“Humm…in that case we better check the missing person ads on the side of half and half cartons.” Patrick (John) snickered as he gave John (Patrick) a playful elbow.
“Shut up you nitwits!” barked the Captain, “This in no time for you stupid jokes!”
“The. Body. Stark.” her voice articulating like a stacato metronome.
“I have a missing dead shim, a bed of ugly flowers no one grows and three imbecile detectives. I am disappointed in you Stark and don't think you won't be punished...for something..I know you’re not leveling with me." pausing for dramatic effect, she continued without so much as a breath.
“Some old lady reported a ray of light, and she doesn't look like a crack head. This better not be the 2004 EMC all over again. Talk!"
Before Detective Stark could respond to The Captain's terse, un-punctuated demand, a striking feline - bold, dashing, unquestionably intelligent - strode majestically between the feeble, nattering humans.
He removed an Almond Roca from his supple, pouting lips and pointed it accusingly like a stork wielding a pickle or Groucho with a stogie, or like someone or something else pointing some other cylindrical turgid appendage.
Parrying The Captain's "Talk" with a purring, "Pardon me," the eloquent feline interrupted. "What you bipeds seem to be forgetting is the Giant Spaghetti Monster. Before you worry about the body's gender, location, and parentage, perhaps you should question what brand of deity we're dealing with here."
Even The Captain stood slack-jawed.
"Not a Pastafarian amongst you, I take it?" queried The Cat curiously.
The Captain surveyed the feline with a familiarity that made her inquire, “OK, Stark, who let the cat out of the bag?”
Every time he comes out, he's lost another life, and now he's down to the ninth, the very last. Perhaps he let himself out, on a suicide mission. Who's he going to take down with him this time?”
"Better check your math, sweet-cheeks," parried the strikingly handsome, silver-tongued pussy-cat. "I'm not sure where you get your information or what harsh interrogation techniques you use to get it, but this cat's got more vida loca to live than Ricky Martin."
Detective Stark shook his head and muttered, "Bubbbaaa, baa, huh?"
"Snap out of it, Stark, and give me the straight skinny!" shouted the Captain.
Checking his notebook, Stark read in a strained, matter-of-fact monotone. "Upon arrival on the scene initial determination, deceased female, time of death approximately midnight. Check of ID revealed deceased to be Jennifer Bales, daughter of Senator Bales." Stark looked up from the page.
"Continue..." said the Captain.
"Well, at that point Greta von Cistern showed up with her inquiring mind," said Stark. "And after, um, a bit of confusion, both Greta and the body, uh, disappeared."
"Disappeared..." parroted the Captain skeptically.
Red lips pursed together, botox making her attempted scowl impossible, she turned to pace.
The cat wove between each step of her stiletto heel arching his back as he rubbed against her keeping in unison with her gait. Oblivious to the threat of impalement and the end to his 9th and final life, he purred deep and primal.
Annoying while entrancing everyone but the cat, she abruptly stopped and marched to the dumpster. The Cat, not missing a beat, followed as he purred and wove. Bending so low her skirt revealed the pinnacle of her boots, a glimmer of skin and black lace. Her finely manicured nail reached into the wheel of the dumpster and pulled out a folded, moist slip of paper.
Silence cut through the rain as blood red nails unfolded the paper. After studying what appeared to be a register receipt her green eyes moved to Stark.
Taking in a deep breath, she spoke with the force that had gotten her to this position,
“Get the District Attorney NOW. I don't care how drunk he is or what harlot he says he’s entertaining. Then call the Commissioner and his wife, she'll have to come anyway. Tell each to meet us, that's you and I, Stark, in 20 minutes. They know where."
"The rest of you go home, your fate will be figured out later.”
She paused dramatically, “You. Cat. I will need you. Lurk in the alley. You know which one.” Under her breath she added, “I hope you figured those lives wrong.”
Pivoting, she left as she came, her steps echoing off the buildings that housed innocent residents sleeping like babies, or the dead, or...babies of the dead.
Before The Captain could reach the end of the alley, a piercing cry emanated from the sky. She raised her gaze to see a majestic bird flying gracefully. With a dramatic turn the glorious creature sloped and swooped down the alley over the heads of Detective Stark, The Cat, and John(Patrick), flying directly towards The Captain who narrowly avoided decapitation by leaning back limbo-fashion as the eagle passed over her upturned face. With one deft motion, the bird snatched the cigarette from her mouth with its razor-sharp talon.
All eyes followed the eagle's flight as it arced gracefully over the crowded alley preparing for another pass. All but The Cat took cover. John(Patrick) hid under his(their) trenchcoat, The Captain squatted ignominiously behind the dumpster, Stark pressed his back against umber brickwork, yet The Cat raised himself on his hind legs and stood with a look of expectation, indeed impatience. It soon became clear why.
The eagle, cigarette dangling rakishly in its beak, passed low again and with surgical precision delicately clasped The Cat, lifted him off his feet and into the air.
The Cat, now airborn, looked down as the stunned crew of law enforcers scrambled to regain composure after such an awe-inspiring display.
Brushing the bottom of his furry chin in one insulting motion, The Cat shouted, "Bye-bye, suckahs!"
Rising higher, now barely audible, The Cat added, "Hey, Captain! Lick my hairy balls. Do your own lurking..."
With that, the pair, feline and aquiline, disappeared behind a skyscraper.
"Damn it." the Captain muttered under her breath before shouting,
"Stark, that order still stands, and add to it a trip to the pound for a new black cat, one with a few lives still in it."
Alighting in a remote Mountain aerie, The Cat and Eagle repaired to luxuriously furnished room hidden in a copse of trees.
"When are you going to stop filing those talons of yours, Eagle? You damn near pierced me! I'm not a fucking pin-cushion!" snarked The Cat as he pulled a bottle of Scotch from the bar.
"Stuff it. You're lucky I came to get you at all," replied The Eagle. "Give me a snort of that, will ya'."
The two shared a drink. Medicated, reclining on the divan, The Cat spoke more politely.
"So, the Giant Spaghetti Monster nabbed the Senator's daughter..."
"That goddamn Pasta. Well, we'll just have to implement the contingency plan. It's not like we didn't see something like this coming."
The Cat took another sip of Scotch, cringed slightly and said, "I'll contact Theodore."
Meanwhile back in the Seattle alley, Detective Jorenz Stark was leaving the scene of the crime. He walked around the corner, opened his car door, and sat down with a harumph. His phone rang.
Stark: " Detective Jorenz Stark."
Greta von Sistern: "Stark?"
Stark: "Greta?!?! What the effing hell!!"
Greta: "Are you mad?"
Stark: "Raving Mad!"
Greta: "Please, Jorenz, you must understand, there are powerful forces at work, forces you can't possibly hope to comprehend."
Stark: "Try me."