Thanks, Curt! I appreciate your eagle eye and sharp comments. I have actually finished this story, and will be posting the last two parts very soon.
Crime, Thrillers & Mystery / A Pocketful of Rye - Part 8
It was the day before our performance, and I still didn’t have any leads. I’d called in to the office only to have Br’er tell me he couldn’t find any record of Sandra before her employment at Hubbard Hall.
“So she could be the one we’re looking for,” I said.
“C’uld be, Boss,” said Br’er, “but hit most likely dat she jus’ move in fum ‘nother place. I ain’t had time ter track her dat far.”
I sighed and looked at my watch. I was running out of options. “Okay. You keep working on tracing Sandra, and have Dolly see if she can compile a list of everyone that might have worked with ergot before. Nurses, lab assistants, even bakers or farmers would be good. We might get lucky. Tell her to get the inspector to check with Interpol and see if our pal from the Black Forest ever had contacts with known poisoners. I’ll stop by after rehearsal tonight, so don’t go home until I get there.”
“Will do, Boss.”
I hung up the phone, and turned to find Olaf standing behind me. He leaned forward and poked a finger into my chest.
“You will stop.”
I looked up at him. “That’s the best you can do? That’s not intimidating at all. You’re scary-looking, I’ll admit, but that only gets you so far.”
He poked at me again. “You will stop, or I will have catgut to make new fiddle.”
“Say, Olaf, that’s not bad. It loses a little bit because you’re a timpanist, but all in all, a good effort. Did you just come up with that?”
He nodded a little uncertainly.
“Well you definitely have promise. You should do what I do, and think of these situations in advance. That gives you plenty of time to come up with the perfect line. See, I’ve actually thought about being menaced by a drummer, and while amateurs might say ‘Beat it’ or ‘Hit me with your best rimshot,’ I’ve come up with something better. Wanna hear it?”
Olaf scowled, but nodded.
“You threaten me again, and I’ll take that gun in your coat pocket and kill you where you stand.”
He straightened up in surprise, then favored me with a hard stare and went back to the performance hall. I waited until my heartbeat settled back down, then went in and took my seat like nothing had happened.
The rest of our final rehearsal went more quickly than I expected, and it was only mid-afternoon when Heinrich pushed us out the door, telling us to get plenty of rest. I caught a cab over to my office to see if Br’er and Dolly had solved the case for me.
They hadn’t.
Dolly had a very short list of people who had dealt with ergot in the past. A farmer over in the Dells had gotten a reputation for being high-o in the dairy-o, but he was dead. My old friend Doctor Fell used it in his medical experiments. Fortunately, he was out of the country on a lecture tour, so I didn’t have to go visit him. The sole remaining name was the doctor who was treating Otto. I growled at the list and tossed it into the wastebasket. Br’er hadn’t come up with a great deal more on Sandra, and what he did have seemed to confirm that she was just the administrative assistant she appeared to be. That page followed the first into the can.
I dialed the Inspector, who told me that the sample of hooch from the bassists, while being cheap rotgut, wasn’t contaminated with ergot. He’d heard nothing from Interpol yet, and didn’t expect to for another day or so. I thanked him, hung up, and threw the phone away, too.
“Dolly!” I called, shrugging into my coat and jamming my hat on my head.
“Yes?” she looked up from her typewriter.
“I’m going to The Well to think.”
“Well don’t think too much; you’ve got a performance tomorrow night.”
“Ha. If anything comes up…”
“You’ll be the first.”
“Thanks, Doll. See ya.”
*
Johnny looked up as I entered, and by some bartender magic, knew I wouldn’t appreciate the bell ringing act. He waved me towards my usual booth, and sent a waiter over with a bottle and a pad of paper. I poured the first glass and opened my pen.
A couple of hours later, the bottle was as empty as the pages in front of me. Food was involved somewhere in there, as evidenced by the half-eaten sandwich pushed off to the side, but I didn’t remember it. I laid my head back against the booth wall and closed my eyes.
The air moved around me. “Thought I’d find you here.”
I didn’t look. “What part of ‘Don’t let me see you again’ did you not understand, Ozzie?”
“Your eyes are closed; it’s a loophole.” The table moved slightly as he sat down opposite me, and I opened my eyes to see Ozzie helping himself to the rest of the sandwich. “You mind?” he mumbled around the cold pastrami. “I’ve been over at the hospital with Deirdre, and didn’t get supper.” He paused to see if I’d ask the obvious question. When I didn’t, he shrugged and took another bite. “She said you came by to see her. She’s worried about you.”
I gave a humorless snort. “She’s worried about me now?”
“Don’t be deliberately stupid.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
He sighed and shook his head as Johnny approached the booth, a couple of bottles in each of his meaty hands.
“You don’t break over your heads, hokay? Hokay. Is good beer for drinking, not fighting.”
“Thanks, Johnny,” I said. “Why don’t you bring Ozzie here a sandwich to go? On my tab.” He nodded and went back to the bar. I took a pull from the beer and looked out at the nearly empty dining room.
Ozzie cleared his throat. “Have you…”
“Why you’d run away with her, Ozzie?”
He sat up straighter, fidgeted with his cuff links, then took a swallow of beer.
“Remember the Hill assault?” he said, and I cocked an ear at him. He rubbed his chin and folded his hands in front of him, leaning forward. “Young tough named Jack got beat up at Fetchin Hill, and swore that his girlfriend had accidentally pushed him down?”
“Yeah. Vaguely,” I said.
“Never made sense to me, since Jill was just as beat up. What she do? Tumble after him to try and catch him? So I poked around.”
“What did you find?” I asked, intrigued despite myself.
“Poor Jack was out of his league. He was trying to muscle in on a city water commission, and got warned off hard.”
“Water commission? Someone tried to kill him over the city’s water commission? That’s ridiculous, Ozzie. No one would believe that.”
“It’s happened before, Cheshire. Don’t be so naïve. If there’s money to be made, there’s more money to be made by getting rid of the competition.”
I finished my beer and started on another. “Now that, I believe. How were you planning on proving it?”
“I didn’t ‘plan’ on proving it, I did prove it. I had a witness.”
“Sloppy work for someone, leaving a witness.”
“Sloppy work for the Weasel, you mean,” he said, and I started.
Ozzie nodded. “Yeah. Some old dame named Dob was going out to bingo, and saw two men beating Jack in an alley across the street. She called the police, then gave him first aid until they got there. The goons never saw her, but she saw them clear. I got good descriptions from her, and confirmed them with a couple of pictures from my ‘Known Associates’ file.”
“So why didn’t any of this show up in the papers?”
Ozzie snarled. “Because of our friends Russ and Carpenter.”
“How’s that?”
Ozzie moved his bottle aside as Johnny put his sandwich down in front of him. It wasn’t to go, like I’d asked, and he deliberately ignored my glare. Ozzie picked it up and took a bite. “The D.A. had to file in Federal court for the Weasel. Someone sent Russ and Carpenter to make me disappear. They tried bribing me first, then threatening me. When I refused to cooperate, they switched to blackmail. They were going to set me up for a shooting at the Oak.”
“Your old boarding house?” I asked, and he nodded.
“I caught a break. Their bartender was in my network, and overheard enough to clue me in. When they got there, the place was lit up like Christmas, with all of the neighbors over. I was trying to play the piano and sing, but I was too drunk.”
“I remember that party,” I said. “Everyone talked about you for a week.”
He winked. “Hard to be pinned for a murder when you have thirty eyewitnesses”
I shook my head in admiration.
“Needless to say, they weren’t too happy with me. When bribes, threats, and blackmail don’t work, what’s left?”
“Killing,” I said.
“Yeah.” He took a swallow of beer. “Killing. I had some people looking out around the neighborhood, so I knew when Russ and Carpenter showed up. What I didn’t count on was them bringing their own army with them.”
“An army?”
“About a dozen of the Weasel’s goons.”
“The Mockingbird, too?”
“Don’t know. I was too busy running to get business cards. And don’t look at me like that, I was outgunned and I knew it. I figured I’d lay low until the trial. I ran back to the office to get some money out of the safe, and ran into Deirdre coming out of the elevator. I told her to stay away from the office, and why, and she came unglued. She told me she owed the Weasel a lot of money and I needed to take her with me. I didn’t have a lot of time for arguing, so I just pushed her into a cab ahead of me. We tried several places, but the Weasel had them covered. We managed to make it to the docks before his goons showed up, but they saw us leaving and followed us. After that, it was just us trying to stay ahead of them. I figured they’d back off once the case was dismissed, but the Weasel had other ideas. I’d been a thorn in his paw too long, I guess.” He shrugged. “So we hid for five years, moving when it seemed prudent. When the news about the Weasel caught up to us, I figured it was safe enough to come home. Deirdre was in bad shape – had been getting worse for a couple of months – and I stuck her in the hospital as soon as we got on shore. I spent a few weeks quietly working what was left of my old network. I found a chance to settle the score with Russ and Carpenter, and help out my old partner at the same time. The rest of it you know.” He finished his sandwich as I thought about everything.
I sighed. “I appreciate you telling me all that, Ozzie.”
“It’s the truth. I’ve always been square with you.”
“Yeah. You have. I owe you an apology. For breaking your nose, at the very least.”
He waved a hand in the air. “Forget it. I never liked my nose anyway. With the scar, I look like a real P.I., now.”
For some reason, this broke us both up, and we laughed until we couldn’t breathe, pounding the table. Johnny came over with more drinks, his big grin threatening to blind us.
“You see?” he boomed. “Johnny’s good beer makes everything better! Hokay? Hokay! Here! It is on the house for your good friendship!”
“Thanks, Johnny,” I said. I handed Ozzie a bottle and a pen, then pushed some of the paper over to him. “What do you say about shutting down Russ and Carpenter?”
He grinned. “Sounds good…partner.”
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stephanloy reviewed Version 1 -
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The confrontation with Olaf was wittily done. The humor continues to play out in even bursts. Concerning the explanation of why Ozzie ran off with Deirdre, I’m a little concerned not about the explanation but about the lack of an explanation for why it is offered. Bear with me, I may be severely off-target. I’m thinking that this incident happened in the previous book. That may be incorrect. If not, then wouldn’t some background information be a good idea? Or perhaps you covered that in earlier chapters of this story.
Shouldn’t it be “Why’d you run away with her, Ozzie?”
Now, where the extensive explanation Ozzie provides is clear and readable, it leaves me with the question of what this has to do with the story at hand. Once again, I may be disadvantaged by not having seen the first six chapters. Has it been made clear that Russ and Carpenter are involved in the current orchestra related plot?
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Curtastrophe reviewed Version 1 -
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Excellent notes to the reviewer. You’ll definitely be grabbing a lot of people with these.
Your ear for dialogue is uncanny. There’s always a risk in using dialect (such as in this case Br’er and Olaf) because if it’s not done properly, it sounds like a badly tuned instrument. But you manage to pull it off well and it’s music to the ears.
”...amateurs might say…” Hahaha! Good to see the humor’s still there.
“A farmer over…” A great sentence, especially considering the one that proceeded it.
”...with a bottle…” I see this as a good place to stamp some more of your trademark humor. A bottle of what? Who made it? Perhaps you could come up with something here similar to the description you gave of the Dell farmer.
”...thirty eyewitnesses” Missing a period.
“With the scar, I look like a real P.I., now.”” I’d switch ‘now’ to the beginning of the sentence.
As usual, a very cool spin on the noir genre. Keep up the great work!
-Curt
Taemaeri reviewed Version 1 -
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“Don’t be deliberately stupid.” For some reason I like this line. The thought of someone being deliberately stupid is humorous to me. I like this and I think you should keep going. One of the things I like about this story is the continuous use of dialogue, but I would like to know more about the appearance of the characters. I get a picture of a Mike Hammer type.
RhysTimson reviewed Version 1 -
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I’m a little confused, are Cheshire Cat and Br’er Rabbit the characters from children’s stories now investigating crimes in ‘happily-ever-after’? This just didn’t seem clear from the story. Would be a great device if it was and much much more could be made of it. Would like to read more to see how it progresses.
DragonQueen reviewed Version 1 -
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This story was good, your characters had depth and were beleivable. The way to make this even better though is to add more description. if you added more on the scene and what the charaters see and our doing, this story will truely coem alive.
starhammer1 reviewed Version 1 -
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This was enjoyable and unique, keep it up and let’s see where this will go next.
Lena17 reviewed Version 1 -
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YAY!!! This was my favorite part so far, just because it loosened the tension, and made me smile the whole way through. I was very pleased to find more of your trademark fairytale allusions along the way, one of the perks to your series. =-D
I especially loved Cheshire’s threat to Olaf, PERFECT!! (at that point, I couldn’t supress a little, “HA!” to Olaf! LOL!)
And there’s just something so exciting about Cheshire and Ozzie uniting now; it’s that anticipation you get when any two former enemies come together to fight…you have a wonderful control over your characters, Cat, yet ANOTHER aspect about you I admire!
Waiting with bated breath for the next installment…..
PS: I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve listed you as one of my favorite authors (as well as “Hush, Little Baby” as one of my favorite stories) on several different sites, including MySpace [don’t worry, I credited you and Urbis completely]. _
Jacamo reviewed Version 1 -
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My favorite story on this site.I’ve enjoyed emmensly every excerpt I’ve read.this one is no exception,Your use of fairy tale characters is outstanding! Keep up the good work and you are bound to be noticed by a publisher.This is quality writing,I should know I’m an author:).Seriously,this is a well written story with excellent flow.Good Luck!
marybalfanz reviewed Version 1 -
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see,/see pg 2
bell ringing/bell-ringing pg 3
very nice
BFD reviewed Version 1 -
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”...the bottle was as empty as the pages in front of me.” – Love this line…and a familiar place, I might add…lol :-)
And wow…who’d have thought there was so much scandle behind all of these old nursery rhyme characters…ha! The Jack & Jill bit was great, Chris.
I’m looking forward to the next bit about Chesh & Dierdre now that Chesh & Ozzie have come to terms…what can I say – I’m a sucker for the star-crossed love stuff…lol
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