I dropped Dolly off at my office, picked up a few odds and ends I might need, and made my way towards the Weasel’s house. The rain had stopped, but a fog had crept in, making odd patterns and clinging to my legs as I walked the crooked mile that led to his door.
Halfway there, I turned back and returned to my office.
Having gotten the key from Dolly this time, I made my way towards the Weasel’s house. The rain had stopped, but a fog had crept in, making odd patterns and clinging to my legs as I walked the crooked mile that led to his door. The neighborhood was quiet as I crept in on little fog feet. There were lights burning in the windows, but I didn’t see anyone moving around inside. I smoked in the shadows a little while, just to make sure, then I moved around to the back. A sticker on the door warned me that the property was protected by Little Boy Blue Security Alarms. Knowing the Boy’s general level of alertness, I wasn’t too worried.
I used the key, and found myself in the Weasel’s kitchen. I poked around, opening doors at random. All of the cupboards were bare, but the pantry was overstocked with flour, sugar, salt, plums, blackbirds – apparently the Weasel liked his pie.
I set the kitchen door swinging and entered a short hallway. To my left was a dining room; to the right, a drawing room. I looked over the assembled sketches, but found nothing that looked like a clue. There was a pretty good pointillism piece, though.
The hallway spilled into a living room. A couch and matching chairs crowded the fireplace like they were interrogating it, and a low table held an assortment of magazines. I looked the room over pretty thoroughly, but only found some loose change under the couch cushions.
A set of stairs led up to the second floor, which held a couple of bedrooms, a bathroom, and what turned out to be the Weasel’s home office. To turn a couple hours of searching into just six words, I found it in his desk. “It” turned out to be a small bunch of posies – a pocketful, to be exact.
Someone was sending the Weasel a message.
I compared the tenses in that sentence to the news Dolly had told me earlier, and made the mental correction. Not only had someone reminded the Weasel that we all fall down, they had made sure of it in his case. I poked around a little more, retrieving a small black book from a crowded In box. It turned out to be the Weasel’s appointment book, and was an amazingly incriminating document. I looked at the entries for tomorrow:
- Meet Dr. Fell re: Solomon Grundy’s prescription
- Arrange for Tom Piper to cater barbecue
- Call Pete re: Banbury Cross
- Polly Flinders audition for The Cinders
One of the entries, being in bold face, jumped out at me. “Banbury Cross,” I muttered. “Why does that ring a bell?” Then I had it. I dug out the scrap of paper that Dolly had taken from the dead man’s hand. horse and cart. Of course. The races at Banbury Cross. Looks like the Weasel had some action at the stables, and this Pete was his inside guy. A few more minutes of rummaging produced nothing else of value, so I left the way I’d come in.
The fog had grown thicker while I had been inside, so I couldn’t see who shot at me.
A piece of the doorframe exploded into shrapnel, and only my quick reflexes saved me from losing an eye or worse. The next several shots were more annoying than dangerous, since I was –cowering- -hiding- strategically ensconced behind one of the brick pillars that held up the porch roof.
“Okay okay!” I shouted into the darkness. “I’ll pay the damn rent!”
A dry chuckle came drifting over to me. “Ve are not interested in your rent, Mister Cheshire.”
“I think you have a little subject/verb issue, there. It should be V is not interested. And who the hell is V, anyway?”
A fresh fusillade of lead answered my critique. Tough crowd.
A second voice came at me at a right angle to the first. “You are jestinck vith us, but ve are not in a jokinck mood.”
Crap. Two hitters; male and female; foreign accents. Ordinarily, I’d have to guess who was trying to ventilate me, but the moose had gotten in a lucky shot last summer, which left only one pair fitting the description: a nasty brother and sister team from the Black Forest.
Hansel and Gretel.
This case had suddenly gotten a lot more interesting.
The twins had started early, targeting local occult practitioners for their particularly brutal brand of vigilante justice. They developed a taste for it, along with the licorice banisters and graham cracker shutters. Now they were assassins for hire, doing the dirty work of anyone that had enough chocolate coins to pay their enormous fees.
“Ve vere vondering vy somevun vould vish to vurm into ze Veasel’s vurk,” Hansel said.
“Lordy but that’s a lot of alliteration,” I opined.
“You can not throw ze stones, Mister Cheshire,” he shot back. Literally. A bullet ricocheted off of the decorative doorbell plate.
“Maybe so,” I acknowledged, “but you’re still way worse.”
“Am not,” he insisted.
“Are.”
“Shut up!” Gretel shouted, and two shots rang out.
“Losing your touch, Gretel?” I called out. “Only one of those came close.”
“I vas not aiminck at you for ze two of zem.”
“Oh. Hansel? Still with us?”
“I am still here, Mister Cheshire.”
Crap. “Great! Now, would one of you mind telling me what it is I can do for you?”
“If you vill gif us vat it is zat you came for, ve vill leaf you in peace.” Hansel said.
“Is that the requiescat in pace kind of ‘in peace’?” A laugh was my only answer. “What makes you think I was here looking for anything in particular?”
“It is known zat ze Veasel vas seeinck a young lady,” Gretel explained. “Ve assumed zat she vould vant to reclaim certain…items before ze police confiscated zem. Our employer vishes to get zem first, so ve came lookinck.”
“What makes you think I have what you’re lookinck…uh…looking for?”
“Vy else vould you be here?” Hansel asked.
“I heard that the Weasel got popped. Thought I’d take a look around.”
“Who is payinck you to do zis?” Gretel asked.
Seemed they didn’t know about my connection to Dolly. I was going to try and keep it that way. “This one’s on the house. A public service, say. I was just curious.”
The twins chuckled at the same time, which was kind of creepy.
“You know, I trust, vat zey say about curiosity and ze cats?” Gretel purred.
“I’ve heard it once or twice. Better watch that purring, baby, or you’re liable to get caught in the crossfire.”
“I zink not,” she said, and a number of bullets punched out a neat row in the wall behind me.
“I hate to disappoint you two,” I said, “but the Weasel’s a better housekeeper than me. All I got outta there was a dollar twenty-two in loose change.”
“I do not belief you,” Hansel insisted angrily.
“Well don’t be so sour, Kraut. I got no beef with you, so how about you let me and my wry sense of humor just go home and get toasted?” I was suddenly craving a Reuben sandwich for some reason.
“It vould be much easier to search you vunce you vere dead,” Gretel said.
“That’s true,” I agreed, “but you weren’t paid to kill me, were you?”
Gretel laughed. “Zis one, it is on ze house. Is zat not how you say it?”
“Actually, I say ‘_the_’ house, but yeah, you got the idea, honey.”
They laughed in unison again, and I heard hammers drawn back.
I also heard sirens.
Seems that the amount of gunfire in the formerly quiet neighborhood had managed to rouse even the Boy Blue Security squad. A number of cars screeched up in front of the house, their lights strobing the fog, and I heard the chatter of guards and their radios getting closer.
“Ve are not finished vith you, cat,” Hansel said, his voice growing fainter.
“Not by ze long shot,” Gretel agreed, and she, too, faded away deeper into the fog.
I stayed where I was for a few moments longer, breaking for the woods when I saw a flashlight beam approaching around the corner of the house. There was no sign of the twins, but I stayed off the roads just in case. What had been an easy walk out to the house turned into an exercise in trailblazing on the way back. I must have been going in circles, unless there were police crawling all over several houses that evening.
I finally got back to the office to find Dolly asleep on the couch. I looked at her, bathed in the glow of the streetlamp outside, her face cast partly in shadow from the half-open blinds, and I thought about how fragile and frail she looked.
She let out a snore that shook a fine rain of plaster down, and I revised my appraisal. I went to the small washroom and persuaded my aching muscles to open the aspirin bottle. Dolly’s snores echoed off of the green tile, shaking loose the crumbling grout and providing counterpoint to the small whimpers that were escaping from me. I took two aspirin, then stuffed the cotton from the bottle in my ears and lay down in the tub to catch a few winks.
Tomorrow would be a long day.
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Sorry, I thought this was kind of dumb. You attempted to be creative with all of the characters but for it just didn’t work.
I really enjoyed this. The characters are wonderfully tongue-in-cheek Hammett. This added to the fairy tale universe is more than a little funny. You might want to watch the puns, though. You have more than enough material to choose from; you don’t have to dredge that deep.
it’s difficult at this juncture to speak much on character, as the characters appear to be archetypal pulp fiction detective story. Perhaps you will differentiate later, or maybe you already have, and I haven’t seen that work. In any event, they hold up well even so, but it seems chancy to maintain interest over a long period with characters that do not differentiate from detective story central casting. That isn’t a criticism -- as I said, I enjoyed this very much -- it’s just acknowledgment that this sort of thing is sure to be a major effort to maintain. I applaud your removal of the fourth wall of the story. The first person narrator being conscious of BEING a first person narrator adds much to the humor.
The setting was clear and entertaining. I appreciated the characterization of the living room set, the chairs and couch interrogating the fireplace. Only one thing made me scratch my head. At one point you stipulated that “I’d have to guess who was trying to ventilate me, but the moose had gotten in a lucky shot last summer…” I have no idea what that part about the moose meant. The only thing that comes to mind is Rocky and Bullwinkle, but that comes to mind only because I know of no other moose. Except the one in the title credits of Northern Exposure.
only three nits worth mentioning:
“Now they were assassins for hire, doing the dirty work of anyone that had enough chocolate coins…”
Shouldn’t that be “who had enough”?
“Maybe so,” I acknowledged
Shouldn’t that be “maybe not”?
“providing counterpoint to the small whimpers that were escaping from me”
“that escaped me”?
Your notes for the reader are hysterical/ That in itself would earn a 10. This has got to be the funniest thing I have read or heard in months maybe years.
The dialog between Hansel, Gretel and a Cheshire re outrageously perfect. Your accents for both unbelievable. I meant that in a good way.
I can see no problems with your writing or story. It is flat out great.
This story gets more and more brilliant as it goes on! This installment had me laughing so hard, I almost tipped my chair over backwards. Completely genius with the cheesy German assassin status of Hansel & Gretel! I just had to imitate their accents badly as I read, which only made me laugh MORE!!
Have you ever considered making a short film adaptation of this? You could do it in a series, as you have it, and post it on youtube.com or myspace.com. I know it would be a sure-fire smash hit! I would do the honors of being the 600,000 out of your first million views once posted!!
Anyway, hilerious chapter, really lifted my spirits! The ending scene with Dolly snoring was great! Really really amazing!
I’m definately a fan already! (just you better not have a cheap sucky ending to this! haha!)
Keep writing!
~JMB
You’re continuing very well with this story. This piece that you have written here is something different than the other two, when you were able to recreate the action of shooting very well and Chesh’s funny comments just prove what kind of character he is-always cool.
The intorduction of the two new characters was very well done, when you gave us enough information about them, not boring us to death.
You manged to keep the momentum going with the way you ended this piece focusing our attention to the next day and I’m going to read the fourth piece straight away.
I can’t find any flaws really, maybe that you migh consider actually describing the chase with the cops. It would be interesting to see how Chesh got away. One more thing: “The fog had grown thicker while I had been inside, so I couldn’t see who shot at me. ” I think this is too passive and maybe you could try to tell us that Chesh’s was shot at a bit mroe dynamicly, but then again maybe you were purposly trying to blunt?
What a wonderfully imaginative subject for a novel! Cheshire brings to mind one of Marlowe’s private eyes. Serious, moody, sarcastic, quiet. Throw in a few more interesting and creative metaphors and you’ve got it!
I have jsut a few nit-picky things to comment on specifically:
I would take out “and was an amazingly incriminating document.” – that’s for us to decide. You could have a smirk spread across his face or something as he reads it, like he found his buried treasure or something. Show, don’t tell.
This sentence seems a bit awkward to read: ” I was –cowering- hiding strategically ensconced.”
“The twins chuckled at the same time, which was kind of creepy.” – I thin you lose the voice of the character here. Maybe try, ”..same time; it gave me the creeps.” Okay that one was really nit-picky. Sorry.
Anyway, the dialogue was the best part throughout the story, aside from the basic premise/story-line.
Fantastic job!
~Angel
This story is whimsical and entertaining. Dialogue is easier to follow in this chapter than in chapter 2, though I think chapter 2 is a little more entertaining. Gretel’s vernacular is very amusing and sounds authentic, which is very hard to do in dialogue, spelling out accents and such. Very good work.
I loved the Steve-Martinesque (Steve-Martian?) quotes in the review notes! ;-)
The Sandburg reference is great!
I’m impressed that you can keep up this constant humour while building a well-paced, interesting plot too! Kudos.
Suggestions:
1) It seems to drag (just a bit) while Chesh is searching the house. For instance, it wasn’t necessary to tell us about the dining room, was it?
2) Rather than “ck”, I think it’d work better to substitute “k” for the g’s in Hansel’s/Gretel’s speech. It’s simpler (and more German, I think).
Oh, I also loved how you played with bold -strikethrough- and italics as well. Nice! Keep me updated!
The fog comes on little cat feet… Thump, thump, thump! Just my paraphrase of Sandburg there…
And only then did I notice this line in your story: ”The neighborhood was quiet as I crept in on little fog feet.” (roflmao) Weird minds think alike, eh?
The dialogue from Hansel and Gretel was well-written. Just close enough to incomprehensible without meaning being lost… And as always, the fairy tale referrences strewn throughout the story are a lot of fun.
I’m also greatly amused by the “critics’ comments” in your notes.
Testing us devoted fans & avid readers now, aren’t you… :-)
This part definately pushed my simple mind & mountain twang to it’s limits…lol :-)
“The fog had grown thicker while I had been inside, so I couldn’t see who shot at me. ” I absolutely loved this line. I was just as blindsided by it as Chesh – nice :-)
“She let out a snore that shook a fine rain of plaster down, and I revised my appraisal.” – and this line just about made me choke on my glass of Kool-aid…lol :-)
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