Noir

Prologue – The Case Opens

Dick. Dick Turpentine. I’m a private eye, a hired gun, an ear on the street and a nose in every bar. Half-man, half-whiskey. Single malt. Neat. I got all the rocks I need right here.

She came to me one evening, dark flashes of lightning flickering like the single, dying bulb hanging from my office ceiling, the driving rain hammering at my window against the drum & bass of the gunshot and siren of the city. She was tall, dark. Dangerous. Legs that went all the way up, if you know what I mean. Something tells me she didn’t want her lost kitty found, or her cheating scumbag of a husband photographed in the back of a car, hot sweat congealing like burger grease on the windows, a single hand pawing at the perspiration. This kind of dame, her problems drag you in, clawing at the edge before falling in, screaming. Like her deep, green eyes. But hell, I needed the cash. Bills rack up faster than empty shot glasses, and the debt collection gorilla has a baseball bat with my name on it. He calls it “Gretel”. It grants him succour on cold nights like these.

She had a name. Bjorn. Said he was part of a illegal gambling ring, running drugs and guns through the ports back to home country in Europe. Said his gang had killed her father, and she wanted revenge. Her body heaved with passion, a firey rage burning within her. I would have lit a cigarette, but I sensed that the flame would have engulfed the room, and my insurance doesn’t cover billowing fireballs. Perhaps it was her alcohol-based perfume. It doesn’t matter.

“What’s the game?” I asked her, the syllables sliding off my tongue like dice clattering on the table. Roll for initiative. A flash of lightning lit the room.

She smiled, a bright, bloody streak of red across her lips flashing once from under her wide, shadowy hat. “Peggle”, she said.

Peggle.