Fickle Read online

  Burly-Bear: Hey, no one’s accusing anyone of anything here.

  Me: I’m just paranoid—that it?

  Escroto: (leaning against the stair rail and checking his nails) Thanks for the set, miss, but, uh, we ain’t got no prints to check those against.

  Me: (blinking at Escroto, then back at Burly-Bear) I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.

  Escroto: (talking slow, like I’m playing dumb and we all know it) Lemme try again: no prints but a few of our dead friend’s in the entire apartment. You know, like as if someone rubbed the place down: handles, knobs (he reaches over and runs a finger along the edge of the Garbo frame)—all your basic surfaces that might hold a print. Like as if someone came over here late last night and went over the place, someone who didn’t want anyone knowing about her ever having been here. (He stares me down and I try to meet his eye but falter—why shouldn’t I be intimidated? Then he goes on.) Must have been a very cool broad to be able to erase all her prints and leave his on stuff like the dresser drawers. Of course, DNA’s tougher to erase. That bed’s seen a couple of good rolls lately. A DNA sample’s what would really do the trick in eliminating your presence here. So how’s about it?

  Me: In your dreams. (I walk forward. Unlike Burly-Bear, Escroto doesn’t move and I’m forced to step over his crossed-at-the-ankle two-toned wingtips to head down the stairs.)

  Burly-Bear: (coming after me down the stairs) I’ll drive you back to your office.

  Me: (heading out the door without looking back) Don’t concern yourself, Sergeant. (Then, softening a tiny bit in spite of myself, I half turn.) I could use the walk.

  Burly-Bear: (stopping at Mr. Suicide’s doorway) I hear you.

  I don’t start to cry until I’m two blocks from the place, walking fast.

  So: WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

  GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT

  roadrage @ January 23 12:44 am

  I may have done too much blotter at some point to be really solid in my alphabetics, but in what dictionary is L the same letter as E?

  fickel @ January 23 12:46 am

  Not following—oh, I getcha. My name starts with E. I go by a nickname that starts with L.

  roadrage @ January 23 12:47 am

  I still don’t get it.

  36-D @ January 23 12:48 am

  Like Liz for Elizabeth. Don’t be dumb, hun-bun.

  roadrage @ January 23 12:49 am

  Excuse my continuing stupidity, but if a chick’s name is Elizabeth and she goes by Liz, wouldn’t the guy she’s sleeping with refer to her as “L” in his diary? I mean, he’d be on nickname terms with her, wouldn’t he?

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 23 12:52 am

  Maybe he’d assert his special place in her life by being the only one who doesn’t use the nickname. Kind of a reverse pet name thing.

  roadrage @ January 23 12:54 am

  Oh, like when you go by Skeet but your mother insists on calling you Norman in public?

  chinkigirl @ January 23 12:56 am

  Take heart, roadrage; my mom’s nickname for me was Pussy. After the willow.

  roadrage @ January 23 12:57 am

  I am humbled.

  webmaggot @ January 23 12:59 am

  My theory on what’s going on: the cop is jerking your chain.

  fickel @ January 23 01:00 am

  uhh, come again?

  webmaggot @ January 23 01:03 am

  Burly-Bear wants your happy box, babe, and all this is foreplay. Staged foreplay.

  marleybones @ January 23 01:05 am

  That theory’s a bit fantastic, don’t you think?

  webmaggot @ January 23 01:06 am

  Take it from the male of the species. There’s a lot of strategy in getting a chick into the sack, and you gotta use what resources you got. Cops is no different than the rest of us dogs.

  marleybones @ January 23 01:08 am

  Wow. So how far do we take this? Are we saying that fickel is not in the dead guy’s flickr? Are we saying the little book by the bed isn’t a diary that describes the mysterious E? Heck, was the whole thing an invention some cop came up with on the strength of a handy bit of luck that a train jumper took himself out in front of an attractive witness?

  hitman @ January 23 01:09 am

  So, like, maybe the loft is actually Burly-Bear’s love nest. Maybe Escroto is not even a cop, but is just some buddy who’s pimping for Burly-Bear. Maybe this is not a murder investigation at all; instead it’s just, like, the scuzziest pick-up job of all time.

  36-D @ January 23 01:10 am

  fickel, sweetie, what do you think: could this possibly be some elaborate set-up for scoring?

  fickel @ January 23 01:12 am

  DIIK. But the one thing I can swear to is that Burly-Bear was disappointed when I rejected his ride back to my office, and, even at the time, it flashed through my head that that’s when he’d been planning on asking me out. But the idea that the whole thing was cooked up as some elaborate pick-up scheme is as much of a stretch as any of the pulps we’ve come up with.

  wazzup! @ January 23 01:16 am

  HALLO American pals. Am writing from the glorious Netherlands where nothing ever happens!!! I have been lurking for weeks now—love love love the group stories especially. Still a smidgen confused however; is this suicide real or yet another excellent long and winding tale???

  I would like to add with every due modestness that I have some pertinent knowledge of “polar” art as well: did you know that many of the finest examples have their basis in factual story, thus lending a sense of truth and verisimilitude to otherwise fantastical and seemingly far-fetched plots? Such as, let us take for example, Double Indemnity, the plot based on an actual serial killing nurse. Did any of you know this?

  fickel @ January 23 01:17 am

  How-di-do, Hollander. Interesting. However, this “excellent tale” happens to be real.

  wazzup! @ January 23 01:20 am

  Amazing! Was ready to vote that your cop is Dix Handley from John Huston’s Asphalt Jungle.

  fickel @ January 23 01:22 am

  I see what you mean. He does have that expressionless, “rolling something around in his mouth” thing going on when he thinks.

  proudblacktrannie @ January 23 01:32 am

  fickel, my luv, please listen to me and take my advice: cops are scum do not f*** this one no matter what he looks like. JMO but believe me!

  hitman @ January 23 02:34 am

  …and a hush fell over the weblog…

  4

  01.23 @ 03:44 am:

  I see death and guess what—she’s doable

  A fraction of a second of time that I spent on the T last Sunday night:

  I’m plugged into my earbuds and e-balling a VMan over some sweaty lad’s shoulder (Russian Topless Tennis Tramps—great concept and a damn great shoot) when the driver slams the emergency and everyone goes flyin.

  I’m already holding onto a pole because I’m just bending forward to grab a look at the station as we come into it—don’t ask me why but I get off on the visual of coming into a train station—so I have a pretty good shot of the approaching platform. I see this girl standing on the edge, way, way down at the far end. She is one of those all-in-black chicks, not goth, not dyke, more like…feminist poet, I’m going to guess—dark coat and skirt, tall boots, chalk-white face and fingerless gloves—and she’s looking straight down into the tracks, which, in that split second I’m focusing on her, clicks as weird because most people look at the train when it’s coming in, especially if they’re standing right on the edge of the platform. This chick never moves a muscle.

  Next fraction of a second:

  The train is jamming to a halt—brakes so loud I can actually feel the metal-on-metal scream in my nads. I get the beginning whiff of something like burning oil, and my feet catch the first tremors of the whole train car trying to buck like it wants off the track. Everyone’s falling all over each other and screaming their brains out. Humankind is so p
athetic.

  Next fraction:

  The train has stopped moving—passengers shriek and flail. Some smelly homeless creep is practically dragging my pants down as he goes. The driver—middle-aged black lady—her hands are kind of palpitating in front of her giant titties as she gets set to belt out the loudest, longest freak-out bellow you’re going to hear north of a New Orleans funeral. Past her knee is the bottom of the train car’s windshield, and just above that comes this little puff of goose feathers. Just a couple of them. Poof—then they disappear.

  Next fraction:

  I look back at the platform—I’m close to the chick now, maybe fifteen feet with just the train window between us—and she’s a piece of work: nose like a blade, art deco hair sliced across at the forehead and jaw, hands boney and strong with short nails, and some sort of fifty-foot-long scarf in a bunch of murky colors—one of those dippy chicks who is somehow hot, and at that moment, the very moment that I shift my attention to her she raises her long thin eyebrows and tightens her lips, kind of bunches them with the corners pointing down like she’s swallowing a mouthful of hot buttered cum-yum. She looks right at me without seeing me, lets a breath out, and catches the tip of her tongue between her teeth.

  WHAT I’M SAYING IS—and squirt it up my nose if I’m wrong but I am not wrong—THE CHICK LOOKS SATISFIED. Swear to giddy God, she is GROOVING on the fact of some dude getting mulched by the T at her feet. And at that moment, I know—I know—I KNOW that she either shoved the guy or AT THE VERY LEAST was pushing him off her when he fell. Either way, she did it, and she’s feeling pretty damn good about it—no remorse, I mean this:

  Not. One. Drop. Of. Remorse.

  It’s monster freak-zoids like this make the world a safer place for all womankind. I salute thee, brave, cold-blooded killer chick!

  Then I’m knocked to the floor by the homeless dude, get my head sat on by an old Bible thumper, roll away and end up with my face squashed between the mams of a four-hundred-pound opera singer in polka dots who holds me there until I suffocate while a passing poodle dry-humps me from behind.

  End of moment. Everyone in the train shares a cigarette.

  TALK, NIHILIST DOGS

  eddielizard @ 01.23 03:59 am

  Righteous post, man. See the killer chick after?

  fullfrontal @ 01.23 04:11 am

  talking with a cop. plays it meek and trembly, now that she’s done killing for the day. then she walks to central square. chick glides through this ice storm like she’s a farking vampire. lives in a dump. scored some doobie on her street, tho.

  losmuertos @ 01.23 04:38 am

  you followed her?

  fullfrontal @ 01.23 04:44 am

  how else am I going to know where she lives, brainiac?

  boytoucher @ 01.23 05:16 am

  she smokes weed?

  fullfrontal @ 01.23 05:32 am

  What d’yak you talking about? Oh—no, doof, I scored on her street. She just gives the niggah this little wave and shakes her head, like she knows him and considers it out of politeness that he offers it to her when he knows by now that she doesn’t smoke. Like Mary Sunshine in the Hell Zone or some such shyzzle. Only now she’s killed a guy so she’s earned her stripes.

  bonitoestoria @ 01.23 05:39 am

  what you want with her, hansum?

  fullfrontal @ 01.23 06:16 am

  Lemme see, I want to figure out a way to meet her, try to get to know her, and see if she’s the type of woo-man I could talk into whispering “chugga-chugga-choo-chooooooo” with her tongue in my ear while I do her.

  What der yuh think I wants wid her?

  5

  January 23 @ 02:17 pm

  >BURLY-BEAR IS SQUARE?<

  UPDATE!—UPDATE!—UPDATE!—UPDATE!—UPDATE!—UPDATE!

  Burly-Bear just showed at my desk (does it occur to him that every steely squint, every shred of his threads, every loose-limbed swing of his heavy arms shrieks that he is a COP, and that a wee small white-shoe-wanna-be Boston publishing shoppe might be chock-full of nosy parkers who would be both fascinated and repelled by anyone amongst them who finds herself involved in a police matter?)

  So while inquiring eyes bulged forth from inquiring skulls, the B-Bear passed me a fat yellow envelope containing “som’n’ for me to read.” At first I thought the guy had dug a novel out of his bottom drawer—Memoirs of a Flatfoot or some such goodie. I went to put it aside but Burly-Bear stood there, waiting to see my reaction, so I took a peek. It was a copy of Mr. Suicide’s diary, fresh from Kinko’s. Yipes!!!

  When I asked what I was supposed to do with it, he said that he’d found my observances insightful back at Mr. Suicide’s place and hoped I would do him the favor of assisting him in the investigatory matter by offering my consideration of its content. Double Yipes!!!

  I said I’d do what I could. Burly-Bear kind of circled his hand a couple of times like he was gearing up to say something, then thought better of it and said he’d be in touch. All this happened just this second, and I am immediately blogging it, mostly so as to be exceedingly busy so that Noah will remain hovering at a distance while I figure out what to tell him.

  GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT

  36-D @ January 23 02:20 pm

  LOL! Roadrage was right: the cop wants your happy box!

  webmaggot @ January 23 02:28 pm

  Ahem…all due respect, ma’am, if you review last night’s postings, you’ll see that I was the one who came up with the happy box hypothesis.

  36-D @ January 23 02:31 pm

  I stand corrected, hun-bun. You have the sleaziest mind on the blog.

  fickel @ January 23 02:32 pm

  Regardless of that: what do I do? I admit my hands were shaking when I took the package from him—still are, as I type this.

  marleybones @ January 23 05:35 pm

  All his words?—“observances,” “insightful,” “favor”???

  fickel @ January 23 06:26 pm

  Would I use “observances?” Is that even a word?

  chinkigirl @ January 23 09:38 pm

  Was his breath minty fresh? Tie tight and straight?

  fickel @ January 23 09:40 pm

  Umm, his breath was minty with a powerful undercurrent of fresh cigarette. Hair aggressively en brosse. Tie loose—top button undone. Very “sexy cop calendar,” overall.

  36-D @ January 23 09:44 pm

  He smokes and tries to cover it. OMG—I am in need of smelling salts.

  proudblacktrannie @ January 23 09:55 pm

  personally I have just died and gone to gay cop heaven. (In my heaven he’s gay if that’s okay with everyone else?)

  hitman @ January 23 09:56 pm

  Let’s talk: copper wants yer clam and are you going to give it? That’s where we’re at, right?

  fickel @ January 23 09:57 pm

  No comment from everyone’s favorite odalisque.

  hitman @ January 23 09:58 pm

  translation: you’re a slut

  marleybones @ January 23 09:59 pm

  Out of bounds, and not the 1st time. I propose that hitman be banned. Anyone care to weigh in?

  36-D @ January 23 10:03 pm

  I vote yes. Go drag your knuckles back to the cave, creepy male person.

  hitman @ January 23 10:14 pm

  Hey, no offense, ladies, but women who sleep with guys they just met are what’s known as “sluts,” and please do not give me that crap about how when men sleep with someone they hardly know they’re studs but when women do it they’re sluts because it’s been said a zillion times in a zillion folk songs written by a zillion lesbians each and every one of who thinks she’s saying something totally new. If you’re a chick who sleeps around, fickel, just accept it: you are what’s called a slut.

  fickel @ January 23 10:58 pm

  I think you’re trying to say, in your own twisted way: what’s wrong with being a slut?

  hitman @ January 23 11:02 pm

  Finally, a woman confronts the gorilla in the corner. M
edal of honor for bravery.

  marleybones @ January 23 11:14 pm

  With enlightened guys like you around, who needs rape laws?

  hitman @ January 23 11:16 pm

  Rape is a protectionist creation of postmodern radical feminism. Most cultures didn’t even recognize the concept before the 1600s.

  36-D @ January 23 11:18 pm

  Lemme guess, you’re posting from some fed pen?

  webmaggot @ January 23 11:20 pm

  Kewl, we really got all types on the blog now. Everyone grooving the diversity? I am!

  fickel @ January 24 12:05 am

  That’s actually a question that’s occurred to me, hitman. Where did you suddenly appear from, now that it seems that you plan to dwell a while?

  hitman @ January 24 12:06 am

  ah-ah-ah, bad form, fickie: no askie for personal data on the bloggie, remember?:

  Hi, I guess this the big “first entry,” where I give a shout-out to the anonymous world of blog trolls and pray like hell that I attract the right ones to mine. I have spent enough time putting this damned thing up, so let’s hope the effort pans out. This blog is for lovers of noir, both roman and film, and both classic and neo. If you read and reread James Ellroy, Ian Rankin, Derek Raymond, Leigh Brackett…and if you watch and rewatch Rififi, Stray Dog, Drunken Angel, M, Night and the City, etc., etc., this is the site for you. If you don’t know any of the authors or titles I’ve mentioned, press on, seeker.

  Rules (INPO): (1) No real names or otherwise pushing your ID on me—I’m in Boston and you may be, too, but I’m not looking for lunch or bed mates. It’s a blog—deal. (2) Do not make up cutesie “noirish” names: if Coffin Ed or Cissy Chandler shows up, you’re outta here. (3) Not really a rule, but just a corollary to Rule 2: I am very open to “grown up” noir games—working out a plot as a group, critiquing favorite stories or films, etc. I have done this on my own, and could totally get into a collaboration.