Hard Boiled Crime Drama

acknowledging The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon,
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, Casablanca etc
 
Times were tough in the Big City. But I was as tough they come.

Just for once the knockout blow wasn’t dealt by a dame in a tight skirt with an attitude to match. No, this time, the big sucker punch was thrown by Dame Fortune – Famine Fortune, as she called herself.

It was another Dissipating day when she first dropped by, spreading gloom and despondency all around her – like her cheap perfume, which reminded me of rotting vegetables.

‘Everyone will die, unless they escape this place,’ she said, enigmatically. I took on the case, at my usual 200 bucks a day, plus expenses, plus danger money, and to look at her, I was going to need plenty.

*             *             *

P. Rod Iggle had turned up a few weeks ago, flashing bills and paying checks with wild abandon. He said he’d come from a hick farmstead out of town and was ready to spend until he dropped.

He told people ‘If you want anything, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you? You just put your lips together and... blow.’

What’s more, he made good on the promise, putting on the Ritz, parading in his glad rags, calling for hooch and financing hayburners as well as several Janes in a Juice Joint. It occurred to me later that he was the sort to shake down a racket with no regard for who got caught in the fall out. He was bound to reach bottom soon – maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day, and for the rest of his life. Iggle attracted friends like a manure heap attracts blowflies, and they leeched on him until he’d been sucked dry.

And that was when Dame Fortune stepped in – more dangerous, more deadly and more out of whack than I’d ever seen before.

Iggle took a low-life job supervising pigs, but everyone was figuring that we’ve all got to ride this cart to the end of the rutted pathway and it’s a one-way trip and the last stop is the cemetery. 

He came to his senses and determined to slip back home and try to work for the Old Man. He prepared his speech. ‘I’m not worthy.’ Wouldn’t win any prizes, yet it might just swing it. 

But when he got within just a couple miles of his home, the Old Man came running, with a coat, new shoes, a ring and the kind of hug a real man would never admit he ever wants. He started his speech, but the Old Man dismissed it, and threw a party, nearly as wild as the parties Rod had been having here downtown.

They were right neighbourly, and laid on dancing, music, a grand spread and celebrations, with local dames with figures that just wouldn’t quit.

Old Man Iggle had a speech all his own. ‘What’s wrong with him? Nothing we can’t fix… my son was lost, now he’s found; he was on the night train to the big adios – sleeping with the fishes – but now he lives!’

It wasn’t Shakespeare (he wouldn’t be along for hundreds of years yet). But it’s the gospel truth, I tell you.