Ongoing noir story...

[Midnight Palace]

I think this is a cool idea, we'll see what you guys think. I'm a big fan of the 1940s detective noir mystery/drama films. I thought it would be interesting for us to have an ongoing story in this thread that we all add to. The important thing is to use the slang of the era and really create the feel. It would be written in first person, sort of like a narration. For example, suppose I started out with a couple of lines like:

Thursday evening. The streets are empty like the bottle of scotch sitting by the edge of my desk. I have a love/hate relationship with these summer nights in the big city. The heat creeps up on you like a pickpocket looking for the big score. Me? I just sit here in my 8th floor office staring into the great, black void through the glass. The neon sign across the way flickers off and on, lighting the rain-slicked pavement on fire. Nothing out of the ordinary really, unless you count the strange feeling I've had since 4pm when my telephone rang...

What do you think?

 

[MrNewportCustom]

I like this.

The only time I'd left the office since then was to get the evening paper for the sports scores to get my mind off things. It didn't work very well. The strange feeling had teamed up with boredom, and the two were competing with the neon and scotch in a lindy marathon being held in my head. It was only a matter of time before I'd know who won, and it wouldn't be me.

I fanned myself with the sports section and looked over at the electric fan on the filing cabinet. It tried in vain to cool the hot, sticky night for me, but there wasn't much it could do from there. I’d move it closer, if I could. The paper slipped from my hand and tumbled onto the floor, opening up to a headline I hadn't seen until now: Dodgers Lose Again. How could I have missed that?

I reached over the arm of the chair to pick it up, but the scotch had done its damage. I tried to catch myself on the way down, but that only succeeded in pulling the rest of the paper and the telephone down with me. My head hit the oak and the phone hit my head. More contestants.

I stayed on the floor and waited for the world to slow down a bit, and then pushed myself up to a sitting position. After I got myself pretty much vertical, my eyes landed on another headline: Britany Bint, Daughter of Industrialist Reginald Bint, Missing. I read the story.

It looked like the underdog contestants, newspaper and telephone call, were getting ahead of strange feeling and boredom in points. . . .



Lee
____________________________

Edgar Bergen: “Bob, we were just wondering how one goes about becoming a writer.”
Robert Benchley: “Well, I’d just say the first thing to do if you want to be a writer is to write something. Almost all the big writers started out that way.”

 

[Midnight Palace]

Bint was somewhat of a playboy, often seen around town with one dame or the other. I remember when Britany was a little girl. There were questions about who held the maternal title. Britany got a lot of attention, I suppose to make up for the raw deal, but it was too much attention. She got out of hand, too independent, knew it all, you know the type - young, pretty, wealthy, and hardly no responsibility to anyone but the Bint name. With the elder Bint's reputation, maybe even the name was exempt from Britany's care.

I tried the shake the stupor from my clouded mind and brought myself back to my knees and then stood upright. The floor was still inflating and deflating, like the panicked heartbeat of a criminal. I took a minute to gather my thoughts. I could tell that the night would pull on my jacket until I turned around and stared it in the face. Reginald Dent, a one-time card player and frequent moonlighter, he loved to gamble. Now with his little girl missing, something wasn't sitting right.

 

[Jack Scorpion]

Another tidbit didn't sit right with me. I was a one-time card player, too. In fact, Reginald Bint -- or Reggie the Mint, as he was once called -- and I were once quite close. Too close at times. Even once the dimes started rolling in for Reggie and I quit the cards for a P.I.'s salary, the friendship never ended. The favors never ended. Whenever Reggie needed something done on the QT, he called me.

Until now. Suddenly his daughter was missing and my phone was going on a ringing strike. Reggie and I were never the most amiable of pals, but he knew I would have helped him for this. Britany was a handful, but I'd seen her grow up. I'd stick my neck out for her. I'd even do it for a discount price.

I could hear a healthy rain start. So I put on the rain coat. I could feel a storm brewing. So I tucked in my 45, nice and tight.

 

[dhermann1]

Hmmm . . . . cool

Question: who gets the movie rights?

 

[Midnight Palace]

I stood out front of the building, scanning the desolate streets with caution. The rain was getting heavier so I threw up my collar. Umbrella? I hadn't carried one in years. To me they looked like the mark of a coward, too afraid to get wet. I was never one to back down from a challenge....Mother Nature's or otherwise.

I knew that someone had to be prowling somewhere. I found it odd that the night would swallow the population. Even the cab drivers were out of sight. Maybe I was just too far removed. My office building was tucked away from the main drag....almost in an alley of sorts. I rarely used the rear exit. The old street light cast an ominous off-yellow glow down to the rough cement. It used to be bright, but I guess like all things in this city, that too had been beaten dim.

Tonight would end when it felt like it, I knew that much. What I didn't know was where I'd start out. I had a knot in my stomach that could've docked the Titanic, my own sure-fire panic button. Do I walk under the downpour until clues jump out, or should I make them appear?

 

[Nashoba]

I adjusted the fedora on my still throbbing head. I knew there was going to be a nasty lump in a few hours from where my head had introduced itself to the desk and then the telephone. The telephone….it had rung, sometime around four, hadn’t it? I tried to remember through the fog in my mind if I had picked up the call. The only answer I got was another couple eliminated from the lindy marathon and the blinking of neon in my head. I gave it up as a lost cause and went out into the night.

I saw a shadow lingering in the alley ahead. Instinct took over and I moved my hand towards my 45. This town could be rough and you couldn’t be too sure who might be on the prowl. As I quietly inched forward, preparing for the worst, my would be adversary stepped out of the shadows. I blinked in disbelief. Staring back at me disheveled and worn was the terror stricken face of non other than Reggie the Mint……

 

[Jack Scorpion]

He didn't look like a millionaire. Not now. Not tonight. Tonight, he shedded his Reginald Dint skin and rejoined the asphalt jungle. I hadn't seen the old Reggie the Mint in a long time.

When I noticed the way Reggie was bending over, I ran toward him. Before I got to him, the industrialist had fallen to his knees. Millionaire knees in a wet downtown gutter. It was a rotten night.

"Jimmy," the man said, but he didn't look up at me. His eyes were locked on the street and the running rain water and the wispy, red blood that slithered down the gutter. His blood.

 

[Midnight Palace]

I have to admit that I pegged Reggie for a suspect, but now with him slouched in front of me under the beating rain, I had to think faster. It's funny how little your dollars mean in the grand scheme. Wealth. It bought him everything but safety. I hardly had two nickels to rub together, but I had my misses, the .45. I had to call her my misses, she meant a lot to me, much more than the first woman I called wife. She was even more fatal than the gun.

I tried to get Reggie to speak, give me a clue, anything. Why wasn't he using his last breaths to name the culprit? Was he hiding something? Didn't he want me to find out? Was I over-analyzing? I am a PI after all, but sometimes looking too deeply causes one to miss the obvious. What was obvious here? Reggie was wounded, bleeding, in distress. I was confused, frustrated and little tired. The drugstore was out of coffee this afternoon.

 

[Lady Day]

There was a light out the corner of my eye. Someone was watching all of this. Watching or stumbling on. Damn. Sorry Reggie, I mumbled to myself as I set him back down. He was gone. Id have a drink for him later, right now the fry cook who spotted me went waddling out the front. To flag down a cop no doubt. Damn.

Alright, gotta calm this a bit, gotta get out of here. Wait-no. I bolted down the alley way and over the fence. Im guessing by then the blue shirts were over the body. Good thing the rain was heavy, the blood washed right off.

I ran to the end of the block then cooled myself. Not for just seeing my friend dead in the water, but for mostly so I wouldnt be a red haring. I know who they work is all.

I walked for a bit, and saw my favorite joint. Good, now I can get a drink. Also if he was there, maybe I could get some answers to some old questions.



Author's note: Man did I wanna use some words I couldnt!

LD

 

[Midnight Palace]

I threw open the door to the joint and stepped inside. It was called Shooters Bar, ironic I thought but comforting nonetheless. I always got the same drink when I went in, but maybe tonight should be different. There was sure to be a shady character or two drowning his problems. I was soaked from the outside rain and only had a half a pack of smokes left. I grabbed one from out of my pocket and sparked it up, blowing the first cloud of smoke into the air diagonally.

My eyes darted around the room. There was me, the bartender Frank and 4 or 5 others scattered around. Could one of them know something? Maybe. Maybe not. One thing was sure, the clues I had didn't amount to a hill of beans. There was the unnerving phone call from earlier, Reggie's dead body a few blocks away and a city of shadows concealing whatever evidence was out there. I checked my watch, 10:45pm. The night was young, at least by detective standards.

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

The door opens a minute or so later, and in walks this dame. Not just any dame mind ya, but the sort of gorgeous blond you'd expect to see in Hollywood. Curves in all the right places. She looked strangely familiar.
The joint went silent. Not as if there was any stimulating conversation happening anyway. All eyes are on this stunning refugee from the storm.
She walks right over to your's truly and sits down next to me at the bar!
She pulls out a Lucky from her purse and looks at me and says, "Hi,...give a lady a light?"

 

[Nashoba]

‘Sure’, I replied, slightly dumbfounded that she’d chosen me. I’ve never considered myself to be a handsome man, but with those sparkling baby blues staring back at me I started to think anything might be possible.

“What brings you into a joint like this doll?” I asked her. “A classy dame like you don’t belong in a dive like this”

“Are you Jimmy?”

Her voice was like silk and I shuddered inside. I downed the remaining scotch from my shot glass, debating how to answer and looking for strength from the amber liquid. I didn’t know yet if she was friendly or not. She knew my name and I’d never seen her before which was never a good combination. I signaled to Frank for another and turned my eyes back to her, involuntarily letting my eyes travel down to take in her exquisite perfection.

“Now that all depends on who’s asking’…..

 

[Midnight Palace]

She smiled mysteriously at my hesitation. I couldn't tell if she was annoyed or excited by the challenge. She looked at my empty glass and looked back at me, silently waiting for me to offer her a drink. What else could I do? She was a knockout of a dame and I needed something to take my mind off the dead end I'd been trailing.

"What's your poison?", I asked her.

She bit her lower lip a little. Ordinarily, a red-blooded man would perk up at the sight of a seductive woman. But me, I started to think this dame was up to something. Perhaps she was sent in as a diversion. I signaled to Frank to bring a bottle of something over, but she quickly reached for my arm and pulled it down.

"My poison?", she replied, "You".

 

[Nashoba]

I swallowed, hard. As I felt the blood coursing through my veins, I tried to remind myself she could be a liability. But those eyes…I started to slip into the fog I’d shaken off earlier and the lindy marathon began dancing again in my head. Get ahold of yourself Jimmy, I said to myself and shook myself free of her gaze.

“You didn’t answer me doll. Who’s asking?”

She smiled secretly knowing she had me in her sights. She glanced around quickly, discreetly.

“A friend”, she breathed. “You’re about to find yourself in a jam, I’m gonna help you out of it.

 

[Midnight Palace]

A jam? What did she mean? My smoke had burned down to it's filter and I needed another one. As I lit it up, I tried to keep my cool. I couldn't let her get to me, or at least, I couldn't let it show.

"Tell me about this jam...and how you plan to help me out it", I said.

"Well, I'm not sure", she replied. "You haven't told me if you're Jimmy or not"

I didn't want to admit it right away, but I knew I couldn't deny it for much longer. If she knew something that I needed to know, I wanted to know and she needed to tell.

"Yeah kid, I'm Jimmy", I said. "Who really wants to know? You didn't come all the way through this rain to trade small talk. I got a stiff on my hands and the night is just one of my enemies. Now what's this all about?" I asked.

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Question: who gets the movie rights?

I'll share them with MidnightPalace. lol

I made Britany up about three years ago, to be in a series of shorts about a P.I. I've always seen her with Veronica Lake look. I made up her father during last night's writing.


Lee
________________________

Sharing the wealth. lol

 

[Lady Day]

"I saw you rush in from from my pie at Mill's Diner, is all," she puffed. "By the looks of your hands shaking all around that drink, you runnin' from something."

"He was suppose to meet me here," I said.

"He sent me instead." This dame, was puillin' my last string.

"HEY!" the bartender yelled at a newcomer taking a seat, "get that wet lid off my mahogany! That's what the hooks are for you louse." Never seen a guy so protective of his counter.

"What are you doing!?" I cried grabbing the dame's hand. She was inching in my pocket. I pushed her away. Standing I rummaged and pulled out a match book. The Twilight Hotel, it read. I flipped open the cover. Room 314. This is, or rather was Reggie's hotel.

She saw the matchbook and darted for the door.

"Wait!" I yelled. It was too late. She had a car waiting. I ran out, tab unpaid into the rain. I was good for it, he knew. I had to beat her there, but it was across town, and I had an advantage, I knew what room.


LD

 

[MrNewportCustom]

Unfortunately, I didn't have a car. So, I hoofed it until I found a hack stand. No good! I hacked the stand with a fist and beat leather for the Twilight Hotel.

As I rounded a corner, a car was facing me on the wrong side of the road. My side. A man who could best be described as Hugo the Mungus got out and aimed a gun big enough to shoot down a B-52 at me. I slid on the wet sidewalk until I'd slowed enough to turn around, and I went back around the corner, behind the safety of bricks just as a bullet nearly ripped my right ear clean off.

I pulled out my gun and aimed back at him. I took two shots that went wild. For a brief moment, I regretted having named her "Misses." A little too ironic at this time. Maybe "Gertrude" would be better.

Hugo the Mungus got back into the car and his driver swung it around and drove away. He wasn't slow about it, either.


Lee

 

[Maj.Nick Danger]

I was in luck for once! Just then a cab pulled around the corner.
"The Twilight Hotel,...and step on it!" I told the cabby as I jumped into the back seat.
My head was throbbing like a steam engine. A million thoughts raced through my mind. "Who was this dame? Why did she look so familiar to me? Who killed Reg?"
A lot of people maybe wanted him dead. Maybe he had some enemies he'd made from his gambling?
The cabby tried to make small talk, but his words just droned on and were lost in the staccato rhythm of the rain on the windshield.
"I don't wanna get no ticket Mac!" He said.
"I'll make it worth your effort, just drive!"