Dis-pa-rate (Adj.) 1- Markedly distinct in quality or character.
Dan (n.)
1- A son of Jacob and Bilhah.
2- A male given name, form of Daniel.
3- A prolific bloggist and all-round human being.
Welcome to the first in the series of...
Chapter 1: Pussies Galore
I flung myself out of bed and straight into my bespoke trench coat. I paused to remove the spokes, wondering again why I had asked the tailor to put them in. This was the seventh time this week that Tom had roused me before cock-crow, and I didn't even own a cock. I threw myself out of the front door, then clambered off the ground and into my trusty old Austin Max, which started with nary a splutter.
Driving to Howitzer House, I ruminated upon the nature of my job. Being a private dick, it isn't unusual for me to occasionally ruminate upon things, which is probably why I am such a chisel-jawed, trench coat-wearing, cliche-bustingly good one. As dicks go, few are more private than me and mine. I was the best of the best, and nobody knew it. Except I.
I screeched to a halt outside my destination, waiting as the hydraulic door of my Maxi raised stylishly to allow me to exit the vehicle. They'd cost me a months salary, but damn me if they didn't look the canine's cojones. I walked to the door of the building, knocked the secret knock, dinged the secret doorbell, then yelled the secret password through the secret letterbox.
'Lost your keys again, Dan?' laughed Jeanette as she let me in. 'Tom's upstairs. He told me to give you this.'
She handed me a piece of paper, giving me time to admire her buxom hands and wrists. Jeanette was a curvaceous, vivacious and flirtatious little piece, and I'd always suspected that she had something of a hot spot for yours truly.
'I'll just go up then, shall I?' I asked, my voice overbrimming with gravelly husk.
'I'd clear your throat first if I were you,' she winked, flashing a little thigh. I'd always admired her little thighs. 'You sound like you have quite a cold.'
'Ah, this? It's nothing,' I growled, sniffing heterosexually.
'Well, he's expecting you then.'
I sauntered past, pausing only to deliver a firm slap to Jeanette's shapely backside, and received a solid punch to the face in return. I like a woman with a bit of spirit. Ascending the stairs, I could already see Tom's plate glass door winking malevolently at me. Tom Howitzer - Detective Agency was embossed upon it in stark black letters. I paused to read the piece of paper that Jeanette had handed me, then flung open the door to his office.
'What is this pony?!' I demanded, flinging the piece of paper onto his desk. Tom looked up and idly dismissed the pony, which had been grazing on his yucca plant, and turned his attention to me.
'Dan,' he said casually. 'Nice of you to come in. You're bleeding, by the way.'
'Never mind that!' I said, wiping the blood from my nose. 'Jeanette. Flirting with me. Got a bit rough. Its her period, probably.' Tom eyeing the blood on my face with renewed distaste. 'Not this! I meant her temper. You know women. Anyway, what is all this?' I demanded again, stabbing at the piece of paper.
'Put the knife down, Dan,' said Tom, wearily. 'That's your new assignment. Starting today. The usual fee.'
'Lost cat?' I cried. 'This is amateur stuff!'
'Stop crying, Dan. I'm giving you this because of your recent "performances". I think you know what I'm talking about. You've been getting sloppy.'
'Sloppy? What about my last job? The hotel? The luggage full of dynamite? I blew that case wide open, didn't I?'
'And injured two sous-chefs and a kitchen porter in the process, as I remember.'
'If they couldn't stand the heat, they should have got out of the kitchen,' I retorted wittily.
'Enough of your witty retorts. This has got to stop. I'm giving you this case, and you can take it or leave it.'
I had to take it. To put it plainly, I needed the scratch. My cheese was licked if I didn't rustle up the green, and old Bertie would have come a-knocking if I didn't pony up the dough.
'Ok Tom. I'll do the job. But after it's done, I want to leave the kids table. I want a taste of the real action again, Tom, another bite at the cherry.' I stood up to go. 'Oh, and by the way, your pony's upped some dough on your office rug.' I indicated the steaming pile of manure, then turned stylishly and took my leave.
*****
Cats. I hated em. From their bristling whiskers to their fetid feet. I'd never known a cat I could trust, and I didn't want to meet one either. Because I wouldn't trust it. It was a cat that scarred me on the scrotum all those years ago, and I could tell from the glint in his eye that he'd have happily done it again. And here I was, hiding in a dingy back-alley, on the trail of one of his flea-bitten brethren. A quarry I could afford to lose as much as I wanted to catch. Which is not at all. For both.
I'd been to the owner's house, a dowdy old broad with sagging hips and child-bearing breasts. I'd tasted the cat-litter and pronounced it to be clean, at which point the old mare had left me to it. I'd circled the yard on all fours, my backside in the air, trying to pick up a trail. And that was when I found a clue. A receipt for 6 tins of cat-food, purchased from the nearby corner-shop, and signed with a clumsy hand.
I soon deduced that if a cat were to escape, it would want to go straight to the source of its food. I knew the shop in question, as I used to buy most of my pornography from there. The shopkeeper had an unfriendly face and had often warned me against perusing his merchandise before purchasing it - once calling the police when I had become particularly engrossed by a fascinating article in Hot Steamy Jugs and failed to notice my trousers had come adrift. He and me - we were old rivals, and I didn't relish going back onto his turf.
But there I was, in the alley next to the 7-11, ready to go in. I cocked my trusty service revolver, before remembering that masturbating with a firearm was why I had that unsightly scar on my upper left thigh. So instead I straightened my trousers, and stepped up to the side-entrance. From inside, I could hear the treacherous miaowing of my quarry. I stiffened and braced myself against the door.
'KICK!' I shouted as I kicked the door in. The cat - loathsome swine - stood frozen, framed in the splintered doorframe. I dived in upon this feline tableau, grabbing the moggy and shoving it violently into a large hessian sack, which I had had the foresight to bring along.
'Who's there?' came a muffled voice from the floor above, a voice I recognised as that of Mr Gionelli, the stern shopkeeper. I said nothing, but fired twice into the ceiling as I withdrew through the door. I heard a loud cry and a sound like a man dropping a large sack of potatoes. 'Blast,' I said to myself. 'He's dropped his potatoes and is coming down to get me. I've got to get out of here!' I ran helter-skelter through a network of alleys so complex that for a moment I suspected that the city's chief architect might had been MC Escher. The artist, not the DJ.
But then, all of a sudden, I was in the clear. Scott-free. Off the hook. Bang to ri- no, not that one. Free. That's what I was. I was by my car, and there wasn't a soul in sight.
I tossed the cat roughly into the back of my Austin, and hopped in as the sound of sirens started to split the sleeping city air. I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. Not a muffled chug emitted from the engine, nor a whine from the starter motor, although the windscreen wipers did come on of their own accord. But then they always did that, which was a very handy feature when it was raining. I hammered the steering wheel.
'Not now!' I shouted, raising my hammer again and this time walloping the glove-box. 'Not here!'
I fell into silence when a blue light glanced off my rear-mirror. I turned to see a pair of headlights turn into the street behind me, a flashing blue light above them, and the wailing of a siren emitting thereof. I buried my head in my hands as the car drew up behind me.
To be continued...
Buried in Pomposity is written by Dan. He likes you a lot.
2 - Marvel at the box.
