16480--Similarities to Persons Living or Dead (Ch. 10)

Happy Thursday. To help keep my own feet to the fire, I'm using Thursday as my public accountability day. That means, posting a bit of coherently creative output for you to read and feedback on every week. If I perform according to my own intent, what I put here will be available as a whole elsewhere at the same time or shortly after appearing here.
Similarities to Persons Living or Dead is currently available as a part of The Official Private Eye Handbook, first book in the CITY OF MAGICK series. Please, feel free to take a look here, though, and at subsequent chapters. Let me know how you feel about it. For those of you finding your way here relatively late, no problem. The start of the story is just a click away.

SIMILARITIES TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD

Chapter 10

Harmony was right when she said that Corvus needed further scrutiny. What she needed, though was a break from looking over her shoulder and maybe even some sleep if she could get it. I took Harmony back to my apartment. Letting Berlin babysit her had to be better than following me onto unknown turf.

My new assistant was adjusting my recently acquired and emptied treasure box on a small pedestal on the far side of the living room. So far, though, the box had seemed to be more of a treasure than the curious contents.

“What happened in here?” I asked as Harmony and I took off our private eye hats and peeled off our private eye trench coats (all standard issue, of course).

“She’s been cleaning, Brick,” Harmony said. “Remember? We talked about this.”

“I don’t think I like it,” I sneered. “It looks…unnatural.”

“Do you have any more souvenirs, Brick?” Jonni asked.

“Souvenirs?” I parroted. “Is that what you think that box is? That thing’s been nothing but a pain in my ass for days. What makes you think I want to keep it around?” I was reminded of the warm plastic square I had in my pocket. My hand drifted there to make sure it was still where I’d put it. It was, which meant it still hadn’t incinerated me and I still had to figure out what to do with it. I sighed. “We got the…whatever it is out of it and we don’t need the stupid box anymore.”

“It’s like a trophy from your adventures,” she said. “It makes a nice decoration. If you have some others, I can rework the whole living room around them. Doesn’t that sound great?”

“She wants a ‘yes’, doesn’t she?” I asked Harmony.

“Brick Stone,” Harmony scowled, “you be nice. She’s trying hard for you.”

“She’s trying alright,” I said. “She’s very trying.”

“Do you think this would look better closed or open?” Jonni asked, stepping up to the leather-trimmed box and quickly opening its lid. “Wha--?”

“I think it would look better out in the alley,” I said. “If there’s anything here that I’ve had more than a week, it’s because it got pulled out of the remains of the war zone that my last apartment turned into. Thanks for the happy memory, though.”

“What’s the matter, Jonni?” Harmony asked, starting to walk toward her.

I was just starting to notice that she was standing still and staring into the box, almost frozen and slack-jawed. She had a more puzzled look than usual on her face.

“I thought you said that this thing was empty,” Jonni said, “and your little card was the only thing--”

“What’re you talking about?” I asked. “Are you saying there’s something else in there? No way! It was empty!”

“Let me see,” Harmony said, craning her neck to see past the box lid as she moved around the furniture.

“Is that a…cooler?” Harmony asked.

“Looks like,” Jonni said, reaching out a hand to it. Before I could say anything to stop her, she lifted the lid on the plastic cooler to find, “It’s full of flats of eggs.”

“Green eggs,” Harmony said.

“Well, there’s something you don’t see everyday,” Jonni said. “You know, unless you’re Dr. Seuss.”

“Sounds like something I don’t need to see any day,” I said, walking their way.

“Hand me that glass, would you please?” Jonni asked Harmony as the curious blonde picked up an egg about the shade of broccoli.

Harmony grabbed the tumbler from my squarish dining table behind them and took a couple of hurried steps to hold it out to Jonni. Jonni promptly cracked the eggshell on the rim of the glass and opened the egg over it. The contents of the shell flowed down from her hand as normally as I could’ve expected from any normal egg. In the case of the egg dropping into the glass before us, though, the "white" was mint green and the yolk was deep forest green.

“Wow,” Harmony said, taking a step back with her eyes fixed on the glass.

“This does not bode well,” I said, pulling the idiot plastic card from my pocket. “Where’d those things come from?” I asked it.

>Where’d what come from?

“The green eggs,” I said.

>What green eggs?

I should’ve known better. I honestly didn’t know why I had bothered.

“Oooh, I have got to cook some of these up!” Jonni said with a sudden burst of excitement. She grabbed at the sides of the cooler and lifted it out of the box, looking to me and asking, “Do you have any ham?”

“OK, I don’t think I like where this is going,” I told her, but apparently I was the only one still listening to me. The box lid fell shut again, jostled by Jonni as she dragged the cooler out of the box.

“I’ll be in the kitchen!” Jonni called out as she turned and hurried off.

“I am not eating that!” Confident in my practiced skills of observation, I was certain I’d have noticed the presence of a cooler that nearly filled the box. It wasn’t in there before.

I didn’t notice until too late that Harmony had set the glass back on the table and turned back to the box. She was opening it again before I could ask, “What the Hell?”

“Oh, Brick, look,” Harmony said with awe, reaching in and gently picking up what looked like a small spice rack.

“That’s not looking,” I said. “That’s touching. When did you lose your mind?”

“Aren’t they beautiful?” she asked, whispering as she gazed at the several small vials of a faintly glowing turquoise liquid, each stopped by a cork.

“Beautiful? What is it?” I asked. “Never mind. Set it down.” I looked back into the box. Thankfully, there was nothing el…No, there was a small piece of paper. I picked it up and read, “Love Potion: Do not use in combination with prescription medications, country music, or peanut butter."

“Really?” Harmony asked. “Oh, lord! It smells awful!”

“Wha--“ I looked to see that she had removed one of the corks as a noxious odor, similar to burning hog fat, assaulted my nose. “Oh, my--Why did you open it?” I asked as the bottle started to glow brighter, bubble and shake. “Never mind!” I said, taking the vial from her and putting it back in its space on the rack. I quickly picked up the whole rack, put it back into the box and slammed the lid shut. We took a couple of steps back as the box shuddered. Then, I noticed the smell was gone and all was quiet. I could smell eggs cooking in what had been alleged to be my kitchen.

Feeling that the box seemed safe enough to approach, I considered dropping it out my window. Instead, I lifted the lid to see what had happened. For just a second, it felt almost like I was experiencing that moment when one cautiously lifts the seat of a gurgling toilet to see if it was going to overflow.

“Well?" Harmony asked.

“Weird," I said, fully lifting the lid. “It looks like a map."  I had joined the others in Crazytown, obviously. Maybe the map could help me find my way back.

“Is that leather?" Harmony asked, feeling the map as I picked it up to examine.

“Yeah, it’s the skin from something alright,” I said. “Where do you suppose…Ausparlous is?”

“Never heard of it,” she said, pointing at the lower right corner of the map, “but it looks like G.X. Horace managed to find it in 1937.”

“Indeed,” I said, continuing to look over the map of the unknown land. A large arrow pointed upward on the right side of the map, reading "Great Western Shaft to the Upper World." “Hmm…underground, maybe,” I said, handing Harmony the three-foot by two-foot piece of leather. I noticed a ball in the box. I picked up a metal sphere, about the size of a softball, perfectly round and seamless. I wasn’t sure what the metal was, but the surface was smooth, a little cool and had a slight purple tint. From inside, I could hear a rattling sound, as if something smaller was contained within the hollow sphere.

“Hollow?” Harmony asked.

“Sounds like,” I said. “Aha! Another note.” Within the crate was a small piece of wrinkled note paper. Scrawled in faded black ink, it appeared to be part of someone's notes: "...has proven resistant to the steam drill, as well. I held it against the thing until it broke down, but not a scratch is upon it. Tomorrow, must try the hydraulic press... Can any force reveal the contents?"

“Oooh,” Harmony said, grabbing at the metal ball and shaking it. “Spooky weird.”

“We got lucky,“ I said as I closed the box. “There’s obviously a lot more to this box than we thought.”

“Listen to you. You just always expect the worst!“ Harmony said, flipping the box lid back open. “Nothing bad has happ--”

I tried to stop her, but even though I pulled her away from the box, she still managed to get the lid open. I pulled her back just as a hail of arrows came flying out of the box and up into the ceiling. We could hear the sounds of battle--shouting and screaming and crashing metal--from inside the box.

“OK,” Harmony said, “I stand corrected. Does that sound like it’s getting louder to you, Brick?”

“Seriously?” I asked, peeking over the edge of the box top. I actually wasn‘t surprised when I seemed to be looking down on an active battlefield rather than seeing the interior of an empty box. “Like we haven’t been shot at enough today?”

“Sorry,” Harmony said.

I side-stepped around the box and reached out to knock the lid shut. Then, grabbing a blanket from the couch, I opened it and threw it over the box. “No more playing with the box,” I said. “Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Harmony said softly.

Jonni returned from the kitchen with a plate and a fork, already eating as she hurried into a seat at the dining table.

“Berlin! No more messing with the box,” I said. She looked at me curiously, one of her cheeks puffed with food as she chewed. I pointed up at the ceiling. She looked up at the cluster of arrows.

“Got it, boss,” she said, resuming her chewing. “These are great, by the way. Oh, you’re out of ham.”

“Thanks for the update,” I said. “Can we get back to work?”

“Sure,” Jonni said. “Say, where’d you disappear to before?”

“I think I caught a timeslip when some insistent acquaintances magicked me away for a pointless meeting,” I explained. “They were actually interested in this stupid box.”

“Somebody else is after our eggs?” Jonni asked. “We can’t just let them have them! They‘re ours!”

“I’m not sure they knew about the eggs,” I told her. “From my experience, they’re much heartier eaters than that.”

“Who are these people?” she asked.

“They wouldn’t give their names,“ I said. “They were rakaraka…or something.”

“What?”

“A talking tiger-guy, well, two this time,” I explained.

“A what?” Harmony asked.

“You heard me. He was in a red silk kimono and smoking a pipe.”

“A rakshasa? Two rakshasas? You should stay away from those, Brick,” Jonni insisted. “They’re deadly. You have to know that.”

“You’re telling me? You ever seen them eat?”

“They’re cunning and evil and really tough to kill.”

“Well, so far, they’ve only tried to talk me to death,” I told them. “Oh, and they were with this dwarf wizard, Tillmaren.”

“Tillmaren? They were with Tillmaren?” Jonni asked, getting agitated again. “You met Tillmaren?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You know him? He‘s somebody special?”

“Who?” Jonni asked. “Just kidding. No,” she said, “I don’t know him, but I’ve heard of him. He‘s a powerful wizard.”

“And they want the box,” Harmony said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess they do.”

“With Tillmaren involved, boss,“ Jonni said, “you may want to consider giving them what they want.”

“I’ll make a note,” I said. “It goes on the back burner for now, though. I’ve got some other bushes to beat first. Make sure she gets some rest.”

“So thoughtful,” Jonni said with an admiring smile. “A good man with such a great heart.”

“Berlin!”

“Whatever you say, boss,” Jonni said, continuing to work on her plate of green eggs. “Don’t forget the ham.”

16466--Similarities to Persons Living or Dead (Ch. 8)

Happy Thursday. To help keep my own feet to the fire, I'm using Thursday as my public accountability day. That means, posting a bit of coherently creative output for you to read and feedback on every week. If I perform according to my own intent, what I put here will be available as a whole elsewhere at the same time or shortly after appearing here.Similarities to Persons Living or Dead is currently available as a part of The Official Private Eye Handbook, first book in the CITY OF MAGICK series. Please, feel free to take a look here, though, and at subsequent chapters. Let me know how you feel about it. For those of you finding your way here relatively late, no problem. The start of the story is just a click away.

SIMILARITIES TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD

Chapter 8

The afternoon sun was shining down, hot and bright. The warm Bermuda sands were thick with bikini-clad tanned flesh, lounging in the heat. I was on a yacht, about fifty yards offshore, lounging on one of the deck chairs. A platinum blonde came up from below deck in a bikini I could almost see through and wasn’t covering very much anyway. Her long, silky hair danced in the warm breeze. Her body was a dizzying balance of fitness and curves. As she walked closer, her hips snaking from side to side with each step, I noticed she had a pitcher of some fruity drink in one hand and two bottles of sun tan lotion in the other. I could see I was going to need a whole bottle of lotion just for those legs. Then, she smiled and I didn’t notice anything else at all…until a door slammed.

I was awake. As I sat up slowly and lifted my private eye hat (standard issue) off my eyes, I saw that I was in my office. Damn. I realized the fingers of my left hand were tangled up in a slender gold chain. I looked in my hand and saw I was holding an amethyst heart. Whitney’s amethyst. Wasn’t I just dreaming about--?

“I’m back, Brick,” Jonni sang out with what I was coming to realize was a characteristic and possibly disturbing perkiness.

“And with such an entrance,” Harmony said.

“Swell,” I said. “Did I miss anything?”

“All quiet here,” Harmony said.

In front of me on my desk, the delicate pinging sounded again as the chatty plastic prize tried to get my attention. I looked at the gray screen.

“Is it saying something, Brick?” Harmony asked.

>Dream has been successfully recorded.

>Ready for replay in user-selectable format, described in text or archived for later retrieval.

“Oooh, I wanna see,” Jonni said excitedly, hurrying around my desk.

“You’re too young,” I said. “We’ll just archive that until I can figure out how to erase stuff.”

“Oh, poop!” Jonni said indignantly. “You been jewelry shopping? Or is that a clue? Looks fancy. Is it old and pricey?”

“Don’t worry about it,“ I said, shoving the pendant back into my shirt pocket.

“You do know that it’s glowi--”

“Didn’t I send you out for information?”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Jonni said. “Information I‘ve got.”

“Hallelujah. Spill it.”

“Well, we were hitting dead ends. We’ve still got nothing on SOC yet and it was looking pretty bleak with the pictures, too,“ she said, handing me a week-old newspaper, “until I found this one.”

“You found a newspaper in a newspaper building?” Harmony asked.

“How proud your parents must be,” I said.

“Just look at the picture on page 6, Grumpy,” Jonni said. “Her name is Sheila Taylor and she was found dead in her townhouse just over a week ago.”

“Ironic,” I said.

“How so?” Jonni asked.

“These photos of her,” I said. “These two were meeting in a cemetery.”

“Oooh, spooky,” Jonni said.

“So Mr. Taylor was the client that hired Lew for his last case,” Harmony began, “and Sheila Taylor was the wife he was following?”

“Well, she is in these photos with a guy we’ll assume wasn’t the client and, thus, not Mr. Taylor,” I said. “You find anything on him?”

“Sure did,” Jonni said, grabbing a doughnut. “His name’s Alex Gold.”

“Anything more than a name?” Harmony asked.

“That’s the funny part,” Jonni said.

“Make me laugh, blondie,” I told her.

“He’s dead, too.”

“OK, so Mrs. Taylor starts sneaking out on Mr. Taylor to spend time with Mr. Gold,” I said. “Mr. Taylor gets suspicious and gets Lew Manning to follow her around and get pictures. Mr. Taylor finds out what his Mrs. is up to and sends her and her friend off to wherever people go when they’re done with their bodies. Now Mr. is hunting Harmony down to recover any evidence that might link him to the whole sordid affair. Another mystery solved and the crowd goes freaking wild.”

“Except that there have been multiple people chasing me, Brick,” Harmony said. “It’s been days and I’m not sure if he’s even one of them. It looks like they have something to do with these SOC cards, though.”

“Well, maybe he’s part of a coven or something that’s getting messages through the cards,” I said. “There’s something supernatural going on when they’re going to keep coming at us through the hail of bullets, which reminds me: I’ve got to pick up a new order of bullets. If the husband’s still loose and looking for our Miss Storm, then we’ll assume the police didn’t see fit to detain him in connection with his wife’s demise. Maybe if we could check out Gold’s body, we could get something more on him. Where’d they find him, Jonni? How’d he die?”

“In a big, loud, fiery car wreck…three years ago,” Jonni told us.

“Yet he’s alive in pictures taken this month,” I said. “So, either those are fake, his death was faked, or someone was after some benefit derived from Gold still being above ground and hanging with Mrs. Taylor.”

“Which could also be a reanimation or an actor,” Harmony said.

“Notice how I‘m not laughing,” I said. “I remember this guy I had to track down once who used a magical disguise. It was one of those fake glasses, rubber nose and mustache things…but enchanted. It was the…Mantle of Proteus!”

“You think this might be that?” Harmony asked.

“Nah, it was unique as far as I know,” I said. “I was just reminding myself of how little amusement I usually get from magic. This is obviously going to take a little extra time. And apparently some leg work. And probably more bullets.”

“Sorry, boss,” Jonni said. “I didn’t mean to make things more complicated.”

“Story of my life. Excuse me a moment, ladies. I need to visit the euphemism. I‘ll try to resist the urge to flush this thing and be right back.” I slid the plastic square into my pocket as I stood, wondering if it might not put me out of my misery quickly. I tossed my private eye hat (standard issue) and private eye trench coat (standard issue) onto my desk and headed for the bathroom door in the corner of the room.

As I closed the door behind myself and reflexively reached for the light switch, I realized that the switch wasn’t where my hand usually found it. Or maybe it was as I slowly came to realize that the dimly lit room I was in wasn’t my bathroom, which meant that I was the one out of place. I saw a shelf a few feet away with a curious-looking statue on it. Walking toward it, I saw that it was three odd little men, carved from stone and squatting back-to-back-to-back. It didn’t look too comfy and…each one had a third eye in its forehead. There was a note taped to the shelf that read: Store for further study. Next to the statue were a lot of other random items that I guessed fell into the same category. There was a lead fountain pen, a crystal rabbit, an open pocket watch that was running backwards--

“We meet again, Mr. Stone,” a gravelly voice said from behind me.

I turned to see what appeared to be a tiger, walking upright and wearing a silk robe. I‘d been on this ride before. “How’ve you been, Tony? Still keeping the laughter in the slaughterhouse?” I asked the talking, pipe-smoking tiger.

“Tip-top, old chap. Flattered that you remember me.”

“You’re tough to forget, Tony.”

“To be sure,” he said. “I wanted you to meet some of my associates in the Cult--”

“--That Collects Weird Stuff, so you brought me to your…storeroom. I think I get it.”

“Admittedly, inauspicious,” Tony said, “but the Hall of Sacred Mysteries is reserved for devotees of our faith.”

“Like your friend there,” I said, giving a nod to the black-robed tiger behind him.

“Indeed. She is another of my tribe,” Tony said, “and Tillmaren,” he continued, drawing my attention to the dwarf at my knee who was holding a gnarled wooden staff that stood just taller than my waist.

“Good day, Mr. Stone,” the bearded dwarf said, bowing formally in his white and red robe. “I am the exalted wizard Tillmaren. If you’ve something for me to sign, I’ll give you an autograph at half-price, but do try to restrain yourself from fawning. It’s terribly undignified and quickly grows tiresome.”

“I…left my autograph book in my coat,” I said. “Darn. Next time.”

“Next time it will be full price,” Tillmaren warned.

“Mr. Stone,” Tony said, “you’ve opened the box.”

“Yeah, how--?”

“Tillmaren’s spells--”

“Divination is but a trifle for the great Tillmaren!” the dwarf proclaimed.

“Open,” Tony said, “it was traceable.”

“Right,” I said. “Alarms went off and you pulled me in. Swell. I hate to burst your bubble, but all that was in it was this.” I pulled the plastic square from my pocket and held it up to show them. It began to ping again.

>No, please!

>Don’t leave me here!

>Don’t leave me with them!

>Anywhere but here!

Well, how about that? I wasn‘t even going to try to guess. “Usually, when I get a lame prize out of a box, there’s at least cereal,“ I told them.

“You got that from the box?” the second tiger asked with a slightly higher gravelly voice than Tony.

“Right,” I responded.

“That’s all that came from it? Nothing else?” Tillmaren asked. “No casualties?”

“Hard to believe, I know,” I said. “I had to take a second look, too.” They started to talk in hushed tones amongst themselves. “I haven’t quite figured out what to make of it yet,” I offered. “It hasn’t shown me what makes it as dangerous as it’s supposed to be yet.” The mumbling grew more agitated and arms were waved. I saw Tony’s eyes glance my way.

I wasn’t sure I hadn’t overplayed my hand. Having sprung the secret surprise from the elusive treasure box, and shown them that I had it on me, they could have easily decided that I’d outlived my usefulness. They were probably debating what to do with the little plastic card, how many pieces to chop me into and whether I‘d go best with white or red wine.

“Mr. Stone,” Tony said, “you should go now.”

Tillmaren tapped the floor with his staff and a door began to creak open in what had appeared to be a dark wall. A bit of light showed through from beyond, displaying the outline of my exit.

“That’s it, huh?” I asked, watching the threesome extremely carefully.

“We’ll be in touch,” Tony said. “We have…issues of import to consider.”

“OK, then,” I said, heading for the door. “Enjoy your weird stuff. Thanks for having me over.” Stepping through the door, I really didn’t know where I was heading, but I figured it had to be a step up.

The door closed behind me as I stepped back into my office. Harmony was sitting at the newly revealed desk and suddenly noticed that I had returned. It looked like she had opened up a box of my old case files and was reading through a stack of them. “A little light reading?”

“Brick!” she blurted my name sharply, jumping a little bit in the chair. She was obviously startled. Then, I noticed her fidgeting with the pen in her hand.

“What’re you doing?” I asked, walking toward the desk for a closer look. “You find something interesting?”

“I-I…Well, I…”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, hanging her head. “I ran out of paper clips.”

“What’re you talking about?” I asked her, my eyes scanning the desk top. “There’s a pile right there. It looks like there are boxes of them.”

She grabbed at the little pile of twisted steel bits and lifted a bunch of them off the desk high enough to show me that they had been chained together. “You were gone and Jonni left and I was starting to get anxious waiting and…and…I started chaining them.”

“Till you ran out.”

“Yeah,” she said, “and then I had to find something else.”

“Did you consider unchaining them, perhaps?” I asked.

“That’s not the way it works, Brick,” she said, giving me a look that said I clearly didn’t understand the situation. “I started looking for things to read and I was trying really hard not to start tearing the paper into little pieces--”

“Thanks,” I said. “I remember the diner.”

“--but I kept noticing…the holes…”

“Holes?” I asked, looking at the page in front of her where I saw what she had been writing or, more accurately, scribbling. The page was still readable, but there was definitely a lot more ink on it than there was ever intended to be.

“In the letters,” she explained. “Next thing I knew, I had a pen and I was filling in all the holes. Every ‘O’, ‘P’, ‘R’--”

“I get it. I get it,” I assured her. “You OK?”

“Now, I guess. Where’ve you been?” she asked.

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” I said. “Somebody wanted a meeting.”

“You disappeared,” she said, walking toward me.

“Only for a few minutes.”

“No, you disappeared. I checked the bathroom.”

“Say, where’s Berlin?”

“In Germany,” she said. “Is that important?”

“Only to residents, I’d imagine. I meant, my new secretary. Where is she?”

“Oh, she went on to get started on your apartment,” Harmony said. “You’ve been gone over an hour. I was starting to get worried.”

“I must’ve hit a timeslip,” I said, “and I still need to pee.”

“Well…”

“Yeah, I’m not even trying this door again today,” I said. “It’s obviously not working right. I’ll wait for the next one.”

“OK,” Harmony said. “What’s our next move?”

“We go make some other people worry,” I told her. I tapped at the plastic square. It pinged back at me.

>Is it safe?

“Is it ever?” I asked it back. “File a reminder: we’re going to have a talk later.”

I shoved it back in my pocket as Harmony and I went for our hats and coats.

16405--In Warm Blood (Ch. 13)

Happy Thursday. To help keep my own feet to the fire, I'm using Thursday as my public accountability day. That means, posting a bit of coherently creative output for you to read and feedback on every week. If I perform according to my own intent, what I put here will be available as a whole elsewhere at the same time or shortly after appearing here.

In Warm Blood is currently available as a part of The Official Private Eye Handbook, first book in the CITY OF MAGICK series.  Please, feel free to take a look here, though, and at subsequent chapters. Let me know how you feel about it.  For those of you finding your way here relatively late, no problem. The start of the story is just a click away.

IN WARM BLOOD

Chapter 13

It was still a dark and stormy night. The portal had opened into an alley across the street. No sooner had we stepped to the sidewalk than we were accosted by a hustler. The rain couldn’t wash everything off the streets.

“Come on, man,” he pleaded, following us as we crossed the street to get to the train station. “Two sovereigns! Just two! You won’t get a fresher batch of magic beans anywhere in town for that price. Two sovereigns!” he insisted, grabbing the coat sleeve of one of my escorting gangsters who promptly threw the overly forward hustler to the ground, beans and all.

“Hey, give me my gun back,” I said, as we started up the steps to the station entrance, “and I’ll shoot him myself.”

“Quiet, Stone,” Muttonchops said. “Get inside.”

I shook some of the extra water off my private eye trench coat (standard issue) as we stepped out of the rain and into the South Riverside Train Station. By the big clock up on the wall, it was way past my bedtime. It must‘ve been past bedtime for a lot of people, since the station looked to be pretty much deserted. All things considered, though, I was feeling good. I was feeling focused and determined. I figured I probably had about ten minutes left to figure out how to use that to my advantage. Otherwise, I was just going to be very alert when a train came to park on my head. “Why does it take four of you guys to handle one of me?” I asked.

“You been tough to kill,” the one with my gun said, apparently the leader since he had my gun. “Boss wants to make sure it gets done right this time.”

“He don’t look so tough t’me,” Muttonchops said.

That one probably thought he should be the field trip leader instead. I could work with that. “Are we there yet?”

“Shut up, smart guy,” Muttonchops ordered. “He’s drivin’ me friggin’ nuts. See how funny he is when we get to the express track.”

“Calm down,” New Suit said. “We’ll be down there in a minute.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” I said. “I’ve gotta pee like a racehorse.”

“Nobody cares, Stone!” Muttonchops barked. “Shut up already!”

“Now, that’s just mean,” I said. “We’re all guys here. How can you just not care?”

“Watch me.”

“Man, at least your boss was polite about all this,” I said. “You could really stand to learn some better manners from him and your buddies here.”

“I don’t care what nobody else says,” Muttonchops replied. “You’re goin’ down, tough guy! You wanna piss? Piss on yourself!”

“See? That’s just rude,” I pointed out to the other uglies. “It shouldn’t be too big a surprise, I guess. If he doesn’t even care about how the boss does things, he’s not gonna care about what I have to say.”

“Damn right,” he said.

“I’d watch this guy,” I said to the head goon. “He’ll probably come after you next, then Ferrari. Or maybe he‘s gonna do it the other way around and make you--”

“Shut up, you!” Muttonchops barked as we reached the train platform.

He took a swing at my head, but I was watching for it and ducked his punch. “Uh-oh, looks like I touched a nerve. It’s like they say: watch out for the threats from inside.” I had no idea who said things like that, but I figured it sounded ominous enough to worry them.

“I’ve had enough of you, Stone!” Muttonchops shouted as he charged. “I’ll shut your mouth for you!”

“Hey, calm down!” Comb-over said, wrestling with Muttonchops to hold him back. “You’re gonna get us pinched.”

“What’s the matter, Donny?” New Suit asked him. “Did he say something he shouldn’t have? You making some big plans to go with the big talk you’re always spoutin’ off?”

“What?” Muttonchops asked. “You ain’t actually gonna listen to this punk are you?”

“I don’t know. Should I? You’re the one always sayin’ how you got better ideas for how to do things,” he said, grabbing at the other guy‘s coat. “Maybe you’re thinking this trial coming up is your big shot.”

Or maybe it was mine. Three of them were tied up fighting with each other and the fourth one was paying more attention to them than to me. I was pretty sure I was the only one who had noticed the sound of the approaching train. I knew I had to act fast, so I grabbed Slouchy by the collar and smashed my elbow into his face. With him stunned, I grabbed his pistol from its shoulder holster and shoved him into the other three. The stooges fell, stumbling and shouting. New Suit was trying to keep his balance, but his head was at just the right height to present an irresistible target for my foot. He went down hard, as Muttonchops was getting up and trying to charge at me. Him I grabbed by the arm and collar as I side-stepped. With a little helpful steering, his own power carried him face-first into the side of the passing express train. “Oooh! That looked so very painful,” I said with a wince as the dumbass was tossed away from the speeding train and collapsed like a rag doll onto the station platform.

Suddenly, I heard a roar and a scream behind me. I spun toward the sounds with the feel of an electric current shooting up my spine. I was wrestling the pistol from my pocket as I watched the hulking figure kneeling between the other two goons. It was wearing some kind of a red silk robe, which I supposed was convenient considering all the splattered blood. The giant was…some kind of tiger-man. Its right hand…paw was buried in the neck of one guy. The left paw had torn the other one’s head off completely. The blood pouring from the bodies was making a spreading pool around the three of them.

“Relax, Mr. Stone,” the gravel-voiced hulk said, looking up at me. “These four will be more than enough to feed upon and the gun wouldn’t have helped you had I come for you, anyway.”

“Figures,” I said, shoving it back into my pocket. “Don’t know why they even make damn .38s in the first place.”

“You’ll want your weapon back from…that fellow,” he said, “if you’re going to attend to your other business.”

“I knew you were rooting for me,” I said, shaking a finger at him as I moved over to New Suit to get my magnum back.

“I thought you might require assistance, but it seems you are indeed quite formidable despite my potent venom.”

“Yeah, strong as a bull and eager for action.” Retrieving my gun, I also found enough cash for cab fare that he wouldn‘t be needing anymore as I asked, “You have a name?”

“My kind do not share our names,” the response came.

“Your kind?”

“Rakshasa.”

“Right…never heard of you. Live and learn,” I said, making sure the .44 was loaded before I slipped it back into its holster. “What’s your interest in me, Tony?”

“You’re a virtuous man who’s being watched,” he said. “Ferrari, on the other hand, is a fool.”

“This is about the box, isn’t it?”

“Did I say anything about a box?”

“Yeah,” I said, “back outside the hospital.” Something he was apparently hoping I’d forgotten.

“You’ll want to use your element of surprise for the short window of time that it still exists,” he recommended, redirecting the conversation.

“Right,” I said, turning to leave the way I came in. “Hey, as long as you’re being so helpful, do you know what ‘SOC’ means?”

“When is murder not homicide?”

“When people annoy me. I’ve heard this one already.”

“Then you should go.”

“I don’t suppose anyone’s going to find any trace of this…mess.”

“That would be unlikely,” Tony said.

“Well, thoughtful of you to tidy up, I suppose.”

“Tosh, old chap. No bother at all.”

“Good that you…enjoy your work.”

“Well, you can’t have a slaughter without laughter.”

“Right,” I said. “OK, I’m out of here.”

In the distance, on the stairs, I saw a woman in a private eye trench coat (standard issue) and a private eye hat (also, standard issue). I caught a glimpse of long, black hair and a semi-automatic pistol as she turned and ran up the stairs. I couldn’t blame her. She did what anyone in a right frame of mind should’ve done. I was still carrying a lot of anger and I didn’t want to keep Ferrari waiting too long. It was time to go make a mess in his penthouse. Meanwhile, I would be being watched. That would have to keep till another day.