Ladies and gents, the new novel I've been working on as of late is a totally awesome noir detective book set in a superhero kind of universe. And a very good friend of mine drew a sketch of him, too. And it is AMAZING.
So, allow me to introduce to you...The Armadillo.
http://tygenco.deviantart.com/art/SSU-Armadillo-round-2-159005935
And just because I feel like being a feedback whore, here's the first two chapters of the book, so far:
Chapter 1: Burn, Baby, Burn
A flaming support beam crashed and crackled in front of us. I snagged my fedora and tossed it in Tony’s safety deposit box behind the bar. Trench coat be damned, I wasn’t gonna singe the hat. Tony gave me a dirty look; the kinda look that said, “When the hell did you suss the combination?” I shrugged and gave him my best “Don’t use your Mom’s birthday, moron” expression.
The two thugs kept spewing red and yellow out of their huge flamethrowers. Hell, the tanks strapped to their backs were taller than their head. Who the hell gives cronies flamethrowers, anyway? Whatever happened to tommy guns? The whole budda-buda-budda sound? Now, those were classy.
“You said they wouldn’t be stupid enough to come in the bar!” Tony Castillo – my bartender – screamed. “You promised me, Dill! Damnit, you promised me!”
I pointed an index claw at the thugs.
“They look like thinkin’ types to you!?”
Tony spat an Italian curse at me. Did he kiss his mother with that mouth?
Fortunately, everyone else had already vamoosed. So, it was two flamethrowing thugs against a five foot nothing mutant armadillo in a trenchcoat and an overweight Level 1 SPEC with dog powers.
Yep, I thought to myself, we’re screwed.
Why were they torching Tony’s place, I asked myself. I ran through the basics: my last case got me involved with the mob. That wasn’t smart, but I didn’t know that at the time. Best guess? I cost them a lot of money, so they’re taking out of my carapace’d hide. It ain’t no secret that Castillo’s is my favourite watering hole. Like Tony said, the smart ones usually don’t come into the red light district of Integrity City and they sure as hell don’t come to Castillo’s unless they’re looking for a heart attack eating his wings.
“Well,” Tony shouted, spraying the fire around us with a water nozzle. “You’re a thinking type. Think our way out of this!”
Some hero Tony was those days. ‘Course, his glory days were long behind him; used to call himself Mutt; saved missing animals and related mysteries. These days, his previously six-pack abs looked more like a keg (or two). Bartendin’s been too comfy a life for ‘em. He’s surly like me and his beer…well, it’s not as watered down as most I’ve drunk. We have a love/hate relationship. In other words, I don’t hate his beer, he loves my money, and we hate each other except when the bar’s empty.
I figured it was time to end this. I’m a lousy fighter and an even worse shot, but my revolver fired big bullets. I pulled it out of its holster: The Daymaker, of the “do you feel lucky, punk” variety. The barrel’s longer and wider than a bull’s cock. Others have nicknames for it, like “Dill’s armour-piercer”, “The Clint”, “The Eastwood”, and my personally favourite, the “Oh sweet leaping Jesus, don’t shoot! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”
Looking in front of me from behind the bar, I could see the two grinnin’ thugs in the cracked mirror. Ugh, I hated blind shots. With the serving bar on fire, this was gonna hurt like a bitch, too. I blindly planted my gun up on the bar, my arm and – more importantly – my trench coat searing.
Blam, blam, blam! Three shots (the first one couldn’t’ve hit the broad side of a barn) missed the thugs completely. That was perfect, since I wasn’t aiming for them. For just a very brief moment, the two thugs look at each other and grin. It’s the kind of grin that says, “That all he had?” Not quite, I want to tell them.
Boom! BOOM! The Daymaker’s big bullets whizzed right over the thugs’ heads, slicing right through the mohawk of one of them, and penetrated their tanks. Whatever remaining pieces of them already smelled like well-done steak. It figures Don Quasimodo covered the bill for the fire-spitters but not the protection.
Me being the bright armadillo I was, though, hadn’t thought that the explosion – which did take out the thugs quite spectacularly – also took out the front entrance.
“Damnit, Dill!” Tony said (something he said far too often to his liking).
“What?! You told me to take them out!”
“But…my bar!”
“It’s insured, ain’t it?” I said, though I was pretty sure their policy specifically excluded “Armadillo-related incidents”. I hoped Tony could get off on a technicality, since I wasn’t burning his bar down.
“Damnit, Dill!”
He looked over his burning bar. I wasn’t sure if he was crying or if it was just sweat from the heat. Probably both. ‘Course, I’d be neither soon if I didn’t get us out of there. Tony was a wreck and no use coming up with an escape plan.
“Kitchen!” I grunted.
I yanked Tony by his greasy ponytail and pulled him through the swinging doors. Good timing, too, since another flaming support beam crashed behind the bar soon after.
“God, you owe me so big for this, Dill. Your tab just doubled.”
“You know I’m good for it!”
“You are so not! And it’s now tripled!”
“It’s been a slow month!”
“I’ll give you a comatose month if you don’t get us out of here!”
Trying not to slip on the grease and holding back the temptation to snack on some cockroaches, I led Tony to the back of the kitchen. The back exit (for his deliveries, smoke breaks and emergency exits) was bricked off. Tony said the IRS and health inspector had sussed his escape exit and started arriving in the back.
I hate going all pre-mutation action, but desperate times and all that.
With my long digging claws, I started working on the wall. Dust and mortar flew left and right. I was surprised by how often my burrowing ability came in handy in making escapes, like that time I was in framed an’ in prison. How else was I supposed to clear my name?
Smoke spewed through from the front and it was coming in fast. It didn’t bother me much. I just held my breath (I can hold it for four minutes; it’d be six if I didn’t smoke) and kept going. Tony, though, was coughing up a lung.
Finally, a hole was made and I saw flashing blue and pink from the strip joint’s neon sign next door. I dug around the edges as best as I could, enough for a fat bartender to squeeze through. I don’t think he could be called Mutt anymore; maybe the Portly Poodle.
“Gotta do something,” I said to Tony once he squeezed through (he had to suck in his gut). “Find a way to break through the rest, will ya?”
“What?! What on earth would be so impor---” And then he realized, sighed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, for cripes sake.”
Tony disappeared somewhere in the alley. I burst back through the swinging doors into the front area of Castillo’s. The flaming beam looked like a ramp behind the bar, with the low end pointed at me.
Thank God my feet were padded.
“Ow, ee, ahh!” I scurried across the beam on all fours as best I could (which really wasn’t that great; I ain’t a climber). I reached down for the safety deposit box and heaved it up to me. The metal was goddamn hot as hell. Sssss! I grimaced as it burned my hands and…
Crack! That’s when the beam collapsed. I crashed onto the filthy floor on my shelled back. Sometimes it pays to be a five-foot-nothing mutant armadillo.
I rolled to my feet and scurried back through the kitchen. I started charging for the wall, hoping maybe – just maybe – I could bust it down.
That’s when Tony crashed through it with his ’87 Dodge Shadow.
“C’mon!” he shouted from the car, backing it up.
I ran as fast as I could, with the whole kitchen now starting to go up like a book ‘o matches. The grease sure as hell wasn’t making the fire die down. Tony pulled the car around and opened the back seat door. I dove in and he planted the pedal down hard.
As we raced down the streets of Integrity City – well, as much as one can race in a Dodge Shadow – I finally stopped to remember to breathe. I cradled the cooling safety deposit box in my hand. Struggling to sit up, I rested it on the seat and cracked it open. My precious baby was safe and sound, though smelling a little of smoke. Ah, well. It just added more character.
I grunted and slipped my fedora back over my head. My tall ears tucked through the holes I’d punched on either side (and I swear, it’s the only thing I’d do to ruin this treasure).
“Your hat,” Tony said from the driver’s seat, white knuckled around the steering wheel. “Your goddamn hat. Tell me you didn’t go back just for that ratty P.O.S.”
“Yer one to talk about pee-oh-esses with this hunk of junk!”
It wasn’t just a hat. My mentor in solving mysteries gave me the hat. Doc Crimson might be long
gone, but he sure as hell taught me everything I know. Well, except for how to play dirty in a fight. I learned that on my own.
I reached a claw into the box again and pulled out a manila folder. I tossed it over and into the front seat beside Tony.
“Might want these, too,” I said.
Tony looked down at the deed to Castillo’s, along with his insurance papers. He signed and I think I saw him smirk from the rear-view mirror.
“Damnit Dill,” he said with mostly anger, but just a dash of relief.
[FONT="]
[/FONT] Chapter 2: Beady Eyes
Tony crashed at my Hovel Office that night. I had to clear crap off the top bunk. He started snoring soon as his head hit the pillow. Neither of us were one for hygiene, so he didn’t even complain about the mess. He mumbled something about getting out of the city; go somewhere without mobsters. There ain’t too many spots like that. Well, maybe Nevermore Bay. But Tony’d had a rough night and needed the sleep.
Me? I closed my thick curtains around my cave-like bottom bunk and laid still, thinking. Don Quasimodo had a real mad-on for me. Sending flamethrower punkers was usually Don Q’s way of saying “you’re a dead man”. Subtlety wasn’t his forte; not like a dead horse head in yer bed or something. Maybe Tony was right. Getting out of Integrity might be the best course of action.
Where could I go, though? I sure as hell didn’t like Integrity City, certainly not as much as its sister city, St. Ligeia. ‘Course, some nutcase had to go and drop a neutron bomb on it, wipe out most of North America’s SPEC (Specially Powered and Extraordinary Character; you know, super folk) population and leave the city a radiated ghost town. God, I missed St. Ligeia. It was all brick and art deco style architecture. It made me feel like I was still in the 30s. Integrity City’s all glass and girders; modern, sleek, not to mention dull and boring.
‘Least the new Hovel Office ain’t much different than the last one. Basement office with little sunlight…and a huge freakin’ mess to everyone but me. I’ve had thugs come to search the place and assumed someone already beat them to it. I sure missed the noodle place across the street, though.
So, where could I go? Where was Tony thinking of going? Heh, not that he’d want me to follow along. I think. I know I’d miss our poker or chess afternoons when Castillo’s was quiet. But Don Q would hunt me down soon enough, so hitting the road sounded like the best idea. Where, though?
Knock, knock, knock. “Mr. Armadillo?”
The knock was soft, but firm on my office door. The voice was equally quiet, almost demure, yet confident. Could be a potential client or it could be a very polite assassin from Don Q.
“Expectin’ anyone, Tone?” I asked, knocking on the ceiling of my bunk.
“Muh-buh-fum-ba!” He groaned incoherently and I hear him roll over.
Tony’s not what I called a morning person. Neither was I. After nearly getting flame-broiled last night, I definitely wasn’t a morning person.
“Mr. Armadillo!” the dame’s voice exclaimed from behind the glass door. It was sounding a little less polite, still refined, and a little more impatient. “It is of the utmost importance that I speak with you!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” I grumbled, but not loud enough to piss of the potential client.
Throwing open the heavy blanket that hung over my bunk like curtains, I clumsily rolled to my feet. I hadn’t even had coffee yet and cripes, I could use a smoke. I wondered where the hell I put my cigarillo.
A damn big cockroach skittered from underneath a pile of paperwork, Chinese take-out and clothes. I stamped it with my foot, scooped it into my claws and scarfed it down. Well, at least I’d had a light breakfast.
The dame’s knocking persisted and her voice was getting louder. “Mister Armadillo, I can hear you in there.”
I unlatched the lock and swung open the door. The loose-leaf paper with Armadillo Detective Agency (I dig for the truth) scrawled in marker fell to the floor. Damnit, I thought, I really should call Henry (my sign guy) and paint me a new sign. ‘Course, he kept upping the rate, since I have a bad habit of throwing guys through the window or getting thrown through it, myself. Eh, I thought, maybe I’ll keep the paper for now.
As I scooped down to pick up my very professional sign, I starred at a pair of high heels and a pair of very finely sculpted and tanned legs. My eyes trailed up to a short, black business skirt, kept going to a grey business jacket over a white shirt unbuttoned a little too far down to expose the finest and most bountiful cleavage man could manufacture. ‘Course they didn’t look the slightest real, but it didn’t stop me from starring. I started getting an itch where I think I should get an itch. The docs had me fixed long before I even mutated, so I ain’t ever done the horizontal polka. No wonder I’m so easily prone to violence.
The dame cleared her throat.
“Right, sorry,” I stuttered and stood up straight.
What stood in front of me was the youngest looking old broad I’d ever seen. I say youngest looking because she was so plastic, she coulda been sold by a toy company and no one would bat an eye. She must’ve been pushing seventy, but the work done on her made her look more like mid-thirties. She had short, curled blonde hair that Shirley Temple woulda been proud of. I couldn’t spot a single grey hair. Her ears had a pair of incredibly rich looking gold and diamond earrings. She had the look of a lady who was about a trillion times more well off than I could dream. One thing bothered me, though. She smelled rich. She smelled the kind of rich that only rich people could afford to smell. And she smelled very rich.
She turned her nose to me, stuck her chest out not to show it off but to intimidate me, and made a point to stand up straight so her near six foot two height towered over me. Pfft. The way she stunk, I shoulda been the one turning my nose.
“Mr. Armadillo,” she said proudly, “My name is Gloria Adeline Charbar. You’ve no doubt heard of me?”
I groggily looked at her. It wasn’t the kinda wake up call I wanted or needed. After a rude acknowledging grunt, I turned my carapace’d back on her and stumbled back into the office. I was nice enough to leave the door wide open for her, though.
Coffee, I thought, I’m going to need lots and lots of coffee. Where’d I put that pot, again? I remembered the filters were somewhere under the Rizzo file in the back corner, by the desk. Or were they on the desk?
“Lady, if I had a nickel for every dame that strolled in here, assured I knew them, I’d have enough to hire thirty maids to ruin my organized office. Mind reminding me?”
I looked at her from the reflection of my framed and spit-polished private detective license. Oh, she was pissed all right, but she was way too classy to show it.
“My fifth ex-husband, Sir Reginald Archibald Reginald…”
“His name is Reg Reginald?” I interrupted while I found the coffee pot under my desk. Found it with the coffee maker. The day was already improving.
She sighed heavily, her bosom heaving. “He was the company head of Royal Glass, which…”
“…helped single handily provide and install windows for most of Integrity’s skyscrapers, is one of the leading sources of diamonds in North America, along with a continent wide series of jewellery outlets…”
Heh! I’d never before heard a woman angrily squeak. It was almost adorable how she held herself back from screaming. Clearly, being interrupted wasn’t one her hobbies.
I planted the coffee maker on my desk (right where the coffee stain was) and plugged it in. I looked down on the chair piled with case files and found the filters.
“MisterArmadillo…”
“Friends call me Dill.”
“Mister Armadillo, I now own Royal Glass. That aging idiot made the mistake of giving me some company shares. I worked very diligently to gain more and more shares until I was the head shareholder.”
“So, you backstabbed Reg with his own money and left him out to dry.”
“…oh, he had a very nice settlement in the end. And he never did give me his contacts in South America, so he took with him the supply of diamonds.”
“My bleeding freakin’ heart,” I groaned. The coffee wasn’t brewing fast enough.
“Izzat kaw-fee?” Tony grumbled from the top bunk.
“Ain’t ready,” I told him.
“Hrmph.” He rolled back over.
“Mister Armadillo, do you want this job or not?”
“I been paying attention, lady,” I said firmly. “You ain’t even told me about the job, yet. Or maybe I just need this damned coffee to brew faster!”
“Reginald took his diamond contacts with him, to be sure. With him, however, he also took a family heirloom.”
Ah, here we go. Not this rich dame’s sob story; the coffee pot was starting to fill. Where’d I put my World’s Greatest Detective mug?
“Reg…” she actually stammered as I scrounged for the mug. Come to poppa, I thought. “Reginald took with him my prized heirloom; a pearl necklace with some of the finest pearls from the ocean’s deep.”
I snickered.
“What do you find so funny? This necklace means everything to me!”
“Sorry, dirty mind,” I snickered. “Didn’t know you could take back a pearl necklace after it was given.”
Ah ha! There’s the mug. I peeked inside. It had a black ring of filth around the bottom. Eh, it was clean enough. Mmm, coffee, I thought. I’m coming, baby.
“Yes, well,” she said, straightening herself up and lifting one foot to allow a beetle safe passage. “I am willing to offer a substantial reward for its return.”
She stomped her heel and crushed the beetle. Damnit, it looked like a juicy one, too. Part of why I never clean the Hovel Office is ‘cause then there’s always food around. Gloria and I trade sneers, but I guessed for different reasons. She’s disgusted by me and she just crushed the other half of my well-balanced breakfast.
I poured a cup. Thought I had a second mug around here somewhere, for guests. I was sure Tony’d want one if he ever got up.
“So, lemme get this straight,” I said, leaning against my desk. “You got more money’n God, could probably buy a billion pearl necklaces to replace it, and want me to track down your geriatric husband who you royally screwed out of his own company?”
“It’s a family heirloom!”
“And you’re not going to the cops about it, because…?”
She sighed. “It’s not my family’s heirloom.”
I took a sip. Ahh, now that was tasty brew. It was almost as gratifying as hearing her admit to what I already knew.
“So, you want me to track down your ex-husband and take back what isn’t rightfully yours in the first place?”
“It means more to me than it ever did him!” she exclaimed. “I never removed it from my person. Observe.”
Gloria waved her delicate hand across her neckline. I took another sip and stepped closer to her. I cocked my head to the side to get a closer look, since my eyes are on more on the side of my head. If I’d looked on straight, my snout woulda been buried in her huge tracks of land. I’d already made that motor boating mistake once in my life. My face still stings sometimes where that server clocked me.
Along the spot where the necklace would be, a pure white tan outline remained. She really did never take it off, even when she was in those damned tanning beds.
I pulled back and returned to my position against my desk.
“This ain’t my kinda case, lady” I explained. “Hell, there ain’t no mystery to sniff out. Guy took his pearls with him ‘cause they’re his pearls. It ain’t even right…”
“Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” she said without pause, as if it was chump change to her.
“…that you’ve been away for so long without your precious pearls, Mrs. Chabar.”
“Ms.,” she corrected, enunciating with a long “z”.
Seven hundred and fifty freaking thousand dollars! I could afford Henry fixing me a new sign! Heck, with that kinda cash, I bet even just half of that would please Don Quasimodo! At least get him off my back until I could pay the interest. If he forgives me for killing his two cronies last night, that is.
“I’ll take the case,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “But I’m going to need some kind of down payment. Y’know, fer expenses an’ the sort.”
“Naturally,” she said, her sneer turning into a small smile. She reached into her purse and pulled out a giant wad of bills. I sure as heck didn’t see any small digits on the top one. “I believe you have a strict no-cheques policy?”
I politely opened my claw to her and she dropped the wad into it. It felt like a good couple of thousand dollars. The day was getting better. I eyed a slip of white notepaper among the roll, though. Inquisitively, I held it up to her.
“That phone number goes directly to one of my secretaries,” she stated. “At the end of every day, you will call her with your progress…”
“Heh, yeah right.”
“I’m completely serious, Mr. Armadillo.”
“I know, that’s why I laughed in your face. I’ll call her when I have the pearls.”
“That’s completely unaccp…”
“Miss Chabar,” I leaned over to my trench coat on the coat rack and pulled out a cigarillo and matches. I lit up and puffed between sentences as I explained. “I live a very dangerous life. Sometimes, I don’t even have the chance to make a simple phone call ‘cause I might be in a fight, a shoot out, interrogating, being interrogated or just piss poor drunk. Moreover, I don’t like checking in like some teenybopper babysitter. You want me on this job ‘cause I’m your only chance without your company more negative publicity. People know their problems are big when they go to a mutant armadillo to solve it for them. I can start today or you can vamoose.”
She took a big inhale, as if about to give me a verbal beating like she did her shareholders. Unfortunately, all that smoke I’d been puffing was blowing her way, thanks to the ceiling fan. She paused, clearly choked for a moment, but was too proud and rich to show it.
She sneered at me and coughed a muted cough.
“Get it done, MisterArmadillo,” she grunted (it was a grunt with class, though). “My people tell me Reginald’s last known location was Nevermore Bay.”
She turned on her heel and stormed out.
Oh, cripes, not that burg. Why couldn’t she’ve said that from the start?
“’Evah-more bay?” Tony mumbled from the top bunk. “’At ‘as no mawbsters, yeah? No mobsters to torch a bar? Be a good place for a new Castillo’s.”
I sighed, took a long puff and gulped the last of the coffee. Hrm, it wasn’t as clean enough as I thought.
“All right, Tone, saddle up,” I punched him in the shoulder. “Road trip.”
Nevermore Bay. It just had to be Nevermore Bay.
So, allow me to introduce to you...The Armadillo.
http://tygenco.deviantart.com/art/SSU-Armadillo-round-2-159005935
And just because I feel like being a feedback whore, here's the first two chapters of the book, so far:
Chapter 1: Burn, Baby, Burn
A flaming support beam crashed and crackled in front of us. I snagged my fedora and tossed it in Tony’s safety deposit box behind the bar. Trench coat be damned, I wasn’t gonna singe the hat. Tony gave me a dirty look; the kinda look that said, “When the hell did you suss the combination?” I shrugged and gave him my best “Don’t use your Mom’s birthday, moron” expression.
The two thugs kept spewing red and yellow out of their huge flamethrowers. Hell, the tanks strapped to their backs were taller than their head. Who the hell gives cronies flamethrowers, anyway? Whatever happened to tommy guns? The whole budda-buda-budda sound? Now, those were classy.
“You said they wouldn’t be stupid enough to come in the bar!” Tony Castillo – my bartender – screamed. “You promised me, Dill! Damnit, you promised me!”
I pointed an index claw at the thugs.
“They look like thinkin’ types to you!?”
Tony spat an Italian curse at me. Did he kiss his mother with that mouth?
Fortunately, everyone else had already vamoosed. So, it was two flamethrowing thugs against a five foot nothing mutant armadillo in a trenchcoat and an overweight Level 1 SPEC with dog powers.
Yep, I thought to myself, we’re screwed.
Why were they torching Tony’s place, I asked myself. I ran through the basics: my last case got me involved with the mob. That wasn’t smart, but I didn’t know that at the time. Best guess? I cost them a lot of money, so they’re taking out of my carapace’d hide. It ain’t no secret that Castillo’s is my favourite watering hole. Like Tony said, the smart ones usually don’t come into the red light district of Integrity City and they sure as hell don’t come to Castillo’s unless they’re looking for a heart attack eating his wings.
“Well,” Tony shouted, spraying the fire around us with a water nozzle. “You’re a thinking type. Think our way out of this!”
Some hero Tony was those days. ‘Course, his glory days were long behind him; used to call himself Mutt; saved missing animals and related mysteries. These days, his previously six-pack abs looked more like a keg (or two). Bartendin’s been too comfy a life for ‘em. He’s surly like me and his beer…well, it’s not as watered down as most I’ve drunk. We have a love/hate relationship. In other words, I don’t hate his beer, he loves my money, and we hate each other except when the bar’s empty.
I figured it was time to end this. I’m a lousy fighter and an even worse shot, but my revolver fired big bullets. I pulled it out of its holster: The Daymaker, of the “do you feel lucky, punk” variety. The barrel’s longer and wider than a bull’s cock. Others have nicknames for it, like “Dill’s armour-piercer”, “The Clint”, “The Eastwood”, and my personally favourite, the “Oh sweet leaping Jesus, don’t shoot! I’ll talk! I’ll talk!”
Looking in front of me from behind the bar, I could see the two grinnin’ thugs in the cracked mirror. Ugh, I hated blind shots. With the serving bar on fire, this was gonna hurt like a bitch, too. I blindly planted my gun up on the bar, my arm and – more importantly – my trench coat searing.
Blam, blam, blam! Three shots (the first one couldn’t’ve hit the broad side of a barn) missed the thugs completely. That was perfect, since I wasn’t aiming for them. For just a very brief moment, the two thugs look at each other and grin. It’s the kind of grin that says, “That all he had?” Not quite, I want to tell them.
Boom! BOOM! The Daymaker’s big bullets whizzed right over the thugs’ heads, slicing right through the mohawk of one of them, and penetrated their tanks. Whatever remaining pieces of them already smelled like well-done steak. It figures Don Quasimodo covered the bill for the fire-spitters but not the protection.
Me being the bright armadillo I was, though, hadn’t thought that the explosion – which did take out the thugs quite spectacularly – also took out the front entrance.
“Damnit, Dill!” Tony said (something he said far too often to his liking).
“What?! You told me to take them out!”
“But…my bar!”
“It’s insured, ain’t it?” I said, though I was pretty sure their policy specifically excluded “Armadillo-related incidents”. I hoped Tony could get off on a technicality, since I wasn’t burning his bar down.
“Damnit, Dill!”
He looked over his burning bar. I wasn’t sure if he was crying or if it was just sweat from the heat. Probably both. ‘Course, I’d be neither soon if I didn’t get us out of there. Tony was a wreck and no use coming up with an escape plan.
“Kitchen!” I grunted.
I yanked Tony by his greasy ponytail and pulled him through the swinging doors. Good timing, too, since another flaming support beam crashed behind the bar soon after.
“God, you owe me so big for this, Dill. Your tab just doubled.”
“You know I’m good for it!”
“You are so not! And it’s now tripled!”
“It’s been a slow month!”
“I’ll give you a comatose month if you don’t get us out of here!”
Trying not to slip on the grease and holding back the temptation to snack on some cockroaches, I led Tony to the back of the kitchen. The back exit (for his deliveries, smoke breaks and emergency exits) was bricked off. Tony said the IRS and health inspector had sussed his escape exit and started arriving in the back.
I hate going all pre-mutation action, but desperate times and all that.
With my long digging claws, I started working on the wall. Dust and mortar flew left and right. I was surprised by how often my burrowing ability came in handy in making escapes, like that time I was in framed an’ in prison. How else was I supposed to clear my name?
Smoke spewed through from the front and it was coming in fast. It didn’t bother me much. I just held my breath (I can hold it for four minutes; it’d be six if I didn’t smoke) and kept going. Tony, though, was coughing up a lung.
Finally, a hole was made and I saw flashing blue and pink from the strip joint’s neon sign next door. I dug around the edges as best as I could, enough for a fat bartender to squeeze through. I don’t think he could be called Mutt anymore; maybe the Portly Poodle.
“Gotta do something,” I said to Tony once he squeezed through (he had to suck in his gut). “Find a way to break through the rest, will ya?”
“What?! What on earth would be so impor---” And then he realized, sighed and rolled his eyes. “Oh, for cripes sake.”
Tony disappeared somewhere in the alley. I burst back through the swinging doors into the front area of Castillo’s. The flaming beam looked like a ramp behind the bar, with the low end pointed at me.
Thank God my feet were padded.
“Ow, ee, ahh!” I scurried across the beam on all fours as best I could (which really wasn’t that great; I ain’t a climber). I reached down for the safety deposit box and heaved it up to me. The metal was goddamn hot as hell. Sssss! I grimaced as it burned my hands and…
Crack! That’s when the beam collapsed. I crashed onto the filthy floor on my shelled back. Sometimes it pays to be a five-foot-nothing mutant armadillo.
I rolled to my feet and scurried back through the kitchen. I started charging for the wall, hoping maybe – just maybe – I could bust it down.
That’s when Tony crashed through it with his ’87 Dodge Shadow.
“C’mon!” he shouted from the car, backing it up.
I ran as fast as I could, with the whole kitchen now starting to go up like a book ‘o matches. The grease sure as hell wasn’t making the fire die down. Tony pulled the car around and opened the back seat door. I dove in and he planted the pedal down hard.
As we raced down the streets of Integrity City – well, as much as one can race in a Dodge Shadow – I finally stopped to remember to breathe. I cradled the cooling safety deposit box in my hand. Struggling to sit up, I rested it on the seat and cracked it open. My precious baby was safe and sound, though smelling a little of smoke. Ah, well. It just added more character.
I grunted and slipped my fedora back over my head. My tall ears tucked through the holes I’d punched on either side (and I swear, it’s the only thing I’d do to ruin this treasure).
“Your hat,” Tony said from the driver’s seat, white knuckled around the steering wheel. “Your goddamn hat. Tell me you didn’t go back just for that ratty P.O.S.”
“Yer one to talk about pee-oh-esses with this hunk of junk!”
It wasn’t just a hat. My mentor in solving mysteries gave me the hat. Doc Crimson might be long
gone, but he sure as hell taught me everything I know. Well, except for how to play dirty in a fight. I learned that on my own.
I reached a claw into the box again and pulled out a manila folder. I tossed it over and into the front seat beside Tony.
“Might want these, too,” I said.
Tony looked down at the deed to Castillo’s, along with his insurance papers. He signed and I think I saw him smirk from the rear-view mirror.
“Damnit Dill,” he said with mostly anger, but just a dash of relief.
[FONT="]
[/FONT] Chapter 2: Beady Eyes
Tony crashed at my Hovel Office that night. I had to clear crap off the top bunk. He started snoring soon as his head hit the pillow. Neither of us were one for hygiene, so he didn’t even complain about the mess. He mumbled something about getting out of the city; go somewhere without mobsters. There ain’t too many spots like that. Well, maybe Nevermore Bay. But Tony’d had a rough night and needed the sleep.
Me? I closed my thick curtains around my cave-like bottom bunk and laid still, thinking. Don Quasimodo had a real mad-on for me. Sending flamethrower punkers was usually Don Q’s way of saying “you’re a dead man”. Subtlety wasn’t his forte; not like a dead horse head in yer bed or something. Maybe Tony was right. Getting out of Integrity might be the best course of action.
Where could I go, though? I sure as hell didn’t like Integrity City, certainly not as much as its sister city, St. Ligeia. ‘Course, some nutcase had to go and drop a neutron bomb on it, wipe out most of North America’s SPEC (Specially Powered and Extraordinary Character; you know, super folk) population and leave the city a radiated ghost town. God, I missed St. Ligeia. It was all brick and art deco style architecture. It made me feel like I was still in the 30s. Integrity City’s all glass and girders; modern, sleek, not to mention dull and boring.
‘Least the new Hovel Office ain’t much different than the last one. Basement office with little sunlight…and a huge freakin’ mess to everyone but me. I’ve had thugs come to search the place and assumed someone already beat them to it. I sure missed the noodle place across the street, though.
So, where could I go? Where was Tony thinking of going? Heh, not that he’d want me to follow along. I think. I know I’d miss our poker or chess afternoons when Castillo’s was quiet. But Don Q would hunt me down soon enough, so hitting the road sounded like the best idea. Where, though?
Knock, knock, knock. “Mr. Armadillo?”
The knock was soft, but firm on my office door. The voice was equally quiet, almost demure, yet confident. Could be a potential client or it could be a very polite assassin from Don Q.
“Expectin’ anyone, Tone?” I asked, knocking on the ceiling of my bunk.
“Muh-buh-fum-ba!” He groaned incoherently and I hear him roll over.
Tony’s not what I called a morning person. Neither was I. After nearly getting flame-broiled last night, I definitely wasn’t a morning person.
“Mr. Armadillo!” the dame’s voice exclaimed from behind the glass door. It was sounding a little less polite, still refined, and a little more impatient. “It is of the utmost importance that I speak with you!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” I grumbled, but not loud enough to piss of the potential client.
Throwing open the heavy blanket that hung over my bunk like curtains, I clumsily rolled to my feet. I hadn’t even had coffee yet and cripes, I could use a smoke. I wondered where the hell I put my cigarillo.
A damn big cockroach skittered from underneath a pile of paperwork, Chinese take-out and clothes. I stamped it with my foot, scooped it into my claws and scarfed it down. Well, at least I’d had a light breakfast.
The dame’s knocking persisted and her voice was getting louder. “Mister Armadillo, I can hear you in there.”
I unlatched the lock and swung open the door. The loose-leaf paper with Armadillo Detective Agency (I dig for the truth) scrawled in marker fell to the floor. Damnit, I thought, I really should call Henry (my sign guy) and paint me a new sign. ‘Course, he kept upping the rate, since I have a bad habit of throwing guys through the window or getting thrown through it, myself. Eh, I thought, maybe I’ll keep the paper for now.
As I scooped down to pick up my very professional sign, I starred at a pair of high heels and a pair of very finely sculpted and tanned legs. My eyes trailed up to a short, black business skirt, kept going to a grey business jacket over a white shirt unbuttoned a little too far down to expose the finest and most bountiful cleavage man could manufacture. ‘Course they didn’t look the slightest real, but it didn’t stop me from starring. I started getting an itch where I think I should get an itch. The docs had me fixed long before I even mutated, so I ain’t ever done the horizontal polka. No wonder I’m so easily prone to violence.
The dame cleared her throat.
“Right, sorry,” I stuttered and stood up straight.
What stood in front of me was the youngest looking old broad I’d ever seen. I say youngest looking because she was so plastic, she coulda been sold by a toy company and no one would bat an eye. She must’ve been pushing seventy, but the work done on her made her look more like mid-thirties. She had short, curled blonde hair that Shirley Temple woulda been proud of. I couldn’t spot a single grey hair. Her ears had a pair of incredibly rich looking gold and diamond earrings. She had the look of a lady who was about a trillion times more well off than I could dream. One thing bothered me, though. She smelled rich. She smelled the kind of rich that only rich people could afford to smell. And she smelled very rich.
She turned her nose to me, stuck her chest out not to show it off but to intimidate me, and made a point to stand up straight so her near six foot two height towered over me. Pfft. The way she stunk, I shoulda been the one turning my nose.
“Mr. Armadillo,” she said proudly, “My name is Gloria Adeline Charbar. You’ve no doubt heard of me?”
I groggily looked at her. It wasn’t the kinda wake up call I wanted or needed. After a rude acknowledging grunt, I turned my carapace’d back on her and stumbled back into the office. I was nice enough to leave the door wide open for her, though.
Coffee, I thought, I’m going to need lots and lots of coffee. Where’d I put that pot, again? I remembered the filters were somewhere under the Rizzo file in the back corner, by the desk. Or were they on the desk?
“Lady, if I had a nickel for every dame that strolled in here, assured I knew them, I’d have enough to hire thirty maids to ruin my organized office. Mind reminding me?”
I looked at her from the reflection of my framed and spit-polished private detective license. Oh, she was pissed all right, but she was way too classy to show it.
“My fifth ex-husband, Sir Reginald Archibald Reginald…”
“His name is Reg Reginald?” I interrupted while I found the coffee pot under my desk. Found it with the coffee maker. The day was already improving.
She sighed heavily, her bosom heaving. “He was the company head of Royal Glass, which…”
“…helped single handily provide and install windows for most of Integrity’s skyscrapers, is one of the leading sources of diamonds in North America, along with a continent wide series of jewellery outlets…”
Heh! I’d never before heard a woman angrily squeak. It was almost adorable how she held herself back from screaming. Clearly, being interrupted wasn’t one her hobbies.
I planted the coffee maker on my desk (right where the coffee stain was) and plugged it in. I looked down on the chair piled with case files and found the filters.
“MisterArmadillo…”
“Friends call me Dill.”
“Mister Armadillo, I now own Royal Glass. That aging idiot made the mistake of giving me some company shares. I worked very diligently to gain more and more shares until I was the head shareholder.”
“So, you backstabbed Reg with his own money and left him out to dry.”
“…oh, he had a very nice settlement in the end. And he never did give me his contacts in South America, so he took with him the supply of diamonds.”
“My bleeding freakin’ heart,” I groaned. The coffee wasn’t brewing fast enough.
“Izzat kaw-fee?” Tony grumbled from the top bunk.
“Ain’t ready,” I told him.
“Hrmph.” He rolled back over.
“Mister Armadillo, do you want this job or not?”
“I been paying attention, lady,” I said firmly. “You ain’t even told me about the job, yet. Or maybe I just need this damned coffee to brew faster!”
“Reginald took his diamond contacts with him, to be sure. With him, however, he also took a family heirloom.”
Ah, here we go. Not this rich dame’s sob story; the coffee pot was starting to fill. Where’d I put my World’s Greatest Detective mug?
“Reg…” she actually stammered as I scrounged for the mug. Come to poppa, I thought. “Reginald took with him my prized heirloom; a pearl necklace with some of the finest pearls from the ocean’s deep.”
I snickered.
“What do you find so funny? This necklace means everything to me!”
“Sorry, dirty mind,” I snickered. “Didn’t know you could take back a pearl necklace after it was given.”
Ah ha! There’s the mug. I peeked inside. It had a black ring of filth around the bottom. Eh, it was clean enough. Mmm, coffee, I thought. I’m coming, baby.
“Yes, well,” she said, straightening herself up and lifting one foot to allow a beetle safe passage. “I am willing to offer a substantial reward for its return.”
She stomped her heel and crushed the beetle. Damnit, it looked like a juicy one, too. Part of why I never clean the Hovel Office is ‘cause then there’s always food around. Gloria and I trade sneers, but I guessed for different reasons. She’s disgusted by me and she just crushed the other half of my well-balanced breakfast.
I poured a cup. Thought I had a second mug around here somewhere, for guests. I was sure Tony’d want one if he ever got up.
“So, lemme get this straight,” I said, leaning against my desk. “You got more money’n God, could probably buy a billion pearl necklaces to replace it, and want me to track down your geriatric husband who you royally screwed out of his own company?”
“It’s a family heirloom!”
“And you’re not going to the cops about it, because…?”
She sighed. “It’s not my family’s heirloom.”
I took a sip. Ahh, now that was tasty brew. It was almost as gratifying as hearing her admit to what I already knew.
“So, you want me to track down your ex-husband and take back what isn’t rightfully yours in the first place?”
“It means more to me than it ever did him!” she exclaimed. “I never removed it from my person. Observe.”
Gloria waved her delicate hand across her neckline. I took another sip and stepped closer to her. I cocked my head to the side to get a closer look, since my eyes are on more on the side of my head. If I’d looked on straight, my snout woulda been buried in her huge tracks of land. I’d already made that motor boating mistake once in my life. My face still stings sometimes where that server clocked me.
Along the spot where the necklace would be, a pure white tan outline remained. She really did never take it off, even when she was in those damned tanning beds.
I pulled back and returned to my position against my desk.
“This ain’t my kinda case, lady” I explained. “Hell, there ain’t no mystery to sniff out. Guy took his pearls with him ‘cause they’re his pearls. It ain’t even right…”
“Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” she said without pause, as if it was chump change to her.
“…that you’ve been away for so long without your precious pearls, Mrs. Chabar.”
“Ms.,” she corrected, enunciating with a long “z”.
Seven hundred and fifty freaking thousand dollars! I could afford Henry fixing me a new sign! Heck, with that kinda cash, I bet even just half of that would please Don Quasimodo! At least get him off my back until I could pay the interest. If he forgives me for killing his two cronies last night, that is.
“I’ll take the case,” I said, trying to keep my cool. “But I’m going to need some kind of down payment. Y’know, fer expenses an’ the sort.”
“Naturally,” she said, her sneer turning into a small smile. She reached into her purse and pulled out a giant wad of bills. I sure as heck didn’t see any small digits on the top one. “I believe you have a strict no-cheques policy?”
I politely opened my claw to her and she dropped the wad into it. It felt like a good couple of thousand dollars. The day was getting better. I eyed a slip of white notepaper among the roll, though. Inquisitively, I held it up to her.
“That phone number goes directly to one of my secretaries,” she stated. “At the end of every day, you will call her with your progress…”
“Heh, yeah right.”
“I’m completely serious, Mr. Armadillo.”
“I know, that’s why I laughed in your face. I’ll call her when I have the pearls.”
“That’s completely unaccp…”
“Miss Chabar,” I leaned over to my trench coat on the coat rack and pulled out a cigarillo and matches. I lit up and puffed between sentences as I explained. “I live a very dangerous life. Sometimes, I don’t even have the chance to make a simple phone call ‘cause I might be in a fight, a shoot out, interrogating, being interrogated or just piss poor drunk. Moreover, I don’t like checking in like some teenybopper babysitter. You want me on this job ‘cause I’m your only chance without your company more negative publicity. People know their problems are big when they go to a mutant armadillo to solve it for them. I can start today or you can vamoose.”
She took a big inhale, as if about to give me a verbal beating like she did her shareholders. Unfortunately, all that smoke I’d been puffing was blowing her way, thanks to the ceiling fan. She paused, clearly choked for a moment, but was too proud and rich to show it.
She sneered at me and coughed a muted cough.
“Get it done, MisterArmadillo,” she grunted (it was a grunt with class, though). “My people tell me Reginald’s last known location was Nevermore Bay.”
She turned on her heel and stormed out.
Oh, cripes, not that burg. Why couldn’t she’ve said that from the start?
“’Evah-more bay?” Tony mumbled from the top bunk. “’At ‘as no mawbsters, yeah? No mobsters to torch a bar? Be a good place for a new Castillo’s.”
I sighed, took a long puff and gulped the last of the coffee. Hrm, it wasn’t as clean enough as I thought.
“All right, Tone, saddle up,” I punched him in the shoulder. “Road trip.”
Nevermore Bay. It just had to be Nevermore Bay.
