I’ve been very fortunate to have some really great cover art on the covers of my books, and I appreciate the compliments from you readers, although I really have very little to do with how they turn out, but I thought you might want to get a sense of the process from my point of view. (I really should talk to a book cover designer for this post, but I don’t actually know any, as they are kept in witness protection by the publisher.)
I finished the manuscript for my next novel, Anima Rising, in the Fall of 2024, but we were discussing cover art months before that. The plot involves the Viennese painter, Gustav Klimt, who finds a woman floating the the Danube Canal early one morning on his way home from an all-nighter. The woman, drowned and naked, reminds him of his own paintings, and he’s fascinated with drawing her on the spot. It goes on from there.
What drew me to Klimt as a character in the first place were his beautiful paintings, so I thought it would be great if we could use either an image of them, or use them as inspiration. Here are the Klimt images I sent to my editor as taking off points.
Watersnakes, by Klimt. The woman in water immediately brings this and some other paintings to mind so I sent this to my editor as a taking off point. Judith (with the head of Holofernes) is an iconic Klimt image. He will eventually call the woman he finds “Judith” as she can’t remember her name. This painting, Philosophy 1900 commissioned by the Univerisity of Vienna to be displayed on the ceiling, was enormous, and has wide spaces that could be used for print. The original was destroyed by the Nazis in World War II, as the Russian army closed on them, so no color version exists. I thought the designers might have fun applying color to the black and white photo.Color sketches for Medicine have survived, so we at least have some idea of what Klimt wanted them to look like.
So here is the 1st round of composite sketches, the designer, Will Staehle, who has done a lot of my covers, delivered, adding elements from the plot, as well as from his own knowledge of Klimt’s art.
The results are really stunning, I think, and any of them would have made a good cover.
Here will uses the look of gold leaf, that Klimt used extensively in his paintings, as well as floral mosaics and color patterns often found in Klimt’s landscape work. I love that Will incorporated a cat into the design. Gustav Klimt with a kitty. Klimt kept many cats at his studio, which was a free-standing home with a walled garden, and they figure in the story in Anima Rising.At one point in the novel, Judith is treated by both Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, and much of her story is revealed through hypnotic regression. Will shows the surreal dreamscape of one of these sessions, with Klimtian motifs. Down, down, down, in the dark water, into the subconscious. All of these designs use a font that looks very much like one that Klimt designed himself, and used in much of has graphic work.Here we have the therapy session with the blue background. Really striking. Klimt was the only fine art painter I know of, who worked in the Art Nouveau style. Other artist working in the style were printmakers and illustrators. Here’s a whole different motif, the face drawn from Klimt’s painting, The Maiden (below) a woman asleep in a dogpile of color and sensuality. Will puts the sleeping maiden in a dream of horror and croissants, which is appropriate to Anima Rising. The Maiden, Gustave Klimt, 1913
And finally, we settled on this one:
We picked the blue and gold motif, because the contrast was so striking, and used one of the “shrink” sessions, because it teases part of the story (Freud and Jung are mentioned in the subtitle). I went with the face from the first composite, because she seems mischievous, and that’s important for the character, even though the blond with flowing hair is closer to Judith’s physical description.
I need to acknowledge here, that I’ve been very, very lucky to have input on my covers. I wasn’t even asked on some of the early books, and some really dreadful covers resulted, or at least covers I don’t like. (The hardcover of Bloodsucking Fiends is borderline ugly.) I’m continually amazed at the flexibility and openness that graphic artists, illustrators, and designers bring to their work. Sometimes a suggestion might take the cover down a wrong direction and it might need to be abandoned, sending the artist back to the drawing board, so to speak, yet they always comeback quickly and professionally with great new designs. Considering what a whiny little bitch I can be when someone asks me to make a change to my work, I very much admire the flexibility and speed with which these professionals work.
I probably should have asked to interview Will Staehle for this post, but for now, enjoy his work, and if the opportunity comes up, I’ll get him to chime in on this. At least, for now, you get to see some of his gorgeous designs.
As long as these links are up, you should be able to order signed books from my friend Donna, who started selling my books during the lock-down because she was unable to work. She’s keeping at it for as long as she needs and readers want. Most shipping is free in the United States. For international shipping, contact Donna through the link on her Ebay page.
(Here you go, kids. Christmas preview of the new novel, due out May 18th, 2022. Hope you like it. Happy Holidays.)
Prologue A Dragon in Big Town
So, about three hundred years ago, when the Qing dynasty isn’t even old enough to buy a beer, there comes a wave of barbarians out of the north with such fury and numbers that it kicks nine shades of shit out of the Emperor’s army, causing much embarrassment and fear among the aristocracy, and a large number of corpses among the peasants and military. You can’t walk a block without tripping over a widow or an orphan, the sky is black with the smoke of burning villages, and it is widely agreed throughout China that the soup of the day is Cream of Sadness.
So the Emperor calls his ministers together and says: “Who are these mugs? Why do they vex me thus? And will no one rid me of them?”
And one of his ministers, a toady whose name is lost to history, but let’s say he’s called Jeff, says: “These are the same mugs from the north that have invaded us regularly lo these many years.” But he does not say, “They vex you thus because you have opened up the aristocracy to anyone who can afford the ducats, including merchants and lawyers, so you have a kingdom very top-heavy with bums, but you have not spent any of that sweet cabbage on walls, weapons, or the training of soldiers.” Jeff does not say this because he is one of those selfsame bums of which he speaks. But he does say, “I hear of a Buddhist monastery in Fukien Province where the monks train day and night in the art of fighting and are said to be so fierce that one of them punches out a yak’s lights when he goes outside to take a leak in the morning—rings the bell of a wild yak with one hand on his willy and does not get even a drop on his robe.”
And the Emperor says unto Jeff, “Yeah, go get those guys. Offer them substantial cheddar and powerless positions at court to save our bacon.”
So Jeff journeys to the mountaintop where the monks keep their clubhouse, and asks them will they rid the kingdom of the vicious barbarians from the north and the abbot answers thus: “Nope. We have some chanting and meditation to do, and after lunch, fighting practice.”
“But,” says Jeff, “we will give you titles, stacks of cabbage, fine outfits, a feedbag of the finest fare, and gorgeous dames with feet so tiny they can tap-dance on a bottle cap.” And the abbot says, “We’re good. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to have some tea and punch a yak.”
So Jeff spake thusly: “But many peasants have been killed, there are widows and orphans coming out the wazoo, villages are burning, and there is much suffering in the land. Besides, what’s the point of training at fighting all day if all you are going to do is knock out random mountain beefs?”
And with that the abbot says, “That is an excellent point, toady. We’ll do it.”
And so it comes to pass that one hundred and thirty-eight monks, outfitted for fighting, march north (leaving home one guy for ringing the gong and another to milk the yak). And before three
days have passed, those barbarians who were not killed or wounded are more than somewhat discombobulated, and they retreat to their own land, while not a single monk is lost (although a couple have blisters on their thumbs from their fighting sticks and the abbot quotes the Buddha to them, saying, “Life is suffering,” and “You should put some ointment on those” and they are comforted). Then they return to their monastery, shut the doors, and resume their routine.
Meanwhile, there is much rejoicing in the land, and in the Celestial City, the Emperor is praised for his strength and wisdom and says thus: “So these daffy mugs don’t want anything?”
“Nope,” says Jeff. “They say they are content to have lessened the suffering and oppression of the people and would I please go piss up a rope.”
“Buddhist parable,” explains one of the other ministers. “Probably.” “Something’s fishy,” says another toady. “How do we know these guys aren’t up to something?”
“And what if they start to think that we are the ones oppressing the people?” says another, “Which, you have to admit, has come up at meetings.”
“Yeah,” says the Emperor. “I don’t trust a guy who doesn’t want anything.”
“Maybe,” says a younger toady, “we—” And here he makes the gesture of cutting someone’s throat and makes a croaking sound.
“How?” asks Jeff. “They are the best fighters in the land and I think we can admit that in comparison, our guys are shit.”
“Maybe we give them a little flaming medicine,” says one of the more clever ministers, referring to what they call gunpowder at the time. “I hear recently from one of the Dutch white devils that it can be used for croaking guys as well as entertainment.”
And around the great hall goes a collective “hmmmm” of thoughtfulness.
See, gunpowder has been around for hundreds of years, but up until then it has only been used for firecrackers on New Year’s and to blast that one guy to the moon several centuries ago, which, it is agreed, would have worked if they hadn’t made his rocket ship out of bamboo. But recently, traders from the West have introduced the flaming medicine for making bombs and loading cannons, thus giving it the new name.
“Make a plan,” says the Emperor.
So it comes to pass that a small force of the Emperor’s soldiers sneaks into the mountains in the night and sets fire to the monks’ clubhouse, stacking barrels of gunpowder at the gates and tossing bombs over the walls until the entire joint is in flames. When the monks run to one gate to meet their attackers, it is blown up, and when they run to another, it too is blown up, until most of the monks are dead or in flames and it is not looking good for those few who are not.
But then the Immortals look down from the heavens, and despite the fact that the Buddhist monks don’t believe in them, they are moved by their discipline and good deeds, and they send a thunderbolt down to blow a hole in the back wall of the monastery, through which the surviving eighteen monks escape, leaving the Emperor’s soldiers thinking the monks are toast to the last man.
Hidden and nursed by the peasants whom they saved from the barbarians, all but five of the monks perish from their wounds. Those five, who are called the Five Ancestors, vow to oppose the reign of the Qing Emperor and all those of his descent, as he is now regarded throughout the land to be a first-rate douche bag, and they also vow to restore the previous Ming dynasty, which everyone agrees was swell, and much better for the people. To each of the Five, the Immortals bestow a talisman of the Five Great Dragons: dragons of wood, earth, metal, fire, and rain, whose power they will represent on Earth.
So the Five Ancestors adopt a banner of three red dots, which is the symbol of the Ming dynasty, and for that they are called the Triads. They spread out through the cities and villages, recruiting members to the secret resistance, and eventually, to make ends meet, they evolve into great criminal organizations, always with the goal of overthrowing the Qing emperors, as well as making a few doubloons on the side. A couple of hundred years go by, gold is discovered across the salt in the Land of Golden Hills, the Triads establish benevolent societies called tongs, and many sons of the working class are recruited and helped to immigrate to America to find their fortunes. The tongs become very powerful among the Chinese in America, and become very proficient in running gambling, smuggling, prostitution, and extortion operations. In the New World, the tongs are competitive to the point of war, and adopt all kinds of spooky rituals, calling on their noble Triad history to recruit and earn the loyalty of their soldiers. There are rumors that even some of the talismans of the Five Great Dragons made their way to Big Town (San Francisco) and the tongs promised the power of the immortal dragons could be summoned against their enemies at any time.
But you know, rumors. Dragons? In San Francisco? C’mon. What are the odds?
Chapter 1
Mother Superior and the Big Black Dong
When we pulled up to Jimmy’s Joynt on Pier 29 the doorman was beating a skinny guy in a tux with a black rubber dildo the length of a Louisville Slugger and the diameter of a soup can, hitting him only in the soft parts—the thigh, the shoulder, the caboose—so each blow sounded like a butcher smacking a fat ham.
We had the windows of the cab down, as it was a warm night for November, with only a light wind, and the fog hadn’t even crept through the Golden Gate yet, despite it being the small hours of a Sunday morning.
“Boy, you don’t see that every day,” said Milo, whose cab I was driving. Milo often assumes passenger duties in his own taxi, as he was soundly blown up while driving a tank at the Battle of the Bulge and so sometimes gets jumpy behind the wheel.
“Well, Butch likes to keep a tight ship.”
Butch, who was also wearing a tux, as she always does when working, performed a two-handed golf swing that sent the dark dangler into the thin guy’s nut sack with a sickening thud, to which the guy, Milo, and I all responded with explosive “oofs!” although the oofs were only sympathetic from Milo and me.
The thin guy sank to his knees, then rolled over on the pier, trying to catch his breath, while Butch menaced him with the point of the dong. “And don’t come back,” Butch said, “or it won’t go as well for you.”
“It does not seem to be going that well for that guy this time,” said Milo. The guy, still gasping for air, scuttled away from Butch, passing on my side of the cab.
“That guy looks like he could be good for a return fare,” I said to Milo. “Pac Heights or Nob Hill. You want I should flag him down?”
“Nah,” said Milo, pulling down the brim of his checkered cabbie cap like he couldn’t even see the guy. “That guy has a pencil-thin mustache and it is well known that no one grows a pencil- thin mustache except douche bags and Errol Flynn.”
“Are you saying that Robin Hood is a douche bag?”
“I am saying no such thing. I said douche bags and Errol Flynn. I’ll wait. You want I should keep the meter running?”
“First, I do not know how long I will be, and second, since I drove here, the flag has not been dropped on the meter to date, so third, and in conclusion, no.”
“Fine. Off the meter. You sure you don’t want to drive back?” “I have to see to the Cheese,” I said. “Well, she can drive back. I don’t mind a dame driving.”
“We will not be returning to Cookie’s,” I said, referring to the diner in the Tenderloin where I often rendezvous with Milo and various other citizens for late-night coffee and philosophical discourse. “I am accompanying the Cheese to her place, where I intend to attend to her various wants and needs and vice versa.”
“I’ll be back!” shouted the pencil-thin mustache guy. “I know people! Important people. You’ll be sorry! You, you, abomination!” Then he scuttled off down the pier past a line of parked cars where two dames were smooching furiously against the side of a Studebaker.
“You wanna come in?” I asked Milo. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
“Nah,” said the diminutive Greek, “I gotta get back to Cookie’s. I might just sit here a minute and watch those two dolls swap spit, you know, pick up some pointers I can use on Doris.”
“You are a thoughtful fellow,” I said as I climbed out of the cab and screwed my hat down tight against the breeze. “Always thinking of Doris’s happiness, Milo.”
“She is a stand-up dame,” said Milo.
“That she is,” I agreed. Doris is the graveyard biscuit-slinger at Cookie’s Coffee, and despite her being ten years older and several stones heavier than Milo and being in possession of a very large Swedish longshoreman husband called Lars, Milo is deeply smitten with her, and vice versa, it would appear. “Well, hold down the fort,” I said, tapping the hood of the cab. “I will see you tomorrow at Cookie’s.”
“Adieu, ya mug,” said Milo, sliding over behind the wheel as I strolled away.
“How’s it hanging, Sammy?” called Butch, holding the dildo in a menacing manner (and it occurred to me then that menacing is about the only way one can hold a yard-long rubber dong).
“You an abomination now, Butch?” I asked.
“Taking night classes,” said Butch with a shrug. “Something to fall back on.” She stood five feet ten, weighed maybe a buck-ninety, so my size plus about twenty pounds of shoulders, giving her a linebacker V-shape that unruly patrons had come to fear or at least respect. Her hair was short, black, and slicked back in the manner of a lot of the dames who frequented Jimmy’s Joynt.
“Well, that is quite a respectable pasting you gave that guy. This a regular thing?” Being a barman myself, at Sal’s in North Beach, I am acquainted with various methods of managing unruly patrons. I appreciate the art.
“Regular enough. Some guys get sored up when they find their missus joining us here on the sunny sunny side of the street. Such guys are often of the opinion that they can push a dame around by virtue of their sex, and I am obligated to correct their way of thinking, sometimes rendering them unconscious before my point is made.”
“Point taken. I, too, have resorted to such tactics, although I use a sawed-off pool cue to help make my point, rather than—” I bounced my eyebrows at Butch’s weapon.
“Oh, this,” she said, holding up the dong like a marine saluting with a dress sword (her weapon wiggling disturbingly with the gesture). “You’d be surprised how few guys want to report to the
cops that a dyke down at the wharf just beat the stuffing outta them with a big black rubber dick.”
“That is a very savvy angle, Butch. Very savvy indeed. They ever come back with some pals to get revenge?”
“Nah, although one guy comes back the next night and offers me a C-note to do it again, only slower.”
“You take him up on it?”
“Nah, the boss does not like us to pursue personal business while at work. Jimmy has asked that we attract as little attention from the gendarmes as possible. I keep the corporal punishment very much on the QT, what with the Mother Superior vowing to rid the city of all forms of fun.”
The Mother Superior, or Dunne the Nun, is Captain James Dunne, the San Francisco Police Department’s new head of vice, a starched-shirt, churchgoing flatfoot who was trying to claw his way into the mayor’s office on the backs of many respectable citizens such as hookers, gamblers, hustlers, strippers, lady lovers, pansies, pimps, pornographers, panderers, and people who like jazz—in other words, the guys and dolls I call my friends.
“Still, you got that as a fallback, if working the door gets you down.”
“I don’t think so,” Butch said, tucking her dark dingus behind the podium where she stood guard, as she functioned as both the doorman and the host on slow nights. “Taking money for it would be weird.”
“Yeah, you wouldn’t want it to get weird. Well, you got style, pal, I’ll give you that.”
Butch raised an eyebrow of skepticism. “Don’t go sweet on me, Sammy. I know you got a talent for falling for the wrong dame and dames don’t get any wronger than yours truly.”
“She inside?” “Holding court at the bar. Not a dry stool in the house.”
“What’s the damage tonight?” I reached into my pocket for the toll for the cover, which changes from night to night, depending on the time and how much the joint is jumping.
Butch tossed her head and a well-oiled forelock broke loose from her coif. “Get out of here with that, ya mope.”
I tipped my hat as I went by. “You’re a gentleman and a scholar, Butch,” I said, which made her laugh until she snorted.
The main room at Jimmy’s Joynt was once a warehouse, now painted black to cover the hooks and hoists in the rafters. A low ghost of cigarette smoke hung in the air over about forty tables where dames, only dames, in dresses or men’s suits, were paired up, looking sad and urgent as, up on the stage, a skinny dame in white tux and tails with a painted-on mustache squeezed out a slow song about lost love in a sultry alto. The joint looked like some daffy Sapphic goddess had sprinkled an abandoned coal mine with melancholy lesbians, then taken a powder in a puff of smoke. On the dance floor three couples rocked in rhythm to a stand-up bass coming out of a dark corner where a tall blonde in a long green evening gown was giving it an expert fingering for their pleasure. It was three in the morning and whatever high time there was to be had had been had, whoever had somewhere to go had gone, and now everyone was just marking time until last call, when they had to go somewhere they didn’t want to be or home to someone they didn’t want to see.
A few faces turned toward me as I walked in and for all the welcome in their expressions I felt like a leper wearing a dead skunk for a tie. I don’t take it personally. A lot of these dames have grounds for giving a general stink-eye to citizens of the guy persuasion and no use for us whatsoever.
Just like Butch said, Stilton, a shapely blond biscuit of whom I am more than somewhat fond, was perched on a stool up at the bar, looking bright as a summer day in her white dress with the big red polka dots (despite it being November, and dark as Dracula’s dirty drawers) and red Mary Janes, tall heels hooked into the rail of the bar. The Cheese, as I and my pals refer to Stilton when she’s not around, was surrounded by a bevy of broads of various sizes and shapes, attired in men’s suits, smoking and laughing and hanging on the Cheese’s every word like she was the Blessed Virgin passing out tips on a hot horse at Bay Meadows.
But before I could catch the eye of my one true I heard, “What’s the scam, Sam?” Which came from Jimmy Vasco, who was flanking Stilton on the starboard side, smoking a coffin nail in a long black holder that she chomped between her pearly whites so it bounced a little when she talked. Jimmy was slicked-back, sharp as a tack, in a satin black tux and tails tailored to flatten her curves; maybe five-two and a C-note soaking wet, and though she was little, she was fierce, as the Bard says, and a stand-up dame—she lent me her car and a sweet little Kraut pistol on occasion. Jimmy Vasco owned the joint.
Jimmy gave me a respectable punch on the shoulder by way of a hello.
“This jamoke bothering you, Toots?” said the Cheese. In this scenario, Jimmy was the jamoke, and I was, well—
“Don’t call me Toots,” I replied.
One of the dames on the other side of the Cheese sneered at me—actually sneered—I suppose sensing that Stilton and I had enough chemistry to put Union Carbide and Dow Chemical in the soup line.
“Hi, Sammy,” chirped Myrtle, a tall Olive Oyl–shaped redhead who worked the lunch counter at the Five & Dime with the Cheese and who had been decorating Jimmy Vasco’s arm nigh unto half a year.
“Hey, Myrt,” I replied with a wink. “Looking very fetching this evening. Very fetching indeed.”
“Aw, pshaw,” Myrtle said, and hid her smile like she was embarrassed instead of basking in it.
And she did look good. Jimmy had wrapped her in various sheaths of satin and sequins since they started dating, at least when Myrtle was in the club, and rather than looking gawky like when I’d first met her, she was threating elegant. In fact, that long green number on the blond bass player in the corner had made its maiden voyage on Myrtle a month or so back. (Jimmy Vasco was nothing if not efficient.) I liked Myrtle. She was a good pal to the Cheese and she said things like “pshaw.”
“You ain’t so bad yourself,” said Myrtle, batting her eyelashes, flirting for Jimmy’s benefit. “Me? I’m a sack of old sweat socks compared to you, hot stuff.” And I sort of was, still in my bartender togs, smelling of stale liquor and cigarettes, my tie tucked into my shirt, my tweed overcoat thrown over the whole mess.
“My sack of socks,” said Stilton, who pulled me over to her and bit me on the ear, a little harder than was strictly necessary. And with that, all the dames who had been trying to make time with the Cheese moved away, dispersing into the room like mosquitoes who just tried to take a bite out of the Tin Man. The one who’d sneered at me before harrumphed as she walked away.
“Hey, I’m trying to run a business here,” said Jimmy. “It’s hard enough these days without you dancing in and crushing everyone’s hopes and dreams.”
“That your business, Jimmy? Hopes and dreams?”
Jimmy stepped to me and let a stream of smoke trickle out of her nose as she tried to look sinister. “Very dark, very damp dreams, Sammy.” Then she grinned around her cigarette holder. “Also dancing and moderately priced liquor. Whaddaya drinking?”
“Vodka gimlet,” I said. Jimmy nodded to Mel, the bartender, a lean, androgynous dame in the same outfit as me, sans the overcoat and fedora, plus a cameo on a velvet choker at her throat. She started building the gimlet without a word.
To Stilton and Myrtle I said, “Don’t you two have to be at work in about”—I checked my Timex—“three hours?” The girls were generally pushing pancakes at the Five & Dime by six. In fact, the Cheese and I had decided we would take a night off, as I did not get off work at Sal’s until two, and she had to be at the Five & Dime by six, so I was more than somewhat surprised when she’d called me at Cookie’s Coffee, where I was enjoying coffee and narrative with my pals, and invited me to join her at Jimmy’s Joynt, as Jimmy had something she wished to discuss with me, after which, the Cheese implied, we would retire to her place for much nudity and merriment.
Gimlet in hand, I tipped a toast to Mel the bartender, then turned to Jimmy and said, “So, what’s on your mind?”
But before Jimmy could answer there came the sound of a whistle, such as a coach might use, tootling through the club, although I was sure it was not the tootling of a coach.
“Fucking cops,” said Jimmy by way of explanation, and with that she grabbed Myrtle’s paw, who in turn grabbed the Cheese, who grabbed me, and we were led willy-nilly behind the bar, through a door, and into a long, badly lit hallway with walls painted black. I had been there before, and I headed for Jimmy’s office down the hall, but I was whipsawed in the grasp of the Cheese as Jimmy stopped and bumped a shoulder into the wall, from which snapped open a hidden door, revealing a narrow staircase.
“Pull that shut behind you,” said Jimmy, and I did.
Jimmy led us up the stairs to another hall, barely shoulder width, where she pulled a chain, snapping off the single lightbulb, leaving us standing in the dark listening to each other’s breath as well as no little shouting by cops and patrons coming from the club on the other side of the wall.
“They can’t see—” I started to say when I heard a scraping sound, which was Jimmy opening a little port that revealed a peephole the size of a quarter, which Jimmy filled with her eyeball.
“The fuck happened to Butch?” she asked.
“Butch has a button on the podium that warns everyone,” said Myrtle.
“Maybe they sneaked up on her,” the Cheese offered.
“There’s a dozen cops down there,” said Jimmy. “No one sneaks up on Butch.”
“Why the commotion?” I asked. “You ain’t doing nothing illegal. I mean, serving after hours, but that’s maybe a ticket or a bribe, not a raid.”
“Three articles,” said Jimmy, and she pulled away from the peephole to give me a gander. I looked down to see the cops lining all the dames dressed in men’s suits against the wall, while herding all the dames in dresses over to the stage.
“Masquerade law,” said Myrtle, casting no more light on the subject than the peephole did on the dark passage.
Below there was much protest from all involved and a little sobbing and sniffling from a few. The uniform cops did, indeed, number a dozen, which surprised me no little, because if you had asked me, I did not think there were a dozen cops working all of Fog City at this time of the morning. As I observed, two plainclothes mugs made their way in, one a dumpy mope with a
boiler trying to escape his pants and jacket, and a very tall, hard-looking cop with a jaw like a hatchet and creases in his pants that would cut butter.
While I watched, the tall cop went from one dame to another, pulling up her jacket and pulling out her waistband, inspecting each in the most invasive way. “I don’t know what he’s looking for,” I said, “but it ain’t weapons.”
Jimmy Vasco pushed me aside and fitted her eye to the peephole. “That cracker-crunching mackerel snapper is checking their underwear.”
“Cracker cruncher?” I asked Myrtle with a raised eyebrow. My peepers had adjusted to the dark and between the light from the peephole and what was coming over the top of the fake wall I could see just fine.
“Body of Christ,” said Myrtle, crossing herself.
“Sorry, doll,” said Jimmy. “I forgot. It ain’t he’s a Catholic, it’s he’s a holier-than-thou cocksucker of a Catholic.”
“That’s Dunne?” I’d never seen the new head of vice.
Jimmy shushed me, finger to her lips. We could hear cops rummaging around in the hall below us, slamming doors, tipping stuff over.
“Looking for you?” I whispered. Jimmy nodded. “’Swhat I wanted to talk to you about.” “Well, I’m not going to hide you. My apartment’s small and you’re bossy.” “Nah, I was gonna ask you to take care of him like you did Pookie O’Hara.”
“I did not scrag Pookie,” I said. And I didn’t. Pookie O’Hara, SFPD’s previous head of vice and a certified creep, mysteriously disappeared a few months ago while the Cheese and I were having an adventure up in Sonoma County. Many citizens attributed his disappearance to me.
“Right,” Jimmy said with an exaggerated wink that not only was visible in the crepuscular light of the passage, but looked like she had wiped a cut lemon across her eye and was trying to squint away the burn.
Stilton pushed through and put her eye to the peephole. “Now they’re looking at their socks. What kind of loopy shit is going on down there?”
“Masquerade laws,” said Jimmy. “Started back in the 1800s. If a dame is dressed like a guy she’s got to be wearing at least three articles of women’s clothing or she’s in violation of the law.”
“Three-articles law,” said Myrtle.
I heard a click and a flick and Jimmy’s Zippo lit up and she held it down by her feet while pulling up her pants leg, showing a lacy sock with pink embroidered roses. “Embarrassing,” she said.
“Most girls wear a pretty pair of panties, too,” said Myrtle. “I know I do.” “Aw, Myrtle,” said Stilton, “you got feminine for miles.”
“Well, those socks make two,” I said to Jimmy, then, with an elbow to her ribs, “What else you got hidden to keep you out of jail?”
“Things get rough, I figure I can jump into Stilton’s panties.”
“Well, you’re shit out of luck tonight, buster,” said Stilton, still looking down on the club. “Unless you want to hike up the hill and get ’em out of the hamper.”
And I was thinking, What kind of bum lets his girlfriend go through life with only one pair of skivvies?
“Hey!” Stilton yelled. “Let go of her!” “Shhhhh, doll,” I said, and Myrtle and Jimmy were shushing her for all they were worth, too. “Well, he’s roughing up Betty Anne. She’s a swell gal.”
I looked through the peephole and sure enough, Dunne was going down the line, whipping each of the dames up against the wall while the uniforms were cuffing them. Not exactly punching their lights out, but being much rougher than the situation called for. Dunne was a big guy, maybe six-six, and well over two hundred, a church tower of a guy, one of those sturdy English church towers with the slots on top for your church archers to shoot through. He was whipping these dames around like they were rag dolls, calling them perverts and dykes and various other unflattering sobriquets, and let me tell you, dykes can call themselves dykes all night long and laugh it away, but a guy tries that one on and he will have some severely sored-up lesbians on his hands. But these poor dames were growling or crying and I did not care for the scene at all. I do not care for guys roughing up dames, even if they are wearing suits that are nicer than mine, and just as I was about to comment thus, Dunne whipped this tall, thin dame around by the shoulder, and she had nothing but fire for him. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, twenty- three, wearing a black pinstripe suit over a silk blouse unbuttoned to her navel, and not a stitch under that I could see. Her hair was black, short, in a bob like that silent film star Louise Brooks had, long, pointed sideburns sweeping down near to the corners of her mouth. She was a looker, in a pissed-off, vampire-who-wouldn’t-drink-your-blood-if-she-was-dying-of-thirst sort of way.
Dunne dropped his tone and said something I couldn’t hear. The thin dame gave him a sneer. Whatever she said, it made Mother Superior Captain James Dunne look like he’d run into a solid wall of nope.
“The fuck?” I sort of let drool out, as I watched Dunne order all his uniforms to uncuff the dames against the wall. While they were still sniffling and rubbing their wrists, the cops cleared out, Dunne called the uniforms back out from Jimmy’s office, then made a tucked-tail exit with the tall, thin dame stepping right behind.
“Jimmy,” I said. “Look, look, look. Who’s the tall dame trailing Dunne?” I stepped to the side and Jimmy fitted her eye to the peephole. “The fuck?” Jimmy said. “What? What? What?” said Myrtle, pulling Jimmy away from the peephole. Jimmy looked up at me. “The fuck?”
I shrugged so hard my hat tipped. “She said something to him and he nearly pissed himself.”
“Oh yeah, I saw her come in after you,” said Myrtle. “Wait. Look, look, look.” Myrtle pulled aside to give me a look.
So I looked. “The fuck?” On her way out the thin dame threw an arm around Mel, the bartender, who had been lined up against the wall with the others, and laid an Argentine backbreaking tongue-tango on her while catching the back of Dunne’s jacket so he was whipped around and had to watch.
I stepped aside quickly so Jimmy could see. “The fuck?” she said. “Who is she?” I asked. “No idea, first time I’ve seen her,” said Jimmy. “But I’m glad she’s on our team.”
Two minutes later we were downstairs on the dance floor, the lights all the way up like you never want to see in a bar at three in the morning, and Jimmy had gently but sternly told everyone they had to get the fuck out, so they shuffled off, some of them still sniffling from their run-in with the Mother, the bass player carrying her axe like an oversized baby.
Jimmy herded us out last, turning off lights and locking doors as we went. I helped her bring the host podium in and noticed that Butch’s dingus of death was still tucked behind it.
“Can’t figure what happened to Butch,” Jimmy said. “That’s not like her to take a powder on a work night.”
“You want us to help look for her”
“Nah, I’m beat,” said Jimmy. “I’m staying at Myrtle’s place. You two need a ride?”
Jimmy kept a small apartment behind her office and had a pearl-black ’36 Ford Coupe with a rumble seat that would be a snug but welcome fit about now. I did not relish climbing the 387 steps to Stilton’s place on Telegraph Hill or finding a cab to my place at that hour.
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”
“We can find out Butch’s story in the p.m.,” said Jimmy, the p.m. being the hours in which we in the hospitality trade actually begin to stir, as opposed to the morning for normal citizens. But what we found in the p.m. was that at that very moment, Butch was bobbing facedown in the bay about fifteen feet below where we stood.
We’d been adrift for eight days when the ninny tried to eat
the monkey. I lay in the bow of the
boat, under the moonlight, slowly expiring from thirst and heartbreak, while
the great beef-brained boy, Drool, made bumbling snatches for the monkey, who
was perched on the bowsprit behind my head, screeching and clawing at my
jester’s hat, and jingling his bells in a festive manner.
“Sit down, Drool, you’ll capsize us.”
“Just one wee lick,” said the giant, grasping the air
before him like an enormous baby reaching for his tiny monkey mother. The bow
of the boat dove under Drools weight. Sea water splashed the monkey’s bottom; he
shrieked and made as if to fling poo at the giant, but it had been eight days
since any of us had eaten and he could birth no bum-babies for the flinging.
“There will
be no monkey-licking as long as I draw breath.”
“I’ll just
give him a bit of a squeeze, then?”
“No,” said
I. On the fourth day, after the water ran out, Drool had taken to squeezing Jeff
(the monkey) like a wine skin and drinking his wee, but now the monkey was dry
and I feared the next squeeze would produce little but a sanguine monkey
marmalade.
“I won’t
hurt him,” said the oaf, so inept in the lie that he might as well have tied
bells on the truth and chased it around the town square while beating a drum.
Drool
dropped back onto the seat at his end of the dingy, his weight sending the bow
up so rapidly that Jeff was nearly launched into the drink. I caught the monkey
and comforted him by slapping my coxcomb over his head and holding it fast
until he stopped biting.
“But…” said
Drool, holding a great sausage of a finger aloft as he searched the night for a
point.
“Shhhh,
Drool. Listen.” I heard something beyond the lap of waves and the growl of my
gut.
“What?”
I stood in
the boat, still hugging the monkey to my chest, and looked in the direction of
the noise. A full moon puddled silver across the inky sea, but there, in the
distance, lay a line of white. Surf.
“It’s land,
lad. Land. That way.” I pointed. “Now paddle, you great dribbling ninny.
Paddle, lest it be an island and we drift by.”
“I will,
Pocket,” said Drool. “I am. Land’s the dog’s bollocks, ain’t it.”
He showed
less enthusiasm than the revelation should have engendered.
“Land, lad,
where they keep food and drink.”
“Oh, right.
Land,” a spark finally striking in the vast, dark, empty of his noggin.
The pirates
had set us adrift without oars, but Drool’s arms were long enough that if he
lay down he could get enough of a hand in the water to paddle. By his sliding
from one gunwale to the other, the little boat sloshed slowly forward. My arms would barely reach the water, and as
it turned out, though the monkey could swim, even with a sturdy cord tied round
his middle, Jeff was complete shit at
towing a boat.
An hour or
so later, what had been a calm sea began to rise up on rollers, the blue white
lines I’d spotted churned into a briny boil. What had been the distant swish of
surf now crashed like thunder before us.
“Pocket,”
said Drool, sitting up, his eyes wide and alight with fear. “I don’t want to
paddle no more. I wanna go back.”
“Nonsense,”
said I, with enthusiasm I did not feel. “Once more into the breech!”
And before I
could turn to see where we were headed, a great wave lifted the boat and we
were driven ahead on its face, racing as if on a sled down a never-ending slope.
Drool let loose a long, terrified wail and gripped the rails as the stern was
lifted, lifted – and then we were vertical on the face of the wave. I looked
above me to see a great flailing nitwit flying in the night and a monkeytumbling with him. Then the wave crashed down upon us. I
lost my hold on the boat and was awash in a confusion of salt and chill. Over
and down and over until there was no up, nowhere to go for air, and no way to
get there. Then a light. The moon. A tumble, and there again, the silver above,
shining life. I kicked, hoping to find
some purchase on sand, but there was nothing but water; then the moon, and a
black specter diving out of the silver disc above – the boat. I tried to tuck
my head but too late and then a shock and a flash in the eye as the boat struck
me and all was dark. Oblivion.
# # #
There were
flames dancing before me when I woke from the dead, which was not entirely
unexpected. The Devil was smaller and rather younger than I would have guessed.
He danced barefoot around the fire as he stoked it in preparation for my
torment. The fiend wore a tunic of rough linen, leaves and sticks clinging to
it, and a bycocket hat with a single feather in the style of bow hunters back home
in Blighty. Bit of a ginger fringe. Scrawny and pathetic, really, for the
prince of bloody darkness.
As I
stirred, the fiend made his way over to me and studied my face. He had wide eyes and high cheekbones, decidedly feminine, which
gave him the look of a cat that has been surprised in the middle of his repast
of a freshly killed rat — alert and fierce.
“He’s
awake,” said the demon.
“Pocket!”
I heard Drool say, at which point pretending to still be dead was a fool’s
errand.
I
looked over to see the great oaf sitting splayed-legged on the other side of
the fire, a massacre of nuts and berries in his lap, the smeared evidence of their
fate already streaming down his chin in red rivulets. “Cobweb saved us,” said
the ninny. “She’s the git’s tits.”
“She?”
said I. “So not the devil?”
“’Fraid
not,” said the girl.
Of
course, a girl. I looked over the figure crouched before me like some gamine
gargoyle. Right tiny, and in need of a good scrubbing, but I supposed a girl
she was. And not a child, neither, despite her size.
“I
didn’t do so much of the rescuing as your large friend,” she said. “On the
beach I jumped up and down on his back until he was breathing again. He carried
you up here into the forest.” She leaned into me to whisper. “Methinks he may
have taken a blow to the head during the wreck. He seems a bit slow.”
“Slow
is his only speed, I’m afraid.”
“You
took quite a shot to the noggin yourself.” She touched a spot above my forehead
and I winced with the pain. “Covered in blood, you were. I cleaned you up.”
I
touched the tender lump on my head and bolts of pain shot across the corners of
my vision, a deep ache throbbed behind my eyes. Only then did I notice I was
lying on a bed of ferns and leaves, naked but for my hat, which had been draped
modestly over my man bits.
“Your
kit is drying still,” said the girl. She shot a thumb over her shoulder to
indicate my motley, propped on sticks before the fire, along with my jester’s
scepter, the puppet Jones. “You’ll want to wash it proper in fresh water when
you get a chance. Most of the blood came out in the sea, but not the salt.”
“What
about Jeff? Where’s my monkey?”
“Weren’t no monkey, sirrah. Just the
big bloke and you.”
She
held out a leather wine skin. “Here. Water. Slowly. Your friend drank it all in
one draught and I had to fetch more at the stream.”
“Had
a wee chunder,” said Drool.
I
took the wine skin and thought I might swoon again as I drank the cool water
and felt the fire in my throat abate.
“Enough
for now” said the girl, taking back the wine skin. “There’s food, too, if the
big one’s left anything.”
“I
saved you some, Pocket,” said Drool, holding out my codpiece, which was
spilling berries as he moved.
The
girl returned and handed me the codpiece. “Wondered what these things was for.”
“Thank
you,” said I. My cod was nearly full of berries and nutmeats. I thought I might
weep for a moment at her kindness and pinched the bridge of my nose as if
chasing away a headache.
“Your
friend says you are fools,” she said, giving me shelter.
“I
am a fool. Pocket of Dog Snogging upon Ouze, at your service.” I tow a train of
titles behind my name — royal fool, black fool, emissary to the queen, king of
Britain and France — but I thought it ill-mannered to be grandiose while lying
on a litter of leaves with only a hat to cover my tackle d’amore. “Drool is my
apprentice.”
“We
are fools and pirates,” said Drool.
“We
are not pirates,” said I. “We were set adrift by pirates.”
“But
you were on a pirate ship?” She asked.
“For
two years,” said I. “There was a girl, a Venetian Jewess who fancied me. She
wanted to be a pirate but became homesick. When she returned to Venice I was
not welcomed to join her.”
“So
you stayed with the pirates?”
“For
a while.”
“And
they set you adrift?”
“With
no food and only enough water for three days, the scoundrels.”
“But
why?”
“They
gave no rhyme nor reason,” said I.
“It
was because you’re a shit, wasn’t it?”
“No,
why would you say that?”
“Because
I only have known one fool, a fellow called Robin Goodfellow, and he, also, is
a shit.”
“I’m
not a shit,” said I. I am not, that she could prove.
“Did
you insult them? Make sport of their efforts and appearances? Craft clever puns
on their names. Play tricks on the naïve and the simple? Compose rhymes
disparaging their naughty bits? Sing bawdy songs about their mothers and
sisters?”
“Absolutely
not. There was no way to know if they
even had sisters.”
“I
think you were a shit, just like the Puck, so they set you adrift.”
“I
was not a shit. And who are you to say? Why, I am deft at being rescued by
wenches of great beauty and character, one for whom my heart still currently
breaks, and I’ll not be abused by a waif, an urchin, a linty bit of stuff like
you?”
“Feeling
stronger then?” She asked, thin, sharp eyebrows bouncing over her disturbingly
wide green eyes.
“Possibly,”
said I.
A
horn sounded in the distance, as if to call hounds to the hunt, and Cobweb leapt
to her feet. “I have to go.”
“Wait,”
said I.
The
girl paused at the edge of the firelight. “What?”
“Where
are we?”
“Look
around, you’re in the forest, you git.”
“No,
what land?”
“Greece.”
“It
doesn’t look like Greece.”
“Have
you been to Greece before?”
“Well.
No.”
“This
is what it looks like. I have to go. The night queen beckons.”
“The
night queen?”
“My
mistress calls. Rest, fool. Your friend knows where the stream is and there are
plenty of nuts and berries to eat. Stay clear of the captain of the watch. He’s
a shit, too. And not so playful as you and the Puck.”
“Wait—“
but she was gone like a spirit in the night.
“She
were the dog’s bollocks, was wee Cobweb,” said Drool.
“She
was not,” said I. “And where is Jeff? Have you seen him?”
The
ninny wiped a smear of berry gore from his lips. “No.”
“Drool,
Jeff is a friend and valued crew member. If you ate him, I shall be very cross
with you. Very cross indeed.”
I wrote this for a San Francisco Sketchfest Performance on January 19th, 2019, for The Worst 1st Chapter Ever reading at the request of Paul and Storm, famous songwriter performer dudes, breaking two of my steadfast rules, reading in public and writing something bad on purpose. Oh well…
Throwing Shade
By Christopher Moore
The Backwash dropped out of warp like one of those pellets drop out of an owl – the ones with desiccated mouse bones and fur and stuff –except the mouse bits were me and my support bot Scrote-9 and the 20 humanoid clone blanks in the hold that were going to expire before they could be imprinted and would melt into puddles of organic goo if we couldn’t find a buyer for them.
Scrote rubbed her deely-bobbers on the impulse console, pulling the Backwash into low orbit over a level 9 merch planet called Durex Magnum7 and I strapped into the shuttle pod.
“If I’m not back in two hours, come in blasting,” I told my faithful robot servant.
“Affirmative, rotting protein bag,” affirmed Scrote-9.
She’d been having trouble disguising her disdain for organic life forms lately and if she turned off the life support one more time I was going to have to do a memory wipe on her or chuck her into space while she was recharging like I had Scrotes one through eight.
As I closed the shuttle pod hatch, I made a note to look into a different model of droid-pal, but when I thought of all the Scrote corp chargers and accessories I had that wouldn’t fit any other company’s units, I deleted the note and sent a reserve notice for the Scrot10 when it came out.
Scrot-9 released the shuttle pod and it made a swoosh sound like one of the gas geysers of Mezazon 5, but which I couldn’t hear because there’s no motherfucking sound in space and because to counter the trauma of reentry and landing I had just pressed a neuro-derm against my neck and leaned against a plasteel screen as the neurochemicals, pheromones and nanobots combined to give me three minutes and fifty two seconds of the sights and sensation of being hate-fucked by Marie Antoinette on the hood of a vintage Citron Deux Cheveau.
(May cause nausea, rash, sudden death, loose stool, resurrection, nodes, nodules, lumps, bumps, boils, enlightenment, transcendence, sleeplessness, or existential dread.)
I came out of it with ringing in my ears, and echos of Marie Antionette calling me a disgusting little fuck-pig in German.
The German part always surprised me. And getting tangled in the hoop skirt. I’d talk to Zebo, my pharma-barista and see if he could pare that stuff out. But then I landed.
The space port was crawling with peepers, gazongas, dingleberries, wazoos, wafflepods and wankbots, all looking for a way off world before they dropped their last credits on some designer debauchery or a luxury illusion implant that would make everything they saw or touched appear to be made of gold. You’ll only survive a couple of weeks with one of those things in you, but the puddle of your own bloody shit you die in feels like you’re bathing in a warm golden dream.
I knew a quad-arm blue-skin called Jooz who worked the bar at the Bit Rot Club. We’d taken a turn around the Parvo system once in a Tachyon Mini with a case of lube and a 100 mics of LoveYouLongTime
(May cause hallucinations, delusions of grandeur, faith in humanity, the power of positive thinking, scaly elbows, infatuation, blisters, burps, and spontaneous combustion.)
that Zeno had scored off some rodent minors on world on a day pass from the asteroid mines. Me and Jooze had a connection – I might not see him for years, but when we got together sparks flew, especially if he forgot to take the pour spouts off his thumbs or I forgot to lower my body shield. You just don’t forget the four arms of a guy who’s swung you around the Parvos by your gizmos.
“What’s blasting, laser-tits,” ejaculated Jooz.
“That was a fashion stage,” I extorted. “Traded the lazers for some nano-armor.”
“You always were the cautious one. What’s your pleasure, like I don’t know?”
Jooze was sporting a micro-2skin that clung to a set of abs you could shred a Noberian turnip on. I’m a level 19 Sex Ninja, one of those dames who can tear out your root shakra, tie it in a knot, and show it to you while it’s still throbbing before you pass out, and I wanted to do it to Jooze right then, but I had a ticking clock and twenty-human spooge-cicles in my hold that were about to hit their sell-by date.
“Look handsome, I got twenty human spoog-cicles in my hold that are about to hit their sell-by date. Know anyone who can help me off-load them in the next couple of hours?”
“Yeah, I know a guy,” Jooze expectorated. He thumbed a doodad implanted in his wrist and said, “Call Wango. No, the other one. No, the other one. Yes, that one. > While his coms connected Jooz mixed something with gender fluid and blue fire in a tall beaker and slid it down the bar to a jort-porter.
“Hey, Wango, this is Jooze down at the Bit Rot. I got a hot pirate down here with twenty cold unprinted protein tubes about to go off and no place to put them. Interested?” Jooz turned to me. “Where’s your ship and what’s the scan signature.”
“She’s in low orbit. The Backwash.” I rattled off the scan numbers that identified the ship to spaceport traffic control. I waited. Jooz waited. I took to time to survey his four shapely shoulders. I wondered if he’d had the bite marks I’d left erased.
Yeah, I’ll tell her to wait,” Jooz said. “He’ll be here in an hour.”
“An hour?”
“Yeah, his partner has fecal alcohol syndrome”
“Fecal alcohol syndrome?”
“She’s shitfaced. He has to sober her up.”Just as well for you Plonka’s off her game. She’s the tougher negotiator. ”
“Good to know.” I took a seat and waited.
An hour later they came through the iris port of the Bit Rot. Wango was 120 kilos of hairy dude-flesh packed into a 100 kilo elastanium flight suit. He had a drunk’s nose that looked like a squirrel fucking a sweet potato on a matress of beef tripe. Plonka was petite, jacked, and her flight suit was fitted with so many retractable spikes she looked like she was a clone-bond of an elf and a porcupine. Her hair was shaped into dull titanium spikes with red tips. I couldn’t see her eyes behind a set of wrap-around holo specs. She’d be reading real time analytics of my voice patterns and pupil movement to detect any bluff I tried to run. This was going to be tricky.
I scratched a sub-dermal doohickey behind my ear and the scoozamator implanted under my occipital lobe fired 300 mics of toxic masculinity into my brain stem. (May cause overconfidence, heebie-jeebies, verbal leakage, threat sweat, blustering, jive, mansplaining, delusions, peen screams, callbacks and punk ass.)
The effect was about as subtle as white thong underwear after taco night, but after I stopped twitching I would have the ability to immediately understand anything a female meant to say — could state it back more clearly and louder — and any male in proximity would recognize it as my original thought. The Toxic Mask essentially bypassed my upper brain function so I was unreadable. If Wango was the decision maker, and I was betting he was, the analytics from Plonka’s holo specs would be useless.
“We’ll give you two K, per,” said Plonka, her voice was like a clown stomping an antique bicycle horn full of nightcrawlers.
“And you deliver,” Wango added.
“They’re worth 10 K minimum,” I replied.
“Fine,” squoke Plonka. “Find another buyer.”
“Nine,” I commanded. “Can’t take less.”
“Open your kimono, Shade,” said Wango. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
They both paused. Looked at each other. Plonko looked at the ceiling like she was reading something on her holo-specs then nodded. Wango started to reach into the collar of his flight suit.
I flipped my index nail back and shot Wango in his middle eye with my finger-blaster, spraying his brain matter across the two porters drinking at the bar behind him. Plonka went for a disrupter on her belt and I finger-blasted her until she was just a spiky moist spot on the floor.
I picked up her holo-specs and put them on.
“So no deal then?” inquired Jooz, reaching for a mop and some Windex.
“Aparently not,” I responded.
Plonka had been getting messages from a ship in orbit. I recognized the scan code as the Backwash. The last message read, “It’s done. Finish it.”
“He used your name,” Jooz said. “I didn’t tell him your name.”
“Yeah. I gotta jet, trouble in orbit,” I said. “Keep it shiny, sugar pecs.”
When I got back to the Backwash there were sparks shooting out of the warp gazongas and the navigation wazoo was a smoking heap on the bridge. Bits of what used to be Scrote-9 littered the ship from stem to stern. In the hold I found twenty – no, wait, 19 melted blobs of destroyed clone-blanks. The 20th table was empty. Ship’s log showed that someone had uploaded a DNA profile into the blank, which then woke up and took out Scrote-9 and trashed my ship.
“Computer, is the intruder still on board?” I asked the computer.
“Negative. Intruder took pod B be to unidentified ship. Was unable to track without nav systems.”
“Identify intruder.”
“Intruder was clone blank.”
“Identify uploaded DNA.”
“Scanning. Uploaded DNA profile belongs to Zebo Tantoni.”
Zeno. My pharmo-barista. Well, now I knew who I was after. And now I had to figure out why. As soon as I fixed my ship I’d find out. The part of his plan that went went wrong, killing me, would be his undoing.
But first I needed a three minute and 52 second vacation, so I pushed my last neuroderm against my neck and braced for the effects, because you haven’t lived until you’ve been swung around by the gizmos by an 18th Century Austrian princess wearing a strap on plastopeen.
Hey kids, as promised, here’s another excerpt of Noir, where you get to see a little more goings on between Sammy and the Cheese. It was supposed to be up for Valentines Day, but events and whatnot happened. Thanks for adding my stuff to your shelf on Goodreads and for following my author page on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Christopher-Moore/e/B000APFLHC/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1518706568&sr=8-1
Laff in the Dark
They got on the B-car at Geary Street and rode it for nearly an hour, laughing and smooching and commenting between them on everyone who got on or off at every stop, making up out rageous, silly stories about street pirates and bus stop witches, mentioning neither the war nor what had come before. They got off at Ocean Beach, between the Great Highway and Playland, where, as usual, a freezing wind whipped off the Pacific at about seven hundred miles per hour, whistling through the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster, and surprising more than somewhat those tourists who had come here for a balmy midsummer night’s dream, but discomfiting Sammy and the Cheese not a whit. They were locals, and knew what the author Jack London had said about Ocean Beach in 1902: “Holy fuck, you couldn’t get a match lit here to save your life.” Stilton wore her raincoat to protect her from the wind and Sammy wore a wool overcoat with a pint of Old Tennis Shoes in the pocket to protect against the cold.
“So, what’s your pleasure?” Sammy asked as the streetcar clanged away.
“I could put on the feedbag, if you don’t mind,” she said.
“Sounds good. There’s a diner down by the merry-go-round, if you can stand diner food.”
“I built up a tolerance. Let’s go.”
They walked arm in arm to the Sea Lion Café, where they ordered burgers and Cokes from a counter guy in a paper hat. Sammy splashed a jigger or two of Old Tennis Shoes from the pint into their Cokes under the table.
“More,” said the Cheese.
Sammy slurped some cola off the top and splashed in more liquor—a bartender used to juggling glasses.
“Okay?”
She nodded as she blew the paper wrapper off her straw at him, then drank off a quarter of her Coke in one pull. “Ah, perfect.”
“Glad you liked it. Old Tennis Shoes is aged in oak barrels for several days.”
“You can taste it.” She put her glass down. “Sammy, I need to ask you something, and don’t say no just to be nice. Be honest.”
“Promise. Shoot.”
“Do you think I’m an alcoholic?”
“How would I know? I’m a bartender. Everyone I know is a drunk except the kid who hangs out on the steps of my building, and I’m not even sure about him.”
“What would you guess, then?”
“Nah. Considering what you been through, you’re as sober as a church mouse.”
“Isn’t that ‘quiet as a church mouse’?”
“You’d think, but once you get a few drinks in those little guys, you can’t stop them singing.”
“Thanks,” she said, smiling at him around her straw before she took another long pull on her drink.
“Just the truth,” he said. “Now me.” “You’re definitely a drunk,” she said. “No, now I get to ask a question.”
“Oh, okay. Forget I said that. Shoot.”
“What were you looking for when you came into my bar that day?”
“I was looking for you. Just you.”
“But we’d never met.”
“I didn’t know you were what I was looking for, but there you were . . .”
“What if I hadn’t been there? Would anyone have done?”
“Nope. I wasn’t looking for just anyone. I wasn’t looking for you until I found you. I thought, That’s the guy I’ve been looking for, that guy, right there.”
“It was because I was pouring drinks, wasn’t it?”
“That did not hurt. It wasn’t everything, but it was something.”
“You could have lied about that.”
She sucked on her straw until it made a thirsty slurping noise at the bottom of the glass, then said, “I’m not lying.”
“Yeah, but you could have. I would have been okay.”
“Okay, here’s the truth, Sammy. I’m trouble. I’m not right. I do reckless things. Selfish things. I’m a wreck waiting to happen. You should steer clear of me.”
“You want another Coke?” Like he hadn’t even heard her.
“Yeah. Please.” She had warned him. You can’t blame her.
“You like onion rings?”
“Nah.”
“Me either.”
Their burgers arrived and they dove in, the Cheese eating hers in four bites, cheeks puffed out like a lipsticked chipmunk. Sammy was impressed. For a slim broad, she could eat.
She was munching away at a bouquet of ketchup-tipped fries when he said, “You know, for a slim broad, you eat like a champ.”
“Yeah, thanks,” she said. “Been eating since I was a kid. You know, practice.”
“I mean, a lot of girls on a first date would be dainty and pretend they weren’t really hungry. Push the food around on their plate. But not you.”
“Yeah, but what you don’t know is then they go home, climb into the icebox with a spoon, and think bad stuff about you. I won’t be doing that. I got plans for you, later, buster, which is why I gotta keep my strength up.”
“Plans?”
“Yeah. You gonna eat the rest of your fries?”
Sammy grinned and pushed his fries to her side of the table and was about to negotiate for a hint of her plans when two cops came in the café and took seats near a window looking down the walk toward the merry-go-round. Sammy watched their reflections in the paper napkin dispenser. They were young, not particularly tough-looking, and seemed more interested in watching girls than fighting crime—like they were celebrating drawing sweet duty where the worst thing they might encounter was a rowdy sailor or a kid lifting wallets in the funhouse.
Sammy snatched the last handful of fries from his plate and crammed them in his mouth.
“Too slow,” he said around the mouthful of distressed spuds. “Let’s go.”
Stilton laughed and the cops looked over. Sammy put on his hat and stood, dropped some money on the table, and said, “Keep the change,” to the guy at the counter.
“Thanks, folks,” the counter guy said, but they were already out the door—Sammy, with a hand on her hip, was steering Stilton toward a ride called the Ship of Joy.
“You’re not even limping,” Stilton said. “Guess you were right about the cane.”
“I’m right about most stuff,” Sammy said. “It’s a curse.” He gave her hip a little squeeze to mark the nonsense he was talking.
The Ship of Joy was two ship-shaped gondolas, each seating twelve people, that swung on long pendulums and approximated the experience of being on a big playground swing with a bunch of strangers. They swung and they laughed, mostly at some kids who whooped like they were going over a cliff with every swing, but also at a dad who had lost his hat on the first swing, then stared forlornly for the rest of the ride at the spot over the shooting gallery where it had drifted.
As they were stumbling off the Ship of Joy, arm in arm, Stilton said, “I was expecting more joy.”
“Kind of a phonus bolognus in the ship department as well,” Sammy said.
“Ooh, I love it when you speak Latin. You been to sea?”
Sammy hoped she didn’t see panic on his face. “Just transport,” he lied.
“My husband was on a ship. Heavy cruiser. Went down with all hands near Savo Island, August ’42. They never found him. Uncle Sam sent me a flag.”
Casual as you please, like that first day in the saloon when she’d mentioned her husband. And, like then, he didn’t know what to say. He said, “Sorry, kid.” He pulled her close.
She pushed him away, took his hand, and pulled him toward the games of chance. “Come on, win me something.”
Sammy threw some baseballs at milk bottles filled with concrete and threatened them not at all, although Stilton cheered him on and cursed the bottles’ stubborn ways. At a shooting gallery he downed a few metal ducks with a .22, because his father had given him and his brothers BB guns as boys and he was not a bad shot, although not good enough to win a prize.
“C’mon, let’s kill some clowns,” she suggested, pointing toward a booth where you could throw darts to pop the balloon bodies of painted-on clowns.
“How ’bout you, little lady?” called a barker as they passed. “Guess your weight for a nickel! I get it wrong and you win a teddy bear.”
“And you get it right and I’ll rip your lips off and stomp them like slugs,” replied the Cheese. Sammy nodded earnestly to the barker to confirm her conviction. Stilton’s weight went unguessed.
Sammy finally won her a prize when a ping-pong ball he tossed settled into one of a hundred baseball-size goldfish bowls, startling the fish inside somewhat, but which it soon forgot.
Stilton held the bowl aloft and looked at the perky orange occupant against the lights of the Ferris wheel. “He looks so lonely, Sammy. Win me another one so they can both be in the same
bowl and have a little goldfish razzmatazz.”
“I don’t think goldfish have razzmatazz,” said Sammy.
“Well, then how do they have little goldfish?”
“Far as I know, the female lays her eggs on the bottom, then later on the male comes along and fertilizes them.”
“Really?”
“Not exactly sure with goldfish, but that’s how it works for trout. We had trout in Idaho. I read a book on them when I was a kid.”
“Yeah,” said the scruffy guy working the goldfish booth. (You could have sanded the varnish off a coffee table on his five o’clock shadow.) “He’s got it right.”
Stilton handed the fish back to Five O’Clock Shadow. “Take this sad fish. Give him to a kid. Come, Sammy, I need fun.” She took his arm and led him toward the funhouse with the great yellow letters painted across the red façade reading laff in the dark. Sammy bought two tickets and they entered through a giant clown’s mouth, stepping through baffles of black fabric until they were stumbling inside a ten-foot-high, rotating drum. It wasn’t dark yet, but they were laughing and stumbling until they stepped out onto a very mushy field of what must have been black foam rubber.
“It’s like walking on meat loaf,” said the Cheese, giggling, as a skeleton dropped from above them and was caught by a red spotlight. Stilton yipped and jumped into Sammy’s arms. He carried her through another set of black fabric draperies and into complete darkness.
“Should be called Pee in the Dark,” said Stilton.
“Really?”
“Nah. Close, though.”
“C’mere, ’fraidy cat,” said Sammy. He smooched her perhaps a little too zealously for someone who was laughing and they banged their teeth. Then they separated and felt for chipped teeth with their tongues.
People, mostly teenagers, pushed past them in the dark, giggling, groping, and shrieking like joyful heretics at a clown inquisition. Someone pinched Sammy’s bottom and he jumped. “Was that you?”
“What?” said Stilton, her voice sounding about ten feet away.
“Nothing,” Sammy said. “I think I mighta just made a friend. Stay there, I’ll come to you.”
He found her in the dark and they kissed like they’d been separated for months, clinging to each other as revelers bumped into them, shrieked and laughed and stumbled on. They blundered together through another set of baffles, these made of some kind of black gauze, which felt like spiderwebs against their faces, onto a dimly lit floor that shifted and tilted, sending them staggering one way, then stumbling another.
“I don’t think I’m drunk enough to walk this way,” said the Cheese.
“Relax, ma’am, you’re in good hands,” Sammy said. “I’m a bartender.”
He pulled her through the next door and ducked under the outstretched hand of a moaning mummy that pivoted on an axis at his waist and swung his arm back, just missing delivering a backhand to the Cheese. Sammy pulled her down just in time and they crouched beneath the bandaged automaton. The mummy moaned again.
“This mug’s got a moo box in him,” said the Cheese.
Sammy pulled the pint from his overcoat and unscrewed the cap. “Pardon?” he said.
“A moo box,” said the Cheese, taking the pint from him. “We sell them at the five-and-dime. It’s like a little can and when you turn it over, it moos like a cow.”
The mummy waved over their heads again and moaned.
“That does sound like a cow,” Sammy said.
“Moo box,” the Cheese explained. She pointed at the pint of Old Tennis Shoes. “No chaser?”
“Rehearsal’s over,” Sammy said.
She went a little cross-eyed as she took a swig, scrunched up her face like a kid eating a lemon, then shook her head until the burn settled down. There were tears in her eyes when she held the pint out to Sammy as if it contained a cocktail of nitroglycerine and monkey spit, which is to say, with careful disgust. “Smooth,” she gasped.
“Good for cleaning engine parts, too,” Sammy said, braving a swallow himself and capping the bottle. “Let’s get out of here.”
They raced away from the mooing mummy and made their way across the ceiling of an upside-down room and through a mirror maze to stumble, arm in arm, out onto the midway. The smell of sea air, popcorn, cotton candy, and cigarette smoke washed over them. Sammy bought them snow cones, red for her and blue for him, and, at Stilton’s suggestion, doctored the chilly treats with the last of the Old Tennis Shoes.
“Not bad,” said the Cheese.
“Could use some more blue,” Sammy said.
They walked by the rides and souvenir stands, and tried to find takers for bets on the merry-go-round.
“I’m giving six-to-five odds on the funny-lookin’ kid on the camel!” Stilton called, waving a fan of Skee-Ball tickets in the air to show she was legit.
“I think that’s a giraffe,” Sammy said.
“Five-to-six on the funny-lookin’ kid to win, then,” said Stilton.
Sammy pulled her away before she could find any takers and they ended up in front of a caricature artist, who sat on a stool, wearing an artist’s smock and a beret.
“Pinup of the little lady, sir. Only a buck.”
“I don’t know . . .” Stilton tried to walk away.
“I think she’s worth giving a second look,” said the artist. “Don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” said Sammy. He swung Stilton around by the arm. “Come on, Toots, I think you’re worth it, don’t you?”
“Don’t call me—” She caught herself falling for the bait. “Aw, hell.” She slurped the last of her snow cone, handed the soggy paper wrapper to Sammy, then sat down on the stool opposite the artist and let her trench coat fall off her shoulders.
“Color me pretty,” she said.
A look passed between Stilton and the artist that made Sammy think she might slug the guy.
“No work for me, ma’am,” said the artist, and he commenced drawing, holding his drawing board out of Sammy’s sight.
“Fine,” Sammy said. He walked away and fought with a half a book of matches to get a cigarette lit, noticing that the breeze had changed directions and was blowing offshore—it was warm, a rare condition on a summer night at the San Francisco beach.
“How ’bout you undo a button or three in the front there, Toots?” said the artist, when he thought Sammy was out of earshot.
“How ’bout I bop you in the beezer so hard it spins your beret around?” said the Cheese.
“Jeez,” said the artist. “No need to get tough.”
“And don’t call me Toots,” said the Cheese.
The artist finished his sketch about the time that Sammy was grinding out the butt of his smoke on the gravel of the midway.
“Voilà!” said the artist, in perfect fucking French. He flipped the drawing around.
Sammy took a look, then took a step back and whistled. “Holy moly.”
“You’re a lucky guy,” said the artist.
“Yes I am,” said Sammy.
The caricature portrayed Stilton in the pose of the classic Rosie the Riveter she can do it poster from the war—a blonde flexing a bicep, her hair tied up in a polka-dot bandana, the classic chambray shirt—except this Rosie was facing the artist, not looking over her shoulder, and the shirt was unbuttoned to the point that exaggerated bits of the Cheese were about to burst out for the world to see. It was Stilton all right, but rounder in the places where she was round, and sharper in the places where she was sharp: drop-dead sexy.
“That should be on the side of a bomber or something,” Sammy said.
“That’ll be a buck,” said the artist.
“You got it.” Sammy handed the guy a dollar. The artist tore the drawing from his sketchbook and started to roll it up.
“No, not yet,” Sammy said. He took the drawing, held it up, and compared details with the model, his eyes darting from Stilton to the drawing and back. “I need to look at this Rosie.”
“You two have a good evening, sir,” said the artist with a wink to the Cheese.
“Wendy,” Stilton said as she stood and joined Sammy in admiring the drawing, turning her back on the artist. “Rosie the Riveter was for girls who worked in airplane factories. In the shipyards we were Wendy the Welders.”
“What a dame,” Sammy said. Then he turned from the drawing and kissed her.
“You like it?” She pouted with anticipation. “I like the model,” Sammy said. “I like the model a lot.” “Let’s go for a walk,” Stilton said. “It got warm out,” Sammy said. “You notice?” “Oh yeah,” she said.
Sammy rolled the drawing up and fixed it with a rubber band the artist had given him and tucked it in his pocket. They walked arm in arm around Playland at the Beach, then out of the park and up into the dunes. They found a sheltered hollow where all they could see was the stars and sand, and calliope music from the merry-go-round sailed over them on a warm offshore wind. They lay down between her trench coat and his overcoat, wrapped the stars around them like a blanket, and made love until time disappeared.
***
Time returned, just before dawn, dressed in a chill fog, and Sammy awoke to the caricaturist’s drawing poking him in the ribs. “Hey,” he said. “How did that guy know you worked at a shipyard during the war?”
