It was another Tuesday, just like so many other Tuesdays that followed Mondays so bleak you wish you could just make it go away, but you can’t, ’cause you gotta’ make a living to put biscuits on the table. It was going to be one of those days, but I had a feeling that something was going to happen. Something always does in this seedy little town, then they come see me to pick up the pieces, but you can’t always put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Week 12 Blurb

I got outta bed, dressed, shaved, slapped on some aqua velva, then gargled with it. I was ready for my day.

When I got outside the Joe Diamond Detective Agency, everything looked fine. By the time I ascended the stairs to my office, I knew something was wrong – the flame in my furnace musta gone out. It was then that I noticed my secretary wasn’t here. If she was, the place would be warm and the smell of java would be coming from my office.

Dames. They like to play little games, but they don’t always win.

Shirley had been late plenty of times. Man troubles she says, and today’s excuse was no different. I didn’t buy it. Shirley was the trouble. She’d do OK for a while, then it would be like some big wave was crashing down on her life, crushing her like a bug. I tried to let her go so often, but just couldn’t bear to let her go. She spruced the place up too much.

Dames.

“Just get me some coffee and start that fire.”

Before I knew it, I had coffee, a warm office, and a paper. Maybe I’ll keep her after all. I went to get some milk for the coffee and noticed that the refrigerator had stopped running. That was gonna cost me, and payin’ the rent was hard enough.

It explained the rotting cheese smell that I thought was my socks, but it didn’t explain the sudden unannounced presence of the two hoodlums pointing their guns at me. Shirley was gone for sure this time.

One they called Red, though I never knew why. Maybe he had hair in a former life. The other one with the skinny legs was Sven. They had come to warn me that they were gunnin’ for me, but I wasn’t concerned. One – why announce it if their intentions were real? and Two – I could see that they had no bullets.

As soon as I looked up and said “Shirley,” they turned around and I finished ’em off. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

Yeah, somethin’ happened that day, but all in all, it was just another Tuesday at the Joe Diamond Detective Agency.

Commissioner
Joe Diamond