Chapter 2 – A minor setback

It was another Tuesday, just like so many other Tuesdays, just like that Tuesday a year ago when a couple of punks came into my office and tried to ruin all my Tuesdays from now on, but I had got the best of them that time.  But I know that you can’t win all the time, the odds were beginning to stack up against me, like when you’re winning at blackjack and you’ve got a 17 but you think you can do better so you say “hit me,” and the dealer does, and it’s lights out, and you never saw it coming.  I had a feeling that something was going to happen today.  Something always does in this seedy little town, but today, I had the feeling it would happen to me.

Week 10 Blurb

I got word that Red and Sven got out today.  Attempted murder hadn’t kept them in the big house for long – just a slap on the wrist, some easy time down the river, then out they pop like a cork from some Thunderbird that’s gone bad.  It gave me a bad feeling in my gut that couldn’t all be explained by that runny cheese I ate last night.  Right now, a blade in the gut would feel better, but I had no time for self pity.  I quickly drank my breakfast, and like the effervescence I could see and hear after that plop, plop, fizz, fizz, I arose from my chair only to have an attack of indigestion that put me back down.  I did get fast relief, but it wasn’t from the Alka Seltzer.  The office was, for once, toasty and warm as I entered the Joe Diamond Detective Agency.  I had been playing games with the furnace all year it seems – unreliable would be an understatement, but today, the pilot was on.  It was as reliable as Shirley, my secretary.  She was late again, dames, but I couldn’t blame her – she had a bun in the oven and was tired from cookin’.  Some pig had also accosted her a few nights ago, tried to mess her up, but instead met Mr. Derringer – twice.  Memo:  Don’t mess with a pregnant woman.

The fridge had died almost a year ago and looked like it had been run over a few times, but on top was my trusty coffee pot.  I made coffee that was black as a raven and twice as strong.  Suddenly, Sven, and the bald one called Red busted in.  They wanted to play me like a fiddle for what I had done to them, but as they rushed me, I gave them some hot coffee and the pot to boot.  Red was overcome – hands to his face and screaming something like “the penalty, the penalty,” but I wasn’t quite sure what that meant.  The old adage was true, the bigger they are, the harder they fall, though maybe he slipped.  Sven was another matter – I musta’ missed him.  Standing on the coffee grounds from the pot, his wiry frame looked menacing, but he wouldn’t take me on without help from his currently flailing friend.  “I’ll get you,” he menaced. “ OK,” I said, “how about five weeks from this Sunday?”  He looked confused – he didn’t know that you could schedule retribution, but you can, and I knew it.  I put him on my calendar, as he dragged Red out the door, mopping up as he went.  I had to laugh – I could see in his eyes that Sven was goin’ to wait the five weeks.  What a maroon.  Shirley came in and asked if she had missed anything.  I told her that she didn’t, but to clean up the coffee and blood on the floor anyway – and make me a fresh pot of coffee, if the pot would still work.

Yeah, somethin’ happened that day, but all in all, it was just another

Tuesday at the Joe Diamond Detective Agency.

Commissioner
Joe Diamond