YOU DIRTY RATS ~ Epic*sode 2 . . . By Absolutely*Kate ~ #FlashFiction

YOU DIRTY RATS

~   E P I C  *  S O D E   2   ~

( Or put that in your pied pipe and smoke it )

 Down and dirty, by ~

Absolutely*Kate

 CLICK ~   E P I C * S O D E  1 ~

A CRIME TALE ~ FROM A FAIRYTALE

 

"Hey Sis, you reckon Piper's gonna figger the skinny on Sammy?", Trudy Zambowser lamented, fingering stringy bangs out of sooty eyes with one scrawny hand while fishing along the sides to the bottom of her straw handbag past old kleenex and empty mascara tubes for more quarters. "There! Gotcha!" Score. She was 75-cents ahead, on a bead for the old Juke.

"Ol' Jake ain't gonna find out nuttin', nowhere, no-how, regarding Sammy," interjected the no-longer-minding-only-his-own-business bartender/proprietor of Hooligans of Hamelin. His chest puffed up practically as broad as his puffery, brawny George Ramsey Hooligan slicked back his contrary cowlick and checked again the dazzle potency of his grin in the Dewar's mirror above the microbrew taps. "Let's just say he's been taken care of good, real good. So good matter o'fact it's almost a shame how bad." A proud guffaw pronounced the jut of his jaw, on the alert just how alert that news flash volted a startle into Trudy's sister Frieda's usually cagey peepers. Feeling generous, feeling more the urge to feel lucky, George jiggled a double jigger of rum 'round the rim of the rotund lady's slender gimlet glass. He pushed the dainty stemware within easy reach of her chipped mauve manicure with pudgy fingers strumming the scuffed bar, attuned to her sister's sentimental tunes:
 

You were the start of the dreamin' in my heart

and now I can't stop dreaming of you

   
"Whatchoo tokkin' about Georgie?" Frieda glared up into a slow wink sliding down the way a slow wink was intended to be slow-mo, (heavy on the mojo), slid. Definitely meaning more than its vision hid. 

Brazen bravado led timbre rather than hush to Hooligan's low-down whisper, leaning closer and more personal towards the crusty broad he wouldn't mind rolypolying 'round with one day. Women with pork to their bellies were soft in the sack. Emboldening his move, George took advantage of her slithery sister still fiddling coins across the room. Came a swagger of sweet, funky oldies:
  

I'm waiting for my life to begin

          I'm waiting for that train to come in 

  
George generated his best Rick's Cafe accent, all the better to charm Frieda la femme, "Ya see kid, it's like dis -- Me and my accomplice, we rolled the barrel better than, uh, better than they do the Pennsylvania Polka in Perryopolis. Well, let's call it a steel drum barrel, so's youse gets da big picture in your peepers dollface  --  and man oh man, did it make some deep kerplunk!"

"Holy Hannah, George! You mean -- "
 
As if on cue, Hannah Zambowser, swathed in a trim suit of gabardine blue, not lookin' bad at all for her age, bustled grim gumption from the backroom, bellying it up to the bar. "You swappin' trade secrets Georgie Porgie?",  she said sweet as clenched teeth can emit. "Lotta fish swim funny in the river who bubble their blabbering outta turn. Just for the halibut, I heartily suggest you keep your piehole zipper-zilched. You got that, pal?" She stared him, his ebullience and his cowlick down, tipped a perfunctory nod to the short hunkered mass o'lass guzzling her gimlet, with a curt, "Freida," then hooted a jaunty "Hallllo!" to the beanstalk bending over the worn Wurlitzer, "You findin' anything good on that old jalopy of a nicklelodeon honey?" 

"Machine don't take no cottonpickin' nickels, Ma. This one's eatin' all my quarters, but I took dibs on a tip I reckon was over lingered at table 3, so I'm crankin' 'em out. There's a lotta oldies here. I kinda like that."
 

In a little honkytonk village in Texas

there's a guy who plays the best piano bar.

And when he plays out with the base and guitar,

they all yell out, "Oh give me Daddy, 8 to the bar!"

He plays the boogie, the funky boogie

and when he plays that rhythm 

he puts them all in a trance

 

~ ~ ~ 

GOOD TIMES SING NO BLUES

MEANWHILE . . . aboard the good party ship Whammy Zammy, the jazzed audience was slurping up a goodtime, lollygagging spellbound at the smooth dazzling antics of the main act, the man with the grin behind the silver sparkle of the Sweet Harmony Harmonica. No shit, Jake Piper on the poop deck, wowing them in wave after mesmerizing wave of music to somnambulance. Winding, weaving, wavering his way this way, that way, all the way around the floating pleasure palace, room after stateroom. 

Piper took in details of decor and more. He'd started slow and easy, the hypnotic heritage mouthharp zinging vibes of Rhinestone Cowboy, which hopped up the minion nymphs of the jolly mean giant like grits on a sizzler. Scantily clad, if that, they pranced fancy two-steps and bootie scooted their boogie to the obvious ogle of their southern captain's magnanimous delight. "Big Daddy! Big Daddy!", they called out in pretty squeals, arms all akimbo, "Come dance with me. Come dance with me." And they sang along, all but one, when Jake Piper led them in song:
 
 

I've been walkin' these streets so long
Singin' the same old song
I know every crack in these dirty sidewalks of Broadway
Where hustle's the name of the game
And nice guys get washed away like the snow and the rain
There's been a load of compromisin'
On the road to my horizon
But I'm gonna be where the lights are shinin' on me

 
The keener of the temptatious twins from Miami, Pammy, seemed to be following where his eyes were eyeballing. He noticed she'd noticed his notice of the ship's layout, but had she seen the way that gawdy red chandelier's pendants dangled? Something about the sheen was akilter, he'd bet his bottom GW. An 80-watt smile sought to distract her eyes. Focusing his hocusing, he came to realize her earbuds were attuned to  iTunes instead of his tunes, thus blocking his penchant to mesmerize.

The no account debauched crowd went down for the count to an 8-count of the Sweet Harmony Harmonica's bluesy drowsy rendition of Good Night Irene. Last goodtimes gal standing was Pammy from Miami, ironically not sorry to see the party she'd been part of, now over and out. "If you snooze, you lose," she whispered, as BigDaddy and his preponderance of pretty playmates drifted down a lazy river.

Piper arched his left brow.

Pammy fetchingly motioned her exquisitely tapered right index finger.

"You just gonna stand there looking gorgeous and beckon, or is there destination to your reckon?"

"You gonna follow me or just whistle Dixie with that dinky mouth harp?"

Lady had a point. Size mattered. He was behind her sashay all the way. All the way to the Captain's quarters where the swanky skirt showed she had predilection to her direction and was still several steps ahead. Pammy tiptoed with no teetering on teal Jimmy Choos, pulling from the back of an upper teak cabinet a creased sheaf of heavy papers, with a paperclipped newsclipping along for the ride.

Waving provocatively both the papers and her stance, "This what you came aboard lookin' for?"

"Could be. Why do you wonder?"

"Was wonderin' what's in it for me."

"You anglin'?"

"Y'know wise guy, I used to be Snow White, but I drifted, and drifting along, running this show how Big Daddy wanted it to go, got irksome. Let's just say I'm bored and I'm the kinda gal who likes action. Matter o'fact, I'd like a bigger piece of bigger action. Do you hold that attraction -- Big Boy? And --  50/50, that'll do nice to even the score for what I cipher you're in for."

Piper couldn't hold back his amused grin. "Nice Mae West to your zest, and -- 60-40, if, and that's a big IF, your presentation yields something good, then Kid -- you're in".

"If's a pretty big word for two little letters. Nevertheless, I indeed have what you need to succeed so no negotiations necessary Mr Piper. Y'all Jake with that?"

"As Jake as the day my mother named me. Alright Miss perplexing Pammy from Miami, you've got style, you've got wit, now let's see you make the split worth both our whiles."

Pammy smiled, the kind of smile that stokes kindered wood in the gut to flame a slow burn. She was sure selling the sizzle for her stake. She got right down to business though, spreading the papers flat on the marble charts table. "Just twain us, says here, this ship belongs lock, stock and barrels to one Samuel Marx, signed over by his grandparents Clem and Clementine Marx. Ship's then duly registered and notarized in the great state of Texas as the Samuel Clems, and was charted for a coastal cruise. Big Daddy was the hook to hook up this ship with a river casino cartel in Baton Rouge. 

Piper followed her line-by-line finger pointings steady. Her delivery was no nonsense, not so her perfume. That fair Windsong was wafting his mind to following sees.

She noticed his notice. She continued, a little softer this time, "Now this recent newspaper clipping caught the eye of Big Daddy the day we refueled our Chris Craft comin' up the Gulf. He'd sent Tammy in to town for provisions and a smattering of the local post gazettes. This captioned photo shows Mr Marx with his arm 'round the waist of one Hannah Zambowser, toasting bubbly. It seems they were embarking upon a new partnership voyage which steered clear of the deal that was supposed to come down. The article mentions, here, in the fourth paragraph down, that Mr Marx had returned fit and flush from a recent junket to South Africa. Big Daddy, you see, is as good at simple math as he is complex power structures, so he put those two and two and two together last week, when one of his crew's trawlers scooped a soggy Sammy from the sea on Saturday, saturated in a steel oil drum --"

"Oils not well that ends well?", cut in Jake, between two low long Piper whistles. Thinking doubletime about doubledealers he swiftly tallied his own summary,  "So then he bluffed hard-hearted Hannah with surmisal blackmail?" 

"Jackpot Dick Tracy! But once I met her when we overtook the Clems, then took over the Clems, I didn't figure that grim bitch too gone for too long. Big Daddy's people pulled enough on her priors to scare her off awhile, while the painter signed off on the new christened bow name, but -- well, call it woman's intuition, she didn't seem the type to be a bygone, closing curtains on a full disappearing act."

"They do this transacting alone? You remember?"

"Got perfect recall here Piper. Nope, she had a lurking grizzled fellow who kept just a shoulder's length to her shadows, patting his head a lot, a scrawny scrappy squawky gal, plus a quieter dumpy dame who distinctly seemed the only one of the lot with a full faculty of wits about her. As they were being unceremoniously escorted down the gang plank, Hannah got hepped up, and swiveled 'round about a sudden sentimental attachment to that tawdry red chandelier I saw you gaping at and turned back to the starboard side. Big Daddy bellowed they should get while their gettin' was good, and Biff or maybe Jed held high a Glock.44 to echo his bellow the more. When the scrawny one screeched to see such a gun, the dish ran away from the goon. She latched on to Big Daddy's arm with no conceivable charm, and it was the rounder one who pulled her off and quickened some sort of half-curtsy about how they'd be moseying off now and not causing any trouble since decisions made were plans best played."

"That's how she said it?"

"Exactly. My story, and I'm stickin' to it. Though her eyes didn't look beat. They fired glint. Lucky for all of them that my sister Tammy chose just that moment to approach Big Daddy with a squooshed tube of Ban de Soleil, turning her other cheek for assistance. Those rats scurried their sinking hopes off this ship, but as I said, I expected someone to come back. So, you with them?"

"Not exactly. But for the moment, I'm going to play this out nice and copacetic. Pick up the ransom, so to speak and get outta Dodge."

"You mean Hamelin."

"More fun to say 'Dodge'."
 
She smirked.
He smiled.

(c) 2011 ~ Author Absolutely*Kate

C L I F F H A N G E R !

Yep.

MESMERIZING ~ pic ala KTylerConk

Please return for next weekend's final wrap-up of "YOU DIRTY RATS" crimetime matinee AT THE BIJOU. We're investigating the Zambowsers and shenanigans in the sands of times in Miami. THEN YOU'LL FIND OUT just where we're goin' wit'this snazzy tune.

Eyeball the gritty slew of bombastic crime'tales outta fairytales right here, at THINGS I'D RATHER BE DOING.

You all sleep swell. 
Check the doors, will'ya?

~ ~ ~

Absolutely*Kate runs this here AT THE BIJOU joint of distinction as theatre for the mind, and shall be sailing Harbinger*33 (no relation to the WhammyZammy). She believes in believers, the depth of the shadows of noir and has moxie. World needs more moxie.

Lookin' forward to
seeing you down and dirty,

next week -- same crime time,
same crime channel.

Photo credits: KTylerConk on harmonica
and WoodleyWonderWorks on the waterfront

Lyric snippets: all as inspired, emanating from college indie station KCEA in Menlo Park
Rhinestone Cowboy stanza by Larry Weiss and Scott English for goodtime Glen Campbell 
 

It'd be a crime outta sequence
if you forgot to read ~

YOU DIRTY RATS,

E P I C * S O D E  1 ~

A CRIME TALE ~ FROM A FAIRYTALE

You may even pick up the harmonica yourself 

by next week . . . We'll see.

YOU DIRTY RATS ~ By Absolutely*Kate and Harry B Sanderford ... #FlashCrimeFiction

The challenge came to create a crime'tale updated from a fairytale. My pal Harry came along while I was takin' this challenge from the sharp-shooting minds over at THINGS I'D RATHER BE DOING and ponied up more than a wooden nickel of his 2-cents worth. You'll see. We gutted out our crime-senses in concensus from ~

"THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN". 

Sit back. Dig it. 

~ Absolutely*Kate, glad I followed Sean Patrick Reardon into another shadowy street to be desired. He did leave the door open after all. And then I saw Eric, and crime maven Joyce, and of course . . . Paul. 

So put your big palookas up
  on our tale, then go hunt up

those other gritty crime guys.

You'll feel safer that ya did.

 

YOU DIRTY RATS

(or put that in your pied pipe and smoke it ) 

~ By down and dirty duo,

Absolutely*Kate and Harry B Sanderford

 

Seems like the cool cats had all left town. I took my fedora off, the better to scratch the ponder of my noggin. Somethin' was off, and it wasn't just my hat. God, this godforsaken bar was a friggin' dive. The kinda place where you could practically watch slime slither. No sooner thought than brought, I thought, just lookee who comes hither. Frieda Zambowzer and her snaggle toothed sister Gertrude, Trudy to her friends of which I am sure there are none.

My name is Jake Piper. I’m . . . a fixer. I solve problems, big ones. The slithery sisters would not have called me if they weren’t in deep.

They eyeballed me up and down good and plenty while they ordered up their gin fizzes nice and slow, but I was game at avoiding glances I'd best disregard when another morning came knockin'. I was in this shithole of a town to do a job, and once I found my focus, I'd keep it. The way things were lookin' out that jagged excuse for a window, the sooner I got out of Hamelin, Texas, the happier I'd be. The taller one, the toothy one, had an irritating way of speaking, something akin to old Mrs Haggerty, my third grade teacher and how her nails accosted chalkboard. I put my hat back on, nodded to the barkeep for another barley pop. The shorter, rounder sister kinda leaned forward, an insult to good cleavage. “Put that on my tab Doc,” she cooed, sliding over a stool closer and giving my hand a pat. I gave my full attention to the grizzly barkeep. He poured. I chugged.

I finished the beer in one draught, placed it on the bar motioning for a refill and swiveled on my stool to regard the Zambowzer sisters in full. Trudy was eating salted peanuts and wiping her fingers on her Dominos Delivers T-shirt. Frieda had slid still closer and either had something in her eye or was being flirtatious. Time to get down to business. 

“Okay ladies, what seems to be the trouble?” 

In my line of traffic, you tend to see malignant narcissism comin' down the pike a lot, but this deleterious duo had it in spades. Boy could they deal it. And they fell all over each other trying to patch up the potholes they were scraping into their story. But hey, this was a job, and I needed the bread. I needed it in a hurry too, but, as they say, that's another story. The way these gals were driving their points home on all sides of the road, the bum steer was clear, but what they asked was a cinch. I knew I could avoid the local constabulary's pinch and clear outta Dodge, even if I was still in Hamelin. 

Just about every time Trudy notched up a screechy calibration, cagey Frieda would roll in, oft times with an intruding jab into Trude, to kinda change her tune. Me? I just hankered that she'd change her frequency.

 

"So you see Mr Piper -- "

 

"Jake, call me Jake."

 

"I kinda like that. Like those old black and white movies, 'everything's Jake'."

"Well let's hope so Trudy," feisty Freida cut in, still waggin' those Maybellines. "Tell him about -- "

Trudy was quick on the drawl, "It all happened when Sammy left us the  -- "

 

Frieda cut that one off at the pass, "When Grammy left us --"

 

"Yeah, sure, that's it, when Grammy left us -- uh -- her legacy." Trudy smiled. Frieda bobbed her moptop. I still had more in my glass, so I kept my mug busy. "It's a boat, well, a ship and we need a little help to get it back in our hands."

 

"You mean it slipped off its moorings?" I nudged.

 

Trudy snapped, "Not like that. It got swiped from us and we want it back."

 

"Were you aboveboard or below decks when this heist was hoisted?" Sometimes I couldn't help crackin' myself up. Passed the time 'til time to move on. Barkeep polishing the same dry glasses got a new dry chuckle outta that one.

"We lost it in a swindle," Freida blurted, finally more up front with the spill of her spiel.

"Yeah, yeah a swindle. We were bamboozled, flim flammed, we were shills just shallying. We were -- "

 

"Cool your jets Sis, I got the kodak. You want your merchandise returned and everything will be shipshape."

"No, actually we want to run a riverboat casino but -- Ooomph! HEY, cut that out, whatchoo kick me for?"

Frieda railed patent pumps into Trudy's shins, hard, fast . . .  meaningful. Me and Barkeep unloaded arched eyebrows at the chances of this finally gettin' good. The girls started mumbling into each other and I thought I caught the words, "Level with him", when ol'Trudy whipped a Madison portrait from some skanky seclusion I didn't wanta reckon about inside a tugged up portion of a rumpled black Maidenform. Pretty sad. That tugged rumple and only $500 winking up at me. I'd traveled some miles for this job.

"And there's plenty more where this came from."

"How much more?" Either the light or my patience was getting dimmer, because it got real easy to see the light bulb go off over Frieda's ratty hairpiece.

 

"Talking ten more." She said it evenly. Same way she held my gaze. No more slinging flinging lashes. This tight skirt, what there was of it, meant business.

 

"Hell's belles - with you getting those rats out of our way, those dirty rats what stole our mother's legacy, we'd be so grateful there could be two times, three times that much -- "

 

"TRUDY! Shut your darn yapper!" 

Guess Frieda held the purse strings with most else her rolypoly frame held and ran or wanted to run again a tight ship. I don't care what she wanted to do with it, gettin' it back couldn't be that hard and by my calculations it would make for a fifteen thousand dollar payday. “What is the name of this boat I’m looking for?”

“It was christened The Whammy Zammy, after our Grammy Sammy,” the sisters recited in unison.

“Start smoothing the wrinkles out of Mr. Madison’s mates sisters. I’ve got a boat to catch.”

                                                  ~ ~ ~

"COME ABOARD!" ~ pic WoodleyWonderWorks

It wasn’t hard locating The Whammy Zammy. Hamelin had but one marina and the giant paddlewheel riverboat dwarfed every other vessel at the docks. A party seemed in full swing when I asked a topless young lady with one hand on the starboard rail and the other clutching a magnum of champagne for, “Permission to come aboard?”

“Granted, handsome!” she giggled offering the bottle out to me as I climbed aboard.  I accepted the bottle and after a slash asked the out-of-uniform swab with the giggle and jiggle, “Would you happen to be the Captain of this vessel?” I shall have to remember the line as it seems it is the funniest thing I have ever uttered. “I take it you are not in command then?” 

“No, no, no,” she began, now composing herself and reaching out for the bottle. “I’m Tammy from Miami, this is Big Daddy’s boat.“

“Pleased to meet you Tammy from Miami, could you tell me where I’d find . . . uh, Big Daddy?”  I was on a roll with Tammy as this once again set her to laughing. I began to suspect it might not be my delivery alone and leaving her there, proceeded up the companionway. How hard could a Big Daddy be to spot?

I was disoriented at the top of the ship's ladder, for here again was Tammy from Miami, though the sign above her head clearly reported I had arrived on the Poop Deck. How could she have beaten me here?

“I see you met my sister.” This upper deck Tammy offered, taking me by the hand. “I’m Pammy from Miami. We both work for Big Daddy.” 

“Yes, I see,” I said, not truly seeing but sure things would come clearer. “About that, I am looking for Mr. Daddy.”

“He’s not so hard to find,” Pammy from Miami said, pointing out a man dressed like Colonel Sanders entertaining a bevy of no doubt, other “ammys” at the Poop Deck bar. Not a hint of laughter from Pammy. Dead ringers the two but clearly Tammy with the more sophisticated funny bone.  

Funny how I wanted to follow that funny bone, a lot of those funny bones actually. Which honed me more aware to keep my gaze steady on the main guy's, far better to get to the big prize, then I'd be more free to amble any 'ammy's way. This Big Daddy character was some character indeed. Halfway white-suited reality and the other 80% a ringer for a Bugs Bunny cartoon star. He was that big. You know the star. I felt it already from hearing his southern good old boy pomposity go gladhanding over the top - or in this case over the topless - of all his pretty minions. 

"Ahhh say, ahhh say, it seems we have us some kind of fancified visitor aboahrd our good ship o' goodtimes. Whah welcome tharah boy, welcome! Come on ovah hereah and state yourah bidness. Pammy, a special drink for our new city slickah friend. Or ahre you Tammy?"

 

I thanked Pammy from Miami and made my way over to the bar and the man who would look perfectly at home cradling a red and white striped bucket of southern fried yardbird. I was not surprised to see goon one and goon two angling to intercede with questions concerning my business. A quick note from the harmonica my great-grandfather gave me would easily re-route their concerns to their stomachs to make way for the galley. But I bided my time. Wanted first to size up my adversary.

Foghorn Leghorn. You can hear him, see him in your mind's eye, clear as a cart careens on one crooked wheel in a Piggly Wiggly. This guy was a bonafide LooneyTune. Out of habit and for security's sake I slid my hand into the interior pocket of my jacket. Naturally, it was right there. So too was the strong arming of the strong arms of the two gargantual muscle goons most likely dubbed Biff or Todd or -- 

  
"Biff! Jed! Now leave the boy alone. He'll mahnd his mannahs, I cain tell people. I cain." 
 

Couldn't stop the soft smirk, I was that close to naming cartoon lackeys. I kept my hand right where it was. Let it linger there a heartbeat. Then, slow, strong, steady, I held Big Daddy's gaze with friendly forcefulness, pulled out and brandished my trusty silver hunk of protection. Biff and Todd/Jed jostled back in a numbed flash, exhibiting the awe of nine-year old lads at a Tonka display at a toystore at Christmas time. Mesmerized. The Sweet Harmony Harmonica was noted for that on first impressions. Clearly more than gleam and sheen, its spark conjured back first moments of making music happen in an unexpected and very cool way. Thing was, the mesmerizing continued with the Sweet Harmony.

Mesmerizing itself is an art, a scintillating skill. Utilizing Mesmerism, you look with a purpose, you hold your intent, you impress your will. Big Daddy Foghorn Leghorn needed me to impress my skill on his will so that I could collect on my bill. With all the ammo of these handy 'ammies around, this particular exhibition packed the titillation of triumphant thrill. Big Daddy nodded once, twice, and I brought to my lips the sweet harmonica Great Grandaddy Piper had passed down with its potent powers to -- now, just me.

I blew a few mouth-harp tones out for the cartoon man's pleasure and approached at leisure. My gaze and paces were measured, guaging the measure of the florid man with the shit-eating grin before me. I quieted his guffaws with my senses and visualized thought control. Slowly, slowly . . . 
 

C L I F F H A N G E R !

Yep.

MESMERIZING ~ pic ala KTylerConk

Please join us for next weekend's "YOU DIRTY RATS" crimetale matinee AT THE BIJOU to find out just where we're goin' wit'this tune.

NEWS*PIZAZZ*FLASH:

HERE IT IS! EPIC*SODE 2

Eyeball the gritty slew of bombastic crime'tales outta fairytales right here, at THINGS I'D RATHER BE DOING.

You all sleep swell. 
Check the doors, will'ya?

~ ~ ~

Absolutely*Kate runs this here AT THE BIJOU joint of theatre for the minds and shall be sailing Harbinger*33 (no relation to the WhammyZammy). She believes in believers, the best shadows of noir and has moxie. 
The world needs more moxie.


Harry B Sanderford claims he's a cowboy surfer who'd just as soon knit yarns than mend fences, but Absolutely*Kate has keen detecting skills, and knows his skills spin a whole lot farther.

They look forward to seeing you down and dirty, next week -- same Matinee time.

news*pizazz*flash:

HERE IT IS ~ "YOU DIRTY RATS"

Epic*sode 2