THE PRINTS AND THE POPPER ~ ~ Epic*sode 7 ~ ~ "MEET VIRGINIA" ~ By Absolutely*Kate and Harry B. Sanderford of Harbinger*33

~ PRESENTING OUR

   MYSTERY*MATINEE ~

 "THE PRINTS

AND THE POPPER"

  

FROM WHERE WE LEFT OFF

 IN LAST WEEK'S CLIFFHANGER

 *AT THE BIJOU*

CATCHING UP ON CLIFFHANGERS?

JUST CLICK EPIC*SODES BELOW:

Epic'sode 6: "I See the Light" ... Epic'sode 5: "Lucky Shot"... 

Epic'sode 4: "Hi Jinks" ... Epic'sode 3: "Groping Against Grope"... 

Epic'sode 2: "The Clot Thickens"... 

 THE PRINTS AND THE POPPER

 

~ ~ EPIC*SODE 7 ~ ~

"Meet Virginia"

~ By Absolutely*Kate 

and

Harry B. Sanderford

Jeanette’s scream was not one of fear but more a release of pent up rage only further exasperated by this ill-timed reappearance of her tormentor. A body could take only so much disappointment before snapping. There was no cry in her war-cry and no hesitation in her actions when she seized the wooden chair by the arm and hurled it at the figure silhouetted in the doorway. There was no weeping and there was to be no mercy when she charged and tackled her stunned and stumbling jailer. She scrambled on top of him grabbing an ear in each hand and began bashing his head on the cold concrete floor. Each time she pulled his head back up she hammered her knee home between his legs. She was a cornered beast fighting for her life, and once again she'd found her rhythm. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sip. Think. Pour, more. ~ gleaming photo ala frecklescorp

The crowd was thick as thieves at The Lucky Shot Bar & Grille this evening, where an ace reporter from The Hazeltown Holler chose contrarily to drink the scene in alone. Meanwhile, InterNoir's crack-a-case-a-hundred-ways hotshot, Paul Caracas, didn't wish to heap any suspicions on the affable barkeep with the right wrist action for all the ways the bourbon tumblered, but his passport folio had evidently been lifted higher than his hopes in scoring some extra scratch from this small town's crime screams. The night was a toddler though, and he'd let it play. Smiling smug that it's such a cliche about how a creep creeps back to the crime scene that he or she actually does, Caracas adjusted his wait more comfortably on his bar stool. Odds on he'd be lucky at The Lucky, score back his goods as well as more perspicacity to the veracity of how the Hazeltown yarns were knitting about. Some had straggled in from up AT THE BIJOU already, hitting Venutolo up for shots and daiquiries among shouts and inquiries. Everyone wanted to know who was in-the-know, why blood was shed, how a temp-projectionist reached the final frame, dead. This barkeep ran a tight pub with a light grin, took in small talk and large conjectures, pocketed tips any way they came, and doled out the gin.

While the weekly poker game staked the usual jokers and aces and the newcomers at the billiards table felt green action, Anthony nodded his nightly command to his energetic staff to "Keep the customers happy, will ya?"

"We always do boss."

"That's why you pay us so magnificently, Mr V."

"Yeah, yeah. Get goin' you two - I see rye runnin' dry at that corner table for two." 

Rumbling his good-natured chuckle at local smart-ass college kids Buzzy and Jen, Anthony turned to the chipper chap he'd surmised to be a Brit with an Eastern Euro background or the other way around, not quite clarified yet but he'd nail it before he had to muddle a Mint Julep if the Sport o'Kings wasn't jockeying to be his sideline business. "So what in heaven's name particularly brought you to Hazletown?"

Paul Caracas sipped the way he thought, thoughtfully. "My health. I came to Hazletown for the waters."

Adding a splash to his own twist, Ant played along. "The waters. What waters? We're in the desert."

"I was misinformed."

The chuckle rumbled a deeper decible. This guy was playing with a full deck in Venutolo's seen-it-all vignettes of how life's repartee was dealt. Hell, he could do Casablanca without twitching an eye. Wonder what else he wouldn't give up.

"Ant, Hazletown's no desert. True grit perhaps, but you were telling tales on our terrain. Introduce me to your friend here?"

"Sergeant Stine, meet Mr Caracas of InterNoir. You know what evil lies in the guise of InterNoir?"

"The shadows know Ant, the shadows know." Daniel Stine moved down one stool and held out his hand. "Nice to finally meet you face to face Paul."

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Every politician knows how the moods of the public can capriciously change. None more so than the public pulse throb scorekeeper, Boss Gabardine. Now a grudge-match is a grudge-match, but a political grudge entrenches lower than where the mud doth rake. Gabardine still seethed from how the carefully crafted Cheezum maneuvers in '04 had cost delegates, elections, reputations and unfinessed fates. Lifting the lids on sealed tight cover-ups for the sake of expose' ink was no Tupperware burp to keep down. Not since Redford and Hoffman had Woodward and Bernsteined was a politico darling so daringly in the know. So in the know that she'd brought down curtains for some and up-the-river BigHouse sentences to paraphrase others' dangling propostions. She had to have inside info, she just had to. 

When the media heat was on, time had to be bided, that was a given. However the hit after the heat was given too, not with a holler but a handshake. Closed doors. You know how it goes. It was a double-barrel shot the syndicate was targetting  -- to throw a scare in how she was poking around again and to scrape the surface of secrecy sources. Damn it, Jeanette had inside info, no Yankee Doodle doubts about it. Now if only that stunad would answer his I-phone, Boss G would know the latest lay of the land. He had a chain of command to steel up to as well. Loose links sink senator's ships.

   ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It was the ringing brought Jeanette out of her trance, probably saving a man’s life. Still straddling the sap she could now see was sapped, she released him allowing him to slump back unconscious and fished the source of the ringing  from his shirt pocket.  Another damn I-phone. The German cockroach of electronics, she thought. They’re everywhere. She was fingering the talk button when she noticed her formerly subdued sap had not only roused but had the actual audacity to be eyeballing her inner thighs where her skirt had hiked over. Looking down where he had drawn a bead she thought, now how could I forget about you?  

She switched the relentless  ringer to her left hand and reached down with her right.“Enjoying the view? You  lookin’ at Virginia? Well here, how about a nice close look?” she ordered, retrieving  the silver derringer from her garter and poking the muzzle into Sappy’s mug. “Meet Virginia. You got about one second to start talkin’ Buster. Who’s on the other end of this phone?”

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

* AT THE BIJOU * 

Please return to next Saturday's Matinee

for the next gut-gripping epic'sode!

" The Prints and The Popper "

SHOTS OF HELL AT THE END OF A LONELY STREET ~ By Jason Henry McCormick

 Shots of Hell
at the End of a Lonely Street

by Jason Henry McCormick

IT WAS ABOUT MIDNIGHT and I’d been nursing the same highball at the same barstool next to the same girl who’d been telling me the same story since ten o’clock. I had forgotten her name and almost wished I hadn’t asked because she, “Nice Teeth,” needed to tell someone, anyone everything about some guy named who-the-hell-cares who’d broken her heart the night before.

So Nice Teeth kept blabbing and hadn’t sipped her drink in over an hour and I kept nodding and somehow managed to keep feeding her what she wanted: acknowledgement, which came in the form of my repetitious rhetoric of “uh huh” and “yeah,” along with my chuckles after the “humorous” parts. It was as if I’d listened and paid attention the whole time.

She wasn’t funny but her agility made me nervous so I stayed on my toes and hadn‘t sipped my drink in a while either.

Although she spoke broken/sexy English her vocabulary was robust and included a plethora of big words that I’d probably read but never heard or even learned to pronounce, so to me they were as foreign as her accent that had a hint of Columbia or maybe Guatemala.

She drank Jack, and wore a dark-brown dress that complimented the whiskey-shade of her big brown eyes. Her skin tone was caramel and smelled like it, too. There were golden streaks in her long and straight brown hair, which for some reason made me think of graham crackers. Her teeth were large, straight, and very well maintained. Despite the two little holes in her ear, she wasn’t wearing any earrings at least not in her right ear, which was extremely tiny however still proportional to the size of her head. She had a petite nose, thin arms, small hands and a tattoo on her left breast that was partially visible and looked like something great, like the head of a cartoon character.

When she took a deep breath I told her my name and that I’m a lefty but sometimes, I shave righty. See, Nice Teeth wasn’t the only one who had a tale to tell.

I had a story, too.

Except my story would’ve been about GI Joes and maple syrup, or Barbie dolls and peanut butter, or anything besides a broken heart because “I got one of those too, baby,” I said, but only once, because only lucky fools and doomed chucks rush in. So I stuck it out.

The bar was dead and Sinatra played softly in the background, from the lobby of a rundown hotel at the end of a lonely street. I stumbled upon the place during a long walk long ago. I hadn‘t visited it since then nor planned on never coming back ever again.

A third patron, the only other guest in the joint, was an older guy with a bald head and a beard that looked like a shadow from five o’clock yesterday.

I’d seen him before, a few years back. It was as if he never left. 

He slouched from a stool at the other end of the bar and his head was low and dim like the lights. With his elbows on the rail, he leaned forward and tapped his wedding ring against a tumbler glass, which looked like about two shots of hell in it. Perhaps it was either Jagermeister or Oil. That dude seemed like the loneliest man on the face of the earth. I’m not even sure if a hug and a hooker could have helped him out.

Every now and then, the bartender, an older woman wearing a frown and a tank top, came by our side of the bar. In a scratchy voice, she would ask us if we needed anything before she went out for “another loosey.”

I still don’t know what that means. And each time she asked I replied the same way: “No. Go ahead.” And Nice Teeth just kept on talking.

As I’ve already basically mentioned, her story sucked, but here‘s the brief summary: she dated a guy who sucked even more, who had a bunch of money and a really small johnson. He took her around the world and promised her the moon, fireworks, and other shiny things. In Rome he proposed and yes, he went to Jared the Jeweler. She said sure, he said neat, then I lost focus because I had to fart but managed to hold it in, to avoid interrupting. I think after that they came back to the States after he proposed. Or maybe they went to Columbia or Guatemala first, then they came back to the States. She showed the ring to her friends. Something, something, something. Then he met someone else, fell in love with him, and blamed it on her because she was a woman. The end.

If my heart wasn’t already broken, then it would’ve been shattered anyway, once I heard her story. But I didn’t tell her that.

It was just after one thirty when Nice Teeth finished up with a grand finale of salty tears, and arm and hand movements which closely resembled the field goal sign.

“Whoa, baby,” I said. I felt sorry for her but I was thinking touchdown! “You’ll get ‘em next time.” She smiled. We had a moment then I laid a smacker on her.

We necked for a while and the bartender watched us. Then Nice Teeth asked me if I had a room upstairs. 

“No way,” I replied. “This place gives me the willies’, baby. Let’s go to my place. It’s right up the street, like only two miles.”

She nodded.

I nodded.

The bartender came over and I paid for our drinks, which were taken away although we still hadn’t finished them.

“Loosey” lady came back with a rag and wiped up the liquid, the mixture of leftover sweat from our cocktail glasses and the salty tears from Nice Teeth. She set down my change, eight quarters, on the bar. I left them there.

Then Nice Teeth and I hit the road. We headed toward love, away from the heartbreak hotel and along that lonely street, while I told her a story about graham crackers and shaving cream. 

(c) 2010 ~ Author Jason Henry McCormick
Publishing Debut ~ AT THE BIJOU 

JASON: Kate, thank you so much. Thanks for the wonderful support and birthday wishes.  

ABSOLUTELY*KATE:  Jason, you are most welcome.  Your writing is a wide open pleasure, setting time and characters in place ~ worth a stroll up any street, lonely or otherwise, AT THE BIJOU. I'm sure you'll find a jolly jive of a following here. As a noted regular regularly utters, "How could it be otherwise?" Here, now make a wish ~

  

HAPPY CELEBRATION

OF LIFE, WRITING

AND WHAT POSSIBILITIES ARE ALL ABOUT, JASON!

~ Absolutely*Kate and the staff of renown

AT THE BIJOU