Yadda, My Sweet

This is a re-telling, YoWorld style, of a great novel by Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely.

This is not intended to be a rip-off of a great detective classic, but a tribute to the author, the genre, and of course, Film Noir )It was made into a film starring Dick Powell entitled Murder, My Sweet.

Pour yourself a whiskey and enjoy.

1.

It was a warm day, Spring. Yotham city goes from Winter to Spring in an afternoon. After a couple of months the servers can get a little warm (BVG just sent someone to get a better air conditioner [it’s not always cold in Canada, eh?]).  But it was hot today.  I’d left the car in the sun in the lot behind Alton.  Learned seatbelts make decent branding irons.  Today the Old Noob was medicinal.

I just got a shave by the only guy I know with a steady hand.  A haircut too, two bits. He even changed the oil in my hair.  

I was between cases, which meant I was between bars… looking for clients. My last client, a Mrs. Herrup, wanted to find her husband (Zip). I don’t know why. I gave her a break, started without a retainer. Either they fell in love, or ran away.  Maybe both. Either way, I spent an afternoon at Vinny’s, drinking.  

When I waited long enough I went to Uther’s Pendragon’s Bar & Grill. Then on to Tommy’s Tophat. Then Sammy’s on the southside.  Then Rick’s Place in Morrocco.  I was working my way down the alphabet and I didn’t care. 

I got to Quinn’s Inuit Take Out & Bar.  It might have had class once… but that would have been bck when Zynga was still turning a profit.  The sign on the window read: “SEAL FLIPPERS! Permafrost Ripened! $1 YoCash”  

The window on the second floor was open… Someone was playing a rag time tune on a agiarut and a tautirut.  A punchline drifted out… “and THAT’S why you CAN’T HAVE YOUR KAYAK & HEAT IT TOO!”  Loud laughter.

A shadow fell on the wall.  He was looking up at the window and the sign too… Mesmerized.  Like a saint in epiphany, or a cheese taster discovering prunes.  He was the shape of a man, not more that six foot, six inches tall, and when you get to half of something, you may as well round up.  He wasn’t wider than a beer truck. He was ten feet from me, his arms hanging loose at his sides, a forgotten cigar smoldered between a couple of fingers…

2.     Yadda, My Sweet

He was big enough to carry a Mafia V Cop henchman in his pocket and not be too conscious of its weight. He was large.  Not large like a large drink at the drive thru, but large like parking a Caterpillar 12G motorgrader in a two car garage large.

He had an ‘09 fedora, one that would go for over a mil at YoBay, but he didn’t look like he would know that.  It was stretched over his head like something he had known for a very long time. His ears were buttons.  Not “cute as buttons”, but the round knobs like folks get from being pounded on in a boxing for a few years.  He didn’t look the sort that it bothered him.  He wore a new suit, a jarring assortment of mismatched, bright colored, expensive YoCash items that had that new item look… chosen for bright colors rather than style. 

He was pale and needed a shave.  His crooked nose seemed to prop up his thick brows like those boards women used to use to prop up long clothes lines.

He stared at the faltering neon sign of QUINN’S INUIT BAR.  A smile slowly appeared on his lips and gradually illuminated his eyes.  

He looked like a man with a problem.  A man with a problem and with dough.  Seeing as I was also a man with a problem, being fresh out of clients and short on YoCash, I took a professional interest in his interest in an establishment that was probably seedy when indoor plumbing was the latest mark in civilization’s progress.

He stepped across the sidewalk and managed to open the door without stressing the hinges too much.  The door admitted him, barely. It shambled in, and it closed behind him.  For a moment.

The door sprang open and something flew out.  A tangle of awkward angles flapping  in the air like clipped chicken.  It landed in a heap in the street, untangled its legs, and resolved itself into what passes for humanity in that neighborhood.

It was one of those grifters you see in front of Alton Towers… dressed in cheap clothes, moaning they are poor and new, and haven’t anything to their name, yet sporting a diamond badge.

In professional curiosity I opened the door to a stairway that climbed toward’s Quinn’s establilshment.  Or, I assumed it did, but the view was blocked.

Large, sad eyes peered out at me.  He gripped my shoulder solemnly.

“I throwed him out.  You seen that?  He was gonna pick my pocket, so I throwed him out.  That was all I did.”

“Sure, Pal.  I saw that.  He had it coming. I would have thrown him out for just the way he looked at me.  You did good.  Real good.”

He released my shoulder.  I tried not to look like I was checking it for damage as I straightend my collar.

“This is that kind of place,” I said. “You sometimes run into that kind of guy in places like this.”

“Don’t say that, Pal,” the big man purred, like four tigers after dinner. “Sylvia used to work here.  Little Sylvia.”

He reached for my shoulder again.  I tried to dodge, but he was quicker than he looked. His fingers massaged my shoulder again like a four car incident at the Indy 500.

“Yeah… little Sylvia.  I ain’t seen her in eight years.”

He lifted me up three steps and set me down so he could peer into my face.  I was wishing I had brought my gun with me, but he probably would have just taken it from me and eaten it.

“You say this place ain’t no good?  It used to be good.  It used to be nice.”

“Go on up, see for yourself.”

He let go of my shoulder and I pondered whether I should see my doctor or go straight to the emergency room.

He looked at me with large, sad, brown eyes.  The same sort of eyes a certain large primate used on the girl of his dreams just before he tumbled from the Empire State Building.

“Let’s me and you go on up and see if we can get less thirsty.”

It didn’t seem like just a suggestion.



3.  Yadda, My Sweet

He made to go up the stairs, but paused. 

“I ain’t seen Sylvia in eight years,” he said in a voice that sounded like 18 wheelers rolling over an overpass.  “Eight long years since I said good bye.  She ain’t wrote me in six.  But she’ll have a reason.”

His eyes seemed to see past me and past the stairs, and past what ever had past in the last eight years…  “She used to work here.  Cute she was. Cute as a bug.”  His eyes refocused. “Let’s you and me go on up, huh?”  He reached for my shoulder again.  

“All right!” I yelled.  “I’ll go up with. Just lay off carrying me. Let me walk. I’m fine. I’m all grown up. I go to the bathroom alone and everything. Just don’t carry me.”

“Little Sylvia used to work here,” he said gently.  

The incredible bulk pushed aside the swing doors at the top of the stairs.  It was a long room, dark, with the patina of decades of tobacco smoke and sweat.  A juke box was playing Duke Ellington, and the locals were pretending they were enjoying themselves.  At least they were smiling a little… until they saw Chuckles.

“It’s all dif’rent,” he said. “There used to be a stage over there.  And there was other pichers on the walls.  But this bar was here.”

He pointed at a blackboard that read: “TODAY’S SPECIAL: Walrus Lips on a Stick - $1.25”  

“There used to be a picture of Sylvia there. She was real cute. Cute as a bug.”

He looked at the bar keep as if he was trying to place the face, then gave up.

“Where’s Sylvia?”  He turned to the patrons.  “Anyone know where Sylvia is?”

A man I would have called large just this morning, about the size of a ’68 VW Bug, walked over.  “Look fella.  There ain’t no Sylvia here.  I’ve worked this joint for five years and we’ve never had no Sylvia. We don’ wan’ no trouble, but I’m gonna ask you to leave,” the bouncer said.

My associate looked around.  He turned to the bar keep.  “I wan’ a whisky.”  He looked at me.  “Wha’ you wan’?”

“Same,” I said.

The bouncer put his hand on the large man’s shoulder. “Lissen fella, I asked you real nice to leave, so leave.”

I looked grimly at the bar keep  I was pretty sure the bouncer had just made an error of judgement.

“Take your hand off me while it still works,” my colleague said without turning around.

Apparently the bouncer felt he had a reputation to uphold.  He took his hand off the shoulder and turned it into a fist about the size and density of a twelve pound bowling ball.  He paused, as if to consider what he was doing.  Then he made a mistake.  He swung hard and connected to the side of the big man’s jaw.  A sigh went around the room.

It was a good punch, delivered by someone familiar with such things.  He had dropped the shoulder just right and turned his body into it.  It was clear he had done it before.

The big man’s jaw had moved about an inch.  

He blinked, and looked at the bar keep.  “I wan’ my drink.”

He stood up and turned around carefully, the way an elephant on a stool does at the circus. The bouncer swung again and the fist, as large as it was, became encased in the big man’s paw.

The other paw came up and grabbed by bouncer by the throat.  The bouncer tried to knee him in the groin, but the big man spread his legs a little to get a good stance, picked him up with a grunt, turned him in the air, and heaved him.  The bouncer bounced.  Off the pool table and into a couple of guys leaning against the wall.  He twitched and lay still.  He might have been unconscious.  Or maybe he was getting smart.

“Some guys have the wrong idears about when to get tough,” he said to me.

The barkeep brought the drinks.

4.  Yadda, My Sweet

The bar keep set the drinks down carefully, glancing at the napping bouncer on the other side of the room.

“You know where Sylvia is?”

The barkeep swallowed hard.  “No sir.  I don’t know Sylvia.”

“How come you don’t know?  She worked here.”

“I’ve been working here five years and I’ve never known anyone in my whole life name of Sylvia.  The boss bought this place six years ago and we’ve never had a Sylvia here.”

“Look, Pal,” I said to Paul Bunyan, “he doesn’t know Sylvia.  No one in this place does.”

He looked at me as if I had just appeared out of no where.

“Who asked you? What are you doin’ here?”

“You invited me, remember?”

He peered at me and recognition crept over his face. “Oh yeah.  There ain’t nuthin’ left of this joint.  It used to be nice.  There used to be a stage over there.”

I finished my drink and turned around.  The bar was empty, except for the bouncer who was moving slowly with great effort. He crawled along the baseboard like a fly with one wing. He looked like a man who had suddenly grown old, disillusioned.  The big man looked at him, and then paid no further attention to him.

He turned to me and smiled crookedly, which is the only way he could do anything with that mug.  “Where you figure I been for the last eight years?”

“Catching butterfliles.”

The bouncer found a door at the back… his hand managed to turn the knob and he crawled thorugh.

He poked me in the chest. “I been in the joint.  My name is Malloy. They call me Moose, on account I’m big.  They put me away for the Big Dog Bank Heist.  It was a solo job.”  He smiled, like he was remembering good times.  “$40 grand YoCash. They couldn’t really pin much on me.  They couldn’t find the car, the dough, nuthin’.  Course there was one of them cameras in the bank, but I had my face hid in a Caspar da Friendly Ghost mask.  They shouldn’t be able to say it was me because I’m big, but they did.  Barely.  So, I did the eight years.  Now I’m lookin’ for Sylvia.  I was gonna treat her right.  Now I can.”

Moose noticed a door at the back of the bar.

“Where that go?” he asked the bar keep.

“The barman’s eyes floated in his head, focused with difficulty on the door through which the bouncer had stumbled.

“Tha—tha’s Mr. Cannon’s. He’s the boss. He’s got his office back there.”

“He might know,” the big man said. He drank his drink at a gulp. “He better not crack wise neither. Two more of the same.”

He crossed the room slowly, lightfooted, without a care in the world. His enormous back hid the door. It was locked. He shook it and the moulding flexed, the door warped, popped open, and a sign reading “Louis Cannon” flew off to one side. He went through and shut the door behind him.”

“There was silence. I looked at the barman. The barman looked at me. His eyes became thoughtful. He polished the counter and sighed and leaned down with his leftt arm.

I reached across the counter and took hold of the arm. It was thin, brittle. I held it and smiled at him.

“What you got down there, Pal?”

He licked his lips. He leaned on my arm, and said nothing. Grayness invaded his shining face.

“This guy is tough,” I said. “And he’s liable to go mean. Drinks do that to him. He’s looking for a girl he used to know. This place used to be a different establishment. Get the idea?”

The barman licked his lips.

“He’s been away a long time,” I said. “Eight years. He doesn’t seem to realize how long that is, although I’d expect him to think it a life time. He thinks the people here should know where his girl is. Get the idea?”

The barman said slowly: “I thought you was with him.”

“I couldn’t help myself. He asked me a question down below and then dragged me up. I never saw him before. But I didn’t feel like being thrown over any houses so I came along.  What have you got down there?

“Got me a sawed-off,” the barman said.

“Tsk, tsk. That’s illegal,” I whispered. “Listen, you and I are together. Got anything else?”

“Got me a gat,” the barman said. “In a cigar box. Leggo my arm.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “Now move along a bit. Easy now. Sideways. This isn’t the time to pull the artillery.”

“Says you,” the barman sneered, putting his tired weight against my arm. “Says—”

“There was a dull flat sound at the back of the place, behind the closed door. It might have been a slammed door. I didn’t think it was. The barman didn’t think so either.

The barman froze. His mouth drooled. I listened. No other sound. I started quickly for the end of the counter. I had listened too long.

The door at the back opened with a bang and Moose Malloy came through it with a smooth heavy lunge and stopped dead, his feet planted and a wide pale grin on his face.

A Colt Army .45 looked like a toy pistol in his hand.

“Don’t nobody try to fancy pants,” he said cozily. “Freeze the mitts on the bar.”

The barman and I put our hands on the bar.

5. Yadda, My Sweet

Moose Malloy looked the room over. His grin was taut, nailed on. He shifted his feet and moved silently across the room. Hard to believe someone so large could be so quiet. It was like an enormous storm cloud moving over the city, or the smile of an IRS auditor.  He looked like a man who could take a bank single-handed.

He came to the bar. “Stand up,” he said softly. The barman put his hands high in the air. The big man stepped to my back and prowled me over carefully with his left hand. His breath was hot on my neck. It went away.”

“Your bouncer friend,  Allan Rensch, the fella what put his hand on me, is gonna be OK, but your boss, Mr. Cannon, he don’ look so good.  He didn’t know where Sylvia was neither,” he said. “He tried to tell me—with this.” His hard hand patted the gun. I turned slowly and looked at him. “Yeah,” he said. “You’ll know me. You ain’t forgetting me, pal. Just tell them johns not to get careless is all.” He waggled the gun. “Well so long, punks. I gotta catch a street car.”

He started towards the head of the stairs.

“You didn’t pay for the drinks,” I said.

He stopped and looked at me carefully.

“Maybe you got something there,” he said, “but I wouldn’t squeeze it too hard.”  He laid a 10 YoCash note on the bar.

He moved on, slipped through the double doors, and his steps making the building creak remotely going down.  It didn’t seem right that someone so large and foreboding could be so quiet, like a roiling thunderstorm slipping over Yotha City, or the smile of an IRS auditor.

The barman stooped. I jumped around behind the counter and jostled him out of the way. A sawed-off shotgun (hacked item, never released) lay under a towel on a shelf under the bar. Beside it was an Itsaboy cigar box. In the box was a .38 automatic (Mafia 2). I took both of them. The barman pressed back against the tier of glasses behind the bar.

I went back around the end of the bar and across the room to the gaping, bent door behind the crap table. There was a hallway behind it, L-shaped, almost lightless. The bouncer lay sprawled on its floor, napping, knife in hand. I leaned down, pulled the knife loose, and threw it down a back stairway. The bouncer breathed stertorously like an idling ’39 Plymouth.

I stepped over him and opened a door marked “Office” in flaked black paint.

There was a small scarred desk close to a partly boarded-up window. The torso of a man was bolt upright in the chair. The chair had a high back which just reached to the nape of the man’s neck. His head was folded back over the high back of the chair so that his nose pointed at the boarded-up window. Just folded, like a handkerchief or a hinge, like organic oragami.

A desk drawer was open at the man’s right. Inside it was a newspaper with a smear of oil in the middle. The gun would have come from there. It might have seemed a good idea at the time, but the position of Mr. Cannon’s head proved he was wrong.

There was a telephone on the desk. I laid the sawed-off shotgun down and went over to lock the door before calling the police. Mr. Cannon didn’t seem to mind.

There was a bottle of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon in the lower right hand drawer and I helped myself.

When the prowl car boys stamped up the stairs, the bouncer and the barman had disappeared and I had the place to myself.

The Red, Red Robin, Keeps...

There's a corner of the internet, where folks peek in, voyeuristic folks with a third dimension... who watch the digital dramas of folks like me... hard working and hard drinking citizens of a little burg by the odd name of Yoville, scratch that, They call it YoWorld.  I call it Y Town or Yotham City.  It doesn't matter, because it is home.  Home is where the bourbon is stashed.

My name is Spade, Sam Spade, and I’m a private investigator.  Don’t call me a detective, unless you are already a client (the customer is always right, especially when they are wrong).  A detective detects things.  You’ve got your lie detectors, your smoke detectors, and your radiation detectors.  I don’t do any of that stuff.  I investigate.  Sometimes that means trouble.

I’ve got six slugs in me.  One is lead and the other five are bourbon. I keep two magnums in my desk.  One’s a gun I keep loaded.  The other’s a bottle and it keeps me loaded.

It’s a tough job, but then, I’m a tough guy. Some people like an audience when they work.  Enough of them have told me so with blunt instruments until I’m a phrenologist’s dream come true.  But snooping pays the bills.  Especially Bill my bookie, and Bill my probation officer.

Well... to my point... yeah, I’ve got a point, loosen up your knickers and relax.  Getting in a hurry is a good way to get yourself hurt.

There's a guy in the 3D realm who pulls my digital strings.  (Why anyone needs a third dimension is beyond me.) Sometimes he manages to mess with me and my cases, but he keeps me in cigars and bourbon, so he ain't so bad. He'll turn on his computer and meet me at some watering hole and we swap lies.  Well, not too long ago he did just that and we met somewhere between my 2 and his 3 dimensions, perhaps dimension 2.5... The Twilight Zone.

I was in my office...

I’d been stalking the blue-bottle fly for five minutes, waiting for it to sit down, but it just kept doing circle eights in the light streaming through the dirty window. I knew it would eventually land where the light hit the corner of my desk... a warm spot, a miniature helipad with a nice circle imprint left by a bottle of Old Noob Kentucky bourbon.

Suddenly the buzzing stopped and there it was, pulling a leg over its sorry excuse of a face. I raised the swatter and... the phone rang.

I lifted the phone slowly and spoke softly: “Hold the line a moment please.” I set the phone down gently on the brown blotter.  It had finished “washing” its “face” and now was grooming its wings. It sat there, a symbol of evil, like a goat head in a pentagram, or a teller at the DMV, or a developer of Zynga themes...

I swung hard and fast, at an angle so it wouldn’t leave a gooey mess. Half of it arced neatly into the wire trash basket, and the other sailed into the streaming light and settled near the radiator.  I picked it by a wing and reunited it with its abdomen.

I poured a glass and reached for the phone...

Say, before I get back to that call... would you care for a drink yourself?

I picked up the phone... “Spade Investigations... This is Sam.  How can I help?”

If dogs could talk they might sound like the voice that came over the receiver: “Spade? Good. Listen... Lay off Zynga if you know what’s good for you. If you don’t know, then keep right on poking around and a fisherman might be surprised to find a cold avatar of the detecting variety in tiny little pieces in his next catch.”

The line went dead.

Apparently a lot of things were going dead lately. Themes, gifts, even the crowd in front of Alton Towers wasn’t all that lively.  And now a voice over the phone was making predictions for other things to cease their proper functions.

I wasn’t particularly interested in snooping into what Zynga has been up to, I kind of like it quiet, but on the other hand, I don’t like being told to buzz off (you saw what I did with that fly).

I put my feet on the desk and an Itsaboy cigar in my mouth, pulled my fedora over my eyes and contemplated the baritone sax crooning from the drunk jazz musician across the alley.

Then she walked in... A dame wrapped in a black dress the way they wrap those little ready to eat sausages. So tight you wonder if you can get at the goodies without damaging the merchandise.

Her hips swung to each side the way the warning sign wags over a train crossing... and like the RR Xing I heard an alarm clanging somewhere, but I didn’t pay it any mind.

She purred a question. It might have been my name, but I couldn’t be sure as my brain hadn’t reengaged all my senses yet. I stalled for time by pouring a double shot of Old Noob.

Mona Lott, daughter of Carr Lott, wealthy Yoworld philovatarist had asked me to look into a case.  She had come in person to persuade me, using feminine wiles and a bag of YoCash.  She didn’t need to try that hard.

I raised my glass slowly so the fumes of the bourbon would work like smelling salts and watched as she pulled out a cigarette holder so long I couldn’t imagine how it fit in her tiny pocket book. Somehow she produced a cigarette and fit it into the holder in a manner that made my teeth sweat.  She leaned over the desk for the lighter, further than she needed to, and in lighting it I realized it was too warm in the office.

“Good afternoon, Miss...”

“Mona...” she said with a voice that could cut steel.

“You got a last name that goes with Mona?”

“Lott.  My father was Carr Lott, the importer.”

“I remember him.  I’m sorry for your loss.” 

He had been an original dealer in Y Town rares long before there was YoBay. Zynga said he was connected to hackers skimming cream from the Sweets Factory. They pulled his digital plug.  Poof. One less avatar."

“It’s OK,” she purred.  “Daddy left me his passwords and I retrieved enough inventory that I won’t have to punch into the Widget Factory for a very, very long time."

“That’s swell, Doll. So tell me, what brings you to the seedy side of town?”

“I’m lonely.”

I tried to avoid showing my spike in blood pressure by lighting another Itsaboy cigar. 

“Yeah? How so? I figure a dame like you can buy all the company she needs.”

“I tire of sycophants.  What I really want are my parties.”

“Can’t see how I can help you there. I’m not much of a social director.”

She leaned close.  Close enough I knew she could smell my Brylcreem. I felt her breath as she whispered...

“True friends, Mr. Spade. I want my friends who have gone to V Cruise and Candy Crush and Vegas Dream Poker. I want Yoville back the way it was, Sam. Yoville Bob has disappeared.  He was one of the common people, Sam, and I love the common people. I miss Bob, and I know, I just know it is all part of the same thing... Find out what has happened with Bob.  I will make it worth your while.”

Mona Lott was using her Lauren Bacall voice on me, slowly leaning over my desk as if she were trying to be earnest, but in reality reminding me why we are called mammals.

“Make it worth my while, how?” I asked.

“Well, I am rich, and bored...”

I considered splashing my glass of Old Noob into my face, but I downed it instead.  Setting the glass down with gentle determination, I said: “Well, given the two, I’ll take the dough. I usually get $200 YoCash a day, plus expenses.”

“What sort of expenses?”

“Oh, gas, food for stake outs, maybe a hotel room or a train ticket if I need to go out of town. Sometimes, to get information, folks need a little lubrication...” At that point I filled my glass with my favorite lubricant.

“How long does it take to solve most of your cases?” she purred.

“Well, it depends on a great many things...”

“I’m interested in finding out where Bob is.  Is he hurt? Has he retired to another game?  Has he been involved in something that was too big for him?   I don’t care what it costs, but I hate waiting. 

"I've gone to the police, but they don't care.  They are too busy with Zynga and some guys that are coming from Norway, or Denmark, or some nordic place...

"What if we say it takes a week to find out, that would be $1400 YoCash plus expenses, as you say, which I can pay now. But if you solve it in just a few days I will pay you $3,000 YoCash.  Does that sound reasonable?”

“Lady, if you have that kind of dough, then I suppose I can say it is plenty reasonable and throw in the expenses for free.”

“Then we have a deal?”

“We have a deal.”

She strolled around the desk proving she had her own way to cross her heart, and laid $1500 YoCash on the blotter.  She leaned over and gave me a squeeze and a kiss I knew left a mark.

“Thank you Mr. Spade.  I hope to hear from you very soon.”

It was a missing persons case, perhaps a homicide without a body.  Disturbing.  Y Town Bob was missing. Yoville PD wasn't about to do anything about it.  Folks vanish from Y Town all the time, and the cops in this burg are busy tracking down donuts.

So I went to the factory.  Other than a couple of scuff marks on the factory floor he just disappeared. 

Outside there were skid marks on the pavement, and a body in the road.  No, not Bob’s.  It was from the new Road Kill theme: an opossum.  Someone had pulled it from the road and sat it up against a rock and tied a balloon to its tiny fist.

He was a mid-level supervisor at the Widget Factory.  At one time he’d been the manager of the plant, back when he’d convinced Zynga to turn it into a Sweets Factory.  He was lucky to hang on around there as a graveyard shift supervisor.  When The Big Guy had given the boot to The Big Dog, Bob had managed to hang on.

Between his involvement in the Sweets Factory, working for Zynga, and gaining a cult following just prior to the landing of the nordics he had a lot of folks interested in him.  Good and bad.  Love and hate.  He also was a member of a bag pipe and accordian marching band, which makes things even more complicated.

I went to the Widget Factory and waited in the shadows until no one was around, and jumped the fence to get at the burned our shell of the old Sweet's Factory.  The rain came down hard, the way it does when some director in a B movie thinks there has to be more water in the air than in a swimming pool for it to look "noir enough". There were rusting hulks of burnt cake encrusted ovens, and red-eyed 2010 Halloween rats.

I heard a car coming and stepped back...

It was the local "riff raff".  I could tell because that is what the license plate said.  I didn't know if they were just patrolling or had a hint I was snooping.  I figured I better make this quick.

Behind the factory I found a case of Old Noob with one bottle missing.  I figure the cops won't worry too much if it's two.  If you want one, we can make it three.

A shadow stepped from the shadows.  Guido Nefariano, raised a fist in his usual greeting, and I took a nap.

Someone was playing a kettle drum.  As I rose from unconsciousness the drumming became louder.  It began to sound like my head was in the drum.  It became clear my head was the drum.

“He’s coming around.”

There was something about Bob… Visions of hard hatted Bob, hard headed Guido, bottles of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon… boxes of Itsaboy cigars…  A ringing sound… the drum beats matching my heartbeats… Yoville Bob…

I wanted to rub the back of my head, but my hand wouldn’t move.  In a corny B movie transition the out of focus blob before my eyes sharpened into the grimace Guido used to imitate a smile.

He was helping me to my feet under the painful brightness of a bare light bulb.

“Listen, Guido.  Just because you shave doesn’t mean folks can’t tell you are a gorrilla,” I muttered.

He managed to knee me in the gut while holding me up by the neck.

“You thinks you’s so smart, Spade.  You ain’t smart.”  Another knee to the gut.  “You’s don’ knows whose you’s messin’ wid…”

“You Yadda!” I wheezed. “You… ended that… sentence… with a preposition!”

“Listen Guido…” I began.

“I not Guido.”

“Trot that horse by me again.”

“I not Guido. Guido friend.  I Jimmy.”

“That is enough Jimmy,” said a metallic voice from a speaker on the wall.

Jimmy lifted me up, by my neck, and set me in a chair (Police v Mafia 09).

“Are you alright, Mr. Spade?  I hope Mr. Krakorn has not damaged you.”

“Krakorn?”

“My associate there with you.  James.”

“Naw, I’m fine.”

“I hope there aren’t any hard feelings over how you were invited here this afternoon.”

“Of course not.  In fact, I was thinking of taking you all out to dinner.”

“Amusing…  Well, Mr. Spade.  It is my understanding that you are curious regarding the whereabouts of Yoville Bob.  I would like you to turn that curiosity into more productive areas.”

“Productive… Well, let’s start by seeing you produce a body to go with that voice?  I don’t care to hold conversations with a box on the wall.”

A pause…

“Jimmy.”

Jimmy Krakorn swiftly pushed my pancrease to a new location.  After groaning a little I saw the humor in the situation and started to chuckle.

“Oh, you think this is funny?”

The chair was picked up, and set on its feet.

Jimmy cracked his knuckles, making a sound like a slow avalanche. He pulled his fist back and...

A voice came from a hidden speaker: “That is enough, Mr. Krakorn.”

He hit me anyway. It hurt.

“Jimmy!” the voice growled, “I said that was enough.”

“Yes sir.” 

“I think you have gotten Mr. Spade’s attention already. Now, apologize for your excess enthusiasm.”

“I real sorry, Mr. Spade.”

I couldn’t help myself, I had to say it. I just shrugged and said: “Jimmy Krakorn... I don’t care.”

“Now, now, Mr. Spade. Please don’t antagonize James. He was teased quite a bit with that name and is very sensitive.”

“Of course,” I said. “That was insensitive of me. So, is this the part where we get down to business?”

“Why, yes it is. I have, let us call it an interest, in Yoville, and I am pleased with how things are going. You have been indiscreet, and I would be very displeased if things interfered with my plans.  I do hope you understand how I feel about this.”

“Oh sure, I understand,” I said. “Somehow this means dough, and it ain’t for pizza. This whole kidnapping and beating thing is just your way of saying ‘Pardon me, but I think I was here first.’ I recognized Jimmy’s voice... he left a message suggesting I might make good fish bait. I’ve met a lot of hard boiled eggs in my time, mister, but you’re a 20 minuter. And don’t worry about how I feel. I feel fine.”

“I see,” said the voice from the darkness.  You prefer to do things the hard way.”

“Mister, you don’t know hard. I’ve been in Yoville since ’08 and back then we couldn’t even sit down.  I was pushing empty suits out of Y Town before what ever prepube slimeball in the 3D world decided to sneak into Daddy’s den and create your unimaginative sorry excuse for a digital Colorform avatar, and I will be here long after you and whatever next generation of the matrix comes along.  I’m twice as tough as Morpheus and three times as drunk.  So, whatever you have in mind ain’t going to work so let’s skip the next 20 minutes of where I pretend you have convinced me to behave and go ahead with your Plan B.

There was silence from the darkness for a long stretch of time.  Then from the darkness a throat cleared.  

“Very well, Mr. Spade.  Jimmy will see you out.”

Jimmy cracked his knuckles.

Tough guy huh?” Jimmy was trying to get a rise out of me.

“No, you’re the tough guy... I’m worse.  And I’ll give you a break.   Turn and walk away and you won’t get hurt.”

“Ha! I’m the one with the gun, and you’re the one walking to the pier.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “I had a good run, and I pushed it too far. I get it. The way I figure it, there’s no way out of this, since you got my gun.”

“Guns,” Jimmy Krackorn said. 

“Right, I should have figured you’d find the 2nd one.”

“Well you figured right.”

“Look, I know you’re probably a little concerned I’ll make a scene, or try to pull something at the last minute, so, I’ll make you a deal.”

Krackorn looked suspicious as well as stupid.

“When we get to the pier, give me a couple minutes to smoke one last cigar and take a pull or two off my flask, and I’ll be civilized enough to take it like a man.”

Jimmy thought it over. “OK, tell you what.  My friend here will wait at the entrance of the pier, so if you try anything he can drop you.  Meanwhiles, yous and me can go down there and each of us can have a cigar and share that flask.”

“Sounds fine to me.”  

We hung a right at Alton Towers and made our way down to the beach.

Krackorn had confirmed my suspicions... He found only two of my three guns, missing the ankle holster.

We got to the beach, found the boardwalk and strolled toward the pier. It was dark, Zynga’s single nod to keeping Y Town interesting was its recent nightfall each evening, but it was still a balmy digitally-enhanced 72 degrees.  Foggy and damp in Yoville alleys, but here, a pleasant night except of course that I was supposed to die at the end of the pier.

At the docks next to the pier an 09 Mafia V. Police henchman automaton stayed at the entrance, stringing yellow police tape to keep the curious out of the way and I suppose lending local law enforcement a hand for a possible murder investigation in the morning. Thoughtful.

A digital moon was reflecting off 2D waves. I could see the lights of the S.S. Oscar Wilde, a gambling establishment anchored in Zynga Bay. Sounds of laughter, shouts of wins, groans of losses as Yo cash was tossed on gaming tables like confetti at a New Year’s Day parade.

We got to the end of the pier. I pulled out my flask, two cigars. I took off my jacket and laid it on the bench. “No reason not to be comfortable,” I said to Jimmy, handing him a cigar. He smiled a little, obviously pleased I might be keeping my word. 

I loosened my tie, kicked off my shoes, and put my feet up on one of the large cleats that used to tie up ships bringing materials to the Sweets Factory.

I opened the flask and took a long, slow pull of Old Noob Kentucky Whiskey, handed it to my companion.  His smile broadened; he drank and handed the metal bottle back.

“Look, Jimmy,” I began.

“Forget it Spade. You seem a nice enough guy, but don’t spoil the moment.”

“Right.” 

We traded the flask between drags on Itsaboy cigars. I could barely make out his partner, Giggles, at the entry of the darkened pier.

Jimmy was just slightly tipsy. It was time.

I handed him the open flask, and fumbled it just through his fingers so it dropped to the wooden pier and the elixer of life began dribbling out. He made a grab for it, and I feigned the same, but used the moment to pull the flapper gat from my ankle and brought it up to his face.

He stared into the barrel, transfixed at the sudden reversal of roles and I pulled the trigger.

Little red hearts sprayed out, pummeling his face. He staggered back and went over the rail.  I dove after him.

We hit the water and he struggled in his trench coat and heavy shoes, items I had shed. He looked like he might be going down. Up on the pier his pal, Giggles, was running with his wise guy shuffle to the end of the pier.

I reached James Krackorn and helped him out of his coat, he kicked off his shoes. I reached over and touched him, just long enough to access the pop down menu, choose “Visit Apartment” and popped away.

Jimmy Krackorn’s apartment was loaded with rares.  There wasn’t any real decorating, just storage of valuable items, a lot of them animated. Venus fly traps, 09 zombies, Wonderland rabbit holes, the works.  He seemed to particularly like 09 Mafia V Cops.

I looked through his messages.  

Jimmy Krackorn’s apartment was loaded with rares.  There wasn’t any real decorating, just storage of valuable items, a lot of them animated. Venus fly traps, 09 zombies, Wonderland rabbit holes, the works.  He seemed to particularly like 09 Mafia V Cops.

I opened his message box, and felt I’d gotten a punch to the gut.  The top message: “Pick up Spade. Bring him to the warehouse. --Badd Bart”

Badd Bart had framed me once, and I had served five years in YoYo Pen. Once I got out, I went searching for answers and he tried to frame me again.  And he’d killed a friend of mine, Tops, and nearly killed a buddy, DeLong.  I thought I’d sent him to prison, along with Frannie Miller, with the evidence I turned, but, apparently he knew how to work that out.

Bart was an oily one.  He looked a cross between Jabba the Hutt and Orson Welles just before he got out of the black and white film biz.  He was proud that he had moved his business to 60% legit... but the 40% was still going strong and it meant he was happy to settle things with me the old fashioned way.

Now he was back, and had sent this thug to put me at the bottom of Zynga Bay.

The next message was interesting: “unka jimmy.  I no find Unka boB.  I look and look. War unka BOB go?” It was signed: BBCindyLu.

Cindy Lu is probably one of those seeking Mwommwy types.  She was a safer start than looking up Badd Bart.  

The job of a private investigator is to investigate. I don’t have to like the answers I find... I just have to find them.

Her apartment was the basic noob set up.  By appearances she was real new.  I strolled through, she didn’t even have an outside deck yet.  On the refrigerator I found what I was looking for…

I didn’t want to lose Cindy Lu so I left a gift and a message. Not enough to make it look like I knew her, but enough she would hit reply and give me a way back.

I had a number of plushes and dropped a goofy looking American Bull Dog no one wants anymore into her box, just the sort of thing a noob looking for a Mwommwy: “I saw you in front of Alton Towers. You were getting the run around.  Ignore the dweebs, there are a lot of good folks. Since you are new, here is a welcoming gift.”

Now for Badd Bart. Badd runs a little underworld business in Yotham City and has somehow avoided getting busted by Zynga (one of these days someone with standards will push the Big Dog out of town and he will get his).  It is better than even odds he was behind my little stroll to Viking Pier this morning.

Bart looks like a cross between an aging Orson Wells and Jabba the Hut. A thin mustache over a wide, Edward G. Robinson lips, a cigar sticking from one corner (not my brand… I smoke Itsaboys, Badd Bart chews on “Old Stogies Ivafound”).  It won’t take him long before he makes a follow up visit.  

I dropped Cindy Lu’s artwork into a mailbox to myself.  A little insurance that will arrive two days from now, and went back to the office.

I brewed coffee (Yolgers, it’s the richest kind!), toweled off, and changed into dry clothes.  I poured a liberal dose of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon into a mug of joe, sparked an Itsaboy, and thought the case over.

The case was simple.  Yoville Bob was either alive or dead.  If he was alive, then he was either hiding or kidnapped.  If he was dead, then he was either murdered, had an accident, or was a suicide. That is five possibilities.  Of the five there are three scenarios that could account for things.  Either he had personal reasons behind what was going on, or the Zyngoids were behind it, or it was the new guys, the nordic fellows who’ve been mopping up the graft, the grift, the rif raff, and the rags.  That makes three times five, fifteen possibiilities.

Hmmmm…

How was Jimmy Krakorn involved?  Is Cindy Lu the same as Cindy Loo Who?  Is Badd Bart involved?  That is three more twists to the tale…  Three times fifteen is forty-five.

OK… The case isn’t so simple. 

Fortunately I have the perfect solution.  I take one private investigation case, pour in a bottle of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon, light an Itsaboy cigar, and take a drive in the rain…

Mona Lott wanted Y Town the way it used to be... which I sort of understood... there used to be a lot of laughs. But it had become a rat-infested dump the sat couple of years and the rats were taking over.

She thought that Y Town Bob's disappearance had something to do with it.  True, it was Bob as a vice president of the Widget factory, who had changed the joint over to a Sweets Factory.  But though that was still a hot topic for a lot of avatars (what with the protests in barrels, pitchforks, and the regrettable burning of half the factory, Bob redeemed himself by taking a demotion and a cut in pay and happily told folks which buttons to push at the reopening of the Widget Factory.

I pulled in at a watering hole and got something to drink (not water, that stuff will rust your pipes!).  There had been a lot of glitches and down for maintenance stuff lately.  Perhaps it had to do with the general seedy condition of Yotham City of late, or it was a big picture thing that might be connected to my case.  I was on my third dose of cough medicine when she walked in.  The door swung open the way they do when they get bumped pretty hard, and her silhouette showed plenty of bumps.

She slid down the bannister as if to dare the hand rail to insult her ample curves with even a splinter.  She looked like the kind of dame who could make a fella, or a hand rail, see her point of view.

She pulled up the stool next to mine, though it would have jumped to whatever spot she wanted if she had just asked.

Dames like this are trouble, not that most all dames aren't, but this one looked like she might have had a brother name of trouble, and an Uncle Trouble, and a cousin Trouble, and a boy friend she might call himself anything she wanted and throw in the trouble for free.

So I kept my beak dipping into my drink the way those stupid little plastic and glass birds do (how those drinking birds work anyway...).

The dame invited me in to the "closed group".  I didn't know what that meant, but she have me an address and a password.  So I looked the joint up.  Or rather, down... as it was on the seedy side of Yotham City. I found  the place OK.  It was called "Club 7", at the intersection of Hate & Trashberry.  I knocked and a little door window opened in the steel door and a pair of eyes peered out: "What's the password?" a voice growled.  "Ding Dong, the Big Dog's dead," I muttered.  a sliding bold slid behind the door and with a slow creak the door opened to smoky pit darker than a tax auditor's heart.

Joey “The  Fish” Beluga said the last time he saw Y Town Bob he was “as healthy as a squirrel in a walnut tree”. 

I drove to the the old shipyard at Valhalla Cove. Back when the internet was a steampunk fantasy of Niki Tesla’s, Valhalla Cove was a robust shipping center.  But Big Dog Industries had built a modern harbor to the north and businesses and individuals of a darker nature settled in like sludge in a fishing boat’s bilge. I drove past Bjorn’s Bar & Grill, a joint that tried to persuade Yovites it was trendy to go slumming, and past  Loki’s Lookout, a quaint bar (perfect for marine themed tattoos, cheap liquor and cheaper women) that was held together with pieces of corrugated metal, discarded marine hardware, and fading hopes.  Sven’s Svedish Ships was the last semi-reputable establishment before reaching the piers.

I got out and scouted the foggy, sagging docks and piers using liberal doses of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon and Itsaboy cigars as smelling salts.

I didn’t see much on the docks, or rather too much to see, and smell.  Rotting boats tethered to rotting docks and the smell of rotting fish. I strolled through the mist to a local bar seeking refreshments, Loki’s lookout.  You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. One must be cautious. 

The pungent fragrance of Valhalla Cove was concentrated within the darkness of the bar, a darkness thick enough to slice into pieces and sell at the Auction House as Halloween curtains. Odeur de Loki’s was a piquant fragrance that steeped in the parfum of unwashed sailors, grease, and that greenish  stuff is one finds in a bilge of ancient ships.

The patrons of Loki’s were working men who’s salty language used just enough colorful terms to make it unclear if they were actually making conversations or practicing their adjectives.

Whale oil lanterns added enough of a yellowish cast to prevented the joint from actually being in black and white, and added to the roiling clouds of smoke ebbing around the scarred bar and pool table, permitting anonymity to those at corner tables.

No one wanted to strike up a conversation.  I was sure Y Town Bob had been down this way, but I couldn’t prove it.

After a pint or so of the local moonshine I needed to shake the dew off the family tree, and beneath a patina of smoke and evil I spotted the clue I was looking for on an old bulletin board…

Tacked near the top was either Guido or James Krakorn holding a big fish with... Bob.

I took the photo of Bob and the ad for the charter service off the bulletin board and slid into the privy, which was a sort of addition on a sagging back porch with a quaint crescent moon carved into the door. I put them into a hidden inner pocket in my trench coat, washed my hands, straightened my tie and took a pull off my flask of Old Noob to wash the taste of the local’s varnish remover out of my mouth.

Two pairs of eyes in a smokey corner watched me intently as I went back to my spot at the bar.

The barkeep was working his way down to my empty glass in case I needed a refill or wanted to say something as I left a tip.  So I left him a tip: “Never squat with your spurs on.”

I glanced behind me as I slid out the front door.  The men in the corner were rising.

The fog had closed in.  I had a feeling my antagonists would be doing likewise momentarily. I walked away from the docks, no sense in taking on trouble next to a large body of water capable of swallowing small bodies of avatars.

I’d been poking into the disappearance of Yoville Bob.  I was invited to an interview with a Cops V. Mafia henchmen I took to be Guido,“The Brick” Mattone, but who turned out to be James Krakorn.  and managed to leave him floating in Hind Leg Cove.  A newbie I traced through him had seen Y Town Bob, and from there I went to a dive bar (they’re the richest kind!) to talk to Joey “The Fish” Beluga at Club 7.  He gave me a lead and I found a picture of the missing 2D supervisor of the Widget factory beside either Guido or Jimmy, next to an ad for a charter service.  I think I was about to crack the case, if I could avoid getting my head cracked.

There was an alley behind Loki’s Lookout with a bright light that might trouble any goons in seeing clearly.  I took off the trench coat and laid it neatly over some crates, lit an Itsaboy cigar, and waited.

I didn’t wait long.

There were five of them.

The spokesman for the group did a little soliloquy about the virtues of minding one’s own business and when he tried to punctuate his point with a left hook I snagged his right foot and arranged a little nap beside the crates that were keeping my trench coat clean. He did manage to knock my hat off which annoyed me (mental note: add dry cleaning of hat to expenses).

The remaining four approached cautiously, like an English 101 students asking for an extension on a due date. I placed my back against a wall under the spotlight…

“Look, fellas,” I said to the four left standing.  “There’s four of you.  Let’s make this a fair tussle.  Run get another four and we can start.  I’ll wait.”

The weasel beside the largest one whined: “Ah… Tough guy, eh?  Youse shuda stayed downstown.  It ain’t safe wanderin’ in dis neighborshood.” 

The goons took a step toward me, except weasel boy, who took a half step.  The largest lumbered forward, and I put my right wing tip into his crotch.  He blinked, grunted, and raised hands the size of bananas.

I widened my eyes, putting a look of horror on my face and stared at his shoes.  He stopped, frowned, and looked down. It was an easy move using his hat as handles and pull him forward and over, all the better to place a knee in his nose. It didn’t quite fit.

As King Dong fell his two braver colleagues rushed me.  I jumped onto the sleeping giant’s back and put my weight behind a straight arm punch to the nearest while his pal grabbed my collar. I let him pull the sleeve off and he stumbled back. Poor fellow slipped and hit his head on a pipe and took a nap.

This was too easy.

I scooped up my hat and threw it at Weasel Boy.  He jerked and I shoved him aside.

Apparently he was the only one still awake.  I put my foot on his chest and relieved him of his gat, tossing it behind some crates.

I straightened my coat, put my hat back on, cleared my throat.

“Look, I’m all for good conversations and all, but I prefer them over a friendly drink.  If you really want to do the strong arm thing, come with a few more friends… or a dame.  Next time someone is going to get hurt.  Follow?”

He glared at me.

I strolled off around the corner and hustled down another alley.  I figured Wonder Weasel would be up in a moment trying to tail me, so I dodged around a corner and waited…

It didn’t take long for Wonder Weasel to come along.  Though he was moving slowly, his idea of stealth would make a rhino look discreet. From the sounds of the shuffle I knew he was alone.  One may be the loneliest number, but it is my ideal number of informants.

I waited until his revolver appeared from behind the corner and I shot it.

“YADDA!!!  Oh my GAWD!  YADDA!!! Summuffabeach!”

I stepped out and the look of terror, pain, and anger on Weasel’s face was memorable, even adorable.

“YOU!  You YADDA-ing Yadda of a mother yadda!!! You broke my Yadda-ing fingers!”

“Listen carefully Pal.  I see you were left handed.  It’s my understanding that lefties can use their right hands better than right handed folks use their left… so you have that going for you.  Now you have three choices.  First, tell me what I want, do what I ask and you won’t get more owies.  Or, make it hard for me and you will walk with a limp the rest of your life. That is what happens when folks get shot in the thigh. THEN you will tell me what I want to know.  Your last choice is the most unpleasant.  Having failed the first two questions on my little pop quiz I cancel your avatar account permanently and I go back for one of your buddies in that alley and see how well they do on a pop quiz.”

I pulled out a handkerchief, picked up his revolver and put a slug in a shack down the street.  I tossed the gat into a nearby woodpile.

“Oh look there!  You shot at me!  Good thing I was able to shoot that gun out of your hand… Believable this story, ain’t it? Now I don’t like hurting folks, but you have me at a disadvantage, having jumped me with four other guys and then coming after me with that hand canon.  So… Let’s get started.”

Wonder Weasel nodded.

“There’s a good lad.  First question: Do you know Yoville Bob?”

He nodded his head sullenly.

“Excellent!  Next question: Are you buddied with him?”

He looked about trying to find something that might help his situation.

“I didn’t mention this before… I charge my clients by the hour.  In the interests of being frugal I won’t waste a lot of time.  So, quickly now… Are you buddied with Y Town Bob?”

He nodded again.

“Now, see how easy that was?  Very simple questions, not too hard.  Here is the last step in our little encounter today.  You are going to accept my buddy request.  You will then IMMEDIATELY join Bob wherever he is. As soon as I appear, you will go home and live unhappily ever after.”

He nodded, sent a buddy request.  I accepted and motioned with my gun for him to go ahead and join Yoville Bob.  He disappeared.  I counted to three and followed…

Wonder Weasel, the wimpy thug, had buddied up, under duress, and was leading me to Yoville Bob.  I expected he would pop away as soon as I popped in, which was fine with me.

The scene was a bit disorienting (meaning I didn’t know which was East).  This often happens when an avatar joins another.  One never knows where you’ll appear.  It could be the bright sunlight of Alton Towers, or a crowded auction, a protest, or someone in the blank-eyed stare of rearranging furniture.  This was one of the strangest scenes in my career…

It took a moment to register I was in an immense cavern. Wonder Weasel flashed a grin as he popped away… and the crowd before me resolved in the dim light…

It looks like I might have found Bob.

I didn’t move.  There didn’t seem to be a point in hiding.  Thousands of eyes were looking at me.

So I did what I always do in such situations.  I lit up a fresh Itsaboy cigar and pulled out my flask.  Took a pull, and put the flask into my inside pocket. Every pair of eyes tracked my movements.

“Ahem…”

All eyes snapped to my face.

“Hi there, fellas.  Anyone here seen Bob?”

Thousands of mouths opened.  Thousands of throats chanted: “Click to work.”

Hmmmmm…

“Somebody in charge around here?”

Thousands of mouths opened.  Thousands of throats chanted: “Click to work.”

“I see.  Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll just have a look around.”

Thousands of mouths opened.  Thousands of throats chanted: “Click to work.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

Thousands of mouths opened.  Thousands of throats chanted: “Click to work.”

I shut my mouth and pushed through the crowd.

The Bobs remained mute, their eyes following my movement deep into the cavern until I lost them in the murk and steampunk towers belching graveyard mists.

I don’t think the real Bob was in the group, everyone was perfectly synchronized, but he could have been.  If he was, he wasn’t letting me in on things, so the answers were elsewhere.

I found a factory exit where Bobs were shuffling out like a trickle of hard hatted, empty headed 09 henchmen, winding out across the cave floor, drifting toward the lake of Bobs.

Circling the factory was impossible.  Every corner revealed another building in the mists, winding off toward a glowing light in the distance.  Usually at this point in the plot I would hear some drunk playing a bluesy baritone sax, instead was the clunking, thunking, wheezing, whistling grunts of unreleased steampunk buildings and machines.

After strolling for an hour or so I stopped for an Itsaboy cigar and Old Noob Bourbon.  I puffed on the cigar until it glowed bright enough I knew it might ignite the bourbon fumes. 

Beneath the thrumming machines I heard sounds with that quality carried only by voices, many voices.  I moved ahead…

A stream of people were making their way into an ancient temple carved into one side of the cavern.  The entrance to the temple had deep relief carvings of the dreaded red-eyed American bull dog… I had a bad feeling about this…

The people were shuffling forward, chanting:

“Zynga, Zynga, Zynga… ZYNGA!!!   Zynga, Zynga, Zynga… ZYNGA!!!  Zynga, Zynga, Zynga… ZYNGA!!! 

I shuddered. 

Zynga worshipers.

I found a perch above the temple and watched.  People entered, spent a few minutes, and left again.  As they left they smiled and whispered something I could not hear from where I sat on a parapet of a chimney that reached high into the darkness.

I gave them an hour or so, gauging how many were coming and going.  Sliding around the chimney I saw that the network of factory buildings I had been following were connected to the cavern wall about a hundred feet from the carved entrance of the temple.  It started getting slow, fewer and fewer Zyngoids entered the temple.

I waited until there was a gap in the worshipers, turned up the collar of my trench coat, pulled the brim of my fedora over my eyes, and clamped my Itsaboy in my teeth.  I entered the temple of the Zynga.

Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made,

Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps,

And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke,

By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down…

(I tip of my Yankee sombrero in recognition to Wally Whitman, a favorite poet.)

The people formed lines at a rows of work stations just like the one at the factory.  The tinkle of coins rang dully from behind a wall, no coins danced upon their heads.  Above them, on a pillar, a robot presence intoned: “Click to Work!”  And above it was a stone horror… a large stone statue of an American Bulldog, with eyes aflame, and a growl emanating from its stone throat.

I joined the line.  Checking my energy level, it was at 14%.  I’d spent a long time up on the chimney.  I took a swig from my flask, my energy level climbed to 100%, it was my turn to step up to the work station…

I stepped on the platform.  A factory work station is like one of those tell your fortune and weight things they used to have at Y Town Drug & Mercantile.  I clicked the button (that is what Bob meant way back when, and what I suppose the large retro robot above me means by “CLICK TO WORK.”  

My energy dropped to 0%, no coins fell.  I did hear a tinkle of coins within the machine, but they sounded as if they were spinning around one of those funnel things until they drop and you are supposed to learn something about physics, and donating to a good cause.

The mechanical automaton, or henchman, or whatever it was, the Robot from Throw Back Thursday, said: “CLICK TO WORK.” I stepped off the workstation and a kid with a purple mohawk, studs, piercings, and a teddy bear stepped on.

I glanced at the stone dog… its eyes glowed, but it looked as dead as Zynga support. The robot on the pedestal couldn’t see directly beneath it, and the people were murmuring “Zynga, Zynga, Zynga… ZYNGA!,“ too entranced.  They noticed me about as much as a good looking dame notices someone who breaks the high score on Halo… not at all.

I sidled along around the pillar and found a doorway cut into the stone wall.

Stairs led up into darkness.

The joint wasn’t what I expected.  If Herbert G. Wells had been right about the 1940s it might have looked like this.  A trumpet player was blowing slow and smooth and the mournful wail sounded something like Gershwin.  It rolled through the haze and smoke of the bar like waves before a storm.

The place looked like it might have had class back when class meant something, before the turn of the century… The atmosphere was thick, not metaphorically thick, but truly thick, with tobacco smoke, maybe opium… with soot from old lanterns that had years of cheap oil burning a patina onto glass that made their glow look like a piece of amber from the Jurassic. 

The bar was old, a huge job made of mahogany and craftsmanship like some great sailing ship that had run aground in a steampunk speak easy, surrounded by reefs of red velvet couches and chairs, threadbare in places, all the good places…

Electric lights fought feebly against the haze, like early experiments of Tesla before he wandered off to make ray guns or transporters.

I couldn’t see the corners, but I could see her just fine. She might have been a singer once, or an entertainer of another sort, but right now she looked like she was about to lose a battle or two with gravity, though she managed to make it work for her.

She turned slowly, making her ample hips come about like the Titanic trying to avoid an iceberg.

At first this seemed like an unlikely place to find behind a Zynga worshipers’ temple, but it made sense.  Whoever was manufacturing all those Bobs need factory know how, and who ever ran this place was a steampunk genius.

The dame circled slowly around the room, making like she hadn’t noticed me, but her spiraling path clearly was headed my way.  Even in the deep dark of the sea of smoke, this feminine shark smelled fresh blood.

She had nice curves, and nice... features. She was wearing one of those black, silky, shrink-wrap dresses dames wear to “preserve freshness”.  Her hips swayed the calculated way women’s hips sway to makes a man’s brain stop using the upper cortexes. She wore her hair loose and that is more than a metaphor.  She had a pair of long, black gloves that ran nearly to her bicep, the kind that look best when the dame is holding an absurdly long cigarette holder.

Her body moved through the haze and smoke, various curves, orbs, lines that would take a celestial mathematician using non-linear fractal geometry to describe adequately.  And, as we all know, any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. She was homing in on me like a Kuiper belt comet headed for Jupiter, if you know what I mean (it’s OK if you don’t).

While she circled in I lit an Itsaboy cigar and gave the barkeep the half grin guys use to signal services will be needed as soon as the preliminaries are complete.

“Hello Handsome,” she purred. “You look thirsty. Are you waiting to recharge before hitting the workstation?”

“Yeah.  I like doing my part for the cause, but I like a good drink even better.  Sometimes I even like a little company... Miss...?”

The dame looked me over slowly.  I had made a guess about what this joint was all about, and her hesitation showed I had missed the mark a bit, but not enough to scare her off.

“Mary.  Mary Richman. You don’t seem like most of the workers plugging in out there.  And I’ve never seen you in here before.  Did the boss bring you in?”

“Well, in a way.  But I know better than to talk too much.  I don’t think the boss would care to know you get so friendly with strangers, either... Mary.”

“Easy, big fella.  I wasn’t talking.  I was just making sure you were on the square.  We can’t be too careful.  Not with that viking dude sniffing around.”

“Right.”

“Seriously, I thought you were suspicious and I was just trying to get you talking.”

“R-i-gh-t... Well, I don’t kiss and tell.  Not with all we have got on the line here.”

She was buying it. She was exactly the type I thought she was.  One of those dames who sniff out power and attach themselves to men like a remora.

“Hey! Take it easy! You don’t have to go all nervous on me.  I can tell you are on the right side of things.  I just couldn’t tell from across the room, so I came to check things out.  The boss pays me to be friendly with strangers and I’m just doing my job.”

She pulled out the absurdly long cigarette holder from an improbably small purse and wedge a thin, pink, cigarrete into the end.  She took my cigar out of my mouth and lit up, anding back my smoke with a wink.

“OK, Doll.  I’ll put in a good word for you when I see the him.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.  Is there, uh, any way I can thank you? I am, afterall, very grateful for anything you can say for me.”

I had her. 

“Well, tell you what.  Let me buy you a drink to patch things up seeing as we got off on the wrong foot.  And you can tell me how you are going to be a help to the organization in the big move coming up.”

Every club has a big move coming up, certainly one that has mesmerized Yovites plugging into hacked work stations without pay while a robot exhorts them is up to something big.

“Barkeep! Bring a bottle of Old Noob and two glasses!”

I laid a 5 YoCash note on the counter and turned to the gal beside me and smiled...

“So Sam… What do you do when you’re not plugged into a workstation for the cause?”

“You’ve got lovely hair, Miss Richman.  Did you know most ladies have to brush their hair for 15 minutes a day to properly keep their hair manageable?  That can damage it. The finest fibers for your type of hair come from the bactrian camel of northern Mongolia.  That’s right Sweetheart.  I sell brushes.”

“That’s interesting,” Mary Richman lied.  

The best cover story is one which you can pretend it is interesting but no one wants to talk about it.

“I also sell perfume.  Our newest line is ‘Funeral Home’.  Lovely fragrance!  Just lovely.  Very soothing.”

She smiled weakly.

That did it.  She was sure not to ask further questions.

“Well, Doll.  I need to shove off.  The big man is expecting me, and you know how he gets.  All that day job stuff just pays the bills.  But this operation… THIS is going to put us on Easy Street.”

“How well do you know the boss?”

“Is that all you can call him?  I know him from way back.  We first met up when the Mosaic browser came out, the first in line text and photo browser.  No one called him boss back then.  How well do you know him?

“I met Mr. Burr just a few months back.  Zynga announced they were closing the place down, and he had work for me. It looked like things were about to fold, so I went to work for him.”

“Do you still call him Mr. Burr or have you gotten to a first name basis yet?”

“No, it is still Mr. Burr.  He doesn’t like to be called Timothy.  We are strictly business.”

That is what I needed.  A real lead.  Anything more will be gravy on the stuffing.

“Well, Tim and I are close. He usually doesn’t mix business and pleasure.  What did ol’ Tim have you doing for him?”

“Well there were a number of store owners who couldn’t see their way to his point of view.  There was Rawkin Rowl at the music store and Bob at the factory.  I just got them here, got them drunk, and he took care of the rest.”

Bingo.

“Well Doll, I’ve got to go. Time to meet with Tim.”

“Will you be back? I thought we could have a little fun.”

“We’ll see, Angel.”

I gave her a peck on the cheek and squeezed her hand. The henchman in the shadows by the back door was watching.

She patted my thigh, stroked my arm as I left. I’m glad I keep my Norton Anti-virus up to date.

I strode to the back door.  

“Mr. Burr is expecting me, Pal.”

He nodded and opened the door. 

Past the bulk of animated pixels making up the henchman in Agnyz Bar was a foyer, an anteroom to the chamber of the “the Boss”.  

Straight ahead one could assume was his office.  It was appropriate that the doors were of wood between and Tim Burr.

To the right was a door that looked like it might lead to a lab, probably where he conducted nefarious work, work that was behind the disappearance of Yoville Bob.  To the left was a channel of water leading off into darkness.

I had a choice.

I could scout the other rooms, perhaps learn more before I confronted Mr. Burr.  Information is useful, especially in dealing with dangerous men.

But, that works two ways and I did not want to give Tim Burr the opportunity to gain information about me.  He could talk to Mary Richman, or the henchman at the door, or spies in the temple.  Heck, the goofy robot exhorting his workers might have cameras feeding him my approach.

Information may be useful in dealing with dangerous men, but… as many have learned, I’m not particularly safe either.

I decided to use another tool of my trade, surprise.  I would rather surprise him than have him surprise me.

I took a pull from my flask of Old Noob, lit a fresh Itsaboy cigar, pulled out my gat… the impressive one, the 50 caliber ACME special, and pressed my ear to the door. It seemed quiet.  I turned the knob and shoved the door open…

Tim Burr was standing near a sort of series of steampunk control panels.  I rushed him.  He tried to brink some sort of rifle to bear but I had him covered.

“Drop it Burr! One tiny little move, just a flicker and you’ll find the business end of this pistol rearranging your pixels so no server back up could ever put them together again. Take a seat.”

I tossed his gun across the room.

“OK Sam… What will it take for you to make this go away?”

“Simple.  I want you to go away, and I want Yoville Bob.”

“Bob?  That grinning goof?  Well, you can have him, I don’t need him.”

“Yeah… I saw you had spare Bobs on hand.  I want the original.”

“Well, you can have him.  All he is good for now is using him at the same job he had before, but I don’t even need that anymore.  We’ve cranked out all the Bob’s, we are geared up to change their appearances, and replace unused accounts with them.  Soon all the coins in Yotham City will be run through our knock offs.”

That was all I needed.  I knew where Bob was.

“Who is behind this?” I hammered.  “I don’t believe YOU did it.  You just don’t seem to have it together enough.”

One of his eyes began to twitch.

“You Noob!  What do YOU know about what it takes? You are like the rest!  There are 10 kinds of people in the world!  Those who understand binary code and those who don’t!”

“Well…. I’m no script kiddie, Tim Burr!  I play by the rules and if the rules need breaking, well, that’s someone else’s job. 

“Script Kiddie!!!”

Now both eyes were twitch asynchroniously, and one was larger than the other.

“You sir, are an unknown USB driver!”

Now he was twitching so much he seemed to be vibrating.

He hopped up on his desk, frothing at the mouth.

“I’LL TELL YOU WHO I AM!!!  I AM SHUDSY DISHSHOAP!”

“I thought so,” I whispered.  I have a second client.  A fellow with a silly hat.  A nordic fellow, and he has asked if I might locate you as well as Bob.”

Dishshoap began tearing off his steampunk clothes and degenerated into a disheveled lab coat and flipped backwards, straight through the book case.  It was from a halloween theme a few years back, and as it rose up, he flashed out of sight through a rear door…

I raced after Shudsy Dishshoap and entered the lab. I hesitated,seeing the horrors of his experiments. Several Yovites were in various stages of genetic or digital alteration.  

In his hurry, Shudsy tripped over the first one, a Frankenstein’s monster on a metal table, and doing a Mary Lou Retton, he landed squarely on a Tesla Coil (Halloween 2009).  His clothing, his binary code, his costume, all of it, burst into flames… his skeleton flashing through the flesh. His charred and desiccated corpse might be an inspiration for Halloween 2014… if it hadn’t started a fire.

I raced from the flames I knowing what had happened.  How Dishshoap had taken over Yotham City through the gaping holes of Zynga’s firewalls.  Those same walls that are now, ironically, feeding the flame as they were made with shoddy digital code rather than an inch and a half of sheet rock or stone.  I knew how Shudsy had deftly taken the prepubescent energy of the script kiddies and channeled it into duplicating work stations and cloned Bobs.  How he had wielded the angst of confused lovers of Yoville past into a religious cult of Zynga worshippers and coaxed them into turning their energy into coins in his own workstations.  And now the whole place would be burning down and I had to save Bob while there was still a chance.

I found my way to the Agnyz Bar and threw open the door.  Flames had spread down through the steampunk pipes, various chemicals from the labs forcing through were chewing up the 2009 Police V Mafia bar.

 One of the Mafia henchmen, either Guido Nefarioso or James Krakorn, stood in my way… 

“Yous thinkin’ yous goin’ somwheres?”

Behind him a legion of steambot droids moved forward.

I hated to do it, but I hadn’t a choice.  I pulled out my flask of Old Noob Kentucky bourbon, opened the lid, took a pull, and heaved it at the bar.  The explosion knocked down most of the steampunk robots.  The henchman just stood there repeating “You ain’t nuthin’ but an empty suit.”

Then the roof started dropping.  Chunks of stone slabs, old stalactites, and asylum pipes began falling through the steampunk hanging lamps.  

The place was literally, coming apart…

There was only one place in Y Town where this could be… the Old Yoville Underground.  Zynga had sealed it up years ago, stuck a billboard over it,  but there are still maps around that show it.  If this enormous cavern was there, then the fire will eat away at the dirt, melt stone, burn through binary code, turn underground streams into geysers, and the whole place would come down.

I had to get to Bob.  It was clear that Mary Richman had conned him, got him to Agnyz Bar, she had told me so.  Every guy should know better than to trust a dame, but all of us, me included, keep doing it.

The only antidote to feminine wiles is heavy doses of cynicism washed down with cases of Old Noob.  Bob didn’t stand a chance.  Too nice a fella.  And though I figured he deserved the demotion to Widget Factory Supervisor for promoting the Sweets Factory, that doesn’t make him a bad guy either.  

I found the trembling passageway and stone stairs leading to the Temple of the Zyngoids.  Chunks of Egyptian stone had tumbled down… the three legged dog was in ruins, and the column on which the robot stood had fallen over.  I wondered if I was too late.

I leapt over the fallen column, and there was Bob… propped against the wall beside debris and old crates.  I took his helmet off gently…

Yoville Bob spent a couple of months relaxing on a beach.  This was unintentional as he hired the skipper of Island Charter Service, the same one James Krakorn had used to woo him into Shudsy Dishshoap’s laboratory.  (Apparently the Skipper’s first mate had glued a magnet to the back of the boat’s compass so he could stick keys to it.) It was just supposed to be a short tour, three hours.  But he didn’t mind, he likes coconuts.

The Big Guy with the silly hat was grateful for locating Shudsy and rewarded me with a case of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon and a yellow hard hat.

Mona Lott paid me the $3,000 YoCash and I’m meeting her at the Los Amigos Lounge later tonight.  I’m going to meet her in full cynic mode, and a good dose of Old Noob Kentucky Bourbon.

The End

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