Private Dick: Chapter Five-Slurred and Slabbed

       I sat there in the dark sipping the Gin. The only light in the room was that produced by the moon. By the nature of PI’s we loved the night. Can’t really explain it. It’s in our blood. I rolled over the day’s events in my mind. From the first moment Caroline had walked into my office to her little performance earlier. Either this gal had a few screws loose, or she really loved the guy. Love. Love had never really worked out for me. You might be thinking gumshoes don’t get hitched, but your wrong. I was married for five years. I don’t like to think about those days too much. Shazza and I we’re just never meant to be. She accused me of being married to my job. Well maybe she was right, but that was no reason to sleep with my partner. At the time I was still on the force and working on a big case. I came home one night early to surprise her. I felt guilty about spending all my time at the office, when I walked in there they were; tangled in the sheets their bodies glistening with sweat. I remember Shasta jumping out of the bed one of the cotton white sheets wrapped around her and her raven black hair sticking to her shoulders. Instead of making apologies and explanations she instantly started yelling at me. Kept telling it me it was my own fault. Now that I think about it, she yelled a lot. Well I simply tossed her my keys to the house, went back to work, and continued on the case.  The next day my partner, Zeke, showed up at the station and found me huddled under my desk with a bottle of Gin pressed to my chest. That was the day I quit the force. So strange to think that Zeke and Shazza were married now. I took another long slow sip of the Gin. There was only one thing I figured I could count on, and that was booze.

 I woke up the next morning crumpled up on the floor like a used tissue and found myself in a puddle of Gin. Being the idiot that I am when I’m drunk I’d left the cap off and let the contents of the bottle dribble out onto the floor. I stumbled to my feet and sat back in my chair. My head was throbbing. It felt like someone had hit me over the head with the bottle. Loud knocking came from my door. “Come in!”, I shouted anything to make that racket stop. In stepped a figure in blue; it took me a second to realize it was Jackie. I slumped forward and placed my head on a pillow of papers.

 “You smell like you’ve been swimming in Gin Riddick.”, it was Jackie all right. She pried the empty bottle from my fingers and sat me up straight.

 “Jesus you look like shit.”

 “Nice to see you too.”, I said, my voice still in my chest.

 “Lets get you cleaned up and down to the morgue.”, Jackie began pulling the booze soaked shirt off of me.

 “Do I look that bad?”, I thought she’d been making a joke.

 “Ya you do but that’s not the reason why. We found your boy.”

I hated going to the morgue ever since I’d gotten drunk at a bachelor party and woke up on one of the slabs. The boys in blue sure did know how to play a good gag. I was afraid to go near my refrigerator for a week after that.

 We stepped into the sterile cold white room and over to the steel freezer cells. Jackie opened the door and slid out the stiff. When she pulled back the sheet there he was. Who ever had messed him had taken pride in his work. They’d gutted him like a fish. I hadn’t seen such a mess since that whole thing down in Louisiana, but that’s another story. Yep it was Johns all right. The first thought that popped into my head was that the case was over and my cash cow had gone out to pasture. Jackie slid the corpse back into its cell and locked its door.

 “That the guy?”, Jackie asked. For a little woman she sure had one strong stomach.

 “Ya, that was him.”

 “Some guy tripped over him in an ally and called us. When we arrived he was just like that.”, Jackie stopped talking all of the sudden. “I know I’m going to regret this later, but, here.”, it was a small plastic pouch with an object inside that she’d handed to me. I realized it was a matchbook from the Parisian. I opened up the matchbook, inside was yesterdays date scrolled at the top in heavy black ink.

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