So I'm waiting for editors notes from the first draft of a super hero novel I am working on called (for now) Rites of Evolution.
So while waiting I am working on some other ideas. I have a horror supernatural work I am doing based around the idea of a society of immortals, and no none of them are named Connor or Duncan.
I am also working on a industrial/Ambient album because I have the tools dammit! So I might as well use them.
But while those are in progress I figured I should put some stuff out there for people to find. So I am setting aside the midnight story for now as it was disjointed. Even if it was a fun project to do at work.
Instead I'm working on a city noir in my mind. Comments are welcome, opinions are also cool, if you think it sucks give it me a little more to work in then. "You're terrible!"
And away we go.
A city of Bright eyes. Chapter one.
I really wish killers would wait till I was done with lunch. The guy from the grill down the street had just dropped off my order. A barbecue chicken breast sandwich with swiss and a side of fruit slices. Two bites into it my phone chose to rang. I was two bites in and really enjoying a moment away from the spiritual grime I faced every day at my job. For a brief moment I could almost forget the court date I had tomorrow.
The phone though had other ideas, so I chased the food down with a couple swallows of ice tea and picked up the receiver.
"Vice, Detective Wallace speaking."
"Hey I got a hot one for you." The voice on the other end said. It was the desk sergeant Adams, he was always happy when a vice case rolled along his desk. It made a fun break from a day of meth heads, murders, assaults and other indignities that were the norm around the precinct.
"Can it wait? I was hoping to enjoy lunch before taking a call."
"Fraid not, it's getting colder as we speak." He replied.
"How does a vice case get colder?" I asked. "Usually the evidence is attached to something warm." Valid point as far as my life was concerned. On any given day I was looking up pimps, hookers and guys bound and determined to be porn kings.
"Well the suns out so he should be warm for a while, but it won't be long. Someone shot Eddie Weathers 12 times on a city street."
"So pass it to homicide and tell them to find the perp and buy em a medal." I replied.
"Homicide is booked solid, it's the start of summer a lot of heat related domestic disturbances. Besides Eddie was always your boy."
"For better or worse." I said looking at the meal I had planned on enjoying. "Okay give me the address."
"1050 west Marx place." Adams replied. "Forensics is all ready there. Oh and more good news." He said with a chuckle.
"Why do I have a feeling I'm going to hate this."
"Because ya got a functioning brain your head."
"Yeah remind me to lose that. What's the news."
"You get to break in some new meat."
I groaned, and through it I could hear Adams laugh. Vice is a world few people really want to be in, so we ran through detectives in vice the way a lot of hookers ran through underwear. They usually saw the department as a stepping stone to robbery homicide or narcotics. "What ya got for me now?"
"His names Brooks. yer gonna love him."
I sighed deeply, nothing good can come of this. "Have the jacket and my new friend ready for me when I get downstairs."
Roy adams was a large florid man who bathed drowned his troubles in large quantities of cheap scotch and his body in vast amounts of cheaper cologne. On days when he really wanted to torture the world he'd let the two scents mix. Add in his puffy face now filling in with gin blossoms and you had a man who used the effects of his torturous existence as a weapon against anyone in his presence.
He stood at the center of his little fiefdom. As the assignment sergeant in the precinct he pretty much ran the flow of cases we handled. He was a good man to be on the right side of in our business. So every week I slipped him a bottle of Cutty Sark. Which kept me from having to do weeny wagger details in the city parks.
Adams was waiting with a big smile on his face he grabbed a folder of material and held it up. Along side his desk was a very nicely appointed man is his late 20's. He wore a navy blue suit and black wing tip shoes. His black hair was slicked back into a neo preppy cut that framed features so perfect and angular that he almost seemed in human. He had a long lean body, standing a couple of inches taller than me and probably weighing 40 pounds less. He struck me as the sort who ran for fun. Maybe it was just a gut reaction, but I had a feeling junior was going to be a pain in the ass.
"Detective Wallace allow me to introduce you to Detective Preston Brooks." I held out my hand to my partner du jour he took it with a firm grip and looked me in the eye. He had the look of a person with a sense of purpose. Personally I hoped that included a desire to learn the trade of handling the slimier parts of the city.
His clothes spoke of a man who didn't so much enjoy order as much as he demanded it. Sometimes you hope your first impression is wrong, as he was now about to fall into a world full of the twisting winding cables of dark desires and the means of getting them. A place where order ceases to exist until people find their needs met.
"Detective Brooks." I said and handed him the folder. "Nice to meet you I'm Shane Wallace."
"Nice to meet you." He took the folder. "What are we working on?"
"A homicide, the victim is named Eddie Weathers."
"I thought we were vice." Brooks said looking surprised. Then opened folder.
"I only put the greatest hits in there." Adams said with a grin.
"Trust me if there was one thing Eddie was it was a man dedicated to vice." The wind in the room shifted and I got a blast of Adams current cologne. My eyes watered, and I walked away. "Come on, let's get caught up on the way."
