HARDWOOD BLOOD CH.5 - PECK HIS EYES OUT!

BLOOD ON THE CONCRETE HARDWOOD CH.5 - PECK HIS EYES OUT!

By MJ Heiser

Clive Sinclair is just standing there, smiling smugly at you, the poorly-trained muzzle of his gun meandering on and off mark. He is obviously expecting you to do exactly what he just demanded: Drop to your knees and start clucking. No matter how incredibly fun it had been to be the chicken while you were dancing with this psychopath’s mother, you aren’t a chicken. You’re a man, dammit, and you’re going to behave as such.

Full of your manly pride and swagger, you take Clive completely off guard and drive your plastic costume beak into his face.

It goes better than you expect. Clive drops the gun as if it’s on fire and starts flapping his hands, trying desperately to land a lady-like slap on the side of your face. You crow with delight over his failure. You’re too fast. You’re too accurate. You land blow after blow on his meaty cheeks. That’s not satisfying enough, however. You need blood, and you need it now. You seize the man, one feathery hand on either side of his head, and resume pecking in earnest, aiming now for the not-so-fleshy parts of his face: his nose, his forehead, and his tender, delicate eyes.

“Aiigh!” he screams, seizing your forearms and trying desperately to get you off of him. “No! Mother!”

You must be kidding, you think to yourself, and distantly you become aware of your own voice letting out another rooster crow. You’re calling for your mother? You pansy. You total nancy-boy. You—

“Let him go.”

You stop. Of course you know that voice, but the last time you’d heard it (excluding the scream, naturally), she’d been suggesting you join her in the shower. Now, in a reversal worthy of some sort of alternate-universe James Bond flick, you find that she’s half-dressed and standing just behind her son’s shoulder, his gun in her hand. Her hand is remarkably steady, unlike her son’s, and that muzzle is aimed for the beak.

Possessed by the thought that you’re some sort of Bizarro James Bond, you seize Clive harder, spin him around, and press him up against your padded, feathered form. “Drop the gun,” you say, your voice hoarse from all the crowing.

She shakes her head. “You don’t know who I am, do you?” she asks, but instead of her son’s aggravating smugness, she only shows sad resignation. “I’m Melissa Sinclair, and for thirty years I trained the FBI’s best sharpshooters.” She reaches out with the gun and taps you gently on the nose. “Plus, I’m this close.”

She pulls back the hammer and you can hear a bullet slide into the chamber. “Now, let him go.”

You do as she asks. You push Sinclair away from you, and he scutters to stand behind his mother. She still holds the gun trained with deadly stillness at your beak.

“Wait,” you say, “I did what you asked—“

“Yup,” she says with a morbid grin. “And you have nothing left to bargain with. Not only do you have something my son wants, but you called him a nancy-boy.”

“What if I give him what he wants?” you ask in desperation.

“Kill him, Ma!” Clive shouts from over her shoulder. He sounds like an over-eager five-year-old.

Meanwhile, the cold-blooded sharpshooter slides her eyes over your chicken costume with a mixture of regret, longing, and desire. She coughs once, but that damned gun doesn’t flinch. “Let’s hear what he has to say, kiddo. You have no idea how hard it is to find a good chicken.”

“Aww,” Clive whines, his bloodlust denied.

“You can have the ‘Trotters,” you say, and you milk your sadness for all it’s worth. It takes a little bit of a stretch, to be honest; you’ve had a great time with the guys, but lately Curly, Sweetwater, and the rest of them have been growing too big for their slick and retro-fabulous britches. This kind of behavior has to stop. A return to the hardwoods may be just what they need.

“Really?” Clive asks.

“Just – let me wrap up this last case with them, will ya? Let me say goodbye the right way.”

The gun that had been pointing at your beak drops. “Do what the chicken asks, son.”

Clive sighs. “Okay, fine. But as soon as you catch the killer, the ‘Trotters are mine again.”

“Deal,” you say, holding out your hand.

And as soon as you say that, Missy Synch bolts for the door with the kind of speed and grace you could have never imagined.

“Ma?” Clive asks the still, empty, rat-infested apartment.

You narrow your eyes. You smell a rat, alright, and it’s the kind of rat that likes to dance with chickens and kill people.

Do you...

A. Grab Clive and threaten to resume pecking his face unless he tells you where his mom is heading?

B. Call the ‘Trotters for backup?

C. Use the force to figure out where Missy Synch is running off to?

HARDWOOD BLOOD CH.1 - HOTHEADED OLD GOON

BLOOD ON THE CONCRETE HARDWOOD CH.1 - HOTHEADED OLD GOON

By Steven Novak

The Chief is covered in sweat. His shirt is wrinkled, and the awful yellow stain of his pit juice is peeking out from underneath the crooks of his arms. He looks tired. He looks tired and beaten, and his face is more worn than the notoriously overcooked steaks at Rocco’s on the corner of 5th and Vine. He rubs his eyes, groans and sighs deep. When you offer him a cigarette, he waves it off. When you offer him a handkerchief to clean the rivers of perspiration running through the wrinkles on his forehead, he instead uses it blow his nose — then has the moxie to hand it back.

Lousy good for nothin’.

For a moment you consider reaching across the desk and bopping him square in the beezer. That would be stupid though — wouldn’t accomplish anything. Instead you opt to zip your gums and uncoil your meathooks. While it would be fun to put the old goat in his place, it isn’t worth your job and it sure as hell isn’t worth an unceremonious return to one of the flophouses downtown.

The Chief leans as far over your desk as he can before his belly impedes his progress. “We found two more this morning…both of them high priced girlies with gams for ages. He plugged ‘em both in the forehead, opened their chests like cans of sardines, pulled out their insides and tossed what was left in the dumpsters behind Rocco’s.”

Rocco’s? Yet another reason to stop waddling into Rocco’s at three in the morning, hopped up on goofballs and hungry for a tall stack of wheats. 

The Chief makes a fist and wallops your desk so hard you’d think it was his wife. “Find this son of a bitch! Do you hear me? When you find him, don’t you dare bring him in! The press is so far up my keyster on this one, I’m smearing them on my finger when I pick my nose!”

His eyes wide, his teeth clenchedb and his chest heaving like a doll on her back getting it all sorts of good, the old bull waits for a reaction after putting the period on his sentence.

You don’t give him one.

A second later the big lug is on his feet and heading for the door. Halfway there, he stops and turns again in your direction. “I want this egg boiled, peeled, and dropped in a Chicago overcoat by the end of the week. Got it?” 

After another puff of your cigarette, you nod. The Chief shakes his head and turns with a grunt. The fact that the seat of his britches is as soaked at the pits of his arms isn’t lost on you. 

You’ll need to burn the chair he was sitting on.

“There is one thing, Chief.”

The hotheaded old goon stops in the doorway. His back pops audibly when he turns toward you once more.

“Can’t do this one on my own. This jobbie’s playing with a full deck and I’ve got a hunch there’s a field full of dirty lettuce backing his operation. I’ll need some help.”

The Chief immediately knows exactly what “help” you’re talking aboutb and he’s immediately against the idea. “Oh no. No. No. No. You do this on your own. I don’t want those numbskulls anywhere near this case.”

You take another drag of your cigarette, lift your head and blow the smoke into the air. “You want this trouble-boy pinched? This is how he gets pinched. We need to take the direct route, Chief. No more fiddle-faddlin’ around the edge like a couple of crumb-bums betting on the bangtails.”

The Chief lowers his head and stares at his shoes over the mound of his gut. He knows you’re right. He knows you’re right and understands all too well it’s the only way. The aftermath of burger he swallowed down for lunch lurches up his windpipe and pops from his yap. You can smell half-digested onions from across the room.

“Fine. Do whatever you have to do. You bring those boys in and it’s on you. Got it? I’ve got nothing to do with this. If they drop the ball you’ll be dealing with the high-pillows, not me.”

When he leaves the room, he slams the door. 

Lousy good for nothin’.

Two minutes after that you’re on the horn with the only cats in town capable of finding the button man who’s been offing professional dames for the past month.

They offer to meet you at Rocco’s. You suggest Gino’s.

Thirty minutes later you stroll into Gino’s and spot your boys at the opposite end of the room. They’re in full gear — dressed to the nines in pinstripes and stars — afros reaching for the clouds.

They’re the best damn gumshoes the city has ever seen: Fred “Curly” Neal, Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton, George “Meadowlark” Lemon, “Sweet Lou” Dunbar and James “Twiggy” Sanders. They’re the Harlem Globetrotters, and there ain’t a jingle-brained jasper been born that can put one over on them.

While Meadowlark meets you with a smile and shakes your hand, Twiggy sneaks up behind you and pulls your trousers down. The regulars at Gino’s erupt into laughter.

Despite the Chief’s reservations, you know you’ve made the right choice.

You fill the boys in on the situation over a family style plate of Gino’s three-meat lasagna. Sweet Lou dives in for seconds before everyone has finished their firsts. You let it pass — only because it’s Sweet Lou.

When dinner’s done and Curly has licked his plate clean, you loosen your belt, let your lasagna-laden belly flop free, and ask the boys if they’re willing to help.

Sweetwater retrieves a basketball from under the table, spins it on his finger and transfers it to the tip of your fedora. As expected, the trick elicits a round of cheers from Gino and his loyal patrons.

With a smile and a wink, Sweetwater adds, “Does that answer your question?”

Honestly, you’re not exactly sure.

Before you can respond, the sound of some chickie screaming just outside the front door fills the air. Sweetwater’s ball still spinning on your noggin, you and the ‘Trotters are on your feet quicker than a con in a creep joint. By the time you make it to the street, the leggy broad with the impressive screambox is already dead. Her chest’s ripped open and her intestines have been pulled halfway down the block.

A crowd of onlookers is already beginning to swell. The dames are in tears and a few of the Brunos don’t look much better. The damn newsie-leeches are already on the scene, forcing their way into the swelling crowd and starting a ruckus.

Out of the corner of your eye you spot a tall drink of water in a dark trench darting into an alleyway on the opposite end of the street. You retrieve the heater from the holster on your hip.

Time to go to work.

A. Round up the 'Trotters and hunt down the man in the trench?


B. Leave the 'Trotters to deal with the newsies and the crowd, and go after the jacketed goon yourself?


C. Forget about everything and go back into Gino's for another plate of lasagna?

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