HARDWOOD BLOOD CH.6 - USE THE FORCE, MAN

BLOOD ON THE CONCRETE HARDWOOD CH.6 - USE THE FORCE, MAN

By Steven Novak

As the last of Missy’s finely aged honeypot escapes through the door you notice the old broad has left something rather peculiar behind: her face.

Spread across the hardwood just outside the doorway is a folded up mass of form-fitting latex and fake hair. She was wearing a mask. That cuckoo dame was wearing a mask!

Clive notices exactly what his mother’s left behind as well and seems as surprised as you. He drops to his knees and buries his head in his hands. “Ma? I don’t—? What’s going—?” His head flops to the floor and the waterworks begin to flow.

In a pinch you’re onto your feet and out the door, moving quicker than a snow-bird on his fourth bag of happy powder. There are clothes scattered throughout the hall; the dress Missy was wearing, her stockings and a lacy white bra stuffed with two cantaloupe halves.

That crazy sharp-shooting dame wasn’t a dame at all – just some shyster trying to pull the wool over your eyes!

Snagging the heater from the holster at your side you follow the trail of the fake Missy’s unmentionables downstairs. A single shoe and a pair of lacy panties with a maxi-pad still stuck to the crotch leads you right out the front door and into the street.

Even a maxi-pad? The gowed-up gink posing as the age, Mrs. Sinclair was certainly dedicated.

The city’s packed tight with flatties flopping flivvers, and eggs drowning their sorrows in eel juice. You hate this part of town: nothing but flophouses, flimflam men, derricks and dinguses. There are too many places to hide and too many people to hide behind. Some lousy bruno slams into your shoulder and sends you spinning. A leggy dame offers what’s hidden beneath her britches for everything in your wallet.

You’ll never find the pad-sporting son of a bitch in this mass of dummies.

That’s when it hits you: the Force. You’ll use the Force.

Don Forceman of Force Electric, that is.

He’s an old friend and his company has been hanging telephone wire in this part of town for over a week. You spot him at the end of the block, perched on a lift fifty feet in the air.

You scream in his direction at the top of your lungs. “Hey! Forceman!”

Surprisingly, Don hears you over the chatter of the city and waves in your direction.

You cup your hands around your mouth, shove past a pair of juiced-up hombres and yell, “Donnie! Did ya see some jingle-berried jasper come running out of this building?”

Forceman nods and points his finger in the direction of alley at the end of the block. You flash him a thumbs up and a moment later you’re plowing through the crowd of noodles with their oodles of nose-candy, sprinting full speed in the direction of Forceman’s all-knowing digit.

Don Forceman – a heck of a guy.

When you reach the alley you stop for a moment to catch your breath. Peeking carefully around the corner, you spot the red-hot you’ve been chasing, hidden in the shadows alongside a dumpster. His body is silhouetted against the lights from a neon sign a bit further down. He’s long and lanky and muscular. He’s a tall bottle of hooch to boot – well over seven feet. Unfortunately you can’t make out any specific facial features.

Once he’s done changing clothes, he reaches into a box at the foot of the dumpster, retrieves what you think is another mask and pulls it tightly over his head.

This roscoe’s no rube. He’s sharp. He’s well built and he’s quick. This trouble boy’s a master of disguise.

If he runs, you’ll lose him forever in the crowd. You can’t let him get away. You cock back the hammer on your rod, lift it to your head and spin around the corner. “Meathooks to the sky, palooka!”

He doesn’t listen.

They never listen.

Instead the lousy good for nothing bastard kicks a trash can lid box in your direction. You slip the airborne steel and fire a few rounds down the alley. A pill blasts past your ear and knocks the fedora from your noggin. Apparently he’s got a stick of smoking lead of his own.

Before you know it, the bullets are flying.

The brick wall to your left explodes. Two slugs ricochet off the garbage can next to you and send it spinning to the ground. Diving forward, you somersault and unload what’s left in the cartridge at your shadowy opponent. Your aim is better than his. His body whips against a section of chain link fence and drops to the concrete.

By the time you reach him, he’s gasping for air and clinging to his remaining breaths like a dope peddler clutching a handful of hot dough. Though you don’t recognize the face of the mask he’s wearing, you can’t help but take note of the incredible realism. The mustache alone is a thing of beauty.

After popping a fresh cartridge into your heater you point the barrel at his head. “I’m only gonna ask this once, ya lousy bum, and after I’m done asking you’re gonna spill like you’ve never spilled before. Got it?”

He shakes his head, struggling to breathe with a hole in his chest.

“Who are you and who sent you?”

Behind his award winning ‘stache, the son of a bitch’s lips curl into a smile. “I’m just the guy hired by the guys, asshole.” He chuckles a bit before coughing up blood.

His jaw moves forward and he bites down on something in the back of his mouth. A foamy white discharge begins to pour from between his lips and seeps down the sides of his face.

The lousy good for nothing is munching on cyanide!

Your hands fumble their way into the collar of his shirt and snag the base of the mask covering his head. When you rip it from his noggin you come face to face with the last person you were expecting.

Half submerged in a puddle of alley-filth and hobo barf is none other than NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was made an honorary Globetrotter in 1989.

The reality of what you’re looking at and what it must mean smacks you in the chest, and for a moment you stop breathing. Suddenly it all makes sense. You should have seen it from the beginning.

You know what you have to do.

A. Reload your heater, find the ‘Trotters and get some answers the old-fashioned way? 


 B. Snag a disguise from Kareem’s box of goodies, find the ‘Trotters and get some answers the new-fashioned way? 


 C. Strip naked, grab a steel pipe, find the ‘Trotters and get some answers the cave-man way?

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.4 - CHICKEN TONIGHT

BLOOD ON THE HARDWOOD CONCRETE CH.4 - CHICKEN TONIGHT

By James McShane

You consider your options and realise that you’ve only got one choice. You need the cash. The last alimony check cleared out your bank account. When you brought this to your ex’s attention, you were told to sing for your supper. Lacking a voice to trouble Pavarotti or Bieber, you know it’s time to take the money and run.

“I’m outa here,” you tell Curly. “I’ve taken on more than I can handle and frankly this private dick isn’t as hard-boiled as it used to be.”

“What the f—?” Curly fumes down the phone. “Hey, Sweetwater, the boss has turned jellyfish on us.”

You hear Sweetwater yelling. “Get off my goddamn phone, you moron. You think I’m made of money? Let the sucker go. We ‘Trotters can take it from here.” Curly finishes the call without so much as a goodbye and good luck. You’re not surprised. Your relationship with the boys isn’t exactly a marriage made in heaven. They’ll get by, as they always do.

You turn your attention to the lady behind the desk. “Tell me more about this Chicken Fetish job?”

She’s surprised at your about-face. “Well,” she says, taking a card from beside her magazine. “The broad in question is a Missy Synch. Her address is here.” She hands you the card. “It’s not too far away. Ten minute walk, max.”

Something in the back of your mind urges you to steer clear from this madness. But you counter this “something” with thoughts of how you’re going to spend the five Gs. Barbados looks good for this time of year. Maybe the receptionist would like a trip, too. 

“I don’t like long-haul flights,” she says suddenly. “So yes, Barbados would be nice.”

“Wait a minute,” you say, “can you read my mind?”

“No. You talk out loud a lot.”

“My therapist would agree with you.”

She points down the corridor. “The suit is in Room 5. Get ready as quick as you can and go see your client.”

“I gotta go there dressed like a chicken?”

“It’s in the manual, did you not read it?”

You remember skimming over a lot of the requirements. But hey, it’s not often you get the chance to earn easy money.

“There’s no such thing as easy money,” the receptionist says. “And you really must learn to stop talking out loud.”

“My therapist would agree with that, too.”

You find your changing room and go inside. Hanging up on the far wall is a bright yellow chicken outfit, complete with headgear and beak. There are fluffy white wings where your arms are supposed to be. At least there are holes from which you can see where you’re going. You’re glad it’s a cool night out there, otherwise you’d bake—and whoever found your dead body would serve you with chipotle.

You strip out of your work clothes and leave them in a crumpled heap on the floor. It takes you about fifteen minutes to get into the chicken suit, and you remark to yourself that it’s a very comfortable fit. It’s as if it’s been waiting for you. You hum the Sesame Street theme as you leave the room to check in with Lady Hotstuff at the desk. She whistles at you.

“You know,” she says, “when this is all over, and if you want to, you and I could head out somewhere for…you know…”

“A drink?” you offer.

“Maybe we can lay some eggs, too,” she giggles.

As you leave Different Happyness, you feel less like a private investigator and more like an advert for Chick-fil-A—but you don’t care, there’s money to be made. You cross the street and wait for the inevitable…and you’re not disappointed. A cabbie calls out, “Hey, why are you crossing the road?” You let this existential moment pass into the ether.

Ten minutes later (and after many calls of how you’d like your eggs in the morning), you arrive at your destination. You look at the card Hotstuff gave you and search for Missy Synch’s name on the apartment buzzers. You see an M.S. and reckon that must be the place. You press it and a voice answers, a female voice that doesn’t sound right. In fact, the voice in question does not belong to what you would call a spring chicken.

“Hello?” the voice says.

“I from Different Happyness,” you reply. “You asked for our services?”

The voice breaks into a coughing fit. There goes a lung, you think.

“Are you dressed appropriately?” she asks.

“If you call this an early Halloween party, then yes, I’m dressed appropriately.”

“I’m on the fifth floor. Number 512. The lift doesn’t work.”

That figures. She buzzes you in and you trudge up five flights of urine-stained stairs. The walls don’t bear looking at, so you stare straight ahead, thinking only of the money.

You knock on apartment 512. She opens the door and allows you inside. You get your first look at her and think God, how old is this woman?

“A lady’s age is her own business,” she cuts in. “And you really should stop talking to yourself out loud. I’m sure your therapist would agree. Now get dancing!”

“What?”

“That’s what you’re here for, to dance. Did you read the manual?”

“Well yes . . .but . . .”

“No buts, just dance. Can you tango?”

For an old bird, the lady can move. She grinds her pelvis against your own, pulling at your beak like it was a phallus. She ruffles your feathers in ways they hadn’t ever been ruffled before. You feel you were born to be a chicken. You move mechanically, remembering something called the Robot Chicken. The old lady laughs hysterically at your automatonic jerks. You cluck deliriously. If you could lay an egg, you would lay one here and now. You curse the heavens for not providing you with the relevant biological conditions. And all this to no music, not even The Chicken Song. 

You love being feathered fowl.

But all good things come to an end. As soon as she stops her dancing, the old lady says, “I need to shower. Care to join me?”

“In this?” you say.

“No,” she replies. “You can strip off. When we finish, I’ll go get your money and then maybe we can, you know, work out a schedule.”

You like the sound of schedules.

You turn rapidly the second you hear a bang. It comes from the bathroom. There’s a shrill scream, then nothing.

“Lady,” you call out. “Missy Synch, are you okay in there?”

A figure emerges from the room. It’s neither old nor female. You know this man’s face, and then the penny drops.

“Hello Clive,” you say to the man. “Did I just dance with your mother?”

“Yeah,” he says. “She’s got some pretty good moves for a woman of her age.” He points his gun at you.

“Did you kill her?” You realize you’re unarmed. Your gun is back in the changing room at Different Happyness.

“No,” he says. “I just let off a shot and it made her faint. She is my mother, after all. What do you take me for?”

“So what’s going on?”

“I want my ‘Trotters back, dillweed. You’ve taken up too much of their time. I want you out of the picture and them back in mine. Capiche?”

“Did you kill the rest of those women just to get my attention, Sinclair?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Clive Sinclair, former head coach of the Harlem Globetrotters, says. “Now get down on your knees and cluck for your life.”

Will you...

A. Rush at Sinclair to peck his eyes out. Then find out what the hell is going on. The ‘Trotters are involved somehow.


B. Cluck for your life and hope Sinclair is merciful.


C. Attempt to lay an egg, which may provide enough of a distraction for you to make your escape.