Detective Biscotti stepped into the dimly lit Hard Core Club, a seedy establishment on the southern side of town. A place on the wrong side of the tracks. He was on edge, weary of the kind of patrons that hang out here.
As soon as his presence became known, the sound of conversation trailed off. The crowd turned to him.
Trying to sound confident, the detective spoke up. "Hey folks, I don't want any trouble. I'm just looking to speak with Dirty Jim."
"Well, well...what do we have here?" One of the more menacing customers stood up. It was Filthy McKraken, one of the meanest, dirtiest thugs to walk the streets of the south side.
"Looks like we have a big fat copper asking one too many questions."
Biscotti stammered. "Look....I'm not...I'm not asking for..."
"Shut your dumb face before I make you shut it", said McKraken, taking a few steps forward.
"It's okay McKraken", spoke a sultry woman's voice. "He's as harmless as a little mouse. I should know." It was Rebecca 'Sexypants' Worthington. Biscotti and the crazy dame had a thing going a few months back. Ended badly. She sat in a corner at a small round table, slowly stirring her martini.
Filthy McKraken casually glanced over his shoulder at her. "Of course you would. You just can't wait to show your boobies and bum to the first guy through the door."
"Hey, HEY!" yelled a man sitting at a table with three other gentlemen playing cards. He stood up suddenly, as if he were an inflatable tube shaped man standing in from of a car dealership. "Nobody talks about my ex-girlfriend like that!" Early Joe Shoeman was red in the face with rage. "You poop faced bag of wieners!" He grabbed the side of the table and flipped it over, spilling drinks, and tossing cards across the floor.
"Why, you son of a gun!" screamed Whiskey Pete from the end of the bar. "Nobody flips a pee tasting table in my favorite establishment!" He grabbed a cheap bottle of vodka from the shelf and smashed it against the bar, ready to fight Early Joe with a shard of broken glass. Except that this was bottom-shelf vodka that came in a plastic bottle. He took a good seven or eight more whacks with it against the the corner of the bar before he realized this. He put the bottle back on the shelf and grabbed his bar stool. He grunted for twenty seconds, trying to lift it over his head, only then finding that it was bolted to the floor. In a frenzy, Pete looked around and saw a bowl of peanuts on the bar. Afraid that it too, would somehow be affixed to a heavier object, he grabbed a handful of peanuts. He held them in his hand appearing as threatening as possible for having a dozen salted peanuts in the shell.
This worried no one, except for Peanut Allergy Thompson, who fell out of his chair crying "What the fart sound are doing?! I done nothing to you, butt hole!"
"Drop the diarrhea face loving peanuts," spoke Zed the Bartender, pulling a BB gun from under the bar. He pumped the front lever of the plastic rifle at least four times and pointed it at Whiskey Pete. "I'll shoot you in the pee-pee."
Whiskey Pete dropped the nuts and put his hands up. "No...no problem Zed. Sorry...so sorry..."
The detective attempted some kind of diplomacy. "Look fellas, this is getting outta hand. Just have some questions for Dirty Jim. Not here on official business or anything like that," he lied.
"Do you like living dangerously?" asked a disheveled man, appearing from the doorway to a back room. "Or...are you just one tough son of a bum toucher?"
Dirty Jim. Looking like he just fell down a flight of stairs into a vat of sewage, he glared at the detective. Biscotti reassured himself, gently patting the grip of the flare gun he kept concealed in his front fanny pack.
Zed put the air rifle back under the counter and went back to casually polishing a glass with his apron.
Detective Biscotti hesitated. He didn't expect to be addressing Dirty Jim within earshot of Hard Core Club's clients. "I just....I just needed to know if..." The room, which was already silent, became even more silent. As if everyone was floating through the cold vacuum of space.
"...if you can tell me where you were on the night of the twenty-third. Specifically, between the hours of eight-thirty and ten-oh-four."
Dirty Jim paused, smiling. He wandered up to Biscotti, casually reached into the startled detective's front pocket and pulled out a package of strawberry licorice. Jim opened the plastic, took out a stick, and put the package into Biscotti's fanny pack, worn in the front.
"Oh yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday."
"Actually, it was yesterday", offered Detective Biscotti, as he eyed the open package of candy suspiciously.
"Oh. I thought you meant the twenty-third of last month."
"Ah..yeah, sorry. I've been up for thirty-eight hours. Losing track of time and all..." his voice trailed off as Dirty Jim put one end of the licorice in his mouth and bit it right in half, like some kind of savage monster.
"Well, I'm sorry detective. Do I make you nervous?", he asked with the grin of a lunatic.
There are so many ways Biscotti could have answered, he only managed to consider sixteen of them before Jim interrupted his thoughts.
"You know what you remind me of, Biscotti?"
There was an awkward pause where he considered answering, then didn't, then almost did, but didn't say anything.
"You remind me of a piece of crap with booger for a face. Like someone who likes looking at broken toilets that won't flush all the time. Or someone who would compose a short story and type out every number, rather than just typing the integers."
Another awkward pause, with the sounds of snickering in the background.
"I'll tell you where I was, Detective." He shoved the other half of the licorice stick into Biscotti's front lapel pocket. He started to pace the room.
"At eight-fifteen, I went into Dolly's Diner and ordered a slice of pie. Apple. With a scoop of ice cream. Vanilla. Black coffee. Ask anyone who was there. Dolly was working. So was Lucy and Charlie. Your buddy, Officer Corningwell. He was there too."
Dirty Jim strutted over to the bar and told Zed to mix him a Race Car Head Wound. Zed apologized, as they are out of two percent milk and then suggested a Mad Iron Bull Shotgun. Dirty Jim shook his head. No, give me a Double Leopard Karate Chop, he said. Zed shrugged, as they haven't received the Liquid Plumber he ordered last week.
"Gosh darn it Zed! Give me a smack in the mouth with a wooden suitcase."
Zed pulled a piece of luggage made of teakwood from under the counter.
"No! I mean..a Smack In The Mouth With A Wooden Suitcase."
Zed stopped and nodded in understanding. He pulled a cold beer from under the counter and opened it. Dirty Jim took a swig, then continued.
"I drank my coffee and watched the ice cream melt. Took about twenty-six minutes. Tipped Dolly a dollar and left."
Another swig of beer. "Then...", Dirty Jim paused with a smile. "I went down to the docks on the west side of town." The slow murmur of the crowd faded. "And then..." Dirty Jim had everyones attention.
"I boarded the Sodium Kitty on dock number 32. They were having a party. As soon as I got there...I did a line of coke as long as your leg."
"Oh, really", said Biscotti. This doesn't sound right. "Then what?"
"I...punched an elderly woman in the neck and tossed her overboard."
Biscotti crossed his arms. "Really? In the neck?"
"Yeah, right in it. Then...then I pulled a machine gun out of my luggage and shot the place up. I gunned down everybody. Then I left and..."
Jim paused for another swig. "And then I blew up the boat. Boom, just like that."
Biscotti was not amused. "Really? Boats don't just explode. How did.."
"There was two hundred and fifty pounds of military-grade plastic explosive aboard. I should know. Because I put it there." Jim promptly pulled out a receipt. Biscotti stepped forward and snatched it from his hand. Sure enough, it was the yellow copy of a triplicate form receipt from International Military-Grade Explosives Warehouse, with a "special delivery instructions" section that read "put delivery in cargo hold of Sodium Kitty on dock 32".
Biscotti smirked and tossed the receipt on a table. "Anyone could have ordered those explosives."
Jim was surprised. "What? It has my name and signature at the bottom."
"Could have been anyone. Easily a forgery."
"Just...go look in the bay. There must be a dozen bodies floating in there."
"Yeah," Biscotti admitted. "They did pull a few out this morning. May have been suicides. Or swimming accidents. Hard to say."
"They were shot and blown up!
"Yeah, the coroner did think it was pretty odd that they were wearing pants, shoes, socks, a button up shirt, and a sports jacket. And they had been shot several times. But, we can't rule out some kind of elaborate suicide pact."
"The boat. It's in little pieces at the bottom of the bay. Send divers, they'll find the remains."
"Someone could have put them there."
"What!? Why would someone throw pieces of a boat into the bay. Come on..." Biscotti could tell that Jim was starting to get nervous.
"I don't know. Why do people steal my copy of Metro City News off of my front porch every morning and replace it with today's Metro City Gazette? I don't know Jim, people just do stuff."
Dirty Jim said nothing, his story seemingly unraveled.
"So," said Detective Biscotti, full of confidence" you really don't have an alibi, do you? Were there any witnesses? Can anyone attest to you being there?"
"Witnesses? Weren't you listening, fart eater? I shot everyone on the boat and blew it up. Boom, everyone gets their butt hair burnt."
"How convenient. You know what I think , Jimbo?"
The crowd hushes and turns to the Detective.
"What?" Dirty Jim was clearly on the defensive now.
"I think....I think that you are a kuka mouth who got slapped one too many times in his fat blubber face by his Auntie Fred."
Dirty Jim's eyes widened and put his hands to the sides of his face. "My...Auntie Fred...How did you know about..."
"How did I know about what a turd licking bag of doggie bum you are? Your buddy, Tim 'Talk too Much' Terryson. He told me all about it."
Dirty Jim spun around and saw Tim in the corner of the room, trying to slink down in his chair, under the table.
"And...I know...." Not a word from anyone.
"You were....shoplifting contraceptives from the All-Night Corner Store." Surprised gasps from the crowd
"Bull-pucky!" screamed Dirty Jim. "I was on a boat, shooting people."
"No, Jimmy-Boy. I've got a few witnesses that remember a dirty-looking man with a fedora and an obviously fake mustache wandering around the store. Looking suspicious. came in at 8:45 and left a little after 10:00."
"No way! I was strangling a couple of hookers at 9:50 up at Lovers Leap" yelled Jim, visibly shaken, but yet relived that the story now contained actual numbers. "They're still in the trunk of my car. Which I jammed into neutral and pushed over the edge."
Detective Biscotti nodded. "A woman on Lowertown road, below the cliff...she called 911 and reported the hearing some kind of loud crash, sort of like thunder. And also that there was a mysterious hole in her roof. And a four door sedan in her living room. Uniforms showed up, put 2 and 2 together, and figured that the loud crash was from the wrecked car. We're still looking into that roof thing."
"Yeah. Um..so there" Jim started to say.
"That was at 7:35 this morning!"
Jim stumbled over words like children's toys scattered down a hallway navigated at night in the dark. "They...she....the hookers! Dead in the trunk!"
"Well, of course they're dead. They were in the trunk of a car that fell 246 feet onto the roof of a two bedroom, one bath Cape Cod."
Dirty Jim tried to speak up, but the words were mangled in his mouth.
"So," started Biscotti, his hand instinctively reaching for his duct tape "It looks like you're coming downtown with me."
Dirty Jim regained his composure. "Filthy! Whiskey!.... take care of this pee-pee smeller!"
Filthy pulled a shoehorn from his pocket and Whiskey started picking up the peanuts. The Detective pulled an egg beater. For a moment, no action was taken.
Dirty Jim's eyes grew wide as he stared at the wicked implement Detective Biscotti brandished.
"No, NO! My eggs! My gosh darn eggs!" Jim ran across the room and with a horrible scream, launched himself at the window, shattering glass and tearing lovely white curtains.
With Filthy McKraken staring slack jawed at the broken window next to the unlocked front door, Biscotti took this opportunity to smack him in the face with the egg beater. Filthy screamed, dropping the shoehorn and covering his face with his hands.
"NO! My face! I'll never walk again!" Filthy fell to the floor and cried.
Suddenly, the entire room exploded into a giant melee, like an erupting volcano filled with fists. Biscotti started to back out of the room as he heard screaming, furniture breaking, a pellet rifle firing, a ukulele, and some chickens squawking. He almost made it to the doorway when someone grabbed him from behind. He dropped the egg beater and went for the flare gun, just as a kiss landed on his lips.
After a few seconds, Biscotti carefully opened one eye, hoping that it wasn't Dirty Jim and saw that it was Rebecca Worthington. He then wondered why he would have thought that Dirty Jim would have come back into the club to kiss him. Then he wondered if it would have been bad to feel disappointed that it was not. But he didn't feel bad that it wasn't. But not throughly relived that…
"Biscotti", Rebecca spoke his name and he snapped out of it. "Are you, heading home for the night", she cooed.
"Well…uh…..what.." Dialogue was dripping from the corners of his mouth. She grabbed a hold of his tie and leaned in, whispering "We could play some…Dungeons & Dragons."
The Detective smiled nervously and looked her in the eyes. "I…forgot my dice."
Rebecca laughed. "Silly you. I have extra dice at my place. I have an adventure ready. A solo adventure."
"Well….my Elven Wizard is only level 6."
Rebecca started to lead Biscotti towards the door. "Well Detective, it won't matter. Right at the entrance to the dungeon is an unlocked chest with a Ring of Protection +2, two Potions of Extra Healing, Boots of Lava Walking, and…a Wand of Fireballs."
"Fireballs?"
"Yeah….with sixty-nine charges. And a Bag of Holding."
"Wow", said Biscotti. "You're one freaky bitch."