Come midnight? Well, well, well, nothing quite like a gumshoe’s journey through the long night to the Witching Hour. And our writers, Eva and Joe, are eager to take you down the twisty noir pathways that can only end when the clock chimes. What will happen next? Find out, as Joe begins this tale of smoke and betrayal, and Eva puts the finish to it as the clock strikes twelve.
Ladies and Gentlemen! Connoisseurs of Pulp Fiction! Lovers of Magical Realism! It’s time for another edition of Genres Not Included, The Best Typewriter Improv on the Planet!
It’s an experiment in flash fiction. And tonight, Joe at @BooksPointof will surprise me once again!
The clock on the mantle ticked steadily toward doom. And also midnight.
I sat at the desk, a Lucky Strike between my lips, and a Colt handgun in my fist. It was my sixth cigarette of the night. The gun was still fully loaded. Probably wouldn’t stay that way.
The door opened.
That dame strolled in, looking as fine as the first time I laid two bloodshot eyes on her while on a stakeout. That was a night I barely recall except for her. She’d been hanging out the RoughHouse with two guys I was tailing. I watched her execute ’em both in cold blood. Shit.
“Wasn’t expecting you, Lucy.” I held the gun with less wobble than my heart dictated. “Thought it’d be the Frenchman who tried to punch my ticket. Why not the window, doll?”
She had a smile that could melt an igloo.
“Stevie…we’re pals, why not tell me where the diamonds are?”
Lucy lifted one long leg, clad in a thigh-high boot, and dropped it on my desk. Intimidation at its best. That heel could take an eye out. I leaned back in the swivel chair, three slats of wood in my back. I refused to grimace.
“Besides,” she leaned forward, “I’m a lady now.”
“Sweetie…just because you wake up in satin sheets in a big house don’t make you a lady.”
She pouted. I wondered where her gat was hiding. Dames had the weirdest hiding spots.
“Look, Detective, I told Marco I could do this without more killing.” She almost sounded sincere.
She inched around the desk and whispered in my ear.
“I’ll give you one more time to tell me where the diamonds are stashed.” Her long fingernail traced my jawline.
I remember the old cyanide under the nail trick. I held my breath. I heard the clock tick, only seconds left.
I should have shot her.
I couldn’t make my finger pull the trigger.
Any minute now. I just had to keep cool until midnight.
“How about you make like a nice lady and pour us drinks?” I nodded toward the small bar in the corner. I deliberately set the pistol on my ink blotter.
She pulled a long, sharp fingernail from my jawline and stood upright. Lucy glanced down at the gun. The sound of a clock ticking was a pounding in the room.
“Alright.” She tapped my desk twice and turned toward the bar, unguarded.
Exactly how I wanted her until the creak.
I was so focused on Lucy that I forgot the window. Didn’t hear him until he stepped on the floor.
The handgun the Frenchman poked in my ear was hard and mean, like him.
“Nice play, lady.” I was sarcastic, right up to the end. “But you forgot one thing.”
Midnight.
Midnight. The witching hour, but he never believed in ghost stories until the night he saw Lucy execute two men in cold blood.
On his drive home through the back woods, the apparition appeared. The phantom spoke without words.
Twelve chimes. The floor opened. Lucy was gone.
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