Blood and Garlic: A Dick Burns Minit Mrdr
William Garner & Monkeyrotica
Published: 2009 Categorie(s): Tag(s): dc, hardboiled, monkeyrotica, dick burns, pulp
1
Chapter
1
"God save Captain Vere!"
It was one of those blast furnace summer days when D.C. felt like the Billy Budd doll that the dog liked to play with: chewed-up, naked, covered with spit. I was waging a losing battle against the heat down at the Dubliner, shooting craps at the bar with Stumps Lonnegan, when one of Vito's teenage rump monkeys skipped in and tapped me on the shoulder. The kid looked like a real pretty punk: hair the color of sawdust, eyes like smoke and skin three-shades paler than a cadaver. I'd have taken him back to my place for a quick game of "Plug" if I wasn't already foursheets-to-the-wind and counting. "Vito wanthta thee ya, mithtah. At tha' dinah," he lisped, all coy and quiet, like I couldn't tell how he liked it. The cut of his Bugle Boys said it loud and clear: Bend Me Over Your Lap and Spank My Big Behind. "What about " I snapped back. "Can't you see I'm on a roll " "Dunno, mithtah. I'm juth da methengah boy." And he was out the door, back into the heat, probably headed towards Dupont Circle to turn some nooners. I'd run into the punk again at Tracks a few weeks later. How we wound up hopping boxcars in Oxnard is another story. I passed Stumps the Franklin I owed him from when I gypped him last week. He reached behind the counter, slipped me a cherry half pint of Ballantines in an ice cream bag. "Watch yerself, will ya, Burns " the old legless bartender mumbled as he spit polished a shot glass. "Vito's been acting real hare-brained lately. Insane in the brain, knowutimean " "You ain't my mommy, y'old bald idiot!" I spat, grabbing Stumps by his tattered lapels. "Stick to pouring hooch, Yoda, and keep your sage advice to yourself. And take a bath while you're at it." I slammed my drink and headed down Massachusetts Avenue. I hiked over to Union Station, rode the Red Line uptown to Bethesda. I hoofed the two blocks to the Tastee Diner, Vito's usual hangout. Between

下一页