Fun City Punch (Joe Dylan Crime Noir, #5)

by James Newman

  Who owned that time?

  Before long, the night had twisted into morning, and the bottle was almost gone.

  Should I have stretched the case out a little longer? No, that wouldn’t have been the way to play it. Clients instructed me because I was cheaper than a lawyer was and got the job done faster with no fancy stories. Lawyers simply complicated issues to make themselves seem important. See it this way. A poor, uneducated man gets the toilet unblocked with minimum fuss and greatest effort. He, the humble man, will roll up his sleeves and remove the shit with his bare hands. A privileged educated man will get the toilet fixed in a completely different way. He will have that toilet unblocked with maximum of fuss and the least amount of effort. Oh, yes, he will talk about the toilet. Blame will be distributed liberally as to whose ass had shat in the offending latrine. He will employ others to hold presentations about the best way to remove the shit. Men will sit around a table and discuss waste disposal. Oh, yes, ceramic surveys will be undertaken. A graphic designer will be employed to design pie graphs. Focus groups, committees, it will go on and on and blocked with shite the toilet shall stay. The privileged man will do everything in his power to unblock the toilet apart from the simple act of unblocking the toilet. That simple task, beneath him, will be undertaken by another man and while the humble man unblocks that toilet, a casual observer cannot but question the existence of the rich and privileged man who is already in his mean-spirited way scheming how to cheat and steal from the man who has unblocked his shit time and time again.

  Never play the client against the subject of investigation, never pad the bill, and do not take an assignment that looks like a lost cause. Roll up your sleeves, remove the blockage, and move on. This is what we are here for and there is no use trying to complicate or romanticize it.

  The picture of the pair of them in the dungeon, along with the audio, would be enough. Trixie ran off into the Red Zone with a new lover, got hooked on the S, and that was all there was to it.

  Or so I thought.

  The office telephone rang.

  “Good afternoon.”

  “You the PI punk, right?”

  “Huh?”

  “Dylan, are you Dylan?”

  Cute voice, I wondered if he sang on Broadway.

  “Whaa...”

  “Dylan?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s my son.”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s been asking for money, son of a bitch. My kid’s been in that hell hole for nigh on two years.”

  “Bad choice on the mother?”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘Sad to see another.’”

  “Another what?”

  “Casualty. Maybe. Just thinking out loud, Mr.?”

  “Simmons.”

  “So, let me get this straight, Mr. Simmons. Your son is asking for money and rather than give him that money, you want to find out what he’s doing with or without money?”

  “Are you a private detective or not? Sweet holy mother, am I gonna have to fly somebody over there to straighten this out? Are you an investigator? Can you find out what the bastard’s up to this time?”

  “Yes, that’s what it says on the door. Find the Bastard. But I also have an idea that the kid needs the money. I’d charge you a thousand bucks for a report on him. Alternatively, send him the thousand bucks and tell him it’ll be the last time you send any money. If he isn’t the type to believe you, let me tell him on your behalf free of charge.”

  “Listen, find him and watch him for a week.”

  I took a pencil and wrote:

  Missing Person - Hugh Simmons. Father. Bully. Psychopathic Aggressive personality type. Likes money, cigars, possibly gambling. Son seeking shelter at....

  “I’ll find him. Do you know where he was last staying?”

  “Windmill Hotel, which was a dump full of drugs and whores, no doubt.”

  ...Windmill Hotel. Drugs and prostitutes?

  “Oh, can you give me your best contact number?”

  He did that and I finished the note, gave him my credit transfer details and politely hung up the telephone. Things were looking better. I lit a Death Cloud Blue, rocked back in the chair and thought about it...

  It happened to the best of them. Holding onto the dream with the skin of their molars, they fly every day, leaving their lives in pursuit of a pair of brown thighs and a paperback novel. Some lasted in the alleyways and avenues for a couple of years before returning back to their home country to work as librarians in cute elementary schools, they bought candy floss on the pier, fed pigeons in the park. Some admitted themselves to rehabilitation clinics and took up yoga, some opened health food shops, some, not creditworthy and homeless, committed air rage on the embassy sponsored flight home and entered the legal system at the port of entry as convicts – three squares a day, a games console and a gym program. Some dug their heels in and adopted Fun City for years upon years of years of brown thighs and paperbacks, overstaying visas and inventing elaborate investment schemes to keep them afloat for weeks at a time. Some never escaped Fun City winding up sitting on the pavement stirring the dirt with a stick and hurling insults at the passing traffic. Some found hope in the darkest of places. They’d curl into a ball and roll around in the corner of some god forsaken bordello with mold on the walls, plastic trees, little multi-colored fairy lights that blinked on and off both night and day after day. Some clung onto the comfort of despair in a ten dollar hotel room with nothing but the bottle of Tiger Sweat cradled in their grip, holding it tight like the baby they once were, clutching a bottle of warm milk. The hustlers had left them when the money dried up and they really did ask themselves why this all happened. Some turned goose in Fun City. They switched from apples to oranges or maybe dug the lychees they had never had the chance to try before flying like the crane does to the dry lands of the east. Low hanging forbidden fruit forested the alleyways and the tunnels of Fun City, word has it a Dutch missionary, taken by the night two years ago, opened a dancing joint that by all accounts had the best rides in town. Called the Joint Church. “Where you going, Honey?”

  “I’m just going to church.” Yeah, it was one big joke in Fun City and the ones who laughed last, laughed loudest.

  And who was I?

  I was the lamp boy who shone a light across the dark streets of Fun City. The shepherd, the fixer, the hero, the fool (there’s a fine line separating the hero from the fool, trust me). The one who brushed away those freaks who preyed upon the naïve angels hell-bent in heading straight for the slaughterhouse, or the whorehouse, or the dirty brown stucco bungalow down by the beach where the transsexuals theatrically plied their trade wearing seven-inch heels and postbox smiles. Now and again, the Fun Police would round up the third-sex vice workers and deduct credits for soliciting knowing that they’d head straight back to beach to make back the credits they’d tendered.

  Dead men are safer than live ones.

  Moved over to the far wall of the office and turned on a consul switch that played a recording of a talk given by The Morphologist.

  Who’s the Morphologist?

  Well, when the man speaks we all listen. All we know about the Morphologist is cobbled together by those who claim to have known him during his final boat-bound days moored up in the harbor with an S habit. The Morphologist was a traveling holy man, a modern day Buddha, spreading words of wisdom in return for food and shelter across all corners of the world. His interests lay in psycholinguistics, the formations of words and phrases, the semantics and philosophy of language. He had visited all the major cities in the world. Fun City was his final stop. His voice faint and dry like autumn wind through shedding trees, the Morphologist, crippled by an unknown disease, spoke his final words in a two-week series of recorded lectures. This was twenty-five years ago. An old cassette surfaced from a ripped out beer bar after one of The City’s more dangerous tunnels was pulled down by the Fun City planning department. The lectures were immediately pirated, c
opied and circulated stirring up a fever in the city. The Fun City Express ran a series of articles. Conceptual artists rented bar spaces and held two-day Morphology events. Events, happenings, sit-ins and sleepovers. Bearded hipsters sat lotus and listened to the Morphologist’s voice crackling through the speakers...

  ...Be careful while treading in familiar places...You, who have lost the ability to learn and grow through pain, you will probably die in pain...Watch whose money you spend and buy only what you need and not what you want. A state of abandon will find you....What happens when you have to run away from running away? How long must the circus be in town before you join it?

  (Swish, swoosh, grrreeeeeahhh - boats motoring away from the harbor.)

  SEVEN

  MOST OF the bars and after hour clubs were closed, and the shutters pulled down. Jimmy ran further. The mob growled and yelped from the perimeter. He stumbled as he ran, cats and rats ran in the same direction, the rats were escaping the sewers, the cats chasing the rats; The Resistance’s headquarters had been compromised.

  They had nowhere to run and nowhere to retreat to.

  His lungs were heavy in his chest as he kept running until he came to small bar with the shutters up and the smell of cigarette smoke wafted out from inside.

  THE VERY SPECIAL BAR

  Jimmy made it inside. There were two men and a woman sitting at a table sharing a bottle in a booth close by. They looked up at him suspiciously before sliding a chair out from under the table and one, the elder, a man with broken black teeth told him to sit down. “Well, well. Look what the centipedes dragged in,” he said with a smile. “The son of Mr. Dylan, no less, Jimmy, isn’t it?”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a long story, but I guess you won’t be going back outside for some time. My name’s Jack. This here is Kelly and the young lad to my side prefers to remain nameless. Seems the experiment has come across its first blip, ah?”

  Jimmy poured himself some of the liquid from the bottle into a dirty glass and took a long hard hit. The youth was about his age with blond hair, attractive but insolent looking. The female was obviously some kind of Gamer. The older man he couldn’t place. He radiated a warm friendliness, but experience and Dylan’s tutorage had taught him that friendship from a stranger is something to approach with care. A set of conjoined twins sat in the booth. The bar was peopled with Fun City freaks, amputees; white rats ran freely across the floor, a three-toed sloth hung from the ceiling.

  “Welcome to the show, Jimmy. This is what we call The Very Special bar. There’s the bartender over there. We call him Barnum. That man twists the best gin fizz in Fun City. And this here is HT and Cakehole, these two are the cabaret. Twins joined since birth and two better guys you might not meet. Over there is the kitchen, serves the best Chicken 65 this side of Happy Street. And right next to us here is the jukebox. I can program it right here with my life-enhancer and have it play sad songs all night long. This is where the disenfranchised hang out, we don’t do pop or bump or grind or any of that here. Blues, soul, and jazz is what we need. But you know all this already, ratboy? You know why there’s so many cripples in Fun City.”

  “Article 36?”

  “Correct. Article 36 to wit: ‘Citizens with physical or mental disabilities shall under the terms of the articles be credited to make up for the credits lost through lack of gainful employment,’”

  “Liberal policy,” Jimmy said.

  “An interesting experiment. No one predicted that the credit scheme would cause the collapse of financial institutions.” Jimmy looked at the man. A rotary fan spun above them. “But let me introduce myself. I am the man they call Jack.”

  “The City got along just fine with money.”

  “This, Jimmy, couldn’t be further from the truth. You see, hard currency has become so worthless that there really is no point using it anymore. Cash is the currency of criminals, Jimmy, or at least blue-collar criminals. To be rid of it is better for all of us as a society. That’s the idea, that’s what they say. There are factories in the Dark Side printing counterfeit banknotes for use as collector’s items. The criminally rich miss the feel and the smell of money. Could you imagine? Everything you have ever worked for is taken away in an instant and it is replaced with digital numbers on a little screen. The City wants to know where we spend our credits so the city can maneuver itself into the position of beneficiary. There is nothing so evil as the shopping card or the credit card. Insurance companies saw a rise in premiums, but also saw a rise in claims. But with the surveillance systems we have, it doesn’t take a genius to work out what happens in this town, now does it.”

  “Who are you?” Jimmy asked.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve been around such a long time that even I forget who I am at times. Pick any name you would like to call me and that is the one I shall be called. Jack suits me.”

  “And Dylan?”

  “Dylan did a lot of surveillance work for the City. He was the best man for the job, most of the time, insurance type work, accidents, and injuries. He didn’t make too many friends in places like this, but that was a while back. Seems he lost his nerve for the game. Ethical reasons perhaps?”

  “Carry on.”

  “Well, there was a case. The city hired Dylan to snoop on an unlicensed psychiatrist. Dylan refused to take the case on the basis of a conflict of interest.”

  “And?”

  “The city has shit-listed him ever since, pulled him in for the Punch. But you would know all this, yes?”

  “They Punched Dylan?”

  “Oh yes, he found it most unrewarding.”

  “I have to get to him.”

  The smaller of the conjoined twins spoke. “We work with The Resistance. Hide out here until the Fun Police sweep the town. Once swept it may be safe to go back under. To go out on the street again now would be suicide. You were lucky you found us, we were out looking for stranded rats in the rain when you swept by.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure, so how does it feel being the son of a Private Eye?”

  “Dylan brought me here to meet my real father, who is now no longer with us. He taught me about the city.”

  “Obviously didn’t teach you too well now, sonny Jim, did he? Looks like you’re on tonight’s losing side?”

  “We are all on the losing side in this city.”

  “I see, but it puts us in a situation, now doesn’t it,” the man who called himself Jack said. “A very tricky situation. One that must be handled, uhm, delicately. The same delicate care we need to take with catching one of these.” He approached a metal cage on the floor, opened the door. Jimmy could see a brown shape moving inside. Jack placed a hand inside and grabbed the creature by the tail he held it up, the large brown rat hung upside down trying to understand the new dimensions. “The brown rat, Jimmy. The best-known rat species are the black rat, Rattus rattus, but the brown rat Rattus norvegicus is the little fellow I have here by the tail. The term ‘rat’ is also used in the names of other small mammals, which are not true rats. Rats such as the bandicoot rat are murine rodents related to true rats, but they are not members of the genus Rattus nonetheless. Male rats are called bucks, unmated females are called does, pregnant or parent females are called dams, and infants are called kittens or pups. A group of rats is referred to as a mischief. Did you know that, Jimmy? A mischief of rats?”

  “No.”

  “No, I thought you probably didn’t. There is nothing more uncommon than knowledge, is there, Jimmy? I’m sure Joe would agree if he were here, but where was I? Oh, yes, rats. The common species are opportunistic survivors and live more often than not near humans; therefore, they are known as commensals. They may cause substantial food losses, especially in developing countries. Although in certain countries, they are a food source. Kurt, fetch me my machete. Where? From the kitchen, second cupboard, that’s it, yes. Thanks. And the glue, the super glue is in the drawer. That’s it, thank you very much.” Jack took the tube of glue,
ran a line across the rat’s hind fur, and pressed it down onto the table. It stuck there wriggling its tiny sharp claws. “However, the widely distributed and problematic commensal species of rats are a minority in this diverse genus. The average lifespan of any given rat depends on which species is being discussed, but many only live about a year due to predation. The lifespan for this one has been suddenly and inexplicably shortened. You see, Jimmy, the rat’s host is also his enemy. The enemy in the blanket, if you will,” Jack made four short chops, removing a limb from the rat with each. “A rat is a rat is a rat.”

  Jack brought his face closer to Jimmy’s. “Let me tell you about Dylan, sonny. You see, once, he had it. He was younger, fitter, and he was able to make decisions. He could be beaten and it just made him stronger. But you know what? The fire is gone from his belly. He is now nothing other than the kind of Fun City bum he used to get paid to rescue from this god forsaken disease ridden city. He has become one of the downtrodden, one of the rats. He’s been here too long and those who have been here too long make sloppy decisions. You understand what I mean? Of course, you do, Jimmy. You’ve put up with his bullshit for years and that’s why you joined The Resistance. Most young men and women join political activist movements due to something lacking in the family department. Is this not so? Daddy drinks too much. Sister’s slowly working her way through a list of boy Gamers on her life-enhancer account. Mummy lost her mind to some god-awful jungle plant years ago and she can’t get over the trip. She holds up a hand like this.” Jack demonstrates by holding his palm flat and vertical in front of her face. “Like a child, she thinks by doing this,” he waves his hand in front of his face like a child playing hide and seek, “the world will not see her. She retreats from the world like this. These are our role models, the ones we should follow, and they are dead and shallow. So what do we do? We join a movement with leaders and spokesmen. We hold meetings; we talk about peace and human equality. Where’s your peace and equality now, Jimmy?” The man pulled out a hunting knife from inside his climbing boot and traced a faint line down and across Jimmy’s cheek. “Where did that peace and equality just disappear to?”