Darker Than Noir

by Riley, R. Thomas; Zoot, Campbell; Chandler, Randy; Kauwe, Faith

  “Did they find any salt?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  Pause. “Did you say salt?” Another pause. “I didn’t hear nothin’ ’bout any salt. You mean like salt lick? I know deer like salt; what about bears?”

  “I don’t know anything about bears,” I said. “So, ah, what are you going to do?”

  “About what?” the client said. “I figured I’ll take your advice. Bottom line, _______’s dead. I sure as hell didn’t want him dead, even if he was rippin’ me off, but he is, so I guess that’s that, isn’t it? I only heard about it on the news. I haven’t called the police or nothin’. Not that I could’ve sicced a bear on him, even if I wanted to! But still, since I had a grievance against him, it’s probably smart if I don’t seem too innerested in this investigation, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That sounds…smart.”

  There was an awkward silence. “So,” the client said at last. “You said you started tapin’ him already? What’dja find?”

  I slowly removed the cassette tape from the VCR. The tape heads rattled in my shaking hand. “On the tape?”

  “Yeah, on the tape.”

  Suddenly, my hand was perfectly still. “Are you calling off the investigation? Because if I give you the contents of the tape, I’ll have to charge you for that.”

  “You can’t just tell me?”

  I swallowed. “That’s my policy. Standard policy.”

  The client thought about it for a second and snorted. “The hell with it. Bottom line.”

  “I’ll still have to bill you for the time,” I said.

  “Fine, fine,” the client said, annoyed. I tossed him a figure based on my standard rate, and he grumbled something to say I could expect the check in the mail and hung up.

  I did eventually receive my payment, but other than that, I never heard from that particular client again.

  So you’re wondering about his ex-employee. My subject, the shredded man, the workman’s comp fraudster? You want to know whether I ever found out what exactly happened to him.

  I watched the report on the news that day; it was pretty sensational stuff, the sort of thing you can’t get away from even if you try. But only for a couple of days, and then it was on to something else, as it always is when nothing new turns up in a story like that.

  So no, I don’t know if anyone ever figured out what happened to him—if anyone ever even suspected. I never made any calls. I never went back to the house. I did not seek out one single shred of information on my own time about the fraudster, his life, or his death. The case was over on my end the minute the client dropped the investigation. You couldn’t pay me enough to be a cowboy.

  And just like I do every time a client doesn’t pay for it, I wiped the tape.

  THE FURRY CON MYSTERY

  OR

  MY FURSUIT IS HOT

  (WITH APOLOGIES TO DASHIELL HAMMETT)

  by Alan Loewen

  The best thing about brushing your teeth with bourbon is that the chipmunks beating on the bongo drums in your head go away for awhile.

  I had just awakened in my office chair and my back was screaming at me in language I can't repeat. It's not often I drink myself to sleep in my office, but I hadn't paid my apartment rent for over a year and I was no longer welcome there. I was only eight months behind on the office and three months before the eviction notice took effect, so any port in a storm as they say. Whoever they are.

  There was a knock on the door and I put the bourbon bottle in the open desk drawer. "Come in," I said. My voice sounded reedy and far away.

  The dame stood five foot three and topped the scales at about three hundred pounds. Her hair was in curlers. I suspected a bathrobe was her main attire under the tent that passed for her coat.

  I sighed. Only in cheap dime store novels do the sultry ones ever knock on the office door of a private dick.

  "The pawnshop is on the first floor," I said.

  "Mr. Hurlocker?" she asked. "Mr. T. J. Hurlocker?" She stood there blocking the doorway and I wondered if she'd be able to get her body through the open door.

  It dawned on me that she had turned my name into a question and was waiting for an answer. The chipmunks were coming back, but it's bad manners to suck on a bottle in the presence of customers so I let them warm up on the bongo drums. Like I had a choice.

  "Yeah," I think I said. "That's me."

  She entered my office, to my surprise clearing the door by an inch on each side. "I want you to find my little Reggie." She held a damp tissue in one massive hand. Her eyes were red from crying.

  "Lost kid?" I asked. "Sure. I'll help the police find your kid. One hundred down and fifty a day not including expenses."

  She blinked at me like an owl. "The police won't help me," she said, her lower lip trembling.

  "Oh?" I asked, doing a fairly good owl imitation of my own. I knew there's only one reason the local cops won't look for a missing child. "Tell me. How old is your little Reggie?"

  She dabbed at her tear-filled eyes. "He'll only be thirty-two this September. He's a good boy."

  I motioned to an overstuffed chair, hoping it would support her ample frame. "Let's talk."

  Her story was predictably boring. Her little Reggie had been living in her basement since the tender age of eighteen, coming up only to eat and attend something she called furry conventions. Evidently, he spent a lot of time on his computer and the Internet.

  "He's an artist," she said with evident pride. "He draws for furry magazines."

  "Furry magazines?"

  "I really don't know what they are, but he's popular with the readers. At least that’s what he tells me." She burst into a fresh wave of sobs and I waited a few moments for some semblance of control to return.

  "He went to a furry convention two days ago. He was supposed to call me. He always calls me every night. Anyway, after he didn't call the second night, I went to the hotel where this convention was supposed to be and they told me he was registered, but they didn’t know where he was."

  "No problem," I said nonchalantly. "I'll find him for you." I knew this was going to be an easy fee. Little Reggie was certainly drunk out of his mind somewhere. I'd prowl around, find him, pour black coffee down his throat, and get him to call mommy. Easily said, easily done.

  She left me with my cover fee, a photograph of Little Reggie, who made his mother look like a munchkin, and the address of this so-called furry convention.

  ***

  The Cygnus' Arms Hotel is your typical seedy establishment that did well around the turn of the century we just left behind, but started to die when motel chains became popular. Today it hosted guests who were either low in funds, needed a place to sleep coupled with a short walk to the bar or, evidently, wanted to host a furry convention.

  I walked into the lobby through the stained glass double doors, stained with what I don't want to know, and gasped. At first, I thought the bloody DTs had snuck up on me and the pink elephants were returning: two-legged animals and hybrids walked everywhere-- skunks, dogs, cats, foxes. Even the normal looking people had sprouted non-human ears and even tails. I could do little but gurgle until I finally realized that actually I was still somewhat sober. These weren't phantoms from my tortured mind, but people in costume. Whatever furry was, it had something to do with animals. Horribly, that made it all that much more disturbing.

  I backed up against a wall and slipped my flask out of my pocket for a quick jolt of backbone. As I sucked down liquid courage, Bugs Bunny grinned at me from various wall posters. Other posters featured other cartoon animals unfamiliar to me. It was bloody strange.

  In the middle of the lobby, some creature of unspecific gender sat next to a hand-scrawled sign for registration. He wore tiger ears and a stained t-shirt proclaiming I'm Yiffy. I decided not to ask.

  "Hey, buddy," I said. The creature looked up at me with eyes the consistency of raw bacon. "I'm looking for a friend."

  I plopped the photo down on the tabletop. "
His name is Reggie Periwinkle. Seen him?"

  Lips struggled to move. Some awareness slowly dawned in the bloodshot eyes. "Aayurgghh," it said.

  "Pardon?"

  Again, his mouth started twitching. "Registration is ... " There was a very long pause. "Registration is twenty dollars."

  "Hey, buddy, I'm not here to register. I need to find Reggie Periwinkle."

  Eyes finally looked up into mine. "I've been here for two days," he whimpered. "No sleep. Somebody was supposed to come and take my place. I missed the Masquerade. I hafta go to the bathroom."

  I smiled down on him. "Hey, buddy! That's me. I'm your relief. You gotta get going, man."

  At first I was seriously concerned he was going to either burst into tears or kiss me, but he stumbled to his feet and disappeared into the crowd. I grabbed a registration sticker, slapped it on my trench coat and wandered into Wonderland.

  I made my way through the crowd of people dressed or half-dressed as animals, quietly grateful that I was mostly ignored. I did see one group of people point at me and I heard the word "mundane," but I ignored them.

  The first room was labeled as the Art Room. Inside, dozens of tables stood surrounded by people buying books and prints. I went to the first table and caught a glimpse of the artwork.

  Now, I have to tell you that I'm a man of the world. I've been in places you don't tell your mother about. Hell, I've been in places you don't even tell your father about. I've seen it all, or at least thought I did.

  "That's not physically possible," I said to the vendor as I pointed at the picture displayed on the table.

  Hr grinned up at me, last year's meals still evident on his shirt. "That's why it's a cartoon. That picture there is a Plaid Dragon original. Ten bucks, my man."

  "Sorry," I said. "I don't have a place to hang it. I'm looking for a buddy of mine; Reggie Periwinkle. Seen him?"

  "Reggie? The Obtuse Wombat? Man, you're in luck. I got a pile of his stuff here." He flipped open a loose-leaf folder and started going through the pictures. I gagged and turned away without another word. The chipmunks in my skull went dead quite largely from shock because chipmunks were the main focus of the work.

  Stumbling out of the entrance to the Art Room, I found what passed for the hotel's excuse for a restaurant. I ordered a large black coffee and slipped a healthy dose of bourbon in it to quiet the jitters and settle my stomach. The chipmunks still had not returned and I assumed they left the state to inflict migraines in a safer environment.

  As I sat rubbing my eyes trying to remove the last vestiges of soul-searing memory, my nose suddenly told me I was not alone.

  My visitor was a very nervous rabbit, six-feet tall not counting the ears. His costume was a tad threadbare, but it had been patched with evidently loving care in spite of its pungent aroma.

  "Can I sit down?" he asked, pointing to the empty seat. His voice was muffled through the rabbit head and I wondered how he could breathe. "I heard you asking about the Obtuse Wombat."

  I nodded and my strange visitor straddled the chair to make room for his powder puff tail. "There's a big costume ball tonight," he said, his voice an urgent whisper. "Meet me near the entrance. I think ..." He looked around, his actions indicating nervousness. "I think something bad happened to the O.W."

  "And what ... " I began, but he sprang up from his chair and disappeared into the crowd. I didn't follow him solely because I didn't want anybody to see me chase a six-foot tall rabbit through a restaurant.

  The remainder of the day went without incident. People I questioned about Reggie told me that they knew him and had seen him at the convention except that after the first night’s masquerade he had disappeared. Everybody assumed he had gone home.

  I learned a lot about furry fandom that day. An eclectic group, they range from various levels of interest-- those who are fans of Bugs Bunny and his ilk to those who think they are Bugs Bunny or his ilk. I also learned that if you see a stuffed toy animal lying on the floor in the lavatory, it's best to leave it alone. Don't ask why.

  The extreme members are called fanboys, mostly men who have no lives except furry fandom. They eat, sleep, and drink furry and are very, very frightening in their obsession.

  That evening, I waited by the door to the room where the costume ball was starting. I had seen people in animal costume all day, what furry fans call fursuits, but they must have kept the best for the evening. Two-legged horses on artificial, but very convincing hooves trotted by. Skunks with four-foot long tails spritzing cologne walked by escorted by lions, tigers and bears. Oh my, but Walt Disney would have been drooling with jealousy after a fist fight with Jim Henson over purchase rights.

  Again, I smelled my informant before I saw him.

  "Wait," he whispered to me. "She'll be here any moment."

  I shrugged and watched the mobile zoo. There was a tug on my sleeve. My rabbit friend nodded toward a commotion in the crowd.

  She was a rat.

  She was a rat with the emphasis on "she" as she had all the right curves in all the right places in all the right ways. And what I could see of her costume under that short red sun dress she wore over it was flawless. In her wake followed a mass of drooling fanboys like suicidal moths after a torch.

  Suddenly a song parody started running unbidden through me head. Rodent with a red dress, red dress on. Rodent with a red dress on. I started missing my chipmunks.

  The rabbit next to me gave out a moan, a weird combination of desire and terror.

  I jerked my thumb at the rat woman. "You think she's the one that did something bad to Periwinkle?" I asked.

  The rabbit simply nodded, unable to take his eyes off the rat woman.

  What does a woman like that want with a wombat? I asked myself. Of course, I was making an assumption it was a woman inside that costume, but regardless of the gender, the rat woman was probably the last person to see Periwinkle before he disappeared.

  She walked by me, giving me a quick and obvious once over.

  I joined the fanboys following her into the ballroom. Finding some drunken guy under a table I took his furry ears for my own, jamming them on my head and hoping he had showered that morning.

  The rat woman was standing against the wall overlooking the dancing throng, surrounded by fanboys too fearfully insecure to talk to her. Avoiding their hostile stares, I walked right up and asked her to join me on the dance floor.

  If I hadn't known that her eyes were only tinted glass, I would have sworn I saw surprise in them.

  "Why, thank you," she said and I knew then she was all woman ... well ... rat woman.

  We walked out on the dance floor and, hampered as I was with my trench coat, I attempted to do some moves to the industrial rock that was blaring out of the cheap speakers. She moved gracefully as if the fursuit was her own skin.

  "I've not seen you around here. New?" she asked. Her voice was clear and charming and though of course her costume's muzzle did not move, I noticed she spoke with a ventriloquist's skill, substituting her labials with other consonants as if afraid to move her lips inside her mask.

  "Yes," I said. "I'm here looking for a friend. His name is Reggie Periwinkle. Goes by the name of the Obtuse Wombat. Know him?"

  "Yes, I do," she said calmly. She stopped dancing. "Meet me up in my room. It's 544 in the west wing. Fifteen minutes. Reggie will be there."

  Without a further word, she spun on her heels and walked away and at that moment my blood ran cold. Suddenly, I knew my death waited for me in Room 544 as it had waited for Reggie Periwinkle two nights ago.

  I stumbled against a wall and stood there in shock ignoring the questions of the fanboys that surrounded me asking me if I had touched her and what her fur felt like. Shaking some sense back into my head and once again grateful the drum-playing chipmunks were still on vacation, I hurried to the front desk and asked for paper and a felt tip pen. I hastily scrawled a message, not wasting time to call the police. By the time the police got there, the murderer woul
d be long gone. Time was not waiting for me.

  I grabbed a nearby fanboy and passed him the note. "Spread this around," I said to him with as much force as I could. He read what I had written there and with a cry of glee, disappeared into the crowd.

  The fifth floor was empty. Far below me, I could feel the distant beat of techno music from the costume ball. The door to Room 544 was closed. Carefully, I turned the knob. It was locked. With a sigh, I accepted the inevitable and knocked.

  She opened the door, still in her combination rat and red sun dress. Rodent with a red dress, red dress on. "Come in," she said. Immediately, she turned and walked back into the dark room. "Please close the door and make yourself comfortable."

  When she heard the door click, she spun about to see me standing there, my small handgun aimed at her chest.

  "Where's Periwinkle?" I asked.

  She smiled, the sides of her muzzle actually turning up into some parody of a feminine grin. "Oh," she said. "He's about."

  "I already know he's dead. Cut the crap and tell me where the body is. And why don't you tell me what you are while you're at it."

  She cocked an eyebrow in mock surprise. "Drat," she pouted. "I knew you weren't a fanboy. How did you know I'm not wearing a costume?"

  I kept my gun pointed at her midsection. "When you turned away from me downstairs I noticed there wasn't a zipper anywhere. The costume was just too perfect. What are you? Really?"

  She smiled again. "Ain’t spontaneous evolution just the neatest thing?"

  I forgot how fast rats can be. In the space of one heartbeat suddenly I found myself on the floor, flat on my back, the rat woman sitting straddling my chest with my own gun pointing at my face.

  "Typical human," she said. "Nothing but a very slow monkey."

  "Periwinkle," I gasped through her weight on my sternum. "Where is he?"