Behind the Black Curtain

Dear story snacker,

I just finished reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. It was SO GOOD that when I finished it I literally started jumping up and down and whooping like an orangutan.

Some books are just too good for words, which is ironic. What’s a book you finished that was so fantastic you couldn’t sit still?

Let me know HERE.

Speaking of murder mystery short stories by me, here’s the next installment of Death and Bottle Caps!

STORY SNACK

DEATH AND BOTTLE CAPS

Part 3

Parts 1 and 2

Romulus started his investigation by getting coffee.

After watching the young Mrs. McVale drive off in a silver Lexus, the detective stood at the bottom of his building’s steps, considering.

This case had smelled like a run-of-the-mill Crouching Overwrought Wife Hidden Husband situation until that note had appeared. Romulus rubbed his sharp chin, remembering the six words scratched onto the paper now tucked into his jacket pocket.

Black Curtain (Sicily in the sun)

That smelled fishy. Not the rotten, confusing scent of a red herring. More like the dark, suspicious odor of an angler fish that lures stupid husbands into deep water. Romulus thought of calling Mrs. McVale and telling her he couldn’t take her case after all, but he knew he couldn’t do that. Trying to step away now would be like attempting to interest a bloodhound in a lollipop after it’s caught a felon’s scent.

This case might even take the detective’s mind off the meeting tonight, and the bottle cap weighing down his pocket.

The drizzle turned into an aggressive drizzle as Romulus prowled down the hill, walking a half mile along busy streets until he reached a plaza with an empty playground and a gnarled cedar tree in its center, a dozen shops circling it. Romulus entered his favorite coffee shop, Grounds Zero, its small space bustling with morning traffic desperate for caffeine.

Romulus joined the line to the counter, where a perky young woman with pink hair took orders with admirable enthusiasm. As he shuffled forward slowly, the detective caught the eye of a stocky man in a lived-in gray suit and wrinkled tie sitting at a table by the window, nursing a black coffee. The man toasted Romulus with his cup.

Turning to the counter, Romulus squinted as he was bathed in the full radiance of the coral-haired barista’s smile.

“Hi there, Mr. Romulus!” she chirped, already tapping on her order screen. “Like your usual?”

“Good morning, Aggy,” Romulus rasped, one corner of his mouth turning upward, the equivalent to a wide grin in a more ebullient person. “Yes, please, my usual.”

“Okey-dokey,” Aggy said, taking the five dollar bill the detective handed over the counter. “Solved any good murders lately, huh?”

“No, only bad ones,” Romulus said with a sad shake of his hoary head. “They don’t make murders like they used to.”

This made Aggy laugh so much she almost dropped his change. Romulus accepted his small americano and waved to Aggy as he turned, stepping around the next person in line, a young man in a baseball cap. Romulus weaved through the crowded shop and sat across from the gray-suited man by the window.

“Thought you’d be here, Greg,” he said, sipping his hot coffee. Just how he liked it. Black as night and bitter as sin.

Police detective Greg Shepherd grinned across the table, his wide, lined face as expressive as Romulus’ was impassive. “How’s tricks, Romulus?”

“Death-defying,” Romulus answered laconically, taking the bottle cap from his pocket and rolling it between the knuckles of his left hand. Shepherd put down his cup and leaned forward, salt-and-pepper eyebrows reaching for his receding hairline.

“Into something too deep?” the policeman murmured. Clicking the bottle cap down on the table, Romulus nodded.

“I get that feeling. Might need a favor. Are you available later today?”

“If it means you’ll owe me one, I’ll clear my schedule,” Shepherd said seriously. Romulus nodded, sipping his americano.

“Hot dog,” the police detective said, taking a long gulp from his cup. “What do you need?”

Romulus leaned forward.

*

The Red Curtain was a bar nestled behind tall, scarlet-draped windows in the rainy city’s downtown area, steel and glass skyscrapers towering around it like mist-wreathed mountains.

Romulus strode into the bar, taking in the long, dim room with a sleek bar running across its far side, backed by a wall of multicolored bottles glittering in the reddish light cast by black metal chandeliers dangling from the ceiling.

At 11 o’clock on a weekday it was empty but for the bartender. The detective moved smoothly between tables to stand by the bar. The bartender, a brawny black man with a shining bald head and a t-shirt that appeared painted onto his over-muscled frame, looked up from his iPhone with an unfriendly expression.

“Help you?”

“Looking for some refreshment,” Romulus said with an enormous wink. The bartender glowered.

“We’re closing soon,” he said, jerking his head toward the door.

“Bad luck for me,” the detective said, shaking his head.

“What about the bar through there?” he asked innocently, pointing one finger at a black curtain at the end of the bar. “Is that closing soon, too?”

The bartender stiffened, his unfriendliness turning dangerous as his eyes narrowed, and he reached a tattooed hand beneath the bar. Romulus would bet good money it was now resting on something that fired metal objects at high velocity.

“You’ve got the wrong place, gramps,” the bullish bartender said softly. “Ain’t no other bar. Find a drink someplace else, or stuff’s gonna get ugly real fast.”

“I can’t stand ugly stuff,” Romulus rasped, taking a step back. “You know what isn’t ugly? Sicily in the sun.”

The bartender’s eyes widened, and his posture relaxed in an instant, his hand reappearing empty from beneath the bar. Giving a curt nod, the brawny man moved down the bar, beckoning the detective to follow him.

Stopping beside the black curtain hanging across a portion of the back wall, the bartender pulled it aside, allowing Romulus to walk through into a dark hallway that ended at a metal door with no handle. After a moment’s wait, the door clicked and swung inward. Romulus strode through.

The vault-like door closed behind him without a sound, pushed by a voluptuous redhead in a yellow sequined dress that glittered like fool’s gold in the dim red light illuminating a windowless room filled with murmuring voices.

Romulus hadn’t been in the Black Curtain for a while. But secret clubs for the higher classes of criminal were like women: they didn’t change quickly. The same black-leather booths lined the walls, tables occupied by men with bad reputations and good taste in suits were scattered as always beneath a miasma of cigar smoke and soft music floating from a raised stage in the corner where a lone pianist sat and played, head bowed over the keys.

The redhead who let him in, one of several brightly plumed birds that patrolled the club, put a soft hand on the detective’s shoulder, smiling up at him in a way that promised pleasure and guaranteed trouble.

“I like a man with style,” she murmured, eyeing his suited form up and down. “I’m Diamond…what do they call you, big fella?”

“Please,” grunted Romulus, taking Diamond’s hand from his shoulder and bowing slightly to kiss it. “Big Fella is my father. Call me Romulus.”

With a giggle that bubbled like champagne, Diamond beckoned with one scarlet nail and sashayed away between tables, sliding into an empty booth and patting the seat beside her. Following at a leisurely pace, Romulus felt unfriendly gazes pass over him from every direction.

He took off his jacket and handed it to Diamond, who folded it carefully as he slid into the booth, sliding the black curtain hanging above closed so that he and the young woman could have some privacy.

Turning his head, Romulus froze as the young woman in question pressed a small silver pistol between his eyes.

“What the hell are you doing back in my club, Erik?” hissed Diamond, slender finger poised on the gun’s trigger.

Who’s Diamond? Will Romulus make it out of the Black Curtain alive? What does Henry McVale have to do with all this? Find out in 2 weeks…

I’m having a lot of fun writing Death and Bottlecaps, how do you like it so far?

See you next story!

-Zossima