*To Recap from last week With our country in crisis Miss Liberty has come to San Francisco for the purpose of hiring Sam Spade... From Episode One*
" I slowly stood up and let out a long low whistle. You know how to whistle don't you? I needed a drink, I don't usually drink with my guests...but, hell I needed a double. I was thinking fast and hard as I walked over to where my parnter and I kept the bottle, that might explain why I tripped over the wastebasket. I landed near enough to the bottle and fished it out from the remains of the file cabinet I had taken out on my way down. I took a long stiff slug.
I tried to regain my balance. in more ways than one."Any leads?" I managed to sputter.
"I have a name, thats all."
"Give it to me."
"it's The Fat Man, Sam."
"How can I help?"
*Episode Two*
"The Fat Man," she said and chills rose down my hackles.
"The Fat Man," I said, "How many men has he killed so far, hell, he just gunned down a guy the other day."
"The Fat Man..."
Every one knew he was the Power Behind the Throne, the Big Kahuna, The Top Cock, yeah, that's right, Killer Dick.
"The Fat Man is a big fish and I'm a small pond, Lady Liberty, I'm from the Ninth Ward, and he's Natalie Holloway, I'm the Mud Hens he's the Pinstripes, He's a chainsaw and I'm a termite, chokin on the splinters, I'm a loser, baby, so why dont you..."
"Snap out of it Sam!"
I'd never been hit with a huge copper hand before, but the slap she gave me felt like being hit with a huge copper hand.
"Thanksh" I slurred, and did a Daffy Duck on my neck
"Anything else you can tell me?
"Two things, Sam, one, the Fat Man seems to have a thing for birds"
"What's the other?"
The last plane for Texas leaves at five."
::
I had always told myself never to go to Texas and now I knew I wasn't lying. There was nothing here.
And there was an awful godamn lot of it.
When I was dropped off at the Armstrong Ranch, I got up dusted myself off and cursed the pilot for not giving me a chute. Then I knocked on the door. A familiar mustache answered.
"John Thursby, what cat teleported from the UN and hacked you up here?" I asked repectfully./p>
"Spade," he spat surreptitiously through the folksily forrested follices of his large limpid labia, " Are you here?"
He never was very bright.
"I thought you were in Frisco."
"Don't give me any of your lip" I told him, and backhanded him across the face wih my autographed Robert Byrd Pocket Constitution. His knees buckled and tears came to his eyes, a typical bully. I pushed him into the foyer of their vestibule, he was so light in his loafers it was like pushing a Garfield balloon. He smelled of gardenias. And death.
"Where's the Fat Man, John?"
"Gone. He's gone, They don't tell me much, they don't like me either, but I heard they took him to the Undiclosed Location to change his blood again. He should back in DC next week." he whimpered obsequiously.
"Where's the Undisclosed Location located, John?"
"I don't know, " he shreaked in a high girlish voice, "they never told me I swear."
"You're lying." I slapped him again. I knew he was telling the truth. I just enjoy watching the look in a bullies eye when HE's the one backed up against the wall.
"I swear!" he sputtered. He sniffed the air and then looked down at the spreading stain on the front of his pants. His eyes met mine and I saw the look in his face I had been waiting for.
I pushed him away. He crumpled against the wall and I turned my back on him and walked toward the door. When I heard his low feral snarl, I turned, my .38 snub-nose in my hand. He was going for his gat, the cheap gunsel, just like I knew he would, as soon as my back was turned. As I shot him down his eyes looked at peace, I could see the mantle of evil lift and saw the scared and scarred little boy under all that bluster and destruction. I almost felt bad. Almost.
No time though for sympathy though, footsteps were coming down the hall. Anne Armstrong ran in to the foyer. She was drunk. Sloppy drunk.
"Another one?"
"Yes Ma'am, I'm afraid so. I'm Secret Service. The VP forgot his phone and had to come back. Thursby made a crack about him having a 'senior moment'. Do you need help with the body?"
"Are you kidding? Dicks been 'hunting' here for thirty years, we'll just throw him in the lime pit with the others. If only Harry had had the decency to die, like we were waiting for, for all those hours before calling the cops, we could have covered it up like all the others. No wonder he apologized."
"I've got to go."
I slipped out the front door went to the garage and hot wired a Hummer and pointed it north. I gunned the engine and used up enough fuel to heat a small house for the winter. I was heading for Wyoming, I heard that the aspens were turning, but I had some stops to make along the way. For one thing I had to pee. I had some ideas who to talk to, both about the Undisclosed Location and The Bald Eagle. I was in this deep, now. I had killed an Ambassador. This administration does only one thing well, besides steal elections, these guys know how to run a coverup. I could count on at least 18 hours before any reports were released.
It felt good to be moving, rolling across America in the most obscene mode of personal transportation ever invented. For too long I had sat helpless on the sidelines. Watching the creeping rise of corporate fascism in America. The men who had stolen the symbol of our freedom, the Eagle, were also stealing the real thing. The elite 1% of America that already owned everything, had now succeeded in buying the Government of the United States and controlled all the media outlets. Well, almost all. Those of us who see evil on a regular basis, those of us who had been hurt, recognized this latest manifestation early on. Others, who had managed to insulate themselves from the troubles of the world, they couldn't see it. It looked to much like them. To admit that IT was evil would be to admit that THEY themselves were part of the evil. The rest of us are left to yell in the wilderness and hurl alarm clocks. Its still the same old story.
The Texas sky was big and bright with stars tonight. I felt good inside, the kind of good you feel when you know you are doing the right thing. Fate had found a way to align my tired cynical old self interest with the greater good, a higher cause. Turning your will and energies towards action for the greater good is how you live in harmony with the world. Then you are sustained. At least that's what the man I was on my way to see would tell me. but what did he know. He was a blind old Indian. Me?
I get 35 dollars a day. Plus expenses.
But who knows, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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Apologies to Dashiell Hammet
Tune in next week for Episode Three