One Missing Piece, A Detective Story

PART ONE:

Here I am again, Chet Livingston, burn-out, wash-up, one hundred percent loser, not to mention a slight bit over weight. I can’t even do a single missing persons job correctly. What a failure.

The fog-horn blows.

I wake up. I think my nose is busted. My face hurts as I pull it out of the steering wheel. Damn piece of junk Ford. I should have bought foreign. They are much more reliable, much better on gas and less likely to get shot at. Also, they depreciate slower then the average American. Maybe I should have bought new tires. Ralf warned me, said they were looking bald. My cheap ass. They were bald.

Smoke, I can smell it. Even in the rain, this endless gray storm over my head. It’s coming from under my hood. I can see it through the blinking headlights pointed in the ditch. Come on Chet, pull it together, what’s going on?
Bald tires have no traction in bad weather. How am I going to explain this telephone pole to the insurance agency? It tried to slow dance with my radiator and dipped too far on the waltz, V-necking the grill intimately… slap, pow, bang. Just like in the old Batman TV series? Probably isn’t going to fly well.

But that’s the least of my worries after I see the body in the passenger seat. His face pressed hard into the glove compartment.

And I think to myself… “Who the fuck is that?”

Maybe I should back up here. Let me start this story at the proper beginning. Maybe it’ll make more sense to you and most importantly, to myself.

THE REAL PART ONE:

The bills weren’t being paid. Six months with no leads, no dead bodies, nobody to spy on, in other words, no work. Nothing, nothing but thick blankets of dust on shelves, cobwebs dangling in the corners, coffee cups, and fast food containers piling up on the big oak desk. Some of which I wouldn’t be surprised birthed new strands of fuzzy green alien life. Useless documents scattered in and around the wastebasket and across the floor. Never leave a paper trail they say. Two years worth of the Daily Heritage Newspaper piles up in one corner. Just in case, I had to do some historical research. Ya dig? Gotta keep my facts straight. Most of the time I used the newspapers for their obituaries. Market research, see who recently died, potential clients in need of my professional services. Half the time I expected to see my ugly mug in the black and whites looking sad and pathetic. Under my picture I can see it now, caption reads, “Chet Livingston, no family, ruptured liver, or a self inflicted gun shot wound, suicide they’d call it, but I’d know, I was already dead before it was decided. A ghost that never arrived on time.”

Finishing the last savory nibble of canned ravioli, I drop the metal spoon into the empty tin can licking it spotless. Cold-dollar food. I can’t figure out how they make it taste so damn good. I wish I could properly heat it up sometime. But microwaves cause cancer ya know.

Tipping the fifth of whiskey back, a frown sinks the wrinkles in my face a little bit deeper. Empty. I look in the top drawer for any bit of hope. Nope, nothing, just good old faithful Jane, and I can’t drink her. Not tonight. It just doesn’t feel right. I pull her out and rub her down with a soft cloth and put her into my jacket pocket. Her weight sinking deep and comfortable, good ol’ Jane, never letting me down. Some folks don’t believe in revolvers. They say six bullets are for sissies. Well I say, if you can’t shoot something in six shots, you best ought not to be playing with guns. Anyways, most gun fights end in one to three shots. Movies lie and people don’t like to live their real lives. Easier to pretend.

That dried up wilted cactus sitting like a skeleton on the windowsill catches my attention. I thought cacti were resilient. I thought cacti were impossible to kill. I mean, they flourish in deserts, the driest, hardest living conditions on the planet. Guess I wouldn’t be good with a pet, not even a goldfish. That’d end up floating belly up in a week.

I’ve resorted to living in my office and getting familiar with every detail that dwells in this space. It’s not by choice, on the account of needing rent money for the crap ass cockroach infested apartment I had uptown. Now, on my third and final eviction notice at the office, some little fucker came by today and scraped off my stickers from the glass plate door:

 Chet Livingston
 Private Investigator 
 Professional 
 Detective Agency
 No Job too big, no problem too small

I was standing at the last few boards of the dock, and the tide was rolling in, hard and fast. I could see the crescent of the wave curling over me. Ready to collapse. I wasn’t going to see the surface again and I could feel it.

For the past two weeks I have been bathing and washing clothes in the locker room downstairs. One night, the janitor caught me, very suspiciously, wondering what I was up to. To told him my plumbing upstairs went out, back fired all over me. Shit sprayed allover my vintage detective coats. I don’t think he bought it. He even invited himself up to fix it. Bad idea. Couldn’t let him see the dead rat I’ve been keeping as my only companion. That’s a hard one to explain.

I killed the little bastard. Case closed! The night rained on. That soft sprinkle enough to wet a fella behind the ears. The kind that makes a beer taste better.

I turned the brass key in the door lock. Knowing it would probably be the last time it would work. The dead bolt slid into place, solid. I love that feeling. Security.

Stepping outside I flipped up the color of my tan trench coat. I know, right, very cliché of a detective to wear. But hey, all occupations have their proper attire to be treated with respect. Cops wear uniforms, guns and badges. Garbage men have their outfits and doctors all fit nice in bleach white scrubs. The shit you used to see on that hospital sitcom ER. Nowadays these shows are more like soap operas with the doctors sleeping with all the nurses, and cheating on their wives. What kind of values do these shows teach? Hell, I wish I still had a wife. But, that’s another story I might get to later.

I should have chosen a different profession. Parents never tell their children about the real and cruel world. The one they’ll have to grow up in. Suppose that’s for everyone to learn ‘the hard way.’

Thanks for visiting and reading the opening scene/chapter to a story I've been mulling around with for a while. I'm hoping to dive deeper into life and detective work of Chet Livingston. Time shall tell.