By Mark Szasz
Most people are skeptical when they hear a sentient cake has a PI’s license, but get your picture in the paper enough, and you begin to gain credibility with a capital C. That, and the delicious smell of my chocolate ganache, is how Agatha Vanderbruin Von Marnestein found her way to my office.
“Do you think you’ll be able to find my brother, Mr. Slice?” she asked, doe eyes overcast with saltwater.
“I don’t know, toots. I’ll do my best. Tell me about Warren. What was he into?”
She didn’t say much, but she gave me a place to start. Warren had a gambling problem, and, in Grim City, that puts you one wager away from crime, time, or an untimely grave. He hung at the Foxy Lounge, losing at poker, guzzling gin at two berries a pop. Bad luck for him, but good for me, ’cause I know a guy.
“Well, I’ll be! Rocco Slice!” Nathan, bartender at the Foxy, greeted me. “Haven’t seen you since Thelma sang here. You still in touch with her?” I was, but I didn’t act wise to it. Resting my long-stemmed cherry on the countertop, I asked about Warren.
“Yeah, I know him.” Nathan filled a shaker. “Bad tipper, almost worse at that than cards. Not bright with who he lost to, neither. They’re the worst kind of people… but don’t tell them I said so, ’cause they tip well.”
Little brother got in deep with the Vizolas. They’ve got bullets for brains, piranhas for hearts, and the patience of a cat at dinnertime.
Nathan gave me the lineup of the Vizola-made men playing on Wednesdays: Jimmy “Bone” Fazino, Stymie “Herse” Campano, and Felix “The Felony” Garbanzo, like the bean. Then there’s the ringleader, Nick “The Trainwreck” Vizola, third youngest son of the crime boss Jonas Vizola, who was so infamous he didn’t need a cute middle name to bring on the fear of the Great Baker.
I slipped Nathan a sawback to leave me on a dishes cart near their table next game. Putting on my most innocuous piping, I half-hid behind a cloth napkin, hoping no freeloaders came calling. A ton of wine and eleven excruciating hands of poker later, in which I watched Herse throw every game to the Trainwreck, I finally hit pay dirt.
“Y’all hear about Warren?”
“Naw, what about him?”
“Heard he got blipped off by the Cabos,” Felony said. “Call.”
Herse swore. “Prick owed me money! I fold.” I’m not sure if he cursed at his lost debtor or folding on a royal flush. “What they get him for?”
“He was caught up in that shipyard hullabaloo last week,” Trainwreck said knowingly. He called and, surprise, he won the pot. But so had I!
The shipyard stank of fish and fuel. Huge men unloaded the hulks harbored there as I found Pier 32 where the bust went down. It wasn’t lively, what with the ship impounded and its cargo held as evidence by the Grim City buttons. Still, I wasn’t surprised to find one of Grim’s finest there: Detective Max Carver. He flashed a butcher-knife sneer at me.
“Go back to whatever hell or kitchen cooked you up, Slice!” he shouted. “This is a crime scene, and you ain’t one of us anymore!” We had history from when I’d been on the force—the detective had never much liked being shown up by a baked good.
“Just taking a stroll, getting some fresh air. You say this is a crime scene, Carver? What happened?”
“Oh no, I ain’t tellin’ you nothin’, icing fer brains!” he yelled just before telling me everything. Turned out a huge shipment of booze had come in a few days ago, and the buttons had an inside man give them the dish on what was what. I took a guess who the snitch was.
“So, you found Warren’s body?”
Carver said they hadn’t, then confided they didn’t think Warren was dead… yet.
“We’re pretty sure the Cabos have him in the city, but we don’t know where.” He mentioned witnesses had seen a man matching Warren’s description tearing off in a car after the raid, couple of goons flanking him, all with stern mugs.
I thought about that, and was about to make a comment sure to blow Carver’s top, but someone started throwing lead at us. I forced Carver behind a bunch of crates and listened as the gunshots began turning our cover to sawdust.
“Not again!” Carver pulled out his heater. “Why do I always end up getting shot at when you’re around?” Better question was why I kept pushing him behind things to save him—walls, cars, a piano once. I pulled my roscoe out, and we nodded in unison, counting to three, then we came out shooting.
The trigger man went down easy—one of him, two of us. And boy were we surprised to find Warren’s body right there. He’d been the shooter!
“Why’d he try to off us?” Carver wondered.
“For once it wasn’t you who drew the fire. He came here to ice me.”
Carver looked dubious. “How you figure that?” Seemed he even despised playing second fiddle for being a mark.
“Trainwreck Vizola paid him to tip the police off. The thugs with him were Warren’s muscle. The only thing he hadn’t planned for was darling sis trying to find him. When he got wind I was asking around, he must’ve started keeping tabs on me. And when that poker game led me here, he decided it was time to cut me off.”
Carver scratched his head. “What poker game?”
I sighed, the kind of sigh only a unique combination of refined flour, shortening, sugar, eggs, milk, leavening agent, kirsch liquor, and consciousness can make. Case closed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
there’s a trunk load of gangster movie cliches here…
Loved this story! Too many puns to even pick my favorite, but “He came here to ice me” has to be one of the best.
Very nice with the symbolism.
Thank you to all of you who have taken the time and hopefully will take the time in the future to read! :) I hope you enjoy and, if you have any favorite noir novels, please feel free to share the titles! Cheers!
Absolutely love the character voice! It’s so well done.