Mayhem ~ For Everyone ~ Autumn-Winter 2023

Harry Bookish and A Dame to Dye For

The smog smothering the sunset had turned the sky flaming orange, like a pumpkin on fire. Too bad it didn’t smell as nice. Los Angeles was a lot of things, but generally not olfactorily pleasing. I had just closed up shop at Mysterious Tomes whilst my hard-boiled writer friends continued their steady imbibing in the back of the store.

“Why don’t ya go home and write the Great American Novel?” I demanded, wanting to clear them guys out because they never paid for their own booze. Writers.

“Get bent!” they told me.

And then…she walked in. Whew, she was every Tom, Dick, and Harry’s dream. Oh, definitely Harry’s dream, as in me, your humble proprietor.

But her hair!  A stylish chignon but the color! As orange as that sky outside.

“Pardon me,” and her voice was hushed like a sultry whisper, “Can you direct me to the nearest private detective’s office?”

Them boys…elephants couldn’t have stampeded faster.

“Hey doll, did you say ‘detective,’ will a writer of detective stories do?”

“Blow it out yer ear,” I told them. “This dame needs a real flatfoot, not a purveyor of pretend!”

“We know every trick in the book, ‘cause we wrote ‘em all!”

“Hardy-har-har.”

She blinked her lovely amber eyes…they kinda went with the hair, come to think of it.

“I’m a gal in trouble, I’m supposed to inherit a great fortune. Only thing is, I’ve got to spend the night in a haunted house to get it. I figure a private dick wouldn’t be scared of a silly old ghost.”

Yikes, ya coulda sold tickets to the race those jokers had tryin’ to get outta my store.

“Where’d they go?” she asked, blinking some more. Gee, she was swell.

“Speakin’ of investigations, how ‘bout whoever did ya dirty with the dye job?”

“Oh no, I wanted it that way.  It’s Hallowe'en, you know.”

And so it was. “Well, I ain’t no shamus, but I also ain’t afraid of no ghost.  What say we grab a bottle and a flashlight and go get you that inheritance.”

She smiled and patted my arm. “Mister, you got yourself a date!”

And they say us bookish types never get no action…