Psychedeck
by
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I live in the city, doesn’t matter which one, they’re pretty much the same– a city’s a city. There are big ones and little ones, mine’s a little one. The only difference between a big one and a little one is that murder is harder to get away with in a little city, harder to hide. Someone always knows what happened, who did it, but that’s the nature of small places – they’re intimate, uncomfortably intimate. It was a Wednesday, or Tuesday, I don’t remember, it doesn’t much matter. I was sitting in my office, Shakespeare’s Tempers. the Tempers is a bar. Jerry Puggly, the owner, had wanted to name it Shakespeare’s Tempest, but couldn’t quite remember the name of the play. Shakespeare’s Tempers fit, though. So there I was, minding my own business, working a cross word puzzle, sipping a bourbon, enjoying the status of unemployment, listening to Jerry grunt while he moved around behind the bar. I didn’t miss having a real office. I didn’t miss knowing exactly what day it was. Three months ago I usually knew what day it was and I had an office (that’s how long it’d been since my last case), a real office with a desk and phone and name on the door. Nothing fancy, but it was a place to hang my shingle. I’m a P.I. I lost my other office because of a divorce. Divorces can be messy but this one was a disaster. My client, Lauren Jordan had won, big settlement, houses, cars, savings, but her husband had enough money and pull to make sure I knew who was in charge. What is it about some people? They can’t take rejection, can’t take no for an answer, don’t understand when they’ve lost, when it’s time to turn around and walk away. They think the world is theirs to manipulate and command. That was the malady Mr. Jordan was afflicted with and he seemed to enjoy inflicting his sickness on those around him, on me. After the divorce, Jordan sued me for invasion of privacy, for documenting his infidelities with prostitutes, mostly teenagers. He hadn’t spent time in jail, he had that kind of money, but it was close and I was glad. He lost his lawsuit against me and I was pretty damn happy about that as well, but not before he’d driven me into financial telephone pole. Unfortunately I was in no position to fix the wreck. The call came about ten o’clock. I was sitting at the bar, drinking a bourbon, doing a crossword puzzle. There was the usual clientele, the lonely, the early alcoholics needing a drink. Earl the retired postal worker head hang dog over his drink thinking about all the chances he’d had to blow his bosses away at the post office; Grace at the other end of the bar in her house dress and slippers drinking fortified wine and vodka, a one time house wife gone to drink after hubby died; the General at his booth with his Veterans of Foreign war hat on festooned with buttons and pins claiming to have been a prisoner of war during WW II and who knows maybe he was; Delbert Hall, another large man like Jerry, but not quite all there, missing a few needed brain connections, sitting as quietly as ever, sipping a coke, gently rocking back and forth, Tempers the only home he had. There we were, all six of us acquaintances, but no one drunk enough yet to be talkative. The early sun was washing through closed front window blinds dramatically lighting the cigarette smoke and dust. A slight smell of disinfectant corrupted the air. The walls were yellow from years of that same smoke, old beer signs hanging here and there. Through porthole front door windows light illuminated the coat rack across from them. It was a nice morning. The phone rang and Jerry answered. "Hello, Shakespeare’s Tempers." He listened a moment then, "Here you go Will, tsfur you." Jerry handed me the phone. I could smell him from across the bar, but it was hard for Jerry to take a bath. "Hello, Will Psydececk." "Mr. Psydececk?" The woman sounded anxious and familiar.
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About the Book
Will Psydececk (pronounced "sigh-da-check") isn’t just a private detective he’s a law school dropout with a fondness for loud Hawaiian shirts and a penchant for head trauma – his own head. His office is Shakespeare’s Tempers, a bar below the apartment where he lives with his partner, Helen, a lawyer turned artist and their three cats. "I’m not an action detective," he says, "I’m much too happy with myself." The only problem is he can’t stay out of trouble. In Psydececk’s first adventure, Shakespeare’s Tempers, the hapless detective chases drug smugglers, slave traders, and the super rich – yes, all the things that make America great – across southern California and Mexico attempting to find a brutal murderer. His second adventure, Vivaldi’s Tractor, takes Will head to head with a neo-nazi Christian fundamentalist sect in northern Idaho. In this story, Psydececk not only encounters neo-nazis but a body that’s fallen from the sky, a punk teenage kidnapper, an industrialist named King Davis, the CIA, the ATF, and a talking dog. If you want hard hitting adventure, hard-boiled prose and some tongue in cheek laughs you have to read these two novels by W.W. Monigold.
About the Author
A native of Seattle, Washington, W. W. Monigold is a poet, playwright and novelist. His poems have been published and performed in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Great Britain, and France. His plays have been performed in Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles. He lives with his partner, Annn of twenty years and their cat, Cowboy. Although Psydececk is his seventh novel it is Mr. Monigold’s first mystery.