#fic grumps

“O’Donovan!” Detective Ross O’Donovan’s head jolted from his desk as he heard the voice of his superior call his name.

“Yes, sir?” He brushed the hair from his forehead and rubbed his eyes, blinking several times as he noticed someone standing next to the man addressing him. He was young, but looked incredibly capable, and Ross immediately knew where this was going.

“Gotcha a new partner here. Fresh off the train from Philadelphia! Go ahead, boy. Tell him your name.”

The younger man took off his hat before holding his hand out to Ross. Nervously, he tore his eyes away from the floor and met with Ross’s. “Name’s Barry Kramer.”

“Detective Barry Kramer!” Their superior enthusiastically slapped him on the back and he smiled nervously. “This kid’s gonna be the next great gumshoe, Ross. And you’re gonna show him how, got that?” Ross smiled and shook Barry’s hand with a big smile as their superior walked away.

“Welcome, Barry! We’re gonna make a great team, I just know it! I’m hot on the case as we speak!”

“Were you sleeping?”

“N-no! I was just hot on this lead for a, uh…” Ross shuffled through the papers on his desk. “Here!”

Barry took a seat next to Ross and scanned the paper he’d handed him. “So...what? People are getting bootleg liquor from...somewhere. Th-this isn’t a lead, Ross. Where do we even start?”

~

The Hanson Speakeasy was particularly crowded this evening. The storeroom under the Hanson Grocer was modified to fit forty patrons at the most, and at thirty-five tonight Suzy was having trouble keeping the place quiet. Every night like clockwork, a police patrol would walk down moments before the Speakeasy was open for business. The crowd was still noisy despite Suzy’s efforts to go to each patron and ask them to quiet down.

“CAN IT!” A man with long brown hair standing on the bar shouted, bringing a hush over the rabble instantly. He walked briskly to the door and slid open the window that was just big enough to see outside to the street. Black boots with long strides entered the street, and walked slowly across Arin’s field of vision. Suzy gripped tight to her locket, a habit she’d picked up over the past several years. She could feel her heart beating, almost as if it would pop out of her chest at any moment. Arin’s head whipped around, revealing a blonde stripe in his hair. He slid the window shut with a grin.

“Coast is clear. Let the night begin!”

Suzy let out a sigh of relief. They’d never been caught, or even come close to it since they’d opened up years ago, but the nightly patrol was always nerve racking for her. But seconds after Arin confirmed that they were safe for another night she was back to herself, bustling up the hem of her dress to make her way behind the bar quickly, where men crowded their glasses together just for the chance to get some gin from the tap behind her. Their wives, however, surrounded the stage, where a tall and slim crooner stood, long fingers wrapped around the cold metal of the microphone. He was the most casual looking man in town, and anyone who didn’t regularly attend these nights had no clue how talented he and his pianist partner were at entertaining the ever more intoxicated guests at the underground club.

“I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with your average bull,” Dan Avidan ran a hand through his hair, shaking it out and managing to make it look even bigger. The ladies in the front row pushed their seats up to the front of the stage, elbows on knees, chins on hands as they absorbed every last word. “And let me tell you, they ain’t nothin’ but a buncha saps if you ask me.” The pianist at the side of the stage laughed at his partner before taking a sip of the drink Arin had just brought to him. “Now the house is full of some pretty swell dolls tonight, and I know your husbands are here for the hooch. But you’re here for Danny. And Brian, too.”

“And How!” A giggly group of girls bunched up to one side of the stage hollered at them. Danny chuckled as Brian started to play with a gentle flourish of his hands.

“Oh you can bet I had myself a swell young Jane

Little did I know she’d be one hell of a pain

She didn’t know the difference ‘tween a check and neck

Now she’s got me goin’ crazy without so much as a peck.”

~

It was cold on Barry’s first night working the beat. I’m going to have to quit shaving for a little while, he thought to himself, rubbing his chin as he did. Meanwhile, Ross walked with his shoulders back and chest out, strutting down the streets looking for his next lead.

“So uh, Ross, what’re we looking for?”

“Anyone suspicious, Barry my boy!”

“And what makes someone suspicious?”

“Well…hey, there’s one!”

He approached a man slumped in an alleyway holding tight to a paper bag. Apparently the man had been sleeping, because he started when Ross snatched the bag from his hand. Barry stood back from the exchange.

“Hey! Level with me, where’d you get this hooch?”

“This ain’t hooch, ya Palooka. And even if it were, no way I’d tell ya where it come from.”

Ross stuck his nose in the bag and recoiled immediately. “Barry, confiscate this. It’s evidence now.”

Barry took the bag and stuck his nose in it. The alcoholic scent burnt his nostrils, but was also oddly tantalizing. Ross knelt down to speak with the man once more.

“Now, we don’t have to take you in if you level with us. Where’s the gin mill?”

“I don’t know from nothin’, Dick. Now dry up, boys. I ain’t the hood you’re lookin’ for.”

Ross’s face screwed up and he stood back up with a grimace as they went back out into the street, walking down the road again.

“Is this what you always do, Ross?”

“Y-yeah.”

“And do you really have any leads?”

“N-no. But I can’t tell chief that. He thinks I’m on the up and up with these things but I’ve got nothing.”

“I think you might be going about this the wrong way.”

Ross stopped and looked at Barry. “Well what do you think we ought to do?”

Barry looked down at the ground for a moment, thinking for again for a moment about the chill in the air. He rubbed his chin in the palm of his hand and caught the eye of his reflection in a shop window.