Play@YSDC

You trudge up the steps to the Hudson Street Station at about four o'clock. The weather is still clear, but its chilly in the shadow cast by the building with the sun starting to drop in the western sky.

Your office is the same congenial mess it always is. You have one message: the two John Does at the Manhattan morgue have been claimed. There's no word from the Brooklyn morgue about theirs, the one fished out of the Gowanus canal. It's been a long day, but you could go by the morgue on your way home -- not that you really know yet what Alphonse Hirt looked like... er, looks like.

It's probably a waste of time -- those that have a home and family to go to have done so -- but I'll make a few calls. It's not like the John Doe at the morgue is going anywhere, and I really want to find out where the real Marlene Hirt lives and what she looks like. After that -- and unless Mr. Doe holds any surprises for me -- I'm headed somewhere that everybody knows my name.

The central telephone exchange operator cooperates quickly since it's a police matter. Within minutes, you have a phone number and a home address: APpleton 5102 - 1288 Lexington Ave, Manhattan.

There's not much of a crowd on the subway tonight and soon you're walking from the station through the darkened streets to Brooklyn General Hospital. The morgue entrance is around the back on the lower level. The almost full moon hangs low in the clear sky.

The full moon usually makes me think of being a kid, how we'd sometimes go down to the shore for the weekend. It wasn't so crowded then as it is now, and you knew most of the people around. (If you didn't know them when you got there you did by the time you left.) I remember sandcastles and seagulls and pungent driftwood smoke under an enormous full moon, late in the summer. That moon was gentle as a grandmother's kiss, a warm glowing light that you longed to bathe in, to drift into sleep as you felt it rinse the day's salty residue from your sun-baked skin.

It's a different moon tonight, almost as if it holds no connection to that silvery companion of childhood summers. Tonight it's huge and sinister, cold, smirking. It's a moon that knows something that you don't, a quiet menace whispering rumors and secrets a mere mortal can never know.

For a change, I'll be glad for the crisp, clean solace of the morgue.

<ooc>As long as the moon doesn't have a thousand forms, I'm cool. </ooc>

<Nice post.>

Louis, one of the morgue attendants you know is working the desk tonight. He looks up as you come through the door and smiles: "Hey, Franky, long time no see, huh? You here about that stiff they pulled out of the Gowanus Canal?"

"You know me, Lou, always the life of the party. And you know how I love a good floater."

As he's showing me the gruesome sight, an idea pops into my head. "Say, Lou, you ever hear of a private dick name of Ford? Used to be a revenuer, quit the G a few years back and hung out his shingle? You know anything about him?"

Louis leads you back into the “No Admittance” part of the morgue, into a chilly room one wall of which contains three rows of large, numbered drawers. He puts his hand on one of the handles. “It’s hanky time,” he smirks, miming holding something over his nose and mouth.

When he slides the drawer open, the occupant has clearly been in the water for a couple of days. Even so, he looks like he’s close to six feet tall and over 200 pounds. And he’s blond. None of that jibes with the description Marlene Hirt gave the police of her brother – 5 feet seven inches, about 150 pounds, blue eyes, dark hair.

You shake your head and Louis slides the drawer shut.

Outside the room, he says, “Just as well it’s not your guy. The Sherrod family would be real disappointed since they IDed him this afternoon. You’d have to fight over him.”

FrankyEsposito wrote:"Say, Lou, you ever hear of a private dick name of Ford? Used to be a revenuer, quit the G a few years back and hung out his shingle? You know anything about him?"

"Ford? Nah, never heard of him. He queer for dead people?" Louis is still chuckling as you exit the morgue.

At least the moon’s still wearing the same face, though it seems to be smirking at you too. You need a shower and a drink to get rid of the stench of that place. Luckily you can get both at your place.

Just like Lou to tell me about the ID after showing me the floater. The only question is: shower or drink -- which comes first? I'm thinking drink, then shower, then head down to the pub. Sounds like a winner.

When you get to your rooms, Siobahn is there, sitting in the armchair, smoking. She has no smile for you and her eyes are red

“That came,” she says, pointing to an opened telegram on the table, “I gave the kid a nickel.”
“You’re goin’ back to Red Hook, Frank?” She stands, stubbing out her cigarette and picking up her purse and coat.

“When it spits you out again, come find me. You know where I’ll be.” She holds her hand tenderly against your cheek and kisses you gently on the lips, “Just come back, y’hear?”

And she’s out the door and down the stairs before you can get a word out of your mouth. Not that you have any idea what that word might be.

The taste of her kiss lingers a little too long on my lips, the smoke turning sour. Of all people she should know that I'm not going back to Red Hook, not how she means it. Not if there's any other way.
I crumple the telegram and toss it at the wastebasket. It clatters off and tumbleweeds across the floor. I move to pick it up, to put it and all it means in the trash. Damned telegram. Damned stupid job. Damned Zann and this worthless, hinky assignment.

It can all wait. Malone, Rhode Island, Red Hook, Siobhan, the telegram -- even the shower. There's one and only one thing I need tonight. It comes in a bottle, and I've got one stashed in the closet. One? Hell, I've got a collection. Time to get lit, smoked, out on the roof.

I have a seat and attend to the business of some serious drinking.

As you drink, you can't keep your mind from the fact that there's a Sunday morning train to Boston that would reach a stop somewhere near Chepachet by about noon. It leaves Grand Central at about 7:30 a.m.

What are your plans for Sunday?

Gaffer wrote:What are your plans for Sunday?

Wake up late, rush to make the train, arrive at Malone's hungover and/or still drunk. You know, the usual.

We'll proceed to a new Sunday thread.