30M2DW III - Day 4

When Hell Freezes Over

I awoke with a start. I would have preferred to have awoken with a woman - a lithe, busty blonde if truth be known - but my love life was a little on the downside at the moment; too busy solving near unsolvable cases to spend much time with the opposite sex. Well, or the same sex for that matter but that's just not how I roll.

So, yeah, I awoke with a start. Which beats a finish because that sounds too much like a fatal morning heart attack, doesn't it. And in that case I wouldn't wake up at all.

So it was with a start that I woke up - that's settled. I looked around my empty one-room apartment. Beer bottles, books and CDs lay scattered on the floor. It's not that someone had broken in and rifled through my collection of each. I'm just a lousy housekeeper who can't pick up after himself.

I'd returned to my one-room hovel after running into all my detective pals at Rover's Rump, my neighbourhood pub, and had settled in to watch the big game. But, as Toronto mayor Rob Ford likes to say "I must have been in a drunken stupor" because I vaguely remember throwing everything I could get my hands on at the television from about the end of the first quarter on. Last time I bet on the Broncos.

It was the phone. The phone had woken me. Not it's ringing. No it was the handset knocking on my forehead. I squinted and looked up and there was my Captain rapping me on the forehead with my phone.

"What the f…" I started to say.

"C'mon, get outta that bed. Get some coffee and breakfast in ya. You've been on a 3-day bender and it's time to straighten up and get back on the case."

But I had been on the case. I was gathering information from my snitches and fellow P.I.s at Rover's Rump for the past three days. Or, wait. Maybe I'd just been gathering Pabst Tests.

Captain Silver helped me up then poured me a cup of coffee. I know, eh. Silver. Not the best last name for a copper. But he was a great Captain. He understood and accepted my weaknesses because my strengths outweighed them. And I came through in the clinches. In the metaphorical sense. Because if someone clinched me they well might squish me to death.

"Captain, thanks," I said as he passed me the cup of Joe - not to be confused with Joe the barkeep who's real name was Paddy.

"I haven't made much progress on the Three Amigos case" I said, "and if that weren't bad enough my snitch was shot sitting right beside me at Rover's Rump."

"I know" said Silver. "I scouted out the bar after the shooting." Looks like the same work as the Amigos; same calibre gun. But at the moment that's all we've got to go on."

"Now I want you up, clear-headed, and back on the case. Like I tell the Commissioner, we've Gouda break the case." But I've gotta go now. Catch ya later. Hi-yo" said Silver, "away."

God that annoyed me when he did that. I suppose he thought it was funny for some reason. I never got it. And the day I did would be the day when hell freezes over.

Tune in tomorrow, same time, same blog, for the continuing adventures of Inspector Jack Gouda. This was instalment 4 of We Work For Cheese's 28 day writing challenge. The next time I compete in this challenge will be when hell freezes over.