Hot Club 09/08

[Joseph Jackson]

The following is a reprinting of the 09/08 edition of the “Hot Club Adventures” serial published in the Metropolitan Daily Star Sun Times Weekly Chronicle Dispatch newspaper:

When we last we left our hero he had put the brakes on Toeless Joe’s lead smuggling scheme and gathered enough evidence to put the toeless scum behind bars for a long, long time. After running Tonya “the Knife” Davis out of town for good, it was time for our Hero to take a much needed rest…

So, I was passed out in my “bedroom,” a half-empty bottle of whiskey adding to the ambiance of flickering neon, and the car horn symphony outside the window. I was startled awake by a knock on my door so frantic that I thought the woodpecker had gotten into the hall again. 

“What, who is it? Do you know what time it is?” I shouted through the paper thin, door. Looking up at the door, the faded words on the window, “Clifford Dyer Private Eye,” reminded me that I’d spent as many nights in my office as I had at home. To be honest, there were far fewer rats in my office and the chair had more padding than my mattress. 

“My Dyer, I’m sorry to bother you so late, but I’ve got a problem that only you can take care of,” said a confident, sultry voice leaking through the cracks in the door with the draft. I recognized the voice. It was the infamous Ms Brightly, and she was well known in this little burg for having legs to the sky, and the standards to match. Many men courted her, and few made it past “Hello.” She was the most eligible bachelorette this side of Morrisville, and boy did she know it.

I opened the door. “Good to see that you are taking care of yourself,” she quipped wryly. In her defense I was in quite a sorry state.

“Well, time spent keeping up appearances is never wasted,” I coughed into my sleeve. “What can I do for you today Ms. Brightly”

“I need help. Look,” she shoved a crumpled bright orange flier into my hands. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, it read:

Hot Club of Durham 09/08/2009
Come out Tuesday night and put the “Hawt” in Hot Club

“Aside from some terrible spelling, I don’t see anything wrong with this,” I remarked while squinting at the paper. “I mean, those jitterbugs are one dime short of a pop, but they’ve never caused any trouble.”

“Keep reading,” she sniffed, tears welling up in her eyes like puddles after a summer rain.

So I did:

Lesson Starts at 7pm
Teacher: Toeless Joe Jackson will be teaching a beginner 6-count (east coast) lindy lesson. Come out for this Hot Club first!

I was fuming like a broken radiator in Barrow, Alaska. “How did that dirt bag get out of lockup? Well I’m going to march right down there…”

“No Mister Dyer, he’s out on a work release program. This is the problem,” she pointed at the flier:

Dance from 8-11
DJs
Cliff Dyer- House DJ
DJ TBA – Feature DJ

Brightly was a full fountain by now, “DJ TBA… killed my brother.”

My head was spinning. I couldn’t tell up from down or left from right. I grabbed my coat, hat and a flask full of gin that I have prepared for just such a situation. “I’ve forgotten that I have to Deejay, I’ve got to hurry,” I yelled while running past, the still sobbing, Ms. Brightly. “Oh and I’ll put this Deejay Tobeannounced away for you, I promise,” I remarked as I rushed out the door onto the street, still damp from a summer shower.

--

The cab I caught had the unique scent of incense, vomit and feet. The charming young cab driver turned his bloodshot eyes in my direction and asked, “Where to mister?” in an accent so thick you could spread could butter on it.

I looked back at the flier, by now wet with the sweat from running two blocks to catch a cab in the humid summer twilight:

ERUUF
4907 Garrett Road, Durham

--

I paid the cabby with a five dollar bill so old that Mr. Lincoln was reduced to smudge.

I could tell right away that something was wrong. The Care building was darker than a Swedish winter and the air was thick and still with danger. I carefully crept towards the door when I notice a figure lurking in the inky shadows.

“Stop right where you are and no one gets hurt,” echoed the deep voice of the shadowy and mysterious Deejay Tobeannounced. The words pushed through the soupy darkness.

A flash of realization overtook me and I shouted, “No it can’t be! You, I know you. You are…”

What will happen next? Who is Deejay Tobeannounced? Find out all this and more in the next exciting installment of “Hot Club Adventures”

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