I am a detective. The kind that solves mysteries. And right now, I have a doozy of a case. There was a shooting. The kind where some body ends up dead. Splattered on pavement shoved from a third story window after being stabbed. Was it the wife? Probably. It was always the wife. I should just go ahead and arrest her. But wait. She is also dead. So it must be the mistress. A revenge killing. Case closed. Now on to the next. And I bet it will be just as difficult to solve as this one.

He was dead alright, and it looked like an open and shut case, but something was niggling me and wouldn't stop. I headed over to Hot Cawfee to clear my head. The coffee was hot, too hot for my liking, but it was strong and pretty soon the thing I was looking for hit me bang on my head. The corpse was laughing, why hadn't I seen it coming? I sank another Coffee and took a cab to my office, someone had to open a file on this case and I guess it had 'ME' written all over it.

Bang. The door of my office slapped the wall like fingers on a hand on the bare cheek of an unsuspecting lover. She dragged her feet across my floor in an asymmetrical saunter that only a man named Igor could appreciate. "Aren't you the man who crashed my car after commandeering it while evading the police yesterday?" I looked up at her bedraggled face and sneered. She was a tall as a medium height individual with poor posture. I blinked several time and replied to her insane question. "No."

It was hard to concentrate on what she was saying. Crying and talking a mile a minute, she was the only witness I had. But I was fixated on the thread of cashmere lint that was stuck to the peachy pink lipstick glopped all over her lips. Ample lips. Ample, quivering lips and lint from a cashmere sweater that was two sizes too small. No doubt about it. This dame was gonna cause me some agida.

Benny sat in the cheap hotel room waiting for a knock at the door.

The knock came, hammering at his heart. Louder and more forceful. The door threatened to give, as he pushed the cheap old bureau against it, hearing the shouting on the other side become more violent. He remembered the guy at the desk ask him if he needed "something to get you through the night." Turns out he did. Benny waited for the knocking to stop.

In the dark, smothering night of the late December patrols on Cutthroat Street, detective Anthony Blade walks his beat, making sure all the rats are keeping to their nest. The shadows dance as the street light to his left flickers slightly, when suddenly, a tall grotesque figure, hidden by the shadows, jumps out in front of him wielding a tire iron, speaking very hastily and angrily with clicks and whistles as if it were his native tongue. Anthony made not a moments hesitation, taking a switchblade knife, made of solid chrome, outside of a bedazzled and ruby encrusted holder on his hip, and sliced the crazed unseen figure from ear to ear, causing blood to spew from the deep gash through his neck. As the body falls to the ground gurgling on blood, Anthony laughs and kisses his blade, while thinking to himself how much he loves patrolling during the eternal darkness of the night.

Of all the dectives offices in all the world; she had to walk into mine. It was raining cats and dogs, and the moon was filtering through the venetian blinds, when I heard the heels clattering up the hall. The door swung open and she stopped in the arch; her red dress cupping her cleavage, shaping her hips, she was one hot mess and I knew I was about to get burnt.