A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 

ithaca noir

A single naked 60 watt bulb dangles from the ceiling in the shabby office of the Kidder Detective Agency. Moths, dressed in greasy gray trench coats , pulled down worn fedoras, cigarettes carelessly drooping from their lips, circled the bulb like restless insomniacs looking for an all night diner and a cheap cup of joe.

At his desk, dressed in a greasy gray trench coat, cigarette carelessly drooping from his lip, Ezra sat, contemplating the pile of old Ithaca Journals strewn helter- skelter in front of him.

The truth never sleeps. The facts mumble somewhere there below the surface of reality, like jailbirds locked up in the big house, sent up on a frame. What is truth, what is reality? Sometimes it doesn't matter. You just pursue the thread, follow the leads, keep checking in with your stoolies, who are all dressed in greasy gray trenchcoats, cigarettes carelessly dangling from their lips, standing around on corners under the street lamps the City is spending a cool $250K to replace, trying to piece it all together.

Ezra works the night shift. Tracking down the bad guys. Sometimes he wonders who the good guys are, sometimes he wonders who the bad guys are. Ezra wonders a lot. It goes with the job. He keeps his daytime gig . Working for Satan. Satan's of Ithaca. That goes with the territory too, one of those peculiar facts of life in Ithaca, New York. You need two jobs to stay ahead of the curve, keep body and soul on the same track. No use wrestling with the angel, no point in spitting into the wind, you just do it. Like putting on a raincoat when it rains, knocking the ash off the cigarette that dangles carelessly from your lip.

He squints at the newspaper through the wreath of cigarette smoke that circles his shoulders like a sleazy halo. Ciminelli. The name keeps going through his head. Where had he heard that name before? The connection keeps gnawing at the edges of his consciousness. Like the dull pain of a toothache. The sad ,faint, distant harp strings of an old love affair. The constant, nagging signal your body sends you when you've smoked your last Camel and it's time to put your raincoat on , walk out into the dark Ithaca night, pull your hat down over your face against the cold drizzle and find an A Plus.

Somebody told Ezra that same day Hiz Honor, the Mayor, known to the underworld as 'the Altar Boy' had been spotted watching a championship basketball game in Syracuse, enjoying the view from a ritzy sky box belonging to a fat cat real estate developer. The high roller was named Ciminelli. Here was a guy who didn't have to stand around under some street lamp, dressed in a shabby trenchcoat, a cigarette dangling from his lip. Ciminelli was a player. A guy who wore expensive pinkie rings, $1,000 suits, $100 ties with pink storks woven into the pattern. A man around town who had a blonde in furs clinging to each arm at any given time.

It was there right in front of Ezra all the time. The money trail. He savored this sudden flash of revelation, turned it around in his mind like the holy grail, fingered it reverently like it was some treasured bunny tail from the past, kept in a little box wrapped in tissue, that you stash in a drawer. It had been there all the time, as he wandered up and down Rt.13 past the glittering lights of the big box stores, wrapped in his old Robert Hall raincoat, a cigarette dangling carelessly from his lips, pursuing the dark labyrinth of small town politics, the convoluted legal mumbo jumbo of right to build contracts, eviction notices, easements and waivers filed in dusty drawers in City Hall. The money trail was right there on the Commons all the time, hidden in plain view under the ocher colored bricks that covered the electrical grid for the new street lamps the City was putting in.

Another deal, another contract, another tempting taste of kickback money, a big expensive, rent free luxury apartment for Hiz Honor leased under the name of somebody doing business with the City. It was all there. Ezra was on to something now. He wasn't just singing to the choir, decked out in old fashioned trench coats with cigarettes dangling carelessly from their lips as they chimed in on the chorus. Ezra had unearthed the black mambo of small city politics, the Napoleon of white collar crime municipal crime. He had found the trail of payoffs and shady deals cut over cappuccino in rooms littered with granola bar wrappers. And it all led back, like a trail of bagel crumbs, to the 'Altar Boy.'

Ezra kicked his feet back, took another drag from the cigarette carelessly dangling from his lips as he absently stroked the moth worn fabric of his shabby trench coat. Just another night in paradise, he thought. Another window opened to air out the Augean stables of politics, another match lit to shine in the dark corners of small city life. He took no special pride in ferreting out the bad guys wherever they might hide, whether it be in the bright offices of City Hall, around the tiny oak tables of Simeon's, in the darkest corners of the Lost Dog Cafe. It was his job. His second job. Time to catch a few hours of shut eye.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 3:13 AM