With A Twist

is the title of this little dialogue piece that I've been writing and re-writing, but never getting much further than this, I do have a few more chapters in various notebooks, I'm going to search through and get that stuff added, as the next part, as soon as i can.

For now, this is a fun experiment for me. As to whether it has legs or is any good at all, I have no idea. But i'm really warming to the idea of just throwing stuff like this up here, warts and all, just to feel some kind of small accomplishment with my doodling writing.



With A Twist 

By Josie Boyce


1. Bette Noire's Confession (As Told To Officer Randolph Runyon)

Of course I lied to him. I'm the frail... right? 

I couldn't come right out and give him the whole sordid story all at once. It's just not done. Let me back up and start at the beginning. Well, not quite the beginning; but the beginning of my relationship with Mr. Book. I still can't say his name without smiling a little cat's grin. 

I know. I'm sorry. I first met Mr. Book, the deceased, when I went into his office to enquire about his services in following my not yet late husband, Jasper. I believed Jasper was having an affair. I needed proof. A gal has a hard time getting a divorce, you know, even in these libertine days. Oh, don't look at me like that. I'm just telling you what I told poor Roy, Mr. Book that is, the deceased. Got a light? Thank you. You have very soft hands. Nice hands, do you play the piano, Officer?

Anyway, as I was saying… Pardon? Oh didn't I state my name for the record? I'm sorry, my name is Bette Noire, I've been 29 for two years now. I live in room 14 at the Windsor Hotel, on Delmore Avenue. Bette? Like Bette Davis, spelled B-e-t-t-e, but everyone calls me Betty. Noire was my unfortunate husband's unfortunate name. Caused him nothing but grief. I rather like it. I'm keeping it. Trips off the tongue so to speak. Oh my, isn't it hot in here. You seem to be sweating... Officer? What is your given name? Randolph? How decidedly old fashioned, I approve. Well, Randolph, where were we? Right.

I went to my favourite beauty parlour and had Marcel weave his magic. If he were a wee bit more masculine, I would've given old Marcel a tumble a long time ago, but he's not. Am I shocking you Randolph? No? Oh yes I guess you must be a bit jaded, being a cop and all. I like, really like strong men. Do you ever wear a uniform Randolph, or is it strictly these very plain clothes? Right, you ARE asking the questions. I just like to talk. I'm sure I'll trip myself up somewhere along the line and you'll be able to frame me up quite easily, for Roy's death, maybe his partner's too, and don't forget the Lindbergh kidnapping, hey maybe I shot Abraham Lincoln? 

I guess getting angry with you isn't going to help my case is it? I guess I've seen too many Barbara Stanwyck movies. I just love her, don't you? I just wish she could get away with being so strong and capable once in a while. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a movie where the gal is NOT punished for being tougher than some sissy movie actor? Yeah, you're right. No one could ever believe that now could they? We're all just frails, ain't we? Pasted together with girdles and stockings, painted up like whores fer yer pleasure, right? 

OK, sorry I'm done with the angry bit. doesn't seem to have any affect on youse anyways. I mean on you. Girl from the gutter forgets those expensive elocution lessons her mother worked 3 jobs to pay for, so she could have some class. I think I need to cry for a minute. Is that Okay?

Wow, Ok, I'm all right now. I can fix my face up later. So, yeah, I was dressed and decorated. I even bought a new bra. Just to go see a private detective. 

Well, Randolph, I was able to justify the expense as soon as that tough little donut shaped secretary of Roy's, Mr Book's, that is, let me into his office. I almost fell down. When I first saw him he was looking out the between the drawn blinds. It was the middle of the day. I guess he got too much direct sunlight in his office. He always had those blinds drawn in the day, and open at night. 

Anyway his back was to me. He was wearing a finely tailored grey suit. Very sharp lines indeed. And he had shoulders. God, he had shoulders. When he turned around and greeted me, I stumbled. In hindsight I think he felt it was a play, and it should've been. But it wasn't. I told Roy some tales that day. But that stumble was real. He made me weak in the knees. Roy Book was a man.

He wasn't, Roy, handsome, in a movie star way. He was real. Lord knows I go weak for Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, Oh God. Robert Taylor, do you remember Robert Taylor, Randolph? No? Or Gary Cooper especially Cooper; he looks tall, like Roy. Roy was tall. Six foot four. A tall drink of water, as we gals say. He was always just a bit out of sorts. Not perfect, if you know what I mean. Perfect guys tend to be a bit fancy if you know what I mean. He had big feet too, and hands, if you know what I mean. It's a shame that no woman will ever feel those big paws guiding her across the dance floor or into his bed any more. He made you feel safe you know? I guess you don't, do you?

His one vanity was that scar. He had this scar on his chin, like a cleft almost, but it was a scar. I'll tell you about it later. Where was I? Oh? Thanks, I'm kind of long winded, even for a dame, that's what you're thinking isn't it? It's true. That's how I ended up here in the first place. Me and my big mouth.

So, like I say; Roy helped me to sit on that rather comfortable sofa in his office. The donut brought me a cup of really awful coffee. It wasn't like I actually fell down or fainted or anything. It was all very nice. I felt comfortable. Like I could open up and tell them both  everything. Well? Well, of course I didn't, I'm no dope. Would've defeated the whole purpose in going there now wouldn't it? When was the last time you told someone what you were thinking as soon as you met them? Like I thought, of course not.




2. (Excerpted From) The Journal of Roy Book



It's amazing really, how many people get shot in the head. Shot in the head and live to tell about it, that is. Happened to me, happened to my ex-partner, Dizzy. He’s dead now, but not from the .22 that was lodged in his frontal lobe all these years. No, it was something else altogether that killed Dizzy. But I'll get back to him. I also have a bullet, ok a fragment of a bullet, in my brain too. Thing is, mine's been there my entire life. Since before i was born actually. 

My mother got shot during a bank robbery. She was nine months pregnant. Mom was OK by the way but I'll get to her later. The bullet broke apart inside her and we shared the shrapnel however briefly. A piece of the bullet, a .45 it was, is literally in the middle of my cerebellum. My pleasure centre or lizard brain, as we used to say in college, has grown over and around it. It doesn't bother me really, except for a few strange side effects that will become apparent as this story unfolds. I guess i should get to that. 

Of course...  it starts like every other story that begins in a private detectives office: with a woman, not just any woman, but her, the one, you know what I'm talking about: she's got the gams, the black silk stockings and well, hell I was a goner by the time I got to her kneecaps. Her name was Bette, at least it was that day, but I'll get back to that, too. She's dead or soon will be. Me? I'm in the process of changing mine to 'Mud' right now. 

In she breezed, without so much as a 'how do you do' intercom call from my latest Rosalind Russell-esque secretary, Daisy. I always start at the feet.... some gents zoom in on the breasts right away. Crass crass crass... Where are ya going from there? Take it slow and easy my friend slow and easy. Like I said before, little black stockinged feet stuffed into tiny little Italian shoes. Her heels, four inches from the floor; pushing her sleek calves up up up to those knees. 

Knees are underrated in general. Man, she had knees, eventually. Then: WHAM, there's the black silk skirt practically painted on her thighs like chiaroscuro pornography. That's when i fell out of my chair. Right over the side. She skittered over to help me up. Very girly. 

That’s when I saw her face. More pornography. I mean that’s where I recognized her from: porn. But being a gentleman, and her being a potential source of overdue rent, I decided there would be a better time to bring that up. I never did though. Now that i think about it. I mean she told me. Eventually. But I never asked about it. No time. Too busy. Too busy avoiding being killed.

Oh yeah the face, her face. Well she had this one dimple, when she really smiled. And, she possessed a campfire of snapping crackling and curling but not curly red hair. Her eyes were black. I don't mean that she had been hit (which she had, a cut above her eye, maybe three days old. Some bruises in other places), I mean that her pupils were this solid black with just a hint of the darkest blue you ever saw in someone's eyes, when the light was just right. Yes, I noticed the breasts too. She practically lifted me off the ground and back into my chair with them. It was a little strange. And she had me a just a wee bit of a disadvantage.

As you know from watching Humphrey Bogart Movies, the private investigator likes to appear calm and professional as much as possible. Unless of course the job calls for you to be a sweaty nervous sexually frustrated Danny Kaye type. I was hoping by this point the latter was working some kind of dorky charm for me. It did, or at least that's what I thought. I never claimed to be a genius when it comes to women, I mean hell, I got a bullet pressing down on my lizard brain. What kind of action do you Think I end up with? 
Yep. Every time. Suckered.



  

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