#169

Little Dick Tracy and his two Goons have been hanging around again pointing at things and making pretend that they're actually doing something. This morning they sat Marlowe at the top of the road then tried to shoo him into action, hoping he'd lead them to the garden where he had found the genitalia. All the neighbours were out, myself included, gathered up at the start like we were about to run the marathon. On Little Dick shoving a dirty flat shoe against Marlowe's spine, the dog wandered forward into action, at first not doing much and then going from tree to tree cocking his leg and marking his territory with small bursts of bright yellow piss.
  “I don't understand it,” said Mr Bartholemew, “I've starved him dry since thursday, nothing but water just like you suggested. If there was meat around he'd be gone after it like a shot!”
Little Dick looked at Bartholemew with contempt then back down the road at Marlowe. “This is useless!” he spat to the nearest Goon, “write down: dog not letting up, maybe need to tickle his balls a little more!”

With Marlowe not ready to betray me fully just yet I watched Little Dick as he wrenched his tie loose and flattened his thinning hair across his head. His face was puffy, overweight and sprouted through with dry stubble. His skin looked dirty, livery, like he sweated his nights out on a diet of whisky, pizza and cigarettes. His belly slobbed out over his pants, not fantastically, but enough. It was strange having everyone converging around this man, offering him up information and trying to woo him when really, aside from his badge, he was nothing more than a tramp. Over his shoulder Marlowe crossed the road, sniffed at something then carried on with his nose sweeping low across the ground.

  “Ahh, Mr Spencer!” came little Dicks words. He looked up and in close which made me begin doing strange things with my hands. For a moment he just watched, letting me squirm, then said “Giving your sordid secrets away again, I see, Mr Spencer? God, you're as guilty as hell and we all know it...” Suddenly he pulled my left hand his way and started feeling over it, massaging the palm and working open the fingers like he was rubbing in Oil of Ulay “though not, I suspect, of murder!” He threw my hand away. “Any news from John? What Mad House has he turned up in this time?”
  “John? I've not heard from him, I'd have called you if I had. But you know, I'm sure he's with that little creep Brian. Someplace, somewhere, probably tied up with ball weights as an extra gravitational pull! I know it! Haven't you seen how Brian flops so carelessly down the road nowadays? Is suddenly so blasé about his job? Sometimes not even pushing the letters fully through the boxes? Huh? Well, I'll tell you why, because he has better things to occupy his time now, oh yeah, his job has become a chore, something that takes him out off the real pleasuredome. Follow him, Inspector, follow him and you'll find....”
“John is not with Brian, you fool!” Little Dick screamed, “we've looked into that! It was the first thing we did! Brian lives in a 12 by 10 attic in his grandmother's house. There's barely enough room to hide a dildo let alone a 180 pound queer paraplegic. You're preoccupation with Mr Screecher is a worrying trait... ”
“Mr Screecher?”
“Yes, the mail man, Screecher, that's his surname. Brian Screecher.”
“Ha! What an idiotic name, I win! Yess! Screecher, that's almost as bad as Brian!” And then I was happy, imagining the hell Brian must have received for his name in school: the black eyes, split lips, beatings in the bogs. Oh the name was so perfectly apt! Then I thought of the disgusting sex scabs plastered all across his face. I could see them splitting, cracking, opening up and stinging as he screeched, howled like a bitch in fake pleasure and pain. And it was the shrilliest, most high pitched screech ever, a sound with no opposite, I thought. And then...

“Wooof!”

We all heard it and jumped in unison like it was the late night phone call we were all hanging on but never wanting to receive. And I saw him first, then Little Dick and then the rest turning around and searching out the low baritone bark of Marlowe. There he was, sat right outside my gate, looking back excitedly with Judas in his eyes. And once more, just for fun, just to push the knife of treason a little deeper in, he raised his head, closed his eyes and went: WOOOF!