Gideon Fell, Hardboiled Sawbones by Barry Ergang

With due respect to Nick [Fuller], who inspired it with his comment, "It is like adapting Carr, and making Dr. Fell a cantankerous hard-drinking medico on the sleazy streets of London's East End who deals with professional crime of the hard-boiled variety and with an awful number of demented blondes, without an impossible crime in sight," and to the esteemed JDC, whose spirit must occasionally hover over this august group and who thankfully had a wonderful sense of humor, I give you an excerpt from "Gideon Fell, Hardboiled Sawbones" :

        The fog rolled rolled through the East End that night as thick as sailors in a strip joint. It coated the the headlight beams of the few passing cars with a greasy mist and subdued the swish of their tires on the asphalt. It muffled my footsteps on the sidewalk and the accompanying tap of my canes. The air was chilly. I shrugged inside my cloak, getting it further onto my shoulders, and pulled the black shovel hat down more firmly on my head.

        After working the early part of the evening at the free clinic tending to the hopheads, winos, delinquents, hookers, and homeless folks who drift in needing attention for various wounds and diseases, I was on my way to meet my partner, Hank Merrivale, at the Hag's Nook, our favorite nighttime hangout. Hank had arranged for a couple of "wenches," as he calls them, to keep us company.

        I swung around a corner into a narrow, silent street canyoned by tenements. The street looked to be deserted. But when I got halfway up the block, someone stepped out of a below-ground stairwell and stood in my path.

        Fog haloed a nearby streetlight, diffusing its glow. But there was enough of it to make out a long-haired kid dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers.

        "Hiya, Doc," he said softly. "Long time, no see."

        "I don't make house calls to juvenile detention centers, Shiv."

        "Too good for us?"

        "The last time I saw you, I sewed up a gash in your arm. That was a bad night for you and your punk buddies. The other gang did a real number on you."

        He rubbed his left arm just below the shoulder, remembering. "Yeah, well, we'll take care of them soon enough. Meantime, Doc, what's in your bag? Got some goodies for me? Gonna fix me up?"

        "Just back on the street and trying to score." I shook my head. "You don't learn so good, do you, Shiv?"

        "Never mind that crap. Just hand over the bag, Doc, and this'll go real easy."

        I used the edge of my cloak to wipe oily fog off my eyeglasses. When I replaced them I felt the broad black ribbon attached to them brush my cheek. "I can't do that. You know how it is--I took an oath."

        "Yeah? Y'take an oath to get cut up?" Despite the fog, I heard a snicking noise. His right hand came up from his side, holding something long and slender and deadly. It gleamed metallically in the lamplight. "How's about if I start on your goofy mustache, Doc?"

        I could have lectured him about getting into rehab, the evils of substance abuse, and his responsibility to the laws of the land. I could have explained that he was a victim of societal neglect, an unhealthy home-life, and inadequate education. He wouldn't get the point. His kind never did. The only point Tad "the Shiv" Rampole understood was at the end of the blade he clutched.

        "You win," I said. I put my medical bag down on the sidewalk and nudged it toward him with my foot.

        "Smart, Doc. Real smart." He licked his lips eagerly as his glance dropped to the bag.

        The cane in my right hand whipped up and across and struck his right wrist. He howled and dropped the knife. Then I brought both canes together on either side of his neck. He fell like a sack of cement. I retrieved the knife and bent the blade against the sidewalk until it snapped.

        "Take two aspirin and don't annoy me in the morning," I said.

        The medical bag back in my possession, I made my way to the Hag's Nook. Being not quite as large as a stadium, it's hardly a nook, and most of the dames who frequent the joint don't qualify as hags. Hank Merrivale spotted me while I checked my cloak and hat and bag with a cute little redheaded number.

        "Where the hell've you been, Gid? The girls and I have been waiting for you."

        "I got hung up at the free clinic, and then a punk tried to waylay me in the street."

        "Lord love a duck! You okay?"

        "Yeah, I'm fine. But drop that 'love a duck' business, willya? It reminds me a day in the emergency room when a guy came in who'd tried to. There were more feathers flying than in a pillow fight, and not all of the squawks came from the duck."

        "Never mind that. Let me introduce you to Maisie and Daisy." He pointed to a table where two good-looking brunettes sat sipping frothy pink concoctions from glasses garnished with little umbrellas.

        "How you do it I'll never know, Hank."

        "What's that?"

        "Line up a couple of fine-looking dames for a couple of fat guys like us."

        Hank drew himself up indignantly. "Speak for yourself. I'm as svelte as a sylph."

        "Yeah, and I'm an Olympian."

        I used to think of Hank's body as a corporation. Nowadays it's more like a conglomerate. It preceded me to the table. Hank, who had ordered a bourbon which sat waiting for me, had barely gotten through the introductions to Maisie and Daisy, a sister act, when the lights in the joint dimmed, the band started to play, and a spotlight stabbed onto the stage to display someone with a lot more candlepower, luscious blonde Lola La Marr. She began to sing in a voice that could burn the fuzz out of an octogenarian's ears while displaying a figure that would have been the envy of Playboy and Architectural Digest.

        But it didn't turn out to be my night. Barely ten minutes into Lola's set, a figure materialized alongside the table and tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up to see the too familiar face of Chief Inspector Dudley.

        "What're you doing here?" I grated, knowing whatever it was it wouldn't be good.

        "Looking for you. C'mon."

        "Valedictorians of Vegas!" I said. "Can't a guy spend a pleasant evening in a nightclub without you bugging him?"

        "Not tonight, he can't. We got another one."

        "Another one what?"

        "Another stiff."

        His hand still lay on my shoulder and I shrugged it off irritably. "Big deal. You're a homicide cop. You get stiffs all the time."

        "Not like this one. This one's in the Tower of London with a knife in his neck."

        "So what?"

        "So he's a known vagrant, but tonight he happens to be wearing an Armani suit and a baseball cap."

        "Very fashionable, except for the knife."

        "That's the problem. He's not. The cap isn't turned backwards!"

        A nasty sensation prickled my scalp. "If I'm reading this correctly-- and I'm afraid I am--you're telling me someone dressed him in an expensive suit, put a baseball cap on his head with the bill facing the wrong way, and killed him."

        Dudley nodded grimly. "You got it."

        "How many does this make?"

        "Three. The Croaking Clothier has struck again."

--© Barry Ergang, July 2003