Following Trouble: Chapter 1

A snippet from a work in progress

The following is the first chapter of a story I’m working on for the month of June. It’s a tale I’ve planned to tell for years, at this point, and while we still lived in Ohio, we visited and walked some of the ground the story covers. I wound up doing some really in-depth research for this story, which probably means I’ll revisit the era and locale in the future. Putting that aside, though, I was joking that I’ve researched streetcars in Cincinnati (defunct a decade before the story opens), the usage of the words hobos, winos, and bums, and the Mob in Newport KY: for a short story¹. I knew the Rat Pack was present in the greater Cincinnati area from my husband telling me stories, as he grew up in the area (slightly after they were popular!). I figured that meant the Mob was there, and came to find out that Newport KY was Sin City long before Las Vegas was more than a dusty dot on a map. It makes for very interesting story fodder. I think you’ll recognize the main character in this noir fiction… this is about fifty years² before the opening events in Pixie Noir.

Following Trouble

Welcome to Cincinnati

“Have a seat.” The human bade the pixie with a casual wave at the only other chair in his office. “I’ll sort her.”

He went out, closing the door behind him carefully.

Lom went towards the chair, picked up the stack of papers and books occupying it, and scooped it in the direction of the slightly less cluttered desk. A few smaller pieces fluttered to the floor to lie on the battered rug. Lom stooped to gather them up, absently listening to the murmur of a deep voice, then the counterpart of a shrill, punctuated by the slam of the outer door.

The office door opened again.

“I’ve sent her off to a long lunch.”

“I might just have been paying a social call.” Lom settled into the hard chair, his toes just touching the rug below it.

“When are you ever social?” with a snort of laughter, he sat behind his desk and looked at Lom. “What brings you to Cincinnati, then?”

“You tell me.” Lom locked eyes with the other man.

“I’m not a detective.” The other spread his hands out, palms up, flat. “I do know when you come to town, trouble follows.”

“I follow trouble.” Lom corrected, gently, his tone calm. “Not a detective,” he repeated. “Say, rather, a man with a reputation as a fixer.”

“Not,” the riposte came firmly, “of your kind of problem. I can contact you, and have, if that crops up.”

“Yes.”

Silence fell in the small room. Dust motes swam through the line of light slipping under a cracked blind. Distant street noises vibrated the window’s glass and came to their ears.

The fixer broke first. “Look.” His voice held a note of desperation. Lom didn’t react to it. “There hasn’t been... any of that. The only things I can think of is Lucky Lenny’s winning streak and the missing bums.”

One of the pixie’s eyebrows crawled up his high forehead slightly. “How many gone, to have you aware of it?”

“No one knows. A lot. Enough to catch the bulls’ attention. None of ‘em are washing up, either.” After a brief pause. “Yet.”

Lom considered this. There was a reason the man had sent his secretary off to lunch. The winning streak might, somehow, be in Lom’s domain, if there was magic involved. The bums, though, that was odd and had the man across the desk rattled more than it should have.

“What else?” Lom didn’t demand. His voice was quiet, a little rasp in it, but there was no reason for sweat to pop out on the other man’s balding head like it did.

“Talk.” The man pulled out a dirty gray handkerchief and mopped away the sweat. “Just talk. You know.”

Lom did, but in order to hear it, he’d have to take more time than he had for this problem. So he sat, still, watching the sweat bead up again and wondering how long since that handkerchief had been white.

“Some are sayin’ it’s a committee to clean up the place. You know. Gentrification.”

There was too much bluster in the staccato words. Lom leaned back a very little in the high-backed chair with no cushion. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The idea that the drunk and disorderly were being made to disappear by the high muckety-mucks of the city wasn’t entirely out of the question, but it wasn’t right. It didn’t fit the fear oozing from the pores of the man in front of him. The small office stank of it now.

“Nobody’s seen any buses. No news articles from towns complainin’ about more hobos then usual.” The man leaned forward, his forearms resting on the desk, his hands limp. “The other thing is said, they are bein’ eaten. Not by... one of yours. By a man. Rumor is there’s a butcher...” He gulped, hard. “I’m careful where I buy my meat.”

“I see.” This smacked of sensationalism to Lom, but the other man believed it. “So it’s none of mine.” Lom started to stand up.

“There’s trouble, all right.” They were eye-to-eye, the big man half-lying on his desk now, and the pixie holding his hat in his hand, standing in front of him. “No one cares about the bums.”

“Then why...” Lom didn’t push, just gave a prompt.”

“What happens when there’s no more o’them?” The man buried his face in his hands, moaning. “What happens then?”

Lom let himself out. He had a place to start, at least. He had been sent with the vaguest of intimations of trouble. His brief had been about as brief as he’d ever seen one, simply the city and the name of the man whose office he’d just been in. Now, the real work began. The idea that there was a hunger consuming the human detritus which collected in any city, and were plentiful in this one where the mighty Ohio River provided casual labor opportunities, and transport to the four corners of the nation given enough time and drive on the part of the wanderer, that idea he could work with. He didn’t think it wasn’t any of his business. It was either this, where the fine folk feared they would be next when their outcasts were consumed, or a gambler’s luck.

Just in case, Lom stood on the street taking a deep breath to clear the stench of acrid fear from his lungs, then he went to Covington. Lenny could be found, if he was making himself notorious. And while Lom looked for him, he’d listen for other things, whispers, hints, and he’d be sniffing out that scent of fear that followed trouble.

1. Planned short. Time will tell how long this thing really is.

2. In human terms, Underhill time passes differently.