The Pillaging Protesters
by Kerem Simsek
“Remind me how you managed to convince me to let you come with me on this shamus business?” Valentines grumbled.
“Merely that I offered you two glasses of good gin” Eugene chirped.
“Shocker, I already had so many glasses of champagne, how did I fall into you?” Secretly, deeply under his voice, he was stifling sarcasm.
“Also that I offered to give you a lifetime supply of cigars.”
Valentines clenched his teeth, baring them like a black bear's, but then slackened, giving a sigh as he imagined the cigars he would put a drag on for weeks, and his eyes drooped with happiness.
They were in a cab being driven by begrudging horses who were sweating their snot off, snorting and neighing quietly, when finally the cabby stopped the cab, next to a big market and Valentines and Eugene got off, letting fumes of smoke trail away in their presence, much to the horses slight irritation, as they eyed the smoke with beady looks.
The two men were in disguise, wearing ragged suits, and baggy pants, which were patched and shabby, and they staggered over with wheezing breaths, and slumped onto a bench, and Valentines took off his beret, flapping it on the dirty concrete ground, and took out his tin whistle, and started playing it noisily.
Eugene on the other hand, was looking around, sometimes giving rough pleading glances at people.
They had done this act, because they needed to be in disguise, as Valentines insisted, claiming that if a big shot who worked in a factory strolled around with a retired inspector, it would look suspicious, and some stiffs would report, and the murderers would be ready for them.
Eugene cocked his head around, a slight frown dancing in his face as he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “We shouldn’t have ridden that cab.”
Valentines took his mouth off the front of his tin whistle, and said through his teeth, “Ahhh, you’ve found that little mistake. Stupidly, I never saw it.”
“It’s not little, they’ll think how are we poor if we can afford a cabby.”
“Perhaps we were too tired, and flung a penny or two?” Valentines suggested.
“Well.” Eugene's forehead wrinkled.
“Nonetheless, what’s been done is done.”
“When are we to go to the market?”
“Watson shall give a signal.”
He put his lips back on the whistle and played once again, people who passed by flung some coins in the cap, and went on their typical business which happens in the string of life.
Then one woman passed by, and gave them a glass of gin, giving a cat-like smile.
Eugene thanked her, and gave a low purr, shooting a sappy smile.
The woman blushed and walked away in a hurry, a hot air of shyness trickled behind her.
“She is one silver tabby.” Eugene said, cloying love lingering in his voice, and he picked the bowl of his pipe out of his mouth, his jaw sagged like an elderly farmer who saw a pig taking a wistful bath, and slicking its little twirly tail with grease.
“I wouldn’t fall for the siren so fast” Valentines said in a quiet, scratchy voice.
Eugene rolled his eyes.
“I’m serious, you should know her more before you start going into that pathetic moaning face of yours yawping in the inside wanting a wife.”
Valentines quirked up an eyebrow when he saw Eugene's bewildered frown.
“Oh, yes, I explained it to you last night. After my witty remark of being married to cigars, your eyes shifted across the place, and the word married made you think about getting married with a lady. I quickly wrote on a notebook the expression on your face, and you seemed to give a poker card stare.” He nodded his head with a pompous little swag.
“Well then, tell me what that woman was thinking, the one that passed by?” asked Eugene, a small smile tugged at his lips.
“Well…” That droopy eyed expression which could bathe on a bulldogs chunky face, came to his eyes.
“Well” he repeated, and leaned back casually as he said, “She must be thinking of going to the telegram booth, and inform Watson that she’s given the message to the quite handsome men.”
“Valentines, you hoodlum!” His comrade cried out as Valentines gave a grin, popping off the cork of gin, and slurping it down, and he gave a small bench rattling burp.
“Oh, and now you're probably thinking of calling someone to bring a coffin, and your lungs are screaming in protest as my deadly burp enters your nostrils.” Valentines guessed, his grin growing devilishly bigger as Eugene got out a handkerchief and smudged it onto his nose hastily.
“No, what I’m thinking is that I get a revolver and shoot you point blank now before you do any more physical damage to my nose, and make me quiver in my shoes.”
“You wouldn't want to do that” said Valentines, rather ill-disposed to the idea, a cringe making his mouth twist back, like a sheep who didn't know if he could trust a man who was holding a wad of oats.
“Oh but why not?” Eugene shot back, a sinister smile on his lips which danced around in a moral fashion.
“Because.” Valentines said, getting up, and surveying the murky sun with a sided hand. “If you were to shoot me, your revolver needs oil to make the shot much more slicing, and you don’t have much lead. Also, your grandfather gave the revolver to you when he heard that your cigar factory was attacked once, tried to be sabotaged, and some other times when the campaign was trying to be stolen. Your mother whipped up a total cuss, and you laughed at her cursing. If I’m right, you said she shouldn't flip her wig that fast, and your grandfather, who has a good temper, said she could go in some rough berserk trance.” Valentines flashed his oily smile at Eugene, who’s jaw dropped and made a dent in the gravel ground.
“How–how did you know that?” He asked, practically breathless.
The man humbly tapped the side of his head, giving a dewy smile, “Grey Matter my dear friend, Grey Matter, you’d be surprised what it can do.” He said, in a way as though he was thanking the loaf in his mind, and not him himself, being a humble detective.
He walked away, and Eugene followed him, bustling beside him staring at the man in awe.
“How did you do that?”
The man just smiled, and tapped the side of his head again, saying, “The mind is a powerful force and we haven’t unlayered a single one.”
“But how, you are correct on everything you guessed!”
“I shall thrill you with my child's play later, but now, we need to be on the real matter.”
“That was no child's play.” Eugene said through his teeth briskly.
“Believe me it was, that was nothing.” Valentines insisted, and he pried the paper stuck to the gin glass, and read the back side of it, and glanced up at the sun, once again giving a side hand above his head.
“I’ve received message from Watson saying that protesters have arrived at the market.”
“He telegrammed you?”
“No, he wrote it on the back of this sticky gin paper.” The detective said, gesturing to the gin glass, and pried one part of it.
They strolled up to the market's entrance, people with whiskery mustaches introducing lime lemons, which were rich with a deep lushness, with bright red tomatoes.
There were modern paupers on the streets, begging for some food.
“Come on pal! I used to be in the war!” One man in filthy rags shouted.
Valentines, with pity in his eyes, went over and laid a couple coins.
“Oh thank you!” The man brushed a hand through his disheveled hair. “May God bless your heart!”
As Valentines walked away, Eugene looked at him in a new light. “You are a queer man, Mr. Valentines.”
“Indeed.”
“Why did you give your money to a beggar? You could have used it for other things.” He said the last word in a stiff tone.
Valentines noticed he was probably gesturing invisibly to the smoking pipe sagging down Eugene's chin.
“Now now, my dear Eugene, it isn't nice to be selfish when it comes to beggars. You might be spending your money, but I think we should give a much more better value than the dower ones we show, showing no pity, not a crumb of remorse.”
Eugene huffed and puffed on his pipe, and took it out of his mouth, frowning.
“I have often thought that everyone has to go down their own path of difficulties, and shall spade to the one they desire if they work hard. It took me some time woking to be in a cigar factory.”
“Yes, but we just have to give them a gentle push to help them do their first tiny steps to their path they desire.” Valentines said.
Eugene shot a look that said, How is a few coins gonna help?
“I know a professor who had nothing but a dinky little farm and a swine, and a couple silver coins in his boots, and with the money he afforded, doing some hard work, he payed for books on pigs, and became a swine psychologist, one of the best rugged in Detroit.”
“And speaking of swines.” said a familiar drawling voice.
Valentines and Eugene whipped around to find a higgledy-piggledy Watson, with tousled hair, and wide eyes.
“The gang, they're coming to the market.” He spit out with bated breath.
He eyed Valentines, and said with a quirked eyebrow, “Did you bring a revolver?”
“I didn't think we would need to do anything that drastic.” Valentines admitted.
Watson shook a balled fist, his teeth clenched, and swore badly. “Curses!” He rasped. Valentines eyed Watson. “Does the gang have any pretty little surprises for the protesters?”
Watson wheezed and puffed. “I heard them say, ‘Lets go, and trudge a fling at the market.’" And another one said, ‘What about them measly protesters. I hope the markets cleaned the vermin.’"
“They had laughed along with the leader.” The messy man smoothed the strands of his tousled hair, shadows inking under his eyes.
But the next moment they were knocked down by a feather.
A sound shattered the windy silence, and people froze, wondering what happened.
Suddenly, like a tiger creeping slowly towards a scrumptious deer, a drip of scarlet lurked on Watson's forehead, trickling down, like an unnecessary amount of ink splattered on thin pages and the ink still spreads, like blood on bones.
The mere of blood on Watson's forehead spread bigger and bigger, and his eyes widened to the size of dinner plates.
Then he crumpled to the ground, and behind him, was a man holding a pistol.
He had jet black side whiskers, with a big curving nose, with black inky eyes where as Eugene stared, he saw nothing but black hate, and the irresistible urge to murder to the flocks of death.
He had a small pouring down mustache, which had silver strands in them, and wore a worn out gray suit and same color matching pants.
One of his eyebrows were thicker than the other, and had a slash that dipped up.
He had a horrid grin, and wide dimples that corked out like the corks of a wine glass, and his thatch of hair smelled like beer, and his hands were gnarly as he had an excited clutch on his heat.
“Well well, if it isn't Watson’s boys. You with him?” The man sneered, hunkering at Valentines, who shot a look that was like thunder, but then with a scrunched face calmed himself, and said with a tight poker card expression he said, “Not at all, just talking with that fellow.” He voice was dripped with nausea, as he mumbled in a voice filled with fatigue.
“So, you like alcohol, or do you resist it.” The man growled, his hot breath like a hoodlum gone crook in Eugene nostrils.
“As a matter of fact.” Valentines took out of the gin and handed it with a tiny smarmy smile, which under the look, was a heaving monster that scratched every part of his emotions, wanting him to scream and spit in the gangster leader's face and tear it apart.
The gangster leader cocked his head around, like a curious puppy and was gonna take it when Valentines in on fluid motion shattered the glass on his head.
The gangster leader's eyes rolled around his head, and his knees buckled, and his hands slackened, and his revolver slipped out of his hand, but Valentines caught it, and sent two bullets spiraling for the gangster who let out groans which hissed out like an old train.
Valentines ducked behind one of the food stands, as a barge of silver and gray went for him.
Eugene ducked behind another stand, and Valentines moved away down the alley of stands, and got up firing at one gangster who moved up close to him.
Valentines grabbed a glass of whiskey and threw it at him and the man crumpled, just like dear Watson had and he blinked away tears, and fired grimly at another gangster, and quickly crept down on all fours like a tense tiger, and grabbed the man's pistol, and refueled it with his own bullets.
Then he bustled around with an excitement of ear piercing fury buzzing around him as he went close to Eugene, and threw the other pistol to him.
Eugene caught it, and Valentines threw a bullet box to him too.
They started hitting the gangster, who moved around like a horde of hideous gangly spiders, and when one of them got shot, the others would swear under their breaths, and keep firing, taking cover when bullets came dangerous close to fibbing their limbs.
“We’ll drub you, we will!” One of the gangsters, said, as a barrage of bullets whistled past him, and then Valentines got out of his hiding place and sent a volley shooting at them.
The hoodlum gave blood curdling screams as the bullets licked him, and he doubled over.
Valentines pointed his gun to the other man, who shot a bullet that missed his shoulder by inches.
He was about to fire when the gangster fell to the ground, dead.
He cocked his head around, and found a group of men holding revolvers in their hands, and one slightly old one holding a revolver with smoke wafting out, panting with an indignant yet satisfied look.
“Ahhh, hello protesters.”
“How did you know it was us? I know, a dumb question, but Watson said something about a detective, please intrigue us.”
Valentines smile vanished, and he hurdled himself down the ground, and saw the sight of Watson which made his insides curl and turn sour.
He practically fell on the ground beside Watson, whose eyes were transfixed into the distance.
Valentines took off his hat in respect, and as the protesters gawked at the sight, trembling slightly, Valentines got up.
As Eugene examined the frail chap, Valentines had a hoary look of mourning, and his eyes sparkled with a teary anger.
