Day 25 of 30 days of Fiction: “25) Prompt: noir style.”

Dragons Next Door setting

It had been a long, grey, gritty day by the time the little man walked into my office. Cleaning floors is never a fun time, and, let me tell you, cleaning blood off of floors just adds a fine red mist to your entire day. Blood and soccer mud, well, there isn’t a dame in town that won’t tell you that’s the worst.

So there I was, up to my elbows in dirty water, tired of it all, with the stink of blood in my nose, when the little man strode in like he owned the place. My place, I might add.

“Someone stole my truck!” he declared. The boy could put on a sob story with the best of them, let me tell you, alligator tears and wide-eyed innocence. “It was Juniper! You have to stop her!”

It had been a while since I’d had a case, and, right then, I would have done anything to get off my knees and out of the dirt and blood. Especially if I could get someone else to deal with the dirt while I was gone. “Tell you what, little man,” I told him. “Get me my fedora, and I will find your truck.”

Chances his story was on the up and up were pretty slim. I knew his sort, and these sob stories almost always turned out to be song and dance routines to shift the blame. It got me off the floor, though, so I’d take it.

“Okay, Mommy.”

Mommy. That’s the name on my door.

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