Working on a Case, chapter 7: White Peaches and Black Pudding
Characters: Titans as of the end of the Family Lost paperback, starting with Bart Allen (Kid Flash) and Tim Drake (Robin).
Rating: PG.
Content: Mystery with comic relief, or perhaps comedy with mystery relief.
Word Count: about 1,200 words per chapter. Unknown number of chapters.
Summary: Bart Allen as Kid Flash wants to help Robin on a Titans case involving a convict with a super-power and a strange police record. He knows honing his investigatory skills will require insight, concentration, and...what was the third thing?
Continuity: DC Comics standard.
Disclaimer: The Titans and its members are owned by DC Comics under copyright and trademark laws. This pastiche is offered freely with no hope of commercial reward.
Notes: It all started here.
Chapter 7
White Peaches and Black Pudding
I’m running back to San Francisco from Desert Falls, and I’m about halfway home, but Tim’s wriggling around in my arms, tapping buttons on his communicator and his sleeves, and it’s kind of annoying, but of course I don’t drop him, ’cause he’s my pal and we’re working on a case and I’m going about 480 miles an hour. But then he taps my shoulder instead and points to a set of lights off in the flats, so I zoom that way and set Tim down beside a tumbleweed and say, “What?”
“I want to contact Alcatraz,” he says as he yanks off his helmet, “and I can’t get a good signal out here. I should’ve called before we left.”
And down the street I see a silver building with a shiny sign on top that says GUY’S DINER - Open 24 Hours and a blue sign by the front door that says Pay Phone Inside. So I grab Tim and run over there and set him down, and he coughs and mutters something about warning him next time. And then I have to run back and fetch his helmet which he dropped, but you don’t hear me complaining about him.
And the only person inside the diner is a man in an apron behind the counter stacking plates, and Tim tells him, “We’re here to use the phone, sir,” and hurries over to the telephone in the corner and digs inside his thingie-belt for his Titans phone card.
And the man in the apron looks at me and he looks at Tim, and he looks at me again, so I wave at him, and he says, “You young fellows been at a party?”
“We’re Titans!” I tell him. “We’re heroes who fight crime. And we’re detectives!”
“Uh-huh,” says the man, still stacking plates.
And Tim is saying into the phone, “Warden Easton, this is Agent R of the Titans, calling about 2:25 AM.”
“See, we’re working on a case!” I tell the man. “Both of us! What kind of pie is that?”
’Cause it has about four inches of sliced white fruit, and the crust looks crispy, and there’s still half of it left on a silver platter under a glass dome, and now I can’t stop thinking how I haven’t had anything to eat since my snack three hours after dinner.
The man says, “That’s white peach. You want a slice?”
“Yeah!” So I sit down at the counter, and the man lifts the dome and slides off half of what’s left onto one of his plates while Tim keeps talking into the phone:
“...engineered his transfer to make contact with Dr. Ignatieff, though we don’t know why. I’d like to meet with the doctor in the morning. I think it would be good to postpone Crossley’s move for twenty-four hours. Please call Titans Tower when-”
“So you fellows put the bad guy in jail?” the man asks.
So I swallow most of the bite in my mouth and say, "He’s already in jail.”
“Um-hmm.” And the man goes back to stacking his plates. “Seems like that would make your job a lot easier."
"But-but we deduced that he's trying to escape from jail! Or to connect with his old gang! Or to take revenge on a witness. Or something."
And the man turns to put his stack away and says, “Well, it's good you fellows have that all figured out."
And I picture a big white peach pie falling on my head, since I don’t think I sounded like a detective at all, and for a minute the only thing to hear in the diner is Tim making another phone call:
“Hi, Cyborg, this is Robin. Kid Flash and I are- . . . No, those two aren’t with us.”
And I’m looking for anything else to think about, so I start to read the GUY’S DINER take-out menu, and I say, “You guys left this pudding off the dessert list.”
So the man looks where I’m pointing, and says: “Black pudding? That’s more like a sausage.”
And now I feel even more dumb ’cause I read about blood sausages in fifteen different cookbooks, and I just didn’t want to remember sausages made with blood, but now I do, and my stomach feels so queasy that I can hardly finish my slice of white peach pie.
And meanwhile Tim is saying: “Kon told me they were going to a beach; he didn’t say how long. . . . Well, they won’t-Cassie won’t get into trouble.”
“We don’t actually get much call for black pudding. I tell the Mexicans it’s just like morcilla, but even then they don’t order it.” And the man points at the glass dome and says, “More pie?”
“Yes, please!” I say.
So the man slides the last quarter of the pie onto my plate and puts the platter in the sink behind him. “But we keep black pudding on the menu as a local tradition, what with the slaughterhouse on the other end of town.”
So now I’m back to picking at the pie crust ’cause I don’t want to be rude, but I’m afraid the man’s going to start talking about bringing over the blood to make black pudding, and already I’m thinking about that, and I can’t stop thinking about it, and the man didn’t even tell me anything yet, and finally Tim taps me on the shoulder and says, “Let's go."
So I finish the whole slice at superspeed and jump up.
The man behind the counter blinks a long blink at the empty plate, and he says, "I guess you young fellows might be heroes at that. That'll be seven dollars."
So I look at Tim, who knows I don't have any money in my uniform, or even pockets to hold money, and he sighs and pulls out his card again and says, "Debit, please.”
And the man looks at the card and reads off, “Agent R,” and he looks at Tim, and Tim looks back at him through his mask all serious, and the man shrugs and runs the card through the machine. And then we go outside, and Tim puts his helmet back on, and I light out for San Francisco again.
We finally get back to the Tower seventeen minutes later, and even Tim’s ready to go to bed, so I run up to my bedroom and pull off my mask and gloves and boots and close my eyes for just a minute, and then there’s sun shining through the window, and my pillow is wet beside my cheek, but I’m still so sleepy that my whole head is buzzing. I don’t know how Tim stays up all those nights with Batman.
And on top of that I’m hungry again, so I put on my boots and run down to the kitchen, and it must be real early ’cause no one else is up, and I pour a box of corn flakes in a bowl and I look out the window at the sunrise, and there’s Kon!
Kon? He’s floating in the air and pointing and calling, so I go over to the part of the window we can open a little, and I open it a little and say, “Hi!”
“Didn’t you hear the alarm?” he asks me.
So I explain: “I can't hear anything over this buzzing!”
“Dude, that’s the alarm!” says Kon. “We’re all over at Alcatraz! Some prisoner they were bringing in this morning just sliced up two guards and escaped!”
Continued here.
Rating: PG.
Content: Mystery with comic relief, or perhaps comedy with mystery relief.
Word Count: about 1,200 words per chapter. Unknown number of chapters.
Summary: Bart Allen as Kid Flash wants to help Robin on a Titans case involving a convict with a super-power and a strange police record. He knows honing his investigatory skills will require insight, concentration, and...what was the third thing?
Continuity: DC Comics standard.
Disclaimer: The Titans and its members are owned by DC Comics under copyright and trademark laws. This pastiche is offered freely with no hope of commercial reward.
Notes: It all started here.
Chapter 7
White Peaches and Black Pudding
I’m running back to San Francisco from Desert Falls, and I’m about halfway home, but Tim’s wriggling around in my arms, tapping buttons on his communicator and his sleeves, and it’s kind of annoying, but of course I don’t drop him, ’cause he’s my pal and we’re working on a case and I’m going about 480 miles an hour. But then he taps my shoulder instead and points to a set of lights off in the flats, so I zoom that way and set Tim down beside a tumbleweed and say, “What?”
“I want to contact Alcatraz,” he says as he yanks off his helmet, “and I can’t get a good signal out here. I should’ve called before we left.”
And down the street I see a silver building with a shiny sign on top that says GUY’S DINER - Open 24 Hours and a blue sign by the front door that says Pay Phone Inside. So I grab Tim and run over there and set him down, and he coughs and mutters something about warning him next time. And then I have to run back and fetch his helmet which he dropped, but you don’t hear me complaining about him.
And the only person inside the diner is a man in an apron behind the counter stacking plates, and Tim tells him, “We’re here to use the phone, sir,” and hurries over to the telephone in the corner and digs inside his thingie-belt for his Titans phone card.
And the man in the apron looks at me and he looks at Tim, and he looks at me again, so I wave at him, and he says, “You young fellows been at a party?”
“We’re Titans!” I tell him. “We’re heroes who fight crime. And we’re detectives!”
“Uh-huh,” says the man, still stacking plates.
And Tim is saying into the phone, “Warden Easton, this is Agent R of the Titans, calling about 2:25 AM.”
“See, we’re working on a case!” I tell the man. “Both of us! What kind of pie is that?”
’Cause it has about four inches of sliced white fruit, and the crust looks crispy, and there’s still half of it left on a silver platter under a glass dome, and now I can’t stop thinking how I haven’t had anything to eat since my snack three hours after dinner.
The man says, “That’s white peach. You want a slice?”
“Yeah!” So I sit down at the counter, and the man lifts the dome and slides off half of what’s left onto one of his plates while Tim keeps talking into the phone:
“...engineered his transfer to make contact with Dr. Ignatieff, though we don’t know why. I’d like to meet with the doctor in the morning. I think it would be good to postpone Crossley’s move for twenty-four hours. Please call Titans Tower when-”
“So you fellows put the bad guy in jail?” the man asks.
So I swallow most of the bite in my mouth and say, "He’s already in jail.”
“Um-hmm.” And the man goes back to stacking his plates. “Seems like that would make your job a lot easier."
"But-but we deduced that he's trying to escape from jail! Or to connect with his old gang! Or to take revenge on a witness. Or something."
And the man turns to put his stack away and says, “Well, it's good you fellows have that all figured out."
And I picture a big white peach pie falling on my head, since I don’t think I sounded like a detective at all, and for a minute the only thing to hear in the diner is Tim making another phone call:
“Hi, Cyborg, this is Robin. Kid Flash and I are- . . . No, those two aren’t with us.”
And I’m looking for anything else to think about, so I start to read the GUY’S DINER take-out menu, and I say, “You guys left this pudding off the dessert list.”
So the man looks where I’m pointing, and says: “Black pudding? That’s more like a sausage.”
And now I feel even more dumb ’cause I read about blood sausages in fifteen different cookbooks, and I just didn’t want to remember sausages made with blood, but now I do, and my stomach feels so queasy that I can hardly finish my slice of white peach pie.
And meanwhile Tim is saying: “Kon told me they were going to a beach; he didn’t say how long. . . . Well, they won’t-Cassie won’t get into trouble.”
“We don’t actually get much call for black pudding. I tell the Mexicans it’s just like morcilla, but even then they don’t order it.” And the man points at the glass dome and says, “More pie?”
“Yes, please!” I say.
So the man slides the last quarter of the pie onto my plate and puts the platter in the sink behind him. “But we keep black pudding on the menu as a local tradition, what with the slaughterhouse on the other end of town.”
So now I’m back to picking at the pie crust ’cause I don’t want to be rude, but I’m afraid the man’s going to start talking about bringing over the blood to make black pudding, and already I’m thinking about that, and I can’t stop thinking about it, and the man didn’t even tell me anything yet, and finally Tim taps me on the shoulder and says, “Let's go."
So I finish the whole slice at superspeed and jump up.
The man behind the counter blinks a long blink at the empty plate, and he says, "I guess you young fellows might be heroes at that. That'll be seven dollars."
So I look at Tim, who knows I don't have any money in my uniform, or even pockets to hold money, and he sighs and pulls out his card again and says, "Debit, please.”
And the man looks at the card and reads off, “Agent R,” and he looks at Tim, and Tim looks back at him through his mask all serious, and the man shrugs and runs the card through the machine. And then we go outside, and Tim puts his helmet back on, and I light out for San Francisco again.
We finally get back to the Tower seventeen minutes later, and even Tim’s ready to go to bed, so I run up to my bedroom and pull off my mask and gloves and boots and close my eyes for just a minute, and then there’s sun shining through the window, and my pillow is wet beside my cheek, but I’m still so sleepy that my whole head is buzzing. I don’t know how Tim stays up all those nights with Batman.
And on top of that I’m hungry again, so I put on my boots and run down to the kitchen, and it must be real early ’cause no one else is up, and I pour a box of corn flakes in a bowl and I look out the window at the sunrise, and there’s Kon!
Kon? He’s floating in the air and pointing and calling, so I go over to the part of the window we can open a little, and I open it a little and say, “Hi!”
“Didn’t you hear the alarm?” he asks me.
So I explain: “I can't hear anything over this buzzing!”
“Dude, that’s the alarm!” says Kon. “We’re all over at Alcatraz! Some prisoner they were bringing in this morning just sliced up two guards and escaped!”
Continued here.