Preview
Excerpt taken from my upcoming autobiography:
It was going to be one of those nights. One of those nights filled with police sirens and faint gunshots. One of those nights with my colt and a bottle of Jack that would both be empty by sun-up.
These days, I was beginning to feel like that empty bottle of Jack. I was getting too old for this private detective business. The mysterious dames in fine-cut dresses always gave a guy like me the feeling of a future. A woman to give a damn about. But those dreams only seemed to get me in a burlap sack in Lake Michigan.
I can remember the days when the mysterious dame would come in and just want to know if her rich fraud of a husband was being unfaithful. Now it's become a big stage show. I'm still finding their husbands unfaithful, but now they expect his body to be six feet under. I've lost count of the number of dames that have pulled a pistol on me in my own office. I should've stopped this game years ago. Nowadays I'm less likely to be out fishing and more likely to be sleeping with the fishes.
It was somewhere around my eighth or ninth drink, or maybe it was the eighth or ninth gunshot I heard outside, that I had had enough. I was tired of being Stan Catarelli, Private Detective. I put a bullet through the desk lamp and tore the filing cabinet over. I grabbed the framed photograph of me and Al Capone holding martinis at a "charity" gala five years ago. In my right arm was Trixie. Stunning Trixie. The picture reminded me that five years ago I was a someone that had something to hold on to. But now she's gone. I was five years older and not getting a day younger.
I took the framed picture and threw it hard against the wall. I took the picture from the broken glass and ripped it to pieces. But I kept Trixie. She stayed. I put my overcoat on and lowered the blinds. It was going to rain soon. I shut the door to my office and locked it. Trixie went in my left breast pocket, right next to the other lady in my life, my colt revolver.
I stepped out into the Chicago night, and it greeted me with new eyes. I felt reborn. Stan Catarelli, Private Eye was no more. I was a new man. I was Stan Catarelli, Public Fornicator. And Hyde Park was just five blocks away.
It was going to be one of those nights. One of those nights filled with police sirens and faint gunshots. One of those nights with my colt and a bottle of Jack that would both be empty by sun-up.
These days, I was beginning to feel like that empty bottle of Jack. I was getting too old for this private detective business. The mysterious dames in fine-cut dresses always gave a guy like me the feeling of a future. A woman to give a damn about. But those dreams only seemed to get me in a burlap sack in Lake Michigan.
I can remember the days when the mysterious dame would come in and just want to know if her rich fraud of a husband was being unfaithful. Now it's become a big stage show. I'm still finding their husbands unfaithful, but now they expect his body to be six feet under. I've lost count of the number of dames that have pulled a pistol on me in my own office. I should've stopped this game years ago. Nowadays I'm less likely to be out fishing and more likely to be sleeping with the fishes.
It was somewhere around my eighth or ninth drink, or maybe it was the eighth or ninth gunshot I heard outside, that I had had enough. I was tired of being Stan Catarelli, Private Detective. I put a bullet through the desk lamp and tore the filing cabinet over. I grabbed the framed photograph of me and Al Capone holding martinis at a "charity" gala five years ago. In my right arm was Trixie. Stunning Trixie. The picture reminded me that five years ago I was a someone that had something to hold on to. But now she's gone. I was five years older and not getting a day younger.
I took the framed picture and threw it hard against the wall. I took the picture from the broken glass and ripped it to pieces. But I kept Trixie. She stayed. I put my overcoat on and lowered the blinds. It was going to rain soon. I shut the door to my office and locked it. Trixie went in my left breast pocket, right next to the other lady in my life, my colt revolver.
I stepped out into the Chicago night, and it greeted me with new eyes. I felt reborn. Stan Catarelli, Private Eye was no more. I was a new man. I was Stan Catarelli, Public Fornicator. And Hyde Park was just five blocks away.