An Excerpt from: Lowdown. Dirty. Shame.

Here's an excerpt from my latest novel, Lowdown. Dirty. Shame.  This is barely a taste. Call it a literary hors d'oeuvre. Available on Amazon in both paperback and Kindle editions.  Pour yourself a drink.  Settle back.  Get comfortable.  It's a sexy, dirty, romantic, side-splitting, romp of a novel.  Do this author a couple of favors:  Repost this blog to widen my circle of readers.  When you finish the book, write a review on Amazon.  Now, on to the excerpt...

When in doubt, have a drink.  If still in doubt, have another.  I sit on my usual bar stool at The Pagan Cajun, better known as simply Jambalaya. The name of the restaurant hides in small letters on an unlit sign over the door, while Jambalaya garishly flashes and features chili peppers sizzle-dancing on either side.  I gingerly sip the ‘Taste of the Devil,’ a Cajun martini, fired by pepper infused rum.  My lips are aflame.  Fred, the white-aproned barkeep, his back to me, polishes glasses or does something else that needs doing.  He stands next to the huge, heavy bar, stocked with the best libations from the four corners.  With a mirrored back reflecting every bottle and every customer in the place, the bar seems twice as large.  At that moment Fred and I are the only two human reflections. 

I go to bars infrequently, but I make an exception for Jambalaya. It wallows in the comfortable memories of days gone by.  A pressed-tin ceiling, old, cracked black and white tiled floor, cluttered, high marble topped tables and equally worn stools are just the spot for Fitzgerald and Hemingway to swap inspiring platitudes.   Faded posters celebrate ancient Mardi Gras and dirty, smoky jazz.  The place is also as intimate as the sights and smells from your grandmother’s kitchen.  Friday nights they have a trio blowing all the standards until everybody’s fed and all the drunks go home. Weeknights I like it better. Solitude. Thoughts that don’t involve women or money.  All that is about to change.

         She steps through the double, beveled glass doors as gently as an angel looking for a rosebud.  I’d seen her a thousand times before and never seen her at all.  She’s blond and I never go for blonds, but I went for this one.  The powder blue suit and tasteful pearls screams of money and lots of it, but I would have gone for her if she’d been dipped in tar and rolled in feathers.  A line from The Great Gatsby floats through my head, “I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”  Sounds good, until you look at it from the other side of the bed.

         To a man, cars and women have a lot in common, at least in the love at first sight department.  Love that Corvette!  Gonna buy it?  Probably not.

         I can tell in the first five minutes if this is going to be just a passing fancy.  I don’t know how I know it, only that I know it.

         The bar stool barely squeaks when she sits down.  A delicate floral scent floats past.  Then, the two bluest eyes this side of a Rocky Mountain sky look my direction.  “Mr. Hudson?”

         “Present, clean and sober.”  I forget about my burning lips.

         “May I call you by your first name?”

         “I always go by Hungus”  No I didn’t say that.  “I always go by Hudson, but the first name is Jack, if you’d prefer.”

         “Mr. Hudson...Jack”  she makes it sound like a gently whispered prayer,  “I’m Candy Brunner.”  Candy can’t have reached her thirties yet and I’m not sure anyone’s going to notice when she does.  She holds out her hand.  I take it and don’t want to give it back, but like a true gentleman, I let it slide across my palm and watch it join its partner in her lap.  “I’m a friend of Margot Bliss.”  She produces a lacy handkerchief and dabs at the corner of one eye and then the other.  “I’m just so sad.  It’s tragic, just tragic.” 

         I wonder if she meant tragic in the classical sense, a rise and fall based on a fatal personal flaw, or if she simply meant terrible.  “It certainly is,” I agree, whichever way she means it.

         “And now Arthur has disappeared.”

         “He has?”  I try to keep from looking stunned.  I fail.  Hundred dollar bills with wings appear.

         “You didn’t know?  The authorities have been looking all over for him.” 

I don’t tell her I spoke with him at his office.  Knew he had sounded in a hurry, but not like he was going to depart for places unknown.

         “Wait a minute.”  It’s time for me to put gorgeousness aside and untangle this Gordian knot, “How do you know I had anything to do with Margot?”

         “Hazel told me.”

         “Hazel Armond?”

         “Yes.  She said you were to meet her husband here.”

         “I’m meeting Mr. Armond, but not today.”

         “She said you mentioned you might have a drink here tonight.”

         I’m trying to remember if I had really said that.  If I hadn’t then I’d better watch myself around Hazel Armond because she’s a mind reader.  And how the hell does she know I’d been hired to keep an eye on Margot?  Jesus, that woman is a spy in her own house.  “Oh, right,” I agree, still not remembering.  I’d mentioned something about getting a drink, but was sure it was tomorrow and Armond not being here proves it. “Speaking of a drink, what are you having?”

         “Just a little bit of Perrier,” she says softly, looking at Fred.  Fred turns, smiles and brings a glass, with a slice of lemon on the lip, and small green bottle.  He pours slowly and we all listen to the fizz.  Then he smiles again at Candy and goes back to polishing glasses.  His eyes can’t help but dart up to the mirror now and then.  There are three reflections now and two of us don’t matter.

         “You’re working for Mr. Bliss?  That’s what Hazel said.”  The deep blue eyes wash over me.  She has a little half smile, almost a quirk, except on that face I wouldn’t call it a quirk.  I’d call it Mona Lisa in the flesh.

         “Yeah, I’m working for him, but I don’t know where he is, if that’s what you’re asking.”  At least I hope I’m still working for him.  I need the money even more now that my house has been trashed. He never told me to quit.

         Candy reaches over and pats my knee, a friendly gesture at best, but nevertheless. Women use little touches like brush strokes on a canvas.

         “So, you just came down here to sip some seltzer water and tell me how sad it is about your friend going missing?”  Why does my brain have to work like that?  Why can’t I just enjoy the moment and chalk it up to good fortune?  Because, I started off suspicious and the last couple of twisted days fanned a raging paranoia.  As much as I like myself, I never was leading man material and beautiful women don’t just drop by to enjoy my company.  Small consolation that beautiful women don’t just drop in out of the blue to enjoy anyone’s company.