"I need your help," she exhaled. "I'm - well, I'm missing a rather valuable private possession..." I nodded curtly, hands clasped behind my head. She started again: "I'm missing... if you must know - my panties!"

I ashed my cigar, raised the brim of my fedora and sized her up: 36 - 24 - 28, by the looks of her, and with gams that didn't stop to ask for directions.

Something told me it would be a long night at the office. I'd have to call *mandy* to tell her to take the pirogies off the stove...

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4408810)

I'm apprehensive of writing a chapter two - the above, I think, completes what we know about the slender brunette and fish, and if it succeeds it succeeds on that basis. So while in real life the adventures of Fish, P.I. might involve a *mandy* who seems the ingenue but truly is as hard-bitten and shrewd as only an immigrant woman can be, I just don't know enough about that to proceed.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4410050)

Never a prophet, I guess...

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4413161)

*snaps fingers in unison*

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4461969)

Total sleeper thread. It has not gotten its due.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4462046)

But will it?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4472262)

“Where did you last see them?”

She nervously looked down, and clutched her black purse even tighter. I walked across the office, closed the door, took off my fedora and slowly placed it on the rack. She didn’t turn around.

“Look, you have to trust me if you want them back.”

“I know, it’s just…”

A clap of thunder pierced through the night air.

“You’re nervous? Never hired a real PI before?”

“Yes! How did you know?”

“It’s my job, ma’am. That’s why they pay me. Now, about those panties…”

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4692867)

NOR did he carry guilt at carrying the gams. The slender brunette did not demand it, even as he ashed his cigar on the bedstand after the fact; any reasonable man, he thought to himself, would have done the same -- his mind wheeled through a curiously legalistic justification throughout the act of sexual congress. The slender brunette rolled over and gave him a secretive smile. She did not carry her virginity anymore, and she did not carry the vague suspicions that haunted *.mandy.* as she waited, baking pastries for a man who would carry her no longer-- financially or emotionally. The slender brunette did not carry her panties or her socks or her sweater anymore; all of them were sprawled across the cheap motel floor.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4739563)

all credit goes to Evan-2001 for his brilliant thread

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4739594)

This was just another day in the life of Fish, PI. What's this emotional drama BS?

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4761801)

HTH

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4770437)

Also, I love it that the only person who didn't like it is Fish. Hilarious.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5648086)

bump

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#4855478)

I interrupted her right as the Jap salesman was home-demonstrating the duster with the telescoping handle on her cream-colored curtains with the pink trim (“Save time for you! Mini-Stick deceptive small, can find hard-to-leach praces”). “Miss, just the essential facts. Where exactly did he say he got your address?”

Her eyes rounded and her breath deepened. “Why, he didn’t say!”

“He didn’t leave a card?” My eyes bored into hers. “Nothing?”

“Well,” she started. But she caught herself, lowering her head as if in shame, sinking her rump deeper into the big black chair. She fell silent. I could tell she’d be a tough nut to crack.

“You know,” I said, standing for the first time since she’d arrived and circling the desk toward her, “I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”

I stood behind her, the hair on my knuckles staring up at me from the cracked leather of her chair. From this vantage point my eyes sneaked right under the neckline of her shiny red blouse to spy the lacy black bra that cupped her milky mounds. For a flash I was a young boy again, hiking up the Ural Mountains with my big walking stick. I leaned in, filled my lungs with her perfume and rumbled, “If you can’t remember, sweetheart, maybe you should come back another time.”

Hook, line, and sinker. She began to fish through her Louis Vuitton purse. “Oh yes! He must've dropped – I found it in the bathroom wastebin – a book of matches. Now, I wasn't sure...”

I released my hold on her chair. She looked up and handed me the matchbook. “There ya go,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Give me till Tuesday night, and we’ll see if I haven’t put my finger on where your panties are.”

I walked her to the door. “Mr. Fish,” she said. “Why, I’d never forgive myself if I got you mixed up in…”

“Just doing my job.” I patted my lower left side to show her I was packing. She was not visibly relieved.

After I let her out, I hoisted up the phone book I’d been sitting on and opened it to “T.” I whistled aloud when my finger arrived at Tanaka's Teriyaki Town. Right off Evanston Ave. Donning my Fedora, I took a swig of the potato vodka I keep where my accounting records are supposed to be. I lit a cigarette with one of the matches. Bingo, bango, bongo. Tanaka's Teriyaki Town.

To be continued…

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5558957)

the Ural Mountains line is GOLD

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5558983)

That said, I'd probably like it more if I knew anything at all about fish besides his russian origin.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5564032)

both hate affirmative action, and both are moneygrubbing russian jews

so that's the bad news. the good news is despite his failures and neuroses, fish is basically honorable, while mandy can have a very childlike sweetness. they're probably doomed to a wretched life, but at least they'll have each other

in short, they're perfect noir characters. off-kilter, morally ambiguous outsiders.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5567670)

"labor management science" is a good one.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5568129)

10 STARS

I AM OVERCOME BY THE ART OF IT ALL

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5559080)

This is you in one half of a year.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5559110)

it's a serial story guys

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5561510)

fuck you. no more installments.

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5563386)

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5651143)

(https://xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=307979&forum_id=2#5651153)