The idea: write just a line if you want, don't write for ever, no line is too clichéd and you have to leave a line that offers an open goal to the next contributor. Here's something to kick off my first nil thread...



I woke up face down on the desk, my nose flatter than road-kill. I was in worse condition than an art collection in Nazi-occupied Europe. I felt like I had a head full of ball-bearings and guys with magnets were circling me slowly. I straightened up. My hands were full. In one I had my automatic, in the other a bottle of rye. I keep one loaded, the other keeps me loaded.

Whoever it was that woke me by hammering on my office door, did it again. Then they pushed the door open. It was a broad - like part of Norfolk, but with more hills.

"Hey doll-face," I growled, swigging from my patented hangover cure, which I call More Of The Same. "You look like my kinda woman. I like my women like I like my coffee - rich, dark and slightly bitter."

"I like my men like I like my fish," she purred. "Glassy-eyed and packed in ice."

I could see she was trouble. She raised a manicured hand. In it, she held...

... A Wisden 2007 - large print edition.

"You know what this is?"

"Yeah, it's a big book"

"It's a book about Cricket. That's a game where you hit tough leather balls with a very hard bat."

"Uh-huh" I answered non-commitedly.

She snapped it open at page 727.

"You know who this is?"

I leaned forward to study closely, a chill went through me. A chill from some very bad memories.

"Yeah it's Harry Pilling, Lancashire all-rounder 1950's and sixties. Averaged about 23.4 with the bat."

"That's right, I want you to find him."

I stared out of my window into the street.

Snow fell against the pavement like an advert for silence. Ten degrees of frost had laid out a carpet of crushed diamonds, now crisscrossed with footmarks and tire tracks.

I turned my attention back to the Norfolk Broad.

"Why you want him found?"

"Because he's my Daddy, and I want him dead."

"Why should I help you kill your daddy?"

She put her feet up on my desk, revealing stocking tops and M.C.C. branded suspenders.

"Because you haven't paid your office rent in three months and the landlady wants to kick you out, your wise-cracking secretary won't come back to work until you pay the salary you owe her, and you're a lonely guy."

She let her dress fall away from her thighs, which she stroked absent-mindedly.

"I can make it very, very, worth your while."

She took out her business card from indide her suspenders, and flicked it lazily onto my desk. If you want the job - txt me before close of play today."

She got up and minced her way to my office door. Pausing to throw one last one-liner in my direction..

"You do know how to text don't you? You just put your thumbs together and blow.."

I picked up my tumbler and downed four fingers of 'Maker's Mark'. Harry fucking Pilling - who in their right minds wouldn't want that tedious bastard dead?

I picked up my Nokia and began to txt...

"Odd", I thought as her scent followed her out the room like a poodle with an appointment at the salon, "that's how I make owl noises".

I picked up the business card, turned it over in my hand, twice, opened the middle drawer to my right, took out a small plastic box that once bore my business cards and dropped it in.

I held the lid of the box in my hand staring blankly at the yellowed card taped to the lid, the tape was peeled up at the edge and was dirty.

Lazlo Laurenz
Private Dick
Laurenz, Bartholomew & Wicket LLP
555-1525

I needed to speak to Bart, I knew where he's be, every day since Wicket left he'd been...

Did I kill it?

I think it was ailing.

That's right. Ailing. My mind was running a mile a minute, my stomach was growling for something solid and not 6 bottles of Maker's Mark I had in my desk drawer, and I put it out of its misery just like that racehorse that cost me the last $100 dollars I had in my pocket.

Bart owed me money. But in the meantime, I'd take the job.

I'd never admit it to Bart's face but I knew what he was going through. About Wicket leaving.
He was older than us and was a kind of an unofficial mentor. Whenever a case got too crazy or led us down one dead end too many, he was the one we'd go to. For guidance.

"You guys don't have my perspective", he'd say.

And it was true. We didn't. And still don't. All I had was an aching head and a sense that something wasn't right with this case.

"Right", I said to myself. "What would Wicket do now?"

Oh dear. Now I seem to have killed it. As a relative newcomer to these parts, I feel pretty bad about this.

I wouldn't. You can't kill what's already dead.

At least that's what I thought until the dame walked back in to my office.

"Surpised?" she said.

"Surpised?" I replied, hastily tucking my copy of "Nuts" magazine under the papers on the edge of my desk.

"Surpised!" She exclaimed, angry now. "I have a poblem ponouncing my 'R's, you find anything wong with that?"

"No, doll," I said, "I don't think there's anything wrong with your 'R's, whatsover. I'd love to see as much of your 'R's as I can".

She calmed somewhat, and sat on the edge of my desk. He dress split up to the top of her thigh, again, and from my vantage point I could see she was wearing stockings and possibly little else under it. "Bloody hell," I thought, "she's going to crumple my Nuts".

"It was my father", she purred. "Bastard used to bowl full-beamers at me when I was six in the back garden, fom a length of about eight yards. Split my lip on sevewal occasions, boke my jaw twice. THAT's why I want you tack him down - and kill him."

"Hey, tracking down's what I do, doll," I replied, "but I'm not a contract killer. Not unless the reason's good, and the price is right. Now if I'm going to find this guy for you, you need to tell me a little more about him. When did you last see him?"

"Here", she said, opening a little clasp purse. "This will help." And handed me ...

Meanwhile, across town, Bart awoke. His head was banging like a cheap whore on a double-date.
He looked around.
"This isn't my flat. This isn't my gun. And this sure as hell isn't my cocktail dress. It's too tight around the waist."
Bart had been working undercover. Man's work. But it had gotten ugly.
There'd been a dame. There's always a dame. But this dame liked dames, and that's where Bart came in. He'd had her fooled until a five o'clock shadow had given him away.
The Five O'Clock Shadow was the house drink at the Crown & Anchor near the bus station. It was a serious drink for serious drinkers. He'd tried to make one himself, back at his cold-water flat, but couldn't get it quite right.
Was it a teaspoon of grenadine, or a tablespoon? Only Frenchie knew. She'd been making them since Hitler learned to drink. And Frenchie knew a lot of other things, too. Like where to find a one-way cab ride outta Trouble Town when all you've got to your name is the promise of a coupla bucks tomorrow.
That's when the phone rang.