A man's hat

[SwordsMaster]

This is a short story I started a few days ago partially thanks to The Shadow One's tutorials' renovating my literary flame, so to speak. So tell me what you think and if I should keep writing. This is the introductory chapter. Enjoy. Comments are welcome.


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Chapter 0


A man’s hat.

Sorry.

Because I’m talking about someone with a sizeable ego maybe I should say a Man’s hat. Or even a Man’s Hat. They are both technicalities unspecified on that website on writing tips I’ve been browsing through a few days ago when the day was too hot for customers to keep me busy.

Back to the man’s hat. The man is 85 kilograms of Caucasian Homo Sapiens sitting at a desk at the end of the bright office with his shirt rolled up his arms. He is also my partner in the business.

The hat is 300 grams of Australian leather sitting on top of the man’s desk, casually covering a pile of emails that the man had to sort out during the day. A sizeable pile.

But the man is enjoying the sunny summer day besides the open window and the smell of marihuana from the coffee shop underneath the window mixed with the sounds of the tourist boats going up and down the canal with the speakers shouting out the historical transcendence of the inclined buildings in four different languages.

The office is small and bright on a second floor of an old building close enough to the museum quarter. A great location for our kind of business, although the steps are a bit too steep for some of our potential clients. But, as the man said once, we have to separate the men from the boys.

Our business includes finding stuff. All kinds of stuff. From jewels to people to art and, above all, fat paychecks every now and then. The police have used our services a few times with mixed results – hey, if you don’t like what we can find, don’t ask us to find it – (we are still trying to blend that into our logo), but we were not quite detectives. We never did any of that stuff about finding out if he is cheating on me and when and with how many. That is invading people’s privacy, and we did have our principles.

But fat paychecks have been rare during the last couple of months and the man’s unwillingness to do his job has only increased. Not like was getting any more sociable either. Right now he had been silent like a greek statue sitting at a desk for the last three hours.

He did get like that every now and then though, and on those darker days of his he could outdrink Boris Yeltsin together with all his ministers, not say a word to anyone for days and let his stubble grow until something changed his dark mood. On the bright days however he was the best man to have around, he spoke four languages, and the waitresses in all the cafes on our street would give him free lunches.

- Do you want coffee? – I asked to break the sleepy mood. He stared at me blankly for about a minute as if he didn’t quite understand what I was saying and then shook his head negatively.

Great. Some partner.

I left the office and headed down the corridor to the coffee machine. The only option that didn’t have a red – “product not available” - light on it was black coffee. I pushed the button and waited for the hot – that’s the best thing that can be said about it – liquid to pour down into the plastic glass and realised that sugar wasn’t present either. I stared at my coffee with vengeance before walking back to my desk.

Nothing has changed except that the scent of marihuana from the window was dissipated by a light breeze that intensified the noise of the roadworks on the other side of the canal.

The caffeine was digging slowly into my brain when I’ve finished the little I had to do concerning finding a person for the police, and prove that she was in LA and not Amsterdam therefore ruling her out of the list of possible witnesses in some or other case.

I yawned and stretched. Again. The day was almost over as far as work went, and my partner didn’t seem to be in a mood for beer afterwards. He stood up, chewed something in his mouth and put the hat on. Then looked at me and said his first sentence in hours.
- Come with me, we might have gotten a job. – I was sure he didn’t get it chatting on the phone and I internally thanked Internet for the anonymity it offered as I locked the door of the office.

[Ludens]

Very interesting, SwordsMaster. I especially like the way you use the surroundings to create the atmosphere.

Please continue.

[SwordsMaster]

Very interesting, SwordsMaster. I especially like the way you use the surroundings to create the atmosphere.

Please continue.

Thanks

Here is chapter 1 for your enjoyment

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Chapter 1


Thin Lizzy insisted that the boys were back in town on the Jag’s sound system as we drove effortlessly through the late evening traffic making our way back towards the centre of the city from the more industrial area on the south-west where our interview took place. Somehow the man underneath the Australian hat seemed pleased with the fact that we had something to do – not because his chatter was anything but non-existent, mind you – but his spirits seemed to be higher than they were in the office.

Described in one word, the gentleman who interviewed us was sharp. Described in two words, he was not sharp. He was dressed in a fitted suit but you could see that he was uncomfortable wearing it, as if he was forced to for many years, but still wasn’t feeling quite free in it. I know that expression very well, because it’s the same my partner has whenever he has to wear a tie and keep his sleeves down. The expression of a gambler not quite sure if his bluff was through.

What this gentleman asked us to do was to find a woman and her daughter that turned out to be his daughter too. Actually what he wanted us to find was the daughter, with the woman being a necessary evil as she had the legal custody of the child.

The child in question wasn’t a child anymore, she turned 18 and the father wanted to know if now that she was old enough to decide by herself, she would like to move in with him. The problem – and that’s where we kick in – was that neither the address nor the phone number he had with their last known location were valid anymore as several postal notices informed him over the last few months.

Rebecca de-Clare was the name of the young lady. Marianne Galante was the name of the old lady, and Ismael de-Clare was our employer. Or customer. Same difference.

The conversation didn’t flow until after a decent dinner at a centric Japanese restaurant full of trendy couples having some food before filling their stomachs with alcohol and other many and varied drugs available in night Amsterdam.

- So how’d you get the job? – I managed with my mouth full of noodles.
- I googled it. – was the answer. At least he was talking now.
- You know, it’s not my fault you are in a bad mood so why am I suffering the consequences? – this was starting to feel like a marriage.

- We are not married, are we? – Sometimes I wonder if he actually is psychic.

I decided this wasn’t going anywhere and concentrated on the noodles. It was just pointless. We knew each other too well and for too long a time. I know why he was in a bad mood. His girlfriend for a year just left the city and moved back to Wisconsin – don’t know whose fault that was – but I could tell he wasn’t happy about it. For a second I thought about calling her to see if she changed her mind, but then remembered I didn’t have her number and asking him for her ex’s number just a week after they broke up was just plain wrong.

- Are you going to have those? – I pointed. He just shook his head and I reached for the plate.

The waitress, an attractive Japanese woman, came around to ask if everything was fine and my partner gave her a smile and said it was. He was definitely in a better mood than in the morning. Must be the Japanese food. Or the prospect of enrichment through finding that de-Clare lady. Or my company. Yeah, right.

-What’s the plan for the job, then? – Oh, he was talking. His unbearable chatter.

- What we always do. Have a look in the internet and the yellow pages first, then go visit the places, rule out the ones that are impossible and then see what happens. – He’d done it before. Maybe he drank too much last night?
- I know. But are we looking for both of them together or separately? Are we looking in Amsterdam only or in Europe or everywhere in the world? Cause it is going to take us some time if they’re in the middle of Nepal…- He had done it before after all and actually had a point.

-Hmm, yeah. I say we start with Amsterdam and then see where that brings us. – That seemed like the most logical solution. We would start looking at them separately to increase our chances and then rule out the most unlikely combinations.

He chewed a “Sure” and fell silent again.

The Japanese waitress came again with the desserts selection and then again with the bill. We looked at each other in a willpower competition. Finally I got my wallet out. I’ll get back to you on this. My partner smiled a satisfied smile and finished his coffee.

Bastard.

[Ludens]

Excellent. Please go on .

[SwordsMaster]

Thanks, sorry for not updating, major exam coming. Will update sometime this week.

[SwordsMaster]

Well, sorry about the delay. Real Life was busy. Here's chapter 2


Chapter 2


I screamed as I stapled my index finger. Playing with the stapler while searching for a file on the hard drive of my PC was not the smartest thing I’ve done today. The stapler was one of those models that didn’t open so I had to twist the staple before managing to get it out of my finger, screaming obscenities in the process.

My partner got in with a coffee.
- Are you ok? – he asked in a calm voice.

I nodded with the finger in my mouth and tears rolling down my eyes. He left one of the coffees on my table, walked over to his desk and let his weight fall on the chair. The breeze had changed this morning and the smell from the coffee shop downstairs was less noticeable. It smelled like sea. That big green extension of salty water somewhere outside my window.

Back to the matter at hand, our search has been moderately successful. We found a few people with the names given to us, but they didn’t have apparent relation to each other. We had another couple of potential matches left to visit today, and the man with the hat was arranging the meeting on the phone.

Another meeting. We’ve met a dozen people over the last week but as I said none of them met all the criteria we needed. We were starting to consider moving out, and checking outside Amsterdam, but none of us wanted to make that call to the boss and acknowledge defeat. A minor one, but nothing to be proud of, none the less.

As my finger stopped bleeding and my tears dried, I looked back to the computer screen. Online White pages. France. Some 40 matches in Paris only. I could only guess how much time would it take us to check the rest of France, get rid of the most absurd cases and personally visit the rest. That’s why I had the feeling that one of the two people left in Amsterdam would give us a clue. Or, more accurately that was my wishful thinking.

- I hope one of these will give us something to work with – said my partner across the room. How does he do that?!
- Yeah. I was just thinking the same thing. – Maybe it was just professional deformation or something feng-shui related.
- I can see the tears in your eyes as you look at the Paris phone directory. – There was a grin on his face. The tears in my eyes had to do with me stapling my finger and not with the page, but in any case he was right. Going outside Holland, or, God forbid, Europe would ruin us just on phone bills. And that is extremely bad for business.

I put a plaster on my finger before leaving the office for the first meeting in the Haarlem area my partner has arranged in one of the cafes. So we took the N200 and headed West with enough time to make the five o’clock meeting. The cafe we were meeting in was in the Smedestraat area, so we managed to park nearby and walked the rest of the distance.

- It’s a female – said my partner showing an impressive deductive power. I nodded. Rebecca and Marianne – I remembered. Most likely female.

- How are we going to recognise them? – I asked. My partner made his polarized sunglasses flash in the evening sun as he turned towards me.

- They will. I described you to them meticulously. – How nice of him. Two women looking for me.

- You always so generous. – I replied only to watch him shrug and then grin.

- You know, I live to give. - I couldn’t tell which was more present, sarcasm or vanity.


Ten minutes later a well dressed lady sat in the seat in front of us.

- Good evening. – She said with a French accent. – I’m Marianne Galante.-

[Greek Phalanx]

kewl style man... u have a way or putting the sentences in a better order and way than I do........

[Ludens]

Very good work, SwordsMaster.

I have only two small comment: firstly, your use of hyphen as a dialogue marker is sometimes a bit confusing. Try to use the quotation marks. Secondly, given the title of the story I would expect a more prominent role of the man's headdress.

Please continue!

[SwordsMaster]

Very good work, SwordsMaster.

I have only two small comment: firstly, your use of hyphen as a dialogue marker is sometimes a bit confusing. Try to use the quotation marks. Secondly, given the title of the story I would expect a more prominent role of the man's headdress.

Please continue!

I actually have a quite decent part of monologue-reflexion but I wrote it after I posted chapter 0 and I didnt want to disturb the flow so I'll stick that in whenever the occasion presents itself.

The dialogue. Well, I don't know. It seems like every author does it differently, I'ver read a lot of people that use hyphens and probably just as many who use quotation marks...

See, at first my idea was to use quotation marks for inner "thinking" or internal monologues, but as the story is told from a very subjective point of view, I thought that would be unnecessary....

Thanks all for the comments and the kind words.

Well, luckily I've had a bit of free time tonight, so I've finished Chapter 4 and here it is for you:


Chapter 4

Ismael’s office was big and well illuminated with expensive furniture and leather armchairs for guests and a small coffee table made of black marble. There was a computer on his table, a telephone with a lot of buttons and a bronze head that served for decoration and as a paperweight.


- So she refused, then? – Ismael de Clare towered over his desk. I thought it was probably the same position he used to intimidate his employees. My partner looked unimpressed as he was sitting in the comfortable armchair covered in black leather.

- That is correct. We can provide you with the contact details if you want them. – he said in a voice that sounded as if he was giving de Clare a lesson in etiquette.

- But you expect full payment…- de Clare added in a quieter tone as he walked towards the window.

- Of course. We found the people you asked us to find and we are now giving up the information you provided us with. – I put a few folders on the table and sat back again.

Ismael considered us for a moment. You could tell he was trying to decide if he should try and push us further. For what though? We were giving him the information he was entitled to have, and we did the job he asked us to do. Maybe he was thinking if we have been digging in his legal affairs.

Finally he took a chequebook from a drawer in a table, looked at me and then my partner again and then at my partner’s hat on the table, and then filled in the cheque. And I was far from imagining that that is where all our problems would start. I mean, a cheque was a very promising beginning for a business relationship.

My partner was silent, for a change, for a very long time as we made our way down to the Spui and sat in the Luxembourg. His hands were playing with the hat on the table and he seemed to ignore the beer completely.

- What is wrong? – I asked. I didn’t feel the best with myself either and I was irritated although I tried to convince myself that we were just being professional and that it was ok for a father to know the whereabouts of his daughter.

- I don’t know. - he barked. – I just don’t think this is right. He didn’t look concerned about them. Did he ever ask about what did she look like? No he didn’t. – That wasn’t of much importance, but I think my partner just wanted something to hang on to.

Surprisingly although I was arguing against him, I wanted something to hang on to as well. Maybe I was expecting him to give me some argument that would convince me to do something about it. I don’t know.

- He is the father, though. – I was giving him the same stuff I was giving my brain, with the same result.

- He is a gambler. – Apparently my partner didn’t believe in redemption.

- Well, then you are a gambler too on your scale. – It was a bit harsh, but I was irritated and we knew each other for a long time. Time gives you certain privileges.

- Sarah didn’t leave, did she? – there was bitterness there. And anger. And something fragile as well.

He remained silent. Then sipped his beer and left.

I didn’t stop him.

I stayed there. Finished my beer. Then I finished my partner's. And then ordered another one.

Finally I was able to take a deep breath in and look around me leaving the worries of the day somewhere in the back of my head, to be dealt with tomorrow.

My partner’s hat was still on the table.

[Ludens]

I actually have a quite decent part of monologue-reflexion but I wrote it after I posted chapter 0 and I didnt want to disturb the flow so I'll stick that in whenever the occasion presents itself.

I see .

The dialogue. Well, I don't know. It seems like every author does it differently, I'ver read a lot of people that use hyphens and probably just as many who use quotation marks...

Well, the internet is home to many people that speak many different languages and a lot of them don't know the proper usage of English punctuation marks. Hyphen are used to indicate a severe break in the sentence, either because it was interrupted ("But you said–" "No, I didn't!"), or because an unrelated sentence was dropped in the middle ("For our tour of the museum, we will now proceed to the main hall, which houses one of the finest examples of early Impressionist art – Sir, please don't touch the paintings – and also many other interesting works.").

Hyphens are used as dialogue markers in several other languages, but this is not correct in English because it would interfere with the hyphen's other functions. The point of punctuation is to avoid confusion, but using a punctuation mark for multiple functions rather defeats this point.

Ahem, sorry for ranting off like that, improper use punctuation is a pet pieve of mine.

[SwordsMaster]

Hyphens are used as dialogue markers in several other languages, but this is not correct in English because it would interfere with the hyphen's other functions. The point of punctuation is to avoid confusion, but using a punctuation mark for multiple functions rather defeats this point.

Ahem, sorry for ranting off like that, improper use punctuation is a pet pieve of mine.

Thats cool, there are things that upset me about other people's writing too...

See, most of the literature I read in my teenage years was either Russian or Spanish and not English, so I'm kinda more used to hyphens.... I might change my style after I finish "A man's hat", but I don't want to change the whole story because of that. Being lazy is one of the reasons, yes.