Brisco Waters, Private Eye (Part 1) (standard:mystery, 0 words) [1/5] show all parts
Author: Red Storm	Updated: Jul 31 2001	Views/Reads: 3754/2351	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Meet Brisco Waters, private eye. The time and place is 1930's Chicago, where underworld kings are pushing their criminal havoc onto innocent citizens. Now this bum-turned-P.I. is up against the very people who want him dead!

Chicago, 1934 

It started off just like any other Thursday morning in the middle of
December. The snow was lying motionless across the dirty sidewalks, 
giving the false illusion that the city was actually semi-clean. The 
cloudy sky was threatening of another snowstorm like the one that just 
passed through last week, and most respectable citizens were home on 
this bleak morning with their families, anticipating the upcoming 
Christmas holidays. I, on the other hand, had no family, no cheery 
place to call home, and nothing better to do on this messed-up day but 
to sit in my office and pray for a client. Things were quiet, and that 
was actually a good thing. The neighborhood where my office was located 
was just that--a hood. It was a shabby part of the city, accented 
mostly by crime and violence. But it was cheap, and I couldn’t afford a 
high-rent luxury office downtown. 

My name is Brisco Waters, but most people just call me Waters. The
people who don’t know me that well just call me Waters, that is. The 
small handful of people who do know me better than most call me more 
profane things. A loan shark named “Big” Al, for instance. This mobster 
loaned me $7,500 to throw a ramshackle office together and call it a 
home at the same time. Yes, I live in my office. It’s not so bad, once 
you get used to sleeping on the floor and showering only a couple of 
times a week. My only roommates are the huge rats who often like to 
keep me awake at night with their high-pitched noises. Ah, the life of 
a private investigator. It wasn’t much, but it was about to be less if 
I couldn’t find the money to pay off Big Al. Already he had proven this 
point by sending two thugs to my place to rough me up pretty good. The 
message was that I had another two weeks to pay in full or else it was 
curtains and ice for this private dick. 

So that was the gist of the past, and there I was sitting at my desk
praying for a client. I buttoned my white shirt almost to the collar 
and tucked the tail into my wrinkled trousers, trying to look more 
professional. The only family I had to celebrate Christmas with was a 
half-empty bottle of good Kentucky bourbon, but that was enough for me. 
No whining, bitching or complaining, no asking for more money or 
running off with other men. I could trust the bottle to love me, and 
God knows I loved it. It was the perfect relationship. Having downed a 
few shots already that morning, I decided to drop the bourbon back in 
the top drawer of my large oak desk and play with my weapon collection. 


This was the one thing I had to be proud of, because it wasn’t every day
that you saw so many great firearms all in one place. They had been 
passed on to me by my former partner, who had been killed in a shootout 
with a mobster no less. A pair of M&P Victory model .38 Specials with 
5” barrel modifications, mint condition, were my pride and joy. I kept 
them in a lock box under my desk, but took them out now and then to 
clean and admire them. On the wall behind my desk I kept a standard 
12-gauge shotgun, and my trusty military knife that I was given when I 
served in the army for a brief stint lay in the drawer next to my 
bourbon. 

It was the small part of my life that I actually enjoyed, and that was
sad. My life to that point had been a waste, a bum from the slums of 
Chicago trying to make a living as a private investigator because I 
knew how to lie, cheat, steal, and spy. A bum trying to make a 
legitimate living as a crook. Another shot of bourbon put the 
exclamation mark on that realization. 

Then my life changed forever. A woman, around twenty-six years old,
walked through the glass door and entered my office and my life. She 
was tall, slim, and curvaceous, I noticed, and her auburn hair curled 
away from her shoulders beautifully. She moved elegantly through my pig 
sty of an office, examining the cracks in the walls and floor. She wore 
a heavy fur coat, under which was a red silk dress. This woman was 
wealthy, and it didn’t take a world famous detective to figure that 
out. 

“Mr. Waters?” She asked, having obviously read the inscription on the
cracked glass pane in my office door. 

“I’m Waters.” I replied, a little more hesitantly than I had intended.
She caught the glitch with a slight smile. 


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