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The Adventures Of
RICK FIRINGPIN, P.I.

9:23 PM.
I walked through the bar’s front door and emerged in a cloud of smoke. The air was thick with the smell of cigarettes and hard liquor, but mostly cigarettes. Because of the smoke. It stank.
I made my way to the bar and took a seat. It was exactly the kind of place you could find the scum you were looking for, or at least get good and hammered and do all that detective stuff tomorrow. It was a seedy bar, with seedy customers in the corner playing a seedy game of pool, and a seedy bartender who sold seedy drinks to seedy strangers like me. Only I’m not seedy. That’s strike one for the bartender.
Anyway, I sat for a while until the bartender decided to strike up some friendly conversation. That’s strike two in my book, but I let it slide. He was probably desperate to talk to someone as not seedy as I was. I can’t blame ‘im.
“Hey!” he says to me, “Either fuckin’ order something or get the fuck outta here ya fuck!”
“Thanks, I’m doing just fine. I need to ask you a question.”
“Did you here what I just said? I beat your fuckin’ head in if ya don’t fuckin’ order somethin’!”
“Yes, I know how seedy the individuals in the corner are, sir, but I don’t work for free. Do you know if the guy who killed Bob McCallister frequents this joint?”
“You’re outta your fuckin’ mind! You’re a fuckin’ wack job!”
“No, huh? Well I guess I’ll hang around and see for myself.”
“FUCK!!”
“Oh, fine, if you INSIST on giving me a free drink, I’ll haaaaaaaaaaaaave… a mojito.”
“A what?”
“A mojito”
“What the fuck is that?”
“Y’know, a delicious little mixture of rum, lime, sugar and mint. Comes from Mexico. Or Guatemala. Someplace poor and Spanish-speaking.”
“O…kay… Why would you want to get wasted on that shit?”
“Because its delicious and tropical and I love it. And who says I want to get wasted? Do you need to see my Id? Is that it?”
“What the f-?”
“Here’s my ID.” He took it and looked at it. Never in my life had I met a bartender too stupid to see that I was old enough to drink, even when I wasn’t.
“Mr. Rick… FiringPin?”
“It’s Dutch.”
“You have a badge?”
“Yeah. Pretty shiny, ain’t it? No, you can’t have it.”
“Says here you’re a fuckin’ private investigator.”
“That’s right. Rick FiringPin, PI.”
“Private Investigators don’t have badges. They’re private.”
“I made mine”
“That explains why New York is spelled wrong. Is this aluminum foil?”
“Give me that and make with my tropical deliciousness.”
He returned a whole 5 minutes later with my mojito. It doesn’t take me nearly that long to make one. And it sucked. That was strike two. No, wait, did I already say that? Whatever. The mojito was passable, so I ordered another one.
………
3:00 AM.

I…

am…

not…

sober.
……...
11:56 AM.
I woke up in a seedy alley, undoubtedly near the bar with the crappy mojitos. My head was pounding and it felt like I had my brains smashed in with a baseball bat made of mint. Actually, that wouldn’t be half bad…