FFM 14 - The Devil's Day

“Where were you on the night of July 14th?”

Sweat beaded up on the boy’s forehead, glistening under the fluorescent light.  He was young and weak, and I knew that any minute he’d spill like a BP oil tanker.  I just had to push a little harder.

“Umm… I don’t know?”  He squeaked.  

I leaned over the counter, glaring into his eyes.  “You sure about that?”  He was the sort of guy that was used to asking all the questions around here, but I had him on his heels now.  

“I swear!  I have no clue!”  He stared at my face with eyes as wide as a bloodshot, glazed over moon.  “Are you… the devil…?”

“It’s a…skin condition, actually.”

He seemed unsure of what to say, so he repeated his question: “Do you want a soft or hard taco with that?”

“… Soft.”

“Okay, and… sir, you’re not allowed to smoke in here.”  His voice was growing meeker with each word, but I knew I’d already lost.  “Now, you’re holding up the line.  What name should I put on the order.”

“Stan,” I sighed, shoving my cash across the counter and stepping aside.

“Satan!” called the man with my food at the other end of the counter, and I snatched the bag of burritos out of his hands.

“Stan,” I corrected.  “Common mistake.”

The door of Rocco’s old Chrysler slammed shut behind me , and I sunk into the shadows of the backseat with my flask and my fast food.  

“You got me—how you say—cinnamon twists?” Rocco called from the front seat.  Seemed like his English was getting better with each passing issue, though he still carried a faint accent.  I tossed him his snacks, and he pulled out of the parking lot.  “Any luck?”

I shook my head.  “No sign of it, Roc.  I’ve hunted down lost wives, lost cars, lost virginity, lost children, but a lost day?  What the fuck?”  No really though.  What the fuck?  When the job showed up at my doorstep, I laughed at the dame that brought it.  But the more I thought about it, she was right: the entire day of July 14th was conspicuously missing.  

“I’ve talked to literally everyone in the Valley at this point, and still no leads.”  I’d talked to literally seven people, but sure enough, no one could recall having done anything at all on the 14th, though most of them could remember the 13th or 15th.  One bum even told me he could remember next July 14th, but not the one from this year.

Twenty minutes later, I was meeting my contact in the LVPD archives, fending for my life.

“O Dark Lord Satan,” Vicky hissed seductively in my ear, sliding out her handcuffs.  I could never tell if they were for her or me.

“Stan,” I cleared my throat.

“Let me worship at the temple of your—“

“Heyy, so actually?  I was thinking maybe we could skip all the weird shit this time, and just look at the files?”

“But please, Lord Satan—“ (“It’s Stan.”) “—I beg of you to grant your dark blessings on this mortal vessel of—“

“Okay, look, I’ve got a rash right now.  You don’t want it.  The files?”

She froze like a crack-whore in headlights.  “Well.”  She cleared her throat and straightened her back, stepping over to the computer without making eye contact.  “Okay.  So that’s just gross.”

“Coming from you—“

She cleared her throat again, opening up her database.  “There’s… Nothing.  Officially, nothing happened on the 14th… at all?”  I’d heard her express a lot of feelings in the past, but never such dumbfounded confusion.  I could relate with her.  That sensation of slowly going mad.  Days didn’t just get lost, did they?

“Alright.  Thanks, Vic.  I’ll call—“

“Wait.”  She locked eyes with me, and bit her lower lip.  “You don’t have a rash in your mouth.”

The door of Rocco’s Chrysler slammed shut behind me.  “Drive.  Drive now, Rocco.”

Morty didn’t remember anything, and neither did Buzz.  Boston remembered a million things, which meant that he was just as lost as the rest of us.  I had to start looking at different parts of our local food chain, and that usually meant I ended up getting bit.  Don Megano was not the sort of guy you wanted to get bit by.

When I arrived at his sprawling estate, he answered the door with his usual ear-to-ear grin, completely lined with triangular shark teeth.  “Satan MacMurphy, my boy,” he growled.

“Stan,” I hissed back.

“You should’ve called.  I just fed the sharks.  I should’ve waited.”  His grin soured and he snapped his fingers.  I don’t know where his goons came from, but I was too buzzed to effectively fight back even if I had seen them coming.  In a matter of minutes, I was battered and bruised and hauled downstairs to Megano’s personal aquarium.  The sharks lazed around their tank, full and content, but he had other plans for me.

“This is actually perfect timing, MacMurphy.  I’ve been having a shit day, and needed some entertainment.  And here comes my least favorite private dick, right at feeding time.  Almost makes you believe in God, doesn’t it?”

I did not believe, at the moment.  His brutes emptied my pockets, bound my hands and feet, and hung me upside down from a hook.  Gravity pulled me from their hands, and I swung out over a tank frothing with activity.  “What--?!”  I began, morbidly curious what terrible fate awaited me.  Piranhas?  Barricudas?  Angry squids?

“Minnows!  Rabid, starved minnows!”  He cackled with all the drama of a true villain.  My antiquated flip-phone ruined that with a polyphonic rendition of ‘I Shot The Sheriff.’  “What?!”  He snarled, snatching it off the floor and flipping it open.  “Bad news, friend—“

“No, good news, Satan!”  Rocco called out on speaker.  “I found it!  The fourteenth, she was—how you say—passed out.  Hung over.  I solved case!”