South by Southwest Wales

 Chapter 1

 

Samson was sat at the bar, hunched over his whisky on the rocks. Old Bush Mill was his favourite brand and the Jazz Hole was the only joint in town that served it, which just happened to be his kind of place in the ever-modernising 1940’s Chicago.

            He frequented the Hole most evenings, where he burned his pay and listened to the new talent. Hell, if he could afford to live at the small club then he would; but the only room for rent was the bottom of a whisky bottle, which he could barely afford anyway.   

            Samson was nursing his eighth whisky and was down to his last yard in beer tokens. With his bills paid, the rest of his mazuma was his to do with as he pleased. 

            Business was bad for washed-up private eyes like Samson. Work had all but dried up. For the last two years, he’d struggled to find jobs just to keep his business afloat.

            “Back five years, things had been golden, punk,” he slurred, turning to the young buck sitting next to him. Through glazed eyes, Samson took in the man’s fancy attire: black slacks, crisp white Oxford shirt with rolled up sleeves and braces, two-tone black and white shoes.

            “Excuse me?”

            “I was cracking the huge cases and sending the big bad wolves to the caboose when I was your age, pal. Drug dealers, pushers, mules, pimps, rapists, muggers, carjackers, killers… You name the trader, and chances are ole’ Samson here put ‘em in the big house.”

            “Are you talking to me?” he asked Samson.

            Samson shifted his gaze toward the mirror that hung behind the bar. “Best goddamn decade of my life…” he slurred, holding up his drink as though to toast to his reflection. “Here’s to the best gumshoe this rat hole for a city has ever seen!”   

            “Drunken fool!” the younger man said, putting his money on the counter and getting up to leave.

Samson snorted, downed the fiery contents, and then placed his glass on the bar. After straightening his fedora and tie, he called the barman over.

            “Steve, can I get another, please?” Samson liked Steve. Sure, the man was a bit of a palooka, but he was a salt-of-the-Earth kind of guy.

            He’d fit perfectly into a Raymond Chandler novel… Samson thought, eyeing the large, brutish-looking barman. Just over Steve’s shoulder, Samson saw a skinny black male musician onstage assembling a saxophone. I’ve not seen his mug around here before. The kid must be new. I hope he’s as good as his ice-cool swagger holds him out to be.   

            Steve shook his head. “Think maybe you’ve had enough, Valentine. How abouts you pack it in and go home for the evening?” When he said so, it held weight—Steve owned the place, after all.

            Valentine, Samson groused. Always with the Valentine.

Not once could Samson recall the moustachioed barman referring to him by his first name.

            “I just want to hear the kid play, Steve. You know how I like to listen to the new talent. Come on, give a guy a break.”

            Steve sighed as he stopped in front of Samson and put his hands on the bar. “Why do you keep coming in here, Valentine? You know you can’t afford to plough through my whisky the way you do.”

            “How do you know I’m not close to cracking the big one, wise guy?”

            “Sorry, I forgot I was talking to the real Sam Spade.” Both men smiled, Steve laughed. “Next you’ll be hauling me in for selling liquor during prohibition…”

            “You know, sarcasm isn’t your strongest suit, pal. I’d stick to the day job and can the humour altogether; you haven’t got the face or charm for it. Besides, prohibition went out seven years ago.”

            “Ah, shut your yap, Valentine!” He turned to grab the Old Bush Mill off the shelf behind him and uncapped it. “Yap?” he said to himself. “Now you’ve got me talking like you, Valentine.” After filling Samson’s glass, he replaced the bottle. “This one’s free.”

            “There—”

            Steve waved his hand. “You’re a good customer, Val. The odd one or two on the house ain’t goin’ to cripple me, but you really should consider leaving the socialising alone.”

            “Duly noted, Steve. Now, would you be so kind as to remove yourself from my sight? You’re spoiling the view.” Samson took a sip from his drink and indicated the musician with a stiff nod.

Steve smiled, whipped the towel off his shoulder and headed down to the other end of the bar where a pack of suits were waiting to be served.

            Samson removed his tin of cigarillos and lighter from the pocket of his trench coat and lit one. As he blew the first thin trails of smoke from his mouth, the sax player started. The lights dimmed.

            The soft, melancholic sounds danced inside Samson’s head as he took another drag on his thin cigar. He reached for his whisky and downed a mouthful; all the while his gaze never leaving the young performer.

Such talent… 

            When the song came to an end, Samson pounded the rest of his drink and gave a standing ovation.

“Steve!” he shouted over the applause. “Another, please.”

With his tumbler now full, Samson settled on his barstool to watch the rest of the performance, not caring that it was now almost three in the morning.

            The sax’s ghostly sounds turned his blood cold—the hairs at the back of his neck stood on end.

This kid’s good; he’s going places, he thought, slugging back his whisky and calling for top-ups.

* * *

The music came to an end at four and Samson found he was one of a few customers left in the musty Jazz Hole, which wasn’t uncommon. Usually, he was last out of the door.

On shaking legs that barely supported his large frame, Samson stood and exhaled loudly—the whisky had drowned his brain. His vision wavered, a fog rolled down over his eyes.

            “Time, people!” Steve bellowed, ringing a bell mounted on the wall behind the bar. In the brass, the word Titanic had been inscribed. Steve liked to tell naïve barflies how the clanger had been retrieved from the infamous ship’s wreck. 

            “He definitely needs to leave the joking there,” Samson muttered, patting himself down to locate the key to his flat.

            “That means you too, Valentine—my sofa’s off limits these days. You know that.”

            “Yeah, so you keep saying,” Samson said, letting out a series of wild hiccups as he walked towards the door, fearing his pins would collapse beneath him like a house of cards.

            “Mind your step, Val. I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” Steve called.

            “Not if I see you first, pilgrim!” Samson said, grabbing a hold of the brass door handle and pulling it towards him.

            “I really do wish you’d knock it off with the Americanisms, not to mention the fedora and trench coat—this is not 1940’s Chicago!”

            “Uhmm-ugh!” Samson grumbled incoherently, walking out into the late summer night. A stiff breeze tousled his hair and flapped the lapels of his battleship grey coat.

            The ugly sounds of the city engulfed him, playing out in a neon haze: loud, pounding disco music, drunken teens shouting and baiting each other into fights, distant sirens, the rush of traffic, backfires, thumps, bangs and screams.

He knew muggings, sex crimes and drug pushing were going on all around him in the city—they had always been there, but things were never so bad as they were now.

             At one time, Samson had taken pride in helping to keep the streets clean. Once, he’d have been proud to call Cardiff his home, but not these days.

            Cardiff? he thought. No, Chicago! He looked up at the modern skyscrapers that loomed over him like demonic idols. All of a sudden, the city didn’t seem right. He was confused, disoriented; and turned back to look at the jazz club, with its 40’s décor.

            “What the…?” he mouthed, turning to walk down the street. A newspaper blew towards him, which he bent over to snag. His eyes sought out the date: “Tenth of the fifth, two-thousand-and-one.” The name of the rag: Cardiff Metro News.

Too much to drink, boyo. 

            He shook his head and shuffled towards home.

            Crime was rampant. The police were overrun and didn’t have the time, energy or patience for the help of Samson and his lot. The private eyes had been squeezed out. Besides, most of the cops were on the gangsters’ payroll.

Serpico never takes a bribe! he thought, and belched. Where does Steve get off on telling me to can the Americanisms and my dress sense?

            He swayed as he ambled along the street, and had to catch himself against the corner of a building to keep from falling over. The air was noxious here. It, along with his heavy intoxication, set his stomach whirling.

I could never give up the fedora and coat. It’s who I am. It’s my identity. When the bad guys see me coming, they run for their hideouts, but their getaway cars just ain’t fast enough for good ole’ boy Sam Valentine.

            “Hey, freak—go back to Casablanca!” someone yelled.

Samson ignored the comment. He was far too drunk to fight or give a damn what people thought of him. At least, that was what he told himself. Drunk or not, the words stung a bit. He raised the lapels of his coat and lowered his hat over his face.

            Samson was a relic. Worse—a dinosaur. At least people kept relics and cared for them in places like museums. Dinosaurs were dead. Nowadays, there was as much a need in Cardiff for private eyes as there was for dinosaurs, which was to say, there may once have been a purpose for their existence but when that became obsolete, so did they. Sure, dinosaurs were kept in museums too, but as oddities of the past, and not something most people looked back upon and wished still existed today.

            A noise caught his attention as he approached the street corner. He stopped and snapped his head to the left—a couple were rutting like wild animals in the doorway of a pub that had closed its doors for the night.

Her skirt was bunched around her hips, her knickers at her ankles. One high-heeled shoe had come free and lay on its side close to the gutter.

 “Fuck me harder!” she squealed between sharp intakes of breath.

            Samson caught a flash of her bouncing breasts before looking at the man. The fella, a skinny runt who was half hidden by the shadows, whispered into her ear before yanking on her hair. Her head snatched back and she yelped with delight.

Whore. 

            Samson was about to say something to them, when he noticed a wino sleeping on the floor close by. A needle jutted from the vein in his filthy arm. An empty bottle of Mother’s Ruin lay by his side, and the crotch of his khaki shorts was piss-soaked.

            A hint of excrement clung to the air. 

“Bloody hell!” Samson uttered, moving on. Things used to be classy around here. Broads were elegant, especially city ones—they had real pride. The younger generation don’t give a damn.

Further down the street he turned a blind eye to a group of hoods dealing drugs, thinking he saw a roscoe being handed over. The thugs stared him down as he approached. They weren’t going to take his shit, not that he was in any shape to start any. Sure, he was tough, but not enough to take on six bruisers, and certainly not while piss drunk.

            Not even the thugs are like they used to be, he lamented. At one time, they had a bit more respect for authority. The new, younger breed of gangster will stab you without thinking twice, let alone tell you to fuck off. For the next twenty minutes he swayed and staggered through the streets until he reached his home: Queen’s Street Flats, a tower block comprised of ten apartments, a reception area and four lifts, three of which weren’t working.

            When he got to the main entrance, Samson noticed some men, a woman and a few youths seeking shelter in the doorway with their sleeping bags and cardboard boxes. The place stank of shit and weed.

            “Disgusting!” he burped. “Come on, move along. Officer of the law coming through, people,” he told them.

            “Piss off, Valentine—you’re a washed-up hack!” one of the homeless said from the shadows.

            The others sniggered. 

            Three years ago he would have done something about them and their lip, but he felt too old, tired, out of shape and disheartened to bother. The city was a rotting cesspool, and he was just one man.

            Instead, he charged by, heat coming to his cheeks. When he eventually passed inside, he walked over to the one working lift and called it. It didn’t come.

            “Jesus!” He slammed his fist against the aluminium doors. “Stuff this.” He walked to the stairs and climbed to the third floor and his flat.

* * *

He wheezed and panted his way to his door and leaned against the wall until his racing heart settled. Black spots danced before his vision.

            “I need to slow up with the drinking.” He closed his eyes as tight as he could and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

            Samson took a couple of deep breaths and reopened his eyes.

            Something caught his attention.  

            “Huh?”

            He saw a white piece of paper protruding from his letterbox—an envelope, covered in bloody handprints.

            He looked both ways to see if anyone else stood in the hallway, then slipped on a pair of leather gloves and snatched the letter from the box. His heart rate kicked up a few notches when he saw the writing among the blood spatters.

 

 

Comply or die, snitch!

 

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