The Mechanic's Wife

By Van Dimi

About 5000 thriller-mystery books are coming out every day in various forms. Add this one in, under the NOIR tag.
It’s an old-school P.I story with a social context like all Noir, amateurish but very respectful to the genre-style, and certainly not aiming to become famous and immortal as the great ones like Chandler, Hammett, Thomson, etc. just to name a few. A vagabond-bon viveur, politically unethical and frustrated turns out a sleuth by accident -or wishful thinking perhaps –picks up a catchy name and gets mixed up in a femme fatale case with a killing, two of them the same price, in the beautiful city of Pau, south France under the protecting wings of a rich and generous old woman – and her parrot. A hard-boiled old-school Private Detective with all the flows of the genre, boozer, dirty-mouth, sarcastic, womanizer, sexist, impudent, etc. They all seem to have come out of the same mold. Mine is also a tournament Bridge player, Sherlock played the violin. Isidore Ducasse, P.I, is meant to become a series. History will show.
I am not a writer, I’m too old to become one. I’m just a NOIR LOVER, both movies and literature, and I have studied them both thoroughly as a reader and a spectator. My first try writing a book was combined with History and that’s how my first book A BYZANTINE REQUIEM came out. But...I’m no Historian either and the result was not “very” Noir. This new one aims to be 100% Noir albeit some autobiographical elements remains pure fiction and any resemblance ... blah, blah blah.
At 67 already, a Greek in South France, bored and idle, spend sometime traveling-dreaming into imaginary worlds and situations. That’s the spirit. And thanks to the free Amazon KDP program, it comes out in print. Why not?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Van Dimi
• Release date: Sep 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005355685

Van Dimi

ABOUT ME. Retired from the grind. Reflecting on successes, failures, and regrets. Exploring new aspects of self, writing that book which will get me an Oscar, staying out of trouble - well, small amounts of trouble are OK. Alone in blessed singleness. Wicked sense of humor, enjoy my own company, glad I'm not young any longer. I do miss the intimacy of being in love. A good catch . . . at least. I love Intelligent conversation: hard to come by these days, though no one agrees with me, a good listener, intuitive, a good conversationalist, avoid boredom and boring people at all costs - that's a career all by itself.I am not a writer. I am a cooking chef. An educated cooking chef though. I’ve done my studies, got a University degree but instead of entering into the “system”, I’ve chosen to do what pleases me and not join the sheep -flock searching for a shepherd. A Greek old man living in France the last 20years,Vangelis Dimitroglou is my real name. Cinéphile and melomane confirmé, not un faux-cul. Here in France, they call the connoisseurs “pretentious” and the intelligent “arrogant”. I don’t care anymore.As a movie-music-literature lover I have a sweet spot for Jazz and the so-called Noir, films and books, not only the top class rated but al-so the B-movies and the pulp-fiction best sellers. Now, there are some great authors in that category like Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chan-dler, Jim Thompson (the greatest), just to name a few from the past and some excellent new ones like Philip Kerr, Jo Nesbo, Michael Dibdin, again just to name a few. “writers” who at the age of 35 have al-ready produced 50 novels and are still writing a book once or twice a year aiming to sell books, commercialize the product, make money. They are largely different to those great ones that are/were AUTHORS, producing literature. I don’t care entering into either category, I honestly could use some huge money. No intention whatsoever to be-come immortal. An author writes a book expecting to be read, he writes for his readers with or without the intention to make money or glory. He-she has a target. I write books for myself! Fill up empty time. I don't expect anything from them and that's why they are FREE -and always be - The ones in Greek are the same under my real name(in GR) Βαγγέλης Δημητρογλου.I have not only watched but studied almost all the films-Noir and Neo-Noir if it matters, plus all the great movies the 7th art has produced, in decline nowadays thank you very much Netflix. As for music, my other passion, after classical music and Jazz all the rest is chill-out ambience sounds. And yes, I love aphorisms.World History has been my secondary passion. I believe we will never learn everything about our past and definitely never the truth. This “truth” has been suffering through centuries, it is not a modern invention. The fast-growing technology has created the terms “fake news” or “alternative truth” as if the truth is and always will be one and only. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple” said the great Os-car. Don’t ask Oscar, who? There was only one.History and crime, two things that go together like Siamese twins, let it be then. And a hard-boiled sleuth, not much different than the old, and new, famous ones. I’m a huge fan of Bernie Gunther, I confess.The East Roman-Byzantine empire has a history of 1000+ years, drowned in blood, intrigue, debauchery, violence and misery all at once, that led to its destruction, better known as Dark ages. Not at all a dull place for a sleuth!! They say that historic fiction is a difficult gen-re. Well, almost nothing in life comes easy. Otherwise, we would have nothing to be proud of every time we accomplice successfully a tough task, achieve an exploit, win a challenge.This is my first attempt to write a novel, to write anything. I definitely don’t want to insult your intelligence. I simply intend to challenge your ignorance and provoke your curiosity. The field is vast and intriguing and there might be more Theo Vardas adventures to come. I am getting older and older though every day, like you all, but I’m already 66y.o.OCTOBER 2020 EDIT: I think my Byzantine period is over, all old books removed to be re edited and republished...eventually, hopefully before I die. Not that I care about neither, republish or death. Yet, last time i talked with that hooded type with the scythe, he reassured me i still have time for more wicked Noir stories so, here i come with a new sleuth, Isidore Ducasse, transferring the action where i live in SW France. first book already out the next one's cooking in the oven. Considering I have some old Byzantine books to edit, re-write, enrich and republish ...i might live another 50 years and see grandchildren arriving. My twins, to whom I dedicate all books, are 22 now.

Book preview

I HAVE TO write a preface to this book because I am not a writer, far from it. Already 67 years old, even if I had the intention of becoming one, I’ve run out of time. The fact is I have already managed to finish a book, it’s out there under the same name, A BYZANTINE REQUIEM, but it turned out more Historical than Noir. The historical events being far too much more important than the fictional sleuth story. But, if I am about to become a writer in my old age, I’d rather prefer to become a Noir fiction novelist than a Historian. History still remains one of my interesting subjects to read/study about but the Noir, movies, and literature both, have always been my passion for more than 40 years and as pretentious I may sound, I know everything about it. Genre or style, name it as you like, for me, it remains a modern social study connected with crime and/or fear. Both are primal functions and feelings of the human being. The first thing a newborn baby does, coming out from his mother’s womb is crying, afraid about the new unknown world opening for it. And one of the first actions of the human being in its evolution was to kill. Animals to live first, and those who wanted to take them from him later. The Noir remains an important study of the human nature albeit nowadays it’s considered sexist and too macho. I don’t have a problem with that, someone who writes FICTIONAL novels is not necessarily a male chauvinist or a sexist or a toxic misogynic himself. That’s where the style gets in because back in the ’40s-’50s where all these begun, the androcratic society was at its highest. All have changed today, fortunately, and women are no longer dames’ or chicks" but there’s a certain vintage feeling into anything said or written today in the Noir narrative. I despise the term ‘politically correct’ and being a true aficionado of the Noir I’ll try to follow the pattern and don’t care about the lapidation.

The Byzantine detective Theophilus Vardas is transferred in modern times, only him, not the Turk hopefully, and bears another name which isn’t without a context meaning since it’s referring to a person that has actually existed. Isidore Lucien Ducasse was the name of a very famous poet who used Comte de Lautréamont as his nom de plume.

Private Investigators, detectives, sleuths, shamus, whatever, are out of fashion anymore. In most crime fiction thriller novels, Noir or not, the main hero is a police-man, commissioner, inspector, or other, and a P. I is a character in the borders of extinction. I DON’T LIKE police-men, never did. And all those smart guys resolving crime cases usually in pairs, man and woman these days, seem like they have all come out of the same mold. Depressed mavericks with a drinking problem, recently divorced or cuckolded, a kid dead in an accident or dying from cancer terminal phase in a hospital and these kinds of stereotype bull and gee … bearing all that burden they outsmart criminals and murderers within 200 pages. There’s no such a police-man nowhere in the world. People join the police to become steady monthly-wages public-servants and usually very stupid to do something of their own. Apart from that, most of them are rotten or compromised. They are either ‘bad guys’ or too stupid for the job. Best-seller’s authors picture them and build up characters which have nothing to do with real life, the actual society. They can’t find a grain of sand on a beach let alone their own ass. How they could solve crime master-mind mysteries? A P.I on the other hand is a more normal person, same depressed, abandoned, and with drinking issues but he’s out there alone, on his own, independent and free not to go by the book, in one-word HUMAN. He looks into the eyes and listens, tries to uncover people’s characters and personalities, their flaws or their mistakes, or their secrets if that’s what it’s all about. Hence, probably intelligent and self-confident enough not to apply for the Police force. A Noirish crime novel is, should be, a social study, the bad are very bad, and the good who have turned bad rather sympathetic. No judgment oh hidden moral lessons, that’s on the reader to decide. The femme fatale is the sine-qua-non of the Noir. Has to be there somewhere otherwise it would be soup without any salt. A style rule I gladly endorse. My hero is a vagabond-bon-viveur and irresponsible who becomes a sleuth-by accident or wishful thinking maybe. The beginning of that part of the story comes from a personal real experience, not the ending and the follow-up. That’s where pure fiction starts. I honestly have enjoyed very much to bring a vintage 50’s character into the millennials.

The story is all fictional of course, and any resemblance to real persons and names dead or alive purely coincidental. It’s a first-person narrative though, describing some of my personal real activities and ideas but it’s not an autobiography. Purely fictional, a product of a probably deranged imagination.

The questions with all these crime novels and hero-detectives are, one, what if somewhere, someplace, these things have really happened and, two, has anyone before ever written a similar story and this one is plagiarism. No-one can ever answer either. This is not a scientific theoretical analysis usually full of copy and paste but a fictional narration of a crime and all the social issues raised with it. If someone has had the same idea before or someone will later, remains utterly unknown. Music is an art consisting of seven notes, 12 with the semi-notes and all possible combinations by two, three, four, etc. of those 12 things must be exhausted by now given the time that music exists, and the logical deduction could be that someone is copying someone. Copying or imitating, that’s the question. I don’t claim to be original, there have been some monstrous giants in the field before me whom I have thoroughly studied so any …imitation comes out natural and personal.

This is in a first-person narrative hence, it inevitably reflects my personal ideas, codes, morals, and life-experiences albeit it remains fictional. A pretentious sexist, atheist, and misogynic toxic male(?). Speaking words of wisdom, let it be, let it be, let it be. In Cmaj.

All these to reject the tag author from my forehead. What this book is all about you will find it starting from the next page.

1

It could happen to you

I was born in Athens, Greece, at rough times, and in poverty. Proved to be intelligent enough in school and despite all financial difficulties, managed to do Uni studies. Got a degree in Economics and a Cambridge certificate in English, mingled in the revolutionary-Union movements during student years- the era was calling, junta regime at the time-, discovered I was too romantic, Epicurean and Cartesian, for all these, and quit everything to move south, the most southern island of the archipelago, where I put up a Jazz cocktail bar. OK, this isn’t an autobiography novel but I had to start from somewhere. Don’t get bored and quit so easily.

The bar became the city’s finest, still is, playing classical music early evening 7 to 9 and Jazz afterward till closing time at 02 a.m. I kept it alone, the one-man-band Jack of all trades and ran a wild nocturnal life of music, Jack Daniels and Lucky’s, and loose tourist girls passing every evening. Mind you it was a top-class tourist destination and the feminist women liberation era had just started. Within the tourist’s hordes this was translated into sex-sun and sea. Girls started first getting sexually liberated and when tired and bore became politically liberated. Or they became politically liberated just to get laid. Add the booze and the loud happy songs and you have the full picture. The bartender-owner behind the bar, always quick with a joke or light up your smoke, didn’t really have to try hard for a new acquaintance every evening, all girls were up for a free drink especially one of those original cocktails composed upon occasion.

The classical music time 7-9 p.m. was usually quiet. Too late for the circus but too early for the bars, and probably not so many people crazy about classical music either. Me, myself and I enjoyed it though, alone with coffee and cigarettes most of the evenings. Not that evening. An Italian trio walked in along with the brass in Hector Berlioz Fantastic Symphony in the 4th movement. Two MILFS around 40-45 and a young gigolo. Three dry martinis, my all-time expertise, with the green olive and the twist, and small chit-chat about everything and nothing, before the second round of martinis I had become certain. The girls, Gucci and Antonella, were both very pretty and looked very elegant and rather rich. Well, compared to all those groups of hippies with heavy backpacks and unshaved legs, the difference was obvious. The gigolo I’ve-never learned-his-name was there for Gucci only and that left a wide-open space to harpoon Antonella who actually seemed very positive with the idea. She an I monopolized the convo while the happy couple kept on to meddle in heat. The MILF was a ripe fruit ready to drop but it was still very early in the evening and many things could happen till closing time. It was about time to change the program, more people started walking in and the trio left to go for dinner saying something like ‘we’ll be back after dinner’ which was bullshit said 9and a half times out of 10. The surprise was that they didn’t bullshit. They did return for a late drink around 11:30 and at that moment I knew. Because people who say ‘I’ll be back’ when leaving usually never mean it but in case they do, it’s a sure thing to conclude. The moment they walked in late night I was sure that I and Antonella would spend the night together upstairs. My apartment is just above the bar and it’s good no one lives there when the bar is open since the bar’s ceiling and my apartment’s floor is the same timber and footsteps from above are easily heard in the bar. Just like I have thought, Gucci and the gigolo left around midnight, and Antonella stayed until the bar’s closing time.

It was a rather busy night and like I’ve said, I run the place alone, so I didn’t have plenty of time to chat and joke with Antonella at the bar but I felt her eyes on me no matter what I did, from preparing drinks to washing up glasses just to overbid my confidence about the rest of the night. At 2 o’clock I almost kicked the last customers out, left everything unarranged, turned off the lights and we walked to my door. Now, what kind of idiot in our times leaves the key of his door under the geranium pot outside it…you know the answer. I had been doing it since day one thought and nothing had ever happened. First time for everything as they say. The key under the pot is a hint for the moment.

Antonella was tall, slim, athletic, and tanned. Tanned like copper without tan-lines, a sign that when she was sunbathing, she didn’t wear anything. She had deep-red hair, probably dyed but I was not able to confirm because she was hairless. And I don’t mean shaved, hairless like epilated everywhere. She had a pretty face showing upcoming wrinkles with a pair of beautiful dark eyes and a captivating smile. Not a milligram of fat on her trained body, she was volcanic in lovemaking plus extras. The body-to-body fight, with the extras, lasted almost three hours and, believe me, staying without a smoke for three hours deserved every minute of it. After such a session a long soothing sleep in each other’s arms usually follows but in her case it didn’t. She insisted to return to the boat -boat(?) because sometimes the captain sometimes sails without previous notice and when he does so, it’s always at dawn and he never bothers to see if everyone is on board. I didn’t have to escort her to the boat but I was invited for lunch on the ‘Zeca’ at 3 p.m. if I wanted to. I immediately accepted the invitation and partially this was a huge thank you for letting me sleep instead of walking her back at 5 in the morning. She got dressed and left throwing a ‘see you there, then’ and I submerged into the arms of Morpheus till noon.

There’s that great type, Ari, doing his military service in the Naval Museum at the corner and sometimes he gives me a hand in the bar when the Museum is closed in the evenings. I had breakfast and coffee at the café next to the Museum and asked Ari to go and open the joint at 7 in case I was not there. I told him my last night’s adventures and the lunch invitation skipping the spicy details. I know that men like to brag about their sexual adventures but I am not that kind