Portrait of a Young Man

By Van Dimi

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. Less
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.
This is the second Isidore Ducasse, a P. I sleuth in Southwest France by accident or maybe wishful thought. After installed and established in the city of Pau and with a little help from his friends, Isidore is participating in a treasure hunt with a shameful Historical context. The title and the cover being significant, I wont bother giving further details. History, known and unknown, bright and dark, mixed with fiction in a Noirish narrative that is my favorite. Bad guys are really bad and the good guys not always as good as they should be. In a plot implicating organized crime, the Vatican, the CIA and an emir Arab tycoon, Isidore becomes a moving target among females, not all sexy and gentle. Happy ending and a rather sad historical twist in the end, 100% product of pure imagination. A Jazz lover among others, all chapter titles are Jazz standards. Isidore Ducasse will probably continue with more novels to come.

I am not a professional writer, if it wasn’t about the KDP free publishing I would have probably never been published. I write exactly as I speak without any linguistic fioriture and generally I don’t mind my language. An old man retired from the grind, a passionate educated fan of the Noir literature and cinematography, fantasizing twisted Noir plots and immensely enjoying participating in them on paper, filling up long periods of old-age boredom. Not really writing novels expecting to sell and be read but mostly to keep me busy. Fun and entertainment more than “literature”, easy to swallow pulp fiction that has made quite a lot of people rich. Not me, at least yet!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Van Dimi
• Release date: Nov 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005129620

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

VAN DIMI

PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG MAN

A hard-boiled P.I mystery Novel

Isidore Ducasse #2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter titles are ALL Jazz standards. MAKE A YOUTUBE PLAYLIST!!

1 Lulu’s back in town

2 Nice work if you can get it

3 Everything happens to me

4 I was doing all right

5 Sentimental Journey

6 I’ll be seeing you

7 You’d be so nice to come home to

8 Just one of those things

9 Field of gold

10 God bless the child

11.Things ain’t what they used to be

12 Anima Christi

13 Alone together

14 Satin Doll

15 You can’t pull the wool over my eyes

16 Peel me a grape

17 Someone to watch over me

18 So nice

19 A nightingale sang in Berkeley square

20 That all black magic

21 How long has this been going on

22 Thanks for the memory

23 In the still of the night

24 What a difference a day makes

AUTHOR’S NOTE

DESCLAIMER

I hereby declare that this is a purely fictional mystery-crime novel coming from someone’s probably deranged imagination. Some real Historical persons and events mentioned are true and I didn’t feel I had to treat them tenderly. I’ve tried to be accurate with the regions’ Geography, please, excuse some minor mistakes. See the AUTHOR’S NOTE after the end for more.

For the copyright © 2020

VAN DIMI pen name of VANgelis DIMItroglou

Auto-published with KPD and/or Smashwords.com

1

Lulu’s back in town

Jean-Paul was an idiot. A beloved idiot with a multi-leaves’ artichoke golden heart. The kind of type who would ask what day the Saturday Night Show was on the TV but he would never refuse a favor. He had the constant impression that work was a town in England, it even had its own Duke. At least that’s what he remembered from school. He was not lazy, on the contrary, but he had never managed to keep a job longer than six months, which actually was enough to be eligible for an unemployment allowance. Now at 33, he was still living with his parents, their only son, who were taking care of a little butcher’s shop in the Lons area at the east of the city. They had given up very soon trying to teach him the trade. Too dangerous and risky. A clumsy one could lose easily a finger with those sharp butcher’s knives. He never had his BAC and the only job he could find was a vendor. He wanted, he dreamed to become a pop-singer but he was very soon disappointed he couldn’t understand what a pitch was. His other kid’s dream to become Zinedine Zidane had the same ending. After six months on the lawn, he couldn’t make a pass from his left foot to his right. Vendor will be then. Shoes first, all other kinds of merchandise later, he had even worked in door-to-door sales. Nowhere longer than six to eight months. Minimum wages and zero commissions. No vendor had ever succeeded with such results.

He rode a bicycle albeit his father had taught him how to drive but he’d never managed to obtain a driving license. Not that he hadn’t tried but he couldn’t pass the theory tests before the driving tests. Nine times he tried, nine times failed, a waste of money. He could drive the family car only in case one of his parents was in the next seat and that is because they had asked their car to be modified like the training vehicles with feet-pedals under the wheel of both front seats. He seemed quite happy riding a bike though, at least he used it, unlike all those who had a bike in their garage and never rode it. They watch the Tour de France on the TV every summer and that’s enough biking. The issue was to have a bike in the garage regardless of using it or not.

What Jean-Paul was missing from the inside of his head, he had it on his liver. Made of bronze. The guy was able to go on drinking hard liquor all night and walk straight back home. He had never understood how and why people got drunk and sick. He had created a name, a reputation in almost all bars and night clubs in town. Everybody was buying him drinks to watch him fell but this had never happened. Another reason for his socialization was his sweet-talking. He probably didn’t have the looks or the right vocal cords to become a pop-singer but he was rather pleasant to look at and his voice was of a bass tone and sultry. Every time he started telling his stories in a bar, his audience went on growing distinguishingly advantageous on the female ratio. Almost all unmarried, and some married, women were hanging from his lips. All sorts of short relationships, short tall, older-younger curvy or thin, you name it, women ditched him very soon after their first promising impression when they immediately discovered he was an idiot shortly after. His parents had become desperate, they would love to see him leave the cradle. He didn’t seem to be family orientated himself either.

Another thing he had learned as a salesman was to be shaved and clean with a shirt and a necktie, every moment of the day, regardless. Jean-Paul had never walked out of the house before he showered and shaved and always wearing a blazer-shirt-tie combo. Didn’t he either that Thursday morning after breakfast when he walked the dog out. His parents had bought him a golden Retriever he called Google, the only creature on earth who couldn’t realize he’s an idiot for, namely, it had all the answers. A harmless idiot that everyone seemed to love, why wouldn’t the dog? Most idiots are a nuisance but Jean-Paul was a beloved one.

Springtime was rising that April morning, sunny but still chilly, especially in the morning when the sun hadn’t reached its peak, still up though when he walked into the Lons’s forest with Google on a leash. A few meters after the entrance he released his leash and the happy dog ran among the trees. He knew that when he blew his whistle the dog would have run next to his leg at once.

Jean-Paul was walking nonchalantly on the forest path, empty of people at this time in the morning, smelling the ground still wet from the day’s before rain when he heard the dog barking wildly somewhere on his left. Curious, he followed the sound of the barking and from afar he saw his dog barking on something …white. He harried his pace and he saw it. A human body, probably female with her skirt and a hair bun, laying into a paddle of a thick white liquid that seemed like wall paint. Jean-Paul was an idiot but not enough not to realize that the woman was dead. Enough idiot to call first the local TV channel, a subsidiary to the local main newspaper, take a few photos with his smartphone and post them on all social media, oh yes, Jean-Paul had accounts in all of them, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. All idiots have accounts there -the equation is not amphidromous, people who have accounts there are not ALL idiots - and he was not an exceptional idiot. Just the kind of idiot who finds out he has forgotten his card in front of an ATM and asks the next in line to lend him his. Jean-Paul had dreamed all his life about those 15 minutes of glory and fame. Have you seen me on TV last night? … early morning, walking the dog, wearing a tie, … of course, I have, moron. People started gathering around, smartphones on fire shooting photos, reporters with video cameras and microphones when someone, probably another idiot, asked.

‘Did anyone call the Police?’ and after they had been looking at one another awkwardly for five minutes, someone called the Police.

Idiots are a part of the society everywhere. Proportionally that is, there are many more idiots in the USA, India, or Chine than in Andorra or Lichtenstein for example without the intention of being a racist. They are actually harmless when identified, which is not always the case, and they make the world go round and the economy boost. The mega-super rich would have been starving if it was not for them. Some, very few, may become dangerous, especially those who dye their hair orange, but statistically they are irrelevant. Most idiots are harmless because no one has ever told them and if someone did, they didn’t believe him. Ignorance is bliss. Jean-Paul had made it to become a star for an evening. He strolled the bars at night and he was cheerfully welcomed everywhere.

When the police arrived, they met with a crowd of curious people, TV vans, microphones, photo and video cameras with endless lines of cables and they had to elbow hard to get to the dead body. Before they put the yellow stripe all around it in pegs, the death scene had already been contaminated. The picture of the ‘white lady’ had been in a numerous amount of telephones and spread upon thousands through social media long before the police experts started working. The local channel played the scene every hour and the newspaper issued an extra afternoon edition with a very big title about the ‘white lady’ with an even bigger photograph on the front page and some more in the inside pages for the readers to assimilate the happening all with the same caption. WHO IS SHE?

A rather tall, slim, and svelte woman in her ‘30s wearing an orange ‘POLICE’ band on her arm was heard to have shouted upon arrival.

‘Holy shit! What a fucking circus!’

2

Nice work if you can get it

I woke up with a hangover and a naked MILF next to me. I don’t make that up, I checked she was naked before getting out of bed because my head was weighing 100kilos and I had a blanc fragment in my memory of how this had happened. I could hardly recognize my warm and cozy studio. The infallible sign I was chez moi though was the demanding mewing of a hungry cat. Non-negotiable to make coffee first and then fill up his bowl. Why the hell doesn’t he chase mice at nights like all respectable cats? The answer flashed as obvious, Purcell was not a respectable cat, especially after he had been castrated. And evident as it may seem he was constantly hungry getting fatter every day. I filled up his bowl with croquettes and another with milk and headed to the coffee machine to find out that there was no coffee in the tin. It had happened before and since Marcel’s bistro was just outside the door, it had never been a problem. The old professional trick I used to have when I had the bar, always buy them in pairs. When you start the reserve, the second one, note down to replace it had been forgotten along with all my past life and name. And perhaps a bar tender-owner has to buy all his stuff in pairs but have you ever met a sleuth who goes in a store and buys TWO packs of coffee? Only cigarettes and booze in abundance, for the rest … But this morning I didn’t wake up alone. I hate it when I don’t wake up alone. It’s the remains of an old principal I had learned in my past life when almost all of my night company had been tourists and Agamemnon-Menios was responsible for it. According to that principal "Never take the male dog to the bitch to mate,