The Fat Lady Sings

By Russ Meyer

THE FAT LADY SINGS is a darkly comedic suspense thriller. Present day, but with a tip of the fedora to the classic lone wolf detective. The story has won multiple awards in its screenplay version.

Byroan inherited from his mentor the third largest P.I. agency in a city only big enough for two. His sports gambling habit forces him to take on an impossible case: Find an online plumbing school dropout, no photo, name, phone number, or address, whose only contact with her was by e-mail over a decade ago.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 20, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499020526

Russ Meyer

Russ Meyer has had a varied career working in the post office, farm, foundry, delivery. He has owned and managed repair and retail businesses. He is one of Minnesota’s first NASCAR stock car season championship drivers. Russ trained for screenwriting with Dan Decker, Durrell Royce Crays, and Steve Larson. He is a member of Film Independent, Minnesota Screenwriters Workshop, Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum, and FilmNorth. Two of his short scripts have been made into award nominated films. He specializes in thrillers and absurd comedies. His scripts have received accolades from the Nicholls, Austin, Script Pipeline, Contest of Contest Winners, and many others. His screenplays have won fourteen screenplay contests. A fan of the classic film noir detectives, he has written several present-day PI stories. The Fat Lady Sings was the first novella. Now comes the sequel After The Fedora. What’s next for Russ? Jenna’s Gone, his modern western thriller, is in preproduction as an independent production. His sci-fi thriller A Little Favor is becoming a graphic novel. After that . . .

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The smell. Not frozen, but… crisp, like celery snapped fresh out of the fridge. It signaled the time of year when flocks of gulls returned to Duluth and flocks of millionaires migrated to Florida—baseball millionaires, major league players carrying major-sized wallets.

But Duluth, the picturesque San Francisco of Minnesota, is a minor league city. Our minor league baseball team, the Tackin’ Knights, wasn’t going anywhere. They first get their bus fare for away games when the home opener’s ticket sales are counted up.

That’s how it’s done in Duluth. Pretty much everyone knows what a budget is and how to live within it. No dome stadiums here.

’Course, several of the more prominent local dialects pronounce their Os as Us, and who wants to build something that’s dumb.

The Knights’ ballpark is found at the end of a potholed gravel alley in a swampy, low-rent district. It was built of reused paving bricks taken from a nearby thoroughfare. The budget-conscious Knights hired a couple kids to sweep the snow off the bleachers the week before the opener. Gave them season passes in lieu of cash.

I also had a budget. Being a businessman, I had to keep up appearances. I was getting my wear out of my sport coat. It’ll be back in style anytime now, just like it was, briefly, ten years ago when I invested in it. Sure, the seat of my pants has grown a tad shiny. But if someone’s eyes wander off where they shouldn’t, that’s their problem.

My fedora? It’s a hand-me-down from someone more important than myself. My name’s Byroan Dexter, PI.

Before you give me grief, I was named after my grandfathers, Tyrone and Ben. Okay? You have to admit, it’s better than being saddled with the alternative, Ten.

Yogi Berra was my hero when I was growing up. My ma would say, If you don’t stop reading about him so much, you’ll grow up to look like him. Eat your spinach.

And I did. I’m short, a touch wide, and wiry. How do moms know so much?

My being thirty-four, Yogi can relax. If I didn’t make the minors by now, I’m not likely to break any of his records. I’m okay with that, as long as he doesn’t break any of mine.

Duluth has this big pond. Superior. Maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s so large, it slows the temperature change. Anytime the wind blows off the lake, Duluth is a season behind the times.

Only when the major leaguers are well into their regular season is it time for the Knights’ season to begin.

CHAPTER ONE

A NEW SEASON

It was over. The fat lady had sung. The ball game opened with the national anthem, sung opera style. A season’s opening game calls for something special, even in a minor league with a team like the Tackin’ Knights.

Any other day I’d stay for the opening game, but today the fedora went back on my head. I strolled down the ramp from the sparsely populated bleachers. My last case stuck on my mind like a foolish flagpole that got itself frozen to a tongue. Hadn’t been my most brilliant case, but then they never are. Hadn’t made my fortune.

Emerging from the stadium’s shadow, I shielded my eyes from the browbeating sun. The exit turnstile clicked with finality. Nearby, Duluth’s skinny young street musician played a jazzy guitar instrumental.

Wally’d say I’d done my duty. Why does duty seem like a four-letter word?

I stopped, cleaned fresh gum from the heel of my shoe. Life continues.

A crack of the bat. Cheers. I glanced up in time to see the incoming home run ball that beaned me. It changed my stance involuntarily to horizontal.

A crowd circled. One bystander discreetly pocketed the ball.

What luck. Fresh gum, a stale left arm, and a sucker bull’s-eye on me big enough for that four-eyed leadoff man to see. Things started going foggy. Life continues… for some.

CHAPTER TWO

A NEW CASE

It started at the beginning of baseball preseason. I’d come here often to think. No more solitude in the city than outfield bleachers in preseason.

Most fans nestled behind home plate like a swarm of bees that split from their hive. They all rose as a brass band recording of the national anthem began. No fat lady singing here. Just a needle gently riding the waves of a slightly warped record playing The Star Spangled Banner. You know, that platter with the slight pause between the D and the F, like the band leader was trying to make it his personal tune. Through four owners and three ballparks, always the same record. Made you wonder who their moving company was. That wasn’t the only thing I wondered about; there were incidentals, like my next paycheck.

A thousand-foot-long bulk carrier (a boat to you landlocked folk) squeezed under the raised lift bridge, which looked to have been constructed from Paul Bunyan’s erector set.

The ship continued past the squat candy-striped lighthouse at the end of the channel. So short that its beacon was only good for local calls, no long distance.

Up the street was downtown Duluth. Brick and marble canyons of businesses crammed between the harbor and the hill. Pigeons flew by buildings brimming with character, built at a time when air-conditioning consisted of a block of ice.

In Duluth, it’s sometimes difficult to tell that this is the twenty-first century. The pigeons, and just about everything else, take their cue from the ship’s harbor speed. That speed hasn’t varied since the time a negligent captain let a rookie first mate bring their clipper ship to port without taking down the topsails.

The Superior Building’s a three-story blond brick edifice impressive enough to have a corner lot. Byroan Dexter Detective Agency is majestically stenciled on an upper window.

We PIs put our lives on the line at the drop of a hat. Finding cats, hats, lost loves, and other cases of great importance to someone. We do it for cash, and to follow the PI code, which Wally said was in the office somewhere.

Duluth was minding its own business, and I was wonderin’, how could this week not be better than the last. Last week…

CHAPTER THREE

AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE

I put in an evening appearance at upscale Max’s Supper Club. The sign out front proclaimed "Back from New York! Sandra Delaney Presents Her Photo Exhibit: Wally!" The concrete and glass block building hoarded all the land right tight up to the sidewalk and alley.

The club’s rear parking lot lights illuminated the last falling snowflakes of the season. I shivered as I sorted through an assortment of clothes in the trunk of my car. I located a crumpled waiter’s jacket, tossed it on as I hurried from the far corner of the lot.

I stopped at the sight of an imposingly large man in a chauffeur’s cap guarding a limo. Calmly I approached. What’s the good word, Ronald?

He shook his head no. Just once.

I tried to keep the edge off my voice. None?

He repeated his action. I pulled out my gambling tickets, tore them, and tossed them to the wind. I shrugged to Ronald and headed inside.

Brushing snow off my jacket, I grabbed the nearest full hors d’oeuvre tray, held the tray up, hiding both my face and crossed fingers. Sorry I’m late, I explained to an inattentive, overworked kitchen staff. They weren’t about to refuse any extra help, paid or, like myself, unpaid.

The striped velour-papered walls of Max’s main room were lined with framed sequence photos of Wally, my predecessor and mentor. Bespectacled Wally was in his sixties, shown in his office as he self-applied various disguises made from common household materials.

’Course the fedora and sport coat in the pictures matched mine.

The upper crust was schmoozing, drinks in hand. I worked my way around the room, offering the tray.

A jolly salt-and-pepper-haired rotund man pointed out a photo to a fortyish bald man. Look. There. He used shoe polish. Who knew?

The bald man grimaced politely, looked past the chuckling jolly man to a dark corner where a lecherous tall man leaned over a trapped woman, her face unseen.

The lecher quipped, "I bet