Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is our contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.
Hosted by Denise, guided by the simplest of rules: use the prompt word and tell a story in exactly six sentenceseses.
[N.B. I’d almost forgotten the story thread involving Ian Devereaux being ‘requested’ by Lou to do some background research on Cyrus St. Loreto. This was at the outset of the merger proposal from the Bernebau Company to the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge. I’ll try to find the link back. First, I got, like, eighteen sentences to pare down. In my defense, our Mr. Ceasare simply writes himself and anyone else he cares to interact with, once he takes the floor.]Prompt word:
SEAL
“Yeah, the deal is off,” being a Friday, Lou was dressed in business casual, which in the world of crime, restaurants and other non-FTC regulated financial institutions, meant a white shirt half-buttoned like a badly stitched wound, two Cross pens keeping a cigarillo prisoner in the breast pocket, a pair of drugstore reading glasses hanging from a lanyard of pray-worn rosary beads; his face betrayed nothing that did not reinforce whatever message he was interested in conveying; he simply looked at me, the way a hawk on the top limb of a tree is just looking at the grassy meadow below.
Before I could respond, Diane Tierney walked up and spoke into Lou’s ear, the brown waves of her hair tugged by gravity into a profane sacramental seal as effective as any confessional’s latticed-wood screen; I knew better than to interrupt, fidget or do anything that made my presence in the other half of the booth more obvious than it was, not that it would matter; Lou ended whatever discussion he was having with a sotto voce PowerPoint consisting of a series of ‘fuck that’ bullet points.
I looked up as Diane turned to walk back to her office, aka the hostess station at the front entrance, and was rewarded with a half-smile swinging from a raised eyebrow and the brush-bump of her left hip; my day’s ledger left the negative column and soared, discretely of course, into the positive.
I turned my attention back to Lou, as voluntary an action as a dinghy tethered to an oil tanker, in time to see him begin to address me, “Just outa curiosity, mind you, what didja learn about my guy down in Miami?”
Despite the name Emile Zola trying to crash the party, I leaned over the table as far as the force of Lou’s personality permitted, “If the key metric on this guy was deferential respect from his peer group and the desire to do business with him, Mr. St. Loreto makes Keyser Söze look like John Mayer; in one word: Be Careful.”
Lou’s outburst of laughter was as commanding as it was loud, like a pack of starving timber wolves avalanching into a pre-school playground, everything in the place stopped: Sal Divine ceased her slide down the brass pole, the table of college boys froze into sexual mimes and at least one of the power drinkers at the bar had what was clearly a Moment of Clarity; finally Lou stopped laughing, “I like you Devereaux, I know I shouldn’t, but what the hell.”
About clarkscottroger
I do enjoy spending time with Lou.
Most of the time, telling Lou to be careful would be like warning a great white to watch out for other fins. In this case, though…
I agree with Mimi on the great white analogy. 🙂
ikr?
it’s because Ian’s a clark… he’ll take the chance to do right by who he considers a friend
“…meant a white shirt half-buttoned like a badly stitched wound,…” – Excellent wordage right there.
Quite enjoy the Ian Devereaux mystery stories, especially when Lou is in them. Looking forward to the first showdown between Cyrus and Lou.
I suspect both are a bit too good at what they are to have that happen
Was your reply a most elegant dodge from writing the showdown?
(No gauntlets were harmed in writing this comment😆)
lol
(actually, no. the sentiment was genuine. perhaps a little backstory* which might dull some of the elegant but enhance (a) Reader’s enjoyment.)
* so, we all know Lou Ceasare** He first appeared in ‘the Case of the Missing Starr’ the first Ian Devereaux story. (I must interupt this comment, went back to look at my original notes on Lou. Nothing we didn’t know. What I forgot and you Readers probably don’t know is that even then I started writing stripper names against future use. What just cracked me up was a note: Dancer who starts her routine in a nun’s habit: Jessica Habit lol damn! I wish I was still that funny.)
Back to Lou. As everyone knows, Lou is one of those characters that showed up independently real from the get-go, aka a character who ‘writes themselves.’ But, where it gets interesting is that Lou started out as a supporting character. I’m sure there’s a term in writing that tells us more about such characters. The one character that comes to mind is Hawk from the Spenser novels by Robert Parker. (I’ll bet, if Parker was the type to be honest about ‘his process’, he’d say what I’m saying, sometimes we get lucky.)
Now, Cyrus St. Loreto, he showed up in the second (and WIP) Sister Margaret Ryan story. A bad guy. From the start. But (as witness in some of my Order of Lilith serial Sixes, albeit under a slightly different name) Cyrus is more epic a bad guy. Part of this quality derives from a background less defined than that of a certain bar owner. (Went to Catholic schools, was an altar boy until one unfortunate incident, the diocese wisely refused to press charges against the 8th grader and the new parish priest recovered and was transferred)
…damn! Where does the time go.
Would to continue this discussion but there is some flora that is begging to be decimated
** someday I’ll have to find a way of deciding on the final, correct spelling of his last name lol
Nice description of those beads: “a lanyard of pray-worn rosary beads”. And enjoyable name for a drink: “Moment of Clarity”
I musta told ya (reprinted in a Reply) Lou’s explanation for the lanyard.
lemme know if I haven’t great story