“Dan Turner here. Private investigator.”

His phone etiquette was remarkable. With a voice that rung loud and clear despite a breakfast of cigarettes and a brain flinging neurons around like a connect-the-dot Olympics, he may have been the most well equipped long-range bullshit artist in the Clark County area. You need someone found? Followed? Dug into? Dan’s the man. Just get on the line. 

“Turner? Private what? I thought you was a cop?”

“Private investigator. And was being the key word.”

Kicked off the force. But what good cop hadn’t been? And I'm not telling you to look into it, because if you did, you'd find the answer is a lot of them. But the real question was, who in their right minds was in a position to judge an officer of the law - one of our boys in blue - for his moral value? And the answer to that, to great misfortune for our hero, was Judge Barber. So Turner took a few bribes, turned a few blind eyes. What was the harm? 

“Left the force, Turner? They always said you was a gangster.”

“Private investigator. Who the hell am I speaking to?”

People didn’t even introduce themselves anymore. Dan ticked a mental box - very poor phone etiquette. You’ve got to be careful what kind of clients you took on. The work reflects on you. That’s what they say. Though, theoretically, the work Dan did was understood to be under complete discretion, so if it were to end up reflecting on him, it would probably be doing so poorly. 

“That depends. You the snout who wacked the bookie on Broadway in broad daylight, in uniform?”

Yeah, Turner had shot a few guys in the line of duty too. So what? You ever meet a good cop who hadn’t used his weapon? And if a prosecutor had tried to connect those murders to an organised crime syndicate - unsuccessfully, mind you - what grounds is that for termination? Innocent until proven guilty, that’s the American way. What happened to this country? 

“I’m a private investigator, chief, and unless you’re hiring me to find the fuckin’ point you’re making, you’re losing me.”

“Look, I thought you was still a cop, not a private whatever-“

“Private investigator, Jesus, do I need to get you a fuckin’ dictionary?”

“Alright, alright, god damn.” Dan could hear the caller muttering ‘salty son of a bitch’ under his breath. There was a pause before he resumed speaking, as if he took a moment to really consider the nature of his call. 

“Nevermind, Turner. I’ll see ya when I see ya.”

Clink.

God damnit. As sure as Christ wore sandals, it wasn’t the job that was gonna be the end of him; it was the downtime. It had been months since he’d done a job. Weeks since he’d had one. In the great play of life, Dan felt like a cardboard stone. He knew it was only a matter of time until that door flung open, or the phone rang again, and this time with something real. Something juicy. A case, at the very least. The truth was Dan would've given a cactus a massage if it could write a cashier's check. 

He checked his watch. Four o'clock. At least it was almost happy hour. 

BlackJack is walking down the street. He reaches the end of his cigarette, stamps it out on the ground and checks his watch. The time reads 4:05pm. He reaches into his pocket for another cigarette, he opens his cigarette case only to find it empty. Suddenly a man runs past him in a rush and bumps his shoulder. BlackJack notices that the man has dropped his wallet, he picks it up and chases after the man.

5 minutes later...

The man finally stops running along as he darts into the local pub. The board outside reads:

Happy Hour:

4pm-6pm 

BlackJack reaches the pub and darts inside. He walks up to the man and introduces himself:

"Hi there good sir, I couldn't help but notice you dropped this on your rush to get to the pub. My name is BlackJack, I reside in Black Bottom, Detroit. How do you do?:

BlackJack hands the wallet to the man.