New Orleans Noir: Clean Hands and Tipped Scales

Have a taste for Crystal sauce, bayou mysteries or Big Easy gangbangers? I have just the thing for your bad appetites: I write New Orleans Noir.

My most recently published work is "Clean Hands and Tipped Scales" at ThugLit, Issue #36. An excerpt is below:

“Somebody tell you this banger was smoking a joint when he got jumped?”
Detective Sergeant Ferraris smells like the bad gumbo he stuffs into his gob at
those peeled-paint soul food joints and Cajun watering holes down in Bywater. Cayenne. Serrano peppers. His sneer has the bite of fifteen herbs and spices to it. I don’t like the flavor.
I don’t like his humor either. I let him know by spitting on his crime scene.
“Heard it was gang-related.”
“From who?”
“From your fat, frog-speaking mother, retard.” I tell him.
“Mon dieu,” Ferraris doesn’t lose the smile. He never does. Chalk that up for another reason I hate him from the tips of his polished boots up to his frosted haircut. “Somebody’s in a mood.”
“Is this train-wreck Hunter Ortega or not?” I point at the six feet of tattoos and bad meat that’s bleeding on the corner of Desire and Law Street.
“Oui. C’est vrai.”
“The same Hunter Ortega that runs skag for Vicious Sparrow?”
“Can’t tell from what’s left of his face.”
I hunker over Hunter. He’s had a real number done on him. That wide nose is a plate of skin now. That mean mouth is just a hole. You couldn’t tell he ever had eyes under all that swelling. And his face isn’t nearly as bad as his hands. And his hands are a fucking Olay ad compared to his groin.
“Gee, Detective Sergeant.” I point at the big, blue Fleur-de-Lis tattooed on the train-wreck’s back, with ‘Vicious Saints’ written under it. “I think I found a clue.”


Enjoy. So to speak.

—M. C. Funk

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Comment by M C Funk on April 9, 2010 at 7:35am
@ Dan — Our protagonist would agree with you there, Dan. She's got no love for the croaking of the fair lingua franca.

@ Benjamin — Good to have you back.
Comment by Benjamin Sobieck on April 9, 2010 at 3:40am
Dan, your bluntness is one reason I keep coming back to CrimeSpace.

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