Crime Scenes by my buddy Gary Swan and His Band

Not a 1940s song by any measure but reminds me of Aachoo a lot. 

Plus...I luv you, Gary!!!! Love this song! Come visit me, I might write you in!!!! 

You could be a night club singer ......or whatever...❣❣

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode 15...Mobsters, Moola and All That Jazz.....Another point of view

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 15

Mobsters, Moola and All That Jazz

Nick was still in rehab. He was going to be in there for quite some time. His body still looked like an accordion just beginning to unfold. His handsome face was unscarred, unblemished. Thank God for that. I felt just about as low as a snake's belly as MiMi would say, for the part I had played in his un-foreseen accident with the folding stairs outside my apartment building. Of all the crazy things that had happened to my dates and love interests, that had been the craziest! If only I could go back to that night and had just waited two hours for the elevator to start running and then given up and walked up the inside stairs to my apartment like I usually did! If only! Nick had been so nice to walk me home in the rain from his pub. It had been romantic and sweet in a mystifying way because he was simply a mystifying man.

I had been semi-infatuated with him for some time as had every woman who'd laid eyes on him or imbibed one of his special concoctions or been the target of his unvoiced seductions. As far as I knew, he had played with the affections of many hopeful young/old/still breathing dames but hadn't walked any of them home but me. I think he wanted to see if my dangerous reputation was half as exciting as he'd heard it was. He was curious. Especially after that historic Saturday night when approximately twenty-eight of my past dates and one day or one night boyfriends had shown up at his place all nursing broken hearts or ribs or whatnots and looking to get sauced. 

They were probably also hoping to get a glimpse of me (from afar) as they knew I sometimes ended up there after a case or a perplexing run in with detectives who were always trying to find me guilty of something stupid. Which I was, but I didn't think being stupid was illegal, just stupid. I couldn't help it. For the most part I think they just liked taking and looking at my mugshots. I finally got suspicious after they started asking me to put on fresh lipstick and unbutton my blouse. And I ask you, how many cops did it take to take a side shot and a face forward? Plus, they never asked me to hold a sign in front of me! (Mugshot taking was followed by a doughnut and coffee reception in the precinct meeting room. Invitation only.) Sheesh!

The other gumshoes in my circle of gumshoes thought it was funny that the girl that was only out to solve crimes usually ended up being charged with crimes. At least until they fingerprinted me and took some new photos. They usually let me go after long, tedious interrogations that only ended with them learning new swear words I had picked up from the parrot or MiMi and me learning how loudly their wives could scream on the phone at half past midnight as their pot roasts dried out on the stove. Johnny, (we called him "Ooh, Johnny" because that's how dames usually addressed him, made it his goal in life to tease and torment me about my love life, arrest record and the fact that I had solved every case he'd ever been hired to work on while sitting behind my desk and just putting the facts together while filing my nails and reading notes on his unsolved mysteries. I didn't even have to try. And he couldn't stand it. 

He couldn't find a clue if it jumped into his lap. And believe me, lots of them had. He was darkly handsome, suave in a way not easily defined and thought he was God's gift to women. Some thought he was. (I thought he was a toad I'd never kiss.) George usually took my side and defended me the best he could but most of the P.I.s cajoled me cruelly or good-naturedly when we met in bars or Gumshoe Conventions. The mean ones who treated me cruelly were either guys I had not given any kind of chance or were guys I had given a chance and they had taken it. And I refuse to go into detail about that. There were good private dicks and there were lousy private dicks. I just wish they'd come up with a new word for private detectives. I was all grown up and my mother still washed my mouth out with soap if I said that word in her presence. I had never dared date or bring any guy home to meet my parents named Dick for that reason alone. It would have been humiliating for all concerned.

After my experience working for Big david or rather his sister Prudence, word had gotten round that I was "the dame to deal with" in both crime solving and crime commiting circles. Mobsters loved me, which made me nervous and cops loved me, which made me nervous but they kept me busy and employed in between mundane everyday cases like finding lost cats and wayward husbands or wives and solving mysteries that entailed "who did what to whom and who stole what from where." Crimes and mysteries always involved the letter "W." That was just a fact. Like mobsters involved money and the other "M" word, you know the one............ Malarkey.

The thing about detectives and mobsters that I found fascinating was how they tended to dress alike. Sharp suits, fancy hats and trench coats. I don't know who started the trend but the mobsters' suits tended to be sharper and more expensive. They were usually custom made by tailors bought and paid for and petrified to make mistakes like crooked seams and buttonless button holes. I supposed they added in all sorts of hidden pockets and places to hide guns, knives and phone numbers of public officials. I daresay not too many detectives could afford private tailors or found themselves in the good graces of any pubic officials worth knowing or calling. 

The police detectives tended to look down upon private detectives for several reasons, none of which I shall go into here. Okay, maybe one. Most of us worked alone. We didn't have angry sergeants or supervisors breathing down our necks, we could sleep till noon and we could wear evening gowns to work if the occasion called for it. Well, I did anyway. There weren't a lot of female private you-know-whats. I had heard rumors about a cop that worked out of Burglary and Stick-em-Ups who wore evening gowns and favored gold lame' but he claimed it was only when he was working undercover in a private club for extremely ugly women. I don't know. Who knows? And I don't care to know.

Mobsters were a special breed of men. They loved their mothers, they went to church and they did reprehensible, despicable things without thinking twice about it. There were all sorts of mobsters or gangsters if you prefer that word. White ones, black ones, Oriental, Italian, you name it. We had them in the Big Apple. They were celebrities of sorts. Like Lipps, the movie monster mobster  (say that four times fast) I had found in the alley. People loved him. Well, except for maybe two people. I had never liked him but that's just me. I hated movie monsters. They scared me. Why I went to see them at theaters I'll never know but I did. And I always went straight over to MiMi Voo's to sleep in her guest room for a week with Beulah until I stopped having nightmares. I felt safe with Beulah. A chicken for Pete's Sakes! My deepest, darkest most humiliating secret that no one will ever pry out of me under the hottest lights and the most tortuous long interrogations or threats to call my mother. I would sooner die than reveal that.

Big david was at the top of the mobster heap. He and an equally scary but equally smooth talker with the un-pronounceable moniker of (you might want to sit down and take a drink of something while I prepare my brain and tongue for this.) Giovanni Alphonso LaMacho Giancarlo Genovia Luciano Bonnano de Flippi, Jr. (I think I spelled that correctly.) Aka Uncle Alph. He was nobody's uncle but everybody called him that because when Giovanni Alphonso LaMacho...etc etc etc told you to do something, you just did it. He thought it was cute so everybody thought it was cute. And you could continue with your breathing and so forth. In fact, in order to become a bonafide member of Uncle Alph's gang, you had to either be born into the family or go through an extensive initiation that included saying and spelling Uncle Alph's full name as written on his abnormally long birth certificate. He came from a very large family and his parents didn't want to leave anyone out when they named their first born son. Both maternal and paternal sides of the family were known to hold centuries old grudges and they didn't settle feuds with fist fights or name calling. 

One of the toughest gangsters in New York City was a darker skinned fellow called Jack Knife James otherwise known in various circles as Evil Genius and The Horn Man. He was sharper than the blade he carried in style and dress and smarter than Einstein on his best day. He also played jazz trumpet and could disguise himself and sneak in and play in any club with any band in the world. Benny Goodman's, for example. Once for kicks, he'd played the annual Policemen's Ball with an all policeman jazz ensemble even though he had approximately thirty-six current warrants against him at the time. As per his name:  Genius. He could make a trumpet cry, they said of him. He could make a big man cry. He could make a big man cry while playing the trumpet. He could make a...well, you get the picture. He was big and bad but he loved kids and kittens and a pretty brunette named Zelma Lee. Word was that she didn't love him back and that's what made him mean but he never gave up pursuing her or rescuing kittens or let that interfere with his mobstering.

Which brings me back around to....wherever I was when I started this whole thing. Nick's Pub! Poor Nick had been lying in bed worrying about his famous/infamous watering hole and what to do about it while he recovered. He was at his wit's end when an old friend named Clyde Miraculous showed up with a solution. Clyde had retired... er ..been fired from running a famous club up in Harlem for a few months on a trial basis and was on his way to sunnier shores when he'd heard about Nick's accident. Wanting to help out his old army buddy, he agreed to run Nick's place until he got back on his feet. Nick was delighted. Clyde was one of those people that you never could tell where he hailed from....... Alabama, Argentina or Africa. He was multi-cultural and multi-talented. He could do anything, fit in anywhere and he loved smoky blue jazz music more than anything in the world. Except for his favorite cousin who was the sole supporter and pride of the whole Miraculous family and all of it's branches. His cousin was Jack Knife James. 

Nick was laid up for months. I sent him flowers and cheese sandwiches but I kept my distance. I tried to visit once but the look on his handsome face stopped me in my tracks so I blew him a kiss and left the gifts with a nurse. In the long interim, strange things happened to him that he never foresaw. He lost his magical abilities and propensities. He lost his power to seduce women with his thoughts. He lost his mind reading and mind controlling and he also lost his grandfather's pocket watch. The one young Grandpa Resko had used in his vaudeville magic show to hypnotize his wife, Joy into marrying him and grown men into believing they were cows in the Foreign Legion. The name of the act was The Riveting Reskos. (After his sudden marriage to the lovely audience member.) Before that, it was just Resko. His grandparents had vanished on stage one evening in the old Vanishing Cabinet act the day after Nick turned 21, never to be seen again. Nick cherished the watch and kept it with him always. But somewhere between the ambulance and the emergency hospital, it had disappeared just like his mother's amazing parents. 

That vanishing act had made headlines all around the world and the mystery had never been solved. Nick kept his grandfather's tools of the magic trade in a secure location and studied the tricks and illusions in his spare time, mastering most of them. However, he had yet to learn the secret of and to the Vanishing Cabinet. That one appeared to be true magic.

Before his release to leave, Nick had been hearing things about the "hot new jazz club" in town. The-Place-To-Be. The bar everyone wanted to be caught dead in. He was worried because it sounded like it was in his small pub's neighborhood. He didn't need the competition. He couldn't wait to get the run down from Clyde. Clyde had promised to pick him up the afternoon the doctors had determined he had recovered enough to walk again and chew gum. He was cautioned sternly to stay away from stairs and to keep off his feet for a while. That wouldn't be too difficult since he mostly just sat on a stool behind the bar and had stimulating mental conversations with attractive women. But there would be no more of that. He'd tried his best mind control and silent seduction on all the nurses at the various facilities he'd been recuperating in to no avail. No avail at all!!! It was frustrating and a little bit horrifying. 

Few people knew how extremely shy and introverted Nick really was and what had led him to learn his grandfather's magic tricks and mental manipulations in his awkward teenage years. He had become so adept at it that it frightened him sometimes but he kept a cool exterior. His grandfather had seen him in action before he'd entered that cabinet and dematerialized for the last time and he'd been amazed, amused and a little bit jealous. Nick wondered if it were possible to one day find a girlfriend without resorting to mentalism and magic beans. He didn't know. He could only hope. Women seemed to find him boring when he tried to talk to them verbally. Except for Aachoo Voo. But that woman scared the living daylights out of him! She was the reason for all of this. Losing his health, job, tan, paranormal powers and very nearly, his will to live. Did he dare go near her again? That had been an incredible kiss and she fascinated him but was she worth dying for? 

Clyde was late. It was getting dark and Nick was getting impatient and about to go back inside and attempt to call him when he saw that flashy car Clyde loved to brag about pull up to the curb. "My man!" Clyde greeted him as he hopped out, opened the passenger side door and hurried to help Nick into the car.  It was slow going. His bones were still crunchy. "So sorry I'm running late." he said, "But I had some last minute things to take care of." "That's okay." Nick assured him and cleared his throat to begin asking questions about the pub and the new place everyone was buzzing about but Clyde waved them off and said in a low voice, "Listen, Nick. I got some things I need to tell you, man. I don't know how you're gonna take 'em but man, things have been happening!" Nick held his breath and steeled himself for some bad news. Like, the pub had burned down bad news. Like, the pub had been quarantined because of Black Plague bad news. Clyde kept quiet like he was trying to find the words to spill the bad news but couldn't find any so they drove on in silence. There didn't seem to be any thoughts in Clyde's mind to read so Nick just leaned back and fell asleep, fearing the worst.

 He was awakened by bright lights, the sound of loud music and the giggles of happy women. He rubbed his eyes and tried to get his bearings but the scene seemed a little bit too surreal to be real. Still dreaming, evidently. "Nick, my friend, welcome home!" Clyde beamed, throwing open the car door and helping Nick to his hesitant feet. There was a red carpet there for him to walk on, lined on both sides by excited people of all shapes, sizes and colors. There was a doorman in uniform holding the door open to a freshly painted and newly remodeled building that boasted flashing NICK'S signs all over it. But that was nothing! When he stumbled inside in total disbelief, there was a stage and a packed house and the best bluesy jazz band he'd ever heard in his life, fronted by none other than the man himself, Jack Knife James, The Horn Man, Evil Genius and second cousin to Clyde Miraculous, up there making grown men cry with his moaning trumpet! He couldn't believe it! It was too much to handle for a crumpled man. But it appeared to be true! The Hottest New Place In Town was his own former lowly, lonely little pub! Nick had no idea what to do or say so he just folded up and fainted. 

It was one of the happiest moments of Clyde's life even though he had no idea what Nick was going to say when he came to. He had certainly been surprised at all the changes. Whether he was thrilled or not was another matter. Maybe he should have prepared his friend but he'd just been so excited to be given responsibility for something again. Like the Cotton Club. Up in Harlem. Oh, my Lord, the changes he had made to that place! The absolutely unappreciated changes he had made to that place!!!! Threatened and beaten to within an inch of his life by angry owners and investors! And fired like a dishwasher with a mound of broken plates! (That he had previously been.) He wondered if he should wait for Nick to wake up or just go get in his car and leave town right then.

And introducing Jack Knife James, the mobster

being played by James Ray.......

who is being played by.......Rex Ingram, great actor from the 40s

 

    James Ray, brilliant writer, former military,

    comedian, chef, father and big truck

    driving son of a gun............

            

            The beautiful Dona Drake as.....

                                                   the lovely Zelma Lee

Special mentions and thanks for playing along to: 

Uncle Alph, Nick, David "Big david"... Prudence, Resko

Clyde Miracle    James Ray,  Dona Drake , Rex Ingram

Aunt Zelma Lee (in memory of) Joy, Ooh Johnny

any poor slob named Dick (sorry)    Beulah, Marjorie Main,

Benny Goodman, The Cotton Club, Johnny/George 

and of course Pete. (of for Pete's Sakes fame) whoever the heck he is....

and mobsters everywhere!!!!!! (Don't hurt me!) 

                Smoky Jazz by Matthew Pablo

 

To be continued in Episode 16.......

https://aachoovoo.blogspot.com/2021/06/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-16-charm.html

Link to episode 16 ^

😍

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode 14 Stranger and Stranger Every Day

 

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 14

Stranger and Stranger Every Day

Lance had disappeared again to who knows where. I hoped he'd be back before Christmas. I planned to treat him to dinner at my parent's palatial home. He had heard so many stories about what went on there during holidays there that he'd begged me to wrangle him an invitation. I had casually dropped the hint that I might be bringing a guest who frequented Hollywood and the Russian Embassy as well as the back stages of Broadway and occasionally the Pentagon (all true) and my mother was instantly impressed (and suspicious) and raised her eyebrows, saying "How wonderful! I'm so glad to see that you're running with a better class of people!" And she gave my father a warning glance, "And do try to talk your mother into leaving that dreadful chicken Gertrude at home, dear!" To which my dad and I both answered simultaneously "Beulah! Her name is Beulah!" The Lady of The Manor sighed and hurried out of the room waving an initialed white handkerchief and moaning in horror while we stifled guffaws behind our disloyal hands.  

We knew there was no chance of that happening. In fact, it was the highlight of every Christmas holiday. The only people who did not look forward to it were my mother and her butler. And the maids who were not paid extra to follow Beulah around with pails and scrub brushes. My entire family and I (excluding my brother, of course) opened presents and ate an elaborate dinner later that day that usually always included ham, beef and platters of roast chicken that my mother made certain were placed directly in front of MiMi Voo with a devilish smirk on her face. (My mother's face.) (And also my grandmother's face.) 

Through five full courses we then endured the tension and poorly disguised animosity masquerading as politeness that filled the elegant dining room like electricity running down Benjamin Franklin's kite. Poppi, bless his heart just sat there in silence knowing better than to interfere with this new holiday tradition. Occasionally he and my father would look at one another and shake their heads discreetly. I would wink and gently kick them under the table. MiMi defiantly refused to eat the chicken even though she loved chicken cooked in any and every way it could be cooked and upon being questioned as to why she would not accept a portion, she always bowed her head and said that she was only showing respect for the dead. Which consequentially spoiled all of our appetites for the chicken and it ended up going home with some poor unfortunate like a doorman or elevator operator or the newly widowed mayor. Oh, Lance was going to have a lovely time with the Voo family, to be sure! I could hardly wait.

As to what had transpired at Lance's place after the all night Halloween party and the "awakening of the faux-mermaid," it had all the makings of a tragic/comic slapstick movie starring Cary Grant and any of a half dozen of my favorite actresses like Jean Arthur, Katherine Hepburn or Carole Lombard.

We had stopped in at my apartment for some of my famous coffee and to check in on the animals who had been restless and excitable with the festivities of the day and who down to the last critter, had tried to prevent me from leaving for the party upstairs. All except the parrot naturally, who had flown around the premises laughing maniacally and dive bombing all his room-mates into fits of terror before locking himself in his cage (I don't know how he got that key made) and cussing me out in parrot-ese because I wouldn't take him with me. 

I had taken photos of him earlier in his little pirate costume and made a fuss over him and given him treats but that apparently wasn't enough. And apparently, he was laboring under the false impression that he was a human being with feathers. And apparently had become his new favorite word because it sounded a bit like parrot, I suppose. He had been driving me mad with it as of late, throwing it into every comprehensible and incomprehensible conversation that he had with me, MiMi and especially himself. I had made a note to call his psychiatrist soon and stuck it on the refrigerator. Also, I wanted to find out where he hid his key to that inside lock and determined to get a copy made of it on the sly. I knew MiMi had made him the costume but I wasn't sure about the key. That bird was too clever for his own good. And too evil. But it had been a memorable Halloween all around.

As Lance and I waited to get off of the barely working elevator all decorated up in ghosts and goblins with hardly enough light shining to see which buttons to push, the ancient thing creaked to a rusty stop and just sat there trembling for a good two minutes without any signs of the door opening. Lance sighed and took the unexpected opportunity to grab me and smack me around with his lips and when the door finally flew open with an unearthly groan, there stood a nun, or what appeared to be a nun, who took one look at us and huffed piously, "Well! I never!" To which Lance responded sweetly, "I would imagine not." She got on, huffing loudly, we got off and almost immediately I tripped over what I assumed were strewn Halloween decorations.  

Then we noticed that the entire left hallway was cluttered with torn bits of fish net from the elevator to the door of the blonde mermaid's apartment. Literally ripped to shreds. Angrily, jealously, ripped to shreds like we imagined could have been either of us or both of us or anyone that had stood in the pathway of Neptune's enraged step-daughter. Lance's eyes grew round as saucers at the very thought and we ran down the hall to the safety of my apartment and my watch dog and parrot and shut the door with a resounding slam. I didn't see her for a couple of weeks and then she was on the arm of a sad little man who looked like he was going to burst into tears at any minute and she pretended not to see me but I couldn't resist hissing at her back and meowing loudly. She completely ignored me but her companion took off running, forgoing the waiting elevator and taking the stairs down to the lobby four at a time. She hated me. And the feeling was growing more and more mutual all the time!

For several weeks I had had the suspicion that I was being followed. Not by the usual people that followed me but by something or someone that was far slyer than detectives, ex-lovers wanting revenge and the Clapsaddle gang of widowed and divorced old reprobates trying to prove their masculinity by pinching young rumps just to get free buttered toast. I felt sorry for them but this year they were all getting coal in their stockings. MiMi had been saving her old tattered stockings for me now for months just for this occasion and the biggest, rattiest one was going to Mr. Harold Clapsaddle! Him and his geezer graphs! I rubbed my naughty hands in anticipation of their little crestfallen faces.

I first noticed a shadow over my head as I walked out of Nick's Pub one very late night after 'snooping' for a client that had no concept of "snooping" himself and got caught a total of twenty-two times (he said ) by the people he was attempting to snoop on. I wasn't quite sure what it was that I 'd been hired to find as the old guy kept changing the description and explanations. One day it was "this thing that had a doohickey on it," and the next day it was a box full of "stuff from Persia" that spies had smuggled out before they started calling it Iran. (The country, not the stuff in the box.) Several times he had drawn me elaborate sketches as we sat there drinking Scotch and soda and listening for imaginary noises in the tall bushes around his dilapidated house. I had yet to catch anyone 'snooping' in his bushes for any reason.

It was usually midnight and I was in a bad mood because he had called me out of a warm bed to drive to Queens in the rain trying to follow a map that looked more like a doctor's prescription than a map. Weeks later after I had complained bitterly about the indecipherable thing, he had handed me a real hand drawn map and apologized profusely for giving me an old prescription written by a doctor from the same asylum the parrot had escaped from. I was quite perturbed and charged him an extra fifty for my trouble. I mean, have you ever tried to decipher a medical doctor's hen scratch? No wonder I had ended up in Poughkeepsie! Twice! Once, in the Hudson River. But I did finally figure out what the old man had been looking for. It was called "company." He was just lonely and needed someone to lie to. The Scotch was good though. And the pay was alright. The lies were extraordinary.

There had been bright lights and buzzing noises outside my bedroom window on a few occasions. I had strange dreams that seemed more than dreams. One morning I had awakened to find my window open and my missing shoes setting there just as plain as day. I was puzzled and delighted, especially when I noticed they'd been professionally shined. I couldn't remember all the details of that night in upstate New York. I was still missing time among other things. I had returned home wearing strange ugly shoes two sizes too big and my clothes on in reverse. And I never did find my thermos. The mystery was so over my head that I finally just gave up on solving it and wrote it off as an  Open Closed case.

One cold moonlit night, Mr. D'Sal and I had gone shopping for new camera equipment because as per usual, I had broken the last equipment he'd helped me pick out. Not to mention his car. It was still in the shop. It had gotten me back home but when I'd slammed the door upon exiting the car, the thing had simply fallen all too pieces. The mechanics at the shop said it looked like it'd been literally dropped out of a plane. They weren't sure they could put it back together and were hinting that it would probably be less expensive to buy a new car. I was considering giving him the convertible I had bought using part of Mr. Arehte's fortune. I hardly ever drove it. I loved it too much to see it destroyed and I knew it would be safe in Mr. D'Sal's care just as long as he didn't let me borrow it.

After shopping we'd gone to Central Park to hear a jazz combo and bought  food and drinks for a picnic under the stars. It was a lovely evening, calm and companionable. We enjoyed the music, food and stars and strolled through the park watching winos and weirdos watching the wealthy and worldly on the way to catch a taxi cab. The only bad thing that happened was when we'd stopped and bought coffees from a vendor and I was holding both cups as Mr. D'Sal paid for them. There was a bright flash of light which momentarily startled and confused me and in the confusion, I inadvertently smashed both cups into my friend's chest and showered him with steaming hot coffee.

He stood there partially screaming silently in pain and partially at the top of his lungs and yet at the same time looking like a man in the throes of either unbelievable horror or ecstasy. (I suppose a quiet, calm evening under the stars had been too much to ask) Neither of us remembered the cab ride home or could figure out why it was nigh on three in the morning when we made it to our respective residences. Nor did we know what had happened to the coffee vendor. He'd just seemed to vanish in the flash of light while still counting Mr. D'Sal's coins. The coffee maker continued to dispense, however but the molecular structure of the coffee had been decidedly changed. (And became too hot for a volcano to swallow.)

Later, snuggled up in bed with Weiner, Toulouse and the ferret, I said goodnight to Manny the mouse and ignored the parrot's screeching complaints about not being allowed in my room and fell asleep. Or something akin to sleep. I wasn't quite sure. But the dream or the thing akin to a dream that came to me filled my head like a silver screen movie. I seemed not so much to watch it as to experience it. A bizarre scene, stranger than fiction and yet familiar. 

It, whatever it was, was brilliantly lit. Random metallic chairs, tables and instruments lay broken and strewn about a sci-fi movie looking control room. Strange almost invisible globes of liquid rolled around on the spotless metallic floor. Wires dangled from the ceiling above long tables like one might find in a medical examination room. Silky pieces of parchment-like paper floated through the dense air. along with a Hershey bar and a thermos bottle. My thermos bottle! (I recognized the dent.) I heard groans or something akin to groans. Otherworldly moans that sounded familiar like the moans of men I'd heard dozens of times as they'd run for their lives, fallen off cliffs or got rolled up in folding staircases. Those kinds of moans.

The last thing I remember seeing in that odd mental movie was myself being thrown out of a silvery round vessel hovering above Mr. D'Sal's borrowed car which was also hovering above the ground. As I fell silently and enigmatically for what seemed a long time, I was astounded to see several small grayish creatures in various stages of battle wounds and bandages watching me through the long horizontal window from which I had just been thrown. One in particular, a fragile fellow, really kind of cute in an alien outer spacey way, was standing there bandaged from head to toe, holding himself up on some sort of crutch and shaking his strange three fingered hand at me with furious rage. He looked absolutely traumatized. I suspected that a very close encounter with moi, Aachoo Voo, had something to do with his state. I waved back and gave him a sheepish grin just as his buddies pulled him away from the window and floored their craft out of our solar system.

To be continued in EPISODE 15   

LINK 👇

https://aachoovoo.blogspot.com/2021/04/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode.html

         

Special mentions in this episode:

Harold Clapsaddle, David D'Sal Salinas.

Manny

Mr Arehte and the alien on crutches......

let's call him Eldon

Eldon the Extraterrestrial

👽😄

(Eldon is my nephew)

(Oh, if only I had had the parrot there

to give them as a parting gift!!!!!)

Aarrrghhhh.......!