Aachoo Voo, Private Eye: June 2021

Sunday, June 13, 2021

DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID film clips.....the film that inspired Aachoo Voo, I think

Saturday, June 5, 2021

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye Episode 17 Playboy Thiese, Jack Knife James and the lovely Zelma Lee

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 17

Playboy Thiese, Jack Knife James

and the lovely Zelma Lee

Jack Knife James had loved many women in his time but none as much as he loved Zelma Lee, the most gorgeous dame he'd ever laid eyes on. She was the dream girl you only saw in magazines kept hidden under mattresses. She was the broad you drooled over in movie theaters, the chorus girl dancer you paid all your hard earned money to see dance on stage only to be ignored until you waved your last dollar at her with your phone number scrawled on it only to see her buy a hot dog with it later as you followed her out of the club. She raised you up with a fleeting glance and let you down like a bucket in a well as her pretty eyes swept over your hopeful face and over to the movie star or millionaire standing beside you. Your lonely bedroom was plastered with her photographs and newspaper clippings and programs and ticket stubs and souvenirs and the crushed red roses and pearl earring you had seen her drop.

And there in the place of honor on the wall that held your Honorable Discharge certificate from the Army, the hometown newspaper article about how you had saved a drowning feral hog from a half frozen pond, your Little Orphan Annie Decoder ring, your autographed 8x10 of the guy who played Tarzan but you could never pronounce his last name, was the gold frame that held the pristine white napkin with the lipstick imprint of Zelma Lee's lips on it that you gave $15.00 to a waiter for one cold December night as you stood outside the little cafe freezing your butt off while watching the love of your life eating a slice of cherry pie and drinking coffee with some schnook through a frosted over window pane.

It was like a Christmas present to yourself, that napkin. Her lips. Her luscious lips. There on your wall just looking at you as you slept and dreamed of her. You, a full grown man with the good fortune to be a mobster/trumpet player both feared and admired by hundreds if not thousands. You had a great comic book collection and a drawer full of poetry and short stories you had written yourself. You were pitiful but you didn't care. You knew that one day, one sweet day, you were going to make that fine haughty woman Mrs. Jack Knife James and nobody was going to stop you!

Except there was one fly in the ointment of your plans. A fly named C. Loc Thiese, otherwise known as Playboy, the lucky dog currently on the arm of the lovely Zelma Lee out there in Hollywood where she had gone to break into the movies two long years ago. And she had and had done it well. Now she was coming back to New York City for the premiere of a new movie with her co-star and current lover boy or so the movie magazines and Hedda Hopper and the other professional talking mouths said. He was an actor, singer, hoofer, former boxer, who was said to play a mean alto sax and knew his way around both the streets and the bedrooms of debutantes. Just thinking about him made Jack Knife grit his teeth and go write torch songs all night long.

Jack Knife aimed to see for himself what it was all about and he aimed to get the imprint of those lips on his lovelorn face again just like he had back in junior high. He had been in love with that girl since first grade and finally by their junior year he had persuaded her to wear his ring and go steady for at least three months. She was his first love and always would be. And you know what they say about first loves: You never forget them and they're usually the reason you end up in an asylum twenty-five years later. As for Jack Knife, she was the reason he had become a cold-blooded gangster and the reason why he played a trumpet that moaned like nobody's business. She was his inspiration and muse. His trumpet moaned for Zelma Lee and only for Zelma Lee.

She had sidestepped his ardent advances from New York to New Rochelle to New Jersey to New Zealand (a story for another time) but yeah, he had pursued that girl in every way he could think of and nothing had worked. Oh, there were nights when it seemed his dreams were coming true but the next morning she'd always left him with a cold splash of reality and a typed out note that had been duplicated many times and stamped with her signature Always, Zelma Lee and a little kissy face doodle. He hated those doodles! But he had kept every last one of them, dammit! If he could just get his hands around that Thiese guy's throat, he'd show that woman how much he loved her! He'd kill for her! Beg, borrow and steal for her! No, no, he wouldn't borrow for her. He had standards. His mama had taught him standards. He wouldn't borrow anything from anybody.

His mama had told him, "Now Son, if you borrow something, you'll feel obliged to give it back. So don't borrow nothing. Either ask can you have it or go buy it your own durn self!" Quote unquote. And he always listened to his mama. (Except when she told him to stay away from mobsters, jazz clubs, trumpets and Zelma Lee.) Except for that stuff. Otherwise, he was a very obedient son. Ask anybody. He made a mental appointment with the Who- Did -He- Think- He- Was -Playboy, punching a fist into the palm of his other hand and daring him to not show up. Or show up. Show out. Show something. He would mess up that handsome face of his so bad he'd only be starring in "Lips" Lipperson type B Movie monster movies from now on! Just wait!

The night of the big movie premiere, Jack Knife had his entourage all decked out in black tie and tails, even Shrimpy Joe, the gofer who stood all of four feet tall. (In heels.) He'd paraded around like a banty rooster saying, "Look at me! Look at me!" till somebody muzzled him and put him in the trunk of the limousine. The boys were all excited. They wanted to hobnob with movie stars and get a gander at Zelma Lee up close as they had all developed crushes on her over the years but especially now that she had made it big. She'd modeled, sung and danced her way to the top and he was proud of her with all of his tattered heart. It was tough being a hard nosed hood with a tattered heart but he pulled it off. Nobody ever knew that but his Nana and she'd never told.

Nana and Gramps

His grandfather had been as mean as a junkyard dog but she'd loved him to pieces. Literally. (Even Nanas have their limits, I guess.) They'd buried him in three coffins. Four days before the old man's eighty-sixth birthday. No one was ever arrested but everyone knew who had sent him up to the Big House in the Sky. (If indeed he was headed in that direction.) Nana lived out the rest of her years in relative peace and quiet after enduring his chaos for sixty-five years. Jack Knife was glad for her. All his grandfather had ever given anybody was hell. He wished that Nana could be there with him in the limo going to the movie premiere. She'd be so proud. But she was in prison on other charges.

Flash bulbs were popping, people were screaming, it seemed like all of New York City had turned out for this big to-do. He positioned himself in front of a poster of the star of the movie (Some strange thing called "The Girl In The Pearls At The Top Of The World" a new experimental film made in the Alps. Didn't sound like his cup of tea but who cared? He was going to see his doll! And then suddenly there she was. She was getting out of a long black limousine and being escorted down a red carpet by the director of the movie. He was wearing fur. She was wearing fur. And a long slinky silver something or other than he couldn't figure out how she'd gotten into. She looked damned good! Better than good. Falling down and proposing and rushing off to get married good! But he kept his composure. He watched some of his boys fight to take pictures and get autographs. Some of them held back in the crowd looking like shy school boys. He knew how they felt. Then he saw her looking his way and exclaiming "There you are! Where have you been? I've been dying to see your handsome mug again!"

A big smile broke out on his face and he stepped forward to throw his arms around her but grabbed only empty air as she had walked right past him and thrown herself into the arms of....you guessed it....C. Loc 'Playboy' Thiese! He was momentarily stunned but thought fast and hurried to the side of Dorothy Dandridge as she emerged from a white Rolls Royce. "Hello, Darling," he murmured and bent to kiss her hand. She looked confused for a moment but captivated by this well dressed stranger, she played along and said loudly, "Well, Hello Darling to you, too!" Just as she took his arm, he saw Zelma Lee turn at the entrance of the theater and look back at them, wide-eyed. Their eyes locked and he nodded and looked away feeling avenged as he heard Shrimpy Joe somewhere hidden in the crowd shout, "Oh my God! You know Dorothy Dandridge too???!!!" The rest of the night was a blur, a wonderful blur. It was magic and fun and Zelma Lee's eyes shot daggers at him all night but he could honestly say that the movie was crap.

To be continued in Episode 18.......................

👇

https://aachoovoo.blogspot.com/2021/07/aachoo-voo-private-eye-episode-18-king.html

Special mentions to......

Loc Thiese

James Ray

Louise Beavers

Anonymous fellow

Aunt Zelma Lee

Dona Drake

Dorothy Dandridge

Johnny (Tarzan) Weissmuller

and other movie stars

who showed up.....

And of course... Shrimpy Joe

TARZAN......Johnny Weissmuller

C Loc Thiese and the actor who plays him in the story.

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye, Episode 16 Charm Schools and Crime Scenes All Over the Place

Aachoo Voo, Private Eye

Episode 16

Charm Schools And Crime Scenes All Over The Place

Mademoiselle Fi Fi (Felicia)

It was a clear bright moonlit night. No, it wasn't. What was I thinking? Was I thinking? Let's start this again, shall we? Just ignore what I previously wrote. I'm much too lazy and tired to erase anything at this hour so just bear with me. At this point, you should know me pretty well or at least you think you do so you should be well acquainted with my various and sundry ...um...eccentricities. (Whatever a sundry is.) I have no idea. I skipped school the day they covered "S" words. I do however know a lot of unusual "Q" words. Like quintessential and Quebec. That's in Canada, I think. Or France. I forget which. It sounds frenchy. Quite frenchy. (Another "Q" word I know.) Along with that other cute "Q" word ....um...qu’est-ce que c’est ? What is it? Oh, yes! C'est...it's.. um.. quadruple. (Which means four ruples, I think). I'm not good in math. I napped in that class. (And doodled in English.)

Like MiMi, I have been known to break out into French on occasion. Not the Cajun-French she espouses though I do that too sometimes but the French-French that they taught us to speak at "the hoity toity ooh la la" (as MiMi called it) Mademoiselle Fi Fi's Charm School For The Charm Impaired where we learned to say things like Enchante and Oui Oui. (And Sacrebleu and Merde when the Lady Fi Fi wasn't within earshot.) Well, I did anyway. I was a baaad little girl. Mon Dieu! A tres mauvaise fille! Or as MiMi would proudly say, "Petite bebette!" Coo-wee! That was moi!

I also taught the more adventurous students all I knew of the creative Cajun language on our breaks from class. They paid me handsomely and quite enjoyed our little extra-curricular lessons until the day of the big surprise test when several of the girls got their proper French and MiMi Voo's Cajun mixed up and were sent home with big red F's on their papers and the sternest looks you ever saw on a human face. Not one of them pointed a finger at me but I think the culprit was made obvious the day MiMi came to pick me up from Charm School due to some unforeseen delay and the two ladies met and exchanged words while I stood behind Miss Fi Fi's back shaking my head and making terrified motions at my Grand'Mere to stop talking. (She ignored me.)

The cost of my lessons went up after that much to my mother's dismay and I was forced to only speak French at home for an entire month as punishment. Fortunately, my mother's French was not that good so I frequently just made up french sounding words that seemed to satisfy her though occasionally she did raise an eyebrow and my father would clap his hand across his mouth to keep from laughing. I think he enjoyed having a naughty child. It was his way of rebelling without actually doing the rebelling. But then, he didn't get the spankings I endured. Nor did he have to walk around the house with a heavy book balanced on his head for good posture training or extend his pinkie finger while drinking liquids. ( I've actually seen baby pictures of myself holding a bottle with my little pinkie extended just like a little princess.) (And wearing a tiara no less.)

My mother didn't actually crack a whip but everyone heard the cracking just the same and complied with her wishes most of the time. Except for MiMi of course. She marched to the beat of her own drum and cracked her own whip. Between the two of them I think they made me into the dizzy and dangerous dame I am today. They rewired my brain or something. Maybe I do these things to myself and others deliberately, just sub-consciously. Hmmm. Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Now back to whatever it was I was trying to relate before I got sidetracked by memories of my wayward youth.

It was a dark and stormy night. The kind of night they created for Bela Lugosi movies. The wind was howling. Lightning flashed around my nine story brownstone apartment and office complex. The broken rollup fire escape ladder had been replaced with an Aachoo Voo-proof contraption or so I was told. I hadn't attempted to go near it yet. And God knows Nick never would again even after he had completely healed and forgiven me for his near fatal (but let's face it, hilariously funny accident.) One of the cops had given me a photograph of the scene later on even though we weren't aware one had been taken at the time. He said it was just too freakishly funny to pass up and the 8x10 now hung in one of the precincts alongside several of my mugshots. Poor Nick. The look in his terrified brown eyes as he lay rolled up in that metal thing with his head sticking out on one side and his legs on the other like some kind of cartoon character. The cops kept asking me to get him to autograph it but I didn't dare. But I digress as usual.

At some point after midnight, I heard a scream. Couldn't tell where it was coming from. Didn't really want to know because, well, you know...me and my tripping over bodies and running into buildings and all that. I was still trying to solve six mysteries that I'd had no involvement with yet had still been fingerprinted and taken in for questioning over. I had just about given up on being a good Samaritan and reporting anything to anybody about anything ever again. It just didn't pay. I determined to let sleeping dogs lie and dead mobsters rest in peace and let somebody else make the discoveries. Of course that was hard to do being a detective and all. It was kind of pertinent to the job.

Another scream tore a hole in the night. Then a gunshot. Then I heard the screeching of tires and looked out the window to see two guys throwing what looked like a body out of a car in front of the brownstone across the street. Then they screeched away again. Another scream. Another gunshot. Thunder. The sound of Lena Horne's "Stormy Weather" wafting down the street. A different kind of scream and I beheld a tiny woman in a gray bathrobe chasing a huge man down the street with a rolling pin in her hand and murder in her eyes. It was him screaming. She was gaining on him but he was doing okay until he tripped. I didn't want to be an eyewitness to what came next so I closed my eyes and the window. What was going on out there?!

Maybe there was a full werewolf moon up there behind those dark clouds that night. I didn't know. I just knew I was sleepy and chilled and wishing I had Lance there breathing down my neck. I missed the big palooka. I missed his black curly hair and his big dark eyes and his sweet smile and his outrageous stories and especially ripping his clothes to shreds. I wondered if he missed me too. He had sent me a postcard from Rome saying he did. So romantic. So exotic. I was envious of his latest get-a-way to Italy on some mysterious errand for whatever government he worked for. He never said. Then one day I noticed that the postmark said Rome, Georgia. Georgia!? For crying out loud!

The next day the papers were full of crimes, unspeakable crimes. Crimes that made no sense. Crimes that defied human reasoning and gravity. Crimes that made infamous people famous and famous people wish they had left town the day before because they had been the victims of some of those crimes. I looked to see if the big man being chased by the rolling pin had been found in a trash bin or city park with a goose egg sized knot on his bald head but found nothing. The man in the rug thrown from the car that night turned out to be Big david's brother-in-law, Prudence's runaway husband, Ricky. Evidently he had not met his demise in Mexico as I had been told but had come home to beg for forgiveness when his wife's best friend had left him for a sexy matador. I was glad he had not expired away from home and because of me. Or maybe he did. Possibly he did. Probably he did. No, definitely he did. I had tracked him down and reported his whereabouts. So, yeah, definitely. That realization ruined my day. But Prudence sent me a bottle of champagne and I felt better when the bottle was empty.

Reporters were all over the place for days covering the late night crime spree and interviewing people and possible witnesses. I refused to talk to anyone though several detectives just automatically showed up at my door assuming I had seen everything. Which was partially true. I had seen a lot. But I kept my mouth shut. I was tired of having my picture taken at three in the morning. I wanted no part of it. I was playing it safe. But all that ended while I was sitting in a booth down at Clappsaddles reading the paper, drinking coffee and eating a ham and peanut butter sandwich (Harold had a very unique menu as earlier related) when the aforementioned tiny woman sans rolling pin came walking up to me with big tears in her eyes saying, "They tell me maybe you can help me. Something has happened to my husband, Howard Nelson. Can you please help me find him?"

I put down the paper and stared at her for five full minutes. She looked so lost and guileless. So tiny and harmless. And yet, I had seen......."Oh, merde!" I said and motioned for her to sit down. "Merde!" And other exquisitely bad words I won't repeat. She sat, staring with unreadable and slightly crossed eyes, her arms folded and frowning at me as though she'd understood every single French swear word I'd uttered. Would I take the case or would I tell her I'd witnessed her little one woman war in the dark of night and risk the wrath of that formidable rolling pin on my own noggin? It was like the Jack Benny "Your Money Or Your Life" radio show routine. To which he'd answered after a long hesitation, "I'm thinking it over!"