Lady Sings the Blues

This is the beginning of a story I want to continue into a classic sort of noir. Enjoy.

Helena drove hard and fast. As she drove, the rain hit the glass like a million pieces of glitter. And the lamp posts were like the sun, making the rain sparkle and shimmer as she passed under each one. The wiper was swaying with determination, like a metronome, trying its hardest to rid the glass of the rain. But the wiper would lose. Just as the rain streaked the windows, tears streaked Helena's cheeks. Her black mascara dripped like wet paint down her face. She did not wipe it away. Those tears and the leaky mascara were too well deserved to wipe away as if trying to hide the crying. She needed to cry. To cleanse herself of the overwhelming sadness so she could focus on the rage. Helena needed to find him, the one who killed her beloved Johnny. She knew where to start, the Black Rose.

The Black Rose was a speak-easy on 23rd street. A dark, smokey, bluesy joint where the who's-who of the crime underworld went to get liquor. You could walk into that place on any given night and see at least two or three faces from the FBI's most wanted list. These mobsters were the big time, if they were caught, they would go to federal prison for life. Surely one of these men would know who did it. They all loved Helena, the pretty little songbird. She knew that they wouldn't have hired anyone to off him like that. But she also knew that they were all very well connected and someone had to have heard something. It was her only hunch so far, so she had to follow through.

She parked in front of a place called Benji's. A cute little diner that served soda-pop and ice cream for the kids. She went inside and gave a nod to Mike, the man behind the counter serving the sundaes. She walked to a door that led to a hallway with three doors. One of those was the ladies room, one the mens, and the last one was unmarked except for a small painted black rose in the center. Helena went straight to the door with the rose and knocked four times. The door opened a crack, "It's Helena.", then it opened wide enough to let her in. It was dim and smokey. She went down a set of creaky wooden stairs into the basement that was the Black Rose speak-easy.

"You singin' tonight?" the door-man asked as she descended. "Not tonight." she replied without turning around to face him. She went with blinders to a table in the corner, Frisco's table. He was the biggest of the big time. Legend has it that Frisco started off robbing banks solo, after a while, he recruited a wing-man. After that he got a driver, then he switched from bank robbing to embezzlement when he ran out of banks that he hadn't cleaned out. When prohibition hit, he took advantage, like any good criminal should, and began selling booze. He was probably the most connected man in the place.

"Hi there beautiful." Frisco's words came out of his toad-like face like they were being pumped by tiny bellows. "Hello Frisco." He could tell there was something different about her tonight. Her voice was slightly shaky and her eyes pierced right through to the soul. She got straight to the point.

"Johnny's dead. I need to know if you've heard anything, if you know who would have done such a thing?"

"Oh sweet songbird, I would have never done anything to hurt you. I swear to you that it wasn't any of my guys."

"Have you heard anything then?"

"I'm afraid, this time darling, I have not. I would have warned you, told you to get out of town for awhile. Please believe me Helena, whoever did this isn't professional and if you don't get to them first, I'll make sure they get what's coming to them."

All she could say was, "Thanks." She stopped at the bar before leaving and ordered a tokyo tea. When the alcohol touched her lips and soaked into her system, the memories of Johnny flooded her mind.

Helena and Johnny met on the hottest day of summer five years before. Johnny was working at a hot dog stand on the beach. He looked at girls splashing in the water all day. After enough days, it wasn't fun anymore. Until the day he saw Helena. It was her first time to the ocean. She had just moved to Los Angeles to get into pictures. Hollywood fascinated her, she knew it would be huge and she wanted in at the beginning. Fresh out of high school, she bought a bus ticket and headed west. She had arrived only the day before and didn't waste any time going to the beach. Johnny almost felt guilty watching her so much, it almost made him feel dirty, like some sort of perverted stalker. He had his eyes on her for hours until she walked up to his stand. He was so nervous that the first hot dog he tried to serve her he burned, the second, he dropped, then he finally pulled it together and served her the perfect hot dog. She could tell he liked her, she had noticed him looking at her several times that morning. There was some awkward stumbling of words as he told her that she didn't have to pay and he thought he was going to vomit when he asked to take her out to dinner. She was so flattered, she agreed.

She finished her drink and decided to go back to the beach house to look through Johnny's briefcase. When she found him and called the police, they came, asked a few questions then left. A few hours later, a hearse arrived to take away the body. Everything else was still there. She hadn't looked through his things before because she was so upset. Now she needed to find something, anything to give her a direction in which to go.

It was their honeymoon, Johnny rented a little bungalow style house on the beach front. They were there for three days when it happened. Helena wished she had seen something instead of hiding in the back bedroom. They were deeply asleep after a passionate night when the front door slammed open. The cracking of wood in the door frame woke them up. "Stay here." Johnny got up, put on his shorts, and grabbed an empty wine bottle, a make-shift weapon, to go see what was going on. Helena remained naked and scared, in bed with the sheets pulled up to her chin. She heard yelling and the rumble and tumble of fighting. Then she heard it, BANG. Then the distinct sound of loud footsteps running out the door. Her heart nearly stopped. "Johnny!" She ran out to the living room, not bothering to take the time to grab a robe, and she saw him. Flat on his back, arms out, and a giant hole where his right eye used to be. She bawled and pleaded with his lifeless body to come back to her. She held his mangled head in her bare lap, the dark red blood flowing onto her milky white legs. She waited until his body went cold to accept the fact that he was gone. She got up off of the floor and went into the bedroom to get dressed. Then she called the police.