Pretty chump move, Brickroad.

I know it’s a chump move, spreading one NaNo update across two days like this. And it’s about to get even chumpier: if I’m going to finish getting caught up, I’m going to have to postpone the finale of my Gaming Heroines series another week. Truly I am history’s greatest monster.

Anyway, here’s that excerpt. Accept it with my deepest apologies.

If not for pictures on the covers of the pulps at the newsstand, Jocelyn would not have known what to call a ten gallon hat the first time she saw one, which happened to be sitting atop the large man who had just entered her office. The man’s second-most distinguishing feature was the bright, toothy smile which never left his face. Jocelyn couldn’t decide if his third-most distinguishing feature was the flat, brown package he was carrying, or the heavy cl-clank sound his boots made as he walked across the hardwood floor.

The man in the big hat made it clear right up front that he preferred not to use his real name, that he was prepared to pay in cold, hard cash and that the job he had in mind was as easy as plum pie.

“You familiar with Mariana Paoletti?” he asked. Jocelyn might have placed the notable twang in his speech as Texan, if she had ever been to Texas to form a basis for comparison. When she indicated she was not familiar with Mariana Paoletti the man in the big hat set the package down on her desk and carefully undid the string. He folded back the paper to reveal a 7-inch gramophone record in a featureless white sleeve.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but do you have something to play this on?”

Jocelyn had an old phonograph in the closet, and with the help of the man in the big hat she was able to set it up, dust it off and replace the needle. The man explained, “If you don’t know who she is yet, you soon will. Mariana Paoletti is an angel on Earth, and sure as skeeters in summer, to hear her voice is to know the very truth of romantic love. Here, have a listen.”

The tantalizing sound of an absolutely brilliant aria soon filled the office. Outside of a very brief stint as a stagehand at a vaudeville revue Jocelyn had not had much experience with music. Nonetheless she found is to be quite soothing. The woman singing was a soprano, and the way she rolled her Rs gave Jocelyn goosebumps.

After they’d listened to the entire opera, the man removed his big hat and placed it over his heart. “Does that not simply melt your heart, ma’am?”

“She sounded sad,” replied Jocelyn.

The man nodded lightly, and replaced his big hat on his big head. “Yes ma’am, love often is. That’s Mariana’s message, if you follow. ‘Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’ Thomas Edison said that.”

That didn’t sound right to Jocelyn, but she figured it would be rude to correct a potential client.

The man in the big hat continued, “I’m in charge of Mariana’s security. She just finished a six-month tour overseas, where she sang for lords and ladies, kings and queens and church leaders with hats even bigger than mine. She’s going to spend some time recording here in the city, and we hope to distribute the joy of her music all across this great land.

“But, well, Mariana’s still just a kid in a lot of ways. The big city fascinates her, just like the moth is fascinated by the open flame, if you follow. Truth is, it’s been getting harder and harder just to keep eyes on her. She’s of an age where she’s wanting to be left alone a lot of the time, so I can’t just go along with her. But, dog gone it, I can’t follow discrete-like either. I keep trying to hide behind garbage cans and telephone poles, but the hat gives me away every time.”

Jocelyn understood well enough. “So you need someone who won’t have any problem hiding behind telephone poles.”

“That’s about the long and the short of it, yep,” said the man in the big hat. “We don’t want to interfere with her private affairs, you understand. The city speaks to the youth of today, musicians and artists alike, and it’d be a crime and a half to get in the way of that. But at the same time we can’t have her falling in with the rough and tumble crowd. Why, what would all her fans thinks if she were to be involved with Jazz and liquor. It’d be a spectacle! An absolute how-do-ya-do!

“We just want someone to follow her along a ways, find out where she goes and who she meets, and report back to us. Now, we’re in the studio Mondays on through Friday, and there’s certainly no gallivanting on the Sabbath, so it’s just Saturdays that Mariana’s going to be out and about. And that’s the job.”

It certainly was a job, there was no denying that. What’s more, Jocelyn certainly needed a job, so in short order she had reached an amicable agreement with the man in the big hat, who paid up front for three Saturdays’ worth of investigations, pending an extension as the situation warranted. He even let her keep the record as a gift.

Following Mariana Paoletti around town was a surprisingly boring task. Jocelyn had a pretty good feel for where the most notorious gin joints were, and Mariana avoided that part of town entirely. She always had a dashing young gentleman on her elbow, but she tended to stay with the same gentleman all throughout a night. Mariana attended plays and poetry readings, ate at fancy restaurants, and enjoyed long carriage rides through the park, quite oblivious that a woman in a yellow coat was always twenty steps behind her.

Each Monday the man in the big hat returned to Jocelyn’s office to receive the week’s report. He didn’t seem surprised to learn that Mariana consistently conducted herself as a perfect lady. She wasn’t even convinced Mariana knew that Jazz and liquor existed.

Jocelyn was surprised when the man in the big hat offered to pay for three more Saturdays.

And so the cycle began again with museum tours and ballroom dancing, hayrides and uptown shopping sprees. In six weeks, the most lurid detail Jocelyn had had the opportunity to report had been a peck on the cheek, delivered by a particularly bold young man, which caused Mariana to blush delicately.

When the man in the big hat requested another three Saturdays, Jocelyn almost refused him. She didn’t feel right taking this poor man’s money. He was starry-eyed and overprotective, but as far as Jocelyn could tell he had absolutely nothing to fear. His angelic soprano was every bit as perfect as he imagined she was. Besides, following a choir girl everywhere wasn’t exactly the most stimulating way Jocelyn had ever spent her days. But, well, rent was coming due and the price of milk had just gone up two cents, so Jocelyn agreed to take the job once again, for what she resolved would be the last time.

On the ninth Saturday, something interesting finally happened.

After lunch at a chic Mediterranean bistro Mariana said farewell to her friends and hailed a cab. This was particularly curious, since it was the first time Jocelyn recalled ever seeing Mariana truly on her own. She hailed a cab of her own and followed Mariana to a particularly seedy part of town near Central Station. From there she followed Mariana nearly sixteen blocks to a boarded-up building at the bottom of a steep hill.

Jocelyn ducked behind a parked car near the corner as Mariana carefully looked down the street in each direction. Satisfied no one was watching, she rapped on the door in a particular way. Moments later a slit in the door opened up, and Mariana passed a train ticket stub through it. A few moments more and the door opened, admitting Mariana into what Jocelyn perceived to be nothing more than a dark, featureless room.

Minutes passed before Jocelyn began to realize she was going to be spending her entire afternoon skulking behind a parked car. She decided to take matters into her own hands. After a few practice runs on the car door, she was confident she could mimic the secret knock Mariana had used. She fished her pocketbook out, steeled her nerves, and approached the unmarked door.

Rap-rap-a-rap-tap-tap.

The slot in the door scraped open. From somewhere within, Jocelyn thought she could hear the faint outline of ragtime music, and smelled the mild tinge of something acrid hanging in the air. She could not, however, see anything at all inside.

“Ticket,” said a gravelly, disembodied voice from beyond the door.

“Yes, er, one moment,” said Jocelyn. She made a show of fumbling around in her pocketbook for precisely what seemed to be a reasonable amount of time, then she said, “I’m such a dope. I must have left it in my other pocketbook.”

“Nice try, squirt. Members only,” said the disembodied voice, and then the slot in the door was slapped shut so violently that it made Jocelyn start. “Golly,” she muttered, and resigned herself back to her position behind the car across the street.

As the sun sank in the sky, Jocelyn watched as several people came and went from the old building, and always the same knock-slot-ticket ritual. It was completely dark before Jocelyn decided to cash in her chips. She was debating whether to take the train back downtown or to give Danny a call when the door opened and Mariana emerged, both arms wrapped around a much older, much taller, dark-haired man. Soon enough a taxi arrived, and Mariana kissed the man daintily on the cheek. The man responded by taking her around the waist, lifting her entirely off her feet and spinning her around, causing a loud, happy squeal followed by an insatiable fit of giggles. The two exchanged a few words which Jocelyn couldn’t hear, which were followed by another kiss, then the man helped Mariana into the car, closed her door, and waved as the taxi took her away. He watched intently for as long as the taxi was in sight, then knock-slot-ticketed his way back into the building.

Jocelyn watched the entire scene in stunned disbelief. It wasn’t what she was seeing that shocked her so much as who she was seeing. The man Mariana was with wasn’t just a dark-haired stranger; it was Detective Max Barrett.

Of course, Jocelyn dutifully reported all of this to the man in the big hat the following Monday. For the first time since she’d met him she noticed the man’s bright smile wither, but only slightly. All things considered he was taking the news surprisingly well, and Jocelyn was fully prepared to follow up on the investigation.

“If I grease the right palms I’m pretty sure I can find out what ticket they’re using as a password,” Jocelyn told him. “If I can get into the club and ask the right questions, I might be able to learn more about Mariana’s comings and goings.”

“No ma’am, that won’t be necessary,” said the man in the big hat, “but I sure do thank you for all your hard work.” He stood up and held out his hand. There was a certain finality hanging in the air as Jocelyn accepted the handshake, and she knew then and there they were concluding their business together. “It sure was a pleasure working with you, Miss Beauregard,” the man said, and then he and his big hat left Jocelyn’s office for the last time.

It was the only time she could recall him using her name. She had still had never learned his.

Later that week the headline story on all the local dish rags was some variant of “Decorated City Detective Catting About Town With Opera Virtuoso”.

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