So I have decided to start updating this blog more regularly. Not because Ithink any of you purely hypothetical readers are interested, mostly to hone my mighty writing talents. Speaking of which, here is my latest story:
(Note: Please excuse the terribly phonetic Irish accents)
It was a foggy night down at the docks, empty but for a lone figure carrying a briefcase, nervously glancing around him. Finally a black SUV pulled up a few feet from him, disgorging a trio of muscular thugs, dressed in the traditional Mafioso muscle uniform of sunglasses, ponytails and cheap suits. The sunglasses probably weren’t such a good idea, what with it being a foggy night, but these men weren’t exactly chosen for their brains. As the thugs secured the area, to the best of their sight-impaired ability, a fourth man emerged from the car, carrying a duffle bag. The man with the briefcase quickly slinked over, continuing to glance around him. He reached out his hand to shake, but was stopped a foot away by one of the half-blind thugs. The man took a step back and feigned fixing his hair, as though that were his intention the whole time.
“Do you have the stuff?” he said after a moment.
“Aye lad. Have ye the money?” The mobster said, his eyes drifting down to the briefcase.
“Oh! Yeah, yeah I got it!” the man said, raising the briefcase and fumbling with the lock. With a click it popped open to reveal rows of crisp, unmarked hundred dollar bills. The mobster snapped the briefcase shut and handed it off to the nearest sunglasses thug. With a light toss, the duffel bag landed at the man’s feet and the mobster turned to leave.
“Happy to be doin’ business wit ye lad.”
As he was helped back into the SUV by another thug, a shrieking whistle pierced the night air. A moment later an explosion tore through a sea container just to the left of the SUV.
“Damn I missed.”
Detective Jack Hootenanny tossed the RPG he had “borrowed” from the evidence locker aside and pulled out a pair of gold-plated Desert Eagles. From his rooftop vantage point he could see two of the thugs pull out their own pieces while the third quickly shoved their boss into the back seat. Hootenanny leapt from the roof of the warehouse he had been observing the deal from onto a nearby sea container and began firing a hail of bullets in the general direction of the mafia heavies.
A lucky shot hit a pile of rope and elicited a scream from the terrified man with the briefcase who had found cover there almost immediately after the explosion. The thugs by now were returning fire, their accuracy understandably quite low. On the other hand, Hootenanny’s accuracy improved as he got closer, leaping from sea container to sea container. One of the thugs fell, clutching a gaping hole in his neck as Hootenanny veered to the left, tucked into a ball and rolled to a stop behind a dumpster, reloading as he hit the ground.
“Forget tha fookin’ Psycho! Get me the fook out a here!” The mobster screamed as both surviving thugs ducked into the SUV. The tires screeched as the car turned around and drove out of the docks. As it reached the exit gate it suddenly exploded into a fireball, smashing into a parked car on the opposite side of the street and catching a dilapidated warehouse aflame. Hootenanny calmly stood up and brushed himself off, noting with a grimace the several minor fractures he had sustained from one of his several leaps off the roof.
“Ah, land mines, like a spike strip with attitude.”
He heard a moan from nearby and bounded over to the man with the briefcase’s hiding place. He lay curled in a fetal position clutching a bleeding bullet wound in his shoulder.
“Oh good! A survivor.” Hootenanny grinned maniacally as he hauled the man to his feet, pistol whipped him back to the ground, and hauled him back to his feet, “The Chief’s always happy when there’s someone left to interrogate.”
The Chief was not happy. Chief Michael Angerman paced back and forth behind his desk, the sweat beading from his brow and dripping off his beet-red forehead on to the perfectly groomed mustache that he wore, as was mandatory in his department. Suspenders pulled tightly at his shoulders, snaking down over his regulation white shirt, struggling to lift his brown slacks. Hootenanny, lounging in the chair across form him, calmly tooled with a toothpick in his mouth, jutting below his own standard issue mustache, and above a neatly trimmed beard. In contrast to the professional look of his superior, the brash young detective wore an aging brown leather jacket, Yankees cap, and cargo shorts, which even now bristled with armaments.
“Damn it Hootenanny!” The Chief shouted, slamming a hand down on a splay of documents on the desk in front of him, “You caused 145 thousand dollars in property damage, killed four suspects, and destroyed most of the evidence. You’re a loose cannon!”
“That reminds me, have we put that anti-tank rifle into the evidence locker yet?”
“You are this close to suspension Hootenanny, you are going to start doing things by the book or I am going to find someone who will.”
Hootenanny’s face suddenly hardened and he turned on the chief, grabbing the overweight man by his sweat-stained white shirt.
“Damn it Chief! You know the only book I play by is my own!”
His shirt still clutched in the detective’s hand, The Chief grabbed Hootenanny’s shirt, locking the two lawmen in a sort of awkward embrace. After a few moments, the two men let go, and silently agreed to never speak of it again.
“Do you know what that suspect you brought in told me you did to him?” The Chief asked, as he sat down at his desk and picked up a testimonial.
“Nothing that scumbag didn’t deserve.”
“He said you raped him, Hootenanny.”
“With the long hard dick of the law!”
“No, with your penis. You had forced, non-consensual sex with a suspect.”
Hootenanny coolly sat down across from The Chief and leaned back.
“Textbook Hootenanny. That will teach him to consort with criminals.”
“Look, I’m going to give you one more chance. And one other thing: A partner.”
Hootenanny leapt to his feet and slammed a fist down on the table.
“Damn it Chief! You know I’m a lone wolf! Ever since the tragic death of my partner four years ago!”
“He retired Hootenanny!”
“He was dead to me.”
“I need someone to reign you in before you bankrupt this department and besmirch our good name.”
“So who’s it gonna be then? Dirty Steve? Crazy Martinez? Some Kind of Death Machine O’Reilly? Don’t tell me you’re shacking up with Devastatingly Handsome Rick. I hate that bastard. That beautiful, beautiful bastard…”
“No, it’s a new guy, just transferred in from Chicago.” The Chief pressed a button on his intercom, “Dolores, send in the new guy.”
Detective John Shenanigans entered the room nervously. He was a portly man, yet tall, with olive skin. Although he wore the standard issue aviators of his profession, his mustache had not fully grown in yet. He reached out to shake Hootenanny’s hand but the other detective sneered and looked away.
“John Shenanigans, seven years experience on the Chicago P.D,” The Chief said as he lifted Shenanigans’ file from his desk to show Hootenanny, “And he’s gonna help you crack this case.”
“I cant believe I gotta work with a terrorist.” Hootenanny said, getting up in Shenanigans’ face “You speak English, Osama bin Lardass? You spying for Al-Qaeda?”
“I’m from Pasadena, you racist fuck!” Shenanigans replied.
“I’m kidding!” Hootenanny smiled and slapped Shenanigans on the back, “MY brother-in-law is from Dubai. Can you imagine if I was like that though? Add a whole different dynamic to our relationship.” Just as suddenly as it appeared the smile disappeared, “But just because I am tolerant of all races and creeds doesn’t mean you don’t have to watch your ass!”
“So what do we need to know about the case we’re working on?” Shenanigans asked as the two detectives strolled through the police station.
“All you need to know is to keep quiet and let me do my job!” Hootenanny replied, reaching his desk and sitting down.
“Or you know, I could just go ask someone else, I mean I’m sure-“
“The Irish Yakuza” Hootenanny interrupted him, lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to smoke in here.”
“Founded two decades ago when a Yakuza boss was exiled to Dublin, then came back over to reestablish a prescence, after some cross-breeding with the local boys over on the emerald isle of course, The Irish Yakuza have been a pain in this city’s ass for years. Their latest scam seems to be selling toasters to any poor fool who can meet their price. Last night I busted up a deal and nabbed the buyer, he’s in holding cell # as we speak.”
“Why would they be selling toasters on the black market?”
“That is what we need to find out. Turns out selling toasters isn’t, in fact, illegal, even if you do it in the dead of a foggy night down at the docks, so no matter how much evidence we have we can’t bring these guys down til we get to he bottom of this.”
“So why are we holding the buyer then? It sounds like we don’t have any evidence against him.”
“There’s something you gotta understand, rookie. Guys like us, we’re the law. You, me, Fudge Calhoun, Sex Detective, we uphold the law and it is up to us to determine who has infringed on our precious law. Finding out what, specifically they did is secondary to making sure justice is served.”
“What about due process?”
“Due process? I’ll show you due process,” Hootenanny pulled out one of his gold-plated Desert Eagles and pinted to an inscription on the side.
“That says ‘habeas corpus’.”
“Oh, shit,” Hootenanny returned the pistol to his holster and drew it’s twin, “There. This one’s due process.”
“Well, it just seems like-“
“Look rookie, I don’t know how you do things over in Chicago, but over here we get shit done! Now let’s interrogate us a goddamn suspect!”
In typical interrogation room fashion, a single beam of light shined down on to the suspect, the only light in an otherwise pitch black room. From behind the light source, stepped Shenanigans, the suspect’s terrified visage reflected in the frames of his aviators.
“I didn’t do nothing.” The suspect said as Shenanigans sat in the chair across the small wooden table from him.
“We haven’t accused you of anything Mr…,” Shenanigans looked odwn at the file in his hands, “Morgan. We just need to ask you a couple questions about thye docks last night.”
“The… docks… he isn’t here is he?”
“Who?”
“The cop who fucking raped me! If I see that psycho I will seriously flip the fuck out!”
“Look, my partner isn’t here right now. Just tell us why you were buying toasters down at the docks, instead of at, say, a hardware store or something.”
Suddenly Hootenanny lurched out of the darkness and seized Morganby the shoulders.
“TELL US WHAT YOU KNOW YOU FRANCO-GUATEMALAN CHUTNEY WHOOOOORE!!!”
Morgan screamed as Hootenanny leaned in and bit his nose off.
“JESUS CHRIST HOOTENANNY!” Shenanigans shouted as he grabbed his partner.
Morgan’s screams turned to gurgles as the blood from his nose filled his gaping mouth.
“I WILL RAPE YOU IN THE FACE!” Hootenanny continued, “I WILL DUCT TAPE YOUR MOUTH OPEN AND THROAT FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”
Morgan tried to pull away, prompting Hootenanny to smash his head into the table, smashing it in half and knocking the suspect unconscious. The detective then pulled out a large bottle of kerosene from his jacket and poured it over Morgan’s body. Shenanigans grabbed his arm as Hootenanny pulled out a Zippo lighter.
“Calm down man! He’s unconscious, we can’t get anything more out of him.”
Hootenanny breathed heavily for a few moments before calming down and putting the lighter away. He kicked Morgan in the ribs then stormed out of the room. Shenanigans knelt down to confirm the suspect was still alive and joined his partner a moment later.
“Man, that was like the worst ‘bad cop’ ever.” Hootenanny said nonchalantly as he pulled out a cigarette.
“What the hell Hootenanny? Is that how you treat all your suspects?”
“Well, he’s still alive, so… no.”
“How do you get any information from these people? At all?”
“Well… Wikipedia mostly. And sometimes random pedestrians just start telling me intimate details of criminal activities and then running away.”
“This is ridiculous! What do the other detectives think of this?”
“Well, after Some Kind of Death Machine O’Reilly interrogates someone, there’s usually not even a body left. Also when he arrests someone. And when he issues parking tickets. In fact, he pretty much brutally murders and dissects almost anyone he comes in contact with. Oh hey, there he is now!”
Hootenanny waved at a massive, ten foot tall monstrosity hovering over a desk, it’s grotesque, half organic, half machine torso protected by a chitinous shell, out of which protruded bone-structures, from which mysterious vials were strung. A pair of massive fore-arms, one wielding a massive razor-sharp hook, the other with a series of winches, chains, and smaller hooks, and a number of smaller arms, topped with a variety of hooks, claws and syringes poked from beneath it’s shell. At the bottom of its torso was a metallic mound, from which sprouted a number of jars filled with viscera and a long scorpion like tail ending in some sort of cannon. Its head was an expressionless steel mask, upon which someone had glued a fake mustache and aviator sunglasses. A smaller arm along its shoulder waved back at Hootenanny.
“That’s a detective?” Shenanigans asked, agape.
“Oh yeah, O’Reilly’s been on the force for forty-six years now.”
“Ok… it just seems like… never mind. So what’s our next move?”
“Easy, we take to the streets. We hit the Irish Yakuza on their home turf and get some real answers.”
Hours later the two detectives sat in a car across the street from Ieyasu Branagan’s Irish Sake house. A half dozen Japanese-Irish thugs stood inconspicuously around the entrance. From the humble wooden sign hung a flag, bearing a shamrock superimposed over the rising sun.
“You ready to do this partner” spat Hootenanny as he popped the trunk to reveal enough firearms to overthrow a small island dictatorship.
“Well, I’m still not entirely sure what the plan is.” Shenanigans said, as Hootenanny shoved a submachine gun into his hands.
“Simple, we go in there and have a little chat with the local boss, find out what the deal is with the toasters, and arrest the lot of them. Now shove that down your pants, we’re trying not to arouse suspicion.”
“I’d just like to go on record saying I don’t think this plan is going to work.” Shenanigans tossed the submachine gun back in the trunk and gaped at what appeared to be a World War II flamethrower.
“You have a better idea?”
“Well we could actually investigate that crime scene last night, or, I don’t know, look at the toasters? Am I the only one that’s actually occurred to yet?”
“Too late, while you were yapping I already killed like four of them.”
Shenanigans looked up from the trunk and saw Hootenanny casually gunning down a fifth Yakuza thug. The survivor fled inside shouting frantically.
“Well what are you waiting for,” Hootenanny lifted the flamethrower from the trunk, “Let’s do some good ol’ fashioned police work.”
Reinforcements and panicked patrons began pouring from the sake house. However all they found outside was a fountain of flame as Hootenanny torched the ever-loving shit out of the façade of the building and anyone unfortunate enough to attempt to leave through the front door. Unfortunately moments later the flames began to sputter. With a disappointing drip the flamethrower ran out of fuel.
“Well that’s lame. I knew I should have filled it up after that meth lab last Friday…” Hootenanny removed the flamethrower and tossed it back in the trunk as Shenanigans stood up from where he had been cowering behind the car.
“This is not police work!” Shenanigans shouted, gesturing wildly at the burning building, “This is you being a fucking psychopath!”
“Nonsense! Now that we have them scared, they’ll tell us anything!”
A bullet shattered the rear window of the car as the survivors began to fire back.
“Or they’ll FUCKING TRY OT KILL US!” Shenanigans resumed his cowering, firing wildly at the burning building. A moment later, Hootenanny joined him, crouching down and fumbling with his belt, “What are you doing now, asshole?”
“These pants are slowing me down, if we’re going into that firestorm, I’m going to need complete freedom of movement!” He gave up on the belt and reached up into the wheel well of the car’s back tire, drawing a Bowie knife, which he used to cut away his cargo shorts, revealing a complicated system of holsters crisscrossing his pale legs. Satisfied and pants-less, he stood up, drawing his twin Desert Eagles and began marching toward the Sake house, firing wildly as he drew closer.
“You dumb bastard…” Shenanigans said, as he reluctantly provided covering fire for his partner. A moment later Hootenanny, having cleared out the pitiful survivors in the antechamber, beckoned Shenanigans over to him, as he stood framed by the burning doorframe. Shenanigans sighed and ran across the street to join him.
“Alright partner,” Hootenanny said, drawing Shenanigans closer as they stepped into the building, “We need to find the sauna, that’s where the Yakuza big-wigs hang out and plot their nefarious mixed race criminal activities.”
“Okay, first of all, I’m pretty sure this place doesn’t have a sauna, and second I think anyone important probably would have escaped out the back do-“
Shenanigans was interrupted by a massive explosion coming from the back of the building.
“That’s why I set claymores!” Hootenanny said, giving Shenanigans a friendly punch on the shoulder, “I mean that’s just basic Stakeout 101! TO THE SAUNA!”
Hootenanny advanced further into the building, shooting anyone he encountered and singing a jaunty Irish tune.
Shenanigans looked outside to the firetrucks which were just now arriving and consoled himself with the thought that there was always a chance he and Hootenanny would be sent to different prisons.
“Damn it Hootenanny!” Chief Angerman raged, “I’m tired of your SHENANIGANS!”
“Are you referring to my partner or my playful, reckless behavior.” Hootenanny smirked, sitting once again in front of the Chief’s desk as Shenanigans stood shamefully at his side.
“You know damn well what I’m referring to Hootenanny! 45 civilian casualties, 2.4 million in property damages, you shot a fireman in the face for chrissakes!”
“Hey, it was the heat of the moment and he came at me with an axe!”
“That was a fire extinguisher! He was trying to put out the fire you caused!” Shenanigans said, almost as angry as The Chief.
“All that would be fine if you actually got us a suspect, but the only thing we have is what appears to be boss Miyazaki McDougal’s left arm and most of his spleen. How the hell do we interrogate a spleen, Hootenanny? Riddle me that?”
“Well, if you hook it up to some electrodes…”
“I’m done! You’re both suspended, turn in your badges and guns!” Hootenanny sprang to his feet and grabbed The Chief by the collar.
“Damn it Chief! I’m this close to cracking this case wide open!” He held his fingers an inch apart uncomfortably close to The Chief’s left eye, “Word is these slant-eyed drunks are trying to summon Czernobog, the Black God!”
“What the fuck?” Shenanigans said, “Who told you that?”
“RANDOM ASSUMPTIONS!”
“That’s not enough for me anymore Hootenanny. I’m sorry, but I’m turning the case over to O’Reilly and Johnson.”
“Devastatingly Handsome Rick? But that guy’s an asshole! A beautiful, beautiful asshole!”
“Also,” Shenanigans chimed in, “O’Reilly’s a killing machine, like, literally a machine built exclusively for killing organic lifeforms. He doesn’t even have hands!”
“Yeah but they get the job done, unlike you two! Now badges, guns, on my desk, now!”
“You know what, I’m sort of okay with this,” Shenanigans said as he dropped his badge and gun on the Chief’s desk, “At least I won’t have to hang out with this Maniac anymore…” As he turned to leave Hootenanny frantically began patting himself down.
“So, just the gun you gave me, right? I can keep the rest?” Hootenanny patted himself down, drawing his twin Deagles, a variety of other handguns, a tomahawk, and an mp5 before finally finding his standard issue revolver in a small holster along his inner thigh.” He dropped it on the desk alongside his badge before grabbing his personal weapons in his arms and storming out after his former partner.
“Alright Shenanigans, what’s our next move.”
“Well,” Shenanigans turned angrily to Hootenanny, “I plan on going home until my suspensions over, and I recommend YOU check yourself into a mental hospital. It’s over Hootenanny, we’re off the case. There’s nothing more we can do.”
“Hey,” Hootenanny attempted to grab Shenanigans by the collar, but the portly detective dodged. Hootenanny then punched him in the gut, causing him to jerk forward into collar grabbing range, “When Jack Hootenanny takes a case, he doesn’t stop until he solves it! I’m not gonna let a little thing like suspension from the police force slow me down. But I need you to do this thing. We may have our differences, but… you’re the best partner I ever had, and I can’t do it without you.”
“No. You’re insane.”
“Sometimes it takes a psychotic murdered, to catch a psychotic murderer.”
“That MIGHT be relevant if we were, say, after a serial killer, but you do realize this is a drug case, right?”
“Of course! That gives me an idea! TO THE SHENANICOPTER!” Hootenanny released his death grip on Shenanigan’s collar and rushed out of the station.
“I don’t… why is it named after me?”
Shenanigans stood there for a long while, debating whether to follow him. Finally he fell back on the excuse that sidekicks to maniacs had been using since time began.
“I have to go with him, to make sure he doesn’t do anything TOO bad…”
Hours later, Hootenanny and Shenanigans stood hunched over a set of blueprint in a poorly lit basement.
“Alright partner, here are blueprints to the mansion of Sasuke O’Donnell, head honcho of the Irish Yakuza.”
“I’m just not gonna ask how you got these blueprints… so what’s the plan? Sneak in and snoop around?”
Before Hootenanny could respond there was a knock on the door. Hootenanny drew a gun and opened a slat on the door to see who was behind it. He smiled and lowered his gun as he opened the door to reveal five heavily armed muscular men.
“Shenanigans, I’d like you to meet our back-up for this venture, all ex-cops,” Shenanigans tentatively stuck out his hand and it was grasped and warmly shaken by the five men in turn, “Butch Carmine, Rick Scarlet, Johann Rotehemd, Hank Retchert, and Gustavo Rojo.”
“Nice to meet you all, I guess. More people are gonna be harder to sneak in, but I guess we can make it work…”
“Sneak?” Carmine laughed, “Ha! This guy’s funny Hoot!”
“Jack Hootenanny, never sneaks!” Hootenanny said, as he returned to the table, “We’re going in for a full frontal assault, right into the heart of the mansion!”
“Are you insane! Wait, dumb question, you do realize there are going to be dozens of guards, especially after the fiasco at the sake house!”
“Let me show you something Shenanigans.” Hootenanny came around behind Shenanigans and showed him through a door at the back of the room into an underground garage, “They can throw a hundred guards at us, and it won’t mean shit if we’re in this baby!” Hootenanny gestured wide at the Mark VII tank squatting in front of them.
“Ho-ly shit!” Shenanigans gaped, “This thing’s from World War 1!”
“I know, right? I saw it in that Indiana Jones movie and I’m like ‘I gotta get me one of those!’”
“How can you afford all these things on a detective’s salary!”
“Embezzlement!”
“I should be upset about that, but that’s like the least illegal thing you’ve done since I’ve met you. So does this behemoth even run!”
“Of course not! It’s like a hundred years old! The guns work though!”
Shenanigans stopped gazing at the tank and turned to his partner.
“So wait, if it doesn’t work, how are we going to drive it to the mansion?”
“Who said we were driving?”
That night, Hootenanny, Shenanigans and Hootenanny’s brute squad manned the guns of the tank as it swayed precariously below a Bell UH-1 transport helicopter.
“That’s not the Shenanicopter is it?” Shenanigans said, sitting in the navigsator’s chair and gripping the seat for dear life.
“Oh no, that’s Wedge Janssen, old war buddy, owns a helicopter.”
“I’m genuinely surprised you have this many friends that are still alive.”
Minutes later, O’Donnell’s mansion loomed on the horizon.
“So is he just going to drop us in the courtyard?”
“Yeah, Shenanigans” Hootenanny rolled his eyes sarcastically, “because we’re clearly little girls. With big pink bows in our hair. Aren’t we Rick?”
Rick, manning the left sponson, laughed, “Oh aye, wee little girls in frilly little dresses.”
Suddenly the tank shuddered as the cables holding it to the helicopter released and it began plummeting to the earth. With a deafening crash, the ancient tank hit the roof of the mansion and smashed through into the lobby, where a pair of magnificent staircases led up to the second floor.
“GOOD SHOT JANSSEN!” Hootenanny shouted into a walkie talkie at his side.
“Why does every drug lord feel like he needs to copy Scarface?” Shenanigans mused as Yakuza thugs poured into the room.
“You may fire at will, boys!” Hootenanny said, climbing from the driver’s seat and heading for the hatch. The ex-cops obliged, firing the tank’s cannons and demolishing walls and henchmen alike. Hootenanny flipped open the hatch and began firing his pistols into anyone who managed to survive the devastating cannon fire.
After a couple minutes, the tank was out of ammunition and the Yakuza were out of thugs dumb enough to enter the lobby. Hootenanny, Shenanigans and the brute squad exited the tank, and headed for the staircase, blowing away any Yakuza who had come out of hiding when the cannon fire had stopped.
“Alright, according to the blueprints, there’s a secret elevator in the office at the top of the staircases that leads to an underground bunker. That dirty Irish-Japanese dog’s probably squatting down there as we speak.” Hootenanny, reloaded his precious Deagles and dropped prone at the top of the stairs. Shenanigans dropped into place behind him, wielding a borrowed Mac-10.
“Hey before we continue, I had a question.”
“Yeah?”
“Are these guys half Irish, half Japanese, or Japanese with Irish last names, or what? It’s hard to get a good look at them when you keep exploding them like that.”
“Uh… Is it really that important?”
“No, I suppose not.”
The office at the top of the staircase was abandoned. Hootenanny tossed a grenade behind the expensive desk to be safe and entered moments later as the smoke cleared. He stepped over to the bookcase in the rear and pulled down one of the few books that had not fallen off during the explosion. The bookcase slid upwards to reveal a small elevator, which the seven men crammed into.
“Lock and load boys. This is it. Final boss time.” Hootenanny, lovingly caressed his Desert Eagles as the brute squad reloaded and prepared their own respective firearms.
“You act like this is all some game,” Shenanigans said, checking the number of rounds left in his Mac-10, “These are real people, real, ethnically confusing people we’re talking about.”
“These aren’t people,” Hootenanny, managed to pull out a cigarette and light it, “These are criminals. They gave up their human rights the second they decided they were too good for the laws of society. These… animals are a disease infecting our fair city. And we are the cure.”
“Wow, that was as insane as it was hypocritical.”
Finally, the elevator rumbled to a halt and the doors opened, revealing a dozen Yakuza thugs with guns trained on the interior. They opened fire, filling Carmine, Rotehemd, and Scarlet, the men closest to the doors, with bullets. The others used their muscular bodies as human shields as they returned fire, taking down most of the thugs and forcing the others to retreat behind a large door at the end of a hallway.
Hootenanny, Shenanigans, Rojo and Retchert stepped over the bodies of their comrades and advanced down the hallway. When they reached the door, Retchert knelt and began taking explosives out of the pack he carried on his back. As he set the first charge, a massive hook erupted straight through the steel door and withdrew, ripping the door off it’s hinges. Some-Kind-Of-Death-Machine O’Reilly tossed the door aside and wrapped the hooks and chains on his other limb around Retchert, who screamed as he was drawn into range of the smaller limbs, which quickly began tearing him to pieces.
Rojo fired at the detective, but his bullets ricocheted off the black chitinous armour plates protecting his grotesque torso.
“Madre de Dios!” The ex-cop screamed as he dropped his gun, “Our weapons our useless, reliance upon them is death!” He turned to run but was suddenly transfixed by a bolt of searing electricity from the cannon affixed to O’Reilly’s “tail”.
“Oh Fuck! We’re fucked!” Shenanigans backed slowly toward the elevator as Hootenanny advanced angrily.
“I knew it, you Irish fuck! Nothing worse than a dirty cop!” He aimed one of his pistols at the detective’s head, then lowered it toward the bag of explosives Retchert had abandoned that the creature was currently hovering directly above.
“The doctor is in.” Hootenanny fired and the bag detonated, engulfing the corrupt detective in flames and eliciting a hideous shriek, as he fell to the ground. Hootenanny took a few steps back, and then took a running leap over O’Reilly’s flaming carcass and into the room he had been protecting. At the other end the Yakuza boss was being helped to his feet by the only two goons to survive O’Reilly’s explosive death. Hootenanny gunned the two thugs down mercilessly and stood over the Yakuza boss.
“Alright O’Donnell, just you and me now.”
“Ya crazy bastad!” O’Donnell spat, “What the hell do ye want boy?”
“Why are you bringing toasters into my city? Are you trying to summon the Black God with some sort of toaster electrocution sacrifice? Like… maybe in a lake… or something… like, drop em all in…”
“Ye doss cunt, the toaster’s’re full a Heroin! Did ye even look at ‘em? It’ t’aint even a good disguise, I mean, juss a cheap shell, ye can take apart wit ye bare hands!”
“Oh… that makes sense I guess. CASE SOLVED!” Hootenanny put a bullet in O’Donnell’s head and climbed back out of the room.
“Man, Shenanigans, you’re never gonna believe…” Hootenanny looked own the smoke filled hallway to where Shenanigans lay slumped against a wall, “Shenanigans? Partner?” Hootenanny rushed to Shenanigan’s side where he saw he was still barely alive, “Shenanigans! What happened?”
Shenanigans’ eyes flickered open weakly.
“There… was an explosion… you dumb bastard…”
“Don’t die on me Shenanigans!”
“In fact, I’m a bit confused how you managed to just shrug it off…”
“I need you buddy… you’re my partner! You can’t have the crazy guy without the straight man…”
“I mean… you were standing closer than me…”
“And speaking of ‘straight man’, I think I might be gay.”
“That’s… really not that surprising…”
“Yeah, I don’t know, I just have a powerful hankering to bone some dudes.”
“Can it wait… til you get me to a hospital?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m on it!”
For the third time in as many days Hootenanny and Shenanigans sat in The Chief’s office. The Chief stood silently, his back turned to the detectives. Finally he spoke.
“Do you know how much trouble you two are in? 168 dead. 3 million in property damage. And without a goddamn badge between the two of you to justify it,”
He turned to face them, his face a picture of disdain and rage, exemplifying an entirely new emotion known only as “disdaige”.
“Chief, I can explain…” Shenanigans tried to rise but was stopped, and sat back dopwn, clutching his bandaged chest. The disdaige on The Chief’s face melted into a sly smile.
“…and you wiped out the entire Irish Yakuza leadership base, taking out a dirty cop in the process. That was some of the finest god-damn police work I’ve ever seen.”
“I know! Right?” Hootenanny said excitedly, “We got to drop a tank on a mansion, and I shot like thirty guys in the face, Oh! And it was heroin. The toasters are full of heroin.”
“Huh. Makes sense. Welcome back to the force you two!”
“I would comment on this turn of events,” Shenanigans said, as a look of bliss passed over him, “But it looks like the morphine is kicking in. Hooray for police!”
“That’ll be commendations for the both of you!” The Chief said, as he pulled a pair of medals shaped like explosions from his desk.
“Thanks Chief, but I’m just glad justice was finally served.”
“Now, let’s get to work on that Fudge Calhoun, Sex Detective Spin-off”
“The Chocolate Fuck Machine? I’d read that!”
“Good night Folks!”
THE END
