Ace T. Choline: Private Eye

A piece I wrote for AP Psych. Its not literary or anything. I just chose the Film Noir medium because I wanted to experiment. "(Mono)" indicates that Ace is monologuing to himself.


Ace: (mono) It was 1949. Crime roamed the streets of New York like it was the Archduke of Austria. I was young. Had a few cases. Nothing big. The shadows of the city pervaded my office like an iron curtain. I kept two magnums in my desk. One, a gun, and I kept it loaded. The other, bourbon, and it kept me loaded. I punched a few more keys on my typewriter. It had been a long day. A saxophone riff suddenly played. She walked through the door like a tigress walks in to a Burmese Orphanage – strawberry blonde and legs for hours. No dame her age could afford a coat like that, and the kinda makeup she had on gave me a good idea of how she got it. She had bad news written on her like October of ’29.

Sara: are you Ace?

Ace: yeah

Sara: I hear you’re pretty good

Ace: (mono) typical flattery. I could tell she hadn’t played the Femme Fatale role in a while

Sara: I have a job for you

Ace: I’m listening

Sara: my husband was murdered a few days ago. The police found no leads

Ace: (mono) she was like a cat playing with her food. I wasn’t buyin it
Ace: You’re in quite a good mood to have just lost your lover

Sara: I’m a strong woman

Ace: A little heavy on the makeup. Who you lookin good for?

Sara: I don’t sleep much. I need a little helping hand

Ace: you look well for getting no sleep

Sara: I keep a good well-being

Ace: (mono) she leaned in, flaunting what even Mae West would be jealous of. She took a puff of her cigarette. A dark puff, and blew it at me like a politician. It was predatory and corrupt, full of betrayal. She had men under her thumb. I had to be careful. I don’t do well wrapped around fingers
Ace: so Mel is dead?

Sara: how did you know Mel was my husband?

Ace: we were friends. I’d never forget his watch
Ace: (mono) Sara covered up her wrist. She could tell she had been read like a pop-up book on Kama Sutra

Sara: so will you do the job?

Ace: I’ll get to the bottom of this
(mono) the very bottom. I sat back in my chair. The street light below flickered off. My impractically slow ceiling fan spun above me like a tornado, only without the high winds, funnel cloud, devastation and death

Sara: you two were friends?

Ace: yeah, friends like Germany and Russia were friends

Sara: what happened?

Ace: (mono) she was setting me up for something. I was being herded like buffalo to a cliff. I decided to play along
Ace: we were in the watch-making business. I wanted out. That didn’t sit with him. He took our assets to court. And won

Sara: what’d you do?

Ace: I came here. I wanted to rid the street of corruption; corruption like him

G-man: GABA G-man, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ace T. Choline, you are under arrest for the murder of Mel Tonin

Ace: you framed me!

Sara: like Roger Rabbit

Ace: (mono) A cunning Riposte in our verbal duel. I had been reduced to a Burmese Orphan, and she was the tigress. Like a fish on a hook, I had fallen for the bait; and all the obscure similes and metaphors couldn’t save me now.