"Jake Randolph Origins" drabbles by Christopher

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 69

Jake Randolph Origins #69

"What'sa in it fora me?" he asked with his head tilted and one eye closed.

I tightened my grip on him. "Not ending up a bloody pulp that your own mother couldn't even identify!"

He shook his head, "No, mya mother, Goda rest her soul, never liked the sight ofa blood."

If anyone else had said that to me in that situation I would've thought they were being a smartass and would've beaten them up for it. But I couldn't help but like this guy. I don't know why.

I let go of him and walked out of the alley...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 68

Jake Randolph Origins #68

"Oww, you're ahurting me!" he said, actually sounding like Chico Marx.

"Lemme guess," I said as I held him up against the wall, "you're the one the hotel desk clerk called? The man with his ear to the ground? The one to talk to about the goings on in Zurich?"

He smiled, "If ita goes on ina Zurich, rest assured that I'ma the man you wanna talka to!"

I expected his monkey to show up at any moment. He sure seemed like the typical organ grinder to me.

"Okay, Mr. Italy. I need some info. And you better have it."

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 67

Jake Randolph Origins #67

This joker kept eyeballing me from behind a giant potted plant, very furtively. He looked like what you would expect to see if Chico Marx had been cast to play Boston Blackie. I paid for my coffee and went around the opposite side of the café, going around behind it and up through the alley until I was now approaching the little man from behind him. I tapped his shoulder and he turned quickly, a dagger glinting in the Swiss daylight.

I grabbed his wrist and twisted it until he dropped the weapon. Then I pulled him into the alley...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 66

Jake Randolph Origins #66

He said he would make a call, so I told him I would be across the street at the café having some coffee.

I sat at one of the tables outside for about half an hour, idly sipping my coffee and observing everything around me. There was a man at the end of the street, a squatty little guy with dark, receding hair and a thin black mustache that looked like someone drew it on with a pencil. He appeared Italian. I guess they had Italian people in Switzerland too. I wondered if I'd ever meet anyone who's actually Swiss...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 65

Jake Randolph Origins #65

My expense account was rising fast, so I thought I'd better exercise a little of that frugality that Lieutenant Rivers spoke of. I booked into the Hotel Paradies on the outskirts of Zurich. This dump wasn't exactly paradise. I doubt it would even qualify as a whistle stop on the train to glory.

Once the desk clerk stopped speaking German, which I didn't know was one of the main languages in Switzerland, and started conversing in English, I asked him who I should see if I wanted to know about the things that go on behind the scenes in Zurich...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 64

Jake Randolph Origins #64

Zurich, Switzerland was about a 10 hour drive from Berlin, maybe longer in an Army troop truck, and that ain't a fast getaway. That meant that whatever Col. Hall wanted the truck for was probably in Zurich and not Berlin. He wasn't getting away, he was getting to.

I thanked Rocco, told him to look me up if he ever decided to come back to the States, and headed for the airport. I chartered a small plane to fly me to Zurich and hoped when I got there I would find another clue on my quest to locate Col. Hall...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 63

Jake Randolph Origins #63

I wrote it down and rose up from my seat.

"Thanks, pally," I said as I turned to leave. Just as I reached the door Rocco called out to me.

"Hey, wait a minute," he said, "I do remember one thing."

That was the next lesson I learned about being a detective: if someone wants to help they sometimes need their memory jogged. Attempting to leave in a frustrated huff seemed like a good way to kickstart their brain.

"I helped him load his things into the truck. He had a map of Switzerland and Zurich was circled on it."

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 62

Jake Randolph Origins #62

"What?" Rocco asked with genuine puzzlement.

"Never mind. Can you tell me anything about Col. Hall that day?"

"He just came in, took a troop truck and left."

"Did you ask him why he needed a troop truck?"

"No."

"Why not?" I asked.

"He's a colonel, I'm a sergeant. You do the math, Randolph!"

"Did he say anything about where he was going?"

"No."

"Can you at least give me the number of the damned truck?" I was getting really pissed off at this point.

He grabbed a clipboard and thumbed through several pages.

"Okay, the number's 3107 HQ-10."

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 61

Jake Randolph Origins #61

"You know who wasn't scared, Rocco? Me, when I took the blame for that crap game that you organized."

He looked down. That was the next thing I learned about the detective game: if you are owed favors don't be afraid to cash them in.

"I'm afraid of that man, Jake. I never trusted him."

I nodded, "You have good instincts, Rocco. I just need some kind of clue that might point me to where he is. It's important."

"Why are you looking for him?" he asked.

"Let's just say there's a ledger that needs balancing. And I'm the accountant."

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 60

Jake Randolph Origins #60

"Curiosity," I said. "I'm looking for someone and I understand you were the last person to see them."

"Oh yeah?" he said inquisitively. "Who's that?"

"Col. Hall."

Rocco looked like I had just told him the Yankees had moved to Boston.

"Col. Hall?" he asked sheepishly.

"Yeah. I heard he requisitioned a truck from you. Do you know anything about where he was going?"

He looked genuinely terrified. I wondered if Hall had threatened him in some way.

"No, I don't. Look, Jake, I don't really want to talk about Col. Hall. The man scares the hell out of me."

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 59

Jake Randolph Origins #59

Rocco raised his glass, "To Adolf and Eva's honeymoon in hell. May it be marred by fire, brimstone and impotence!"

"Hear, hear!" I said as we clinked our glasses together and downed the liquor.

"I think the aforementioned motor oil would've been a better choice of beverage," I said, coughing the words out.

"Hey," Rocco admonished, "we just finished fighting a war, for chrissakes! Gimme a break!"

I raised a hand, "Okay, Rocco, calm down."

He poured himself, but not me, another shot and quickly drank it down. He winced a little.

"So, what really brings you back here, Jakey?"

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 58

Jake Randolph Origins #58

There was a loud silence as Rocco looked hurt, and then we both burst out laughing and hugged a quick hug that only self-styled macho men know how to do.

He pointed to a chair in front of his desk and said, "Sit! Sit! I got a bottle of motor oil I've been saving for a special occasion. And this is it, pally!"

He went around the desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. He also took out a couple of cloudy looking shot glasses. He poured them both full and handed one to me...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 57

Jake Randolph Origins #57

"Jakey!" Rocco yelled as he came around the desk and shook my hand hard enough to dislodge it from my wrist.

Rocco was a member of my platoon and one of a handful of guys, along with Jim Harrigan, that I couldn't have gotten through the war without. We were very close, although you might not think it to listen to us.

"What are you doing back here? I thought the Army finally got rid of your ass!" he said with a grin.

"Rocco, I went home and found stupidity and incompetence everywhere. And it really made me miss you."

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 56

Jake Randolph Origins #56

The first person I needed to see was Sgt. Rocco De Luca, the one in charge of the motor pool where Col. Hall was last seen requisitioning a truck. I didn't know what good that was going to do but I didn't know where else to start.

As I walked into the motor pool on the makeshift Army base in Berlin Rocco looked up and saw me, rubbing his eyes and then looking again to see if I was a mirage or not. I could see in his face he still wasn't sure.

"Hello, Rocco. How's tricks?" I asked brazenly...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 55

Jake Randolph Origins #55

The city was suffering from hunger and a lack of firewood. The Allies were trying their hardest to alleviate these problems as best as they could, but everything was an utter mess.

Unfortunately, nothing could be done to alleviate my problems. I was having a hard time being back. My nerves were frayed, my stomach was in knots and my mind kept recalling scenes of the war. Battles I had been in were playing in my head like newsreel footage. I wanted to get my job done and get the hell out of that place as fast as I could...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 54

Jake Randolph Origins #54

I'd only left a few months before I returned, but even though it was something that would haunt me for the rest of my days it seemed like a lifetime ago since I'd been there. That didn't make any sense, but the whole damned experience didn't make much sense.

Berlin was nothing more than a heap of ruins. Buildings were obliterated into giant piles of rubble, particularly in the center of the city, the Mitte district. Efforts were already underway to clear the debris, but it would be many years before Berlin even halfway resembled the city of the past...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 53

Jake Randolph Origins #53

Rivers said that the Army had given me an expense account to track down Col. Hall. But it wasn't bottomless so Rivers advised me to be frugal.

I knew the first thing I was going to have to do was something I swore I'd never do again: return to Germany. It wasn't anything as petty as a bad vacation that gave me my aversion to Deutschland. I killed people there. I saw my fellow soldiers fall and die there. My time there, although necessary, was one of the worst experiences of my life.

And I didn't want to relive it...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 52

Jake Randolph Origins #52

I was really groggy and confused. I kept waking up in a hospital bed. I was having trouble distinguishing what was past and present. I had to force myself to recall that I was in fact in 1962 and my mind was slipping back to 1945. But it wasn't nostalgia.

My brain was looking for clues. The case I was working on in the present was tied to my very first case. The man that shot me in 1962 also shot me in 1945. Fusing the past and the present was the only way I was going to solve this..

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 51

Jake Randolph Origins #51

Rivers didn't know very much. Apparently, Col. Hall disappeared just after the fall of Berlin. The only thing they knew was that he requisitioned a truck and drove it away himself. That was the last time anyone saw him.

He also said the Army wanted to keep this as quiet as possible. That's why they weren't kicking over too many rocks to see if Col. Hall slithered out from under one. It would be embarrassing after the victory the free world had just won to find out that an American Army colonel was cozied up in bed with a Nazi...

Jake Randolph: Origins Pt. 50

Jake Randolph Origins #50

Half the restaurant looked over at the table like I was a mime that just crashed a funeral. Rivers couldn't contain his amusement at seeing me get so worked up. He put his hands up.

"Calm down, Randolph. That's an order."

I wanted to say we weren't in the Army anymore, but I had too much respect for that man. I simply said, "Yes, sir."

He leaned back in his chair, "So, I take it that means you want the job?"

"Yes I do," I said softly through clenched teeth.

"Okay," he smiled slightly, "I'll tell you what I know."