"Murder Is But A Memory" drabbles by Christopher
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 130
Murder Is But A Memory
"Where?" I yelled loud enough to shake the paint off the walls.
"Rosie's!" he said, trying to match my tone but falling short by several decibels.
Damn! I thought. I only hoped I didn't mention where that was.
"Did I say where Rosie's is?" I asked, with my stomach in a knot.
He looked up at me and laughed a weak but sinister laugh. "You didn't have to. Vic knew exactly where it was!" he said, seeming to revel in that knowledge.
"You're full of crap," I said.
"His boys have already gone to bring her back here," he chuckled...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 129
Murder Is But A Memory
"Okay, Doc," I said as I stood up and clapped my hands together. "Where did I say Diana Blackmore was?"
Mallory shook his head side to side belligerently like a toddler who didn't want to eat his peas.
"No...no...no!" the doc said, slurring his words like a sailor in his 47th hour of a 2-day shore leave.
I stood up and kicked the chair I had been sitting in across the room. It crashed against the wall, startling the doctor.
"Look, Mallory, I don't have time to play bullshit games! Did I say where Diana was?"
"Yes!" he shouted.
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 128
Murder Is But A Memory
I went for Mallory's arm with the needle and he began fidgeting in the chair and trying to pull his arms up.
"Randolph, listen," he said, blubbering like a schoolgirl, not a mob doctor. "I'll tell you what you want to know, even though Vic will probably kill me for it."
I raised the needle, "He can't really blame you if I use the same method of obtaining information as you did, now can he?
I stuck the needle in his arm, pushing the Pentothal into his system.
I pulled up a chair, turned it around, and sat down, waiting.
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 127
Murder Is But A Memory
I went to the table and saw the hypodermic needle he'd used to inject me with Pentothal. There was still some left in it. I picked it up and turned back to the doctor.
His eyes widened, his face looking like a plate with two sunny side up eggs sitting on it.
"I need to know exactly what I said, Doc. And I need to know now."
Mallory started stammering, trying to reason with me.
"Mr. Randolph, you have to be careful with Pentothal! The wrong dose could kill me!"
"Do I look the slightest bit concerned about that, Doc?"
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 126
Murder Is But A Memory
I heard footsteps approaching the door. I readied myself. The door swung open and the doctor entered and began speaking.
"Well, Mr. Rando...," he stopped short when he saw I was not in the chair.
I grabbed Mallory's right arm and twisted it behind his back. He screamed out in pain. I pushed him over to the chair and dropped him in it. I threw the leather strap over his right arm and cinched it tight, then repeated that act on the other side.
"Mr. Randolph, please! I was only following orders!"
I frowned, "Hitler's men said the same thing."
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 125
Murder Is But A Memory
I unstrapped my right arm and then reached down to unstrap my ankles. Once free from the torture chair, I quietly moved to the door. I gently turned the knob but it was locked. I waited behind the door, so when the doctor opened it I'd be able to take him down from behind. I leaned against the wall, trying to remember if I had said anything while I was under the influence of the Pentothal. I just couldn't recall what I had revealed. But it didn't matter. When the doc came back, I would make him tell me everything...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 124
Murder Is But A Memory
I could feel the straps loosening, just a little. I rested my arms for a few moments, and then pulled up as hard as I could. The rough leather was biting into my forearms; my skin was on fire. The searing pain was actually helping to blow the clouds from my mind with a gale force.
The strap over my left arm had loosened enough that I tried pulling my arm out from under it. It was slow going, but eventually, after practically tearing a layer of epidermis from my arm, I managed to pull it free of the strap...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 123
Murder Is But A Memory
I remembered there was something I was trying to do, but couldn't bring it to mind. What was it? It was something important.
The doctor left the room, and I thought I heard the rattling of a keychain, like he was locking the door. Maybe it was a cockroach with spiked golf shoes on walking across the metal table in the corner. Nothing would've surprised me at that point.
I focused my concentration to remember what I was trying to accomplish. It was my arms! I was trying to free my arms! I began pulling up on the leather straps
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 122
Murder Is But A Memory
I vaguely remember being asked where Diana was. Did I answer? Did I say she was at Rosie's in Pasadena? I couldn't remember. I think Vic's ugly mug was leaning over me, smiling into my face.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for God only knows how long. I didn't know what day it was or what time it was. I was even questioning who I was.
I had to get out of there, but I didn't even know where there was. A hospital? A doctor's office? I wasn't even sure what country I was in at that point...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 121
Murder Is But A Memory
I don't remember how long it was between the time he stuck me with the hypodermic needle and the time I slipped off the edge of the world. Five minutes? Five hours? Five million years?
A miasma of rotten onions hung in the air, as if I were stumbling through Hell's vegetable market. I couldn't seem to focus my brain on anything except repeatedly reminding myself that what they wanted was Diana's location. And telling myself that I wasn't going to reveal it, drugged or not.
I could barely see the doctor standing there talking to someone. It was Vic...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 120
Murder Is But A Memory
He nodded, "That's correct. But it's not a magic elixir, or a witches' brew. It doesn't force the subject to 'tell the truth' as it were, like some sort of Haitian voodoo spell. You see, Mr. Randolph, lying is a much more complex act than telling the truth. The medical community believes that because Pentothal suppresses the higher cortical functions, it makes it more difficult for the subject to keep the truth hidden behind a maze of lies.
I grinned, " And you just happen to have some of this witches' brew, I suppose."
He smiled, raising the hypodermic needle.
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 119
Murder Is But A Memory
He continued fiddling around with something on a table, his back to me. I kept pulling up on the leather straps across my arms. There was a little bit of slack in them, and I kept slowly working to loosen them, little by little.
"Mr. Randolph," the doc said as if he were calling me up for an annual physical, "when I was working at Abbott Laboratories back in the 30's, we developed a drug called sodium thiopental, later marketed as Pentothal. Ever heard of it?"
I nodded slowly, "Yeah, Doc. I think we common folk call it truth serum."
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 118
Murder Is But A Memory
Through the haze of my semi-consciousness, I could just make out Dr. Mallory telling Rocco and Sal that he would call them just as soon as he had the info Vic wanted. They left shortly after, and the doctor was milling around the examination room tidying up. I think he was waiting for me to regain consciousness.
He turned to see me trying to shake the clouds out of my head.
"Ah, Mr. Randolph. I see you're back in the land of the coherent."
"That's debatable," I said, pulling my arms up to test the strength of the straps...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 117
Murder Is But A Memory
The door swung open to reveal not a Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory, complete with flaming Bunsen burners, banks of voltage meters, and a table with the sewn together body parts of a hideous monster, but a rather antiseptic, generic-looking examination room, not unlike my own doctor's. The only anomaly in the room was a chair with leather straps on the armrests. It looked like something out of a mental institution.
The next thing I remember was waking up with a severe headache, a lump on the back of my head, and my arms strapped to the arms of the chair...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 116
Murder Is But A Memory
Rocco knocked on the door and a man in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck answered it.
"You must be the doctor," I said sarcastically as Sal shoved me into the house. Rocco closed the door and greeted the man.
"Hey, Doc. This is the guy Mr. Stane told you about."
The man nodded as he looked me up and down.
"I see," he said, raising a hand toward a room at the back of the house.
Sal continued shoving me in the back until we reached the door.
I wondered what the hell was in there...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 115
Murder Is But A Memory
We pulled around the back of a house that gave no indication that it was a doctor's office, save for the mailbox containing the name "Dr. Amos Mallory." It was a white stucco house with a red clay tile roof. Not your typical doctor's house. Although I doubt Mallory is your typical doctor.
They stopped the car just as the sun was setting. It could have been a lovely evening, but for the fact that two mobsters were taking me into some quack's chamber of horrors for God knows what purpose.
How did I keep getting myself into those situations?
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 114
Murder Is But A Memory
"Boulder City was founded to house those who were contracted to work on the Boulder Dam, which was officially renamed Hoover Dam in 1947. The building of the dam and the creation of the city was signed by President Coolidge in '28, and the contract to build was awarded to Six Companies, Inc. As with other company towns, they're very protective of their workers. They banned gambling and alcohol, which means there's no fun in this town. I think the gate was put up to keep the unsavory Vegas mobsters from wandering in and taking over."
Too late, I thought.
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 113
Murder Is But A Memory
We had then entered Boulder City and drove up the main drag, Nevada Highway. The other main streets all seemed to be named after surrounding states: Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
I looked back at the gate we'd just passed through, somewhat puzzled.
"Hey, Rocco," I called up to the front seat, "what's the deal? I've never seen a city protected by a gate and a guard, at least not in this country."
Sal rolled his beady little eyes as Rocco cleared his throat and began to give me a history lesson, sounding like a tour guide...
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 112
Murder Is But A Memory
Rocco pulled up to a guard shack in front of a giant wrought iron gate. A short, squatty man with a face like a catcher's mitt stepped out of the little structure and said, "Hey, Rocco. Back again?"
Rocco nodded, "Yeah. Got another patient for Doc Mallory."
The guard walked to the gate, swung it open, and came back to Rocco's window.
"Man, the ole' doc must be really good. He sure gets a lot of new patients."
Rocco smiled as he pulled away, saying, "Yeah, he's a real credit to his profession. So long, Newton. Have a good one."
Jake Randolph, Private Investigator Pt. 111
Murder Is But A Memory
Here we go again, I thought as Sal and Rocco shoved me in the back of the Buick Roadmaster and headed south down Fremont Avenue. I was trying to make note of where the Golden Clover Casino was, because I fully intended to keep my word to Vic and come back for a not-so-friendly chat.
We drove out of the city of Las Vegas. I was looking at my watch trying to gauge the time, since I had no way of accurately measuring the distance. It was about 40 minutes until we reached the town of Boulder City.
