THE PRIVATE STASH
Private eye Jack Hammer’s search for a missing millionaire ends when he finds the man in a self-induced coma, having sacrificed himself searching for a cure for his rare cancer.
If you prefer the story as a Jazz enhanced audio book you can find it here. The Pop Bottle Millionaire: A Jack Hammer Pulp-Noir Audio Book
The Smell of Perfume and Desperation
The dame on the other side of the desk had money, the kind that smelled of perfume and desperation. Her name was Evelyn, and the story she was spinning was a familiar one: a good man gone missing. Her fiancé, a self-made man named Amos, had vanished without a trace from their penthouse suite on the 40th floor.
A Motto from the Old Neighborhood
She showed me a photo of him—a man in a tailored suit, a slick haircut, and eyes that looked like they’d seen it all. He was a long way from the streets, but something about him felt like he’d never left. Evelyn talked about his success, his fortune, and the way he’d built an empire from nothing.
“He always said you had to get out in the world. And cut off your own slice of meat,” she told me, her voice trembling. “It was his motto.”
The Trail Leads to Old Town
Something about the phrase caught me. It wasn’t the kind of thing you hear in a penthouse. It was the language of the street, of a kid who learned to hustle with a burlap sack and a handful of ambition. It was the language of Old Town. I knew that phrase. It was my old man’s motto, and it was a language I spoke fluently.
“Where did he grow up, Miss?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“He said he was from some old neighborhood… Old Town, I think?”
That was all I needed to hear. The case wasn’t about a missing millionaire. It was about a ghost from my own past, a man who had pulled himself out of the gutter only to be dragged back in. The trail was leading me home.
