From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

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From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

Postby LaoWai » Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:22 pm

This is just a goofy little thing I mess around with when I lose my train of thought for real writing at restaurants. I finally typed up entry #1 out of what's currently maybe 40 or so, so I figured I'd share it.

Spoiler: show
Monday, February 12, 9:55 am, Office

Of all the offices in all the towns in all the Plains States, she had to walk into mine. She’d made her appointment the night before, and she’d sounded like a polite broad.

I’d asked her why she was coming to me, and she’d said, “Because you’re the only game in town.” That’d be me. The name’s Don Dingen, and I’m the only dick in this town, the sole soul-stained gumshoe willing to kick back at the scum infesting society’s rotten underbelly.

I’d asked her what it was she wanted, and she’d said, “It’s not something I want to talk about over the phone.” Sounded like the kind of broad who knew what she wanted. I’d told her to be at my office at 10 and then given her directions.

Something in my gut told me she’d be there in about 5 minutes. I checked myself in the mirror, and it showed me what I looked like. That’s what mirrors do, except for those crazy ones in fun-houses. Just like I’d expected, there was a knock at the door just after 10:00. My gut’s never wrong, except when it is.

I opened the door, as is the custom when somebody knocks, and she walked in on a pair of stems that went all the way up to her hips. It only took a glance to see that this dame had it all: hair, skin, teeth, fingers, bilateralism, homeostasis… everything. I didn’t know just what to say, words not being what you’d call my forte, so I just grunted and sat down behind my desk.

“I need your help,” she said, and her voice was as smooth as butter melting on a short stack of buttermilk pancakes. I grunted. “It’s about my husband,” she said, and her voice was as silky as cream. I grunted. “He’s been coming home late once a week the last two months, and I don’t know where he goes,” she said, and her voice was as slick as yolk spilling out of a pair of sunny side up eggs after you stick a fork in them.

“What do you need me to do about it?” I asked, voice bitter as black coffee before you add the sugar and cream.

“I want you to follow him,” she told me, “and then tell me where he’s going Monday nights,” and her voice was as tempting as good streaky bacon cooked up just right, where you get the parts that are crispy as well as the parts that are still soft and chewy right next to each other.

“Where do I find him?” I asked, like I was hungry.

“I’ve made up a file with his work address, his car info, some photos of him, stuff like that,” she said, and her voice was as crisp and businesslike as hot hash-browns on a warm plate. “I thought you could follow him after work, because it’s Mondays when he disappears.” She fished a manila envelope out of her purse and placed it on the desk.

I picked up the file without a word and leafed through it silently. I’m a man of action, after all, not some debutante socializing with prospective beaus at a coming-out ball way back when, when young women still wore those puffy things under their dresses to make their backsides look as though they were trying to smuggle watermelons through a customs check-point. If I had a middle name that suited me better, instead of this “Scott” nonsense my parents saddled me with, it’d be “Taciturn.” Don Taciturn Dingen, that’s me in a different reality, one where everyone does names like the American Indians do, where you think about your personal qualities and character quirks, maybe find a spirit guide, then say you ought to be called something like “Gets-Right-to-the-Point McGee” or whatever.

“I’ll get on this right away,” I told her, voice sweet as syrup.

“OK,” she said, “Thank you…um…Bye?” she said as she walked out of the door. Her voice was as split-up, yet still continuous, as nicely browned sausage links.

I had a case now. The ball was in my court, and it was time to play. There wasn’t any point in postponing the inevitable, because it was time to get right down to brass tacks, time to put up or shut up, time to hold them or to fold them, time to poop or get off the pot. Without hesitation, I grabbed my hat, my jacket and my trusty pea-shooter, double-checked that I’d turned off my space-heater last month, looked for and found my keys, and got right down to business.


If people like, I can get around to typing up more.
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Last edited by LaoWai on Sun Mar 04, 2018 11:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

Postby Ladki96 » Mon Feb 12, 2018 2:29 pm

That was hilarious and awesome and please do more
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Re: From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

Postby LaoWai » Tue Feb 13, 2018 12:42 am

Well, apparently I've got at least an audience of one more than me. (I just increased my audience by 100%) Fair warning: there's not really any actual story as far as I know, though I did hunt through a couple of notebooks to find an entry that looks like it follows the last one.

Entry #2:

Spoiler: show
Monday, February 12, 11:35 am, Denny’s

I ordered a Grand Slam Slugger. All that talking with the broad had pretty severely cut into my caloric reserves, and I was hungry.

Me, I’m the kind of guy who likes his conversations brief, his parallel phrases coordinated, his pancakes hot, and for there to be a pat of butter melting on top of a short stack before it even hits the table. Both Gladys and Denny’s help me out in that last regard. I get a free pat of butter, gratis, with every two times I order two pancakes a week, this in exchange just for mentioning their fine establishment in my internal monologue. Also, it's included in the menu price.

I ordered a cup of coffee, too, with a cream and two sugars, which (except for the coffee) was also gratis, and free.

I already know what you’re thinking: “Breakfast after 11:00?! What kind of crazy talk is that?!” Well, Thomas, put aside your doubts and tune into these breaking news flashes: First off, Denny’s does breakfast all day, so if you like you can have breakfast for lunch, breakfast for supper, breakfast for dinner, breakfast for dessert, even breakfast for breakfast. Secondly, when you’re a dick, sometimes you have to stay up all night, so you learn to take meals on a catch-as-catch-can kind of basis. It’s a hard job, sometimes, but nobody ever said it’d be all sunshine and patty-cake.

While I ate, I worked my way through that file the broad’d given me: photos, addresses, and a Xeroxes of stuff like a bank statement showing a sizable withdrawal seven days previous. That last one caught my eye, since it had nearly enough digits for a toll-free number; meanwhile, on a good day, my bank account could just about dial information. This broad had more on the line than I’d assumed. Could it be I was getting played for a patsy? Femme fatales were what you might call an occupational hazard in my line of work. I’d have to be more on my toes than a ballet dancer if I was to keep safe.

I moved on to the photos. This was my primary target, my prime suspect: this guy with his chin shaven as smooth as a non-hirsute baby’s bottom, his hair as neatly cut and coiffed as a high-end call-girl’s money-maker, his suit as adamantly pressed as that of a suitor from a seemingly temporarily impoverished family in a Jane Austen novel. In short, the guy looked spotless, maybe too spotless.

Towns like this, the filth finds its way through one way or another. It eats its way in eventually, down into your very pores, where even the top-shelf Nivea exfoliating mask can’t reach. Guys like me have gone and invited the black-heads right into our souls, and we can look at a guy like that and see the dirt underneath. This guy was dirty somehow. I was sure of it.

I asked Gladys for the bill, and I received it, just like promised in the good book. Gladys wrote “Thanks, Hon” on the print-out and drew a little smiley-face in one corner. The dame was clearly smitten with me. Now, I’ve got nothing against a silver fox when I’m on the hunt, but that sort of passion play wasn’t in the cards for today. I was on the clock, and time was passing.

“Sorry, toots,” I said to myself as I headed out to work. “I’m on a case.”
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Last edited by LaoWai on Sun Mar 04, 2018 11:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

Postby Ladki96 » Tue Feb 13, 2018 5:29 am

Don Dingen sounds real dreamy :P don't stop there please, you must post everything you have written uptil now
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Re: From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

Postby LaoWai » Tue Feb 13, 2018 9:52 pm

I'll go through some notebooks on a less productive day, see if there's anything I find chuckle-worthy. (Like, really, a lot of what I've got is just dick-jokes. "When you're a dick...yada, yada." I just typed up the two that seemed most connected and had lines that made me laugh, even though I wrote them.

(i.e., I still like "Something in my gut told me she’d be there in about 5 minutes" and "[y]ou can have breakfast for lunch, breakfast for supper, breakfast for dinner, breakfast for dessert, even breakfast for breakfast.") Yeah, I laughed at my own jokes, but it's because I know the actual Don, and I can do his voice.


Again, on a less productive day, I'll try to hunt down some of the better entries. For now I'm stuck being productive, like a punk.
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Re: From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

Postby LaoWai » Mon Feb 19, 2018 3:13 pm

Found one:

Spoiler: show
Monday, February 12, 12:35 pm and onward, Along 7th, then Broadway, Stakeout

My mark du jour, the file let me know, was one Marcos Diem, a manufacturer of aperture cards…in other words, a big name in the micro-fiche game. I set up outside his office and waited. Every hour, on the hour, I traded off fake mustaches to allay suspicion and so nobody’d see what I looked like. In my line of work, you spend a lot of time incognito, and in parked cars.

The mark got off work around 5:00 pm, got into his car and set off. I made like the winner in a blindfolded kids’ party-game and put the tail on him.

The mark drove down 7th like all the demons in the Dictionairre Infernal were chasing him, easily doing 26 in a 25 mile-per-hour zone. Signs on the side of the road even cautioned, “Slow Children at Play,” reaffirming my suspicion that this guy was a real bad egg, because slow kids can’t get out of the way as fast as fast kids can, but this guy couldn’t care less.

Had I been made? I wondered to myself, but it was hard to say, even harder than “an enemy anemone” three times fast. If I was right about the guy, he was just doing what he did best, scoffing the law. I laid back a little just in case, maintaining more than the car-length-per-ten-miles-per-hour recommended by traffic safety manuals.

He made a turn onto Broadway, and after I’d made sure it was safe, I followed him. In these mean streets, the hooligans here’ll jaywalk on you as soon as look at you, and that’s even with the risk of a five-dollar fine. I know these streets as well as I know the back of my hand, so when he cruised right past Lincoln Avenue, I knew he was heading for the shady side of town. Past that intersection, Broadway only connects with Elm Street, Maple Lane and Oak Circle.

This Marcos, this mark, what sort of game was he playing, and what were the rules? Something in my gut told me he wasn’t driving into neighborhoods like these for a quick hand of Old Maid. Maybe this was how rich folks got their kicks nowadays, driving around poor areas and laughing up their sleeves at the socio-economic differences inherent in the system, I considered. If that was what the upper crust was up to, it was clear America’s apple pie was rotten to the core.

The mark pulled onto Elm and quickly turned again into an Authorized Personnel Only lot, so I had to discontinue my pursuit. I wasn’t authorized. I parallel-parked farther down and scoped out the joint in my rear-view mirror. The trees along there were all just bare branches; the no-good-nicks there'll steal anything that isn't nailed down.
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Last edited by LaoWai on Sun Mar 04, 2018 11:45 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

Postby Ladki96 » Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:10 pm

thegreatestdick.png
thegreatestdick.png (13.05 KiB) Viewed 5512 times

ily Don Dingen <3
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Re: From the Case Files of Don Dingen, a Dick

Postby LaoWai » Sun Mar 04, 2018 11:50 am

Just a short entry this time:
Spoiler: show
Monday, February 12, 5:35 pm, Elm Street

Far as I could tell in the rearview mirror, my mark had parked in a lot reserved for some place called “Our Daily Bread,” which may or may not have been closer than it appeared. Whatever sort of joint this was, it was more hopping than a two-legged dog chasing rabbits. At least a dozen people were lined up outside, waiting just like I was for the other shoe to drop.

My mark appeared from around the corner and approached the entry way. When he got to the door, he slipped past the line as slick as spilled oleo on a hot sidewalk. “A regular VIP,” I said to myself. Clearly the guy had clout.

I waited around 20 minutes for the guy to get into whatever debauchery was on his schedule for the night, then worked out my disguise for infiltrating inside of the place. Going undercover isn’t as easy as people think. You’ve got to have a certain panache for personas, so that if someone does smell a rat, you’re sure not to get tripped up in a mistake. You’ve got to have alter-egos you know inside and out. This is where Ron Ringer comes into the mix. Ron Ringer is the spitting image of what Don Dingen isn’t, and it’d be impossible for anyone to confuse the two.

For example, Don Dingen wears a fedora, whereas Ron Ringer sports a trilby. Ron Ringer plumps for fried chicken or rib-eyes, but Don Dingen opts for chicken-fried steaks. Don Dingen pees standing up, while Ron Ringer eats sitting down. Also, Ron Ringer’s got a pencil-mustache and looks like what Don Dingen’d probably look like if he had a pencil mustache, but Don Dingen doesn’t.

Ron Ringer pulled his trilby down tight on his head, groomed his mustache in the rearview and affixed his name tag. Seeing that the line was moving, he hustled up to the end and mentally prepared himself to enter the belly of the beast.

I love the portrait of Don.
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