NOIR

September 17, 2009

The Case of the Battered Fedora

The battered fedora slipped quietly into his office and slumped on the couch. It was no use. Gone. Lost forever. What was a guy supposed to do? I earned those, fair and square, he thought, pondering the pair of bullet holes in his crown and the grease stains on his brim.

“Damn it,” he muttered, and he flung himself against the wall. He settled with a satisfying ping in the empty wastebasket.

“Serves me right. How could I lose that case?” he spoke, making a tinny echo in the cheap metal receptacle.

True. Dining in greasy spoons and participating in gunplay had been useless. How can a gumshoe hat misplace a case of Irish Black Label Scotch Malt Beverage? The battered fedora came to the conclusion that he was slipping. No doubt about it. He was losing it. It was lost. He was history.

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