MOINION

B.T KHAMIS

It was another dreary November night in New York. Detective Moinion had just shuffled his way into Governor Elroy's tiny cupboard of an office, which was so full of cabinets, papers, files, and of course the huge Governor himself, that it barely afforded 2 square feet of standing room from the desk to the door. Pulling his oversized trenchcoat tight around him to prevent an avalanchous collapse, Moinion closed the door and cleared his throat. Although the Governor continued to look down at his desk until Moinion actually addressed him, the officiousness of the gesture was ruined by the cramped and chaotic nature of the room itself.

"You, asked to see me Governor?" inquired Moinion.

"Ah, Moinion!" said the Governor, puffing voraciously on his large Cuban cigar. Everything about him was oversized and theatrical, from the aforementioned cigars to the gaudy wide tie, or the colossal second chin that presided over his collar like a deluge of stubble and cheap aftershave. "Been want'n to see you." He reached behind him to the top of one of his many filing cabinets and retrieved a plain cardboard file, before flinging it open as cigar ash graciously floated down onto its beige exterior. "So Ol' Doc Charlie got away again, huh?"

"Fraid' so Sir."

"Dammit, Moinion," exclaimed the Governor. I can't keep the Board happy for much longer, they want the Doc in the cells by Christmas or you and me'll be out on our asses? You want that? Huh?

"No Sir," replied Moinion, "But you gotta understand, Doc Charlie is like some kind of Guerrilla, I spend months tracking him but he don't have a fixed base of operation. The man's got goons on every corner and our police boys don't help either, since most of 'em are using the stuff Doc supplies!"

The Governor sighed. "Look Moinion, as stupid as it sounds, our job ain't to put an end to booze smuggling, it's to convince the board actions are being taken to take down the gang Kingpins! That what this whole damn prohibition racket is about."

"I know that Sir, but I don't know how much longer it'll be before the Doc is running the whole of Long Island, his operation seems to be getting bigger all the time, and I know the Board only keeps me on as a scapegoat." Said Moinion, pointing his finger at the Governor inquisitively.

"Why, Moinion!" Exclaimed the Governor again. "What's got you thinkin' that?" Before Moinion could explode into his well-rehearsed rage over the obvious corruption and racketeering that had infested the Board ever since the Prohibition Act had been passed back in 21', he caught a glimpse of the clock and realised that it was already ten-thirty.

Instead, he sighed and said "Oh, er, don't worry Sir, just a slip of the tongue. I shall double my efforts in regards to the Doc, and, uh, would you say another box of those Cuban's would suffice you for Christmas this year?"

The Governor suddenly cackled happily. "Why Moinion! You old charmer. I will ensure your generosity is repaid, my boy. Oh, and before you go, how's that young protégé of yours coming along? Keen I hope?"

"You bet'cha Sir, I've never seen such a stickler for the law on the force." The Governor laughed again.

"Excellent, excellent. Well, if there's nothing else, you are dismissed, Detective Moinion." Moinion smiled weakly and began the complex process of navigating out of the office without causing a landslide of papers and flies to send him and the governor to an early grave. After closing the door, he resumed his usual grizzled pout and headed downstairs to the car, passing Helga, the haggard old office secretary on the way. Either she didn't notice him, or she didn't want to. "Just another miserable old bastard going by another." Thought Moinion to himself.

Before long, he'd reached the street, where he stared up at the pitch-black November sky, but was suddenly interrupted by a young, awkward and unusually clear-cut voice from his car.

"The nights have really drawn in haven't they?" Said Chester, Moinion's protégé and detective-in-training, as he adjusted the large round glasses that balanced precariously across his face. Moinion always thought they looked so incredibly fragile. Chester was only 24, and extremely young even for a trainee detective. He had progressed so far so fast due to his incredible propensity for the law and sense of clean respect for himself and the society around him. Although one would be lying if they described him as even remotely threatening, Chester was unrelentingly harsh in his views on the treatment of criminals. At the age of 15, he had written a letter to the Daily Tribune demanding that a pension-fund embezzler should be put to the electric chair for his crimes.

"Yeah I guess so," replied Moinion, immediately aborting his contemplation and walking to the passenger door. After closing it and lighting up a cigarette, which Chester watched with an odd admiration, he began to explain to Chester the situation now facing them. "As you can probably imagine," he began, "Elroy wasn't all that sympathetic. Course to him it's all about the board, or, more specifically, keeping 'em happy."

"Did you tell him about the Bromyard Port issue?" asked Chester with trepidation.

"Hell I didn't!" retorted Moinion. "What good would that have done? Him knowing about our mistakes, anyway, he'll find out in the morning and hopefully our names won't be in the report."

"Yeah but we shouldn't be holding back information from the Governor. It's not code."

"And that is why you're the one who stays in the car." Moinion pointed out. He waited for a reply but Chester simply started the ignition switch and began to drive the car. Moinion sighed. Chester always reacted badly to contradictions in his belief. "Look kid," Moinion began again, but this time more softly. "The code is only really an insurance policy. The commissioners need it to keep men like us in line, no one on the force but you is following it to the letter. Trust me when I say no great detective ever went without breaking a rule. I'm gonna assume that you read Sherlock Holmes as a kid, am I correct?"

"Yes."

"Was Sherlock Holmes a regulation bound detective?"

"No."

"That's right. He was a PI, wasn't he?"

"Yes."

"Yes. And he was always ahead of the police, because as you will come to learn, the code and the rules are more often a hindrance than anything else." For several minutes, there was a silence in the conversation, breached only by the clockwork-rhythmed clatter of the engine. "Is that what made you wanna join the force?" asked Moinion eventually.

"What?" replied Chester, suddenly livelier.

"Sherlock Holmes, and pulp detective fiction, all that stuff."

"No."

"Well what was it then?"

"My Brother."

"Your Brother?"

"Yeah. My good for nothing Brother," Chester paused momentarily while turning a corner, then continued, "His name is Thomas, he was awful to grow up with. Long as I can remember, he'd be getting in fights with everyone all the time, he wouldn't eat nothing my Ma would cook, he'd shout and throw things. It was hell. Then, one day, he came home drunk, and boy you should of seen my Daddy roar. My Brother got the best beating of his life and my Ma was there crying and screaming at them. My Daddy left soon, I was 12, Thomas was 15, I never was quite clear why, but I remember "that damn older one" coming up in my parents arguments a lot. Then of course Ma had to get a job, but her name was smeared due to Thomas's adolescent antics, he'd be skipping school, setting fires, stealing food, you name it, he was doing it. By the time he left to get a job, my Ma was a bag of nerves, you should have seen her, so when I got my apartment here in Manhattan after Academy, she moved in with me and I look after her there. I was just so fucking disgusted by the way my brother destroyed my Mother and my home, and the criminal scum who befriended and encouraged him. But I make my Ma proud, I joined the force to punish bastards like my Brother, and avenge those who suffer under their filthy yokes."

"Well," said Moinion, tapping his cigarette out of the window, "How's she doing now?"

"Oh she's doin' ok. Made friends, goes to her book club and coffee mornings, keeps the place looking spick n' span. She's out in St. Louis right now though."

"St. Louis," Moinion started suddenly, sitting bolt upright in his seat, "What the hell she doin' out in St. Louis?"

"Visiting my Brother. Inmate 94633 St. Louis Correctional Penitentiary." Said Chester solemnly and slowly.

"Well," began Moinion again, "I guess some guys are just born bad. Some guys are born good, huh?"

"I guess so," said Chester, nodding, "I guess so." Before long, as splashes of puddles sprayed from under the car's wheels, they approached the front entrance of Rockefeller Towers, the apartment complex where Moinion and his roommate lived. "Well," said Chester, pulling the handbrake, "Here you are."

"Thanks," replied Moinion, finally extinguishing his cigarette and stepping out of the car. "See ya' in the morning." Chester said nothing, but merely smiled and waved as he drove off.

Moinion chuckled lightly to himself before lighting up another cigarette and heading through the lobby, into the elevator and into his apartment, which was unlocked, due to its other, more permanent resident.

"Evening Howard!" shouted Moinion as he took of his coat, hat and tie.

"Hiya Moinion!" shouted back Howard. Howard Astor was, (or rather would have called himself) a writer. Despite the fact that many of his short stories had been published in several fiction magazines of note, (and some of rather ill repute), none of his attempts at a broad novel had succeeded past a carbon copied half-done manuscript, the paper waste of which formed the bulk of the material in Howards "writing corner," along with an office chair, a folding table and a typewriter behind the living room door. So far, he had attempted to write two Great American Novels, one New Russian Epic, one noir drama and two Napoleonic-era love pieces. Although Howard was unaware of it, every night when he donned his large-collared grey trenchcoat and walked down to The Java Lodge for some "coffee", Moinion spent a great deal of time reading the smudged carbon copies that littered the shelves and tables of the living room. And even if Moinion was no critic, he described what he found there to others as "maybe promising, but totally inconsistent."

It was no secret that any other reasonable man would have ejected the lazy and probably failing writer from their living space very quickly, and yet Moinion simply could not bring himself to. He had known Howard since his high school days, and they had kept close correspondence whilst Moinion was at the Police and Federal Academy and Howard was at Princeton, but after that their friendship had declined somewhat, until one day, in 1920, Howard simply showed up at Rockefeller Towers with nothing more than a suitcase of clothes, his trademark golf hat and argyle socks, and a battered Remington typewriter, promising that he only needed a temporary accommodation while writing his "Great American." He had stayed there ever since.

"How was work?" Asked Howard, just as he did every night.

"Ah, you know," responded Moinion, just as he did every night. "Doc Charlie's still runnin' rampant up and down the Hudson, and of course the board can't see through their own narcissistic bubble. Governor Elroy's still clinging on as a middle-man, and alcohol-related crime is up another eighteen percent."

"So, pretty much the same as last night then?"

"Yeah," said Moinion pessimistically as he removed his badge, stared at it for a moment, and placed it face down on the table, before reaching under the sink and pulling out a clear bottle of imported illegal whisky that he had stolen from the evidence locker a week ago. That place was so full of confiscated liquor, who the hell would notice the odd bottle gone? "Any word on this week's story?"

"Oh, sure," said Howard, suddenly searching through the reams of drafts, rejection and acceptance slips until he found what he was looking for, and proudly held up a green-lined and velvet stamped submission approval slip from Weird Tales. "So that's 15 dollars for this week set."

"Great." Said Moinion, trying to sound pleased. "What you write about?"

"Oh well, uh, since the readers of Weird Tales aren't exactly high literary figures, the editors like a story that appeals to the masses, so I spent this week concocting some regency romance about a young, large chested dame called Temperance who finds a swishy young navy captain about to go off and fight the French."

"Oh yeah?" prompted Moinion, nursing his whisky. "What happens then?"

"Well, at the end of the first volume, as will appear in the mag this Sunday, Temperance sneaks aboard the ship, and the reader is left in raging suspense as to whether she will be discovered, and the Captain disgraced, or whether she will be torn apart by the French cannon, as the fleet heads into a certain trap."

Moinion chuckled, and looked at his watch. "Hey," he started, it's gone eleven, wanna catch the radio late hour?"

"Don't see why not." Said Howard, and so while Moinion set about tuning in the wireless, Howard lit up his college-boy pipe and poured out a whisky.

"Well, I think the Troubadours are on, or fancy a laugh, there's some babbling catholic priest on the local." Said Moinion through a grin. Howard said nothing, but merely laughed and nodded. And so the two settled down to Father Coleridge and his Biblical Wisdom, and before long the room was drowned with raucous laughter and the clinking of glasses.

"Of course, it is becoming fashionable, in these times, to shun the tradition of the church and its teachings, to thumb ones nose at authority and good sense, well there's a place in hell for those who think they can live a life of glamour and offset the good book of the Lord, and so praise be to it!" Ran the New Orleans-toned preacher. As Moinion wiped the moisture of laughter from his eye, he stared out of the window at the full moon which was beginning to emerge from the previously cloud-dominated November sky. He chuckled again and thought to himself, it had been one strange year, before draining his whiskey and falling into a sublime and hazy trance.

[End of First Draft]