DJ, Kat trapped on banks of Bayou St. John

Another week of Pay Dirt and over 1,200 followers on Twitter. Thanks again, Everyone.

Here’s a recap of what happened this week…

Another New Orleans sunrise. DJ, wet and cold on the banks of Bayou St. John, woke to the whine of a motorcycle growing louder.

The motor cut-off on the other side of the garbage barrels where DJ hid. He'd seen cops on beaches in Biloxi, but never on the bayou.

Peering between the barrels, he saw shiny, black boots digging into the mud and sand, moving closer. A shadow grew overhead. DJ peeked at the boots again.

Boots with high heels.

DJ stood slowly.

"I thought we we're going to the swamp?" Kat LeRouge said, hands on hips, a smirk on her face.

"But how did you find me—what about the cops?"

"Here." Kat threw him a black Louie Armstrong hoodie. "Take that red shit off. I was on the dome's second level and watched you all the way here."

DJ looked up at the sky, then Kat. They both heard it, a helicopter coming fast.

Kat jabbed his shoulder with three purple fingernails. "Get on the bike, Dildo."

“I’ve been thinking, Kat. We should give-up, before they kill us. NOPD’s got snipers now.”

"Look, I changed my clothes. They don't know we got the bike. Change your friggin’ hoodie and we're home free."

"I can’t. This ain't no dollar store hoodie. This baby's a G-Unit classic."

Kat pulled a bottle of purple nail polish from her bag and removed the cap. "You gonna do your nails now?" DJ asked.

Kat flicked her wrist and splattered polish across the sleeve of DJ's G-Unit classic. "Now, dump that gangster crap, so we can get the hell outta here."

For those just joining the party, here’s what we’ve been doing: In the tradition of the fast-production pulps of old, we’ve got a wild plot and some zany, but dangerous characters, and through Twitter and Facebook, readers are giving me hints, helping me create a crime fiction short story in posts of less than 140 characters.

Our plot again:  When Wild Child Kat LeRouge hooks up with Bad Boy DJ Ponchatoula, they find out the hard way that some New Orleans cab drivers carry guns. Desperate for safer income, Kat decides to blackmail a crooked Louisiana politician—a scheme that brings this modern day Bonnie and Clyde face to face with CIA Black-Ops Baddie Bobby Grim.

Next installments on Twitter and Facebook tomorrow.

Pay Dirt heats up in Louisiana Swamp

Today, our story has 1,053 followers on Twitter. Another great week, and I’ve got to thank you for continuing to help write this story through Twitter and Facebook. Now, let’s recap the week…

In the Superdome parking lot, DJ's ripped wires from the dashboard of somebody's Cadillac Escalade.

"Boy, can I pick'em." Kat laid back on the hood, biting her nails. "You gotta be the only rapper in New Orleans that can't hot-wire a car." That's when the NOPD rolled up beside them, flashing lights, but no siren. "Officer, thank God you're here." The cop climbed out, no hair and a white mustache, naturally gray or beignet sugar, Kat wasn't sure. "I lost my keys and my ex-boyfriend here said he could start it."

"License and registration."

"Oh, sure. I'll just run around to the glove box. Please help us. If I can’t fix it, my daddy's gonna kill me."

Kat walked around the back on the SUV and sprinted north across the parking lot.

“Hey!” The cop walked to the front on the SUV, and then grabbed for the radio on his belt.

DJ jumped from the SUV and ran east to the Mississippi.

 

Bobby Grim found the duck blind 100 yards up the bayou from Rarick's camp, just where the map said it would be, covered in camo and Irish moss.

He hid the boat beneath the it, then climbed a large cypress and stretched across two pin oaks to scoot into the tree stand.

Inside, he cleaned his gun and waited, living on jerky and water. He watched the horizon another day before Rarick's bateau appeared, with it, the lightning and drenching rain.

Rarick unloaded in the downpour, just gear. The lone hunter would focus on four-legged game this trip, unaware of the surprise awaiting him.

Grim lubed the pulleys on the bow, waxed the strings, and sharpened the heads. The rain would stop soon, and he’d be ready to get the job done and get the hell out of the swamp.

Hour by hour, the storm's intensity increased, as did the size of Grim's arm. The wound from the gator’s bite felt hot and he was sweating in the freezing rain.

Thick clouds. Pouring rain. Darkness in the tree stand, except for the occasional flash of lightning. He couldn't sleep. He hated waiting. Worse, his arm burned, the roof leaked, and his six-foot frame stretched larger than the available floor space, none of it dry.

When he did find sleep, he awoke to a snake coiled around his legs. He mistook it for a Cottonmouth Water Moccasin, but after he'd taken the thing by the throat and kneed it to a bloody pulp, he found the rattler on the end.

On day three, the rain stopped, but Grim's body still alternated from cold to hot. He needed a doctor, but he'd finish the job first.

Daybreak. Birds cackled and the sun cast cypress shadows along the bayou. Rarick walked to the end of the peer and began loading his boat for the big day.

Grim climbed down from the stand and shoved off, just as three boats rounded the bend hauling TV cameras.

Pay Dirt in Louisiana swamp, New Orleans streets

Another fun week. Pay Dirt, the novelette you’re helping me write, has close to 1,000 Twitter followers. Thanks again for your help! Now, let’s replay what happened this week…

Moving the lighter closer to the chains, Grim found a seam in the floor, then hinges to a door opening to the swamp below. Forcing the crowbar into the seam, he broke the latch. Brown water below the camp. Darker in the center and growing darker. Big yellow eyes in the center.

Massive green jaws lurched from the water. Yellow teeth sliced Grim’s arm. He winced and dropped the lighter. Blind, he swung the crowbar in the darkness. The door slammed shut. Grim waited for the splash below, then collapsed on the closed door, bleeding in the darkness.

"Friggin' gators, I hate 'em."

The next day, Kat and DJ hung out on a bus bench across from Rube Rarick's New Orleans office, Kat on a cell phone, DJ's thumbing through the Times-Picayune.

"How many cabs you gotta rob to get your picture in the paper around here?"

"Weasel-dick Bastard!" Kat slammed the phone onto the sidewalk, before it skipped into the traffic of Carrollton Avenue. Someone in a Prius popped the horn. Kat flipped them off. "Google says he's in New Orleans, we've seen him, but his bitch of a secretary says he's on vacation."

A Tabasco truck hits the cell phone, crushing it like a cracker.

"Hey," DJ looked up from the paper, "that’s my phone."

"Forget it, the police could've tracked us with it anyway." Kat took DJ's round brush from the congressman's bag and twisted it into one of her curls." After we're rich, I'll get you another."

"Well, I found your congressman." DJ held up the B section, a photo of Rarick in camouflage. "It says he's hunting for gator the next two weeks."

"That explains it." Kat grabbed the bag and stood up. "C'mon."

"Where are we going?"

"Do I have to tell you everything? We’re getting a truck or something that'll get us to the swamp."

For those just joining the party, here’s what we’ve been doing: In the tradition of the fast-production pulps of old, we’ve got a wild plot and some zany, but dangerous characters, and through Twitter and Facebook, readers are giving me hints, helping me create a crime fiction short story in posts of less than 140 characters.

Bobby Grim takes on Bayou Manchac

Today, our story has 877 followers on Twitter. Another great week, and I’ve got to thank you for continuing to help write this story through Twitter and Facebook.

Now, let’s recap the week.

Climbing down from the Abita Beer truck, Bobby Grim heard the driver saying that Savoy Landing was Bayou Manchac's last boat launch, the end of the farthest road into the swamp. “Sure you wanna be dropped here? I ain’t back for another two weeks.”

“I told you, I’m a hunter,” Grim said, “I’ll survive.”

The shack next to the launch had rusted tin nailed on the sides covered with faded yellow paint and a picture—maybe a coffee cup—with some words: Morning Treat.

By a single gas pump and a dead Jax beer light, a hand-stenciled sign swung from a post and read: No Deliveries Today.

The front wall, eight-feet wide, covered with various sized wooden planks, held more stenciled signs: Pig Feet, Gator Balls, and Coon Meat. The shack looked dark, the front door open or missing. All quiet, till the voice of Rush Limbaugh shouted something about Femi-Nazis.

Grim followed the sound through the entrance.

A chest-type home freezer sat just inside the door. In the shop’s center, a table with two chairs. A plastic-lettered cafe menu hung behind a rusted deli counter, white with a Barq's logo. Post office mailboxes with peeling brass-colored paint covered the left wall. On the right, shelves filled with food, for people, fish, and deer.

Behind the counter, a fat lady in a Harley shirt broke a crawfish in half and sucked both ends before speaking. "Who the hell are you?" Something red and yellow oozed down her chin.

"How much to rent one of your air-boats?" Grim pinched a hundred dollar bill from his roll.

Fat Lady wiped her chin with a Post-it note. "Thirty an hour, you got I.D."

"How much if I don't?" He peeled off six hundred, lining the bills across the counter.

"Maybe I'll tell the owner somebody stole the thing. Like maybe it just floated off or something."

"When will you see him?"

"Her."

"When will you see her?"

"Another week, next Friday."

Grim counted another four bills. "The boat floats off next Thursday, right?"

 

Bouncing through Bayou Manchac, the air-boat disturbed a gator large enough to splash some green gunk on Grim’s map. He slowed to clean it and to make sure the gator wasn't in the boat.

He pushed the throttle forward and rounded another bend, then slowed in front of the target’s camp. The recruiter described the target as the only hunter in the swamp with his picture on the wall of his camp. This camp's walls were insulated in old campaign billboards, half painted over, each sporting a photo of the same man and the some words, red and blue, and reading: Rube Rarick for Congress.

Wearing white rubber boots he'd found in the boat, Grim tromped through the mud to the back of the camp and opened the door with a crowbar.

Another week of shenanigans in New Orleans

Today, our story has 769 followers on Twitter. Another great week, and I’ve got to thank you for continuing to help write this story through Twitter and Facebook.

Now, let’s recap the week. DJ Ponchatoula and Kat LeRouge are taking New Orleans, but they have no idea what’s in store for them as Bobby Grim gets closer to the city. The impending collision is one you won’t want to miss.

DJ punched the accelerator and passed the bus on the left. "Hey, look, some old guy's waving at us."

"Ugly tie, briefcase, some lawyer, money, but too lazy to drive. Pull over."

"No way, we're in enough shit already."

"Pull over, now, or next cop we pass, I scream rape and blame all this on you."

DJ stopped near the curve.

Kat opened the door, and the white-haired lawyer said, “I’m late for a meeting. I just need to go about a block and a half.”

"Oh, we'll take you,” Kat said, "Climb on. Sharing and caring, right?”

The lawyer stepped down into the cab and sat his leather bag between his body and Kat's. "Thank you. I should have be there 5 minutes ago."

DJ pulled the car away from the curve. Grinning, Kat moved the leather bag to the floorboard and scooted close to the lawyer.

"How about a better idea?" She touched his chin with the barrel of the cab driver's thirty-eight. "Ever play a game called gimme?"

"My wallet's in my coat. Sixty bucks and some credit cards."

"How do you know I want money, maybe I want your body, maybe I'm old school, into that retro shit?"

The taxi jolted, and Kat said, "Damn it, DJ, you want this gun to go off in grandpa's face? Stay from behind that friggin bus."

The car whipped left. The lawyer gasped as something exploded.

When Kat came to, no lawyer, just DJ hunched over the wheel, and the cab on fire, jammed under the axle of a Community Coffee truck.

Kat frowned at the crowd peeking through the cracked windshield spotted with blood. "It's all that freaking lawyer's fault."

The back door creaked as she climbed out, sirens echoed from three directions. Opening the driver's side, she gave DJ a tit-twister through his T-shirt.

"Wake-up, Dildo, cops are coming, and I can't carry your scrawny ass."

Kat and DJ hijack a New Orleans lawyer’s taxi

Okay, here’s the second half of this week’s Twitter crime fiction. We’re watching Kat LeRouge and DJ Ponchatoula getting deeper into trouble in the Big Easy.

"A round brush, really?" Kat said.

DJ thinking: What a night, no Circle K, thank God, and no casino, just acrobatics and toys at Kat's play land. Ultra awesome, but she’s some kind of bitch in the morning.

"Round brushes are out." She waved at a corner on Magazine Street. A yellow car stopped, they jumped in. "They were never in for guys."

"Driver, turn that Bob Marley shit down," Kat yelled.

"Balance, Mon,” the driver said, “that’s Ernie K-Doe and Professor Longhair, New Orleans’ homegrown."

"Sorry, I have a cowlick," DJ said. "You ever woke up with bed head?"

"You're such a hick," Kat said, "Give me that." She stuck the handle of the brush into the driver's neck. "Now, start driving, Squid Head."

The taxi left the curb, behind a city bus. "Don't shoot, Mon, I got nothing you need." Over sweaty dreadlocks, Kat saw bug-eyes in the mirror.

"Aw, don't do this, Kat," said DJ, "Please tell the man you're joking. What if he's got a gun, I don't want to die on Canal Street."

"No gun, Me," the driver said, "But I got excellent hearing. Take you anywhere you need, but please, no shooting. My little children need me."

The bus stopped in front of the taxi, and a mime crossed between them. "Watch the road," Kat said. "And pass that cash box back here, real slow."

DJ opened the box and counted. "38 dollars and 50 cents. Hey, there is a gun in here.”

"What’s the matter, Squidy, are you stupid? Who'd wanna get killed for less than fifty."

The bus stopped again. Behind it, the driver stomped the brake, threw the cab in park, then opened the door and slumped down in the seat. Kat heard mumbling, something like, “Half idiot pussy hose,” then she saw Squid Head running up the street in a squat, his dreadlocks bobbing up and down.

She smirked at DJ. "Don't just sit there, Dildo. Go after him."

Kat heard horns honking ahead, then the bus moved, and she saw DJ standing there, shrugging. "I don't know where the guy went."

"We're blocking traffic, get in."

"What?"

"Drive the friggin cab, before the cops show up."

"Get away from that bus," Kat said. DJ punched the accelerator and passed the bus on left. "Hey, look, some old guy's waving at us."

"Tie and briefcase," said Kat. "Some rich lawyer, too lazy to drive. Pull over."

Bobby Grim leaves Texan crying in the street

For those keeping score, we’ve got almost 700 followers on Twitter, helping write this story, sending private messages, telling me what they’d like to see the characters in Pay Dirt do next.

I’ll post twice this weekend, once for each scene collected from Twitter this week. The first scene takes up where we left off last week, with Bobby Grim in line at a Texas pawn shop, behind some jerk, who made his wife sell her jewelry.

Bony Girl left sobbing with Bent Hat counting her money.

Bobby Grim slapped his pawn ticket on the counter and said to Ernie, "Don't start..."

"Well, well, well," said Ernie. "First I heard dead, then the Pen, retirement after that. Now, here he is, the King of Black Ops, back in action."

"I screwed your wife, Ern. Get over it and fill the order, where I can get to work."

Ernie snatched the ticket. Shaking his head, he walked to the back and returned with a red, white, and blue acoustic guitar.

"What the hell's this?"

"You expected a black bag, a brown paper wrapper? People are wise now, thanks to fucking James Bond."

Grim grabbed the guitar and walked to the door.

"Will I see you later?" Ernie asked.

"Doubt it, there’s another 500 miles to the job, and I’m taking the train back.”

"Bullshit. You gotta show ID to buy a ticket."

"I never said I was buying anything."

Outside, Bent Hat's truck doors were open. Near the center of the lot, he was dragging Bony Girl backwards, his hand around her throat.

Behind the truck, Bobby Grim smashed the guitar over Bent Hat's skull, knocking him to the pavement, bleeding and cursing, as Bony Girl ran. Grim dug a duct-taped envelope from the red, white, and blue splinters, opened it, and pulled out a map and a two-inch stacks of 100-dollar bills.

Bent Hat stood, swinging the jagged neck of the guitar. Grim pulled his nine-millimeter from his vest and slapped him unconscious. Bony Girl came back and kneeled beside him, sobbing.

"Here." Grim peeled three bills from his stack. "Tell Barney to give your stuff back, use the rest to get away from this jackass."

Before Grim left the parking lot, Bony Girl had her arms around Bent Hat. "Who asked you, Asshole? I'm calling the cops."

No good deed goes unpunished. Tomorrow, I’ll post this week’s second scene, Kat LeRouge and DJ Ponchatoula hijacking a taxi cab in New Orleans.

Pay Dirt triples Twitter Followers

You guys are giving me feedback, and I’m incorporating your ideas. Together, we’re creating quite a world. Twitter and Facebook are still buzzing, and I’m excited about it. Twitter followers of the story have tripled in two weeks. Thanks to you!

Thanks again, everyone who’s participating. This is how the second week went…

Kat stood, DJ bug-eyed and puppet-wobbling, pliers clamped between his legs. "So cute for a moron," she said, "Say, you like Kat or Kathy?"

Katrina Geauxmieux before the storm, Kat LeRouge loathed the name Kathy, and using her mom's last name sounded way cooler than Kat "Go Mew".

"I like whichever one makes you turn loose my boner and lets me haul ass away from you."

Kat kissed DJ's cheek, stirring the crowd. Then she turned and pranced up the street with DJ close behind her and the crowd applauding.

"Please unclamp me," DJ said, shuffling his feet as fast as Kat could walk. "What if I want to have kids or something?"

Around a dark corner, Kat slammed DJ against a wall. Her big brown eyes inches from his, she released the pliers, but DJ didn't move.

"How about we knock off a Circle K and get wasted at the casino?" She asked.

 

Four hours and five hundred miles away, Bobby Grim smirked in the plate glass window at the rays kaleidescoping his peeled head. Amazing sunrises in Texas, but everything else sucks.

The guy next to him needed to shut-up. If Ernie didn't open soon, he’d open with blood splattered on the pawn shop doors.

"You know I ain't had my coffee," said the hairy guy in the bent cowboy hat. "Keep whining, won't be my fault what happens to you."

The bony girl's lips quivered. Her eyes, sunk deep in her head, stared.

Bobby Grim picked up a Coke bottle filled with and cigarette butts and Skoal juice. He walked towards Bent Hat, just as Ernie's bug rolled into the lot.

Bent Hat and the bony woman met Ernie at the door. Bobby Grim dropped the bottle into the trash and followed them inside.

The woman placed three rings and an anklet on the counter. Ernie asked, "Pawn or Sell."

Bent Hat answered, "Selling" before she could speak.

Bobby Grim stood behind them, gnawing his lower lip, and fumbling with a battered pawn ticket between his thumb and forefinger.

First Week of Pay Dirt starts Internet Buzzing

Together, we’ve written quite a story so far. Twitter and Facebook are starting to buzz, and I’m blown away. Twitter followers of the story have actually doubled in the last three days. Thanks to you!

Really, I want to thank everyone participating. So far, so good…

Two miles out of Vegas, Bobby Grim sat on his backpack, thumb in the air. Seven days to make New Orleans and arrange a hunting accident.

On Bourbon Street, the French Quarter hood ornaments knew not to look at Kat LeRouge too long, much less spit the B word, but DJ Ponchatoula reigned from the 985 and whatn't taking nothing from no 504 shorty. "On your knees, Be-atch. I got some lunch meat for you."

"Yummy," Kat said, licking her lips and kneeling before DJ and the crowd outside Johnny White's Bar. "Whip that big Andouille out here."

The sidewalk gawkers cheered and DJ's face got hot. He looked left to right, then shrugged and unzipped.

The crowd roared.

"Bon Appétit, Be-atch," DJ said.

His last syllable went a little long, when Kat jabbed something shiny into his crotch. "Craftsman Vise Grips," she said, "double clamped."

For those just joining the party, here’s what we’ve been doing: In the tradition of the fast-production pulps of old, I got a wild plot and some zany, but dangerous characters, and through Twitter and Facebook, readers are helping create a crime fiction short story posting less than 140 characters per day. (Yea, I know I posted extra on Friday, but I couldn’t wait!)

As I said before, you could watch me fall on my face in an experiment gone wrong, or you can guide my actions, and together we can invent a new medium—a pulpy sort of Tweet Fiction or Twitter Pulp.

Our plot:  When Wild Child Kat LeRouge hooks up with Bad Boy DJ Ponchatoula, they find out the hard way that some New Orleans cab drivers carry guns. Desperate for safer income, Kat decides to blackmail a crooked Louisiana politician—a scheme that brings this modern day Bonnie and Clyde face to face with CIA Black-Ops Baddie Bobby Grim.

Next installments on Twitter and Facebook tomorrow.

Let me know what you think. Since technically this story hasn't been written yet, your thoughts and feedback will actually change the course and ultimate outcome of the story. Message me or tweet your ideas to everyone. As a group, you the readers, will actually decide who lives, who dies, and how many thrills they experience along the way.

New Bobby Grim Adventure Tomorrow

Tomorrow, we start a grand adventure together.

In the tradition of the fast-production pulps of old, I've got a wild plot and some zany, but dangerous characters, and through Twitter and Facebook, we'll create a crime fiction short story while posting less than 140 characters per day.

Now, you could watch me fall on my face in an experiment gone wrong, or you can guide my actions, and together we can invent a new medium—a pulpy sort of Tweet Fiction or Twitter Pulp.

Our plot:  When Wild Child Kat LeRouge hooks up with Bad Boy DJ Ponchatoula, they find out the hard way that some New Orleans cab drivers carry guns. Desperate for safer income, Kat decides to blackmail a crooked Louisiana politician—a scheme that brings this modern day Bonnie and Clyde face to face with CIA Black-Ops Baddie Bobby Grim.

The first installment hits Twitter and Facebook tomorrow.

Let me know what you think. Since technically this story hasn't been written yet, your thoughts and feedback will actually change the course and ultimate outcome of the story. As a group, you the readers, will actually decide who lives, who dies, and how many thrills they experience along the way.

Early Departure is just the Beginning

Today is a good day.

On Facebook and Twitter, I published the final installment of my Early Departure "eThriller" short story, and I'm ecstatic about the e-mail I've received. (I'm glad so many liked it. Now, if they would just post a review at Amazon—hint, hint).

I've gotten a few notes asking, "What's next?"

Unfortunately, I've got to keep the secret until next week, but I promise you'll love it.
Thanks again for all of your support!

Remember those Pulp Fiction Plots?

From Lester Dent, 1949…

This is a formula, a master plot, for any 6000 word pulp story. For me, it has worked on adventure, detective, western and war stories. It tells exactly where to put everything. It shows definitely what must happen in each successive thousand words.

No yarn of mine written to the formula has yet failed to sell.

The business of building stories seems not much different from the business of building anything else.

Here's how it starts:

• An unusual murder method
• An unusual goal for the antagonist
• A different locale
• A menace haunting the protagonist

One of these would be nice, two better, three swell. It may help if these are established before tackling the rest.

Let’s start with the unusual murder method. Thinking of shooting, knifing, hydrocyanic, garroting, poison needles, scorpions, a few others, and then listing them on paper gets them where they may suggest something—A listing for “scorpions and their poison bite” may cause the writer to consider mosquitoes or flies treated with deadly germs?