Pay Dirt: The Final Chapter

It’s over. We’ve survived a danger-filled 15 weeks with Bobby Grim, Kat LeRouge, DJ Ponchatoula, and Congressman Rube Rarick. Of course, the same can’t be said for all of the characters, but it was a great thrill ride.

Again, I want to thank everyone following on Twitter and Facebook, especially those messaging hints. Your directions steered the story down different trails than I originally expected, but ultimately your ideas made the adventure more exhilarating as we braced ourselves at each corner, expecting the unexpected. Thanks again!

The following is a recap from the final week of Pay Dirt…

"That perverted politician son-of-a-bitch."

"Can't you just kick the door down or something?"

"There's thirty people getting drunk on that porch, one's a cop and just a radio call away from finding warrants for both of us."

"Okay, Muscles, then tell me your..." Kat stopped, mesmerized by the yellow eyes inches above the hole in the floor.

Grim dove, his chest hitting the trap door hard, forcing the gator down. "Feel around for a lock, or something I can stick in the latch."

Kat crawled in the dark, in circles, chains pulling at her ankles. "Here." She picked up a metal U, part of a broken padlock.

Grim road the bucking door like a bull, while Kat crawled over him to slide the metal into the lock, then both fought the door till the noise subsided, leaving only darkness, heavy breathing, Irma Thomas singing in the distance with Kat and Bobby’s faces inches apart.

"Maybe we should focus on getting your chains off?" Grim said.

"Too rusty to pick." She touched his nose with hers. "I say we wait for the party to end and get the key from psycho."

"And till then?"

She looked down at the floor, then up again. "Rip some of those clothes off the walls. I'm not laying on this cold floor."

Hours later, Kat woke to a cold, somehow brighter room. The music gone, the camp quiet. Cricket and frog songs outside. "Welcome back," Grim said.

"Has everyone gone?"

"Rarick's still here. I heard the spring in the recliner about an hour ago."

"Now, do we knock the door down?"

"I think I've got a better idea.” He looked down at the trap floor and shook his head. “But you’re not gonna like it."

Rarick downed the last of his peach brandy and climbed from the recliner, where he'd sat sharpening his skinning knife since the TV crew left. He was anxious to get at the girl, but afraid of the stranger. Who was that asshole? Some friend of the girl's, some lone-nut political assassin? Maybe a cop, maybe one he couldn't buy.

Shaky, Rarick walked to the door, his keys jingling in one hand, the skinning knife gleaming in the other.

Kat, Bobby Imprisoned in Bayou Manchac

In case you’ve missed the installments on Facebook and Twitter, we’ve only got a couple of weeks left, and one character didn’t make it through this week alive…

As Rarick pulled another dead gator to the dock, Kat asked, "Where's DJ?"

"Sorry, Hun, he skedaddled on you, had me drop him at the landing with Leta, said you were gonna get him killed."

"If he takes the bike and leaves me stranded, he'll wish he was dead."

 

Grim sneered from the duck blind. He'd taken a chance telling Kat about Rarick, but she'd promised to get the hell out when Rarick got back, but he came back without the DJ kid. Grim watched him waving his arms, spewing his typical politician bullshit.

A week of mosquito, snake, and gator bites, then fever and fat chicks. All out hell, and Bobby Grim couldn't wait to get back to California. Maybe he'd swim over and rip the dude's tongue out in front of her.

Before he could climb down, he heard music, then eight boats and a party barge rounded the farthest bend in the bayou. "Now what?"

Rarick grabbed the girl by the arm, dragging her inside. Grim wanted to dive, but the boats picked up speed, bouncing on the water. He could make out the lyrics now, some foreign language, singing words like iko-iko, wild Tchoupitoulas, and Jockomo feena nay.

 

"Check it out." Kat pointed at the boats speeding down the bayou. "Leta said the TV crew'd be back to wrap up their story. Maybe she's riding along." Rarick grabbed Kat's shoulders and pushed her to the door. "No way, old man. I'm going to find out what you did with DJ."

"Listen, you little tramp. Get inside, do exactly what I tell you, or I gut you and use your intestines for gator-bait. Got it?"

Rarick pressed the hunting knife against her throat, opened the door, then shoved her down the hall with his body.

At the room Grim had warned her about, she heard a click behind her and the padlock fell to the floor. He pushed her into the blackness and bent her arms behind her back.

Handcuffs. Chains rattled. Cold at her ankles. She couldn't move.

Death by Gator in Bayou Manchac

In case you’ve missed the installments on Facebook and Twitter, we’ve only got a couple of weeks left, and one character didn’t make it through this week alive…

All three ate in front of the TV, DJ sprawled on a duct-taped orange sofa, Rarick in a folding chair, and Kat on the remains of a Lazy Boy. They didn't know the name of the movie. Some ex-wrestler and an ex-rapper trying to be action heroes.

They had just reached the darkest before dawn part of the film, when the spring in Kat's recliner creaked. She hit the floor, half-crawling down the hall and fell through the bathroom door.

"Shit." DJ jumped from the sofa, going after her.

"Relax," Rarick said, "That's normal when you're not used to spicy alligator."

Later, DJ stood outside the locked door of Rarick's bathroom. "No way, Kat. If it were food poison, wouldn't we all be puking? Oh, God. You don't think you're pregnant?"

Through the door and the gagging, he thought she said, "Morning sickness not afternoon sickness, you stupid Duck." But knowing Kat as he did, DJ must have gotten that last word wrong.

 

Late evening. Across the bayou, the skinny kid and Rarick were climbing into the boat. The girl wasn't with them. They weren't leaving yet.

Bobby Grim squirmed in his tree stand, rubbing his arm. Not healed, but close. Still, he was ready to leave this God-forsaken swamp. He couldn't finish his business with witnesses around, and the longer these two followed Rarick, the less chance they had of seeing twenty-five.

Ten minutes after the boat's rooster tail slid around the bend, Grim stood at the front door of the camp, this time an unlocked door. Inside, the TV blared, but no sign of the girl. The room where the gator latched on Grim's arm, locked again. A shiny-new Masterlock.

He made three steps on the creaky Cypress floor before the girl, Kat, stepped out of another room. "Who the fuck are you?"

Rarick serves bloody trouble to Kat and DJ

In case you missed this week’s action on Twitter and Facebook…

After breakfast, Rarick chopped bell peppers and celery, then loaded more gear into the boat, including four white-paper packages, one dripping with blood.

 

When Bobby Grim got back on the bayou, Rube and the two Leta called Kat and DJ were hanging a raw chicken on a hook, three feet above the water. Neither of the three had seen him before, and if they had, they wouldn’t recognize him now, under the LSU cap and sunglasses he'd bought from Leta.

He cast a line and pretended to fish, wondering if people caught anything without feet or fangs in this stinking muck.

 

"What's that bag you're pulling out of the chickens before we hang 'em?" DJ asked.

"Livers and gizzards," Kat said, "Yea, I cook sometimes."

Rarick dropped another set of innards in the gallon-sized Mason jar he'd brought along. "I'll freeze these for crawfish bait later."

"What are you looking at, Rube?"

"That fisherman over there. I've never seen him before, and he doesn't have any bait on his line."

 

Rarick cranked his motor and disappeared around the bend. Grim saw them looking and decided not to follow. Not that it mattered. He couldn't finish the job until Rarick hunted alone.

Leta said the kids would be gone before dark. He hoped that meant on their way back to New Orleans. Bobby headed in, climbed back up to the tree stand and was just dosing when Rarick, Kat, and DJ got back from baiting the traps.

 

"Okay, I'm getting sick of this little water safari," Kat said. "When do we go to the bank?"

"Be patient. This evening, we've gotta circle around, pop any gators that took our bait, then skin'em up. If I leave the swamp before then, folks will know something’s up. Tomorrow you two will get money and get out of my hair."

"Besides, Kat, I'm starting to like this," DJ said, "Rube, maybe you can let me shoot one of them when we go back?"

Rube Rarick lifted his jar of chicken innards from the boat. "I suppose that's possible." Then he and DJ followed Kat inside.

Swamp, hot, steamy in more ways than one

Another week of Pay Dirt in the swamp. Let’s review what happened…

"Leta, let me apologize. I do appreciate you delivering my friends here. Let me follow you in."

Rarick cranked the Evinrude and thought he heard the F word somewhere in the fog.

At Rarick’s camp, Kat climbed up to the dock. Leta handed her Rarick's bag. And DJ stayed in the boat with Leta.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm not cool with this water shit, and Leta's pot of Jambalaya's got my name all over it. We'll pick you up later."

"Bullshit..."

Before Kat could continue, Rarick's boat coasted in. "Son, you'll throw rocks at Leta's rice, once you've tasted my Gator Sauce Piquant."

"What time you need me to pick'em up, Rube?"

"Forget it, Leta. You've got enough to do at the shop. I'll take care of my friends here."

 

Halfway back to the bait shop, Leta noticed the boat following her. Muscle boy with his tattoos and tight ass. She wondered if he had anything against drinking at 6:AM.

Bobby Grim followed Leta into the shop, and she said, "So what can I overcharge you for today? Coffee. Beer. Dynamite?"

"Nope. Information."

Leta slapped two whiskey glasses on the counter and filled them with Seagram's Sweet Tea. Grim raised an eyebrow. "The sun's barely up."

"Depends on what you're willing to pay for this information."

"What makes you think I'm willing to pay what you're gonna ask?"

She clinked her glass with his as he raised it. "You're drinking, ain't ya?"

Rarick dipped half a bread slice, triangle cut, into egg and vanilla, then dropped it into the deep fry. "French Toast?" Kat asked.

"Almost, my momma called it Lost Bread. I think of it as French Toast, done Cajun-style."

"Your mother was coon-ass?"

"Yes-mam, I was born and bred a pirogue ride from the Atchafalaya Basin."

Hunting Gator, Human in Louisiana Swamp

This was the first full week in the swamp. Our adventure is just starting to heat up…

Bobby Grim watched from his tree stand, as the last of the television crew's boats disappeared around the bend.

Rube Rarick stood, hands on hips, at the edge of his dock, admiring the five-footer hanging above him. Grim thought the gator's head looked too big for the body, like it had swallowed a garbage can that got lodged in it's skull.

Rarick detached the metal head and slid the bloody arrow from the giant head. Then he popped an electric cigarette between his lips, pulled a Rambo knife from his belt, and began to cut the hide from the beast.

He finished before sunset, then rose early the next morning, ready to hunt again.

And on this day, he'd hunt alone—as would Bobby Grim.

Rarick left the dock before dawn, his bateau loaded light, leaving plenty room for a couple of big ones. He raced through the dark bayou, grinning. Twenty years, he'd been hunting here, no one knew the area better. Around the bend from where he expected the first tag, he killed the Evinrude and started the troll motor.

Even in the fog, where trees and beasts appeared and disappeared with every turn, Rarick still believed he was the swamp's most dangerous predator.

"Huh?" Somewhere behind him, another troll motor started up in the fog.

 

Saturday morning. Leta found the padlock on the bait shop door missing, along with bandages, antiseptic, and Albon—dog antibiotics. The bald muscle guy with the tattoos and ass. She knew, looking at the hundred dollar bill on the counter. She thanked God he hadn’t drowned in the storm. She wanted to get him drunk before he left the swamp.

She heard a sound in the woods, a chainsaw. She walked out on the porch. Not a chainsaw, a motorcycle.

 

When the first rays of sunlight danced over the bayou, Rarick spotted a spinach green forehead skimming open water. Fastening 500 lb test line to his custom arrow, he took aim.

Behind him, hidden by fog, Bobby Grim loaded his bow with an identical arrow.

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.

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.