murder at bcon
aka writers and roofers
by bruno atom

(warning: use of words such as 'fuck' or 'fucking' as swear words is purely intentional)

Now it was Mulligan who asked me to go to this gig. I guess it's an annual thing called Bouchercon or Bcon for short. Named after some dude. Who the fuck cares. It's for detective fiction authors, fans and the 4 literary agents that are still working and/or alive.
I'm sure he was some kind of nice guy but I put the fuck in cause Mull said to write this as hard ball, I mean hard boil. As far as I can tell that's opposite of soft boil where you use a 3 minute timer. Reminds me of a tough guy trucker I knew –Meado - died waiting for kidneys – they were fucking shot by years on the bumpy road and years of uppers. We stopped in a local truck stop that had a special section 'for truckers only' – supposed to mean better food, quicker and cheaper. He ordered a soft boiled egg and sent it back 3 times because it was runny. Finally gave up. Like when Zappa would go out for dinner, knew his wines perfectly, and would take that traditional first taste and often send it back. There always seemed to be something very Zappaish about that – but he's fuckin dead too.
So hard boiled. And pretend to be Mulligan so that my soft side would keep me from pounding out some jerks. And I can tell you for sure, there's lots of pricks and assorted cock suckers in Las Vegas, aka Lost Wages or my fav, kickin name, Lost Vagues… Don't ask. That's where the conference was that year. Just my fuckin luck.
And I almost didn't make it man. I was in Canada and decided to fly. The fuck heads at American immigration turned me back, along with about 50% of everyone else. Some very nice woman who owned a condo in Maui – they didn't believe her even though when I lent her my cell and she had her real estate agent on her cell. Me, they said I didn't look like I lived in the Caymans so my passports must be fake. I was early so I went to the bar, phoned Big on his sat. and had him fax a letter to a few people. After a couple of pints, I wandered back and I could tell that immigration had been told to treat me nice, but the look of severe disappointment was overriding. End of the month. They had to make their fuckin quotas. (If you don't understand the reference to 'Big' well he's this important dude from other Mulligan books – not the dude in Sex and the City – so don't worry, just read the other books with me, Bruno,in them.)
So, I figure fuck the workshops. I ain't no fuckin writer like Mulligan. I wanted to just get rid of his books cause they were fucking heavy, sit in the coffee shop and hopefully get laid (I was going to write 'have sex with' but I needed to keep that hard boil image mentioned above). In the mornings, I'd drink coffee and add little bottles of cointreau like Spalding Gray talks about. Then in the afternoon, I'd switch to beer. My mom told me not to drink beer before noon – she forgot about hard liquor.
As far as getting laid, I realized real quick that wasn't too fuckin likely. The women there all looked like hard core feminists, maybe dykes, and the ones that didn't were the trophy 'girl friends' of the successful male writers who followed a general rule of thumb – the more successful, the more of a fucking, nose up his ass prick. (extra hard boil points)
The best thing that happened to me was meeting the roofers who were there for a union conference. Now these were real. They talked for real, not in some fucking mumble jumbo about some fucking writer or book. They must have been teamsters as they got the best spots in the hotel and got in free to the strip shows disguised as a 'Vegas' show. We didn't talk about no feelings, no baseball, and not even too much about women. What we talked about I don't fuckin recall but we had a blast. And in between, I tried to give away as many books as possible – there were actually a few writer type people there who were real.
So my view consisted of a spiked coffee in the morn, a beer in the afternoon and evening and night and a pillow at night. Also the hotel towers that surrounded the coffee shop patio. And the pool in the middle. You'd think with all those legal whore joints, Nevada could have at least gone topless – no such luck. I guess the idea was the state wanted you to pay to get fucked.
Reminds me of a joke one of the roofers told. A guy is drivin thru the Nevada desert and keeps seeing billboards that say 'Sisters of Mercy Prostitution' 10 miles ahead, 5 miles ahead, next right… By the time he was a couple of miles away, he had a fucking hard on and had to check this out. He went into an empty parking lot and headed for a door saying 'Sister's of Mercy Prostitution Entrance'. There a nun told him to put a hundred bucks in the can, and gave him complex instructions for turning left and right and right again. He got totally fucking lost but finally found a sister who gave him better directions. By the time he got to the door where his hooker was to be, he was practically flying. Right thru the door and back into the parking lot. The sign on the exit door said 'Congratulations – You've just been SCREWED by the Sisters of Mercy…'
The second day came around and I was still mostly hanging out with the roofers. Teaching them dirty swear words in French, like jiggy jig (kinda means fucking). Handy when they got back to work in Michigan. This particular afternoon we were pretty drunk and had to give the cashier lots of tips so as to not get kicked out. One of the prima donnas writers(or is that prima don) thought he'd make a rare appearance. No signing books mind you, just surrounded by groupies, hangers-on and other fucking forms of low life. I wanted to puke. Eventually everyone left, except for his trophy chick who was slobbering on him as they wandered away – no doubt to work on another best seller.
I had to cheer myself up that night so I went to see Penn and Teller at some oversized casino disguised as a hotel. I got their autographs. I got back to the essentially run down, over priced hotel where the conference was held. Even their reduced price for delegates was a rip – all you had to do was go to the tourist bureau web site, get their rock bottom price and knock 20% off at priceline. I wouldn't expect the teamsters to bother but surely to fuck the writers could do this as they were having workshops where the almighty were to teach the plebes the ways of the net. Yeah, right (write)!
I decided to take a late night/early morning stroll to see if I could kick some of my hangover so I could start drinking again with the roofers, dump the rest of Mulligan's books and get the fuck out of town. I'd already lost $1.75 on the slots. There were a few people standing near the pool. Even though one of the guys had long, thick, blond hair tied back, I could recognize that state trooper hat about a mile away. I switched into silent approach mode, usually used for sneaking into places I ain't supposed to be.
I think they put blue dye in the pool to make it look better. But now it had a pink tinge, reminding me of the color of the Caribbean right after the sharks took to the bodies of the pirates we had just blown away – long story). This time the blood appeared to be coming from a body floating upside down. I noticed that someone from an infamous detective discussion group was trying to nose in, no doubt to raise her fucking profile in the newsgroup as fast as her stubby ass could go. I was in the process of slinking away so as to not interfere with my soon to come morning coffee, when I swore I heard my name. Now that's not out of the ordinary but this time, the person wasn't busting his lungs.
"I'm sure the Inspector told me Bruno was to be here. Find him now."
As some of you know, I'm always anxious to help the authorities so I stepped forward, no curiosity involved.
"I'm Bruno. There probably aren't too many others here except ones that have already changed their names."
"Bruno… I'm a Lieutenant in these parts. I'm also a friend of Inspector Boland from Scotland Yard. When he heard that the Bconers were to be in town, he let me know to keep an eye out for you, cause if you weren't causing trouble, you were the best to help in trouble. You can call me Lieutenant."
He turned to the hairy trooper.
"Get these fucking -------- wannabes out of my sight. Call in back up. Get this pool roped off and seal the hotel til I say go. Me and Bruno here are going to have a chat."
We wondered off to the side. I think if there hadn't been so many tall buildings and flashy lights, the first hint of a desert sun may have been visible.
"The Inspector tells me you are the best strategist and swearer around and ain't too bad at marrying folks either. He also said you could be a mean fucker if you wanted to be." "Well, Lieutenant, I love when people get the compliments correct."
"Ok, I'm going to bring you in on this one cause as you know, these usually end quickly or they end badly. Body was discovered by a small time publisher, says he couldn't sleep."
"We won't know much for sure until the lab boys show, but I'm thinking the old blunt force trauma in a big way. Then body falls into pool, maybe carried, no signs of a struggle or the body being dragged. He was apparently a successful detective fiction writer although his name meant shit to me."
Yes, it was the same. The prima don with the female entourage from yesterday in the patio.
"Maybe he refused an autograph…"
I think I even got a smile from the Lieutenant just before he told me to snoop around. Do my strategy gig backwards. You want the smuck dead in the pool. If it turns out he wasn't killed at the pool, were do you kill him and get him in the pool?
"Report back to me as soon as you think you have something."
"Yes, sir." I could be polite when I fuckin wanted to be.
Well I'm back at the patio looking over the pool. My roofer friends show up early, having discovered the joys of coffee and cointreau. All the roofers have heard a rumor about a body in the pool. They wanta hear all about it. I guess the Lieutenant didn't quite get those snoopy message boarders to shut up. So that means that the writers at the patio they aint talking or asking cause their denial is firmly in place. Hey, maybe it's a serial killer after bad writers…
So I tell the roofers as little as possible but enough to impress them – I like it too. It's turning into a hot day. I'm wiping my forehead, thinking that Mulligan might have this solved by now, and how does his hobo savvy work (don't ask – it's a kinda genetic savvy passed on by hobos), and would there be enough cointreau to last til noon when the beer was morally legit… and how if I looked up it was easier to wipe my sweaty brow. And there it was, seemed as plain as simple or simple as plain as simple and did that make any sense or was the lack of sleep and booze hitting me and finally, why was I not swearing as much. What the fuck was that about…?
But it was still there. So I asked my roofer friends,
"This roof here would be a bitch to do, I bet."
Good old teamster talk. "Shit, man I do these all the time. Only trick is getting up and getting down. I don't rightly see where to get up here."
"Oh I do. I do. How about I spark your interest and we take a cruise up top and even get a state trooper to tag along?"
"Shit, man, we haven't finished the cointreau yet…"
Yeah, and if we did, we might not be walking too far too quick. But those teamsters sure helped the cause. When the Cointreau was gone, I phoned the Lieutenant.
"Gotta a hunch sir. Need a cop for a bit. Maybe that state trooper with the long hair. Tell him I'm waiting on the patio. Ask him to bring a camera. Digital."
When he showed up, the female 'detectives' suddenly stopped talking about what would they do if their flight was about to leave and the hotel was still sealed off. I guess when they saw him and he was very good looking with the hat and blond hair tied back – I guess they began to think of other kinds of motives.
I introduced the cop and my main man teamster.
"Let's go for a ride up top. I think that there was a party up there last night. Heard somebody walking by saying that it was way crowded. Let's check for leftovers."
Mr. State Trooper didn't blink an eye. The Lieutenant must have said something about me. Like, he's wacked, or just do whatever he wants, or he's from the Caymans, what do you expect?
We went in one of the multitudinous main doors and actually didn't have to tip anyone. Made me think I should bring a cop along more often. When we got to the top, it was very quiet as the housekeepers used shovels to clean up from the party. So kinda late to tell them to leave as is. Now, they could have used a tip.
I'd seen from the patio that there was a small outside stairway leading to the roof. We got a staff to open the door and we were on the flat roof. Actually it didn't look like it was in too great shape. I guess what somebody had said was true – a few years more, and they blow the place up and build new. And it was very hot on the roof – hot and bothered – bound to increase the use of the word fuck – kinda like at the beginning of this story.
We looked down at the fuckin pool from the edge.
"Well, I bet it wouldn't be to fuckin hard to throw a stone from here and hit the pool."
Mr. Trooper picked up on it right away. "But a body is way heavier. Not a straight drop so we're talking a heave ho."
"Yeah, well it can take two to tango. What do you think, my good roofing buddy. Would a heave ho get a body to the pool?"
"Oh yeah. I've seen heavy shit thrown from high up. You can get a good arc with out too much effort. But a body – yeah, a heave ho. And I don't know if you saw in the tar. Still some semblance of two fucking shoes being dragged from the fucking doorway."
The trooper agreed it should be sealed off. He got the Lieutenant. I told the Lieutenant that it looked like the murder took place up top, body was thrown over and we were after at least 2 fucking perps. As we took the elevator down after an officer had arrived to seal off the possible crime scene and the housekeeping were told to stop cleaning up and save the trash, I remembered something. I had actually looked at the schedule of workshops. I had actually gone to one on humor. It was good – maybe Mulligan can send this story to the presenters for a laugh – sarcasm is a form of humor isn't it. Well, there had been another workshop that caught my eye. 'Apple Pie and MOM'. Where MOM stood for Motive, Opportunity and Method. MOM – nice touch. The workshop was on right then so I figured me and Mr. State Trooper should crash it. Besides the place was still sort of sealed.
We walked in and the panel went quiet. I guess they wondered if they had a real state trooper who wrote detective fiction. Good idea I guess.
After the trooper had a small conversation with the moderator, it was announced that I had some questions to ask. I was thinking – those books from Mulligan are going to be easy to unload now.
"My name is Bruno. Some of you may have seen me hawking some Mulligan Mysteries in the patio. A Lieutenant with the local police has asked me to help him investigate the murder that occurred this morning."
There was a slight murmur in the audience as either denial started to crumble, or some folks awoke from an alcohol induced coma.
"I crashed this party cause you were talking about m.o.m. You see I think we have the method and opportunity but the motive is the one we need. So I want you to start yelling out motives."
Oh, they had motives. Uncontrollable rage, jealousy, anti social shit, revenge (they liked that one), and of course serial killers was another hit. They seemed really fucking uncomfortable about the prospect of a serial killer in a sealed building. That would put a big damper on the party tonight. What a bummer. Anyway, nothing spectacular. Then a guy at the back with a very long, bushy, white beard stood up.
"I was watching Ellen recently and she had on Phyllis Diller. Diller asked how one could tell when they had made it in Hollywood? They have a stalker, but in her case she wasn't worried as her stalker had a walker…"
I got this strange feeling. Kinda like I was floating, maybe outside my body. It was either alcohol withdrawal or my first experience of hobo savvy. Shit, it was more than I had to begin with. Yes a stalker.
I immediately went to the back to shake this guys hand but he seemed to have disappeared. Who was that fucking bearded man, anyway? Mr. State Trooper was following but not too quickly. Maybe he was trying to get a date so he could get laid later.
I called the Lieutenant again.
"Don't ask me how or why… we're looking for a stalker. Yeah… thousands of people and all we need is one. It's like looking for a needle in a hay stalker."
"Go back up the tower. I think we found some prints to run."
As I walked by the patio – hey, it was on my way – all of a sudden, there were righters, I mean writers, competing with the roofers to buy me a beer. I couldn't say no, especially in the heat. And I couldn't answer any questions as I was too busy drinking.
Up the elevator and I realized that there was only one way to find the stalker. And that was to get the entourage together, see if one of them was nervous or missing. As I watched the gloved forensic dudes go through garbage from the party, I got some officers to go down and freeze (lock) all the workshops that were going on. I told them to find one of the entourage/groupies and have them find others and so forth until they had as many of his friends, hangerons, groupies, and weirdos as they could find. I told them they had half an hour, get them up to the party floor, and then unlock those workshops. The hotel was still in a lock down. We let the roofers show ID and get into the so called shows for free. The quasi writers milling around, the few that claimed to be publishers or sellers and the 4 live agents – fuck em. I waited up on the party floor and had some beers brought up.
Now, that we had the basic entourage there, all female, we just asked them about what they were doing at the party, what the 'victim' was doing, was anyone missing now, was anyone slinking around. They seemed to love it even when their idol was gone. I guess attention to the attention starved is attention anyway they got it.
It turned out that we found out the same thing about three times all about the same time. My group began to remember a strange guy hanging around but not mixing – and they weren't talking about me. He had seemed to have disappeared about the same time idol boy went away. Everyone figured he'd just gotten tired of the bullshit and gone to fuck his trophy girl friend. She denied this – saying he just disappeared, admitting to being very drunk and in the process of being picked up. Loyalty must be the foundation of something.
Then the finger print guys said they had run a print with their 'porta printy' and got a match on a dude with a history of harassment and other such nefarious acts. The entourage identified the digital pic that came through as the weird guy who had been hanging around. He'd be checked in under another name, but I was getting those Dudley Do Right, RCMP get their man stirrings when the Lieutenant came up and spoiled all the fun.
"Just you and me Bruno. One of the maids found something. We need to go there right now."
When we got to the other wing, up on the floor, it had already been sealed off like a … ah, I don't know. Actually I do know one about a virgin at a rodeo, but it's too hard boiled…
When we got to the room… well, maybe Mulligan wouldn't have puked… but hey, I remember when I found a body in the freezer, he insisted on looking and puked. Well I puked when the 2 of us enter the room. Murder and death have a sickening smell that remind me that smell is the strongest sense for memory. Sort of like memories of grandmas house. Which reminds me – why didn't little red riding hood smell the wolf? – those fucking things stink.
Later, I told everyone that I was borderline bulimic and not to mix my dna in there and charge me with horrendous crimes.
There was a woman on the bed, naked and covered with blood. The whole room was covered in blood. The walls, the carpet, the trim, the windows. She was dead when you look up dead in the dictionary. Her deathclock had stopped (see www.deathclock.com - warning, can be very upsetting to wimps and sensitive people). She had been stabbed over and over again, all over her body.
I have deleted my previous descriptions but the whole scene was way over my way over.I puked again and left.
The lieutenant was white. We went outside and he ordered the room sealed tight and he even used the fuck word.
"Get the fucking forensics guys up here. Tell them to just do a basic preliminary. Warn them that it's fucking tough. Bruno and I are going to be in the patio. I think the other guys at the party have pieced together who this guy is. If they find him alive, tell them to kill the fucker and make it look like self-defense. Bruno and me are going for a brew down on the patio. I want this guy dead before I finish 2 beers and I'm going to chug the first. So get your fucking sorry asses going and find this guy."
We arrived at the patio and were handed 2 beers before we sat down. My friend indeed did chug the first one. Everyone was milling around trying to buy us beers. We had a fucking entourage. The Lieutenant waved his hand and the patio was cleared.
"Sometimes, I hate this fucking job. I tape old Columbos and practice being cool in front of the mirror. Like Steve Martin did as a kid. And I watch old Marx Brothers movies to keep laughing. Cheers…"
Just as we finished our second beer, his cell range. He put it on speaker.
"We found him Lieutenant. You better get up here. Room -------."
We got up to the room.
"We had to break down the door sir. It was bolt locked from the inside. We haven't touched a thing. We haven't even gone in except to peak."
The two of use entered. He was hanging from an overhead lamp fixture. They say your tongue sticks out. His was. They say you get a giant erection. His was long gone. All that was below him was a very wet floor. The lieutenant checked – water on the carpet. We left.
"Ok – busy day for those forensic guys. Leave him until they do their gig. We'll be downstairs again."
We were sipping the beers this time. He wanted to know how to get Mulligan to sign a book. I said we'd send him one. I dumped all the rest of Mulligan's books on a table. The entourage would scoop them. I was beginning to get drunk.
I invited the lieutenant to the airport for a drink. Besides he could get me through security quick. He phoned for a designated driver. We got up with a beer in our hands and walked towards the taxi entrance. Most of the people mulling around just stared. The pool music was 'Don't You Care' by the Buckinghams and 'I Go to Pieces' by Peter and Gordon.
He went to the desk and lifted the seal on the hotel but told them to give us lead-time to get through security. And could they call the airport and book me a flight out as soon as possible. First class if need be. Just use his authority and get the seat.
As we sat in the cab we were both quiet. The cabbie was pretty quiet too. Maybe he smelt cop. Finally through security, (we saw one of the other up and coming writers and his girl friend in the line up -they were sweating the same as every other jerk in the line that we bypassed) and in the bar, I said,
"I guess you know how he did it."
"Oh, I'm guessing but I'm probably right. He went to the party, picked up that woman, probably slipped something in her drink, then they went to look for his prey. She was drunk and some kind of date rape pill. Totally out of it. They lured Mr. Entourage away from the group somehow. He clobbered him, dragged him up those stairs to the roof. He talked her into helping him one, two, three, heave oh off the roof. The body almost made it. Just the head barely clipped the edge of the pool. Hence the amount of blood in the water. Then he took her to her room, raped her and killed her and killed her again. And you know what he did in his room to kill himself?"
"Oh yeah, I've read those puzzle books."
As he left me at the gate, he said,
"Have you got something to read?"
"Oh yeah, I'm working on Harpo Speaks." (Available new on amazon..com and used on abeboooks.com).
"And thanks for the tickets, the beers and hospitality. Don't call me, I'll call you."
He smiled. "Anything to tell your fans and entourage?"
"Tell them next time, I'll get Mulligan to do his own shit. Tell them to look in the mirror and go … ah forget it. Then have the next Bcon somewhere real – like Amsterdam."
I had a quarter in my pocket – I put it in the last chance slot – got two Sevens and some other fucking shit thing – won 10 bucks for a fucking lousy beer on the plane – wait a minute, I was in fucking first class with no one to join the mile high club with…"

Bruno 'Atom' – someday, somewhere…copyright 2003, 2015 by upton n. atom and by editor John Boland (www.johnboland.com)
Dedicated to the fine work of American Immigration.

(All characters are of course totally fictional, and any resemblance to actual jerks is purely syn-chronic. The only true part is the music at the pool…)