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Mme. Defarge

(7,981 posts)
Tue May 5, 2020, 02:31 PM May 2020

Detective Fiction for a New and Noir Era

PHILIP MARLOWE, DOORDASH DELIVERY GUY
by WALTER JONES


1.

It was six-thirty in the evening when I rolled up to the place, a Bungalow court off Laurelwood with crisp yellow grass and a sun-faded BERNIE 2016 sign out front. It was a normal enough neighborhood, if deserted streets and boarded-up storefronts was your idea of normal.

The job was a standard drop-and-go as far as I was concerned, but the woman standing at the door had a different idea. She was a knockout: tall, lithe, and casually attired in a pilled purple bathrobe and a single sock – a child’s — that went all the way up to her ankle. Her delicate features were partially hidden by a homemade face mask that looked to be stitched together from a ratty Joy Division T-shirt. A banana clip held her tousled raven hair suspended above her head like a downy Old Faithful.

“Have something for me?” she muffled through the mask. Her sea-blue eyes tightened into half-crescents. I took that to mean she was smiling, probably.

“DoorDash delivery, ma’am,” I said, handing off the Popeyes order – three crisp limbs of some unlucky bird and a Dr. Pepper to wash away the memory — then started back down the walk.

“Wait,” she said. “I’ve got another tip for you here.” She disappeared into the house and quickly returned, a brown paper bag in tow.
“Here,” she said, passing it over. “For being out there.”

I opened the bag and looked inside. A four-pack of Charmin.


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https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/philip-marlowe-doordash-delivery-guy
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