Our Mr. Brooks Takes a Mysterious Trip to the Café - By Charles P. Pierce

[kpete]

Our Mr. Brooks Takes a Mysterious Trip to the Café
By Charles P. Pierce
at 4:28PM



(Optional dramatic soundtrack to this post here...)

It was just after sundown, and the rain smelled of blood and whiskey. The air seemed fat with curdled dreams. It was the low-running time of day, the hours when every tick of the clock goes right to the last nerve and every screech of tires leaves you hanging, waiting for the crunch of bone and the cries of small children. Every horn was a gunshot. Daylight was a memory, but night was still just a promise. Guys sat in one-arm joints, staring a hole in the counter three feet past their fourth cup of coffee. There were razors in the freshening breeze. Bartenders blew dust off the Courvoisier bottle and waited for the twilight rush from the Young Fogies Club. These were the knife-edged hours and anything could happen.


Moral Hazard, the Irish Setter owned by David Brooks for photo opportunities and not for crime-fighting, slumped down against the side of Minsky's. He'd been on the case all day and he needed a good stiff drink and a Milk Bone. He'd gotten a tip that morning at the dog park that someone, nobody knew who, was running around the city, conning people into phony categories and taking their money before they knew it, running it through the spin cycle in a couple of thousand bookstores. Moral Hazard leaned back against the building, his brown fedora tipping upwards on his head upon contact with the wall, his battered trenchcoat spread out on the sidewalk all around him. He knew what was going on, knew it before he'd talked to that sap in the suburbs, standing there on his patio with a comical look on his face as the bank foreclosed on his barbecue grill. "But... but... I'm a Bobo," the man had said to him, tears welling in his eyes. "They promised me." Moral Hazard felt for the guy, but not that much. He'd been in this racket too long to have too much sympathy for the suckers.

A streetcar rattled by, and Moral Hazard thought about chasing it. What's the point? he thought. It's only going to some other place just like this one. He stood up and shook the rain and old orange peels off his coat and pushed open to door to Minsky's. The crowd was still light and he found a place at the bar. He checked his hat and coat with Polly, the coat-check dame. She winked. He wagged. Knocko came down to the end of the mahogany, where Moral Hazard had laid his head.

"Tough one, kid?" Knocko asked him.

Moral Hazard looked up at him with only one eye. "The usual," he said, and he wasn't sure if he was summing up his day or ordering the first of what felt like it might be a long evening. The door swung open again, and someone came in, the night-calls of seabirds down by the docks trailing him in. Moral Hazard's nostrils flared. He knew that smell. Tweed mixed with leather. Only one character in town carried that scent, and Moral Hazard knew him only too well. He stood up slowly, felt for the comforting blue steel equalized in his pocket, and crossed the room.



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please read the rest:
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/david-brooks-sam-spade-starbucks-8061626

[DCKit]

1. Delightfully twisted. Thanks KPete. nt

[MH1]

2. Pierce is always excellent.

Thanks for posting, kpete!