The trail had gone cold. No-one knew a damn thing, but something in this damn town stunk.

No-one knew a thing about what was going on in this city. And there was something strange, something I'd not seen before. It was like people were scared, more scared than they'd ever been. I'd mention the heist at the airport, or ask about the missing girl, and I'd get nothing but haunted looks and desperate attempts to change the subject. I'd seen people scared in my time, but this was different. It was like there was something new in town. Damned if I could work out what it was.

I was down to my last option. It was time to pay a visit to Little Barry, the Shoeshine boy.

He's a good kid, a little young for the streets at seventeen, but you wouldn't know to look at him. Looks old before his time, you know what I mean? Still, he'd kept his innocence. He seems kinda simple, but he's good to talk to. He knows things, too. There's many a time that he's dropped some passing hint that led to a story busting wide open. I kinda go to him like he's good luck, when nothing else works.

That morning he was there on his street corner, just staring into space. That ain't too unusual for him, though.

'Hey there, Newshound' he said as I walked on up to him. 'How's things going?'

'They ain't,' I said, tersely. 'Right now, Barry, they just ain't.'

'That's a shame,' said Barry, as I sat down in his chair.

'Yeah' I said. 'I'm chasin' a story, but I just can't find anything on it. It's like the town's full of ghosts.'

'Sounds serious' Barry said, as he got down to work.

'It sure is,' I said. 'it's got disappearances of private eyes, dames goin' missing, the police on the take, everything. Most I can figure, it's all about these two guys, two guys at the heart of everything. They're everywhere and nowhere.'

'Right,' said Barry. 'Hope you find them soon, then.'

'So do I, Barry. So do I. I just can't help feeling that the answer's right in front of me.'

Barry said nothing to that, just kept on shining my shoes. I talked on for a while as he worked, trying to make sense of my own mind as much as anything, but nothing came.

But then he said something. Something which changed the game. Something which put good old Bill the Newshound back on track.

My name is Bill but nobody calls me that these days. Bill the wiseguy they used to call me, Bill the short-ass smartass, but most of all Bill the newshound. See I’ve got this nose for a story and when I catch that scent I track it down relentlessly. Some of the biggest scandals ever to broach the pages of the Tribune were my scoops- The Window-Windup story, the Art Dealer scam, a whole load. That time the Mayor was caught out with that hooker after his two bungling press guys lead everyone to his private office instead of the briefing room for a press conference on some new civic innovation? He had to drop a lawsuit against the Tribune because I got there first. To the story I mean, not the hooker, although Roxie is a charming girl in her own right. If you’re going to dig out the sleaze and the scum in this city you’ve got to have something of the terrier about you, smart and pugnacious, running down the rats and shaking them hard and that’s me through and through. Little Hound they call me now. It’s rarely clean and it’s never pure, but a guy’s got to make a living.

Two men dressed as builders emerged from the alleyway. 

"Oh look, you've gone and put the lamp-post in the wrong place."

"have I?"

"Yes, and it's not on either. It's all dark."

It was true. This one lamp-post in the street was off, leaving the perfect ambush zone. How had I been so blind?

"someone could get hurt if they're not careful."

"Sorry." The shorter one, whose face I still couldn't see, stood there for a second, impassive, like a dark, time-weathered statue in the night. He was almost like some sort of menacing imbecile in his stillness. It was as if he could not comprehend the cruelties he was inflicting upon me.

"Well, help him up then," his associate commanded.

They picked me up, then dropped me, hard like a sack of bricks onto the sidewalk. My god. These brutes were playing with me, before they finished me off. I felt a rib snap as I hit the concrete, and my world exploded with more pain than I thought possible. I stifled a groan, desperate not to give these sadists the satisfaction. 

"Oops. Best try again."

The two men picked me up once more. 

"Ok. Now get him to the Van. We'll need to take care of him."

I knew what was next. A concrete overcoat for sure. I tried to wriggle free, but I was too weak, and despite my resistance, they half-dragged, half-carried down the alley into their vehicle. 

"Mind his head now," came the sarcastic, fake warning, so cruel, so callous in its banality. They actually seemed cheerful as they heaped one torture after another onto me.

Sure enough, as they bundled me in, they knocked my forehead smack dead centre against the hard iron door of the van. Everything started to go blurry as they pushed me into the vehicle's shadowy interior.

I tried to get a glimpse of my attackers as they peered into the door of the van, but I couldn't see anything in the darkness. Just two moustaches and a mullet. 

"Please," I croaked, with as much composure as I could muster. "Please, you don't have to kill me." 

I knew it was hopeless. 

"Oh dear oh dear."

"Oh dear oh dear."

"Oh dear oh dear oh dear." 

So calm, so chilling, so unconcerned about the terrible things they had done to me. Those mundane words were the last thing I heard before the pain overcame me, and I blacked out.

It was those two men again. Always the same shadowy agents foiling me at every turn, and every loose end always sewn up. 

'Dammit,' I yelled. 'How can they be doing this to me?'

Jackie raised a perfectly-tweaked eyebrow. 

'To you?' she said. 

'To me!" I repeated, banging my fist on the table. 

'To you.' She laughed, shaking her head. 'I think you're getting to close to this, Leonard. You let things get personal, you're going to get hurt. You want my advice, just leave it be. Maybe you could come back to mine and let me see what's under that buttoned-up trenchcoat of yours, eh?'

She was mocking me. I didn't listen to her. 

'You know I can't do that, Jackie,' I muttered, through gritted teeth. She just laughed. 

Maybe she was right. I was taking things too personal. It didn't make a blind bit of difference. I was deep into this one, already.

Barely remembering my manners, I laid down ten bucks for Jackie's drink, and headed out into the street.

I stalked the rain-drenched streets, deep in thought, trying to work out how to get to these guys. 

I was still trying to figure things out when I walked straight into a lamp-post where there hadn't been one before. 

The blow smacked me right in the head, and I ended up on my ass on the sidewalk. As I tried to get my bearings, I knew there was going to be trouble.

"Oh dear." I heard a voice say from the shadows.

"Oh dear oh dear," came the response.

What came next wasn't pretty.

I'd been smart, played it safe. A younger version of me might have gone in there without backup, got myself shot. Not now. I'd alerted the cops and the Airport staff. I'd been assured that they were doubling security checks on all outward flights. They'd even hired extra staff at the airport. Didn't make a damned bit of difference, of course. Just my luck these days. I waited by the phone, expecting to hear about the raid, but nothing. All night, nothing.

The next day, I called in a favour from a trolley-dolly called Jackie I'd helped out a couple of years back. Over a shot of bourbon on the rocks in Sam's Mile-High Diner, she gave me the low-down on what had happened. Word was, the broad had turned up heavily disguised, and two new employees had helped her get through the airport and on to the flight. Somehow, she'd managed to get all that contraband through security without anyone noticing, one of the men apparently carrying it through the checks for her and blaming it on his belt when the metal detectors went off.

Then, the cops had turned up, for all the good it did. They were sent in the wrong direction and got buried under a falling pile of badly-stacked luggage. By the time the cops had dug their way out, the plane had taken off for Casablanca, along with Roxy Rowlands and the biggest cache of drug money this town had ever seen. What's more, no-one knew where the two new employees were. The only sign was a discarded airport assistance uniform next to the security scanner.

The rain poured down, unremitting, relentless. As I trudged through it with my head down and the lapels of my coat pulled up, I pondered the case. It still didn't make sense. Nothing was what I had expected. Each time I thought I was onto something, I turned out to be wrong. It was like getting an unexplained shower of confetti from a bucket full of wallpaper paste- whatever rules were in play, I still had no idea how things were going to turn out. 

Maybe somewhere in this there was a clue I could grasp, something that I could use to make sense of this whole damn shooting match. The latest piece of the puzzle was the woman at the airport. I'd spent three months undercover tracking down one of Carpone's rackets. All that work had finally got close to bearing fruit. I'd found out that a lady by the name of Roxy Rowlands was going to be carrying out a cool half million in stolen gold bullion on a private flight, leaving at midnight.

The darkness hit me like a freight train. My world became a suffocating kaleidoscope of distorted sounds, fleeting colour and retreating senses. I was conscious, perhaps for only a second, of my diminishing grip and that my quarry was slipping from grasp. The fading pad of footsteps confirmed my suspicions. I sank towards the floor.

Dejected, I reached up to pull the paint pot off my head. I should have recognised the sound of the swanny whistle when I slammed my foot into that loose plank during my little intimidation routine. Damn. Rookie mistake. Always duck early.

I’d have to buy a new hat now. This one was ruined.