After the Fedora

By Russ Meyer

AFTER THE FEDORA is a noir suspense thriller with comedic overtones. The sequel to THE FAT LADY SINGS is set in the present day with a tip of the missing fedora to the classic lone wolf detective.

Sports betting private investigator Byroan Dexter is knocked out by a home run ball. He wakes in the hospital to find that the street musician that sang over him there has disappeared with Byroan’s fedora. Persuaded by a stack of cash and a choke hold that nearly renders him unconscious again, Byroan sets out to find the street musician and get back the fedora.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796018561

Russ Meyer

Russ Meyer has had a varied career working in the post office, farm, foundry, delivery. He has owned and managed repair and retail businesses. He is one of Minnesota’s first NASCAR stock car season championship drivers. Russ trained for screenwriting with Dan Decker, Durrell Royce Crays, and Steve Larson. He is a member of Film Independent, Minnesota Screenwriters Workshop, Wisconsin Screenwriters Forum, and FilmNorth. Two of his short scripts have been made into award nominated films. He specializes in thrillers and absurd comedies. His scripts have received accolades from the Nicholls, Austin, Script Pipeline, Contest of Contest Winners, and many others. His screenplays have won fourteen screenplay contests. A fan of the classic film noir detectives, he has written several present-day PI stories. The Fat Lady Sings was the first novella. Now comes the sequel After The Fedora. What’s next for Russ? Jenna’s Gone, his modern western thriller, is in preproduction as an independent production. His sci-fi thriller A Little Favor is becoming a graphic novel. After that . . .

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Russ Meyer.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2019902318

ISBN:                Hardcover                        978-1-7960-1857-8

                          Softcover                          978-1-7960-1858-5

                          eBook                               978-1-7960-1856-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 03/06/2019

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter XIX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXIX

Chapter XXX

Chapter XXXI

Chapter XXXII

Chapter XXXIII

Chapter XXXIV

Chapter XXXV

Chapter XXXVI

Chapter XXXVII

Chapter XXXVIII

Author

I Know the Exact Moment When I Knew I Wanted to Be a Writer

Do not hire a musician as your physician.

—Wally

To all the mentors, mentees, and fellow writers who have inspired and encouraged me to keep writing.

Special thanks to Dan Decker for sparking the idea for The Fat Lady Sings, if only a single page at first. The story has developed legs and now has a sequel.

Thank you all!

Introduction

Because of his getting beaned by a home-run ball, private investigator Byroan Dexter loses his consciousness, his memories, and his fedora. The first he is over, the second is coming back, and the third ends up being the toughest. The street musician disappears with the fedora. Byroan, being not the only one searching for the missing street musician, leaves Duluth aiming to be the first to find him.

Chapter I

Where was I? Oh yeah, Heaven! Oh wait. You know what that means: an eternity, literal eternity, standing in the unemployment line.

Really! I mean, God knows everything, and everyone up here is on a first-name basis with God, so who is gonna need a detective?

I expected Wally to meet me and clue me in where I went wrong. Guess I’d embarrassed him. Wally didn’t even want to be seen with me up here.

There was a long tunnel; a bright light, totally white; and a train whistle, I think. I ran for the end of the tunnel, stumbling on the railroad ties.

Was it a train whistle? No. What was it? A harp? No, it was a guitar! There was no sense of time or of anything else.

My eyes drifted and went back. Was it Wally? No. It was a guy with a worn-out, weathered face, wearing a—what do you call them—a … trench coat! Popping pills? No, he was popping peanuts into his mouth.

That’s Gus! Oh no. I must have gone the other way—to hell! Wait! Nobody down here is gonna be happy to see a PI (private investigator). Things could really get hot. Hey, Gus is saying something.

Welcome back, kid!

I sat up. My head had a dull, persistent ache. I was in the hospital. Why? Maybe Gus knew. What happened?

What, did you miss it? It was big news! You were hit by a curve ball that followed you out of the park.

It didn’t ring a bell, though it was obvious I’d had my bell rung. I rubbed my chin. Apparently, I’d been here at least a couple of days or at least that long since I’d had a shave.

Remember, the stray home-run ball?

I nodded, slowly but not slow enough. My head wanted to veto any movement. His story sounded vaguely familiar. I gotta get going.

A member of the law, such as myself, shouldn’t stand idly by should you attempt to walk out on the doctors.

Where’s my—

Your threads are in the closet.

I scanned the room.

That closet, over there.

My eyes arrived at the closet. When they looked back, Gus was gone.

Wally said that you were okay as long as you could remember your name. I picked up that my first name is Kid. My last name’s on the tip of my tongue, so I guestimate I’m nearly back to a hundred percent.

I hit the floor, not exactly running, but I remained upright all the way on my journey over to the closet. I tried on the percentage of clothes they left me. They still fit.

Ducking out of the hospital, I walked straight into Gus. There was a dull thud, sounded like my knee bumping Gus’s passenger car door.

Need a ride?

I need my fedora.

You’re still on hospital property. Gus opened his unmarked car’s door, which was outside of hospital property, parked at the curb. Get in.

With my headache and missing some hours, I was confused enough without Gus being out of character. He was being helpful, pleasant even.

Where’s my fedora? I asked in no uncertain terms.

You can either expand the conversation or quiet up. If you continue to repeat yourself, my car is likely to wind up where we started, near the big H sign.

I seemed to recall, vaguely, Gus and a blackjack. I could imagine what Gus did with that. I shut up.

Gus’s car drifted in traffic, and it eventually drifted back to the curb at a downtown corner. He joked that my office was on the second floor on the left. I laughed, waved, and watched him drive away.

Then I gratefully followed his directions to a tee. Sure enough, I arrived at a detective agency’s door.

Note to self: get the name on the door updated. It would save on paint if my last name was Dexter also. Then I’d only need to replace the name Byroan, whoever he is, with Kid. An efficient painter could do that in thirty, forty seconds tops.

I strolled into the office and, out of habit, rolled my patented double-play somersault roll. Why had I rolled? I didn’t have anything like a fedora to toss at the hat rack. The sudden movement didn’t do my head any good.

I stopped. Something wasn’t right. The door glass hadn’t rattled when I closed it. No recently-flung fedora had rocked the hat stand.

There was a framed newspaper ad on the wall, stating, We’re number three, we try harder. Payment on delivery. Man, who would come up with a slogan like that?

I headed for the desk and a glass of headache remover or something that would at least delay it till tomorrow morning.

It’s sort of like the chicken and the egg—which came first, the headache or the cure?

I’d almost reached my destination when I noticed the baseball cherub was missing from the bookcase. Said bookend