Two Shots: The Damon Black Mysteries: The Damon Black Mysteries, #1

By Devon Richards

Meet Damon Black, a hard-boiled private eye with a modern edge. Damon is a Toronto Queen St Elder Goth who fell into the profession of private investigation. Through his grim world view, we navigate a downtown Toronto clinging to its former glory and the seedy underbelly it can never shake.

In these two short stories, we weave through the dark underworld as only Damon sees it, and get dragged into the kind of trouble he gets into all the time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Devon Richards
• Release date: Feb 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215541838

Book preview

The Damon Black Mysteries

by

Devon Richards

Damon Black is a Queen St Elder Goth who fell into the profession of private investigation. Through his grim world view, we navigate a downtown Toronto clinging to its former glory and the seedy underbelly it can never shake.

NEW BLOOD

I REALLY WISH DETECTIVE Don Travis would give me some kind of heads of up before he knocks on my door. He doesn't have to if he's conducting a check on my gun locker, of course, but for this other stuff... All he said was they had a body and they needed my help.

Didn't even have time for coffee, a sin by any stretch, so I dipped my fingers in hair wax, mussed it through my hair, donned my trench coat and boots. Not quite Robert Smith, but close enough. Enough to get some serious sidelong looks from Travis' fellow officers. Why his consultant looks like a retirement age rock star is beyond them. They're mostly small-town gomer cops who came to Toronto to get into the action, and don't know squat about the underworld history of Toronto, the good. And that's why Don calls on me – I do.

I met Detective Don through my former boss, Nick Lacey – Private Investigator. I was floundering about in the world of acting, getting nowhere at a glacial speed and responded to an ad for a photographer. Turns out PI Nick needed someone well versed in photography to take the evidentiary pics of husbands and wives fucking around on each other, his stock in trade. He knew nothing about digital photography or the computers that made it all happen, so I became his tech guy. We ended up working together for seven years. Over that time, I met a lot of cops and lawyers and insurance biz honchos – the law-abiding side of what we do. I went back to school to qualify for my PI license, and got a license to own a pistol. Own, not carry. That's a whole bunch more headache inducing hoops to jump through. There's a Beretta PX4 Storm Sub-Compact in a government approved gun locker above my fridge. Since I don't have a carrier's permit, I only take it out of my apartment when I know somebody needs to be seriously intimidated. Rare occasions, but in my line of work they do happen.

It's a wet spring day as we drive from my tiny Parkdale apartment up Dufferin street. Don said body, and that was all. It could be a kid, and him being a father of three, doesn't want to talk about it. 

Pulling up I can see the scene is chaos. Police and emergency vehicles are on either side of Dufferin street, which is choking up traffic and the rubber-neckers are making it worse. We cross the street and that's where the first of the looks happen. Uniformed cops, already unhappy being pelted by the rain despite their plastic ponchos and hat covers – all of them with raised eyebrows and distinct Who the fuck is this weirdo? looks on their faces. I'm used to it. Many a time over the years I thought about my age and my appearance and about retiring the black. It was my mentor Nick who told me not to change a thing. Someone sees a car parked across the street with some straight-laced square inside, they know they are being watched. They see a weird-looking guy, they just figure he's weird and don't give it another thought. Besides, I lurk in the bars on Queen and up in the market. The