Mystery, Noir, Short Story, Word Challenge, Wordle

Bleeker Street: A Dirk Malone Story

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

Written for Sunday Whirl Wordle – #738. Our host
is Brenda Warren; her prompt words for this week
are shown below.  Here’s where the prompts took me.

fringe, resonance, frill, spin, swimming, images,
fit, spill, trip, reflect, layer, and lingering

Image by Me & ChatGPT

The rain came down in sheets, turning the West Side Highway into a swimming pool of corruption and lies. I sat in my office, watching the water spill down the window in rivulets that seemed to reflect every bad choice I’d made that week.

I heard footsteps on the stairs followed by the click of high heels in the hallway. A dame looking for me, no doubt. I was curious as soon as she walked through my door. She wore a dress with too many frills for this part of town …. somewhat out of place, like a wedding cake at a funeral.

“Mr. Malone?” Her voice had a resonance that carried too much clout for a delicate dish like her. “I need your help.”

I gestured to the chair across from my desk. She sat down carefully, each movement deliberate, like she was trying not to trip over the fear that was weighing her down.

“My husband,” she began, “he’s been …. ‘different’. Distant. There are images – photographs I found hidden in his office. Women I don’t recognize. Places that don’t fit with the man I married.”

I’d heard this spin a thousand times. Philandering husband, suspicious wife, tale as old as time. But something in her eyes made me listen closer.

“He works late now. Comes home smelling like Arpège and bourbon.” She paused, her fingers toying with the clasp on her purse. “Last night, I followed him to an abandoned garage on Bleeker Street.”

Bleeker Street. That got my attention. Nothing good ever happened on Bleeker Street after dark.

“What did you see?”

“That’s just it,” she whispered. “I couldn’t see anything clearly through the dirty windows. Just shadows moving in layers, one behind another. But there was this lingering feeling that whatever’s happening in there, it’s not an affair. It’s something worse.”

I leaned back in my chair, studying her face. She wasn’t lying. Fear like that doesn’t come from a cheating husband. It comes from something that lives in darker corners.

“I’ll look into it,” I said. “But if I find something you don’t want to know…..”

“I need to know, Mr. Malone. Whatever the truth is, I need to know.”

She left the way she came, a shimmy of silver fringe disappearing into the dismal afternoon. I grabbed my coat and my .38, heading for Bleeker Street.

I had a bad feeling about this but that’s never stopped me before.

NAR©2026

This is “Still Rainin’” by Jonny Lang

Wordle 738

All text and graphics are copyright for Nancy Richy and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

31 thoughts on “Bleeker Street: A Dirk Malone Story”

  1. So… when are you publishing a Dirk Malone Series?

    This is fabulous! You grab our attention from the get and keep us pinned wanting the next part!

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  12. Mike Hammer, Micky Spillane, and his wife, Sherrie. Good stuff, keep it going, I dig noir stories. I grew up reading Micky Spillane, from age 6 on. Do you think it had an effect on me?? Good name for a detective or PI. Ya gotta give us more than a few paragraphs, Nancy, Off to a good start, keep that horse running.

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    1. Thank you, Phil. Much of my youth was spent reading the same stories and later, watching the classic B&W movies. They definitely have a way of getting under your skin. For some strange reason, this genre comes easily to me and I enjoy writing my short stories. I have to tell you, though, I do not see myself writing more than a few paragraphs at a time. I have no interest in writing more than that, nor do I have the patience. I simply have too many other ideas and too many other stories to tell. I greatly appreciate your gracious comments and your interest in Dirk Malone. I hope to keep him going for a long time.

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