Paulette & Chaffin: Cupid #1: A Story For a Dirty Blonde

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*This was actually posted on 06/11/16. The earlier date at the top of the blog is because this is a recycled blog page. -cb

February 13

A Story For a Dirty Blonde

He sat at the bar enjoying an iced tea, tolerating the karaoke, and writing some thoughts in a spiral notebook. There was only one seat between his and those of the two beautiful women who had come in together, obviously planning to enjoy the night. The one closest to him, a blonde running towards brunette, made eye contact, and pointing at his notebook said, “You’re writing me a love story, right?”

“Absolutely,” he answered cheerfully.

Tuning in on the conversation her friend, a busty redhead, squinted and squealed, “Look at how small his writing iiiisss!”

“That’s so nobody can copy off of him, like in school,” teased the blonde, and both girls laughed.

“That’s right,” he confirmed with a smile. “If I’m going to write you a love story, I don’t want anyone to steal it.”

The dirty blonde got the joke and rocked back on her bar stool laughing. The redhead crooned, “Aww, that is the sweetest thing everrr!”

The blonde looked at her friend strangely, then looked at him. He leaned towards her conspiratorially with a playful grimace, and confided, “She hasn’t read the story yet.” She laughed again.

A few songs went by, the dirty blonde and the redhead sang, “I Love Rock ‘N Roll,” and they stepped outside for a smoke. When they returned to the bar, the blonde, seeing that he was still writing, said, “Geez! You got that much to tell me?”

“Oh yeah!” he declared. “I figured I could leave it to your imagination, or I could tell you what was going to happen next.” She raised an eyebrow, and he smirked at his mock bravado.

The night continued, and he kept writing. The blonde and her friend flirted with other guys in fun, drank some more, and sang some more songs. They paid their tab as he finished writing, looked up at each other, and then…

"And then?" asked Mary Paulette, looking up from the notebook she had leaned against the steering wheel.

"And then Mary," said Rick O'Shea, her partner who was eating fries in the passenger seat, "the dirty blonde ditched her friend to either go home, or leave with someone else. The redhead, whom a waitress had called Gina, wound up leaving alone, as did he an hour or so later. She was nice, but not for me,” he said with a semi-disappointed look as he poked a fry into a pile of ketchup.

"Man! We are never going to get you--"

She was interrupted by a radio squelch followed by, "Unit One Four Oh Seven, please respond to a homicide at the offices of Holiday, Incorporated."

"One Four Oh Seven responding forthwith," Rick said into the radio mic.

"Holiday?" said Paulette as she set the notebook aside and started the car.

"Please tell me they haven't 'killed' Frosty again," complained Rick as he sat up straighter. "Hey, Chihuahua!" he called out the window. "You want these fries? We gotta go!"

A lanky, nervous looking man in tattered clothes trotted over from where he'd been hovering near a phone booth, and took the fries eagerly. "Heyyy, thanks, O'Shea! These look great!"

"No problem," said Rick as Mary put the car in gear. "Here, take the burger and coffee too. Make sure you find someplace warm tonight," he called as the car started off. "It's supposed to be a cold one!"

"Will do, detective!" called Chihuahua, raising the little carton of fries in salute.

"Aw," teased Mary as she flipped on the siren, "see? You're such a nice guy. I'd almost sleep with you."

"I'd almost let you," Rick teased back.

Making a mock kissy face as they turned a corner, she said, "Well it's mine and the dirty blonde's loss!"

The siren blared as the car roared down the street.

Lobby of Holiday, Inc.

As the detectives entered through the revolving doors, Rick waved to the security desk a few yards away, and said, "Hey, Nat. You called in a murder?"

"Well, yeah," said Nat. The "Watchman" nameplate on his shirt gleamed in the overhead lights. "Pretty sure the guy didn't do himself in."

"Pretty sure?" asked Paulette.

"Well, it is arrows," he said with a pained look.

"'Arrows,'" Rick repeated. "You don't mean Cupid?"

"See for yourself," Nat said shaking his head. Tapping some keys on the computer to recall an elevator car, he added, "Sixty-ninth floor. Uniforms are already waiting upstairs with security."

"Okay," said O'Shea as they followed the ding of an opening elevator. "Thanks, Nat."

"You bet," he called as the elevator doors slid together.

Sixty-Ninth Floor

Security was waiting at the elevator, and pointed them towards a conference room at the end of the hall. They avoided a few hardboiled eggs with colorful designs on the shells along the way- one squashed and broken, the others cracked but mostly intact. An officer waited at the door who pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. The detectives walked in and surveyed the body on the conference table as CSI took pictures.

"Aw, mannn!" griped O'Shea, "It is Cupid! That sucks!"

"I know," said Mary. "How will you ever get a date now?"

Looking to the CSI tech, Rick said, "Whatcha got, Dot?"

Dorothy Matrix looked up from her camera, then raised a chin towards the body. "Pretty much what you see- arrows to the head and heart."

"What about the one in his hand?" asked Mary. "He pulled one out before he died?"

"No," said Dot, looking at her pointedly. "He caught it."

"'Caught it?'" Rick repeated incredulously. "He probably put a hand up defensively and took the shot, you mean?"

"No, I mean he caught it. The arrow barely pierced the palm of his hand, which means something had to have stopped it. That would be the grip of the fingers he caught it with. The little man was a badass," she said with a mixture of admiration and sympathy for the victim. "He put up a fight."

"But he lost," said O'Shea. "Who beats Cupid with an arrow?"

"The Sparrooow," Dot said as she bent down to snap more pictures.

"Say again," said Mary.

Dot stood up straight and repeated, "The Sparrow." Pointing to the wall, she said, "Another arrow pinning that note over there."

Mary walked over to the wall and ducked her head to one side to read the words scrawled under the arrow.

It was I.

-The Sparrow

"Really?" she asked. "Signed his work? Just like that?"

"Her work," came a voice from behind them. The detectives turned to see a man with dark, wavy hair, and boy band good looks. He was wearing a red and white costume, had a string of colorful beads around his neck, and was holding an arrow with no tip in his hand. "I handed my bow and quiver to security when I got off the elevator," he said, extending the arrow out to Detective Paulette which she took.

"Great," said O'Shea. "Another Cupid. You got an alibi, superhero?"

Cupid scowled only slightly. "I was celebrating with Mardi Gras when I got the call. I'm his, um, emergency contact," he said, looking at the body.

"It's a little late for Mardi Gras, isn't it?" asked Paulette.

"I wasn't celebrating Mardi Gras," corrected Cupid. "I was celebrating with Mardi Gras. She's gorgeous- great... you know," he said, cupping his hands in front of him. "Loves beads," he added, pulling at his necklace with his thumb.

"Why do people love you?" Paulette said with disgust.

Dot stepped up beside Mary and took a picture of the superhero, which he smiled for. Without taking her eyes off him, she spoke to Mary from the side of her mouth, "Are you looking at him? Come on." She cleared her throat briefly, but didn't hide her smile as she tapped her camera. "Well, I have what I need. I'll be going now," she said with a slight wave to the detectives. "Rowr," she said low as she passed Cupid.

He smiled after her, then looked back to Detective Paulette. "It's kind of my thing," he said with an amiable grin. When Mary didn't smile back, he added, "That's why I brought you one of my arrows. The fletching is different."

Rick pursed his lips as he looked at the arrow in his partner's hand. "You said 'her work.' You know The Sparrow?"

A bit sheepish, the superhero confessed, "I... uh... trained her."

Story and characters owned by Chris Bishop, copyright 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022.

Picture	Credit
	When I first used this, it was all over the Internet. No idea what the original source is, but...
	...it's a riff on "Sleeping Cupid," c.1608, by Caravaggio.

Thanks for stopping in! :^D

The Origins Behind the Origins (or how some of these characters got their names):

Note 11/26/2021: I explained most of these in a 2016 comment below. Here, they're just updated a bit.

Chihuahua was just a bit of whimsy I came up with along the way. In the story, I describe him as "a lanky, nervous looking man." I always think chihuahuas seem nervous, the way they shake all the time. Something I did not describe about him is that he has pointed ears, and he has those because Chihuahua is an elf. And Detective O'Shea knows him because Chihuahua is also an informant. So, he's Chihuahua: C.I. (Confidential Informant). Since I wrote this scene, I've always pictured him as Steve Buscemi. I dunno, he looks kind of nervous all the time too.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. -cb :^D

@cbishop: Knowing the context I feel there are a lot of name references/jokes I'm missing.

@wildvine: How do you mean on the context?

@cbishop: Like Sparrow, and Watchman, and Dot Matrix. I feel like those are a reference or an in-joke.

@wildvine: Most of my character names are wordplay, or either based on something. Sparrow is based on the nursery rhyme "Who killed Cock Robin?," although i need to check what i said in the story- suddenly not sure that it's a Mother Goose rhyme.

Nat Watchman is from "night watchman."

Dot Matrix is from "dot matrix printer." A dot matrix prints, and my Dot Matrix takes prints as a CSI. ;)

Marion "Mary" Yu is "marryin'/mary you." It doesn't make complete sense as far as her job, but i wanted the female detective's name to be Mary, because that is the name of my recently passed aunt, who retired as a detective.

Rick O'shea is from "ricochet." Had to change my original spelling of Oshay, because it had been used for a newspaper strip character.

Esther Bunny is "Easter bunny" of course, as stated in the story.

Oh! And The Sparrow's real name of May Coch comes from "maycock;" another type of bird if i recall correctly. (Edit: I had a devil of a time finding it, but yes, it's a type of wading bird aka the "black-bellied plover.")

Her father, Robin Coch, is named after Cock Robin from the nursery rhyme. Which is why his daughter is The Sparrow, who killled him with her "little bow and arrow." :)

And the story Mary is reading at the beginning of chapter one is one I actually did write in a bar. The conversation is verbatim, and I went home alone too (she just wasn't for me either). The only difference is I made the dirty blonde younger for the story, when in reality she seemed to be around my age.

The thing Rick says at the end of 2 about taking himself out back and kicking his own ass is something a former coworker said once. He was new, and watched a very nice looking girl walk through the kitchen we worked in at the time. She looked 21-25 easy- completely gorgeous Latina. When I told him she was actually our 13 year old busgirl, he said, "Wow, I'm gonna have to take myself out back, and kick my own ass." Lol

Edit: Forgot Mardi Gras, obviously based on the festival. She "likes beads," because of the party's tradition of guys giving beads to women who show their bare chests.

Just thought this was funny. :)