05/07/2025 Snippet, TOM VARGAS AND THE CASE OF THE MEDDLESOME PRIEST.

I do a body doubling thing every Wednesday now with other people where we all sit down to get work done while on the same video call. It works amazingly well at getting two solid hours of writing in.

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I could tell right from the knives that this fight was going to be one of the bad ones. Normally, the bad guys introduce themselves to a Shamus with what the Lore calls ‘blunt instruments.’ Fists if you want to send a message. Feet if you want to put some postage on it. A cosh, if whoever’s paying you wants to deliver the message themselves. It’s all part of the system, you see? It’s not easy, being the villain of honor in a Case. You’re gonna be going down for it, one way or the other. Smacking around the Shamus first at least makes you feel a little better. Like everything else from the Lore, the rules are there for a reason.

But when you skip ahead to where you’re trying the old slice-and-dice? Well, the rules change.

There were four of them, which would have been a lot for me, and I was worried that they’d be just as bad for the two of us… right before Mike picked up a trash can, swung in a circle, and smacked one of his guys all the way across the alleyway. The guy stayed there, too, with just enough groaning to remind us that he used to be a participant.

I decided that Mike could handle whatever idiota attacked him next, and kept my eyes on my own two.