The demasking of hyacinth, a DAC detective story

[Mismatch]

I leaned back in my office chair, which emitted the usual creaking in complaint, and took another sip of the cheap scotch from my water bottle. It had been a productive week, but one case still nagged me. Hyacinth.

I fetched Gimp from the closet and fed him a weetabix


"Talk to me Gimp. Talk to me about hyacinth"
Gimp mask recoiled, breadcrumbs flying from his mouth.
"Isn't he smiley boss? I thought we solved that one."
I nodded. Slowly.
"Yeah, we were sure. But the Jewish connection still bothers me. Hyacinth. Flower. Flower. Jew. Thor Kauffman. And now atoga dropped a Nicolai in my Sunday dinner. Will this be the one who got away? It's keeping me up at night dammit. Talk to me Gimp."
Gimpmask trudged along the walls of the office clearly disconcerted.
"He's probably Swedish, but we're not sure. Talked about Baltic people in the coin thread. Do we know anyone of the old guard with a Baltic connection?"

I smiled. That was why I kept him around. Keeps me focused.
"Good observation Gimp. But coin thread. Coins. We're back to Jews and Kauffman again. Tho' I need you to look into the Baltic connection, wil you do that for me gimpmask?"

Gimp nodded, and left the office.
I lit a cigarette, leaned back, and took another sip from the water bottle. Sheesh, this case was gonna be the death of me.

TBC

[Mismatch]

When sleep suddenly left me I found myself still sitting behind my desk. I groggily checked my wrist watch.
06:30. Where was Gimpmask? Why wasn't he back yet?
I had thought the baltic connection would be an easy task. Had things gone awry? I wasn't one to worry about my aides, but I still wanted him in one piece so I decided to look into it myself.
I went down to the docks. Not a place to be at any hour really. But I needed answers, and I knew whom to get them from. As I passed a knot of street walkers one of them called out to me.
"Hey mr big shot detective, here for a second serving?"
I shot her a weary smile.
"Sorry Cinnamon, not today. I'm here for work. My work. Not your. Is Lembit around?"
She shrugged and smacked her lips.
"Have it you way. He's in the alley."
I tipped my hat carefully manuvered around the girl, and slowly entered the dark alley to the sound of dripping water. A faint sound behind me made me turn around. Leaning against one of the brick walls was a scarred man of average height. Lembit.
"You got some stones coming here." He said and smiled.
"I like it."
"Yeah, sorry about last time Lembit. Wasn't personal."
Lembit nodded, lit a cigarette, and smiled.
"Weeell, theese things happen Mr Detective. I'm an understanding man. I forgive. What you need from Lembit then?"
"I'm looking for a baltic connection. With DaC."
Lembit grimaced and spat with feeling.
"That shithole."
"Yeah."
"Ok mr detective man. Lembit will look into it."
I nodded. You couldn't really trust Lembit, but if he said he'd look into it, he'd look into it. I started to leave, but turned around.
"Have you seen gimpmask by the way?"
"He's in the wanking booths again."

[Amis]

C'mon George R.R Martin, give us the new book dammit!

[Jeff]

I woke up in my rusty beat-up station wagon. Where was I? Who am I? Suddenly my convalescent brain synapses lit up like a neural network of mercury vapor lights on a Latvian christmas tree. "Baltic... Connection." Two words. They had no meaning to me. Alright, time to get to work, this is what I've trained for. I reached for the glove box, grabbed my adrenochrome pills and flushed them down with zero calorie Monster energy drink. I am in full focus now, my brain overclocked, overheating and over 9000 as they used to say back in the day. Heh, the good old days. Don't get distracted now. I noticed a case file on the passenger seat. What's this?

I leafed through the contents of the file. It was mostly a bunch of road-side garbage stapled together, an attempt at outsider art I suppose. What kind of a sick individual would do something like this? Must be related to the case. That's when it caught my eye: the word "Hyacinth", Sharpied on a photo. The way the inkjet printer had smeared the jpeg artifacts gave the picture a painterly quality, but the subject of the photo was more statue-esque. Look at that face. That handsome, deranged face. That's it! This sick son of a bitch must be my Baltic connection.

As I was putting the file away, I noticed its date: Feb 26. My Casio G-Shock wrist watch was telling me it was Oct 14. Whatever, time is an illusion anyway, they can't fire me for being "late" if I work this case backwards, starting from the future. Better catch this bastard first, and then figure out the evidence and all of that shit. I pressed Play on the car's Nakamichi tape deck. It was playing "music on repeat", by Hans Zimmer. My favourite kind of music. I started the car, put the gear in reverse and started driving towards the sunrise, and, God willing, towards Baltia.

[SenisterDenister]

I completely missed this the first time around. Fun read.

[Wolfman Walt]

I was enthralled. I give it 6 out of 4 chicken nuggets.