it was the bee's knees, mac

It's a dark and eerie night in the District. Tension fills the air at Casa de Luz, a speakeasy on H and 10th. The hooch is flowing, and a dame sings sultrily in the corner, the eyes of every cat in the joint on her. I sidle up to my partner the op, the man I carry a torch for, to get the scoop. We're gunning for the mob boss, but it's gonna be tough to catch him.

I tip a few and spit with everyone in the drum, making sure not to put the screws on anyone and blow my cover. I'm trying to get a lead on the mob boss, and I find out a lot of hinky stuff in the process. Turns out the canary's a real chippy, skating around with every bird in the place. I also find out that my cat is keen on her too. The senator had a fling with her, but now his frau has showed up. Pretty soon, we find out she's packing heat as she pulls a bean-shooter on him. In all the commotion, the singer kicks off and collapses on the floor.

The canary got zotzed, and we got a stiff on our hands.

Ya follow?

Here's what really went down: Noticing my partner's crush on the singing sheba, I get jealous. I decide to chill off the chick. Luckily, the bird handling the gin mill's also a dope peddler who's dizzy with me, so he gives me week's worth of drugs, even though I've got no cabbage. I dump the lot in her drink, making a strooong Mickey Finn, and before you know it, she nibbles one and kicks off.

My partner and I block off the crime scene and move everyone into the other room to do some gumshoeing. There are some other snoopers there, shamuses at that, trying to crack the case before we do. I thought I'd made a clean sneak, but one of them is a real sharper. She sees that I'm stuck on my partner and, with a little help from the servant, crabs what happened and solves the case. She points the gat at me, and I sing! I'm nailed. It was me! I bumped off the broad! It's off to the big house for me.


So...that's the crop.