Goodbye Natalie
By: Dave Babb
Chapter One: No Questions Asked
Jake Barnes watched intently from the road's edge as
the car slowly sank in the turbulent cold waters of the Pacific Ocean, one-hundred feet below. Inside the car was
the lifeless body of a man he didn't know. ...
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Chapter Two: Trouble on the Line
Fallon Dawn Hunter hadn’t planned
on becoming a receptionist when she escaped her dreary existence in tiny Lonely,
Kansas over a year ago. Not that there was anything especially wrong with having
a hometown where everyone knew each other and doors were left unlocked as a
matter of habit...
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Chapter Three: The Price of Greed
Alan Rassmussen managed a living by
digging through garbage cans, peeking through windows, and following unfaithful
spouses around. He had once thought that by becoming a private investigator
it would mean an upgrade in lifestyle from the two bit hustler he used to be,
but sometimes he wondered...
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Chapter Four: Something To Be Proud Of
Fallon Dawn Hunter sat in a thick-headed fog of daze and bewilderment.
The floor seemed to be spinning beneath her after hearing the news that her
boss, a man she’d only spoken to once on the phone, had been found dead
in his car from apparent suicide. She wanted to spill her guts to attorney Burl
Barnes when he pointed out a picture of Alan Rassmussen, wanted to tell him ...
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Chapter Five: The Lonely Hunter
As Fallon Dawn Hunter made her way
through the busy Hollywood streets, finally turning off into the twisting and
confusing labyrinth of the North Hollywood Hills, she was losing confidence.
It was in fact draining from her like brake fluid from a rotting hose in a neglected
and abused rental car. Not only was she having trouble finding the address...
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Chapter Six: Mississippi Mudcat Jones
Mudcat Jones came from humble beginnings.
Truth be told, humble is a gross over statement. In Pittsburg, Mississippi,
he was the youngest in a family of eight kids living in a two room shack with
outdoor plumbing. None of the kids went to school and most days were spent picking
cotton for three cents a day, or tending to wood chopping or livestock chores.
When he was nine...
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It was nearing three p.m. by the time
Fallon Dawn Hunter finished interviewing Vivian Valentine at her dilapidated
Hollywood Hills mansion regarding her missing son, Frankie. Fallon had looked
through the son’s room for clues and within minutes discovered a worn
leather bound address book hidden haphazardly between his...
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Chapter Eight: Dragon Lady Lullaby
As Fallon Dawn stepped into
the air-conditioned pitch darkness of the Dragon Lady Bar, it was as if entering
a different world. Outside, the bright sunlight reflected harshly off bleached
out pavement and the oppressive heat sucked the life out of you like a pizza
oven cooking a ripe tomato. Her eyes gradually adjusted...
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Chapter Nine: Blood for Mudcat
Darla
Jones carefully guided the heavy Cadillac into a cramped parking spot behind
the Denny’s on Sunset and Vermont. She checked her wig in the mirror,
put on some designer sunglasses and retrieved a hospital visiting i.d. badge
from her purse. Last time that she did temp work at Kaiser Hospital...
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The
sun was only slightly beginning to tint the window shades when Fallon Dawn first
awoke. It was the aroma of steaming coffee that triggered her senses, lulling
her out of the comforting, warm security of the soft covers. She wasn’t
well rested, sleep had been fitful and intermittent. ...
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Chapter Eleven: The Little Voice
For
well over an hour, Attorney Barnes recounted what he knew of his long lost nephew,
Jake, to Fallon Dawn. It seemed to bring a pleasant serenity to him when he
recalled memories of family and simpler times. He was the youngest of five brothers,
raised by a single mother in a small Missouri town...
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Chapter Twelve: The Hungry and The Dead
Fallon
Dawn left Marinello’s Beauty Shop with a fresh, clean haircut, a renewed
sense of purpose, and more questions coming out than she had going in. While
lounging in the salon chair and eavesdropping on the Hispanic hair-dressers,
she learned that the enigmatic Frankie Valentine was...
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Chapter Thirteen: Necessary Tragedy
Alexandria
Avenue gets quiet soon after the late Californian sunset. Tall palms tower majestic
and silent above the wide apartment-lined street...standing stoic sentry over
anonymous comings and goings...
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Chapter Fourteen: Goodbye Natalie
Fallon
Dawn scrubbed diligently on the urine-soaked car seat of the cheap rental. Warm,
soapy water and a generous portion of elbow grease soon cleansed away the traces
of the evidence of her fear from the previous night. Another fifteen minutes
in the hot morning sun dried...
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Chapter Fifteen: Reach For The Stars
O.K.
everybody, that’s a wrap!” It was the call the whole crew of ”Neighbors”
had been looking forward to all week. Retakes of the final scene had run production
into overtime and everyone was getting restless...
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Chapter Sixteen: The Cold and The Lonely
Fallon
Dawn quietly slipped under the covers, it had been a long, exhausting day and
she was more than ready to surrender to the void of a deep, comforting sleep.
The morning would arrive rapidly and she looked forward to getting away from
the congestion and smog of the city ...
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Chapter Seventeen: Revenge Road
Dammit
woman, I told you don’t be movin’ my pills!” Mudcat Jones
hollered hoarsely as he violently dumped the medicine cabinet contents to the
bathroom floor. The loud crash of breaking glass brought Darla Jones stomping
down the hallway of the small apartment ...
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The
good thing about making detective is, you no longer have to wear the uniform
and stand out in a crowd like a sore thumb. The bad thing is, you get used to
that feeling of power that the uniform provides... walking around with the badge
and gun on display...
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Chapter Nineteen: Caution in the Wind
Fallon
awoke rested and refreshed after a good night’s sleep. The sun reflected
brilliantly off the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, she was pleased they
had gotten a room with such a wonderful view. The extravagance would be short-lived
however. Fallon Dawn Hunter was a prudent, conservative Midwestern girl, and...
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Chapter Twenty: What Price Peace
”CUT!”
The director yelled out to the crew. Everyone froze in their tracks. ”Who
the HELL are you?!” All the blood left Fallon Dawn’s face, who was
conspicuously poking around the corner of the old brick warehouse. She slipped
the Colt pistol back into her raincoat pocket before stepping out...
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Chapter Twentyone: Flesh to Stone
Vivian
Valentine sat at her dressing table carefully applying the layers of make-up
that temporarily disguised the evidence of a hard-lived, long life. She began
with a heavy, neutral concealing foundation. While it dried, she expertly glued
on feathery false eyelashes, painted dark,...
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Chapter Twentytwo: Shadow of Despair
Darla
Jones’s murderous, cunning nature was only matched by her grace under
pressure. It’s what made her a valuable and in-demand ICU nurse. It’s
also what made her a lethal, remorseless killer. Yet, even the calm-under-fire
Darla Jones had been on pins and needles the past three days...
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Chapter Twentythree: Rage and Furry
The sun glaring off the windshield
hit Mudcat square in the eyes and felt like lasers piercing his brain. His eardrums
painfully pounded like giant conga drums, keeping rhythm with his heartbeat.
He’d sent the young prostitute, Cherry Bomb, into the drugstore for alcohol
and cotton gauze to clean the seeping bullet wounds in his torso that kept...
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Chapter Twentyfour: Too Late for Salvation
”Jake, JAKE! Oh my God, what have I done?” Fallon shook the unconscious
Jake Barnes, willing him to awaken. She wiped blood from his eyes and prayed
she hadn’t killed him. He was still breathing, barely. She clumsily...
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Chapter Twentyfive: The Protector
The temperature had dropped significantly, as had Fallon’s confidence
in her ability to rescue Joanie Kwan. Murky fog rolled in from the bay in great
billowing clouds, matching the foreboding and angst that muddled her thinking
and weighed on her heart like an anchor of hopelessness. As she and Jake Barnes
neared the Golden Gate Bridge en route to a meeting with Kwan’s kidnappers,
he explained his part...
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Chapter Twentysix: The Final Goodbye
Getting
away from the smog and congested streets and freeways of L.A. to the clean Missouri
hills had been a nice respite for Burl Barnes. Visiting family had rejuvenated
his spirit and helped him put his office partner’s recent death in perspective...
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Darla Jones crept silently into Vivian Valentine’s hospital room and stood
for a long moment, making sure the actress wasn’t aware of her presence.
It was past midnight and the corridors were mostly deserted; patients tucked
in for the night, doctors...
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Goodbye Natalie is the creation of Dave Babb. It was first published in the Corcoran Sun, a prison yard paper that features news, entertainment, inmate poetry, art, and humor. For recent issues or to correspond with the author write to:
Dave Babb P-30582 |
