[center][b]Prologue: Run Through The Jungle[/b] [i]“The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or wrong end of the gun.”[/i] -- P.G. Wodehouse[/center] [b]Opal City, PA 2:29 AM[/b] Kenny Boyd took a deep breath and said the lord's prayer. It was hard to find the words, it had been so long since he last uttered them. He was maybe eight when his grandmother stopped taking him to church on a regular basis. It wasn't anything to do with her, but Sarah Boyd couldn't take her grandson to church while he was doing six months at the Youth Detention Center in Pittsburgh for strong armed robbery. The other reason he couldn't finish the lord's prayer was because he was losing so much blood it was hard to focus. The entire left side of Kenny Boyd's body felt hot and numb from where the bullet went in his side a few minutes earlier. Kenny held both hands on the wound in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding. It was a unique feeling for him. For all his years running on the street and slinging, this was the first time he'd ever been shot. He'd been shot at plenty of times and shot at plenty of others, but he'd never actually had a bullet connect with his flesh. It was a surreal feeling, to be sure. But he didn't have time to think about the finer details of a gunshot wound right now. A scuffle of feet nearby alerted them that he had to run. The man hunting him was close by now. For nearly twenty minutes they had been playing this game. Kenny was on the street corner like he usually was on a Friday night, selling coke and dope to any fiends who wanted a taste. He was passing a baggie of heroin to one junkie when shots rang out. Two bullets whizzed by Kenny and the junkie while a third found a home in Kenny's ribs. He took off, not noticing the blood until he was half a block away. After that, he kept running away from whoever it was that was chasing him. He cursed and held onto his side as he prepared to run. This week was his first one back since the arrest. This was supposed to be the week that he made back all that goddamn money he lost on bail. With one last half-remembered lord's prayer under his breath, he jumped from his hiding point and started to race down the back alley. Shots rang out again, three more of them. This time, all three bullets ripped through Kenny's body. The second bullet tore into the back of his head and killed him before he hit the ground. His hands and feet twitched in the last spasm of life. Standing over Kenny's dead body, the hunter shook his head and calmly walked away. ----- [b]Law Offices of Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, & York 11:09 AM[/b] [center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Qnt5bx1OI[/youtube][/center] Bobo T. Chimpanzee, better known to the world at large as Detective Chimp and DC to his friends, ignored the onlookers gawking at the chimp riding on the elevator. He wasn't ignoring them persay. He'd become used to the strange looks and uncomfortable questions after twenty plus years as a hyper-intelligence chimpanzee. That was why he had earbuds rooted firmly in his head and blasting Elvis Costello and holding a pair of index cards. One read "YES, I AM A TALKING CHIMPANZEE. DO NOT SPEAK TO ME UNLESS SPOKEN TO" while the other read "FUN FACT: CHIMP'S ARE 4X STRONGER THAN HUMANS, EVEN TALKING ONES." His anti-social behavior was due to the fact that he was alone this morning. Normally, Effie acted as a perfect gatekeeper when it came to the obnoxious looks and questions that followed him everywhere. She was able to keep DC from actually having to talk to these people and explain himself, like in this world were people flew and bent steel beams with their minds the talking chimp was the real freak. DC was the first out the elevator when it opened up on the twelfth floor. He tucked the index cards into his jacket, along with the earbuds and his phone, and strolled past the receptionist before she could get the second Fitzwaller out of her mouth. "'Fitzwaller and Associates,'," DC said as he walked into the corner office of David Fitzwaller. "That took two seconds to say, as opposed to the sixteen seconds it says to get out'Law Offices of Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, & York.'" "Tell that to my brothers and sisters," Fitzwaller said as he stood up, reaching across the desk to shake DC's hand. "My sister wanted to take her husband's last name, which would have made it 'Fitzwaller, York & Associates' and the rest of us didn't want to be just associates and Peggy doesn't want to go back to Fitzwaller so here we are." "Here we are," DC nodded. "Which is where?" "Where's that pretty little sidekick of yours?" Fitzwaller asked with a raised eyebrow. "She's got class, unlike you." "I'm wounded, DC. I'm the classiest guy I know." DC's eyes darted around the room filled with cheesy advertisements of Fitzwaller's personal injury business. "Fitzwaller $how$ You Dollar$!" was written in green underneath Fitzwaller's face. Dollar signs were placed in his eyes. "Yeah... classy. What's this about, Dave?" "This right here." Fitzwaller passed DC a manilla folder. He flipped it open and saw the mugshot of a young black man. Beneath the photo was a series of legal documents and police reports. An arrest report identified him as Kenneth Boyd, twenty-five years old, from the eastside of Opal City. The back sheets of paper showed Boyd's criminal history. There were three total pages, mostly drug charges but a few assaults with a deadly weapon and one attempted murder... back when he was fourteen. "Nice guy," DC said after closing the file. "You trying to set me up, Dave? This guy needs a little more hair before I even consider it." "Didn't know you were a necrophiliac, DC. Young Mr. Boyd here died early this morning." "What's your interest in it?" "Fitzwaller, Fitzwaller, and... everyone else were representing Mr. Boyd. He was arrested recently for, what else, drug dealing, and he was out on bail awaiting trial. It's not good business for our clients to get murdered and--" "Knowing the OCPD like I do, they're going to soft ball this one," said DC. "A drug dealer dies and nobody really gives a shit." Fitzwaller shrugged before nodding. "That's the long and short of it. Interested? We'll pay you well, DC, you know we always do." DC stared at the photo of Boyd. Was he a scumbbag? No doubt about that at all. But did that mean he deserved to die? DC drummed his fingers on the desk and finally nodded. "I'll see what I can do." [center][b]Night of the Hunters A Detective Chimp Mystery[/b][/center]