Tag: Tarp Mulligan

Nature Private Eye: The Tarp Mulligan Chronicles, Episode 4

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and PoetryLeave a comment

I never should have got mixed up in the case. But when the mother came in, smelling of the gin you buy when you don’t want to look cheap but still tastes terrible, I knew she wasn’t gonna leave my office until I said yes, so I decided to save myself the waterworks. She said her son was a trucker running fruit legally from Mexico but suddenly disappeared. She says she knows something’s wrong because normally her sends a snapchat every night.

So I did some digging and got myself down to Mexico. Came across a grove of mango trees. They tell me they’ve been losing their fruit before it’s ready to fall off the tree. Picking them from their parent, hard and green, then the babies get sent up north. Sometimes even into Canada. You always hope you don’t run into child trafficking as a detective, but it looked like I was knee-deep in it now.

Sick operations like this make me want to lay waste to any bastard involved I could find. But I’m too old and I’m quite addicted to narrating my life, so I left my gun in its holster.

I was still no closer to finding that kid. I decided to hedge my bet on a border guard I knew. He was good at gathering rumors and owed me a favor ever since I helped him with a rattlesnake that was trying to ask his ankle to tango. They danced, but I got down there, sucked the poison out, and fast. That’s something you don’t forget.

Nature Private Eye: The Tarp Mulligan Chronicles – Episode 3

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry2 Comments

I had to see my informant. A dung beetle named Jake. He’d been in and out of the joint for years, but ever since I saved his life from a burrowing owl he owed me. He figured he wasn’t bein’ a rat if he was only talking to a P.I. I don’t like to judge, but it’s a dirty city and I couldn’t believe he was rolling something that small. Maybe times were tough, I don’t know. I asked if he needed help finding dung, he tells me he knows where a big stash is but it’s full male giraffes whipping each other with their necks, all over some broad. He’s afraid to get trampled. I don’t like tall tales but he had a look on his face, I knew he was scared.

I told him, I ‘d see what I could do. I knew a pretty girl over at the zoo who owed me a favor. I helped talk her brother down off a rooftop observatory one time. Thought he could come up with a new constellation. He went mad with all the choices. I calmed him, but the poor kid had stars in his eyes for a week.

He said thanks and asked me what my business was. I told him I was looking for a bower bird. One who likes shiny things. Seems this time he went too far. Took an heirloom from an heiress and she wants it back. So Jake tells me he knows the guy. Just a couple miles east of the lake. Likes to use pretty trinkets to attract the ladies. Uses it decorate his ‘love suite’. I shook my head and told him it was a shame that most of my cases come down to the stupid stuff a man do for a dame he’s into.

I know there is nothing more dangerous than a flamboyant bower bird so I turned up my collar and headed for the lake and tried not to think of the bottle of gin in my office desk drawer.

Nature Private Eye: The Tarp Mulligan Chronicles – Episode 2

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry2 Comments

It was rainy and wet. And I was in no mood to talk to those whales. Not without a good porpoise. All I could think about was getting my feet back on to the pavement again. The streets. I knew where I stood. Not gonna lie, the GPS helped. 

I was standin’ there in wet sand. I just crawled out of that salty mess. One of those little tropical numbers, she calls me, says she’s worried about her brother gettin’ in with the wrong crowd. Says he’s been doing some bad algae with a parrotfish down by the coral. I didn’t get anything concrete, but I must have been close to something because some kelp tried to strangle me.

Fortunately a shark comes along and gives me hand. Turns out to be a Thresher named Jimmy. I helped his brother out of a fishing net last April. Gettin’ rid of the kelp squared us, in fact I might owe them. But I had no time to worry about ledgers with these whales emptying their blowholes on me. I told them they were wasting their breath. I was soaking wet, and the ocean seemed unhappy that I left and decided to rain on me. I tossed them a business card and told them to call me in the morning. I should’ve almost finished a bottle of scotch by then and might be in the mood to listen.

Nature Private Eye: The Tarp Mulligan Chronicles

On By Swarn GillIn Prose and Poetry1 Comment

Episode 1

No sooner had I sat down at my desk. Maria buzzed me. I was feelin’ shot. I just came back from staking out the moon and sun. My first all-nighter since college. Worst year of my life. The Earth had approached a couple of days ago. The broad was in a panic. I knew enough to just shut up and listen. She thought the moon and the sun were having an affair.

I never saw the moon, and around 1 pm, I see something passing in front of the sun, but never got a look at her face. All I got were burger wrappers in my car and a possible burned retina in right eye.

I told Maria to let her in. I needed the work and maybe it was a client. She walked in and even with my 1.5 eyes I could tell she was the most beautiful dame I ever laid eyes on. She said her name was Fiona, she was an astronomer and I could tell from the way she was holding her telescope she was kinky. But when you see a face this serious, you know it ain’t the right time to ask her if you can widen her aperture. She tells me, “I was just mindin’ my own business y’know, looking out my telescope here, just during my lunch break. I saw everything. The moon, the sun. She saw his corona.”

I told the dame we better go tell the Earth together. It was a lie. I could’ve told the Earth myself, but I wanted to dance slow with her, without any music, and have her keep an eye on the stars while I got some shut-eye.