M.M. Carter’s ‘Shadow of the Red Hyena’ part 2

image: PZ for PurpleMag Issue 9in which ‘Shadow of The Red Hyena’ debuts.



When we were last enchanted by the world of Inspector Okoye, Dr. Doopyduk arrived and was on his way into the office of the inspector, apparently bearing a hunch or some other such illumination…

Shadow of the Red Hyena, cont’d

lit: MM Carter

Bowing slightly to the Inspector, Doctor Doopyduk came into Inspector Okoye’s office carrying his slowly revolving spheres spinning in counter direction from the silver girded etched glass globe. A well groomed and dressed figure of medium height, Oliver Doopyduk had the look of a successful stage performer. But that as,
Okoye had learned,had driven the Vodunologist to become one of the most academically esteemed scholars among his peers of all subjects, a rarity Okoye knew, a flash of his solving a murder case at Haven City College
involving rival professors,running through his mind as the doctor set down his gear. ” Inspector the news I bring, I believe, is the most disturbing in, I think four generations. The Benin OutBreak is it’s closest rival.” He had sat in a plush leather chair,his legs crossed, his expensive dyed navy blue ostrich leather shoes gleaming in the light of the office. The shoes alone were two months salary to Okoye. But he no longer bore any resentment towards the doctor for his acquired wealth in fact on many a occasion had been there when the
aid of the Vodunologist had helped break what would have been called an insolvable crime.
*
Dintine’s was a favored restaurant at the head of the West Avenue- Pierce El crossings of the bay. Painted blue and molasses brown on the outside, depending on the time of day it was either a bright yellow or a muddy gold colored walled establishment inside. The banners and pennants of city, region and national ball teams hung from the rafters or were pinned to the walls, along with team individuals from the teams photos who had eaten there . Green leather booths hugged the wallls except near the kitchen and bathrooms, the rest were tables or
in a special alcove on the northside ,the two rough,made from scrap wood, benches that were the original eating places when the late Thomy Bleeker and Jerry Earle first opened the establishment back on Strodes and Nyzinga,
two blocks up the street from where they lived with there young families, the Randolph Mitchell Tower. Or Kickback Palace as Thomy Bleeker called it in its first few years. Jerry took to calling it the same as the older teens; The Hell. A product of a need for housing, old style political corruption, and big government indifference, The Hell became a breeding ground for all the ills the Establishment sought to sweep away and appease. But the Bleekers and the Earles, their wives Anna and Netty, respectively, and hundreds of other made do and grew a garden from amid the weeds. Though Waymon Earle wouldn’t have said it like that to the two men sitting at the old plank bench with him. They were ex Hell Tower Boys too, and still crewed with
Blip” Death” Tosten. A guy he and his pride cat Chris Bleeker didn’t crew with,hardcore wise, but gave and were equally given respect to. ” I tell ya mon, Way, ya daddy still be stirring on these pigfeet and blackeyed peas,” said a contentedly smacking Yancy ” No survivors” Mtume. 6’4” 326 pounds of a human volcano, Yancy
coud be the best friend you ever had, or the ticket to the graveyard. Blood and life had given him features that you expected grunts to issue from, except when he was truly happy, then he had the look of a baby being tickled by his favorite relative, such as now. “All the way” Upton Sinclair was better looking but just as deadly as Yancy. Waymon remembered back to when at a house party on the twenty-fourth floor back when he was fifteen and felt now was the time to mingle with the big boys, Cathy Gowan, had asked him where he got his nickname from. “because little honeydrop, if a sumbeaytch gets on me nerve he’s ghoing have my size 11” all the way up his a—!”


Note: Maintain your patience, dear reader. Extremely well-written gems come to those who wait, or so the saying goes…  Enjoy Part 3 here.

Tell you more about the magnificent M.M.Carter you say?

Well, the author was born in Chicago, raised in the Las Vegas Black colony, married a martyr, and friends still don’t go “Ohh! Here he Comes!”

Or so we hear *_^