It came from the WIP!

Work continues on the follow-up to "Telegraph Hill." Scraping 30,000 words at the moment, with an eye toward a minimum 50,000.

Pleased to report it's still as much fun writing as it was last week.

Here's a snippet:

* * *
“You seem distracted today, Mr. Londergan,” a voice said, pulling me from my reverie. “Is everything all right?”

I opened my eyes. It took a moment to remember I was lying down on a nice soft couch in the office of Dr. Evelyn P. Chambers, AKA my shrink. I’m sure you probably figured out by now seeing a headshrinker is about the last thing in the world a guy like me wanted to do. And you’d be right. But see, it’s complicated. 

About oh, I guess it was a year ago now, my loving sister got concerned about me and suggested I talk to somebody. Now, I have no idea what exactly got her so concerned. Maybe it’s just I was working too hard. But seeing how she’s the only family I got left in the world, and is loving mother to my niece and nephew, I didn’t have the heart to say no.

I figure too that because she and the Lieutenant were having problems of their own and started counseling, she didn’t want to be the only one in the family spilling their guts out to a complete stranger. That her and the Lieutenant were kind enough to pay for my visits was just the icing on the cake.

I’ll admit when I first started coming, I didn’t say anything at all. Sometimes, I slept. Sometimes, I meowed like a cat. Sometimes, I made gurgling noises for no apparent reason. Most of the time, the doctor and I just stared each other down to see who would blink first. I have to admit, she was pretty good. Long practice, I guess.

But after a while, I found out it kind of helped me to open up a little bit, though I have to be careful what I say. In my business, discretion is a must.

Turns out, discretion is a must in her business too, and whatever I say behind these four walls can never leave this room. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all that. I learned too that if I’m working on a hard case, bouncing ideas off the doc – just general ideas and hypotheticals, mind you, never the whys and the whos – sometimes helped me solve a case quicker.

“You were thinking about your mother again, weren’t you?” she asked, interrupting my train of thought.

My hackles started to rise. It always comes down to mothers with these people, don’t it? But like always, I had to admit she had a point. The fact is, I do think a lot about my mother, because the woman was a saint, and I’ll kill any man who says otherwise. Yeah, yeah, I know, everyone says that about their mother. But in my case, it’s true.

She raised up me and my sister all by her lonesome after my no good father left, cleaning rich people’s houses seven days a week so we could wear clean pants and buy second hand shoes and not get teased too much by the other kids. So yeah, it’s true my mother is never too far from my mind. But at that moment, I wasn’t thinking about my mother. I was thinking about the case.

“I think we’re on the verge of a breakthrough, Mr. Londergan,” she said, though I was only half-listening. “I think we’re really making progress.”

I wasn’t sure about that. She went on talking, but I shut her out and started going over the case again in my mind. Something just wasn’t adding up.

“By the way, Mr. Londergan,” the doctor said. “I took your advice. Do you like my new shoes?”

Glancing over, I watched her lift her gams to show off a shiny new pair of Ara Women's Lucy Slip-Ons, with the patent leather snake print uppers and stretch inserts. Nice. A little pricey, maybe. But well worth it.

I remembered then she had complained of bunions at some point early on in our getting to know each other phase, so I had to lay down the law on the importance of getting a professional sizing and staying away from heels. Makes me feel good anyway to know she took my advice.

* * *
And it makes me feel good to finally share something new with you guys, whoever you may be. As always, thanks for reading.