🎙️ The Maltese Mallard

INT. DARK OFFICE  –  NIGHT Purple rain slicks the window like a nervous sweat on the Fat Man. Cigar smoke curls under a flickering ceiling fan. A man in shadows, voice-over begins ...

NARRATOR (V.O.) She walked out like a midnight confession — fast, quiet, and meant to be forgotten. She walked out of my life like a gunshot in an empty church — loud, final, echoing forever. But I don’t forget. Not her. Not that night.

I got this picture burned into the back of my skull. Her lips on mine. The kind of kiss that brands you. There was heat between us. Sticky, animal heat. Her sweat clung to me like guilt on a commerce secretary.

I said to her, “Dig if you will this picture.” Dream, if you can, a courtyard.

CUT TO: COURTYARD – NIGHT (FLASHBACK) The courtyard was drowning in violets that night — purple and lush, like bruises left behind by something beautiful and mean. Even the alley mallards stopped to stare, heads cocked like they knew we were a bad idea unfolding in slow motion. The heat between us was thick. Ugly. The kind that makes a man do things he’ll spend the rest of his life forgetting.

NARRATOR (V.O.) Violets were in bloom. A whole ocean of ’em. Sweet and choking. Spilled perfume at a crime scene. Ducks in curious poses.

The heat was hot. And the ground was dry. But the air was full of sound. Like something crawling under your skin. She felt it. I felt it. Hell, even the ducks felt it.

BACK TO OFFICE The sound of heel taps walking away echoes like a heartbeat slowing down.

NARRATOR (V.O.) How could she just leave me standing? Alone in a world that’s so cold. World so cold. The kind that seeps into your bones and starts unpacking.

Maybe I asked for too much. Maybe I pushed too hard. Just like my old man. Bold bastard. Broke everything he touched, except the bottle.

And her?

Maybe she’s just like my mother. Always chasing some better version of happy.

We screamed. Christ, did we scream. At each other, at the ceiling, at God, if he was listening. But all that noise … it wasn’t rage. It was heartbreak dressed in a trench coat. This is what it sounds like when love bleeds out and no one’s left to bury the body. This is what it sounds like when ducks cry.

CUT TO: BEDROOM – NIGHT (FLASHBACK) Her hand brushes his stomach. He flinches. Eyes closed.

NARRATOR (V.O.) Told her not to run. Told her not to make me chase.

But pride’s a mean son of a bitch. Even ducks got it. I lit two cigarettes at once, handed her one. “Oh Jerry,” she exhaled. “Let’s not ask for the moon. We have the stars. And all that double touching at the hog line.” That’s when I knew for sure.

The only Jerry I knew was a mug named Mathers. A foul-mouthed chit of a curling cheat from the Pine Street Haskell Gang. Looked more now like Peter Lorre than that sweet little dolt we all remembered.

“For goodness sakes, stop calling the black bird a mallard,” the Fat Man said. “It’s a jewel-encrusted falcon. Call a spade a spade, Spade.”

I made a phone call to Polhaus down at the station. They arrested the whole rotten bunch. Watched her through the collapsible metal gate of the elevator, in tears with the cops.

Why the cops were crying, I’ll never know. But I did know I never double touched anyone at the hog line in my life.

Poured a shot of something amber and cruel. The, uh, stuff that drams are made of. Poured it out. Last one was spiked and I wasn’t go to fall for that old trick again.

FADEOUT Cue slow, haunting jazz track as Spade heads down the stairs clutching the worthless statuette. He takes a good gander at it. Shakes his head, puts his lips together and blows. Listen, sweetheart. If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s one hell of a cheap chocolate Easter prop for such a classic of the film noir genre. Steps out of the building into the purple rain. Purple rain, purple rain …