Prologue:

This story is dedicated to m1t0s1s, for reminding me, and to all of you, no matter what color hat you wear. All of us have a tendency toward ADD now and then. Attention Deficit Disorder.

Some of us have it more often, and the effects are more intense, than others. When I was young it was called daydreaming. I did that a lot. Still do.

So, what does ADD and daydreaming have to do with a blackhat story? You’ll see. At the end.

Meanwhile, this quote from D. Hammett { letter in Black Mask, 7, no. 9 (November, 1924), 128 } makes a fair parallel to hardboiled detectives and law abiding blackhats:

“The essential quality which a detective blackhat must develop to avoid being consumed by his job is objectivity – an emotional distance from the people engines with whom he deals. If he becomes emotionally involved with a client search engine, he will forfeit the objectivity required to gather all the available information and observe all the pertinent clues relating to the case project. If he allows himself to hate a criminal an engine, he will lose the emotional equilibrium required to protect himself and to make all his decisions coolly and logically.”

Replace detective with blackhat, and client-people-criminal with search engine(s) and you pretty much have the essense of the whole game.

Standard disclaimer:

Although I have not asked for, nor been given, permission to use certain personas, traits, pseudonyms, or other identifiable characteristics, I have never-the-less done so.

That is, after all, the blackhat code.

Names have not been changed to protect the guilty. You know why. If you’re a blackhatter you’re guilty by default.

Credits:

I am grateful to the public library system for allowing me to read some of the greatest detective novels ever written.

I’m thankful that Dashiell Hammett, Mickey Spillane, and Raymond Chandler created those wonderful, tough, bad good guys. The many hours of entertainment and imagination those authors provided this old blackhat, so many years ago, can’t be counted now.

P M Spade. Yeah, now there’s a blackhat name. That’s for Philip Michael Spade. Philip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, and Sam Spade. What a combo!

I must also give credit to all of the characters I have met. Most of all, the blackhats. As a group, the most colorful and inventive people I have ever had dealings with.

Thanks.

- - - - - - - - - - -

The story begins

- - - - - - - - - - -

But first, a message from our sponsor.

- - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - -

Now the story

- - - - - - - - - -

Sweet jebus, what a hangover!

I ached everywhere. I plopped my big feet up on the corner of the desk and groaned. That dame must have slipped me a mickey. I know it wasn’t the whiskey. I didn’t drink that much. Ah well, she didn’t get much. Twenty bucks and a bummed out credit card.

As I surveyed my office I was struck, once again, by how stark and lifeless it was. Stark? It’s a dump.

My desk. Yeah. Look at that. White rings where the empty glasses drained their life out on the surface. The crumpled deck of Luckies. The soggy book of gopher matches. Betsy just lies there. As scarred and scrufty as I am.

Betsy may just be my best friend. Part of the blue is worn off from all the time in the shoulder holster. The grip is chipped from that time I clocked Big Bernie down in the tavern…. Funny, I remember the sound of his teeth rattling around on the floor. Not so funny when he started puking his guts out…. The front sight is a little bent too, but I’ve not used that in a long while.

Betsy, my friend, is not just a gat, she’s an ancient Model 1911, semi-automatic, caliber .45 ACP. She speaks with a loud voice and has saved my bacon more than once. I still remember the night I decided to change rods. I had poked five shots in the ten ring and the jerk just kept coming. I plunked the last one between his peepers and he quit on me. It’s a good thing too, he’d have carved me up but good. So right then I decided that a 38 special just didn’t hack it. I needed more horsepower. I got it too.

My eyes drift off to the other desk. Doll Face should be there, but she’s not. I don’t blame her for leaving. After two months without a paycheck I’d have left too.

Her desk is just the way she left it too. Tidy. Neat. Always neat. Like the hand-sewn dust covers she made for that pitiful system I gave her. Dutifully covering the ragged old 15 inch monitor. Hiding the shameful Win3.1 box.

Even the bud vase is there. It’s empty now. Except for the sand in the bottom. A present from The Earl. He said the sand was from the beach at the Villa del Earl. Wonder where The Earl is now? Making bank, no doubt.

My roving eyes stray to the door. The fading lettering on the window tells the whole story.

P.M. SPADE

Private Blackhat

Yeah. So private that I haven’t gotten a job in three months. The search engine busting game is getting too easy. Regular housewives can beat the algo now. What do they need me for? Bah.

The ancient telephone starts it’s incessant, grinding, painful, irritating clammer. If I leave it alone, it’ll quit before it vibrates off the desk. Prolly just another creditor anyhow. I know I should get one of those cute little cell phones, but hell, they look too sissy for me.

The phone is getting louder. How can that be? So, I look right at it and shout “What, what?”

“I SAID GET YOUR FEET OFF OF MY COFFEE TABLE BEFORE I KICK YOUR ASS, that’s what I said.“

Yes dear.

Sweet jebus, what a hangover!

- - - - - - - - - -

End of the line

- - - - - - - - - -

Epiloque:

If you have read this far, there are several things you are now aware of:

1. I have plaguarized at least two authors on one page.
2. I have a lot of silly shit rolling around up here between my ears.
3. You need to get a real life.
4. Last, but not least, this isn’t the last.

Come back next time kiddies. We’ll see our hero climb and mount Everest (and other kinky stuff). We’ll see how many real blackhats get pissed.

Announcing the start of a real bullshit novel.

THE MALTESE BLACKHAT

Legal:

• For serving writs, citations, C & D orders, summonses, and other legal drivel, contact: nop at nospam drnopspurplepowerpills.phi/legal.pdq
• To try to suck up so’s your nick doesn’t end up in the novel, contact: bomps at the addy above.
• To pay me off: Use the contact form. I’ll shoot you my paypal addy pretty damn quick.

Don’t miss the first chapter of the most talked about novel of this week.

THE MALTESE BLACKHAT

~dink