Blood on the Typewriter, a B Movie Crime Story by the Tale Teller Club #shorts #shortstory

Blood on the Typewriter

The narrator speaks in a raspy voice-over:

It was the kind of night where even the moon wanted nothing to do with the city. Rain hit the sidewalks like it had a grudge. I was halfway through a bottle of something cheap when she walked into my office—heels clicking like a metronome of bad decisions.

Her name was Velma Vane, and trouble wore her like a second skin.


“You’re Rex Malone,” she said, voice like smoke through a saxophone. “Private eye. Washed up. Broke. Bitter.”


“You forgot handsome,” I replied, lighting a cigarette with a matchbook from a bar I didn’t remember getting kicked out of.

She laid a photo on my desk. A man with a crooked smile and a hole in his forehead.


“That’s my husband,” she said. “He used to be a jerk. Now he’s just dead.”

I didn’t like the way she smiled when she said it.

She wanted me to find out who killed him. Said she was innocent. Innocent dames don’t usually carry snub-nosed .38s in their purses—especially ones that still smell like gunpowder.

But I needed the money… and the drama.

Cut to: smoky jazz club, neon flickering “CLUB DELIRIUM”

That’s where I found Johnny Dimes, two-bit hustler and full-time stool pigeon. He was sweating like a priest in a brothel.


“Velma’s husband owed serious coin to a guy called The Dentist,” Johnny squeaked. “Pulls teeth and strings.”

I paid Johnny in slaps and threats.

Next thing I knew, I was face-down in an alley with a cracked rib, a missing shoe, and a note pinned to my chest:


"Drop the case, or get dropped. —The Dentist"

I didn’t drop it. I loaded my revolver and went knocking on plaque-covered doors.

Final scene: The Dentist’s lair—an abandoned dental surgery lit by flickering fluorescents

Turns out Velma and The Dentist were in it together. The husband found out. Velma got twitchy. The Dentist got messy.

I walked in just in time to hear the tail end of their lover’s spat—right before Velma put a bullet through The Dentist’s fillings and tried to turn the gun on me.

But I was faster. Or just luckier.

Epilogue:

Velma’s back in prison. I’m back in my office. The rain still hits the window like regret.

There’s blood on my typewriter, and I’m down to my last cigarette.

But the case is closed.

And that, friend… is something.