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eBook Category: Mystery/Crime/Fantasy
eBook Description: An unpublished cartoonist notices a suspicious connection between his crime stories and his neighbor's behavior ... and reveals the origin of the world's most famous comic strip detective.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Dick Tracy: The Secret Files, ed. ed. Max Allan Collins and Martin H. Greenberg, 1990
Fictionwise Release Date: June 2003

52 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [61 KB], eReader (PDB) [26 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [12 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [12 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [63 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [82 KB], hiebook (KML) [64 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [41 KB], iSilo (PDB) [10 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [13 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [41 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [21 KB]
Words: 3575
Reading time: 10-14 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

There is a beginning, an origin, to all things. This is one of them. Only the facts have been changed, since they sometimes get in the way of the Truth.

The visitor looked down at the drawing board.

"Funny animals?" he said distastefully.

The cartoonist sighed and turned to his visitor, who was looking over his shoulder.

"No choice," he replied wearily. "Nobody seems to want crime strips."

"I do," said the visitor.

"You're not an editor, more's the pity."

"I thought your strip was excellent. Why did they turn it down?"

The cartoonist shrugged. "If I knew, I could change it. Maybe it's not realistic enough, maybe they don't like my drawing style, maybe it's too grim. Who knows?"

"Well, I thought it was realistic," said the visitor. "Especially that part about the jewel robbery. I thought it was brilliant."

"Thanks, Melvin. I wish somebody with a budget would agree with you."

"I keep asking you not to call me Melvin," said the visitor irritably.

"Sorry," said the cartoonist. "What was it you wanted to be called again?"

"Nimrod."

"Okay ... but I don't know what you have against your real name."

"Nimrod's is my real name. My middle name."

"Whatever makes you happy," said the cartoonist.

"I don't think it's too much to ask. After all, you ask people to call you Chet and not Chester."

"You have a point," agreed Chet. "Nimrod it is."

"Well," said Nimrod, looking at his wristwatch, "I gotta go. Anything I can do for you?"

"You might keep your radio a little softer after midnight," said Chet with a smile. "Even unemployed cartoonists need their sleep."

"You won't hear a sound tonight," said Nimrod with an odd grin. "I promise it."

"Thanks," said Chet. "Just let yourself out." A moment later he was oblivious to the rest of the world as he painstakingly drew a horde of funny animals doing funny things, and wondered, for the hundredth time, why he'd ever wanted to get into this profession in the first place.