Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator, in “The Bourbon Detective”
Nova Loncastre, 1924
Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator, stood on the street corner, the flickering neon of “The Blind Tiger” casting eerie shadows around him. The stench of cigarette smoke and cheap whiskey, house-made moonshine, and bootlegged bourbon hung heavy in the air, swirling in the night breeze like whispered promises from a bygone era.
But who is Harvey Turpin? Since this is the seventh installment in Harvey Turpin’s stories, I hope you know him and his phases by now. But if you don’t—and want to read the past stories, you can check my newsletter at GiovaniCesconetto.Substack.com—let me introduce you to Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator: The quintessential 1920s noir detective. He drinks and smokes too much, fights demons from his past, considers himself the villain of his own story, and, most importantly, always cracks the case. He lives his life in three distinctive phases: Drinking, investigating, and solving. Rinse and repeat. What sets his stories apart? Me, the omniscient narrator, whose unique voice adds a new depth to the old-worn, hardboiled stories. Now that we’re on the same page, let’s return to Harvey.
As Harvey drank the bourbon bearing the Rat’s signature, a familiar voice shattered the silence. It was a voice tinged with equal parts menace and regret, a voice from his past that he could never quite shake. With a resigned sigh, Harvey Turpin took a slow drag from his cigarette, the bitter smoke filling his lungs. He was ready for the next twisted game fate had for him.
Jack O’Keeffe’s silhouette shifted like a spectre in the alley. Though the flickering light failed to illuminate him entirely, it revealed enough to betray his dishevelled appearance—no crisp uniform to command authority, only the disarray of a man haunted by demons.
“I’m in my drinking phase,” Harvey muttered for the second time that night.
Second time? When was the first one? If you want to know, you must read the previous chapter of Harvey’s story, “The Blind Tiger”. And in case you want to see the last time Harvey and O’Keeffe crossed paths, you should read Harvey’s first adventure, “Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator”. Now, on with the story.
“Do you think I give a rat’s ass about your pathetic phases?” O’Keeffe’s words dripped with disdain.
Harvey felt the weight of O’Keeffe’s anger pressing down on him. He and the Chief of Police had shared a turbulent history, their paths intertwined since they were just greenhorns dreaming of badges and justice.
O’Keeffe’s gaze bore into him, and the tension crackled between them like static electricity before a storm. Harvey knew that any misstep could spell disaster.
“Alright, you got me,” Harvey conceded, his voice laced with resignation as he signalled defeat by asking for help with the bottles.
“This is illegal liquor,” O’Keeffe taunted, his voice dripping with malice. “I should arrest you for having it. Yet, here you are, begging for my help like a pathetic little rat.”
Harvey bit back a retort. He lowered the bottles to the ground himself.
“What do you want?” Harvey finally asked, bracing himself for O’Keeffe’s demands.
“There’s a war brewing. The Rat is making a move against the Tiger...”
“Don’t worry. It’s been taken care of,” Harvey’s words interrupted the Chief, his voice devoid of emotion as he stared down his former friend.
O’Keeffe’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I won’t give you the details,” Harvey’s voice sliced through the smoke-filled air, his words weighted with unspoken truths. “But the Tiger is no more. The Rat blindsided him, and now a rodent sits at the top.”
O’Keeffe’s brow furrowed in disbelief, “How do you know?” he demanded, his voice a low growl of frustration. “And how can you trust a rat?”
Harvey’s lips curled into a sardonic smirk, a bitter echo of amusement in the face of uncertainty. “You have your secrets,” he retorted, his tone laced with the bitterness of old wounds. “I have mine. What matters is that the city is safe... You’re safe.”
“Harvey...” O’Keeffe’s voice cracked with desperation, a plea for understanding in the face of impending change.
But Harvey’s resolve remained unyielding, his steps steady as he walked away from the shadows of his past. “The city is changing,” he declared. “First Reynolds, and now the Tiger...”
With a flick of his wrist, Harvey raised a bottle to his lips, the burn of bourbon a comforting embrace in the face of uncertainty. “Word on the street is that prohibition will be over sooner rather than later. The old guard will either adapt or die. And O’Keeffe, we’re the old guard...”
As Harvey walked into the night, the echoes of his words lingered in O’Keeffe’s mind. The chief retreated to the solace of his car, the engine’s roar drowning out the cacophony of his racing thoughts. As he sped through the empty streets, the city blurred into a haze of flickering lights and distant memories. In the silence of the night, he was left alone with his regrets. His only companions? The ghosts of his past and the relentless march of time.
That would be a great way to end the story! But there’s a second part to this tale—and it’s the most important part! Without it, this story wouldn’t exist.
Harvey’s footsteps echoed through the deserted streets of Nova Loncastre, each step a measured cadence in the symphony of the city’s nocturnal melody. He savoured the familiar sights and sounds of a life he knew was slipping away. The looming spectre of change hung heavy in the air, a reminder that even the most steadfast of certainties would crumble beneath the weight of time.
As he reached his office, the darkness enveloped him like a shroud, casting the room in an oppressive gloom. Veronica, once the queen of the bootleggers’ empire, now perched atop his desk like a wounded bird seeking refuge from the storm.
“You took your time,” she remarked.
Despite the haze of alcohol clouding his senses, Harvey moved with a practiced grace, navigating the cluttered room with ease. Soon, he was near his desk, the relic of his lineage, the only legacy the Turpin family possessed—a testament to bygone grandeur.
“Will Frankie be able to hold the power?” Veronica’s question was a plea for reassurance in the face of uncertainty.
“He has the muscles, yes,” Harvey replied.
“But how about the brains?” she pressed.
Harvey’s silence spoke volumes.
“Do you regret?”
Veronica’s tears fell like rain. “You know what O’Sullivan did to me. The way he treated me, the way he looked down on me. He promised the world. He said we’d be equals. And for a while, he was true to his word. But that didn’t last, and I should’ve seen that coming,” her tears made clear that she blamed herself for her stupidity and gullibility.
Harvey’s arms enveloped Veronica. The weight of her body against his felt like an anchor in the stormy sea. But beneath the surface, a conflict churned within him—a battle between the hero he didn’t want to be and the darkness that threatened to consume him. Harvey rarely hugged women because it made him feel like a hero, like their last hope, and he despised that.
“You can’t blame yourself for having feelings,” Harvey murmured, his voice a low rumble. “It’s not your fault we men...” His words faltered, caught in the tangled web of his contradictions. For a fleeting moment, because of the hug, he felt the swell of pride, the rush of adrenaline that came with being the saviour in someone else’s story.
“He was a monster,” Harvey corrected himself. “He used you to build his empire but forgot your true potential. Now, he’s paid the price.”
Veronica’s face was a canvas of conflicting emotions, her features etched with the scars of a life lived on the edge of oblivion. Harvey could see the question forming in her eyes, the unspoken plea for understanding that hung heavy in the air. Yet, he didn’t dare to answer before she vocalized it. Veronica separated them and asked what Harvey didn’t want to answer.
“Why did you help me?”
Harvey’s gaze met hers, his resolve unwavering. “I made a promise,” he replied. “If someone like her asked for my help, I wouldn’t ask questions; I would only help.”
A bitter smile tugged at the corners of his lips. No longer under the spell of the hug, he reminded himself of the darkness that lurked within him. “You may not think much of me,” his voice tinged with self-loathing. “Hell, I don’t think much of myself. But I live and die by my word because, at the end of the day, it’s all I have. I’m not a good person, but I keep promises.”
Look at me, trying to redeem Harvey! I like him too much to let him go full evil! Also, check “Harvey Turpin, Private Investigator” for more details.
“Are you afraid of Frankie?” Veronica’s voice sliced through the office, a razor-sharp edge in the dimly lit room.
“He’s too much of an imbecile to connect the dots,” he scoffed, his words dripping with disdain. “Thinks he’s the puppet master, pulling all the strings. But he never stopped to question why I would be drinking at the bar when I never did that. O’Sullivan almost caught a whiff of something fishy, but our traps clouded his mind too much for him to see the truth staring him in the face,” Harvey stated, his eyes glinting with a steely resolve. “And when I laid it all out for Frankie, he bought it hook, line, and sinker,” he continued, his tone laced with contempt. “Thought I was just a damn good PI, solving puzzles faster than a speeding bullet. As if I could deduct everything so quickly without knowing beforehand what would happen. He’s got the muscles, sure...”
Veronica’s lips curled into a knowing smile, her eyes alight with understanding. “But not the brains,” she finished, echoing Harvey’s sentiment. In the shadowy depths of the clandestine world, intelligence was the true currency of power—a commodity Frankie sorely lacked.
Veronica’s sigh echoed in the dimly lit room, a weary exhalation of the burdens she carried. “You asked if I regret...” she began, her voice a whisper that barely pierced the silence. “I have only one regret: that the poison was too humane for him.”
Harvey’s gaze softened, a flicker of understanding in his eyes as he listened to her confession. He knew all too well the pain of betrayal; the sting of a love turned sour. “At least,” he interjected, his words a gentle reminder of the shared wounds they both bore, “it was the last time he hurt you.”
When and who did Harvey love? “The Mirage of Love”.
Veronica’s scoff cut through the air, her bitterness palpable. “The last time,” she echoed. “You promise I’m in the clear?” Veronica asked while standing up, her voice tinged with fragile hope.
“Yes.”
“You should leave with me,” her words were a whispered plea in the darkness.
“Leave... That’s the one thing I can never do.”
Veronica’s smile was a bittersweet farewell. “You’re not a bad man, Harvey Turpin.”
Harvey watched silently as she disappeared into the night, her figure fading into the darkness like a fleeting memory. With a heavy sigh, he reached for the bottle and lit a cigarette, the tendrils of smoke curling around him like a shroud. For the third time that night, he surrendered to the embrace of his demons, his mind adrift in a sea of bourbon and regret.
What will the future bring to Harvey Turpin? I have no idea. Actually, I have a slight idea. But that doesn’t matter now! What matters is that, apparently, the third time is indeed the charm...
Drinking, investigating, and solving.
Rinse and repeat.