And all for a little paycheck!

This is the AP of a 1 GM 1Player game my wife ran for me last Sunday. It's just over 1400 words long, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to.

The first of the new Charley Flint games went very well. It was Monday February 19th, 1923. Charley’s boss at the Frisco Detective Agency asked him to go and see Mrs Dorothy Whitman Edgars, heir to the successful Whitman White Line Shipping Company. She suspected her husband was having an affair with some ‘floozy’. Her house was a mansion on Nob Hill and was more like a palace than a house.
 
Her husband, Parker Edgars, was a vice president at the company, and as well as that he received an allowance from Mrs Edgars. His family was also an old established family, but they had fallen on hard times and Parker Edgars had little money of his own. He worked “very hard” at the office, from 10-4.30 each day. Mrs Edgars said Parker went out with his friends to a ‘cultural club’ every Tuesday evening, where they discussed the latest novels, met writers and discussed current affairs. However, lately he had also gone out on Wednesday nights, and this past week he had pleaded for a large raise in the allowance his wife gave him. Mrs Edgars was convinced her husband had a mistress and expected her to pay for his floozy’s upkeep.
 
Showing Charley a picture of her husband, Mrs Edgars said she loved him but would not be made a fool of and would divorce him if Charley found evidence of a mistress.
 
Charley spent the next few hours at the library, checking city newspapers for stories on the Edgars. The society pages detailed the couples support for the arts, going to opening nights at the theatre and the opera. The Whitman Foundation, founded by Mrs Edgars father, was a supporter of various artistic venues throughout the city and the Greater Bay Area. Parker Edgars was also pictured in a few newspapers in the company of the famous author Wyndham Standing. A waspish comment about Standing gave Charley the idea that perhaps it wasn’t a woman Parker might be keeping.
 
By 3.00 pm, Charley was across the road from the  Whitman White Line offices. Sure enough, at 4.30 Parker Edgars left the building. He drove home in his distinctive maroon Caddy. Using his police contacts Charley talked to Hal Wilson in Vice. Hal said that it was an open secret that Wyndham Standing was a homosexual. Standing was discrete, and never been involved in anything unsavoury, and everyone who met him liked him. Hal liked him, “He’s a nice guy.”
The Public Library was still open, so Flint (who was a reader) loaned a copy of Standing’s latest novel ‘Babbit’. He started it that night, while sipping Canadian rye. He liked it.


The next day Charley was in his Buick at the bottom of the hill, to catch Parker Edgars maroon Cadillac as it sped to work. Edgars parked outside the shipping office building and went inside. Charley had decided to watch Parker’s busy ’10 to 4.30 day’. At 11.00 Parker left the office and went to visit his dentist. After the dentist he drove to an expensive fish restaurant for a solitary long lunch. Charley grabbed a quick bite at a fish shack across from the restaurant. At  1.45 Parker was back in the office and left to go home at 4.30. Charley followed him home and had a sandwich and coffee in his car.
 
It was Parker Edgar’s night to visit his cultural club and so at 8.00 his car motored down the hill again. Charley followed him to The St Raphael Club. Well-dressed men and women were being welcomed by the doorman as they went into the club. Parker Edgar waited for a few moments outside until Wyndham Standing arrived with another swish gent. All three men shook hands and went into the club. There was a pause in arrivals so Charley went across to the doorman and, offering him a cigarette, asked if he would let him in the club. “For five dollars, sure. But not in that suit. You’d be stopped as a non-member in ten seconds.”
 
Charley looked at himself and realised he might have let things slip a bit since he divorced his wife, Mildred.
 
Thanking the doorman for his advice, he went back to his car. At the end of the evening he followed the doorman home and after finding out where the guy’s apartment was, he knocked on his door and showed him his detective agency licence, asking if he like to make a few bucks. They spent an hour or so talking, smoking Charley’s cigarettes and drinking the doorman’s hooch.
 
Charley asked about the third gentleman with Edgars and Standing. Turned out it was Clarence Geldart, heir to the Geldart Typewriter Company. He didn’t even pretend to work. The doorman, Milton Sills, said he and the others seemed to be close pals and were always seen at the club together. The club’s main business was gambling, and it was common knowledge among the staff that Parker Edgars owed the management a lot of money – he was a lousy gambler with rotten luck. They had just extended him more credit but said it was the last time he would get it.
 
The next day Charley bought himself a new – good – suit, expensive shoes, a silk tie and a new hat and overcoat. He reported to his boss at the agency about how the investigation was going. Gene Kerrigan, the agency’s head of operations, agreed it seemed that Parker Edgars’ problem was gambling and not women. He agreed that if Charley followed Edgars tonight on his second night out and no floozy was found, then he should present Mrs Edgars with a report and ask her how she wanted to proceed. Gene also said that Charley could charge the new clothes to expenses, as Mrs Edgars could afford it.
 
That night Charley and his new clothes followed Parker to the St Raphael. Milton Sills palmed Charley’s ten bucks and let him into the club. Inside, elegantly men and women were openly drinking cocktails around the card tables and roulette wheels. It was so open, the chief of police must be a regular customer.
 
Watching from the shadows and nursing a Manhattan, Charley watched Parker lose heavily. “Never mind old man, let’s try  our luck at The Sausalito,” said Clarence Geldart.
 
Charley followed the trio across town to a plain door with a brass plate announcing The Sausalito Club. There was another doorman, but he didn’t seem as nice as Milton Sills. Nevertheless, a ten-dollar bill gained Charley admittance. Inside it was not so plush as the St Raphael, and the crowd was more mixed. There were people dressed like him and the Three Musketeers, but others were in more everyday duds. He spotted at least one mobster – Joe ‘Lucky Boy’ Costa, no less.
 
Charley faded into the wallpaper close enough to Edgers, Standing and Geldart to hear their conversation as Parker Edgars took a break from losing money. All three declared that nothing was more fun than gambling and why shouldn’t Parker have fun. They thought his wife’s refusal to raise Parker’s allowance was unfair. Standing suggested that perhaps Parker could skim some money from the Whitman Foundation. Charley had heard enough and so went home.
 
The next day he typed up his report of the investigation so far, and got it OK’d by Gene Kerrigan. He then went to see Dorothy Whitman Edgars. She was up set to read the report, but pleased it wasn’t a floozy. She asked for advice, and Charley suggested she show her husband the report, and ask him to stop gambling for good. She would pay off his outstanding debts. All would be forgiven – but if he ever gambled again, she would say she would divorce him. Charley said he would be happy to see to the settling of outstanding debts on her behalf. She agreed with the plan. Charley said that if her husband had a gun, she should perhaps hide it. She got the gun and gave it to Charley to look after. She thanked Charley and he returned to the office.
 
There was no other case in the pipeline, so Gene suggested Charley catch up with some paperwork and knock off early. He spent a quiet weekend and finished Standing’s novel. On Monday morning he went to Al’s Diner as usual for breakfast and picked up a paper on the way. The front page announced a ‘gangland killing’ and there was a picture of Parker Edgars.
 
Yes, it’s a two-part game! Alison is going to run part two this coming Sunday. I really enjoyed playing Charley Flint.
 

I'm pretty sure the husband is the victim of the gangland slaying.

So did the wife arrange his murder? Was he involved in something else Charley hasn't come across yet?
Or did Parker Edgers just not pay his dentist bills?

Actually Paul, I don't think I was too clear in my write up. I think I was getting a bit tired myself at the end.

Just to say that in our games we tend to have a theme tune played at the begining and the end of each session. We are using Bix Beiderbecke's 'Somebody stole my gal'. Also, we try to find pictures of the main 'cast'. Charley Flint is played by Michael Shannon in his role as Nelson Van Alden in 'Boardwalk Empire'.