It was a film noir city, so he collected the rainwater in buckets, on the roof beside his pigeon roosts.
He trained the water to imprint with the sound of those walking around. A thousand narratives winding through the crying city.
White was a lost detective sleeping on roofs and avoiding the city below. He was a besmirched dove with the reputation of an owl. Tom Midden followed him around,
Red was a tall glass of trouble, and people were thirsty for it. She was the leverage in a hundred cases; a chameleon with countless faces.
Black was trailing her. He knew of White and his fall from grace. Red was pretty good at vacuuming up all the breadcrumbs in her wake. All it took was one dropped in the right place and he had her.
Black knew that Red would see White as a loose end, and maybe as he was an adversary she might drop her guard and lose the mask.
Black slipped Tom a note asking him to note down where White seemed to haunt the most and he did it. It were almost as if Red and he was dancing around each other. Did she know he was alive after all? If so, what was she waiting for?
White was popping up in one place more than any other. There was a kid. What did that mean?
Tom did as he was asked and being kid it wasn’t too hard. He got a piece of hair with a follicle on it — she’d pulled it out herself when he said he wanted a keepsake. How had he known it would work? He didn’t, but he was a little weird and he pegged her that way too. It had enough DNA to unlock the truth.
The kid was White’s and Red’s. White wasn’t letting Red see her though, after she fucked him over and he was on the run. He made crazy threats he would never carry out just to keep her frozen. That was pretty messed up, but Black decided the best thing for the kid, who, though weird, was happy, was for Red to be inside for her crimes.
He left her a note telling her exactly where White would be, and as soon as she appeared, looking just like herself for a change, she whipped out a gun and tried to plug him in the eye.
For a reduced sentence she spilled it all. White was off the hook and able to move in somewhere new with his kid — he did research for Black. Tom was happy he’d played a small part.