Topic: The Casebook of Rick Spade

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-04 15:22 EST

Quinn says talking to you will help. Help with what, I wonder? I'm dying. In a few months, I'll be dead.

Maybe I should write down everything she's going to need when I'm gone. So many secrets I haven't told her. So many important secrets.

Where do I even begin?

Why am I even asking a book?

As with all great stories, maybe I should just start at the beginning, instead of starting at the end like I am.

I was born October 31, 1926, to two of the greatest parents a kid ever had. One a master of mystery, the other a ruler of magic. No one had ever been more in love than my mom and pop. They eloped together and had me, and until the day the died, we had to run from

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-05 18:33 EST

The recipe to the perfect martini is as follows.

15 parts gin to 1 part vermouth. Twist of lemon. Only drink while listening to good jazz.

Drink these until you no longer care about the ratio. The first one you eye ball will be the perfect martini.

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-06 18:34 EST

http://i.imgur.com/g9reVqU.jpg

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-08 00:42 EST

The cats are leaving. One by one. I find myself counting them every morning. The monsters always come and go, as is their nature, and their numbers, by function of the shifting cast, changes, but over a long enough length of time the population tends to stabilize. A few decades ago I had a mathematician friend, a lovely girl out of MIT, produce for me, while drinking some brandy I had stashed away, a formula to predict the quantity of felines in a space I lived in, which I never entirely understood but was, I am told, very accurate and which, she said, was good evidence that I was some sort of pied piper of felines (...not the word she used) and that, so long as their was space, there would be cats. Can't say that she was wrong; any where I've ever lived, there were cats. Even when I was off in Europe, using my skills behind enemy lines, I'd often wake up in a tent or an inn or even in the trees, just to find some local princely cat had come upon me in my sleep and curled up on my feet.

Of course, they just like the magic. She didn't know that, but her view of the world was really -- specific. I like them fine in return. There's very little as satisfying as a cat's contented purr, and in truth, I've come to be used to their presence. Like an old nagging injury or an annoying member of the family, you grow used to their inconvenience. Picking up bags of cat food becomes second nature. Watching out for them in the dark happens without thinking. And so on, and so on, you adjust, until you barely even notice them. Not until they're gone.

The cats are leaving. There's less and less every week. Eventually, there will be none.

I just hope Quinn hasn't noticed.

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-08 23:38 EST

Hello bottle of vintage shiraz! Told Quinn if she did yoga, we'd drink you.

My woman is a flexible, flexible woman.

Oh look, it's your twin brother, 'other bottle of vintage shiraz' Hello other bottle!

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-10 14:40 EST

I almost couldn't get out of bed this morning. I saw no reason for it. Even beneath the sheets and blankets I felt cold. Even after a night of sleep I felt tired.

I hope, that if this is the end, that I do not have many more days like these. As Frank would say, "Gotta love livin, baby, cause dyin is a pain in the ass."

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-12 21:09 EST

The entity I've taken to calling 'Bob' broke through into our dimension yesterday. That's three times this month alone. His rate of appearances are doubling in frequency every 13.3 weeks. By the end of the decade, I predict he'll be here permanently.

If the council gets to him before I do, I don't know if they'll survive the encounter.

I don't know if he will, either.

I need to come to a solution and do it fast, before it's too late. His 'acts' here are nothing more than pranks or expressions of curiosity. He's a kid. No better than the stray cats I feed every night.

I need to think of something. Note to self: look into the possibility of True Names affecting outsiders.

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-13 23:06 EST

My teeth hurt. All the time now. I don't know if it's the sickness rotting me away or the Xanax.

I think my hair is falling out. I don't know. It looks thinner. Maybe I'm just tired.

Christ, I need a drink.

I just don't know.

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-15 00:17 EST

Today, Quinn showed me how to use the google to find old movies and how to watch them. I really like the google. I should have lost my magic years ago.

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-15 23:09 EST

Bob showed me more of the google. I do not like it anymore.

The internet is a scary place.

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-01-25 15:03 EST

I've been in bed all weekend, for no other reason than not wanting to get up. I told Quinn I'm tired, but I think she knows I'm lying, even with the Xanax clouding my emotions. She's making my write, now. I guess she hopes it'll help me work out whatever is going on today.

I don't really want to write, either.

I just want to sleep until it's over.

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-02-15 14:52 EST

Bolognese alla Spade

Ingredients:

1 lb beef (brisket)
1 lb pork
2 large carrots
2 stock celery
1 large onion (yellow)
8 oz mushrooms
garlic (as much as possible)
olive oil (few teaspoons)
glass of dry white wine (or low sodium beef stock)
pinch of sugar
1 can diced/crushed tomatoes (14 oz)
1 can tomato paste (4 oz)
1 jar marinara sauce (home made or store bought, lazy heathen)
thyme, oregano, salt, pepper to taste
fresh parsley
parmesan cheese

Directions:

In a dutch often, break up beef and pork and cook together until browned. Avoid stirring too often so some sticks to the bottom and sides. Remove from pot, leaving fat, and put in a bowl to cool.

Finely chop onion, carrots, celery, mushrooms, and garlic and put in pot over low. Add olive oil to coat. Throw a pinch of salt and let it cook until everything is a deep gold color, may take up to 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, when meat is cool, take hand blender or throw in food processor and blend down. Do not make a paste, but do get it down to little bits.

When veggies are cooked down and fragrant, pry wine away from Quinn and spill enough in the bottom to deglaze. Scrap all the delicious bits stuck to the bottom and side. Cook down until evaporated. If Quinn has a death grip on wine, use beef stock. Stock, not broth.

Add meat back to pan, stir. Add crushed tomatoes, a big old finger scoop of the paste, pinch of sugar, and marinara. Stir, let sit five minutes, then taste. Add salt, pepper, oregano, and thyme by the teaspoon, let sit for a few minutes, taste again. Maybe add more garlic. 2-3 teaspoons tends to do it. Cover and put in oven on 350 and cook for a few hours, taking it out time to time to stir.

When you can no longer take it, take out and put back on the stove top. Turn it to medium high and remove lid. Start stirring and cooking down. If lots of fat is on top, wick away with paper towels. Goal is to drive some of the water out and thicken up. Add handful of chopped parsley and handful of parmesan cheese, stir, and serve with garlic bread, al dente noodles, and more wine.

Rick Spade · Date: 2015-03-01 14:18 EST

I had a strange dream last night. It would be par for the course if I'd been having dreams since the shooting, but this was the first one I've had in a long time. It was so clear, so vivid.... yet I couldn't make sense of it, like it was just too big for me to take all of it in, and all I could do was look at small portions of it.

_______

I was back at the duels, and I was locked up in one of the opals everyone gets all worked up over. It made everything look red or yellow, I couldn't really tell. I wanted to talk, or say something, or reach out, something -- but somehow, I knew that's not how the damn things work. Someone has to win me first. Then I can talk. Until then, I'm just locked up and alone. Yeah, I can probably guess why I'm having a dream like that.

People were fighting on that stupid bridge they have at the outback. Hate that thing. If anyone reads this after I die: don't try catching someone thrown from it. Just let them bounce or something.

One one side, there's just one person. I can't tell who they are through the wall of the opal, but they look so familiar. I swear I know them. Good person to know, I think, considering the other side of the bridge is filled by a whole force of folks. A veritable army. Now, these guys I know -- it's everyone I've crossed, beat, killed. Some of them I still owe favors, slow little peons and self-stylized princes in hell and all the other realms I've been.

Obviously, I'm pulling for the lone hero. Reminds me a little of me. Alone, brave, cocky as hell.. stupid, of course. No one's going to have a good time taking on everyone I've ever ticked off. There are reasons I lay low, and not all of them are because of my parents.

I don't know how it went down, though. Quinn woke me up as it was getting started. Told me I was tossing and turning and ripping the sheets off the bed. Wish I could have had longer.. the dream didn't come back when I went back to sleep, so I don't know what else happened.

Get the feeling it wasn't just a dream, though. I'm getting close to having to pay for everything I've done.. all the good, all the bad, all the failures. All the dead friends, the innocents, the people I've crossed. The people I've killed. I've got something bad waiting for me at the end of this. Something really, really bad.

I didn't tell Quinn about the dream. Don't want to worry her beyond what I've already done. She's a fool for staying with me. Sometimes I wish she'd see that and just go back home where it's safe.

S'funny, though.. I did ask her to pick up some lilies next time she was out. Don't even know why I wanted them.