This is primaryily noir, but I'm fiddling with the story a little bit. It might not be as linear as I make it seem in this outline (I think the last act will come first.)
Anyways, in a nutshell:
Alex Cunningham graduates highschool in Florida and goes to some backwater college. There, he gets a roommate named John Porterfield, who is using college as a stepping stone, and he hates Alex (who is called "A" through the duration of the novella). A dislikes all his classes, except for Philosophy, which is taught by a big German man named Boris Faust. He also catches the eye of Lucy Dawson, a cute freshman.
A starts hanging out with Boris, and one day sees Boris meet up with a guy on a hoverboat. A asks to be introduced, but Boris declines, saying he's not the type of people A wants to be around, but A persists, following Boris and introducing himself.
The guy on the hoverboat is a young man named Rat Bob, who is a drug dealer working for Big Tony. He's very charming, despite his name "Rat" Bob, and he sells some stuff to A and Boris. A begins dating Lucy.
On his way out of a party, A is busted by the cops and offered a chance for redemption, if he will be an informant. He declines, preferring to be arrested, when he finds that they will arrest Lucy as well, because she started using drugs and carries with her. A plays the game.
He's contacted by a man named Walken, who is an insider with the DEA. He offers A an out, because he doesn't like how A is being used. A declines, wanting to keep Lucy safe, and begins feeding the police information as well as Rat Bob about police stings.
When Lucy hits the stuff really hard, A blames Rat Bob and sets up a sting in which Rat Bob is accidentally shot and killed and Boris Faust is arrested. Because his grades aren't up to snuff and they can't find a replacement, A is expelled and stays with Lucy.
A, thinking he's out of the game, tells Lucy to get her stuff together and they'll get out of there. But Big Tony tracks A down and the police officer, Marks, tells A to try and set up a meeting with Dust, the lead dealer down in Florida, so that they can arrest him, then A and Lucy can leave.
A is back in the game after Walken tells him he can only offer safe passage to him and not Lucy.
A does a couple of odd jobs, mostly muscle work while the numbers of the gang thins due to A's informant job. Finally, Big Tony tells A that Dust wants him to pull one more job on a rival dealer, and then they'll set up a meeting. A fixes the brakes on the rival dealers car, and watches in horror as Marks, his wife, and his daughter climb inside.
A runs in front of the car, but it plows him over. He wakes up in the hospital with Walken standing over him, saying that not only are Marks and his wife dead, but the girl is in critical condition as well... AND the new information A gave the police ended up in a botched sting with at least five officers dead, and someone has to hang for the crime. Since there's no one to roll over on, A has to do it, unless he can cut and run and assume a new identity.
A says he'll think about it. Lucy comes in crying, saying that she knows what he did. A says he did it to protect her, so she wouldn't get hurt, and she says she quit the stuff - A spent all his time trying to cure her phantom that he didn't notice she had done it herself, and she leaves.
A tells Walken he'll assume a new identity.
-
FLASH FORWARD four years.
A (Now Avery Shades) wakes up in his New York apartment to find his roommate dead of an asthma attack. He calls Justin over, who is a small time dealer, to help clear some of the stuff out of the apartment, then he calls Mandy, a girl he had a one night stand with back when he first moved to the city. She works for the coroners office and has information about Scoggs' (the roommate) death.
A takes the file, and when he tries to read it, it's taken by a lone runner. A young man knocks the runner down and gets the file back, introducing himself as George. A notices a piece of the file is missing.
Back at his apartment, he gets an anonymous call saying that Manuel Smalls runs a poker game and that Scoggs was planning to deal. A goes there to find answers. He meets a man named Ferringer and ends up beating Smalls, before fleeing back to his apartment. He finds Mandy waiting for him - She was fired for giving him the file and wants a place to crash. A allows it, she breaks down, and he holds her.
A hits the street the next day and spies Lucy Dawson across the street. He runs over to keep her quiet, as it turns out, she and everyone else thought he was dead. She says she's glad he's alive, and tells her what exactly happened, ("Yojimbo, babe. Bulls against yeggs with me in the middle and it was a negative sum game") and she seems to understand.
He finds his apartment is compromised by Manuel's goons and crashes at Justin's. Manuel tracks him down there, and A beats him once again, before heading back to his apartment to pick up a large bag of coke that was mentioned in a letter Justin had pilferd the day Scoggs died.
He runs into George at the apartment, and he claims the drugs. George says he found Scoggs cell phone, and that he's working on getting the messages. A and George duck into the next door neighbors apartment when some of Manuel's thugs show up, and A calls the cops... One shows up and gets shot before the goons flee.
Walken calls A and lets him know a fresh warrant came up for his assumed identity, but if anyone does any digging, they'll find out about him. He's implicated in the death of the cop, and he should roll over on George. Just then, George cracks the cell phone messages.
A confronts Justin, who convinced Scoggs to inadvertantly poison himself. A slashes the bag of coke open as the cops show up, but A is shocked to hear that Justin is working for Dust, who has expanded his operation.
With nowhere else to go, A heads to Lucy's hotel. THEY HAVE SEX!
A is called by Walken who tells him the heat is coming down, he needs to find a fall boy soon or else they'll track him down. A goes back to the apartment and finds Mandy - He introduces her to George and they seem to hit it off. A checks the security footage and finds the goons came out of the stairs, and finds a gun stashed behind a trash can in the stairwell.
A heads back to Lucy's and finds her dead behind a dumpster, with Ferringer standing over her. A roughs him up, but he says he had nothing to do with it. A lets him go.
He goes to George's, and gets a call from Manuel - He's kidnapped Mandy and wants A in exchange for her, to pin the crimes on. A agrees, and speaks briefly to Mandy, who tells him not to bring George.
A surmises something, and heads off, with George in tow, even after telling him it's a trap. They are tied up and beaten, after being frisked. Mandy is there, but not captured. She was working with Manuel the entire time, reporting back to him about A.
Right before Manuel can kill A, he tells him Dust is his older brother and that he's there, in the back. The police bust in, and Manuel picks up a gun from the table and is shot, but not killed. That's the gun A found in the stairwell, and the crimes are pinned on Manuel. Mandy is shot in the crossfire and killed. Dust escapes.
Ferringer comes forward and tells A that one of Manuel's goons offed Lucy - They saw her with A and saw that she meant something. She had called the police to tell them about A, but when Ferringer showed up to meet with her, she was already dead. Ferringer also reveals that he's an undercover cop and tried to steal the coroner's report because Mandy was crooked and thought A might have gone after whoever the report pointed to... Which was Ferringer.
Walken tells A he has to get out of there, but A insists - Not yet.
He runs out back and tracks Dust down, who is unsympathetic. A pulls a rod on the dock and a shipping crate crushes Dust. A says that now he'll go.
-
FIVE YEARS LATER
A is working in an office in Oregon, now Andrew Smith. He's engaged to the secretary, Zooey Friedman. His boss, Jerry Ingman, is an ass, and one day, during a staff meeting, A loses his cool and hits Frank Delk, a co worker. Jerry blackmails him, saying if he doesn't become his patsy, he'll fire Zooey and get A arrested.
He tells A to rough up someone who used to work in the building that has an outstanding debt. A goes and beats the guy up and returns to work upset. Zooey tries to comfort him, but it doesn't work. They go home.
A walks out of work the next day and finds that his winshield is smashed in, and a note is left on the dash to meet in a certain place. He does, and is attacked, but he manages to fend off the attacker, who drops his wallet, which is devoid of everything except a nightclub advert and a load of cash.
A also finds out at work that the man he roughed up died and the police are looking into it, but they think it's about the gambling debt.
A heads to the nightclub and talks up the bartender, eventually giving him the money from the wallet to locate his attacker, who tells him he doesn't know who hired him, he was just given a place. A tosses his wallet back at him and leaves.
He goes home and finds Zooey isn't there. She comes in with a bottle of liquor and they fight, but then get drunk and make up.
A goes into work and finds that the gambling debt was owed to his boss and that since A apparantley killed the man, the debt transfers over to him. A doesn't have the money, and Jerry threatens with police about the dead gambler.
A goes home and finds a voicemail from Jerry cancelling the debt, and Zooey walks in, telling him she paid Jerry off with her savings. A is a little miffed, they fight and make up.
A tells Jerry to give her the money back, that he'll get the money, but Jerry won't have it, and implies that she didn't pay him with money.
Zooey tells A that she's going out with a new girl from the office, and not to wait up. He tails her and finds her meeting with Jerry, where they get into a heated arguement and he tries to kiss her. She pulls away and A gets pissed.
He yells at her when she gets back to the house and she runs out on him. Jerry doesn't mention it, but Zooey goes missing. Finally, A is called into Jerry's office and Jerry says that Zooey missing is his doing, and that she might even be dead. He says that he knows who A really is and has no qualms about turning him over. A loses it and socks him in the head, in front of the rest of the office, and has to run out.
He hides out in a girls apartment (Gabby, who was Lucy's roommate in college and who is introduced earlier in this part, telling A to get out and that it's dangerous, he's been made but she doesn't know who by) and when he recieves a voicemail, he puts it together and tells her to scram because he doesn't know if it's safe anymore.
A follows the direction in the voicemail and goes to the restauraunt where he proposed to Zooey and finds her sitting there. She tells him that Jerry is dead, but he was a sucker anyway. He was with her for the money that she said he would get for blackmailing A.
A says, he's figured most of it out. She has something against him, she's been planning this since before he started working there... And she tells him she has been planning it for far longer.
They go out into an alley and she pulls a gun on him. She tells him her father was Officer Marks, and she was in the back seat of the car. All she wanted to do was take care of Dust and never hurt A, because she knew he was just a pawn, but when A killed Dust, her shot at vengence ended, unless she went after A.
She seduced Walken and got the details and spent the last three years planning it, making A's cover blown by getting him agitated enough to hit the boss, who ended up dead, and everyone saw A hit him, so they'll lead the police to him.
A tells Zooey to shoot him, but they both break down. She says she can't, that somewhere along the line, she'd forgiven him and began to fall in love with him. She tells him the cops are on their way, that he can cut and run and she won't follow him anymore.
He sits there and holds her, telling her to leave before the cops show up. "You got your ending, angle. Now I get mine." She walks away sobbing as the cops pull up and arrest him.
A laments about a life he never got to lead due to always looking over his shoulder and the guilt from killing so many innocent people, but he knows when the news hits, there's a few people that'll come to his side, and that he won't be alone. Zooey, George, Gabby, his parents, John Porterfield, Boris Faust... He still has people from many different lives
But he gets his ending and is arrested.
THE END
(OR NOT?! I could do one more about prison making Faust the bad guy. Or something. OH THE PLOT TWISTS)
Anyways, tell me what you think. If you read it all, that is. That's a really long summary.
Anyways, in a nutshell:
Alex Cunningham graduates highschool in Florida and goes to some backwater college. There, he gets a roommate named John Porterfield, who is using college as a stepping stone, and he hates Alex (who is called "A" through the duration of the novella). A dislikes all his classes, except for Philosophy, which is taught by a big German man named Boris Faust. He also catches the eye of Lucy Dawson, a cute freshman.
A starts hanging out with Boris, and one day sees Boris meet up with a guy on a hoverboat. A asks to be introduced, but Boris declines, saying he's not the type of people A wants to be around, but A persists, following Boris and introducing himself.
The guy on the hoverboat is a young man named Rat Bob, who is a drug dealer working for Big Tony. He's very charming, despite his name "Rat" Bob, and he sells some stuff to A and Boris. A begins dating Lucy.
On his way out of a party, A is busted by the cops and offered a chance for redemption, if he will be an informant. He declines, preferring to be arrested, when he finds that they will arrest Lucy as well, because she started using drugs and carries with her. A plays the game.
He's contacted by a man named Walken, who is an insider with the DEA. He offers A an out, because he doesn't like how A is being used. A declines, wanting to keep Lucy safe, and begins feeding the police information as well as Rat Bob about police stings.
When Lucy hits the stuff really hard, A blames Rat Bob and sets up a sting in which Rat Bob is accidentally shot and killed and Boris Faust is arrested. Because his grades aren't up to snuff and they can't find a replacement, A is expelled and stays with Lucy.
A, thinking he's out of the game, tells Lucy to get her stuff together and they'll get out of there. But Big Tony tracks A down and the police officer, Marks, tells A to try and set up a meeting with Dust, the lead dealer down in Florida, so that they can arrest him, then A and Lucy can leave.
A is back in the game after Walken tells him he can only offer safe passage to him and not Lucy.
A does a couple of odd jobs, mostly muscle work while the numbers of the gang thins due to A's informant job. Finally, Big Tony tells A that Dust wants him to pull one more job on a rival dealer, and then they'll set up a meeting. A fixes the brakes on the rival dealers car, and watches in horror as Marks, his wife, and his daughter climb inside.
A runs in front of the car, but it plows him over. He wakes up in the hospital with Walken standing over him, saying that not only are Marks and his wife dead, but the girl is in critical condition as well... AND the new information A gave the police ended up in a botched sting with at least five officers dead, and someone has to hang for the crime. Since there's no one to roll over on, A has to do it, unless he can cut and run and assume a new identity.
A says he'll think about it. Lucy comes in crying, saying that she knows what he did. A says he did it to protect her, so she wouldn't get hurt, and she says she quit the stuff - A spent all his time trying to cure her phantom that he didn't notice she had done it herself, and she leaves.
A tells Walken he'll assume a new identity.
-
FLASH FORWARD four years.
A (Now Avery Shades) wakes up in his New York apartment to find his roommate dead of an asthma attack. He calls Justin over, who is a small time dealer, to help clear some of the stuff out of the apartment, then he calls Mandy, a girl he had a one night stand with back when he first moved to the city. She works for the coroners office and has information about Scoggs' (the roommate) death.
A takes the file, and when he tries to read it, it's taken by a lone runner. A young man knocks the runner down and gets the file back, introducing himself as George. A notices a piece of the file is missing.
Back at his apartment, he gets an anonymous call saying that Manuel Smalls runs a poker game and that Scoggs was planning to deal. A goes there to find answers. He meets a man named Ferringer and ends up beating Smalls, before fleeing back to his apartment. He finds Mandy waiting for him - She was fired for giving him the file and wants a place to crash. A allows it, she breaks down, and he holds her.
A hits the street the next day and spies Lucy Dawson across the street. He runs over to keep her quiet, as it turns out, she and everyone else thought he was dead. She says she's glad he's alive, and tells her what exactly happened, ("Yojimbo, babe. Bulls against yeggs with me in the middle and it was a negative sum game") and she seems to understand.
He finds his apartment is compromised by Manuel's goons and crashes at Justin's. Manuel tracks him down there, and A beats him once again, before heading back to his apartment to pick up a large bag of coke that was mentioned in a letter Justin had pilferd the day Scoggs died.
He runs into George at the apartment, and he claims the drugs. George says he found Scoggs cell phone, and that he's working on getting the messages. A and George duck into the next door neighbors apartment when some of Manuel's thugs show up, and A calls the cops... One shows up and gets shot before the goons flee.
Walken calls A and lets him know a fresh warrant came up for his assumed identity, but if anyone does any digging, they'll find out about him. He's implicated in the death of the cop, and he should roll over on George. Just then, George cracks the cell phone messages.
A confronts Justin, who convinced Scoggs to inadvertantly poison himself. A slashes the bag of coke open as the cops show up, but A is shocked to hear that Justin is working for Dust, who has expanded his operation.
With nowhere else to go, A heads to Lucy's hotel. THEY HAVE SEX!
A is called by Walken who tells him the heat is coming down, he needs to find a fall boy soon or else they'll track him down. A goes back to the apartment and finds Mandy - He introduces her to George and they seem to hit it off. A checks the security footage and finds the goons came out of the stairs, and finds a gun stashed behind a trash can in the stairwell.
A heads back to Lucy's and finds her dead behind a dumpster, with Ferringer standing over her. A roughs him up, but he says he had nothing to do with it. A lets him go.
He goes to George's, and gets a call from Manuel - He's kidnapped Mandy and wants A in exchange for her, to pin the crimes on. A agrees, and speaks briefly to Mandy, who tells him not to bring George.
A surmises something, and heads off, with George in tow, even after telling him it's a trap. They are tied up and beaten, after being frisked. Mandy is there, but not captured. She was working with Manuel the entire time, reporting back to him about A.
Right before Manuel can kill A, he tells him Dust is his older brother and that he's there, in the back. The police bust in, and Manuel picks up a gun from the table and is shot, but not killed. That's the gun A found in the stairwell, and the crimes are pinned on Manuel. Mandy is shot in the crossfire and killed. Dust escapes.
Ferringer comes forward and tells A that one of Manuel's goons offed Lucy - They saw her with A and saw that she meant something. She had called the police to tell them about A, but when Ferringer showed up to meet with her, she was already dead. Ferringer also reveals that he's an undercover cop and tried to steal the coroner's report because Mandy was crooked and thought A might have gone after whoever the report pointed to... Which was Ferringer.
Walken tells A he has to get out of there, but A insists - Not yet.
He runs out back and tracks Dust down, who is unsympathetic. A pulls a rod on the dock and a shipping crate crushes Dust. A says that now he'll go.
-
FIVE YEARS LATER
A is working in an office in Oregon, now Andrew Smith. He's engaged to the secretary, Zooey Friedman. His boss, Jerry Ingman, is an ass, and one day, during a staff meeting, A loses his cool and hits Frank Delk, a co worker. Jerry blackmails him, saying if he doesn't become his patsy, he'll fire Zooey and get A arrested.
He tells A to rough up someone who used to work in the building that has an outstanding debt. A goes and beats the guy up and returns to work upset. Zooey tries to comfort him, but it doesn't work. They go home.
A walks out of work the next day and finds that his winshield is smashed in, and a note is left on the dash to meet in a certain place. He does, and is attacked, but he manages to fend off the attacker, who drops his wallet, which is devoid of everything except a nightclub advert and a load of cash.
A also finds out at work that the man he roughed up died and the police are looking into it, but they think it's about the gambling debt.
A heads to the nightclub and talks up the bartender, eventually giving him the money from the wallet to locate his attacker, who tells him he doesn't know who hired him, he was just given a place. A tosses his wallet back at him and leaves.
He goes home and finds Zooey isn't there. She comes in with a bottle of liquor and they fight, but then get drunk and make up.
A goes into work and finds that the gambling debt was owed to his boss and that since A apparantley killed the man, the debt transfers over to him. A doesn't have the money, and Jerry threatens with police about the dead gambler.
A goes home and finds a voicemail from Jerry cancelling the debt, and Zooey walks in, telling him she paid Jerry off with her savings. A is a little miffed, they fight and make up.
A tells Jerry to give her the money back, that he'll get the money, but Jerry won't have it, and implies that she didn't pay him with money.
Zooey tells A that she's going out with a new girl from the office, and not to wait up. He tails her and finds her meeting with Jerry, where they get into a heated arguement and he tries to kiss her. She pulls away and A gets pissed.
He yells at her when she gets back to the house and she runs out on him. Jerry doesn't mention it, but Zooey goes missing. Finally, A is called into Jerry's office and Jerry says that Zooey missing is his doing, and that she might even be dead. He says that he knows who A really is and has no qualms about turning him over. A loses it and socks him in the head, in front of the rest of the office, and has to run out.
He hides out in a girls apartment (Gabby, who was Lucy's roommate in college and who is introduced earlier in this part, telling A to get out and that it's dangerous, he's been made but she doesn't know who by) and when he recieves a voicemail, he puts it together and tells her to scram because he doesn't know if it's safe anymore.
A follows the direction in the voicemail and goes to the restauraunt where he proposed to Zooey and finds her sitting there. She tells him that Jerry is dead, but he was a sucker anyway. He was with her for the money that she said he would get for blackmailing A.
A says, he's figured most of it out. She has something against him, she's been planning this since before he started working there... And she tells him she has been planning it for far longer.
They go out into an alley and she pulls a gun on him. She tells him her father was Officer Marks, and she was in the back seat of the car. All she wanted to do was take care of Dust and never hurt A, because she knew he was just a pawn, but when A killed Dust, her shot at vengence ended, unless she went after A.
She seduced Walken and got the details and spent the last three years planning it, making A's cover blown by getting him agitated enough to hit the boss, who ended up dead, and everyone saw A hit him, so they'll lead the police to him.
A tells Zooey to shoot him, but they both break down. She says she can't, that somewhere along the line, she'd forgiven him and began to fall in love with him. She tells him the cops are on their way, that he can cut and run and she won't follow him anymore.
He sits there and holds her, telling her to leave before the cops show up. "You got your ending, angle. Now I get mine." She walks away sobbing as the cops pull up and arrest him.
A laments about a life he never got to lead due to always looking over his shoulder and the guilt from killing so many innocent people, but he knows when the news hits, there's a few people that'll come to his side, and that he won't be alone. Zooey, George, Gabby, his parents, John Porterfield, Boris Faust... He still has people from many different lives
But he gets his ending and is arrested.
THE END
(OR NOT?! I could do one more about prison making Faust the bad guy. Or something. OH THE PLOT TWISTS)
Anyways, tell me what you think. If you read it all, that is. That's a really long summary.
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