:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/20254717/20130226_jla_an4_409.0.jpg)
The concept for this Fan Fiction Friday was courtesy of Hal Brown, to whom we are indebted. Also, this is the 10th FFF! Happy Tenthaversary!
Monta Ellis held an athletic sock up to the light, peering at it as if it held vital secrets. In fact, he rather thought it did.
"Hey, Monta, what are you doing?" Devin Harris asked, not sure he wanted to know. Monta spun around, catlike.
"It's 3 hours before a playoff game and Matrix and Dirk are missing, Devin! They've obviously been kidnapped." He drew himself up to his full, listed height of 6'2". "Luckily, as a detective, Monta have it all."
"Ooooookay," Devin said, backing away slowly. Monta returned to his careful scrutiny of the sock, but it would not yield its secrets.
"Okay, have it your way," Monta said, to the world. He took up residence in a nearby conference room, with a sufficiently detective-like desk, and set to work.
The first break in the case came in the person of a rotund security guard. "They're at Wendy's", the security guard said. "WHO'S WENDY?" Monta growled.
"Hey man," the security guard said, "pretty good Christian Bale impression".
Monta stormed off, back to his "office".
Wendy, he thought to himself. Strange name for a mobster. Maybe it was drug slang? Like Molly? Were Dirk and ‘Trix high? Had they been drugged? If so...
"Hey Monta," Rick said, poking his head in the room. "Devin said you were looking for Dirk and Marion? They just got a little hungry, I guess. They'll be back soon" Rick's head disappeared.
Monta slammed his palm into a desk in front of him. Rick was obviously in on it, too. "Damn! I thought he was one of the good ones." This world was dirty, it needed to be purged.
Still, it was another clue. Hungry, eh? Definitely drugs. But why would a druglord want Dirk and ‘Trix? Especially now? It was an away game, he mused. Maybe people buy more drugs when their team wins? Maybe they were being forced to pose in some sort of drug advertisements? Did illegal drugs have celebrity spokespeople? It would be a competitive advantage...
"Mama didn't raise you to think like them, Monta," he said to himself, on a harsh whisper. "The whys are as twisted and dark as the men who have them, twisted and dark and not for good men to guess. You don't have to know why. You just have to find a way to help"
Now if only....his train of thought cut off, as Dirk and Marion walked past the door. "Hey, you're back," he heard Carlisle say, from the locker room. "Monta was looking for you."
Dirk poked his head in. "Hey, Monta! ‘Trix and I went to get some food. Kind of a superstition, had fast food a few hours before game 6 in 2011, you know how it is, ha ha. Did you want to see us?"
Monta was around the desk in a second, using his fabled quickness to embrace Dirk tightly. "I'll never let anything happen to you," he said. "I swear it. I swear it."
"Neat?" Dirk said, patting him on the back awkwardly.
They knew I was getting close, Monta thought, and they got scared. Another case closed.