"You've got malware, sweetheart" (Image via Dieselpunks)
What if, instead of a private eye, Philip Marlowe is a computer repairman? Jason Harrington channels Raymond Chandler in this wonderful hardboiled piece, titled "Raymond Chandler's The Man Who Repaired Laptops":
When a girl like Vivian Sternwood walks into your third floor bachelor pad that doubles as your at-home laptop repair business as advertised on Craigslist, it can only mean trouble. It would be a hot one that day, a real summer scorcher—not even noon, and already I felt like a boiled New England dinner simmering in a sea of electronics.
“What can I do for you, sweetheart? Take a seat,” I said.
She was a doozy of a dame, with dangerous eyes like blue screens of death and a dark umber HP Pavilion laptop with a 640 GB hard drive she’d dropped off the day before. I’d taken her case at the recommendation of her father, the landlord, on account of my being two months behind on the rent.
“I am here to pick up my laptop that would not start up. Why else would I be here?” she said, cell phone buzzing in her purse. “And I am in a rush. Make it snappy.”
Read the rest over at McSweeney's: Link