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The script for the first chapter is included below.

The Red Harvest Project

by Kat Clay

An Online Comic Book

Chapter 1: A woman in green and a man in gray

1938: A car is driving down a dark road. Its headlights illuminate a sign that reads Personville, crossed out and replaced by Poisonville.

Continental Op:

I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey. He also called his shirt a shoit. At the time, I didn’t think anything of what he had done to the city’s name. A few years later I went to Personville and learned better.

Continental Op presses the buzzer on a large home. A good looking woman with blue eyes and blonde hair appears at the door.

Continental Op:

Is Mr Willsson at home? I’ve got an appointment with him.

Mrs Willsson:

My husband isn’t in now. But if he’s expecting you he’ll probably be home shortly. Are you from Personville?

Continental Op:

No, San Francisco.

Mrs Willsson:

But this isn’t your first visit?

Continental Op:

Yes.

Mrs Willsson:

Really? How do you like our city?

Continental Op:

I haven’t seen enough of it to know. I only just got in.

Mrs Willsson:

You’ll find it a dreary place. I suppose all mining towns are like this. Are you engaged in mining?

Continental Op:

Not just now.

Mrs Willsson:

I’m really not ordinarily so much of a busybody as you probably think. But you’re so excessively secretive that I can’t help being curious.

You aren’t a bootlegger, are you? Donald changes them so often.

The phone rings in the other room. She excuses herself to go and answer.

Mrs Willsson:

Hello? Yes… I beg your pardon… Who? Can’t you speak a little louder? WHAT? Hello! Hello!

Mrs Willsson runs out of the house. The Continental Op sees her running to her Buick from the window. The CO lights a cigarette. Forty-five minutes pass; the clock shows five after eleven. Mrs Willsson reappears.

Mrs Willsson:

I’m awfully sorry, but my husband won’t be home tonight.

Continental Op:

That’s alright, I’ll get in touch with him at the Herald in the morning.

(boxed) I went away wondering why the green toe of her left slipper was dark and damp with something that could have been blood. That or strawberry jam.

On my way back into town, I stopped three blocks early to see what a crowd was doing around the side entrance of City Hall.

City Hall: A various assortment of night owls and policemen are standing around the sidewalk. Continental Op approaches a man in a suit on the edge of the crowd.

Continental Op:

What’s the rumpus?

The gray man:

Don Willsson’s gone to sit on the right hand of God, if God don’t mind looking at bullet holes.

Continental Op:

Who shot him?

The gray man:

Somebody with a gun.

Continental Op:

I’m a stranger in town. Hang the Punch and Judy on me.

That’s what strangers are for.

The grey man:

Donald Willson, Esquire, publisher of the Morning and Evening Heralds, was found in Hurricane Street just a little while ago, shot very dead by parties unknown. Does that keep your feelings from being hurt?

Continental Op:

What else do you know?

The grey man:

You’ll find out more over a bottle of whiskey.

The men go into a local bar and sit on stools drinking whiskey and looking at the newspaper

Continental Op:

(boxed) For forty years old Elihu Willsson – father of the man who had been killed this night – had owned Personvile, heart, soul, skin and guts. He was president of the Personville Mining Corporation, ditto of the First National Bank, and owner of both Heralds. Elihu Willsson was Personville, and he was almost the whole state.

(spoken) So does old Elihu have any enemies this side of town?

Show photographs of the men as in a newspaper.

Bill Quint:

Oh yeah… The strongest of ‘em is probably Pete the Finn. This stuff we’re drinking – it’s his. Then there’s Lew Yard, loan shark, who’s pretty thick with Noonan, the chief of police. This kid Max Thaler – Whisper – has got a lot of friends too.

Continental Op:

He’s cute

Bill Quint:

So’s dynamite.

Those three, with Noonan, just about to help Elihu run his city – help him more than he wants. But he’s got to play with ‘em or else…