He’d seen some pretty nasty scenes in his day, but this tiny mess twisted his hard-boiled heart. Upon closer inspection, Ben noticed feathers mixed into the gore. Although it was horridly mauled, he could still identify it with a shudder as a pigeon. He’d always had a soft-spot for pigeons.

Under the terribly slashed bird sat a drenched roll of paper. Ben tried to prod the bird off of it, but as he slid it off he found that the paper was tied to the bird by what had to be its guts. The poor creature! he thought, cringing.

He fought to keep his lunch while he wriggled the note out of its gut-string loop and rolled it open. Whatever he’d been expecting, it certainly wasn’t a neatly hand-written note headed as: “Good evening, kind sir.”

Ben shook his head. “What kind of twisted maniac guts and mauls a pigeon, then addresses a note, which he attached with the bird’s guts, with ‘good evening’ in that kind of handwriting?” he wondered aloud.