Interlude Stories: Kip Hanson

RIDING THE UNION PACIFIC - KIP HANSON

“C’mon, Johnny, run. Get up here, douchebag.”

Johnny sprinted after the westbound Union Pacific, stumbling over the small rocks and blackened scree bordering the tracks. The engine was a distant rumble ahead, rising in pitch, and Johnny knew he would soon be left behind; worse, he would be prone to terrific ridicule from his twin brother later that night. He tripped and nearly fell, but with a final gasping effort reached out to catch his brother’s hand. Charlie swung him up to the rail, clapping him on the back once his grip was secure. Together, they climbed to the top of the car.

Despite the heat of the Arizona sun overhead, the air blowing past was chill, and the boys sprawled out upon the roof of the container, glad for its metallic warmth and enjoying the delicious feel of the air streaming over their bodies. On the horizon, a monstrous serpent crept across the desert landscape - Interstate 10, stretching from Jacksonville, Florida to nearby LA. And there in the middle loomed the tunnel, a black, yawning hole bored through and under the long spine of desert rock on which the freeway ran.

As they neared the tunnel’s maw, the boys sat up in anticipation of its dreadful thrill - the mysterious graffitied walls running past, the dark and sooty concrete of the ceiling flying scant inches above their heads. If they were lucky, the eastbound train would come while they were still inside, making the cars rock and the tunnel black; the whistle would blow and the air compress around them until breath and sight and hearing was lost. It was terrifying and marvelous, and was what the boys yearned for above all else on this sunny December day.

On the bridge overhead, a highway patrol car sat on the shoulder of the Interstate. A man in uniform stood at the rail, waving at the boys, and they could just make out the sound of his voice yelling down at them. “Hellooo, below there! You boys, what the hell are you think…” and then he was past, drowned out by the sudden strident blare of the train’s whistle. Charlie grinned at his brother as they were swept into the tunnel, ducking their heads a split second before the transom whipped past.

The engine passed through the tunnel and out into the desert. As the locomotive approached the junction ahead, they heard the deep rumble of the engine idling down as the train slowed to pass through town. Charlie swung over the edge. Hanging from the rail, he ran alongside the steel wheels, matching the speed of the train exactly before leaping to the dusty shoulder below. He landed perfectly, then turned to jeer at his brother as he landed wrong and narrowly avoided cartwheeling into a stand of Cholla cactus.

Suddenly, a deep voice came from behind. “Alright, boys. You two, get on over here, right now!”

He turned to see a highway patrol car parked at the shoulder. The officer from the freeway overpass stood alongside, his hands planted squarely on his hips, his broad black moustache bristling forbiddingly. Charlie walked slowly over to the car and stopped before the officer to accept judgment, his brother trailing slightly behind him nursing a bruised elbow.

“I’m Officer Cummins. I saw you from the Interstate. Just what in the Sam Hill do you idiots think you’re doing?”

Charlie considered a wisecrack, but for once in his young life was prudent and kept his mouth shut. He hung his head, appropriately contrite, and said nothing.

“What are your names and where do you live?” he demanded.

Charlie looked up at the officer. “I’m Charles Hoffman, sir, and this is my brother, John. We live at Saguaro View Terrace.”

“Okay then, boys. Let’s go. Into the back of the car with the both of you. We’ll have us a little chat with your parents.”

They drove through town and into the development where the boys lived, pulling up before a neat two-story with tan stucco sides and a red-tiled roof above. A long row of struggling Texas Sage guarded the sidewalk. An attractive woman in her late thirties came to the door, looking furious, and began hollering before the boys were even out of the car. “What have you two gotten into now?” she yelled.

The patrolman herded the boys to the porch and stuck out his hand. “Hello, ma’am. I’m Officer Cummins. Are you Mrs. Hoffman?”

“Yes, Officer. What have these two scats done now?”

He removed his hat, reluctant now that he saw the punishment these two boys were facing, somewhat chagrined at his part in it. “Well, ma’am, it seems your boys like to ride the UP into town is all. I caught 'em jumping off near 4th Street, over by the mall. Other than that, they’ve been quite well-behaved.”

She looked skeptical, but despite her anger was a bit charmed by this tall man with his dark eyes and handsome face. “I doubt that, Officer Cummins, but thank you for returning them to me. I’ll make sure their father deals with them accordingly. Get upstairs, young men, right now! And thank you again, Officer. Hopefully we won’t be seeing you again anytime soon. Have a good day, sir.” Before she could say another word, the boys fled through the foyer, into the living room, past the Christmas tree, and up the stairs to the relative safety of their bedroom, with Turk the black Lab barking at their heels.

Later that evening, they heard the dreaded footsteps of their father ascending the stairs. Johnny looked over at his brother. “It was your idea, Charlie.”

“That’s bullshit, John-O, and you know it.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“And you’re an ass…” Just then the door opened. Their father came in, looking tired, and sat on the bed. “Alright, which of you two cares to explain?”

“Well, Pop, it’s like this. Charlie thought it would be fun to…”

“You shut up, Johnny. You’re not putting this one on me, you doof…”

Their father raised his hands, “Okay, both of you stop it, right now. I don’t want to hear it.” Sensing the man’s distress, Turk came over and nuzzled his palm. “You’re a good boy,” he said, and scratched the dog behind the ears. He looked at Charlie. “Now, no more of your nonsense. Just tell me what happened.”

Charlie explained to their father how, earlier that summer, they’d noticed how the trains slowed as they passed by the development, and that in school they’d read a book about hobos. On a dare, they’d decided to jump on. “It’s boring around here, Pop. Ever since you moved us out here ...”

He raised his hand. “We’re not starting that discussion again. I already told you, I had no other choice.”

“Sorry, Pop. It’s just…it’s fun to sit on top of the train cars, and to ride into town and walk around the mall and stuff. And Johnny, he has a girlfriend that works at the 7-11 there and he…”

“I do not!”

Their father grinned. “Okay, boys. Enough of this. What you did was stupid and dangerous. You could have been killed. I’m grounding you both to the house for one week.”

The boys were stunned. “But, Pop. It’s Christmas vacation! That’s not fair.”

“This is your own fault, boys. You knew better. Any more complaints and we’ll make it two.”
                     
They made it three days. On Wednesday morning after their twenty-second game of Halo, Charlie threw down his controller. “Let’s go see the Bleak-Man.”

“No, we can’t. You’re going to get us in trouble, stupid.”

“So what? C’mon, you girl, they’ll never know. Let’s go. Just for a little while, okay?”

*

“Hey, Gus. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. What are you guys up to? I thought your old man grounded you?”

Charlie slapped their friend Augustus Bleak on the back and said, “Yeah, well, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right, Gus?”

“Yeah, sure. So what do you guys want to do? I’m bored out of my skull.”

At that moment, they heard the distant wail of the Union Pacific. Charlie grinned. “I’ve got an idea. Go get your jacket, Gus.”

The train was already moving at a good clip by the time they reached the crossing at the edge of the development. Charlie was the first on board, and reached down for a handful of Gus’s baseball jacket while Johnny shoved from behind. It was Gus’s first time on the train. Johnny jumped on behind him and swung up to the rail just before the gravel shoulder gave way to desert scrub. “Good fun, eh’, Bleak?”

As they reached the top of the car, they sat down in a semi-circle near the back. Gus smiled nervously. Charlie pointed to the tunnel, still a mile or so distant. “Now, don’t freak out when we get there. It looks tight, and you have to keep your stupid head down, but I’m telling you there’s room, okay? We’ve done it a million times.”

Gus snugged his Diamondbacks cap down around his head. He looked doubtful, but nodded in agreement. “Sure, Chuck. No problem.”

As they approached the mouth of the tunnel, Gus was increasingly apprehensive.

“You sure there’s room, guys?”

“Yeah, it’s cool. Just chill out, Gus. It’s okay.”

Gus began to sidle towards the edge, glancing anxiously between the darkness of the tunnel ahead and the ground speeding past below. “Jesus, you guys, I don’t know if I can do this.”

At that moment, they saw the bright headlight of the eastbound train, coming their way. The dim light of the tunnel was eclipsed and Charlie hooted in anticipation. Suddenly, Gus turned white with terror and grabbed for the rail. Johnny screamed at him, “No, Gus, don’t!” and reached for his legs as Gus slid face-first off the trailing end of the car. His baseball cap sailed high into the air.

Johnny yelled out, “Help me, Charlie. I can’t hold him.” Charlie leaped up and ran to his brother, heaving at Gus’s pants leg. He snagged the hood of Johnny’s sweatshirt, and saw Gus hanging upside down between the cars, dangling over the coupling. “Hold on, Gus, we got you, ” he yelled, but started to lose his grip on his brother’s gray sweatshirt. He grabbed at Johnny’s shoulders, struggling to pull their friend to safety, but it was no good. He was going to lose them both. With a tremendous effort, he seized his brother under the armpits, heaving him up and backwards. Johnny stumbled, but managed to wrap his arms around Gus’s legs and had dragged him most of the way back onto the train when the sun-warmed eastern wall of the overpass struck Charlie from behind at thirty miles per hour.

Charlie woke to see the kind face of Officer Cummins, kneeling over him. “It’s okay, boy. I’ve got you. You just hang on now. Help is coming.”

“Where’s Johnny?”

A momentary shadow passed over Officer Cummins’s dark eyes. “Don’t you worry about it, Charlie. Everything will be alright. You rest now.” Charlie closed his eyes.

Charlie climbed into the backseat of the family car, his mother in the passenger seat, his father behind the wheel. They drove through town, avoiding the Interstate, and arrived fifteen minutes later at the church. His father held his mother by the arm and led her inside. Her eyes were dry and glassy-looking. The caskets stood at the front of the church on gleaming metal platforms, and were covered in a soft, lavender-colored fabric. They had a vague floral pattern and looked soft and pleasant to the touch – Charlie wanted to rub his hand across it, to see how it felt.

His mother gave out a small gasp behind him, almost a hiccupping sound, and he turned to see his father lifting her from behind by the elbows, sort of carting her down the aisle on her heels and into the pew to the right of the lavender caskets. The church was filled with whispering. Charlie looked about at his friends and neighbors and then across the aisle to Gus’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bleak, weeping quietly beside the casket of their only son.

From the pew behind, there was Mrs. Berlanzer, offering his parents a brave smile; her husband reached across and clasped Charlie’s father on the shoulder. The Jensen family from two doors down was there across the aisle. Officer Cummins sat in his dress uniform three pews back. And in the back of the church, off to the right, two boys sat near the door, staring at Charlie. The one closest to him was dressed in a gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head; the other wore a baseball jacket and cap, snugged down low. His eyes glittered in the dim candlelight.

Charlie turned away, glancing again at the caskets only a few feet distant, and wondered what the boys looked like in there, and whether they’d been mangled by their passage beneath the train. It was rumored that Gus had been cut in half by the wheels. He considered for a moment that maybe, just maybe, Gus and Johnny were not really inside at all, that this was a joke, some kind of terrible mistake. But no – he turned again to look at the boys sitting in back, and knew the truth.

The minister entered the church and passed to the altar. After a moment of silence, he began. “Dear friends, we gather today to mourn the passing of two fine young men. We gather so that we may remember them, and praise them, and commend them into the loving arms of…” At that moment, Charlie’s mother shrieked and fell to the aisle, reaching out to the altar, sobbing uncontrollably. His father picked her up and carried her outside. Charlie followed. As they passed, his friends and neighbors watched in silence, grim-faced and sympathetic. Officer Cummins stood with tears in his eyes.

Charlie pushed through the double-doors and passed into the warm sunlight outside. He held the door for a moment, to take a final look at the people he left behind, at the caskets on their gleaming stands, at Officer Cummins standing grief-struck. And as he let the door swing shut, he realized that the boys who’d been sitting in the last pew were gone.

That night, he sat in the living room, alone with his parents. The TV sat flickering, unwatched and silent. Every few minutes his mother would weep quietly, helplessly. His Pop stared out the window, the drink at his elbow untouched. After a while, Charlie could stand no more; he said goodnight and went up to his room. As he reached the top of the stairs, he turned and called for Turk, but the dog sat whining at the bottom and refused to come. After a few tries, Charlie gave up and walked the short hallway to his room. As he opened the door, he groaned quietly in terror.

Johnny sat on the bed, his gray sweatshirt pulled over his head. The lower half of his face was stove in, his left arm swung loosely from a flattened shoulder. Gus sat opposite him on Johnny’s old bed, his baseball jacket split neatly across the chest from shoulder to hip, the two halves of his body leaning awkwardly against one another. He reached up to adjust his baseball cap, and smiled at Charlie standing in the doorway. As Charlie watched, Johnny stood on wrecked knees and shuffled across the room to embrace his brother.

“What…no. Johnny? What are you doing here? What…oh, no. Johnny!” He fell to his knees, sobbing. Johnny reached down to comfort his brother, lifted him up and carried him over to the bed and set him on the covers. A small noise came from the doorway, and Johnny turned to see his father standing there, Turk huddling at his side. The dog barked once, then tucked his tail between his legs and bolted down the hall. Their father stared after him for a moment, then reached in, turned off the light and closed the door to the bedroom. “Goodnight,” he said.

That night, Charlie dreamed of the boys. Johnny and Gus were running down the gleaming metal length of the tracks, small stones and gravel flying from their shoes as they fled. They were beautifully untouched, had not yet been crushed by the Union Pacific, had strength and breath and life left before them. And they were terrified. Behind them came the shrill whistle of the locomotive, bearing down on them, and they ran and they ran but still they weren’t fast enough. As they neared the tunnel, a toothless black mouth in the side of the Interstate, Gus tripped and fell and was instantly swallowed up by the churning steel wheels, his body dissolving into nothing more than a pink mist, floating on the desert air.

Johnny dared to look back, and over his shoulder saw Charlie at the controls of the locomotive, Gus standing alongside, a victorious grin stretched across his skeletal face. With one final blast of the whistle, Johnny fell beneath the wheels and was gone.

Charlie woke to the lonely sound of the train somewhere in the distance, and passed again into a fitful sleep.

The next morning, Charlie came down for breakfast. He walked into the kitchen to see his mother at the table, a bowl of cereal untouched before her, the carton of milk sitting warm at her elbow. “Mom, you need to eat,” he said, but before she could reply, Turk jumped from beneath the table and began to howl, a fearful baying which echoed off the walls and ceiling. Charlie’s mother started to shriek incoherently at the dog, “Stop it, oh please stop, you bastard!” His father rushed in, grabbed her by the arms and shook her gently until she fell to the chair crying. As his Pop opened the door to shoo the dog outside, Charlie saw Gus standing on the patio, peering in through the window. His baseball cap was perched jauntily on his head, and a silly grin sat on his ruined face. Through the open door, he saw his brother in the yard, waving for him to come outside. Charlie moaned in terror.

Later that day, his mother slept upstairs in her room. His father had left for work hours before. Charlie lay in his bed, but was finally unable to bear any longer the room he had once shared with his brother and came downstairs. As he passed through the living room, he saw the Christmas tree there, the gifts lying unopened, the tree weeping needles like brown tears. His brother huddled on the floor to one side of the tree, a small package in his hands. He looked up at Charlie with a look of terrible grief in his eyes, and motioned for him to come to him.

“Oh, Johnny, don’t do this to me. Why are you here? Why do you stay?” Charlie advanced on his brother, angry now. “Johnny, you’re dead!” he shouted. “You have to leave.” Johnny grimaced, but again motioned for Charlie to come over. And so Charlie came, and sat cross-legged on the floor opposite his dead brother. With trembling hands, he took the gift and opened it.

Within he found a small replica train whistle, on its side an image of a steam locomotive, engraved in beautiful detail. His breath caught, and a single tear fell on the train. As Charlie looked to his brother for answers, Johnny nodded mutely that he should try it. He raised the whistle to his lips and blew, sounding a terrific blast. Upstairs, his mother screamed in her sleep. But in the distance, Charlie heard the answering whistle of the Union Pacific, and suddenly knew what he must do.

Charlie walked along the tracks, listening for the train. He knew it wouldn’t be long now. The day was sunny and warm - he thought about his parents, and poor lost Johnny, the way Gus pulled his hat down low. As he approached the tunnel where his brother had died, he saw Office Cummins there, kneeling at the foot of a small wooden cross erected along the shoulder of the tracks. It was painted a glossy white with black lettering. Officer Cummins was weeping, “Oh, you boys. I’m so sorry. If only I could have stopped you. Good Lord, why? Why did you have to take these poor, dear boys?”

Charlie stopped behind the officer, reached out to touch his shoulder. “It’s okay, Officer Cummins. I’m sorry. You did the best you could. It was my fault. Everything is my fault.”

As Charlie’s hand fell upon the officer’s shoulder, a shudder ran through him and he spun around, a terrific look of fear on his face.  He jumped to his feet. “Oh, Charlie. You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing here, son?”

“I needed to come, Officer Cummins. There’s something I have to do here.”

The patrolman, cautious now, looked down at Charlie. “What do you mean, boy? Are you okay?”

“Oh yes. Yes. I’ll be fine, sir.” He held up the whistle. “I just need to put this here, to…to remember Johnny and Gus.”

Officer Cummins glanced at the whistle in his hands. “Do you need a ride home, son?”

“No, sir, I can walk.” He hesitated. “And, sir? Thanks for taking care of me, after the accident.”

“You’re welcome, Charlie.”

Charlie watched as Officer Cummins climbed up the hill and back to his car waiting on the shoulder of the Interstate. As the car pulled away, Charlie turned to see Johnny and Gus standing next to him. “Okay, guys. I get it,” he said, and placed the whistle at the base of the cross. With the lonely sound of the Union Pacific coming down the tracks, he took the hands of his brother and friend, and sat on the tracks to wait.

BIO: Kip lives in Tucson, where he wastes time blogging about unimportant things at http://misterass.com. He writes to keep the flying monkeys away.

Interlude Stories: Richard Godwin

MEMORY LOSS - RICHARD GODWIN

Chicago. It’s winter. I’m losing my memory. The alliance will move me on soon.

Cars are frozen solid, women scurry by the blocks of iced metal, hiding their skins from the cold. Skin has a price. Even yours.

I’m opposite Millennium Park and I ask myself what I’m doing here. There are no answers in the bottles of Jim Beam and Twinkie wrappers that litter the apartment. I pull down my eyelids and stare at my face in the tarnished mirror. You never know where your next job is coming from.

Every time I think of the alliance I see cakes, endless galleries of cup cakes, chocolate gateaux, éclairs and Victoria sponges spurting cream into the sunken jaws of vagrants. I salivate in this comatose virtual realm at the images paraded before me like some sick twisted little sadistic film. I consider that I am a vagrant, an actor in a film with no script. I have to leave the studio. Survival never respects the law.

I’m stepping out of the shower when the door buzzes. Frankie’s standing there with his briefcase. He walks in, sits down, slings a cowboy boot over his Wrangler jeans, and pops a strawberry Zinger in his mouth.

‘So, Harry, ready for the next one?’

He slides a picture of a fat man eating a lollipop across the stained coffee table. It has the usual details on the back, address, schedule of target’s movements.

‘Usual payment?’ I say.

Frankie nods.

‘Bake him. Then we’re moving you to another city.’

‘Where this time?’

‘Does it matter?’

It doesn’t. It doesn’t matter where I am because the life’s the same, except I’m losing myself. ‘How did I get here?’ I say.

‘You don’t want to know that, Harry.’ He leans forward. There is ice on his tongue. ‘We want you this way.’

I watch him on the street down below as he walks to his car, a small man with small ideas, and I get ready.

The reel of my memory is faded, the world is sepia.

*

It’s an easy hit. Fatso’s in the shower when I get inside his house, I can hear him singing Leonard Cohen’s Famous Blue Rain Coat. He’s croaking, ‘What can I tell you my brother my killer,’ when he stops and gasps like a virgin as he sees me there in my black leather gloves. I say, ‘Bye, baby,’ and spread his head over his nice white tiles. Problem is there’s a half-naked blonde in a G-string in the hallway, who screams and covers her large breasts as I run my eyes down her full figure. Pity to miss a fuck but I pop her too. She looks good enough to eat and I’m hungry as I head out of there. I stop on North Sheffield Avenue at the DMK Burger Bar.

The only beer they’ve got is Heineken and that’s when it hits me. Memory shudders briefly into being. I’m sitting at a bar in Detroit drinking Heineken when Frankie’s boys come in. They blackjack me in the john with my dick in my hand. One minute I’m pissing, next thing I’m lying in a white room listening to Mantovani. A pretty nurse comes in and checks my pulse. I’m aware of something solid in my head, a small hard thing at my temple. It’s a blur of pills and hotels after that.

It’s called the sponge filling. When a gun gets to know too much they control his brain, spooky but true. Soon he’s put in a cake and shipped out to the diners. This job’ll eat you alive.

*

Back at the apartment I open my temple with a scalpel. I cut just deep enough into the side of my head and peel back two inches of skin, removing the chip, which I put in my pocket. I stitch myself up, and put on my hat. Then I pack and head downstairs to the Lincoln waiting to take me to the next city.

The two bozos in the front yap about football as they take the detour. I shoot them at a junction and get a taxi to the airport, calling Frankie from my cell.

‘Think you could do away with me? I’m going freelance.’

‘Good job we have a code. Await your next instructions,’ he says.

Soon I see Bessie Coleman Drive and I taste freedom. It tastes of salt. I move like a shadow through the crowds. I ditch my Glock in a trash can.

As I’m booking my ticket, I feel a hand on my shoulder and a cop asks me to come with him and his colleague. I’ll show them the pictures, I’ll tell them about the alliance. I’ll work for them.

The cop smiles.

‘Do you like cup cakes?’ he says.

BIO: Richard Godwin is the author of crime novels Mr. Glamour  and Apostle Rising and is a widely published crime and horror writer.


Mr. Glamour is his second novel and is out now and is available online at Amazon  and at all good retailers. Mr. Glamour is Hannibal Lecter in Gucci. It is about a glamorous world with a predator in its midst and has received great reviews. Pulp Metal Fiction recently published Piquant, Tales Of The Mustard Man, his culinary genius. His Chin Wags At The Slaughterhouse are interviews he has conducted with writers and can be found at his blog.


You can also find a full list of his works on his website.


He lectured in English and American literature at London University before becoming a professional writer.

Interlude Stories: Dot King

NIGHT CALL 3: GINNY - DOT KING

She hadn’t meant to. At least not yet.

The minute Ginny saw the neat bedsit with its square skylight over the bed and its long, narrow window looking out from the kitchenette over the grey-blue roofs of the town, she felt that this was, at last, a place where she could stay awhile. A place where she could be normal.

And now he’d spoiled it. She hadn’t even moved in and she’d had to get him ready and it was over before it had begun. He shouldn’t have laughed at her like that. Like they all did.

She was always hungry afterwards and now she was tapping stubby, sticky fingers around a small, white china plate, dipping up the last crumbs from the slice of cold pizza and some fruit cake she’d found in the fridge.

She thought of Rob in his armchair, in her head she heard again his endless prattle. The worst was when he’d laughed at her, in front of that woman and the other girl. That wouldn’t do. It wasn’t normal. Even if they had all laughed at her. But he wouldn't laugh at her again. Rob was ready.

The thought of his readiness aroused her. First hungry, then sexy. Time for the dancing. She only danced these days once they were ready. She had to be careful because if they weren’t ready, they laughed. They didn’t understand that it wasn’t normal to laugh, especially at the dancing. They coaxed, goaded her into dancing, made her, then laughed and it got her mad. She practised so hard to get the movements just right, practised in front of her mirror, so that wasn’t why. It was because they weren’t ready. So now, Ginny got them ready, stubbornly holding back her dancing until they were quite ready.

The familiar dark swamp of desire sucking at the pit of her stomach, Ginny strode back into the lounge where Rob sat facing the space she’d created in the centre of the room. Her dance-floor. His head had lolled forward, his chin resting on his chest. Blood, run down from the neat, single slash in his neck, was drying on his shirt. He should to be looking at her. He should see her dance. She’d got him ready. She tipped his head up, but it only drooped again. She was disappointed. Things weren’t quite right this time.

She placed herself seductively in the middle of the dance-floor, plump hands with sausage-like fingers on vast, fleshy hips, one projecting to the side as if in mid-sashay. She was close enough to reach out and touch him. She switched on the music in her head.

« Desafinado »

She didn’t know the lyrics and wasn’t sure of the tune, but she liked the word.

« Desafinado ». Sexy word. On the first syllable she brought her flabby arm in an arc over her head and pointed a provocative, pudgy finger at Rob’s slumped body, as if choosing the lucky winner of a lazy, sexy lap dance. « Desafinado ».

Swaying, she drew her hands up the sides of her ribcage and breasts and pushed them into the air above her head. No-one laughed. It was going well. She brought her hands down, left to the right hand seam of her tee shirt, right to the other side, ready to peel it off, leaned forward and wagged her ample breasts where Rob’s face should have been, then gazing at the top of his head, dipped hers, lowered her eyes as if demurely.... and ..... stopped .... « Desafinado » shrieked, ended with a DJ scratch ....

Blinked. What the fuck is that? On the floor? The fucking phone! Shit! Shit! Who did he call? Shit! Shit! Shit! Ginny grabbed the phone where it lay by Rob’s feet. Punched the redial keys. Nothing. The battery was dead. Who? Fucking who? Might be here any time ... Shit!

Panicked, she hauled her bag to her shoulder and fled. Where? Where?

*

On the square, the light from all-night laundrette cast a reluctant glow on to the pavement. Clutching her bag to her to cover her blood-splashed tee shirt and jeans, Ginny ran inside. The man at the desk barely looked up, « A’right, love? »

« Yeah, OK ».

She hurried to the machine farthest from the door, squashed herself into the shadow beyond it, changed her soiled clothes and trainers for the clean ones in her bag and shoved the lot into the machine. Dropped in a coin. Slammed the start button. Subsided heavily on to a chair. Watched as her things began turning in pinkish-grey water.

Gradually, hypnotised by the steady thrum-swish of the washer, she felt calm enough to take stock. He’d been ready; hadn’t he? At least she’d thought so. All that was right. It was the phone that bothered her. Shit-shit! She couldn’t remember if it had been there before. Who had he called? What had he said? She took comfort in the thought that he’d been ready, she’d seen to that, she had to be careful and she was, so he hadn’t phoned anybody.

So... OK... Now... Where had she been up to? She was dancing, so she must have been sexy. But it wasn’t over. That wasn’t normal. It had to be over. It could never be normal if it wasn’t over. She looked around.

She knew it wasn’t right, not ever, to touch herself in the toilet. Touching like that was only all right if she was dancing. But what choice did she have? None, that’s what. None.

She locked herself into the dim, narrow cubicle. It was too cramped to dance in there and she wondered whether she should stand or sit and couldn’t decide.

For a while her fingers scraped dry flesh. She didn’t like it. It hurt. Not like when she was dancing. But it had to be over. She closed her eyes, pictured Rob, ready. Then a few more of them. Then it began to be nice, especially with her eyes closed and them all watching her, ready....

At last elusive waves of pleasure came rolling through her. Timidly at first. Then rolling, lurching, unrelenting. The ultimate, long-awaited dam-wave curled itself perversely over and around all of them, gyrating on and on, on and on, each wave its own small turbulence of craving, pitching, roaring ... then ...

... recoiled abruptly, sucked into a churning, convulsing maelstrom of shame and humiliation. And they were all laughing. And Ginny saw this. And heard it. And felt the arid, bitter rasp of failure.

*

Oh, this wouldn’t do. Wouldn’t do at all. This wasn’t right. Wasn’t right at all. This was far from right. It wasn’t over.

This...Was...Not...Normal...

In the drab, yellow pallor of the cubicle, Ginny opened peevish eyes.

Interlude Stories: Laura Roberts

SNOW PATROL - LAURA ROBERTS

Blue ice stretched to the horizon, fading into the blinding rays of another waning winter sun. Sheila shivered violently and instinctively glanced down, looking for cracks under the transparent sheen. Suddenly, she tensed and dropped to her knees. She screamed, but there was no one to hear her except for the body trapped beneath the ice, its face frozen in a horrific pose, bloated and purple from lack of oxygen.

It was Sheila’s job, as Ice Floe Specialist, to keep track of all the bodies until they defrosted in the spring so they could be given a proper burial. Somehow she could never get used to finding them stuck beneath the surface, their faces contorted in pain. She always gave a little scream when she discovered the latest victim, sealed up tight.

Good thing the boys from Juneau PD weren’t here to see her, jumping at every dead body like a total rookie. She still hadn’t gotten used to Alaska’s arctic tundra, much less its effects on the dead, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a damn good detective.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Sheila began to speak into her tape recorder with notes on her findings. “3:15 p.m. Saturday, January 21. Female victim found just past the 12 mile marker at Hasselborg Lake. Location is about 40 feet out from shore, so it’s unlikely others will stumble upon the body, but there’s an ice fishing shack 60 yards off that shows signs of abandonment. Will investigate further to determine probable cause of death.”

She clicked off the recorder and slipped it back into her jacket. A light snow had begun to fall, and she quickly constructed a rock formation to mark the body’s resting place with small stones from her pack. After creating the miniature inukshuk, Sheila began to make her way out toward the shack in the falling dusk, carefully watching the ice for signs of weakness.

It was still early in the season, so she knew it was dangerous to be out here alone on the ice. Still, she enjoyed the solitude of the position, and it kept her healthy walking around the massive lake. It was a strange job, perhaps, but someone had to do it. People were always going missing in Alaska; there were so many ways to get lost.

Sheila was glad to take an assignment that was more rural. The police force was always a boys club, but particularly so in Alaska, and she’d needed the escape. The wilderness felt more like home, despite its differences from everything she knew back in the lower 48.

As she carefully picked her way along the ice, Sheila’s eyes jumped ahead to the shack. Though it had first appeared abandoned, as she got closer she thought she saw smoke curling from the top of the shanty. Plenty of fisherman still burned wood in oil drums or barbecues out here, despite the state ban, and it wasn’t unusual to see smoke puffing out the tops of these huts when they were occupied.

Before she had time to wonder how many people might be inside the hut, a man swung the rusty door open on its hinges and stepped outside.

“Juneau Police, Sgt. Weathers,” she called. “Are you aware there’s a body beneath the ice over here?”

“Say again?” the man called, holding a hand up to his left ear. “I’m a little deaf.”

Sheila gripped her pistol in its holster and continued to advance toward the man in the shack. There was no reason to assume the fisherman had anything to do with the body she'd just found, but then again, there was no reason to assume he hadn’t.

“I said, there’s a body over here. How long have you been camped out here, sir?”

“About three days now, I reckon,” he replied. The heavy beard on his face made it difficult for Sheila to decide whether he was telling the truth. “A body, you say?”

“Yes. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you, Mr...”

“Thompson. Matt Thompson,” he said, ducking back into the shack.

“Mr. Thompson?” Sheila called, peering into the dimly lit building.

Sheila drew her weapon, but Thompson was faster. He struck a blow with a large, blunt object that sent her skidding across the ice.

Sheila’s head ached, and her vision swam with pale blue stars as she fought to get to her feet. Her pistol had disappeared in the quickly fading light, and she felt about for it frantically.

“I’ll ask the questions around here, Sergeant,” she heard Thompson growl.

He grabbed her by the back of her neck and began pulling her toward the shack. She kicked her boots against the ice, struggling against him, desperate to wrench herself free. She could smell the acrid stench of kerosene mixed with blood as he dragged her across the threshold, and then everything went black.

BIO: Laura Roberts is the author of Rebels of the 512, the best satirical novel you’ll ever read about pirates, ninjas and evil politicians in Austin, Texas. Find out more online at http://rebelsofthe512.com.

Interlude Stories: Bruce Harris

GAMES PEOPLE PLAY - BRUCE HARRIS

She wore short shorts, sneakers, white socks and a tank top. No bra. Her blonde ponytail rested on Mr. Perfect’s broad shoulder. He was at least a foot taller than she. They listened as I stood next to my Saturn, explaining my actions to a cop whose shined shirt pocket nametag read Ortiz. He nodded. “Go on.”

“Like I was saying. I was out of milk and Stephanie, that’s my wife, asked me to head to the grocery store for a gallon. I was steering my car with one hand, trying to find the Cubs game on the radio with the other, and then I saw her.” I pointed to No Bra Girl. “Jogging, blonde ponytail bouncing up and down, but no one in hell was looking at that, especially me. Excuse my bluntness, but even Stevie Wonder can see, she isn’t wearing a bra, and her boobs were practically hanging out of that loose fitting top, smacking her face with every step. Damn.”

I paused for a second, but Ortiz kept staring at me. The couple seemed to hug each other tighter.

“I slowed down the Saturn, maximizing the time I had to admire her, my prurient thoughts raging. I shifted my gaze into the side view mirror as I passed her. I’m still watching her ass as she slowly jogs out of my life, then suddenly I see a black pickup truck pull up alongside her. She stops and peers into the truck’s window, and in an instant, she’s gone! Shit. I just watched some guy drag her into his truck. I do an immediate U-turn, and head for the pickup truck. At first, I can only see the driver, but seconds later, I see her blonde head, but it quickly disappears again. From my vantage point about 500 feet away, it appears as though they’re struggling. I floor it. I think the bastard is hitting her as he speeds up, but I’m not letting him out of my sight. I catch a break, as his truck has to slow down because of traffic. He swerves right to avoid a UPS truck, and I can see him looking back at me through his rearview mirror. I give him the finger. I smack into the truck’s rear bumper, and again the guy looks back at me. He’s cursing. I slam into him again. Now, she’s in sight, staring at me. She looks petrified. She’s screaming something, but I can’t make it out. He’s shouting, too. I’m playing bumper cars with this fucker’s, excuse my language, truck, but I’m not really playing. The radio is between stations, so I shut the damn thing and reach for my cell phone and dial 911. Before it connects, I hear your siren and see your flashing red lights approaching. Someone else must have called you. Within minutes, you cut him off, and here we are, all three vehicles are stopped on the side of the road. Good, I figured, now the bastard’s going to get what he deserves.”

“Boy, am I glad you came in time, officer. This fucking guy is crazy. Look what he’s done to the back of my truck! He nearly drove us off the fucking road.” Ortiz looked away from Perfect Man toward the damaged vehicle and shook his head.

“Watch you language, sir. Keep it civil.” He turned to me. “Do you have anything else to say?”

“Officer, I watched this guy pull this young lady off the street against her will. I was just trying to stop him and help her, you know, trying to be a Good Samaritan and all that. That’s the truth.” The policeman looked at the couple with raised eyebrows.

Now it was Braless’s turn. Pointing to me, “This guy is out of his mind.” The perfect couple hugged again. “This is my boyfriend, officer. We were just having a little fun playing a game, keeping things exciting between us. It was nothing more than a little harmless sex skit we were acting out. The next thing we know, this nut is ramming the back of our truck. I called 911 and thank goodness you showed up.”

A moment later, a second squad car pulled up. A black cop named Brown sauntered over, said, “Whatcha got, Ortiz?”

Ortiz motioned to the couple. “This guy was harassing this young woman. Get him the hell out of my sight, Terry.”

I watched two jaws simultaneously drop. Before either could say a word, Officer Brown escorted a handcuffed Perfect Body into the back seat of his police cruiser and drove off.

“What the hell are you doing?” shouted Ponytail. “That’s my boyfriend!”

Officer Ortiz slapped first her face and then cuffs on her wrists. He pushed her into the backseat of his car. “Get in there and shut up. You, Good Samaritan,” he pointed to me, “in the front seat.”

“Are you crazy? What the hell do you think you’re doing? I want a lawyer!” Ms. Boobs in the backseat was crying.

Shit, a lawyer was going to help her about as much as the boogey man was going to scare Ortiz. Ortiz was as crooked as an arthritic finger. I’d seen his type plenty of times. We left the sobbing blonde in the locked police car as we belted down close to a dozen cold ones at a local tavern. Ortiz told me shit I didn’t want to hear about his childhood and stepfather. After nearly two hours, he grabbed a fistful of peanuts and said, “Let’s go!” We were both drunk. He had trouble opening the patrol car’s rear door, stuffed his face with nuts, loosened his belt and grabbed the girl. Spitting peanut shells, he said, “If you say a word about this to anyone, you’ll think this was Christmas morning compared to what I’ll do to your boyfriend.” Ortiz undid her handcuffs and positioned himself inches away from her face. His uniform pants dropped. “You know what to do!” She did. When Ortiz screamed “Yes!” the poor bastard was too drunk to notice Blondie had removed his gun with her newly freed hands. She fired. Twice.

BIO: Bruce Harris is the author of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson: ABout Type (www.batteredbox.com) and a chapbook, The Man and the Mark (www.deadlychaps.com). 

Interlude Stories: Larry Strattner

OUT ON COUNTY TRUNK Q - LARRY STRATTNER

Elmer and Sylvia visited the place two or three times before they made an offer. Elmer low-balled the owners. The downside; a house only three hundred feet back off County Trunk Q. The upside; forty acres out back. He sensed the old couple had no money and fewer prospects. He figured he could snare the place for a song.

He hated his name; Elmer. He told everyone in his old neighborhood his name was Buzz; as in the astronaut. His wife Sylvia; Sil. Buzz and Sil. Mysterious. Sexual. Inaccessible. Adventurous.

In reality Sylvia would balk like some stupid horse at the sun reflecting off a discarded gum wrapper. She didn’t like the dark and incessantly read Sylvia Brown books. She wondered, were their identical first names fate? Elmer told her 273,000 other women in the United States were named Sylvia. Even so she was spooked by her connection with Sylvia Brown. Elmer felt the need to get out of their current neighborhood before someone outed them. His solution; forty acres off County Q.

One acre abutted Q on either side of his new house. No one lived across the road. No house on either side was close. He might not ever have to deal with a neighbor. None looked like he’d have to go through any Buzz bullshit with them either.

Since no neighbor was close by Elmer hadn’t really studied the neighbors before he made his offer. All except one lived east, down the road; downwind. He knew at least one downwind person raised pigs but he couldn’t smell any pig odors up at his place.

After the sale closed he found out the pig guy, named Kade Neusteader, three houses down, part of a big local family, had some trouble with Child Services after chaining his son Ivan to a ring cemented into his cellar floor.

When County Child Services caught up to Neusteader he claimed, “I’m not the asshole here. You try having a kid drooling around and muttering behind you all day every day and see what you do. I would have put him in the attic but we don’t have an attic and the cellar is cooler in the summer. He throws a fit down there now and then but the pig pens are close to the house. They drown him out.”

Pig fits and kid fits, apparently, sound a lot alike. Even so the son, Ivan, scared Neusteader about having another kid. He was quoted as saying, “There’s no more room in the cellar.”

Neusteader also noted, “I picked my wife, Lily, to marry because she wasn’t a drooler or a mouth breather. Then we have one kid and I get Ivan.

“Lily’s father had a brother like Ivan. His father tripped him inside the pig pens one day and the pigs ate him. I think they filed a missing persons report. A chicken moved into the house to fill his spot.”

Fortunately for Lily’s dad, he had passed away the year before the County officials talked with Kade.

Elmer began to worry maybe an acre didn’t give him enough separation. The back forty went on forever and was bordered by a swamp. But Sylvia didn’t have all her marbles anyway. She mostly watched daytime television, stayed inside. Elmer guessed she hadn’t caught wind of the shenanigans down the road.

Down at the Seven Eleven buying beer, Elmer heard a conversation between two guys in dirty Carhart bib overalls leading him to believe pigs would eat anything. One manure spattered guy confided to the other, “Heard a rumor Clevis Starling caught a Fuller Brush guy with his wife. When Clevis got done the pigs ate what was left of the brush-bastard along with his sample case. Don’t know if it’s true. Big price for the brush fellow to pay if it is. Clevis’ wife would fit right in out in the pens. A real oinker. I never have seen a Fuller Brush man around here. I ran off the Mary Kay bitch. She wanted a lot of money for face paint. If I wanted someone with paint all over their face I would’ve married fucking Rembrandt.”

Elmer instituted a new policy. No friendly waves at anybody dressed in Carharts. No conversation with anybody in a neighboring yard. He kept his head down. Kept to himself. Decided to get a few horses to ride on his forty acres. Never said a word of his Buzz bullshit to anyone either.

While cutting out some brush behind the house to make a corral for his horse program Elmer discovered his first hunk of scrap metal. Hunk probably calls up a picture of something a bit smaller than what he dug up. The twisted sheets were more the size of a wall from those metal sheds you use to store equipment out in the yard. It was all crushed, like a herd of cows and a few tractors had run it over. Elmer hauled it out of the ground using a heavy chain hooked to his pickup truck.

Hard on the heels of the mangled shed he struck and hauled out crushed cars, broken farm machinery, sheet metal, rebar, windmill blades and a few TV antennas. Soon Elmer had a pile of scrap metal big enough to call the junkyard down in Atlanta. This Atlanta, by the way, is not that Atlanta. This Atlanta has a population of 300, is on a rusty rail line and a train runs once a week, maybe, and nobody in this Atlanta knows anything about peaches.

The old guy from the junkyard gave Elmer a low bid, he said because of the dirt all over everything. Even so, Elmer made a good dollar on his buried treasure. He used the cash to sink a new well. The old well was running slow and he felt he needed to step it up for the horses. The well driller went down a long way before water sprung clear. The well guy also said something about leaching Elmer didn’t understand. He fenced off the corral and bought three horses. One horse was white, one brown, one black; so he could tell them apart.

One day, after a couple of months as a country gentleman, Elmer decided to soak his weary feet in warm water. Sylvia boiled some up and Elmer sat back to relax. In exactly one hour all his toes were gone. There was no blood, no nothing. Toes were gone, stubs cauterized over. It’s difficult to walk with no toes. The EMTs who came to the house said he was lucky he took his feet out of the hot water when he did.

The County came over and tested his well. More shit in the water than a Mumbai restroom. Metal finishing chemicals from the big manufacturing plant a half mile over, liquid manure, weird growth hormones and god knew what else from Neusteader’s pig farm, salt and asphalt tracings from the highway and whatever the previous owners left. all leached into the water. The previous owners didn’t look quite so stupid anymore.
Down at the Seven Eleven they said, “Elmer should have known the goddamn place was a Superfund site. Supposed to have a disclosure on the property.” Elmer had never seen one.

He would’ve liked to blame the manufacturing plant. They put a restraining order on him and wouldn’t let him on the property. His lawyer said Elmer could look forward to about ten years of motions, if anything happened at all. Elmer found some special shoes to help him walk without toes.

Elmer got really pissed off at Kade Neusteader as well. He cornered Kade one day down at Seven Eleven. “You goddamn redneck, pig fucking, child beating asshole. Your goddamn pig shit, growth hormone, antibiotic runoff did this to me. You’re going to regret this for a long time.” He stumped off, laboriously got into his van and drove away in a spray of gravel.

Kade Neusteader never said a word during the whole thing. Stood there. Took it. Later a couple guys in dirty Carharts were talking. One said, “Some people get all upset about what they call our conditions out on County Q. But you know what? I see all this bullshit on the TV about the economy and taxes and free lunches and I’ll tell you one thing. You don’t see any of that out here on County Q. There’s no drag on the tax base out here. Anybody gives us any shit out here it’s into the pig pen with the fucker. All done. All through. It doesn’t matter how much of an asshole a person is. Pigs’ll eat anything.”

This last Seven Eleven conversation took place after Elmer Mallard had been missing for two weeks. Sylvia didn’t report him gone for the first week. She got wrapped up in a few soap operas and didn’t notice. State Patrol caught wind of the pigs comment at the Seven Eleven. Two Troopers drove by and visited Kade Neusteader. Nothing came of it. There wasn’t one shred of evidence.

Elmer’s place was condemned; the well plugged. Sylvia took the television and her Sylvia Brown books and moved back to live with her mother in Eustaceville.

BIO: Larry Strattner formerly wrote out of a small room in northern Wisconsin. He has relocated to a small room in Eureka, California and released a good, shoot-em-up book on Kindle ebooks in January "The Geek Assassin". Since he’s not famous, it is a thirty dollar story for only four bucks. Currently it is only available on Kindle.

Interlude Stories: Joshua L. Swainston

PHIL’S FRIEND - JOSHUA L. SWAINSTON

Phil passed away last winter from a cheeseburger and since then the office hasn’t been the same. Shit, it took me three months just to open the front door. You work with someone as long as Phil and I had and it’s bound to happen. I think they call it a “bromance” or maybe a professional thing, I’m not sure. The front door reads PRIVATE EYES and under it Phil’s name is stenciled just above mine. Do I keep it up as a memorial? I’ve been debating it for months now. At first it didn’t seem right taking it down. Then it didn’t seem right leaving it up. But it’s kinda nice to see that some things don’t change.

I was there when it happened, over at Patty’s on 8th. It was lunch, maybe closer to two. When I was in the service, a lifetime ago, I had to go through a first aid class. They teach you how to put pressure on cuts and help treat shock victims. The class didn’t prepare me for what happened. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. I thought people fought when they choked on something. Like they made noise and went blue first. Phil took one bite of the burger and fell over. The ambulance came and went. Then Phil was gone.

I wish his mail would stop coming. Stacks of the shit come every day: Reader Digest promos, Field and Stream, credit card applications. It doesn’t stop. I asked Betty, she’s the gal that delivers the post, and she said she’d put in a stop request. No luck. Still getting piles of the stuff. Some weeks I’m taking out the trash bin just for his mail.

I was working late three nights ago. That is to say I’d been working on a cheating husband case. All those cases involve late nights. My Canon ate a whole roll of Kodachrome and I had to clean out the gunk before going back to the apartment where this guy was doing his wife’s baby sister. Anyway, I was at the office and this letter popped in through the mail slot. It was about eleven at night. I knew Betty hadn’t dropped it off. By the time the letter registered and I got to the door, the hallway was deserted.

The letter was addressed to Phil. The handwriting on the envelope was this sweet bubbly crap that could only have come from a young woman. The flowing arches of the “P” and “H” in Phil’s name carried whimsy. There wasn’t any return address. I tossed it into the bin and continued working on the camera. I had to get over to catch the cheating husband so I could wrap up this deal and collect the check. The camera got working again, but before I ran out the door to snap the incriminating shots, something stopped me. I can’t say it was a power greater than myself because, shit, when did anything spiritual help me? But I stayed. The cheating husband would have to wait. That letter was bugging me.

When you’re in the private dick game you get used to strange messages dropped on you. Anonymous calls, clandestine meetings, and random letters showing up in the middle of the night. Sometimes evidence that no one wants to admit they have. Other times it’s from people who want to hire you, but don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. Most of the time it’s lonely people who think the government is tracking them through robots in their teeth. You learn to ignore it. But this letter dug into me. If it was from a personal friend or someone related to Phil, then they would have known he was dead. If it was from a client, then why didn’t they just leave the envelope blank or just put the obligatory “to private eye”? No, Phil’s name was written out, along with the office address. The damn thing even had a stamp on it. Someone wanted this letter read, and now. I had to give it a look.

I took the little blade of my Swiss Army Knife and surgically slit the top of the envelope. Inside rested a pink lined sheet of paper. The note said something about a missing person. Cousin lost. Came all the way from Kansas. Tried to make it in the big city. I could almost hear her Mid-western accent in the gate of her penmanship. I’ve read this one before. Shit, I have a whole filing cabinet full of this exact letter. The part that made the case jump, made it interesting or, should I say, made it irresistible was this: “I know you are not Phil.”

If she knew Phil wouldn’t be getting the letter then why didn’t she address it to me? My name is scrawled on the door too. The ad is still listed in the phone book with both names. It’s not like I’m invisible. How did she know Phil wouldn’t be getting the letter?

At the end of the pink note there was an address. I knew it well. The Riverside Motel, a dive made famous for being cut-rate with little police involvement. I’d say an honest third of the missing person cases, and most of the surveillance gigs, have some run-in there. Definitely not the sort of place for a girl with bubbly handwriting.

Riverside Motel reeked of desperation and chaos this time of night so I wanted to put it off until morning. But the note, the entire idea of it, wasn’t going to let me go until I checked it out. So I hopped into the Chevy and cruised down towards the docks. The summer’s night air helped clear my head before I got there.

When I rolled up, the motel was all lit up like Christmas for the unwashed. A neon sign showcased local cheap beer. A woman in a red mini skirt asked, “Baby, wanna go around the world?” I wasn’t sure if that was a reference to drugs or sex.

The room number specified in the note led me to a door on the second floor. From the peep hole I could see that the light was on inside. I knocked. Shuffling sounds on the other side of the door. The peep hole went dark. A gruff male voice coughed, “What the fuck you want asshole?”

This was not the voice of a person with bubbly handwriting. I didn’t answer. Bust, I guess. If she’d been at the joint earlier, then she wasn’t there now. It happens. I had played a long shot, or a random shot, or a shot in the dark. Whatever, it hadn’t paid off.

I got into the Chevy and drove. It wasn’t hard to convince myself to get out of the shithole as fast as I could. Not too late yet, so I headed back to the office to snag my camera. Might still be able to get a few scathing photos of the cheating couple.

When I returned to the office I got that crimp in the back of my neck that tells me something’s fishy. It’s like when old guys can tell you if it’s going to rain by their bum knee.

From the sight of the office door I could tell this was going to be a very long night. The door frame had been manhandled by a crowbar. Funny, I was pretty sure I hadn’t locked up when I left.

She was thirty, maybe younger. I had never been good at telling ages. She dressed in an expensive get up. A long black evening gown like Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. A black trench coat draped around her shoulders flowed around her like a cape as she searched my office. She rooted through a section of files that I hadn’t thought about since Phil died. Just old cases. Nothing special. Well maybe not special to me, but special enough to stage a ruse and break in to an unlocked office. There was a methodical quality about the whole thing that made me want to observe the specimen rather than barge in right away. I stood in the doorway and watched. She was so intent on what she was looking for she didn’t see me.

“What you looking for? I could help and make it loads easier on both of us.”

She stopped. “Oh, I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“Well, that’s the thing about a red herring. When they don’t pan out there isn’t much to keep it going.”

“You’re going to call the cops, I guess.” I could tell she was eyeing the door.

“Not yet. Why don’t you tell me what you’re looking for first?”

She let out a big sigh. Her eyes fell to the floor. I could tell whatever she was going to say it was going to be a lie. “It’s a paternity case. Phil helped me out a few years a back. I need the medical records that prove all of it.”

“Did the case get wrapped up? You should have any information my partner found for you.”

“I had it, but I lost it.” She started to scratch under her left ear. The nervous tick reminded me of late night televised poker players. They call it a “tell”, I think.

“Let me see what I can do for you. When was the case?” She knew something more than she let on.

“April, three years ago.”

I started over to the file cabinet and was immediately shocked that she didn’t rocket out of the room. “April. Well there’s your problem. You’ve been looking in November.”

“Did I say April? I must have meant November.” She scratched her ear again.

I pulled the entire month of November of that year and set it on the desk. A six-inch stack of paper and manila file folders. Taking a seat at my desk, I started from the beginning. She stood on the other side leaning over me.

As I worked, I made small talk. “What’d you say your name was again?”

“I didn’t. You can call me Ashley.”

“That was a pretty good trick writing that fake note.”

“I wasn’t sure that it’d get your attention.”

“It did.” I flipped through the files one by one. Missing persons. Insurance fraud. Infidelity. The occasional high-end theft. A lot of pictures of a lot of people doing unscrupulous things. “You know, the door wasn’t locked.”

“It wasn’t? Oh that’s all right. I always wanted to bust into a place. Haven’t had many opportunities. It always looks fun in the movies.”

“Sure does.” I smiled at her. She was different from the regular chicks that come around here. It was refreshing. “But now I gotta get a guy down here tomorrow. So, why the fancy get up?”

“Passersby don’t question a woman in an evening gown. If I wore a ski mask while prying open your door, then someone might get suspicious. A dress like this, no one cares what I’m doing. It makes it look legitimate.”

“Makes sense.”

“What was that?” She pointed at an eight-by-ten still of Phil scoping out a torn up hotel room.

“That’s Phil.”

“I know that. What’s the picture for?”

I scanned the rest of the papers in the file. “It’s from a case where a stripper tossed a room after a drug binge and split on the tab. Looks like we went after the room fees for the owners. No evidence per se. Just a fake credit card. A few descriptions from the other guests. Standard stuff.”

“Did you ever get a look at the girl?” She scratched her ear again.

“The stripper? Not that I remember.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

Ashley’s back and neck went ridged. She took a step back. Out of her matching handbag she pulled a Luger P08. Don’t ask how I know that. Even though I was in the service, I can only pick out maybe three handguns by sight. This just happened to be one of them. She didn’t hold the gun limp wristed like an amateur. No, she held the weapon firm and straight. She had it trained on my center mass.

“What’s that for?”

“This is nothing.”

“Looks like a gun.”

“You’re smart. Why don’t you figure the rest out?”

I leaned back in my desk chair. “You could be the stripper in question. But with those clothes, I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Girls that trash up hotel rooms on a drug binge usually don’t wear cocktail dresses or carry German handguns. But then again, women dressed like you are capable of some strange things.”

“You’re right. I’m not the stripper.”

“I figure you were sent by someone. Maybe someone connected.”

“Right. You know I’m not going to like killing you.”

“So what’s the story? I’ve been a good boy. I’ve played along. Give me the run down.”

“Hired by a prominent family. They want to clean up all the records of their daughter’s earlier, let’s call them, mishaps.” She flashed a smile. “Just tying up loose ends.”

“Is daddy running for president or something?”

“Something like that.”

It was three o’clock. I could hear the bells from St. Anthony’s on “I” street. “The next move?”

“I take the file. Probably burn it.”

“But there isn’t any evidence. The file has nothing.”

“It has eyewitness accounts. It has pictures. That’s enough for my client to be concerned.”

“I’m still not getting all this. Why all the trouble? The deception? The old file?”

“I was hoping my little trick would throw you off for a while but you came back before I could get what I needed. Everything else is simple really. See, we all have a job to do. I’m just a hired hand like you.”

“Huh. You’re not going to let me just hand you the file, are you? There isn’t any way you’re not going to shoot me?”

“No. Having told you all this, you’re now a loose end.”

“That blows. I thought you were kinda cute.”

“Thanks.” And with that gesture of gratitude the lying bitch shot me, the bullet smashing into my right shoulder.

I faded in and out for a long while. I might have pissed myself or it might have been blood running down the front of my slacks. Either way it was wet where it shouldn’t have been.

The sun came up and the room took on the hum of natural morning light. At some point I was shaken awake and I remember seeing Betty hovering above me in her blue postwoman’s get up. She looked like an angel. That’s how I knew I was still kicking. I’m pretty sure after I die, if there is an afterlife for me, it’s going to be some place without angels.

I’ve been sitting in the hospital since then. One of the nurses tells me I’m at Harbor View. The whole time I lay here in the bed with tubes hanging out of me, I’m thinking that Ashley could have killed me if she wanted. I guess I should be thankful.

There might be more to the story. I can’t be too sure. I’ve lost a lot of blood.

BIO: Half the year Joshua lives in Tacoma, Washington, with his wonderful wife and child. The other half of the year he works on tug boats in Alaska. Frequently he writes for the Weekly Volcano, Tacoma’s local arts paper, as a features writer. His fiction work can be seen in the spring 2012 edition of The First Line. For fun he also posts a monthly blog Purge.

Interlude Stories: Dana C. Kabel

FREE LIKE SHERRY - DANA C. KABEL

Schiff got the gun and I got the knife, cause that was what they threw in the center of the ring and the knife was the quickest thing I could grab onto.

Course, a gun ain’t nothing but a club when there’s no bullets in it, and old Schiff found that out the hard way when it made that empty clicking sound in his hand. Just steel on steel and the dog fart dry gasp that came out of his mouth when he realized he grabbed the shitty end of the stick.

Mr. Mason started laughing hard in the gallery up above us. I knew that it was him because he has a loud bark...what some people might call a guffaw...and he laughs at a lot of things that most people wouldn’t find so funny.

Even in the life and death situation I was in, I could picture Mr. Mason in his Sam’s Club suit chomping on a fat cigar and grabbing his trophy girlfriend’s pretty little ass while he watched us go about killing each other.

“Kill that pussy sonofabitch!” An angry voice shouted. “Stab him in the neck!”

I looked at Schiff and truly felt guilty about the scared look in his eyes because that was exactly what I was thinking about doing. He started backpedaling as I charged forward with the long blade held high above my head, ready to stab him.

Schiff backed himself against the wall as I closed in and squinted his eyes as he clenched up, cause he thought he was done for. But thinking about putting a knife in someone and actually doing it are two different things entirely, so I guess when it came down to the moment of truth I closed my own eyes up pretty good, too.

Our bodies smacked together and a sharp pain rang up my arm and I heard the knife clang to the floor. That was because I stabbed the block wall behind Schiff and the blade just bounced off.

We opened our eyes at the same time and Schiff pushed me off and came at me with the gun in his hand like the little club it had become. Something snapped in me then and the fear went right out of me.

I guess I was mad that I had missed my chance and now old Schiff was gonna get his turn at me because of it. It didn’t help none that Mr. Mason was shouting all sorts of obscenities at me, calling me a worthless piece of shit and what not.

And it wasn’t just the words he was throwing at me. Mr. Mason had called me lots worse lots of other times. But the fact he was putting me down like that in front of that little gal...

Well, tell the truth that little gal was the prettiest damned girl I’d ever seen in my life and it gulled me from the start to see her under Mr. Mason’s thumb the way she was.

Her name was Sherry, and she was too pretty and young to be with a fat old ugly man like Mr. Mason. Sherry should have been some place nice and clean with someone nice and good who would treat her right.

It...it was an abomination that he was in her life the way he was.

I probably shouldn’t have been thinking about all that when there was a man trying to bludgeon me to death with the butt end of an eight inch .44 magnum. If you never held one of those before, I can tell you it’s a heavy piece of iron.

I snapped out of my own head almost a second too late and dodged just enough so that the butt of that pistol just glanced off my thick skull. Even so, that was enough of a slap to bring my mind back to Earth all the way.

After I staggered back in line, I saw Schiff coming in with another swing and I come up under his chin with my hard elbow and knocked him on his ass.

The wind went right outta him when he hit the ground, but old Schiff held right onto that Smith. That was until I healed back and kicked it away from him like Charlie Brown connecting with Lucy’s football for the first time.

There was a loud crack as Schiff’s wrist broke and the gun went skittering across the floor.

Schiff howled like a gut shot coon hound and old Mr. Mason started his disgusting pig-donkey laugh again.

Schiff got to his feet again, cause giving up ain’t an option in the game we were playing. Mr. Mason makes it clear to anyone going in the ring that one way or another only one man comes out alive. Even if one fella just gives out or gives up, Mr. Mason’s men make sure they don’t crawl out of the pit.

The fella that comes out of that pit alive gets one hundred thousand dollars, which ain’t peanuts from Mr. Mason takes in from all the wagers. But it’s enough for a guy like me to steal away a pretty little thing like Sherry and dust out of town.

If I could have afforded to feel bad for old Schiff I would have. I did give him some room though, while he pulled his sorry self up to his feet with his broke wrist cradled to his body like a lame wing.

“Let’s make it interesting,” Mr. Mason shouted. Then one of his men threw a handful of bullets out onto the floor.

Schiff dove for those bullets like he was trying to cover ‘em all up with his body. I went for the gun.

He was scrambling them all together with his one good arm when I walked up to him with the Smith in my hand. Schiff grinned as he showed me the handful of bullets he had gathered up before he dropped them into his pocket.

Then I showed him the one bullet I had snatched up on my way to getting the gun and his grin went away.

Schiff fell back and closed his eyes and started breathing quick and shallow. Mr. Mason brayed like a damned fool as I held the bullet high above my head for the cheering crowd to see.

I snapped the Smith open and put that lone bullet in the cylinder and snapped it shut again.

“Say your prayers, Schiff,” I said.

He started weeping. I cocked the gun and pointed it at his head.

Then I looked up at Mr. Mason with his fat cigar sticking out of his fat headed grin. He had a drink in one hand and his other dirty hand all over that sweet looking Sherry, who was looking away from it all.

That pig owned that poor girl the same as he owned me and Schiff. Only, Sherry was like his fancy car or boat or plane and me and Schiff was like his dogs.

Mason gave the girl that big shot look of his and I pictured him doing a thousand filthy things to her in my mind and knew that it just wasn’t right. When she turned her head up to look back at him, Sherry gave that pig the darndest little grin and nuzzled tight to him under his fat arm. I knew right then that pretty gal would never go off with me cause that bastard ruint her.

Then he put his drink down and raised his thumb up like a emperor in the Coliseum.

The crowd roared. They all had money put on it one way or the other.

Mason turned his thumb over and pointed it down and the crowd went bat shit crazy with blood lust. Like he was pulling the trigger his own self.

And just like that, I swung the Smith up and fired.

That sweet young girl’s head snapped back and blood sprayed outta the back of her skull. There was one great gasp from the crowd and everything went so quiet I could hear the death fart go outta Sherry’s body. I knew that at that moment the stink of her dead body shitting itself was filling Mason’s nostrils.

He recoiled away from her just as the crowd snapped out of their shock and started mobbing for the exits.

I sat down on the ground next to old Schiff and closed my eyes and waited for Mason’s goon squad. In another minute me and Schiff would be free like Sherry.

BIO: Dana C. Kabel’s stories have appeared in A Twist of Noir, Black Heart Magazine, Darkest Before The Dawn, The Flash Fiction Offensive, Muzzleflash, Mysterical-E, Out of the Gutter, Powder Flash Burn, and Yellow Mama. He blogs at www.thenonstopbullet.blogspot.com

Interlude Stories: Steve Prusky

THE CLUB VEGAS BUS - STEVE PRUSKY

“Chauncey.”

“Sam.” The cellmates do not shake hands.

“Rules: I drive this bus. You ride. Stay quiet. Snore, I’ll slap you. No beating off. Don’t fuck with my shit. Top bunk is mine.”

“Whatever’s clever.”

“What’s your crime?”

“Probation violation; Bigamy.”

Chauncey--amused--coughs, spits up phlegm. “Bigamy! Your first conviction?”

“Possession with Intent to Sell.”

“You don’t divorce wife one before you marry wife two. You’re already on paper. Two snoops some and voilà; home is jail--‘Club Vegas’ we call it. Yup, you’re a crass criminal all right; foot in the gutter, foot in the grave... Scared a you.”

“Wife one lives in Wyoming. State needs her testimony or the judge will dismiss. She won’t. She’s mother to my kids. I’m violated anyway; dishonorable discharge from probation--Two years in Carson City all over a farce comedy for a case.”

“Been to Carson City; Indian Springs, Ely, too. They took my previous cellmate to Ely. Trafficking. Twenty-five to life. Twenty-three hour lock-down. They’ll let us out for dinner soon. You take his seat across from me at chow. At the table we got each other’s back.”

“Eyes in our backs, huh.”

“Smart man!”

An oriental trustee trots cell-to-cell, chimes “CHOW-TINE... CHOW TINE... CHOW TINE.” Chow Tine nods to the bull he is done. Fifty cell door locks simultaneously click open. The detainees form a line on the central floor for their plastic trays heaped with 600 calories of quality soup kitchen nutrition.

“They let us out on the floor eight hours a day. Sometimes fights start for the phone. Gang bangers mostly. They won’t fuck with we unaffiliated ones, though. We’re locked down sixteen hours daily; longer if there‘s trouble.”

“Why’er you here?”

“Forgery. Cashed a bad check. DA’s going for the ‘Big Bitch’. My public defender’s lost in the sauce; hasn’t done shit but help keep me locked up here with asinine motions to discover. Hired a real lawyer. I appear tomorrow; case dismissed--easy. Been shuffling through the system four months. Soon you’ll drive this bus... Oh shit, lamb. I can’t eat lamb. Eating lamb’s as close to eating human flesh as you can get.”

“There’s a little bitch?”

“Habitual Criminal Act. Two parts. Get convicted on the ‘Little Bitch’ it’s seven years minimum, fifteen max. The ‘Big Bitch’? Twenty-five to life. You gotta do the ‘Little Bitch’ to qualify for the ‘Big Bitch’. I’m eligible for the ‘Big Bitch’. Combined, that’s thirty-two years. Here, take my lamb and bread. Makes two sandwiches. Gimme your dessert.”

Sam wishes for mustard to liven the taste of the over processed ash grey fleshy slabs of meat.

“Nevada got the death penalty, too, in case you’re thinking of offing number two over this.”

They convict Chauncey--more so for wasting his life than kiting paper.

*

Sam offers his hand in friendship. “Sam,” he says to his new cellmate.

The stranger ignores Sam’s gesture. “Look, I been to ‘Club Vegas’ before, so listen good; I own this bus...”

BIO: Steve writes, lives and works in Las Vegas. His work has appeared in The Legendary, Flash Fiction Offensive, Whistling Fire, Short, Fast and Deadly and others. All his previously published work can be found at sprusky@blog.com.

Interlude: Submissions Closed

I have to take the step to shut submissions to A Twist Of Noir at this time, due to a gigantic backlog. I want to get to those stories and give them their due respect, as well as finish out the 600 To 700 Challenge.

So if you've recently submitted a story, please bear with me and know that I will get to your story in as short a time as possible.