A Twist Of Noir 433 - Chris Deal

STILL LIFE - CHRIS DEAL

The cold drained all color from the birthing day, the sky and clouds reflecting a smear of gray uniform over the surface of the water, the same as the dirt and the rotting plants. The mirror of the lake smooth and unconcerned with the world beyond its shores. The stillness, the quiet echoed in the ears of the two men honored to witness such tranquility.

There were words hanging unsaid between them, but to violate the muted still life was taboo. Any words they may have wished to say became unnecessary as they stood on the shore, muscles in spasm because of the bleak dawn. Their eyes made contact for a moment that hung like creation over their forms. One man swallowed the coming deed, accepting the essential nature. Things done cannot be undone. The reaction had been in place for years, every day bringing the two men closer to the shore where they stood, ankle-deep in mud and sand, every day of their beings propelling them towards the shore.

For so long they stood reveling in the bitter moments until there was an arc of motion, and the first man broke the stillness with an action irrecoverable and the hush was splintered away, the surface of the water disturbed by the introduction of a new element. The man stood stoic as his heart struggled, the beats slowing, pumping less and less as the substance of him leaked into the lake. His eyes bore an apology and he slumped into the water.

The ripples reverberated throughout the surface until the energy was distributed and was finished, and the water and the man were still, the survivor's nostrils burning with the exploded powder, his hands shaking, the very atoms of the offending object humming a note that became one with the landscape.

BIO: Chris Deal writes from Huntersville, North Carolina. When his debut collection, Cienfuegos, was released by Brown Paper Publishing, he fried plantains to commemorate. His fiction and poetry has been seen in Powder Burn Flash, Darkest Before the Dawn, Word Riot, and a few other places. Check Chris Deal out at Chris Deal.

A Twist Of Noir 432 - Matthew C. Funk

GO CUP - MATTHEW C. FUNK

State Trooper Terry Favors knew the red Dodge Viper even before he pulled it over to the salt-and-pepper edge of the 129. Only one man drove a Dodge Viper the shiny, slick red of the inside of an asshole. Trooper Favors knew he’d be trouble.

Add that to the son of a bitch already filling up the better part of the Cruiser’s backseat, and Favors figured he was handling more trouble than a man had since the time of the Bible.

He popped the catch on his pistol. It was for effect more than anything. He hoped the man in the backseat saw it more than he hoped the Viper driver did. He opened the Maglite’s beam and cut a band of pale light, brewing with midges and motes, out of the thick darkness. Favors followed the beam up to the driver's side window.

“Evening,” said the occupant. A face like a drunken Fozzie Bear—just hints of bloodshot cheeks peeking through a bristly mass of dirty blond beard—squinted into the Maglite beam. Favors noticed the driver was wearing a tan linen shirt and that his usual hat—a foam baseball cap declaring loyalty to the local high school football team, the Mighty Trojans—was replaced by a carpet of pomade.

Ray Ray was dressed for something special tonight, Favors figured. He took the driver’s license Ray Ray was practically shoving at him. Snorting the snot-thick Louisiana air, Favors scanned it.

Conway Pettifour. Companion of many, friend to none, here about Ferriday. ‘Connie’ would have done nicely as a nickname, which is why, of course, the locals named him ‘Ray Ray.’

Favors tossed the license back in the car. Ray Ray’s bushy face went a hotter shade of pink. He kept looking into the Maglite, but not for long, Favors knew.

“You know why I pulled you over?”

“You know why you shouldn’t’ve?” Ray Ray quipped back.

Favors did. He saw the answers to both questions sitting just beyond Ray Ray: a Go-Cup filled with the better part of a bottle of Jack and ice. And, just beyond it, peeking out from a creased copy of Low Rider Magazine, the black butt of a Glock pistol.

Favors breathed out slow. It made no difference to the heavy night. Heat kept on making a fist around him. It kept kicking at the base of his heart. He could feel the eyes of the man in the back of the Cruiser on him as plainly as he could smell the sharp, dangerous smell of the Jack baking off Ray Ray.

“You want to put you hands up on the dash there, nice as laying table.” Favors said it in his best Kindergarten-teacher tone. Ray Ray’s hands weren’t moving before, but they got to moving now, drifting toward the Glock.

“I was just reaching to get—” Ray Ray said.

“I know what you was reaching to get, and we’ll get around to that in a moment. Right now, hands on the dash.”

“I don’t mean to cause you no trouble.” Ray smiled fit for a Sunday school picture.

“Trouble’s what you are all the same.”

“That is an unkind statement.” The smile got wider. “I’m guessing your momma was the kind that made you cut your own switch. You lack for love in your life, Trooper Favors.”

Mention of Mama got Favors blood humming above the whine of the mosquitoes all around. She was a gentle soul, more interested in collecting old vinyl and collecting belt marks from Favors’ father than anything else. Favors would neither nominate her for Sainthood or for censure. Still, her mention didn’t deserve being in the mouth of a mean little drunk like Ray Ray.

Favors resolved then to roll hard—roll hard and enjoy it.

“Don’t you cut cute with me. This drinking and driving shit ain’t funny by half.”

“No, sir.” Ray Ray didn’t lose the smile.

“It’s about as funny as a run-over toddler in a raincoat.”

Ray Ray snickered.

“Oh you do think that's funny, hm?” Favors shoved the flashlight forward. He could see every inch of Ray Ray’s skin crawling with tension—the firing pins of his whiskers, the trip wire muscles in his cheeks, all the bad chemicals bulging the veins on forehead and throat. Ray Ray could only see the star of the Maglite and the darkness around. "Or maybe you think you gonna get the better of me, so’s you’re free to laugh. You’re a free man, hm? Born free.”

“No, sir.” Ray Ray looked as lost as his smile.

“What you are is about a coon hair away from getting a thirty-eight round through that smile, courtesy of the taxpayer, ’cause what with all your laughing and cutting wise, I know you just throwing up a smokescreen to hide that nice, shiny Glock you got from my attention.”

Now Ray Ray’s Fozzie face looked as stupid as it should. He looked stupid and scared. And how Favors liked that. His heart was laughing at the heaviness and the heat now. How he liked—no, loved—power. He would shine his badge with his dick if it didn’t leave streaks.

“Naw. I—” Ray Ray blubbered.

“You. You what?”

Ray Ray had nothing to say.

“Let me tell you what: You ain’t a very sensible man.” Favors set his hand on his pistol. “A sensible man being pulled over by a State Trooper with a gun in his car and liquor on his breath, he’d fetch up that gun fast as you please and tuck it in a seat pocket or beneath the seat or somewhere’s out of both sight and reach.”

“Naw, I—”

“You listen. A less-than-sensible man—a King Hell crazy dumb shit like yourself—he gets pulled over and he keeps the gun in reach.” Favors put the Maglite beam on the Glock. “’Cause this dumb shit, he’s not thinking of hiding the evidence. He’s thinking of putting a bullet in the trooper and flooring it on down the highway, like he was Clyde Barrow. He thinks he’s some kind of outlaw legend. You think you’re Clyde Fucking Barrow?”

“Naw, I—”

“Goddamn, you say that a lot.” Favors made Ray Ray flinch. The man fidgeted in his seat. Favors could see that was all the fight he had in him. Caught in the Maglite, red hands on the dash, Ray Ray was too dumb to know whether to hit or run. He just stared like the overgrown playground bully he was. “Well, you right for once. You ain’t Clyde Barrow. You ain’t even Clyde Drexler. You just some King Hell crazy dumb shit who got lucky. You know why you got lucky?”

“Naw.”

Favors paused. He thought on Ray Ray and his luck. Ray Ray had come into the Viper by winning the lottery. The payout was 200 grand, and Ray Ray had spent every dime on that car, all so he could drive it around Ferriday and over to his few friends in Mississippi.

Favors sighed. Ray Ray was a fool, and sometimes he was a bully, but he was a sentimental one. He was no mad dog. He had a soul, even if it was a stupid one.

And there was no way Favors was putting him in the backseat of the Cruiser with the other man.

“You got lucky two reasons.” Favors worked the waver out of his voice that the thought of Ray Ray and the man in the Cruiser being locked in together put there. “One, ’cause I'm about as nice a man as ever roamed these roads setting them right. I seen fit to put some sense into your head rather than a bullet. Now put your eyes on the dash, keep ’em there, and move that Glock up to me by the barrel.”

Ray Ray set his eyes on the Viper’s burn-marked dash. Favors set his eyes on Ray Ray. The Glock soon bobbed into view.

“Tip of the barrel.” Favors corrected Ray Ray.

He took the Glock and set it in the back of his gun belt.

“Alright. Now the whiskey.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now that Go Cup you got.”

Ray Ray actually gagged. One hand began to raise from the dash.

“Wait a moment now.”

“Come again?”

Ray Ray’s hand set back down. His teeth set, too, though. And some of that sneering meanness began to sparkle back into Ray Ray’s squint and stick in his jaw’s muscles.

“You know who I am?” Ray Ray snorted.

Favors didn’t care. With the Glock no longer at risk from Ray Ray’s idiocy, Favors felt he could play the kid like the muppet he resembled. “You want me to know who you are?”

“Hunh?”

“’Cause we covered that I know what you are. And I pity the dumb. Not a whole lot. Just a little. But I do. And the second reason you lucky tonight, is that as mean as you may think you is, in your infinite ignorance, you ain’t deserving being thrown into the back of my cruiser with the man I got in there now.”

Favors’ blood raced a bit faster.

“Oh.”

“Mhm.”

“Who you got back in there now?”

“You know who Stagger Lee Crannock is?”

And, of course, Ray Ray did. They’d killed hangovers together up at Slow’s Diner, shot the shit on many a purple-bellied morning up at old Beanie Hollins’ cabin by the reservoir, seen the same Strip Clubs to closing together. But of the little Ray Ray knew in this world, he knew to play dumb when it came to knowing Stagger Crannock. Ray Ray played dumb well. He was a regular method actor.

“Naw.” Ray Ray probably wasn’t even aware he nodded while he said it.

“Just naw?”

“Naw?”

“‘Naw, more than naw?’”

“Huh?”

“No, ‘Naw, I—’?”

“Naw.”

“Well, I’ll tell you.” Favors’ thoughts went to the man at the back of the Cruiser—Stagger—and began to dredge stories from his messy, poisonous past. “Stagger Lee back there once pushed a baby buggy out onto the 15 just for a laugh. He the one we think burned up his own buddy, Beanie Hollins, for God knows what reason. Right now, I picked him up for shooting some lady in her own home, right front of her kids, ’cause he thought that lady was getting lustful ideas about Stagger’s girl.”

Ray Ray’s face looked like Favors had read him a racing form he had no money on. He was blank, his eyes circles and his jaw a waiting line.

“Any of this surprise you? You don’t look surprised.”

“Naw, I’m surprised.” Ray Ray blinked to prove it.

“Well you keep on being surprised, ’cause I’m letting you go.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Favors didn’t lean back, though. He kept his lean belly on the Viper’s door, kept that heavy beam burning through Ray Ray’s eyes into what was left his brain, kept the highway gravel in his voice. And he was a bit hard, where his crotch pressed that asshole-red door. He was hard as his badge.

Favors shut the laughter from his voice, barely.

“Goddamn, don’t thank me, thank Jesus.” Favors gave Ray Ray’s door a little fuck. He was up one pistol and two outlaws. This night was about perfect. “If it were up to me, I’d have you drying in the tank by now, with this piece-of-ass-magnet up in impound. You would be a notch on my belt. But Christ saw fit to put a pitbull in sunglasses in the backseat of my cruiser tonight. And while I’m trying to keep a sense of humor about it, I don’t like the idea of that animal in the same company as another human being.”

“No, sir.”

“Especially not locked in together.”

“Oh, no, sir.”

“So now that I’ve seen you sobered up, and you about to hand over that Go Cup—” Favors shot the Maglite at the cup of Jack. It was a shiny polycarbonate model, the kind of plastic that looked like it would survive the Earth falling into the sun. On it, a woman’s vast and succulent ass was detailed with the kind of evocative geometry worthy of a Renaissance master. A parade of stars in spangled pastel formed the word ‘RUMPS.’

Ray Ray put himself between Favors and the Go-Cup.

“Officer Favors, could I just—?”

“No, you cannot ‘just’ nothing; you hand it over right now.”

“Officer, it’s a very rare—” Ray Ray whined, and this was true: Not only was the Go-Cup a thing of beauty, Rumps had closed down years ago. Favors knew his collectors’ Go-Cups well: College Basketball Go-Cups, Gun Show Go-Cups, winning season Go-Cups. They came in plastic and pretty colors and all kinds of patterns—eagles and flags and tits and asses, and a whole menagerie of cartoon animals with collegiate letters on. A State Trooper was a connoisseur of Go-Cups, the best buddy of the boozed driver. Favors knew what he was doing. Best he keep the conversation moving fast.

“Lord have mercy, you test the patience.” Favors put the Maglite close enough that Ray Ray’s forehead began to feel the heat. “You think you my friend? I seen retards look smarter than you, and you’re dumber than you look.”

“Well, now, there’s no cause for unkindness—” Ray Ray started, Favors talking right over him.

“I got you on gun charges, on what I’d lay money is probably your tenth DUI, and I’m about to throw you in the back with the big, bad fuckin’ wolf who shot a PTA mom over poontang.”

“But it’s like an heirloom of sorts.”

“So either it’s coming out the car, or you and that list of crimes are.”

Ray Ray glanced back at the Cruiser. Was he looking for help? Cursing Stagger? Thinking on how jail—even prison—might be easier than the loss of the Go-Cup? Favors savored the moment by wondering on it.

Ray Ray sighed.

“Yes, sir.” He picked up the cup, paused before it crossed the threshold of the Viper’s window.

“Can I kiss it goodbye?” Ray Ray whined.

“No, you may not.”

“Goodbye, Rump Cup.”

Favors snatched it and made a show of pouring out the drink on the road. The ice clattered and smoked on the gravel.

“You get on now.”

“Really?”

“Get.” Favors shook out the cup.

“Alright. Thank you.”

“Naw, see, now, you weren’t listening.” Favors’ smirk was hidden by the Maglite. Ray Ray might have seen it as he paused in starting the Viper. “You get to Church of Christ up on 425, you thank the Lord.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I be driving by there in 15 minutes; I want to see your car parked outside.”

“Yes, sir.”

“It better be empty; you be inside, on your knees, thoughts in heaven.” Favors was ambling back to the Cruiser, the brew of darkness closing around the distance to the Viper, the eyes of the man in the Cruiser hotter than the river evening. The Viper roared back to the jungle crushing either side of the highway. Ray Ray waved.

“Yes, sir. I be there repenting.”

I bet you will, Favors thought. In this evening of heat and things half-seen, he felt hard and bright as a badge.

Favors slid into the Cruiser’s front seat. The whiskey tumbled next to his shotgun. The Go-Cup, he held up to the rearview mirror. It shone gold and platinum, the Holy Grail by a cabin light.

A smile like a messy razor sliced wider in the mirror. Out of it, out of Stagger, came a voice like neat bourbon. “I saw what you did, son.”

Favors frowned at him.

“I ain’t no son of yours. What you think you saw?”

“I saw what you did up there to that man’s property.” Stagger leaned in, sneer huge below the sunglasses and in his voice. His hand went for the panel in the cage that divided the Cruiser's front from the back.

“On the chance this conversation’s being recorded, I ain’t gonna repeat myself and risk bein’ proven a fool.” Favors set the Rumps Go-Cup in the cup-holder he had cleaned out, with products from Wal-Mart and everything, just for the occasion.

“Still and all, I saw.”

“You can keep it to yourself, then. I don’t lose no sleep.”

“You took an unlicensed gun off poor Ray Ray and let him go.” Stagger got a sharp look from Favors.

He also got the whiskey bottle handed to him through the cage.

“You join the FBI since I left the cruiser?” Favors didn't return Stagger’s smile. He was hooting on the inside, though.

“Then you took his Go-Cup.” Stagger kept the whiskey shut for now. He raised his cup instead.

“A mighty pretty polycarbonate specimen from the now-defunct-but-ever-beloved strip joint name of Rumps, of which only thirty remain.”

Favors looked at the gleaming Go-Cup in Stagger’s hand—that space-age plastic, that Renaissance ass. He raised his Go-Cup and clicked it against its twin with Stagger.

“And it’s mine now, so you can quit lording yours over me.”

“But then you threw out the whole contents onto a stretch of highway my tax dollars pay for, y’dumb beanpole!” Stagger raised Go-Cup, whiskey and eyebrows. He kept them up. Favors shrugged.

“So?”

“So what’d you go and do that for? We drive around all night a’ready lookin’ for the thing, an’ now we're gonna have to go by the drive-thru to get more ice?”

Stagger shook his head, frowning, as he refilled his Rumps Cup. Favors smirked as he started the Cruiser and turned on the siren. Friends could be plenty of trouble.

His finger wagged at the rearview mirror as he floored it, shoving the Cruiser into swelter and night.

“For a career criminal, Stagger Lee, you is one fussy son of a bitch sometimes.”

BIO: Matthew C. Funk is a professional writer in marketing for corporate America, a writing mentor and the author of several manuscripts that illuminate the beauty of human extremes. A graduate of the Professional Writing MFA at USC, his online work is featured at sites such as Powder Burn Flash; Thrillers, Killers and Chillers; A Twist of Noir; Pulp Metal Magazine; Flash Fiction Offensive; ThugLit; Six Sentences Volume 3 and his Web domain.

A Twist Of Noir 431 - Sandra Seamans

FOREVER AFTER - SANDRA SEAMANS

Mandy Jenkins settled the telephone receiver back in its cradle. Her hands moved instinctively to the gentle swell beneath her breasts, seeking a smidgeon of comfort, but she found none.

“That was Sheriff Lockland, Baby Girl. Fool man wants to come riding in here on his big old white horse and rescue me from your daddy. He might better spend his time slaying them nasty dragons. They’re the real problem in this fool world.”

“That’s right, Baby Girl, your daddy’s coming home. Got himself out of jail early for good behavior. My now, ain’t that a laugh and a half. He couldn’t do much else ’cept be good seeing as how there ain’t no guns, women or booze up there in that prison. Only four years out of ten for what he done to us. Don’t seem fair now, does it?”

“You think I ought to let Lockland save me, Baby Girl? Maybe he could get the job done. I know he did his best four years ago. He kept me hidden away from your daddy, helped me get up on that stand and testify to what your daddy did to me that night. He gave me courage, right enough, but once your daddy stepped through those prison gates, he left me to fend for myself. Ain’t it funny how the law believes you’re safe once your shit-for-brains husband is behind bars?”

“Why didn’t I run away? Oh, I tried, right enough, but your daddy’s brothers found me and dragged me back to this house of beatings and death. Told me it was my wifely duty to be here waiting when their brother got home. So here I am. Waiting.”

“Why? Cause there ain’t nothing else left for me. Besides, every marriage needs a settling-up, a time to even out the good and the bad.”

“Am I scared? Course I am, Baby Girl, but once your daddy and me settle accounts you and I will finally have a bit of peace. We’ll be our own little family, tucked away safe from all them fire-breathing dragons. The way I see it, Baby Girl, there ain’t no price too high when your heart aches with the wanting.”

Mandy tipped her head to the side, listening to the crunch of gravel through the screen door. “White knight or dragon, Baby Girl?”

Work boots clomped across the front porch followed by the screech of the screen door.

“No polite knocking at the door, gotta be the dragon.”

Bobby Jenkins’ long legs took all of five strides to cover the length of the hall and enter the kitchen where Mandy sat waiting for him. His face purpled with anger when he caught sight of his wife’s bulging belly.

“Who the hell you been sleeping with, woman?”

“No one, dear.” She smiled sweetly, her hand caressing the front of her maternity blouse. “This is our baby. Sweet Baby Girl. We’ve been waiting for you.”

“You’d best tell me who filled your belly, cause I know for sure it wasn’t me.” Bobby moved in closer until only the table stood between them, his hand balled into a fist. “Don’t make me beat the answer out of you, woman.”

“Like you did last time? Beating me unconscious, pounding on my body until there was nothing left but a cold, dead shell, and all because you came home late and your supper was cold.”

“It didn’t stop you from testifying against me though, did it? ’Sides I had every right to expect my supper to be kept warm no matter what the hell time I showed up. And you? You ain’t got no right complaining about what I did when you were out here humping every pair of jeans that crossed your path while I was cooling my ass in a jail cell.”

“Is that what your brothers told you? Well, you can believe them if you want, but Baby Girl is yours. She always has been and she always will be. Baby Girl is our only and forever child.”

Bobby’s fist slammed into Mandy’s jaw, but she just smiled at him, a chuckle escaping with the blood that dripped down her chin.

“What are you laughing at?”

“I’m imagining the look on the Sheriff’s face when he walks in here and finds me dead.”

“You ain’t dead.”

“Oh, I expect I will be, you’ll make sure of that. You hear that, Baby Girl? Our white knight has all the lights and sirens fired up tonight. Sir Lockland, riding in, sword drawn, to rescue the poor damsel in distress.”

“You been fucking the Sheriff? Setting me up so your boyfriend can kill me?” Bobby yanked the shotgun off the rack on the wall. He slid a pair of shells into the barrels, then placed the gun against Mandy’s chest.

“I know how to take care of both of you. Any last words for your boyfriend before I kill him?”

“Tell him me and Baby Girl are gonna be all right now.”

*

The Sheriff ran into the house, gun drawn. Mandy’s body lay crumpled and bleeding on the kitchen linoleum, a pink fuzzy pillow peeking out from under her shirt. Bobby was staring down at his wife, a bewildered expression on his face.

“Drop the gun, Bobby.”

“She wasn’t pregnant.”

“Of course she wasn’t. You not only killed your baby girl, but any hope that Mandy could ever have another child when you beat her half to death four years ago. Losing that hope beat the life out of her more than your fists ever could. Now, drop the gun.”

“I didn’t know. None of this makes any sense. Why would she pretend she was pregnant? She knew I’d be pissed off and do something stupid.” The shotgun clattered to the floor. “That Mandy girl set me up right pretty, didn’t she?”

The Sheriff kicked the shotgun off to the side. “No, you set yourself up, Bobby. You were always a mean bastard and that was never going to change. Mandy knew that, better than me. She took the only way out she could.”

BIO: You can find Sandra's stories scattered around the internet in places like Spinetingler, PulpPusher, and The Thrilling Detective. Her scattered thoughts about writing can be found at My Little Corner.

A Twist Of Noir 430 - Richard Godwin

WILFUL - RICHARD GODWIN

She’d known it for a long time, known it was coming like a freight train.

She could see it in her eyes when she looked in the mirror. The look, she called it, and it was the colour of open veins.

And, as Mary Jones, plain Mary Jones as her friends thought of her, sat down with her tea that morning, she stared out of her immaculate window onto the stretch of verdant lawn that sloped to the pond at the end and she knew. She knew this was her day.

The smell of bleach in the sink was overwhelming and she ran the tap until it faded.

Upstairs, she undressed and looked at herself in the mirror.

Then she donned her Agent Provocateur single string knickers and her Heaven’s Door dress, which offered a generous portion of cleavage to catch his eye.

She stood there admiring this new Mary in the mirror before reaching out a perfectly manicured hand and leaning on the edge of the dresser, as she slipped her delicately arched feet one after the other into her Minna Parikka lizard pink heels. Enough distraction for his roving eye.

Then she applied more lipstick, a deep Burgundy that invited penetration, pressing her lips between the tissue which she dropped to the floor. Suddenly, she stopped.

The fluttering white bird that landed on the carpet had summoned the rush of images and she felt a wave of nausea.

She ran to the bathroom and swallowed enough mouthwash to make her palate sting and remove that old brackish smell that was catching in her nostrils. She stood there and gripped the sterile sink with knuckles that were white with tension and looked at herself in the mirror until the odour was just a pale trace, like the contour of a dying bruise.

But it wasn’t enough.

Plain Mary was now sexy and desirable again, like a stolen object she had reclaimed but no longer wanted, and she hated it.

She reached into the bathroom cabinet and removed a small razor blade. Lifting her skirt, she pulled her knickers up to cut a deep and perfect centimetre of pain into her buttock. She watched the blood bead there a while and breathed deeply. Then she applied a plaster and turned out the light.

She knew what to do.

Over in the corner of her bedroom hung the black pleated skirt he raped her in.

She passed the boxes of newspaper cuttings and wholesale industrial bleach in the hallway and left the house.

*

It was a bright summer’s evening and the sun was dying when she got there, lost among the distant laughter of evening drinkers.

She could hear Rod Stewart croaking from inside. As she walked over to the bar, ‘the first cut is the deepest’ lacerated the air and stung her bruised heart. She ordered a gin and tonic which she took over to the corner where she sat in the gloom waiting for him, swirling the lemon and ice with her Pink Fever fingernail.

A few businessmen were coming in now, their laughter over-emphasised, their show of merriment the masquerade that held these men together.

They looked over in her direction and one of them said something which the others laughed at. She watched as he pulled his bulging wallet from his pocket and held it at the bar. The show of male hierarchy she had grown to accept like bad weather.

She removed a small mirror from her purse and checked her make-up.

‘He said I’m wilful,’ she said out loud. ‘Good. I look like a hooker, that should please him.’

She waited patiently and ordered another drink. It wasn’t long before he arrived as she knew he would, knowing his movements like a predator knows the smell of its quarry.

He sat at the table nearest to her and gave her the eye. She held his gaze long enough for him to think he knew what was on offer.

He sidled over.

‘Mind if I join you?’ he said, glass in hand.

‘Please, be my guest.’

He sat over from her and she saw his eyes drop and linger as he sipped his drink.

She crossed her legs.

‘Can I get you one?’

‘I’ve had enough. It’s too dark in here,’ she said.

‘Going somewhere?’

She leaned forward. ‘Do you have somewhere in mind?’

He laughed, the creases breaking across his face like scars and she wanted to cut them, wanted to drag her nails into him until he bled.

‘Take me somewhere,’ she said.

He tilted his glass back and she unwillingly zoned in on the thick black hairs that sprouted from his fat fingers, their ends glistening like wire. A nest of spiders crawled into her mind and she shuddered briefly before her resident anger stilled their scuttling legs.

‘How much?’

‘It depends what you want.’

He laughed again and she recalled how he laughed when he pulled out of her on the cold stone floor at the back of the offices, the semen dripping from him and landing on her thigh. She pressed her keys into her leg to stop herself giving it away.

‘I fancy something a little different.’

‘Massage?’ she said.

‘Yeah, I could do with a massage. I don’t even know your name.’

‘It’s Wilful.’

‘Wilful’, he said, ‘I like it.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yeah, I like bending a will.’

‘And what do you do when a will is broken?’

He stood up then and she followed him. He drove her in his car and she tuned his words out of her head and kept her hand firmly on her purse.

As he drove, a white bird flew past them and she was on her back again, the stone floor cold against her buttocks, some doves nestling on the shit-stained sill of a broken window overhead. A shard of glass pressing into her skin which she focused on to remove any consciousness of his lumbering above her in vile climax, like some actor in a film she was being forced to watch.

The sound of gentle cooing washed his voice away like a stain. And she saw again the spider lift its legs and feel its way across her skin as she tried to move, her frozen body pressed into the ground by his weight and become some corpse that she merely inhabited now like a broken tenant.

He pulled up at a small hotel and went in. She could smell that acrid smell again and she swallowed hard.

Inside the standard room, with its pleated curtains that made her feel angry, she watched and held her compulsion in her hand like a razor as he undressed without ceremony and lay on the bed.

‘Aren’t you gonna fix a price with me?’ he said. ‘First rule of business.’

‘I know you’ll pay me.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Just let me get what I need.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘You’ll see.’

She went into her purse and tucked it into the back of her skirt and said ‘Roll over.’ She watched as he lay there on his stomach, an object of no deserving mercy that lacked all vulnerability.

‘You think I’m wilful?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Do you think I’m wilful?’

‘What are you talking about?’

She began to rub his shoulders, quietening him, his flesh like leprosy in her hands.

Then she pulled his jockeys down and, as he turned, he saw it in her hand and reached up.

She kicked out, the tip of her stiletto catching him in the chest, drawing blood, and then she sliced that object of revulsion from him with the sharpened blade and held it before his face.

He moved his mouth in utter silence as she let fall his blood onto his flesh and she watched the drops splash him like some subversive desecration, this rape of him the mirror of what he was.

‘You think you can take and break a female employee who doesn’t do the job the way you say it should be done? You think the women who work for you are your fuck objects? That you can stick your prick in them when you feel like it? Now you remember, remember what you did all those years ago?’

Finally Mary let fall that part of him and she opened up his neck and saw the light ebb from his eyes and with it the squalid world he inhabited and she left the hotel.

At home, she removed her clothes and stood naked out of inured habit in the bathroom, hand on the shower tap until she realised she didn’t need to wash.

And Mary began to laugh.

BIO: Richard Godwin lives and writes in London, where his dark satire ‘The Cure-All’, about a group of confidence tricksters, has been produced on the stage. He has just finished writing a crime novel. His writing appears regularly at Disenthralled and Gloom Cupboard, among many other magazines. He has a Twitter account and can be found there under the User Name Stanzazone. He is in the process of setting up a blog. For right now, you can check out his portfolio here. His first crime novel will be published later this year.

A Twist Of Noir 429 - BJ Bourg

FINAL DIVORCE - BJ BOURG

Rosalie Beard shut the suitcase and flipped the latch. “I’m sorry, but it has to be this way.”

Jay backhanded a school of tears that slid down his face. “You mean, you’re just going to throw away six years of marriage over a lousy job?”

“It’s not about the job. It’s about your integrity, and your ability to support me and the kids.”

“Baby, I’m telling you, Richard’s lying. I didn’t steal any money from the company.”

Rosalie frowned and brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes. “He’s got the proof. You won’t be able to get a job within a hundred miles of here.”

“To hell with getting a job. What about love?”

“Love doesn’t pay the bills. Love doesn’t put clothes on our children’s backs.”

“I can get another job.”

“Doing what?”

“I’ll find something.”

“Not making the kind of money we’re accustomed to.”

“When did it become about the money with you?”

“When I had to support two kids.”

Jay looked around the bedroom. “Where are they?”

“My Mom’s.”

“I want to see them.”

“Not until the divorce is final. I want the custody issue resolved before I let them out of my sight.”

Jay’s lower jaw dropped. “Divorce? I thought you said we couldn’t afford to get a divorce? That it would cripple us financially?”

“That was before you stole money from your boss and got fired.”

“For the last time--”

“I know, I know, you didn’t do it.” Rosalie heaved the suitcase from the bed and stumbled toward the door.

Tears flowed freely down Jay’s face. He dropped to his knees in front of Rosalie. “Please, don’t leave! I can’t live without you. I can fix this, I can make this right!”

Rosalie dropped the suitcase and leaned against the wall. “How?”

Jay rubbed his face and spoke like an auctioneer on speed. “I know what to do. Richard’s doing this to try to get rid of me because I found out he’s been screwing around on his wife. That’s why he fabricated this story. He claims he has documents that show I’ve been stealing, but I know it’s bogus. If I can get my hands on those documents, I can prove it’s a fraud.”

“Do you know where he keeps it?”

“It has to be with all his important papers in a lockbox at his house. It has a simple lock; I can pry it open with a screwdriver.”

“How do you plan on getting into his house?”

Jay smiled. “His wife’s at a nursing conference in Boston and he’s planning to meet his girlfriend tonight.”

Rosalie gasped. “Are you thinking of breaking into his house? That’s against the law!”

“What he’s doing is against the law. Plus, he’s destroying our lives.”

“What if you get caught?”

“I won’t.” Jay stood and touched Rosalie’s face. “Besides, I’d risk anything just to prove to you that I didn’t do this.”

Rosalie’s eyes moistened. “Baby, I’ve never seen you this determined.”

Jay leaned and kissed her softly on the lips. “I’ll call you when I have the documents.”

*

Rosalie jerked awake. She stared with wide eyes around the room. Her heart jumped in her chest when the phone rang again. She snatched it up. “Hello?”

“It’s done.”

She sighed. “Any problems?”

“No.”

“What now?”

“All you have to do is act surprised when the police notify you.”

“What are you going to do about her?”

“I’ll have to wait a while--”

“Richard, I didn’t help you kill my husband just so I could be alone.”

“You won’t. We’ll be together soon. I just don’t want to draw any attention to us.”

“You shot Jay while he was breaking into your house. How will that be suspicious?”

“If my wife dies soon after that, the cops will start digging deeper into our lives and we don’t want that to happen.”

Rosalie sat silent for several minutes.

“Are you there?”

“Yeah.” More silence.

“What’s wrong?”

“It sucks that the kids can never know you’re their real father.”

BIO: BJ Bourg lives in southeast Louisiana with his beautiful wife and two wonderful children. For more information, please visit his website at BJ Bourg.

A Twist Of Noir 428 - Bill Raetz

TIMES ARE TOUGH - BILL RAETZ

I take other people’s money out of ATMs for a living.

Right after I graduated college, I was one of those guys known as a guru at a Web development company. It was a mom-and-pop outfit in a small office in downtown Phoenix, and it was a great gig. I could come to work wearing the clothes I’d slept in the night before and nobody gave a damn. I would sit in my cubicle all day and listen to MP3s and bang out code, eating snacks and drinking sodas provided by the company, all the while making an obscene amount of money. Then mom and pop stopped getting clients. The Hostess Cakes and Sprites were the first things they cut, then people. I got my walking papers after working there for only eleven months. Another Internet company snatched me up right away, but it went down the tubes, too. And when the whole Dot Com thing imploded, I was out of work for good. The few tech outfits left in the Valley weren’t hiring, and I couldn’t even get on at a Burger King because I was overqualified.

After two months of not being able to land anything decent and selling plasma, I decided to get my real estate license. I got on with one of the big companies in Scottsdale, and I was making bank before I knew it. I had to tidy myself up a little more than I did when I was a developer, but I didn’t complain. In no time, I was the broker’s right hand man, selling huge houses to snooty people, driving a nice car, wearing fancy clothes, and eating out all the time. It was a real career with all the externals of success---fake friends, in particular---and it lasted until the housing market took a nosedive because of all that sub-prime lending noise.

Now I’m an armed guard for Saguaro Protective Services. My mother isn’t particularly proud when she tells people that, but my loan officer couldn’t be happier. It’s a steady check; I earn a decent, respectable living, and every day I get to carry around more money than most people will ever see in a lifetime. About the only downside to it is working crazy hours and wearing a Kevlar vest in the Arizona heat.

I’ve been with the company long enough now that I recently got moved to the ATM detail. No raise came with that, but it’s definitely a promotion. My partner, Bobby, and I make the rounds emptying out some of the cash machines in Phoenix. Bobby took an early retirement and moved here a couple of years ago from Iowa. Seems like I’ve never met anyone who was actually born in Arizona. Like most people, Bobby is here because of the weather. I like him well enough, but he has problems. Bobby’s son moved in with him several months ago because he’d fallen on hard times, and it wasn’t long after that when his girlfriend and her brother moved in with him, too. All of them are jobless, except for Bobby’s son, Doug. Doug has a part-time position at a liquor store that pays for his cigarettes and beer, and he never offers any of his check to Bobby for rent. This has been getting to Bobby for quite a while, but he tries not to let on.

“Greg finally got an interview,” Bobby said as I wheeled the armored car into the lot of a 7-Eleven. Greg is Doug's girlfriend’s brother. “He was offered a position at the Yard House, but he turned it down because he said washing dishes is beneath him.”

“That’s nuts.” I set the emergency brake. “You’re never going to get rid of them, are you?”

“Let’s just say it’s a good thing my wife isn’t still around.” Bobby put a pinch of Copenhagen in his mouth, reached for the door. “Ready to roll?”

“Yeah.” I got out of the car, closed the door, and rested my hand on my gun as we walked up to the front door of the 7-Eleven. Bobby carried the bag this time. The convenience store was one of our usual stops, and one I always look forward to. I held the door, let Bobby go in ahead of me.

Taylor Swift’s latest hit was playing on the radio, the girl behind the counter grooving to it. She looks a lot like Gina Gershon, only taller and much more buxom. Her name is Briana. She and I have been dating for a little while, and things are going well with us. She doesn’t know it, but I’m already saving back a little from each of my checks to buy a ring for her.
Briana said, “Hi, Jake.”

“Hey.” I winked at her as I walked up to the cash machine. Bobby already had it opened up by the time I got there. I stood beside him, my hand still on my gun, as he did the cash-out. It’s a tedious process, to say the least. Bobby had to count the money first, then I did. After we were done with that, both of us signed the logbook next to the amount. Tonight’s take was a little over eighteen-hundred, and that was nothing considering that most of the time we empty about a quarter of a mil out of a machine. That’s why being bumped up ATM duty is a promotion. Only the most trustworthy get that slot, and it’s a lot better than doing foot patrol at a school or guarding a register at a church fundraiser. It does, however, carry a lot of risk. Taking money like that out of a convenience store, I always worry about getting rolled by some bozo coming in and pointing a sawed-off at me, and the standing order is to shoot to kill anyone who tries to run away with the money--even if it’s your partner. I’ve had a sneaking suspicion for a while that one day Bobby would make a grab for it. He has a nice pension coming in, sure, but that couldn’t pay all the bills his newly-acquired leeches were racking up.

It’s not that I think Bobby is bad. He’s a good, honest fellow, but I know what hard times can do to anyone. I saw it a lot after both the software industry and real estate market tanked, but Bobby’s case was different; he’d waved his troubles aboard the ship by allowing his son, et al, to live with him, eat his groceries, and run up a nice pay-per-view tab. Looking at his life, I was in really good shape. I have only a car payment and a little bit of credit card debt to worry about.

“Okay, that’s it.” Bobby zipped up the bag, closed and locked the machine. He tapped out a code on the keypad and, when the display screen returned to normal, we were ready to be on our way. “You set?”

“Let’s go,” I said, following him to the door. By then, Briana was at one of the coffee machines, giving it a fresh filter and dumping in a measure of French roast.

“Hang around for a second, Jake,” she said. “I’ve just started a fresh pot. I’ll give each of you a cup on the house.”

“I’d love that, but we can’t,” I said. “Once we take the cash, we have to go straight to the car with it.” Our eyes locked. Damn, she’s so pretty. I imagined her in a wedding dress, the ring I had yet to buy on her finger. Then I saw us in a starter home in Glendale. We were going to make lots of love, maybe a couple of babies, too, if that was what she wanted.

“Jake,” Bobby said with some firmness. “C’mon.”

“Call me,” Briana said.

“What time do you knock off tonight?”

“Around--”

“Jake!” Bobby snapped.

“Okay, okay,” I said, glaring at him. “I’ll call you,” I told Briana.

She said, “Bye, Jake,” her voice trailing off.

I went outside with Bobby, saying something under my breath about how he’d forgotten what it was like to be in love.

“It’s not that,” he fired back. “You know we have to take the cash right to the car.”

“I know,” I said, walking along with him. It was a little after ten at night, but it was still warm. Phoenix is so full of asphalt that the heat never has a chance to fully escape.

Bobby looked at me and smiled. “She’s a pretty girl. You two serious?”

I nodded.

“Want a little advice, Jake?”

Advice? I’m thirty-one. Life has already mopped the floor with me, so there isn’t a lesson I haven’t already learned. I don’t need anyone telling me what to do, especially a guy who doesn’t have the courage to toss a bunch of freeloaders out of his house.

“What is it, Bobby?” I stopped at the passenger-side door, reached for it.

“Women are expensive.”

“I know that,” I said curtly.

“You better have plenty in the bank before you settle down, Jake. And when that first kid comes along, you’re really gonna wish you had been putting back.” His face soured. “Nothing will clean out your wallet like a baby.”

“Are you getting in, Bobby?” I indicated the door.

“Did I say something that upset you?”

“No,” I said. “It’s just--”

A red Nissan Pathfinder whipped into the lot and parked right behind the armored car, blocking it off. The Pathfinder had tinted windows and a stereo system with a very healthy subwoofer. The whole scene played out like a clip from one of the training videos I had to watch before going to ATM duty, the tactical piece about what to do during a holdup. I thumbed the snap on my holster and jerked out my revolver, but I didn’t react in time. Bobby already had his gun out--and it was pointed at me.

He said, “Let’s not make this get ugly, okay? Drop the gun.”

“C’mon, Bobby, don’t--”

“Put the gun down, kid,” he said. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

“You’re better than this, Bobby.”

“I know, but times are tough,” Bobby said.

“Yeah, but stealing isn’t the answer. I understand where you’re coming from, believe me. When Mesa Systems laid me off, I was desperate enough to--”

“Drop it!”

I had to. I couldn’t get off a good shot without raising my piece any further. Bobby already had his gun aimed at my nose, his finger solidly around the trigger. If he so much as sneezed or flinched, my last thoughts would be all over the armored car. I dropped my revolver on the pavement.

“That’s the way,” Bobby said, easing over to the Pathfinder. “Once I’m gone, go ahead and call the police. File a report with them and Saguaro. I’ll be in Canada before the first APB goes out.”

“Why not Mexico?” I said through gritted teeth. “It’s a lot closer.”

“’Cause that’s the first place anyone will look for me.” Bobby’s face was ghoulish now.

“Or maybe you’re just saying that so I’ll tell the police you’re going to Canada, when all the while you’ve planned to go to Mexico.”

Bobby deadpanned.

I said, “Go wherever you want. You won’t get away with this.”

Bobby hissed as he opened the door of the Pathfinder, his gun still pointed at my face. I winced when the shot went off. The first bullet only dazed Bobby because it hit his back and he was wearing his vest. He dropped to his knees, then the second shot--the one to the head--did him in. Bobby slumped and fell in a pond of his blood, dropped the bag. I picked it up, stepped around him, and climbed into the Pathfinder.

The dome light illuminated a man with a porcine face and a stump for a neck, his arms built by steroids. The cigarette hanging in the corner of his mouth wiggled a little when he saw me and smiled. I closed the door just as he was finishing up with his cell phone.

“Briana knows what to do,” Greg said, stashing his phone away. “She’ll meet us in Nogales as soon as her shift’s over.” He put the Pathfinder in gear, started rolling out of the lot. “We can be there in about three hours.”

“Just don’t get pulled over, Greg.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “I have a radar detector. I’m not stupid.”

“I know you’re not,” I said. “You’re far too bright to be working at the Yard House, just like I told you.”

“That’s right.” Greg threw his cigarette out the window. “How much did we score?”

“Right at a hundred grand,” I lied. I’m not stupid, either. Greg and I had agreed it would be an even split, but holding out on him wouldn’t be all that difficult. Truth be told, he probably deserved more than half the take for pushing Bobby into the whole setup to begin with. I couldn’t have pulled off the job without him, but a deal’s a deal. And by the time we got to Nogales, set up shop in a little hotel room to count the money, it wouldn’t matter if he found out I was shorting him because Briana would arrive after picking up my revolver, and one of us would plug Greg with it. Then I’d be splitting the cash evenly with her.

Like Bobby said, women are expensive--and times are tough.

BIO: Bill Raetz is a pulp fiction author and the creator of the World Espionage Bureau spy noir series. Visit him online at World Espionage Bureau - Spy Fiction Meets Pulp Fiction or Bill Raetz - Pulp Writer.

A Twist Of Noir 427 - James C. Clar

MR. LUCKY - JAMES C. CLAR

“Hey, Jake, tell me again why we’re here?” HPD Detective Ray Kanahele looked at his partner with exasperation as the two men rode the elevator up to the penthouse apartment on the forty-fourth floor of the chrome, steel and glass half-cylinder of the Nauru Towers on Ala Moana Boulevard. Kanahele didn't really expect an answer but he figured what the hell, he’d give it another try.

True to form, Jake Higa didn’t respond. He just looked at his longtime associate with an expression that said, “All in good time.”

Undeterred, Kanahele continued. “You saw the report from Kauai. It was a freak accident. There were what, six witnesses? Open and shut. Besides, even if it weren’t, it’s not our problem unless they ask us to haul the guy in for them. I can’t figure out what’s got you all hot and bothered here.”

“Hot and bothered” was an overstatement. The heavyset Hawaiian man had worked with Higa long enough to know that his partner and friend never got “hot and bothered” by anything. Even so, he’d clearly gotten his teeth into something concerning this rather bizarre affair. And when Jake Higa latched onto something like that, he didn’t let go until he was completely satisfied. He was as implacable as he was taciturn.

The man who greeted them at the door to the apartment was in his early thirties and athletically built. He was also dressed impeccably in a pair of tailored linen trousers and a soft, lime-green Tommy Bahama Aloha-style shirt. With his sandy blonde hair, he looked more like an aging surfer or maybe a male model than he did heir to a small real estate fortune.

“Thanks for taking the time to see us, Mr. Wandrei,” Higa said as they identified themselves. Once inside the luxurious apartment, Higa and Kanahele sat next to one another on an ultra-modern settee. Michael Wandrei lowered himself into a leather easy chair just opposite the two policemen.

Kanahele was more interested in the bird’s-eye-view to be seen through the huge sliding glass doors that led to Wandrei’s lanai than he was in the man himself. To the left, he was captivated by the multi-colored yachts and other sailing vessels moored at the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor far below. Off in the other direction, he identified Kewalo Basin, Aloha Tower, Sand Island and, of course, the sparkling blue waters of Mamala Bay framed by the Wai’anae Mountains that loomed in the distance. Airplanes going to and from Honolulu International Airport flashed blindingly in the late afternoon sunshine as they crossed his field of vision at regular intervals.

“No problem, detectives. By now I’ve gotten quite accustomed to talking with the police, as you can well imagine. Still, I have to admit to being somewhat puzzled by your visit. I covered all of this extensively with the authorities on Kauai.”

“I understand, sir,” Higa replied. “In cases like this, where the deceased resided on Oahu, we generally do a follow-up interview prior to filing the final reports. For our records, you understand. It’s all a matter of bureaucratic routine at this point and we appreciate your continued cooperation.”

Kanahele had to look away. He didn’t want Wandrei to see the amazement in his expression. Jake Higa could stretch the truth during an interrogation, any cop worth his salt could, but for the man to tell an outright lie – especially one that could very well come back and bite them on their asses – was unheard of.

Higa plowed ahead before Wandrei had an opportunity to make further objection.

“You and Ms. Kimura had been married for how long?”

Not for the first time, Kanahele wondered if the fact that the victim was part Japanese had attracted Higa’s attention. It had to be more than just that.

“Three wonderful years, officer, you must have seen that in the reports. We went to Kauai to renew our wedding vows.”

“And you’ve been married before, Mr. Wandrei, is that right?”

“Well, yes. Twice before, but I can’t see how that’s in anyway germane.”

‘Germane,’ Kanahele chuckled to himself. Just answer the question, you arrogant Haole prick, he wanted to say. But he restrained himself. Whatever was going on here it was Jake’s show, not his.

Higa looked down and wrote briefly in his notebook.

“I know you’ve gone over this hundreds of times by now, Mr. Wandrei, and I’m certain it must still be painful for you. Even so, could you just briefly narrate for Detective Kanahele and me what happened on the morning of your wife’s, um, accident?”

Kanahele could see the muscles around Wandrei’s mouth and jaw tighten as the man fought to control himself. Whether from genuine emotion or because he had begun to suspect that this was far more than just a matter of routine, Kanahele couldn’t tell. Either way, he began to admire the bastard’s cool.

“It was a gorgeous morning. We had a limousine take us from the Princeville Resort...have you ever stayed there, detectives? No? Well, let me tell you, it’s all that they say it is and more. Anyhow, Yuko was utterly entranced by the blue-green waters of Hanelai Bay off to our right. There were five of us altogether, not counting the driver – the two of us, Yuko and me, plus our friends Tim and Judy Jordan and the priest ‘supplied’ by the resort.”

“And whose idea was it to have the renewal ceremony on Lumaha’i Beach?”*

“It was my idea, Officer Higa. I did some research and discovered that it was reputedly one of the most romantic beaches in the world...literally right in our own backyard. Also, Yuko was a film fanatic and Lumaha’i was the place where Mitzi Gaynor sang “Gonna Wash That Man Right out of My Hair” in South Pacific. I couldn't resist.”

“No,” Higa said with just the trace of an edge, “I’m sure you couldn’t. What happened next?”

Wandrei re-crossed his legs and settled back with practiced ease. “We walked down a long path to the beach. It was a magnificent location...brilliant white sand, majestic palms, tropical breezes and waves crashing against the shore, the total package. Yuko said she felt like she was twenty years old again.”

“Your wife was quite a bit older than you, right, Mr. Wandrei?” Kanahele interjected. He was guessing, but he was also beginning to see the edge of a design and to sense where his wily partner was heading with all this.

“What? Yes, yes, she was.” Wandrei was momentarily thrown off-balance by the question. He paused briefly and stared at the two detectives before continuing. “We posed for pictures, of course. Then, after the ceremony, I told Yuko that I wanted to get a snapshot of her alone. I positioned her with her back to the ocean and close to the water. It was a magnificent setting, my beautiful wife against the backdrop of sand, sea and sky.”

Wandrei paused and looked down. When he began again, there was a “catch” in his voice.

Damn, Kanahele thought. I don’t believe this! Jake, you’re one sneaky mother!

“I was all set to take the picture but before I knew what happened, a rogue wave crashed over Yuko’s head. Only her sandals were left on the shore when the wave subsided. Before we even had a chance to move, another wave deposited her body back in exactly the same spot. The priest and then the EMTs tried to resuscitate her for nearly forty minutes.”

“Mr Wandrei,” Higa said quietly, “did you happen to discover in your research the fact that Lumaha’i Beach is noted for just that sort of thing? That, every year, a number of tourists, members of wedding parties and honeymooners are swept out to sea just as your wife was?”

“No. Not beforehand, anyhow. I do recall someone mentioning it in the course of the investigation on Kauai.”

“I see.” Higa paused for a moment. “Probably only a longtime resident of that island would be familiar with the beach’s reputation. Just a few more questions, Mr. Wandrei, then we’ll be on our way. It’s true, isn’t it, that both of your previous wives – women who were also older than you – were killed in freakish accidents while you were vacationing in similarly exotic and dangerous locations?”

Wandrei stood. A vein could be seen pulsating down the side of his neck. Kanahele could almost smell the guy struggling to hold his temper in check. Jake had struck a nerve, that’s for sure. He had no idea where his partner had come up with his information. It wasn’t in any of the reports that he could recall, anyhow. The man was a wizard.

“I don’t think I like your tone, detective...or the rather sordid implication. I’m going to have to ask you and your partner to leave. My patience has run out.”

“I’m sure it has, sir,” Higa responded without making any move to stand or to leave. “It’s also true, isn’t it, that your wives were very wealthy women and that, in each case, you’ve inherited substantial sums of money?”

Before Wandrei could react, his cell phone rang. Barely taking his smoldering eyes off Higa and Kanahele, he answered the call.

“Yes, darling,” Wandrei said in honeyed tones. “I’ll be by in an hour or so. Anywhere you like. That little Italian place downtown is fine with me. I love you, too. Ciao-Ciao.”

Higa and Kanahele got to their feet as Wandrei pocketed his phone.

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Wandrei,” Higa said as the three men moved uneasily toward the door. “I think we’re finished here for now. Oh, will you be in Honolulu for the next week or so if we have any more questions?”

“If you have any more ‘questions,’ detective, you can address them to my attorneys. But just for your own information, that was my fiancée on the phone. I’m getting married next week then it’s off to the Sundarbans for our honeymoon. Have you heard of the Sundarbans? It’s the world’s largest mangrove forest, located in West Bengal. The place is completely untamed. There are venomous snakes and honest-to-goodness man-eating tigers. It should be exquisite.”

“Congratulations,” Kanahele said, placing an iron hand on Wandrei’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. The guy would have a bruise, no friggin’ doubt about it. “It’s your honeymoon, after all. Maybe you’ll get lucky!” With that, he relaxed his grip and walloped the man on the back with his best hale-fellow-well-met chuckle.

“Yes,” Higa said, as the two policemen exited the apartment. “And if you do ‘get lucky,’ Oahu is not really that big after all. Our paths will undoubtedly cross again when you get back.”

*

In the elevator on the way down to street level, Kanahele looked at his 5’6’’ Japanese-American partner with renewed respect and affection. “Nothing we can do about the bastard, is there, Jake? At least we let him know we’re onto his game.”

“It’s a matter of professional pride, Ray. That and karma. We have a saying in Japanese, ten ni mukatte tsuba o haku... “when one spits toward heaven, heaven spits back.” Tell you what, let’s ride into Waikiki. I’ll buy us a drink. If anybody asks, we're toasting the upcoming marriage of an old friend.”

Kanahele wasn’t entirely sure what his partner’s proverb meant. Truth was...he was too surprised to care. Higa never drank and, what’s more, he had just delivered what for him was tantamount to a ‘speech’.

*The freak “accident” on Lumaha’i Beach that lies at the heart of this story is based on an anecdote related by Rick and Marcie Carroll in their book Traveler’s Tales – Hawaii (Traveler’s Tales, Inc., 2005, p.13). I've “played” with a related scenario previously in stories published in places like Powder Burn Flash and Coffee Cramp Ezine.

BIO: Short stories by James C. Clar have been published in print as well as on the Internet. Of late, his work has found a home in the Taj Mahal Review, Apollo’s Lyre, Flashshot, Powder Burn Flash, Thriller’s, Killers ‘n’ Chillers, Golden Visions Magazine, Word Catalyst Magazine, The New Flesh Magazine and The Magazine of Crime & Suspense. He considers it particularly important to follow the sage advice of former Olympic champion and Hawaiian surfing legend Duke Kahanamoku: “Never turn your back on a wave.”

A Twist Of Noir 426 - Holly Day

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A Twist Of Noir 425 - Kathleen A. Ryan

VICTIMS OF THE NIGHT - KATHLEEN A. RYAN

Previously a part of Dan O'Shea’s ‘Steve Weddle Memorial Airport’ Flash Fiction Challenge. It appeared on Kathleen’s blog Women Of Mystery in December 2009.

“Slice or be sliced,” the gang-banger ordered Justina. She only knew him by his street name, Wicked.

Wicked handed the razor blade to Justina as she climbed into the back seat of the silver Lexus that had been involved in at least three drive-by shootings in the past year. Justina noticed the ink on his upper left arm, the kind she had seen many times before: ‘Smile Now/Cry Later,’ the comedy and tragedy masks that represent Mi Vida Loca, or My Crazy Life.

Play now and pay later.

She smelled a familiar fragrance, a cologne her brother used to wear. She felt a heaviness in her chest and stared at her hands, avoiding the glare of the skank sitting next to her, whom Wicked calls ‘The Hood Rat.’

He lowered the volume on the CD player, just as ‘It Wasn’t Me,’ by Shaggy had started.

“You better watch your back before she turn into a killer...”

Justina liked the string arrangement in that song, and hoped that he would turn it back up when ‘Angel’ came on. Her mother used to talk about the original song, ‘Angel of the Morning,’ and how much she loved it.

Wicked sputtered his instructions. “When we cruise around, we’ll look for a rival gang-banger, but if we can’t find one, anyone wearin’ red will do. The Hood Rat will help you by holdin’ down the victim while you give her a buck fifty. But first, we have to pick up Flaco at the airport. His plane should be landin’ any minute.”

On this moonlit August night, Justina’s face glistened with a thin layer of sweat. The seventeen-year-old didn’t have much time to contemplate her choices, although the thought of being jumped-in or sexed-in certainly didn’t appeal to her.

She wanted to belong; to gain respect and power; to be part of a family that watches her back. She had just moved into the hood and wanted to fit in. After her mother died, she came to live with her father, but she still felt so lost.

They pulled into the cell phone waiting lot at the airport. The Hood Rat said, “If you are successful tonight, you’ll make it -- remember, ‘blood-in’ is the way to go.”

“And don’t forget -- ‘blood out,’” Wicked reminded Justina. “There’s only one way out -- and it ends with your blood if you are disloyal or try to leave.”

Wicked’s ringtone, ‘Ridin’ Dirty,’ interrupted the stimulating conversation. He spoke briefly with Flaco.

“Flaco says to hang in this lot while he goes to Baggage Claim. He’ll meet us here. He has a point; if I pull up to the curb and he’s not there, the airport cops will chase us away, and I don’t feel like seein’ no five-o right now. It’s best we wait here.”

Wicked kept the car running, and he turned up the sound on the CD player, just in time to hear ‘Angel.’ He rolled down the window and lit up a Newport.

“Now life is one big party when you’re still young, and who’s gonna have your back when it’s all done...”

Justina checked her cell phone for the time. One A.M. It’s almost time, she thought. Her palms were sweaty and her heart fluttered.

Flaco was listening to his iPod as he walked towards the car, with a couple of bags slung around his shoulder.

No one but Justina noticed the black Ford Explorer quietly enter the parking lot.

She sprang out and ran toward the rear of the car.

Gunfire erupted from the Explorer, with bullets striking Flaco, Wicked, and The Hood Rat.

Flaco lay crumpled on the ground, lifeless. Justina checked the occupants; The Hood Rat was dead, but Wicked was still alive. She leaned into the driver’s side window.

“‘Blood in’ -- right, Wicked?” She stared into his cold, dark eyes that looked like portals to Hell. “Oh, and this is for killing my brother and injuring my father in a drive-by last year, you piece of shit. My mother died of a broken heart after you shot her only son,” she said, slicing his throat with the razor blade. What was that you said? ‘Slice or be sliced’? I’d say that’s a buck fifty, easy. But you don’t have to worry about stitches, now do you?”

Justina jumped into the front seat of the waiting suburban. The male driver calmly drove away.

“I’d say you passed that initiation with flying colors, Angel.”

BIO: Kathleen A. Ryan is a retired 21 year veteran of the Suffolk County Police Department on Long Island. She blogs at Women Of Mystery and is working on a true crime memoir. Her story, ‘Playing with Matches’ will be published in W.W. Norton’s Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories 25 Words or Fewer, Edited by Robert Swartwood, this November.

Follow her on Twitter.

A Twist Of Noir 424 - David Cranmer

THE MISSING HUSBAND OF MILDRED MALLOY - DAVID CRANMER

I can hear them, the rats, rummaging around for crumbs in the cellar. But they won’t find any. I’m certain of that. I cleaned every square inch of this old house, top to bottom. And now, I’ll just sit back in the comfort of my husband’s easy chair and wait. You see, in two days, I am finally going on a cruise after all these years and nothing will change my plans. Not this time. I’m already packed to go.

They’re scurrying up the stairs now. But I’m not nervous.

The cellar door opens and shuts, and the shuffling of feet resounds down the hall and into my living room.

The big rat stares at me with his beady black eyes. He pretends not to suspect but I know better. He’s terribly clever and disarming.

“I’m sorry, young man, I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.” I can be clever as well.

“Officer Montanye, ma’am, and this is my partner, Officer Davis.”

“Oh, yes! Officer Montanye, I am sorry. My memory isn’t what it used to be. Are you all done in the cellar?”

“Yes, ma’am. There is a strong odor—”

“Oh my. The cellar is crawling with rodents. I suppose you saw all the traps that my husband fails to dispose of after he catches those vermin. That’s why I’ve thrown moth balls everywhere, to try to keep the rats and mice away and cover up their foul smell. But, obviously, it’s not enough. I apologize.”

“Yeah, it’s fine, but you really should have those sprung traps removed before they become a health hazard.”

“Well, I’m not going near those filthy little beasts, alive or dead. That’s my husband’s job. And now that he’s retired, it’s not like he doesn’t have the time.” I start to get up from the chair, “Would you boys like some cookies? I just baked them.”

“No, thank you, ma’am. We need to check the garage and we’ll be back with a few more questions.”

“All right, then.”

I watch through the open window as they pause in the driveway discussing something. As I strain to listen, a sharp voice washes them out.

“Mildred, where’s my father?”

“Why Patty, I forgot you were here.” Of course, I hadn’t. “Please, sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit, Mildred. I want to know what you’ve done with him.” Her words, accusatory and heavy with disgust, whip off her tongue. She reminds me of that wretched mother of hers. Patty and I never got along well, from the very day I married her father. She was always such a spoiled daddy’s girl.

“Why, dear, how shameful. I love your father and I would never—”

“You killed him. I know it! You evil, old bitch! He sent me a text message that he believed he was being poisoned.”

Ah, so that’s what brought them here. She really needs to learn to stay out of my affairs.

“If I had only been here to stop you.” The corners of her mouth wrinkle up and droop and her chin begins to quiver.

Patty’s bleating always gets under my skin and, even though I know better, I can’t help dishing out a little dig at my husband’s sniveling princess. “That’s something you will have to live with.”

She lunges at me, grabbing my collar, screaming, “Where the hell is he?!”

Rather than fight back, I let Patty twist and tighten her grasp, knowing it won’t be long... and, as if on cue, the rats return.

Perfect.

The officers rush over, Montanye pulls her by the shoulders and Davis unlocks her vice-like grip while I muster up some vigorous coughs for effect.

Patty buckles and drops to the floor, sobbing. Officer Davis helps the princess on her feet and escorts her outside to the police sedan.

Montanye composes himself. “Are you okay, Mrs. Malloy?”

I run a hand through my hair and straightened out the neckline of my blouse. “Yes, I’m fine.”

He thumbs through his notebook, settles on a page and, pen in hand, resumes his questioning. “Did you and your husband argue on the day you last saw him?”

“Son, we have been married for forty years, we argue plenty. So, yes, it’s very likely we quarreled that day.”

“Do you remember what you may have argued about?”

“Undoubtedly the same old thing. Laziness and broken promises. All he does is sit in this chair and watch TV and sleep. He swore that when he retired, we would travel. But that day came and went and nothing changed. My husband is slothful, officer, and I’m not afraid to tell him so.” I know where his simplistic line of questioning is going: establish motive. But why should I bother to lie about such trite routines.

In the middle of our exchange, Officer Davis returns which apparently reminds Montanye. “Do you wish to make a statement about being assaulted by your stepdaughter?”

“Heavens, no. Patty is overwhelmed by her father’s disappearance and when he returns, he’d never forgive me for bringing charges against her.” Though the louse isn’t coming back and neither am I, so it might be fun to make her life more difficult as she has mine. But, no, I will refrain.

“So, you believe he will return?” Officer Davis’s eyes turn to slits as he speaks to me for the first time. I was beginning to wonder if this other rat had been trained.

“My husband is going through a mid-life crisis, a little late at sixty-seven. I know that may not make sense, officer, but it’s the way it is.”

Montanye clears his throat. “Is there a chance he would attempt suicide?”

“Not a chance, young man. His religious convictions make that quite improbable.”

“Can you tell us why your husband would send a message to his daughter that you were trying to poison him?” Davis cocks a meaningful brow.

I give a subdued chortle. “My husband always complained I was trying to poison him with my cooking. Patty must have misconstrued a comment he made in jest.”

Davis snaps, leaning in close to me, spittle flying from his fleshy lips. “She came all the way from Australia and tried to choke you. That’s quite a misunderstanding.”

Montanye quickly intervenes. “Officer Davis, maybe you should go back and check on Mrs. Malloy’s stepdaughter.”

Davis shoots a sideways glance at his partner but wisely departs.

Montanye runs his pen down the notebook checking off imaginary squares and giving me the standard spiel. “Well, ma’am, that’s all. I want you to know you’re not under suspicion and we appreciate you allowing us to search the premises. When your husband returns, please have him call us.”

“Yes, Officer Montanye. I am sure you will find him right here in this chair in a few days.”

Montanye eyes the old-style, extra-wide recliner and turns to leave.

*

A quiet house finally. I know they will be back. For now, I better draw the shades and check under the chair cushion to make sure the bags are holding tight.

There he is, gray-faced with that same old menacing stare, eyeing me with pure contempt through the clear plastic.

For me, it wasn’t just easy cutting up my husband with his own tools, it was a pleasure. But getting all the bags to fit just right in the tight space under his chair, well, that took a bit of skill. Like packing a suitcase for a trip.

BIO: David Cranmer's fiction has appeared in Out of the Gutter, Powder Burn Flash, Yellow Mama and A Twist of Noir, as well as the western anthology A Fistful of Legends under the pen name Edward A. Grainger. He regularly updates his blog, The Education of a Pulp Writer, and is editor/publisher of BEAT to a PULP.