Interlude: Updated 600 To 700 Challenge List

Fourteen stories out from the start of the 600 To 700 Challenge.

Here be the entrants:

600 - Jimmy Callaway

601 - Richard Godwin

602 - Keith Rawson

603 - Matthew McBride

604 - Phil Beloin Jr.

605 - Phil Beloin Jr.

606 - Phil Beloin Jr.

607 - Robert Crisman

608 - Col Bury

609 - Robert Crisman

610 - Eric Beetner

611 - Chad Eagleton

612 - Matthew C. Funk

613 - RESERVED

614-617 - Open

618 - Nigel Bird

619 - RESERVED

620 - Cindy Rosmus

621 - Tom Larsen

622 - Open

623 - Chris Rhatigan

624 - Des Nnochiri

625 - Lee Hughes

626 - Jim Harrington

627 - Mark Joseph Kiewlak

628 - Richard Godwin

629 - David Barber

630 - Alan Griffiths

631- Chad Rohrbacher

632 - Jack Getze

633 - Matthew C. Funk

634 - Dana King

635 - Steve Weddle

636 - Chris Deal

637 - Michael Moreci

638 - RESERVED

639 - RESERVED

640 - Naomi Johnson

641 - Ron Earl Phillips

642 - Tom Leins

643 - Phil Beloin Jr.

644 - Keith Rawson

645 - AJ Hayes

646 - Richard Godwin

647 - Sandra Seamans

648 - Cindy Rosmus

649 - Chris Benton

650 - Ian Ayris

651 - Matthew McBride

652 - Jane Hammons

653 - Liam José

654 - Kelly Whitley

655 - R.S. Bohn

656 - Daniel O'Shea

657 - U.V. Ray

658 - Kevin Michaels

659 - Kieran Shea

660 - Charlie Stella

661 - Kathleen A. Ryan

662 - Fester McFardle

663 - Cindy Rosmus

664 - Matthew C. Funk

665 - Jim Harrington

666 - Paul D. Brazill (and Paul promises a spooky noir for this one)

667 - Nigel Bird

668 - Katherine Tomlinson

669 - Kieran Shea

670 - Lee Hughes

671 - Dan Ames

672 - Ron Earl Phillips

673 - Cindy Rosmus

674 - Kenny Crist

675 - Michael J. Solender

676 - Phil Beloin Jr.

677 - Frank Bill

678 - Hilary Davidson

679 - Scott Phillips

680 - Matthew McBride

681 - Matthew McBride

682 - Richard Godwin

683 - Kevin Michaels

684 - Al Tucher

685 - Chris Deal

686 - Laurie Powers

687 - Michael A. Gonzales

688 - Patti Abbott

689 - Cormac Brown

690 - B.R. Stateham

691 - RESERVED

692 - Des Nnochiri

693 - Jarrett Rush

694 - Chad Eagleton

695 - Phil Beloin Jr.

696 - Cameron Ashley

697 - Ian Ayris

698 - Eric Beetner

699 - Keith Rawson

700 - Jimmy Callaway

A Twist Of Noir 586 - Matthew McBride

UNDER THE ELM TREE - MATTHEW MCBRIDE

They followed a snow-covered path that lead into the woods. Every few feet one of them fell. “Goddamn, this is slick,” Birdy said.

Dean started to agree, but then he went down himself. Fell on his right side, drove his shoulder into a knot of frozen earth.

Birdy stopped to catch his breath. “You gonna make it?”

Dean picked himself up. He was breathing heavy. He could feel his shoulder already starting to throb and his ears were ringing.

He looked up and said, “I’m comin’, but you better fucking find it, Bird.”

Birdy’s head moved up and down, but his words got lost in the wind.

The two of them walked for a half hour in the freezing rain. About the time they found the sacred tree, the ice began to fall. Suddenly, it came, hard and without warning. Attacking them like cold metal slivers, driving needles into their skin.

They crossed the open field and came to a mess of thick cedars. Birdy stepped inside the trees for shelter. He looked back, but Dean wasn’t there.

*

They did the job back in January, the day before the first big storm. Birdy, Dean, and the Captain. He was just an old Navy man they used for a driver.

The Captain waited in the car. The Captain didn’t know much.

But then the job went sideways. Everybody split. Every man for himself.

Birdy jacked a dentist in a minivan. Dean ended up with the Captain.

They made off with the sixteen-grand they came for, but the Captain ended up dead.

Birdy asked Dean what happened.

“One of them guards got ’em, Bird.” But Bird didn’t buy it.

Bird was no genius, but he watched the same cop show every week.

Bad acting aside, he picked up a thing or two from that Horatio. He knew enough to know when a guy got shot from the back or from the side. The Captain got shot from the side.

*

“Where you at, Dean?”

Pop, pop, pop, and Birdy fell to the ground. Hot rounds from a .38 burning holes in his back.

Dean stuffed the pistol in his pocket and tried to keep his footing. He stepped across the body of his former partner and dropped to his knees before the sycamore tree. The tree where Birdman stashed all the money. The day before it snowed.

He shoveled with his gloveless hands until he found the suitcase.

Sixteen-grand wasn’t much, but times were hard and small potatoes were still potatoes.

Especially when they’re split one way instead of three.

Dean popped open the suitcase and read what the letter said:

KNEW I COULDN’T TRUST YOU COCKSUCKER

He didn’t see any money.

A branch snapped behind him and Dean had just enough time to realize he’d been fucked.

Birdy slipped a clear bag over Dean’s head and pulled the bottom tight. Dean began to panic. Birdy slammed him to the ground, forced his knee into Dean’s back to drive the wind out. He succeeded.

Dean was turning white and struggling. His limbs making snow angles while he sucked plastic.

Birdy watched him die and he controlled the situation with his body movements.

“You killed the old man, you fuck.”

Dean begged with his eyes and he died like a coward.

Birdy pulled the bag out of his mouth and Dean’s eyes rolled back in his head. His tongue looked purple and dead.

Birdy was no genius, but he was smart enough to wear a bulletproof vest. And smart enough to hide the money under the elm tree instead.

BIO: Matthew McBride lives on a farm along the river and one day he will own his own machine gun. He’s been published at A Twist Of Noir, Powder Burn Flash, The Flash Fiction Offensive and the most recent issue of Plots With Guns. He is currently reworking a novel that this editor has seen and thinks is pretty genius. His blog is Got Pulp?

A Twist Of Noir 585 - Tom Leins

BLOODY FINGERPRINTS (PART TWO OF THE ‘BAD BLOOD’ SERIES) - TOM LEINS

When you see the sun rise in East Paignton, it looks like a collapsed lung filling up with blood. I gaze through the grilled hospital window at the local bone-yard. Mornings like this make you feel happy to be alive.

*

I rip the drip-feed out of my arm and watch the yellow liquid spurt weakly against the wall like a dead man’s piss. I heave my dead legs out of the hospital bed and grip the bedside table for support. The ominous plastic sign above my bed warns ‘Paignton Hospital – Trauma Unit.’ As my eyes adjust to the early morning gloom, I grope around for my clothing, half-expecting that it has already been incinerated in the basement by the elderly porter with the lazy eye. I notice a threadbare brown suit hanging on a peg next to the window. The old man in the next bed looks at me pleadingly. His ravaged body is scabbed with piss-blisters. He has yellow eyes and an unlit cigarette in his mouth. I offer him a grim smile and unfasten his trousers. His eyes moisten as I slip on his jacket and retrieve his wallet from the bedside table. The road to oblivion is paved with tiny crimes.

*

Before I leave the hospital room, I untuck the borrowed shirt and scrutinize my knife wound in the greasy mirror. Someone once said that whatever doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger. If he was here now I’d shank him in the gut, see how he feels then. I push through the double-doors and step tentatively into the filthy dawn. A piss-coloured haze hangs over the early morning street. I trudge past the graveyard towards Winner Street. During the storms last winter the teeth, knuckles and trinkets from the unmarked graves came loose and flowed down the hill, splattering against the parked cars on Palace Avenue. Poor, dead motherfuckers.

*

As I reach the top of Church Street, I can see that Winner Street is already choked-up with rubberneckers and prowl cars. I button the old man’s jacket over my oozing midriff and pick my way through the crowds. A prostitute has been beaten to death with a brick outside Cantonese Roy’s slop-shop. I glance down at her corpse: a needle-tracked white girl wearing nothing but an ugly scowl and a cheap fur coat. Her name used to be Shannon. In death, as in life, she looks half-feral. I turn up my collar and sidestep past the emergency services and gawpers. Halfway down Winner Street, Palace Avenue gapes open like a mangy old fanny. I carry on walking – past ‘Spackford’s Seconds’ – his rusty wheelchair abandoned in the doorway; past the Cavendish – boarded-up windows resembling a grim, unnatural smile; past the unnamed muscle bar where the rough trade suck and flounce long past dawn. At the end of the street, outside the House of Chung, a boy-whore in thigh-high boots grins at me through ruby-red lips

“You wanna bump ‘n’ grind, mister?”

I shake my head. Winner Street has really gone to the dogs.

“Take a walk, kid. Too much happiness could kill me right now.”

He scowls and spits petulantly on the tarmac at my feet.

“Your loss, big man.”

*

I cut down Totnes Road, trying to shake off the early morning chill. Outside the Dirty Lemon, Terry is scrubbing a bloodstain off the wheelchair ramp. He can’t figure out whether to smile at me or scowl, and his face contorts into some kind of leer. I haven’t been here in weeks, but nothing much changes - it smells like medicine and stinks like hell. Anton is centre-stage, grinding in front of the last of the breakfast trade. A bloodshot eye winks at me in the gloom. Jellylegs. I drift towards him, shoes sticking to the dirty linoleum. He’s on mop duty, but he looks far too ill to be working anywhere. Anywhere but the Dirty Lemon, that is. Shit, his skin looks like fucking orange peel.

“Jellylegs.”

“Joe.”

We shake hands, and I feel his slim hand tremble.

“How long have you been out, ‘Legs?”

“Almost three weeks.”

“Is that long enough to get the prison smell off?”

“Nearly.”

Over Jellylegs’ shoulder I can see Meathook Mulligan relaxing in a two-seater booth with a pink cocktail. I heard a rumour that they used to be cellmates on the inside. Jellylegs is a tough kid, and I wonder if Meathook managed to make him his bitch. There are some questions that you don’t ask – not even to your friends. I take another look. Meathook has got a face like a factory floor. Bouffant black hair hangs over the collar of his safari jacket. Last time I saw him he was down at the Excelsior Hotel with a pump-action shotgun across his lap. The TV lounge looked like a butcher’s slab, but Meathook was immaculate – pristine safari jacket buttoned up to his throat. He had two cops handcuffed to the metal TV bracket and was making them kiss. I shudder as the bad memory unspools inside my mind.

“Much changed around here, Joe?”

I start to chuckle, but it comes out as a wheeze...

“Not a lot. I was down at the Psycho-A-Go-Go last week, and they still had the same fat girls dancing onstage as last year...”

Jellylegs guffaws. I think back to that night – the fat girls queuing up backstage like so many fleshy products. It was hotter than a Turkish whorehouse. I remember drifting down the corridor into Swollen Roland’s parlour. I half-remember the girl’s face, the taste of her cracked-out lips as she wedged the blade into my guts. Sitting here, shooting the shit with Jellylegs, it feels like some kind of crazy, coked-up dream. Only the pulsing wound in my side reminds me that I nearly died that night. Jellylegs pats me on the back, and drifts back towards the floorshow, mop in hand.

*

My guts are groaning like a stomped out sex offender in a holding cell, so I signal to Terry, lurking in the doorway with his own bloodstained mop. He looks shifty, and offers me a laminated breakfast menu.

“What’s today’s special?”

“It’s new. I call it the Dirty Burger.”

“What’s in it?”

“Ah. It’s just like a normal burger, but I’ve got meat on the outside, and bread in the middle.”

I look quizzically at him.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Do you want one?”

“Fuck it, yeah, hook me up.”

*

I wipe my greasy fingers on the old man’s suit.

Terry beams expectantly at me, fiddling with a filthy bar rag.

“How was it?”

“Dirty. Any more of them and I’ll end back in hospital.”

Terry grins, mistaking my critique for a compliment. As I motion to leave he thrusts a scrap of paper at me.

“Had a phone call for you when you were away. He didn’t leave a message though. Just a name.”

I glance down at the piece of paper. In capitals: ‘WET-LOOK’

*

Wet-Look is an ex-cop, who was kicked off the force for sodomizing a male prisoner in a holding cell. He operates a gumshoe business out of a poky office above the North Atlantic Video Lounge. His real name is Charles, but I’m not sure whether that’s his first name or surname. He’s a greasy sadist with fat hands and strong arms. He’s got grease-streaked silver hair and unruly mutton-chop sideburns. He hasn’t been near a shower in months, and all of his clothing is tinged yellow with filth. As I walk up the rickety staircase the stink hits me. I peer through the doorway and see him gnawing at an oversized chicken leg. He’s sweating hard, and the stench fills my nostrils. His furniture looks like it has been scavenged off the street. He wipes chicken grease off his chin with his shirt sleeve and runs his fingers through his hair.

“Joseph. Rumours of your demise have been exaggerated.”

I nod, and he smiles joylessly, soaking his throat with a glass of supermarket own-brand brandy. The chipped tumbler clatters against his rotten teeth.

“You want a drink?”

“I probably shouldn’t.”

“I won’t tell if you don’t.”

He smirks and pours three fingers of brandy into his tumbler, sliding it across the scarred desk towards me. I grimace and drink half of it.

“I heard that some bitch stuck a tool in your belly down at the Psycho-A-Go-Go. Damn near killed you.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

He glances at my gut and notices the blood seeping through the old man’s shirt.

“So you don’t want my help?”

“What with?”

“Tracking down the culprit. I used to be a cop you know.”

I sigh, as if I could forget about his illustrious employment history.

“Why are you helping me, Wet-Look?”

“Paignton’s a selfish dirty town. You never know when you might need a favour in return.”

My moral fibre feels corrupted just by being here. I feel like I’m making a pact with the devil. I nod quickly. Wet-Look leans forward and a clump of greasy hair slumps forward across his forehead. I watch nervously as a drop of grease drips from the tip of his hair and fizzes in my drink.

“Don’t worry, Joe. The only way to survive in this town is to corrupt yourself.”

I shrug.

“Chick you’re looking for works part-time at the Babydoll Lounge. Name’s Nadia. She’s fifteen. Be gentle with her.”

I stand up sharply and wince as the pain rips through my gut.

“Fuck off, Wet-Look. She put me in the fucking trauma unit.”

He holds his hands up to placate me, before reaching under his desk and heaving a kit-bag onto the battered woodwork.

“Maybe I can interest you in something from my bag of tricks?”

I peer into the kit-bag uncertainly. When I walk down the rickety wooden steps a few minutes later, brass knuckles, handcuffs and a .32 with the serial number filed off bulge in my jacket pockets. Party time.

*

Every street in Paignton has its own smell, but once you reach the outskirts of town everything starts to smell like rotten animal carcasses. I’m in the Paignton badlands, where the whores too ravaged to operate on the fringes of polite society ply their trade. This town’s industrial corridor is littered with four-story concrete shells that were abandoned when the contractor was found hip-deep in wet cement, face caved in with a pickax. Robert Fontaine greased a few palms, and turned one of these abandoned buildings into the Babydoll Lounge. As I walk across the parking lot I see a man with a face full of crank-sores getting jerked off in the back seat of a small, rusted-out car. The afternoon sky looks dirty over the half-finished industrial landscape. Outside the Babydoll Lounge, Michael Marques puffs on his tiny cigarillo as the unnecessary neon glare pulses behind him. His hair is matted with dried blood. He may be small, but he’s the toughest goddamn midget I’ve ever met. He drops his thin, black cigarillo in the gutter and clears his throat.

“Hey, Joe.”

“Hello, Michael.”

“You don’t look so good, man.”

“Trust me – I feel even worse than I look.”

“Shit. You really are fucked up! You’ve been making a lotta noise. For a dead man, that is.”

“Sometimes it can’t be helped...”

He glances up at me and grins.

“Are you gonna make a mess in there?”

“That depends how many people try to get in my way.”

He steps aside, laughing.

“See you on the other side, brother.”

*

Robert Fontaine claims to be the only pornographer in Paignton who’s into kiddie filth for the cash; although, frankly, I have my doubts. I walk through the lobby, glancing at the preteen portraits on the wall and feel the sickness wash over me. I bypass the lounge-bar, ignoring the timid new girl exposing herself under the greasy lights in front of a handful of disinterested deviants. The word on the street is that this place doesn’t get going until after midnight. Robert keeps his cutest girls under lock and key until then. I knock twice on his office door, and enter without waiting for a response. Fontaine is barely ten years older than me, but he looks at least twice my age. He’s got a close-cropped head of prematurely grey hair and a strangely wrinkled brow that makes him look permanently perplexed. The only things noticeable about him are his studied ordinariness and unsettling knack for idle chatter. I knew him back when he was pulling off greasy scams down at the bus station, luring shivering runaways into his hatchback for teenage kicks. He started pissing with the big dogs when his estranged father shuffled off this mortal coil, unwittingly bequeathing his riches to his disgraced son. If rumours are to be believed, he keeps the family bones in his safe, alongside his collection of homemade porn. He’s sitting at his desk, idly flipping through a sex-toy catalogue. He looks up curiously, before turning his attentions back to the catalogue.

“You wouldn’t believe the kind of thing that the Japanese are peddling now. Take this, for example. A fake pussy made of genuine cat fur. Designed to make pretty little boys look like pretty little girls. Marvelous.”

I swallow the bile in my throat, and feel my knife-wound tingle as the bile settles in my ruptured gut. Fontaine continues to flick through his catalogue. Without looking up:

“What’s happening, Joe? You come around here, thinking that maybe you can get a lick for free? You know that Robert Fontaine doesn’t give freebies.”

I pause, choosing my words carefully.

“Come on, Robert – what do you take me for? As impressive as it is, you know I don’t dig your scene.”

He taps cigarette ash into a heart-shaped ashtray on his desk and raises an eyebrow.

“I’ve never met a man who didn’t dig underage pussy.”

“What can I say? Maybe you should broaden your social circle?”

He chuckles amiably.

“Each to his own. Please take a seat.”

I settle in one of the leather armchairs adjacent to his desk.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for a girl.”

He guffaws.

“Well, why did you come to me? The girls I deal with are, well, girls.”

“Her name’s Nadia. I need to speak to her.”

He flashes me his liar’s grin.

“There’s no one of that name in...my employment.”

“I have it on good authority that she’s somewhere in this building.”

“Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t. Either way, I don’t see how it is of any concern of yours. If you must know, she’s a rich man’s plaything.”

“The only rich man I can see here is you, Robert.”

He smiles contentedly, and fingers the panic button on the underside of his desk.

“Please leave now, Joe. Otherwise I’ll get Bruno to chew you up like raw meat.”

An upholstered door creaks open in the corner, and Bruno trudges into the room, cracking his huge knuckles for my benefit.

“What’s up, Bruno?”

He grunts and circles the desk, continuing to crack his knuckles. I know Bruno all too well. He’s the kind of guy who busts you wide open and then carries on stomping. I’m not sure that I can withstand a sustained stomping in my present condition, so I dip into my jacket pocket and withdraw the .32 Wet-Look loaned me. Bruno keeps on coming. He’s smarter than he looks, and he knows that I’ve never shot anyone.

Yet.

I squeeze the trigger and put a bullet through his left foot. He yelps and crashes to the ground. I move in and pistol-whip his skull into the carpet. Even the back of his head is layered in flab, and I have to hit him three times before I dent the bone. Fat fuck. I twist the .32 in my hand and point it at Robert.

“What’s the code, motherfucker?”

“I...”

I stomp towards him and wedge the pistol into his eye-socket, rotating it sharply. I haul him up by his collar and slam him into the upholstered door, face-first. His nose cracks and when he turns around to protest, his mouth is already full of blood. His sweaty fingers fumble uncertainly over the keypad, but the panel beeps and the door creaks open. I whip the piece across the back of his head and jam him into the door-frame to stop it from closing behind me.

*

Fontaine’s romper room is littered with the signs of affluent boredom. Only the harnesses, chains and abundance of plastic sheeting suggest that it’s a pervert’s paradise rather than a cultured gentleman’s retreat. In the corner, Nadia’s mouldy body is shrunken like a doll. Her skin has a blue tinge, and only her crimson-painted mouth still looks alive. I kneel down next to her corpse and close her bloodshot eyes, inadvertently leaving bloody fingerprints on her pale eyelids in the process. I’m about to stand up, when I notice something tucked into her black lace panties. I retrieve it carefully, unwilling to violate her ravaged teenage body any further. It’s one of Swollen Roland’s oversized business cards. There are some words scrawled on the back of the card in unusually florid script. “Dear Joe, Welcome to the Kill-Pit. Kind Regards, Roland Smart.” That fat motherfucker has been playing me all along. I slip the business card into my jacket pocket and finger my own broken meat for collateral damage. I step over Fontaine’s limp body and vomit bile all over the thick shag-pile carpet. I feel lightheaded as my mind swims with ideas of inflicting revenge on Swollen Roland. I stumble forward, narrowly missing the desk as I fall. I taste carpet as I pass out. Swollen fucking Roland. The fatter they come, the harder they fall...

To Be Continued...

BIO: Tom Leins is from Paignton, UK. His short stories have appeared online at Beat The Dust, Hit & Run Magazine, Disenthralled, Flash Fiction Offensive, Powder Burn Flash and A Twist Of Noir. He also writes a weekly DVD column, entitled Sex, Leins & Videotape.

A Twist Of Noir 584 - Laura Roberts

MURDER IN THE KEY OF E - LAURA ROBERTS

Anna stuffed the typewriter’s E key into the white button-down shirt’s breast pocket.

“I don’t like this, Vronsky,” she said. He was busy typing madly on the broken machine, sending one last letter to the manager, knowing it would be forwarded to the cops as evidence of his deranged mind.

“Quiet, Anna,” he said, “I’m trying to make this look legit.”

“Do you even love me?” she wanted to ask him. Watching him type, wild-eyed, on the Remington Rand, she was no longer sure she cared.

Framing Ernest Hemingway for the murder of Vronsky’s former boss, the manager of the Mauna Loa Meridian, was a terrible idea, but at some point Anna had stopped giving a damn. Vronsky had always been unstable, but when he’d been fired for humping the help in the honeymoon suite reserved for the famous writer, he’d lost the plot completely. In a rage, he’d sent detailed death threats to the manager, who in turn had notified the 5-0. It was only a matter of time now.

Anna had always found Vronsky’s dramatic temperament to be charming, evidence of his passion for her. Now she found it was simple mental illness, and she didn’t relish the thought of being an accessory to murder, much less a frame-up. Sitting here in Hemingway's suite, watching as her lover banged out a fraudulent confession on the typewriter with the broken E key they were planting as evidence, she wondered if she’d ever really loved him.

Sure, they’d had good times together. They had first met when Anna moved from the wintry depths of northern Michigan to the sultry paradise of the Big Island. She’d needed a job, and had started working for the hotel’s housekeeping staff. Mostly she’d been tasked with completing the complimentary guest laundry service, but had recently graduated to making beds and minting pillows. Vronsky was the handsome valet, and they’d met surreptitiously in the guest rooms Anna had been charged with keeping clean, soiling the sheets before she tucked them into tightly creased hospital corners. She’d found the whole affair completely consuming, and more than a little kinky; Vronsky often liked to do it in the backseats of guests’ rental cars, particularly the Beemers and all-too-rare Aston Martins.

Before he’d been fired, Vronsky had been talking about marriage, but now he was consumed by revenge. Anna had tried to reason with him, pleaded with him to let it go, had even spoken to a friend who worked for a rival hotel about a bellhop job, but Vronsky wouldn’t hear of it. And now, here they were, attempting to frame a famous author for an altogether obvious revenge plot.

Anna wasn’t sure how her life had come to this, but she wanted out.

“I’m calling the police,” she said, walking towards the telephone.

“You’ll do no such thing!” Vronsky shouted, intercepting her as she snatched up the receiver. He wrestled it away from Anna and threw her down on the bed.

“You’ve gone mad! Don’t you see? This will never work!”

“It will if you keep quiet. Now here, get rid of this,” Vronsky said, stuffing the broken E key into her housekeeping blouse pocket and handing her one of Hemingway’s soiled shirts.

Anna left the room, the E key searing her breast like a scarlet letter. She was sure everyone knew what they were up to. Hemingway had gone out earlier to do some sightseeing. The typewriter’s gunshot blasts of keys against roller, and its damning DING! at the end of each line were hardly subtle, and she was sure someone had heard this commotion.

By the time she’d reached the lobby, the manager was eyeing her suspiciously, and she was sure the jig was up.

“Anna, may I speak with you for a moment?” he called.

“It’s Vronsky; he’s gone mad!” she cried, quickly crossing the floor. “He’s planning to frame Hemingway.”

“You traitorous bitch!” Vronsky screamed. He had followed Anna down to the lobby, and now pointed the gun directly at her. The manager dove to the floor as Vronsky fired upon his own true love, driving a bullet into her heart.

Luckily for Anna, the Remington Rand’s E key deflected a great deal of the bullet’s impact. Vronsky, however, was not so lucky, as an ambush of police detectives opened fire upon the lad after his first shot left the chamber. He dropped to the ground with a wet thud, and together they lay there, their pooling blood swirling on the Roman marble in a final tango before Anna was rushed to the hospital to recover from her newly broken heart.

BIO: Laura Roberts is currently duking it out with her first novel, Naked Montreal, covering the Sin City of the North from all its sordid, sexy back alleys. She also edits the literary rebellion, Black Heart Magazine, in her free time, and is always looking for new submissions to shock her synapses. You can follow her like a peeping Tom on Twitter @originaloflaura.

A Twist Of Noir 583 - Sandra Seamans

IN GOD’S OWN TIME - SANDRA SEAMANS

“You know, I was seventeen and pregnant the afternoon my daddy died. Somebody put a shotgun to his head and blew his brains all over the Lazy Boy. Hell of a mess that was. I was told they had to toss that old chair out in the trash cause there just wasn’t no cleaning the blood and brains out of the fabric. Pity, it was a nice chair. Daddy’s favorite.

“Oh, hell, don’t look so shocked, Earl, that was twenty years ago, though I gotta admit, it feels like just yesterday. You wanna pull the truck over somewhere along here? It’s time we were parting company.”

“You’re her, ain’t you? Coralee Fergusson. Imagine that, Coralee Fergusson in my truck. You sure you want to get out here? It’s a ten mile walk in any direction before you stumble into anything that comes close to being called a town. Oh, hell, you already knew that. But, hey, I can take you anywhere you want to go, really, it’s not a problem.”

“You’re a sweet kid, Earl, but yeah, I’m sure.”

Earl almost dumped the pickup in the ditch as he jerked the steering wheel towards the edge of the dirt road.

“Man, I can’t believe it, all this time I was riding with a real live murderer sittin’ right there on the seat beside me. Wait’ll they hear about this down at Ruby’s.”

“Yeah, you’ve got one hell of a story to tell, Earl.” Pushing open the truck door, Coralee paused. “You might even say you’re lucky to still be alive.”

Earl’s face took on a sickly hue. “I’m...I’m...sorry. That was pretty crass.”

“Yeah, it was, but I’ve heard far worse and from people a lot scarier than you.” Coralee closed the door, hesitated, then leaned in the window. “Do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“If you run across Sheriff Reeves at the diner, tell him hell’s nipping at his heels.”

“You think he’ll be looking for you? You served your time, didn’t you?”

Coralee nodded. “I served every second of a twenty year stretch. Truth be known, it wasn’t mine to serve. And, yes, I expect Sheriff Reeves will be looking for me. If he ain’t, he’s a damn fool, and I never took my brother-in-law for a fool.”

“If you didn’t kill your daddy, you must’ve figured out who did. Is that why you’re back? You gonna get all up in somebody’s face and make them admit what they did? I’d buy a ticket to that face-off.”

“Revenge? That’s all I lived for those first ten years inside, but now...” Coralee shrugged her shoulders. “These last ten years I’ve come to realize that the sweetest revenge comes in God’s good time. Besides, I don’t know for positive who killed Daddy, but they’re sure gonna have their brains twisted in knots with the wondering. Oh, and Earl, you be sure and tell the Sheriff anything he wants to know, it’ll be safer for you that way. Kevin Reeves can be a mean son-of-a-bitch when he’s crossed.”

“You’ll be okay if I spill my guts?”

Coralee winked. “Hell, I’ll be long gone and lost on the wind by the time he sets the dogs on my track. You take care now, hear?”

Standing in the swirl of dust and exhaust left behind as Earl drove off, Coralee scanned the road for any signs of life other than herself. After twenty years of living in a cyclone of PMS, menopause and any other female hormone that might step up and take a swing or plant a shiv, Coralee had a built-in watch-your-back attitude. That attitude wasn’t something she’d be shaking any time soon.

Home, she thought, if I can just get home before Kevin finds me everything will be all right. She crossed the road, slipped between the strands of barbed wire fence and set off across Tanner’s meadow. Kevin would have his deputies out patrolling the roads looking to scoop her up and hustle her out of town before folks got wind that she’d been released. By traveling cross lots she could avoid having to face the past, at least for a while.

The key was still hung on the nail pounded into the doorframe, but the door was unlocked, just like always. Daddy had never felt the need to lock his door, preferring to leave it open for his friends and neighbors. “I ain’t got nothing to steal and who’d want to hurt me?” he’d always say. Who indeed. But then, daddy hadn’t counted on the desperate hunger that gripped his eldest daughter, her savage need for something she couldn’t have. Jessie May had played them all. Her wide-eyed innocence had killed Daddy and landed Coralee in prison for his murder.

Pushing open the door, Coralee expected to walk into twenty years of cobwebs and dust, but the kitchen was as neat as the day she walked out in handcuffs. The smell of Lysol and Lemon Pledge filled her nose as she strolled through the house. The quiet was almost deafening after twenty years of clanging metal bars and trays, and voices shouting obscenities.

As she walked through the house, Coralee was relieved to find that nothing had been changed, except for the spot where Daddy’s chair had been. A brand new recliner filled that space. At the top of the stairs, she pushed open the door to her old bedroom. The smell of guilt and death hung on the dust encrusted cobwebs inside the room. Coralee pulled the door closed. Sometimes, she thought, God just winks.

Back in the kitchen she found the refrigerator and cupboards had been stocked with fresh groceries. Plugging in the coffee maker she set a pot of coffee to brewing while she fixed herself a peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwich. She savored the pure pleasure of eating what she wanted, when she wanted, reveling in the new found pleasure of being totally alone with her thoughts.

She poured herself a cup of coffee and went out on the front porch. The porch swing had been recently painted and a new cushion graced the plank seat. Time raced backward as the June air swirled around her. Her nose filled with the rosey smell of Daddy’s treasured peonies, mixed with the honey sweetness of blooming locust trees all swirled together with the scent of new mown hay. June’s perfume. She’d forgotten how good fresh air could smell and how much she missed being home. All that was lacking was the pungent odor of Daddy’s pipe tobacco and the crisp scent of wood shavings as he whittled away on a piece of soft maple. She’d missed Daddy most of all.

Coralee saw the cloud of dust before she spotted the car racing down the dirt road. She shaded her eyes to get a better look, and found herself staring at Daddy’s old Ford Mustang. A silly grin spread across her face as she remembered the times spent with her friends in that car. Trips to the lake, the mall, even her first kiss had been in the front seat of that old Mustang. Daddy had given her so many hours of pleasure and freedom when he’d handed her the keys to his most prized possession.

The red Mustang came to a sliding halt next to the porch and a lanky young man jumped out. Coralee’s breath caught as she found herself staring into Daddy’s blue eyes. The boy was the spitting image of his grandfather, right down to the cowlick in his hair.

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing trespassing on private property?” the boy asked.

“I could ask you the same thing, but since you’re driving my Daddy’s old Mustang, I’d wager a guess that you’re Jessie May’s boy.”

The boy stood there, trying to digest the new information. “You must be my Aunt Coralee.”

“That’d be me. You got a name, boy?”

“Kevin Lee, after my daddy and granddaddy, but everyone calls me Lee, less confusion that way.” He stood there shuffling his feet, then blurted out, “You were in prison, right?”

“I was, and now I’ve come home for a spell. I needed some place familiar to feel my way back into the world.”

The boy nodded. “My folks never talked much about you or what you did. I’ve heard some whispering over the years, but...” The boy paused, almost embarrassed. “Would you mind telling me what happened back then?”

Coralee patted the cushion beside her. “You might as well sit down and take a load off your feet.”

She waited until he got comfortable, wanting with all her heart to touch him, to feel the strength in those young arms, to pat the cowlick flat and run her fingers across the line of his face. Instead she settled for sniffing the clean smell of him, letting the soft scent of his cologne wash over her.

“It doesn’t surprise me any that your folks don’t talk much about what happened. What happened back then, well, it wasn’t pleasant. Do you really think you’re up for hearing the truth?”

Lee nodded. “I hate the not knowing, but what I hate even more is people whispering behind my back. Sometimes it feels like the whole town is just holding its breath, waiting for something to explode.”

Coralee allowed herself to lay her hand on his, nothing personal, just a reassuring pat.

“You’re old enough to know that the truth isn’t always pretty, but what you might not know is that the truth can slice a person to the bone. And that’s a wound that can’t be stitched back up nor the pain kissed away.”

“That may be, but I’d still like to hear the truth. The rumors, well, they make you and my grandpa out to be something ugly.” He paused a moment before continuing. “You know, I sneak over here sometimes and try to figure out what happened, but when I look at the old photo albums, I don’t see ugly. I can see how much you loved each other. Something like that? Well, it just doesn’t turn ugly like they say, at least it shouldn’t.”

“You’re pretty wise for a such a young man, Lee. The fact of the matter is, rumors have a way of braiding a smidgeon of truth with man’s darkest thoughts. Those twisted truths tend to make the gossips feel superior, helps them pretend that nothing like that could ever happen to them. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve heard, then I’ll tell you the truth of things.”

“I’ve heard a bunch of rumors, like Grandpa raped you. Another was that you just went crazy because he wouldn’t let you go to college. There was even a rumor that you were pregnant and he wanted you to get an abortion.”

“I was raped, but it wasn’t your grandpa. There was a couple I knew who couldn’t have kids of their own so they decided I ought to have a baby for them. The wife held me down while her husband did his business. I guess it made her feel like she was part of making their baby.” Coralee drew a ragged breath, then continued. “Anyway, when your grandpa found out what they did, he threatened to tell everyone, and that’s what got him killed.”

The boy frowned. “If this couple killed Grandpa, why did you take the blame?”

“Because that rumor about Daddy raping me is what they threatened to use in court unless I pleaded guilty to the murder. I was young and stupid and didn’t figure anyone would believe me. Besides, I didn’t want Daddy’s name dragged through the mud.”

“So, were you pregnant?”

“Yeah, I was.”

“What happened to your baby?”

“Well, he was born while I was in prison and, for a whole month, I got to nurse him and take care of him and fall in love with him. Then, one morning, they up and told me he’d died during the night. I never saw him again, not even when they buried him.”

“It was a boy?”

“Yep, the sweetest little boy you ever did see. I named him Lee, after my Daddy, just like you.”

“I’m sorry your baby died.”

“So am I, Lee, so am I.”

Coralee caught a glimpse of dust on the road. “Where are my manners? A hot day like this, you must be thirsty. Why don’t you go inside and grab yourself a soda?” She looked at him and grinned. “Or a beer, if you’re old enough to drink. There’s sandwich fixin’s, too, if you’re hungry.”

Lee looked out toward the road as he opened the screen door. “Looks like my Daddy’s heard you’re back.”

“I expected he would.”

The Sheriff’s car pulled into the driveway and slammed to a stop behind the Mustang.

Kevin got out of the car, his face red with anger, his ever ready nightstick tapping the side of his leg. “My boy here?”

“You know he is, unless there’s another red Mustang floating around the county.”

“Don’t get smart with me, Coralee.”

“He’s inside, getting himself a soda.”

“What’d you tell him?”

Coralee heard the refrigerator door close and footsteps coming down the front hall. “The truth,” she said. “He asked me what happened back then, so I told him.”

“You told him you were his mother?”

Lee was just pushing open the screen door, but his father’s words stopped him, the soda can slipping from his hands.

“Now how could I tell him that? My Lee died in the prison infirmary, didn’t he?”

Lee nearly knocked his father over as he pushed past him. “Lee, wait,” said Kevin, reaching out to grab the boy’s arm.

Lee shrugged him off and headed for his car. He slid into the Mustang and spun out across the lawn, roaring off down the road.

“He can’t outrun it, you know. No matter how hard you try, you can’t ever outrun the truth,” said Coralee.

Kevin had started to follow Lee, but changed his mind. He pointed his nightstick at Coralee, his voice shaking as much as the stick in his hand. “This is all your fault. You shoulda never come back here. Now, you tell me every word of what you said to that boy.”

“I told him about the couple who raped me and killed Daddy, and how my baby died while I was in prison.”

“You told him your baby died? Maybe there’s some fix to this yet.”

“Of course I told him the baby died, that’s what they told me. But I knew, I knew exactly where my son was. If you and Jessie wanted that boy so bad, you should have taken him the day he was born, not let me feed and care about him. I grieved long and hard for that boy.”

“It was better for him, being nursed, at least that’s what Jessie said.”

“And neither one of you gave a thought to what that might do to me, did you? You let me fall in love with my son, then stole him away. You might as well have cut my heart out.”

“You were in prison, you couldn’t have raised him anyway.”

“So that made it all right?”

“Right enough for everyone concerned.” Kevin stepped down off the porch. “I’ve got to find Lee and try to explain things to him. Now, your daddy left some money for you and we ain’t touched a penny of it. There should be enough for you to get your life started over. Just make it far away from here. Away from my family.”

“Rumor has it that the house belongs to me, so I won’t be going anywhere. The way I figure it, serving twenty years in prison for what you and Jessie May did and bearing you a son gives me the right to live anywhere I damn well please.”

“And what are you figuring on doing? Telling everyone in town your version of the truth? Nobody will believe you. Now, I’ve got to go find my son and try to make things right.”

He’d reached his car, but her next words stopped him cold, and forced him back to the porch.

“Make things right? Do you know how many people sent me a copy of the county paper when you and Jesse May announced the birth of your son? I could have papered the walls of my cell a dozen times over. You’ve gone way past making anything right, Kevin.”

Her laughter struck him like a slap in the face. Anger shook him and he raised his nightstick in a high arc, bringing it down hard on Coralee’s shoulder, narrowly missing her head. He brought the club down again and again but he couldn’t stop her laughter or the fact that his sins were catching up with him.

“You can beat me all you want, Kevin, but you can’t hurt me anymore. Oh, and you might as well know that Lee isn’t your only problem,” Coralee said. “Your wife is upstairs in the bedroom where the two of you raped me. Seems Jessie May decided that putting a bullet in her head was easier than facing up to the rumors that have been chasing the pair of you for the last twenty years.”

“You...”

“Don’t even go there, Kevin. I was riding in a pickup truck with a kid named Earl when your wife killed herself. And I’m pretty sure everyone in town has heard about that by now.”

Kevin’s knees began to wobble and he dropped to the porch floor, defeated.

“Now you know,” said Coralee.

“Know what?”

“What it feels like to lose your whole life in the space of an afternoon.”

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 582 - Paul D. Brazill

THE FINAL CUT - PAUL D. BRAZILL

The Final Cut came out of one of Patti Abbot’s Flash Fiction Challenges and appeared at Radgepacket Online in July 2010

They say that you can tell a lot about someone by the way that he looks and that you can always judge a man by his shoes. I thought about this as I looked down on my ancient, scuffed, brown brogues and immediately felt even more out of place in the trendy Soho bar than I had when I first came in. The bar was stiflingly hot and cluttered with a collection of hipsters and arseholes. I sat at a small table by the window watching the streamers of steam rise from my overpriced coffee. Beside me, a fading French film star with a sandblasted face slurped his espresso with all the enthusiasm of an ex-con in a bordello.

Coldplay were droning on over and over again and it took me all of my resolve not to run out of the place and keep on running. Fight or flight, I think they call it. Outside, the cloak of darkness had draped itself over the city and swallowed the moon. A tall, redhead woman in a screaming blue dress oozed into the bar like mercury and stood before me. She nodded and I stood and nervously held out a hand.

‘Patience,’ I said, shaking hands weakly. ‘Long time no see.’

‘Georgy Porgy,’ she said. She looked me up and down and grinned smugly. She clicked her fingers toward a waiter and sat down. I sipped at my coffee as she fiddled with a cigarette.

‘Were there many at the screening?’ I asked.

Mr Wu’s screening room was just up the street and I could see a murder of critics swooping past the window, crawing and cackling. Patience broke into a grin.

'Oh, yes,’ she purred.

‘And?’ I said.

‘I’ll be back in a tick,’ said Patience, standing abruptly.

As she got up, she clicked on a zippo before walking outside into a bustling Dean Street. The flustered looking waiter, who only minutes before had looked at me like I was something a stray cat had dragged in, beamed at me as he placed a bottle of overpriced mineral water on the table. My stomach was churning. I knew Patience was loving every second of this. Patience had always had a sadistic side- which she’d regularly shown during our marriage – that had probably  helped her media career enormously.

‘Fuck it,’ I said, as I saw her yammering away into her mobile phone and holding court with a bunch of obsequious wannabe media stars. I went up to the bar and ordered a large scotch. Three years of sobriety down the Swannee river.

‘George Boy,’ slurred a voice behind me, as I gulped down my drink.

I turned to see a heavy-jowled, hangdog man in a well-worn tweed jacket and faded green combat trousers.

‘Blake,’ I said and nodded. ‘Were you at the screening?

‘Free food and drink, George Boy, of course I was there!’

In the past, it had grated on me when Blake called me George Boy but now it was welcome as a pair of old slippers.

‘G & T?’ I said.

‘Gin makes you sin, George Boy, so, why not?’ he replied.

I finished my drink and ordered another one before we sat down. Patience swept in from outside in hail of laughter before sitting down and eyeing my drink and Blake disapprovingly.

‘So, what’s the SP?’ I said. They say that directing your first film is more painful than giving birth but I think waiting for the first reviews is as excruciating as possible.

‘Puerile adolescent drivel,’ said George. ‘Mindless flash-trash worthy of Eighties Hollywood at its most vacuous. I absolutely adored it!’

He downed his drink in one and waved over to the barman. I felt relieved alright. Blake was a bit of a cult figure and had his acolytes who would go to see anything he recommended. However, a good review from Blake didn’t automatically go hand in hand with box office success, unfortunately, and I’d invested so much money in the film I really needed a smash. I had a handful of banks and a couple of dangerous loan sharks looming over me like vampires waiting to strike.

‘Patience? What did you think?’ I said, expecting the worst.

Patience’s opinion was much more important than Blake’s. She had a hugely influential weekly film show that she’d taken over after the long time host had been murdered by an embittered fading film star. It was said that she could make or break a film in twenty-five words or less. She downed her drink and patted my hand as she got up.

‘Don’t give up the day job, Porgy,’ she said and walked toward the door. ‘Oh, and remember that the school fees are due next week. Ta ta,’ she sang before blowing me a kiss.

That was it. I knew she’d scupper me. I ordered more booze and drowned in the well of misery.

*

‘They say an artist should diversify,’ I said, my voice echoing around the empty cosmetics factory. ‘Never get stuck ploughing the same furrow, they say, eh?’

I wiped my bleeding nose on the sleeve of my Concorde Security Services uniform and swigged from my bottle of Grant’s.

‘You need to be in touch with the Zeitgeist, they say.’

I pulled back the blinds. The factory car park was deserted as it always was late at night. That’s why I preferred working the night shift. It gave you time to think. To plan.

‘And the Internet has changed so much. They say that there are so many niche markets that have opened up in the last few years.’ I switched on the halogen light and checked the camera’s tripod. ‘But I’m sure that this is just like teaching your granny to suck eggs. You’ll know all about this, eh, Patience?’

Patience said nothing. I’d gagged her and strapped her to a metal chair in the middle of the room. The floor was covered in black bin liners that ripped as I paced up and down.

‘Take snuff films, for example,’ I said, before taking another swig. ‘I’d always assumed that they were urban legends and perhaps they were but not now. Not in this day and age. There isn’t a big market, I’ll admit, but there are those who are willing to pay a lot. And celebrity snuff? Well ... even a B-list celebrity like you can attract an interested buyer.’

I paced, swigged. Paced. Swigged.

‘They say it’s a cut-throat game, the film business. It really is, too. Oh, sorry. I know how you hate puns. So, let’s go to work...’

I switched on the camera, pulled on the rubber Mel Gibson mask and walked towards Patience, knife in hand.

Cut.

BIO: Paul D. Brazill was born in England and lives Poland.

His stories have appeared in a number of online and print magazines including A Twist Of Noir, Beat To A Pulp, Dark Valentine Magazine, Crimefactory, Needle Magazine, Powder Burn Flash, Pulp Metal Magazine and Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers, as well as in the anthologies such as Caught By Darkness and RADGEPACKET Volume Four.

His story Guns Of Brixton will appear in The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime Fiction 2011, edited by Maxim Jakubowski & his story The Tut was nominated for a 2010 Spinetingler Award.

And his blog is YOU WOULD SAY THAT WOULDN’T YOU?

Interlude

If you haven’t seen it yet, I am the subject of Jim Harrington’s Six Questions at Six Questions For...

The questions that Jim asked made me stop for a second and think and I think those are always the best kinds of questions.

Go check it out and thanks again, Jim.

A Twist Of Noir 581 - Dana King

HITTER - DANA KING

It’s not like in the movies. No one makes a living as a hit man.

It’s a nice supplement. Presents for the wife or girlfriend or both. A vacation or a car if it’s a big enough score. Some guys will do a hit for a couple hundred bucks, ruin it for everyone else. Or you run in a crew and the boss says he wants someone clipped. Maybe he pays you and maybe not. You can’t play potential customers against each other like buying a car: “This other guy wants him dead, too. We close the deal now and I’ll kill him for you.”

Hitters need day gigs. Muscle, usually, enforcers most effective when just their presence gets the slow pay to come around. Rumors of hits past can be an advantage then. If you’re pretty sure he killed Rusty Thomas, what makes you think he won’t clip you? Even government agencies don't keep their assassins sitting idle, waiting for the one time all year someone needs to go. They have real jobs, probably not behind a desk. Paperwork and wet work don’t go well together.

Take Frank Jombach. A respected pro, good for one hit a year, sometimes two. The rest of the time he collected for Marty Chappell, reminding guys who got behind on their juice loans of their obligations. When Marty didn’t need him, Frank freelanced out to insurance salesmen who felt the need to remind prospective clients how dangerous and unpredictable life can be. It’s amazing how many small businesses underestimate the necessity for undocumented insurance.

So when a guy he knew knew a guy who knew a woman needed some work done, Frank saw an opportunity to get his wife off his back and pay cash for the new bathroom she’d been bitching about. Things went flaky right from the start when the broad approached the wrong guy in the bar where they were supposed to meet. Guy thought she was coming on to him and about shit when she asked did he paint houses, which is the accepted way of asking about getting some work done. Frank painted houses and did his own carpentry - disposing of the remains - and conveyed that with a look to the interloper, who wisely took his drinking home that night. Frank almost walked away - a third party knew and could place them together - but stayed because he wanted that goddamn bathroom behind him.

She paid the deposit, but wanted to set the guy up herself. Frank’s usual procedure was for her to point out the mark and disappear; he’d contact her when the job was done. She caught him at a bad time - a storm rearranged parts of his roof, her deposit already committed to the bathroom contractor - so he said okay, so long as she did what he told her. She threw in the blow job out of gratitude.

She handled herself okay, all things considered. Got the guy to a vacant building - Frank didn’t ask how - moved aside when Frank stepped out of the shadows and popped him once in the temple, then again in the forehead after he was down. He didn’t want them to leave together but she came in with the stiff and his car had to be left there. The hummer she gave him in the car set his mind at ease for the time being.

Frank got a bad feeling when she left the second message for him. Two in a row for the same person was unusual - broad was a fucking crime wave - but he was still a little short on the roof, so he took it.

The woman - Doris - wanted in on the action again. She’d call the mark from out in the woods, say she had car trouble, let Frank shoot from a hundred yards away. He didn’t like her taking over the job, started to argue till she said he could take it or leave it. He almost left it; what was she going to do, as short on time like she claimed to be? Not like she could go down to the corner and pick a contract killer out of bunch of guys standing around like illegal immigrant day laborers. It also worried him that she seemed like she was under a lot of pressure. Amateurs make mistakes under pressure, and he didn’t want to do time because someone else wasn’t careful enough. If he stayed, he could finish paying for the roof then do something for himself for a change. Atlantic City maybe, shoot some dice, get laid, let his wife run the Water Pik between her legs, she loved that goddamn bathroom so much. So he stayed. But he didn’t like it.

In place an hour early, hunting jacket and old Timberlands and his .30-06 in a carry bag. Found a spot where he wouldn’t be seen from the road, arranged some deadfall for a firing support and pulled fallen leaves over his legs. His car a quarter mile away as the crow flew, other side of the hill, he’d be driving away five minutes after the shot but no one would associate seeing him with what happened a mile down the road.

Rain started as he finished arranging the leaves. A drizzle at first, then harder, a cold October rain that soaked him through inside of five minutes. The longer he laid there in the rain, the less he trusted Doris. He’d eliminated as many chances as he could in the short time he had, but a million things could still go wrong. He could pay for the roof over time; what she owed him was gravy. Cash to put in the bank or blow in AC wasn’t worth natural life if something went wrong and Doris rolled over on him.

She would, too. The longer he waited there, the wetter he got, the more he convinced himself. She went slumming on the first one, got off on the idea of her pet hit man actually killing somebody. Something must have gone wrong for her to need someone else clipped three weeks later. Frank had heard nothing, he was clear, it had to be a loose end she hadn’t anticipated and had to be dealt with quickly.

A panic killing. Frank wouldn’t kill a wasp in his house in anything other than cold blood. He never got carried away when encouraging payment or throwing fear into someone. When he killed a guy, he left the house for that purpose. Nine jobs and he’d never spent a night in the can. He didn’t plan for Number Ten to break the string.

This Doris broad was trouble, digging herself a deeper hole when she should be throwing out the shovel. Every drop of water that fell in his eye reminded Frank he didn’t need her money.

Doris disrupted his train of thought when she pulled into the little turnout he was sighted on. She got out and raised the hood, rushed back inside out of the rain. Put on the flashers.

Frank was wet everywhere, laying in a puddle of his own runoff, looking down to the car where Doris sat warm and dry. He knew her type. She'd wouldn’t just cut a deal; she’d volunteer one the first time a cop asked anything relevant. Plead to whatever she had to while giving Frank up on Murder for Hire, natural life only because the governor refused to execute anyone.

Coming back was a mistake he couldn’t just walk away from. She owned enough of him - only he pulled a trigger - to keep him on a string. He could give her the benefit of the doubt for now, take her out later if he suspected anything. Problem was, once she mentioned his name - even the phony he gave her, even in passing to a cop - he’d be the first person they talked to. She’d describe him and just because he’d never been arrested didn’t mean the cops didn’t know what he’d been up to.

The plan would work just as well on her.

Wait for the about-to-be-reprieved mark to show up. She gets out of the car, Frank moves the sight picture a couple of feet one way or the other, squeezes one off and beats feet for the car. He’d lose the last payment, but that could have been the set-up if she rolled over, arrange for a cop to see him accept money.

An SUV pulled up ahead of her car in the turnout. Flashers came on and the driver’s door opened. Frank took the covers off his scope lenses and pulled the stock into his shoulder. Doris’s door opened. She got out and Frank caught a break. Her hood shielded most of the supposed target; Doris’s head bobbed just above the roof of her car.

Frank slowed his breathing, let his heart rate stabilize. Shoot at the end of an exhalation, between heart beats if possible. Timing it, adjusting his aim as her head bobbed, talking to the guy behind the hood. The rain fell hard and steady on fallen leaves. One eye closed, all his vision and concentration focused through the scope, picking the spot a couple inches above her right ear. Took one last breath, let it out slow.

Frank Jombach’s best attribute as a shooter was his ability to concentrate. That’s why he didn’t hear the man approach from behind, his footsteps covered by the rain pounding on the leaves. His mind didn’t have time to register the sound of the gunshot before the bullet rammed itself through the base of his skull. The second shot was insurance.

He’d been right: Doris brought him here so she could clean up a loose end.

BIO: Dana King’s short story, “Green Gables,” was published in the anthology Thuglit Presents Blood, Guts, and Whiskey, edited by Todd Robinson. Online, his stories have appeared in Powder Burn Flash, Mysterical-e, and New Mystery Reader, where he has also written over one hundred reviews and interviews. Dana is also a regular contributor to flash fiction challenges on blogs, including Pattinase, Going Ballistic, and Do Some Damage.

A Twist Of Noir 580 - Mark Joseph Kiewlak

BAD THINGS - MARK JOSEPH KIEWLAK

I made my way through the woods and found the tree and started climbing. The treehouse was about fifteen feet off the ground. I pushed open the small door and squeezed my way inside. Tommy was sitting in the far corner with his legs crossed and his head down. There was a .357 Magnum in his lap.

“Tommy,” I said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

He didn’t raise his head. He didn't say anything. His knees were scraped bloody. There was a cut on his elbow.

“My name is John,” I said.

The roof on the treehouse was so low that I couldn’t even get to my knees. I crawled on all fours a step closer to him.

“I’m going to come over,” I said. “So that we can talk.”

All at once, he raised the gun and pointed it in my direction. “I don’t want to talk,” he said. His fingers were so small he fit two of them on the trigger. The gun was pointed mostly at the floor. Then again, there wasn’t much room to miss.

“I think you need to,” I said. “I think you need to talk.”

“Who cares what you think,” Tommy said.

“It’s okay to tell me,” I said. “It’s okay to tell me what happened.”

He raised his head a little and I saw that there was a gash across his forehead. It was the middle of January but he wasn’t wearing a coat.

“I don’t want to talk,” Tommy said. “I’m never talking to anyone again.”

“I understand. Sometimes I don’t feel like talking either. Sometimes I feel like there’s nobody who could ever help the way I feel. Like I’m all alone. Maybe forever. Is that the way you feel?”

I tried to move toward him. He lifted the gun a little higher and steadied his grip. “Don’t come any closer,” he said. His hair was dirty blond. He had jagged bangs hanging over his eyes.

“Is that your father’s gun?” I said. “Is that where you got it? From your father?”

“Go back to the other stuff,” he said. “The stuff about being alone. Talk about that.”

I shifted my position and sat down with my legs crossed in the center of the room. The afternoon wind was howling between the planks.

“I just meant to say that you’re not alone,” I said. “Even if you think you are.”

“I am alone,” Tommy said. “And now I always will be.”

“Bad things have happened to you,” I said. “Maybe for a long time. But that’s over now. You did what you were supposed to. You told someone.”

“She didn’t help,” Tommy said. “She asked a bunch of stupid questions and she sent me down the hall to the guidance counselor. He didn’t help, either.”

“I’m sure they tried,” I said. “I’m sure they both tried.”

“Are you a cop?” Tommy said. He had lowered the gun a bit and was balancing the butt on one of his ankles. There was a stream of dried blood on the side of his face. I couldn’t see if the gash in his forehead was still bleeding.

“I used to be,” I said. “Now I help people. Your aunt was worried that she hadn’t heard from you and she wanted me to make sure you were okay.”

“Dad locked us away,” Tommy said. “After they called him to school, he came home angry and he wouldn’t let me leave the house after that. It was worse than usual.”

His wrist weakened and the gun barrel tipped and banged the floorboard once before he got it raised again. His sneakers had coal dust all over them.

“Don’t ask me to talk about it,” he said. “Everybody asks me that. I’m through talking. I won’t ever talk again.”

“I won’t ask,” I said.

“Good.”

We were silent a moment.

“Now what?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “You tell me.”

“I want you to go away,” Tommy said.

“I can’t,” I said.

“Well, I want you to.”

“I can’t leave you here like this,” I said. “I need your help.”

“I won’t tell you,” he said. “I told you I wasn’t talking anymore.”

The wind blew harder and one of the branches began to scrape along the outside wall. There were no windows in the room. No furniture. There was a small stack of comic books in the corner and some empty boxes of Slim Jims.

“I just need to know where he is,” I said. “Nothing else. Just where he is.”

“Do you have a gun?” Tommy said. “Because I have a gun.”

“I have a gun, too,” I said. “But I didn’t bring it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t think I’d need it,” I said. “Because sometimes when you bring a gun the wrong people get hurt.”

“He wasn’t the wrong people,” Tommy said.

I didn’t say anything.

“Are you afraid of me?” Tommy said.

“No, Tommy, I’m not afraid.”

“He wasn’t afraid, either. I was always afraid of him. He hurt me and I was afraid.”

“Is that why you took the gun?” I said. “So that he’d be afraid?”

With his two fingers, Tommy pulled the trigger. The bullet whizzed past my elbow and knocked out a chunk of floor near the door. Tommy was startled and was knocked back against the wall but he didn’t let go of the gun. I tried not to move. It was getting difficult.

“You were laughing at me,” Tommy said.

“I wasn’t.”

“You didn’t think you had to be afraid of me,” he said. “You didn’t bring your gun.”

“Was that the first time you ever fired a gun?” I said.

“I didn’t shoot him,” Tommy said. “You’d lock me away if I shot him.”

“No one will lock you away.”

“Why didn’t you lock him away?” Tommy said. “All this time. Why didn’t someone lock him away?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They should’ve.”

It was still fairly light outside, but inside the treehouse, the shadows were getting deep. I didn’t care. I’d sit all night if I had to. I was worried about the cut on his forehead.

“They should’ve,” he said. “But they didn’t.”

“So you had to do something,” I said.

“Leave me alone,” he said.

“Just tell me what happened,” I said. “Just what happened today. That’s all.”

“I want you to leave,” Tommy said. “I have the gun and I want you to leave.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I think my legs are stuck in this position.”

“He took me out here all the time,” Tommy said.

“To this treehouse?” I said.

“No. Out in the woods. Back by the coal banks. Where the old breaker is.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I hate it out there,” Tommy said.

“Is that where he took you today?” I said.

“Shut up,” Tommy said. “I’m telling a story.”

I did as I was told. He shifted his head and I saw that there was fresh blood coming from the gash on his forehead. I couldn’t see much else now. Tommy’s hands began to shake. He tried to sit up straighter. “He made me --” He choked on the words. “He always made me. He was my dad.” He wasn’t crying but there was blood running like tears down his cheek.

I had to move my legs or they would go numb. It was already below freezing outside. Tommy had on a T-shirt and jeans. The knees were worn through like he’d been dragged somewhere. He made no move to wipe the blood from his face.

“He was my dad,” Tommy said.

I stretched out one leg and then the other. I got back on all fours. “Tommy,” I said. “I have to come over there. I don’t think you’ll shoot me.”

“You’re right,” he said. Then he raised the gun and pointed it at his own head. “This is easier,” he said.

“Tommy, wait,” I said. “What about your father?”

“That’s what you care about?” he said. “My father? You’re worried about him?”

I gave him a second. As long as he was angry he was distracted. As long as I could keep him here with me. Any way I could.

“You’re like everybody else,” he said. “Talking about him. They want to know this and they want to know that. Did he do this and did he do that? When? Where? Nobody asks about me. Nobody cares. Everything is about him.”

“This isn’t,” I said. “This is just about me and you. Sitting here. Talking.”

His arms were too weak to hold the gun to the side of his head so he lowered it into his lap and pointed it back toward himself and lowered his forehead until it was pressing the barrel.

“We were out behind the coal bank,” he said. “Where he likes to go. I ran away. I had the gun hidden here and I thought I could run and get it. But he caught me at the top of the coal bank. He started dragging me by the hair. I fell and hit my head. He kept dragging me. When it was over, he was pulling his pants up and I ran again. I ran right to the edge of the coal bank. He came after me and his pants were falling and I pulled them down and I pushed him and he fell over the edge. He rolled all the way to the bottom. I was scared to go down after him, so I threw rocks at him and I hit him but he didn’t move.”

“When did this happen?” I said. “How long ago?”

“Early this morning,” Tommy said.

“Have you been out here since then?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Have you seen your father since then?”

“Yes,” Tommy said. “I went back there this afternoon. He was still lying there.”

It was dark enough now so that Tommy was just a small shadow hiding in the corner. The wind was rattling several of the planks and the scraping branches had become a chorus.

“There’s nothing left,” he said.

“Tommy, listen,” I said. “I had a little boy. And a girl. I would give anything to see them again.”

“Are they gone? Like my dad?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll probably never know. But I miss them. I miss them everyday.”

“I bet you never hurt them like he hurt me,” Tommy said.

“No, I didn’t. But I got hurt. I got hurt because they weren’t around anymore. Your dad won’t be around anymore and you think you can’t handle that. But you can. Bad things have happened to me but I’m still here. I want you to be here, too.”

“Who’ll take care of me?” Tommy said.

“Why not your aunt?” I said. “She cares about you a lot.”

“My dad hated her,” Tommy said.

I didn’t say anything.

“And I hated him.”

“I know you did,” I said. “And that’s okay. It’s okay to hate him. And it’s okay to love him, too.”

I heard the gun drop to the floor. Tommy began sobbing. I crawled over to him and found the gun and slid it across the room. He had curled into a ball and closed himself off and I knew I shouldn’t touch him or even try. He began crying harder and the wind rattled the walls on all four sides. I sat next to him and put my arms around him. He resisted, but then he let me hold him, and I held him for a long time, and we both listened to the treehouse creaking and being pulled apart all around us.

BIO: Mark Joseph Kiewlak has been a published author for eighteen years. In recent times his work has appeared in more than thirty magazines, including Hardboiled, Plots With Guns, Pulp Pusher, Thuglit, The Bitter Oleander, Disenthralled, Clean Sheets, and many others. His story, “The Present,” was nominated for the 2010 Spinetingler Award: Best Short Story on the Web. He has also written for DC Comics (FLASH 80-PAGE GIANT #2).

Interlude

Check out Six Questions For... today as Cindy Rosmus, editor extraordinaire of YELLOW MAMA, goes under the microscope.

I’ve admired Cindy for a while, published and republished some of her stories here at ATON and promised to send her at least one story for YM for a while now (it's coming, Cindy, promise).

So make it a point to stop in and see what makes Cindy and Yellow Mama tick.

Interlude

Richard Godwin has Michael J. Solender over for a Chin Wag at the Slaughterhouse. Michael always has something interesting to say. Couple that with the fact that it’s Richard Godwin tossing the questions at him...

Can’t wait to check that one out.

AJ Hayes with the heads-up today.

Writer’s Digest is running a contest, the grand prize winner of which receives a trip to the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City, $2,500 cash, $100 worth of Writer’s Digest Books and the 2011 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market.

There are five categories in which you can write:

Romance

Mystery/Crime Fiction

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Thriller/Suspense

Horror

You can check out more at Writer’s Digest.
 
In other news, we’re still a little ways from starting the 600 To 700 Challenge. Spots have filled up nice and quick. I will getting in touch with a few more writers over the course of the next week.
 
600 - Jimmy Callaway
 
601 - Richard Godwin

602 - Keith Rawson

603 - Matthew McBride

604 and 605 - Open

606 - Phil Beloin Jr.

607 - Robert Crisman

608 - Col Bury

609 - Robert Crisman

610 - Eric Beetner

611 - Chad Eagleton

612-619 - Open

620 - Cindy Rosmus

621 - Tom Larsen

622 - Open

623 - Chris Rhatigan

624 - Des Nnochiri

625 - Lee Hughes

626 - Jim Harrington

627 - Mark Joseph Kiewlak

628 - Richard Godwin

629 - David Barber

630 - Alan Griffiths

631- Chad Rohrbacher

632 - Jack Getze

633 - Matthew C. Funk

634 - Dana King

635 - Steve Weddle

636 - Chris Deal

637 - Michael Moreci

638 and 639 - Open

640 - Naomi Johnson

641 - Ron Earl Phillips

642 - Tom Leins

643 and 644 - Open

645 - AJ Hayes

646 - Richard Godwin

647 - Sandra Seamans

648 - Cindy Rosmus

649 - Chris Benton

650 - Ian Ayris

651 - Matthew McBride

652 - Jane Hammons

653 - Liam José

654 - Kelly Whitley

655 - R.S. Bohn

656 - Daniel O'Shea

657 - Open

658 - Kevin Michaels

659 - Open

660 - Charlie Stella

661 - Kathleen A. Ryan

662 - Fester McFardle

663 - Cindy Rosmus

664 - Matthew C. Funk

665 - Jim Harrington

666 - Paul D. Brazill (and Paul promises a spooky noir for this one)

667 - Nigel Bird

668 - Katherine Tomlinson

669 - Kieran Shea

670 - Lee Hughes

671 - Dan Ames

672 - Ron Earl Phillips

673 - Cindy Rosmus

674 - Kenny Crist

675 - Michael J. Solender

676 - Phil Beloin Jr.

677 - Frank Bill

678 - Hilary Davidson

679 - Scott Phillips

680 - Matthew McBride

681 - Matthew McBride

682 - Richard Godwin

683 - Kevin Michaels

684 - Al Tucher

685 - Chris Deal

686 - Laurie Powers

687 - Michael A. Gonzales

688 - Patti Abbott

689 - Cormac Brown

690 - B.R. Stateham

691 - RESERVED

692 - Des Nnochiri

693 - Jarrett Rush

694 - Chad Eagleton

695 - Phil Beloin Jr.

696 - Cameron Ashley

697 - Ian Ayris

698 - Eric Beetner

699 - Keith Rawson

700 - Jimmy Callaway

A Twist Of Noir 579 - Jack Getze

HEY JEFFREY, MEET MICKEY - JACK GETZE

Rain slapped my face as I lugged the last cardboard box into our new house. Moving Linda and myself that weekend, I’d loaded and unloaded the borrowed pickup truck twelve times, not to mention all that driving in bad weather. Looking back, I figure it must have been exhaustion and pain that made me so stupid.

I cleaned my boots and joined Linda and Jeffrey in the rebuilt, airy kitchen. Except for the use of his Chevy truck, Linda’s coworker had been as much help as a broken leg. Yet there he was, Jeffrey Reece, ace investigative reporter, slouched back at the round oak table I’d purchased for the new house that morning.

“Jeffrey called out for pizza,” Linda said. “Why don’t you sit down, take a break. Jeffrey and I need to talk to you anyway.”

Both of them gawked at me, so I put my hands on the back of the chair and stared back. Linda and I had been together four years. I’d asked her to marry me twice. Jeffrey worked with her at the new magazine, and was—starting today—our roommate. Linda and I had leased the new four-bedroom especially so a boarder could help with the rent, which I’d set up to count toward an eventual purchase. Everything fit when her new co-worker needed a cheap room.

In the silence, the three of us around that table, I wondered if Jeffrey wanted a discount on the rent for driving Linda to work. Like I said, it must have been exhaustion made me so damn stupid.

“The thing is, Hank, Jeffrey and I are in love,” Linda said. “We want to live here ... without you.” She shifted her hips closer to Jeffrey. “I figure we’ve all been around enough to know this kind of thing happens, right?”

Her deerskin-colored eyes focused on Jeffrey, not me. What a dummy I’d been. To pack and load all of our stuff, hauling every bit over here, unloading each box and piece of furniture myself? And all for Linda and Mr. Jeffrey Fucking Reece. Why hadn’t I seen this coming? She’d been talking about how smart he was for two days.

Linda saying, “Best thing to do is just get it out in the open, get the unpleasantness behind us.”

I tried to remember where I’d unloaded my strong box.

“I’m sorry, Hank,” Linda said. “I really am. It was just a crazy thing that happened.”

I split from the kitchen to rummage through the boxes I’d dumped in the master bedroom. I still hunted for my strong box when Linda’s voice startled me.

“Jeffrey and I worried you might react like this,” Linda said. “So I took your Beretta.”

Linda perched in the bedroom doorway behind me, her hands on her wide-curving hips. My hips. The hips I held and loved, and where I found harbor on cold nights. Now they belonged to Jeffrey.

Her news about my weapon didn’t change anything. Just another ugly fact in the nightmare of crap coming my way. I jumped up and raked inside the closet where I’d stuffed my sports equipment. My fingers wrapped around a Mickey Mantle model Louisville Slugger. I pushed past a blabbing-scolding-shrieking Linda and jogged back to the kitchen. Jeffrey still slouched at the table, only now he held my Beretta.

I eased the Mickey Mantle down beside my leg. But my feet edged closer.

“Time for you to leave,” Jeffrey said.

I worked my gaze between Jeffrey’s brown eyes and the Beretta, back and forth, back and forth, then raised the bat. “You left the safety on, smart guy.”

His gaze didn’t shift from mine. My little trick had failed. He must have checked the safety before I came into the room. Jeffrey couldn’t be as clever as Linda thought, but he might have more smarts than I’d imagined.

Jeffrey pushed his chair back and stood up. He used a two-hand grip to aim the Beretta at my chest. Palms pressed against the grips. Thumbs together, both pointed forward. He definitely knew how to hold a weapon.

“Get out, Hank,” he said. “Get out now.”

*

I rolled a plain white Ford panel truck into that same driveway seven hours later, the lights off, the dash clock reading 3:12 A.M. The new house—Linda and Jeffrey’s new house—sat dark and quiet. So did the rest of the street.

Leaving the engine running, I grabbed the nail gun and gasoline can out of the back, then snuck along the neighbor’s tall oleander hedge until I stood across from the new house’s back door. What should have been my back door.

I thought about Linda and Jeffrey in the master bedroom. Picturing that bastard on top, Linda’s legs spread around him. I used that image as fuel to run across the driveway and dump half a gallon of gas on the back door and porch.

My plan: light the first fire, run out front to flame that door, then continue around the house until I reached the master bedroom. That’s why I’d brought the nail gun. The way I hoped it would happen, Jeffrey and Linda both would be trying to open the bedroom window’s cover just as I nailed the sucker shut. They’d see me through the cracks, locking them inside to burn.

I struck a match. Funny how the light grabbed my attention. The flame kind of danced in my eyes. In fact, I don’t know if the fire put me to sleep, or woke me up, but staring into that red-orange match busted some kind of spell. Made me think. By now Linda would have already told a dozen people about leaving me for Jeffrey. How she’d moved the same day into a new house. Shit, the cops would be looking for me before the fire trucks left.

I blew out the match and got back in the Ford. What I needed was a few days in Vegas and a plan, not a double murder charge.

*

When I told her the story, a hooker named Meredith came up with a sicker idea than any I could of. For an extra five hundred bucks, she even Googled herself enough industry knowledge and made the phone call to Jeffrey. Her British accent was freaking perfect.

“I do not think you understand me,” Meredith said. “Mr. Lundquist is the Publisher of Manhattan Magazine. He is most likely to offer you a staff position—provided he likes you personally. Something of a quirk, I suppose.”

“Has he seen my work? Why would he offer me a job?”

Meredith sighed like a pro. Executive secretaries with British accents do not like their time wasted. “Mr. Lundquist would like to have lunch, not necessarily offer you employment. He must be impressed. Do you understand?”

“Not really.”

Another sigh from Meredith. “Do you know Mr. Todd Jonner?”

“Sure. He owns the publishing company I work for. I’ve never met him, but—”

“Mr. Jonner is one of Mr. Lundquist’s closest friends. I believe Mr. Jonner has recommended you for this position.”

I couldn’t believe how long it took Jeffrey to agree to the lunch meeting. Meredith told me working for Lundquist and Manhattan Magazine would be a huge break for a writer like Jeffrey, like a young director training with Spielberg and DreamWorks. I couldn’t wait to see Jeffrey’s face when I showed him the rest of Meredith’s plan.

*

“Hold it right there,” a voice said.

The two cops held up badges for me. Also Glocks. I started to raise my hands, but a sharp blow in the back bent me over.

A man and two women screamed in line behind me. Rough strong hands grabbed my wrists, yanked my arms, and stretched me out on the airport floor. In handcuffs, the carpet smelled like urine, a prison cell.

Well, damn. My boarding pass fluttered to the carpeting beside me. So close. So close to Mexico City and my friends there to help me disappear. Hell, I grew up in L.A.—low san’ glays to my Chicano pals. Been drinking tequila and eating tortillas for fresh bread since I got my first bike. It would have been fun making a new life in the mountains of Oaxaca. Trying to find a woman better than Linda.

The bitch.

The two cops hauled me to my feet. One, a short redheaded guy with freckles, mentioned murder charges. If I was being arrested for murder, at least that meant Linda had figured out exactly what was in that waterproof package I sent her. After his introduction to Mickey, Jeffrey Reece’s big brain had resembled a jellyfish.

That hooker Meredith was one sick chick.

BIO: Jack Getze edits short fiction for Spinetingler Magazine, authors the Austin Carr Mystery Series, and drives a limo for the Jersey Shore gambling industry. He used to write for newspapers.

Interlude And Updated List

Richard Godwin has a hell of a noir (in every definition of the word) story over at Media Virus Magazine.

Titled STEADY AS A ROCK, Richard has created a story of regret and brutality, both to the body and the mind. A few weeks back, Otto Penzler wrote about noir and how it was about losers, not detectives or that kind of thing. This is the kind of story that Richard has given us.

Richard’s story, I believe, as I’ve told him, is a whirlpool world full of losers and that the two main losers, Norman and Susie, get sucked down quickly and easily.

I’m not going to say anything else about this story, except that you should read it as soon as you can.

As for the list portion of this show...

THE 600 TO 700 CHALLENGE

600 - Jimmy Callaway

601 - Richard Godwin

602 - Keith Rawson

603-605 - Open

606 - Phil Beloin Jr.

607 - Robert Crisman

608 - Col Bury

609 - Robert Crisman

610 - Eric Beetner

611 - Chad Eagleton

612-619 - Open

620 - Cindy Rosmus

621 - Tom Larsen

622 - Open

623 - Chris Rhatigan

624 - Des Nnochiri

625 - Lee Hughes

626 - Jim Harrington

627 - Mark Joseph Kiewlak

628 - Richard Godwin

629 - Open

630 - Alan Griffiths

631- Chad Rohrbacher

632 - Jack Getze

633 - Matthew C. Funk

634 - Open

635 - Steve Weddle

636 - Chris Deal

637 - Michael Moreci

638 and 639 - Open

640 - Naomi Johnson

641 - Ron Earl Phillips

642 - Tom Leins

643 and 644 - Open

645 - AJ Hayes

646 - Richard Godwin

647 - Sandra Seamans

648 - Open

649 - Chris Benton

650 - Ian Ayris

651 - Matthew McBride

652 - Jane Hammons

653 - Liam José

654 - Kelly Whitley

655 - R.S. Bohn

656 and 657 - Open

658 - Kevin Michaels

659-661 - Open

662 - Fester McFardle

663 - Cindy Rosmus

664 - Matthew C. Funk

665 - Jim Harrington

666 - Paul D. Brazill (and Paul promises a spooky noir for this one)

667 - Nigel Bird

668 - Katherine Tomlinson

669 - Kieran Shea

670 - Lee Hughes

671 - Dan Ames

672 - Ron Earl Phillips

673 - Cindy Rosmus

674 - Kenny Crist

675 - Michael J. Solender

676 - Phil Beloin Jr.

677 - Frank Bill

678 - Hilary Davidson

679 - Scott Phillips

680 - Matthew McBride

681 - Matthew McBride

682 - Richard Godwin

683 - Kevin Michaels

684 - Al Tucher

685 - Chris Deal

686 - Laurie Powers

687 - Michael A. Gonzales

688 - Patti Abbott

689 - Cormac Brown

690 - B.R. Stateham

691 - RESERVED

692 - Des Nnochiri

693 - Jarrett Rush

694 - Chad Eagleton

695 - Phil Beloin Jr.

696 - Cameron Ashley

697 - Ian Ayris

698 - Eric Beetner

699 - Keith Rawson

700 - Jimmy Callaway

Updated to add: The title/byline and contact information does not count in the word count, just the story.

A Twist Of Noir 578 - Richard Godwin

NOWHERE MAN - RICHARD GODWIN

They will never find me. Hunt me as they may through the debris and the endless pathways of the burnt city, they don’t know who I am.

I live among the wrecked cars, the blackened windows. I haunt the boxes of food and junk, I live with the old tramps doused in meths and belligerent as an unpaid whore. They don’t know who the killer is.

I’m here.

I’m the still and silent shadow you pass in the urine stained subway.

I’m the body you step over as you look away.

I’m your shame.

I’m your silhouette as you betray your wife with your mistress.

I’m the blank space in your cheque book as you sign away your guilt, adding zeros to your numberless crimes.

And I people your dreams with nightmares, the ones you pay to go away.

You fee your therapists and hungry staff while I whittle away the softened bone of your identity.

Nothing. That is the place I live.

I dwell there an inch from heaven.

I visit your back with my whip.

Hunt me and you will find only refuse and the alleys overflowing with your garbage.

*

That summer of searing heat felt like it would never end when I started my murders, hunting the smug scum down in their sewers.

I killed so many, the police walked a wire and it cut their tired feet as I looked them in the eye as they arrested and rearrested the wrong people.

I lay beneath my soiled blanket and ate rotting food.

I, too, had once been a paid employee of a large organisation. I worked long hours and felt used like an orifice for the gratification of others.

And when I found out what I had been, that I was nothing more than a pawn in my wife’s drama and the directors’ games of investment and sales, I lost my job.

I lost my wife, who took all my money, and I ended up on the street learning the ways of daily survival. For a while I knocked on the steel door of respectability until my fist bled.

And I untied the knot of their lives like some twisted lie they served me on a plastic plate.

I followed them all, unseen and anonymous.

I ventured into their sanctuaries and found out their deceit.

I watched my wife leave town, hidden within a cliché of fashion and a veil of perfume.

Smells reach you out here. It’s not so much the gnawing hunger as the sudden awareness of others’ bodies, as if you’re lying in a rotting pit made of flesh. Existence becomes a sharp edge, the streets are razors nudging the bleeding corners of your being. The safe life is lived inside reinforced glass.

And I resolved to be the thing they made me.

*

The first killing was easy.

The old pervert approached me for some casual buggery and I explained I was starving to let him screw me.

He took me to his apartment and rubbed his hands lasciviously, unzipping his stained pants while I ate. Over a plate of cold meat, I stabbed him with the casual boredom of the exhausted until he choked on his own blood.

I stayed there that night sleeping with the rising stench of rotting flesh and I left him gouged and empty as a savaged corpse by the wayside.

That was before the heat.

The next day, the temperature soared.

People who’d left for work in winter clothes found themselves sweating. They stripped off on the way home, diving into shops for water and ice, stopping on the corners of streets and ignoring me, breathing deeply, as if air was their only friend. And I watched and saw what promise this empty land held.

I buried my roots deep in the parched soil.

The heat became my ally.

A homeless person is invisible and I used my shield.

The first killing was but a prelude and I held my plan in my clenched fist.

The wealthy users who’d dismissed me like a leper would pay and so would their representatives.

I stole into their world, a tramp at their dinner tables.

I hunted them to their homes and watched through their windows as they entertained. I cut them, shot them, ended them in so many ways it would be tedious to recount.

The startled outrage on their faces, the various ways I let them bleed, as if bleeding were an end to sin, all fed this life I found at the edge of nowhere like an unknown flower in the world of a lost dream.

My wife’s face floated before me like a shadow without form and I sought her out too, where she lay in the dreamy arms of her new husband, a man who had no fate or mercy, who had lost his identity in the trappings of marriage.

I found them one moonless night beneath soiled sheets and I merged their sweating bodies with my knife.

I hunted and killed all those who’d put me where I was.

I became fate.

I went to homes replete with the luxury of theft and I dismembered the stuffed buyers of status.

I removed the personnel from the organisation I once worked for.

And the police hunted the tax payers and the convicts, working only with the script they knew.

Murders pay their salaries. The homeless contribute far more than you realise.

They hunt those with an identity and ignore me in my pool of piss.

I remain invisible and anonymous.

I am the one you pass in the hallway, on the stairs.

I am the thing you cannot bear to face, and I take my job seriously.

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; Gloom Cupboard; Thrillers, Killers ’N Chillers; The New Flesh and Pulp Metal Magazine, among many other magazines. He has a Twitter account and can be found there under the User Name Stanzazone. You can check out his portfolio here. His first crime novel will be published later this year.

His website is now all-new, complete with information on his upcoming novel APOSTLE RISING and a special page devoted to the critically-acclaimed CHIN WAG AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE interviews.